A Romance with Life

The book is dedicated to the life and creative activity of the outstanding journalist, writer, and local historian Yelizaveta Ivanovna Yakovkina (1884–1982). The narrative is based on her many years of diary entries and correspondence, as well as the memories of her contemporaries. Having spent most of her life in Pyatigorsk, the heroine of the book witnessed and participated in many significant historical events of the 20th century in the North Caucasus. The book reflects the difficult, dramatic, yet at the same time happy fate of the multifaceted and vibrant personality that Y.I. Yakovkina was. . . The main work of Y.I. Yakovkina's life was her role as the director of the "Lermontov's Cottage" museum for 13 years. Thanks to her fruitful efforts, the museum became a well-known literary, research, and cultural center in the country during this period. The museum staff, led by Y.I. Yakovkina, managed to preserve the "Lermontov's Cottage" during the fierce years of the Great Patriotic War. The invaluable art collections of the Rostov Museum of Fine Arts, which were evacuated to Pyatigorsk, were also saved. For the first time, diary entries from this period are published in the book.