14 November 2024
Marx versus Kinkel – a tale of two newspapers
On 15 November we are hosting a conference on European Political exiles and émigrés in Britain. This is one of a series of blog posts on the same topic. Conference details can be found here. Attendance is free, but registration is required.
If you were asked to name the most famous German political refugee in 19th-century Britain, you’d probably choose Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels. But at the time, Marx and Engels were comparatively little known outside a relatively small faction of communists. In wider émigré circles and among the British public, a far more familiar name was that of Gottfried Kinkel, an academic, writer and revolutionary who had arrived in London in November 1850 after making a dramatic escape from Spandau prison.
Gottfried Kinkel in the early 1860s (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Marx would no doubt be delighted to know that his fame today far eclipses Kinkel’s because he thoroughly despised Kinkel, considering him to be a self-aggrandising third-rate writer and thinker. And since Marx was never one to nurse his dislikes quietly, his letters and other writings, especially the posthumously-published Die großen Männer des Exils (Heroes of the Exile) are full of vitriol against Kinkel and his allies.
While Marx’s dismissal of Kinkel’s work was doubtless based on genuine conviction, it’s not hard to see an element of envy there too. In the decade following his arrival in London, Kinkel began to make quite a name for himself as a teacher and lecturer, and was respected by other revolutionary exiles, especially those of the middle class, in a way that Marx could only dream of. At the end of the 1850s, Marx’s loathing would be further exacerbated when both men became involved with newspapers.
First Issue of Kinkel’s newspaper Hermann, 8 January 1859. NEWS14565
In 1859 Kinkel founded a newspaper for Germans in London, naming it Hermann, after the ancient Germanic leader who defeated the Roman army. Hermann did not appear in a vacuum. Various German papers had been published in London since 1812 in an attempt to serve a growing German community and the arrival of political exiles after 1848 had led to a number of new Anglo-German newspapers with a more radical slant, most of them short lived as was the case with many such ventures. A few issues of Marx’s own Neue Rheinische Zeitung (‘New Rhenish Journal’) had been edited from London in 1850, but Marx had been involved with later London titles as a contributor rather than an editor. Now, with Kinkel promoting his own newspaper (which Marx and Engels cynically referred to as ‘Gottfried’), Marx felt more strongly the need for a similar platform of his own.
First issue of Das Volk, 7 May 1859. NEWS14239
A solution appeared in the form of Das Volk (‘The People’). This was founded in May 1859 by the Communist Workers’ Educational Association to replace a previous title, Die neue Zeit (‘The New Age’) which had recently folded. Again, Marx was initially only a contributor, but he very much approved of the paper (and of its strong opposition to Kinkel) and gradually sought to increase his influence on it. Although never officially its editor, he was effectively carrying out the role by mid-July, with Engels helping the venture financially. As Das Volk became increasingly a mouthpiece for Marx’s ideas it began to lose readers, and it closed in August. Marx, with typical self-confidence, blamed the paper’s demise on its readers’ failure to appreciate the quality of his work. He was also convinced that Kinkel was deliberately working to sabotage potential rivals to Hermann.
Whether by fair means or foul, Hermann certainly thrived. Kinkel’s name was seen as a guarantee of quality to many fellow exiles as well as to other Germans immigrants and even to some British readers. Although the paper promoted broadly liberal politics, it also reported on arts and culture and, crucially, on the activities of German clubs, organisations and institutions in Britain. Das Volk had initially also covered the latter, but this declined under Marx’s control, alienating readers who wanted a more general newspaper for their community. Kinkel and Herrmann also made much of the celebrations in November 1859 of Friedrich Schiller’s centenary, an event that transcended political allegiances and helped unite Germans in Britain in a show of cultural pride.
Illustrated page from Hermann issue 44, 12 November 1859, with portraits of Schiller’s parents and wife as part of an article about the 1859 London Schiller Festival
Hermann would survive, under different editors and with changes in its political direction, into the 20th century, the longest run of any Anglo-German newspaper. Only the ban on German publishing in Britain on the outbreak of war in 1914 put an end to its appearance.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
References/further reading:
Christine Lattek, Revolutionary Refugees: German Socialism in Britain, 1840-1860 (London, 2006) YC.2007.a.3912
Susan Reed, ‘A modest sentinel for German interests in England: The Anglo-German Press in the Long Nineteenth Century’ in Stéphanie Prévost and Bénédicte Deschamps (eds.), Immigration and Exile Foreign-Language Press in the UK and the US: Connected Histories of the 19th and 20th Centuries (London, 2024) [Not yet catalogued]
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.
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.)
19 August 2024
Religious Metaphors in French Caricature from 1870-71 (Part 1)
The British Library’s collection of Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune caricatures (shelfmarks 14001.g.41, Cup.648.b.2, Cup.648.b.8) exemplifies how artists from a variety of diverse national, political and cultural backgrounds engaged with l’année terrible.
Broadly speaking, 1870-71 prints can be split into two formats. Single-sheet images produced by small teams of editors and artists were sold on the street, pasted onto buildings and displayed in shop windows. On the other hand, pre-existing publishing houses – including those which produced weekly satirical journals, like Le Charivari (1832-1937), designed sets with print collectors in mind. This latter form was adorned with title pages, and arguably maintained a higher artistic sophistication. Artists did not limit themselves to just one category: for instance, Faustin Betbeder (1848-1914), who claimed that his first single-sheet image sold more than 50,000 copies, also created multiple sets during 1870-71, several of which can be found in the BL’s collections.
Both formats touched on the same topics. For example, references to Christianity shaped both single sheets and co-ordinated sets. Their use most frequently relied on the ironic comparison of biblical figures or parables with their contemporary parallels. The BL’s fifth volume (14001.g.41) holds a set of three images which each parody three scenes from the Bible immortalised in famous works of art. The first, drawn by F. Mathis, is a spoof of Leonardo’s Last Supper mural.
F. Mathis, La Nouvelle Cène (The New Last Supper), (Paris, 1871) Volume 5 14001.g.41.
It is an almost stroke-for-stroke reproduction, but for the substitution of Jesus and John with figures wearing a Phrygian-cap and an allegory of Paris, respectively. Further, Jesus’s apostles are replaced by figures of the twelve members of the ephemeral and unpopular Government of National Defence, which led France following the fall of the Second Empire in September 1870 until a new government was formed by Adolphe Thiers (the bespectacled figure on the far left of Mathis’s print, ominously peeping through the door) in February 1871.
The gesticulating guests at Leonardo’s Last Supper respond to Jesus’s proclamation that one of his disciples will soon betray him. Conversely, La Nouvelle Cène (‘The New Last Supper’) insinuates that all of the members of this flimsy government will betray France – if they had not already. Paris suffered under a winter of Prussian siege, before the government capitulated in late January. To make matters worse, their humiliation was ratified by the signing of a peace treaty which included the secession of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, a significant war indemnity, and a Prussian military march through Paris – augmenting an already biblical sense of betrayal. This theme was central to the set’s second print, in which Jules Favre plays the familiar role of Judas Iscariot, again drawn by Mathis.
The final print from the set, this time drawn by Charles Vernier (1813-92), is a little more complex. Though still a send-up of a famous Italian painting of a biblical scene – Paolo Veronese’s The Wedding Feast at Cana , hung in the Louvre – Vernier mixes the story of Jesus’s first miracle, the turning of water into wine, with the narrative of a popular French song Le Baptême du p’tit ébéniste (‘The Baptism of the li’l ebonist’).
Paolo Veronese, Nozze di Cana (The Wedding Feast at Cana), (Venice, 1563), (Picture from Wikimedia Commons)
The scene is transformed from a wedding to a baptism, that of the latest French Republic (the Third, which lasted until 1940), with a couplet from the song in the image’s caption noting how France is like ‘a bouquet of flowers’ – in other words, that is made up of many colourful – and contradictory – parts.
Jesus is replaced by Thiers holding the baby Republic aloft, while monarchs of Europe, including Süleyman the Magnificent and Mary I of England from Verones’s painting are exchanged for representatives of various contemporary French political currents. These include the deposed Emperor Napoleon III, several of the aforementioned National Government of Defence, and even a pétroleuse – that mythical figure in anti-Communard discourse who had apparently delighted in setting Paris alight in the final days of May 1871.
Noces de Cana, (Paris, 1871) Volume 5 14001.g.41.
Single sheet images designed for public consumption and debate were not below making biting allusions to religious iconography to mock political figures during 1870-1. The most popular trope, inevitably, was drawing any of the members of the National Government of Defence as Judas.
Other prints were more erudite. An obvious example from the BL’s second volume at 14001.g.41 is A. Baudet-Bauderval’s Une fuite en Egypte en passant par la Prusse (‘A flight to Egypt via Prussia’), the seventh print of Grognet’s 87-strong Actualités (‘Current Events’). The set was printed unevenly from the outbreak of the war to the final days of the Commune – sometimes publishing as many as ten images in a single day – and comprised several artists, meaning the sets had little ideological or topical coherency.
A. Baudet-Bauderval, Une Fuite en Egypte en passant par la Prusse (A Flight to Egypt via Prussia), (Paris, 1870) Volume 2 14001.g.41.
Following his surrender at the Battle of Sedan in early September 1870, Napoleon III was taken prisoner at Wilhelmshöhe Castle in Kassel. Shortly after news of his capitulation reached Paris, the Empress Eugénie and their son Louis fled the city. In Baudet-Bauderval’s sketch, the imperial family replicate the flight of Christianity’s holy family to Egypt – another popular artistic motif, perhaps most famously rendered by Giotto at the Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padua.
Despite its hasty construction – and its design to invite public consumption over private collection – Une fuite en Egypte includes a subtle yet ingenious attack. The Emperor and his son wear two large yellow hats which resemble sombreros, the wide-brimmed hat typically associated with Mexico. This addition not only lampoons the halos which crown the imperial family in Giotto’s Flight to Egypt, but also imbricates a mockery of the Emperor’s disastrous campaign to install a French-friendly monarchy in Mexico, a failure itself famously memorialised by Édouard Manet’s Execution of Maximilian.
In the aftermath of the War and the Commune, partisans of the Church claimed that the disasters of 1870-71 were the inevitable result of the anti-clericalism which coursed through some strands of French radicalism and the materialistic opulence of the Second Empire. Yet religious metaphors, iconography and scenes, particularly those preserved in art, could just as easily be employed by satirical artists to mock the powerful throughout 1870-71.
Anthony Chapman-Joy, CDP Student at the British Library and Royal Holloway
Further reading:
Hollis Clayson, Paris in Despair: Art and Everyday Life Under Siege (London, 2002), YC.2002.a.15995
Morna Daniels, ‘Caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Paris Commune’, Electronic British Library Journal, (2005), pp. 1-19
John Milner, Art, War and Revolution in France, 1870-1871 (London, 2000), LB.31.b.19108
Bertrand Tillier, La Commune de Paris: Révolution sans images? (Paris, 2004), YF.2004.a.14526
02 August 2024
Divided by Politics – ‘United’ by Sport? The German Unified Olympic Team
In 1936 Germany hosted what would be the last Olympic Games before the Second World War, an event that became infamous as a showcase for Nazi Germany. At the first Games after the war (1948) Germans were banned from participating, but in 1950 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) formally recognised a new German National Olympic Committee, paving the way for German participation in the 1952 Games.
However, there was one major problem: by 1950 there were officially two German states, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the West and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East. The FRG had founded the Olympic Committee and claimed that it represented the whole of Germany, in keeping with its policy of not recognising the GDR as a legitimate state. The GDR quickly set up their own National Olympic Committee and also sought recognition from the IOC, but this was refused. Instead, the IOC suggested that the two states should form a single committee and compete as a single team, but NOC members on both sides, under political pressure from their governments, refused, and only West Germany took part in the 1952 Games. (Although the Saarland, later to become part of the FRG but in 1952 a French Protectorate, also competed for the only time as a separate entity.)
The IOC, and in particular its new Chairman, Avery Brundage, felt that the situation in 1952 went against the ‘Olympic spirit’ of international and apolitical camaraderie in sport. In the years leading up to the 1956 Games they sought a solution. In 1954 the East German NOC was given provisional recognition on the understanding that the two German states would still compete as a single team. This time both sides accepted the compromise, and in 1956 what later became known as the ‘Unified German Team’ took part as ‘Germany’ in both the summer and winter Olympics.
Members of the East and West German Olympic Committees during negotiations over the 1956 Games. From Grit Hartmann, Brigitte Berendonk, Goldkinder: die DDR im Spiegel ihres Spitzensports (Leipzig, 1997) YA.2000.a.19519
This may have solved one problem, but it threw up several others, including that of which flag and anthem the team would use. The flag issue was not initially too hard to solve since in 1956 both countries used the same black red and gold tricolour as their national flag, but by 1960 the GDR had superimposed its national emblem of a hammer and compass in a garland of corn onto its flag. After some wrangling, it was agreed that from then on the team would compete under a German tricolour with the Olympic rings displayed in white in the central red panel. Meanwhile, the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was chosen as the anthem for the team. Team members were selected in qualification competitions held in both Germanies, and it was agreed that the state with the highest number of qualifying athletes would provide the team’s ‘Chef de Mission’ and flag-bearer.
The flag of the German Unified Team, used at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
When the Unified Team first appeared at the 1956 Olympics, Brundage triumphantly declared that in uniting the two German states in this way, the IOC had “succeeded where the politicians could not”. He would continue to express similar sentiments throughout the lifetime of the Unified Team, but the reality for German politicians, athletes and fans was somewhat different. Politicians in both East and West Germany tried to use participation in the Games to promote their own ends. For the FRG this was primarily to boost its the claim to be the only legitimate German state; conversely, for the GDR it was to gain recognition on the international stage. On the personal level too, the Unified Team was far from united. The athletes from East and West generally lived and trained separately in the Olympic villages and had little personal contact. Sports fans, used to watching the two Germanies compete as rivals in other situations, probably felt a closer allegiance to their own athletes than to those of the other state or to any concept of a united Germany.
The German Unified Team at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-C1012-0001-026 / Kohls, Ulrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
This separation grew more marked over the years as the political situation between the two states deteriorated. Uta Andrea Bailer, writing about the Unified Team, describes its history as “also the history of the continued drifting apart of the two German states.” By 1964 this had come to a head following the building of the Berlin Wall three years earlier. In a dissertation on the team, Eike Birck quotes West German Olympic skier Rita Czech-Blasel: “Who came up with this crazy idea? A ‘unified German team’! The Communists put up a wall, finally chopped Germany in half, and we athletes were supposed to act as if it was all sweetness and light ...” Also in 1964, for the first time the GDR had more qualifiers for the Games, giving them the coveted post of Chef de Mission, something seen in the FRG as a serious humiliation.
Cover of Matthias Fink, Das NOK der DDR - zwischen Olympia und Politik: die olympische Bewegung der DDR im Spannungsfeld der deutsch-deutschen Geschichte 1945-1973 (Göttingen, 2012) YF.2015.a.21269
In the following years, the IOC bowed to the inevitable. In 1965 the East German NOC was given full recognition, and in 1968 a separate East German team competed, although they were still required to use the flag and anthem of the Unified Team. By 1972 the separation was complete and both the FRG (the host of that year’s summer games) and the GDR competed as separate countries under their own flags. It was around this time that the GDR began the state-sanctioned doping programme that brought spectacular Olympic success throughout the 1970s and 80s but had devastating effects on the lives and health of East German athletes.
In 1992 a single German team once more appeared at the Olympics, but this time it was representing a newly politically unified Germany. Despite Brundage’s hopes of sport achieving what politics could not, it was in the end politics that brought German Olympians truly together again.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
References/further reading
Uta A. Balbier, Kalter Krieg auf der Aschenbahn: der deutsch-deutsche Sport, 1950-1972: eine politische Geschichte (Paderborn, 2007) YF.2007.a.31226. Also available online at https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00052124_00044.html
Uta A. Balbier, ‘“Flaggen, Hymnen und Medaillen”. Die gesamtdeutsche Olympiamannschaft und die kulturelle Dimension der Deutschlandpolitik.’ In: Susanne Muhle, Hedwig Richter und Juliane Schütterle (ed.), Die DDR im Blick: ein zeithistorisches Lesebuch. (Berlin, 2008), pp. 201-209. YF.2010.a.1880. Also available online at https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/sites/default/files/uploads/files/2021-06/balbier_flaggen_hymnen_und_medaillen_ddr_im_blick.pdf
Christian Becker, Edelfrid Buggel, Wolfgang Buss, Der Sport in der SBZ und frühen DDR: Genese, Strukturen, Bedingungen (Schorndorf, 2001) YA.2003.a.25310
Eike Birck, Die gesamtdeutschen Olympiamannschaften – eine Paradoxie der Sportgeschichte (Doctoral dissertation, University of Bielefeld, 2013) https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/download/2638227/2638228/Dissertation_Eike_Birck.pdf
Horst Geyer, Olympische Spiele 1896-1996: ein deutsches Politikum (Münster, 1996) YA.1999.a.12770
Juliana Lenz, Zwischen Politik, Protokoll und Pragmatismus: die deutsche Olympiageschichte von 1952 bis 1972 (Berlin, 2011) YF.2013.a.15633 (Original dissertation available online at https://rosdok.uni-rostock.de/resolve/id/rosdok_disshab_0000002138)
David Maraniss, Rome 1960: the Olympics that changed the world (New York, 2008) m08/.26791
21 June 2024
Miracles and Fairy Tales: some German Football Stories
Cover of Sönke Wortmann & Christoph Biermann, Deutschland, ein Sommermärchen: ein WM-Tagebuch (Cologne, 2006) YF.2008.a.38179
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
Further reading:
Ulrich Kühne-Hellmessen & Gregor Derichs, Steht auf, wenn ihr Deutschland seid: die Geschichte eines weltmeisterlichen Sommertraums (Zürich, 2006) YF.2012.b.756
05 June 2024
Seminar on Textual Bibliography for Modern Foreign Languages 2024
31 August 2023
Women in Translation Month 2023
August is Women in Translation Month, an initiative that celebrates and promotes literature by women from around the world in English translation. As in past years, members of our team have picked some titles to recommend. We hope they will inspire you!
Heda Margolius Kovály, Under a Cruel Star: a Life in Prague 1941-1968, translated from the Czech by Franci Epstein and Helen Epstein with the author (London, 2021) YK.2012.a.24219
Chosen by Alice Pappon, British Library Trainee
Under a Cruel Star memoirs the life of author Heda Margolius Kovály who was born in Prague in 1919. In describing her experiences living in Auschwitz and Communist Czechoslovakia, this memoir offers a magnificent and raw account of human endurance in the face of the most brutal atrocities. Kovály provides a chilling recollection of operating under constant scrutiny and suspicion from the Communist regime and a life of constantly looking over one’s shoulder. This book was first published in 1973 with a British edition published the same year under the title I Do Not Want to Remember (X.809/18317). It has since been re-translated by Franci and Helen Epstein who worked with Kovály herself to capture the truest version of the author’s experience.
J.S. Margot, Mazel Tov: the Story of my Extraordinary Friendship with an Orthodox Jewish Family, translated by Jane Hedley-Prôle (London, 2020 ) ELD.DS.484114
Chosen by Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections (Dutch and Flemish Languages)
Margot Vanderstraeten’s memoir Mazel Tov (published in English under the name J.S. Margot) was one of the books in the goody bag at the launch in April this year of ‘Flip Through Flanders’, the campaign to promote translated Flemish literature in the UK. It is the story of the author as a student in 1987, when she tutored the children of an orthodox Jewish family in Antwerp. These people could almost not have been more different from herself. She knows nothing of Jewish orthodox culture, which leads to some embarrassing moments. Her having an Iranian boyfriend doesn’t help either. However, over time both parties come to understand and appreciate each other more and they even become friends. It is a story about identity and coming of age that feels very uplifting.
Mazel Tov is translated by Jane Hedley-Prôle who has translated books from Dutch into English for over ten years.
Petra Procházková, Freshta, translated by Julia Sherwood (London, 2012). H.2014/.5570.
Chosen by Olga Topol, Curator Czech, Slavonic and East European Collections
Petra Procházková is a Czech war correspondent, humanitarian worker and journalist, recipient of Medal of Merit awarded by President Václav Havel. She is known for her in-depth interviews with women struggling to survive in conflict-ridden areas of the post-Soviet world. Procházková covered news from Abkhazia, Ossetia, Georgia, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. For reporting on the atrocities of Chechen War, she was forbidden to enter Russia for many years. In her novel Freshta, set in Afghanistan before the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Procházková explores Afghan culture following Herra, a Russian-Tajik woman who falls in love with an Afghan man. Colourful characters, and a sensitivity towards local culture and customs gained through the author’s personal experience, make Procházková’s book a captivating read.
Kathrin Rohmann, Apple Cake and Baklava, illustrated by Franziska Harvey, translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (London, 2018) YKL.2019.a.17272
Chosen by Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
Kathrin Rohmann’s children’s story Apple Cake and Baklava, translated by Ruth Ahmedazi Kemp, is told from the perspectives of two children, Leila and Max. Leila is a Syrian refugee who has just arrived with her mother and brothers in the German village where Max lives. As her family try to settle into their new home, they wait anxiously for news of the children’s father and grandmother, still in Syria. Leila treasures a walnut from her grandmother’s garden that carries memories of home for her. When she loses it she is deeply upset and Max, who feels drawn to his new classmate, offers to help her find it. A friendship develops between the two, and also between Leila and Max’s grandmother Gertrud, who herself was a refugee from Pomerania after the Second World War. Gertrud still bakes apple cake and lebkuchen to her own grandmother’s recipes as a link with her lost home and family, just as Leila’s brothers try to recreate the baklava that their father used to make in his bakery (there are recipes for all three at the end of the book).
Apple Cake and Baklava is a touching story of friendship, family and food and a good introduction for younger readers to the themes of exile and loss.
Alki Zei, The Mauve Umbrella, translated by Ian Barnes (London, 2016) H.2020/.5039
Chosen by Lydia Georgiadou, Curator Modern Greek Collections
In the summer of 1940, shortly before the Second World War reaches Greece, 10 year-old Eleftheria lives with her parents and twin brothers in Athens. She despises the household chores expected from women of the time, while she adores anything her father does not approve of: reading fanatically, going to the theatre, hoping to one day become a lawyer, inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone. One floor above, lives the Frenchman Mr Marcel, whose nephew Benoit becomes an inseparable friend of the children. Their toys are few, but their imagination endless. Their enchanting games are only constrained by the grownups’ harsh experiences.
A book about two completely different worlds – that of children and that of the adults – each one carrying its own truth. A book that puzzles and entertains at the same time. Through its pages, the beloved Greek novelist Alki Zei (1923-2020) depicts the characters’ ethos, childhood innocence, the agony of war and the upheavals in our lives. Yesterday meets today on a journey… with a purple umbrella.
05 July 2023
Remembering Die Weisse Rose
On 13 July 2023 the British Library will host the 5th Annual Graham Nattrass Lecture, co-organised with the German Studies Library Group. The theme of this year’s lecture, to be given by Dr Alexandra Lloyd of Oxford University, is the anti-Nazi resistance group Die Weisse Rose (The White Rose); 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the arrest and execution of key members of the group.
Alexandra Lloyd, Defying Hitler: the White Rose Pamphlets (Oxford, 2022). Awaiting shelfmark. The cover photograph shows (l.-r.) Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst
Die Weisse Rose was formed in the summer of 1942 by four medical students at the University of Munich – Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst and Willi Graf. Later in 1942 Hans Scholl’s sister Sophie became part of this core group after arriving in Munich to study biology and philosophy. They were also joined by one of the University’s professors, Kurt Huber.
The members of Die Weisse Rose were all disillusioned with the Nazi regime. The four medical students had been required to spend time away from their studies serving on the Eastern Front where their experience of the horrors of war and the brutality of the Nazi forces towards Russians and Jews further influenced their desire to resist. Helped by a number of supporters in Munich and other cities, the core group produced and distributed leaflets criticising the regime, exposing the murder of Jews in the east, and exhorting readers to face the truth that Germany was losing the war. They also stencilled anti-Nazi graffiti around the centre of Munich.
One of the pamphlets issued by Die Weisse Rose. Reproduced in Günther Kirchberger, Die “Weisse Rose”: studentischer Widerstand gegen Hitler in München (Munich, [1980]) X.809/63410
All this was done, of course, at great risk both to the core group members and their supporters. Their luck held until 18 February 1943 when Hans and Sophie Scholl took copies of the group’s sixth leaflet, an appeal specifically addressed to students, to distribute at the University of Munich. After leaving piles of leaflets near lecture rooms they found they had some left over, which Sophie threw from a balcony into the building’s atrium. She was spotted by a university caretaker who was a Gestapo informant, and the Scholls were quickly cornered and arrested. Probst was arrested two days later, having been identified as the author of an unpublished leaflet found in Hans’s possession. All three were hastily tried on 22 February and executed the same day.
Arrests of other group members followed. 14 were tried in April 1943, of whom Huber, Schmorell and Graf were sentenced to death and the others to prison. Huber and Schmorell were executed on 13 July 1943; Graf was kept in prison for a further three months, and interrogated under torture, but refused to give up the names of fellow resistance members. He was executed on 12 October 1943.
Cover of the screenplay for Michael Verhoeven’s film Die Weisse Rose (Karlsruhe, 1982) X.955/2653
Although the activities of Die Weisse Rose had little immediate impact in 1942-3, in the years after the Second World War the group came to be seen as a symbol of conscientious resistance and of a Germany that refused to follow Nazism. They are admired today both for their courage in criticising the regime and for the courage with which the core members – all but Huber still in their early 20s – met their deaths. Many streets, squares and schools in Germany are named after group members, especially Hans and Sophie Scholl. There have been biographies and academic studies written, and the group has also featured in fictional retellings and in films such as Michael Verhoeven’s Die Weisse Rose (1982) and Marc Rothemund’s Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl – the Final Days; 2005).
Haydn Kaye, The Girl who Said No to the Nazis (London, 2020) YKL.2022.a.9518
Die Weisse Rose and its members are less well known outside Germany, but have featured in the British history curriculum, and have been the focus of English-language fiction such as V.S. Alexander’s The Traitor (London, 2020; ELD.DS.493979) or Haydn Kaye’s young adult novel, The Girl who Said No to the Nazis. Alexandra Lloyd, our lecturer on the 13th, has also helped raise awareness of the group through Oxford University’s White Rose Project which “aims to bring the story of the White Rose resistance group … to English-speaking audiences through research, performance, and creative translation”. We hope that the Graham Nattrass Lecture will be a part of this work.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
The Graham Nattrass Lecture takes place on Thursday 13 July at 6pm in the Foyle Suite at the British Library, with a drinks reception from 5.30pm. Attendance is free and open to all, but if you wish to attend, please let the GSLG Chair Dorothea Miehe know by email.
30 December 2022
An A to Z of the European Studies Blog 2022
A is for Alexander the Great, subject of the Library’s current exhibition.
B is for Birds and Bull fighting.
C is for Czechoslovak Independence Day, which marks the foundation of the independent Czechoslovak State in 1918.
D is for Digitisation, including the 3D digitisation of Marinetti’s Tin Book.
E is for Annie Ernaux, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October.
Examples of Fraktur letter-forms from Wolfgang Fugger, Ein nützlich und wolgegründt Formular manncherley schöner Schriefften ... (Nuremberg, 1533) C.142.cc.12.
F is for Festive Traditions, from songs to fortune telling.
G is for Guest bloggers, whose contributions we love to receive!
H is for Hryhorii Skovoroda, the Ukrainian philosopher and poet whose anniversary we marked in December.
I is for our series on Iceland and the Library’s Icelandic collections.
J is for Jubilees.
Abetka (Kyïv, 2005). YF.2010.a.18369.
K is for Knowledge systems and the work of Snowchange Cooperative, a Finnish environmental organisation devoted to protecting and restoring the boreal forests and ecosystems through ‘the advancement of indigenous traditions and culture’.
L is for Limburgish, spoken in the South of the Netherlands.
M is for Mystery – some bibliographical sleuthing.
N is for Nordic acquisitions, from Finnish avant-garde poetry to Swedish art books.
O is for Online resources from East View, which are now available remotely.
Giovanni Bodoni and Giovanni Mardersteig, Manuale tipografico, 1788. Facsimile a cura di Giovanni Mardersteig. (Verona, 1968) L.R.413.h.17.
P is for our wonderful PhD researchers, current and future.
Q is for Quebec with a guest appearance by the Americas blog featuring the work of retired French collections curator Des McTernan.
R is for Rare editions of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar.
S is for Samizdat and the Library’s Polish Solidarity collection.
T is for Translation and our regular posts to mark Women in Translation Month.
Alphabet Anglois, contenant la prononciation des lettres avec les declinaisons et conjugaisons (Rouen, 1639). Digital Store 1568/3641.(1.)
U is for Ukrainian collections and our work with Ukrainian partners.
V is for Victory – a contemporary Italian newspaper report of the Battle of Trafalgar.
W is for Richard Wagner who wrote about a fictional meeting with Beethoven.
X is for... (no, we couldn’t think of anything either!)
Y is for You, our readers. Thank you for following us!
Z is for our former colleague Zuzanna, whom we remembered in February.
Azbuka ōt knigi osmochastnye̡, sirěchʹ grammatikii (Lviv, 1574). Digital Store 1568/3641.(1.)
European studies blog recent posts
- Marx versus Kinkel – a tale of two newspapers
- How Bitter the Savour is of Other’s Bread? International Conference on European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800
- Werther at 250 - an 18th-Century Bestseller
- Religious Metaphors in French Caricature from 1870-71 (Part 1)
- Divided by Politics – ‘United’ by Sport? The German Unified Olympic Team
- Miracles and Fairy Tales: some German Football Stories
- Seminar on Textual Bibliography for Modern Foreign Languages 2024
- Women in Translation Month 2023
- Remembering Die Weisse Rose
- An A to Z of the European Studies Blog 2022
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