Across the Carpathians

viii, 299 pp. Maroon stamped cloth, gilt titles. Includes three-panel fold-out map of the author's journey from Presburg [Pressburg], Hungary to Cracow [Krakow], Poland. A travelogue by a woman who was arrested as a spy during her journey through the Carpathian Mountains. About the author: "Mackenzie moved with her family to London in 1855 where she met Paulina Irby. She set out with her new companion to visit spa towns in Austria-Hungary and Germany in 1857. Despite Mackenzie's perceived family weakness for consumption, they travelled alone relying on their British passports and planning to travel by hay cart. In 1858 they were arrested as spies in the spa town of Schmocks in the Carpathian mountains because they had "pan-Slavistic tendencies" (neither of them were then aware of these issues). They were both annoyed at being woken at 4 a.m. to have the indignity of having their persons and luggage searched. They lodged an official complaint with the British Ambassador and this brought an apology of sorts from the relevant minister. They now had a purpose as they traveled in the Balkans investigating the conditions and both became supporters of Serbia and the southern Slavs as they saw their conditions under the perceived poor government by the Turkish rulers. They were particularly concerned by the plight of Orthodox women and girls who found they had poor access to positions and schooling. They published 'Across the Carpathians' which explained how they had been arrested for spying. Mackenzie took vacations in Corfu in 1862 and 1863 where she met her future husband. In 1864 Mackenzie published 'Notes on the South Slavonic Countries in Austria and Turkey in Europe' based on Mackenzie's lecture to the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. She was the only female speaker. The following year she was invited to return with Irby to present another paper on the Slavonic people. Mackenzie was the major contributor and she was the prime author when they published the first edition of their book Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey-in-Europe in 1867. This scientific description included accounts of their travels with supportive data presented in appendices. Irby was to continue with the work that they had initiated for the rest of her life but Mackenzie became Lady Sebright. She married Charles Sebright who was consul-general of the Ionian Islands and she went to live with him in Corfu. Lady Sebright died there only a few years later in 1874. Her husband retired in 1880 and died four years later. Mackenzie and Irby's book went to a second edition with a foreword by William Gladstone as the Serb Christian population revolted against Ottoman rule starting the year after Mackenzie died." "Georgina Muir Mackenzie (1833-1874) and Adeline Paulina Irby (1831-1911) travelled extensively through the lands of former Yugoslavia and Albania in the years 1861-1864. Georgina Mackenzie, the eldest child of a Scottish baronet from Delvine in Perthshire, set out with her travelling companion Paulina Irby, daughter of the English rear admiral, Baron Boston, from Lincolnshire, on an initial trip to Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1858. Troubles with the Austrian authorities sparked their interest in the lands of the southern Slavs which they subsequently visited on five extensive journeys. Their main interest was the lot of the Christian Slavs in the Ottoman Empire, and schooling for girls and women there. The travels are described in their 687-page journal “Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey-in-Europe” (London 1866). Mackenzie later married Sir Charles Sebright, British consul in Corfu, where she died. Irby returned to the Balkans with her new friend, Priscilla Johnston, and the two of them set up a girls school in Sarajevo and were later involved in relief work." (Robert Elsie, Texts and Documents of Albanian History)