31 January 2020
‘Foreign Language Printing in London’ online
In May 2000 the British Library held a one-day conference on the theme of foreign-language printing in London from 1500 to 1900, specifically printing by and for immigrants in London. The focus was on the languages of continental Europe, with papers on German, Dutch, Scandinavian languages, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Polish, and Hungarian printers and printing, which were collected into a book, published in 2002 as Foreign Language Printing in London. Long out of print, this volume has now been made freely available via the British Library’s research repository. Some of its articles offer a general overview of printing activity while others concentrate on particular periods, printers or publications.
Cover of Foreign Language Printing in London, edited by Barry Taylor (Boston Spa, 2002)
One thing we discover is that, apart from the special case of Latin, the foreign vernacular language most frequently printed in London was French, also the only one to appear in the 15th century. Italian, Spanish and Dutch material all first appeared in the 16th century while German, Portuguese and modern Greek made their debuts in the 17th century. Most languages show an upward trend over time, although the number of Dutch publications gradually declined from the 16th to the 18th centuries. However, none of the numbers are particularly large: only for French do figures reach into the thousands rather than hundreds or fewer.
Most printing in foreign languages in London began with language-learning aids: dictionaries, grammars, textbooks and phrase-books. The earliest such work was a French-English vocabulary printed in 1480 by William Caxton (who had himself started out as a foreign-language printer in Flanders where he produced his first book in English, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye). These works might be aimed equally at English learners of another language or at native speakers looking to learn English in their new home. Likewise the printing of foreign-language literature in London could appeal to an audience of language learners as well as native speakers, although as a rule literature remained more likely to be imported than printed in London. Nonetheless, there were printers and publishers who also had a role as ‘foreign booksellers’ in promoting foreign-language literature to Anglophone audiences and some, like the 18th-century German bookseller Carl Heydinger, also translated works into English.
A bilingual German and English edition of the farce Die drei Freier / The Three Suitors (London, 1805; 1343.d.10), published by the London German firm of J. B. G. Vogel
Other foreign-language printing was aimed more specifically at foreign communities. A number of these were initially formed by those fleeing persecution. In earlier centuries this tended to be religious persecution, with Protestants from Catholic Europe in particular finding refuge in England (paralleled, of course, by English Catholics seeking similar refuge abroad). Printing religious texts was an understandable preoccupation for these groups, but was also typical of foreign communities in general since places of worship were usually among the first community meeting-places to be established by immigrant groups. Most of the examples in the book come from Christian denominations, but there was also printing by Jews arriving in England from the continent, notably the Sephardim from Spain and Portugal who established a synagogue in London in the mid-17th century and printed sermons, calendars and polemical works, mostly in Spanish. Later, especially in the 19th century, the refugees were more often fleeing political than religious persecution. Liberal and socialist exiles took advantage of Britain’s relatively tolerant climate and, in particular, its free press.
These persecuted groups often printed books, pamphlets and newspapers to be exported – sometimes smuggled – back home. Their efforts met with varying degrees of success, perhaps the greatest being that of the Russian-language newspaper Kolokol (‘The Bell’), published in London between 1857 and 1867, which circulated widely and was much read in Russia. Less influential when first published was the Communist Manifesto (Manifest der kommunistischen Partei), printed in London in February 1848; it was not until the 1870s that it began to be widely reprinted.
Masthead of the first issue of Kolokol (London, 1857) C.127.k.84
Not all immigrants, of course, were fleeing persecution. Many were scholars, tradesmen or workers of all kinds and classes, and many soon became assimilated into English life and society – one of the reasons why a career in foreign-language book trades in London was often precarious. The short lives of many foreign-language newspapers which were founded in 19th-century London offer one of the clearest pieces of evidence for the difficulty of maintaining an audience for foreign-language material. Nonetheless, foreign-language printing and publishing have continued in London through the 20th century and into the 21st, with the addition now of internet resources by and for the many communities from Europe – and of course beyond – in Britain. A more recent British Library project, the ‘Russia in the UK’ Web Archive Collection, showcases examples of this.
When Foreign Language Printing in London was published, the Internet was still far from the ubiquitous tool it has become today, and all forms of online publishing still in their relative infancy. It is gratifying that, nearly two decades later, the book can be freely accessed online, for it remains a valuable introduction to the topic and of potential interest to specialists and lay readers alike.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
30 December 2019
Theodor Fontane’s British Wanderings
Theodor Fontane is one of those authors who gives hope to middle-aged would-be novelists who have yet to take up their pens: his first novel, Vor dem Sturm, was not published until he was 59. However, middle-aged would-be novelists should also be warned that, before embarking on the novels for which he is now most famous, Fontane had served a long literary apprenticeship as a poet, critic, journalist and travel writer. In these last capacities, he wrote in some detail about the three visits he made to Britain in the 1840s and 1850s.
Born in the town of Neuruppin in Brandenburg on 30 December 1819, Fontane initially followed his father’s career as a pharmacist, serving an apprenticeship in Berlin where he also began to develop his literary interests. It was during his year of compulsory military service that he was invited to join a friend on a two-week trip to England in the summer of 1844. Thanks to a sympathetic commanding officer, he was able to accept.
Theodor Fontane during his first stay in London in 1844. Sketch by J.W. Burford, reproduced in Josef Ettlinger, Theodor Fontane: ein Essai (Berlin, [1904]) 011852.ff.16/18.
On this first visit to England, Fontane was very much a tourist, making planned visits to the sights of London – a city which impressed him with its size compared with the still relatively provincial Berlin – and going on an excursion to Windsor. However, he also made some more independent trips, including a visit to fellow German pharmacist Hermann Schweitzer in Brighton. Schweitzer apparently promised to look for a possible job in England for Fontane, suggesting that Fontane was interested in settling here, although nothing came of this.
A side-effect of this first visit to England was Fontane’s increased interest in historical ballads, and ballads on English and Scottish themes were among the poems he published in 1851, by which time he had given up his pharmaceutical career to live by his pen. The following year, he returned to London as a correspondent for a Prussian newspaper, with a brief to write about conditions in England. This time he stayed for five months, writing articles on a range of subjects from the streets and sights of London to an election in Brentford, which were later collected into the book Ein Sommer in London. During this stay he again considered making a more permanent home in England, possibly by acquiring his own pharmacy business. However, the only work readily available appeared to be as a German tutor and, after some weeks of dithering about whether or not to seek employment in London, he returned to Berlin.
Cover of Theodor Fontane, Aus England (Stuttgart, 1860) 10348.d.3
Three years later he returned again on a longer-term basis with a mission from the Prussian Government to promote a more pro-Prussian line in the British press. He remained until 1859, and once again wrote about England for the German press. A selection of this journalism was also later published in book form as Aus England. Unlike the varied and shorter sketches of Ein Sommer in London, this collection focuses in three longer sections on the London theatre, British art and the British press. The second section was inspired by a visit to the 1857 Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester, and Fontane adds some impressions of Manchester, which he found ‘not quite so dreary a place as it had been described to me in London’, and Liverpool, where he was very impressed by the docks on the River Mersey’s ‘vast expanse of water’.
These excursions are rare exceptions to the usual focus on London and its surroundings in Fontane’s published accounts of Britain. However, in the summer of 1858 he and his friend Bernhard von Lepel set off on a 14-day tour of Scotland which Fontane described in his book Jenseits des Tweed, again compiled from articles originally written for newspapers. Although his anglophilia had become somewhat jaded by the realities of London life, Fontane described himself setting off for Scotland with much of the same excitement that he had felt on first leaving for England 14 years earlier. The travellers fitted a lot into a short time, starting in Edinburgh before travelling on to Inverness, their northernmost stop, via Stirling and Perth. They then travelled down the Caledonian Canal to the West Coast, taking in the Islands of Iona and Staffa before returning to Edinburgh.
Map of Fontane’s Scottish tour, from Theodor Fontane, Beyond the Tweed, translated by Brian Battershaw (London, 1998) YC.2001.a.8037
Like many Germans, Fontane’s idea of Scotland had been shaped by the works of Sir Walter Scott, by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, by romantic tales and legends, and by picturesque historical anecdotes, several of which he repeats in his descriptions of the places he and Lepel visited. However, a ‘pilgrimage’ to Scott’s old home at Abbotsford, the final visit on their tour, and perhaps saved until last as a particular treat, left Fontane somewhat underwhelmed. He found the house, preserved as a museum, something of a ‘waxwork show’ without the living writer’s spirit to animate it.
Despite this rather anticlimactic end to the trip, Fontane retained fond memories of Scotland, and his Scottish tour inspired him, on his return to Germany, to start writing similar travel pieces about his native Brandenburg. His Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg ran to five volumes and played a role in the development of his writing style towards that of a novelist.
Fontane in later life, reproduced in Josef Ettlinger, Theodor Fontane
After leaving London in early 1859 Fontane never returned to Britain, but he wrote at least one more piece about Scotland, a poem in response to the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. Harking back to his love of Shakespeare and Scott, he wrote it in the style of a ballad, framed by three Macbeth-style witches who plot and rejoice in the bridge’s destruction. Sadly, this is less well known in Britain than William McGonagall’s hilariously inept verses on the same theme, but in the year that marks the 140th anniversary of the disaster as well as the bicentenary of Fontane’s birth, it seems an appropriate note on which to end our look at Fontane in Britain.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
References/further reading:
Theodor Fontane, Ein Sommer in London (Berlin, 1854) 10350.c.1.
Theodor Fontane, Jenseits des Tweed: Bilder und Briefe aus Schottland (Berlin, 1860) 10370.c.26
Theodor Fontane, A Prussian in Victorian London, translated by John Lynch (London, 2014) YC.2016.a.11501
Petra E. Krüger, Fontane in London (Berlin, 2012) YF.2017.a.16769
Gordon A. Craig, Theodor Fontane: literature and history in the Bismarck Reich (New York, 1999) YC.1999.b.9426
13 December 2019
De Bezige Bij – 75 years and still buzzing
One of the most successful literary publishers in the Netherlands of the 20th and 21st centuries is De Bezige Bij (‘The Busy Bee’). Currently, it has almost 600 authors on its list, among them many big international names, together good for 1344 titles by my count.
De Bezige Bij started during the Second World War as a clandestine publishing house, of which there were a great many. Not so many, though, continued after the war, or were as successful as De Bezige Bij. It was among the most outstanding publishing ventures during the war, both in terms of content and of appearance.
It all started with saving Jewish children from the Nazis. When the deportations started and Jewish citizens of Amsterdam had to assemble at the Hollandsche Schouwburg, some women managed to get children out of the building and into the adjacent school for teachers. Soon the group grew and established sub-groups elsewhere, for instance in Utrecht. This so-called ‘Children’s Fund’ needed large sums of money. That money came in part from the Utrecht Student Corps (USC), of which Geert Lubberhuizen was a member. He became involved in the Children’s Fund to such an extent that he was nicknamed ‘The Busy Bee’.
One of the women founders, Anne Maclaine Pont, gave him a typed copy of ‘De Achttien Dooden’ (‘The Eighteen Dead’), the most famous illegal poem produced in the occupied Netherlands. Written by Jan Campert, the poem is a homage to the eighteen men who were executed following the ‘February Strike’, a general strike in protest against the persecution of Jews, led by dock workers in Amsterdam on 24 February 1941. They were the first Dutch men to be executed for alleged anti-German acts.
Jan Campert, De Achttien Dooden, 2nd ed. (Utrecht, 1943) HS.74/325.(21.)
The poem was circulated in manuscript or typescript. A total of 15,000 copies were produced during the war, not all by De Bezige Bij. However, it was Geert Lubberhuizen who decided late 1942, or early 1943 to make an illustrated printed broadside of it to raise money for the Children’s Fund. It was published by Lubberhuizen and Ch.E. Blommestein, and printed by J. Hendriks in Utrecht. The illustration is signed as Coen ’t Hart, the pseudonym of Fedde Wiedema.
That is how ‘De Achttien Dooden’ became De Bezige Bij’s first publication, almost two years before its official establishment as a publishing house. ‘The Bee’ as it became known continued to issue clandestine publications to support the work of the Children’s Fund.
The Library holds three editions of this broadside. The earliest is from 1943 and, according to Anna Simoni’s bibliography Publish and be Free, is of the 2nd edition. It was donated in September 1969, by Jaap Romijn, who ran another clandestine publishing house in Utrecht. Richter Roegholt wrote a history of De Bezige Bij, published in 1972 and mentions Simoni’s letter to him in reply to his attempts to solve the mystery of spelling errors in the poem. That is a story in itself which is best saved for some other time
.Front cover of Richter Roegholt, De Geschiedenis van De Bezige Bij (Amsterdam, 1972) 2708.c.35.
A second copy is from 1946 (74/L.R.410.y.1.(5.)) and was purchased in February 1968. The third copy (85/Cup.600.d.(2)) is from 1955, and has the real name of the illustrator alongside the pseudonym. This is printed on ‘pancake paper’ and is much narrower than the two others.
Production was increased after ‘Crazy Tuesday’ on 5 September 1944, when the Dutch thought, mistakenly, that the war had ended. By December 1944 it was clear that the war truly would not last much longer. So on 12 December 1944 the co-operative publishing house ‘De Bezige Bij’ was established, on the basis of a ‘Plan voor de coöperatieve uitgeverij De Bezige Bij in hoofdlijnen’ (‘Main outlines of a Plan for the co-operative publishers The Busy Bee’).
Cover of Plan voor de coöperatieve uitgeverij De Bezige Bij in hoofdlijnen ([Utrecht, 1944]) Cup.406.b.19.
The first article outlines the publishers’ intention to continue the business after the war:
Encouraged by the success of its. publications and by the interest from many authors and illustrators who, from the beginning have enthusiastically contributed to ‘The Busy Bee’, which has as its aim to collect as much money as possible for the national cause, next to the continuation of the free Dutch literature, the management of this publishing house has decided to continue her work after the war with the aim to serve the cause of its authors.
The first article of Plan voor de coöperatieve uitgeverij De Bezige Bij
Its first ‘official’ publication was a printing (in English) of The Atlantic Charter, declared by President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on 14 August 1941. 100 copies were printed by Fokke Tamminga, who personally delivered one to the British Museum in 1969. The colophon makes clear that this was a clandestinely produced booklet, but its execution is nonetheless exquisite.
Opening (left)and colophon (right) of The Atlantic Charter (Utrecht, 1944). Cup.406.a.9.
This blog’s limitations do not allow for a discussion of the post-war history of ‘The Bee’. For that I refer to Roegholt and to the publisher’s own website . But I make an exception for Geheid Deelder, a collection of six stories by Jules Deelder on the occasion of De Bezige Bij’s 50th anniversary. Jules Deelder is after all just a few weeks older than De Bezige Bij.
Cover of Jules Deelder Geheid Deelder’ (Amsterdam, 1994) YA.1994.a.14827.
It goes without saying that De Bezige Bij is positively buzzing with activity around its 75th anniversary. On the 10th of this month a new poem by Ramsey Nasr entitled, ‘De dag kan komen’ (‘The day may come’) was unveiled in the firm’s offices, where it now hangs opposite Campert’s ‘De Achttien Dooden’.
Long may this Busy Bee keep buzzing!
Marja Kingma, Curator Dutch Language Collections.
References
Anna Simoni, Publish and be free: a catalogue of clandestine books printed in the Netherlands, 1940-1945, in the British Library (The Hague; London, 1975.) 2725.aa.1
21 November 2019
‘The Man Who Lost His Homeland’*
“The War was not our War! Yet it somehow found us. It took us in its clutches and threw us where we are now!” Cengiz Dağcı said, and added, “Fifty years! Fifty years away from my homeland, it has become a wound that never heals…”
The Crimean Tatar writer Cengiz Dağcı is one of the most underestimated novelists of the Second World War, with over 22 books on his beloved Crimea and its long suffering through world wars and Soviet oppression. He, like all Crimean Tatars of the time, suffered greatly. He was forced to leave his home and family when he was only 22. Despite being interned by the Nazis he managed to survive and, after liberation, made the arduous journey to London through a war-ravaged Europe. He would never return to his homeland again. Although he made a life in London, his heart was in Crimea. When he died at the age of 92, his body was transferred to his homeland through the cooperation of the Turkish, Ukrainian and British states.
Photograph of Cengiz Dağcı by Zafer Karatay (reproduced with kind permission)
Dağcı was born, the fourth of eight children, on 9 March 1919 in Gurzuf, Crimea. His family moved to Kızıltaş from Gurzuf when he was a small boy. Located on the Simferopol - Yalta route, their house (which still stands today) has a beautiful, big, tranquil garden facing Ayi Dağı (Bear Mountain). Yalta has breathtaking landscapes and deep historical roots. Pushkin, Chekhov and Tolstoy were among many world-famous Russian authors, artists, and poets who lived in the city.
Photograph of Bear Mountain by Melek Maksudoglu
After the Bolshevik Revolution and establishment of the Soviet Union, private houses were confiscated. The Dağcı family house was seized and three Russian families were settled in it. In 1931, Cengiz Dağcı’s father, Seyt Omer Dagci, was arrested on account of complaints made by a neighbour that the family was not cooperating with Stalin’s collectivisation policy and had hidden goods from the Soviet. Seyt Omer Dagci was labelled an enemy of the state and sent to the Gulag. The policy of collectivisation and the mismanagement of resources led to one of the biggest famines in Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. The Dagci family somehow survived.
A year later, Dagci’s father was released from prison and decided to move his family to Akmescit (Simferopol) from Kiziltas to avoid subsequent humiliation. The family’s new squalid and miserable lodgings are mentioned in Dagci’s memoirs, Letters to my Mother where he writes: “I see, mother, how you are saddened. This move to a miserable place reflects on your face. But how brave you were there and how you turned to God even more”.
A.E. Krymskii, Literatura krymsʹkykh tatar = Kʺyrymtatarlarnynʺ edebiiaty = Literatura krymskikh tatar (Simferopolʹ, 2003). YF.2006.a.11536. A Ukrainian-Tatar-Russian anthology of Crimean Tatar literature from the 20th century
Dagci continued his schooling in Akmescit and started writing short stories. He loved poetry and his early poems were published in 1936 in Crimea’s youth journal Gençlik Mecmuası. His early writings include one poem praising Stalin and the Soviet regime, but in his memoirs he admits that he was asked to write in such a manner. Another poem he wrote about Hansaray (a palace of the Crimean Khanate, the Turkic state which existed from the mid 15th to the late 18th century) in Bakcesaray, which is entitled ‘Söyleyin Duvarlar’ (‘Walls! Talk to us’), was published in the literary journal Edebiyat Mecmuası in Crimea in 1939 and glorifies the Crimean Khanate.
In his second year at university, Dagci enlisted in the Soviet Army and fought shoulder to shoulder with Soviet citizens, consisting of ethnicities such as Ukrainian, Uzbek, Kirgyz, and Tajik. In 1941 he was captured and became a prisoner of war. Throughout his imprisonment, he refused to collaborate with the German troops. When the war ended he tried to return to his homeland but to his dismay the roads were closed. He wanted to go back to his home, finish his studies, and become a good school teacher.
Feyzi Rahman Yurter, XX. yüzyılda Kırım (Turkey, [1998?]). ITA.2000.a.6. This work, ‘20th-century Crimea’, examines the experience of Crimean Tatar POWs in the Second World War.
In 1945 he joined a Polish émigré group with his wife to seek refuge in the UK. It was a difficult and long journey to London where he built a life for himself and his family. He says in his memoirs; “I created a new home away from home. A home in which I and my wife could take sanctuary and feel safe.” He worked long hours in a restaurant during the day and wrote only at night. He kept writing about his beloved Crimea and the tragedies the Crimean Tatars faced.
All of Dagci’s novels were originally published in Turkish in Turkey. Coupled with the fact that he was living in the UK, this meant that he was able to write about the tragedies of the Crimean Tatar people. However, in the 1980s, Moscow sent a KGB agent to obtain copies of them, which were examined by the authorities and classified as foreign and restricted from the public.
A selection of Dagci’s books. Awaiting shelfmarks.
The most important theme running through all of his novels is the national identity of the Crimean Tatars. He evokes a clear picture of how they lived, their everyday life, customs, beliefs and the structure of their lives revolving around the seasons and their land. The Crimean Tatars lived a double life, having to outwardly demonstrate loyalty to the Soviet Regime that was actively trying assimilate and erase their identity, while keeping that identity alive among themselves, their families and communities, with hidden texts of resistance. They had been resisting Russian rule since 1774. Dagci, in his novels, also suggests that only after the Crimean Tatars become well educated could they ask for, and eventually receive, justice. The Soviet government’s ban on use of their language made it impossible to receive education in their mother tongue and this fact drove some Crimean Tatars to seek higher education in the Soviet system. Many of those educated in this system were subsequently involved in setting up the Crimean Tatar National Movement.
*‘The Man Who Lost His Homeland’ is the title of one of Cengiz Dağcı’s books
Melek Maksudoglu, independent researcher
This blog post is based on an article by the author published by OCA magazine in January 2017
References/Further reading
E. Allworth, ed., Muslim Communities Re-emerge: Historical Perspectives on Nationality, Politics, and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (Durham, 1994). YC.1995.b.3180
E. Allworth, ed., The Tatars of Crimea: Return to The Homeland (Durham; London, 1998). 98/11840
Alan Fisher, The Crimean Tatars (Stanford, 1978). 81/14726
Isa Kocakaplan, Kirim’dan Londra’ya Cengiz Dagci (Istanbul, 1998)
Brian Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation (Leiden, 2001). ZA.9.a.11852
Paul R. Magocsi, This Blessed Land: Crimea and the Crimean Tatars (Toronto, 2014). YD.2015.a.1261
Hüseyin Su, ed., Çağdaş Kırım Tatar Öyküsü (Ankara, 2014). YP.2017.a.5735
A.E. Krymskii, Literatura krymsʹkykh tatar = Kʺyrymtatarlarnynʺ edebiiaty = Literatura krymskikh tatar (Simferopolʹ, 2003). YF.2006.a.11536
Feyzi Rahman Yurter, XX. yüzyılda Kırım (Turkey [1998?]). ITA.2000.a.63
07 October 2019
70 Years of Books From and About East Germany
On 7 October 1949 the Soviet-occupied area of Germany became an independent state with the official name Deutsche Demokratische Republik/DDR (German Democratic Republic/GDR). The Western-occupied territories had become the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany) in May of the same year, and for the next four decades there would be two separate German states with very different government, societies, ideologies and allegiances.
Map of the German Democratic Republic, from Deutsche Demokratische Republik: Handbuch (Leipzig, 1979) X:800/14702
Wilhelm Pieck (left) is sworn in as President of the newly-founded GDR, 11 October 1949, from Heinz Heitzer [et al.], DDR – Werden und Wachsen: Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin, 1975) X:809/23404
The British Library and its predecessors acquired books and other material from the GDR for the whole period of its existence and continues to buy works about the East German state and its legacy. Many are of course research-level publications, the backbone of our non-British collecting, including the output of East German academies, universities, museums and other scholarly institutions, but there are also more general and in some cases ephemeral works which shed light on everyday aspects of life in the GDR.
A official handbook of the East German Parliament, Die Volkskammer der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin, 1964) S.F.1372/2.
Images from the 9th Party Conference of the SED, from Deutsche Demokratische Republik: Handbuch
Official GDR Government publications were received by the Library via international exchange agreements. While our holdings are not complete, we have the proceedings of the East German Parliament (Volkskammer) from the late 1950s to 1990 and the official record of laws and treaties for the whole period of the GDR’s existence. Full details of our own holdings, as well as those of the LSE and Bodleian libraries, can be found in the collection guide on our website We also hold a complete run on microfilm of Neues Deutschland the official newspaper of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED).
Masthead of Neues Deutschland, 7 October 1949, announcing the birth of the German Democratic republic. MFM.MF538H
We hold a small amount of material for and about the East German youth movements, including a collection of poems and art by members of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation to celebrate its 30th anniversary. In one poem a boy reflects that in 30 years time he will have a son of his own who will also be a pioneer; I wonder if he remembers that today?
Cover of So sind wir - so ist ein Pionier! Literarische und bildkünstlerische Arbeiten der Schuljugend des Bezirkes Neubrandenburg zum 30. Jahrestag der Pionierorganisation 'Ernst Thälmann' (Neubrandenburg, [1978]) X:990/11196
Cover of a songbook for the Freie Deutsche Jugend, Leben, Singen, Kämpfen (Berlin, 1949) A.697.dd
Many publications serve as guides to or histories of the East German state. An impressive publication from 1979, simply titled Deutsche Demokratische Republik: Handbuch gives a full overview of the state’s geography, history, economy, institutions and culture. Like other state-approved histories such as Heinz Heitzer’s DDR – Werden und Wachsen, the Handbuch gives a resolutely upbeat account of the GDR. Inevitably much material has a greater or lesser degree of propagandist content and is openly critical of the West German state, such as a study of the popular magazines and pulp fiction found in a typical Munich news kiosk and described by the study’s author as ‘poison in colourful pamphlets’.
Gift in bunten Heften: ein Münchner Zeitungskiosk als Spiegel des westdeutschen Kulturverfalls (Berlin, 1960). X.529/47019
Cultural and leisure activities within the GDR are also represented: music, art and sport all feature in the collections, often in books received as donations or as part of exchange arrangements, intended to showcase the GDR’s cultural credentials.
Cover of Sports in the GDR (Dresden, 1980) L.45/1458. This was published on the occasion of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the young gymnast is shown holding the official mascot for the games
And of course we acquired original literary texts by prominent East German writers, such as Christa Wolf, Volker Braun, Heiner Müller and many others.
We also hold West German material about the GDR from the period of its existence, also often propagandist in its own way. In the early decades of the two states, West German authors deliberately avoided using the name ‘Deutsche Demokratische Republik’, instead referring to the ‘Soviet Occupation Zone’ (Sowjetische Besatzungszone/SBZ), or sometimes just as ‘the Zone’ as in a 1965 history.
SBZ von A bis Z : ein Taschen-und Nachschlagebuch über die Sowjetische Besatzungsone Deutschlands (Bonn, 1966) W8/7230. A guide to the GDR produced by the West German Federal Ministry for All-German Affairs
Henning Frank, 20 Jahre Zone: kleine Geschichte der "DDR" (Munich, 1965) F13/4579. (Note how thew designation DDR is placed in inverted commas)
The GDR lasted only 41 years; in October 1989, even as the regime celebrated the state’s 40th anniversary, mass protests were growing in the country and many citizens were taking advantage of new opportunities to flee to the west. Within a few weeks the Berlin Wall had been breached and within a year the GDR had officially ceased to exist, acceding to the Federal Republic to form a single state.
After German reunification, books about the GDR continued to appear: scholarly studies of all aspects of East German history, politics and society; official reports on the activities of bodies such as the Ministry for State Security (STASI); literary works with the GDR as a theme; memoirs of former GDR citizens. We even have some more light-hearted items, some of which pick up on the trend for ‘Ostalgie’ (nostalgia for East Germany), such as a collection of the ‘best Trabi jokes’ mocking the famously unreliable East German cars.
Nils Brennecke, Warum hat der Trabi Räder? Die schönsten Trabi-Witze (Reinbek, 1991) YA.1994.a.9428
All the material we hold from and about the German Democratic Republic can be found in our online catalogue. With 70 years’ worth of material, we must have something for every research interest in the area.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
01 October 2019
Defending a Nazi – a barrister’s path from opponent of Nazism to advocatus diaboli
“If you appoint me to defend this man, I will stand on the river bank naked, wearing only a white sheet, and scream that I am Jesus Christ” – that’s how we can summarize the reaction of Jaroslav Mellan, a lawyer, at the idea of him being asked to defend Karl Hermann Frank.
Cover of Ladislav Tunys, Noc před popravou (Prague, 1995), YA.1999.a.737
The Czechoslovak Bar Association was in a tricky position. It was March 1946. Karl Hermann Frank, one of the most prominent Nazi leaders, had just been transferred from an American prison to Czechoslovakia, where he was to be tried and convicted of war crimes. The Bar Association, closely watched by the international community, had the difficult task of finding an advocatus diaboli for Frank, a job which no one wanted. The choice fell on Kamill Resler, a member of the anti-Nazi resistance movement and a defender of Jewish clients during the war, who was threatened with the withdrawal of his professional qualifications if he refused to defend the accused. Resler tried to challenge the decision a number of times, but to no avail. The situation was made even more dramatic by the fact that some of Resler’s relatives and friends were killed during the war as a result of Frank’s orders.
Frank in front of his bookshop in Karlovy Vary, reproduced in Emil Hruška, Pán protektorátu: K.H. Frank známý a neznámý (Prague, 2015), YF.2016.a.15829
And yet, despite his hatred for Frank, Resler believed that every criminal deserves a fair trial. In his opinion, a barrister’s duty was to disregard his feelings about the accused and to defend him to the best of his abilities. And that’s precisely what he did. Resler argued that Nazism was a disease and Frank, as its follower, must have suffered from a psychiatric disorder. He claimed that Frank lacked the ability to judge the consequences of his actions during the war and, on top of that, was unaware of what was happening in the concentration camps, even though he visited them several times.
Caricature of Resler, reproduced in Jakub Drápal, Defending Nazis in postwar Czechoslovakia: the life of K. Resler, defence counsel ex officio of K.H. Frank (Prague, 2018), awaiting shelfmark.
Before the war Frank worked as a bookseller and clerk. He enrolled in the German National-Socialist Workers Party in 1919, and when it was dissolved by the state, in the Sudeten German Party. Gradually he managed to reach the highest-ranking position in occupied Czechoslovakia, that of Secretary of State of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and chief of police. But now, with the war being over and he himself incarcerated in a Czechoslovak prison, isolated from family members and fully aware of the general hatred towards him, he became extremely depressed and struggled to find the emotional stamina to defend himself. That meant that Resler not only had to defend Frank, but that he actually found himself forced to console the Nazi prisoner and motivate him to fight for his life till the very end. The idea of Frank’s having hope of avoiding the death sentence would contribute to the image of a fair court trial that could not be questioned by international opinion.
Resler during Frank’s trial, reproduced in Defending Nazis in postwar Czechoslovakia
Frank was at first very displeased with the fact that he would be defended by a Czech barrister. Resler upset him a number of times, as he didn’t hide his criticism of Nazi ideology and actions. Yet Frank had his softer side too. One day prison guards found him crying in his cell because two Czech prisoners had given him a loaf of bread as a Christmas gift. Frank was emotionally prepared to deal with hatred, but he wasn’t prepared for kindness.
Throughout the trial Resler was careful to keep a distance from him. Only when Frank heard the pronouncement of the death sentence did Resler shake his hand for the first time. He stayed with him in the prison cell for the three hours between the announcement of the verdict and the execution. When Frank was being taken to the gallows, he bade him farewell by saying: “Die like a man!”
Frank in prison cell, reproduced in Pán protektorátu
And thus Frank had a fair trial and the Czechoslovak justice system could not be criticized by the international public. The only detail that spoiled the whole picture was the hangman, who after the execution took the noose with which Frank was hanged and drank it away in a bar. Other than that, the moral standards of the Czechoslovaks successfully passed the test.
Zuzanna Krzemien, Slavonic and East European Collections Cataloguer
References/further reading
Jakub Drápal, Defending Nazis in postwar Czechoslovakia : the life of K. Resler, defence counsel ex officio of K.H. Frank (Prague, 2018), awaiting shelfmark.
Emil Hruška, Pán protektorátu : K.H. Frank známý a neznámý (Praha, 2015), YF.2016.a.15829
Ladislav Tunys, Noc před popravou : K.H. Frank a jeho obhájce : archivy promluvily (Praha, 1995), YA.1999.a.737
28 September 2019
A Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow, or a story of Imperial glory, radical ideas and rare books
Banned Books Week (22–28 Sept 2019) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to the number of challenges to books in schools, bookshops and libraries. The theme for 2019 urges readers to ‘keep the light on’ to ensure censorship doesn’t leave us in the dark.
For over six months, from the beginning of January 1787, Empress of Russia Catherine the Great conducted an inspection of her newly-acquired lands in the south. The journey, known as the Taurida Voyage, was documented in an account kept by the Tsarina’s secretary Alexander Khrapovitskii (now digitised), but the itinerary with short descriptions of the places that she had intended to visit or pass by was published prior the trip.
Title page of Puteshestvie Ee Imperatorskogo Velishectva v poludennyi krai Rossii, predpriemlemoe v 1787 godu. (St. Petersburg, 1786) 1426.h.1
Map from Puteshestvie Ee Imperatorskogo Velishectva v poludennyi krai Rossii,
The purpose of the voyage was to celebrate the Empire, the Empress, and her victorious policies of expansion. Accounts of travels were a popular genre in 18th-century literature, but of course, Khrapovitskii’s ‘journal’ was also a distinguished piece of state propaganda.
We might speculate that the journal of Catherine’s travels ‘inspired’ Alexander Radishchev, a graduate of the University of Leipzig and therefore somewhat radical thinker, and a civil servant of the ninth rank (out of 14, first being the highest), to write his book A Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow and publish it in 1790.
Title page of the facsimile edition of Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (Moscow; Leningrad, 1935) 010291.f.36
The last pages of the facsimile edition of Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu
An account of a routine journey from the capital city to the second most important city in the country and its ex-capital does not sound like an exciting new adventure that could capture readers’ imagination. And indeed, it meant to do the complete opposite – to show the dire state of social conditions in Russia where serfdom was as routine as a trip from St Petersburg to Moscow. If Catherine’s trip was a symbol of glory and victory of the ruling classes, Radishchev’s book presented an account of the misery and defeat of the people of Russia.
Map of the journey (Materialy k izucheniiu “Puteshestviia”)
As one can see, there is no author’s name on the title page. In addition, the statement that the work had received approval from a censor – a mandatory condition for any print publication at that time in the Russian Empire – is put on the last page. It becomes obvious that Radishchev is playing some kind of trick here. The version he deposited for censorship was much lighter on criticism of the state than the version he eventually printed. Having received approval for printing, he reinstated the pages that contained his most radical, critical views.
Radishchev made use of Catherine’s decree on free printing, which from 1783 allowed individuals to set up private printing presses, and had a printing press in his own house. Between January and May 1790, he, his subordinate from the civil service, and domestics (mainly his own serfs) managed to produce 650 copies of his book. The first 50 copies were sent to the bookseller Zotov, and 30 of them sold. Quite unfortunately, one copy landed on Catherine’s desk. The Empress was infuriated, as she interpreted Radishchev's calls for reform as the most dangerous radicalism, and therefore all the remaining copies were confiscated and destroyed. Zotov was arrested and revealed the author’s name while being interrogated. Subsequently, Radishchev was also arrested and condemned to death, though the sentence was later softened and he was exiled to Siberia.
Out of the 650 copies originally printed, only just over a dozen survived. For decades, this book became the rarest and most desirable for any Russian bibliophile. Alexander Pushkin paid 200 Rubles for his copy. In 1858, Alexander Herzen published the book in his Free Russian Press in London. However, the Russian edition of 1872 was again banned by the authorities.
Title page of Herzen’s edition. 9455c.11
In 1888, Aleskei Suvorin, one of the most prominent publishers of that time, managed to get permission to reprint 100 copies of Radishchev’s book. He borrowed a copy of the 1790 edition from a Moscow bibliophile, Pavel Shchapov, but his careless employees damaged and then disposed of this rare copy. To replace it, Suvorin first quietly tried to obtain a copy from antiquarian booksellers for around 300 Rubles, but did not get very far. He then published an advert in the newspaper Russkie vedomosti (No. 56, 1888) where he offered 1,500 Rubles for a fine copy. Eventually, he managed to get a copy for two thirds of this price and Shchapov was satisfied, although he died shortly after having received a new copy of Radishchev’s journey back into his collection. His friends and relatives were sure that the stress of losing the rarity contributed significantly to his premature death.
Newspaper advert in Russkie vedomosti (N 56, 1888)
Thus, ironically, this criticism of social injustice became one of the most expensive collectors’ items on the market. The British Library does not hold the 1790 edition of Radishchev’s book.
Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator East European Collections
The Library will be holding a number of events to mark Banned Books Week, and for more related posts, see our English and Drama and Americas blogs
13 August 2019
Max Havelaar: the Novel that Killed Colonialism
“The book is multifarious… disjointed… straining for effect… the style is poor… the author inexperienced… no talent… no method…” Fine, fine, all of it fine! But… THE JAVANESE ARE MISTREATED! THE MAIN POINT of what I have written is irrefutable!
These words fill the final pages of Max Havelaar or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. Written by Multatuli -- pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker – and causing a political storm on publication in the Netherlands in 1860. Max Havelaar remains required reading for students of Dutch literature in the Netherlands and Belgium and is to the Netherlands what Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851) is to the United States. Just this year, New York Review of Books published a new English translation of this masterpiece of Dutch fiction which paints a damning picture of 19th-century Indonesia under Dutch colonial rule.
The so-called ‘Sjaalman portrait’ of Multatuli. Reproduced in: Dik van der Meulen, Multatuli: leven en werken van Eduard Douwes Dekker . (Amsterdam, 2002). YA.2003.a.41440
Perhaps it’s Max Havelaar’s explosive nature that attracts contemporary readers – Multatuli’s book was considered so controversial by the first publisher, Jacob Van Lennep that he set about altering the novel to tone down its political volatility. A copy of the first edition as censored by Van Lennep, with dates and the names of people and places crossed out, is housed in the British Library. It wasn’t until 1875 that Multatuli was able to buy back the copyright of his own novel and to have Max Havelaar published with the original names and dates re-inserted.
Title page of Max Havelaar, of de Koffij-veilingen der Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, (Amsterdam, 1860) RB.23.a.35956
The cover image of the latest English edition clearly hints at the explosiveness of Multatuli’s work: Indonesian artist Raden Saleh’s painting of Indonesia’s most active volcano, Merapi, meaning “the one making fire” in old Javanese, occupies the front cover. A fitting choice for the book that, according to the Indonesian writer Pramoedya Anata Toer, “killed colonialism.” What made Max Havelaar so politically charged was Multatuli drawing attention to the suffering of those dominated by colonial rule. Multatuli was considered an extraordinary thinker for his time – he wrote about his experiences with the local population in Indonesia not as their oppressor, but as someone determined to be their ‘saviour’ – although this sense of white responsibility is of course also part of the colonial mindset.
Cover of Max Havelaar or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (New York, 2019). Awaiting shelfmark.
Whether Multatuli’s motivations for writing Max Havelaar were purely self-serving – he wanted his job as a colonial administrator back – or whether he wrote to campaign for better conditions for the Indonesians, it was essential for him to present Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia in a negative light. One of his most effective tools was altering the perceptions of the native Indonesian; utilising Orientalist descriptions and portraying them as victims of colonialism. A key example of this is the enduring story of Saidjah and Adinda, which depicts a pair of Indonesian star-crossed lovers. This tale is perhaps the most well-known from Max Havelaar and has been published as a separate story numerous times.
Saîdjah en Adinda. Toespraak tot de hoofden van Lebak ... (The Hague, 1956). 12586.a.24.
A tragic tale of love and loss at the hands of ruthless oppressors, the story of Saidjah and Adinda awarded the Indonesians a sense of humanity they had previously been denied. Multatuli contradicts earlier descriptions of the Indonesians as threatening and violent by depicting them as peaceful, close to nature and, thanks to their unsophisticated life goals of owning buffaloes and pleasing their families, less corrupt than the Europeans who ruled over them.
Multatuli’s writing style, which sees him break into the narrative as the righteous omniscient narrator who speaks truth to power, made Max Havelaar all the more persuasive. This style, innovative to readers back in colonial Europe and still so fresh today, earned the text its reputation as a literary masterpiece. Nearly 160 years on, the themes of the novel still resonate – questioning those that hold power and bringing about emancipation for the subjugated remain ever-significant. Max Havelaar continues to entice readers worldwide, both as a novel and as an indictment of oppression that brought about a decisive change in policy and national mindset.
In 1948, less than a century years after its first publication, Communist publisher Pegasus issued its own edition of Max Havelaar, edited by the editor of ‘De Waarheid’, the newspaper of the Dutch Communist Party. At the start of the Indonesian War of Independence, Pegasus’goal was to raise awareness of the colonial history amongst the Dutch soldiers sent to suppress the independence fighters. This plan did not succeed, because Dutch bookshops and libraries refused to stock it. There are very few copies held by libraries in the Netherlands, which makes it all the more special that the BL received a copy in donation in 2017.
Title page of the 1948 edition of Max Havelaar, published by Pegasus in Amsterdam. YF.2018.a.8223
Megan Strutt, University of Sheffield
Written as part of the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme, working in collaboration with Marja Kingma (Curator Germanic Collection BL) and Filip De Ceuster (University of Sheffield).
09 August 2019
A Letter to Panizzi with Echoes and Sparks
In May 1921 staff at the British Museum Library must have been rather surprised to receive a letter addressed to Sir Anthony Panizzi, the Museum’s famous 19th-century Principal Librarian, who had been dead for some 42 years. The letter was from Victor Patzovsky, a former officer in the Austrian army, who had been stationed at the Sigmundsherberg Prisoner of War camp in north-eastern Austria during the First World War, and it accompanied a parcel containing issues of newspapers produced by the Italian prisoners in the camp.
The camp at Sigmundsherberg, from the masthead of camp newspaper L’ Eco del Prigioniero, no.3 (21 January 1917) NEWS12832
Such newspapers were produced in many internment and prisoner-of-war camps in the First and Second World Wars. They served various purposes: to communicate the latest news from the camp and the wider world, to publicise sporting and cultural societies and events organised by the prisoners, to alleviate boredom and frustration, to share experiences, memories and jokes, and to maintain a common cultural identity while in enemy captivity.
These things were particularly important in a camp like Sigmundsherberg where conditions were poor and prisoners particularly likely to succumb to the ‘barbed-wire disease’ that accompanied long, difficult and tedious incarceration. The camp had originally housed Russian prisoners, but after Italy entered the war against her former Austrian and German allies most of the Russians were moved out, and by the autumn of 1916 some 56,000 Italians were interned there. Since this was a far greater number than the camp had been built for, overcrowding was a constant problem, exacerbated by sickness, and shortages of food and fuel, creating miserable conditions for the prisoners.
In his letter Patzovsky writes of the prisoners’ ‘sad lot’ and says that he was ‘a real friend’ to them, enclosing testimonials from some of them to support this claim. He goes on to explain that he has now fallen on hard times himself, and is hoping to sell the newspapers to the Library to raise some money. He must have heard of Panizzi and, not realising that he was long dead, thought that an Italian-born librarian would have a particular interest in the newpapers and sympathy with a man who had tried to help Italians in distress. The letter was passed on to A.W. Pollard, one of Panizzi’s successors as Keeper of Printed Books, and a pencilled note on the first page, signed with Pollard’s initials, shows that the Library offered £2 for the collection. Clearly Patzovsky was content with this as the newspapers remain in the British Library today, although the testimonials were presumably returned to Patzovsky as he requested.
Easter issue of L’Eco del Prigioniero (8 April 1917)
The run of newspapers is far from complete. As Patzovsky explains, ‘the few copies that were printed went from hand to hand among the thousands of Italians until the paper fell to pieces.’ The earliest in the collection is no. 3 of the weekly L’Eco del Prigioniero (‘The Prisoner’s Echo’), dated 21 January 1917. L’Eco del Prigioniero was reproduced from manuscript using a machine known as an opalograph and each issue has a different illustrated masthead.
Some examples of mastheads from L’Eco del Prigioniero. Two bear a label addressed to Patzovsky, suggesting that they were his subscription copies
The first editor was an A. Gori, but from no. 15 (6 May 1917) the role was taken over by Guido Monaldi. The content generally includes news and comment, essays poems and stories, and reports of camp activities, while a monthly supplement, L’Eco Umoristico/L’Eco Caricaturista, is devoted to jokes and cartoons.
Page from L’Eco Caricaturista, May 1917, with self-portraits of the artists. HS.74/734
In August 1917 L’Eco del Prigioniero became La Scintilla (‘The Spark’), but Monaldi remained as editor, the content was much the same, and there was still a humorous supplement, La Scintilla Caricaturista. Initially the same form of reproduction from manuscript was also used, but the difficulty of obtaining the chemicals needed for the process and the low quality of the available supplies made it impossible to keep up with the demand for copies and to maintain the quality of the reproduction.
La Scintilla, no, 3 (2 September 1917) HS.74/734
By the beginning of November Monaldi and his team had succeeded in acquiring a proper printing press, and the remaining issues are all printed, losing somewhat in visual charm and variety but gaining greatly in legibility. A new and permanent masthead image soon appeared, with the image of a goddess-like figure striking sparks.
The first printed issue of La Scintilla (4 November 1917), showing the kind of wear and tear described by Patzovsky
Somewhat confusingly, the series numeration restarts at 1 from the first printed issue; the last issue which we hold is no. 15 in this numeration (7 April 1918), although La Scintilla is recorded as having run until August 1918.
Masthead for the printed issues of La Scintilla
Incomplete as our holdings are, we must be grateful to Patzovsky for offering them to the Library and to Pollard for being willing to buy them from him.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
Further reading:
Rudolf Koch, Im Hinterhof des Krieges: das Kriegsgefangenenlager Sigmundsherberg (Klosterneuburg, 2002) YA.2003.a.43771
01 August 2019
Pérák, the only Czech superhero
During the Second World War, a strange rumour spread among the residents of Prague. A mysterious masked character dressed in black was said to be seen jumping at great heights over the rooftops and streets of the occupied city. He would suddenly leap out of a dark corner to attack Czech collaborators, or to save Czech civilians from the hands of the Gestapo.
Jiří Gruss, Projekt Pérák (2003) reproduced in Petr Janeček, Mýtus o pérákovi. Městská legenda mezi folklorem a populární kulturou (Prague, 2017), awaiting shelfmark.
According to the urban legend, Pérák, the Spring Man (from Czech péro, 'spring'), was an inventor turned superhero. Thanks to springs attached to his shoes, he was able to startle and escape Nazi soldiers who tried in vain to capture him. That’s how popular belief has it. However, in his Mýtus o pérákovi. Městská legenda mezi folklorem a populární kulturou, Petr Janeček shows that, in fact, the myth of the Spring Man did not start with the Second World War, but that for a century before it had been part of Czech and international folklore, and its origins could be traced back to Spring-heeled Jack, a spectre popular in Victorian England, who was believed to torment the inhabitants of London, Sheffield, and Liverpool. He had claws and red eyes and, just like Pérák, he was able to make enormous leaps.
Cover of Spring-heel'd Jack: the Terror of London. Issue 1 (London, 1867) 12620.h.26
In fact, the early oral tradition also presented the Spring Man as a sinister figure who posed a threat to common Czech people, as he would murder or rape defenceless civilians. As a result, many Czechs refused to work night shifts, which had a detrimental effect on the production of weapons in Nazi factories. During the peak of the Pérák myth, almost every incident would be attributed to the Spring Man. Gradually, Pérák evolved from a terrifying phantom into a positive hero who fought the Nazi army by blowing up military vehicles and who would defend the innocent residents of Prague, as well as writing anti-Nazi graffiti on walls to raise the morale of Czech civilians. And that’s how he became the only superhero in Czech history.
Cover of Petr Stančík’s Pérák (Brno, 2008), YF.2008.a.33809
Being a symbol of Czech resistance against Nazi Germany, Pérák was an important part of Czech wartime culture. While he was almost certainly an imaginary character rather than a real person, he provided Czech civilians with hope and a feeling that someone out there was protecting them against the Nazi occupiers. Although his activity ceased completely with the end of the war, the career of Pérák as an urban legend was not over, and since then he has evolved from a hero of gossip stories into part of Czech popular culture, including cartoon animations, comic books and novels.
Cover of magazine Pionýr (May 1980) reproduced in Petr Janeček, Mýtus o pérákovi
Being a symbol of resistance against the oppressor, the character of the Spring Man has been adopted by various political movements, including Czech nationalists, anti-globalists and anti-fascists - and in this way, the same spectre turned superhero has fought different enemies for the past eighty years.
An antifascist sticker with Pérák reproduced in Petr Janeček, Mýtus o pérákovi
Zuzanna Krzemien, SEE Cataloguer
References/Further reading
Petr Janeček, Mýtus o pérákovi. Městská legenda mezi folklorem a populární kulturou (Prague, 2017). Awaiting shelfmark.
Petr Stančík, Pérák (Brno 2008). YF.2008.a.33809
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