The ongoing exhibition in the British Library’s front hall, Animal Tales brought to mind one tale which holds particular resonance on the theme of allegory, which is so expertly dealt with in the exhibition.  This tale, however, is beyond the remit of the exhibition because it deals with mythological creatures.

The tale in question is the tale of Mélusine. It stands as a clear signpost in the transition which marks the intersection between myth and historicity. At the turn of the 14th century to the 15th century two versions of the legend of Mélusine appeared the first by Jean d’Arras (1393-1394), with another penned by Coudrette sometime in the opening years of the 15th century. This tale is about one of the most compelling female characters in medieval French fiction. It most likely draws on earlier myths dating back to Gallo-Roman and Celtic prototypes. Even the name ‘Fair Melusina’ may derive from the same ancient Gaulish root for the fair beings such as mermaids, water sprites, and forest nymphs.

The intriguing story tells or the beautiful Mélusine, the result of the marriage of the King of Scotland and his fairy wife. In her youth Mélusine entombed her father in a mountain leaving her mother heartbroken. The deed displeased her mother and as punishment Mélusine was condemned to transform into a serpent from the waist down every Saturday.

Mélusine, from a 19th-century edition of the version by Jean d’Arras (Paris, 1859) British Library 12430.m.2. [vol. 7]

Archetypally for late medieval narrative, while out hunting in the forests (typically sites for magical encounters in fairy stories) of the Ardennes, Raymond, Lord of Forez in Poitou, a poor but noble gentleman, meets Mélusine. She was sitting beside a fountain in “glimmering white dresses, with long waving golden hair, and faces of inexpressible beauty”.  In discovering Mélusine by a watersource, this indicates a connection between her and the supernatural world. Raymond, so taken by her beauty and her amiable manners, falls totally in love with her. Mélusine agrees to marry Raymond, but on the condition he vows not to attempt to see her on Saturday when she will go into seclusion.   

Mélusine bathing in secret, woodcut from Dis ouentürlich buch bewiset wie von einer frauwen genantt Melusina ... ([Strassburg, ca 1477]) C.8.i.5.

Over the following years under Mélusine’s direction the region of Poitou, situated in the westerly central France around modern day Poitiers, blossomed; forests were cleared, the land developed for agriculture and the planting of crops. She oversaw the building of cities and castles including her own seat, the Château de Lusignan. Here we see the connection between Mélusine, with her fae heritage, and the growing prosperity and fertility of the region of Poitou is indicative and the foundations of our modern construct of the benevolent fairy godmother. 

During this time of plenty she bore Raymond ten sons. Some became Kings while others became tyrants. Some were marked with strange signs and deformities because of their mixed heritage. Here the elements of myth and folklore are blended with epic to align the supernatural founder of the dynasty of Lusignan with the aspirations of late feudal society. By weaving the mythology of the supernatural from the folklore tradition into the lineage the myths and the powers therein can be ascribed to a family name, adding glamour and legitimacy.  

Title-page of Mélusine (Paris, 1530) C.97.bb.30.

With such ambivalence about Mélusine’s background and her activities on a Saturday tensions arose, possibly suspicsions of infidelity were planted in Raymond’s mind. Ultimately he was overcome with curiosity. Spying through the keyhole at Mélusine’s bizarre metamorphosis, Raymond was astonished to see her lower part of body take on serpentine qualities. His transgression was only apparent to her when later he called her a “serpent”. This results in Mélusine transforming in to the shape of a winged dragon and flying off. The mythology of a fairy bride whose body is not to be looked on and who. when the husband transgresses, immediately vanishes is common enough in folklore across a number of cultures. 

Mélusine takes flight, from Dis ouentürlich buch …

It was said that Mélusine would return periodically to keep watch over her sons, flying around the castle crying mournfully. In parts of Europe to speak of the whining of Mélusine,“often refers to the sound the wind makes swirling around the chimney breast”.

In terms of common depictions of Mélusine, the siren on the Starbucks logo has been likened and contrasted with a Mélusine. This link via a coffee shop franchise brings us back to Animal Tales, where a copy of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is on display. The character of Starbuck in Moby Dick, of course, lent his name to the coffee shops.

Jeremy Jenkins, Curator Emerging Media, Contemporary British Collections

References/further reading:

Jean D’Arras, Melusine (London 1895) 3642.97500 Vol.68.

Women, Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopaedia, Editor Margeret Schaus (London 2006) HLR 305.409  

Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopaedia, Vol.II, Editors: Katharina M. Wilson & Nadia Margolis (London, 2004)  HLR 305.409

Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology Vol.I  (London, 1900) HLR 293.13

Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology & Legend, Editor Maria Leach  (New York, 1972) HLR 398.03

S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (London, 1892) 12431.bb.17.

Ann Rippin, “Space, place and the colonies: re‐reading the Starbucks’ story”, Critical perspectives on international business, Vol. 3 Iss: 2 2007, pp.136-149.  E-Resources.

 

 

25th October 2015 marks the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, one of the most celebrated British military victories. The struggle between the armies of Henry V of England and Charles VI of France, in which, according to the French eye-witness Jean de Wavrin’s statement, ‘the French were six times more numerous than the English’, immediately captured the imagination of chroniclers in both prose and verse, and was commemorated in the famous Agincourt Hymn Deo gratias, Anglia which was sung as Henry, bare-headed and on foot, made his triumphal entry into London, as well as in the ballad The Bataille of Agincourt, attributed to John Lydgate. Most famously of all, it inspired Shakespeare’s Henry V, familiar not only through countless stage performances but through two notable films in which Laurence Olivier (1944)  and Kenneth Branagh (1989) portrayed the young warrior king. The play’s message of chivalry and the English fighting spirit which won out against tremendous odds lent itself to the climate of Britain in the closing years of the Second World War but also to a more generous and impartial perspective in the later version with its emphasis on the sufferings of war.

The saying of Walter Benjamin that ‘history is written by the victors’ might therefore seem to apply to poetry and drama too, but is far from the truth in this case. Not only were there notable accounts of the battle from the French side, including those by Enguerrand de Monstrelet (c. 1400-1453) of which the British Library holds a first printed edition from around the beginning of the 16th century  illustrated with numerous wood engravings.

The English fleet sets out to France, from Le premier volume de enguerran de monstrellet … (Paris, between 1499 and 1503) British Library C.22.d.6. (f.203 v)

One of the outstanding poets of his age, who actually appears in Shakespeare’s play, was also one of the hostages of war and spent 21 years in captivity in England. Charles d’Orléans (24 November 1394–5 January 1465) succeeded to the dukedom of Orléans at the age of 13 after the murder of his father Louis I on the orders of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. His mother Valentina, the daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, did not long survive this loss, and in the early years of his reign Bernard VIII, Count of Armagnac, the father of his second wife Bonne (Bona) was a strong influence, which led to his followers being known as Armagnacs. When the battle lines were drawn up on St. Crispin’s Day 1415 the newly-knighted Duke was placed in the front line, but although he survived the conflict he, together with the Duke of Bourbon, Marshal Boucicaut and the Counts of Richemont, Eu and Vendôme, was among the 1,500-1,600 noble prisoners captured by the English. Their impressive but cumbersome armour made it difficult to move quickly in hand-to-hand combat, and Charles was discovered alive but immobilized under a pile of corpses (the Earl of Suffolk was less fortunate, and suffocated in similar circumstances).

 Armoured knights in battle, from Le premier volume de enguerran de monstrellet … (f. 211 v.)

The prisoners were transported to England in the hope that their kinsmen would ransom them, but in Charles’s case this would not happen until 1440. A cynic might conclude that his countrymen were in no hurry to have him back, but in fact Henry had placed a specific embargo on his release, fearing that as the natural head of the Armagnac faction he would represent a source of danger. Finally, having received an undertaking that Charles would not seek vengeance for his father’s assassination, Philip the Good, the current Duke of Burgundy, arranged for his release.

Charles d’Orleans in captivity at the Tower of London, from a manuscript collection of his poetry, BL Royal MS 16 F II, f. 73

Charles had not been idle during his captivity. He was kept on the move from one fortress to another, including the Tower of London; in an uncanny reprise he spent part of his imprisonment in Pontefract Castle like Richard II, whose child widow Isabella of Valois had been Charles’s first wife. By the time he was returned to France, the English chronicler Holinshed observed that he spoke better English than French, which equipped him to write over 500 poems in both languages. The British Library holds an illuminated manuscript of these (Royal MS 16 F II), and also a volume of those in English at C.101.a.38, ‘first printed from the manuscript [i.e.  Harley MS 682] of the library in the British Museum’ in 1827 by George Watson Taylor, which contains a autograph letter by the editor presenting it to the Museum.

George Watson Taylor’s letter presenting his book to the British Museum Library, from Poems, written in English, by Charles, Duke of Orleans, during his captivity in England, after the battle of Azincourt. With an introductory notice by G. W. Taylor. (London, 1827) C.101.a.38]

The poems in both languages bemoan the pains of captivity and of courtly love in the ballade and rondeau forms. They attracted several musical settings, including a group of three by Claude Debussy and another by Edward Elgar. The Duke’s colourful life also inspired a historical novel by the Dutch author Hella S. Haasse, Het Woud der verwachting (1949).

Once liberated, Charles returned to France, was joyfully welcomed by the people of Orleans, and embarked on a third marriage to Marie of Cleves which produced three children, including the future King Louis XII. His Italian ancestry led him to press a claim to Asti, but without any real conviction, and he lived out the rest of his life as a Knight of the Golden Fleece and, fittingly, as a generous patron of the arts. His library had been saved by Yolande of Aragon and was awaiting him on his return, and, like another creation of the dramatist who had put him on stage, Shakespeare’s Prospero, he might well have remarked,  ‘… my library was Dukedom large enough’.

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

References

Pierre de Fénin, Mémoire de Pierre de Fénin, escuyer et panetier de Charles VI., roy de France, contenant l'histoire de ce prince depuis l'an 1407 jusques à l'an 1422. Recueillis par G. de Tieulaine … (Paris, 1825) 909.e.9.

Jean-Juvenal des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI., Roy de France, et des choses memorables advenuës durant 42 années de son Règne depuis 1380 jusques à 1422 … (Paris, 1836)

Hella S. Haasse, Het Woud der verwachting. Het leven van Charles van Orléan. (Amsterdam, 1959) 10865.d.17; English translation In a dark wood wandering (London, 1990) Nov.1990/506.

On this day in 1956 a peaceful demonstration organised by students took place in the Hungarian capital, demanding reforms of the oppressive communist regime. Soon broad sections of the population joined the cause, and soon the rattle of gunfire and the clatter of tanks resounded in the streets of Budapest and other cities.

A flag with a hole on the 1956 monument outside the building of Parliament in Budapest. Communist insignia were torn or cut from flags during the October 23 demonstrations, an iconic image from the days of the Revolution. (Image by Ian Pitchford. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 From Wikimedia Commons)

The Revolution only lasted for 13 days, until 4th November, yet it became a symbol of fearless defiance against dictatorship behind the Iron Curtain. In a few days, Hungarians achieved what could only be dreamt of for many years beforehand. On the first evening Stalin’s six-tonne statue was toppled, with only his boots left on the pedestal.

Four days later a new, democratic government was formed by the reformist Imre Nagy, and without much delay negotiations started about the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The secret police was disbanded, political prisoners were freed, previously banned political parties were allowed to reorganise and preparations were started to hold free elections. The fact that Hungary was also determined to leave the Warsaw Pact and declare its neutrality hastened the tragic end of the Revolution. The Soviets responded with resolute ruthlessness, as it was not in their nature to stand by and watch one of their satellites leave orbit and create a gaping hole in the buffer zone towards the West.

Soviet tank in Budapest, 1956. (Image by the CIA (PD). From Wikimedia Commons)

The British Library holds a substantial collection relating to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, a wealth of resources for academic or personal research. Collecting started shortly after the first refugees arrived in Great Britain. Almost 200,000 had fled their homeland and were given asylum in 35 countries worldwide after the brutal crushing of the Revolution. The earliest items received were leaflets and manifestos:

• [A collection of leaflets issued by the Forradalmi Bizottmány and other bodies during the Hungarian revolution of 1956] ([Budapest], 1956).  Cup.504.ee.3.

• [A collection of pamphlets dealing with events in Hungary in the autumn of 1956]. Cup.401.i.10.

Some of these are quite rare as even the possession of such ‘incendiary’ items was prohibited for over three decades.

Left, a flyer demanding free elections and calling to arms and strikes to gain independence. Right, an open letter to Soviet troops, in Russian, saying they were deceived when given orders to fight fascists in Hungary and that they should not shoot at demonstrators but withdraw. Cup.401.i.10.

Other sources include post-1989 publications of secret police archives, minutes of Communist party leadership sessions in 1956-1957, and documents from the British Foreign Office. It is also interesting to explore the domestic and international press coverage of the revolt, both in contemporary newspapers and compilations published retrospectively. The latter come partly from radio broadcasts including those by the BBC and Radio Free Europe. The Revolution generated a broad spectrum of sympathetic reactions in world politics and foreign public opinion, from neighbouring Yugoslavia to India, and from the International Commission of Jurists in The Hague to the United Nations in New York. Inside Hungary, however, it was too little too late for those supporting views or reports to have any real effect. On 4th November Soviet tanks returned and power was restored to the Moscow-backed faction, who methodically rounded up participants still in the country and had them condemned to lengthy imprisonment or death. One of those executed was Prime Minister Imre Nagy.

Plaque in Budapest to commemorate Imre Nagy and his associates. With the exception of G. Losonczy, who died in prison earlier, they were hanged and buried in an unmarked grave in 1958. (Image by Andor Derzsi Elekes. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. From Wikimedia Commons)

Key figures of the Revolution are the subject of many works, as are its lesser-known martyrs, and the victims of reprisals. Documents of secret trials and protracted systematic revenge have largely been brought to light by now.

In an attempt to recalibrate people’s minds and to discourage any notion of opposition, the propaganda machine was also put to work. Amongst its copious output were the so-called ‘white books’, in which the communist puppet government painted its own version of events, denouncing the uprising as counter-revolutionary and criminal. These unassuming-looking booklets were translated into several languages to ensure that the endorsed account was accessible to foreign audiences as well. In addition to the Hungarian original we also have the English and Russian editions in our collection.

The legacy of 1956 was kept alive by émigré circles in the West, who published tirelessly and had clandestine support links to the dissenter movements growing from the early 1970s back home. Beside theoretical and commemorative writings, the literary heritage of both groups testifies to the immense impact the Revolution made on people’s lives.

Numerous survivors have had their diaries or memoirs printed, imparting some truly poignant stories.

Memorial to a young freedom fighter in Budapest’s Corvin köz, one of the hubs of armed resistance. Many teenagers were among the active participants in clashes against the Soviet Red Army. Image by Andreas Poeschek. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. From Wikimedia Commons

Ildi Wollner, Curator, East-Central European Collections

Today we celebrate 145 years since the birth of the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Ivan Bunin.  On 22 October 1945 he was celebrating his 75th birthday in post-war Paris. He was in desperate need of money, as nothing could be published in occupied France and the occasional fees he earned in America were difficult to receive. His loyal friend the writer Mark Aldanov, who at the beginning of the war had fled Europe and settled in New York, tried to help.  In 1942, Aldanov became one of the founders of Novyi  Zhurnal=The New Review which remains the oldest and most influential Russian émigré literary journal. He invited Bunin to contribute his latest short stories to the journal. They were later published together as a book under the title Temnye allei (Dark Avenues) – a book about love. When Aldanov started receiving Bunin’s stories for publication in America, he felt a little uncomfortable, as quite a few of them were rather more erotic and explicit than was permissible in the puritan post-war US, even in foreign languages.

In his letter of 28 August 1945 to Bunin’s wife Vera Nikolaevna,  Aldanov wrote:

Today I received two wonderful short stories by Ivan Alekseevich: ‘The Oaklings’ and ‘The Riverside Inn’. This is very fortunate, as in the 11th book [of The New Review] we were planning to publish ‘Madrid’ and ‘The Second Pot of Coffee’, but this would have been a bit inconvenient. Yesterday, we had a quick meeting to discuss how to collect a bit of money for Ivan Alekseevich on occasion of his anniversary. […]  But you probably understand that ‘Madrid’ and ‘The Second Pot of Coffee’ would be met with displeasure in some ‘puritan’ New York circles. We do not care, but this might affect our collection: rich ladies are angry – their virginal prudery is offended by Ivan Alekseevich. That is why it is better to publish in the 11th book these recently received stories and the other two – after the celebration.

To collect more money for Bunin’s jubilee Aldanov and other prominent figures in the Russian American circles decided to present a token of gratitude to those who wanted to contribute to Bunin’s collection: each contributor would receive a ‘luxury’ edition of one of Bunin’s stories. ‘Riechnoi traktir’  (‘The Riverside Inn’) was chosen to be published as a separate edition.  The book was designed by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky free of charge.

Cover of Ivan Bunin, Riechnoi traktir (New York, 1945) British Library X.902/3839

In his letter, Aldanov informed Bunin that they would like to reproduce of one the typewritten pages with Bunin’s handwritten annotations and ideally  his portrait.

                                                        The facsimile of a typewritten page

On 23 November 1945 Aldanov thanked Bunin for the photograph: “I’m grateful for everything, and especially for the photograph and the inscription (a very nice one which cheered me up a lot). As soon as the printer has finished with it, I will frame it and put it in the most honourable place”.   Bunin liked some of his photos, but hated looking old, so the portrait that appeared in the book (below) dates from 1899, when he was 29.

The book was published in a limited edition of 1000 numbered copies. The British Library’s copy is no. 412, and was purchased in June 1980.

Aldanov and Bunin’s other friends managed to raise ca 1,000 dollars on the occasion of his 75th jubilee.

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator East European Collections, European Studies

References/further reading

Aldanov’s letters to the Bunins; University of Edinburgh Special Collections, Gen 565 (4) 262/17 I. Bunin.

Temnye allei. (Paris, 1946) 12591.p.51. English translation by Hugh Aplin, Dark avenues. (Richmond, 2008). H.2009/2984 

 

As one of the co-curators for our current Animal Tales exhibition, one of the most enjoyable parts of the process was selecting the exhibits.  An opportunity to spend time exploring the collections, to revisit the known but also to make new discoveries, is a stimulating part of the work.  One of the frustrations was that, with such a broad subject area, we were not able to include all the items we might have liked.  There were inevitably some that ‘got away’. One such, a personal childhood favourite, was the story of the Three Billy-Goats Gruff. It comes from the compendium of Norwegian folk tales collected and edited by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in the 19th century.  These tales are much-loved classics in Norway, printed in many editions over the years. 

                     Detail from the cover of the 1874 edition of Norske Folke-Eventyr (Christiania [Oslo], 1874) 12430.dd.6                 

The story’s original Norwegian title in full (a bit less snappy than the English one we know) was De tre Bukkene Bruse, som skulde gaa til Sæters og gjøre seg fede which roughly translates as ‘The three Billy-Goats Gruff who were going to mountain pastures to fatten themselves up’.  ‘Bruse’, which is the name of the goats, was translated as ‘Gruff’ in the first English version, and this translation has stuck ever since but in fact the word refers to the hairy tuft on a goat’s forehead, as shown on the splendidly regal goat below, illustrated by Otto Sinding  in an 1896 edition. 

Illustration from Norske Folke- og Huldre-Eventyr  (Copenhagen, 1896) 12431.f.44.  

The story was originally published in Christiania (as Oslo was called at that time) in 1843 in the third of four parts of Norske Folkeeventyr (Norwegian folk tales). 

The first English translation came in 1859 in Popular Tales from the Norse by G. W. Dasent.  It was also included in the shorter, illustrated edition in 1862, A Selection from the Norse Tales for the use of children.  From an introductory note in this edition it becomes clear that the subtitle ‘for the use of children’ has been very deliberately chosen. Dasent muses regretfully  that ‘this selection has been made to meet the scruples of those good people who thought some of The Norse Tales too outspoken for their children’. Luckily for us, The Three Billy Goats Gruff was not one of those considered unsuitable for Victorian tastes and, unlike most of the stories in the collection, it has continued to enjoy popularity in this country down to the present day. 

                   Illustration from A Selection from the Norse tales for the use of children  (Edinburgh, 1862) 12431.d.29.

Like many of the items featured in Animal Tales, this is a story about animals that allows the teller and the listener to explore some very human situations and emotions. The Three Billy Goats Gruff has echoes of other European folk tales of the time on a very similar theme, such as the Grimm brothers’ Little Red Riding Hood: in essence it is the story of a journey during which the protagonists pass from danger to safety. 

                                             Illustration from Norske Folke- og Huldre-Eventyr  (12431.f.44)  

And the story itself?  The action unfolds as follows: three goats of different sizes, small, medium and large, have to cross a bridge on their way to pasture.  Under the bridge lurks a fearsome troll intent on gobbling them up.  The first two goats get over by promising bigger goats to come.  The final, largest, goat confronts the troll and sees him off in style, with the following words (in Dasent’s lively translation):

Well, come along! I’ve got two spears,
And I’ll poke your eyeballs out at your ears;
I’ve got besides two curling stones,
And I’ll crush you to bits, body and bones

So what made the story so appealing to my younger self?  In part it was the satisfaction of the goats outwitting the troll, in part it was the structure of the plot, simple, but with clever use of repetition (the presence of ‘three’ being a recognised feature of folk tales).  I remember too what fun it was to hear the story being read aloud. This is, after all, a story that was preserved for many years as part of an oral tradition.  The narrator can do a lot with the goats’ voices which are described as rising in volume according to the size of the goat. Stamping one’s feet to echo the sound of the goats tramping over the bridge and joining in with the roar of the troll, brings a mounting intensity to the story which culminates in the thrill of the troll’s resounding defeat!

Barbara Hawes, Curator Germanic Collections

A few days ago I attended a talk by Belgian author Johan Op De Beeck, who specialises in the Napoleonic Wars. His latest book Waterloo: De laatste honderd dagen van Napoleon focuses on the roles played by Dutch, Belgian and Nassau troops before and during the battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

Johan Op de Beeck, Waterloo: de laatste honderd dagen van Napoleon. (Antwerp, 2013). British Library YF.2015.a.14916; the cover shows 1814 by Jean-Philip-Ernest Meisionier (The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore)

It is often said that the truth is the first casualty in war and Waterloo is no exception. Op de Beeck’s view is, that all parties involved created their own ‘truth’ and that future historians have been all too gullible in accepting highly one-sided accounts from mainly the British. After all, ‘history is written by the victor’, as Winston Churchill observed. For nearly 200 years the accepted narrative has been that the British army, under command of the Duke of Wellington secured victory practically singlehandedly. No-one contests the fact that Wellington’s army won the battle of Waterloo, but there has been a distinct lack of acknowledgement of the major and sometimes decisive contributions and sacrifices the Dutch, Belgian, Nassau and Prussian armies made on the battlefield. Wellington’s own account of affairs does not mention that it was the Dutch, Belgian and Nassau armies who held the French at bay at Quatre-Bras until British reinforcements arrived on 16 June. Nor does the Duke mention the Dutch actions that proved instrumental in securing the victory during the final stages of the battle at Waterloo.

The Dutch King William I and his son, the Prince of Orange, who had fought in the front line and was wounded, were outraged. They demanded acknowledgment of the sacrifices the European allies of the Brits had made, but to no avail.

Prince William of Orange (later King William II), from Het leven van Koning Willem II (Amsterdam, 1849) 10760.d.8.

Things did not get any better for the Dutch and Belgians when William Siborne (1797–1849) published his History of the War in France and Belgium in 1844. In it, Siborne dismisses the Dutch and Belgians as deserters. He particularly attacks the Prince of Orange, whom he describes as ‘incompetent’ and ‘inexperienced’ , a bit of a loose cannon. Siborne’s book had such an impact that it was simply accepted as the truth by future British historians, until far into the 20th century: Jac Weller criticizes the Dutch in his 1992 book Wellington at Waterloo.

Siborne’s account was challenged as early as 1846, amongst others by Dutch Lieutenant-General and military historian W.J. Knoop (1811-1894). His reaction to Siborne appeared as a pamphlet, entitled Beschouwingen over Siborne’s Geschiedenis van den oorlog van 1815 in Frankrijk en de Nederlanden. Knoop strongly objected to Siborne’s view that practically the whole Dutch army deserted at Waterloo. The same year his pamphlet was translated into German, (M.L.df.1) and French ( 9076.ff.41) and met with great approval. In Britain it was merely noted.

W.J. Knoop, Beschouwingen over Siborne’s Geschiedenis van den oorlog van 1815 in Frankrijk en de Nederlanden (Breda, 1847). 1435.g.4.

The Dutch government did not give up and sent Knoop’s pupil François de Bas to Britain to research Siborne’s archives. De Bas found that Siborne had been rather selective in choosing his resources, but he did not get anywhere with the Brits. On the contrary, the British views were only reinforced when Siborne’s son Major-General Herbert Taylor Siborne (1826-1902) published Waterloo Letters in 1891.

So strong was support for Siborne that the Scottish historian Sir Herbert Maxwell was accused of being ‘anti-British’, when he dared point out how important the Dutch, Belgian and Nassau contributions to the victory had been in his 1899 Life of Wellington.

However, the Brits weren’t the only ones to exaggerate their role in events. The Dutch and Belgians did the same for their sides, mainly inspired by a desire to strengthen the position of the very young new Kingdom of the Netherlands, which was only established two years earlier.

Throughout the 19th century commemorations and celebrations of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo were held at every opportunity, which led to a flood of highly patriotic songs, poems and other publications, such as those illustrated below.

Programma van den triomftogt, te houden binnen ... Amsterdam, op den 19 Junij 1865 ... ([Amsterdam, 1865]) 1871.e.1.(108*.)

 
 Vooruit maar! Feestliedje ter herdenking aan den strijd bij Quatre-Bras en Waterloo.(Utrecht. [1865]) 1871.e.1.(111.) 

 
1815-1865 Waterloo-lied (Leiden, [1865]) 1871.e.1.(124.)

It wasn’t until well into the 20th Century that more balanced views started to be aired, both within and outside Britain. When written in English, the latter are better picked up by British scholarship, which promotes a more critical approach of earlier studies, such as Siborne’s. Jeremy Black’s The Battle of Waterloo (2010) and Alan Forrest’s Waterloo (2015) are good examples of this less biased approach.

There is of course no one real truth about Waterloo and so researchers will have plenty of work to do unpicking the truth and debunking the myths surrounding Waterloo. What better place to start than at the British Library?! Very few libraries in the country can rival our holdings published both within and outside Britain, expressing many different views, in various languages and forms.

Marja Kingma, Curator Germanic Collections

References/further reading:

William Siborne, History of the War in France and Belgium, 1815; containing minute details of the battles of Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Wavre, and Waterloo. (London, 1844) 1435.g.7-8, and online: http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv37be609e

Jac Weller, Wellington at Waterloo. (Greenhill, 1992). YK.1992.a.7961.

Herbert Taylor Siborne, Waterloo Letters: a Selection from Original and hitherto Unpublished Letters bearing on the Operations of the 16th, 17th, and 18th June 1815, by Officers who served in the Campaign (London, 1891) 9079.bb.36, and online: http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv30b6053a

Sir Herbert Maxwell, The Life of Wellington: the Restoration of the Martial Power of Great Britain ... (London, 1899) 010817.k.14.

Jeremy Black, The Battle of Waterloo (New York, 2010) m10/.15369

Alan I. Forrest, Waterloo. (Oxford, 2015) (awaiting shelfmark)

Jeroen van Zanten, ‘Hoe dapper was ‘Silly Billy’?’ Historisch Nieuwsblad, Vol. 24, no. 6 (June 2015) pp 33-39. []

Ruscombe Foster, Wellington and Waterloo: the Duke, the Battle and Posterity. (Stroud, 2014) YC.2015.a.2532

 

                   Svetlana Aleksievich in 2013 (From Wikimedia Commons,   ©Elke Wetzig; Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

On 8th October a new winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature was announced. Svetlana Aleksievich became the first writer from Belarus and the first woman author who writes in Russian to receive this prestigious award. Born in Ivano-Frankivsk to Ukrainian mother and Belarusian father, Aleksievich also provides Ukraine with an opportunity to take pride in her.

The Nobel Prize has always attracted so much attention and controversy that very few laureates were received with solid approval and joy. Aleksievich is not an exception, being in the honourable company of Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk and others. I will leave it for the readers to find more immediate responses to this award for themselves and take this opportunity to reflect on Aleksievich’s writings. 

Journalist by training, Svetlana Aleksievich finished her first book The Unwomanly Face of War just a few years before the launch of perestroika in the Soviet Union. Cut by censorship, cautious editors and the author herself, fragments of this book were first published in literary magazines and in 1985 – as a book. In a short time the overall print run of several consequent editions reached two million copies. The book told real stories of women – participants in WWII. Aleksievich interviewed hundreds of women veterans and let them speak for themselves in their own words, so that the book reads as a series of individual monologues: memoirs, accounts, cries and confessions. The tone of the book presented a sharp contrast with the Soviet official line on treating the subject of the war with Nazi Germany as heroic sacrifice for the Soviet Motherland. Aleksievich showed the war in its entirety as horror and madness, fear and pain, hard labour and exposure of the best human and the worst beastial features in people. On the one hand, Aleksievich followed the steps of Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin with their The Blockade Book and Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. Some critics trace the roots of her style to Truman Capote, Norman Mailer and Joan Didion.  On the other hand, Aleksievich turned document-based prose into a unique creative method. By removing the author figure from her books Aleksievich eliminated any distance between her heroes and the reader and created a narrative where the reader felt unprotected by an intermediary. The reader is ‘naked’ in front of the text and is wounded by the simple words in which the stories are expressed.

For the next 30 years Aleksievich continued to work in this genre, which I would describe metaphorically as ‘written oral history’. Together with her first book The Last Witnesses: A Hundred of Unchildlike Lullabys (about children at war), Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, and Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster form the cycle that she entitled Voices from the Big Utopia. Her other two books Enchanted with Death (stories about suicides in the early post-Soviet period), and Second-hand Time (2013), that examines such as phenomenon as the Soviet Man, are written in a similar style and are closely linked to the cycle.

Prior to her major award, Aleksievich had received over twenty national and international prizes. Her works are translated into more than 30 languages. Over 20 films and a dozen theatre productions are based on Aleksievich’s books, including Prayer for Chernobyl  directed by Jenny Engdahl  at the New Vic Basement in 1999 and Juanita Wilson’s directorial debut The Door, a 16 minute short film based on Monologue About a Whole Life Written Down on Doors, the Testimony of Nikolai Fomich Kalugin – one of the accounts from Voices from Chernobyl. We sincerely congratulate Svetlana Aleksievich and wish her further great strength to write more books that challenge our understanding what it is to live, love and be human.

 Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator East European Collections, European Studies

Lenin’s presence in London is well known and documented. A fascinating story of the area where he used to stay during his visits is described in the Survey of London.

A bust of Lenin from the Islington Museum (via Europe A la carta )

Lenin’s visits to the British Museum Library are also documented and written about (see our previous posts on Lenin at the British Library by our former colleague Dr Robert Henderson).

The British Museum Donation Register lists presents 152 (11 Jan. 1908) and 537 (14 Mar 1908):  Za 12 let (“12 Years Writings”) and Agrarnyi  vopros (“The agrarian question”) respectively.  These two books meant to constitute the first two volumes of a three-volume collection.  A copy of Za 12 let is Lenin’s only donation to bear a note made by a member of the British Museum staff: “Donation from the author”.  According to his letters, it doesn’t seem that Lenin left Geneva between January and March 1908, but he definitely was in London in May 1908, so who presented the volumes on these two occasions remains unclear.

 Za 12 let.  Tom pervyi. Shelfmark Cup.403.w.8

Lenin’s works appeared under one of his pseudonyms – Vl. Il’in. The title of the book is an allusion to then recently published collection of Georgii Plekhanov’s  works Za 20 let (“20 years of Writing”; St Petersburg, 1905). Lenin selected articles previously published between 1894 and 1905, edited and shortened some of them, and wrote a preface. The first volume that contained Chto delat’? (“What’s to be done?”), Shag vpered, dva shaga nazad (“One step forward, two steps back”), Zadachi russkikh sotsial-demokratov  (“The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats”), etc.  was legally published  in 1907 (although the date given on the title page is 1908) by the Bolshevik publishing house Vpered (“Forward”) founded and managed by a politician and writer Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, who served as Lenin’s secretary after the October revolution. When Vpered was closed by the police in summer 1907 all the materials very transferred to the publishing house Zveno (“A Chain”), led by Mikhail Kedrov, in the Soviet period – a Chekist and organizer of the first labour camps in the USSR. Printing was done by by the Bezobrazov printing house in St Petersburg, which produced books on a variety of topics from Greek etymology to the popular cookery book by Elena Molokhovets. 

Lenin attempted to publish his almost complete collection of writings (excluding Razvitie kapitalizma v Rossii - “The Development of capitalism in Russia”) for the second edition of which he had already had a contract with another publisher that brought him about 2,000 Roubles, at the very end of the period of press liberalisation that had started with the 1905 October Manifesto. After the second Duma  had been dissolved on 3 June 1907, the newly emerged free press was crushed by a system of fines and bans which in effect restored the pre-1905 censorship. However, advertisements  for this collection of works appeared in Russian newspapers, e.g. in the weekly Novaia kniga (“The New Book”) and subscription for the first two volumes at the price of four Roubles was announced. 

The subscription campaign was not very successful, and by the time the first book came out only 200 subscribers had contributed towards its cost. The first volume appeared in 3,000 copies, and Lenin received an agreed fee of 60 Roubles per  24 pages of typescript for reprinted works and 100 Roubles per 24 pages for contributions written specially for this edition.  It was not too bad money, considering that in the 1900s the best-paid ‘proletarian’ Russian author, Maxim Gorky's rate was around 1200 Roubles, Ivan Bunin's - 600 Roubles, and medium range authors received around 200 per 24 pages.

The first volume of Za 12 let was banned by the Russian authorities, as it was announced in the newspaper Rus’ on 11 December (28 November)  1907. So it was decided to publish the second volume under the separate title Agrarnyi  vopros (“The agrarian question”) in two parts, where part one would consist of previously ‘legally’ published articles, and part two would contain the Bolsheviks’ agrarian programme.

 Agrarnyi vopros. Chast 1.  British Library's shelfmark Cup.403.w.8

However, when the proofs were sent by the printers to the Zveno office, the police were already there to confiscate it. After this there were no further attempts before the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 to publish the rest of this collection.

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator East European Collections, European Studies

References/further reading:

Robert Service,  Lenin: a biography (London , 2000) YC.2001.a.8941

 

Taking into account Lenin’s great admiration for the Library of the British Museum, and the fact that he donated several of his books to other European libraries it is surprising to find only four donations recorded in the British Museum’s ‘Book of Presents’. This lists:

Present 152: (11 Jan. 1908) “12 Years Ago” " by Vl. Il'in, tom 1 (in Russian) Pres'd. by the Author.

Present 537: (14 Mar 1908) “The Agrarian Question”  by V.C. Oulsanov [sic] Pres'd.by the Author, Rue des deux Ponts 17, Geneve.

Present 857: (11 Apr 1908)  “Development of Capitalism in Russia” by V.Ilin, 1908. (In Russian) Pres'd. by Mr. Oulianoff,17 Rue des deux Ponts, Geneve. (i.e. Razvitie kapitalizma v Rossii. Izdanie vtoroe, dopolnennoe (St-Petersburg, 1908). 08226.i.22)

Present 2153: (11 Nov 1911)  “Deux Partis” par G. Kameneff,1911 Pres'd. by Mr. Oulianoff, 4 Rue Marie Rose, Paris. (i.e.: Dvie partii s predisloviem N. Lenina,"((Paris, 1911)  8094.k.43.

Dve partii s predisloviem N. Lenina

Presents 152 and 537 are the two parts of Za 12 let. Sobranie statei. tom 1,2 chast.1. (St Petersburg, 1908; Cup.403.w.8) marked in the catalogue as “Author’s presentation copy to the British Museum”, while  537 and 857 correspond to the two books mentioned in his letter of 18 May 1908. Many more of Lenin’s books held by the British Library bear the yellow stamp signifying a donated work. However, these are either not listed in the Book of Presents, or are entered as anonymous gifts or as donations from elsewhere. A case in point is Present 582 for 12 April 1902:

 “What's to be done” by N. Lenin  (in Russian) Pres'd. by J.H.W. Dietz, Nachf. Stuttgart. (Chto delat’? Nabolevshie voprosy nashego dvizheniia. (Stuttgart,1902) C.121.c.3.)

Chto delat’? Nabolevshie voprosy nashego dvizheniia

Unfortunately, it is impossible to say whether Dietz, his German publishers, made this donation on their own account, or whether they were instructed to do so by Lenin. On the other hand, the Library's copy of the first edition of K derevenskoi bednote (‘To the Village Poor’), also bears a yellow stamp, and even though it is not listed in the Book of Presents, one may be inclined to believe that if Lenin had to donate only one of his works this would most certainly have been his choice, since it was based largely on the research work which he carried out during his first visit to the Library.

K derevenskoi bednote (Geneva, 1903)  C.121.a.6(8)

R. Henderson, Honorary Research Associate, School of History, Queen Mary University of London

The names of 75 courageous women from 13 nations are etched into a beautiful memorial at RAF Tempsford,   home of the Special Duties Squadrons during the Second World War. These are the female special agents who volunteered for active service behind enemy lines as couriers and wireless operators, running escape lines and leading partisan armies. All were brave, and all deeply committed to the Allied cause, but they had little else in common. Although most were British or French, there were also women from the Soviet Union, Belgium, The Netherlands, Ireland, America, Switzerland, India, Australia and Chile, as well as two from Germany, sent in to support the domestic resistance, and two from Poland, including Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, the subject of my last biography. Some were lucky, others not, many were beautiful which had its own pros and cons, some were plain, and one had a prosthetic leg. Most female agents were effective, at least for a short while, and Skarbek survived in active service for six years. The huge contribution of this diverse group of women came at a high price. 29 were arrested and 16 executed. One more chose suicide with her lethal ‘L’ pill.

Some of the names on the Tempsford Memorial, courtesy of Clare Mulley

Today there is increasing interest in these women. Over the last few years there have been many new biographies and anthologies about them and several memorials. Tempsford is important in that it is the only one that pays tribute to all the women by name. Its marble column stands on a granite plinth collectively honouring the two special duties squadrons that flew them into enemy occupied Europe, but there is no reference to the male agents. Perhaps now we need to ask why is it that we still distinguish heroines from heroes. After all, the Special Operations Executive, better known as SOE, was in many ways a great gender leveller. Selected women and men went through the same training, including in the use of guns and explosives, and silent killing, and were armed and sent to work alongside each other in the field.

It was, however, precisely because they were women, that these female agents were so valuable during the war. Unlike able-bodied men, civilian women travelling around France by train or bicycle attracted relatively little attention. This meant they were better-placed to serve as couriers between different resistance circuits or groups of Maquis hiding in the hills. Women transported messages, micro-film and radio codes, as well as heavy equipment such as weapons and wireless transmitters to arrange the delivery of agents and equipment, etc. Some of them, notably Pearl Witherington and Nancy Wake, went much further, commanding resistance armies of 2,000 men, and, among other achievements, Skarbek persuaded a German garrison on a strategic pass in the Alps to defect.

Skarbek, the first woman to work for Britain as a special agent, was employed in December 1939. Eighteen months would pass, during which time she served both across Eastern Europe and in the Middle East, before SOE was even officially established. The first female covert radio operator to be flown into France, Noor Inayat Khan, left England in June 1943. Even at this point, women in the British military were not officially allowed to carry guns or explosives. To circumvent this, SOE enrolled women into the FANYs, which officially operated outside of the Armed Forces but still theoretically offered some protection under the Geneva Convention in the event of capture, and provided pensions should the women become casualties.

Churchill had approved the employment of women in SOE, but their role was not made public until some time after the war for fear of a backlash. Meanwhile the women who had survived found their achievements were underplayed and their skills undervalued. While Skarbek’s male colleagues were reassigned to roles overseas, after she turned down a series of secretarial jobs for which she was monumentally unsuited, Skarbek was dismissed as ‘not a very easy person to employ’. Meanwhile the official papers sent to her were accompanied by belittling notes such as ‘Hope you are being a good girl!’ Even the honours the women received were less than their male counterparts, as women did not qualify for British military awards. Many felt bitter about this, but none expressed it as succinctly as Pearl Witherington. After being awarded the MBE (Civil), she famously commented that ‘there was nothing civil’ about the work she had undertaken.

It was only in the 1950s that the women’s stories began to be told. Having signed the official secrets act, many of the women, like the men they served with, refused to talk. Others, such as Odette Hallowes, spoke out, or like both Hallowes and Violette Szabo who had been executed at Ravensbrück, had their stories retold in biographies and films. And so the myth-making began. All too often, female agents and other women in the resistance have been honoured more for their courage and great sacrifice, than for their actual achievements. It has been judged more important that they tried, than that they succeeded. When the women did achieve, they still seem to have been feminised in the retelling, their beauty and sacrifices emphasised and their rough edges smoothed over. In order to be celebrated they have been, in effect, often recast as victims, rather than simply as heroes.

Ironically perhaps, today we need to reconsider the female special agents not only because historically they were marginalised but because, all too often, when given attention they have been judged as women, rather than as individuals doing an extraordinary job. If you have been the business of special operations, it is clearly self-defeating to be elevated as a heroine if at the same time you are diminished as an independent agent.

Clare Mulley at the Tempsford Memorial (courtesy of Pawel Komorowski)

 CLARE MULLEY is the award-winning author of The Spy Who Loved: the secrets and lives of Christine Granville, Britain’s first female special agent of the Second World War (Macmillan, 2012) [The British Library's shelfmark YC.2013.a.3179]. She is taking part in the panel discussion Churchill’s Heroines: Female Spies in WWII at the British Library on Saturday 10 October, 4-6pm. www.claremulley.com