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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References/further reading:

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

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

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

One of Germany’s great contributions to garden history, the Hortus Eystettensis, a magnificent 17th-century catalogue of the Bishop of Eichstätt’s garden, is on display in our current exhibition Unearthed: the Power of Gardening, in a splendid hand-coloured edition. Unfortunately, there was no room in the exhibition for another of Germany’s great contributions to garden history: the garden gnome (or garden dwarf, ‘Gartenzwerg’, as they are known in Germany). So I thought I would give the humble gnome a brief moment in the British Library sun.

For something often sneered at as ‘common’, the garden gnome has some surprisingly aristocratic forebears. In the 17th century noble families in German-speaking Europe began to decorate the gardens of their palaces with sculptures of caricatured dwarfs, based on the engravings of Jacques Callot; some of the most famous are in the Mirabell Palace Gardens in Salzburg. Both Callot’s engravings and the sculptures they inspired probably took inspiration from the ‘court dwarfs’ employed in European royal households as fools and curiosities in the 16th and 17th centuries.

One of the dwarf sculptures in the  Mirabell Palace Gardens, Salzburg (photo: Susan Reed)

It was probably this sort of sculpture that Goethe was thinking of when he mentioned garden gnomes in his epic poem Hermann und Dorothea. In one section of the poem, a local apothecary laments the fact that his garden with its rustic wooden fences, grottos, gilded furnishings, and ‘stone beggars and colourful dwarfs’ has gone out of fashion, replaced in popularity by ‘tasteful’ smooth lawns and white benches. This suggests that by the late 18th century dwarf sculptures had become as much a bourgeois as an aristocratic trend and that, like garden gnomes today, they were increasingly seen as a sign of old-fashioned (and indeed bad) taste.

It’s not quite certain whether there’s a direct link between these baroque dwarfs and the red-capped gnomes we’re more familiar with today, but it’s certainly believable that the idea of comical miniature garden figures was inspired by the earlier fashion. The garden gnomes that started to be mass produced in Germany in the mid-19th century also had roots in northern European folklore, recalling the legendary creatures – sometimes benevolent, sometimes malign – that worked in the mines or as household spirits. The Romantic movement’s ‘rediscovery’ of folk and fairy tales no doubt influenced the desire to decorate houses and gardens with such folkloric figures.

Gnomes from Scandiavian folklore working in a mine and a stable, from Olaus Magnus, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus ... (Rome, 1555)  432.k.18.

It was the aristocracy again that played a part in bringing the gnome to Britain. Dwarfs were among the wooden carvings made in Switzerland and the Black Forest region which were popular as souvenirs with British travellers in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and when stone and plaster figures began to be made, they too were brought home. In 1847 the Victorian Baronet Sir Charles Isham built a rock garden in the grounds of his home which he populated with gnomes acquired from Nuremberg, and other wealthy landowners created similar displays. However, as if to prove that there is always a backlash to the popularity of gnomes, Isham’s daughters allegedly destroyed his collection after his death by shooting at them with air rifles.

Pages from a catalogue of gnomes and other figures offered for sale in the 19th century by the firm of Ludwig Möller in Erfurt (image from Wikimedia Commons)

Gnomes achieved wide popularity both in Germany and abroad in the later 19th century and a whole gnome-making industry grew up, especially in the Thuringian town of Gräfenroda. German gnome manufacturers, some of which survive to this day, issued catalogues of gnomes in all sorts of poses and carrying various tools and other accoutrements. Initially many held mining tools, reflecting the folkloric association with mines, but as the association with gardens developed these were often replaced by wheelbarrows, rakes and the like. After the First World War there was a slight dip in the popularity of gnomes among Germany’s wartime enemies, but this did not last, and gnomes were given a further boost after 1937 by Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

However, gnomes did slide down the social scale again, coming to be seen as examples of kitschy bad taste. With a few exceptions, they have famously been banned from the Chelsea Flower Show for most of its existence, and they are an easy literary symbol for small-minded suburbia. Ingeborg Wendt’s novel Die Gartenzwerge (Hamburg, [1960]; F10/0768), for example, is a story of small-town politics in which the hapless and compromised protagonist is a garden gnome manufacturer. Similarly, the stories in Jacques-Étienne Bovard’s collection Nains de Jardin (Yvonand, 1996; YA.1997.a.14873) satirise the complacency of bourgeois Swiss life, and the book’s blurb suggests that ‘the garden gnome is in each of us who carry it as a permanent attraction to all forms of mediocrity.’

A garden gnome in Brazil, from Orlando Azevedo, Jardim de anões (Curituba, 1992) YD.2023.a.386 

Nonetheless, gnomes are still going strong, and since the late 20th century have increasingly been available in novel forms such as ‘rude’ gnomes (mooning, flashing etc.) and gnomes caricaturing politicians and other public figures. There’s even some cultural love for gnomes as evidenced by the museums, websites and festivals dedicated to them. Portuguese photographer Orlando Azevedo was so delighted to find them in gardens in southern Brazil, originally brought by Polish and German immigrants, that he made a project of photographing them. The gnomes get a chance to strike back in Norman Collins’s curious novel Little Nelson which depicts a Britain terrorised by a garden gnome revolt. And gnomes were awarded their own Google doodle in 2018.

Title page of Norman Collins, Little Nelson: a Tale for Adults and other Children (London, 1981; X.950/18826)

Finally, there’s the concept of the ‘travelling gnome’, where people take garden gnomes on their holidays and photograph them next to famous sights. This was popularised by the 2001 French film Amélie where the main character steals her father’s garden gnome and gets a flight attendant friend to take such pictures of it which she then sends to her father to encourage him to travel himself. Perhaps we’ll even see some travelling gnomes popping up at the British Library while Unearthed is still running!

Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections

References/further reading:

Baslilus Belser, Hortus Eystettensis, sive diligens et accurata omnium plantarum, florum, stirpium, ex variis orbis terræ partibus, singulari studio collectarum, quæ in celeberrimis viridariis arcem episcopalem ibidem cingentibus, hoc tempore conspiciuntur, delineatio et ad vivum repræsentatio ([Altdorf], 1613) 10.Tab.29.

Dieter Pesch, Zwerge, Hofzwerge, Gartenzwerge. Eine Genealogie des Gartenzwerges. Ausstellung im Niederrheinischen Freilichtmuseum, Grefrath, 2. September-28. Oktober 1973 (Grefrath-Dorenburg, 1973) X.0419/31.(1.)

Günther Bauer, Barocke Zwergenkarikaturen von Callot bis Chodowiecki (Salzburg, 1991) YA.1995.b.10647

Günther Bauer, Salzburger Barockzwerge: das barocke Zwergentheater des Fischer von Erlach im Mirabellgarten zu Salzburg (Salzburg, 1989) YA.1993.a.24163

Twigs Way, Garden Gnomes: a History (Oxford, 2009) YK.2011.a.18247

Martin Cornwall, The Complete Book of the Gnome (Basingstoke, 1987) LB.31.b.14936

Dieter Hanitzsch/Rolf Cyriax, Der wunderbare Gartenzwerg: eine notwendige Kulturgeschichte mit Bildern (Munich, 1981) L.42/1758

Earlier in May we opened the exhibition Unearthed, The Power of Gardening at the British Library. The exhibition, of which I am a co-curator, explores and celebrates the social and political history of gardening in British history and how gardening can be a force for change. It has been a great opportunity to showcase some of the British Library’s botanical and horticultural treasures, and curating it made me think of Italian collection items that could well dialogue with some of the exhibits.

Trees

Planting trees is one of the most sustainable things that we can do for the environment, as they play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. The exhibition shows The Crafte of Graffynge and Plantynge of Trees, one of the earliest publications about planting and propagating trees, printed during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Title page of The Crafte of Graffynge and Plantynge of Trees (London, 1518. C.122.bb.42.)

I would have shown it next to L’architettura degli Alberi, a botanical drawing masterwork written and illustrated by landscape architects Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi over 20 years. It features 212 tree species hand drawn with and without foliage and with tables of seasonal colour variation. It has been defined ‘a Bible for tree lovers’ and is an essential tool for planning gardens and integrating trees in the urban landscape.

Pages from L’architettura degli Alberi (Milan, 2018) Awaiting shelfmark

The Garden City

Unearthed, The Power of Gardening looks at the pioneering ideas of Ebenezer Howard, who put forward the idea of garden cities in this 1898 book To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Howard wanted to create new planned communities across Britain that established a ‘joyous union of town and country’ and his ideas have influenced urban planning ever since.

Plan of an ideal garden city from Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform (London, 1898) 08275.i.25.

One of the most recent developments on the concept of garden city is Fitopolis, la città vivente, a book by neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso, that envisions a future where cities are transformed into ‘living cities’ integrated with nature. Mancuso proposes a radical shift from current urban models, emphasizing the importance of incorporating plants and nature into urban spaces.

Fitopolis, la città vivente (Bari, 2024) Awaiting shelfmark

The Botanical Garden

The botanical gardens at Kew and Calcutta, as well as those of Mary Somerset, are described in a section titled Gardening and the global exchange, as places to display plant knowledge and the British Empire’s botanical advancements from the 18th century onwards. The map below shows how Kew Gardens originated as gardens of separate royal residences in Richmond and Kew, which merged at the time when it was produced, under the rule of King George III. The gardens continued developing to host the ‘largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world’.

The Royal Gardens of Richmond and Kew (1771) Maps.K.Top.41.16.k.2.TAB.

This made me think of the oldest surviving botanical garden in the world, in Padua. The first Orto dei Semplici (the garden of ‘simples’, where the simples are the principles derived from medicinal plants) was built in 1545 by the Venetian Republic, to grow medicinal and exotic plants, and to teach students at the University of Padua how to use them.

The 1591 book which describes L’Horto de i Semplici di Padoua comes from Sir Hans Sloane’s personal library. It illustrates the garden’s unique design, still unchanged nowadays, and lists all the plants included. The original design consists of a central circumference, symbolizing the world, surrounded by a ring of water. A square is inscribed in the circumference, divided into four units by orthogonal paths, oriented according to the main cardinal directions. This shape is a representation of the universe adopted since ancient times and recalls the scheme of the ideal city of the Renaissance.

L’Horto de i Semplici di Padoua, oue si vede primieramente la forma di tutta la pianta con le sue misure (Venice, 1591) 972.b.3.(1.)

These two examples show how the concept of ‘botanical garden’ can be interpreted in different ways. I hope this blog makes you want to visit the exhibition and think of how old and new foreign language books can tell many more stories around the theme of gardening.

Valentina Mirabella, Curator, Romance Collections

Unearthed, The Power of Gardening is at the British Library until 10 August 2025.