In June, the British Library hosted two special events dedicated to Stanisław Wyspiański (1869–1907), a visionary artist, writer, and designer whose work continues to captivate audiences across Europe. Timed to coincide with the wider cultural spotlight of the UK/Poland Season and led by the British Council and the Polish Cultural Institute, these events offered a chance to explore Wyspiański’s extraordinary creative legacy and reflect on the broader role of Polish collections in the British Library’s holdings.

Illustration by Wyspiański from Tadeusz Miciński’s W mroku gwiazd (Kraków, 1902) 11586.aaa.3.

As curator of Polish collections, I often think about how we can make European materials resonate across cultural and linguistic boundaries. How can we make our collections engaging and meaningful for British audiences, while remaining rooted in the heritage of diaspora communities? With that in mind, we designed two events that both celebrated the richness of Polish culture and built bridges between artistic traditions.

Dr Julia Griffin delivering a lecture during the workshop for students from The Courtauld Institute of Art

The first was a workshop for students from the Courtauld Institute of Art. We piloted a new format that combined an introductory lecture with a hands-on show-and-tell session using materials from the Library’s collection. Dr Julia Griffin opened the session with an engaging lecture titled ‘Wyspiański and William Morris – Parallels in Art, Philosophy, and the Book Beautiful’, exploring the resonances between Wyspiański and the Young Poland cultural phenomenon and the British Arts and Crafts movement spearheaded by Morris. Both artists championed the idea that beauty and craftsmanship should be woven into everyday life, and both blurred the lines between disciplines: painting, design, poetry, printing, and architecture.

Show-and-tell session during the workshop for students from The Courtauld Institute of Art

Following the lecture, Catriona Gourlay, Curator of Printed Heritage Collections, and I presented a selection of collection items that brought the discussion to life. Students had the chance to experience the materials up close, engaging with the physicality and artistry of the objects. It was a rare opportunity to see Wyspiański’s vision not just described, but felt in colour, form, and texture.

Show-and-tell session during the workshop for students from The Courtauld Institute of Art

We continued our journey into Wyspiański’s world on the evening of 5 June with a public panel discussion ‘Stanisław Wyspiański, a kind of Polish William Morris, to whom no form of art came amiss’. Our panellists – Dr Alison Smith (Wallace Collection), Dr Julia Griffin (William Morris Gallery), and Roisin Inglesby (William Morris Gallery)—explored how Wyspiański’s achievements fit within the wider Arts and Crafts context. A true polymath of the Young Poland movement, Wyspiański poured his creative energy into painting, stained glass, typography, furniture, scenography, and most famously, his symbolist plays. He fused word, image, and form into a single, breath-taking expression of artistic life. His practice defied neat categorisation – there was no separation between mediums, and everyday life was inseparable from art.

Pages from A Note by William Morris on his aims in founding the Kelmscott Press: together with a short description of the Press by S.C. Cockerell, and an annotated list of the books printed thereat (Hammersmith, 1898) C.43.c.17.

The discussion highlighted parallels with Morris and the shared ideals that united these artists across borders: a reverence for tradition, a belief in the moral and spiritual power of art, and a determination to bring beauty into daily life.

What emerged from the discussion was not only a portrait of a brilliant and restless creative mind, but also a reflection on Europe’s shared artistic heritage—how ideas, influences, and ideals travelled across languages and nations, and continue to do so today.

As we look ahead, I hope we can continue to offer opportunities to explore the richness of Polish culture in dialogue with British and European traditions. Wyspiański reminds us that imagination knows no borders – and that art, in its highest form, brings us closer to one another.

Both events were organised with the kind support of the Polish Cultural Institute. You can view a full recording of the discussion panel on the Institute's YouTube channel. 

There is currently an exhibition on Stanisław Wyspiański’s portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, and we are excited to continue the Polish season at the Library with more events planned for the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, you can read more about Wyspiański’s life and work in our earlier blog post.

Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections

For the second consecutive year, I have the honour of being a judge at Premio Strega, the main literary prize in Italy. It is an extraordinary opportunity to immerse myself in Italian literature for a few weeks and see how it is evolving. I like the style of the new Italian fiction. It is braver, more instinctive, daring. The language is more natural.

The twelve books I read are the ‘best’ works of fiction published in Italy in 2024, according to the Premio Strega committee. These are very personal works, almost always containing autobiographical elements. The themes that dominate this edition are the Italian family – or what is left of it – and the city.

The urban landscape takes centre stage: Bari, Messina, Napoli, Portofino, Torino are the true protagonists, vulnerable, exposed in their worst moments. Messina is devastated by the 1908 earthquake in Nadia Terranova’s Quello che so di te, Naples struggles after the Second World War in Elisabetta Rasy’s Perduto è questo mare, Portofino in winter in Valerio Aiolli’s Portofino Blues is far from the touristic hotspot that it becomes in summer, Bari is afflicted by speculative urbanism in Elvio Carrieri’s Poveri a Noi.

Carrieri, at 21 years old, is the youngest of the competitors, who are truly of all ages, and are published by a great variety of small and medium publishers: the big houses are in a minority this year. It is a great victory for bibliodiversity and authors come from the whole of the peninsula, and beyond.

Poster with the ‘dozzina’, the 12 books nominated for this year's Premio Strega Prize

Academic and novelist Renato Martinoni is the most prominent Swiss-Italian author of his generation. In Ricordi di suoni e di luci, Martinoni tells the story of poète maudit Dino Campana and of the very rare first edition of his Canti Orfici (we own the second edition: Florence, 1928; 20009.f.11, published in 1928, when Campana was in a mental institution), giving a voice to Giovanni Segantini’s alpine landscapes and offering a very well researched work of literature.

Giovanni Segantini, Pascoli alpini, 1893, Kunsthaus Zürich. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Paolo Nori’s Chiudo la porta e urlo succeeds in being at the same time a diary, a collection of translations of poems by Raffaello Baldini, a dialectal poet from Romagna, and a love letter for Russian culture and literature – a subject in which Nori is an expert, often referring to his biography of Dostoevsky and to his more recent book on poet Anna Achmatova. Some of Nori’s earlier works are in our collections and he is a very witty and original author.

Who will win this year? A favourite is Nadia Terranova with Quello che so di te, a personal work that talks about the author’s own experience of motherhood and links it with the mental health issues suffered by her great-grandmother. It is a well accomplished work, and Terranova is not new to Strega, her book Addio fantasmi (‘Farewell, Ghosts’) was finalist in 2019 and Trema la notte has just been translated as ‘The Night Trembles’.

My personal preference goes to Andrea Bajani’s L’anniversario, a moving story of estrangement from his family and overcoming trauma through writing. I found it a perfectly written book and reading it has been an absolute joy. The winner will be announced on 4 July, but I am already looking forward to reading next year’s books!

Valentina Mirabella, Curator, Romance Collections

References:

Dino Campana, Canti Orfici (Florence, 1928) 20009.f.11

Paolo Nori, Sanguina ancora: l’incredibile vita di Fëdor Michajlovič Dostoevskij: romanzo (Milan, 2021) YF.2021.a.14813

Nadia Terranova, Addio fantasmi (Turin, 2018) YF.2022.a.16235

Nadia Terranova, Trema la notte (Turin, 2022) YF.2023.a.6732

Svetlana Aleksievich, a Belarusian-Ukrainian Russian-speaking writer, creates documentary novels, which consist of the carefully arranged oral testimonies of hundreds of people united in their shared experience of significant events during Soviet history. Her five works form a cycle known as Golosa utopii (‘The Voices of Utopia’). In 2015 Svetlana Aleksievich received the Nobel Prize in Literature for “her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage of our time.” She was the first Belarusian, 14th woman, and the sixth Russian-speaking writer to receive this prize. The Nobel Prize award sparked a lot of reactions, and ignited interest in examining Aleksievich’s works and their publications.

The books of Svetlana Aleksievich differ in their content depending on their editions. Aleksievich continuously edits her texts by adding previously omitted, censored, or self-censored passages; by removing, editing or rearranging previously published narratives; and by including documents or reactions to her published books in succeeding editions.

The translations of Aleksievich’s books provide yet another layer of interpretation. Currently her books have been translated into 52 languages and published in 55 countries. The patterns of translations and publishing reveal the changes in the global context and recognition of Aleksievich’s work for either artistic or political reasons.

Cover of U voiny ne zhenskoe litso (Minsk, 1985) YF.2008.a.16467 

Pages from U voiny ne zhenskoe litso (Minsk, 1985)

The first Russian-language Belarusian edition of her book U voiny ne zhenskoe litso (The Unwomanly Face of War), published in Minsk in 1985, contains photographs of the women interviewed for the book. It is confirmation that the book features oral history and is not a work of fiction. These, or any other photographs, do not appear in succeeding editions.

Cover of 1988 English edition of U voiny ne zhenskoe litso,  War's Unwomanly Face (Moscow, 1988) YC.1991.a.3986.

The photograph on the cover of 1988 English edition, printed in Moscow under the title War’s Unwomanly Face, features the photograph from the 1985 Belarusian edition on its cover, the last link to the visual documentary. The 2004 Russian edition of the book contains not only parts that were previously censored, but also Aleksievich’s reflection on her work with her material, which she titled Everything Can Become Literature. With this she signals her direction towards literary interpretation of documentary materials.

Cover of the first Ukrainian translation, U viiny ne zhinoche oblychchia (Kharkiv, 2016) YF.2016.a.17203

It is from this 2004 edition that most of the recent translations are made. This includes the first translation of the book into Ukrainian in 2016, U viiny ne zhinoche oblychchia.

Tsinkovye mal’chiki (Zinky Boys) is the third book of the cycle. It presents the Soviet narratives of the Soviet-Afghan war. It was first published in 1991 in Moscow. The phrase ‘zinky boys’ refers to the bodies of Soviet soldiers repatriated in zinc coffins. The first Belarusian edition (Moscow, 1991; YA.1995.a.27836) already includes Aleksievich’s reflection on the reactions this yet unpublished book caused: the parts of the books were published in Belarusian newspapers and periodicals prior to the book’s publication.

Cover of the Spanish edition of Tsinkovye mal’chiki , Los Muchachos de Zinc: Voces Soviéticas de la Guerra de Afganistán (Barcelona, 2016) YF.2016.a.25638

Cover of the French edition of Tsinkovye mal’chiki, Les Cercueils de Zinc’ (Paris, 1991) YA.1992.a.16574

Some translations, like the French edition, translated the title more straightforwardly as ‘Zinc Coffins’. Some added an explanation, like the Spanish edition pointing to the Soviet voices, or a French version emphasising frustration with conflicts (this version is not available in the BL).

Cover of Russian edition of Tsinkovye mal’chiki (Moscow, 2001) YA.2003.a.27136

The cover illustration of the 2001 Russian edition features an image of a mother holding her dead child. The cover of this edition brings the focus towards the grieving mothers. They are featured in the book among other voices. Mothers are also among those who filed a lawsuit against Aleksievich after the initial publication of Tsinkovye mal’chiki for representing their sons in a light that damages their reputation and memory. This 2001 edition, and those that followed, include the trial materials, Aleksievich’s speech in court, and reactions of politicians, public features and public to the book and the court case. 

The last book of the cycle, Vremia sekond hend (Secondhand Time), was published in 2013. It came out first in Swedish, then in German and French, and then in Russian. This book is the culmination of Aleksievich’s work of the past decades, in which she collected the narratives of those, who, like herself, lived through the shift from the Soviet Union to post-Soviet life. Aleksievich explains in the beginning of the book that she is in a rush “to capture the traces” of “the Soviet civilization”. As with all her books, Aleksievich is mostly concerned with recording the emotional impact of ideological, social, and economic changes on regular people. To accurately interpret these experiences to the Western readers, translators and editors must make decisions on title translation, the use of footnotes and other additional explanations in translated texts.

 Cover of the Fitzcarraldo edition of Secondhand Time (London, 2016) YF.2016.a.26652

The English translation by Bela Shayevich has the most extensive footnotes, explaining nearly every unclear concept. Its title is close to the original as it includes ‘secondhand time’ yet follows it with an explanation of finality: Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets.

Cover of the French edition of Vremia sekond hend, La Fin de l'Homme Rouge ou le Temps du Desenchantement’(Paris, 2016) YF.2016.a.26651

Cover of the German edition of Vremia sekond hend, Secondhand-Zeit: Leben auf den Trümmern des Sozialismus (Bonn, 2013) SF.427[Bd.1397]

The French translation avoids the concept of ‘secondhand time’ and instead reinterprets the title via the lens of emotions associated in the West with the post-Soviet era, namely a sense of hopelessness. The German translation retains ‘the secondhand time’ in the title but refocuses on the concept of socialism more relatable to German readers.

Cover of the Belarusian edition of Vremia sekond hend, Chas Second-Hand: Kanets Chyrvonaha Chalaveka (Minsk, 2013) YF.2016.a.10823

The Belarusian translation was the first translation in nearly 15 years. It was published by an independent Belarusian publishing house and used the cover image of the square in Minsk, which evokes an array of associations in Belarusian readers. Unlike the image on the cover of the French edition, ‘the Red Person’ on the Belarusian cover is leaving the page.

Svetlana Aleksievich’s polyphonic writing and her continuous editing in combination with diverse translations of her works point to the synergetic effort to convey to the readers the collective memory in the most relatable and empathetic way.   

Darya Lis, PhD Candidate, Collaborative Dissertation Partnership: Queen Mary University of London and the British Library

References/further reading:

Svetlana Aleksievich, Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from a Forgotten War (London, 1992) YK.1993.b.3754

Svetlana Aleksievich, Vremia Sekond Khėnd. (Moscow, 2013) YF.2013.a.22038

Margarita Savchenkova, ‘Secondhand Stories in between Fact and Fiction: The Impact of Translators’ Footnotes in Svetlana Alexievich’s Narrative’, Palimpsestes:Revue de Traduction, no. 37, 2024, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4000/11wh1