My Country

In Short

Published in 1916 to raise money for wartime Red Cross relief, My Country is a vivid portrait of early twentieth-century Romania written by its British-born sovereign. Queen Marie traverses her adopted kingdom on horseback and by carriage, mapping its mountain convents, roadside shrines, sweeping cornfields, and impoverished villages. She details the everyday existence of peasants, monks, shepherds, and nomadic Romani, reflecting on a proud but historically subjugated culture. Her prose balances personal affection with a keen eye for architectural detail and landscape, offering an atmospheric record of a nation enduring the onset of the First World War.

The Story

The narrative follows an emotional and geographical journey across the Romanian landscape, charting how an outsider initially overwhelmed by dust and endless plains gradually absorbs the spirit of the land. Queen Marie sets out to present her adopted nation to her birthplace, framing her travel notes as a record of mutual understanding forged over years of quiet exploration.

Her journey begins on the open plains and country roads. She describes the vast cornfields stretching to blue horizons, broken only by tall sweep-wells and tilting stone crosses erected in memory of the dead. She watches processions of mud-splattered buffaloes and slow bullock carts moving through clouds of dust that the evening sun turns to gold. Moving into the rural hamlets, she observes life inside tiny two-room mud huts half-buried under spring fruit blossoms or wrapped in winter snowdrifts.

From the flatlands, her route leads into the mountains and remote border territories like the Dobrudja, where diverse nationalities—Turks, Bulgarians, Russians, and Tartars—live side by side. She visits hidden convents and mountain monasteries surrounded by pine forests, observing the archaic rituals, nasal chanting, and austere lives of recluse monks and elderly nuns. Across every region, she seeks out the architectural heritage of the peasantry: diminutive wooden and whitewashed churches, hand-carved shingle roofs, and ancient frescoes painted across open porches.

The narrative expands to depict the various peoples who work and wander across this terrain. She describes the taciturn mountain shepherds encased in heavy sheepskin coats, isolated Romani camps pitched on riverbeds, and traveling minstrels playing mournful tunes on violins and reed flutes. The seasonal rhythm culminates in the summer harvest, where whole villages gather under the scorching sun to reap the grain by hand, breaking only for meals of polenta and onions before returning home at dusk in a haze of silvery dust.

The account ends not with a dramatic climax, but with a reluctant farewell to these peaceful rural scenes. A brief publisher's postscript contextualizes the quiet beauty of her travelogue against the immediate horrors of the Great War, noting that Romania is paying a bloody price for its military intervention while the book's proceeds aid the sick and wounded.

How It Unfolds

The journey begins across the plains The Queen recalls her arrival as a stranger in a land of endless dust and vast horizons, gradually learning to see its beauty while riding her horse to remote villages at sunset. She watches slow herds of mud-covered buffaloes and bullock carts crawling down wide, unpaved roads, realizing the quiet strength of the fertile landscape.

Visiting sacred and hidden sanctuaries Ascending into the mountains, she visits isolated convents and ancient monasteries where elderly nuns and silent, long-bearded monks greet her with ringing bells and humble prayers. She admires the primitive architecture of small village churches, their carved wooden crosses, and faded exterior frescoes glowing in the twilight.

Encountering the wanderers and laborers Along the roadsides and in mountain pastures, she encounters fierce shepherds wrapped in shaggy sheepskin coats and unkempt Romani families living in makeshift camps or squalid settlements. She listens to the haunting melodies of traveling minstrels playing violins and Pan flutes at village corn-husking gatherings.

The season of harvest and farewell During the summer heat, she watches entire communities toil in the golden wheat fields, binding sheaves and building pyramids of grain. Recognizing that time moves on, she concludes her visual survey of rural life, leaving the resilient people to their quiet routine under a veil of dust.

The People

Queen Marie The narrator and monarch, driven by a desire to bridge her British background and her adopted Romanian home. She seeks escape from court life by riding alone into forgotten corners of the country, longing to understand the needs of her subjects. Through her travels, she transforms from an uncertain outsider into an affectionate protector who accepts raw expressions of peasant devotion.

The Romanian Peasantry The foundational soul of the book, defined by patience, resignation, and an unhurried rhythm of life shaped by centuries of foreign invasion and hardship. They desire simple abundance and a good harvest, expressing their traditions through solemn group dances, hospitality, and superstitious reverence for water and regal visitors.

The Monks and Nuns Recluses living in hidden mountain sanctuaries, far removed from modern life. The elderly abbesses and shadowy, lichen-bearded monks seek spiritual peace through repetitive chanting, tapers, and quiet maintenance of ancient, painted shrines, treating the Queen's arrival as a holy event.

The Romani Minstrels and Wanderers Nomadic communities living on the margins of towns or in tent camps along riverbeds. Though viewed with suspicion by society, the minstrels bring indispensable joy and sorrow to village life, carrying an innate musical talent that captures the deep, nostalgic melancholy of the land.

In Its Own Voice

"The Rumanian peasant is never in a hurry. Time plays no part in his scheme of life."

The author observes the untiring, slow patience of rural travelers whose wooden sledges and bullock carts move deliberately across endless snowy or dusty roads.

"From the beginning of time Rumania was a land subjected to invasions."

In contemplating the solemnity of local folk dances and sad songs, she reflects on how centuries of subjugation left the population dignified rather than boisterous.

"In truth a holy sanctuary, inducing the spirit to soar above the things of this earth...."

Stepping into a secluded monastic chapel lit by hanging lamps and wavering candles, she captures the profound tranquil stillness of the country's ancient sacred places.

What It's Really About

Behind its picturesque descriptions of rural life, My Country is a study of national identity forged through endurance. The book argues that the true essence of Romania resides not in modern cities or geopolitical battles, but in its ancient landscapes, rustic architecture, and the resilient spirit of its common people. Queen Marie presents a land shaped by centuries of suffering and foreign domination, where sadness and beauty are inextricably linked. The text explores themes of belonging, the contrast between Eastern traditions and Western observers, and the sacred nature of memory, symbolized throughout by the ubiquitous stone and wooden crosses standing silent guard over dusty crossroads and overgrown village graveyards.

Why Read It Today

My Country appeals to readers who appreciate historic travel writing, Eastern European history, and rich, atmospheric prose. It offers a rare, intimate perspective on early twentieth-century Balkan life written by a sitting queen who experienced the country on foot and on horseback rather than from the isolation of a palace.

The reading experience feels like looking through an antique photo album framed by poetic reflection. Marie writes with genuine visual precision, evoking the smell of ripening corn, the glare of the summer sun, and the quiet shadow of mountain pine forests. Readers should be prepared for the static, descriptive nature of the text; it contains no narrative plot or dialogue, functioning instead as a series of thematic sketches. Modern audiences will also notice period royal sensibilities, where the monarch unselfconsciously records impoverished peasants kissing the hem of her dress. Yet, the author's sincere empathy and respect for the peasantry elevate the work into a memorable portrait of a vanished world standing on the brink of catastrophic European war.