Days in the Caucasus
SynopsisPlot
Banine remembers her luxurious home, with endless feasts of sweets and fruit; her beloved, flaxen-haired German governess; her imperious, swearing, strict Muslim grandmother; her bickering, poker-playing, chain-smoking relatives. She recalls how the Bolsheviks came, and they lost everything. How, amid revolution and bloodshed, she fell passionately in love, only to be forced into marriage with a man she loathed- until the chance of escape arrived.
Story
About this book
Days in the Caucasus is a memoir by Banine, the pen name of Umm El-Banu Asadullayeva, who grew up in a wealthy Azerbaijani family during the early twentieth century. She describes a childhood shaped by contrasts: lavish household feasts of sweets and fruit alongside the strict authority of her Muslim grandmother, and a flaxen-haired German governess who represented a European world just beyond reach. The household was full of personality, with relatives who bickered, played poker, and smoked constantly.
The memoir follows Banine through a period of upheaval as the Bolsheviks arrived in Azerbaijan and her family lost its fortune. Against this backdrop of political violence and social collapse, she fell in love, only to be pushed into a marriage she did not want. The tension between personal desire and family obligation runs through her account, set against a country caught between Eastern traditions and Western influences.
Banine eventually left Azerbaijan for Paris, where she spent most of her adult life and wrote in French. The book was originally published in French in 1945 and later translated into English, bringing her sharp, detailed observations of Baku society to a wider audience decades after the events she recorded.
