The Svoboda Diaries are a collection of diaries kept by two members of the Svoboda family, a Christian family of European descent living in Baghdad during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Containing over 40 years of daily entries from 1862-1908, the diaries of Joseph Mathia Svoboda detail his life as a steamship worker on the Tigris river, his everyday affairs in the Baghdadi community, and perspectives on current events in Ottoman Iraq and the world at large. The collection also contains a travel journal kept by Joseph's son, Alexander Richard Svoboda, while journeying overland from Baghdad to Paris as a teenager in 1897. Although only small portions of the diaries have been published thus far, the University of Washington's Near & Middle Eastern Studies department began the Svoboda Diaries Project in 2006, to publish the diaries in both electronic and print format, making them freely available to the public in partnership with Newbook Digital Texts in the Humanities. The Diaries Background The Svoboda family’s presence in Baghdad began with the immigration of Antone Svoboda (1796-1878), a Viennese crystal merchant, to the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century. Settling in Baghdad, Antone established a business importing crystal from Bohemia and Istanbul and developed close relations with the European community and the city's local upper class. Antone married Euphemie Joseph Muradijan, a member of the local Chaldean Christian community, in 1825. Antone and Euphemie had eleven children, four of them male and seven female. The Svobodas became an established family in Baghdad, intermixing with and marrying members of the local Christian, resident European and Muslim communities for generations. The Joseph Mathia Svoboda Diaries Among Antone’s sons was Joseph Mathia Svoboda (1840-1908). In 1862, Joseph began working as a clerk with the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company, traveling by steamship along the Tigris River between Baghdad and Basra. During this time, he began recording a daily diary that he would keep until his death in 1908. The diaries primarily concern his everyday affairs, including meticulous notes on shipments and weather conditions, as well as his personal interactions with his family and the local Christian community in Baghdad. Joseph’s diaries provide a unique vantage point for the interplay of the diverse cultures, governments, and forces of nature competing for influence in Ottoman Iraq. Roughly bookended by the start of the Tanzimat era and the Young Turk Revolution, Joseph's life in