The Domestic Life of Russian Empresses in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Ivan Yegorovich Zabelin (1820–1908) was an outstanding Russian historian and archaeologist. The most famous works of Zabelin are "The Domestic Life of Russian Tsars" (1862) and "The Domestic Life of Russian Empresses" (1869) — the first comprehensive studies of the everyday life of the royal court in Russian historical literature. Convinced that "the domestic life of a person is the environment in which the germs and beginnings of all great events of their history lie," Zabelin was interested not only in the views of ancient Russian society on women and empresses but also in court rules and traditions, clothing, jewelry, and entertainment. I. S. Turgenev appreciated in Zabelin's style "the clear simplicity of exposition" and "the Russian spirit" — qualities that make Zabelin's studies accessible to any passionate reader.