Julia Namier

Julia, Lady Namier (born Yulia Mikhailovna Kazarina, later surnamed de Beausobre; 1893-1977) was a Russian writer. She wrote several works on Christian spirituality, and a biography of her husband, British historian Lewis Namier.

Biography

Yulia Mikhailovna Kazarina was born in 1893 and brought up in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Her first husband, Nicolai de Beausobre, a Russian diplomat reportedly persecuted by the Soviet authorities, died in the 1930s. Yulia herself was exiled to a concentration camp. She was ransomed by her former governess, a British woman, and migrated to the United Kingdom. She left Russia in 1934.

In Britain, she published an autobiography, The Woman Who Could Not Die (1938) and reflections on Creative Suffering (1940). She went on to publish a translation of Russian Letters of Direction by Macarius the Elder of Optino (1944), and a life of Seraphim of Sarov, Flame in the Snow (1945), based on popular sources rather than the official hagiography.

In 1947, she married historian Lewis Namier, who was knighted five years later, in 1952. After his death in 1960, she wrote his biography, for which she received the James Tait Black Award in 1971. She died in 1977.

Selected works

The Woman Who Could Not Die (1938)

Creative Suffering (1940)

Russian Letters of Direction by Macarius the Elder of Optino (1944)

Flame in the Snow A Russian Legend (1945)

Lewis Namier: A Biography (1971)