Madame Marie Gagarine was one of those characters who frequently inhabits college campuses. She arrived at Wofford as a cold war Russian emigre and soon became part of the Wofford community.
Madame Gagarine was also reportedly the first woman to teach courses at Wofford, as she taught some Russian as well as French courses. I’ve heard more than a few stories about her from many of our now-retired faculty. Her life spanned much of the 20th century, and she recounted her fascinating story in the late 1960s in her memoir From Stolnoy to Spartanburg: The Two Worlds of a Former Russian Princess.
I remember reading the book as parallel reading in Dr. Ross Bayard’s Europe from 1914-1935 class some twenty years ago. We recently acquired a new copy, so I asked one of my student assistants to scan the book, and we’re making a digital edition available on our digital repository. You can find it here.
Along with her memories of life in tsarist Russia and her stories of surviving the Russian Revolution, she also writes of her love for her country and her adopted country as well. It’s worth a read to learn a little more about one of the characters that has shaped life at Wofford.
