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291 posts categorized "Slavonic"

26 July 2024

How the Polish nobility and a "little Russian [? – Belarusian!] girl" shaped Belarusian sports

As we know, Russian and Belarusian athletes will not take part in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The International Olympic Committee has banned athletes from both countries following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Nevertheless, some sportsmen from Russia and Belarus have been allowed to compete as AINs (Individual Neutral Athletes). Unfortunately, totalitarian regimes weaponise sports and international competitions to promote their own narrative of superiority and success. At the end of the blog, I will offer several titles that might be of interest to those readers who would like to learn more about the research in sports, politics and society in Belarus and beyond. Before that, however, I would like to relive the best moments associated with sports in Belarus and find out more about the individuals linked to the Belarusian land who made lasting contributions to the Olympic movement.

The first person I would like to mention was not a sportsman but an engineer - Zygmunt Mineyko (Greek: Ζigkmοynt Μineiko). A Polish-Lithuanian nobleman, born as a Russian Imperial subject in the territory of present-day Belarus, he lived and worked in France and the Ottoman Empire and then settled in Greece. Mineyko was imprisoned and sent to Siberia for fighting for Polish independence in the 1863 January Uprising. He later wrote a book about these years, From the Taiga to the Acropolis.

Title page of 'Z tajgi pod Akropol' with a black and white frontispiece photo of Zygmunt Mineyko

Zygmunt Mineyko, Z tajgi pod Akropol: Wspomnienia z lat 1848-1866. (Warsaw, 1971) X.808/7446.

Mineyko was born in the region of Hrodna, which later became one of the major centres of Belarusian sports. After moving to Greece, he served as a chief engineer for the country's Public Work Ministry and took part in constructing the Olympic facilities for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. He was one of the engineers responsible for restoring and refurbishing the Panathenaic Stadium, which hosted the Games that year.

Black and white illustration of rebuilding works in a large sporting stadium

Panathenaic Stadium. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

In 1888, three years before Mineyko settled in Athens, another man destined to leave a mark on the history of the Olympic Games was born in Hrodna. Karol Rómmel (Russian: Karl Rummel, German: Karol von Rummel) was the son of the Russian Imperial Army general Karol Aleksander Rummel. He followed in his father's footsteps and joined the ranks of the Russian Army. Karol studied in Odesa and Saint Petersburg and soon became interested in equestrian sports. He took part in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm as a member of the Russian team.

Page from a Russian magazine with a report on Olympic sports and two photographs of athletes. A section of the text is highlighted in yellow

Report on the Olympic Games published in the magazine Russkii sport. 1912, No 28 (8 July). P. 7. Digital copy of the Russian State Historical Public Library

The above report mentions the results but does not tell the dramatic story behind Rómmel’s Olympic performance. Almost at the end of the track, his horse Ziablik caught a beam and fell, crushing his rider. Despite the serious injuries, the sportsman managed to get back into the saddle and finish the race.

Page from a report in English on Olympic horse riding competitions with a black and white illustration of a horse jumping a wallThe section on Riding Competitions from The Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912 Official Report. (Stockholm, 1913) 7904.e.2. Available online via the Digital Olympic Official Reports Collection.

After the Russian Revolution, the athlete changed his surname from Rummel to the more Polish-sounding Rómmel and joined the Polish Army in its fight against Bolshevik Russia. The next Olympic Games he participated in were held in Paris (1924) and Amsterdam (1928), where he, together with Józef Piotr Trenkwald and Michał Antoniewicz, claimed the bronze for Poland in team competitions.

Two black and white photographs of a man on horseback, the horse walking in one and jumping in the other

Photograph of K. Rómmel from The Olympic Games of Amsterdam 1928 Official Report accessible at
 Digital Olympic Official Reports Collection

The first Olympic medal for Belarusians —  as part of the USSR team — was silver, awarded in 1956 to hammer thrower Mikhail Krivonosov (1929-1994). In 1976, Elena Novikova-Belova (b. 1947) became the first female fencer to win four Olympic gold medals. Although born in Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, she spent much of her career in Belarus and became the Honoured Trainer of Belarus in 1994. A native of Minsk, Sviatlana Bahinskaia (b. 1973, lives in the USA) is one of the few world-class gymnasts who competed in three Olympic Games. She was a member of three Olympic teams: USSR (1992, Seoul), The Unified Team of former Soviet republics (1992, Barcelona) and Belarus (1996, Atlanta). The first gold Olympic medal for independent Belarus was won in rowing by Katsiaryna Khadatovich-Karsten (b. 1972, lives in Germany). She is a two-time Olympic and six-time World Champion in the single scull.

But of course, the legend of Soviet Belarusian sports was Olga Korbut, born in Hrodna in 1955. Although her professional career in sports lasted only for eight years, as she retired from gymnastic competition at the age of 22, Korbut’s influence and legacy have been profound. The hero of Soviet and Belarusian sports is now a US national. She left Minsk in 1991 and has lived in the USA for almost as long as in the Soviet Union. Although much research has already been done on the Korbut phenomenon, she remains the focus of academic projects. As Timur Mukhamatulin concluded in his article on women’s gymnastics and the Cold War, “Korbut’s image was so influential for American sports followers that, in 1994, long after she had retired, and in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Sports Illustrated included Korbut in its list of forty athletes who had altered sports over the course of the magazine’s forty years of existence. An article honouring Korbut declared that ‘this little Russian girl’ put a ‘different, human face on her Communist country.’”

Azerbaijani postage stamp with a colour photograph of Olga Korbut in a white leotard with her head tilted back and one arm outstretched

Olga Korbut at the 1972 Olympics on an Azerbaijani stamp (Image from Wikipedia)

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator, East European Collections

Further reading:

[Please note that because of the recent cyberattack on the British Library, not all titles are currently available in our reading rooms. The BL is working hard to restore access, and you can find information and updates here] 

Sport and international politics: [the impact of fascism and communism on sport], edited by Pierre Arnaud and James Riordan. (London, 1997) ELD.DS.22220

Sport, Culture, and Ideology, edited by Jennifer Hargreaves. (London, 2014) X.529/52184

George Harvey Sage, Globalizing Sport: How Organizations, Corporations, Media, and Politics are Changing Sports. ([London], 2015) ELD.DS.41952

Race, Gender and Sport: the Politics of Ethnic Minority Girls and Women, edited by Aarti Ratna, Samaya F. Samie. (London, 2017) ELD.DS.186619

Aristea Papanicolaou-Christensen, The Panathenaic Stadium: its History over the Centuries. (Athens, 2003)

Londa Jacobs. Olga Korbut: Tears and Triumph. ([S.l., 1974) 81/5549

Justin Beecham, Olga: Her Life and her Gymnastics ... With photographs by Alan Baker and others, and illustrations by Paul Buckle (New York, [1974]) X.611/3888

‘Olga Korbut and the Munich Olympics of 1972’, in Cold War Cultures: Perspectives on Eastern and Western European Societies, ed. by Annette Vowinckel, Marcus M. Payk, Thomas Lindenberger (New York, [2012]) YC.2013.a.328, Chapter 5

Timur Mukhamatulin, Women’s Gymnastics and the Cold War: How Soviet Smiles Won Over the West. Jordan Centre Blog, published on 16 February 2023

Rebekka Lang Fuentes, Olympism and Human Rights: A Critical Analysis Comparing Different National Olympic Education Programmes in Europe. (Wiesbaden, 2022) Online resource (subscription only)

Posted by European Studies at 2:26 PM in Belarus , Poland , Popular culture , Russia , Slavonic | Permalink

12 July 2024

Bulgarian minorities’ culture in the 20th century

The Endangered Archives Programme project on Bulgarian minorities’ culture in the 20th century has created a digital archive which documents the traditions and customs of minority communities in Bulgaria.

Black and white photograph of a family in front of a dome shaped thatched cabin

Karakachan family in front of their 'Kaliva' thatched winter cabins in Karnobat region, Bulgaria. 1950. EAP500/1/1/2.

The objective of the project was to improve the accessibility and exposure of this digital archive to a wider audience of researchers and stakeholders.

Black and white photograph of four people sitting round a table outdoors, two of them clinking their glasses in a toast
A Tatar-Turkish family celebrates the national holiday May Day in pre-1989 Bulgaria on the 1st of May in their village of Vardim, located in the Svishtov region in 1957. Their daughter, looking on and dressed as a young pioneer in a red scarf, represents a new generation of Bulgarian people. EAP500/13/3/1.

The project focused on various ethnic and religious communities in Bulgaria, including Turks, Tatars, Pomaks, Jews, Armenians, Old Believers, Alevis, Aromanians, Karakachans, and Vlachs. This project continues the work initiated in the previous project, which was smaller in its scope.

Black and white photograph of five people sitting round a table outdoors eating and drinking

Turkish families celebrate the holiday of ‘Trifon Zarezan’, also known as the holiday of the grapes and wine. 1967. EAP500/13/3/11.

The captured documents serve as valuable sources of information regarding the cultures and traditions of the Bulgarian minority communities, which were often obscure beyond the confines of their respective regions.

Black and white photograph of a group of people in a vineyard holding bunches and trays of grapes

Turkish women during grape harvest in the village of Novgrad (mixed Bulgarian-Turkish village) in Svishtov region. 1963. EAP500/13/3/17.

The project’s investigations have uncovered these images in private and local government collections. The project established that local archives didn’t hold these types of records. This deficiency primarily stemmed from the mono-centric state policy, which historically prioritised Bulgarian ethnic tradition and culture to the exclusion of minority groups.

Black and white photograph of a group of women wearing traditional Turkish trousers and waistcoats

Traditional Turkish dresses presented by Turkish women part of the Turkish group ‘Berlik’. 1950s. EAP500/13/3/122.

These communities, both geographically and culturally isolated, frequently experienced marginalisation from mainstream Bulgarian society. Despite this, they continued to preserve numerous traditional elements of their culture, which are passed down through generations.

Black and white photograph of a group of people with the women wearing traditional Karakachans dresses and head-dresses

Karakachans' costumes in everyday life and festive tradition in Karnobat region, Southeast Bulgaria, during the 1950s through to the 1980s period. EAP500/3/1.

The project has surveyed underexplored and little-known aspects of the lifestyles, customs, and rituals of minority groups in Bulgaria. Many of these elements hold significant research value as they retain pre-industrial characteristics, often maintained and practised clandestinely during the socialist era in Bulgaria.

Black and white photograph of a four women tobacco-workers sitting outside a building

The photo presents Armenian tobacco workers from Haskovo city. 1930. EAP675/9/1/25.

Black and white photograph of a group of people, four older women in headscarves, a man with a beard, and two younger women in more modern dress
Russian Old Believers and their guests from Romania in Kazashko village. 1950s. EAP675/26/1/45.

Black and white photograph of four dancers wearing embroidered skirts and waistcoats

Alevi dancers in traditional costumes from Yablanovo village. 1970s. EAP675/1/1/13.

The geographic and cultural isolation experienced by these groups, who remained largely unaffected by modern influences, often resulted in their exclusion from mainstream Bulgarian society. Regardless of this, these communities diligently preserved numerous traditional elements of their culture, which have persistently endured and been passed down from one generation to the next.

Black and white photograph of a bride and groom sitting at a table with two bowls, with a crowd in the background

In Medovets, a Turkish wedding unfolds as the bride and groom patiently await at the table to receive congratulations, gifts, and monetary blessings from the wedding guests. 1980s. EAP500/12/1/269.

Black and white photograph of a couple loading bedding onto the back of a truck

The bride departs for her new home accompanied by her trousseau. 1970s. EAP675/7/1/49.

The project concluded that, prior to 1989, Bulgarian state policies were actively geared towards the forced assimilation of minorities. As a result, the project states, there has been a gradual erosion or deliberate destruction of photographs and photographic collections belonging to various minority communities, with a particular impact on the Muslim minority during the "Revival process" in Bulgaria from the 1960s to the 1980s.

During this period, the Bulgarian state implemented a policy of forced assimilation targeting Muslims, involving the destruction of all official, personal, and family documents verifying their minority identity. Despite these repressive measures and deliberate destruction of archival materials, the project reveals that many documents were covertly preserved, although frequently under unfavourable conditions and in a deteriorated state.

Black and white photograph of a group of protestors holding placards

The first public Evangelical protest by Protestants from different parts and churches of Bulgaria for the free manifestation of religion and religious practices in South Park in Sofia. One placard reads: “We want the Nativity of Christ and Easter as public holidays.” 1989. EAP675/47/1/62.

Black and white picture of a group of women wearing checked skirts and shawls, with a man in breeches and a waistcoat playing bagpipes

The photo presents Pomak traditional women's costumes from Yagodina village at the local folklore fair. 1970s-1980s. EAP675/46/1/52.  

The project has digitised documents that serve as invaluable sources of information about the cultures and traditions of these minority communities, which often remain scarcely known beyond the confines of their respective regions. The digitised copies of the material have been deposited in the Studii Romani Archive at the Institute of Ethnology and Folkloristic Studies and the Ethnographical Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. The British Library also holds a digital copy of this valuable material.

Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-East European Collections

Posted by European Studies at 11:54 AM in Bulgaria , Digitisation , Slavonic | Permalink

17 June 2024

Ukraine: A Life in Football

The history of Ukrainian football starts with the establishment of the Odesa British Athletic Club in 1878 by British workers of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. For a number of years, the club functioned as exclusively British. According to the archival documents, the first Odessites – Piotrovskii and Kryzhnovskii, and later a well-known aviator and athlete Sergei Utochkin – joined the club only in 1899. Artem Frankov, a Ukrainian sports journalist, believes that amateur footballers in Odesa actively played outside the official OBAC structure, but the participation of Ukrainians had not been recorded. The first big match, however, was reported in the local press (Odesskii Vestnik).

Lviv became the official birthplace of Ukrainian football. In 1892, with active support from Archduke Franz Ferdinand, it became an integral part of annual fairs aiming to demonstrate achievements in economic and social life. On 17 July 1894, Gazeta Lwowska, in an article about the fair, tried to explain this gymnastic activity as a game where players bounce a ball with their feet.

Screenshot of the 161 issue of Gazeta Lwowska published in 1894, attempting to explain the intricacies of football

Screenshot of an article on football in Gazeta Lwowska (Image from https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/dlibra/publication/22161)

The article focuses on the ‘Sokol’ rally, or demonstration of sports competencies by members of a newly formed athletic society. Vasyl’ Nahirnyi, a Ukrainian Galician architect and public figure, was its founder and head, while another educator, publisher, and promoter of sports in Galicia, Volodymyr Lavrivs’kyi, published the first rules of the game in Ukrainian.

It was probably at that time that the term ‘kopanyi m’iach’ started being used to name this game. Abbreviated as ‘kopanka’ (the stress is on the first syllable) – a kicked ball – the term existed in Galicia until the end of the Second World War but never spread to other Ukrainian lands and did not enter the Ukrainian literary language. In a scholarly article on Ukrainian national football terminology of the late 19th and early 20th century, Iryna Protsyk of the National University ‘Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’ comes to the conclusion that “Despite the fact that Ukrainian system of football terminology during the investigated period was in the process of formation, there was certain domination of national football terminology over foreign terms: 75 per cent football names themselves, 23 per cent – loanwords from different languages and 2 per cent hybrid special names.”  

Diagram of a football pitch from Volodymyr Lavrivs’kyi's ‘Kopana’

Page from Volodymyr Lavrivs’kyi's Kopana

School students started playing football in Uzhhorod (Zakarpattia) in 1893, and the first official match took place on 15 August 1901. The game attracted an audience of 1,000 spectators – a significant part of the town’s population of 14,000 people. The local team lost 0 : 3 to one of the strongest Hungarian teams, the Buda Athletic Club.  

Historians think that Czech workers from the machine factory Grether and Kryvanek in Kyiv introduced local workers to football. The first games were recorded on a football pitch opposite the factory in 1900, at present – a site of the National Cinema Studio of feature films named after Oleksandr Dovzhenko.

It is not surprising that football remains popular in today’s Ukraine. Not only is it widely played, but it also is the subject of academic research. The Geographical Faculty of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv offers a course in the History and Geography of Football.

Even if one is not big on football, it is impossible not to have heard about Valeriy Lobanovskyi (1939-2002), Oleh Blokhin (b. 1952), Ihor Bielanov (b. 1960) and Andriy Shevchenko (b. 1976). All three prominent Ukrainian footballers, at various points trained by Lobanovs’kyi, were honoured with the Ballon d'Or (the Golden Ball), the most prestigious and valuable individual award in football.

Front cover of A. Frankov ‘Futbol po-ukrainski’ with colour photographs of players

Cover of Futbol po-ukrainski by A. Frankov (Kharkiv, 2006) YF.2008.a.10294

In preparing this blog, I have been searching the catalogue for footballers’ memoirs. Unfortunately, our holdings in this area are not strong, and it would be good if we could cover these gaps retrospectively.

Cover of ‘My Life, My Football’ with a colour photograph of Andriy Shevchenko

Cover of My Life, My Football by Andriy Shevchenko and Alessandro Alciato translated from Italian by Mark Palmer (Glasgow, 2023). Awaiting legal deposit copy

Having said that, I have made an interesting discovery. For the Euro 2012 Championship, Ukrainian writers published a collection Pys'mennyky pro futbol, with contributions from Serhiy Zhadan, Yurii Andrukhovych, Yuriy Vynnychuk and Artem Chekh, among others.  

Cover of ‘Pys'mennyky pro futbol’ with a numbered list of Ukrainian writers

Cover of Pys'mennyky pro futbol (Kharkiv, 2011) YF.2012.a.9453

Artem Chekh joined the Ukrainian army at the beginning of the war in 2015. When the full-scale invasion began, he went back to the front line. Several weeks ago, we learned that Serhiy Zhadan also joined ZSU.  

Stories of Ukrainian footballers after a year of war were published in the Guardian in February 2023: ‘The military call and I deliver’: voices from Ukraine's football after a year of war’. A list of names of coaches, players and referees who are still fighting and those who have tragically lost their lives in this war can be found here.  

Despite the ongoing war, the Ukrainian national football team is taking part in Euro-2024. They will play Romania on Monday 17, Slovakia on Friday 21, and Belgium on Wednesday the 26. We wish them only beautiful goals and the best of luck!  

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator, East European Collections

Further reading:

Volodymyr Banias, Lopta : futbolʹni istoriï, zhyttiepysy,  statystyka. (Kyiv, 2017). YF.2023.a.2955 

Dynamo (Kyïv) : 1927-2007  [ed. Mykola Neseniuk]. (Kyiv, 2008). LF.31.b.5023  

Andy Dougan, Dynamo: defending the honour of Kiev. (London, 2001). M01/22988

Oleksandr Kabanets, Piramida : futbolʹni turniry Ukraïny 1910-1940-kh rokiv. (Kyiv, 2022). YF.2023.a.687 

Kalendar’ Sokol na rok 1895. (Lvov, 1894) (https://geography.lnu.edu.ua/en/course/history-and-geography-of-football )  

Ivan Iaremenko, 100 futbolistiv Lʹvova : persony lʹvivsʹkoho futbolu. (L’viv, 2021). YF.2013.a.23444 

Denys Mandziuk, Kopanyi m'iach : korotka istoriia ukraïnsʹkoho futbolu v Halychyni : 1909-1944. (L’viv, 2016). YF.2017.a.23960 

Iryna Protsyk, ‘“Kopanyi m’iach uchyt’ boronyty i zdobuvaty”: tematychna klasyfikatsiia ukrains’koi terminoleksyky kintsia XIX – pochatku XX stolittia.’ Visnik Natsional’noho universytetu “L’vivs’ka politekhnika.” Problemy ukrains’koi terminolohii. 2016. N 842. Pp.151-157. (http://tc.terminology.lp.edu.ua/TK_Wisnyk842/TK_wisnyk842_4_procyk.htm ) 

Valentin Sherbachev, Lobanovskii. (Kyiv, 1998). YA.2000.a.1865 

 

Posted by European Studies at 2:00 PM in Popular culture , Slavonic , Ukraine | Permalink

14 June 2024

Can you learn to play football from a book?

With the Euro 24 football championships kicking off tonight, here is the first in a series of blog posts about the beautiful game as reflected in our European collections. Our first post looks at Hungary’s glory days in the 1950s.

Can you learn to play football from a book? Apparently so, or at least attempts were made in the distant past, like with the 1954 hidden gem entitled Learn to Play the Hungarian Way: a Soccer Manual for Young Footballers Showing the Methods Used by the Hungarian Champions.

Title page of Learn to Play the Hungarian Way

The title page of Bukovi & Csaknády’s Learn to Play the Hungarian Way (Budapest, 1954) 7919.bb.56.

What may sound even more surprising for some, in this slim volume Hungarians set out to teach the English-speaking world the tricks of the game. Others may of course be fully aware that 70 years ago Hungarian football was really a phenomenon to take notice of, the national side having won gold at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. The next year they defeated England 6:3 at Wembley in the ‘Match of the Century’ and 7:1 in Budapest in 1954. Although favourites for the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland, Hungary came second behind West Germany there, but only after convincingly beating the likes of Brazil and Uruguay on their way to the final. Such a series of major football successes and their heroes like Puskás must have been hugely inspirational for the Hungarian people in so many ways, especially during the bleakest Communist period of the fifties.

Black and white photograph of a football crowd beneath a board showing the score England 1 - Hungary 7

Full time at the Hungary v England on 23 May 1954 in Budapest. Image by FORTEPAN  via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)  

Against this backdrop, the book was written by two coaches and, like the original, its English translation was also published in Budapest. It explains all the elements of the Hungarian game style from the various types of kicks through ball control, feints and tackles to shots and headers, not leaving out goalkeeping either. Tactics occupy a separate chapter, while sample training schedules to help reach one’s optimal fitness level are offered at the end.

The game has obviously developed and changed a lot since then, so perhaps not many young footballers would want to learn to play competitively from this book nowadays, but contemporaneous works like it certainly give researchers and interested fans a historical perspective by recording different stages of and some notable contributions to that development.

Demonstrating the skills in the photographs throughout the book are members of the ‘Golden Team’ itself.

Black and white photograph of a footballer leaping forwards to head the ball

When ‘diving’ in football was more innocent: the ‘pike dive’ illustrated in Learn to Play the Hungarian Way

The introduction was penned by Jimmy Hogan, who, before ending his career at Aston Villa just as the Second World War began, had managed a wide range of European clubs, including MTK Budapest from 1914-1921 and again from 1925-1927. So it all came full circle: an English coach instilling his advanced methods in Hungary and decades later the Hungarians teaching others!

From the 1970s, football in Hungary went into a long and painful decline, but recent signs of improvement have been giving cautious glimmers of hope again, including now at the 2024 Euros. Who knows, maybe this time…?

In the British Library’s Hungarian Collections we hold many other football-related items, just two quick examples here:


Front covers of two Hungarian football books

Covers of  Iván Hegyi, Magyarok nagy pályán : a labdarúgás legendái (Budapest, 2015) YF.2016.b.2107 and  László Hetyei, Magyarok a labdarúgó Európa-bajnokságokon (Budapest, 2016) YF.2017.a.16160

Ildi Wollner, Curator, Central/East European Collections

Posted by European Studies at 2:49 PM in Hungary , Popular culture , Slavonic | Permalink

29 May 2024

Preservation of Roma historical and cultural heritage in Bulgaria 

Two Endangered Archives Programme projects, one in 2007 and the other in 2009, aimed to digitise collections of material associated with the community and cultural activities of the Roma in Bulgaria during the 20th century. Over 2000 items have been digitised and relocated to the Studii Romani Archive at the Ethnographical Institute and Museum of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Digital copies have been preserved in both the Studii Romani Archive and the British Library.  
 
Page from a 1927 issue of the newspaper Svetilnik with Romani text in Cyrillic type
 
Digital image from a 1927 issue of Svetilnik (‘Candelabra’). The newspaper is written in both Bulgarian (pages one to three) and Romani (page four displayed above). EAP067/6/1. 
 
Svetilnik was one of the first evangelical newspapers written for a Romani audience. It was published by the Baptist Roma Mission during the 1920s. Other Roma newsletters and pamphlets were printed during the 1920s, some of them also associated with evangelical missions, while others focused on community life. Many copies of these newspapers and booklets have vanished over time, but some issues are preserved in private collections. Throughout the communist era, copies of certain newspapers were archived in public library collections. After 1989 some archival materials became accessible to the public, while others were destroyed, including some with significant historical or cultural value, such as Roma newsletters and pamphlets. 
 
Front page of the first issue of the newspaper Romano Esi from 1946
 
Romano Esi (‘Roma’s voice’) EAP067/7/1/1. 
 
The newspaper Romano Esi was originally published from 1946 to 1948. It was published by the All Cultural and Educational Organization for Roma Minorities in Bulgaria. The title of each issue is in Romani, while the content of the newspapers is in Bulgarian.
 
Black and white group photograph of circus workers and performers outside the Cirkus Kozarov tent
 
Circus ‘Kozarov’ where Roma musicians from the Zhivkov family worked as musicians, c1930. EAP067/2/1/1. 
 
The collection also includes digital images of original documents pertaining to prominent families and community members, as well as  photographs depicting various aspects of family life, such as group and individual portraits, weddings, and images from everyday life. It also encompasses celebrations of common feasts, family gatherings, excursions, holidays, as well as the political and social activities of community members. Additionally, it features theatre posters. 
 
Black and white photograph of Saban Bajramovic singing, accompanied by a violinist, accordionist and guitarist, with a small girl dancing in the foreground
 
Saban Bajramovic, known as the ‘King of Gypsy music’ hailing from Niš, a city in Serbia, pictured at a wedding in the Fakulteta neighbourhood of Sofia during the 1970s. EAP285/7/11. 
 
The folklore collection comprises songs, fairy tales, short stories and ritual songs of nomads created during the 20th century. These expressions convey the hopes for a better life and the faith of Roma people in ‘the bright future of communism,’ a belief they held. 
 
Poster for the Central Gypsy Theatre ‘Roma’ with photographs of performances. Red and black type and black and while photographs against a pink background.
 
Poster for the Central Gypsy Theatre ‘Roma’ promoting a musical performance titled Rapsodia (‘Rhapsody’).  EAP067/1/5/2. 
 
 
Page of Cyrillic manuscript on squared paper in a spiral-bound notebook
 
Notes detailing the establishment and history of the Roma quarter in Montana (Mikhailovgrad) in the 1970s. EAP285/9/1.
 
The illustration above is from a notebook covering topics from everyday life, Roma customs, and holidays. Additionally, it includes various short folklore genres like proverbs and humorous narratives. The original notebook is well preserved and consists of 88 handwritten pages. 
 
Page of typescript with handwritten corrections in blue ink
 
Typescript of a work on the origins of the Roma, with manuscript corrections. EAP285/12/1. 
 
Typescript of a poem with six four-line stanzas
 
One of two poems by Fikria Fazli, a female Romani activist from Sofia, addressing the plight of the Roma (1970s). EAP285/14/6.  
 
The documents revealing the fruitful cooperation between the British linguist Donald Kenrick and Dimiter Golemanov, a Romani poet, translator and philologist, are very interesting and enlightening. Kenrick first encountered Golemanov during his second visit to Sliven around 1967. At that time, Golemanov was already recognized in the world of Gypsy studies, thanks to a version of the ‘Song of the Bridge’ published in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. Kenrick collected a variety of materials from Golemanov, ranging from traditional songs and tales to Golemanov’s own compositions and translations. 
 
Letter in Romani language written in blue ink on lined paper
 
Letter dated 11 November 1969 from Golemanov to Kenrick with news from Sliven in Romani language. EAP285/11/1. 
 
Manuscript letter in Russian, written in blue ink on lined paper with some verses and lines of music
 
Above: Letter in Russian from  Golemanov to Kenrick, April 1969, EAP285/11/4. Below: A song in Romani, written and composed by Golemanov himself, sent as an accompaniment to the letter, EAP285/11/5.
 
Manuscript of music for a song, headed 'Legenda', in blue ink on lined paper
 
Below: Two pages from Golemanov’s translation of Alexander Pushkin's poem ‘The Gypsies’ into the Romani ‘drindari’ dialect of Sliven, which was his native language (1969), EAP285/11/8. 
 
Translation of Pushkin's 'The Gypsies' into Romani, manuscript in blue ink on squared paper
Translation of Pushkin's 'The Gypsies' into Romani, manuscript in blue ink on squared paper
 
Kenrick himself translated some of Golemanov’s work into English. The two pictures below are a translation of a fairy tale (1978), EAP285/11/15 and a song (1978), EAP285/11/14.
 
Typescript translation of a short fairy tale entitled 'Why man lives for eighty years'
 
Typescript of a song in Romani with the first two stanzas of an English translation
 
Milan Grba, Curator South-Eastern European Collections
 
References:  
 
Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society (Sandon, 1888-1999) Ac.9944. 
 
Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov, The first Gypsy/Roma organisations, churches and newspapers, in From Dust to Digital: ten years of the Endangered Archives Programme (Cambridge, 2015), pp. [189]-224. ELD.DS.46613, and available online here.

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in Bulgaria , Digitisation , History , Language , Slavonic | Permalink

17 May 2024

Continental cookbooks

From 17 May to 3 June 2024, the British Library celebrates its sixth Food Season, with a range of events that highlight the stories, the politics, and the people behind how and why we eat. While practical in their intent, cookbooks offer fascinating insights into the time and place of their production. The British Library’s rich collection of cookbooks provides an engaging way to trace evolving attitudes and tastes that have shaped cuisines and cultures. To mark this year's food season, today’s blog features a selection of some of our favorite cookbooks within the European Collections at the British Library. Bon appetit!


Kuharske Bukve

The first cookbook in Slovene was printed in 1799 as “the beginning of the Slovene cuisine”. It was compiled and edited by Valentin Vodnik, a Slovene poet and journalist. He translated recipes mainly from a variety of German cookery writers and titled his book Kuharske Βukve (Cook Books).

The title page of Kuharske bukve with an illustration of a nude figure stirring a pot.

Facsimile reprint of Valentin Vodnik’s 1799 work, Kuharske Βukve (Lublin, 1999) YF.2012.a.5. The original can be seen in the Slovene Digital Library.

The book comprises Vodnik’s introduction on healthy food and translations of 300 recipes arranged in 22 sections: soups; vegetable, meat and poultry dishes; sauces; egg and dairy dishes, fish and seafood dishes; cakes, drinks, etc. Each recipe has a title in Slovene culinary terminology.

This cookbook was printed at a time of important activities to further advance the Slovene language and was also significant for Slovene culinary practice. In his introduction Vodnik posed the questions: “Why would we steal words? Isn't the Slovenian language quite capable?” He stated the basic rules of healthy eating and asserted that “everything from which dishes are cooked must be healthy, and the cooking method must also be healthy”.

Frontispiece showing an image of a two cooks in a kitchen

Frontispiece of Vodnik’s cookbook with the inscription “Good food for hungry people”

Selected by Milan Grba, Lead Curator of South-East European Collections

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History on Our Plate: Recipes from America’s Dutch Past for Today’s Cooks

In History on Our Plate, Peter G. Rose describes how some of today’s favourite American staples, such as coleslaw and cookies were introduced by Dutch settlers.

Image showing the cover of 'History on Our Plate'. Cover design features Etende Vrouw (1647), an oil painting by Hendrick Martenszoon Sough that depicts a woman tasting something from a jug with a spoon

Cover of Peter G. Rose, History on Our Plate: Recipes from America’s Dutch Past for Today’s Cooks (Syracuse, 2019). YK.2021.a.586.

Rose takes inspiration from the earliest (anonymously) published cooking book in the Dutch language: De Verstandige Kock (‘The Sensible Cook’), which also includes De Hollandtse slacht-tydt (‘The Dutch Butchering time’) as well as De verstandige confituurmaker, (‘The Sensible Confectioner’). This highly rated book was often sent to Dutch settlers by their relatives back in the Netherlands.

Title page of De Verstandige Kock showing image of a two cooks working in a period kitchen

The title page of De Verstandige Kock (Amsterdam: Marcus Doornick, 1669) 441.b.21.(7.)

Other sources he uses are manuscript (so unpublished) cooking books, written by American / Dutch women. Around 2011 a database was set up to digitise some of these handwritten recipe books, the ‘Manuscript Cookbooks Survey’. Now we can all try out centuries old Dutch /American recipes!

Selected by Marja Kingma, Curator of Dutch Language Collections

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Hodēgos mageirikēs kai zacharoplastikēs, aka Tselementes

Authored by chef Nikolaos Tselementes, the 1926 Hodēgos mageirikēs kai zacharoplastikēs was Greece’s first complete cookery book that triggered the modernisation of Greek cuisine with the introduction of European components such as béchamel sauce. The book was so influential that the surname Tselementes is used as a synonym for a cookbook to the present day.

The cover of Nikolaos Tselemetes' cookbook, bearing only his surname and an illustration of the head of a chef in blue on a black background

The cover of the 1976 edition Nikolaos Tselementes, Hodēgos mageirikēs kai zacharoplastikēs (Athens, 1976) X.622/2509.

Despite its revolutionising elements, the book reflected the reality of what was still a male-dominated Greek society. In its first few pages, it featured the ‘Decalogue to the Ladies’, an outdated and anti-feminist text written by Carmen Sylva (real name Elisabeth of Wied, first Queen of Romania), which urges the woman - housewife to serve only as ‘queen’ in the kitchen, act as servant to her husband, and be obliged always to agree with, obey, flatter him and, above all, respect his mother whom he had loved first!

A page with instructions to women from the 'Decalogue to the Ladies' in Greek. On the left there is an illustration of an attractive woman in a red strapless dress standing behind a man sat on a chair with her arms on his shoulders

The ‘Decalogue to the Ladies’ at the start of Tselementes’s cookbook from the 1976 edition.

Selected by Lydia Georgiadou, Curator of Modern Greek Collections

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La cucina futurista

Here is a cookbook you can’t live without. Marinetti’s 1932 Futurist Cookbook challenges the perception of Italian cuisine: everything is subverted, from the order of the courses to the scandalous rejection of pasta. The recipes suggested were actually prepared during ‘futurist’ banquets, gatherings resembling performance art where everything, from the crockery to the sound, was created on purpose. Despite being a satirical work, the application of modern science and technology to gastronomy suggested in the book (ozone generators, UV lamps, nutrient-dense powders) is an innovative element that anticipates today’s molecular cuisine. What never changes is the pleasure of hosting and sitting at the table, sharing a meal and enjoying conviviality.

Tan cover of La cucina futurista with red print for the author, title and publishing info.

The cover of F.T. Marinetti and Fillìa, La cucina futurista (Italy, 1932) Cup.408.ww.45.

Selected by Valentina Mirabella, Curator of Romance Collections

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Forbidden cuisine: a book about delicious prison food

Lapitsiĭ is a pen name of Andrey Sannikov, a Belarusian oppositionist and a champion of human rights, who stepped into the arena of the 2010 presidential elections, challenging the entrenched power of Alexander Lukashenko. The aftermath of that fateful election was nothing short of a whirlwind: Sannikov found himself imprisoned, a captive of his convictions, after taking part in a demonstration organised by the opposition. The walls closed in, and for 16 months, his voice was silenced, but his spirit remained unbroken.

Cover of 'Zapreshchennaia kukhnia' with a photograph of a bowl of food and the view through a prison cell door

Cover of Zapreshchennaia kukhnia: Kniga o vkusnoĭ tiuremnoĭ pishche (Warsaw, 2023) YF.2023.a.24545

In the depths of captivity, Sannikov grappled with the stark reality of losing more than just his physical freedom. The very act of choosing what to eat — a simple, everyday privilege — was dictated by others. Hunger became a harsh reminder of his constrained existence, a tool used to bend the will of the incarcerated. Food, often bland and scarce, became a canvas for creativity. In the face of deprivation, inmates concocted imaginative variations of borscht, herring beneath a fur coat salad, and layered birthday cakes. For them, ‘cooking is a territory of freedom,’ a small triumph of choice and creativity amid confinement.

Photograph of a prison cell with a table set for a meal

A prison cell with a table set for a meal, illustration from Zapreshchennaia kukhnia

And so emerged Zapreshchennaia kukhnia: Kniga o vkusnoĭ tiuremnoĭ pishche (‘Forbidden cuisine: a book about delicious prison food’) —a symbol of resilience and defiance. Beyond a mere meal, food became an act of rebellion, an assertion of their humanity. In these culinary creations, born out of necessity and ingenuity, lay the embodiment of the most imaginative and delicious declaration of independence.

Photograph of potatoes and potato soup with a recipe

Potato soup from Zapreshchennaia kukhnia.

Selected by Olga Topol, Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections

Posted by European Studies at 2:08 PM in Belarus , Germanic , Greece , Netherlands , Slavonic , Slovenia | Permalink

14 May 2024

European prose in transformation (Part 2) The European Writers’ Festival returns to the British Library

30 established and emerging authors from across Europe gather under one roof to delve into the theme of ‘Transformation’ at the second European Writers’ Festival taking place over the weekend of 18-19 May 2024 at the British Library. Two days of performances and panels will discuss how storytelling, its creators, its original language as well as its translation, are changing as the continent itself is transforming. While writing about personal experience embedded in history remains central to European literature, the Festival’s guests attempt to break literary traditions and established boundaries, setting off for transformative new journeys – and carrying us with them. This is the second of two blog posts examining some of the themes of the Festival. (You can read the first here.)

Cover of 'The Postcard' with a photograph of Noémie Rabinovitch, and author photograph of Anne Berest

Cover of The Postcard with a photograph of Noémie Rabinovitch, a budding writer who was murdered before she could fulfil her potential as her great-niece Anne (pictured right) has been able to do

Anne Berest, The Postcard - Sunday 19 May, Panel 1, ‘Transforming Historical Narratives’

Anne Berest is a French novelist and scriptwriter born in 1979. With her sister Claire, she is the author of Gabriële (Paris, 2017; YF. 2018.a.8864), a critically acclaimed biography of her great-grandmother, Gabriële Buffet-Picabia, wife of the painter Francis Picabia, highlighting her contribution to the French avant-garde. Gabriële and her daughter Jeanine, who both joined the French Resistance, feature in La carte postale (Paris, 2020; YF. 2022.a.8192) and Samuel Beckett makes an appearance too! Translated into English by Tina Kover as The Postcard, the book opens on a snowy morning in 2003 when Anne’s mother Lélia, receives an anonymous postcard inscribed with the names Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie and Jacques. The names are those of Anne’s great-grandparents and her great-aunt and uncle, the Rabinovitch family, all of whom died in Auschwitz. Anne’s grandmother, Myriam, escaped deportation and was her family’s sole survivor, but she never talked about the past. The book’s novelistic techniques (invented dialogue, omniscient narration) may initially seem questionable, but the book is based on Lélia’s meticulous research and Anne’s own investigations. Viewing the dreadful fate of European Jews deported from Vichy France under German occupation through the prism of named individuals that we get to know and care about makes for a compelling take on history and on what it is to be a Jew in France today as a third-generation survivor. And who wrote and sent that postcard? All is revealed on the last page.

Teresa Vernon, Lead Curator, Romance Collections

Cover of 'Niki' with a photograph of a woman in profile with four blue bars superimposed, and photograph of Christos Chomenidis leaning on a car

Cover of Niki and photograph of Christos Chomenidis (photograph by Kokkalias Nikos from the Other Press website)


Christos Chomenidis, Niki - Sunday 19 May, Panel 1, ‘Transforming Historical Narratives’

Through his 2014 novel Niki, author Christos Chomenidis narrates his real family adventures against the dramatic historical backdrop of 20th century Greece through the eyes of his mother, Niki. Daughter of the deputy secretary general of the Greek Communist Party Vassilis Nefeloudis (Antonis Armaos in the book), infant Niki will be swept up in turmoil when her parents are arrested: just 70 days old, she will join her mother in exile in the Cyclades; growing up, she will experience the Italian and German invasion, the Nazi occupation, and the civil war that came after, and will often be caught between her socialist values and those of the right-wing establishment, to which half her relatives belong; as a young woman, she will fall madly in love, giving the already divided family yet another reason to clash. “Niki’s life is the life of all children who come into the world with a heavy burden on their shoulders; they do not renounce it, but neither do they let it to bend them” says Chomenidis and continues: “The people of Niki are the History of 20th century Greece”.

Following his mother’s death in 2008, the author became the last of his line who knew all the protagonists’ stories and so, he decided to record them, initially in a letter for his own daughter (who was named Niki after her grandmother) and gradually into a novel, tackling complex events in a way that is simple and understandable even to readers who are not familiar with these aspects of Greek history.

Niki was awarded the Greek State Literature Prize in 2015 and the European Book Prize for Fiction in 2021. Its English translation by Patricia Felisa Barbeito is the featured book from Greece at the European Writers’ Festival 2.

Lydia Georgiadou, Curator, Modern Greek Collections

Cover of 'Journey to the South' with a picture of a lone figure silhouetted against a colourful abstract landscape of blocks, and photogtaph of Michal Ajvaz

Cover of Journey to the South and photograph of Michal Ajvaz (photograph by Rafał Komorowski from Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)

Michal Ajvaz, Journey to the South – Sunday 19 May 2020, Panel 2, ‘Breaking Boundaries’

Michal Ajvaz, who studied Czech and Aesthetics at the Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University, worked during the normalisation period as a janitor, nightwatchman, and petrol pump attendant among other jobs. Ajvaz debuted in 1989 with the poetry collection Vražda v hotelu Intercontinental, (‘Murder at the Hotel Intercontinental’, Brno, 2012; YF.2013.a.7148) and has since authored over 20 works blending imaginative prose with philosophical essays.

Ajvaz’s literary influences trace back to his early readings of Edgar Allan Poe and E.T.A. Hoffmann. His exploration of magical realism began with Druhé město (Prague, 1993; YA.1995.a.26185. English translation by Gerald Turner: The Other City, Champaign, Dallas, 2009; YK.2010.a.31674), which stirred discussions on its role within Czech literature. Ajvaz’s works are filled with mirrored landscapes and parallel worlds, adventures and quests that span the world.

The Magnesia Litera award-winning novel Lucemburská zahrada (Brno 2011; YF.2012.a.2551), delves into linguistics with a newly invented language and takes the reader on a journey through Paris, Nice, Nantes, in the state of New York, Moscow, Santa Lucia, Sicilian Taormina and the invented city of Lara. The writer-philosopher's love of linguistics reached its peak in this work, resulting in an appendix offering a key to deciphering some of the novel's content.

The magic permeating Ajvaz’s literary worlds stems from his philosophy and writing process. This is how he describes it in an interview published on the literární.cz website: 

Usually, it's just a feeling, often associated with a specific place... These feelings remind me of a white fog in which dozens of indistinct figures with their own stories flicker, and these characters and stories beckon me to free them from the fog, to give them some form. It's true that some ideas eventually make their way into my fiction books, but that's because from the initial feeling a certain world gradually unfolds with everything that belongs to it—and to the world belong not only characters, spaces, and plots but also ideas. However, ideas should not dominate the novel; they must not be privileged over the other inhabitants of the novel. 

Now the British public has an opportunity to become immersed in Ajvaz’s world and walk alongside the characters of Journey to the South, translated to English last year by Andrew Oakland (Dallas, 2023). Pack your imagination and join the fellow travellers!

Olga Topol, Curator, Slavonic and East European Curator

 

Cover of 'Home' with a photograph of a barn in a field of yellow flowers, and photograph of Andrea Tompa

Cover of Home and photograph of Andrea Tompa (Photograph by Petőfi Literary Fund via Hungarian Literature Online)

Andrea Tompa, Home – Sunday 19 May 2024, Panel 3, ‘Europe on the Move’

Thirty years after relocating from Cluj-Napoca to Budapest in 1990, Hungarian writer and theatre critic Andrea Tompa felt the time was finally ripe to share what leave-taking and homecoming truly mean for her. With her latest novel now translated into English by Jozefina Komporaly under the title Home (London, 2024), Andrea is bringing her contemplations to this year’s European Writers’ Festival.

Many of us left our homeland behind, prompted by circumstances, driven by various forces. Although the book narrates a journey back to an unnamed home country for a school reunion, with several classmates also returning after long absences, its essence is not so much a story of a trip. The focus is on different kinds of travel: past journeys, journeys into the past - and into ourselves.

A reunion inevitably induces reflection, it can serve as a reality check relative to our own youth and also to our peers while we reacquaint as adults. How much do we leavers share as to the nature of our connections to the place we came from? Some decide to cut all ties, others will always be longing after the homeland. But the homeland has transformed since we left and we ourselves changed in many ways, so all points of reference have shifted.
Identity, personal relationships, culture, patriotism, belonging – just a few of the complex emotional questions to delve into, with language as a vital theme in its own right, weaving through the book.

The Hungarian original Haza (Budapest, 2020; YF.2022.a.16166) is already in our collection, hopefully the translation will arrive soon as well.

Andrea is a guest on the ‘Europe on the Move’ panel at 3 pm on 19 May. She also offers some insight into her journeys in an English-language interview by Hungarian Literature Online .

Ildi Wollner, Curator, East and SE European Collections

Cover of 'The moon in foil' with a photograph of a woman seen from behind looking over a river, and photograph of Zuska Kepplova standing in fromt of bookshelves

Cover of The Moon in Foil  and photograph of Zuska Kepplova (photogtaph by Juraj Starovecký from Slovak Literature in English Translation website)

Zuska Kepplova, The Moon in Foil – Sunday 19 May 2024, Panel 3, ‘Europe on the Move’

In an interview for the Chicago Review of Books Zuska Kepplova – a writer, editor and political commentator – makes a statement that resonates with many Eastern European world nomads, as those ‘who were born in late socialist societies and grew up after the revolutions, [this label] is a novelty. They were not used to thinking about themselves as “Eastern Europeans” and dealing with prejudices, their own or of others. Entering the free world thus also means entering a hierarchy or a web of relations of power.’

Kepplova’s book Buchty švabachom (Bratislava 2017; YF.2019.a.10137), recently translated into English by Magdalena Mullek as The Moon in Foil (Chicago, 2023), traces people’s relationships with each other and their place of migration. The short story form is a perfect fit for Kepplova’s storytelling. The deliberately scattered narrative is thoughtful, gives glimpses into the chaotic lives of young Slovaks tempted by newly opened world enticing them with a vision of success, but leading to a life of mundanity and struggle for social advancement, often devoid of self-fulfilment. Many a reader will relate to the characters' commonplace existence and reflect on their own longing for buchty  or pierogi left behind at home far away. Those who want to see what happens when the migratory birds return should read Kepplova’s Reflux. Niekto cudzí je v dome (‘Reflux. There is a stranger in the house’; Levice, 2015; YF.2017.a.24619).  

Olga Topol, Curator, Slavonic and EE Curator

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in Czech Republic , France , Greece , Hungary , Literature , Romance languages , Slavonic , Slovakia , Translation | Permalink

03 May 2024

In a whirlwind of change. The European Writers’ Festival returns to the British Library 

Please note this post includes an offensive racial term in the title of a book quoted. We have spelt this out in full because that was the book author's own conscious and deliberate choice in the context of his writing.
 
The second European Writers’ Festival, taking place on May 18 and 19 at the British Library, brings together renowned and emerging authors from 30 countries for an unmissable weekend filled with thought-provoking panels and the promise of fascinating discussions. The British Library, with its unparalleled holdings from continental Europe, offers a perfect setting for debating European literature and delving into the disquieting undercurrents shaping our societies today. This year, the event centres around the theme of Transformation and zooms in on the violent shifts in politics, climate, language, and human rights, to name a few. As poetry has long been regarded as a vehicle for change, our curators of European collections invite you to get (re)acquainted with some of the poets taking part in the festival and to join them on a transformative journey of becoming the new Europeans of the future. 
 
Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator of East European Collections, offers a fascinating glimpse into the poetry of one of the most distinct voices in contemporary Ukrainian poetry, Iryna Shuvalova. 
 
Cover of 'Pray to the Empty Wells' and photograph of Irina Shuvalova
Irina Shuvalova and her poetry collection Pray to the Empty Wells (Pullman, Washington, 2019) Awaiting shelfmark  (Author photograph from https://www.irynashuvalova.com/en) 
 
Iryna Shuvalova, a Ukrainian poet, scholar, and translator, is not a stranger to the readers of the European Studies blog. Her book of poetry featured at this year’s festival, Pray to the Empty Wells, draws heavily on Ukrainian folklore. Shuvalova expertly blends its spirituality with eroticism for a heady cocktail of tender love and inconsolable sorrow.  
 
the love fish  
lives in the large body of the river
it swims in it like a pendulum    
back and forth and in a circle    
fastened to the heart’s axis   
‘Love fish’ from Pray to the Empty Wells (Pullman, Washington, 2019) Awaiting shelfmark  
 
As Kate Kellaway puts it in her review of the book for The Guardian, “translated poetry seldom finds a home in this column, and this book is one of the few rare cases.” In one of her interviews, Shuvalova asserted: “Let’s say that I’m building my own personal mythology out of space and voice.” No critic could have been more accurate in describing Shuvalova’s remarkable poetic world woven with words that let readers see, hear, and feel.  
  
But this serene world is now in danger and, like so many other Ukrainian artists, Shuvalova will have preferred that some of her poems had not been written, such as this one:
    
because the other side of the front line is like another galaxy    
how dare these outsiders, these primitives, these aliens   
kill and die—just as well as we do   
how dare they be so human and inhumane, all at once    
almost like us, too   
how dare they be like us   
how dare they   
‘Conflict zone’ from Pray to the Empty Wells  
 
On the first day of the festival, Iryna Shuvalova will participate in the panel Change and Conflict on the impact of war, displacement, and trauma. The special guest of the festival is, fittingly, the Ukrainian author and journalist, Andrey Kurkov. He will engage in a discussion with The Guardian’s Senior international correspondent and author of Invasion, Luke Harding.   
 
Poetry is a powerful tool for preserving and rejuvenating indigenous languages and traditions, attesting to their relevance and beauty in our increasingly anglicised world. Ela Kucharska-Beard, Curator of Baltic Collections, points to the communion with the natural world and the deep connection with the Estonian way of life that permeates Kristiina Ehin’s poetry. 
 
Cover of 'On the Edge of a Sword' and photograph of Kristiina Ehin
Kristiina Ehin and her poetry collection On the Edge of a Sword = Mõõgateral (Todmorden, 2018). ELD.DS.738555 (Author photograph from Postimees website) 
 
Kristiina Ehin is a leading, multi-award winning Estonian poet whose work has been translated into at least 20 languages, including English. She has also written short stories, plays and a collection of re-told south Estonian folk tales. Kristiina, who has a master’s degree in Estonian and comparative folklore, is a singer in the contemporary folk group Naised Köögis, continuing the ancient Estonian tradition of women poets and singers. She has also worked as a translator, journalist, dance teacher, lecturer and storyteller.  
 
Kristiina’s poetry, deeply spiritual, is firmly rooted in Finno-Ugric tradition and reflects her profound respect for nature. Her fourth collection of poems, the bestselling  Kaitseala (‘Protected Area’, 2005), was written during a year spent working as a nature reserve warden on an uninhabited island off the coast of Estonia. Her poetry deals with personal relationships (man-woman, mother-child) and the relationship with nature. The poems, light and modern, written from a female point of view, combine fragility and strength; they are both serious and playful, personal and universal.  
 
The European Writer’s Festival will feature Kristiina’s collection of poems On the Edge of a Sword, selected from her collection Kohtumised (Tartu, 2017; YF.2019.a.11834). The poems have been expertly translated into English by Ilmar Lehtpere, with whom the poet has an ongoing collaboration. Kristiina will be speaking at the panel Changing Gears, discussing the importance (or lack thereof) of writing in one genre.   
 
In times of upheaval, poetry amplifies marginalized narratives and gives voice to the voiceless. According to Marja Kingma, Curator of Dutch Language Collections, Simone Atangana Bekono pushes the boundaries of Dutch poetry by facilitating long overdue, radically candid conversations about racial and gender inequalities and other deeply ingrained societal biases. 
 
Cover of 'Confrontations' and photograph of Simone Atangana Bekono
Simone Atangana Bekono and her novel Confrontation (Author photograph from: https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/mondo/video/mondo-minute/mondo-minute-simone-atangana-bekono.html) 
 
Simone Atangana Bekono is an author with Cameroonian/Dutch heritage, born in Dongen, a town 100km southeast of Amsterdam. She is part of a new generation of Dutch poets who write about discrimination on the basis of race, or gender, or sexual orientation (or all three), about identity, colonialism, and generational conflict. In doing so they take Dutch poetry in a whole new direction. Simone Atangana Bekono burst onto the literary scene in 2017 with the poetry collection Hoe de eerste vonken zichtbaar waren (2nd ed, 2018; YF.2019.a.17267), which was translated into English by David Colmer as How the First Sparks Became Visible (Birmingham, 2021). Other translations include Spanish and Rumanian.  
 
Simone won multiple awards for her Young Adult debut novel Confrontaties (Amsterdam, 2021) YF.2021.a.9720, the story of how a teenage black girl copes with her time in a young offender's institution and with her return to her community. The English edition Confrontations, translated by Suzanne Heukensfeldt Jansen, will be published this year. It has also been translated into German and Turkish.  
 
In March 2021, Simone participated in the online launch event for The Dutch Riveter. Like the European Writers’ Festival, it was hosted by the British Library and organised and presented by Rosie Goldsmith from the European Literature Network. In 2023 she was writer-in-residence at UCL, London.   
 
I am thrilled to see Simone at the Library once again on 18 May, as one of the guest authors at the second edition of the European Writers’ Festival! You will have a chance to meet the poet at the Transformation through Translation panel, where she will be looking into shifting attitudes towards translation in Europe.  
 
Lydia Georgiadou, Curator of Modern Greek Collections, suggests that Dean Atta dissects the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality. The poet embraces his black and queer identities and demonstrates just how liberating and empowering it is to embrace all aspects of who we really are. 
 
Cover of 'There is (still) love here' and photograph of Dean Atta
Dean Atta and his poetry collection There is (still) Love here (Rugby, 2022). Awaiting shelfmark. (Author photograph from: https://www.geeksout.org/2022/05/25/interview-with-author-dean-atta/) 
 
Award-winning British author and poet of Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage Dean Atta joins the closing panel of the Festival, The New Europeans of the Future to discuss how transformation impacts the ‘new’ European authors’ craft, identity and perception of home, nationhood and Europe.   
 
Atta’s featured book, There is (still) love here  is described on the author’s website as “a compelling new collection of poetry [exploring] relationships, love and loss, encompassing LGBTQ+ and Black history, Greek Cypriot heritage, pride and identity, dislocation and belonging” and “an antidote for challenging times”.  
 
The lyrics of ‘On days when’ are characteristic: 
  
On days when  
you feel like a wilting garden, 
gather yourself, roll up your lawn,  
bouquet your flowers,
embrace your weeds.  
You are a wild thing playing
at being tame.  
You are rich with life beneath 
the surface.  
You don’t have to show leaf
and petal to be living.  
You are soil and insect and root.  
 
There is (still) love here comes after two novels in verse: Only on the Weekends (London, 2022; ELD.DS.692242) and The Black Flamingo (London, 2019; ELD.DS.455619), which won Atta the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award, CILIP Carnegie Shadowers Choice Award, West Sussex School Librarians’ Amazing Book Awards and What Kids are Reading Quiz Writers’ Choice Award. The Black Flamingo featured in the British Library’s recent exhibition Malorie Blackman: The Power of Stories. 
 
The title poem of Atta’s debut collection, I Am Nobody’s Nigger (London, 2013; YK.2013.a.23925), consciously and deliberately uses the racial slur as a response to its use by the murderers of Stephen Lawrence. The poem achieved much social media coverage and was shortlisted for the 2014 Polari First Book Prize.  
 
Dean Atta is a Malika’s Poetry Kitchen member, National Poetry Day ambassador and LGBT+ History Month patron. He was listed as one of the most influential LGBTQIA+ people in the UK by the Independent on Sunday and his books have been praised by the likes of Bernardine Evaristo, Benjamin Zephaniah and Malorie Blackman.  
 
Europe is in flux, and poetry gently peels away the layers of the ongoing transformation. The authors participating in this year’s festival encourage us to reimagine the society we hope to emerge into once the whirlwind of change has subsided.  
 
In our next post, we will zero in on the recurring themes of the festival. Stay tuned! 
 
Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Interim Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections

Posted by European Studies at 1:03 PM in Cyprus , Estonia , Germanic , Literature , Netherlands , Slavonic , Translation , Ukraine | Permalink

29 April 2024

The Hobbit – there and back, or what are you looking for? Braille books in Slavonic collections 2.

The lights of Obukhovka are fading away as we move on to the magical world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The author wrote the story about the wanderings of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins for his children, but it quickly became one of the best-selling novels of all time and a firm favourite amongst many generations of readers worldwide. Our recent acquisition of the classic in Russian braille brings the world of wizards, dragons, and elves right to your fingertips.

Do you remember the thrill of reading The Hobbit for the first time? What did your copy look or feel like? Children born in the 1920s and early 1930s held onto a book with a rather unassuming cover.

Cover of the first edition of 'The Hobbit' with a design of mountains and a dragon against a grey-green background

The Hobbit, the first edition published in September 1937 (Cup.410.f.14.)

The first printing of the novel ran to only 1500 copies and flew off the shelves in less than three months. The second impression was issued in an edition of 2300 copies immediately after, in December of the same year. I wonder how many of them were gift-wrapped and spent the night under the Christmas tree, waiting to be discovered by young fantasy lovers. We know that 423 copies did not find their way to readers, as they were destroyed in a warehouse fire in the London blitz. If you have a book looking like the one in the picture above sitting casually on your shelves, you may want to read this article published in the Guardian early this year.

At first, Tolkien thought that his creation would be visualised by every reader in their own way. The publisher, however, convinced him to add illustrations to the book. I am sure many are already familiar with it, but for those who are not – here is the story of Tolkien's illustrations.

My first exposure to Tolkien happened when I read the 1976 translation of The Hobbit into Russian.

Cover of the 1976 Russian translation of The Hobbit with an illustration of Bilbo Baggins and the dragon Smaug

Cover of Natalia Rakhmanova’s translation of The Hobbit into Russian: Khobbit, ili, Tuda i obratno: skazochnaia povestʹ (Leningrad, 1976). YF.2011.a.18078

Although a heated debate is still going on among Tolkien fans about which of the ten Russian versions is the best and closest in spirit to the original, it was Natalia Rakhmanova’s first translation of The Hobbit that influenced the reception of Tolkien first in the Soviet Union and later in Russia. Mikhail Belomninski’s illustrations also became iconic for Soviet children, especially the image of Bilbo Baggins, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the popular Soviet actor Evgenii Leonov.

Illustration of Bilbo Baggins sitting by his fireside and smoking a pipe

Illustrations from the 1976 Russian translation of The Hobbit showing Bilbo Baggins by his fireside (above) and Bilbo and Gandalf meeting the woodman Beorn (below)

Illustration of Gandalf and Bilbo meeting the giant woodman Beorn who leans on a large axe

But of course, Bilbo’s young fans would not know that in 1989, just a couple of years before the collapse of the USSR and communism, Belominskii left the country for the US. He later worked there as an artistic director for the New Russian Word – the longest-running (1910-2010) Russian-language newspaper in America.

Nevertheless, it is telling that it was Rakhmanova’s translation of The Hobbit that was abridged for the braille edition in 1982. It was released in four volumes and limited to just 300 copies.

Spines of the four braille volumes of Khobbit, ili, Tuda i obratno

Printed title page of Khobbit ili Tuda i obratno

Page of braille text from Khobbit ili Tuda i obratno

From top: the four volumes, title-page and page of braille text of Khobbit, ili, Tuda i obratno : skazochnaia povestʹ v chetyrekh knigakh (Moscow, 1982). LF.31.b.16409. (Please note that due to the recent cyber-attack on the British Library the item does not appear in our catalogue yet; it can be ordered in our reading rooms using the shelfmark.)

The first schools for visually impaired children in Russia, like the one attended by Eroshenko, opened in 1881. In 1882, textbooks for visually impaired children were printed in the linear uncial type cast in Vienna. These were the Gospel of Matthew and Children’s World written by Konstantin Ushinsky, the founder of scientific pedagogy in Russia.

Page with raised text for visually-impaired readers

Children’s World by Konstantin Ushinsky adapted for use by visually impaired students (copy held at the National Library of Russia).

Such was the beginning of using and publishing books in braille. At first, Russian braille books continued to be printed in Berlin, but their production soon moved to the printing house attached to the joint-stock company ‘Goznak’, which was set up for publishing banknotes.

I do not know who was the child who first read the braille edition of The Hobbit, which is now held at the British Library, but it is fascinating to imagine what the story of Bilbo Baggins meant in their life. As Tolkien wisely said, “There is nothing like looking if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator, East European Collections

Posted by European Studies at 10:00 AM in Literature , Russia , Slavonic , Translation | Permalink

25 April 2024

“The hands want to see, the eyes want to caress”. Braille books in Slavonic collections 1

The British Library is committed to creating an inclusive reading experience. We collect audiobooks and braille materials in various languages and forms and are always on the lookout for new and exciting titles. This post and a second one will feature rare and first-edition braille books in our Slavonic collections. Here we hope to shed some light on the extraordinary life of a largely unknown blind Ukrainian author often likened to such literary giants as Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde. The second post will touch on the publishing history of a book by a writer who needs no introduction. Without further delay, we invite print and braille readers, children and adults alike, to embark with us on a fascinating journey beginning in the sleepy village of Obukhovka, across vast swathes of Asia and Russia, all the way to Middle-earth, and back again.

The story begins on a frosty January day in 1890 when a third child is born into a family of a wealthy Ukrainian landowner in imperial Russia, Iakov Eroshenko and his Russian wife. The boy, later known to literary enthusiasts in Japan and China as Ero-san and Ailuoxianke respectively, is christened Vasilii. Four years later, tragedy strikes the Eroshenko family when little Vasia loses his vision to measles. Later in life, he would remark: “I hazily remember seeing only four things: the sky, pigeons, the church where they roosted, and my mother’s face. Not too much…But that always inspired and inspires me to seek out pure thoughts - thoughts as pure as the sky - and always made me remember my homeland as well as my mother’s face, in whichever corner of the world Fate cast me.”

Photograph of Eroshenko as a young man wearing a military-style tunic

Vasilii Eroshenko. (Image from http://pmu.in.ua/nogroup/eroshenko/)

Sepia photograph of a church with a group of men standing outside

The Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Obukhovka. Built circa 1842, it burned down in 1946. It must have been the silhouette that was etched in Eroshenko’s memory (Image from https://sokm.org.ru/vystavki/virtualnye-vystavki/782-obuhovskie-remesla#)

Young Eroshenko proved precocious throughout his schooling. Blindness had taught the future anarchist and anti-imperialist to take everything with a pinch of salt and to question authority. In 1900, he started attending the prestigious Imperial Moscow School for the Blind, where he received training in arts, music and sciences. While there, he also mastered braille and conceived his first literary pieces, painstakingly pricking words into paper with a needle. After graduating in 1908, Eroshenko decided to try his hand at music. He started to earn a living playing second violin for a blind orchestra in Moscow. Rumour has it that he paid a substantial part of his income to a poor actor who would read him books unavailable in braille script.

Photograph of Eroshenko playing the violin, accompanied by a woman on the piano

Eroshenko playing the violin (image from http://pmu.in.ua/nogroup/eroshenko/)

Vasilii’s life took a sharp turn when he crossed paths with the sister-in-law of Leo Tolstoy’s biographer and disciple, Pavel Ivanovich Briukov. Anna Sharapova, who was one of the pioneers of Esperanto in Russia, decided to teach the language to the gifted violinist. Esperanto was invented in 1873 by the Polish ophthalmologist L.L. Zamenhof, who believed that a universal, politically and culturally neutral language would erase communication barriers and relieve international tensions. Eroshenko found Zamenhof’s ideas compelling and soon became a devout Esperantist. Having learnt from Anna about the prospect of continuing his education at the Royal National College for the Blind in England, Vasilii pinned the green Esperanto star onto the lapel of his jacket and set out to London. From then on, the star would guide him, often quite literally, to his distant destinations.

In London, Eroshenko learned about the respect blind people enjoy in Japan. Intrigued, he soon started planning his next trip. He returned to Moscow, where he began taking Japanese classes. In April 1914, he boarded a ship in Vladivostok and headed to Tokyo. Once settled in the Japanese capital, he supported himself by teaching Esperanto and lecturing on Russian literature and women’s emancipation. He also wrote short stories for major Japanese magazines. However, it was not long before he became active in revolutionary circles seeking to undermine Japan’s colonial efforts in East Asia. In 1921, he was accused of threatening national security and social order and was expelled from the country. His stories Vuz’ka klitka (The Narrow Cage) and Orlyni dushi (An Eagle’s Heart) appeared in print in the same year.

Cover of 'Vuzka klitka' wityh a picture of a tiger in the mountains

Cover of Vasilii Eroshenko, Vuzʹka klitka: kazky (Kharkiv, 2016). YF.2016.b.1727

Eroshenko’s stories reflect his view that social ills result from colonial oppression, marginalization of the poor and disabled, and racial inequality. Vuz’ka klitka ponders the question of freedom and free will. The image of an enraged tiger killing and wreaking havoc in the name of freedom and brotherhood is disturbingly familiar. Orlyni dushi juxtaposes the human and natural worlds and offers a sharp critique of imperialism. Its opening: “There once was a mountain kingdom that was ruled by its larger, more powerful neighbour”, is also a chilling one in the context of the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Cover of 'Orlyni dushi' with an illustration of two eagles on a rock

Cover of Vasilii Eroshenko, Orlyni dushi: kazky (Kharkiv, 2016). YF.2016.b.1726

As I flick through the milky pages, I cannot help but admire the author’s vivid storytelling and simple yet evocative language. Both stories were written in Japanese, but for various political and ideological reasons, the Ukrainian translations have always relied on earlier Russian translations. Those, in turn, were based on Chinese versions. Inevitably, Eroshenko’s voice got muffled and distorted along the way, making it hard to disentangle his legacy from that of his translators. The copies we hold, proudly adorned with blue-and-yellow ribbon bookmarks, are the first Ukrainian translations made from the Japanese originals. The translator and scholar of Eroshenko’s work, Iuliia Patlan’, makes a valid point in the preface, arguing that this makes them much more faithful to the author’s voice. The Ukrainian text translated from Eroshenko’s original Japanese was titled Vuz’ka klitka to distinguish it from Tisna klitka, Nadiia Andrianova-Hordiienko's 1969 translation from Russian. Both books have print on one side and braille on the other so that a sighted person can read to a child and they can follow along.

Opening from Vuz’ka klitka showing parallel printed and braille text

Opening from Vuz’ka klitka showing parallel printed and braille text

Before settling in the Soviet Union in 1924, Eroshenko had a brief stint in Europe and spent a couple of years in China, where he befriended the modernist author and radical thinker Lu Xun. The blind globetrotter was not met with much fanfare in his homeland. Soviet Esperantists were deemed a threat to the Communist Party, mainly for their transnational networks, which were believed to be swarming with spies. Eroshenko’s refusal to cooperate with the Soviet Secret Services came with a hefty price, as most of the author’s personal archives were confiscated and destroyed. The author, whose life resembled a fairy-tale quest for meaning, departed on his final journey on December 23, 1952. He was buried in his native Obukhovka, unrecognised as a storyteller in Ukraine and Russia. It was not until a translator, Vladimir Rogov, learned about a mysterious ‘Ailuoxianke’ in Lu-Xun’s The Comedy of the Ducks that the dots finally connected, and Eroshenko started to gain the recognition he deserved.

Vasilii Eroshenko did not let his disability limit or define him. Although his short stories may lack the happy endings that we all look for in fairy tales, his fascinating life reads as a beautiful ode to hope and resilience and carries a heart-warming message that light will always prevail over darkness.

Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Interim Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections

Andrew F. Jones, Developmental fairy tales: evolutionary thinking and modern Chinese culture (London, 2011). YC.2011.a.7404 (Includes an English translation (from Chinese) of Vuz’ka klitka)

Julija Patlanj, ‘Vasilii Yakovlevich Eroshenko’, Kontakto (March, 2005)

Adam Kuplowsky, The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales (New York, 2023)

Posted by European Studies at 10:28 AM in Esperanto , Literature , Russia , Slavonic , Translation , Ukraine | Permalink

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