Episode 13 - Honey from Athens... but Alas! No Butter

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 13: "Honey from Athens... but Alas! No Butter"
Published on December 8, 2020

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to your most obedient and humble servant. This is Women's History podcast where we showcase eighteenth and early nineteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention to as we think they should. I'm your host, Kathryn Gehred. This week, I am very excited to introduce not one but two special guests, Dora Petherbridge, the curator of United States and Commonwealth collections at the National Library of Scotland and Dr. Patrick Hart, Assistant Professor in the Department of English Literature at Bilkent University Ankara. He is founder and editor of the Journal of the Northern Renaissance, Dora and Patrick are here because they are two of the editors of Henrietta Liston's Travels the Turkish journals 1812 through 1820, a scholarly edition of Henrietta Liston journal and other writings on Turkey that relate to her time as a diplomat's wife, in the Ottoman Empire. Thank you, Dora and Patrick, for joining me. Welcome.

Dora Petherbridge

Thank you so much for having us.

Patrick Hart

Yes. Thank you.

Kathryn Gehred 

Dora, thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell me a little bit about your work as the curator at the National Library of Scotland as well as your work with Liston's Papers?

Dora Petherbridge

Yes, well, in fact, usually, I get only to work with print or not with manuscripts and archives. My main job is to develop the National Library's printed international collections specifically relating to the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Asia. But, we have a special focus at the library on Scots travel and Scots abroad and the Scottish diaspora. So, working my way can from that topic, I found Henrietta Liston and began working on her papers a few years ago, looking at her life in America, because that's where it ties to my the kind of core of my core of my role.

Kathryn Gehred 

So Patrick, I know your research background is in lyric poetry in England and Scotland in the Renaissance. How did you become involved in the Henrietta Liston project?

Patrick Hart

Quite by chance, really. So, I was working on I'm very interested in the early 17th century Scottish poet William Drummond of Hawthornden. And, most of his papers are held at the National Library. So, I was there on a fairly regular basis whenever I was back from from Turkey, and one of these times when I was visiting the library to look at Drummond's manuscripts, I was chatting with Dora. We'd become friends for a while before that, when I was studying in Edinburgh, I think, I think it was then she mentioned about this, she was looking at travel writings and documents relating to Scottish travelers around Constantinople and Naples. So, Liston was sort of flagged up as somewhere vaguely on the horizon, something I might want to look at, at some point. And then Dora started working on the Liston papers more seriously, and in particular, on the American material. She mentioned to me this, all these papers relating to her time in Turkey, and that, you know, there's not nearly so much funding available, unsurprisingly, for work relating to Turkey and the Ottoman Empire compared to the money that's there for research on the early years of the United States. So I, I think it started one day, I just thought, well, I'll order up this manuscript, you know, have a look out of curiosity, maybe I'll know somebody who might be interested in working on it, and then I just got, I got sucked in. It was so fascinating. And this archive was so rich, that it just seemed remarkable that nobody was working on this.

Dora Petherbridge

But what I got Patrick is the that it was remarkable that nobody was working on her time in the Ottoman Empire. The focus had been so much on the Listons in the United States, and the Ottoman side of their chapter of their story had been neglected. And really, it is richer in many ways, then what we know about their time in the US and they were certainly there for longer. They were spent longer in Turkey than they did in the US. It had just been slightly forgotten, I think, until Patrick came along and invigorated everybody.

Patrick Hart

And this service archive I think, Dora am I right in saying that the official name of the archive is the Robert Liston papers?

Dora Petherbridge

Yeah, the Sir Robert Liston papers.

Patrick Hart

And this contains all the documents relating to Robert Listons diplomatic career, and Henrietta's papers are bundled in there. Along with Roberts, but not as a separate archive within.

Dora Petherbridge

Yeah, and Robert has been quite well researched, you know, way back, and his diplomatic papers are well known, but Henrietta's journals were not so well known.

Kathryn Gehred 

I feel like that's a good sort of jumping off point to talk and introduce Henrietta and Robert, Liston to people who won't know who they are.

Dora Petherbridge

Well, I think you know, one of the things that is important to say is we really are I only know about Henrietta. Well, we definitely only know about Henrietta, because her life is recorded within her husband's papers. So that's how she exists for us is this extraordinary historical subject at all. And, she is not your usual candidate for research, literary research, historical research. She's middle class, she was born in Antigua in 1751, she was from a very ordinary family with no political links, no literary links, no diplomatic links or certainly not aristocratic. And, she was often when she was eight. So, she left Antigua to go live with guardians in Glasgow in Scotland, she lived in kind of, you know, very modest fashion in the east end of the city until she was forty-four years old, just with her with her guardians. And, she did not think that while she actually uses the phrase, she did not think that love and marriage were in her plan of happiness. She'd had her eye on Robert, for a while. So, she'd known him I think, I think from the 1780s from her mid thirtys, perhaps, although their courtship is slightly mysterious, that's one of the things isn't documented so well in the archive, but she had very deep feelings for him. There's one letter which gives us evidence for that, and Robert was several years as senior so he, he was well into his diplomatic career by the time she knew him, he had been posted all over Europe. And, she certainly didn't think that her life was going to be transformed. And suddenly, and I'm not sure still quite how it happened, but in 1796, and February 96, they got married in Glasgow, Robert had just been appointed British minister to the United States second person to hold that position, obviously, after the end of the War of Independence, and they got married and immediately left to sail to New York. And, then that's her kind of entrance into the diplomatic world, and then she really starts to be seen in the archives. That's when her letters is suddenly, you know, all there for us. Robert had a very long diplomatic career. So even though they married quite late on she got almost thirty years worth of experience as a diplomats consort.

Kathryn Gehred

Wow.

Dora Petherbridge

Yeah, he didn't, Robert didn't retire too late on in his seventys. So, they were quite senior. And, you know, she had this transformed life where she travelled extensively. And by the time we meet her in 1812, in the Ottoman Empire, she's been to the United States, to Canada, to the West Indies, to Sweden, and Denmark and other places in Europe, has written journals, the American journals, obviously, but also travel. She's in Sudan, writing about Europe, and copious letters of hers exist, documenting her life, the Listons kept everything, and it's, it's vast, really, there are 177 volumes of manuscripts. And it's everything from official dispatches and diplomatic documentation, and all sorts of grand documents, and then teeny tiny little receipts or notes, very ephemeral materials, that exist alongside and are, you know, as equally valued. So, we have an amazing record of all of her choices and her relationships, and her experiences, ranging from what she liked to buy, you know, for her garden to what she ate, and then her high level kind of political interactions.

Kathryn Gehred 

Do you get the impression that she was keeping this because she knew that this was historically significant, and she intended for it to be published someday? I know a lot of travel diaries were written with the intention of being published at some point, or obviously, is it a mix?

Dora Petherbridge

I think that's an that's a question we've thought a lot about. In terms of the wider archive, they kept it as part of almost Robert's diplomatic duty to save everything that represented his financial expenditure while he was in post, all of his correspondence. So, they did save all the paperwork from their lives equally, but then sitting within that we've have thought about whether the journals maybe was something different than whether she had, you know, ideas for them.

Robert Hart

Yeah, I speculated a little bit about this in the introduction to the to the book. My suspicion is that this wasn't intended for print publication, at least the main manuscript of Liston's travel journal does look like it was at least intended initially, to be perhaps a clean copy written up to be perhaps shared in an intimate family circle, and perhaps among among friends, she does make some reference to perhaps reading her journal with one of her friends in one of her letters home.

Kathryn Gehred 

We've talked about the extent of these papers and how interesting they are. Can you give some examples of how you think they can be valuable to scholars of a variety of subjects?

Robert Hart

So this is this is one reason that we realized fairly early on that we needed an expanded editorial team to deal with this, because they simply these papers have so much potential for so many different fields, I think, primarily, perhaps, firstly, diplomatic history, and so we're very lucky at Bilkent University, where I work in the history department, can advise broad, who's a diplomatic historian working on the new diplomatic history, which is a movement within diplomatic history that shifts the focus a bit from the sort of grand conferences and the men to an emphasis, a greater emphasis, I think, on para-diplomatic events, the diplomacy that happened behind the scenes that often involved, wives, consorts, family members, all those sorts of social events and networks, through which, in many cases, the real diplomacy happened, and I think I'm sure still still happens. So, So Ken came on board and has contributed a really nice section to the introduction that that looks at how Listons' journals and letters can inform work in that field of the new diplomatic history. I think for for Ottoman historians of the Ottoman Empire, this is a fascinating resource, it's an outsiders eye in. But an outsider who clearly was plugged into the Ottoman world in ways that not many foreign visitors or residents were I think, so we brought us then Ozden Mercan came on board, and she's also contributed a section, wonderful section to our introduction, giving some of the background to the Ottoman scene when when the Listons arrive in 1812 listing has lots to say in particular, I think about the minority communities in Istanbul, the Armenians, the Jews, the Greeks, and their relations to sort of power relations power networks within the Ottoman Empire. So, so for historians, there's there's a huge amount there. Now, I'm not a historian. So I'm perhaps but a place to talk about how fascinating Liston is as a writer. And I think, in particular, as a where she fits in, in travel writing, and particularly women's travel, writing about the Orient, particularly the Ottoman Empire. Now again, Liston is writing a little later than the sort of works I normally focus on. So Valerie Kennedy, another Bilkent colleague who's who's a real expert both on she's written I would say it's Orientalism, and I think this ties into debates about Orientalism, in some very interesting ways. But in particular, Valerie's really sort of situated Henrietta Liston's writing in relation to earlier and later women's travel writing about Turkey. Lady Mary Wally Montague, who you know, is a fascinating foil for listen because she's working. She's writing 100 years earlier. She too is an ambassador's wife in in Istanbul, but also writers who are perhaps slightly less well known like Elizabeth Craven, Julia Pardo, and Annie Jane Harvey all of whom published travel logs about their experiences traveling to Turkey and and living there.

Kathryn Gehred 

Fascinating. I like the point you mentioned earlier about how diplomacy is not necessarily there's a lot of, obviously men were diplomats, but a lot of diplomacy does happen and things like dinner parties and places where women would be involved. And, from what Dora said earlier, it doesn't seem particularly surprising that maybe someone who's been made a diplomat might get married pretty quick. For the health, I think, that's obviously that seems to me like maybe one of the reasons they got married.

Dora Petherbridge

Yes, no, I think that it's likely especially going to the United States at that time. I think it was felt that maybe it was time for Robert to, you know, have somebody with him to socialize, socialize with and meet Martha Washington, and thankfully, other women are Philadelphia and New York.

Kathryn Gehred 

And this is this is slightly off topic, but just really quickly, when you're talking about women's travel writing sort of as a style. Is there something that does does Liston sort of fit the sort of bill for the way women generally write about travel or is there anything sort of unique about the way that that she wrote about?

Robert Hart

That's a big question. And Valerie would be better placed to answer it than I am, I'm afraid. But I mean, what's what's really fascinating for me is the contrast with somebody like Mary Wardley Montague, who again, sort of connecting with what Dora was saying before, Montague is aristocratic, witty, capable of being very dismissive,

Dora Petherbridge

connected very well connected.

Robert Hart

Absolutely. Whereas listens much more, I think, much more grounded, much less interested in herself, perhaps. But I think as well, I mean, the Listons were also in Norway and Sweden, Denmark and my right in that list, and also wrote about her experiences there. And they make a fascinating contrast or comparison with Mary Wollstonecraft, who of course, wrote famous letters from from her travels there. But again, I mean, I wouldn't want to claim that Liston is in the same order of writing as Mary Wollstonecraft, but it is fascinating to see how much she's sort of turned outward towards, towards the world she's seeing, far less introspective, at least in these journals.

Kathryn Gehred 

Interesting. It sounds like maybe there's a little bit of something to argue about class and the comparisons and things like that as well.

Robert Hart

Absolutely. I think I think it's perhaps also significant. But there's the question of age, Liston is her in her 60s, when she when she travels, whereas Wollstonecraft and Lady Mary Montague, are both in, I think in their 20s.

Kathryn Gehred 

I could be writing more about myself in my 20s as well. So, now to sort of focus in on the particular letter that we're going to be reading today. So she's writing to her, her nephew Dick Ramage March 6 1813. So what is going on in listings life at this moment?

Dora Petherbridge

Well, she's been in Constantinople in Turkey for about nine to ten months. So they arrived. She and Robert arrived in the summer of 1812, great ceremonial arrival road up the Bosporus, but at the expense of the Sultan, a whole kind of ceremonial event. And then quite quickly, they are pretty much in lockdown in the British Embassy, because there's a significant plague outbreak in the city of Constantinople. It was one of the most severe epidemics, actually, that coincided with almost all of their time in the city. So, there's that to deal with, as well as being new to Turkey. They're dealing with this epidemic, and she's also Henrietta's. Also, at this time learning the ropes of the European diplomatic corps in Constantinople finding, as we'll see from the letter who she can and can't socialize with, who their allies are, and who their enemies are. Robert says something quite interesting about Henrietta during the Turkish chapter, she says that she's a good diplomatic consort, and that she has to keep up a friendly intercourse with all mankind. So, this is her, her main job is to be hostess and friend, and impart information and, you know, offer of entertainment for all the merchants and diplomats and travelers, and artists who are passing through the British Embassy doors, and there were all sorts of people coming to the Listons for help and assistance and entertainment and hospitality. The other thing is about Henrietta, she's a botanist. She's a really, really keen, skilled botanist, and one of the things she did when she came back from the US is create a an American garden at her home, in Scotland, Millburn Tower. And so she's sending specimens of plants and seeds and bulbs back from wherever she is in the world to that garden, and cultivating a really international, almost like a botanical journal. So, she does mention the garden, the embassy garden, and that was one of her main amusements when she was in Turkey and quite a significant undertaking, I think, and it became quite famous for how well it was planted. So, yes, she's she's handling all sorts as well, as well as the political situation overarching everything.

Kathryn Gehred 

I was not expecting to hear that she started to garden during this time that actually yeah, it's, that's really interesting. So just for a little bit more context, can you tell me anything About her nephew in a relationship with her nephew who she's writing to.

Dora Petherbridge

So, Dick Ramage is one of Liston's, Robert Liston's five nephews. The time she's writing to him, Dickie is about 36 years old and he's looking after the listens estate, Millburn Tower, which is just outside Edinburgh in Scotland. So when they correspond with him, there's often a lot of exchange of news from home. How, how things are going on the estate, family, news, neighbors, events and neighbors lives that kind of thing. But this letter shows us that she's also updating really her whole family as well as Dick on on how they're getting on at the sublime port in in Constantinople. I think that they were relatively close. We don't actually know an awful lot about Dec Ramage, who died just a few years after this letter was written so you died relatively young, but she was quite close to her, to her all her nephews and definitely grieving when, when Dick died of consumption. I think their main, their main exchange is looking at their correspondence overall is about Henrietta's beloved garden. That's really where they chat the most in the 20 or so letters that still exist between them, but this is the best letter.

Kathryn Gehred 

Definitely the best one. And as Okay, so that's sort of the personal life who she's writing to what are the major political issues that that are relevant to Constantinople at this time,

Robert Hart

In terms of Ottoman politics, you've got Mahmud II is Sultan. A man Liston describes in a journal, a man of talents, but also a bigot. He's, he's trying to put in place sort of new reforms, or really building on the reforms that his predecessor Selim III put in, who tried to establish a new order, but who'd been dethroned five years, six years, 1807, six years previously, in a coup led by the Janissaries, and this was, you know, the power of the Janissaries was a was a big political issue. And the Mahmoud the second had to struggle with and eventually succeeds in in disbanding the Janissaries, and so he's at this point, he's, look, he's really sort of reasserting his, his auth, reasserting the Sultan's authority, and in the Ottoman Empire. More internationally, of course, we've got, as we'll see the the war between between Russia and France. Now Napoleon's great, disastrous invasion of Russia and the retreat from Moscow, and all the fallout that follows from that. Dora, do you want to say something about the ambassadors who are?

Dora Petherbridge

Yes, so I think one of the issues that the Listons deal with is this one, this issue of who they're against and who they're with. So in this letter, the French ambassador account, Antoine Francois Andreossy arrives, and this is a big occasion, his arrival has been anticipated. And, he's certainly not on the same side as the Listons, so this is one of the issues in Constantinople, and one of the things that causes Robert Liston and a great deal of trouble. So, we hear about him in the letter. There's also the ambassador, Italinski, who is the Russian ambassador, who Liston worked, Robert Liston worked quite closely with and he also is mentioned in the letter. So the Listons, status and place within the European Diplomatic Corps, and constantly Constantinople is shifting at this point and still being negotiated and worked out in quite an urgent way.

Robert Hart

Yeah, I think there's there's quite a delicate balancing game going on, especially in relation sort of relations between Britain and Russia, wanting to keep keep Russia on side but not allow Russia and Russian influence to expand greatly.

Dora Petherbridge

And Robert Liston, kind of his main instructions really from the British government is he has to preserve peace, and also protect the Anglo Ottoman trading relationship. So those are his two main priorities. So that's also the background to their time. 

Kathryn Gehred 

All right. Well, I think that's you've done a lovely job setting up the context. And let's dive into the letter.

Dora Petherbridge

"Hara of Constantinople, 6 March 1813. My dear Dick, Your letter of July which reached me I think, in September or October, found us prisoners within our garden walls, and in all the horrors of apprehension, the plague having by that time completely surrounded us. Our back gate opened into a burial ground, in which the graves were so numerous and so fresh that it resembled a new plowed field. By the by in time of health, these burial grounds are extremely interesting, but become serious evils during the plague. When I say burial grounds, I talk of every empty space in the towns in their neighborhoods. At each grave of any distinction, a stone is placed on end crowned with a turban, which from its form, denotes the rank of the deceased. The remainder is filled with inscription, generally passages from the Quran, and all is painted and build it in the gayest manner. At the back of each stone, there is a cypress of a magnificence to astonish these cypresses form beautiful groves, which are in summer filled with the turtle doves, whose constant melancholy note a chord so sweetly Mr. Cypresses. While the scene, is so singularly enlivened by the painting and building of the turbans and inscriptions. During the plague, all this beauty for the time disappears, the bodies and they often died a thousand a day are usually placed very little below the surface of the ground, and often without coffins. Sometimes the dogs which form one of the nuisances of the country, dig them up, and at all times, the heat occasions or smell worse than disagreeable, for it carries death along with it. From this shocking scene. We retired late in October, to the village of Belgrade, twelve miles from Para. Belgrade is the Elysian fields of Lady Waterlily Montague. It is allowing for her high coloring, a very charming Greek village in the midst of an immense forest, beautifully diversified, with green meadows, lakes, streams, and fountains and surrounded with wooded hills. This country certainly is the most beautiful in the world, but with thousand inconveniences, and at least an equal number of uglinesses. I pass my hours pleasantly enough, I can and do read or write more than I ever did in the same space of time. We scarcely ever dine with our family alone, and seldom drink tea without company. We walk when the weather allows it, and then often make calls where we pay no other visits, except in summer, to Bukhara, to the Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Sicilian ministers, from all the rest of the diplomatic corps and their friends, the war excludes us. Our house is large and charming, our garden extensive and we begin to dress it up. The view from the top of our house, even from the windows of our drawing rooms, is well worth the the pencil of an artist. We are out of your world, it is true, but we are in the Oriental one. The posts from Persia from Baghdad, from Simona vessels from the Greek and Mediterranean islands all less are more interested us to say nothing of that from Vienna, which gives us very early news from Paris. [And just in the middle of that last sentence there, Henrietta writes in parenthesis], we are now eating honey from Athens, the produce of mount to Metis. But alas, no butter." 

Kathryn Gehred 

Oh, that's good a breakpoint there. I think it's interesting that her description of the plague and the burial grounds are simultaneously so like visceral, but also beautiful.

Robert Hart

There's, there's something funny about the way she she sort of breaks off almost from this as as you said, this, you know, the horror of this scene of you know, the back gate opening into a burying ground with these you know, fresh graves everywhere. And then just oh, by the by in time of health, things are extremely interesting, which I think is quite like her she you know, she can break off in the midst of horrors.

Kathryn Gehred 

So, so tell me more about this section of the letter. What What strikes you is interesting,

Dora Petherbridge

I think is what she's talks about doing. It's her activities are quite revealing, and her her detailing of who she is, who she sees and who she meets, which speaks to the shifting power relations, the Russian the Spanish, Sicillian ministers we can we can socialize with but there are others who they who they could not. And then that wonderful sentence about "We are out of your world. It is true. But we're in the Oriental one." That standout sentence, how she's describing being in a different world from the one that her nephew inhabits back in Scotland. And that's also specific to her Turkish experience about no other country does she ever write that.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah. Well, and you brought up the word Orientalism came up earlier in the talk as far as Listons perspective As of this orient world that she's currently in, do you feel a lot of sort of judgment or alienness? Or do you think she's honestly really trying to understand what's going on around her.

Robert Hart

There's a contrast between her reactions to the real Turk she's meeting, and how she'll write sometimes when she's taking a step back and describing the sort of the wider political scene or, or political events. I think in the second half of the letter, we'll see a nice example of this. She can fall into the worst sort of Orientalizing tropes, from time to time, both in their letters and in her journals. But for the most part she doesn't she's she's genuinely curious and obviously relishes making human contacts with the with the Turks she meets, particularly Turkish women, I think. And there were a lot of moments I found quite moving, maybe all the more moving because they written with a fair degree of sort of wry, ironic detachment in some cases, but but still, despite all that, the, the sheer pleasure of, of communication. And, her appreciation for her hosts really, I think really shines through.

Kathryn Gehred 

you can get a little bit of a sense of humor coming through in a couple of places there.

Robert Hart

Yeah, I think I particularly like the kind of wry glance when she's referring to Lady Wortley Montague and again, I think, I think someone who was more self consciously literary in her writing might be more sort  caught up in how they were engaging with, say, Montague's writings. Whereas I think for for Liston, she clearly has an appreciation for Montague, she has clearly read her. She alludes to it fed it fairly frequently, I'd say in a journals and letters, but again, that sort of wry qualification it is allowing for her high coloring, a very charming Greek village. I think and and then, you know, again, this is typical Liston, and I think because that then she goes on to give a really sort of beautiful description, "in the midst of an immense forest beautifully diversified with green meadows, lakes, streams, and fountains and surrounded with wooded hills," you actually you really get a sort of picturesque vision with with just a little hint of the sublime in that image of the immense forest. I think she's a much better writer than I suspect she would give herself credit for. I'm tempted to say something about her, her love of honey and butter, but maybe we can save that and see how we are doing.

Kathryn Gehred 

That it's very relatable. "Alas, no butter."

Dora Petherbridge

Shall I continue? Okay.

"But the circumstance, which has most interested and occupied us is the war betwixt Russia and France. Bonaparte's being fairly beat off the field half his army having perished in their retreat from cold and hunger. He must now it is probable yield to the wish of the Emperor of Austria, whose advice is a general peace and who stands in a position to enforce it. We are not without our political embarrass here. The Turks besides their general contempt of all Christian powers, particularly hate the Russians and fear the French. England and Austria are the only governments they are at all confiding. Andréossy arrived as Ambassador Extraordinary soon after us. Andréossy his first orders were to prevent the peace. For that he was much too late as Mr. Liston had been to make it. His most important step was to renew the war and the Turks having in truth made a very disadvantageous piece, it required some address to counteract him. Thus the summer was passed in discontent, irritation, and ill humor. This was wound up by the two most atrocious executions of the Greek princes, Marousi, of all which I hope that French ambassador's conscience is clear, but I would not exchange consciences with him. Yet it must be confessed, that this savage and despotic nation make less accounts of men's heads than of anything else in that kingdom. The late wonderful successes of the Russians against the French aided by a Talenski and Mr. Liston begin to open the eyes of the Turkish government, and the ensuing summer must, I think, decide the fate of the world. If the French continue the war and conquer Russia, Turkey must fall, of course, and this the Sultan knows perfectly. The favorite point of Bonaparte's ambition being too be crowned emperor of the east on the throne of the great Constantine. Did you make out your jaunt to England? Are you again in your own house and what is more important? How is your health? And how is Sandy for he says little of himself. Mr. Liston begs to be affectionately remembered to you all. I wrote to Sandy last week, write soon and fully yours most affectionately, Henrietta Liston." 

Kathryn Gehred 

That was a very well written summary of politics at the time. Alright, so how accurate would you say Liston's take of the political scene is at this particular moment?

Robert Hart

I think it's, it's, in some ways, it's a difficult question to answer. But, I think I think given given what she could know, at this time, and given you know, the speed at which news moved or didn't move, I think I think for the most part, she, she is fairly, fairly accurate. Suddenly, her understanding of the the sort of political situation of Andréossy role seems, seems to be seems to be fairly sharp. Andréossy, the French ambassador, when he'd come, he'd suggested that the Marousi's, particularly Demetrius Marousi, the who was the Grand Draga Man, the sort of translator, but Draga Man was also much more than that, that that he had been in some ways, pro Russian will certainly this was the report going round. And so, and of course, that was a constant Ottoman fear was that the the Greeks within the Ottoman within the Ottoman Empire, and within the sort of Ottoman bureaucracy and the Marousi scenario, it's part of this the the Greek elite within the Ottoman Empire. The suspicion is that on partly on grounds of sort of religious kinship, so I can put it like that, that the Greeks might be inclined to favor the Russians. Ultimately, this this resulted in these executions of the two Marousi's, and her suggestions, she says, "all of which I have all of which I hope the French ambassador's conscience is clear. But I would not exchange consciences with him." I think she knows what's going on behind the scenes. She's experienced enough by this point, to know how these things play out. She was clearly very shocked, I think by by these executions, again, she hadn't come across anything quite like this in America or in Denmark, I think, and her previous diplomatic career.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah, her description of the "savage and despotic nation makes less account of men's heads than anything else in their kingdom." I think that's,

Robert Hart

Yeah, it is. Absolutely. You know, it's one of those Orientalist tropes, you find again, and again, in sort of Western writing about about the Orient about the Ottoman Empire, that it's savage and despotic. And I think this is unmistakably a, an example of it being just that, of course, it would be fairly easy, I think, to say similar things about the British government at the same time, we're not lacking in examples. It's interesting, I think, as well, she, in her letters, she seems much more willing or much more likely to talk about politics, and what's going on behind the scenes. And I'm not sure whether that's because she knows that her her readership, her family, her friends back home, are going to want that kind of news. Her journal is, she does go into these affairs but but in less detail on the whole

Kathryn Gehred 

There's such a there's a big concept of there being such a hard split between the public and the private world and women being delegated entirely to private, but just from the my work in reading women's letters from this time period, it seems like there's usually a healthy mix of these going on in these letters. When people are writing to their families, they of course, one update with family news, but there's also just just news news. And obviously, her position as a diplomat's wife makes it all the more relevant and her more knowledgeable about it. But I think this is just a great letter. And there's that little mix of family news and questions about people's health that you always get in these letters.

Robert Hart

She's, she's absolutely unapologetic about talking about politics as well.

Kathryn Gehred 

To either of you, what is something that you think is really significant about this letter that it'll add to the historical record that you think people might might get out of it?

Robert Hart

One thing is what we've just been talking about.

Dora Petherbridge

Yes.

Robert Hart

That that willingness to talk about politics, the way she's working in these para-diplomatic spheres.

Dora Petherbridge

How informed she was, yeah, how informed she was how how confident and writing with an authority of knowledge and, and a definite sense of her place within everything. And her, her jointness to Robert it in what they were doing, and both of them as a couple being this influential force, and that's quite remarkable for a woman who didn't come from any background of influence,

Robert Hart

I think the way she, she so often writes "we," rather than I, or Mr. Liston, my husband is doing this, it's time and time again, in both journals and letters, it's "we."

Kathryn Gehred 

And anything particularly evocative.

Dora Petherbridge

Patrick, when you and I were talking earlier about the kinds of subjects she covers in this letter, it's that I think we've touched on this before, but it's the combination of the high stakes, and then the very kind of natural everyday occurrences, which is how we will communicate with each other, and that kind of connectedness of all those things, but also, for us now, all of these international relationships, Turkey and Russia, and the plague, you know, an epidemic, a pandemic, it's got so many resonances this letter for us. Yeah, surprising, surprising number of things that have not changed, actually,

Kathryn Gehred 

Not being able to socialize,

Dora Petherbridge

Being confined to your garden walls, or, you know, flat apartment. Yeah.

Kathryn Gehred 

So you're, you're coming out with a print edition of Henrietta Liston's travels, the Turkish journals 1812 through 1820. But that is also paired with a larger digital project. So can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Dora Petherbridge

Yes, what we wanted to do is to make the original manuscripts digitized and available alongside the printed version that's just been published. So I think Kathryn, you mentioned earlier that we had digitized and put available online all of the American writings that Henrietta produced, and they've now been joined by the collection of digitized Turkish journals, to coincide with the publication of this book. But that also informed our editorial decisions.

Robert Hart

One reason we did this is partly because I think this is interesting material for scholars working in so many different fields, and also just general readers. But, certainly some scholars sort of more interested in textual studies. In women's manuscripts, we knew we'd want to see the manuscripts themselves. And so it was really important to us to make those available, and it's worth mentioning maybe that they're all open access freely available online. And, the manuscripts are just fantastic as well. They're they're full of you do get a different sense, I think from reading them with all her to our eyes. Now, I think eccentric underlining is the the marginalia, the little insertions. But these do mean that it's, especially for the reader not used to the manuscripts. It's it's a challenge to read. And I was very aware that this was likely to be of interest to Turkish readers, and that text even with a with a transcription alongside it's, it's not accessible to that to everybody. And it's even for myself, it's, it's not something that's always easy to read for pleasure. And that's why we decided to go for a modernized text within the book to make something as readable as possible.

Dora Petherbridge

Alongside that coupling of print and digital, we wanted to give other perhaps non-academic readers different ways in to Listons' texts. So we've got a collection of long reads and creative responses on the online resource from journalists, journalists, and novelists and scholars, and people who could bring different perspectives to Listons' writing. And so they're there to widen the context and to give people different points of access, and we've also created a digital mapping application, which covers Liston's American travels and travels through Europe, to the Ottoman Empire. And, so using that people can then visualize exactly where she was and click through from specific places on the map to her descriptions of them in the digitized manuscripts. So, we try to really kind of break open the manuscripts with all these different responses and applications, digital applications. 

Kathryn Gehred 

That is fantastic. I think we're really entering some of the big questions of documentary editing and making manuscripts available to the public and different ways that coming out of manuscripts. So this all is very exciting. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Robert Hart

Thank you so much for having us.

Dora Petherbridge

Yeah. Thank you Kathryn.

Robert Hart

It's been great fun.

Kathryn Gehred 

To my listeners, thank you very much for listening to another episode. I will have show notes and links to some of these exciting projects, in,  in the show notes and on the webpage. So, as always, I am as ever your most obedient and humble servant. Thank you very much