The Svoboda Diaries are a collection of diaries recorded by various members of the Svoboda Family who lived in Baghdad during the 19th and 20th centuries. The diaries tell the story of the lives and travels of Joseph Mathia Svoboda and his son Alexander Richard Svoboda, as well as the people and culture around them.
Contents
Although only small portions of the diaries have been published thus far, the University of Washington has begun a project designed to publish the diaries in both electronic and print format.
The Diaries
The Svoboda family’s presence in Baghdad began with the immigration of Antone Svoboda, a Viennese crystal merchant, to the city. In Baghdad, Antone met and married Euphemie Joseph Muradijan, a member of the local Christian community. Together, Antone and Euphemie had eleven children, four of them male and seven female.
Among Antone’s sons was Joseph Mathia Svoboda, born in 1840. In 1862, Joseph took work with the Lynch Brothers Steam Navigation Company, travelling along the Tigris River to various destinations from Baghdad. During this time, he began recording a daily diary that he would keep until his death in 1908.The diaries primarily concerned his daily affairs, including his interactions with the local Christian community in Baghdad. Joseph’s diaries also recorded his travels, his interaction with Ottoman officials, and the surrounding cultures and peoples he encountered. The diaries, recorded entirely in English, are mostly unpublished.
The bulk of information on the Svoboda family comes from the writings of Joseph’s son, Alexander Richard Svoboda. In 1897, at the age of nineteen, Alexander travelled across the Middle East and Europe passing from Baghdad to Cairo and from Italy to Paris. These travels form an integral part of Alexander’s diaries, although he did continue to record a journal upon returning to Baghdad several years later.
History
Of Joseph Mathia's 61 original diaries, seven are known to have been lost, probably destroyed in a fire.
The last remaining descendant of the Svoboda family in Baghdad, Professor Henry Alexandre Louis Svoboda transferred the diaries to Iraqi researcher Nowf Alawi, a student, before his death in 2005. Due to the instability caused by the Iraqi Insurgency, work on the diaries was difficult.