30 June 2015
Never use your employer’s printing office for your own writings
The Treaty of Amiens which ended the war between Britain, France, The Batavian Republic and Spain, prompted the Dutch to attempt to reclaim, amongst others, the Cape Colony in Southern Africa.
A former possession of the Dutch East India Company, it had been taken by the British in 1795. The government of the Batavian Republic sent Commissioner General J. A. de Mist as head of a new administration to rule the Cape according to the principles of the French revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!
One of the officials was a young nobleman from Ommen in the province of Overijssel Andries van Pallandt van Eerde, whose father had lost his privileges in the new Batavian Republic.
Andries van Pallandt pictured on the cover of Siem van Eeten, Andries van Pallandt van Eerde, belevenissen van een 19e-eeuwse klokkenluider (Zutphen, 2015) YF.2015.a.11274
Upon arrival in the Cape, Andries was appointed private secretary to the Governor. He started his work full of enthusiasm, quickly establishing good relations with the English, among them probably John Barrow, the author of Travels into the Interior of South Africa. Barrow had a Dutch wife.
View of Cape Town from John Barrow, Travels into the Interior of South Africa (London, 1806) 10094.g.10.
Andries soon realized that the reality on the ground differed from the ideas of the Dutch policy makers and concluded that the Colony would never be self-supporting. What’s more, it would be extremely difficult to defend the Cape against the British enemy with the small number of Dutch troops, without support from indigenous people. However, the Dutch colonists, the Afrikaners, had treated the local tribes so badly, that they were considered more likely to support the English who treated them far better.
Van Pallandt found it impossible to discuss his ideas with his superiors, so in 1803 he wrote a pamphlet, entitled Remarques générales sur le Cap de Bonne Espérance (English translation General remarks on the Cape of Good Hope; Cape Town, 1917; 09061.ff.55; picture below) He had the pamphlet printed in the Government’s printing-office at his own expense, to be sent to the Netherlands in order to trigger a debate.
When De Mist found out about the pamphlet he was furious. He ordered an investigation by the Attorney General, Beelaerts van Blokland. To avoid a public shaming, which would mean the end of his career, Van Pallandt signed a confession and was found guilty of using the Government’s printing office without permission. All printed copies of the pamphlet were confiscated, apart from the three he had already sent to important people in the Republic.
Disappointed, Van Pallandt returned home. In the meantime, war had resumed between Britain and the Batavian Republic and on 1 January 1804 his ship was taken by a Guernsey privateer. Andries was held captive on Guernsey for several months. There he wrote a journal about his adventures, which has now been translated from French into Dutch as Andries van Pallandt van Eerde, belevenissen van een 19e-eeuwse klokkenluider; a launch event for the book was held in the Castle of Eerde (Netherlands), the former home of the Van Pallandt family, on 29 April 2015, and the book is available for consultation in the British Library.
Siem van Eeten, independent researcher. [email protected]
References and further reading:
A. van Pallandt’s diary of his time on Guernsey: Free online resource
Interrogation of Andries van Pallandt at St. Peters Port, Guernsey on 17 January 1804.
Free online resource
Eeten, S. van, ‘A captured Dutch nobleman in Guernsey: a chance discovery’, In: Report and transactions / Société Guernesiaise, Vol XXVII (2013) , Part III. DSC7638.242000.
14 April 2015
“I want to go on living even after my death!” Anne Frank and her Diary
15 April marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen by British forces. Today the British Library commemorates this event, in collaboration with The Anne Frank Trust’s #notsilent campaign, with public readings from Anne Frank’s diary. Anne and her sister Margot had died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen, only a few weeks before the camp was liberated.
Annelies Marie Frank (12 June 1929 - March 1945), known as Anne, became world famous for the wartime diary she kept while living in hiding from the rampant Nazi persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands. From July 1942 until August 1944 the Frank family, the van Pels family and Dr. Pfeffer lived in the annex behind Otto Frank’s offices on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, now the Anne Frank House.
Photograph of Anne Frank in May 1942. Image from Wikimedia Commons
On her 13th birthday Anne had been given a diary, which she filled with her thoughts and musings over a period of two years, from 12 June 1942 up to 1 August 1944. Three days after the last diary entry the annex was stormed and those living there were arrested and deported. Only Otto Frank survived the war.
The diary reveals a strange normality within the horrific world Anne inhabited. Her observations on events ‘outside’ and the treatment of her community, as well as on events ‘inside’ - the people that surround her and her own emotions and feelings, her hopes for peace and her ambition to become a writer and publish her diary after the war are of a remarkable depth for a teenager.
Two secretaries at Otto Frank’s business, Hermine Santruschitz, better known as Miep Gies as she is called in Anne’s diary, and Elisabeth (Bep) Voskuijl saved the diary and most of Anne’s other papers from the Germans and handed them to Otto Frank on the day he received the news that Anne and Margot were not coming back. The papers reveal that Anne had started writing a second version and Otto used both to compile Het Achterhuis: Dagboekbrieven 14 June 1942 -1 Augustus 1944 [‘The Annex: Diary notes 14 June 1942-1 August 1944’], published in 1947 in a run of only 1,500 copies. The British Library’s copy of this first editi0n is even more special, because of the inserted newspaper clippings relating to the people around Anne Frank.
Above: Dustjacket of the first edition of Het Achterhuis (Amsterdam, 1957) British Library Cup.408.pp.29; below: some of the newspaper cuttings inserted in the book
Anne Frank’s diary remains one of the most widely-read books in the world; to-date more than 30 million copies in 73 languages have been sold. It has been adapted for theatre, television and cinema and has maintained its status as an international best-seller and the most famous diary of modern times.
The British Library holds copies of Anne Frank’s diary in various editions and languages, as well as scholarly material about the diary and its compiler, dramatizations, journal articles and musical scores. The first English language edition, in the translation of Barbara Mooyaart-Doubleday appeared in 1952 (012584.o.11), followed by a second in 1954. One of the British Library’s two copies of this (12585.a.47) was conserved under the ‘Adopt a Book Appeal’ by Lakenheath Middle School in May 2009 (see below).
Translated from the Dutch by Shmuel Schnitzer, the first Hebrew edition of Anne’s diary, Yomanah shel ne’arah [Diary of a young girl], was published in Jerusalem in 1953, whereas the first Yiddish translation titled Tagbukh fon a Meidel [Diary of a young girl] appeared in 1958 in Tel Aviv in the translation of Yehoshua HaShiloni. No copies of these editions are held in our collections, but we do hold a copy of a 1961 Yiddish edition which was published in Bucharest under the title Dos Togbukh fun Ana Frank (17108.b.43; below).
One of the early dramatizations, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, was first published in 1956 (11791.t.1/1355). In a German edition of 1958, entitled Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (F10/1197; above) the play is supplemented by photographs of performances in Berlin, New York, Rome, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, and elsewhere.
Allegations that the diary was a hoax started in the early 1950s and continued until the early 80s, when the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation commissioned a thorough forensic study of the original manuscripts. The resulting 250-page report concluded with ‘high probability, bordering on certainty’ that the diary was genuine. This research formed the basis for the Critical Edition, compiling all known writings by Anne and an extract from the report. The Library holds the English translation from 1989, published by Penguin. (YC.1989.b.6954)
One of the latest scholarly studies to appear is Anne Frank’s Diary of Anne Frank, edited by Harold Bloom, Professor at Yale University and published in 2010 (YC.2011.a.7024 ), proof of the unwavering interest in this talented young writer and her diary.
Apart from the nearly 400 books, magazine articles, music scores and websites about Anne Frank in the British Library’s collections, there is the bust of Anne. Commissioned by Mr and Mrs Sherrington on the occasion of Anne’s 70th birthday and sculpted by Doreen Kern, it is a tribute to a remarkable Jewish girl and her diary. When you visit the British Library’s site at St. Pancras in London you will find her at the entrance to our Learning Centre.
Marja Kingma, Curator Low Countries Collections & Ilana Tahan, Curator Hebrew Collections
Doreen Kern’s bust of Anne Frank in the British Library
20 February 2015
Overwintering: the Dutch search for the Northwest Passage
The phrases ‘Overwintering on Nova Zembla’ and ‘The Saved House’ are ubiquitous in Dutch culture. They refer to one of the most remarkable events in Dutch maritime history that took place at the end of the 16th Century. To this day every Dutch schoolchild learns about Willem Barents and Jacob van Heemskerck’s ill-fated expedition of 1596, which saw its 17 members stranded on Novaya Zemlya for ten months during the polar winter.
Novaya Zemlya, detail from Caerte van Nova Zembla, de Weygats, de custe van Tatarien en Ruslandt (Amsterdsm, 1598) British Library 436.b.18.(3.)
The aim of the expedition was to find a passage through the Arctic to Asia, thus shortening trade routes, as well as avoiding the Portuguese, who were still masters of trade in the East. For centuries efforts were made to discover a route through the Arctic, based on the mistaken belief that sea water could not freeze.
Our current exhibition ‘Lines In The Ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage’ tells many stories of adventure, bravery and extreme suffering, endured in search of a Northwest passage through the Arctic. A previous post on our Americas blog discusses how British crews dealt with the cold, darkness and boredom that came with staying the winter in the Arctic during the 19th century. 250 years earlier Barents’ and Van Heemskerck’s expedition had ended up on Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla as the Dutch know it) for the winter, after their ship also got stuck in the ice. One of their fellow-officers , Gerrit de Veer, kept a diary during the expedition, from 16 May 1596 to 1 November 1597, which was published in Amsterdam in 1598 and is one of the first items in the exhibition.
Illustration from Gerrit de Veer’s Waerachtighe Beschrijvinghe van drie seylagien... (Amsterdam, 1598, British Library C.133.e.34)
In his diary Gerrit de Veer also describes the previous two polar expeditions undertaken by Barents, in 1594 and 1595. It must be every historian’s dream to be locked up for months with the person whose travels you are writing about.
The illustrated title-page of Gerrit de Veer’s account
De Veer writes fluently, in an almost literary style, which makes for a gripping read. He vividly depicts how the ships had to navigate skilfully to avoid icebergs, whilst sailing ever further North. The commander of one of the ships, Jan Cornelisz Rijp decided not to continue and returned to Amsterdam. The following year he would meet the survivors of the expedition on the Kola peninsula.
Barents and Van Heemskerck pressed on further North. Although they managed to round the northern tip of Nova Zembla, they did not get far after that. They had to turn back because of the ice and eventually their ship got stuck and they could go no further.
We feel their horror as they realise they are trapped, with winter approaching. We follow in detail how they built a cabin (‘Het Behouden Huys’, i.e. ‘The Saved House’) from fallen trees and some wood from the ship. Then they hauled the cargo from the ship into the cabin, including a clock, which they managed to keep running until it froze due to the extreme temperatures. The crew kept track of time using the ship’s navigation instruments and the twelve hour glass.
Hauling wood to build ‘The Saved House’
On 7 December they narrowly escaped death from carbon monoxide poisoning when they burned coal, whilst having plugged every hole in the cabin to keep the cold out. They just managed to open the door. By Christmas despair gripped the men - the cold was almost insufferable, they got snowed in and they couldn’t wait for the sun to return. The firm leadership of Barents and Van Heemskerck kept the discipline and the men’s spirits were lifted by a ‘feast meal’ on Epiphany of rations they had put aside. On New Year’s Day they started using the wine; because there was no end in sight to their adventure some men kept this ‘for emergencies’(!).
When they did go out they kept themselves busy building traps to catch arctic foxes for food (they made hats from the fur), inspecting the ship and playing sports. They killed several polar bears, but did not eat the meat, apart from one time when they cooked a liver. That made them very ill with hypervitaminosis A, which De Veer was the first to describe. After that experience they left off the bear meat and only used the fat to burn oil lamps.
Killing and butchering polar bears
De Veer was also the first to describe a natural phenomenon that is now known as the Novaya Zemlya Effect. Two weeks before the sun was due to re-appear he and others saw it rise. De Veer describes how he tried to verify his and other’s observations by making calculations of their position. He was not to know that the sun he saw was only a mirage.
De Veer’s image of the Novaya Zemlya effect
The men suffered from scurvy, and one fell ill and died. When the sun finally did return they waited to see if the ship would come free of the ice. When this did not happen they prepared two open boats and set sail for Kola. Again De Veer details their progress from day to day in milage. When they arrived they were warmly greeted by some Russians - and by their fellow explorer Rijp!
Welcomed by the Russians on Kola
Only 12 of the original 17 crew made it back to Amsterdam. Four men, including Barents himself died during that perilous journey in open boats, exposed to the elements. Their graves have never been found.
No wonder then that Gerrit de Veer’s account of the overwintering became an instant hit. It was published in Dutch in 1598; in the same year Latin and French translations were published in Amsterdam by C. Nicolaas , and a German translation appeared in Nuremberg . An English translation, followed in 1609 (The full text is available via Early English Books Online).
De Veer’s account has also been published by the Van Linschoten Vereeniging, a publisher specializing in accounts of explorations by the Dutch (Ac.6095.), by and its English counterpart, The Hakluyt Society (Ac.6172/12).
However, arguably the best known depiction of the overwintering on Nova Zembla is the work by history painter and illustrator Johan Herman Isings (1884-1977), pictured below. Printed on a large format, mounted on canvas like a map these plates were used in history classes to illustrate the topics discussed.
From: J.A. Niemeijer, J.H.Isings. (Kampen, 2000) Reproduced with kind permission of Kok Uitgeverij
Marja Kingma, Curator Low Countries studies
References:
Gerrit de Veer, Waerachtighe Beschrijvinghe van drie seylagien, ter werelt noyt soo vreemt ghehoort, drie jeeren achter malcanderen deur de Hollandtsche ende Zeelandtsche schepen by noorden, Noorweghen, Moscovia, ende Tartaria, na deconinckrijcken van Catthay ende China, so mede vande opdoeninghe vande Weygats, Nova Sembla, eñ van't landt op de 80. gradẽ, dat men acht Groenlandt te zijn ... (Amsterdam, 1598) C.133.e.34. and 436.b.18.(3.)
French translation: Vraye description de trois voyages de mer ... faicts en trois ans par les navires d’Hollande et Zelande au Nord ... vers les royaumes de China et Catay ... Par G. Le Ver (Amsterdam, 1598). G.6617.(3.) and 455.b.10.(3.)
Latin translation: Diarum nauticum, seu vera descriptio Trium Navigationum ... factarum a Hollandicis & Zelandicis navibus ad Septentrionem, supra Norvagiam, Moscoviam & Tartariam, versus Catthay & Sinarum regna ... [Translated by Charles de l'Écluse.] (Amsterdam, 1598) G.6832.(2.) and 566.k.15.(5.)
German translation: Warhafftige Relation. Der dreyen newen unerhörten, seltzamen Schiffart, so die Holändischen vnd Seeländischen Schiff gegen Mitternacht, drey Jar nach einander, als Anno 1594. 1595. vnd 1596. verricht. Wie sie Nortvvegen, Lappiam, Biarmiam, und Russiam, oder Moscoviam ... umbsegelt haben. [Translated by Levinus Hulsius] (Nuremberg, 1598) 978.d.1. and C.114.c.9.
English translation: The true and perfect description of three voyages so strange and woonderfull, that the like hath neuer been heard of before: done and performed three yeares, one after the other, by the ships of Holland and Zeland, on the north sides of Norway, Muscouia, and Tartaria, towardsthe kingdomes of Cathaia & China. ... (London, 1605) 303.c.5. and G.2757.
30 January 2015
Mind your Head! Constantijn Huygens’ response to Charles I’s execution.
30 January is a red-letter day in British history. On this day in 1649 King Charles I was beheaded. This of course led to a period of ten years without a monarch. In 1660 Charles’ son returned to England from exile and was crowned Charles II. But the consequences of Charles I’s death were felt far beyond British shores. In Holland they looked on in amazement. How could the British execute their own king? One Hollander who was moved to verse in response to the execution was Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), who served as secretary to two stadholders. He spoke eight languages, and wrote around 75,000 lines of verse in Latin, French and Dutch. He also was an accomplished lute player and father to the famous scientist Christiaan Huygens.
Portrait of Constantijn Huygens’ by Jan Lievens, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (Image taken from Wikimedia Commons)
He knew London well, visiting it seven times during his life, as well as having relatives there. He penned a Dutch couplet to commemorate this ‘inhumane’ act:
Was ’t heden dats’ een Bijl drij Croonen in een’ slagh
Met een geheilight Hoofd onmenschlick vellen sagh?
[Was it today that she (i.e. the Sun) saw an Axe, with one blow,
Inhumanely fell three Crowns and a holy Head?]
The execution of Charles I, from The Famous Tragedie of King Charles I. (London, 1709). British Library 643.c.7
In a Latin quatrain, Huygens seeks to find a connection between the weather and Charles’ execution:
Miramur sine sole diem quo Regia et insons
Carnifici populo victima caesa fuit?
Qui facit hoc, Coeli pudor est, quod criminis ille,
Ille fuit testis non sine sole dies.
[Do we see a day without sun, on which the Royal and innocent
Victim was executed by murderous people?
Whoever does this is a disgrace to Heaven, because that day of crime,
That day was a witness not without sun.]
Huygens also had harsh words for Oliver Cromwell whom he held responsible for Charles’ death. After the Restoration, Cromwell was disinterred and his head stuck on the Tower of Westminster Hall. Huygens clearly saw Cromwell’s head looking down at him and responded with some Dutch couplets, one of which runs:
Dit hoofd wouw ‘topperhoofd van alle hoofden leven.
Hier is het half geluckt, daer schort niet aen als ‘tLeven.
[This head wanted as the head above all heads to live.
Here, it has half succeeded, it lacks nothing but Life.]
Oliver Cromwell, illustration by J. H. W. Unger from Pieter Lodewijk Muller, Onze Gouden Eeuw. De Republiek der Vereenigde Nederlanden in haar bloeitijd ... (Leiden, 1896-98) 9415.d.2.
There is a certain irony here of course for some 30 years earlier, the Grand Pensionary, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, met a similar end. In that case, the ‘Cromwell’ was Maurits, Prince of Orange. Huygens was a life-long supporter of the House of Orange, and so perhaps did not find fault with Maurits in this regard. For the British the execution demonstrated the strength of Parliament in the face of Charles’ attempts to gain absolute power. Both Britain and Holland (the Netherlands) have monarchs today, although thankfully neither monarch, Elizabeth II or Willem-Alexander, has attempted to gain absolute power!
Dr. Christopher Joby, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul
References and further reading
Constantijn Huygens, De gedichten van Constantijn Huygens, naar zijn handschrift uitgegeven door Dr. J. A. Worp. (Groningen, 1892-1899). Vol. 8 11557.i.4.
Constantijn Huygens, Nederlandsche gedichten. (Schiedam, 1884). YF.2011.a.26562
Christopher Joby, ‘A Dutchman Abroad: Poetry written by Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) in England’. In: The Seventeenth Century, Vol. 28 (2013) nr 2, p. 187-206. ZC.9.a.3070
Christopher Joby, The Multilingualism of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687). (Amsterdam, 2015). YD.2015.a.1688
Christopher Joby, Poems on the Lord's Supper by the Dutch Calvinist Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687). (Lewiston, N.Y, 2008). YC.2009.a.3241
Christopher Joby, The Dutch language in Britain (1550-1702) (Leiden, 2014). YD.2015.a.291
26 January 2015
Haggis and houšky: Robert Burns in many guises
All over the world this morning, loyal Scots will be waking up after a night of feasting on neeps and tatties accompanying the haggis which was piped in and greeted with a ceremonial address, songs and recitation, and a glass raised in honour to ‘The Immortal Memory’ of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns (1759-96). The Burns Night supper is traditionally an occasion to pay homage to ‘the Bard’, as Robert Crawford’s biography terms him, and his birthday, 25 January, is celebrated far beyond the boundaries of his native Ayrshire.
The pensive Burns from Robert Burns' Gedichte. Uebertragen von H. Julius Heintze (Leipzig, 1859) 11642.a.6
Yet despite the enthusiasm with which his fellow Scots pay tribute to their greatest poet, devotion is not confined to those who share his native language. A conference held in 2009 at the Charles University in Prague, examining his place in European literature and his influence on it offered ample proof of that, concluding with a rousing rendition of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ – alternate verses sung in Scots and Czech, with the chorus in the singers’ language of choice. Many of the papers presented examined translations of Burns’s poetry into other languages, and the challenges which the task of rendering his verse into their own tongues presents to those unfamiliar with Scots vocabulary.
The British Library was represented by a paper entitled ‘Haggis and houšky [Czech rolls]: two Czech translations of Burns’, discussing the classic version by the Czech poet Josef Václav Sládek (Prague, 1892; 1607/3720) and comparing it with a modern selection of verses by Burns translated for a ‘Burns evening’ held in 1999 at a school for visually impaired young people in Prague in partnership with a similar institution in Scotland. The British Library holds no. 59 of 75 copies published in a limited edition (YA.2003.b.1622). Lively and inventive, the new versions provide a welcome insight into the problems facing Burns translators, as in ‘Tam o’Shanter’, where the dubious lady Kirkton Jean with whom Tam’s wife Kate accuses him of carousing into the small hours of Monday morning undergoes a strange metamorphosis (under French influence?) into Kirkton Jan.
A sample of the BL’s holdings of Burns poetry translated into different languages
Not surprisingly, in view of the strong social message of many of his poems, Burns soon attracted attention and translators in Russia and Ukraine. The first Russian translations of his work appeared in 1800. The great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko had a considerable affection for Burns’s poetry. Among notable interpreters who spread their popularity in the Soviet Union we may mention Samuil Marshak, whose 1947 translation into Russian may be found in the British Library’s collections (Robert Berns v perevodakh S. Marshaka, Izbrannoe; Moscow, 1947; X.989/30066) as well as the 1957 edition. You can find on YouTube, among many others, a modern performance by the popular Soviet singer Lev Leshchenko.
German, too, has its fair share of Burns translations, among which Julius Heintze’s 1859 edition appears in the British Library catalogue, adorned with a frontispiece showing the poet in pensive mood. He gives a vivid and spirited rendition of a wide range of poems, including ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’ (‘Des Landmanns Samstagabend’) and the newly-ennobled ‘Tom von Shanter’, but here too Kirkton Jean fares no better, and emerges as ‘Kirkton Johnny’.
‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’ also appealed to the Dutch translator Pol de Mont, whose Zaterdagavond op het land (Amsterdam, 1888; 1578/8069) is described on the title-page as a free version (‘vrij bewerkt naar Robert Burns’), but deserves attention for its charming illustrations (picture below).
Those wishing to stick to Burns in the original may call up the third edition of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, and admire the likeness of the Bard by Alexander Nasmyth which is perhaps the most famous of his portraits. It is also possible to see the manuscript of ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’ on the British Library’s Discovering Literature website.
Nasmyth’s portrait as reproduced in Burns’s Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 3rd edition (London, 1787; 1164.g.7)
Whether you are a long-standing devotee of Burns or have yet to explore the riches of his vocabulary (English cannot match the expressive power of ‘skellum’, ‘drouthy’ or the ‘ghaists and houlets’ which haunt Tam’s homeward ride), we wish you a happy journey of discovery through the ‘lang Scots miles’ of his poetry, in whatever language you experience it.
Susan Halstead, Curator Czech & Slovak
14 January 2015
A Lost (and Found) Dutch Hymn Book from 1566
In 1897, church historian J.G.R. Acquoy from Leiden published an article in Archief voor Nederlandsche kerkgeschiedenis (British Library PP.177.ia), in which he described five booklets that had recently been found in the church tower of Boskoop, a tiny village close to Gouda. One of the booklets turned out to be a hymnbook dating back to 1566, containing psalms and hymns sung during clandestine open-air prayer gatherings in The Netherlands (of the sort that perhaps inspired Brueghel’s depiction of a crowd listening to John the Baptist).
Pieter Brueghel the Elder: John The Baptist Preaching (Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, image from Wikimedia Commons)
On the basis of an 18th century document it was assumed another songbook should exist: an enlarged reprint of the Boskoop hymn book also published in 1566. According to this source, this hymnbook included 38 psalms written by Jan Utenhove, and 19 hymns. The origin of the hymns, however, remained uncertain; the enlarged reprint was apparently lost.
Surprisingly a copy was found in the British Library in London:
De Psalmen Dauids, ende ander lofsanghen, nu nieu ghecorrigeert ende vermeerdert, die men in die Christen gemeynten in dese Nederlande is ghebruychende. (Delft [?]: Harman Schenckel [?], 1566). 3434.c.2.(1.)
Although the songbook is listed in a number of catalogues, there was no known description whatsoever of its contents.
Added MS titlepage of the hymnbook. The main text reads: “The XXXIX Psalms incorporated herein, are ….[follows a list], The Symbolism of the Apostles, The Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, etc. Apart from the underlined ones, all these are rhymed by John Utenhove, but usually differ from the London edition of 1566.”
A recent article by Jaco van der Knijff* analyses and discusses – for the first time – the contents of this 16th century hymn book. It turns out the 19 hymns are quite different from what scholars had always assumed. They prove to be liturgical songs stemming from the Lutheran tradition, reprinted with reformed believers from the Calvinist tradition in mind.
The London songbook clearly has a different focus compared to the Boskoop one. It is therefore questionable whether ‘London’ is indeed an enlarged reprint of ‘Boskoop’. The repeated suggestion that the London songbook would be a publication of Gillis van der Erven in Emden is also no longer tenable. There are good reasons to believe that this songbook was printed in Delft by Harman Schenckel, who was put to death for printing ‘heretical’ publications in 1568. It could even be the hitherto unidentified psalter which the printer mentioned during his trial.
By publishing the contents of the London songbook, an annoying gap in the hymnologic research is filled. More importantly, there is now a new source on the use of Lutheran hymns by Calvinists at the beginning of the Reformation in The Netherlands.
This hymnbook also proves that initially the dividing lines between Calvinists and Lutherans were not as clear as they would turn out to be in later times. Finally, the statements issued by the first synods of the Gereformeerde Kerk in The Netherlands against hymn singing find a new perspective: it is by no means excluded that the church leaders referred to songbooks like the London version from 1566.
Jaco van der Knijff, musical editor for the Reformatorisch Dagblad and currently preparing a PhD on the origins of ‘Eenige Gezangen’ (Some songs) in the 1773 edition of David’s Psalms.
References:
Herman de la Fontaine Verwey, Meester Harman Schinckel. Een Delftse boekdrukker van de 16e eeuw. (Delft, 1963) 010498.l.7/3.
* This is an edited version of the English summary of Jaco van de Knijff’s article ‘Lutherse liederen voor gereformeerde gelovigen Beschrijving en poging tot duiding van een onopgemerkt gebleven Nederlands liedboekje uit 1566’, published in Jaarboek voor liturgieonderzoek 30 (2014) 105-136. We are grateful to him for letting us use it as a basis for this post.
09 January 2015
European rivals in South Asia
As is fairly well known, the British Library has inherited the surviving archives of the British East India Company, and this vast resource provides researchers with a rich and unique mine of information about all aspects of Britain’s relations with South Asia in the early modern period through to 1858. What is almost certainly less well known is that the archive includes one series bringing together documentation from and about the other European powers that were the Company’s rivals in the 17th and 18th centuries.
View of the former French colony of Chandernagore (modern-day Chandannagar). Watercolour by Stanley Leighton, 1868. British Library WD 269
The ‘I’ series includes more than 200 volumes, arranged in three sub-series, of memoranda and correspondence between Europe and Asia. The first 17 of these (ref. I/1/1-17) are concerned with the Company’s relations with the French in India between 1664 and 1820, and I/2/1-32 is similar, dealing with the Dutch in India and Southeast Asia from 1596 to 1824. The subjects broached within are alas only hinted at by the frequent use in the relevant handlist of that tantalising word ‘Miscellaneous’, although there are four volumes identified as being about ‘Disputes with the French, 1773-1786’ (ref. I/1/7-10), and as a testament to the difficulties in mid-eighteenth century Anglo-Dutch relations there are no fewer than seven volumes of ‘Disputes with the Dutch’ from 1750 to 1764 (ref. I/2/14-20).
View of Batavia (modern-day Jakarta), the capital of the Dutch East Indies. Aquatint by JohnWells, 1800. P494
These are dwarfed, however, by the size of the third sub-series, which consists in all of 165 volumes. Its existence is due entirely to Frederick Charles Danvers (1833-1906). A man of wide-ranging interests, Danvers joined the East India Company as a writer in 1853, and five years later transferred to the India Office after the Company’s abolition. After spells in the Revenue, Statistics & Commerce and Public Works Departments, he was appointed Registrar and Superintendent of the India Office Records in 1884, a post he held until 1898. In what must rank as a major feat of international archival co-operation, between 1891 and 1895 he oversaw the transcription of volumes of documents from repositories in Lisbon, Evora and The Hague; besides this, he enhanced their long-term value to scholars and researchers by supervising the translation of 35 of these volumes into English. The Dutch records cover the whole of the 17th century, whereas those from Portugal date from as early as 1475 and extend into the early 19th century. The series thus contains a range of primary sources on many aspects of the European engagement with South and Southeast Asia both before and during the colonial era.
Map of the City of Goa in Portuguese India, from Denis L. Cottineau de Kloguen, An historical sketch of Goa, the metropolis of the Portuguese settlements in India ...( Madras, 1831.) 1434.e.2
All these volumes are located at St. Pancras, and can be delivered to the third floor Asian & African Studies Reading Room for consultation within seventy minutes of ordering.
Hedley Sutton, Asian & African Studies Reference Team Leader
References:
F.C. Danvers Report to the Secretary of State for India in Council on the Portuguese records relating to the East Indies contained in the Archivo da Torre do Tombo, and the public libraries in Lisbon and Evora (1892), OIR354.54
F.C. Danvers, Report on the records relating to the East in the state archives in The Hague (1945), OIB325.349.
29 October 2014
Language and the making of nations
On 14 November the British Library will be hosting a study day ‘Language and the Making of Nations’, organised by the Library's European Studies Department and examining the relationship between majority and minority languages in the countries of Europe and the creation of national literary languages
The creation of a unified language has been significant in the formation of the nations of Europe. Part of the process has been the compilation of standard grammars and dictionaries, an initiative often followed by linguistic minorities, determined to reinforce their own identity. This seminar will look at the relationship between majority and minority languages in the countries of Europe, the role of language in national histories, and the creation of national literary languages. Specialists in the history of the languages of Europe will explore these issues in relation to Czech, Georgian, Italian, Serbian and Ukrainian, as well as Catalan, Dutch, Frisian, Silesian and the Norman French of Jersey.
Programme:
10:30 Registration; coffee
10:50 Welcome
11:00-12:00 Donald Rayfield (Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian, Queen Mary, University of London), ‘The tongue in which God will examine all other tongues — how Georgians have viewed their language.’
Marta Jenkala (Senior Teaching Fellow in Ukrainian, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies), ‘Ukrainian language and nation: a cultural perspective’.
Break
12:10-13:10 Mari Jones (Reader in French Linguistics, Cambridge University), ‘Identity planning and Jersey Norman French.’
Peter Bush (Literary translator), ‘Josep Pla and the making of contemporary literary Catalan.’
Lunch
14:10-15:40 Giulio Lepschy (Hon. Professor, UCL, London, School of European Languages, Culture and Society), ‘The invention of standard Italian.’
Prvoslav Radić (Professor, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade), ‘The language reform of Vuk St. Karadžić and the national question among the Serbs.’
Rajendra Chitnis (Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages, Bristol University), 'We are what we speak. Characterizations of the Czech language during the Czech National Revival.’
Break
16:00-17:30 Roland Willemyns (Emeritus Professor of Dutch, Free University, Brussels), ‘The Dutch Congress of 1849 and the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal.’
Tomasz Kamusella (School of History, University of St Andrews), ‘Silesian: a language or a dialect?’
Alastair Walker (Emeritus Research Associate, Department of Frisian Studies, University of Kiel), ‘North and West Frisian: Two beautiful sisters, so much alike, but yet so different.’
The event has received most generous support from NISE (National Movements and Intermediary Structures in Europe), the Polish Cultural Institute, and the international publishing house Brill
Attendance is £25.00 Full Price; £15.00 for under 18s. To book please email [email protected] or call +44 (0)1937 546546
There is an additional free event, following the study day, from 18:15-20:00. Maclehose Press and the Institut Ramon Llull will be launching Joan Sales’ novel of the Spanish Civil War, Uncertain Glory, translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush. Professor Paul Preston (Historian, Director of the Catalan Observatory at the LSE) will be in conversation with Peter Bush. A wine reception will follow courtesy of Freixenet.
As places are limited, please RSVP to [email protected] if you would like to attend the evening event.
29 September 2014
A Glider Pilot amongst the Mosquitoes
This year sees not only the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One (in case you missed it), it is also the 60th anniversary of the International Federation of Translators, the organisation that gave us International Translation Day which we celebrate on 30 September.
The IFT’s charter states that:
Translation has established itself as a permanent, universal and necessary activity in the world of today that by making intellectual and material exchanges possible among nations it enriches their life and contributes to a better understanding amongst men.
Curators in European Studies at the British Library know all about the importance of translations. We select original literary works in European languages, and of course we receive English translations published in the UK under legal deposit law. We also sometimes buy foreign translations of works originally published in English.
An example of this is Arnhem Lift, (London, 1945; British Library 9100.a.80). It is an eyewitness account from the battle of Arnhem by a glider pilot. (There’s another anniversary for you: this month saw the 70th anniversary of Operation Market Garden and the Battle of Arnhem). Initially published anonymously in 1945 it saw three print runs in its first year. The British Library holds three copies from 1945; the copy mentioned above and copies at shelfmarks, X11/5678 [pictured right], and W5/3276.
Then in 1946 Jules Timmermans translated the book into under the title Ik vocht om Arnhem (Nijmegen. 1946; X.808/41632 [pictured left]). Just before this translation went to press the author’s name was made public.
Sergeant Louis Hagen came from a well-to-do Jewish family in Germany. They moved in high circles and so Hagen met Prince Bernhard, husband of Crown Princess Juliana of the Netherlands. (Hagen was mistaken for the Prince when in Arnhem in 1944.) In 1934 Hagen was arrested for writing a joke about Hitler’s Sturmabteilung on a postcard. He was sent to a concentration camp, but was freed after six weeks, thanks to the intervention of an old schoolfriend. This episode prompted the family to leave Germany. Mr and Mrs Hagen made it to the USA, but Louis ended up in England. Eventually he joined the Glider Pilot Regiment in 1943. Arnhem was his first battle, supporting the Mosquitoes and other planes of the RAF. The Pegasus Archive website gives a detailed account of his experiences during the week the battle raged.
Louis Hagen. Image from the Pegasus archive
An illustrated second edition of Arnhem Lift appeared in 1953 (copies at 9102.b.39 and W53/9325). It includes a foreword by Sir Frederick A.M. Browning, one of the commanders of Operation Market Garden. A reprint followed in 1977 (X.809/42364).
Map of landing area from Arnhem Lift. 2nd ed., 1953, page 14. (W53/9325)
In 1993 an edition entitled Arnhem lift : and the German Version (London, 1993; YK.1996.b.4977) appeared. It gives the German version of the story by a German Arnhem veteran, whom Hagen met at a dinner party in the early 90s. The latest edition is from 2012: Arnhem lift : a German Jew in the Glider Pilot Regiment. (Stroud, 2012 YK.2013.a.1146 [below]).
What started off as a typed-up account of a soldier, solely to be distributed among his friends, became a very popular work indeed, or it would not have seen three editions with several reprints, nor would it have been translated into Dutch, German, French and Italian. Hagen not only continued to write four more books, but he also translated four German books about the Second World War into English.
As a translator he would not have received as much attention as an author. Translators are often the glider pilots among the Mosquitoes/authors of the literary world. So, on this International Translation Day let’s hear it for the glider pilots/translators!
Marja Kingma, Curator Dutch and Flemish Collections
References and further reading:
C. Bauer, The battle of Arnhem: the betrayal myth refuted, translated by D.R.Welsh. (S.l., 1966 ) X11/7954
G. Freeman, Escape from Arnhem: a glider pilot's story. (Barnsley, 2010) YC.2011.a.3997
R. Gibson, Nine days (17th to 25th September 1944): the authentic description of a glider pilot's experience at Arnhem, from take-off to his escape …. (Peterborough, 2012) YK.2013.a.4152
C.B. Mackenzie, It was like this! = Zó was het! A short factual account of the battle of Arnhem and Oosterbeek … Translation: W. van der Heide … 2nd amplified edition. (Oosterbeek, 1956) 9102.fff.61
R.J. Kershaw, It never snows in September (Marlborough, 1990) YK.1991.b.2242
M. Middlebrook, Arnhem 1944 : the airborne battle, 17-26 September (London, 1995) YK.1996.a.6739 and 98/25541
J. Piekalkiewicz, Arnheim 1944: Deutschlands letzter Sieg (Oldenburg, 1976). F10/1896; English translation by H.A. and A.J. Baker, Arnhem, 1944. (London, 1977). X.802/10563
T. Plieviern, Berlin [translated from the German by Louis Hagen]. (London. 1969) H.69/634.
C. Ryan, A bridge too far (Ware, 1999) YC.2002.a.5467
W. Schellenberg, Memoirs , edited and translated by Louis Hagen. (S.l., 1956) W54/3792
R. E. Urquhart, Arnhem. (London, 1958) 9103.d.26.
H. Walburgh Schmidt, Het Dertiende Peloton: levensverhalen rond zweefvliegtuig Horsa 166, Slag bij Arnhem 1944 (Soesterberg, 2004). YF.2005.a.23627 (
06 August 2014
A very Dutch fire
Earlier this year, ITV (other television channels are available!) announced its decision to commission a four-part period drama based on the events of the Great Fire of London. The forthcoming series (imaginatively entitled The Great Fire!) will no doubt present the occurrences of September 1666 as a great human tragedy that was received with universal sorrow. However, as a document in the British Library’s Dutch Language Collections reveals, there were those who rather than lamenting the fire took an altogether different view.
On 7 August 1666, during the course of the conflict between England and the Dutch Republic that would later become known as the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the English government wrote to Sir Robert Holmes, Admiral of the Restoration Navy, giving him detailed instructions for a raid upon the West Frisian islands of Vly and Terschelling, where some 150 Dutch ships were lying. As well as destroying the ships, Holmes was to take 500 men, land upon the island of Terschelling (on which was located the town of West-Terschelling) and ‘appoint such a number of men to rise and plunder the town as you shall think fit.’ Two days later, on 9 August, the instructions were carried out to considerable effect and Sir Robert was able to write to none other than King Charles II himself, narrating how he had ‘with little trouble set the fair town on fire, which consisted of at least 1000 houses.’ It may have been that the king was already well aware of this, for, as various Englishmen noted in their journals, columns of smoke were visible well out to sea.
In England, news of Holmes’ exploits was greeted with great enthusiasm, including by Charles II himself who, in a somewhat insensitive gesture, ordered celebratory bonfires to be lit. Indeed, the burning of West-Terschelling quickly became known as ‘Holmes’ Bonfire’ on the basis that, in order to signal to fellow Englishmen watching from afar that the mission had succeeded, Holmes had set-alight the town ‘as bonfires for his good success at sea.’ Unsurprisingly, there was a less celebratory reaction in Amsterdam, where various pamphlets and prints were published condemning the attack as a barbaric atrocity. An example is the print below, attributed to the well-known engraver, Harmen de Mayer.
Holmes’ Bonfire, engraving attributed to Harmen de Mayer (1650-1701). (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
If Holmes’ raid had been designed to bring about a Dutch capitulation it failed, for when just weeks later fire broke out at Thomas Farriner’s now infamous bakery on Pudding Lane, the two nations were still at war. News of the fire was quick to reach the Dutch, who were no doubt following events in England with great interest.
A sense of the Dutch reaction to the Great Fire can be gauged from a lengthy pamphlet printed in Rotterdam soon afterwards entitled, Londens Puyn-hoop. The pamphlet, copies of which are held by the British Library, is unequivocal in its explanation of events. After dismissing everyday causes it presents the fire as divine retribution against the English – and Charles II in particular – for the attack on the Vlie, as well as a warning to sinners everywhere: London had not so much been destroyed as purified.
Whilst the contents of Londens Puyn-Hoop are undoubtedly propagandist in part, they also appear to reflect a genuine belief that the Great Fire was an act carried out by God on behalf of a latter day children of Israel. Such a mind-set might well explain the relative restraint shown by Dutch forces on the towns they encountered in the Medway – something on which the diarist Samuel Pepys remarked – during the now legendary raid the following summer that brought the conflict to a conclusion in the Republic’s favour: there was no need for the Dutch to take revenge, God had already taken it for them.
The Great Fire, from S.V.V.H. Londen’s Puyn-hoop 3rd ed. (Rotterdam, 1666) 8122.ee.8.1(1.)
The image above appears as a fold-out page in one of the copies of Londens Puyn-hoop held by the British Library. (You can see another version from the Rijksmusem in Amsterdam here.) The way in which fire is represented in these prints is potentially very illuminating. In some, fire is presented in factual, almost scientific terms, the process of combustion and the idea that something is actually on fire being clearly visible. In others, the flames appear to hover miraculously above their apparent source without consuming it, in a fashion that recalls biblical fires, such as the burning bush and the pillar of flame. This duality reflects the somewhat conflicted world-view that characterised the 17th century: on the one hand a time of tremendous scientific progress and a growing recognition that the world was governed by discernible, universal laws with physical explanations but on the other an époque still dominated by superstition, powerful religious fervour and a belief that the forces of both evil and the divine were capable of interfering in everyday life. In this way, Londens Puyn-hoop – together with its associated imagery – has a great deal to tell us about the early-modern mind-set.
Robin Jacobs
References:
Downton, Peter, The Dutch Raid (Rochester, 1998)
Beer, E.S. de (ed.)The Diary of John Evelyn (Oxford, 2000). YC.2002.a.8453; Vol. 3 p. 452
Jones, J.R., The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1996) YK.1996.a.20068
Latham, Robert (ed.), The Diary of Samuel Pepys (London, 2003) YC.2003.a.14343, entry 15 August 1666. Also available online at http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/08/15/
Ollard, R.L., Man of War: Sir Robert Holmes and the Restoration Navy (London, 1969) X.631/831 and W50/4391
Powell, J.R. / Timings, E.K., The Rupert & Monck Letter Book – 1666, (London, 1969) Ac.8109. [vol. 11 -2.]
Robin Jacobs is a barrister who specialises in education law. He recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Art History at the Courtauld Institute and wrote a dissertation on representations of fire in broadside prints from the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
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