I had never heard of Catherine De Hueck before spying an old copy (published in 1951) of "My Russian Yesterdays" in a stack of used books. It's a slim volume, written in a somewhat informal style, of her reminiscences of growing up in Russia. Although presented as average or typical for Russian people of the time, from the start, it seemed obvious to me that her own life was not as average as those of the peasants she was writing about. She talks, for instance, of her family's winter apartment in the city, a summer farm, 12 - 16 servants in residence at all times, and the dinner parties staged often in connection with her father's job.

The overall theme of the book is religious in nature, with much information on prayers, observances, pilgrimages, holidays, etc. And while a lot of this was not of particular interest to me, I did read on mainly because of curiosity about Russia in this timeframe. ( )