Rigby, Elizabeth. Letters From the Baltic. London: John Murray, 1842.

Elizabeth Rigby was an unmarried upper class Englishwoman who made a trip around the Baltic Sea in the first half of the 19th century. The first leg of her journey takes her through Christiansand, Norway; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Cronstadt, Russia before finally arriving in St. Petersburg. Rigby spends some time sight-seeing in St. Petersburg, including visits to the Winter Palace, the Hermitage, and a Russian Orthodox church. As the cold weather begins to set in, Rigby takes leave of St. Petersburg and continues on to Reval (Tallinn), Estonia to visit her sister. From there the family removes to their country home and Rigby spends a little time traveling in the countryside. Once her visit it complete, she returns to St. Petersburg to proceed home to England.

While in Estonia, Rigby's moves mostly in the upper classes, however, she does make an effort to see the life of an Estonia peasant. She has a number of peasants sit for drawings and even goes to see the house of one peasant family. Her use of the term "Estonian" often includes not only the ethnic Estonians, but also the Baltic German lords, which can occasionally be confusing. She speaks briefly of relations between the Estonians and Baltic Germans and mentions the significant class gap between the two. At the time of Rigby's visit, Estonia was under the rule of Russia and at one point she even touches briefly on the Russification policies being imposed on the people.

Rigby's letters are written not merely as an account of the sites she visited, but also in an attempt paint a picture the people and places she encountered. Her writing is descriptive, even romantic. And while she is seeing things through the eyes of a tourist, she also included much of the historical background for what she sees. Rigby put significant effort into describing the life and situation of the average peasant and even the social customs she observed. She treats the peasants with sympathy, but also with a touch of condescension from her viewpoint as an upper class Englishwoman. However, her account still stands as a good source for information on the life and activities of Estonians during the early 19th century.

(EM 2006)