The Charta (Map) of Greece is considered to be one of the most important works of the Neohellenic Enlightenment and perhaps the most important sample of Greek cartography of the pre-revolutionary period (before 1821). It was created by the celebrated Greek author, thinker and revolutionary Rigas Velestinlis, who had been profoundly influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the principles of the French Revolution arriving from Western Europe.

Rigas Velestinlis. Portrait by Andreas Kriezis (Benaki Museum, Athens). Picture from Wikipedia. 

Engraved by the well-known engraver Franz Müller and published in Vienna in three rounds between 1796-1797, the Charta was one of three maps published by Rigas during the preparation of his revolutionary plan against the Sultan’s absolute power over the enslaved Greeks and other Balkan peoples. The other two were the New Map of Wallachia and the General Map of Moldovia. The maps complemented each other and projected the democratic state Rigas envisioned in the area after the successful outcome of his revolution.

The 12-folio Charta of Greece. Picture from Wikipedia. 

The Charta consists of twelve folios measuring approximately 50cmx70cm each, which combined together form a monumental 2mx2m map never seen before in the Balkans. Researchers believe that it was based on a map of ancient Greece by the famous cartographer Guillaume Delisle, something that could explain Rigas’s description of the Charta as a map of Greece with its islands and numerous colonies in Europe and Asia Minor.

The full title can be found in a cartouche on folio 4 of the Charta and provides important pieces of information, such as the place and date of publication and contributors, as well as a description of its contents. It depicts the geographical window of a state confined only by geophysical boundaries, which are recorded in both their old and modern names.

A cartouche containing the title: «Χάρτα της Ελλάδος εν η περιέχονται αι νήσοι αυτής και μέρος των εις την Ευρώπην και μικράν Ασίαν πολυαρίθμων αποικιών αυτής… εν σώμα εις 12 τμήματα. Νυν πρώτον εκδοθείσα παρά του Ρήγα Βελεστινλή Θετταλού χάριν των Ελλήνων και Φιλελλήνων. 1797. Εχαράχθη παρά του Φρανσουά Μήλλερ εν Βιέν(νη)». Above, Goddess Episteme on a throne; Below, Hercules on foot and with only a club, attacks an Amazon riding a horse and carrying a double axe. LF.31.b.1825

The Charta also includes plans of nine famous Greek cities and places, which according to Rigas help the understanding of the journey of his Neos Anacharsis, a translation of the Voyage de Jeune Anacharsis en Grèce by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy. The understanding of the journey is further assisted by a chronology of kings and important men and the depiction of 161 types of Greek coins scattered throughout the map. These elements are believed to have been recorded by Rigas to conceal his true revolutionary intentions, evade Austrian censorship and secure the authorities’ permission to publish his work.

Coins from folio 7 of the Charta. LF.31.b.1825

The plan of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire and city-symbol for the Greeks since its fall to the Ottomans in 1453, appears on folio 1 of the Charta, which was published a few months earlier and independently from the rest of the map.

Folio 1 of the Charta showing the map and plan of Constantinople. LF.31.b.1825

A close-up of the plan of Constantinople. LF.31.b.1825

On the right hand side, a notable allegorical scene: a lion, believed to represent the dormant force of the enslaved peoples, is trapped under the supports of the Ottoman power, symbolised by the Sultan’s turban and the oriental weapons beneath it. Next to the lion is a club, a primeval and rather insignificant weapon by comparison. However, it is only a matter of time before the lion awakens to overthrow the foreign rule and reconfirm its authority using the means available to it.

A temporarily dormant lion trapped under the supports of the Sultan’s turban and Ottoman weapons. LF.31.b.1825

Other ancient city plans included in the Charta are Sparta, Thermopylae, Pherae -modern Velestino and birthplace of Rigas - Athens, Plateae, Salamis, Olympia and Delphi. On folio 7, there is even a plan of an ancient Greek theatre, as a reminder of its enduring pedagogical power and the potential source of inspiration for the enslaved Greeks.

An ancient Greek theatre with its various parts on folio 7 of the Charta. LF.31.b.1825

In the top margins of folios 10 and 11, Rigas provides in alphabetical order the names of 114 great men of Greece and characters from Greek mythology, which he pairs with dates and accompanies with Hercules’s club on the side, to indicate the strength and continuity of the Greek civilisation. At the top of folio 12, he provides the names of 15 rulers, from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra and the first Roman Emperors after Christ.

The names of important men of Greece in alphabetical order at the top of folio 10. LF.31.b.1825

The names of great kings in chronological order at the top of folio 12. LF.31.b.1825

The names of kings of Constantinople appear in the bottom margins of folios 2 and 3. This chronology starts with the Christian Emperors, from Theodosius the Great to Constantine Palaiologos, and finishes with the Sultans, from Mohammed II to Selim III. A contrast is made between the eleven centuries of Byzantine Empire and the three of Ottoman Empire, both of which had their seat in Constantinople.

Rigas and his seven companions were arrested in Trieste a few months after the publication of the Charta and other contemporary works that revealed their radical ideas for liberation from Ottoman rule, equality, respect for human rights and democracy. In February 1798, they were returned to Vienna for interrogation and were handed over to the Turks of Belgrade in May of the same year. After a short period of imprisonment and torture in Nebojša Tower, they were executed by strangling. Their bodies were thrown in Danube River.

Nebojša Tower, where Rigas and his companions were imprisoned and executed. Picture from Wikipedia 

Of the 1220 original copies of the Charta, most were sent to collaborators of Rigas in Bucharest, Iasio and Smyrna, several were individually sold in Vienna, and a large number was confiscated during Rigas’s arrest by the Austrian police. Around 60 are estimated to survive today in various libraries, archives and private collections around Greece and the rest of the world.

Lydia Georgiadou, Curator Modern Greek Collections

References:

Rēgas Velestinlēs Thettalos, Charta tēs Hellados en hē periechontai hai nēsoi autēs kai meros tōn eis tēn Eurōpēn kai Mikran Asian polyarithmōn apoikiōn autēs… (Vienna, 1797). LF.31.b.1825

Dēmētrios Karamperopoulos, Hē Charta tou Rēga Velestinlē (Athens, 1998). LF.31.b.1825

Dēmētrios Karamperopoulos, Endeiktikē vivliographia gia ton Rēga Velestinlē (Athens-Velestino, 2007). YF.2012.b.210

Dēmētrios Karamperopoulos, Hē dēmokratikē enopoiēsē tou valkanikou chōrou sto epanastatiko schedio tou Rēga (Athens, 2010). YF.2012.a.908

Dēmētrios Karamperopoulos, To chartographiko ergo tou Rēga Velestinlē hypo to phōs tōn neōn ereunōn (Athens, 2010). YF.2014.a.13117

Maria Mantouvalou, Ho Rēgas sta vēmata tou Megalou Alexandrou (Athens, 1996). YA.2001.a.29026

Viktōr Th. Melas, Hē Charta tou Rēga : diakosia chronia apo tēn ekdosē tēs (Athens, 1997). YA.2002.a.8913

Giōrgēs Exarchos, Rēgas Velestinlēs: anekdota engrapha, nea stoicheia (Athens, 1998). YA.2001.a.15645

Polychronēs K. Enepekidēs, Rēgas-Hypsēlantēs-Kapodistrias : ereunai eis ta archeia tēs Austrias, Germanias, Italias, Gallias kai Hellados (Athens, 1965). X700/2748

Spyridōn P. Lampros, Apokalypseis peri tou martyriou tou Rēga: meta eikonōn kai panhomoiotypōn (Athens, 1892). 10606.b.54

 

Content warning: This blog reproduces an image of a dead animal; the vocabulary drawn from the original texts is now considered racist.

Thanks to the typo of British cartographers, Stephen and William Borough – who in the 16th century created several maps of Russia – a northern archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Novaya Zemlya, became in the Western imagination a remote and romanticised land, Nova Zembla.

Nova Zembla is mentioned in Jonathan Swift’s The Battle of the Books as the residence of ‘a malignant deity called Criticism,’ who ‘dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla’. We find a reference to Nova Zembla in Tristram Shandy, where ‘North Lapland’ is described as ‘those cold and dreary tracks of the globe […] where the whole province of a man’s concernments lies for near nine months together within the narrow compass of his cave […]— there the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business — and of wit — there is a total and an absolute saving — for as not one spark is wanted — so not one spark is given’. The ‘[d]istant northern land’ of Zembla becomes the abandoned kingdom of the deposed King Charles (Kinbote), the character of Nabokov’s metafictional novel, Pale Fire.

William Borough's Map of Coasts of Norway and Russia, 1557. Nova Zembla is in the top right corner. Royal MS. 18. D.III f.124

Although inspired by the long history of Nova Zembla’s presence in world literature, this post explores the image of Novaya Zemlya, rather than of its literary double. It focuses on an episode from the history of its colonisation: the legacy of a Russian ethnographer, photographer, and writer, Konstantin Nosilov (1858¬–1923). The British Library holds a substantial collection of digitized glass plate negatives from Nosilov’s collection (EAP016/1 and EAP016/3) including his photographs of Novaya Zemlya as well as other parts of Northern and Southern Siberia, his family life, and European travels.

Nosilov besides a fireplace (All captions are my own translations of the original annotations made by the Russian photographers)

Nosilov’s father

Paris

The BL also holds several collections of Nosilov’s short stories in which he shared reminiscences of his ethnographic expeditions, and which are illustrated with his photographs.

Various editions of Nosilov's short stories available at the BL

Nosilov was born to the family of a priest who lived near Shadrinsk in the Urals region. Nosilov did not finish his own theological studies and instead from 1879 he started to work as a geologist exploring the basins of the rivers Sosʹva, Lialia, and Lozʹva – prospecting them for gold. Having become a member of Imperial Russian Geographical Society, Nosilov undertook numerous ethnographic expeditions to Siberia, exploring the traditions and lifestyles of the Mansi (also known as Voguls), Khanty (Ostyaks), and Nenets (Samoyed). The collection includes numerous photographs taken by Nosilov during these expeditions.

The Mansi’s summer camp

The Nenets’ place of sacrifice

Novaya Zemlya occupies a very special place in Nosilov’s life and work. Being on the outskirts of the vast Russian Empire, the archipelago had been hardly explored by Russian ethnographers. Norwegian hunters and fishermen, on the other hand, frequently visited the waters around Novaya Zemlya and its shores. To reinforce the Russian Empire’s control of its territorial possession, it was regarded as crucial to establish permanent settlements on the island – Novaya Zemlya had been uninhabited due to its severe environment. Nosilov volunteered to organise a permanent settlement on the archipelago.

In 1887 a lifeboat station, Malye Karmakuly, was founded on the island of Iuzhnyi, and several Nenets families were relocated to the area. An ambitious colonialist, Nosilov was the first Russian explorer who, together with the Nenets, spent three winters on Novaya Zemlya 1887–1889 and 1890–1891. By his own example, Nosilov wanted to prove that the archipelago was suitable for year-round living.

Nosilov's house on Novaya Zemlya

Novaya Zemlya, Malye Karmakuly

Novaya Zemlya: view from the sea

Novaya Zemlya: cliffs and the sea

On Novaya Zemlya, Nosilov installed a meteorological station, that was essential to help the inhabitants prepare for severe weather conditions and regular storms, one of which is described in Nosilov’s story ‘Poliarnaia buria’ (‘Polar Storm’). Together with the Orthodox priest Father Iona, Nosilov revived an abandoned Orthodox chapel on the island, and they also started a school for the Nenets, – described in his story ‘Samoedskaia shkola’ (‘The Samoyed School’). Nosilov was especially proud of this, the most northern school in the world. In the story, he describes how both children and adults were keen on learning not only language but basic maths and other general subjects. Full of gentle humour, the story also tells how Father Iona was terrified by the ‘school inspectors’ – polar bears – who frequently visited.

Describing the Nenets settlement on Novaya Zemlya, Nosilov used many tropes that are now considered as typical for colonialist literature depicting colonisers’ interactions with indigenous peoples. The narrator in Nosilov’s stories shows a patronizing attitude toward the Siberians, who are treated like children, or, as he constantly calls them, ‘the children of nature’. Although Nosilov also frequently refers to the indigenous peoples in a way that now would be considered as racist, calling them ‘barbarians’ (‘dikari’), his attitude towards them is not derogatory, but rather sympathetic, especially when it comes to their studies of the Russian language and religion.

Some indigenous traditions which Nosilov witnessed, nevertheless terrified him. For instance, in one of his stories about the Mansi, ‘Iz zhizni vogulov’ (‘From the Life of the Voguls’), Nosilov describes the ceremonial slaughter and eating of a reindeer as bloodthirsty and barbaric: ‘looking at their passionate faces lit by the light of the fire, I saw the real barbarians, whom I had not yet suspected under the always modest and quiet figures of the Voguls’. However, most of his stories, especially those dedicated to the life of his colony on Novaya Zemlya, are full of admiration for the indigenous peoples, their skills and instincts.

In his story ‘Tainstvennoe iz zhizni samoedov’ (‘Mysterious in the Life of the Samoyeds’), for example, Nosilov describes an elderly Nenets woman with a gift of clairvoyance who not only predicted the fortune of hunters, but also once foretold the arrival of a Norwegian ship from Tromsø. Despite being a devout Christian – fulfilling, among other things, the duty of missionary work – Nosilov was keenly interested in indigenous spirituality and the native peoples’ special skills of forefeeling.

Novaya Zemlya, Matochkin Shar

Many of Nosilov’s stories are addressed to younger readers in central Russia. Nosilov tried to enlighten them about the life in the remote parts of the Russian Empire. Among such stories is the story of a Nenets girl, Tania Logai. The plot might be interesting for a Gender Studies analysis: Nosilov describes various episodes from Tania’s life showing how, instead of learning female domestic duties, she was much more interested in hunting. Tania even becomes a local celebrity for killing a polar bear that attacked her family hut whilst all the male hunters were away. Even when she reaches womanhood, Tania refuses to change. She does not want to get married and chooses to stay with her family and help her father hunt.

Novaya Zemlya. The female bear killed by Nosilov

Alongside being entertaining and enlightening, Nosilov’s stories also featured the acute social and economic problems experienced by the indigenous population of the north. These problems were primarily provoked by the invasion of European Russians who disturbed the traditional ways of living. Discussing the State’s response to the problems of the indigenous peoples, Yuri Slezkine notes:

[…] more and more travelers and more and more readers assumed that the administrators – local or otherwise – were generally incapable of enlightening anyone and that helping savages advance was the special mission of special people who were the sole legitimate representatives of the highest stage of intellectual development (the “intelligentsia”) (Slezkine, 1994, p. 112)

This sense of personal mission is notable in Nosilov’s stories. The final story in his collection Na Novoi Zemle, titled ‘Nashi liudoedy’ (‘Our Cannibals’) discusses the problems of the Nenets population living on the Taz Estuary. The story tells how the indigenous people, facing terrible poverty despite living in one of the richest fishing areas of Russia, hungered so badly that they had to resort to cannibalism. Nosilov regards this as the fault of the European Russians and urged measures to help indigenous populations. Nosilov also published numerous articles describing the problems of the North, including the increasing alcoholism among native peoples after vodka was introduced by Russians.

Nosilov’s texts sometimes reveal his personal doubt as to whether intrusion into the worlds of indigenous peoples was a truly good thing. This instance of the coloniser’s self-reflexivity is an interesting topic to consider: Nosilov’s rich cultural heritage requires a new critical reading framed with post-colonial theory. The story of Nosilov’s final years brings an additional dramatic element to it. Due to his deteriorating relationship with the State after the installation of Bolshevik rule in 1917, his family had to leave their estate, Nakhodka near Shadrinks (EAP016 includes numerous pictures of the estate) and moved to Georgia where Nosilov died in 1923.

Nosilov's estate 'Nakhodka'

Anna Maslenova, British Library PhD placement student working on the project ‘Contextualising a digital photographic archive of Siberian Indigenous peoples’

References and further reading:

K. D. Nosilov, Tania Logaĭ: razskaz i zhizni sievernykh inorodtsev (Moscow, 1907). RB.23.a.32078.

K. D. Nosilov, U vogulov: ocherki i nabroski (St Peterburg: 1904). 10292.k.21

K. D. Nosilov, Na Novoi Zemle: Ocherki i nabroski (St Peterburg: 1903) (10292.k.20),

Konstantin Nosilov, Severnye rasskazy (Sverdlovsk, 1938). X.808/9359.

Johanna Nichols, ‘Stereotyping Interethnic Communication: The Siberian Native in Soviet Literature’ in Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture, ed. by Galya Diment and Yuri Slezkine (New York, 1993), pp. 185–214. YC.1993.a.3771

Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, 1994). YC.1994.b.5452

A. K. Omelʹchuk, K. Nosilov (Sverdlovsk, 1989).

N. B. Gramatchikova, ‘Tvorcheskii putʹ K. D. Nosilova: zhiznennyi putʹ i publitsistika’ in Deviatye Chupinskie kraevedcheskie chteniia: materialy konferentsii, ed. by E. N. Efremova (Ekaterinburg, 2018)

The outbreak of revolution in Vienna in March 1848 was inevitably accompanied by a wave of revolutionary poems and songs. The lifting of press censorship made the publishing and circulation of such material easy, and some pieces enjoyed great success.

One of the first to appear in print was Ludwig August Frankl’s ‘Die Universität’, which was composed while the author was on sentry duty on the night of 14-15 March and caught the popular mood when read aloud to an audience of students the following day. Its subsequent great success was no doubt helped by the fact that many of the 8,000 copies from the first print run were handed out free. The poem was quickly reprinted in various formats both in Vienna and further afield. There was even a French translation and there were at least 19 musical settings.

Ludwig August Frankl, ‘Die Universität’ (Vienna, 1848). 1899.m.19.(205).

Frankl’s chosen topic of the role of students in the March revolution was, like press freedom itself, a popular theme for poets, but there was one older student song that also enjoyed huge popularity and was described by the Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick as “a kind of harmless student Marseillaise”.

The song in question, the ‘Fuchslied’ (‘Song of the Fox’), was originally intended to be sung at student fraternity initiation ceremonies, ‘Fuchs’ being a nickname for a student in his first semester. (A typical ceremony, complete with singing of the ‘Fuchslied’, was described by Hugo Hagendorff in an article for the magazine Der erzählende Hausfreund in 1838.) Various versions exist, but all involve the student initiate being plied with tobacco and/or alcohol until he vomits, after which he is accepted as a ‘Bursch’, a full fraternity member.

‘Das Fuchslied, oder das allgemein beliebte Studenten-Lied “Was macht der Herr Papa”’ ([Vienna, 1848.]). C.175.cc.6.(20.)

The song has no obvious political content. At a stretch, a section found in some versions about a father reading Cicero while his wife and daughter carry out various tasks for him could perhaps be read as a mild satire of bourgeois life, but since the song predates the revolution it is unlikely that there was any intended political slant to it. Some Viennese writers during the revolution added new verses and variations with a definite edge of political satire, but it was the continuing success and ubiquity of the apolitical original that gave rise to these additions.

Another odd twist is that the song’s popularity in Vienna had nothing to do with its use in the city’s own student traditions but arose from its appearance in a play by the German writer Roderich Benedix, Das bemooste Haupt (literally ‘The Mossy Head’, but the term can also refer to a ‘Perpetual Student’). The play was written in 1840 but only received its Viennese premiere in April 1848, when it swiftly achieved huge success among revolutionary students. The same work also popularised the practice of the charivari or ‘Katzenmusik’, where singing of the ‘Fuchslied’ became a regular feature.

A Viennese revolutionary charivari, from Maximilian Bach, Geschichte der Wiener Revolution im Jahre 1848 (Vienna, 1898) 9315.d.40.

Perhaps the secret of the song’s revolutionary success was that it was easy to learn, remember and adapt, and that its background lent it an aura of mischief – ideal for young men keen to cock a snook at traditional authority. Hanslick recalled hearing an escalating musical battle between students singing the ‘Fuchslied’ and a civil servant who tried to drown them out with the imperial anthem, ‘Gott erhalte unsern Kaiser’ (‘God Preserve our Emperor’). Joseph Helfert, in a survey of the literature of the Viennese revolution, describes how the ‘Fuchslied’ came to be perceived as the antithesis to the anthem, the latter supposedly representing “regression, slavery and narrow-mindedness” and the former “progress, freedom and high-mindedness”.

The song’s simple and catchy tune (similar to the English ‘A-hunting we will go’) also took on a life of its own. It was incorporated by Johann Strauss the Elder into a ‘March of the Student Legion’, first performed in April 1848, and Franz von Suppé composed a series of ‘Humorous Variations’ on it in the same year. Today it is probably best known for its appearance in Brahms’s ‘Academic Festival Overture’, written over three decades after the song’s brief but intense revolutionary career.

Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections

References/further reading:

Eduard Hanslick, Aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1894) 12249.ccc.7.

Roderich Benedix, Das bemooste Haupt, oder, Der Lange Israel (Wesel, 1840)

Joseph Alexander Helfert, Der Wiener Parnass im Jahre 1848 (Vienna, 1882) 11528.k.10.

Wolfgang Häusler, ‘Marseillaise, Katzenmusik und Fuchslied als Mittel sozialen und politischen Protests in der Wiener Revolution 1848’ in Barbara Boisits (ed.) Musik und Revolution: die Produktion von Identität und Raum durch Musik in Zentraleuropa 1848-49 ( Vienna, 2013) YF.2014.a.20622

A collection of digitised poems, songs, broadsides and periodicals from the 1848 Revolution can be found on the website of the Austrian National Library 

Do not forget, with good intent
Speak quietly of me

(Taras Shevchenko, ‘Testament’, translated by Vera Rich)

Every year, on 9-10 March, ‘Shevchenko’s Days’ (Shevchenkivs’ki dni) are celebrated in Ukraine. The national poet, founder of modern Ukrainian literature and famous artist Taras Shevchenko was born on 9 March 1814. On 10 March 1861 he died at the age of 47 after more than 10 years in exile as a private in the Russian military garrison in Orsk (near the Ural Mountains) and then in Kazakhstan. The Tsar added to his sentence: ‘Under the strictest surveillance, without the right to write or paint’. But Shevchenko’s talent went beyond such restrictions. His poems had an immense impact on Ukrainian society and became a vital source of the consolidation of the Ukrainian nation.

As a result of a joint project between the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), administered by the British Library, and the Taras Shevchenko National Museum in Kyiv (Ukraine), the British Library holds copies of a digital collection of Shevchenkiana (works by, about, or relating to Shevchenko). It includes books, serials and archival materials dating from the 19th to the early 20th century (about 60,000 images). The collection, which is called ‘Saving the original lifetime archive of the well-known Ukrainian poet, artist and thinker, T. H. Shevchenko’, is available via the EAP website and can be searched via the British Library Archives and Manuscripts catalogue.

Shevchenkiana includes not only the publications of the poet’s own works, including those from his own lifetime, but also literary journals and almanacs, where his poems were published (Lastovka, 1841; Molodyk, 1843; Khata, 1860; Osnova, 1861–1862, etc.). There are also publications about Shevchenko, books by writers and poets of his time, translations of his works and archival materials.

Shevchenko lifetime editions: Hamaliia (ref: EAP657/2/1/7); and Kateryna (ref: EAP657/2/1/8)

Of special value among the editions published in Shevchenko’s lifetime are those containing his personal autographs. For instance, on the title page of the poem ‘Naimychka’ (1860) the poet made an inscription: ‘To Orlovs’ky from T. Shevchenko’. We can assume that it is Volodymyr Orlovsky, a Ukrainian artist famous for his landscape painting (1842–1914). In December 1860, Shevchenko wrote about Orlovsky’s daily visits to him in a letter and expressed the hope that he would have a promising future. Shevchenko not only gave drawing lessons to his young compatriot, but he also provided him with a letter of recommendation to the Saint Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts.

Or another autograph written in pencil on the cover of Psalmy Davydovi to a Serhii Syl’vestrovych whom T. Shevchenko calls ‘Dear compatriot’.

Shevchenko editions with his autographs: Naimychka (ref: EAP657/2/1/6); Psalmy Davydovi (ref: EAP657/2/1/6).

The digitised collection also includes issues of the famous Ukrainian literary journal Osnova (published January 1861–October 1862). Osnova united Ukrainian writers and scholars who wrote fiction, poems, works on history, bibliography, literary criticism, etc. The journal had a noticeable impact on Ukrainian cultural and literary life. Over 70 poems by Shevchenko appeared in it. Novels and poems by well-known Ukrainian writers such as Panteleimon Kulish, Leonid Hlibov, Oleksa Storozhenko, Oleksandr Konys’ky, Hanna Barvinok, Marko Vovchok and others were also published in this journal as well as scholarly research. For instance, Mykola Kostomarov, an outstanding historiographer and historian, contributed scholarly articles and discussed contemporary issues of Ukrainian history. It is important to note that the British Library Archives and Manuscripts catalogue provides an analytical description of all novels, articles and cycles of poems printed in Osnova and other serials.

Osnova, 1861, July-September (ref. EAP657/2/1/19); Khata [almanach], 1860 (ref. EAP657/2/1/13)

The collection also includes some digitised editions of translations of Shevchenko’s works, among them translations into Polish by Antony Gorzałczyński (1862). In the preface to the book Gorzałczyński wrote that Shevchenko’s poetry is a huge lute, composed of a million strings of folk feelings. It contains crying, laughter, pain, groaning, and even mad despair - everything has its own strings and chords. Few of Shevchenko’s contemporaries understood the scale of his legacy so deeply as Gorzałczyński.

Antony Gorzałczyński, Przekłady pisarzów małorossyjskich. T. 1: Taras Szewczenko (z portretem). (Kyiv, 1862). (ref. EAP657/2/3/4)

In ‘Publications of Shevchenko era’, which is another part of this e-collection, there are digitised books by the Ukrainian writers Panteleimon Kulish, Marko Vovchok, Mykhailo Hrushevs’ky, Osyp Bodians’ky, and others, as well as ‘Notes of the Shevchenko Scientific Society’ in Lviv, primers and reading books for children, and other publications characteristic of that era.

An important part of the collection are archival materials which include documents, letters, and manuscripts relating to Shevchenko. Among them: ‘Case of the arrest of A. Navrotsky, V. Belozersky and T. Shevchenko’ (1847), ‎after which Shevchenko spent more than 10 years in exile (ref. EAP657/1/10); ‘Case of the Ukrainian Slavic Association’ (1847) (ref. EAP657/1/14); and ‘Case of the despatch of the private Taras Shevchenko to Ural’sk city’ (1857) with correspondence about the release of Shevchenko from exile (ref. EAP657/1/7).

‘Case of the arrest of A. Navrotsky, V. Belozersky and T. Shevchenko’ (28 Mar 1847–04 Aug 1847) (ref. EAP657/1/10)

Now, after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine reports 1322 cases of damage or destruction of cultural objects and buildings, including 508 libraries, international projects to digitise Ukrainian cultural heritage are gaining special importance. This work provides an opportunity for the long-term preservation of collections, at least in digital form, and provides access to them for readers.

Nadiia Strishenets, Leading researcher at the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine and British Academy Fellow

References

Volodymyr Orlovsʹkyĭ (1842–1914), Mykola Pymonenko (1862–1912), (Khmelnytskyi, 2006.): LF.31.a.3570

‘… she was a foolish young woman who never realised the nature of her error,’ said Derek Freeman of Margaret Mead. Mead, an advocate of abortion rights and no-fault divorce, was one of many early women anthropologists who suffered from androcentric bias. While Ruth Benedict claimed that the purpose of anthropology is ‘to make the world safe for human difference,’ women faced various obstacles and discrimination and yet still played a crucial part in the formative years of cultural anthropology.

Even if some scholars such as Edward B. Tylor advocated for women to be included in the discipline, a woman, particularly professionally educated, was a rare breed in early ethnology and anthropology studies. We have heard of Mead or Benedict, both well-established figures in Western scientific circles. However, anthropologists and ethnologists from Eastern Europe whose work is important for humanities barely register in public consciousness.

Photograph of Julia Averkieva from Julia Averkieva and Mark A. Sherman’s Kwakiutl String Figures (Vancouver, 1992) YA.1993.b.7126. 

Outside of specialist circles, it is unusual to hear about Julia Averkieva, a Soviet student of Franz Boas, or Branislava Sušnik, a Slovenian-Paraguayan anthropologist who has a street named after her in Asunción and a stamp issued by the Paraguayan Post with her portrait on it.

Photograph of Branislava Sušnik from Branislava Sušnik’s Artesanía indígena: ensayo analítico (Asunción, 1986) YA.1992.a.22026. 

Equally, women ethnographers, such as the Czech Teréza Nováková, who had to publish her findings in a journal called Housewife (Czech: Domací hospodyně), are rarely celebrated. Nováková was not only a collector of patterns, embroidery, and ceramics, but also a passionate feminist fighting for women’s rights.

Illustration from Teréza Nováková’s, Kroj lidový národní vyšivání na Litomyšlsku (Olomouci, 1890) 7705.h.28. 

One of the rare exceptions who managed to establish herself in the Western-oriented discipline was Maria Czaplicka. This Polish-born, British-educated anthropologist registered on the Western-centered academic radar and, to a lesser extent, in the British public awareness.

Portrait of Maria Czaplicka from her book My Siberian Year (London, 1916) 010076.ee.2. 

Czaplicka passed her A-levels in partitioned Poland at a male school, as matura (A-levels) from a girls’ school would not allow her to continue to higher education. When, as the first woman in the history of the programme, she was awarded the Mianowski Scholarship, she could finally afford to study abroad at the London School of Economics and Political Science and later at Oxford. After her very successful Yenisei expedition, described in detail in the diary My Siberian Year, she became the first female lecturer in anthropology at Oxford University. Unfortunately, she had to give up this position when an academic whom she was replacing came back from the First World War. Czaplicka actively supported suffrage and combated anti-Polish propaganda present in the British press. After assisting Franz Boas in the United States, she moved to a new position at Bristol University. However, her career in a male-dominated academic field started to decline, and in 1921, after failing to secure funding that would allow her to pay her debts, the anthropologist committed suicide.

Czaplicka was one of the trailblazing female academics. Unfortunately, as in the case of many of her female colleagues, her gender and marital status played a role in the way she and her work were perceived. She had to deal with issues her male colleagues in the same discipline never encountered – gender was a stumbling block to a successful future in the field of academia. Even the fact that Czaplicka travelled during her expedition in the company of a man was frowned upon. Women doing fieldwork were perceived with a certain suspicion. In My Siberian Year, Maria recalls: ‘This reminds me…of ingenious conjectures put forward by certain Sibiriaks to account for the appearance of three foreign women in the remote region of their country. One thought we were traders; another said "Spies!"; a third added fresh terrors to the disagreeable possibilities suggested by the first two explanations – we were suffragettes, banished to Siberia by the British Government, through a special arrangement with the Tsar.’

Czaplicka, who herself could proudly wear a ‘suffragette’ badge, is one of the heroines of an exhibition currently on show at The National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw. "Women Ethnographers, Anthropologists, and Professors" aims to change the focus from history to herstory. The curator's talk is available here.

Illustration from Maria Czaplicka’s My Siberian Year (London, 1916) 010076.ee.2. The original caption states ‘The author riding Dolgan fashion with a riding stick’. The presence of two, probably Dolgan, women who are in the picture is not mentioned. Except for her closest European travel companions and a ‘man-servant’, the subjects of Czaplicka’s photo remain nameless, identifiable only by their ethnicity. Such an approach, symptomatic of the early anthropology era, clearly demonstrates the imbalanced scientist-native power dynamic. 

Despite facing many obstacles, in due course, women managed to put their stamp on ethnography, ethnology, cultural anthropology, and various fields in science. Czaplicka, Sušnik, Nováková, and their numerous counterparts in Western anthropology took a stand, firmly believing in their own abilities, and forwarded women’s cause. It is indisputable that we should re-evaluate their body of work, taking into consideration today's system of values. Pioneering women in anthropology were a part of the same system as their male colleagues, the system that enabled colonial attitudes that allowed empires to persist and thrive. However, this does not mean that we should not give credit where it is overdue. In the words of French anthropologist Françoise Héritier, ‘indeed, you must never take things as established; you must ask about their basis.’

Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections

On until 18 March, the exhibition Editorial Tables: Reciprocal Hospitalities at The Showroom brings together publishers, artists, and curators with an interest in ‘independent, experimental and artist-led publishing, with a focus on intersecting feminist and decolonial perspectives’. We were glad to receive the back catalogue of one of the featured publishers, Rab-Rab Press, based in Helsinki and founded by Sezgin Boynik.

Rab-Rab: journal of political and formal inquiries in art, Issue 01 (2014). Awaiting shelfmark.

Rab-Rab Press publishes Rab-Rab: journal of political and formal inquiries in art, which is a platform for politically charged interventions in an art world that has surrendered to its ‘ideological blindness’, to the dominant language of ‘liberal capitalist paranoia’. The journal itself and the range of books published by Rab-Rab are seen as part of a “writerly” art practice that, according to the first issue’s opening article by John Roberts, stemmed from Conceptual art’s dismissal of the ‘intellectual division of labour’, the strict separation of the work of the art practitioner and the art critic.

Reprint of E. P. Thompson’s, The Railway: An Adventure in Construction (Helsinki, 2020). Awaiting shelfmark.

Rab-Rab Press is also engaged in publishing, and often translating for the first time, out-of-print forgotten works. Twentieth century and contemporary political thought from across Europe finds a home at Rab-Rab, from the work of Slovenian sociologist Rastko Močnik to two lectures by the Polish-Georgian avant-gardist Ilia Zdanevich. There is a reprint of E. P. Thompson’s, The Railway: An Adventure in Construction, on the international labour brigades in Yugoslavia, and most recently a translation of the increasingly influential artist and thinker Karel Teige’s Jarmark umění, The Marketplace of Art.

Karel Teige’s Jarmark umění, The Marketplace of Art (Helsinki, 2022). Awaiting shelfmark.

Lastly, Rab-Rab’s focus also turns to surprising cultural political moments, whether that is the Archie Shepp-Bill Dixon Quartet playing the 8th World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki 1962 (Free Jazz Communism), Mao Zedong’s last meeting with the Red Guards in 1968 (The Conclusive Scene), or the release of London-based Practical Music’s LP, Albanian Summer: An Entertainment, in 1984 (From Scratch: Albanian Summer Picaresque).

With such an eclectic range of publications bringing lost writing and moments to light, we look forward to what Rab-Rab Press takes on next. In the meantime, there is still a chance to catch the exhibition.

Pardaad Chamsaz, Curator Germanic collections

24 February 2023 marks one year since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While the British Library has been collecting digital and print material relating to Russia’s war against Ukraine since it began in 2014, the full-scale invasion has led to, and necessitated, the publication of new works, from diaries and speeches to books for Ukrainian children arriving in the UK.

This blog post brings together some of the items the British Library has acquired in the past year, as well as some of our ongoing activities to support and collaborate with Ukrainian colleagues, institutions and guests.

Photo from the Books Without Borders event courtesy of the Embassy of Ukraine in the United Kingdom and the Publisher’s Licensing Services Ltd

Children’s books presented by the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, at the British Library

In August 2022, the Library hosted the launch event for ‘Books Without Borders’ in partnership with the Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS) and book print specialists Halstan, who funded and produced 16,000 Ukrainian language books for children arriving in the UK. We welcomed 40 children and their families to the British Library’s Learning Centre. The event was also attended by the Ukrainian Ambassador and the First Lady of Ukraine, who joined remotely to present the books and answer the children’s questions.

The books have been distributed to families and libraries across the UK, including the British Library (see References). 

Cover of In the Face of War

In the Face of War

‘In the daily life of war, only something like photography – unfamiliar, auxiliary, almost mechanical – is capable of holding together sequences and memories.’ Day 16. Friday, March 11.

The Ukrainian artist, writer, and photographer Yevgenia Belorusets kept a diary during the first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Writing from Kyiv, the diary, which included photographs, was updated in real-time and published by Spiegel (German) and ISOLARII (English). It formed the basis of the installation A Wartime Diary, which was exhibited alongside the work of Ukrainian artists Nikita Kadan and Lesia Khomenko in the exhibition This is Ukraine: Defending Freedom at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022. Their work also led to the publication of the pocketbook In the Face of War (also by ISOLARII), of which the Library holds a copy. Another edition of Belorusets’ diary will be published in early March with a new preface by the author.

Zelensky’s speeches from the first month of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine 

Volodymyr Zelensky’s speeches and addresses (in Ukrainian and English)

‘Do not forget about Ukraine. Do not get tired of Ukraine. Do not let our courage go “out of fashion”.’ (Zelensky, Introduction, A Message from Ukraine)

Elected in 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky has led Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion since February 2022. The British Library holds copies of Zelensky’s published speeches in Ukrainian and English translation. A separate English-language collection, A Message from Ukraine, was recently published by Penguin Random House. It includes 16 of Zelensky’s personally selected speeches from 2019-2022, as well as an introduction in which he reflects on how the months since the invasion have changed Ukraine and him personally. He ends with the words: ‘What will bring the end of the war? We used to say “peace”. Now we say “victory”.’

Mstyslav Chernov, Fire burns at a factory after a Russian attack in the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, 15 April 2022. Visual interpretation for Ukraine Lab.

Ukraine Lab

The Ukrainian Institute London is an independent charity dedicated to strengthening Ukraine’s voice in the UK and beyond. The Library has worked with the Institute on a number of projects and events, including Ukraine Lab (2022), an online writing residency for emerging writers from Ukraine and the UK. Working in cross-cultural pairs, the six participants explored global challenges related to environment, disinformation and war, through the prism of Ukraine and the art of storytelling. You can read their work here. As part of the project, the British Library led a collections-based workshop and hosted an online event (recording available).

Ukraine Lab was run by the Ukrainian Institute London in partnership with PEN Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute as part of the UK/UA Season of Culture, funded by the British Council.

Cover of Andrey Kurkov’s Diary of an Invasion

Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov

‘At first we did not understand what war was. You can’t understand it until you see it and hear it.’

Diary of an Invasion by Andrey Kurkov, the critically acclaimed author of novels including Grey Bees and Death and the Penguin, brings together his writings and broadcasts from Kyiv. Kurkov interweaves his personal story with those of his compatriots, as well as political and historical commentary, in a remarkable record of life immediately before and during the full-scale Russian invasion.

Kurkov took part in an event hosted by the British Library to mark Worldwide Reading of Ukrainian Literature Day in September 2022. Organised by the Living Knowledge Network in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute London, a recording of the event is available to watch on LKN’s website.

Cover of Sanctuary Foundation’s book for Ukrainian children arriving in the UK, Hello / Pryvit

A bilingual book to welcome Ukrainian children in the UK

Designed for Ukrainian children who have arrived in the UK in the past year, this bilingual book includes messages of welcome from British and Ukrainian celebrities including Bear Grylls, Tom Odell, Mel Giedroyc, Andriy Pyatov and Jamala. The book was created and published by the charity Sanctuary Foundation, who presented a copy to the British Library in December 2022. Sanctuary Foundation is working with LKN to distribute the books to local libraries around the UK.

N.B. The items featured in this blog post have recently been acquired by the British Library and some may not yet be available to Readers. We will update the shelfmark information and will flag their availability via Twitter as soon as they are ready to order.

References

Kolosok: ukraïnsʹka narodna kazka, illustrated by Adelʹ Hilevych (Kyiv, 2021), YF.2022.a.23583.

Pro bidnoho parubka i tsarivnu: ukraïnsʹka narodna kazka, illustrated by Iulii Kryha (Kyiv, 2021). YF.2022.a.23582.

Zhenchyk, zhenchyk nevelychkyi, illustrated by V'iacheslav Lehkobyt (Kyiv, 2021), YF.2022.a.23586.

Halyna Tkachuk, Bilka Kvasolia ta Opivnichnyii Pozhyraka, illustrated by Nataliia Kashchak (Kharkiv, 2019). YF.2022.a.24557

Valentyna Vzdulʹsʹka, Fotofan: mystetstvo fotohrafii dlia ditei (Kyiv, 2022), YF.2022.b.2327.

Misiats’ viiny: khronika podii: promovy ta zvernennia prezydenta Ukraïny Volodymyra Zelensʹkoho, uporiadnyk Oleksandr Krasovytsʹkyi (Kharkiv, 2022), YF.2022.a.22981.

— Druhyi misiatsʹ viiny. YF.2022.a.22966.

Ukraine Aflame: War Chronicles: Month 1, compiled by Oleksandr Krasovytskyy; translator Ganna Krapivnyk (Kharkiv, 2022), YD.2022.a.4046.

— Ukraine Aflame – 2. YD.2022.a.4047.

Volodymyr Zelensky, A Message from Ukraine (London, 2022), ELD.DS.739195.

Yevgenia Belorusets, Nikita Kadan, and Lesia Khomenko, In the Face of War (Berlin, 2022). Awaiting shelfmark.

Andrey Kurkov, Diary of an Invasion (London, 2022). Awaiting shelfmark.

Krish Kandiah and Miriam Kandiah, Hello / Pryvit! (Sanctuary Foundation, 2022). Awaiting shelfmark.

In November 2022 one of the main Polish newspapers, Gazeta Wyborcza, published a list of ten best books of the past year chosen by their journalists. In a country where simply coming out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community can be a radical act, number four on the list went to a thick tome presenting 79 autobiographical stories of queer persons living in Poland. The book was a result of a contest organised by the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the University of Warsaw.

Front cover of Cała siła jaką czerpię na życie (Kraków 2022; awaiting shelfmark)

Titled Cała siła jaką czerpię na życie (‘All the strength I muster to live’), the anthology is a grim but necessary read. In the words of Polish writer Renata Lis, the compilation is an indictment against Poland for violence and humiliation suffered by members of the queer community.

A page from m.a.c.’s diary in Cała siła jaką czerpię na życie featuring a quote from a Polish Romantic poet C.K. Norwid: “Polishness is a bitter bread”.

“When I was sixteen, I was not afraid of walking the streets of Warsaw holding hands with my girlfriend. I would proudly go to parades waving a flag that for me and many others became a symbol of our freedom. … Today they burn our flags and turn us into animals. These are the same people I shared a desk with at history lessons and learned about concentration camps” writes ‘Alekto’.

The title of the collection is taken from Paweł Bednarek’s story. ‘All the strength I muster to live has always come from within me,’ Paweł states, reflecting on his youth. The diaries testify to oppression, but also show extraordinary resilience of people who had to fight against prejudice on a daily basis.

A page from one of diaries featured in Cała siła jaką czerpię na życie

This tenacity and desire to express an identity without complying with suffocating constrictions of societal judgment, to show yourself for who you are, is equally evident in stories of Polish drag queens and kings. Jakub Wojtaszczyk paints a fascinating and colourful picture of Polish drag scene in Cudowne przegięcie. Reportaż o polskim dragu (‘Wonderful Campness: a Reportage on Polish Drag’). The journalist, who himself identifies as non-heteronormative, sketches sensitive and dynamic portraits of characters who proudly walk or dance through life’s stage.

Cover of Cudowne przegięcie. Reportaż o polskim dragu (Kraków 2022; awaiting shelfmark) featuring a photo of Twoja Stara by Krystian Lipiec. ‘Twoja Stara’ (Your Old Lady) is a drag name of Piotr Buśko.

The haunting and sometimes beautiful experience of queer memory of Central and Eastern Europe is also explored by a Polish artist Karol Radziszewski as shown in The Power of Secrets. The book is a montage of fictional and archival materials formulating “new ways of understanding history, memory, or legislation”. Radziszewski employs various strategies to reconstruct cis-gendered mainstream narrative by interrogating and contesting its heteronormativity.

Cover of The Power of Secrets. Karol Radiszewski (Warsaw, 2021) m22/.10361.

The creator’s projects such as Poczet (the word means a gallery or succession of rulers) question the representation of historical and contemporary figures of prominence – writers, artists, musicians, academics – in Polish culture. By using a traditional medium of painting Radziszewski challenges a conventional assumption of what Poczet should be. The term is most often associated with a pompous representation of people in power, aimed at establishing a symbolical continuity of dynasties and legitimising rulers. Such legitimisation was usually done in European tradition by means of dynastical, heterosexual marriages. Poczet substitutes the grandeur of royalty with cultural icons whose lives, by today’s standards, we would consider non-heteronormative such as Maria Komornicka, Karol Szymanowski, Józef Czapski, Jan Lechoń, Witold Gombrowicz, Jerzy Andrzejewski or Maria Janion. Poczet found its permanent home at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

Images from Poczet series by Karol Radiszewski in The Power of Secrets.

The Power of Secrets is a potent project that reveals as much about the Queer Archive Institute’s creator as about the cultural background that the Polish queer community comes from. The very background that can motivate one to transgress outdated social expectations in order to freely express yourself or cut your wings.

Olga Topol, Curator East European Collections

Hélène Duchêne, Ambassador of France to the UK and writer Zadie Smith will open the 7th edition of the “Night of ideas” on Thursday 9 February 2023, at the Institut français in London.

This year’s edition will gather 40 leading figures from both sides of the Channel, including member of the House of Lords and former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, writer Constance Debré, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at Southbank Centre Ted Hodgkinson and Thomas Jolly, Artistic Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 ceremonies.

Exchanging French and British perspectives, writers, philosophers, artists, scientists, academics, journalists, activists and students will explore the recent changes in our world through a series of free discussions. The question that will drive the debate is “MORE?” More preoccupations and risks, but also more questions, and more discussions. All debates and events in the Night of Ideas are free to attend and open to all, but prior registration is required.

The audience will be able to engage and tackle contemporary issues, from the climate crisis to post #Metoo politics, to the new geopolitics, and to feed your reflection – before or after the event! – Here are a few of the books, in French, that you could find in our collections (you could also find all the books of the authors based in Britain, but let’s focus on the French ones!)

One of the panels at the event “Sexual (R)evolutions” deals with the politics of sex, which has considerably evolved in the past decade, and asks, “are we living through a new kind of sexual revolution, only this time more preoccupied with gender identity, consent and justice? How do we represent desire, break existing norms and reinvent relationships in its aftermath?” You can find the latest book by panellist Constance Debré in our collection at shelfmark YF.2022.a.24144 and her novel Love me tender at YF.2022.a.24114. Ivan Jablonka’s Des hommes justes: du patriarcat aux nouvelles masculinités is available at YF.2020.a.5611 while his Un garçon comme vous et moi has just arrived at the library, and is awaiting cataloguing.

The panel “You’ve reached maximum capacity” discusses issues such as environmental costs, political radicalism or algorithmic discriminations linked to the digital worlds and our ever-growing dependence to the internet - You can find panel participant Guillaume Poix’s novel Les Fils conducteurs, which described the situation of legal and illegal environmental dumping of electronic waste (or e-waste) from industrialized in Agbobloshie, a commercial district near the centre of Accra, in Ghana, at YF.2018.a.3342

The new edition of L’Atlas des frontières: murs, conflits, migrations, by Bruno Tertrais, is also awaiting cataloguing. Bruno Tertrais takes part in the panel “A More Cordial Entente?” on how Franco-British relations have always had their ups and downs, their successes and shares of misunderstandings. Against a challenging and fast-evolving geopolitical backdrop and in light of the war in Ukraine, the panel and the audience will be looking at what brings France and the United Kingdom together.

All these works are available to you when you are a reader at the British Library. Registration is free and gives you access to our collections and Reading Rooms in London and Yorkshire). 

This exciting series of events organised by the Institut Francais highlights the relevance of our French collections at the British Library – and as ever, do not hesitate to contact the curator to recommend books that will allow you to participate in the next debate!

Meanwhile you can find details of the panels highlighted above and the rest of the programme at https://nightofideas.co.uk/whats-on/.

Sophie Defrance, Curator Romance Collections

Dulwich Picture Gallery is currently holding an exhibition of the works of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, the best known Lithuanian artist and composer. Over a hundred works are on loan from the M.K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas where most of the artist’s work is held. The exhibition venue itself has historical links with Poland and Lithuania. In 1790 Stanisław August Poniatowski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, commissioned two art dealers to create a Royal Collection. By the time the task was completed, Poland had undergone three partitions and finally ceased to exist as a sovereign state. Stanisław August was forced to abdicate. As the British Museum’s trustees were considered to be “too arbitrary and aristocratic”, the collection was left to Dulwich College, on condition that it was made available to the public. What was supposed to be the Stanisław August Poniatowski’s Royal Collection became an important part of the collections of Dulwich Picture Gallery, the oldest public gallery in England.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, 1905. Photograph by Stanisław Filibert Fleury. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis was born in 1875 in the small Lithuanian town of Varėna, the eldest of nine children of a church organist. When he was three years old, the family moved to Druskininkai, a resort on the Nemunas river. Čiurlionis was a child prodigy, a pianist by the age of five and organist by the age of six. His talent came to the attention of Prince Michał Ogiński who became the boy’s patron. Čiurlionis moved to Plungė near Klaipėda where, between the ages of 13-16, he attended an orchestral school on the estate of Prince Ogiński. There he learnt to play several other instruments and also sang in the choir.

In later years Ogiński’s patronage enabled Čiurlionis to study piano and composition at the Institute of Music in Warsaw (1894-1899). Čiurlionis also studied harmony, the theory and history of music, natural sciences, astronomy, philosophy, numismatics and mineralogy. Later his studies took him to the Leipzig Conservatoire (1901-1902). He also attended lectures on aesthetics and other subjects at the University of Leipzig, until the death of his patron forced him to abandon his musical studies. Čiurlionis returned to Warsaw and devoted his life to art: he enrolled at the Warsaw School of Drawing and later the School of Fine Arts, supporting himself by giving private lessons. He never abandoned his music – he both painted and composed. During six very intense years (1903-1909) Čiurlionis created 400 musical pieces and 300 works of art. In 1911, diagnosed with severe exhaustion and struggling with his mental health, he was admitted to a sanatorium near Warsaw where he died of pneumonia at the age of 35.

M.K. Čiurlionis, The Family House in Druskininkai, 1905. Pencil on paper. Reproduced in Laima Marija Petruševičiūtė, Melancholy and Sun: Munch and Čiurlionis (Vilnius, 2010) LF.31.b.8488 

Čiurlionis is a hugely important figure in Lithuanian culture and national consciousness. Not only is his work steeped in Lithuanian mythology and folklore; the artist, who declared his intention to “dedicate to Lithuania” all of his “past and future work”, was actively involved in the Lithuanian national movement and cultural life. In 1906 he returned to Vilnius and helped to organise, and participated in, the first three exhibitions of Lithuanian art. He was also a co-founder and board member of the Lithuanian Artists Union.

The influential Russian art critic Alexandre Benois called Čiurlionis “a genius cursed by fate, one of those true geniuses, mythmakers, who create works of sublime, ineffable meaning”. The artist’s originality has earned him a unique place in the history of art. Even though his direct contact with Western European art was limited, he is linked to symbolism, art nouveau, neo-Romanticism and abstract art. To the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, who knew Čiurlionis , he was the first surrealist artist. Čiurlionis was also an innovative composer who used polyphony, modern chords and musical arabesques, and created a series of compositions and open musical forms. Igor Stravinsky, who owned one of Čiurlionis’ paintings, described him as “possibly the most talented member of the Russian School at the beginning of this century”.

Čiurlionis’ art, rich in symbols, has an otherworldly, poetic quality. His art is strongly influenced by Lithuanian landscapes, mythology and folklore. His works are full of natural images like birds, the sun, trees, mountains, grass snakes. In the artist’s early, symbolic works, such natural forms often appear in the form of a human or animal. Most of Čiurlionis‘ paintings are based on dichotomies: light and darkness, morning and evening, life and death, vertical and horizontal.

M.K. Čiurlionis, The Mountain, 1906. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons

M.K. Čiurlionis, The Sun, 1907. Pastel on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

M.K. Čiurlionis, Lithuanian Graveyard, 1909. Tempera on cardboard. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

The dreamlike landscapes reflect Čiurlionis’ interest in Eastern philosophy and theosophy. A recurring theme is the figure of Rex – a mythical, benevolent figure of a godlike monarch, omnipotent creator and protector, reflecting the idea of the unity of the Earth and Universe and signifying protection and care.

M.K. Čiurlionis, Rex, 1909. Tempera on canvas. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

M.K. Čiurlionis, Fairy Tale (Fairy Tale of the Kings), 1909. Tempera on canvas. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

The artist’s deep interest in the relationship between man and the universe is seen, among others, in his cycle of 13 paintings Creation of the World (1905/1906). Čiurlionis wrote that, “This is the Creation of the World, not of our world according to the Bible, but another, fantastical world.”

M.K. Čiurlionis, Creation of the World V, 1905/1906. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

M.K. Čiurlionis, Creation of the World IX, 1905/1906. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

Čiurlionis is considered by some art critics as a pioneer of abstract art. According to the Estonian art critic Aleksis Rannit “Čiurlionis is the first abstract painter and yet few knew it... Kandinsky... only painted his first abstract work in 1911. But already in 1904, Čiurlionis gave the world a body of work that we must class as abstract, of semi-abstract painting”. Rannit’s statement started a discussion among art critics as well as a row with Kandinsky’s widow, who claimed that her husband had never seen Čiurlionis’ paintings and therefore could not have been inspired by them.

M.K. Čiurlionis, Sparks III, 1906. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

M.K. Čiurlionis, Winter IV, 1907. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

M.K. Čiurlionis, My Road II, 1907. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

There is a close link between Čiurlionis’ music and his art. His synaesthesia enabled him to see sound in colours and images; he imagined “the whole world as a great symphony”. His paintings often have musical titles, like prelude, scherzo, andante, allegro, finale. Applying the principles of musical composition to painting, the artist created seven sonata cycles. Although other artists at the time also explored the idea of fusion of music and art, trying to “paint music”, Čiurlionis was more interested in the structure of the painting reflecting the structure of musical composition. He painted repetitions of motifs, his lines followed a melodic rhythm, creating harmonies with colours.

M.K. Čiurlionis, Sonata No. 6 (Sonata of the Stars), Allegro, 1908. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

M.K. Čiurlionis, Sonata No. 7 (Sonata of the Pyramids), Allegro, 1909. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

M.K. Čiurlionis, Angel (Angel Prelude), 1909. Tempera on paper. Image from Wikimedia Commons 

As an artist, for many years Čiurlionis did not achieve the recognition he deserved. His work was ahead of his time yet he remained on the fringes of Western art, in part because he lived away from Europe’s main artistic centres, on the fringes of what was then the Russian Empire. There were several occasions, however, when he came close to gaining an important place in the history of art. In 1908, during his stay in St Petersburg, Čiurlionis developed close links with the members of the Mir isskustva (World of Art) movement, especially Alexandre Benois, but unfortunately soon afterwards the artist’s health deteriorated. Another missed opportunity was the invitation in 1910 to take part in an exhibition held by Neue Künstlervereinigung München. The invitation came too late: Čiurlionis was already seriously ill. At the beginning of the First World War most of Čiurlionis’ works were moved to Moscow. The upheaval caused by the War and later by the Russian Revolution meant that planned critical works on Čiurlionis did not appear. In 1919 Čiurlionis’ works were returned to Lithuania. After a brief period of independence, the Second World War II and annexation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union followed. Čiurlionis’ works were not exhibited until the 1950s.

The 1960s saw a renewed interest in Čiurlionis in the Soviet Union but the modernist aspects of his art were often ignored. Until the restoration of Lithuanian independence, Čiurlionis’ original artwork wasn’t easily accessible to foreign art historians which excluded him from foreign art histories. His works rarely left Lithuania, partly for ideological reasons and partly because they are fragile (most of his works are tempera or pastels on paper or card as the artist could not afford oil paints or canvasses). However, there has been an increase in international interest in Čiurlionis in the last 20 or so years. His works have been exhibited in cities such as Paris, Bonn, Tokyo, Milan, and Helsinki. It was high time they came to London too.

Ela Kucharska-Beard, Curator Baltic Collections

References and further reading:

Kathleen Soriano, M.K. Čiurlionis: between worlds (London, 2022)

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis: album; preface by Rasutė Andriušytė- Žukienė (Kaunas, 2007) LD.31.b.1395

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911): jo laikas ir musų laikas = His time and our time (Vilnius, 2013) EMF.2015.a.81

Laima Marija Petruševičiūtė, Melancholy and Sun: Munch and Čiurlionis (Vilnius, 2010) LF.31.b.8488

Rasa Andriušytė- Žukienė, M.K. Čiurlionis: tarp simbolizmo ir modernizmo (Vilnius, 2004) YF.2007.a.10706

Vytautas Landsbergis, Visas Čiurlionis (Vilnius, 2008) YF.2009.a.8557

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis: twórczość, osobowość, środowisko (Warsaw, 2001) YF.2004.b.618

Antanas Andrijauskas, ‘Musical paintings of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and Modernism’, Music in Art, Vol. 37, No. 1/ 2 (Spring –Fall 2012), pp. 249-264. 5990.227850

Genovaitė Kazokas, Musical paintings: life and work of M.K. Čiurlionis (1875-1911) (Vilnius, 2009) YD.2010.a.2999