Clodagh Finn: The Siberian diary of 13-year-old Anna Whitney

Anna Whitney with her granddaughter Barbara. Pictures: Courtesy of Barbara Lloyd

It doesn’t quite feel right to read another person’s diary, yet it seems Anna Whitney (age 13½) wanted the details of her extraordinary trans-Siberian journey —from Japan, across the vast terrain of Russia to Europe — to live on after her.

The 10-page account of her travels in May 1908 is the work of a sensitive, eloquent observer, wise beyond her years. She wrote of violent snow storms, severe flooding, a juddering derailment mid-journey and seeing trainloads of emigrants, “in rags and tatters”, being sent by the Russian government into exile in Siberia.