Aleksandrinke, the moving story of the waves of young women from the Goriška region of Slovenia who from the late nineteenth century onwards migrated to Egypt where they worked as nannies, wet nurses, maids and governesses for the better off families of flourishing Alexandria. The transition from impoverished village to cosmopolitan city could be liberating but the cost could be heartbreaking. they discovered that they were unable to return to and endure their former narrow lives. Many Aleksandrinke spent the whole of their lives in Alexandria or Cairo and are buried there today. Some married into cosmopolitan families, Greek, Italian, English, Egyptian; most lived comfortably and some became fabulously wealthy. The most successful of these women was Josa Finney, who married the English cotton broker Oswald Finney, the richest man in Egypt in the 1930s. The Finneys gave spectacular carnival balls at their house in Alexandria which became famous in Alexandrian lore and gossip, and served the novelist Lawrence Durrell well when he described the carnival ball in Balthazar, the second volume of his Alexandria Quartet. Michael Haag, who was historical advisor to the film, is also interviewed and talks about Josa and how she inspired one of the greatest scenes in The Alexandria Quartet. youtube/920b33f3-d3e7-405c-ac63-7bde7ecb8093
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 21:05:02 +0000
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