Diary 48 August 1898-February 1899 (XML)

A journal of commercial voyages and domestic life on the Tigris River from August 1898 to February 1899. jms_048_08_1898_010_xml.xml

Diary 49 February 1899-October 1899 (XML)

A journal of commercial voyages and domestic life on the Tigris River from February 1899 to October 1899. jms_049_02_1899_010_xml.xml

Diary 47 November 1897-August 1898 (XML)

A journal of commercial voyages and domestic life on the Tigris River from November 1897 to August 1898. jms_047_11_1897_010_xml.xml

XML Diary File

On the 15th of April, 1897, a 19 year-old European resident of Baghdad, named Alexander Richard Svoboda, set out on a long journey to Europe by caravan, boat and train. From a large and influential family of merchants, artists, and explorers settled in Ottoman Iraq since the end of the 18th century, Alexander traveled in the company of his parents and a departing British diplomat accompanied by his retinue. They followed a circuitous route through the Middle East to Cairo and thence to Europe on a three and a half month journey which Alexander described day-by-day in a journal written in the Iraqi Arabic of his time.