European studies blog: Literature

09 January 2017

European Literature Network Salon: Three Wise Women

On 23 November 2016 I had the honour of chairing a conversation with two Polish writers: Julia Fiedorczuk and Magdalena Tulli, and the British author Deborah Levy, at Waterstones Piccadilly. I was invited to do so by Rosie Goldsmith and Anna Błasiak of European Literature Network, who masterminded this Salon to highlight the Polish Market Focus at the 2017 London Book Fair. The event was also supported by the British Council.

Julia Fiedorczuk (photo by Radek Kobierski)

Julia Fiedorczuk has published five volumes of poetry, three collections of short stories and many critical and academic texts. A fragment of her debut novel, Nieważkość (‘Weightless’) – read by the author in Polish and by the translator Anna Zaranko in English – emphasised Fiedorczuk’s tender, yet unsentimental attention to all living creatures. There is a child, an ugly dog, some carefully observed plants; but also a charged mother/daughter relationship, sour small-town observations about a neighbour, and unsettling intimations of the adult world from a child’s perspective.

A question about Fiedorczuk’s ecological worries and interests, and the interconnectedness of characters and tropes in her writing, made her think of the metaphor of mycelium – a mass of ideas manifesting above the ground of consciousness as images, characters and so on.

Two books by Julia Fiedorczuk from the British Library's collections

As for Magdalena Tulli (author of seven novels), we read a fragment of Flaw in the original and in Bill Johnston’s beautiful translation: a meditation on a refugee family arriving to an imaginary town and being perceived as essentially alien in every way. Tulli’s clear-eyed description of the process of displacement is informed by wartime chaos, but her description of people finding themselves at the mercy of indifferent events strikes an awfully modern note in the times of Calais and Aleppo.

Magdalena Tulli (photo by A.Błachut)

Tulli pointed out that the world has always been full of refugees, but societies ignored them – and now it is impossible not to see them. She also said that although she does not like history, it cannot be forgotten, especially in Eastern Europe.

Some books by Magdalena Tulli from the British Library's Collections

Deborah Levy read Placing a Call from her short story collection, Black Vodka (High Wycombe, 2013; YKL.2015.a.5196): a lyrical account of a difficult encounter, which – in its obsessive concentration on detail that may serve, paradoxically, as an evasion of reality – seems to weave in and out of focus and leads to a moving finale.

Levy discussed her European and Polish inspirations – Black Vodka, Swimming Home (High Wycombe, 2011; H.2013/.8738) and Hot Milk (New York, 2016, ELD.DS.71605) share vivid continental landscapes and settings, and Polish accents throughout (as it turns out, she travelled widely in Poland and is a devotee of Tadeusz Kantor’s theatre). She mentioned that she finds hybrid identities interesting because she herself identifies as a hybrid, and her personal story and artistic lineage are complex, indelibly entwined with the history of Europe.

Deborah Levy (photo by Sophia Evans)

I was fascinated to hear my guests’ views on whether they perceive themselves as representatives of a certain literary heritage or if they aim for universality. Tulli’s answer, “My country is Polish language”, found an echo in Levy’s comment that continental modernism is really her language. Fiedorczuk mentioned her love-hate relationship with the Polish literary tradition.

We also discussed a theme that all three writers have explored: the relationship between mothers and daughters. It features in Tulli’s as yet untranslated Włoskie szpilki (‘Italian Pumps’; Warsaw, 2011; YF.2012.a.26877), in Fiedorczuk’s Weightless and her short stories, and in Levy’s Hot Milk and Swimming Home. Fiedorczuk talked about her view of it as reproduction of trauma, one that daughters inherits from mothers. The mother in Tulli’s (autobiographical?) book is, as she said, rendered so empty by her trauma that she has nothing left to give to her daughter. The characters of Isabel in Swimming Home and Rose in Hot Milk explore the cost of the mother/daughter relationship to both sides. Related to this is the unsentimental perspective of childhood the authors share, which we also discussed.

From left to right: Deborah Levy, Julia Fiedorczuk, Magdalena Tulli and Marta Dziurosz (photo by Rosie Goldsmith, via Flickr)

We finished the discussion by exploring whether there is a difference between male and female writers creating the sort of experimental, unapologetically literary writing that my three guests excel at. Fiedorczuk pointed out that the genre considered “appropriate” for female writers is middle-brow fiction, and those reaching beyond are frequently punished – however, she is not ready to betray her own style by conforming to those expectations. Tulli, on the other hand, emphasised the importance of being able to communicate her ideas; she discussed the changes she made to her style to make it possible. Levy pointed out that a reading experience is not diminished if the reader floats in and out of understanding.

The lively Q&A session proved that the topics discussed resonated with the audience – and, I hope, meant that the “wise women” found new readers for their unique writing. A full recording of the discussion can be heard on the European Literature Network Soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/eurolitnetwork/eurostars-three-wise-women-with-deborah-levy-magdalena-tulli-and-julia-fiedorczuk

Marta Dziurosz, literary translator and interpreter from and into Polish, Free Word Centre Associate.

You can find all the books mentioned and much more modern Polish literature and secondary literature about it in the rich Polish collections at the British Library.

Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 10:00 AM in Literature , Poland , Slavonic , Translation | Permalink

Tags: Deborah Levy , Julia Fiedorczuk , Magdalena Tulli , Modern Polish literature

05 January 2017

Gysbert Japicx: founder of Frisian literature

Among the big literary figures we commemorated in 2016, Gysbert Japicx certainly deserves a mention. After all, he is credited with putting Frisian on the map as a literary language. Old Frisian was among the languages that formed the English language and was widely used in official, business and cultural contexts. By the mid-16th century Frisian was mainly used in popular songs. Anything more scholarly was written in Latin, French or Dutch.

Then, along comes Gysbert Japicx, schoolmaster, canon and poet.

Gysbert Japicx, by his uncle Matthijs Harings (1637), from Hulde oan Gysbert Japicx (Assen, 1966) British Library Ac.966

Japicx was born into a middle-class family in the Frisian city of Bolsward in 1603 and died there in 1666. His father was Jacob Holckema, a cabinet maker, who held several public offices in town, up to burgomaster. The family name Holckema was not used very much and Gysbert only used his patronymic Japiks, or Japix, or Japicx.

Map of Bolsward. From Tonneel van de Heerlykheit Friesland ...(1718). Maps C.9.e.3(44)

Gysbert was educated at the Latin school to become a school teacher, a profession he carried out all his life. Like his father he was active in the church, mainly as cantor. In 1602 he married Sijke Salves Rolwagen, daughter of a notary, with whom he had five children. Four of them died during epidemics of the plague, in 1656 and ten years later, during which turned out to be the last plague epidemic to occur in the Low Countries. This last outbreak took another child, his wife and himself. Only his oldest son Salves survived.

Japicx showed an interest in literature from an early age. He wrote poetry in Dutch, possibly Latin and his first work in Frisian dates from 1639. It is not certain why Gysbert started writing poetry in Frisian, but in any case this was well received. The fact that he put great emphasis on draughtsmanship must have played a part in this. He had great skill in applying the form of ‘inventio’, the art of making variations on a theme or work. Japicx’ work mainly consists of translations and (humorous) adaptations. He adapted works by classical poets, but also by contemporaries of his, Constantijn Huygens and Joost van den Vondel.

He also wrote his own poetry; on topics ranging from religion, to love, to the lives of common people. Japicx concentrated on virtuosity and scholarly poetry and it is through these efforts that he turned Frisian into a scholarly and cultured language. Indeed, his virtuosity was so great, that very few Frisian poets have managed to equal him, even up to this day.

One of his most famous works is Friessche Tjerne, a humorous wedding poem. This was published by Claude Fonteyne, in Leeuwarden, in 1640 and is the only title to be published during Japicx’ lifetime. The Library holds a facsimile of the 1640 edition, published in Germany in 1929.

Gisbert Japicx, ‘Friessche Tjerne’ A facsimile of the edition of 1640 from Drei friesische Hochzeitsgedichte aus dem 17. Jahrhundert. Mit einer Einleitung herausgegeben von J. Haantjes und G. G. Kloeke (Hamburg, 1929)] Ac.9822/4

Friessche Tsjerne cemented Japicx’ name, both in the Netherlands as well as abroad.

The English linguist Franciscus Junius came to Bolsward, in order to learn Frisian from Japicx. Junius copied several of Japicx’ texts, which are still kept in the Bodleian Library (Bodleian MS. Junius 122 (22, 30)).

Frisian scholar J.H. Halbertsma extensively researched Japicx’ most famous poem and Junius’ texts in his Letterkundige Naoogst (Deventer, 1840; 816.b.36)

In 1668, two years after Japicx’ untimely death, Samuel Haringhouk published Friesche Rymlerye, the complete works of Gysbert Japicx. Japicx and Haringhouk had started on the editing of the works, when the plague took Japicx. There are three parts: Love poems , Dialogues and occasional poetry, and Psalms and other religious works.

Gysbert Japicx, Friesche Rymlarye (Bolsward, 1668). 11557.h.27

In 1681 the historian Simon Abbes Gabbema edited a new edition, in two volumes, containing a collection of letters and translations of three French texts. (BL 839.f.22).

The commemorations of Gysbert Japicx may have closed with the passing of 2016, but Gysbert Japicx continues to be remembered in the literary prize for the best Frisian literary work, named in his honour.

One only needs to look at this video on YouTube to realise that Gysbert Japicx continues to inspire authors, poets and songwriters.

Marja Kingma. Curator Germanic Collections, Low Countries.

References:

It wurk fan Gysbert Japix [bezorgd door] Philippus Breuker. (Ljouwert, 1989). YA.1991.a.4753

Gysbert Japicx: the Oxford text of four poems . Edited with a complete glossary by Alistair Campbell. (Bolsward, 1948). 11529.e.30.

A more detailed biography and bibliography of Japicx (in Dutch) can be found here.

Posted by Susan Reed at 11:41 AM in Language , Literature , Netherlands , Printed books | Permalink

Tags: Frisian language , Frisian literature , Gysbert Japicx

25 December 2016

The Universe in ‘the Galosh of Happiness’: Halia Mazurenko

Anyone who wants to see the construction of the artistic phenomenon in the space of the artist and poet Halia Mazurenko’s syncretic meaning and metaphor has to understand the aesthetic nature of her artistic heritage. Her childhood and youth were full of sharp collisions and spiritual dramas, which in her later years gave corresponding emotional material for deep philosophical reflections.

Halia Mazurenko was born on 25 December 1901 in St Petersburg into the family of a Russian landowner, Sergei Bogoliubov, and Elyzaveta Mazurenko, the descendant of a Ukrainian Cossack family. Her godmother was the Russian poet Zinaida Gippius. But soon the circumstances Halia’s life changed: her parents divorced, and the mother and daughter returned to their family in Ekaterinoslav/Katerynoslav (now Dnipro).

Cover of Vybrane (Selected works) by Halia Mazurenko (Kyiv, 2002). YF.2005.a.20221

Young Halia spoke French fluently and started to write poems at an early age. Her first poem was dedicated to Ukraine. At the same time she also studied drawing and sculpture in the private studio of the well-known Ukrainian impressionist Viacheslav Koreniev. At the age of 14, she started to work in the Ekaterinoslav Historical Museum, which held a valuable collection of Ukrainian Cossack artefacts. Its director, Dmytro Iavornytskyi, commissioned her to sculpt the heads of Ukrainian Hetmans for the facade of the museum building. But Halia went to join her uncle at the front during the First World War, and later joined the Ukrainian liberation struggle in the army of Symon Petliura.

After the end of the War, Halia continued her studies in Warsaw and Berlin, where in 1921 she presented her sculpture at the Exhibition of Ukrainian Art Students, together with Mykola Hlushchenko, Ivan Babii, Mykola Butovych and Fedir Iemets. After this she moved to Prague, where in 1926 she published the first collection of her poems Akvareli (‘Watercolours’). At the same time she became a student at the Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts, where her supervisors were the painter Ivan Kulets', the sculptor Kostiantyn Stakhovskyi, and the graphic artist Robert Lisovskyi. She also prepared her dissertation on the psychology of colour in the work of Vincent van Gogh, as well as collaborating on the literary journals Literaturno-Naukovyi Visnyk (L'viv, 1892-1932; Ac.762/4) and Proboiem (Prague, 1935-1937; ZL.9.a.159).

Being in difficult financial circumstances she married, but soon after the birth of her daughter she was divorced. Halia’s mother persuaded her to continue her studies in Prague, and took the grand-daughter Maryna with her to Ukraine. Halia would never see her child again: in 1937 she received a message about the arrest and execution of her mother. Only at the end of her life in London did she find that Maryna had been rescued by her mother’s neighbour and grew up in a strange family under the name of Goncharova. This was not the end of difficult circumstances in Halia’s life; in the 1930s she married the literary critic Baikov, and had a son and a daughter. With two small children she survived the bombardment of Prague, and after the Second World War she moved to London with her family, where she worked actively in the fields of literature and art. From 1961 to 1973 there were nine personal exhibitions of her work in the USA, Iceland, Wales, Pakistan, and London.

Cover of autobiographical novel by Halia Mazurenko Ne toi kozak, khto poborov, a toi kozak, khto ‘vyvernetsia’(‘A true Cossack not so much defeats the enemy as knows how to escape from his clutches’) London, 1974; X.908/28914.

The majority of her works were watercolours, mixed graphic techniques, and enamels. The subjects of her works were symbolic landscapes, floral and animal motifs, sketches for psychological portraits, and mystical scenes. In London she published at her own expense collections of her poetry, often illustrated with her own drawings. The most famous of them are Kliuchi (‘The keys’, London, 1969; X.908/19768), Zelena iashchirka (‘The Green Lizard’, London, 1971; X.900/5253), Skyt poetiv (‘Poets’ retreat’, London, 1971; X.908/24280), Try misiatsi v literi zhyttia (‘Three months in the alphabet of life’, London, 1973’ X.108/12821) and Pivnich na vulytsi (‘Midnight on the street’, London, 1980; X.950/2914; cover below).

For decades, working in her modest accommodation in London’s Belsize Square, she built her unique imaginary world, and as she wrote in one of her poems, ‘The Galosh of Happiness’ creating her own milieu. As well as making thousands of drawings, paintings and enamels, hundreds of poems (some in English), and her albums of memoirs, she also taught pupils at her private art studio ‘Tuesday Group’.

Title-page of Silent melodies (London, 1982). X.955/1928

She died on May 27, 2000, leaving a massive heritage, which we can describe in her own words ‘In philosophy I am interested firstly in the moral strength of humans… The moral height of a strong personality which did not bend under circumstances was always the inspiration for my work’.

Handwritten message Z Novym Rokom! (Happy New New!) by Halia Mazurenko (From the private archive of Roman Yatsiv, reproduced with his kind permission).

Dr Roman Yatsiv, Pro-Rector, Lviv National Art Academy

Stones, Coffins and Violin Cases: Andrey Platonov

I began translating Andrey Platonov (1899-1951) over 40 years ago. Joseph Brodsky saw him as at least the equal of Proust, Joyce, Musil or Kafka. I myself feel the same. I am hoping that a few quotations may be enough to make readers wish to learn more about him.

Andrey Platonov in 1922

The son of a railway worker who also gilded the cupolas of churches, Andrey Platonov was born at the turn of a century – on 1 September 1899 – and between town and country, on the edge of the central Russian city of Voronezh. He was a talented engineer and many of his heroes are craftsmen of some kind, often eccentric and lonely. Here are the first lines of his novel Chevengur (1927-28; the British Library holds a 2008 edition with illustrations by Svetlana Filippova: YF.2009.a.29735):

Old provincial towns have tumbledown outskirts, and people come straight from nature to live there. A man appears, with a keen-eyed face that has been worn out to the point of sadness, a man who can fix up or equip anything but who has himself lived through life unequipped. There was not one object, from a frying pan to an alarm clock, that had not at some time passed through the hands of this man. […] But he had never made anything for himself – neither a family, nor a dwelling.

There is a great deal of pain, a sense of brokenness, in Platonov’s earlier work. Many of his heroes and heroines are orphans. This is from the second paragraph of his novel Schastlivaia Moskva (‘Happy Moscow’, 1934-36; British Library editions at: YA.2000.a.35626 and YF.2011.a.168):

Her father died from typhoid; the hungry, orphaned girl went out of the house and never went back there again. Remembering neither people nor space, her soul gone to sleep, for several years she walked and ate up and down her country, as if her mother land were an emptiness, until she came to herself in a children’s home and at school.

This girl goes on to become a glamorous flying instructor, but her traumatic childhood remains with her, dragging her down. She loses her job. Working as a manual labourer on the construction of the Moscow metro, she then loses one leg in an accident.

Andrey Platonov, Happy Moscow, translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler (London, 2013) H.2014/.6789

Platonov was a passionate supporter of the 1917 Revolution and remained sympathetic to the dream that gave birth to it, yet no one wrote more searingly of its consequences. He treats collectivisation and the Terror Famine with black humour:

‘The coffins!’ the peasant announced. ‘We stacked those wooden coffins into the cave for future use – and now you’re digging up the whole gully. Give us our coffins back! […] Them coffins are made to measure – we’ve marked each one so we know who goes where. Our coffins are what keep us all going. Yes, they’re all we’ve got left – a coffin’s an entire livelihood to us. And before we buried them in the cave, we lay down in them – we’ve got them worn in!’

Platonov writes equally vividly about the lives of a member of the Moscow elite and of a railwayman in a remote northern forest, about the lives of a baby hare and a steam engine. The tenderness and precision of his description of the baby hare makes me think of D.H. Lawrence at his best. Here, though, are a few lines about Platonov’s favourite bird, the proletarian sparrow:

In the depth of winter, near midnight, a blizzard began. The old man was playing his last piece – Schubert’s Winterreise – and then he intended to go off to rest. Just then, from the middle of the wind and snow, appeared the familiar, greying sparrow. With his delicate, insignificant little feet he settled on the frosty snow; then he walked a little around the violin case, fearless and indifferent to the whirls of wind buffeting him over his entire body – and then he flew right inside the case. There the sparrow began pecking the bread, almost burying himself in its warm softness.

Platonov’s place in the Soviet literary world was always borderline. Some of his works were published—and subjected to fierce criticism. Others were accepted for publication—yet never actually published. Unable to publish original work during his last years, he received a commission for a book of adaptations of Russian folk tales. With only the subtlest of changes, he was able to make these his own:

‘Thank you, young man,’ he said. ‘There was charm in the forbidden dress and wisdom in the book. The mirror showed all things visible – all that seems in the world. I thought I’d collected a good dowry for my daughter, only I didn’t want to give it to her too soon. I thought I’d brought her gifts of every kind, but I’d left out the one kind that matters, the kindness that was there inside you. I went far away in search of this gift, but it was close at hand all the time. It’s never a given, nor can anyone give it – it seems we must each seek it out for ourselves.’

Andrei Platonov, Ivan-chudo: rasskazy, skazki (Cheliabinsk, 1986). YA.1995.a.4659

The death of Platonov’s son – from tuberculosis caught in the Gulag – was only one of many tragedies that he endured with extraordinary courage. He did not intend it as such, but I see this description of a plane tree as a self-portrait:

During its spring floods, the river must have flung mountain stones at the very heart of the plane, but the tree had consumed these vast stones into its body, encircled them with patient bark, made them something it could live with, endured them into its own self, and gone on growing further, meekly lifting up as it grew taller what should have destroyed it.

Robert Chandler, translator (All translations by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler)

Robert Chandler will be talking about Platonov and about his recent translation Fourteen Little Red Huts and other plays at an event at Pushkin House on 14 February 2017. Further details and how to book here.

Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 11:00 AM in Literature , Russia , Slavonic , Translation | Permalink

12 December 2016

'An absolutely essential handyman and busybody in Russian literature’…Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826)

These were the words in which Andrew Field, in his The Complection of Russian Literature (London, 1971; X.981/2277) described Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, who was born 250 years ago on 12 December 1766, and without whom Russian literature and the Russian language would never have developed as they did.

Portrait of the writer and historian N. M. Karamzin (1818) by V. A. Tropinin (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Image from Wikimedia Commons)

Ironically, perhaps, he was not of Russian but of Tatar stock, as his name indicates, though his father was an officer in the Russian army, serving in the Simbirsk governate at the time of his son’s birth in the village of Znamenskoe. However, young Nikolai did not remain in the provinces but was sent to study in Moscow and later moved to St. Petersburg, where he made his first literary contacts and began to experiment with translations into Russian. Among these was Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1787), one of the first of his plays to appear in Russian. In the introduction, his first foray into historical literary criticism, Karamzin acclaimed Shakespeare’s capacity to fathom human nature, and noted that the average Russian reader was wholly unfamiliar with English literature, a situation which he set out to remedy. He also produced a new translation of Lessing’s Emilia Galotti (1788) which was successfully staged in Moscow.

He also identified another serious gap in the reading material available in Russian: literature for children. In 1785 he launched Detskoe chtenie dlia serdtsa i razuma (‘Children’s Readings for Heart and Mind’), the first Russian periodical for young readers. Containing lively articles on science, history and geography as well as stories and fables, many translated from German, it drew on Karamzin’s earlier experience as an educational publisher. Together with his co-editor Aleksandr Petrov, he also included translations of tales by Madame de Genlis and prose versions of James Thomson’s The Seasons.

In 1789 Karamzin decided to embark on extensive travels through Germany, France, Switzerland and England, which would later provide material for his Pis’ma ruskago puteshestvennika (‘Tales of a Russian Traveller’). It is available to English-speaking readers in an excellent translation by Andrew Kahn (Oxford, 2003; YC.2004.a.2638), with an introduction in which he points out that the book ‘represents an ambitious attempt to join Enlightenment discourses and literary modes…producing nothing less than an anthropology of the Enlightenment.’ Of special interest to such readers is his account of visiting London in 1790, including Hamlet at the Haymarket Theatre, ‘the lovely village of Hampstead’, Parliamentary elections and the Tower of London, where he records that ‘we were shown the axe with which Anne [sic; actually Jane] Grey’s head was cut off!!’.

Title-page of Karamzin’s Pis'ma ruskago puteshestvennika (Moscow, 1797) 1455.a.15

In his attempts to link Russia into a wider European literary tradition, Karamzin also experimented with novel-writing, though his efforts in this genre are, to modern tastes, less successful than his traveller’s tales, and more interesting for their contribution to language and style than their intrinsic merits. In the interest of greater suppleness and fluidity he started the process of introducing Gallicisms to replace Slavonic expressions and aid him in transmitting the high-flown elegance of Sentimentalism to Russian readers. Unfortunately the results smack less of Sentimentalism than sentimentality, and one of his most famous tales, Bednaia Liza (Poor Liza; 1792), ends in typically melodramatic style: ‘Liza’s mother heard of the dreadful death of her daughter, and her blood went cold from the horror – her eyes closed forever. – The cottage became deserted. Now the wind howls through it, and hearing this noise at night, superstitious villagers say: “There moans the dead one; there moans poor Liza!”’ (tr. David Gasperetti; Three Russian tales of the eighteenth century; DeKalb, Illinois, 2012; YC.2012.a.13725).

Title-page of Aonidy, ili Sobranie raznykh novykh stikhotvorenii (St. Petersburg, 1797) 1491.d.36.

However, if Karamzin was a less than distinguished novelist, he was a pioneer as a historian. This field was comparatively undeveloped until he began his twelve-volume Istoriia Gosudarstva Rosiiskago. After a successful career as an editor and publisher, launching the Moskovskii zurnal (Moscow Journal) in 1791 followed by the poetical almanac Aonidy (The Aonides; picture above) in collaboration with G. R. Derzhavin and Ivan Dmitriev, in 1803 he decided to retire to Simbirsk to concentrate on his new venture. Learning the reason for his withdrawal from public life, Tsar Alexander I invited him to Tver to read the first eight volumes. Not surprisingly, he was a strong advocate of autocracy, and his wish that ‘there should be no Poland under any shape or name’ strikes a startling and sinister note to modern readers. Yet these considerations should not detract from his achievement as one of the first Russian authors to gather and annotate historical materials systematically and thoroughly. Despite his rational Enlightenment views (he was also an active Freemason), Karamzin was not immune to the spirit of an age which enthusiastically devoured Scott’s historical novels and uncritically swallowed the Ossian forgeries, and as such was a man of his time whose glamourizing of the reign of Ivan III is typical of the period.

He did, however, express a great admiration for the attainments of Catherine the Great, and the British Library possesses a copy of a German translation by Johann Richter (picture below) in which he pays fervent tribute to her work as an innovator, reformer and patron of the arts and philanthropy.

Johann Richter’s German translation of Karamzin’s panegyric to Catherine the Great, Lobrede auf Catharina die Zweyte (Riga, 1801) 10790.aa.1

Karamzin ended his days happily on 22 May 1826 at the Tauride Palace, where he had lived as a guest of the Tsar who had eagerly awaited the appearance of every new page of the histories. Though the conservative views which strongly influenced Alexander, such as his criticism of Speransky’s reforms, undoubtedly had a detrimental effect on the course of Russian political history, his accomplishments in forging links between Russia and the West and even giving its alphabet a new letter (ë) make him a figure of lasting significance and continuing interest.

Susan Halstead, Content Specialist (Humanities & Social Sciences), Research Services

Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 3:00 PM in Language , Literature , Russia , Slavonic , Translation | Permalink

05 December 2016

The Brothers Jovanović National Library

In 1920 the Serbian Legation in London donated 250 small size unbound fascicles of Serbian literature to the British Museum Library. This donation was a welcome addition to the Library’s Serbian collections, which then consisted of barely a few hundred Serbian literary works.

These issues were part of a collection of Serbian literature published in Pančevo, a small town in the then Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, from 1871 to 1912. The works were published by the Brothers Jovanović, Kamenko (1843-1916) and Pavle (1847-1914), printers and booksellers from Pančevo. In 1870 the Brothers Jovanović established a Serbian printing-press, and in 1872 a bookshop in their hometown. Their aim was to publish and sell Serbian school textbooks and literature, the long awaited educational and cultural needs of the Serbian people in Austro-Hungary.

The Brothers Jovanović’s bookshop was the first major Serbian publishing bookshop in the Monarchy, and with the bookshops funded earlier in Belgrade, in the neighbouring Princedom of Serbia, were the first to establish modern Serbian publishing and book trade.

Between 1871 and 1912 the Brothers Jovanović published about 400 Serbian titles of which about 100 were school textbooks.
The collection of works donated to the Library had been published in the series called: “The Brothers Jovanović National Library” from 1880 to 1890.

Cover of Jovan Rajić’s Boj zmaja s orlovi (‘Battle of Dragon and Eagles’) a volume in the Brothers Jovanović National Library series . (Pančevo, 1884). 012265.e.5/44.

Above is the layout of the cover of the Brothers Jovanović National Library series: their bookshop was shown here as a cultural edifice built on the pantheon of Serbian and world literature presented and promoted in this series. Front of their national library are the Corinthian columns adorned in ribbons bearing the names of the greats of Serbian and world literature (the text in Cyrillic on the left column reads: Dositej, Kraszewski, Hugo, the right column bear the names of: Njegoš, Gogol and Goethe. The name of the series is inscribed across the arc which sits on the columns. In the left-hand corner is a roundel portrait of Dositej Obradović (1739-1811), a Serbian philosopher and writer, and in the right-hand corner is a roundel portrait of Prince Bishop of Montenegro Petar II Petrović Njegoš (1813-51).

The Brothers Jovanović published literature in affordable paper-back issues in small octavo format, printed in a small font. The majority of works in the series were made up of separately published issues. These were published in non-consecutive instalments usually over a several-month period. Up to 24 issues were produced per year and in total the series comprises 216 such issues published from 1880 to 1890.

The set of 250 issues donated to the Library also includes issues published by the Brothers Jovanović’s bookshop from 1871 to 1912, which were subsequently added to the Brothers Jovanović National Library series (they are numbered in the series from 217 to 348), when the bookshop was sold to the new owners in 1913. This set of 250 issues is incomplete as 11 issues are missing.

The Library’s set was bound in 124 volumes placed at shelfmarks 012265.e.5/1-149 and a number of works are bound together. It is the only single set held in a British public collection, and one of the most complete in Britain and Serbia. The Library’s set holds 158 separate works. The whole collection is described in 168 catalogue records.

This collection has a historical significance for the British Library as the donation notably boosted its existing collections of Serbian literature. Today this collection is relevant for the study and research into the development of modern Serbian literacy, language and literature. It is a very useful survey of primary sources for the development of Serbian literature.

Frontispiece and title page with the author’s portrait and facsimile signature from an edition of Branko Radičević’s Poems (Pančevo, 1880) 012265.e.5/95.

The collection contains works of the major Serbian writers of the Enlightenment, Classicism and Romanticism who, in their lexical and stylistic innovation, contributed greatly to the development and promotion of modern Serbian literary language. This new literary form was based on the principles of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić’s language reform.

Frontispiece and title-page with the author’s portrait from an edition of Medo Pucić’s poetry (Pančevo, 1879 [reissued in the series 1913]). 012265.e.5/101.

Đorđe Popović-Daničar, editor of the Brothers Jovanović National Library series, saw that the modern writers of all periods and those who wrote in Russo-Slavonic and in Slavonic-Serbian were represented in the series thus showing the continuity in Serbian literature. He contributed greatly to the series by writing introductory texts, compiling works of lesser known writers, translating and transliterating from Russo-Slavonic and in Slavonic-Serbian into the contemporary Serbian language and the new orthography, and by translating from a number of major European languages. Popović-Daničar was remembered as the first translator of Don Quijote from Spanish into Serbian.

The presentation of Serbian national poetry is another strong feature of this collection.

Frontispiece from a history of the Battle of Kosovo (Pančevo, 1880 [reissued in the series 1913]) 012265.e.5/121.

A great prominence of Serbian national poetry in the series pointed not only to the significance and influence of spoken national language for the creation of the new literary language, but it also reflected the contemporary national and political aspirations and struggles in the Balkans and the rest of Europe of that period, leading up to the First World War.

Frontispiece of Srpski Hajduci u narodnim pesmama (Pančevo, 1882 [reissued in the series 1913]) 012265.e.5/110.

The fact that in this series the Brothers Jovanović ventured to showcase Serbian literature, together with other works of world literature in Serbian translation, was surely a sign of confidence and trust they had for the future of the Serbian literature and its readers.

Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-East European Collections

Reference:

Žarko Vojnović, Iz Sparte svetlost, to jest, Život i podvizi Kamenka i Pavla braće Jovanovića: ujedno i bibliografija izdanja. (Pančevo, 2010). YF.2014.a.12874

Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 10:00 AM in Acquisitions , Literature , Publishing and printing , Serbia , Slavonic | Permalink

Tags: Brothers Jovanović National Library series , Serbian Language , Serbian Literature

27 November 2016

‘Our only epic poet…’: Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916)

Et le lent défilé des trains funèbres
Commence, avec leurs bruits de gonds
Et l’entrechoquement brutal de leurs wagons,
Disparaissait – tels des cercueils – vers les ténèbres.

These lines from Emile Verhaeren’s poem ‘Plus loin que les gares, le soir’, with their evocation of a ‘slow parade of gloomy trains’ vanishing ‘like coffins’ into the distance, may be read as uncannily prophetic. Not only does it evoke the atmosphere of the stations throughout Europe where troop-trains would pull out to carry soldiers to the front, but also the one where, on 27 November 1916, the poet met his own end. Returning from Rouen to his home in Paris after speaking to a gathering of Belgian exiles and refugees, he tried to board the train too quickly, missed his footing, and fell beneath its wheels, dying shortly afterwards on the platform.

He was born on 21 May 1855 in Sint Amands, a riverside village on the Scheldt, at a time when the great canal system which had sustained trade throughout Flanders was already in decline, leaving his native country to become more and more of a backwater. Yet despite his decision to write in French and to move to Paris in 1898, the rhythms of the Flemish language and his love for a landscape dotted with disused windmills and the people who lived among them coloured his poetry throughout his life.

Verhaeren engrossed in a book, portrait from Albert de Bersaucourt, Conférence sur Émile Verhaeren (Paris, 1908.) 11840.p.8

After graduating in 1874 from the Collège Sainte Barbe in Ghent and studying law at the University of Louvain (1875-81), Verhaeren allied himself with the poets and artists who gathered round Max Waller, poet and founder of the journal La Jeune Belgique (P.P.4479.b.). Two years later Les XX, a group of twenty Belgian artists and designers, was formed, and drew Verhaeren into a circle of new friends and a career as an art critic. His essays for L’Art moderne (P.P.1803.laf.), also founded in 1881, established his reputation and brought him in contact with Auguste Rodin, Odilon Redon and other contemporary artists, many of whom supplied illustrations for his work. At the same time, as Symbolism gained ground in Belgium, his admiration for the great Flemish, Dutch and Spanish painters of the Golden Age was undiminished.

Title-page of the first edition of Verhaeren’s first volume of poetry, Les Flamandes (Brussels, 1883) 011483.c.54.

Nor was he merely a local figure; as his first volume of poetry, Les Flamandes was followed by many others and also by plays, he gained a readership which extended across Europe, especially when such distinguished literary figures as Edmund Gosse and Arthur Symons began to translate and promote his work in Britain. In Russia the poet Valery Bryusov, a distinguished translator of Homer and Virgil, performed a similar service for Verhaeren. The British Library also possesses an exquisite volume of poems by Verhaeren with paintings by the Japanese artist Kwasson, as well as an almanac (1895; K.T.C.8.a.9) in which Theo van Rysselberghe’s illustrations accompanied Verhaeren’s verses.

Above: Poem by Verhaeren with Kwasson’s illutration, from Images japonaises (Tokyo, 1906) 15234.a.5. Below: Cover of Almanach. Cahier de vers d'Emile Verhaeren. Ornementé par Théo van Rysselberghe.(Brussels, 1895) KTC.8.a.9

Above all, however, it was Stefan Zweig who brought Verhaeren’s work before a wider audience as he championed it in the German-speaking world. Not only did Zweig spend many holidays with Verhaeren and his wife, the artist Marthe Massin, who was the subject of some of the poet’s finest love lyrics, but he translated his works, wrote a biography which soon became the standard text on Verhaeren, and collected a number of manuscripts, two of which which feature in the British Library’s Stefan Zweig Collection.

Page from the manuscript of Verhaeren’s poem ‘Le meunier’, ([c. 1895]), BL Zweig MS 194, f1r . Verhaeren presented the manuscript to Stefan Zweig in 1908.

In the summer of 1914 Zweig, Rainer Maria Rilke and the publisher Anton Kippenberg of the Insel Verlag were already discussing a German version of Verhaeren’s collected works when the outbreak of war put an end to the project and also to the friendship. Increasingly aghast at the devastation of Belgium during the German invasion, including the destruction of Louvain, where he had studied, and ancient libraries and art treasures, Verhaeren devoted himself to publishing polemics and denouncing German brutality. However, he was beginning to revise this uncompromising position in the interests of international cultural unity when he met his death.

Verhaeren in 1910 from Stefan Zweig, Émile Verhaeren, sa vie, son œuvre (Paris, 1910) 010664.l.36.

Described by André Gide as ‘our only epic poet’, Verhaeren was in many ways a man of contradictions. Though always maintaining his Belgian roots, he travelled widely, and in London in particular he found the image of the ‘tentacular city’ of the industrial era, described in Les Villes tentaculaires (1895), sucking humanity and the landscape alike into a world of degradation. Yet he realised that the old world of the sleepy Flemish countryside had had its day, and strove to find positive aspects in the modern world. Infused with the spirit of nature which he loved so well, his late poem Novembre est clair et froid may serve as a postscript to his life:

Tout est tranquille enfin, et la règle est suivie.
Des mes longs désespoirs, il ne me reste rien.
Où donc le vieux tourment, où le regret ancient?
Un soleil apaisé se couche sur ma vie.

(All is peace at last, and the rule is kept.
Of my lengthy despairs nothing remains.
Where then the old torment, where the old regret?
Upon my life a calm sun sets.)

(Translation by Will Stone, from Emile Verhaeren, Poems (Todmorden, 2014; YC.2014.a.14474).

Susan Halstead, Content Specialist (Humanities & Social Sciences), Research Engagement.

Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 10:00 AM in Belgium , Literature , Romance languages | Permalink

17 November 2016

‘In Catherine’s reign, whom glory still adores…’ : Catherine the Great in the British Library’s collections

On 16 November 1796 Catherine II of Russia had been Empress for 34 years, since the deposition and assassination of her husband Peter III in 1762. In accordance with her usual habit, she rose early and, after drinking her morning coffee, retired to her study to work on state papers. Shortly afterwards she retreated to her privy closet and, when her maid and manservant became alarmed when she failed to emerge, they broke down the door and discovered that the 67-year-old Empress had suffered a severe stroke. Unable to move her unwieldy body, they laid her on a mattress on the floor and summoned her Scottish doctor John Rogerson. He did what he could, but she never regained consciousness, and died the following night at around 9.45.

When she was born on 2 May 1729 as Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, there was little to indicate that this impoverished daughter of a minor German prince would achieve any kind of distinction. However, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia favoured her as a match for her nephew and prospective heir, Peter of Holstein-Gottorp, and although the young couple cordially disliked each other on sight, Sophie resolved, on arriving in Russia in 1744, to do whatever was necessary in order to become Tsarina. This involved conversion from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy, and with it the adoption of a new name and patronymic – Ekaterina Alekseievna. The following year, aged 16, she and Peter were married.

The union, which produced a son, Paul, was predictably unhappy, and both parties had numerous liaisons. After Peter’s accession to the throne in 1762, they moved to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. It was here, where she had been left while Peter took a holiday in Oranienbaum, that Catherine learnt that a projected plot to dethrone him was in jeopardy, and had her husband arrested and compelled to abdicate. A few days later he was strangled by Alexei Orlov, brother of one of her favourites, though no proof exists that Catherine was aware of plans for this.

Despite queries about her right to succeed her husband, Catherine was crowned on 22 September 1762 and maintained her position for the rest of her life. Her reign was notable for a considerable expansion of Russian territory, absorbing the Crimea, Northern Caucasus, part of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Courland as a result of the Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire and the Russo-Persian War. She had long entertained ambitions to embody the principles of the Enlightenment in her rule, corresponding with Voltaire until his death in 1778 and incorporating his library into the National Library of Russia; she also invited Diderot to finish his Encyclopédie under her patronage when its anti-religious nature jeopardized its publication in France. Yet with the outbreak of the French Revolution she was forced to reassess certain of her principles, although she continued to support the arts, writing not only fiction and memoirs but plays, several freely adapted from Shakespeare, which were composed and acted in French by a company of French actors at her private theatre, the Hermitage, in the 1780s. The British Library holds copies of these in both French and Russian (St. Petersburg, 1786; 1343.h.6).

Title-page of Podrazhanie Shakespiru: istoricheskoe predstavlenie bez sokhraneniia obyknovennykh teatral’nykh pravil iz zhizni Riurika (St. Petersburg, 1792) 1343.i.2.

However dangerous the precedent established by her rise to power and territorial expansion, Catherine achieved considerable advances through her reform of the administration of the provinces of the Russian Empire and of the educational system. She established the Moscow Orphanage, intended to be run on enlightened principles but doomed to failure as most of its young inmates died prematurely, and, more successfully, the Smolny Institute for daughters of the nobility, the first institution of its kind in Russia providing education for girls. Her plans for a national educational system with an emphasis on co-educational free schools was far in advance of its times.

Catherine’s attitude to religion was also ambivalent.Her tolerance of Islam in allowing her Muslim subjects to assimilate their schools into the Russian system contrasted with her imposition of additional taxes on her newly-acquired Jewish subjects after the partitioning of Poland, and her establishment of a Pale of Settlement to contain them.

Inevitably Catherine’s colourful personal life and many lovers, notably Potemkin, made her the object of gossip and scandal, as in the anonymous Histoire secrète des amours et des principaux amans de Catherine II, impératrice de Russie (‘par l’Auteur de la Vie de Frédéric II, roi de Prusse’). This came out in 1799, and concludes with a disapproving chapter on the ‘libertinage crapuleux de Catherine sur la fin de ses jours’.

Plate of Catherine and Potemkin from Histoire secrète des amours et des principaux amans de Catherine II, impératrice de Russie (Paris, 1799) 1200.f.10.

However, not all accounts of her reign were so scurrilous, and the fact that authors writing in other languages were prepared to devote considerable time and trouble to chronicling it testifies to their recognition of her importance. An example is J. H. Castéra’s Histoire de Catherine II, impératrice de Russie, published within four years of her death and recording her life and exploits in four volumes.

Portrait of Catherine II from J. H. Castéra, Histoire de Catherine II, impératrice de Russie (Paris, 1800) 151.c.11.

Perhaps it is fitting to conclude with a curious little book published in Kamchatka in 1797, L’ombre de Catherine II aux Champs Elysées (114.i.58). In it, the anonymous author portrays Catherine’s spirit arriving in the Elysian Fields to keep company with those of Louis XVI and Frederick the Great, discussing the politics of their times and speculating on the future. Her son and successor, Paul I, would see Russia embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars before suffering a similar fate to his father and being succeeded by his son, Alexander I. However unsatisfactory a ruler he became, there is some truth in the words which the author puts into his mouth as he reflects that the Empress had left him little to do but glean in her tracks: ‘tout ce que Pierre a conçu pour illustrer son pays, ma Mère l’a exécuté.’

Susan Halstead, Content Specialist (Humanities and Social Sciences), Research Engagement.

Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 10:00 AM in History , Literature , Printed books , Russia , Slavonic | Permalink

15 November 2016

The Year of Henryk Sienkiewicz

Henryk Sienkiewicz, the most popular Polish writer of historical fiction, was born in 1846 in Russian-partitioned Poland. He started his literary career as a journalist writing for a few periodicals under the pseudonym Litwos.

Portrait of Henryk Sienkiewicz from Album jubileuszowe Henryka Sienkiewicza (Warsaw, 1898) 1870.c.21

The suppression of the January Uprising (1863-4) against Russian rule was a turning point in the political, ideological and cultural movement in Poland. It marked the end of the Romantic period in Polish culture. Positivism with its ideas of social, political and economic progress through education, the arts and sciences fell on fertile ground in Poland and was also reflected in Polish literature. Sienkiewicz, like other Polish positivists, believed that the national identity should be maintained not by fruitless uprisings against the overwhelming power of the occupying neighbours (Russia, Prussia and Austria) but by common effort called at the time the ‘organic work’ and constructive patriotism of the whole society. In his early works he explored the plight of the peasants, education and emigration, the last inspired by his American experiences in 1876-8. After his return from America Sienkiewicz turned to historical studies that resulted in the great historical epic Trilogy, set in mid-17th century Poland. The three novels which compose it, Ogniem i mieczem (‘With Fire and sword’), Potop (‘Deluge’) and Pan Wołodyjowski (‘Sir Michael’), published in 1884-1886, became extremely popular both at home and abroad. They describe consecutively the war with the rebellious Cossacks (1648-1657), the Swedish invasion of Poland (1655-1660) and the war with Turkey (1668-1673).

Kmicic company (The deluge) from Album jubileuszowe Henryka Sienkiewicza, (Warsaw, 1898) 1870.c.21

Sienkiewicz was praised by critics for his epic talent, great narrative power, rich language, vivid description, the ability to develop the plot and diversify characters as well as convey period details and style. Yet some critics objected to the lack of historical accuracy. Nevertheless, the patriotic tone of the novels, the belief in the survival of the nation and the glorification of the past achievements, which were skilfully combined with the plot, gave comfort to the Polish readers. Sienkiewicz was considered a national icon writing to raise the spirits in the dark times of history. Another historical novel, regarded as his greatest achievement, was Krzyżacy (‘The Teutonic Knights’; Warsaw, 1900; 012590.cc.2). The heart of the novel is the victorious battle of Grunwald (1410) which brought down the Teutonic Knights as a military power. It had a contemporary political context in the ongoing Germanization of the Poles in German-partitioned Poland.

However, the book that earned him international fame was Quo Vadis (Warsaw, 1896; 012591.f.59), a depiction of Nero’s Rome and the rise of Christianity. In 1905 Sienkiewicz received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his outstanding merits as an epic writer. At the turn of the 20th century he was the most popular writer in Poland and was widely recognized abroad due to the numerous translations of his historical works. Sienkiewicz’s last novel was a book for young readers, W pustyni i w puszczy (‘In Desert and Wilderness’) published in 1911. It was based on his experiences during his African trip, and became a classic in its field.

Ubi tu Gaius, ibi ego Gaia (As you are Gaius, I am Gaia) from Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo vadis, (Warsaw, 1910) LR.430.u.25

Sienkiewicz was also involved in social and political activities. His last major initiative was The Relief Committee for the Victims of the War in Poland which he established together with Ignacy Jan Paderewski in Switzerland in 1915. Sienkiewicz died in Vevey on 15 November 1916. After the war his ashes were returned to Poland.

Quo vadis Domine? From Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo vadis,

Magda Szkuta , Curator of East European Collections

Afire for peace: Henri Barbusse’s Le Feu (1916)

The family of Henri Barbusse originated from a part of France with a strong radical tradition. He was born in Asnières-sur-Seine in 1873 to an English mother who died when Henri was three years old and a father whose Protestant forebears had lived in the hamlet of Anduze, near Alès, as far back as the 17th century. The Protestants of the Cévennes had suffered repeated persecution, and Adrien Barbusse, a journalist and theatre critic on Le Siècle, was anti-clerical and anti-monarchist by conviction. Not surprisingly, his son grew up to be an atheist, humanist and socialist, who, at the time of the Dreyfus affair, was convinced of the accused’s innocence. Henri wrote articles for La Paix par le Droit supporting international arbitration in place of war, and was also an enthusiastic supporter of Esperanto as a means to this end.

Portrait of Henri Barbusse from Eklumo en la abismo (Düsseldorf, 1923; YF.2010.a.19040), a translation into Esperanto of La Lueur dans l'abîme. (Paris, 1920; 08007.ee.6)

His earliest literary efforts were in poetry rather than political journalism, and in 1892 his entry for a poetry competition launched by L’Echo de Paris attracted the attention of the renowned poet Catulle Mendès, whose daughter Hélyonne he subsequently married. His first collection of poems, Pleureuses (Paris, 1895; reprinted 1920: 011483.c.74) was followed in 1908 by his first novel, L’Enfer (W16/3331), the story of a young bank clerk from the provinces who, bored and lonely in his dingy Paris lodgings, observes his neighbours through a crack in the wall. The sense of pessimism and human isolation which permeates its pages reflects the author’s awareness of the nationalism and militarism with which France was riddled, as destructive as the cancer destroying the body of one of the characters.

How prophetic this insight had been became clear with the outbreak of war in 1914. Although aged 41 and suffering from a lung condition, Barbusse did not hesitate to enlist, and in December 1914 joined the 231st infantry regiment, serving as a stretcher-bearer in the front line. Transferred to Artois, he was twice mentioned in dispatches for bravery before dysentery and chest problems caused him to be invalided out into a desk job in 1916. With time to reflect on his experiences, he began work on the book nowadays regarded as his masterpiece – Le Feu.

Cover of Le Feu (Paris, 1916) 12548.tt.32

It was a shrewd move to publish the novel in serial form in L’Oeuvre, for this enabled Barbusse to outwit another enemy: censorship. His raw and outspoken portrayal of life in the trenches was calculated to offend the sensibilities of those who entertained sentimental notions of glorious death on the battlefield, not least by his unsparing use of the ‘gros mots’ employed by the common soldiers – farmhands, shopkeepers, manual labourers – experiencing the monotony, squalor and misery of life under enemy bombardment. With a blend of black humour and clinical precision he describes the coarse jokes and unexpected camaraderie of men all too conscious that at any time they may end up like the muddied, seared and mutilated remnants of humanity whose scattered limbs lie all around them. The first-aid post provides scant relief; the overtaxed doctors, trying to stretch their meagre resources to deal with the carnage confronting them, can do little to treat the horrific injuries of hundreds of casualties.

In Chapter 23, the narrator and his comrades spend a few days on leave in Paris, a completely different world where they encounter pen-pushers, comfortable in reserved occupations, and gushing women with romantic visions of young heroes rushing to die with a smile on their lips. The narrator swiftly realizes that there is little point in trying to convey to them any idea of the true nature of war – the purpose, as it were, of Barbusse’s novel - and the closing pages reveal an army of mud-caked ghosts stumbling about in the devastated landscape, ‘like the Cyranos or Don Quixotes that they still are’, as they acknowledge that they were no more than ‘honest killers. (…) The act of killing is always ignoble – necessary sometimes, but always ignoble’. In the final paragraph, a solitary voice declares, ‘If this present war had advanced progress by a single step, its miseries and massacres will count for little’, as a single ray of light breaks through the storm-clouds, `proof none the less that the sun exists’.

Portrait of Barbusse from Lettre aux intellectuels (Rome, 1921) 08282.a.40.

The novel inevitably provoked strong and frequently hostile reactions, but its significance was rapidly recognized, and in December 1916 Barbusse received a letter informing him that it had won the Prix Goncourt. It would pave the way for other outstanding works based on wartime experiences, including Roland Dorgelès’s Les Croix de bois (Paris, 1919; 012547.aa.12) and Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen nicht Neues (Berlin, 1929; W13/8499). Barbusse himself became, in 1917, the co-founder of the Association républicaine des anciens combattants (ARAC) and a supporter of the Russian Revolution, making several journeys to the USSR and writing a biography of Stalin (Staline. Un monde nouveau vu à travers un homme: Paris, 1935; 20003.a.24). That same year, he died suddenly, aged 62, on 30 August during a visit to Moscow (some sources claimed that he was poisoned on Stalin’s orders, although his long-standing pulmonary trouble makes the official cause of death – pneumonia – at least plausible). He was also, however, one of the founders of the pacifist Amsterdam-Pleyel movement, and a prominent member of the Front populaire, attracting huge crowds to pay their last respects when, on 7 September 1935, he was buried close to the Mur des Fédérés in the cemetery of Père Lachaise.

Barbusse’s dedication of Le feu

Le Feu bears a dedication to the memory of Barbusse’s comrades who fell beside him at Crouy and on Hill 119. Within a month of his joining his regiment, around half the men in his unit were killed on the front near Soissons. On Armistice Day, whatever Barbusse’s subsequent political views, it is fitting to remember not only those soldiers and the fallen on both sides but also his testimony to them as a moral witness.

Susan Halstead Content Specialist (Humanities and Social Sciences) Research Engagement

Posted by Olga Kerziouk at 11:00 AM in France , Literature , Romance languages , World War One | Permalink

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393 posts categorized "Literature"

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'An absolutely essential handyman and busybody in Russian literature’…Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826)

The Brothers Jovanović National Library

‘Our only epic poet…’: Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916)

‘In Catherine’s reign, whom glory still adores…’ : Catherine the Great in the British Library’s collections

The Year of Henryk Sienkiewicz

Afire for peace: Henri Barbusse’s Le Feu (1916)

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