06 March 2025
Lidwina van Schiedam: Patron Saint of Ice Skaters and Chronic Illness
Our exhibition Medieval Women, in their own words, closed last weekend after a highly successful run (you can still find information about the topic and view some exhibition highlights here. Something that is also drawing to a close is the 2024-25 ice skating season.
What do these two things have in common? Well, one of the many ‘Spotlights’ in the exhibition was dedicated to Lidwina van Schiedam, patron saint of ice skaters and chronic pain. That too, is a peculiar combination, to say the least. Let me explain.
Lidwina (or Liduina, or Lidewy) van Schiedam is the most famous Dutch saint. Born in Schiedam in 1380, she lived there all her remarkable life until her death in 1433. When her father wanted to marry her off at the tender age of twelve, both Lidwina and her mother resisted. Lidwina even prayed to God to send her an illness that would make her unattractive to suitors. Whether you believe in divine intervention or not, her wish came true. In the winter of 1395, she was out ice skating with friends when she fell and broke a rib.
Lidwina falls on the ice, from Johannes Brugman,Vita Sanctae Lidwinae (1498). IA.48805 (as displayed in the Medieval Women exhibition)
The fracture resulted in an abscess which did not heal and she became increasingly ill. Eventually she became completely bedridden because of her pain. The pain also prevented her from eating and sleeping. She tolerated very little food, and legend has it that she survived on the Host alone. In modern literature this is sometimes referred to as ‘holy anorexia’. Initially, she resented her illness and pains but over time she came to accept them. She used her illness to develop her spiritualism and became a mystic and a healer. She reported having visions and out of body experiences. Following an investigation into her ‘eucharistic vision’, involving Christ taking the form of a host with five wounds hovering above her knees, the Bishop of Utrecht ruled in favour of Lidwina’s account and the veneration of Lidwina increased. She became known outside the bishopric of Utrecht and people flocked to Schiedam to see her for themselves and to seek healing.
The suffering Lidwina’s vision of Christ, from Johannes Brugman, Vita Sanctae Lidwinae
Lidwina died in Holy Week in 1433. A year later the Schiedam council built a chapel over her grave. In addition, attempts were made to canonise her, but the lengthy process was stalled by the Reformation, during which her chapel and grave were destroyed. Some of her relics were saved and after some travels they are now resting in the Liduina Basilica in Schiedam.
In the 15th century four lives of Lidwina were written. The oldest dates from 1434-1436, by Hugo van Rugge, a canon from the St.-Elisabeth monastery in Brielle. Around 1448 Thomas à Kempis wrote his Vita Lidewigis virginis using Rugge’s work. In 1470 the only title written in Middle Dutch appeared. Long believed to have been written by Jan Gerlachsz, a relative of Lidwina, it is now thought not to be by him, although no alternative author has been suggested.
The Institute for Dutch History’s Digitale Vrouwen Nederland database has an entry for Lidwina which mentions a document issued by the City Council of Schiedam on 21 July 1421. By that time Lidwina had been ill for 23 years and the Council had kept a record of her health in great detail. For instance, it lists what she drank in a week: one pint of wine, diluted with water, with sugar and some cinnamon. The original document is lost, but the text was copied by Johannes Brugman in his Vita Sanctae Lidwinae, from 1498 and so it survived. Brugman was a Dutch Franciscan travelling preacher, famous for his rhetorical skills. The phrase ‘To talk like Brugman’ has become an idiom in the Dutch language.
Johannes Brugman preaching, etching by Barent de Bakker, after a drawing by Hermanus Petrus Schouten (1782). Image from Wikimedia Commons.
In the 19th and 20th centuries interest in Lidwina grew. The works by Thomas à Kempis and Johannes Brugman were newly translated with commentary. In 1994 Ludo Jongen and Cees Schotel re-issued a translation and photographic reprint of the Middle-Dutch Vita prior, entitled Het Leven van Liedewij, de maagd van Schiedam.
Cover of Ludo Jongen and Cees Schotel, Het Leven van Liedewij, de maagd van Schiedam (Hilversum, 1994). ZA.9.a.5895(2)
In 2014 Uitgeverij Verloren published a volume containing two separate works: Een bovenaardse vrouw: zes eeuwen verering van Liduina van Schiedam (‘A supernal woman: six centuries of reverence of Liduina van Schiedam’) by Charles Caspers, and a new translation of Thomas a Kempis’ Vita, entitled Het leven van de maagd Liduina (‘The life of the virgin Liduina’).
Charles Caspers, Een bovenaardse vrouw: Zes eeuwen verering van Liduina van Schiedam. (Hilversum, 2014) YF.2015.a.25455.
Koen Goudriaan linked Lidwina to the Brethren of the Common Life, starting from the new insight that the oldest surviving Vita was not written by Brugman, but by Hugo Rugge, who was connected to the Brethern and that places Lidwina in that tradition. (ZA.9.a.10168)
And what about skating? That is nearly at an end. The last major competition in the 2024-25 season will be World Championship Distances in Hamar, Norway, from 13-16 March. Dutch skaters are at the top of the boards, having honed their skills for at least two centuries, looking from the painting of a women’s speed skating race in 1809.
Skating Race for Women on the city canal of Leeuwarden, 21 January 1809, by Nicolaas Bauer. Image from the website of the Rijksmuseum.
Jaap Eden was the first official world champion and over the last twenty years the Dutch have dominated the skating scene. I wonder whether Lidwina is lending a hand.
Hand-coloured photograph of Jaap Eden. Image from Wikimedia Commons
Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections
References/Further reading:
Johannes Brugman, Vita alme virginis Lidwine, ed. A. de Meijer (Groningen 1963) Ac.936.k/3.
‘Vita prior’ ed. Daniël Papebrochius in: Acta sanctorum Aprilis II (Antwerp, 1675) pp. 270-302
Thomas à Kempis, Vita Lidiwigis virginis, ed. Michael Johannes Pohl. Opera omnia vol. 6 (Freiburg, 1905) pp. 315-453. 3706.aa.6.
Thomas à Kempis, Het leven van de heilige maagd Liduina, translated by Rijcklof Hofman (Hilversum, 2014) YF.2015.a.25455.
Koen Goudriaan, ‘Het Leven van Liduina en de moderne devotie’, in: Jaarboek voor Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis (2003) 6, pp. 161-236. ZA.9.a.10168.
Ludo Jongen and Cees Schotel, Leven van Liedewij, een Middelnederlandse vertaling van de Vita prior, waarschijnlijk eerst rond 1470 vervaardigd (Hilversum 1994) ZA.9.a.5895(2). Also available online.
Ludo Jongen, ‘Uit het oog, uit het hart? Over twee heilige maagden: Lutgard en Lidewij’, in: Gouden legenden: Heiligenlevens en heiligenverering in de Nederlanden, ed. Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker and Marijke Carasso-Kok (Hilversum 1997), pp. 127-137. YA.1998.a.6022
Ludo Jongen, Heiligenlevens in Nederland en Vlaanderen (Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 46-53.
J.B.W.M. Möller, Sint Liduina van Schiedam: in de mystiek en in haar tijd (The Hague, 1948) 4823.h.6.
‘Afschrift, gedateerd 1451, van de Schiedamse oorkonde van 21 juli 1421 met een vidimus van Jan van Beieren’, in: H. van Oerle, ‘Tleven van Liedwy die maghet van Scyedam’, Ons geestelijk erf 54 (1980) 3, pp. 241-266. P.101/476
Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (Huygens Instituut, Amsterdam)
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.
27 January 2025
A Balm on so many Wounds: Etty Hillesum’s Diaries 1941-1943
Etty Hillesum in 1939 (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
This year to mark Holocaust Memorial Day we have been looking at diaries and other autobiographical documents. As my colleague Olga Topol writes in her blog post, “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.”
One remarkable example of that resilience are the diaries written by Etty Hillesum in Amsterdam. She acknowledges the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust, but manages to rise above them and does not let the horror dominate her writings. She records the growing evidence of “the interrupted life” around her. She writes it all down, starting on 9 March 1941 and ending on 10 October 1942 with the wish “One should like to be a balm on many wounds.”
She writes very openly about love, sexuality, about her struggle to find God, to root out hatred, including hate towards Germans. More than anything else she wants to serve others. She gets a job at the Jewish Council helping Jewish citizens navigate the laws imposed on them by the German authorities. When the deportations of Jews to the Westerbork transit camp started, she volunteered to accompany them.
Jewish citizens of Amsterdam obey the order they received in the post to come to the Olympiaplein in Amsterdam South to be transported to Westerbork. Image from an edition of Het Verstoorde Leven: Dagboek van Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943 (Bussum, 1983) Blog post author's own copy
Jewish people were told they were going to work in Germany, so many went. Those who didn’t were either taken from their homes or had to go in hiding. Many people did not have the means to hide, and Etty felt she could not abandon them, so she voluntarily went to Westerbork, out of solidarity.
Aerial photo of Westerbork Transit Camp, Drenthe, Netherlands taken in March 1945 (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
At Westerbork she worked as a social worker, which allowed her to travel many times between the camp and Amsterdam. She had ample opportunity to go into hiding to save herself, but she refused to do so. Inevitably, on 7 September 1943, Etty and her family, who had arrived in Westerbork a while earlier, were put on a transport to Auschwitz. One of Etty’s friends who saw her off writes in a letter to friends that Etty was “her normal cheerful self, having a word of encouragement and kindness for all she met”. Etty wrote a postcard to another friend and threw it out of the train. It was found by farmers and posted. It says that “they had left the camp singing”. As soon as they arrived in Auschwitz on 10 September, her parents were sent to the gas chambers. On 30 November the Red Cross reported Etty’s death. Her brother Mischa died on 31 March 1944, and her other brother Jaap died on his way back to the Netherlands after having been liberated from Bergen-Belsen.
Before Etty went to Westerbork she gave her diaries to her friend Maria Tuinzing, who passed them on to a writer, Klaas Smelik. He and his daughter Johanna, who transcribed the diaries, started looking for a publisher for them in 1947. No-one wanted to publish them; they were considered “too philosophical”.
It was only in 1981 that the diaries were published in Dutch as Het verstoorde leven (An Interrupted Life). Since then, interest in and research into Etty Hillesum and her work have only grown. There are conferences, books and two museums; one in her birth town of Middelburg which opened in 2020 and one in Deventer. Translations of the diaries into French, Italian, English, German, Danish and Finnish followed.
Etty Hillesum’s diaries with a page of her handwriting. Reproduced in Judith Koelemeijer, Etty Hillesum: het verhaal van haar leven (Amsterdam, 2022) YF.2023.a.27.
Why not let the diaries speak for themselves?
The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down on the box for a chat, the sun is shining on my face — and right before our eyes, mass murder. The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension. (8 June 1943)
And if there were only one good German, then he would be worthy of protection against the whole barbaric gang and because of that one good German one should not pour one’s hatred onto a whole people. (15 March 1941)
And if God does not help me to go on, then I shall have to help God. — The surface of the earth is gradually turning into one great prison camp, and soon there will be nobody left outside. … I don’t fool myself about the real state of affairs, and I’ve even dropped the pretence that I’m out to help others. I shall merely try to help God as best I can, and if I succeed in doing that, then I shall be of use to others as well. But I mustn't have heroic illusions about that either. (11 June 1942)
Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.
Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Language Collections, specialist Dutch.
References/further reading:
Etty Hillesum, Het verstoorde leven: Dagboek van Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943, 18e druik (Amsterdam, 1986) YA.1988.a.1992 (English Translation by Arnold J. Pomerans, An Interrupted Life: the Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 (London, 1999) YC.2004.a.8709.
Etty Hillesum, Drie brieven van den kunstschilder Johannes Baptiste van der Pluym (1843-1912): met twee reproducties, uitgegeven en van een toelichting voorzien door A.C.G. Botterman-v.d. Pluym. (Apeldoorn, 1917 [i.e. Haarlem, 1943]) Cup.406.b.78. (Letters written to David Koning from Westerbork in 1943 and published clandestinely the same year.)
Philippe Noble, ‘De dagboeken en brieven van Etty Hillesum in Franse vertaling: Het dubbele filter’ In: Filter: tijdschrift over vertalen, Vol. 9, nr 3 (2002) pp. 37-48. YF.2007.a.229
Oord, Gerrit van, ‘Het dagboek van Etty Hillesum in Italië’ (Nijmegen, 2002) In: Filter: tijdschrift over vertalen, Vol. 9, nr 3 (2002) pp. 49-56.
Veel mooie woorden: Etty Hillesum en haar boekje Levenskunst,edited by Ria van den Brandt and Peter Nissen (Hilversum, 2017) YF.2018.a.20211.
Spirituality in the Writings of Etty Hillesum: Proceedings of the Etty Hillesum Conference at Ghent University, November 2008, edited by Klaas A.D. Smelik et al. (Leiden, 2010). Supplements to The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, vol. 11. YD.2012.a.877.
Klaas A.D. Smelik, Reading Etty Hillesum in Context: Writings, Life, and Influences of a Visionary author (Amsterdam, 2018) YD.2018.a.3834
The Lasting Significance of Etty Hillesum’s Writings: Proceedings of the Third International Etty Hillesum Conference at Middelburg, September 2018, edited by Klaas A.D. Smelik (Amsterdam, 2019) YD.2021.a.1416. Also available online free of charge.
Etty: de nagelaten geschriften van Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943, edited by Klaas A.D. Smelik, Gideon Lodders, Rob Tempelaars. 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 1987) YA.1989.a.8106.
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
30 December 2024
Christmas in Scheveningen 1942
On Friday 15 November at the British Library conference European Political Refugees to the UK from 1800, I spoke about a little-known group of ordinary people who travelled to the UK from occupied Netherlands, between 1940 and 1944, called ‘Engelandvaarders’, or ‘England Farers’. It sounds simple enough, but it was a very dangerous undertaking and many did not make it.
One of those whose attempt failed was Binnert Philip de Beaufort (1919-1945)
Binnert Philip de Beaufort (1919-1945), from the fourth edition of his book Kerstmis in Scheveningen (Hilversum, 2021) YF.2022.a.7493.
Binnert had been on a mission to take some important papers to England via the Southern Route, which led from the Netherlands through Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal. Almost a thousand England Farers took this route to England. He set off for England in 1942, but when he arrived in Brussels he was betrayed, arrested and taken back to the Netherlands where he was imprisoned in Scheveningen Prison. This prison held people persecuted by the Nazis: Jews, gay people, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of the resistance. The last group gave the prison its nickname Het Oranjehotel (‘The Orange Hotel’). Oranje refers to the Dutch Royal Family, particularly Queen Wilhelmina, who had taken refuge in London, from where she was one of the leaders of the resistance.
The so-called ‘Oranjehotel’, the prison in Scheveningen. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
It was from the Oranjehotel that 250 prisoners were taken to the dunes, executed and buried there. Binnert knew he was going to be among them. So did his friends outside the prison. They hatched a plan to get him out. Binnert was admitted to a hospital nearby, from where he managed to escape in May 1943. He went into hiding for fourteen months, and this is when he wrote his account of his time in prison, about Christmas 1942. In December 1944 it was published anonymously and clandestinely in Amsterdam by Th. E. Nije as Kerstmis in Scheveningen (‘Christmas in Scheveningen’).
Title page of Kerstmis in Scheveningen (Amsterdam, 1944) X.809.4019.
Nije was a small printers house and publisher, who was acquainted with a larger publishing house, owned by the family with whom Binnert had stayed.
In February 1945 Binnert was walking down the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam when he ran into some German police who shot him. Although he managed to climb onto the rooftops, he fell and died. He was buried in the dunes, amongst many other resistance fighters. This burial place was later made into the Cemetery of Honour in Bloemendaal.
Kerstmis in Scheveningen tells the story of how Binnert became aware of his strong Christian faith. Faced with enormous pressures of the endless interrogations, the hunger and cold and terrible conditions in prison he found strength in the words ‘As long as God is with me, who can be against me?’ Christmas 1942 was very challenging for him. On 23 December the Germans had taken away 500 inmates, including his two cellmates. He did not know where they had been taken. His block was almost empty, and he felt lonely. On Christmas Eve he was again taken for interrogation to the Binnenhof, or Inner Court in the centre of The Hague. His technique of getting through these long hours of questioning was to concentrate on something else, mainly his faith. On the way out of the building he had to pass tables groaning under all sorts of Christmas treats, whilst he had hardly eaten anything. That evening he was at a particularly low point, but his spirits were lifted by the arrival of a new cellmate and Christmas parcels from the Red Cross. After having eaten, Binnert felt inspired to read the Nativity story to his cellmate. However, other prisoners wanted to hear this too. Standing on a little stool so he could talk through an air vent, Binnert found himself preaching a Christmas sermon. Other prisoners told Christmas stories and the evening ended by all of them singing ‘Silent Night’. The carol reverberated throughout the prison. It was a true spiritual experience, and it gave him strength to sit out the next five months, before his escape.
Kerstmis in Scheveningen was printed in 3000 copies. Proceeds went to various resistance groups in support of their work. This was how the publishing of clandestine titles worked. Nearly 1100 individual book titles were printed clandestinely, ‘with much trouble and danger’, as stated on the title page of Kerstmis in Scheveningen. Both amateur and professional printers risked their freedom and indeed their lives in making these books. Some print runs were tiny, around 25 copies, some were large, counting thousands of copies. Their aim was the same: to give the readers hope, as well as to raise funds for the resistance. That is also why not many titles appeared in later editions after the war, but Kerstmis in Scheveningen did see a second edition. In 1945 the publishing house De Bezige Bij (‘The Busy Bee’) published a new edition with a tribute to Binnert. In 1960 a third edition appeared, published by Buskes in Amsterdam and in 2021 a new, fourth edition was published by Verloren, with a prologue and a biography of Binnert by Esther Blom.
Cover of the fourth edition of Kerstmis in Scheveningen
Kerstmis in Scheveningen captures the spirit of those who resisted the Nazi occupation like few other titles. It shines a light on the involvement of young people; some of whom paid with their lives. It is part of a very special collection of almost 600 clandestinely published books held by the British Library.
Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections
Further reading:
Agnes Dessing, Tulpen voor Wilhelmina: de geschiedenis van de Engelandvaarders (Amsterdam, 2004) YF.2005.a.31442.
Dirk de Jong, Het vrije boek in onvrije tijd: bibliografie van illegale en clandestiene bellettrie. (Leiden, 1958) 11926.pp.34.
Anna Simoni, Publish and Be Free: a Vatalogue of Clandestine Books Printed in the Netherlands, 1940-1945, in the British Library (The Hague; London, 1975) 2725.aa.1
01 October 2024
How Bitter the Savour is of Other’s Bread? International Conference on European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800
Join us on Friday 15 November 2024 for the ‘European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800’ conference taking place in Pigott Theatre, Knowledge Centre at the British Library. This one-day in-person event will explore the rich history of political refugees from Europe who sought asylum in the UK from the 19th century onwards. International academics, scholars, and curators will investigate how European diaspora communities have woven themselves into the fabric of British society, fostering intercultural exchange and contributing to the shaping of modern Britain.
‘European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800’ conference poster
The conference is organised by the European Collections section of the British Library in partnership with the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC) London. It will be accompanied by the exhibition ‘Music, Migration, and Mobility: The Story of Émigré Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain’ and by events run by the conference partners.
The event is open to all and attendance is free, but registration is required. Booking details can be found here.
Programme
10:00 Welcome
10:05 Session 1: Artists
Moderator: Olga Topol, British Library
‘Leaving Home’ – Franciszka Themerson and Her Artistic Community in the UK, Jasia Reichardt, Art Critic and Curator
Austrian Musicians and Writers in Exile in the 1930s and 1940s, Oliver Rathkolb, University of Vienna and Vienna Institute of Contemporary and Cultural History and Art (VICCA)
On the Rock of Exiles: Victor Hugo in the Channel Islands, Bradley Stephens, University of Bristol
Music, Migration & Mobility, The Story of Émigré Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain, Norbert Meyn, Royal College of Music, London
12:00 The stone that spoke screening
Introduction by Gail Borrow, ExploreTheArch arts facilitated by EUNIC London
12:15 Lunch
13:00 Session 2: Governments in Exile
Moderator: Valentina Mirabella, British Library
London Exile of the Yugoslav Government during the Second World War and its Internal Problems, Milan Sovilj, Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
The Spanish Republican Exile in Great Britain: General Characteristics and the case of Roberto Gerhard, Mari Paz Balibrea, Birkbeck, University of London
Fascism and anti-fascism in London's 'Little Italy' and Giacomo Matteotti's secret visit to London in 1924, Alfio Bernabei, Historian and Author
14:30 Break
14:45 Session 3: Building Communities
Moderator: Katya Rogatchevskaia, British Library
Tefcros Anthias: poet, writer, activist, and public intellectual in Cyprus and the Cypriot Community in London, Floya Anthias, University of Roehampton, London
The Journeys in Stories: Jewish emigration from Lithuania via United Kingdom, Dovilė Čypaitė-Gilė, Vilna Gaon, Museum of Jewish History, Vilnius University
Political migration from Hungary, 1918-1956, Thomas Lorman, UCL's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London
16:15 Break
16:30 – 17:00 Session 4: Writing Diaspora
Moderator: Anthony Chapman-Joy, Royal Holloway, University of London, British Library
Newspapers published by 19th-century German political exiles in England, Susan Reed, British Library
Clandestine WWII pamphlets, Marja Kingma, British Library
We look forward to welcoming you to the conference in November. In the meantime, we invite you to discover a new display of works by Franciszka Themerson ‘Walking Backwards’, currently on show at Tate Britain, and to explore the history of Lithuanian Jewish immigration to the UK at the annual Litvak Days in London.
26 June 2024
EURO 2024: The Dutch Legion takes over Hamburg
The UEFA European Championships 2024 are underway. The men’s football teams of 24 countries are battling it out for the trophy on various pitches in Germany.
I personally wished there was a trophy for most imaginative football fans. The ‘Dutch Legion’, the nickname for the Dutch Football fans, would have a good chance of winning it. Belying the reputation of the Dutch people for being level-headed, down-to-earth, and with an ‘act-normal-that’s-crazy-enough’ mentality, the Dutch Legion go full ‘Orange Fever’ (a term that seems to have disappeared) by dressing up in crazy costumes in bright orange, with even crazier accessories, usually some sort of head gear, all in orange, with sometimes a smidgen of red, white and blue. They come in their tens of thousands, especially now that the tournament is held so close to the Netherlands. as anyone who watched them marched through Hamburg before their first match against Poland on 16 June will be able to testify. It was their 50th march, so a special event in any case. The English language online newspaper NL Times posted some videos.
Dutch football fans demonstrating their devotion to the colour orange (Photograph from Pinterest)
Why the colour orange? The Dutch flag is red, white and blue, so what’s the ‘Oranje’ doing there? The orange refers to the Dutch Royal family, whose name is Van Oranje-Nassau.
The Nassaus are an old aristocratic family from Germany. The foundations of the family go back to 1403, but it was in 1544 that Rene van Chalon, ruler over the princedom of Orange in France and son of Early Henry III and Claudia of Chalon dies and leaves all his possessions to his nephew William of Orange (1533-1584). William became the founding father of the Oranje-Nassau dynasty. I wonder what William would have made of the Dutch Legion.
William of Orange, from Levinus Ferdinand de Beaufort, Het Leven van Willem de I., Prins van Oranje ... (Leiden, 1732) 1199.f.6-8.
I wrote a blog post about the phenomenon of Dutch fandom four years ago. Meanwhile Ronald Koeman’s Orange Team have reached the next stage, so the Dutch Legion will be out in full force for the next week at least. You can’t miss them. Meanwhile, as you wait for their next match, you can browse through some suggested reading on Dutch (and Belgian) football and footballers from our collections below.
Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections
Further reading:
[Please note that because of the recent cyberattack on the British Library, not all titles are currently available in our reading rooms. The BL is working hard to restore access, and you can find information and updates here.]
Paul Baaijens, Matchday! Op zoek naar het Engels voetbal in Londen. 3rd ed. (Amsterdam, 2017) YF.2018.a.14341
Marco van Basten, Basta: the incredible autobiography of Marco van Basten. (London, 2020) ELD.DS.574874
Dennis Bergkamp, Stillness and Speed: My Story. (London, 2013) YK.2014.a.13494
Sytze de Boer, Johan Cruijff uitspraken: een biografie in citaten. (Amsterdam, 2011). YF.2012.a.34510
Erik Brouwer [et al.], Literatuur met een doel: schrijvers over voetbal, Schrijversprentenboek; 45 (Amsterdam, 2000 (?)) . YA.2000.a.14353
Hugo Borst, O, Louis. 4th edition (Netherlands, 2014) YF.2014.a.19051
Yoeri van den Busken, De Beer van de Meer: biografie Piet Schrijvers (Deventer, 2019) YF.2021.a.7384
Eddy Brimson, God Save the Team: Fighting for Survival at Euro 2000. (London, 2001) YK.2002.a.23192.
Hugo Camps, Bert van Marwijk: het levensverhaal, de werkwijze. (Gouda, 2012) YF.2016.b.160
Sean Crosson, Sport, Film and National Culture. (Abingdon, 2020) ELD.DS.513899
Johan Cruyff / Jaap de Groot, Voetbal. 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 2012) YF.2014.a.18466.
Johan Cruyff, My Turn: the Autobiography. (London, 2016) ELD.DS.97944
Johan Cruyff, 'Nooit iets doen op de normen van een ander': de binnenwereld van Johan Cruijff: 14 waarheden in zijn eigen woorden. (Amsterdam, 2022) YF.2022.a.15091
Nico Dijkshoorn, Nat gras. (Utrecht, 2017) YF.2019.a.1113.
Diable rouge: a British Guide to Belgian Football. (Great Britain, 1994 - ..) RH.9.X.1058.
Michel van Egmond, / Martin Donker (ed), Het pak van Louis van Gaal: voetbalkronieken. (Gouda, 2013) YF.2014.a.19140
Michel van Egmond, Kieft. 13th ed (Gouda, 2014) YF.2015.a.3050
David Endt, Route 32. Een seizoen Ajax. (Amsterdam, 2013) YF.2014.a.15336
Ronald Giphart, Het eeuwige gezeik. (Amsterdam, 2017) YF.2019.a.970
Ruud Gullit, Ruud Gullit : My Autobiography. (London, 1999) YK.2004.a.11512.
Harry Harris, Ruud Gullit: Portrait of a Genius. (London, 2016) ELD.DS.68612.
Gerard den Haan, Gerard den Haan: schoppen & slaan: de slechtste voetballer van Nederland. (Amsterdam, 2017) YF.2018.a.18529
Bert Hiddema, Cruijff, de gouden jaren. 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 2019) YF.2019.a.15682
Koen Jansen, 90 minuten oorlog : de explosieve mix van politiek en het WK voetbal. (Amsterdam,2022) YF.2023.a.76
Dirk Karsdorp, The Complete Belgium FC 1904-2020. (South Humberside, 2020) YKL.2022.a.30666.
Auke Kok, Johan Cruijff: de biografie. (Amsterdam, 2019) YF.2021.a.12466.
Simon Kuper, Dure spitsen scoren niet en andere raadsels van het voetbal verklaard. 5th ed. (Amsterdam, 2012) YF.2014.a.23782
John Langenus, Voetbal van hier en overal ... (Ghent, 1943) X.629/14242
Andy Lloyd-Williams, Robin van Persie: the Biography. (London, 2011) YK.2012.a.9284.
Andy Lloyd-Williams, RVP: the biography of Robin Van Persie. (London, 2013) YKL.2015.a.5018
Johann Mast, Abe: de biografie. (Gorredijk, 2019) YF.2021.a.9709
Maarten Meijer, Erik ten Hag: the Biography. (London, 2022) ELD.DS.732410
Cornelis Gerardus Maria Miermans, Voetbal in Nederland: een onderzoek naar de maatschappelijke en sportieve aspecten = Association Football in the Netherlands ... (Asse, 1955) 7920.c.51
Maarten Moll, Wat een goal! Een kleine canon van het moderne voetbal. (Amsterdam, 2012) YF.2013.a.94
Simon Mugford, De Bruyne rules. (London, 2021) YKL.2023.a.11232.
Simon Mugford, Hazard rules. (London, 2020) YKL.2022.a.23127.
Jan Mulder, Chez Stans: een ster in de Rue des Dominicains, 1965-1972. (Amsterdam, 2010) YF.2012.a.14742
Bert Nederlof, Ronald Koeman. Updated ed. (Gouda, 2017) [on order]
Arthur Numan /Mark Guidi, Oranje and blue: the Arthur Numan story. (Edinburgh, 2006) YK.2007.a.18748.
Pieter van Os, Johan Cruijff: de Amerikaanse jaren. (Amsterdam, 2012) YF.2013.a.678.
Thomas Rijsman, Marokkaanse trots: smaakmakers in de Eredivisie. (Amsterdam, 2020) YF.2021.a.13186
Jaap Stam, Jaap Stam: Head to Head. (London, 2001) YK.2002.a.20603
Finbar van der Veen, Sportman: de biografie van Jan Klaassens. (Deventer, 2019) YF.2021.a.18006
Rob van Vuure, Koeman complete: een gouden carriere in 1000 feiten, quotes en anekdotes. (Deventer, 2024) [On order]
Raf Willems, België, de eerste wereldkampioen voetbal: Rode Duivels winnaar Olympische Spelen Antwerpen 1920. (Noorderwijk, 2019) YF.2021.a.12517
17 May 2024
Continental cookbooks
From 17 May to 3 June 2024, the British Library celebrates its sixth Food Season, with a range of events that highlight the stories, the politics, and the people behind how and why we eat. While practical in their intent, cookbooks offer fascinating insights into the time and place of their production. The British Library’s rich collection of cookbooks provides an engaging way to trace evolving attitudes and tastes that have shaped cuisines and cultures. To mark this year's food season, today’s blog features a selection of some of our favorite cookbooks within the European Collections at the British Library. Bon appetit!
Kuharske Bukve
The first cookbook in Slovene was printed in 1799 as “the beginning of the Slovene cuisine”. It was compiled and edited by Valentin Vodnik, a Slovene poet and journalist. He translated recipes mainly from a variety of German cookery writers and titled his book Kuharske Βukve (Cook Books).
Facsimile reprint of Valentin Vodnik’s 1799 work, Kuharske Βukve (Lublin, 1999) YF.2012.a.5. The original can be seen in the Slovene Digital Library.
The book comprises Vodnik’s introduction on healthy food and translations of 300 recipes arranged in 22 sections: soups; vegetable, meat and poultry dishes; sauces; egg and dairy dishes, fish and seafood dishes; cakes, drinks, etc. Each recipe has a title in Slovene culinary terminology.
This cookbook was printed at a time of important activities to further advance the Slovene language and was also significant for Slovene culinary practice. In his introduction Vodnik posed the questions: “Why would we steal words? Isn't the Slovenian language quite capable?” He stated the basic rules of healthy eating and asserted that “everything from which dishes are cooked must be healthy, and the cooking method must also be healthy”.
Frontispiece of Vodnik’s cookbook with the inscription “Good food for hungry people”
Selected by Milan Grba, Lead Curator of South-East European Collections
__________________________________________________
History on Our Plate: Recipes from America’s Dutch Past for Today’s Cooks
In History on Our Plate, Peter G. Rose describes how some of today’s favourite American staples, such as coleslaw and cookies were introduced by Dutch settlers.
Cover of Peter G. Rose, History on Our Plate: Recipes from America’s Dutch Past for Today’s Cooks (Syracuse, 2019). YK.2021.a.586.
Rose takes inspiration from the earliest (anonymously) published cooking book in the Dutch language: De Verstandige Kock (‘The Sensible Cook’), which also includes De Hollandtse slacht-tydt (‘The Dutch Butchering time’) as well as De verstandige confituurmaker, (‘The Sensible Confectioner’). This highly rated book was often sent to Dutch settlers by their relatives back in the Netherlands.
The title page of De Verstandige Kock (Amsterdam: Marcus Doornick, 1669) 441.b.21.(7.)
Other sources he uses are manuscript (so unpublished) cooking books, written by American / Dutch women. Around 2011 a database was set up to digitise some of these handwritten recipe books, the ‘Manuscript Cookbooks Survey’. Now we can all try out centuries old Dutch /American recipes!
Selected by Marja Kingma, Curator of Dutch Language Collections
_______________________________________________________
Hodēgos mageirikēs kai zacharoplastikēs, aka Tselementes
Authored by chef Nikolaos Tselementes, the 1926 Hodēgos mageirikēs kai zacharoplastikēs was Greece’s first complete cookery book that triggered the modernisation of Greek cuisine with the introduction of European components such as béchamel sauce. The book was so influential that the surname Tselementes is used as a synonym for a cookbook to the present day.
The cover of the 1976 edition Nikolaos Tselementes, Hodēgos mageirikēs kai zacharoplastikēs (Athens, 1976) X.622/2509.
Despite its revolutionising elements, the book reflected the reality of what was still a male-dominated Greek society. In its first few pages, it featured the ‘Decalogue to the Ladies’, an outdated and anti-feminist text written by Carmen Sylva (real name Elisabeth of Wied, first Queen of Romania), which urges the woman - housewife to serve only as ‘queen’ in the kitchen, act as servant to her husband, and be obliged always to agree with, obey, flatter him and, above all, respect his mother whom he had loved first!
The ‘Decalogue to the Ladies’ at the start of Tselementes’s cookbook from the 1976 edition.
Selected by Lydia Georgiadou, Curator of Modern Greek Collections
_________________________________________________________
La cucina futurista
Here is a cookbook you can’t live without. Marinetti’s 1932 Futurist Cookbook challenges the perception of Italian cuisine: everything is subverted, from the order of the courses to the scandalous rejection of pasta. The recipes suggested were actually prepared during ‘futurist’ banquets, gatherings resembling performance art where everything, from the crockery to the sound, was created on purpose. Despite being a satirical work, the application of modern science and technology to gastronomy suggested in the book (ozone generators, UV lamps, nutrient-dense powders) is an innovative element that anticipates today’s molecular cuisine. What never changes is the pleasure of hosting and sitting at the table, sharing a meal and enjoying conviviality.
The cover of F.T. Marinetti and Fillìa, La cucina futurista (Italy, 1932) Cup.408.ww.45.
Selected by Valentina Mirabella, Curator of Romance Collections
_______________________________________________________
Forbidden cuisine: a book about delicious prison food
Lapitsiĭ is a pen name of Andrey Sannikov, a Belarusian oppositionist and a champion of human rights, who stepped into the arena of the 2010 presidential elections, challenging the entrenched power of Alexander Lukashenko. The aftermath of that fateful election was nothing short of a whirlwind: Sannikov found himself imprisoned, a captive of his convictions, after taking part in a demonstration organised by the opposition. The walls closed in, and for 16 months, his voice was silenced, but his spirit remained unbroken.
Cover of Zapreshchennaia kukhnia: Kniga o vkusnoĭ tiuremnoĭ pishche (Warsaw, 2023) YF.2023.a.24545
In the depths of captivity, Sannikov grappled with the stark reality of losing more than just his physical freedom. The very act of choosing what to eat — a simple, everyday privilege — was dictated by others. Hunger became a harsh reminder of his constrained existence, a tool used to bend the will of the incarcerated. Food, often bland and scarce, became a canvas for creativity. In the face of deprivation, inmates concocted imaginative variations of borscht, herring beneath a fur coat salad, and layered birthday cakes. For them, ‘cooking is a territory of freedom,’ a small triumph of choice and creativity amid confinement.
A prison cell with a table set for a meal, illustration from Zapreshchennaia kukhnia
And so emerged Zapreshchennaia kukhnia: Kniga o vkusnoĭ tiuremnoĭ pishche (‘Forbidden cuisine: a book about delicious prison food’) —a symbol of resilience and defiance. Beyond a mere meal, food became an act of rebellion, an assertion of their humanity. In these culinary creations, born out of necessity and ingenuity, lay the embodiment of the most imaginative and delicious declaration of independence.
Potato soup from Zapreshchennaia kukhnia.
Selected by Olga Topol, Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections
03 May 2024
In a whirlwind of change. The European Writers’ Festival returns to the British Library
European studies blog recent posts
- Lidwina van Schiedam: Patron Saint of Ice Skaters and Chronic Illness
- For the Love of Books: European Collections at the British Library Doctoral Open Days
- European Collections: From Antiquity to 1800 – Uncovering Rare Books at the British Library Doctoral Open Days
- A Balm on so many Wounds: Etty Hillesum’s Diaries 1941-1943
- New Year, Old Years: a Look Back
- Christmas in Scheveningen 1942
- How Bitter the Savour is of Other’s Bread? International Conference on European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800
- EURO 2024: The Dutch Legion takes over Hamburg
- Continental cookbooks
- In a whirlwind of change. The European Writers’ Festival returns to the British Library
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