05 September 2024
Underground Publishing in Poland under Communist Regime: Through Female Eyes
The Gdańsk Agreement of 1980, established between the workers of the Lenin shipyard and the Polish People’s Republic’s undemocratically elected government, saw the beginning of the ‘Solidarity’ trade union’s fight against the Communist Regime. In the following seven years, around 4830 books and 2027 journals, many of which are in the British Library’s Solidarity Collection, were published underground in a so-called ‘second circulation’. As far as the records go, only 175 of these works were authored by a mere 97 female writers.
Superficial research into female involvement in Polish anti-government publishing could end here. Women in print? Official numbers leave no doubt: they were few and far between. To broaden the scope of this quest to uncover unheard female voices in the Solidarity Collection, avenues other than scholarly browsing of the Library’s basements had to be incorporated. And so, on a brisk December morning, one of them led all the way out of the bustle of central London into the quiet of Hampshire countryside.
“At that time my involvement in the anti-communist opposition was very important for me, probably more important than my medical studies”, recalls Anna Młynik-Shawcross, a retired psychiatrist based in Britain since 1985 – the year when she arrived here as a political refugee. Anna reflects on the times after the strikes in the shipyard ended and she graduated from the medical school. “However, I decided to follow medicine instead of getting involved as the unions’ activist”, she confirms. But how does this story begin? The interview with her is meant to deepen the present understanding of diverse roles women played in the 1970s-1980s Polish underground publishing.
Anna Młynik-Shawcross in her home (photo by Olga Topol).
Anna, born in 1955 in Gdańsk, first became involved with the democratic anti-communist movement at the beginning of her Medical School years, in the winter of 1976. When the communist government pushed for changes in the Polish constitution of the time, Anna, alongside a small group of Gdańsk students, joined the movement which started with signing the protest letters against those changes. In the summer of the same year the famous strikes began in Radom and Lublin and spread all over the country, while lots of people lost their employment. At that time the famous ‘Committee for Social Self-Defence’ (KOR) was set up. “I was able to get the list of names of the workers who were sacked [so that they could be helped by KOR]”, recalls Anna. In the years 1977-1978, she was part of the ‘Movement for the Defence of Human and Civic Rights’ (ROPCiO). She was a founder member of the Student Solidarity Committee set up in Gdańsk in November 1977 and was involved in organising student discussion groups and helping those persecuted by the Communist regime.
Around the same time, one of the first printing machines intended for the independent underground printing of works by authors censored by the regime was shipped from abroad with the help of Jaraczewski family, Józef Piłsudski’s descendants. Anna remembers the times she spent printing leaflets and the establishment of an underground periodical Bratniak published by the ‘Movement of Young Poland’, a Free Trade Union periodical called Robotnik Wybrzeża, as well as the first independent publishing house involved in distributing books across the country, Nowa.
An example of an underground publication, Kazimierz Brandys, Miesiące, (Warszawa 1980) Sol. 241w.
“I was in contact with them and was involved into distribution of books across Poland. They had to be well protected, so we had to have a network of people. We would distribute them through friends, all just through networks”, recalls Anna. Distribution of printed material posed challenges, with private flats acting as places of conspiracy. In the following years, Anna contributed to nothing less than the establishment of a new publishing house, Klin. Together with a small group of friends they set the ambitious goal of about 3,500 published books to be published, and worked tirelessly towards it. Still today she recalls, not without excitement, getting a ‘Western’ paper trimmer, as well as gaining the support of a bookbinder.
“It started with my money that I earned working as a student abroad”, Anna recalls, “We needed a lot of paper, but you couldn’t simply go into a shop and buy tons of paper. So we were going to different shops and buying small amounts.” The printing was primitive, primarily in the offset technique. “We got the paint and were spending hours and hours copying books”, adds Anna, a 2009 recipient of an Order of Polonia Restituta. Now, let us look again at the initial number mentioned above: 97 female writers? What about the women behind the scenes?
Anna expands on female involvement in the opposition movement, including the free press. Although often reluctant about such contribution because of concern for the welfare of their children, especially at that challenging time, many women were involved. She and Magda Modzelewska were involved in Gdańsk’s Student Solidarity Commitee. Joanna Duda-Gwiazda and Alinka Pieńkowska belonged to the Wolne Związki Zawodowe trade unions, which published journal Robotnik Wybrzeża. Finally, Bożena Rybicka, Małgorzata Rybicka, and Magda Modzelewska supported the journal Bratniak: “Małgorzata Rybicka was writing articles in Bratniak, while Magda Modzelewska was involved into editing and publishing”, recalls Anna.
Back cover of Marguerite Duras Kochanek (Siedlce, 1987) Sol.235j. featuring a dedication to female colleagues working in the independent publishing movement.
Any involvement in the opposition’s fight for democracy and freedom of speech involved high risk and intimidation. Secret police employed numerous tactics, including arrests, house searches, sending anonymous letters with false information and all kind of threats. “One day my parents received an anonymous letter informing them that I was under the influence of drug addicts and that [my parents] should put pressure on me to disengage from the opposition. My parents were threatened that they would lose their employment. Also, for me, getting a job was hard, especially locally”, she recollects.
Friendships developed during her involvement with underground publishing, which were based on enormous levels of trust to support the clandestine activities. She reflects upon the fact that most of the people involved in the opposition groups belonged to the intelligentsia: “After Wałęsa joined the movement it was a bit easier to reach the working-class people. But they were being persecuted”.
The fascinating conversation goes on for hours. Initial conclusions drawn from limited research done so far into women in Poland’s ‘second circulation’ go down the drain. And with that emerges a richer picture: that of publishing houses which, although dominated by men, could not have accomplished their mission fully without female efforts around printing and distribution of illegal pro-democratic materials. And so, a brisk December morning spent in a quiet Hampshire town can alone paint a fascinating picture of women working alongside men to help true information reach larger numbers of Poles during the Cold War. Imagine what could more such encounters, and digging deeper into the potential of oral history, bring to surface.
Agata Piotrowska, Doctoral Fellow 2024, Slavonic and East European collections
Further reading:
Wojciech Chojnacki, Marek Jastrzębski, Bibliografia Publikacji Podziemnych w Polsce. Tom Drugi, 01 I 1986 – 31 XII 1987, (Warszawa: 1993). YA.1994.a.5556
Ann M. Frenkel, Paweł Sowiński, Gwido Zlatkes, Duplicator underground: the independent publishing industry in Communist Poland 1976-89, (Bloomington, Indiana: 2016). YD.2017.a.460
Józefa Kamińska (real names: Władysław Chojnacki, Wojciech Chojnacki), Bibliografia Publikacji Podziemnych w Polsce, 13 XII 1981 – VI 1986, (Paris: 1988). 2725.e.184
Shana Penn, Solidarity’s secret: the women who defeated Communism in Poland (Ann Arbor, Michigan: 2005). YC.2007.a.10368
29 August 2024
Empire and French Caricature from 1870-1871 (Part 2)
The British Library’s collection of 1870-71 caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune (shelfmark 14001.g.41, Cup.648.b.2, Cup.648.b.8) offer insight not only into their contemporary conflicts, but the political and cultural worlds which had formed the outlooks of their artists.
The theme of Empire reappears several times in the collection. Building on earlier royal invasions of Algeria, between 1852-70 Napoleon III’s Second Empire launched several campaigns of imperial expansion across the globe, including in China, Southeast Asia, Lebanon, Mexico, and continued interventions in North Africa.
Though designed in part to boost French prestige on an international level, often the campaigns were deeply unpopular at home. This was particularly acute in cases where French forces combatted republican foes, such as the repeated interventions on the Italian peninsula and in Mexico, where Napoleon III’s attempts to put Austrian archduke Maximilian on the throne were eventually thwarted by Benito Juarez’s [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benito-Juarez] republican army. Yet thanks to strict censorship laws, those wishing to be critical of these campaigns – particularly of Mexico – could make only vague allusions for fear of arrest or fines.
When these systems of censorship fell away with the Empire in September 1870, the floodgates opened, exemplified by the remarks of Jules Ferry – who would go on to decree several of the Third Republic’s own colonial efforts less than a decade later - in his description of the French people as ‘sickened by the overseas adventures of the Second Empire’.
Caricaturists likewise centralised the Second Empire’s imperial follies in their criticism of the fallen regime. An excellent example of this is A. Belloguet’s twelve-print series Pilori-Phrénologie, each of which rather resemble the artwork of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Belloguet applies popular interest in phrenology – the pseudo-science which reasoned that one could detect personality traits from skull shape – to twelve leading figures of 1870-1, including Prussian minister Otto von Bismarck, future French president Adolphe Thiers and Pope Pius IX, all found in the Library’s third volume.
A. Belloguet, Pilori-Phrénologie (1), Napoleon III, (Paris, 1870) Volume 3 14001.g.41].
The first of the set takes on fallen French Emperor Napoleon III, which is actually an update of an earlier print circulated in Belgium towards the end of the Second Empire. Belloguet details the Emperor’s visage with a series of ad hominem attacks and details of his eclectic political life, including mentions of his two unsuccessful attempted coups in Strasbourg (1836) and Boulogne (1840) and his surrender at Sedan in 1870.
Belloguet also highlights Napoleon III’s collar with four moments of repression. In addition to that of Paris in the aftermath of his coup in 1851, the collar lists ‘Mexico’, ‘Rome’, and ‘Aspromonte’. Each of the three were part of the Second Empire’s later expansionary aims – particularly offensive given that French opponents were republican, and in the case of the Italian campaigns in Rome and Aspromonte, French troops fought radical hero Giuseppe Garibaldi. As if to emphasise this, the bloody rag which drips from where Napoleon III’s mouth should be reads ‘Mentana’ – a conflict in November 1867 where Garibaldi was injured by French forces defending Rome on behalf of the Pope.
Though many caricatures directly attacked political personages or ideologies, several sets were dedicated to examining and gently mocking the disrupted rhythm of life in Paris under the siege. For instance, artists routinely produced images depicting the food crisis, making light of the fact that Parisians had turned to horsemeat to survive, and that some were even put into the position of eating cats, dogs, and even rats. Such social commentary also could include references to the Second Empire’s imperial campaigns.
An exemplar of such social caricature is found in the Library’s second volume, in a set entitled Paris Assiégé (Besieged Paris) by Jules Renard - signing his images as under a pseudonym the reverse of his surname, ‘Draner’. The twentieth of the set depicts novel positions taken up by Parisians in the boulevards in order to avoid the falling Prussian shells during their bombardment of the city, which had intensified in January 1871 after German forces had reached Paris in September.
Jules Renard (Draner), Paris Assiége (20) Les Effets du Bombardement (The Effects of Bombardment), (Paris, 1870) Volume 2 14001.g.41.
The figure in the foreground – subtly dressed in the colours of the French tricolore – claims that the Parisians kneeling were neither men nor women, but instead Ambassadors of Siam. Perhaps a rather obscure reference at first glance, but like the caricatures discussed in the previous blog of this series, Renard takes a cue from high art as inspiration for this print.
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Réception des ambassadeurs siamois par l’Empereur Napoléon III au palais de Fontainebleu, 27 juin 1861 (Reception of Siamese Ambassadors by Emperor Napoleon III at Fontainebleu Palace, 27 June 1861). (Picture from Wikimedia Commons)
Renard references a painting presented at Paris’s 1865 Salon, Réception des ambassadeurs siamois par l’Empereur Napoléon III au palais de Fontainebleu, 27 juin 1861 by Jean-Léon Gérôme. In it, rows of ambassadors from the Kingdom of Siam (modern-day Thailand) kneel before the French imperial couple, presenting them with a letter from their king Mongkut (Rama IV). The two states had long since established relations: almost two centuries before this meeting, the court of Louis XIV had received visits from the Kingdom of Siam.
In 1856 Siam and France had signed a commercial treaty which granted France a foothold in Southeast Asia – which simultaneously reduced Siamese influence on its neighbouring areas. Fifteen years later, upon hearing the news of Napoleon III’s forced abdication in September, the rulers of Siam expressed their ‘exaggerated sympathies’ for the fallen Emperor.
These exaggerated sympathies were shared by the vast majority of French caricaturists operating in 1870-71. Yet despite their antipathy towards the regime’s foreign exploits, it was not long before France once again pursued foreign glory, their colonial policies now led by who had once been at the forefront of the criticism of such policies. If the ire of caricaturists towards foreign expansion was ever-present during 1870-71, it certainly waned from any long-lasting political programme in the years thereafter.
Anthony Chapman-Joy, CDP Student at the British Library and Royal Holloway
References/further reading
Morna Daniels, ‘Caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Paris Commune’, Electronic British Library Journal, (2005), pp. 1-19
Quentin Deluermoz, D’ici et d’ailleurs: histoires globales de la France contemporaine (XVIIIe-XXe siècle) (Paris, 2021) YF.2022.a.12094
Bertrand Tillier, La Commune de Paris: Révolution sans images? (Paris, 2004), YF.2004.a.14526
David Todd, A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, 2021) YC.2022.a.7337
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
17 July 2024
Georgia’s acclaimed writer Aka Morchiladze
Aka Morchiladze is a widely recognised and much-loved writer from Georgia. He has authored some best-selling novels, and a series of short stories and essays mainly concerned with Georgian history and literature. He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature this year for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to Georgian literature.
Morchiladze has an incredible ability to tell a story and bring the reader into his world, always engaging with new themes, new areas of experience, and, above all, new technical challenges. He tells stories from the point of view of an outsider, but he sees the world as one of his characters might see it. He pays thorough attention to the distinctiveness of the speech of each character. His stories with a wide variety of voices are emotional, subtle and complex, sometimes even grotesque.
His writing technique allows mixed perception of the text: a literary text can be perceived on various levels. For some readers, it could be simply a detective story. For others, a narrative full of unique historical details, the picture of a particular era. Moreover, it could be the contemplation of the differences between past and present, the relationship and interdependence of history and memory, history and mentality, and their roles in culture. In manipulating a continuous parallel between past and present, modernity and antiquity, he uses stories and themes from Classical literature and places them in a modern context and circumstances.
Morchiladze has won a number of literary prizes in Georgia. His works have been translated and published in several countries, including Germany, Italy, Serbia, Mexico, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Egypt, USA, Sweden, Azerbaijan and Switzerland.
His two novels, Journey to Karabakh and Of Old Hearts and Swords, have been translated into English by Elizabeth Heighway.
His first novel, Journey to Karabakh (მოგზაურობა ყარაბაღში), was published in Georgia in 1992 and brought him immediate success. The novel depicts events in Georgia and the Caucasus, which took place at the beginning of the 1990s. It tells of an adventure of two young Georgians who accidentally get involved in the Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Cover of Elizabeth Heighway's translation of Journey to Karabakh. H.2016/.7513
Of Old Hearts and Swords (ძველი გულებისა და ხმლისა) was published in 2007. It is a novel about nineteenth-century Georgia, re-creating the atmosphere of a culture almost lost in time. Its themes are loyalty and courage, love, friendship and war. It narrates the story of a Georgian nobleman who travels from Tbilisi to the West in search of his missing brother.
Cover Of Old Hearts and Swords in Georgian. YF.2008.a.20364
Morchiladze’s work Georgian Notebooks (ქართულის რვეულები) (2013) has recently been translated into English. It was published in 2022 with the title Character in Georgia. The book is a collection of stories about poets, politicians, outlaws and many other Georgians. Their personalities are different, and yet, symbolising Georgian character, they have something in common. Living in the pages of this book, they follow their unique way of behaving. Their inner lives collide with real events and become the stuff of history and legend.
The English edition (Character in Georgia), unlike the Georgian original, provides more information and context around the events and people, presenting and explaining stories for non-Georgian readers. This new approach to the original text was suggested by the English editor, Peter Nasmyth. It was finally decided to put both writers’ names on the title page.
Cover of Character in Georgia (awaiting shelfmark)
The British Library’s collections hold most of Morchiladze’s works, including his best novels mentioned above, as well as English translations. On several occasions, he has been invited to the British Library as a speaker and talked about Georgian literature. We look forward to seeing him at a future European Writers' Festival.
Anna Chelidze, Curator, Georgian Collections
References:
Donald Rayfield, Georgian literature in Encyclopædia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/art/Georgian-literature/The-20th-century
Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia: History (London: Garnett Press, 2010).
29 May 2024
Preservation of Roma historical and cultural heritage in Bulgaria
22 March 2024
The Endangered Archives Programme: Safeguarding the Private Archive of the Lazic Family
The Endangered Archives Project’s work in 2015 to digitize and preserve the private archive and library collections owned by the Lazic family in Serbia was a vital endeavour. Spanning six generations, the Lazic family has meticulously gathered significant and rare material. The collection encompasses a diverse array of genres and subjects, including rare law books dating back to the early 20th century, published by Geca Kon, a prominent Serbian publisher whose life was tragically cut short in the Second World War. Additionally, it comprises Serbian First World War publications, along with editions of the scarce periodicals such as Pregled listova (‘The Review of Newspapers’), Misao (‘Thought’), and Srpske novine (‘Serbian newspaper’). Among its treasures are printed calendars dating from the late 19th century, and ephemeral material documenting the events of the First World War.
Misao: mesečni časopis za jugoslovensku kulturu (Thought: monthly magazine for Yugoslav culture), 1 September 1918. EAP833/1/2/4/1.
Approximately 50,000 pages have been digitized, and the digital copies have been deposited with both the University Library in Belgrade and the British Library. The original material will continue to be safeguarded by the Lazic family within their private collection.
Srpske novine. Službeni dnevnik Kraljevine Srbije (Serbian Newspaper. Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Serbia) no. 74, 10 October 1916 EAP833/1/2/8/1.
The preservation of this rare and unique material is important for researchers, offering invaluable insights into different historical periods. For instance, Serbian newspapers printed in Corfu and Thessaloniki during the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian occupation of Serbia from 1915 to 1918 shed light on a pivotal era in this nation’s history. As the official gazette of the Serbian state, Srpske novine, published in Corfu between 1916 and 1918 monitored and interpreted the political landscape, reflecting the policies of the Serbian government up until the conclusion of the First World War and the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in 1918. Pregled listova, printed in Geneva between 1916 and 1918 for government and military officials in a small number of copies, kept the Serbian government apprised of the media’s portrayal of Serbia, the Serbian army, and ongoing war developments.
Pregled listova (The Review of Newspapers), no. 48, 2 January 1916. EAP833/1/2/5/2.
The Serbian newspapers printed in Corfu and Thessaloniki during the First World War exile years constitute rare material that were avidly read by Serbian soldiers on the battlefield. Additionally, journals published by Serbian emigrants in Europe and periodicals originating outside Europe during the war, such as those printed in America, North Africa and South America, are included in this collection. Rare issues of periodicals printed within Serbia also contribute to the breadth of this collection.
Mala Srbija. Srpsko useljeništvo u Americi (Little Serbia. Serbian immigration in America) New York, 1916. EAP833/1/1/92.
Printed publications from the First World War hold particular significance and value. Many were printed amidst the chaos of war, outside of Serbia and on foreign soil, using scarcely available printing resources, and during a time of paper shortages.
La Patrie serbe: revue mensuelle pour la jeunesse serbe en exil (‘The Serbian Fatherland: a monthly magazine for Serbian youth in exile’). No. 3, 14 January 1917. EAP833/1/2/1/1.
These publications were produced in limited quantities, with some being lost to fires, war damage, or deterioration from poor-quality paper. Despite these challenges, they served a crucial purpose in informing, entertaining and boosting the morale of soldiers.
Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević, Izabrane pjesme (‘Selected poems’), 1918. Part of an ‘Edition of the Series of Yugoslav literature’. Drawing by Jozo Kljaković.
After the war, only a fraction of these publications made their way back to Serbia with returning soldiers, many were dispersed and remain undiscovered. The Lazić private archive boasts one of the most extensive collections of these publications, thanks to Luka Lazić, a Serbian soldier stationed in Corfu, who diligently collected this literature and brought it back to Serbia after the war.
Un appel des socialistes Serbes au monde civilisé (‘An appeal from Serbian socialists to the civilized world’). Uppsala, 1917. EAP833/1/1/53. Memorandum written by the Serbian socialists Dušan Popović and Triša Kaclerović addressing the challenging circumstances, famine, terror, and civilian internment within occupied Serbia from 1915 to 1918.
Little Children of Serbia, London, [undated], EAP833/1/1/40. The Brotherhood movement assumed the duty of providing care for several hundred Serbian orphaned children. The initial group of a hundred children arrived in London on 24 September 1918, and were accommodated in Faversham, Kent (Photograph above, ).
One of the most cherished readings, considered essential in every literate household, was the annual calendar – an almanac featuring literary, scientific, educational and entertaining content meant to be enjoyed by the entire family throughout the year. Due to their production on low-quality paper and the common practice of discarding them at the end of each year, calendars have become exceedingly rare items to find.
One notable example of such a calendar was called Vardar and the issue shown below is for 1923.
Vardar calender for 1923. Edition of the League of Serbian Women printed in 30,000 copies. EAP833/1/4/2/2.
The calendar showcases a poignant photograph capturing a group of women clad in black (below). The image portrays grieving widows who have assembled in Belgrade in 1922 to implore the government for justice against perpetrators of war crimes inflicted upon innocent civilians. Their husbands fell victim to Bulgarian terror during the occupation of Serbia from 1915 to 1918.
The widows in the photograph are delivering a presentation to the League of Serbian Women, a charitable organization, appealing for aid for their fatherless children. It’s disheartening to acknowledge that these widows lacked adequate support from the government during such trying times. The photograph serves as a moving reminder of the hardships endured by those who lost loved ones in war, underscoring the significance of community assistance and charitable endeavours.
We are very pleased to hold a digital copy of this collection in the British Library. It is a significant addition to our small Serbian and Balkan collections from the First World War. It comprises exceedingly rare newspapers and other printed materials produced in Serbian exile, reflecting the people’s responses to the living conditions and their experiences during the war. This collection serves as a precious testimony not only to the war itself but also to the individuals caught in its turmoil, yearning for peace and a return to normality with their families and in their homeland.
The material fits perfectly into our collections about the war and can be used for research, education, and it is valuable for anyone interested in primary source material.
Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-East European Collections
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.
28 April 2023
EOKA pamphlets at the British Library
1 April 2023 marked 68 years since the beginning of the E[thniki] O[rganosis] K[yprion] A[goniston] (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) struggle to end British colonial rule in Cyprus with the ultimate goal of achieving Enosis (union) of Cyprus with Greece.
Britain’s concession of the Ionian Islands to the newly formed Greek state in 1864, filled the Greek Orthodox Cypriots with optimism that the great power, protector of Greece, would reconfirm its support with the concession of Cyprus, as they took over the administration of the island from the Ottomans in 1878. Greek Cypriots would soon become increasingly disillusioned by the new government, realising that initial declarations in favour of Cyprus’s right to self-determination would remain empty promises.
Various internal forces disagreed as to the form the anti-colonial struggle should take, with the nationalist right opting for military action and the communist left advocating social unrest through workers’ strikes and civil demonstrations. Despite the different voices, on the night of 31 March-1 April 1955, EOKA began its first bombing attacks on various government, police and military facilities in the island’s major cities.
The EOKA struggle was officially launched with its leader Georgios Grivas’s first proclamation that circulated widely throughout the island on 1 April. Drawing from the examples of the ancient Greeks, as well as those of the 1821 Greek Revolution and the 1940 resistance to the Axis, Grivas called upon the Cypriot people to join the fight for liberation to the final victory or death.
Georgios Grivas’s first proclamation declaring the start of the EOKA liberation struggle. J/8030.d.4
The British Library holds an important collection of leaflets and pamphlets from the years 1955-1959, used by EOKA to propagate its views among its members as well as potential new recruits among the Cypriot people. This material provides valuable insight into the organisation’s operations, regularly reporting on its successes and paying tribute to those who lost their lives for the cause. On the other hand, it documents the organisation’s stance on contemporary political and socio-economic affairs both in the internal of Cyprus, as well as on the international scene.
A leaflet reporting on operations between 1-10 October 1958. J/8030.d4
A leaflet paying tribute to Kyriakos Matsis, who fell in Dikomo on 19 November 1958. J. 8030.d4
EOKA rejecting the “abomination” plan of the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the last colonial Governor of Cyprus Hugh Foot for a solution to the Cyprus issue. J/8030.d6
Through its leaflets EOKA often called for discretion, warning that even the most insignificant information could reach the British through their lurking agents and traitors, causing serious blows to the struggle.
A leaflet found in Kalo Chorio on 26 October 1958 recommending people to avoid chatter and gossip. J/8030.d4
A drawing of a killed fighter with the caption “A chatty person killed him! by saying that he was a member of EOKA”. J/8030.d.4
The leaflets also reveal a more extremist side to EOKA, issuing threats against dissidents and proceeding to punishments such as beating or execution of those considered as traitors.
EOKA‘s last warning against five Cypriots to discontinue their “anti-national and provocative behaviour”. J/8030.d.4
EOKA justifying the executions of Andreas Sakkas, Savvas Menoikou and Georgios Yiasoumis, who were “used as a pretext for communist P[agkypria] E[rgatiki] O[mospondia] (Pancyprian Labour Federation) to develop its anti-national activity, incited and protected by the British”. J/8030.d.4
Responsible for co-ordinating the military and political efforts was P[olitiki] E[pitropi] K[ypriakou] A[gonos] (Political Committee of the Cypriot Struggle), formed in July 1956. PEKA demanded the release of Archbishop Makarios from exile (March 1956 - April 1957) as the designated representative of the Cypriot people and the sole person authorised to negotiate the Cyprus issue.
A PEKA leaflet rejecting the Radcliffe constitutional proposals and demanding Makarios’s return to resume negotiations on the basis of self-determination. J/8030.d.2
PEKA called for passive resistance in the form of boycotting British goods, such as chocolates, alcohol, cigarettes and tobacco, soap, washing powder, fabrics, shoes and agricultural tools. Anything that could be a source of income for the British, such as the government lottery or football bets, were to be eradicated, while transactions with Greek banks, advertisements in Cypriot newspapers and exclusive use of the Greek language on signs, posters and products were strongly encouraged.
EOKA, represented here by Hercules, cuts off the multiple heads of the capitalistic British Hydra to offer prosperity to the Cypriot people, represented by Iolaus. J/8030.d.2
PEKA campaigned systematically against the attendance of British technical schools by Cypriot students, criticising the creation of technical schools in Cyprus as an attack against the institution of Greek school and a mere trick to create janissaries and servants for the British. Parents who chose to send their children to the British technical schools were characterised as ‘unworthy to be called Greeks’ and Greek Cypriots who taught there were shamed as ‘mercenaries’.
PEKA declares that “We will not sell the fate of our children to the British”. J/8030.d.2
From mid-1957, the youth of EOKA was organised in A[lkimos] N[eolaia] E[OKA] (Strong Youth of EOKA) who distributed the organisation’s leaflets, demanded Enosis through slogans on walls and student demonstrations, informed EOKA on the movements of the British forces, intercepted military equipment etc. ANE published its own monthly pamphlet Egertirion Salpisma (Reveille).
The cover of the fourth issue of ANE’s Egertirion Salpisma that circulated in March 1958. J/8030.d.2
Lydia Georgiadou, Curator, Modern Greek Collections
13 March 2023
The revolutionary career of a student drinking song
The outbreak of revolution in Vienna in March 1848 was inevitably accompanied by a wave of revolutionary poems and songs. The lifting of press censorship made the publishing and circulation of such material easy, and some pieces enjoyed great success.
One of the first to appear in print was Ludwig August Frankl’s ‘Die Universität’, which was composed while the author was on sentry duty on the night of 14-15 March and caught the popular mood when read aloud to an audience of students the following day. Its subsequent great success was no doubt helped by the fact that many of the 8,000 copies from the first print run were handed out free. The poem was quickly reprinted in various formats both in Vienna and further afield. There was even a French translation and there were at least 19 musical settings.
Ludwig August Frankl, ‘Die Universität’ (Vienna, 1848). 1899.m.19.(205).
Frankl’s chosen topic of the role of students in the March revolution was, like press freedom itself, a popular theme for poets, but there was one older student song that also enjoyed huge popularity and was described by the Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick as “a kind of harmless student Marseillaise”.
The song in question, the ‘Fuchslied’ (‘Song of the Fox’), was originally intended to be sung at student fraternity initiation ceremonies, ‘Fuchs’ being a nickname for a student in his first semester. (A typical ceremony, complete with singing of the ‘Fuchslied’, was described by Hugo Hagendorff in an article for the magazine Der erzählende Hausfreund in 1838.) Various versions exist, but all involve the student initiate being plied with tobacco and/or alcohol until he vomits, after which he is accepted as a ‘Bursch’, a full fraternity member.
‘Das Fuchslied, oder das allgemein beliebte Studenten-Lied “Was macht der Herr Papa”’ ([Vienna, 1848.]). C.175.cc.6.(20.)
The song has no obvious political content. At a stretch, a section found in some versions about a father reading Cicero while his wife and daughter carry out various tasks for him could perhaps be read as a mild satire of bourgeois life, but since the song predates the revolution it is unlikely that there was any intended political slant to it. Some Viennese writers during the revolution added new verses and variations with a definite edge of political satire, but it was the continuing success and ubiquity of the apolitical original that gave rise to these additions.
Another odd twist is that the song’s popularity in Vienna had nothing to do with its use in the city’s own student traditions but arose from its appearance in a play by the German writer Roderich Benedix, Das bemooste Haupt (literally ‘The Mossy Head’, but the term can also refer to a ‘Perpetual Student’). The play was written in 1840 but only received its Viennese premiere in April 1848, when it swiftly achieved huge success among revolutionary students. The same work also popularised the practice of the charivari or ‘Katzenmusik’, where singing of the ‘Fuchslied’ became a regular feature.
A Viennese revolutionary charivari, from Maximilian Bach, Geschichte der Wiener Revolution im Jahre 1848 (Vienna, 1898) 9315.d.40.
Perhaps the secret of the song’s revolutionary success was that it was easy to learn, remember and adapt, and that its background lent it an aura of mischief – ideal for young men keen to cock a snook at traditional authority. Hanslick recalled hearing an escalating musical battle between students singing the ‘Fuchslied’ and a civil servant who tried to drown them out with the imperial anthem, ‘Gott erhalte unsern Kaiser’ (‘God Preserve our Emperor’). Joseph Helfert, in a survey of the literature of the Viennese revolution, describes how the ‘Fuchslied’ came to be perceived as the antithesis to the anthem, the latter supposedly representing “regression, slavery and narrow-mindedness” and the former “progress, freedom and high-mindedness”.
The song’s simple and catchy tune (similar to the English ‘A-hunting we will go’) also took on a life of its own. It was incorporated by Johann Strauss the Elder into a ‘March of the Student Legion’, first performed in April 1848, and Franz von Suppé composed a series of ‘Humorous Variations’ on it in the same year. Today it is probably best known for its appearance in Brahms’s ‘Academic Festival Overture’, written over three decades after the song’s brief but intense revolutionary career.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
References/further reading:
Eduard Hanslick, Aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1894) 12249.ccc.7.
Roderich Benedix, Das bemooste Haupt, oder, Der Lange Israel (Wesel, 1840)
Joseph Alexander Helfert, Der Wiener Parnass im Jahre 1848 (Vienna, 1882) 11528.k.10.
Wolfgang Häusler, ‘Marseillaise, Katzenmusik und Fuchslied als Mittel sozialen und politischen Protests in der Wiener Revolution 1848’ in Barbara Boisits (ed.) Musik und Revolution: die Produktion von Identität und Raum durch Musik in Zentraleuropa 1848-49 ( Vienna, 2013) YF.2014.a.20622
A collection of digitised poems, songs, broadsides and periodicals from the 1848 Revolution can be found on the website of the Austrian National Library
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- Remembering Die Weisse Rose
- EOKA pamphlets at the British Library
- The revolutionary career of a student drinking song
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