In Praise of Holy Women

IULIA DE BEAUSOBRE ON 'CREATIVE SUFFERING'
CAROLINE WALTON
‘Iulia spoke of suffering
as the most essential feature
of the Christian religion –
so often ignored or contradicted by liberal ideas.’ 1
A poster in my local tube station advertises a book: 'You were not born to
suffer,' which seems to sum up neatly the prevailing western secular attitude.
Suffering is something to be pushed away, denied or, if it is too persistent,
‘treated.’ It is rare to hear that, as the introduction to the first edition of Iulia
de Beausobre’s essay Creative Suffering 2 asserts, ‘something can be made
of suffering.’ Yet suffering is integral to the human experience and (in my
case anyway) our most powerful catalyst for change. In the words of Father
Sophrony, in its absence, man remains spiritually lazy, half-asleep, devoid of
Christ. 3
Born Iulia Kazarina in 1893, de Beausobre grew up in an aristocratic Russian
family. In 1917 she married a diplomat, Nikolai de Beausobre. Their only
child died of starvation during the Civil War that followed the Bolshevik
revolution. Both Iulia and Nikolai were arrested in 1932 and imprisoned
and tortured in Moscow’s Lubianka prison. She was later sent to a gulag
logging-camp; he was shot. De Beausobre was released after a year ‘on
health grounds.’ Although her ‘freedom’ was severely circumscribed, she
was able to get a message to an Englishwoman who had once been her nanny
and who paid a ransom for her to leave the country. 4 Iulia settled in Britain
where she became a writer and speaker, documenting her own experiences
and helping people in the West enhance their understanding of Russian
Orthodox spirituality. 5
Creative Suffering opens by stating that the history of the Russian people
is one of suffering, and of a particular type: 'the suffering of individuals
endowed with a feeling for personal freedom so profound as often to verge
on the anarchic', who at the same time have been 'continually compelled to
1
Constance Babington-Smith, Iulia de Beausobre, A Russian Christian in the West (Darton,
Longman and Todd 1983)
2
Iulia de Beausobre, Creative Suffering (Dacre Press 1940, republished by SLG press 1984)
3
Arch. Sophrony On Prayer (St Vladimir’s Press 1996).
4
In its drive to industrialise during those years, the USSR was anxious to acquire hard currency;
later this form of ransom became impossible.
5
De Beausobre’s books include Flame in the Snow, A Life of Saint Seraphim of Sarov (Templegate
1996) and a selection and translation of Russian Letters of Direction by Macarius, Staretz of Optino
(St Vladimir’s Press 1975)
6