21 February 2025
Queen Tamar – the ‘King of Kings’
Our current exhibition ‘Medieval Women: In Their Own Words’ tells stories of Medieval women and their role and influence in personal, spiritual, and social life. A number of women rulers are featured, but one that is not shown is Queen Tamar of Georgia, whose story we tell here.
Queen Tamar’s reign (1178-1213) was both the apex and the final stage of the Golden Era of the Christian Kingdom of Georgia. The lustre of this reign was so brilliant and incomparable to all that preceded it in Georgian history that her court historian allowed himself to border on blasphemy in his hyperbolic praise of her: “We view Tamar as the fourth besides the Holy Trinity”. Not only were her contemporary panegyrists, historians and poets inspired by her beauty and wise governance, but she also became a part of the national folklore, a source of inspiration for thousands of legends, tales and poems for centuries to come.
A fragment of the early 13th-century fresco of Queen Tamar from Betania (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Tamar’s father, King Giorgi III, due to dynastic struggles, proclaimed her King during his lifetime. It was unprecedented in Georgia for a woman to be officially anointed King and hold the title of ‘King of Kings’, although some coins minted during her reign also acclaimed her as ‘Queen of Queens’. Such a bold innovation had everything to do with the development of philosophical studies in 12th-century Georgia. In the Gelati Monastery and Academy, texts by Plato, Aristotle and Neoplatonists were translated and taught. Plato demonstrates that women can be politicians and rulers alongside men. As Tamar’s contemporary, the philosopher-poet Shota Rustaveli, wrote: “A lion’s cub is of the same dignity, no matter whether it is male or female”, thus announcing the new political era in which royal women could be considered as rulers. However, not only women of royal descent but also other women of the nobility could enjoy this novel active political role.. When at the start of Tamar’s reign a faction of noblemen and merchants created attempted to limit monarchic absolutism and create a legislative body –a ‘tent – separate from the executive body, the King, Tamar, appointed two noblewomen, Kravai Jakheli and Khvashak Tsokali, to negotiate peace with the mutinous noblemen. Her choice was fully justified as Kravai and Kvashak effectively managed to quell the unrest.
Tamar and her father Georgi III. The earliest surviving portrait of Tamar from the church of the Dormition at Vardzia, c. 1184–1186 (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
The first years of Tamar’s rule were beset by struggles with the higher nobility that strove to subordinate her to their will. Because of this, Tamar was forced into an undesirable marriage to a Russian, Prince George Bogolubski. The marriage proved a failure, and George later attempted to usurp the throne, for which he was exiled from the Kingdom for good.
Tamar’s second marriage to Prince David Soslan was more successful: he was of the same lineage of the Bagrationi family as Tamar herself. The Bagrationi dynasty traced its origin back to the Biblical kings David and Solomon, a tradition that safeguarded the dynasty’s claim to rule exclusively over the Kingdom of Georgia. David Soslan proved to be an effective general who led Tamar’s army to a series of important victories over powerful Muslim neighbours. Two of those victories are of particular significance. The first was the battle of Shamkor of 1195, in which David Soslan outsmarted the enemy troops under Nusrat al-Din Abu Bakr, the atabeg of Arran, and routed his realm, establishing Shirvanshah Akhsitan there as a ruler and ally of the Georgians. The second was at the battle of Basiani in 1203 against the Seljuk Turks of the Rum Sultanate led by Sultan Suleiman II. These two great victories raised the power and prestige of the Georgian Kingdom to that of a regional superpower. Moreover, since Constantinople had been under Latin rule since the great sack of 1204, Tamar became the most powerful Orthodox ruler in Eastern Christendom, for which reason her panegyrists even dared to call Tbilisi the ‘New Rome’, while Tamar herself was acclaimed as ‘Augusta’, i.e. the Roman Empress. The Kingdom of Georgia at its height during Tamar’s reign extended from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, held a few neighboring principalities on vassalage terms, and led Christian missions to the mountainous Caucasian north. Many pagan Caucasian tribes were converted to Christianity and remained so until Islam replaced the Christian faith in the region a few centuries later.
Shota Rustaveli presents his poem to Queen Tamar, a painting by the Hungarian artist Mihaly Zichi (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Tamar’s reign was marked by major political and cultural developments. She chose to appoint officials to high posts on the basis not of noble descent, but of personal merit, according to the advice ascribed to Shota Rustaveli: “Noble descent costs a thousand, but a good character – ten thousand; if a man is not good as a man, his noble descent avails for nothing”. In the Gelati Academy philosophical studies thrived. In fact, Tamar’s panegyrist and poet, Ioane Shavteli, punningly relates the name Gelat[i] to Hellada, Greece, stating that Tamar’s Kingdom is a true heir to the great heritage of Hellenic philosophy. The broad and audacious vision of the Gelatian scholars presented Greek philosophy as a tool to better understand the Bible, as well as a valuable spiritual and intellectual endeavour in itself. Rustaveli goes even further and in his immortal poem ‘The Knight in the Panther’s Skin’, dedicated to King Tamar, as he calls her, creates a universal, eclectic world of knowledge in which Biblical wisdom and the Christian theology are creatively associated with Greek philosophy, Persian literature, Sufi mysticism and the latest scientific developments of the epoch. Scholars justly coined the term “Georgian Renaissance” for the period of Tamar’s reign, and the contemporary culture of the Kingdom of Georgia also thrived in the fields of architecture, painting, mosaic art and metalwork, examples of which are amply represented in Georgian churches and museums.
Basil the Treasurer, court historian of Queen Tamar, image from the manuscript ‘Life of the King of Kings – Tamar’, Or. 17154
Tamar was a deeply religious woman. She abhorred violence and forbade both torture and capital punishment in her realm. In a sincere display of humility, she would sew and knit priestly garments with her own hands and give them to humble priests. Her piety is evidenced in the many churches built all over Georgia on the most inaccessible hilltops to establish ceaseless prayer for her Kingdom and people. Before the decisive battle of Basiani, Tamar walked barefoot from Tbilisi to the monastery of Vardzia in a sacrificial feat of procession and prayers for the salvation of the Kingdom. There is a surviving hymn dedicated by Tamar to the Khakhuli icon of the Holy Virgin Mary in which we glimpse both her devotion and theological education:
From your virgin blood, o Bride, you became a mysterious matter of the heavenly Providence, having become the begetter of the Son of God, who also was born your Son, for the salvation of the world! Embellish, exalt and glorify me, Tamar, who, like you, also a descendant of David, for I have dared to embellish Your Icon that depicts You and Your Son, protect me together with my son.
The Orthodox Church of Georgia canonized Tamar soon after her death. There are two feast days celebrating her memory, one on May 14, the anniversary of her death, and another in the second week after Easter, celebrating Tamar on account of her piety alongside the women who came to the tomb of the resurrected Jesus.
Golden cross of Queen Tamar, composed of rubies, emeralds and large pearls (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Tamar’s reign symbolizes for Georgians the height of their political and cultural success and grandeur. In the subsequent history of Georgia, with its hardships and calamities, Tamar’s memory has shone as an unfading star, providing Georgians with hope for a better future. Georgians believe that she continues to protect the country assigned to her, and will continue to do so until the end of time.
Levan Gigineishvili, Professor at Tbilisi State University
References and further reading
https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2021/11/two-new-fine-editions-of-georgias-national-poet.html
https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2023/06/georgian-manuscripts-in-the-british-library.htm
Shota Rustaveli, The Man in the Panther’s skin: a Romantic Epic … a close rendering from the Georgian attempted by Marjory Scott Wardrop. (London,1912) 14003.bb.16.
Shota Rustaveli, Vepʻxis tqaosani = The knight in the Panther’s skin. In Georgian, German, English, Russian and French. (Tbilisi, 2016) LF.37.b.367.
Shota Rustaveli, The knight in the Panther’s skin: Selected Aphorisms. Translated from Georgian by Lyn Coffin. (Tbilisi, 2017) YD.2017.a.2390
David Shemoqmedeli, The knight in the Panther’s skin: a masterpiece in world literature. New York, 2017 (YC.2018.b.1050)
Ioane Savteli, Abdul-Mesiani. Tbilisi, 1915 (YF.2019.a.3365)
David Marshall Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. (New York, 1976) W.P.5206/15
John Oliver Wardrop, The Kingdom of Georgia: Travel in a Land of Women, Wine and Song. (London, 1888) 2356.c.14
William Edward David Allen, A history of the Georgian People: From the Beginning down to the Russian Conquest in the Nineteenth Century. (London, 1932) X.802/1941.
Donald Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. (London, 2012) YC.2013.a.14021
19 February 2025
For the Love of Books: European Collections at the British Library Doctoral Open Days
On February 14, European Collections featured at Doctoral Open Day themed ‘Global Languages, Cultures and Societies’. Marja Kingma, Curator of Germanic Collections, delivered a presentation introducing PhD students from across the UK and beyond to navigating the collections and identifying resources to support their research. In the afternoon, our curators hosted a show-and-tell session, offering the students a glimpse into the Library's unmatched holdings from continental Europe. The selections ranged from a quirky bottle-shaped Czech book to a Russian glossy LGBT magazine and a modern illuminated manuscript from Georgia. Spoiler alert – love-themed curatorial picks proved crowd pleasers. For those who could not make it, here is a taster of what you might have missed.
Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections, Olga Topol and Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Curators of Slavonic and East European Collections, turned the spotlight on minority languages and cultures, giving voice to the Evenks, Sakha, Kashubians, Silesians, and the Gagauz people of Ukraine. It was a revelation to many of the students to learn that Eastern Europe was both linguistically and culturally diverse, with a plethora of languages, ethnicities, and religious traditions across the region.
V. A. Dʹiachenko, N. V. Ermolova, Evenki i iakuty iuga Dalʹnego Vostoka, XVII-XX vv. (St. Petersburg, 1994) YA.1997.a.2298.
Marcin Melon, Kōmisorz Hanusik: we tajnyj sużbie ślonskij nacyje (Kotōrz Mały, 2015) YF.2017.a.20547. An interesting example of a crime comedy written in the Silesian ethnolect.
Milan Grba, Lead Curator of South-East European Collections, highlighted a groundbreaking work by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Srpski rječnik (‘Serbian Dictionary’), which proved very popular among researchers with an interest in linguistics.
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Srpski rječnik (Vienna, 1818) 12976.r.6.
It was the first book printed in Karadžić’s reformed 30-character Cyrillic alphabet, following the phonetic principle of "write as you speak." The dictionary contained over 26,000 words and was trilingual, with Serbian, German, and Latin entries. It standardised Serbian orthography but also preserved the nation’s oral tradition. The dictionary’s encyclopaedic entries encompassed folklore, history, and ethnography, making it a pivotal text in both linguistic reform and cultural preservation.
Anna Chelidze, Curator of Georgian Collections, showed the students a contemporary illuminated manuscript created in 2018 by the Georgian calligrapher Giorgi Sisauri. The Art Palace of Georgia commissioned the work especially for the British Library to enrich our Georgian collections. The poem Kebai da Didebai Kartulisa Enisa ('Praise and Exaltation of the Georgian Language') was written in the 10th century by John Zosimus, a Georgian Christian monk and religious writer. It is renowned for its profound reverence for the Georgian language, employing numerological symbolism and biblical allusions to underscore its sacredness.
(Giorgi Sisauri), John Zosimus, Kebai da Didebai Kartulisa Enisa, (2018) Or. 17158
Sophie Defrance, Valentina Mirabella and Barry Taylor, Curators of Romance Language Collections, treated the students to some ... romance.
Sophie Defrance took a tongue-in-cheek approach to the theme by suggesting another way to look at (some) love letters with Le rire des épistoliers.
Cover of Charrier-Vozel, Marianne, Le rire des épistoliers: XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Rennes, 2021) YF.2022.a.9956
The volume gathers the proceedings of a 2017 conference at the University of Brest on the expression, manners, and importance of laughing and laughter in 16th- and 17th-century correspondence, with examples from Diderot’s letters to his lover Sophie Volland, or from the exchanges between Benjamin Constant and his confidante Julie Talma.
Valentina Mirabella decided to revisit the Boris Pasternak’s timeless love story ‘Doctor Zhivago’. Turns out, the history of the novel’s publication in Italy was nearly as turbulent as the story itself! It was first published in Italian translation as Il dottor Živago in 1957 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. Although an active communist, Feltrinelli smuggled the manuscript out of the USSR and resisted pressure against its publication. The demand for Il dottor Živago was so great that Feltrinelli was able to license translation rights into 18 different languages well in advance of the novel's publication. The Communist Party of Italy expelled the publisher from its ranks in retaliation for his role in the release of the book they felt was critical of communism.
Cover of the 34th (in the space of just two years!) edition of Il dottor Živago by Boris Pasternak translated from Russian by Pietro Zveteremich (Milano : Feltrinelli, 1959) W16/9272
Barry Taylor drew attention to the epistolary relationship and an electric bond between the Spanish author Elena Fortún (1886-1952) and the Argentine professor Inés Field (1897-1994) with the book Sabes quién soy: cartas a Inés Field (‘You know who I am: letters to Inés Field’).
Elena Fortún, Sabes quién soy: cartas a Inés Field (Seville, 2020) YF.2021.a.15259
Fortún was the author of the popular Celia books, which followed the heroine from a seven-year-old in well-to-do Madrid to a schoolteacher in Latin America. The books give a child’s-eye-view of the world. They were censored by Franco and the author was exiled, but the books have been re-published by Renacimiento of Seville in the 2000s. Fortún’s novel Oculto sendero (‘The hidden path’) published in 2016 is seen as a lesbian Bildungsroman.
Fortún met Inés Field in Buenos Aires. Now that both women are dead, critics feel free to read the correspondence through the prism of the Bildungsroman.
Ildi Wolner, Curator of East and South-East European Collections, explored the representations of love in art with Agnes’s Hay Sex : 40 rajz = 40 drawings.
Agnes Hay, Sex: 40 rajz = 40 drawings ([Budapest, 1979]) YA.1997.a.2586
Ágnes Háy is a Hungarian graphic artist and animation filmmaker, who has lived in London since 1985. Her unique experimental style of drawing uses simple lines and symbols to convey complex meanings and associations, and this booklet is no exception. Considered rather bold in Communist Hungary at the end of the 1970s, this series of sketches explores the diverse intricacies of gender relations, without the need for a single word of explanation.
Page from Sex : 40 rajz = 40 drawings [Budapest, 1979] YA.1997.a.2586
Susan Reed, Curator of Germanic Collections, shared a fascinating collection of essays examining aspects of the love letter as a social and cultural phenomenon from the 18th century to the present day.
Cover of Der Liebesbrief: Schriftkultur und Medienwechsel vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, herausgegeben von Renate Stauf, Annette Simonis, Jörg Paulus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) YF.2010.a.14652
The authors scrutinised letters from historical and literary figures including Otto von Bismark, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rainer Maria Rilke. The book ends with a consideration of how online messaging forms might transform the way we write love letters.
Ela Kucharska-Beard, Curator of Baltic Collections, displayed a mysterious metal box containing a booklet in English and Lithuanian, some photographs, posters and letters.
Vilma Samulionytė, Liebe Oma, Guten Tag, or The Pact of Silence (Vilnius, 2018) RF.2019.a.120
Liebe Oma, Guten Tag, or The Pact of Silence is a moving tribute from the Lithuanian photographer Vilma Samulionyė to her grandmother, a Lithuanian German Elė Finkytė Šnipaitienė. When Vilma’s grandmother took her own life in her 70s, Vilma and her sister Jūrate decided to delve into the family history. Their research resulted in a documentary film, an exhibition, and an artists’ book. Along the way the sisters face taboos, one of them being a chain of suicides in the family.
The journey into the family’s German history and their post-war life in Lithuania left them with some unsettling questions. Who was Kazimieras and was he the reason why Ella Fink left her family behind? Throughout the story letters and photographs create a link between the family in the West and in the East, between the living and the dead.
We hope you have enjoyed this virtual show-and-tell of highlights in our European collections. We look forward to welcoming you to the next Doctoral Open Days in 2026!
30 January 2025
European Collections: From Antiquity to 1800 – Uncovering Rare Books at the British Library Doctoral Open Days
What do a censored Spanish classic, a mathematics textbook from Tsarist Russia, and the first national education textbook from Poland have in common? They are all part of the British Library’s European Collections, spanning from antiquity to 1800. These fascinating books do more than preserve history – they provide valuable insights into the intellectual, political, and cultural dynamics of their era, offering opportunities for research and discovery.
As part of the Doctoral Open Day on 31 January, we are showcasing a selection of remarkable books. Each tells a unique story – of censorship, of scientific progress, of the development of national identity. Here, we explore some of the fascinating books you may encounter during the Doctoral Open Day.
Poland: Enlightening the Nation
In 1773, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth established the Commission of National Education (Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, KEN), the first state-run educational authority in the world. Its goal was to create a modern, secular education system that was accessible to all social classes, moving away from the traditional church-dominated schooling.
Krzysztof Kluk 1739-1796, Paweł Czenpiński, 1755-1793, Botanika dla szkół narodowych, etc. (Dzieło, ... podług Prospektu ... Pawła Czenpinskiego, ... przez ... Krzysztofa Kluka ... napisane; od Towarzystwa do Xiąg Elementarnych roztrząśnione, etc.)., w Warszawie 1785 (Warszawa, 1785) 988.d.29.
A prime example of KEN’s publishing efforts is Botanika dla szkół narodowych (‘Botany for National Schools,’ 1785) by Krzysztof Kluk and Paweł Czenpiński. This textbook was designed to teach practical botany, bringing Enlightenment ideas into the classroom. The book was one of many created by KEN’s Society for Elementary Books, which commissioned mathematics, science, and literature textbooks to standardize education across Poland.
Russia: The First Mathematics Textbook
The first Russian textbook on mathematics by Leonty Magnitsky, Arifmetika (‘Arithmetics’), was written in the early Slavonic language and published in 1703. Its first edition of 2,400 copies was extraordinarily large for that time and served as the primary mathematics text for instruction in Russia until the mid-18th century. The book was in effect an encyclopaedia of the natural sciences of its day. It emphasized the practical applications of mathematics, demonstrating how it could be used in various real-life situations, from laying a brick wall to calculating loan interest. The origins of the manual lie in Peter the Great's establishment of the School of Navigation in Moscow, and the subsequent appointment of Magnitsky at the school's helm.
Leonty Filippovich Magnitsky, Arifmetika (Moskva, 1703) 8531.f.16
Hungary: The First Gold-Painted Book
This is the second work published about Hungarian history, although published outside the country. It tells the story of the Magyars from the earliest times to the 1480s and is illustrated with lavish hand-coloured woodcuts, that have retained their brilliance through the centuries. This Augsburg edition, printed on vellum, is the very first printed book in history known for using gold paint.
Johannes Thuróczy, Chronica Hungarorum (Augsburg, 1488) IB.6663
Romania: A Scholar-Prince’s Masterpiece
Among our most treasured Romanian books is Divanul sau gâlceava înţeleptului cu lumea (‘The Wise Man’s Parley with the World’, 1698), written by Dimitrie Cantemir, a scholar, philosopher, and Prince of Moldavia.
Printed in both Romanian Cyrillic and Greek, this was the first secular book published in Romanian. It discusses morality, philosophy, and the human condition, presenting a dialogue between reason and worldly desires.
The copy comes from the collection of Frederick North, Fifth Earl of Guilford, a noted philhellene and collector of early printed Romanian books. The front cover is in its original binding, made of red goatskin over pasteboard. It features a panel design showcasing the coat of arms of Dimitrie Cantemir, with corner tools incorporating floral motifs and bird designs.
Dimitrie Cantemir, Divanul sau gâlceava înţeleptului cu lumea (Iaşi, 1698) C.118.g.2.
Italy: The Beauty of St Mark’s Basilica
A magnificent and exhaustive work documenting the Basilica of St Mark in Venice, undertaken with the support of John Ruskin, following disputed restoration work to the Basilica's south facade in 1865-75. One of 16 volumes, this volume contains 69 hand-coloured engraved plates that painstakingly represent every detail of the floor of the Basilica. Ferdinando Ongania was a publisher and editor who worked with John Ruskin on a project to document the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice. Ongania also ran an antiquarian bookshop in St. Mark's Square and supplied Ruskin with books.
Ferdinando Ongania, La Basilica di San Marco in Venezia. Dettagli del pavimento ed ornamenti in mosaico della Basilica di San Marco in Venezia (Venezia, 1881) Tab.1282.a./ Tab.1283.a.3.
Spain: Censorship and Forbidden Texts
Censorship was an everyday reality in Habsburg Spain, where the Inquisition closely monitored books. Even seemingly harmless works like Don Quixote were subject to scrutiny.
Our copy of the 1650 edition El Parnasso Español, y Musas Castellanas de D. Francisco de Quevedo Villegas was censored according to the Index of 1707, with passages inked out due to their “disrespectful references to the clergy”. Interestingly, Spanish censors had strict rules against religious criticism but showed little concern for nudity or crude humour.
Lost Books: Replacing What Was Destroyed
During World War II, a German bombing raid on the British Museum (where the British Library was then housed) destroyed many books. One of these was Zeeusche spectator over de boedel en het testament van capitein Willem Credo (‘The Zeeland Spectator on the Estate and Will of Captain Willem Credo’, 1734).
After the war, the British Library painstakingly reconstructed lists of lost books, marking them with a ‘D’ for ‘Destroyed’. Now, decades later, we have finally been able to replace this book and restore it to our collections, removing it from the list of war losses.
Gerard Bacot, Zeeusche spectator over de boedel en het testament van capitein Willem Credo onder toezigt van Gerard Bacot Predikant te Koudekerk en syn vrou Paulina Credo nevens een Journaal of DAg-Lyst van een bedroefde reis naa het vermakelyk Alphen (Amsterdam, 1734)
Why These Collections Matter
These books are not only historical artifacts – they are invaluable resources for research. By preserving both original texts and modern scholarship, the British Library provides a gateway to exploring the past. Whether you’re investigating the development of education, scientific advancements, or literary censorship, our European Collections offer a wealth of material to uncover.
If you’d like to explore these fascinating books and more, visit the British Library and discover Europe’s intellectual heritage, from antiquity to 1800! And if you are a new doctoral student whose research interest is more contemporary, why not join us for our session on Global Languages, Cultures and Societies on 14 February.
22 January 2025
Silenced memories: the Holocaust Narrative in the Soviet Union
Monument to children murdered in Babi Yar, Ukraine (image from Wikipedia)
‘Field of Burial’ where the ashes of murdered and cremated prisoners were scattered, Maly Trostenets, Belarus (image from Wikipedia)
In 1961, a young Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko visited the Babi Yar ravine in Kyiv. He was taken there by a fellow writer Anatolii Kuznetsov. A native of Kyiv, Kuznetsov experienced Nazi occupation as a child and knew about the tragedy in Babi Yar firsthand. Both authors were shocked to see that there was no sign in memory of 33,771 Jews who had been murdered by the Nazis just in two days in September 1941. Possibly over 100,000 more people, among them prisoners of war, Soviet partisans, Ukrainian nationalists and Roma people, were killed there in the following months. However, the Soviet authorities were reluctant to collect and disclose records of those crimes. On the same day, Yevtushenko wrote a poem:
No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.
Cover of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, The collected poems 1952-1990 (Edinburgh, 1991) YC.1991.b.6558
The poem was published in the influential Moscow newspaper Literaturnaia gazeta (‘The Literary Newspaper’) but was severely criticised by the authorities and Communist Party officials for presenting Jews as the main victims of the fascist Germany.
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, Stalin designed his own antisemitic campaigns such as the prosecution of members of the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee and the Night of the Murdered Poets, the campaign against ‘rootless cosmopolitans’and the so-called ‘doctors’ plot’. Although the campaigns stopped with the death of Stalin, antisemitism in the Soviet Union was strong, and the official party line was not to accept the Holocaust as a concept. Instead, all victims of genocide and atrocities were put together under the ideologically loaded term ‘peaceful Soviet civilians’.
However, in the time of the Khrushchev Thaw artists were hopeful that their voices would be heard in the new political climate. In 1962, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No 13 for bass soloist, bass chorus, and large orchestra with lyrics by Yevtushenko. Although the symphony does not have an official title, it is known as ‘Babi Yar’. Anatolii Kuznetsov tried to publish his autobiographical book also under the title of Babi Yar. The book was seriously cut by censors but was eventually published in 1967. After defecting to the West, Kuznetsov managed to publish the book in full in 1970.
Anatolii Kuznetsov, Babii Iar: roman-dokument (Frankfurt am Main, 1970) X.900/6037
However, neither Yevtushenko, nor Kuznetsov were the first to write about Babi Yar. Probably the first poem (lost and rediscovered only in 1991) about the murder in Babi Yar was written by a Jewish-Ukrainian poet Liudmila Titova in 1941:
The order was supported by the threat of execution,
They obeyed but were shot.
Not a single candle was lit that night,
Those who could, left and hid in the basement.
The stars and the Sun hid in the clouds
From our world that is too cruel.
Liudmila Titova (image from Wikipedia)
In 1943, another Ukrainian poet and at that time a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Commissars) of the Ukrainian SSR, Mykola Bazhan,wrote his response:
The grave wind blew from those ravines —
The smoke of mortal fires, the smoking of burning bodies.
Kyiv watched, angry Kyiv,
As Babi Yar was thrown into flames.
There can be no atonement for this flame.
There is no measure of revenge for this burning.
Cursed be the one who dares to forget.
Cursed be the one who tells us: “forgive me...”
Only in 1991 was a Ukrainian Jewish poet, Yurii Kaplan, able to compile a small anthology – Ekho Bab’ego IAra (‘The Echo of Babi Yar’) where he managed to include other pieces of contemporary poetry.
Page from Literatura ta Zhittia, N 2, zhovten’, 2007.
Cover of Ekho Bab'ego Iara : poeticheskaia antologiia (Kyiv, 1991) YA.1996.a.9243
In 1946, Ilya Ehrenburg, a prominent Soviet writer, published a poem under the title of ‘Babi Yar’ about the genocide of his people:
My child! My blush!
My countless relatives!
I hear how you call me
from every hole.
Together with another Jewish Soviet writer Leonid Grossman, Ehrenburg compiled and tried to publish a volume of eyewitness accounts documenting the atrocities during the Holocaust on the Soviet territories occupied by the Nazis.
During the war, frontline soldiers sent Ilya Ehrenburg a huge number of documents found in the territories liberated from the occupiers and told in their letters what they had seen or heard. Ehrenburg decided to collect the diaries, suicide letters, and testimonies related to the Nazis’ extermination of Jews and to publish the ‘Black Book’. A couple of extracts from the book were published in a magazine in 1944. However, after the end of the war, the publication was delayed several times. In November 1948, when the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was closed, the set of the ‘Black Book’ was scattered, the galleys (printer’s proof) and the manuscript were taken away. Ehrenburg’s daughter later gave the manuscript and other documents to the Yad Vashem archives and the book was published in Russian in 1980. However, that was not the full text. The first full Russian edition appeared only in 1991.
The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry : [prepared by] Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, translated and edited by David Patterson ; with a foreword by Irving Louis Horowitz and an introduction by Helen Segall. (London, 2002) YC.2002.b.953
The book documents atrocities that were committed on all occupied Soviets territories, such sites as Fort IX in Kovno (Kaunas), the Rumbula and Bikernieki Forests in Riga and Maly Trostenets near Minsk and Zmiyovskaya Balka near Rostov-on-Don.
Analysing the policy of ‘forgetting the specificity of Jewish suffering’, Izabella Tabarovsky of the Kennan Institute, points out that “by 2006, Yad Vashem, the world’s leading Holocaust Museum and research institution, found it had barely 10-15% of the names of the 1.5 million Jews who had died in Ukraine (in contrast to 90% of European Jews whose names were known)”.
At the Holocaust Memorial Day Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration, Professor Jeremy Hicks will give a talk on ‘ Representations of the Holocaust in Soviet Cinema’, which will examine further the creation of silences and gaps in memories of Holocaust.
Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator, East European Collections
References/Further reading:
Maxim D. Shrayer (2010). ‘Poets Bearing Witness to the Shoah’ in Studies in Slavic Languages and Literature (ICCEES Congress Stockholm 2010 Papers and Contributions), edited by Stefano Garzonio. PECOB: Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Europe. University of Bologna. Pp. 59-119.
Ekho Bab’ego IAra: poeticheskaia antologiia, [sostavlenie i vstupitelʹnaia statʹiia IU.G. Kaplana]. (Kyiv, 1991). YA.1996.a.9243
A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov), Babi Yar: a Document in the Form of a Novel, translated by David Floyd. (London, 1970) W67/8178
Izabella Tabarovsky. Don’t Learn from Russians about the Holocaust. Published: February 2, 2017
20 January 2025
Through the Eyes of Terezín’s Ghetto Children
The Holocaust stands as one of the most tragic chapters in human history. Yet, through the voices of children who lived through its horrors, we are offered a glimpse into the quiet courage that endured even in the darkest of times.
The diaries of youth, written in ghettos and concentration camps, are personal testaments to the strength of the human spirit. The young writers found ways to express their creativity, and hope, leaving behind a legacy that preserves their voices.
The stories entrusted to paper carried immense emotional weight for the survivors or their families. Many of these diaries remained unpublished for decades, with some only reaching readers in the 21st century. The British Library holds examples of these works, including memoirs and writings of young people from the Terezín ghetto in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.
In the Living Quarters - a drawing by Bedrich Fritta of the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, source: Wikipedia, public domain
Terezín, the ‘Model’ Ghetto
Terezín, called by the Germans Theresienstadt, a Nazi ‘camp-ghetto’ in operation from 1941 to 1945, was portrayed by the occupier’s propaganda as a ‘spa town’ for elderly Jews. In reality, it served as a transit hub for deportations to extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka.
It was a chilling symbol of Nazi deception, serving as a stage for efforts to obscure the true nature of their genocidal actions, including a 1944 Red Cross visit carefully orchestrated to portray the ghetto as humane.
The truth, however, lay in its devastating death toll and its role as a waypoint on the road to extermination.
Despite these dire circumstances, Terezín became a centre of remarkable cultural activity. In the face of oppression, artists, musicians and writers produced works of art, music and literature, while children found ways to express hope and imagination through secret schooling, painting and poetry.
The boy who loved Jules Verne
Petr Ginz, born in Prague in 1928, was a talented young writer, artist and editor. By the time he was a teenager, he had written multiple short stories and novels inspired by his favourite author, Jules Verne. His adventure novel Návštěva z Pravěku (‘A Visit from Prehistory’) where engineer Gérard Guiness and his son Petr confront the mysterious creature Ka-du, reflects his belief in courage and ingenuity. Illustrated by Ginz himself, it is the only surviving novel out of several that he wrote.
Illustration from Petr Ginz, Návštěva z Pravěku: roman, (Prague, 2007) YF.2008.a.22831
In Terezín, Ginz became the editor of Vedem, a clandestine magazine created by boys in the ghetto. Writing under the pen name ‘Akademie’, he contributed essays, stories and illustrations. The Diary of Petr Ginz 1928-1944, written between 1941 and 1942, provides an account of life under Nazi oppression. It was later published by his sister Chava Pressburger ensuring his voice would not be forgotten.
Cover of The Diary of Petr Ginz 1928-1944
Ginz was a prolific illustrator. His linocut, Moon Landscape, created around 1942, depicts an imagined view of Earth from the Moon, reflecting his fascination with exploration and the cosmos. In a tribute, Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon carried a copy of this drawing aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, symbolically fulfilling Ginz’s dream of reaching the stars. Tragically, both Ginz and Ramon lost their lives prematurely – Ginz perished in Auschwitz at 16, and Ramon died when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry – but their stories highlight the importance of preserving history and art.
Petr Ginz, Moon Landscape, source: Wikipedia, public domain
The writings and art of Terezín’s children
In 1995, the Jewish Museum in Prague published the anthology Je mojí vlastí hradba ghett? (‘Is the Wall of Ghettos My Homeland?) which features writings and artwork created by children in Terezín. The collection includes texts from Vedem and other works, offering insight into the emotional and psychological worlds of young people living in extreme conditions.
Cover of Je mojí vlastí hradba ghett? Básně, próza a kresby terezínských dětí, edited by Marie Rút Křížková, Kurt Jiří Kotouč and Zdeněk Ornest (Prague, 1995) YA.2000.b.2154
The testimony of Hana Bořkovcová
Hana Bořkovcová, a renowned Czech author, also left behind a powerful diary, Píšu a sešit mi leží na kolenou: deníky 1940 - 1946 (‘I Write, and the Notebook Lies on My Lap: Diaries 1940–1946’ (Prague, 2011) YF.2012.a.13806.
Published posthumously in 2011, her writings chronicle her family’s experiences, from their life in Prague’s Jewish community to their deportation to Terezín when she was 16 years old, Auschwitz, and a labour camp in Kurzbach. Her diary concludes with her post-war life, including the birth of her son.
Bořkovcová’s account is striking for its sensitivity and strength. Her observations about life in the Jewish school and among young Zionists offer a rich cultural and social context, making her diary a valuable resource for readers and historians alike.
Documenting the unimaginable
In 2012, Michal Kraus published his diary, originally written in Czech, which was later translated into English and published in 2016 under the title Drawing the Holocaust. His entries are marked by stark realism and are accompanied by detailed drawings. Kraus’s meticulous documentation provides an unflinching account of the brutality of the Holocaust and its impact on those who survived. The diary also reflects Kraus’s struggle to return to a ‘normal’ life after the war.
Michal Kraus, Drawing the Holocaust: A Teenager’s Memory of Terezin, Birkenau, and Mauthausen (Cincinnati, 2016) YKL.2016.a.8040
A story saved in the walls
Helga Weissová’s diary is another remarkable testament. Starting at age nine, she documented her life during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Like Petr Ginz, Helga was sent to Terezín before being deported to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Her diary is accompanied by her drawings, which vividly depict her experiences. Before her deportation, Weissová entrusted her diary to her uncle, who hid it within the walls of Terezín. After the war, she recovered and expanded it to include her harrowing memories from the camps. Published decades later, her work offers a powerful narrative.
Cover of Helga’s Diary: a Young Girl’s Account of Life in a Concentration Camp (London, 2013) YC.2013.a.16374
The importance of remembrance
As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 2025, it is imperative to reflect on the significance of these personal narratives. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp, where over a million people perished. Just like Petr Ginz, many of those who lost their lives in Auschwitz were first imprisoned in Terezín before being transported to their deaths. The diaries of these individuals are not merely archival records; they are powerful reminders of the human capacity for resilience and creativity in the face of adversity. Their writings challenge us to remember the past and to educate future generations about the dangers of hatred and intolerance. By reading and sharing these stories, we preserve their voices and the lessons they left behind for a better, more compassionate world.
Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections
02 January 2025
New Year, Old Years: a Look Back
Usually around the start of a new year we look back over our previous year’s blogging before turning our faces to the future. This time we’re actually looking back over 2023 as well as 2024 because BL blogging activity was suspended for a while following the cyber-attack on the Library in October 2023, so we couldn’t do a review of that year at the time. And to break up the prose, we include some wintery scenes from the BL’ s Flickr stream.
Reindeer from Sophus Tromholt, Under Nordlysets Straaler. Skildringer fra Lappernes Land (Copenhagen, 1885) 10280.eee.13.
Both years saw our usual excitement over the annual European Writers’ Festival held in May. In 2023 we featured an interview with Greek Cypriot writer Anthony Anaxagorou, winner of the 2024 RSL Ondaatje Prize, while in 2024 we published a series of posts, beginning with this one, profiling some of the authors featured in the festival. As usual, literature featured in many other posts. We celebrated the award of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature to Norway’s Jon Fosse and mourned the death in 2024 of Albanian author Ismail Kadare. We were proud to learn that our Curator of Italian, Valentina Mirabella, was one of the judges of the 2024 Premio Strega, a major Italian literary prize, and she wrote about her experience for us.
A theme that ran through both years was the work of the Endangered Archives Project to preserve cultural heritage from Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Our coverage included posts on the indigenous peoples of Siberia, minority communities in Bulgaria, an important Serbian family archive, and material relating to the Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko, who was also the subject of a small display in our Treasures Gallery.
Polar scene from Die zweite Deutsche Nordpolarfahrt in den Jahren 1869 und 1870, unter Führung des Kapitän Karl Koldewey, edited by Alexander Georg Mosle und Georg Albrecht (Leipzig, 1873-4) 10460.ff.11.
Events in the library are a regular source of inspiration for our blog posts. In 2023 we highlighted events commemorating two colleagues who died in recent years: a symposium on Italian Futurism was dedicated to the memory of Chris Michaelides, former curator of Italian and Modern Greek, who did much to build our collection of Futurist books. The Graham Nattrass Lecture, in memory of the former Head of Germanic Collections is an annual event, and in 2023 marked the 80th anniversary of the arrest and execution of members of the German resistance group ‘Die Weisse Rose’. A conference on European political refugees in Britain generated posts on the same topic, including one on how the then British Museum Library became ‘a lifeline of books’ for Polish refugees from Soviet and Nazi occupation. On a lighter note, we celebrated the BL’s annual Food Season in May 2024 with a post introducing a selection of cookbooks from around the continent.
In summer 2024 we went a bit sports mad with both the European Football Championships and the Summer Olympics taking place. We highlighted the world-beating football tactics of the Hungarian ‘Golden Team’ in the early 1950s and the ‘Miracle of Bern’ that saw them unexpectedly beaten by West Germany in 1954’s World Cup, as well as exploring why the Dutch fans show symptoms of ‘orange fever’ at international matches. Our Olympic posts included explorations of the political side of the supposedly apolitical games in Czechoslovakia and the two German states during the Cold War, and a look at the Baltic States’ love for (and proud record in) basketball.
The northern lights, from Emmanuel Liais, L’Espace céleste et la nature tropicale, description physique de l’univers (Paris, 1866) 10003.d.10.
But not all our blog posts are driven by events and unifying themes. As ever, we continued to write about items from our vast and varied collections, from Georgian manuscripts to contemporary Queer writing in Poland, via a Russian Braille edition of The Hobbit, French caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War, and pamphlets from the Cypriot independence campaign. We also explored stories of the Slovenian Enlightenment and the first Professor of Spanish in Britain, and discovered the hidden but crucial role played by women in underground publishing under the Polish Communist regime.
As we head into 2025 we would like to wish all our readers and contributors a very happy new year. We look forward to bringing you another year of stories and discoveries from the Library’s European Collections.
Susan Reed and Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, European Studies Blog Editors
Ice-skating, from A.J. van der Aa, Ons Vaderland en zijne Bewoners (Amsterdam,1855-57) 10270.f.5
24 December 2024
Devil in the details: Nikolai Gogol's ‘Christmas Eve’
With Christmas fast approaching, I thought I would share one of my favourite seasonal reads, Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom (‘Christmas Eve’, also known as ‘The Night Before Christmas’, 1832) by Nikolai Gogol'. This whimsical and uproarious folk tale comes from a collection of eight short stories written in Russian and collected in two volumes, Vechera na khutore bliz Dikan’ki (‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’, 1831-1832), which catapulted the author to fame almost overnight. If you like the sound of a winter story featuring flying dumplings and a witch hiding her suitors in rubble sacks, then read on, you are in for a treat. This delightfully eccentric and cliché-free narrative is certain to put you in a festive mood.
Cover of Vechory na khutori bilia Dykanʹky by Nikolai Gogol' (Kyiv, 2008) YF.2009.b.2030
Opening pages of Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom by Nikolai Gogol' (Kyiv, 2008) YF.2009.b.2030
However, you may wonder how the author of Mertvye Dushi (‘Dead Souls’, 1842) came to write such a lighthearted and, dare I say it, frivolous piece. To answer that question, we need to travel back to December 1828 when a young aspiring writer hailing from the small Cossack town of Sorochyntsi arrives in the metropolitan St. Petersburg to seek his fortune. Unable to secure a decent paying job in the civil service, Nikolai soon becomes disillusioned with life in the capital and the workings of the Russian bureaucracy. The disappointment with St. Petersburg coincides with his newfound appreciation of the homeland he left behind and the craze for all things “Little Russian” sweeping the capital’s literary scene at the time. Gogol' is quick to capitalize on this trend and eager to bring the beauty of Ukraine to the Russian reading public. Yet for all the enthusiasm with which the liberal circles received Gogol’s work, the nation reflected in Vechera was not Russia but Ukraine. Far from smoothing over this difference, the author deliberately accentuated it.
There is undoubtedly more to the joyous and seemingly carefree tone of Vechera than first meets the eye. The Ukrainian-Russian glossaries appended to each volume clearly underline Ukrainian linguistic separateness and cultural uniqueness, creating a boundary between the Ukrainian and imperial cultures. The narrator, Rudy Pan'ko, regularly engages in intense self-descriptions, offering equivalents for what his Russian audience may find unfamiliar. This is evident in Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom when he attempts to explain the tradition of house-to-house caroling: ‘‘Among us it is the custom to sing under the window on Christmas Eve carols that are called kolyadki. The mistress or master or whoever is left in the house always drops into the singer’s bag some sausage or bread or a copper or whatever he has plenty of (...) They often sing about the birth of Christ, and at the end wish good health to the master, the mistress, the children and all the household’’, or when he elucidates on the meaning of the word ‘German’: ‘‘By ‘German’, we mean any foreigner, be it a French, Austro-Hungarian, or Swedish subject - no matter, we will still call them ‘Germans’.’’ (English translations by Constance Garnett, ‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’ (London, 1926), 12266.g.2. and Anna Summers, ‘The night before Christmas’, (New York, 2014), YKL.2016.a.6326; emphasis mine). Pan'ko clearly wants his Russian readers to be mindful of the divisions between the two worlds.
Glossary listing popular Ukrainian terms and their Russian equivalents
The great success of Gogol's work also owed much to its Romantic handling of folklore and the perfect balance of the familiar and exotic in depicting Ukraine. As a number of scholars have pointed out, Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom contains many staples of the traditional Ukrainian nativity play, vertep. It opens with the devil swimming through the starry sky and burning his hands on the moon he had just stolen. As the story is set on the night before Christmas, the evil spirit is allowed to roam freely around the Ukrainian village of Dykanka and torment its denizens before he must return to hell on Christmas Day. He unleashes a blizzard hoping to thwart the village blacksmith's advances on the beautiful Oksana as he resents him for producing a painting depicting the devil's defeat. However, Vakula is determined to win the village belle over, even if it means battling Satan himself. Amid carol singing, holiday gluttony (think kutia, varenyky, palianytsia, varenukha) and drunken revelry, he manages to trick the devil into flying him to St. Petersburg, where he hopes to get a pair of empress’s heels for Oksana, who has promised to marry him on this condition. Without giving too much away, Vakula finally makes it to St. Petersburg and is immediately overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the city. He seeks refuge in the company of Zaporozhian Cossacks, who reluctantly take him along for their audience with the empress...
Too busy to read this Christmas? Gogol’s Ukrainian folk tales have been adapted into numerous films and operas. The most renowned adaptations of Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom include the eponymous 1961 film directed by Alexsander Rou and the 1913 silent movie by Władysław Starewicz. The 1951 Russian animated feature film directed by Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg is also available in the public domain.
Official poster for the 1961 Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom film by Alexander Rou (Image from Wikipedia)
Gogol's Noch’ pered Rozhdestvom celebrates Ukraine and its rich heritage. It is fun and edifying but also mischievously subversive. Will the pious Cossack Vakula manage to win the affection of the most beautiful girl in town? Or will the devil reign supreme on this holy night? A perfect tale for the holiday season, this wonderfully bizarre work will leave you with a sense of warmth and quiet wonder long after the last page is turned. Z Rizdvom! Merry Christmas!
Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Interim Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections
References:
Edyta M. Bojanowska, Nikolai Gogol : between Ukrainian and Russian nationalism (Cambridge, 2007) YC.2007.a.11089
Christopher Putney, Russian devils and diabolic conditionality in Nikolai Gogol's Evenings on a farm near Dikanka (New York, 1999) 5761.407700
23 September 2024
Wage Peace Not War. Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi on Violence, Nonresistance, and Love
The year was 1908. The shock waves of the 1905 Revolution still reverberated throughout the Russian Empire when two letters from an Indian revolutionary Taraknath Das reached Leo Tolstoy at home in Iasnaia Poliana. Das wrote to the ailing Tolstoy, then a world-renowned author, pacifist and anarchist, asking for his support for India’s liberation from British colonial rule. Das’s appeal prompted the 80-year-old Russian writer to pen a lengthy response expressing his sympathy with the oppressed and advocating for nonviolence as the only justifiable form of resistance. It was not the answer Das had hoped for, but when the letter was published, it immediately struck a chord with a young Indian lawyer grappling with racial and social injustices in Johannesburg, Mohandas Gandhi. He was so impressed by Tolstoy’s logic that he sought his permission to translate the letter into Gujarati and to republish it in South Africa. Although the two never met, they continued to exchange letters and ideas until Tolstoy's death in 1910. Their shared philosophy of peace, tolerance, and nonresistance to evil inspired such prominent political leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. The letter to Das, mailed from Iasnaia Poliana on December 14, 1908, was about to influence the course of history on the Indian subcontinent.
Cover of Osvobozhdenie narodov: Pisʹmo Indusu by Leo Tolstoy (Iasnaia Poliana, 190?) RB.23.a.32254 and a photograph of
Mahatma Gandhi (Image from Wikipedia)
In the appendices of his book Indian Home Rule, Gandhi listed twenty books that impacted him as a political and spiritual leader. Tellingly, the first six works are all by Tolstoy, and the 5000-word missive published by Das as A Letter to a Hindu (AKA A Letter to a Hindoo; Pis’mo Indusu, 1908) is among them. In it, Tolstoy argues that only by overcoming the urge to retaliate and abiding by the principle of love and compassion for the enemy could the Indian people shake off the colonial yoke. He admonishes: “Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.” According to the author, only peaceful resistance epitomised by civil disobedience could break the cycle of violence perpetuating injustice and feeding hatred. He marvels at how a commercial company was able to enslave “two hundred millions of clever, capable, freedom-loving people” and concludes that the numbers speak for themselves: “it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves.”
Tolstoy’s definition of violence is broad, encompassing inequitable distribution of authority, power and wealth, as well as violation of one’s conscience. He divides the letter into short chapters, each of which opens with a range of ethical sources, including the Bible, quotations from the Vedas, and passages from Krishna.
Opening pages of Tolstoy’s Pis’mo Indusu
He warns against false ideologies, both religious and pseudo-scientific, that promote the use of violence and the necessity of war, distorting the sheer truth that it is “natural for men to help and to love one another, but not to torture and kill one another”. At the core of Tolstoy’s Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount, which he sees as a complete justification for nonresistance to evil. His literal reading of Jesus’s commandment to ‘turn the other cheek’ led to his questioning social, political and religious assumptions, including the authority of the state, the credibility of the Church, and the justifications of both for waging violence. Tolstoy admits that overthrowing oppressive regimes is not an easy task. Nonviolence, unlike physical force, requires great courage and readiness to expose oneself to political violence and unjust treatment.
Another book that profoundly affected Gandhi’s thought formation was Tolstoy’s Christian anarchist philosophical treatise, ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’ (Tsarstvo Bozhie Vnutri Vas, 1894). Banned in Russia for its espousal of Jesus’s nonviolent resistance teachings as true gospel, it inspired Gandhi to set up a community devoted to love, work, and simple living, known as Tolstoy Farm. He reflected on the impact the book had on him in his 1928 speech commemorating Tolstoy’s death: “At that time, I was skeptical about many things… I was a votary of violence. I had faith in it and none in nonviolence. After I read this book, lack of faith in nonviolence vanished.”
Title page of Tsarstvo Bozhie Vnutri Vas (London, 1898) 3926.bb.50.
In ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’, Tolstoy objects to the idea of Russian religious nationality as the rationale for political repressions inside Russia and imperialist oppression internationally. He points the finger at the corrupt union of religion and autocratic political power that coerces men to join the army and take part in unjust wars. Tolstoy is especially critical of conscription, which he sees as an extreme abuse of power and a form of slavery. He also opposes any form of modern patriotism but is not blind to the differences between oppressor and oppressed: “A Russian should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland, Armenia, should be separated, freed from Russia (...) The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.” Tolstoy asserts that the eponymous Kingdom of God could only be found inside the self and outside the state-run church with its stupefying rituals and ceremonies.
Tolstoy’s essay ‘The First Step’ (also known as ‘The Morals of Diet’; Pervaia stupen’, 1892) helped to shape Gandhi’s views on ahimsa, an ancient ethical principle of not causing harm to other living beings. It was instrumental in convincing Gandhi to maintain his vegetarian diet. The essay was published as a preface to a book by Howard Williams, The Ethics of Diet, which Tolstoy translated into Russian. It is likely the 19th century’s most important statement on the subject.
Cover of Tolstoy’s Pervaia stupen’ (Moscow, 1906) YA.2001.a.3749
The principle of nonviolence and refusal to participate in coercion is at the core of Tolstoyan vegetarianism. He views slaughtering and eating animals as “simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling—killing; and is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food.” While the pamphlet advocates for animal rights, it also takes on a religious tone, underscoring the need for self-abnegation, fasting, and renouncing worldliness. One can and should control bodily desires by exercising moderation, restraint and hard work, and refraining from eating animal flesh is the first step towards a moral life. Tolstoy concludes the piece with a bold statement that the killing and eating of animals compromise the ability of men to feel pity and compassion for fellow human beings.
Tolstoy enjoying a vegetarian meal (Image from Wikipedia)
Tolstoy’s philosophical and polemical works have often been deemed rigid and doctrinaire, becoming a neglected footnote to the widely acclaimed War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Nevertheless, their message is disturbingly relevant today as the world faces a swelling tide of imperial violence with Russia's brutal war against Ukraine. The question once posed by George Orwell: “Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing?” remains open. Orwell had no illusions - in a country without a free press and the right of assembly, where “opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again”, practising civil disobedience is a perilous exercise incapable of bringing a mass movement into being. While Russia is waiting for its Mahatma, dissenting voices and peaceful anti-war protests inside the country command the utmost respect and give hope for change. Gandhi prescribes patience: “You need not be afraid that the method of nonviolence is a slow long-drawn-out process. It is the swiftest the world has seen, for it is the surest.”
Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Interim Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections
References/further reading:
Charlotte Alston, Tolstoy and his disciples : the history of a radical international movement (London, 2014) YC.2014.a.11549
Imraan Coovadia, Revolution and non-violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela (Oxford, 2020) YC.2022.a.1259
Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy letters (Long Beach, California, 1987)
Ramin Jahanbegloo, Introduction to nonviolence (Basingstoke, 2014) SPIS303.61
Ilacai and Rajesh, V. Maniyan, The Russian Revolution and India (London, 2020) ELD.DS.554272
Tony Milligan, Civil disobedience: protest, justification, and the law (New York, 2013) m13/.13487
Keith Gessen, George Packer, George Orwell, All art is propaganda: critical essays (Boston, 2009) ELD.DS.678441
David A. J. Richards, Disarming manhood: roots of ethical resistance (Athens, OH, 2005) YK.2007.a.20263
Patricia M. Shields, Jane Addams: progressive pioneer of peace, philosophy, sociology, social work and public administration (Cham, 2017) ELD.DS.351903
Leo Tolstoy, A Letter to a Hindu (from Project Gutenberg)
Bryan S. Turner, War and peace: essays on religion, violence, and space (London, 2013) ELD.DS.83774
17 September 2024
Werther at 250 - an 18th-Century Bestseller
On Thursday 26 September the novelist, biographer and columnist A.N. Wilson will be discussing his new book The Life of Goethe with Emeritus Professor Paul Hamilton at an event in the British Library’s Pigott Theatre. Full event and booking details can be found here. Meanwhile, to get you in a Goethe mood, we take a look at the book that first brought him international fame.
September 1774 saw the appearance of the 25-year-old Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s first novel, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther). Goethe had already become famous in Germany with his play Götz von Berlichingen, published the previous year, but the novel was to make his name throughout Europe.
Title-page of the first edition of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Leipzig, 1774) C.58.bb.12
The novel is mainly narrated in letters from the eponymous Werther to his friend Wilhelm. It tells the story of Werther’s doomed love for Lotte, a woman who seems to reciprocate his feelings but is betrothed to another man, Albert, as was her mother’s dying wish. When he realises that he can neither suppress his love for Lotte nor prevent her marriage, Werther leaves town to take up a post at court, but returns after a few unhappy months. Lotte and Albert are now married but Werther continues to visit Lotte, becoming ever more tormented by his feelings for her. After an emotional encounter where Werther embraces and kisses Lotte, she sends him away. Having already decided that only his, Lotte’s or Albert’s death can resolve the situation between them, Werther decides to kill himself. An afterword by the supposed editor of the letters tells of Werther’s suicide and its aftermath.
Werther at his writing-desk, engraving by J. Buckland Wright from a Halcyon Press edition of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Maastricht, 1931) C.115.s.26.
The novel was a huge success. It combined the time-honoured genre of the tragic love story with the contemporary cult of ‘sensibility’, featuring a protagonist who is guided entirely by his emotions. There were also titillating hints that the story was based on true events: Goethe had indeed drawn on his own brief infatuation with Charlotte Buff, who was engaged to his friend Johann Christian Kestner, and on the suicide of a colleague, Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who was hopelessly in love with a married woman. A pamphlet published in 1775 identified the ‘real’ locations and characters, albeit only by initials in the case of the characters. Nonetheless, the book’s fame brought some unwanted attention to these ‘originals’. Jerusalem’s grave even became a place of pilgrimage for Werther fans.
Pages from H. von Breidenbach, Berichtigung der Geschichte des jungen Werthers (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1775; 12547.a.20.) identifiyng the setting of the novel as a village near Wetzlar and the surname of Lotte’s father as beginning with B rather than S. (Image from a copy in the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg)
A French translation of Werther appeared in 1775 and translations into other European languages, including English (initially via the French version) in 1779, soon followed. As well as German, French and English, the British Library holds editions in Afrikaans, Danish, Esperanto, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.
Title-pages of early French, English and Italian translations of Die Leiden des jungen Werther
The novel also spawned a wave of imitations, critiques, parodies, continuations and dramatizations, and was represented in other media. Illustrations of scenes from the story decorated crockery and playing cards, and a handbill from 1785 in the British Library’s collections (1850.c.10.(151.)) announces that “At Mrs. Salmon’s Royal Historical Wax-work ... Is to be seen the ... Group of the Death of Werter, attended by Charlotte and her Family.” Fashionable young men adopted Werther’s outfit of a blue tailcoat with a yellow waistcoat and breeches, although stories of a wave of copycat suicides while so dressed are almost certainly exaggerated. Werther’s name could even be used to sell unrelated works: a German translation of Isaac D’Israeli’s Mejnoun and Leila, a retelling of an Arabic story, was entitled Der arabische Werther (‘The Arabian Werther’).
Title-page of Confidential Letters of Albert; from his first attachment to Charlotte to her death (London, 1790) RB.23.a.18744. The work has been variously attributed to John Armstrong and Mary Eden
A popular form of ‘Wertheriad’ presented letters from other characters, such as William James’s The Letters of Charlotte during her Connexion with Werter (early English editions generally dropped the h of Werther) or The Confidential Letters of Albert. August Cornelius Stockmann’s Die Leiden der jungen Wertherinn (‘The Sorrows of the young female Werther’), although its title suggests a version with the gender roles reversed, similarly retells the story from Lotte’s perspective although not in epistolary form. However, the French novelist Pierre Perrin’s Werthérie (translated into English as The Female Werter) was the story of a woman tragically obsessed with a married man.
Title-page and frontispiece of Pierre Perrin, Werthérie (Paris, 1791) 1074.h.32. (Image from a copy in the Bayerische Staatsibliothek)
Another common theme in both poetry and art was Lotte mourning at Werther’s grave. The original story leaves her own fate uncertain, saying that her grief and shock at Werther’s death made her family fear for her life, and some continuations do indeed have her dying also, but the idea of her rallying at least enough to visit the grave was clearly irresistible.
Title page of Carl Ernst von Reizenstein, Lotte bey Werthers Grab (‘Wahlheim’, 1775) 11521.aa.14. (Image from a copy in the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg)
Illustrators were also fond of depicting the famous scene where Werther first sees Lotte as she butters and cuts slices of bread for her younger siblings. This was also popular with the parodists, and bookends William Thackeray’s famous satirical verses about the story.
Werther meets Lotte as she cuts slices of buttered bread for her younger siblings. Engraving by Daniel Chodowiecki. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Despite (or perhaps because of) its popularity, many commentators criticised the work, and in particular Werther’s extreme emotions and his suicide. A popular riposte to Goethe’s work was Friedrich Nicolai’s Freuden des jungen Werthers (‘Joys of Young Werther’). Here Albert renounces Lotte, who marries Werther. Things do not at first go smoothly, and the remarkably tolerant Albert has to act as marriage counsellor, but Werther gradually becomes practical and responsible. The story ends with him and his family happily cultivating their garden in good Voltairean fashion.
Title page of Friedrich Nicolai, Freuden des jungen Werthers: Leiden und Freuden Werthers des Mannes (Berlin, 1775) 12547.aaa.8. (Image from a copy in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)
The economist Johann August Schlettwein wrote two pamphlets criticising Goethe’s work, one of which is couched as a letter from Werther, now suffering the torments of damnation, appealing to others not to follow his example. Ernst August Anton von Göchhausen, in his Das Werther-Fieber (‘The Werther Fever’) shows a family divided over the story – daughter Sibylle is dangerously obsessed, but the rest of the family consider Werther a fool (which I must admit was my own assessment reading the novel as an undergraduate!).
Title-page of Ernst August Anton von Göchhausen, Das Werther-Fieber, eine unvollendetes Familienstück (Nieder-Teutschland [i.e Leipzig], 1776) 12547.b.5. (Image from a copy in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)
Goethe would later distance himself from Werther as he left behind the wild enthusiasm of his youthful ‘Sturm und Drang’ works and embraced a more measured classicism. A revised version published in 1787 gave the editor more of a voice and made Albert more sympathetic, somewhat counterbalancing Werther’s emotionalism. But even after it had passed the peak of its popularity, Werther continued to be much read, and it inspired literary responses into the 20th century. Thomas Mann’s Lotte in Weimar (1939) is a fictional retelling of the real-life encounter between Charlotte Kestner (née Buff) and Goethe 42 years after the publication of Werther, while Ulrich Plenzdorf’s Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. (The New Sorrows of Young W.) maps Goethe’s novel onto the story of a disaffected young man in 1960s East Germany. And in the 21st century the story has been reinvented as a graphic novel in a contemporary setting, Werther Reloaded.
Cover of Franziska Walther, Werther reloaded: nach dem Roman ‘Die Leiden des jungen Werther’ von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Mannheim, 2016) YF.2016.b.2045
250 years after its first appearance, Werther may no longer have the powerful appeal that it had at the time, but the novel still stands as a literary classic and a offers glimpse into a particular mindset that briefly held sway over romantically inclined readers in the late 18th century.
References/Further reading
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Les souffrances du jeune Werther, translated by Karl Siegmund von Seckendorff (Erlangen, 1886) 244.e.10.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Werter: a German Story, translated by Richard Graves (London, 1779) 12555.a.34.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Werther, opera di sentimento, translated by Gaetano Grassi (Poschiavo, 1782) 012553.e.35.
Isaac Disraeli, Der Arabische Werther, oder Mejnun und Leila, eine romantische Erzählung für Liebende (Leipzig, 1804) 12618.a.45.
William James, The letters of Charlotte, during her connexion with Werter (Dublin, 1786) 1489.g.7.
August Cornelius Stockmann, Die Leiden der jungen Wertherinn (Eisenach, 1775) 12547.b.6.
“Diesem viehischen Trieb ergeben”: J. A. Schlettweins Kritik an Goethes Werther: Briefe an eine Freundinn über die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1775), Des jungen Werthers Zuruf aus der Ewigkeit an die noch lebende Menschen auf der Erde (1775), herausgegeben von Volker Hoenerbach. (Hamburg 2009) YF.2012.a.7890
Johann August Schlettwein, Werther in die Hölle (Frankfurt am Main, 1775) 8630.b.2.(5.) (A reissue of his Briefe an eine Freundinn über die Leiden des jungen Werthers with new introductory material)
Thomas Mann, Lotte in Weimar (Stockholm, 1939) YA.1989.a.3081
Ulrich Plenzdorf, Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. (Frankfurt am Main, 1973) X.908/27279.
Robyn L. Schiffman, ‘A Concert of Werthers’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 43, no. 2 (2010), pp. 207-222 P.901/754
Karol Sauerland, ‘Wertherfieber’, European History Online Website
A selection of other early responses, adaptations and imitations from the BL collections:
Heinrich Leopold Wagner, Prometheus Deukalion und seine Recensenten (Hamburg, 1775) 11746.c.35. (A satire on reviewers of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers)
Heinrich Gottfried von Bretschneider, Eine entsetzliche Mordgeschichte von dem jungen Werther ([s.l.], 1776) 12547.aaa.9. (A free adaptation of the original)
Man denkt verschieden bey Werthers Leiden. Ein Schauspiel in drey Aufzügen (s.l., 1779) 11745.c.1.
Edward Taylor, Werter to Charlotte: a Poem (Lonndon, 1784) 11632.d.49.(1.)
Jean-Marie-Jérôme Fleuriot, Le Nouveau Werther, imité de l’Allemand (Neuchâtel, 1786) 12547.c.8.
Elizabeth Sophia Tomlins, The Victim of Fancy (London, 2009) YC.2010.a.15559 (Originally published 1786; French translation, La Victime de l’imagination, ou l’enthousiaste de Werther (Paris, 1795?) Ch.790/127.)
Eglantine Wallace, A Letter to a Friend, with a poem called the Ghost of Werter (London, 1787) 11632.h.16.
George Wright, The unfortunate lovers, abridged from the Sorrows of Werter ... (London, 1788) RB.23.a.8495
Sarah Farrell, Charlotte, or, A sequel to the sorrows of Werther ... and other poems (Bath, 1792) 11642.h.17.
Amelia Pickering, The Sorrows of Werter: a Poem (London, 1788) 1346.m.11.
Joseph Antoine de Gourbillon, Stellino, ou le Nouveau Werther (Paris, 1791)
Werter and Charlotte. A German story containing many wonderful and pathetic incidents (London, 1800?) 12611.ee.32.(4.) (A loose adaptation of the original)
Carl Phillip Bonafont, Der neue Werther, oder Gefühl und Liebe (Nuremberg, 1804) 12547.cc.11.
James Bell, Letters from Wetzlar, written in 1817, developing the authentic particulars on which the “Sorrows of Werter” are founded (London, 1821) 11851.c.7.
Georges Duval, Le Retour de Werther, ou les derniers épanchemens de la sensibilité, comédie en un acte, mêlée de vaudevilles (Paris, 1821) 11738.e.16.(10.)
An anonymous and undated poem beginning ‘Cold in this tomb the dust of Werter lies’ C.116.g.22.(2.)
05 September 2024
Underground Publishing in Poland under Communist Regime: Through Female Eyes
The Gdańsk Agreement of 1980, established between the workers of the Lenin shipyard and the Polish People’s Republic’s undemocratically elected government, saw the beginning of the ‘Solidarity’ trade union’s fight against the Communist Regime. In the following seven years, around 4830 books and 2027 journals, many of which are in the British Library’s Solidarity Collection, were published underground in a so-called ‘second circulation’. As far as the records go, only 175 of these works were authored by a mere 97 female writers.
Superficial research into female involvement in Polish anti-government publishing could end here. Women in print? Official numbers leave no doubt: they were few and far between. To broaden the scope of this quest to uncover unheard female voices in the Solidarity Collection, avenues other than scholarly browsing of the Library’s basements had to be incorporated. And so, on a brisk December morning, one of them led all the way out of the bustle of central London into the quiet of Hampshire countryside.
“At that time my involvement in the anti-communist opposition was very important for me, probably more important than my medical studies”, recalls Anna Młynik-Shawcross, a retired psychiatrist based in Britain since 1985 – the year when she arrived here as a political refugee. Anna reflects on the times after the strikes in the shipyard ended and she graduated from the medical school. “However, I decided to follow medicine instead of getting involved as the unions’ activist”, she confirms. But how does this story begin? The interview with her is meant to deepen the present understanding of diverse roles women played in the 1970s-1980s Polish underground publishing.
Anna Młynik-Shawcross in her home (photo by Olga Topol).
Anna, born in 1955 in Gdańsk, first became involved with the democratic anti-communist movement at the beginning of her Medical School years, in the winter of 1976. When the communist government pushed for changes in the Polish constitution of the time, Anna, alongside a small group of Gdańsk students, joined the movement which started with signing the protest letters against those changes. In the summer of the same year the famous strikes began in Radom and Lublin and spread all over the country, while lots of people lost their employment. At that time the famous ‘Committee for Social Self-Defence’ (KOR) was set up. “I was able to get the list of names of the workers who were sacked [so that they could be helped by KOR]”, recalls Anna. In the years 1977-1978, she was part of the ‘Movement for the Defence of Human and Civic Rights’ (ROPCiO). She was a founder member of the Student Solidarity Committee set up in Gdańsk in November 1977 and was involved in organising student discussion groups and helping those persecuted by the Communist regime.
Around the same time, one of the first printing machines intended for the independent underground printing of works by authors censored by the regime was shipped from abroad with the help of Jaraczewski family, Józef Piłsudski’s descendants. Anna remembers the times she spent printing leaflets and the establishment of an underground periodical Bratniak published by the ‘Movement of Young Poland’, a Free Trade Union periodical called Robotnik Wybrzeża, as well as the first independent publishing house involved in distributing books across the country, Nowa.
An example of an underground publication, Kazimierz Brandys, Miesiące, (Warszawa 1980) Sol. 241w.
“I was in contact with them and was involved into distribution of books across Poland. They had to be well protected, so we had to have a network of people. We would distribute them through friends, all just through networks”, recalls Anna. Distribution of printed material posed challenges, with private flats acting as places of conspiracy. In the following years, Anna contributed to nothing less than the establishment of a new publishing house, Klin. Together with a small group of friends they set the ambitious goal of about 3,500 published books to be published, and worked tirelessly towards it. Still today she recalls, not without excitement, getting a ‘Western’ paper trimmer, as well as gaining the support of a bookbinder.
“It started with my money that I earned working as a student abroad”, Anna recalls, “We needed a lot of paper, but you couldn’t simply go into a shop and buy tons of paper. So we were going to different shops and buying small amounts.” The printing was primitive, primarily in the offset technique. “We got the paint and were spending hours and hours copying books”, adds Anna, a 2009 recipient of an Order of Polonia Restituta. Now, let us look again at the initial number mentioned above: 97 female writers? What about the women behind the scenes?
Anna expands on female involvement in the opposition movement, including the free press. Although often reluctant about such contribution because of concern for the welfare of their children, especially at that challenging time, many women were involved. She and Magda Modzelewska were involved in Gdańsk’s Student Solidarity Commitee. Joanna Duda-Gwiazda and Alinka Pieńkowska belonged to the Wolne Związki Zawodowe trade unions, which published journal Robotnik Wybrzeża. Finally, Bożena Rybicka, Małgorzata Rybicka, and Magda Modzelewska supported the journal Bratniak: “Małgorzata Rybicka was writing articles in Bratniak, while Magda Modzelewska was involved into editing and publishing”, recalls Anna.
Back cover of Marguerite Duras Kochanek (Siedlce, 1987) Sol.235j. featuring a dedication to female colleagues working in the independent publishing movement.
Any involvement in the opposition’s fight for democracy and freedom of speech involved high risk and intimidation. Secret police employed numerous tactics, including arrests, house searches, sending anonymous letters with false information and all kind of threats. “One day my parents received an anonymous letter informing them that I was under the influence of drug addicts and that [my parents] should put pressure on me to disengage from the opposition. My parents were threatened that they would lose their employment. Also, for me, getting a job was hard, especially locally”, she recollects.
Friendships developed during her involvement with underground publishing, which were based on enormous levels of trust to support the clandestine activities. She reflects upon the fact that most of the people involved in the opposition groups belonged to the intelligentsia: “After Wałęsa joined the movement it was a bit easier to reach the working-class people. But they were being persecuted”.
The fascinating conversation goes on for hours. Initial conclusions drawn from limited research done so far into women in Poland’s ‘second circulation’ go down the drain. And with that emerges a richer picture: that of publishing houses which, although dominated by men, could not have accomplished their mission fully without female efforts around printing and distribution of illegal pro-democratic materials. And so, a brisk December morning spent in a quiet Hampshire town can alone paint a fascinating picture of women working alongside men to help true information reach larger numbers of Poles during the Cold War. Imagine what could more such encounters, and digging deeper into the potential of oral history, bring to surface.
Agata Piotrowska, Doctoral Fellow 2024, Slavonic and East European collections
Further reading:
Wojciech Chojnacki, Marek Jastrzębski, Bibliografia Publikacji Podziemnych w Polsce. Tom Drugi, 01 I 1986 – 31 XII 1987, (Warszawa: 1993). YA.1994.a.5556
Ann M. Frenkel, Paweł Sowiński, Gwido Zlatkes, Duplicator underground: the independent publishing industry in Communist Poland 1976-89, (Bloomington, Indiana: 2016). YD.2017.a.460
Józefa Kamińska (real names: Władysław Chojnacki, Wojciech Chojnacki), Bibliografia Publikacji Podziemnych w Polsce, 13 XII 1981 – VI 1986, (Paris: 1988). 2725.e.184
Shana Penn, Solidarity’s secret: the women who defeated Communism in Poland (Ann Arbor, Michigan: 2005). YC.2007.a.10368
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