07 November 2014
Is your governess really a spy?
Ever since Baroness Lehzen taught the young Princess Victoria, German governesses had occupied a place in 19th-century British consciousness. Many German women came to Britain during the century to teach either in schools or private homes, and a Verein deutscher Lehrerinnen in England was founded in 1876 to offer them advice and assistance. By the beginning of the 20th century it was common – and fashionable – for upper-class families to employ a ‘Fräulein’ to help educate their daughters, even against the background of rising of anti-German sentiment.
Der Vereinsbote. Organ des Vereins deutscher Lehrerinnen in England. Vol. 26, no. 1, February 1914 (P.P.1215.fb). The journal of the Association of German Teachers in England. Like other British German newspapers and periodicals, it ceased publication in August 1914.
On the outbreak of war, however, governesses were among the Germans in Britain viewed with particular suspicion. Because some lived closely with the families of well-connected employers, they could easily be demonised as potential spies or fifth columnists. A browse through contemporary newspapers via the British Newspaper Archive reveals a number of stories, or variations on the same story, about German governesses whose trunks were found to conceal bombs or secret documents. A report in the Lichfield Mercury of 21 August 1914 even claims that a German ‘secret order book’ had been discovered which recommended the placing of ‘handsome German governesses’ in the families of British military officers to gather information; presumably their handsomeness was intended to help tempt the officers into indiscretions of various kinds.
These stories may strike us as faintly absurd, but their underlying message was taken seriously at the time, even in high places. In 1916, the Prime Minister of New Zealand specifically mentioned governesses, alongside waiters and clerks, as Germans employed in Britain who had used their position to collect information which was ‘promptly conveyed to Berlin.’ And of course these attitudes could have serious consequences for the women who suddenly found themselves designated ‘enemy aliens’, perhaps after many years as part of a British family, and suspected of spying.
Families who employed a German governess sometimes themselves fell under suspicion. A Mr Cunningham was still pursuing damages from the War Office in 1923, claiming that his business had collapsed when it was boycotted following a military search of his house in 1914, triggered in part by the presence there of a German governess. Even the British Prime Minister was suspected of harbouring a spy in the form of his children’s long-serving governess Anna Heinsius.
A popular example of the ‘governess as spy’ theme was the 1914 play The Man who Stayed at Home, set in a small seaside hotel where the hero, a British secret agent, affects a languid and flippant air to disguise his true mission as a spy-catcher. One of the first characters we meet is Fräulein Schroeder, described in the stage directions as ‘a tall, angular and unattractive spinster with a dictatorial manner and entirely unsympathetic soul.’
A modern audience might expect, or even hope, that such an obvious candidate as Fräulein Schroeder would turn out not to be a villain. But the popular stereotypes of the day prevail: she is in fact in cahoots with the hotel’s owner, Mrs Sanderson (German widow of an Englishman), her ‘son’ Carl (actually ‘Herr von Mantel, son of General von Mantel, and paid spy of the German Government’) and the waiter Fritz (who, despite a thick stage-German accent, manages to convince everyone that he is Dutch), all spies in the service of their ‘Imperial Master’ in Berlin.
Cover of a 1916 acting text of The Man who stayed at Home.The image was also available as a poster for groups wishing to stage the play.
The play clearly pleased the British public. It had a long run in London and was filmed twice (1915 and 1919) and adapted as a novel (1915). The novel is somewhat kinder about Fräulein Schroeder’s appearance: initially, at least, she radiates ‘all the placid good nature and quietude of spirit of the best of her race’ and has ‘small, kindly brown eyes’. But her fanaticism and ruthlessness are far more strongly emphasised and, in a change from the play, she poisons herself when the German plot is foiled, a ‘sordid and ugly’ death depicted as encapsulating the inglorious nature of her cause.
Amidst all these tall tales and spy-panics it is comforting to encounter stories of those who supported and defended such ‘enemy aliens’ trying to continue a teaching career in Britain during the war years. The Daily Mail of 3 September 1914 reported that a man who applied to the International Women’s Aid Committee for a governess for his children was shocked to be sent a German woman. But, the report continues, the Committee’s secretary responded that, ‘Our object is to help foreign women of any nationality who are the innocent victims of the war. We do not consider that we are helping the enemy in assisting a non-combatant German governess.’ A refreshing sentiment to set against the popular jingoism of the time.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Studies
References/further reading
Lechmere Worrall / J.E. Harold Terry, The Man who Stayed at Home: a play in three acts. French’s Acting Edition No. 2535 (London, [1916]). 2304.h.71.(4)
Beamish Tinker [i.e. F. Tennyson Jesse], The Man who Stayed at Home ... From the play of the same name. (London, 1915) NN.2687
Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in our Midst : Germans in Britain during the First World War (New York, 1991) YC.1991.a.4196
This piece was posted live from Selwyn College Cambridge as part of the Women In German Studies Postgraduate workshop in November 2014.
26 September 2014
Kazimir Malevich - pioneer of Russian abstract art
“Look, just look, the Vistula is near”. Poster designed by Kazimir Malevich with caption by Vladimir Mayakovsky (Moscow, 1914). HS.74/273(3)
Having just viewed the excellent Malevich exhibition at Tate Modern, I was reminded that many of the images on display appear in items held by the British Library. For example the figure of an officer on one of the series of anti-German propaganda postcards in the “Works on paper” section with the caption “Look, just look, the Vistula is near” appears again on one of the lithographed posters Malevich designed for the project “Today’s Lubok” in the same year. In both the postcard and poster (which uses different colours) you can already see the tendency towards depicting the human figure as being made up of geometrical shapes, the use of bright colours (also found in Russian folk paintings or lubki) and the stylised patterns (e.g. to depict grass) of contemporary Primitivist paintings.
The British Library holds four lithographed First World War posters designed by Malevich. One of these – “Wilhelm’s Merry-go-round” (HS 74/273(4)) – is also displayed in the British Library’s current exhibition Enduring War.
Kazimir Malevich, “Prayer” from Vzorval by Aleksei Kruchenykh. (St Petersburg, 1913). C.114mm.28.
Also included in the “Works on paper” section of the exhibition is Malevich’s “Molitva” (Prayer). This appears in the lithographed Futurist publication Vzorval by Aleksei Kruchenykh (known in English as “Explodity”). It is in the Cubo-Futurist style which combines the multi-viewpoints and cylindrical machine like shapes of Cubism (cf. Léger) with the dynamic approach of Futurism though here applied in the Russian manner to a static meditative pose rather than depicting movement.
During his Futurist period Malevich developed the theory of alogism where colour is divorced from the object that is being depicted. This combined with the irrationalism of the Russian Futurists can be seen in An Englishman in Moscow (1914) where objects of different scale and unnatural colour are combined in a surrealistic collage.
Nikolai Punin, Pervyi tsikl lektsii. (Petrograd, 1920). C.145.a.2.
There are several examples of book covers designed by Malevich included in the exhibition. One also held by the British Library is his cover for Nikolai Punin’s, Pervyi tsikl lektsii (First cycle of lectures). This cover exemplifies the use of bright colours and geometrical forms of Malevich’s abstract Suprematist style for a book about drawing in modern art.
Kazimir Malevich, O novykh sistemakh v iskusstve. (Vitebsk, 1919). C.114.n.46.
In 1919 Malevich joined the art school set up by Chagall in Vitebsk. Here he began to produce books that promoted Suprematism as the correct method for modern art. His ideas were elucidated further in the manifesto O novykh sistemakh v iskusstve (On New systems in Art) published in Vitebsk in 1919. This publication was hand produced in the Art School by transfer lithography with a linocut (see above) by El Lissitzky. It was republished in abbreviated form by Narkompros as Ot Sezanna do suprematizmu (From Cezanne to Suprematism) in 1920. (C.127.g.11.)
“A spiritualistic séance in the Kremlin” from Mikhail Karasik, Utverditeliu novogo iskusstva. (St Petersburg, 2007). HS.74/1966. Reproduced by permission of the artist.
An interesting use of Malevich’s Suprematist imagery can be seen in Mikhail Karasik’s artist’s book of 16 lithographs entitled Utverditeliu novogo iskusstva (To the Affirmer of the New Art). In No.6 “A spiritualistic séance in the Kremlin: Stalin calls upon the spirit of Malevich” his black square and a robotic looking figure together with the letters of the artists’ collective UNOVIS are merged into a contemporary photo of Stalin making a speech.
Peter Hellyer, Curator Russian Studies
References
Other original works by Malevich held by the British Library:
Kazimir Malevich, Bog ne skinut: iskusstvo, tserkov', fabrika [God is not cast down: art, church, factory], (Vitebsk, 1922). C.114.n.33.
Kazimir Malevich, Ot kubizma i futurizma k suprematizmu: novyi zhivopisnyi realizm [From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: new painterly realism], 3rd edition. (Moscow, 1916). C.114.mm.25.
Artists books containing illustrations by Malevich:
Daniel Kharms, Na smert’ Kazimira Malevicha [On the death of Kazimir Malevich], (St Petersburg, 2000). Lithographs and commentaries by Mikhail Karasik. Cover decorated with a fabric design by Malevich. HS.74/1743
Aleksei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov, Igra v adu [Game in hell], 2nd enlarged ed. (St Petersburg, 1914). Cover and 3 lithographs by Malevich. Cup.406.g.2 and C.114.mm.41.
Aleksei Kruchenykh, Pobeda nad solntsem; opera [Victory over the sun: opera], music by M. Matiushin, (St Petersburg, 1913). A set design by Malevich appears on the cover. C.114.mm.9.
Aleksei Kruchenykh, Slovo kak takovoe [Word as such.], (Moscow, 1913). Cover illustration (Reaper) by K. Malevich. C.114.mm.23.
Troe [Three] by V. Khlebnikov, A. Kruchenykh, and E. Guro, (St Petersburg, 1913). Cover and drawings dedicated to the memory of E. Guro by K. Malevich. C.105.a.7
Zina V. and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Porosiata [Piglets], (St Petersburg: EUY, 1913). Cover (Peasant woman) and illustrations (including “Portrait of a builder”) by Malevich. C.104.e.21
Useful reference sources:
Malevich edited by Achim Borchardt-Hume. (London, 2014.) [Catalogue of the Tate Modern exhibition]
Leaflet text of Malevich exhibition at Tate Modern by Simon Bolitho.
19 September 2014
‘Sack of Louvain – Awful holocaust’ (Daily Mail headline, Monday 31 August 1914)
On 4 August 1914, the German army invaded neutral Belgium on their way to Paris and a speedy victory. In the event, the Germans met with unexpected resistance from the Belgian army which slowed their progress and allowed time for the arrival of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). Accounts from Belgium, Luxembourg, and Northern France of German troops engaged in the mass execution of civilians and the wilful destruction of towns helped mobilise support for the war in Britain as well as influence public opinion in neutral countries such as the Netherlands and Switzerland. The Germans countered that their actions represented harsh but just punishment for attacks on their troops by civilian snipers (‘francs-tireurs’). In reality such attacks did not take place in 1914, but the Germans had indeed had to contend with civilian snipers in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and so were expecting to come under fire from civilians on this occasion too.
The German writer Arnold Zweig, best known for his later anti-war cycle, Der Große Krieg der Weißen Männer (‘The Great War of the White Men’), based on his actual experiences serving with the German army in Belgium, Serbia and at Verdun, began his literary career penning nationalistic stories fictionalising German propaganda about Belgian snipers. In Die Bestie (Munich, 1914; 012552.i.24/3), the eponymous ‘beast’ is a treacherous Belgian farmer who is justly executed for cutting the throats of three sleeping German soldiers. In Zweig’s later Erziehung vor Verdun (Education before Verdun), on the other hand, the German investigating judge Mertens discovers that ‘In Luxemburg alone over 1,350 houses had been burned, and more than 800 people shot. In Belgium and Northern France the same methods had led to even worse results’.
The ‘sack of Louvain’ (Leuven) and destruction by arson of the university library during the week 25-28 August struck a particular chord both at the time and in popular memory as a wilful attack on a cultured university town, the ‘Oxford of Belgium’.
John Neat, Remember Louvain. March (London, 1914) h.3827.x.(31.) Cover illustration signed M.H.
Englebert Cappuyns, a lawyer from Louvain and refugee based in Kingston upon Thames, provided an early eye-witness account in his Louvain: a personal experience (Kingston upon Thames, 1914; 9082.de.15), while the narrative of An eye-witness at Louvain (London, 1914; 09083.b.36(1)) by an anonymous Professor at Louvain ‘furnished through Father Thurston, S.J. of Farm Street’, concentrates on the execution of the Jesuit priest Father Dupiérieux. Albert Fuglister, a Swiss businessman based in Louvain, and present during 25-28 August, countered German propaganda in his Louvain ville martyre (Paris & London, 1916; 9083.f.14). In addition to the usual eye-witness accounts, Fuglister includes many photographs. In an appendix, ‘Comment j’ai photographié leurs crimes’ (‘How I photographed their crimes’), he explains that he took photographs of Louvain in ruins from 2 September 1914 onwards. He also reproduces photographs taken by others, in particular the two Arnou brothers. Photographs from the Arnou album are on show in the 2014 Leuven exhibition Ravaged: art and culture in times of conflict
Fuglister reproduces a German propaganda postcard depicting the alleged Louvain snipers (above). The caption reads ‘The atrocities against unsuspecting German troops in Louvain’. Fuglister’s counter caption tells his readers that ‘this widely circulated postcard is intended to show the public how German soldiers were attacked by the population of Louvain. This street does not exist anywhere in Louvain except in the imagination of the author of this drawing’.
Here Fuglister uses before and after photographs of the Grand Hall in Louvain University Library (below) to highlight the impact of the devastation wrought by the Germans.
The caption explains that the library ‘held [note the imperfect tense] more than 300,000 books, incunabula, manuscripts of incalculable value reduced to ashes in the space of one night. The fragments are found within a radius of five kilometres’.
Fuglister’s book has a preface by the Belgian poet, and Louvain graduate, Emile Verhaeren. Verhaeren, himself a refugee in London and Wales from September 1914 to January 1915, and transformed by his shock at the fate of his country from a cosmopolitan man of letters into a ‘Belgian Paul Déroulède’ used his time in Britain tirelessly producing patriotic verse, and touring the country in support of his native land. His preface to Fuglister’s book mentions an earlier book by a citizen of a neutral nation, the retired Dutch professor L. H. Grondijs, author of The Germans in Belgium (London, 1915; 08028.de.82/2).
As for Louvain University Library, it was reconstructed after the war largely with American money (though see The reconstruction of the Library of the University of Louvain: an appeal for further contributions by Henry Guppy, the Librarian of the John Rylands Library, Manchester (Manchester, 1919; 011903.d.16)). This new library and collection was in turn destroyed in the Second World War. Finally, the Belgians themselves dismantled the new post-Second World War collection when the French-speakers were evicted from the now exclusively Flemish university and the collection was divided equally between the old foundation and the new university at Louvain-la-Neuve.
Teresa Vernon, Lead Curator French Studies
References/Further reading:
Arnold Zweig, Erziehung vor Verdun (Amsterdam, 1935) 12557.y.11. English translation by Edward Sutton, Education before Verdun (London, 1936) 12554.r.14.
Sophie De Schaepdrijver ,The ‘German Atrocities’ of 1914 http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/civilian-atrocities-german-1914
Fernand Van Langenhove, Comment naît un cycle de légendes : francs-tireurs et atrocités en Belgique (Lausanne; Paris, 1916). 9083.ff.10. English translation by E.B. Sherlock, The Growth of a Legend (New York, 1916) 9083.gg.29.
John Horne and Alan Kramer, German atrocities 1914: a history of denial (New Haven, 2001) m01/34099
Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford, 2007) YC.2008.a.8001
Leuven University Library 1425-2000 edited by Chris Coppens, Mark Derez and Jan Roegiers. (Leuven, 2005). LF.31.b.7798
12 September 2014
A nurse, a poet and a girl – women’s diaries of the Great War
In Russian cultural memory the First World War does not occupy the same place as in the cultural memories of other peoples who fought this war. One of the reasons, of course, is that it was overshadowed by the events of the Russian Revolution. For the Russians, the Great War did not come to an end, as it did for the other nations, on 11 November 1918. Therefore, it was not properly reflected upon either in Soviet or in émigré Russian literature. Russian authors and poets had a very short time window to respond to the war, which they certainly did, but it proved almost impossible to reflect on it thereafter. As diaries and memoirs often manifest themselves as intermediaries between document and fiction, it was interesting to see what was written and published in Russian in these autobiographical genres. Not surprisingly, as with literature, there is no abundance of diaries or memoirs solely devoted to the time of the war and where wartime events, emotions and thoughts are at the core of the work. In any case, there are fewer diaries and memoirs left from the time of the First World War in Russian than, for example, those describing the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905.
The three examples which I shall present here are all created by women.
We do not know anything about Lidiia Zakharova, who in 1915 published a book Dnevnik sestry miloserdiia: Na peredovykh pozitsiiakh (‘Diary of a wartime nurse: on the front line’; X.700/19594). The book was published in the series Biblioteka Velikoi Voiny (‘The Great War library’) and of course was meant to be part of wartime propaganda.
An advertisement at the at the end of Lidiia Zakharova’s Dnevnik sestry miloserdiia, for other publications in the series.
When you read it, it is very difficult to believe that the diary was indeed written in field hospitals and trenches, although some scenes are very vivid and disturbing. However, the book is full of clichés, like the overwhelmingly forgiving attitude shown by Russian soldiers towards German prisoners, the good humour and modesty displayed by war heroes, or kind treatment of a Jew and a Polish girl which allowed them to demonstrate their profound gratitude to the Russians. In her narrative, Lidiia Zakharova also mentioned that she had somehow copied samples of soldiers’ letters which are quoted in the book as proofs of the heroism, courage, humanity and simplicity of their authors. Artificially sweet and lacking any individual character, they are reminiscent of a book of patriotic poetry created by Zinaida Gippius, a poet well established on the Russian literary scene by 1914 (photo below from Wikimedia Commons).
The book Kak my voinam pisali i chto oni nam otvechali: kniga-podarok (‘How we were writing to warriors and what they were replying: a book-present’; Moscow, 1915), which is very rare and unfortunately not held at the British Library, consists of poems written in the form of letters from three ordinary Russian women to soldiers. The letter-poems and the replies were written in stylized folk-poetic language, but as one of the contemporary researchers puts it, “the soldiers clearly did not have the language of their own to express their feelings and thoughts, and the overall result was … stereotypical and banal … (Ben Hellman, Poets of Hope and Despair. The Russian Symbolists in War and Revolution (1914-1918); Helsinki, 1995, YA.2002.a.8054,p. 148).
However, Zinaida Gippius’s own diary, published in Belgrade in 1929 under the title Siniaia kniga (1914-1917) (‘The Blue Book (1914-1917’); 09455.ee.31), is a very interesting story of a poet and intellectual who undertook the task of documenting the times. In the preface to the 1929 edition Gippius wrote: “’Memoirs’ can give the image of the time. But only a diary gives it in its continuity”.
This correlates with the words of Gippius’s contemporary Virginia Woolf: “So they [memoirs] say: ‘This is what happened’; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom they happened” (Virginia Woolf. Moments of Being: Autobiographical Writing. New edition edited by Jeanne Schulkind. (London, 2003; YC.2003.a.4621), p. 79).
And the person “whom events happened to” is very vividly portrayed in the diaries of another woman – Ekaterina Nikolaevna Razumovskaia (née Sain-Vitgenshtein or in the German version: Katherina Sayn-Wittgenstein) (1895-1983), one of six children born into the old noble family of Prince Nikolai Sain-Vitgenshtein.
She was 19 when the war began and 23 when the family left Russia for good. Until 1973 the diaries were completely forgotten and kept among other old papers in sealed boxes. Only after Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had appealed to Russians abroad to send him their documents, memoirs and diaries to facilitate his work on the novel Avgust 1914 (August 1914) did Ekaterina Razumovskaia remember about her diaries. They were published first in German and then in Russian (1986) shortly after her death. Her diary is not only a document of wartime life (in many ways her ‘experience’ was common to thousands of people and her ‘analysis’ of the events was entirely based on newspapers and the opinions of her family members), but it is also a coming-of-age narrative with the major events of the 20th century in the background. And because of that, a hundred years later we still can feel her fear and anxiety when reading: “What is the year 1915 preparing for us? How much sorrow, how much joy? Never before has the burning question about the future arisen so acutely as on this first night of the New Year. Never before have we felt such a sharp fear in front of the black abyss of unknown. I’m peeking into this abyss and my head is spinning and darkness arises in front of my eyes. Everything is in Lord’s hands, come what may!” (, p. 41).
Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Eastern European Curator (Russian Studies)
10 September 2014
Before the ‘Miracle of the Marne’ – what if the Germans had reached Paris in September 1914
In August 1914 the German army broke through Belgium into France and advanced towards the French capital. French troops under General Joffre, backed by the British Expeditionary Force, met the German army on the river Marne (6-12 September 1914) and successfully halted the German advance: Paris was saved! Popular memory in France now recalls how General Galliéni, the military commander of Paris, requisitioned a fleet of Paris taxis, the so-called ‘taxis of the Marne’, to ferry reinforcements to the front.
The widespread belief and fear that Paris would be taken and that the city would be destroyed has been forgotten. On 2 September, the French government had relocated to Bordeaux in South West France. The US Ambassador, Myron T. Herrick (1854-1929), however, decided that ‘as the representative of the greatest neutral power I should remain in Paris and exercise all my power to save the art treasures of Paris from the fate of Louvain’. On 3 September, he had a ‘large number’ of posters printed in both French and German that he intended to be pasted on the houses of American citizens to safeguard their property. He then had a notice posted ‘in the Herald’ [presumably the New York Herald (European edition)] requesting American citizens to come to the Embassy between 4 and 7 September to collect them.
Sauvegarde. Avis est donné par l’ambassadeur des Etats-Unis d’Amérique que le local situé a Paris… (Paris, Imprimerie Herbert Clarke, [1914]). 63 x 40.5cm. British Library WW1.P/3 (1-22).
Schutzbrief. Die Botschaft der Vereinigten Staaten Von Nord-Amerika macht bekannt dass die in Paris… (Paris, Druckerei Herbert Clarke, [1914]) 63 x 40.5cm. WW1.P/3 (1-22).
SAFEGUARD The United States Ambassador gives notice that the building in Paris situated at – is occupied by Mr. – an American citizen and hence is UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. The Ambassador therefore asks that the Americans living in said building be not molested and that its contents be respected. Myron T. Herrick. Ambassador. (Translation by Myron T. Herrick).
The British Library’s copies of these two posters come from a collection of posters, postcards and ephemera formed by Mrs Albinia Wherry (1857-1929) when she worked at the Women’s Emergency Canteen for Soldiers (‘Cantine Anglaise’) below the Gare du Nord in Paris from 1915-1918. Staffed predominantly by British women, it provided food, hot drinks, cigarettes, washing facilities and later sleeping accommodation for Allied troops. The collection was donated by Albinia Wherry’s daughter in 1962 and is kept the Library’s French and Philatelic collections. A photograph of Albinia Wherry and a postcard of the Canteen are now on display in our current exhibition in the Folio Society Gallery ‘Enduring War: Grief, Grit and Humour’.
The collection of posters and ephemera at BL shelfmark WW1.P/1 (1-51) to WW1.P/5 (1-15) in French Collections has recently been beautifully and expertly conserved by the British Library’s Conservation team. Bernard Wilkin, our collaborative British Library/Sheffield University PhD student, spotted these two posters and their significance when working on a project describing this collection in 2013.
A pencil inscription on the French poster, ‘Given me by the publisher. Never published’ indicates that Albinia Wherry obtained these posters directly from the printer, Herbert Clarke. Herbert Clarke was an English printer and publisher based in the rue Saint Honoré, and a long-standing member of the British colony in Paris, so this is probably how Mrs Wherry got to know him. The pencil inscription on the German-language poster adds ‘printed in 1914 for use if [the] Germans entered Paris’ (below).
The Hoover Institution also holds copies of these posters which they date ‘1940-1944?’ It would be interesting to find out whether any other copies are held elsewhere. Of course the posters were never actually used since the Germans did not reach the capital, but they provide vivid testimony to the widespread belief at the time that the Germans would occupy Paris.
Teresa Vernon, Lead Curator French Studies
References:
Lindsay Krasnoff . The Lives of Diplomats: Americans in Paris, 1914 http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2014/02/10/lives-diplomats-americans-paris-1914
Thomas Bentley Mott, Myron T. Herrick, Friend of France. An autobiographical biography. (Garden City, N.Y, 1929). 10885.cc.8.
Réception de M. Myron T. Herrick… à l’Hôtel de Ville de Paris le 26 juillet 1920. (Paris, 1920) 10170.l.16.
27 August 2014
Remembering the Isonzo Front
On August 10th, while looking at the daily headlines online, I spotted one commemorating the centenary of the first death on the “forgotten” Austro-Italian Front.
This was the strange death by “friendly fire” of Countess Lucy Christalnigg, a Red Cross volunteer and amateur racing driver who was shot by nervous border guards when she apparently ignored a request to stop. She was driving along the winding valley road which still runs the length of the river Soča in what was southern Austria and is now western Slovenia, very close to the Italian border. It was 13 days since the Austro-Hungarian Empire had declared war on Serbia; just a week since Italy had announced its intention to remain neutral.
The valley road where Lucy Christalnigg was killed (photo: Janet Ashton)
The Countess’s death is still something of a mystery: which enemy, on the border with a neutral country far from the action, might she have been mistaken for?
If the sentries wrongly took her for an Italian insurgent, they were prescient at least in their suspicions of their neighbour. In April 1915, Italy entered the war on the side of the Allied powers, who promised large swathes of Austrian territory from the Alps to the Adriatic ports in return. This led to the opening a long mountain front that ran the length of their mutual border, and saw some of the most terrible battles of the First World War, a bloodbath of ice and fire.
Map of the Italian Front, 1915-1917, from the History Department of the US Military Academy West Point (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
In the UK, this has been called the “forgotten” front, perhaps known only as the backdrop to Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, but it is far from forgotten in the countries affected. The most infamous battle was 1917’s Caporetto, whose name entered Italian idiom as a byword for disaster. Caporetto is the Italian name for the tiny town of Kobarid in Slovenia, very few miles down the same valley road from the spot where Lucy Christalnigg was killed. It was then also known by the German name Karfreit, underscoring the complexity of the area’s history. In Austria, Karfreit was the “miracle” battle.
This war cost the mainly Slovene-speaking civilian population of the area very dearly. Many were displaced to refugee camps, or fell victim to hunger, cold and disease. Once praised by the Austrian Emperor as “the most loyal subjects”, Slovene-speakers were regarded with suspicion as Slavs and subject to heavy censorship from 1914 onwards, even as they fought alongside their German-speaking compatriots to preserve the Habsburg Empire.
Italians in turn soon learned the cost of the expansionist ambitions of their government. Military discipline was homicidally brutal, and the ill-equipped invading troops suffered constant military setbacks at the hands of Austria-Hungary and its German Allies, including one young commander named Erwin Rommel. Ultimately, Italy was on the victorious side, but did not receive everything it expected at the Peace Conference, which remained a source of great bitterness to nationalists and the bereaved.
Italy did take possession of the Soča Valley (Isonzo in Italian) between the wars, subjecting the area to a relentless policy of Italianization. In Kobarid, Mussolini ordered construction of a charnel house (photograph above, by Janet Ashton) for the remains of the innumerable Italian victims of their 1917 defeat, the awful price of a few miles of mountain valley. After 1945 the area went to Yugoslavia and from 1991 has been part of the newly-independent Slovenia. It is now known as a peaceful destination for outdoor sports, popular for hiking or for kayaking the turquoise rapids of the Soča. Where there were gun placements there are campsites today, but amid the wild flower meadows and snowy peaks lie numerous reminders of the War. Kobarid is home to an excellent, non-partisan museum devoted to the victims of the battles of the Soča/Isonzo Front. From it, the Kobarid Historical Trail runs up into the mountains, taking in the charnel house and the remains of war-time fortifications. This is part of a longer way-marked trail called the Pot Miru, the Walk of Peace, which has been receiving a lot of attention in tourist publications this year, and follows the route of the Front down to the Adriatic near Trieste. It passes the open air museums of trenches and dugouts which punctuate the landscape, and the graveyards for troops on both sides. Many of the graves have no names, as the remains of the man or boy inside could not be identified. In the village of Srpenica, a stone cross marks the spot where Lucy Christalnigg was shot.
The remains of First World War fortifications in the Soča Valley (photo: Janet Ashton)
Slovenia, Austria and Italy are all participating in the Europeana 1914-1918 project, digitising objects from library collections and from the families of ordinary participants in the war to record its impact for posterity.
Janet Ashton, WEL Cataloguing Team Manager
References/further reading:
Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. (London, 1929). C.131.c.2.
Koren, Tadej. The First World War Outdoor Museums: the Isonzo Front, 1915-1917. (Kobarid, 2009.)
Krauss, Alfred. Das “Wunder von Karfreit,” im besonderen der Durchbruch bei Flitsch und die Bezwingung des Tagliamento. (Munchen, 1926). 09084.c.30.
Monticone, Alberto. La Battaglia di Caporetto. (Udine, 1999). YA.2001.a.34735
Thompson, Mark. The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919. (London, 2009). YC.2010.a.6941
An Austro Hungarian war cemetery for the dead of the Italian Front (photo: Janet Ashton)
22 August 2014
Postcards and Photographs from the Eastern Front
The current exhibition in the British Library Folio Gallery “Enduring War: Grief, Grit and Humour” starts with a multimedia display of postcards written by soldiers on the Western Front to their loved ones. A group of British actors read their messages while visitors look at the screen. It is a very touching experience.
Postcards played an extremely important role for soldiers on the Western and Eastern Fronts during the war. Less well known are postcards of the time from the Eastern Front, since narratives about the Second World War overtook historical research during Soviet times and later. However, in recent years Eastern European publishers have started to pay attention to the collections of postcards kept in private archives of enthusiastic collectors. Amongst the most recent acquisitions in our Ukrainian collections is the album Svitova viina y poshtovykh lystivkakh z kolektsii Ivan Snihura (‘World War in Postcards from the Collection of Ivan Snihur’; Chernivtsi, 2014; YF.2014.a.20099).
Postcards were extremely popular in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the territory of modern Ukraine (part of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires), postcard publishers in Lviv (known also as Lemberg and Lwów), Czernivtsi (known also as Czernowitz), Uzhhorod (known also as Ungwar) and smaller places such as Kolomiya were very productive. Visitors to modern Ukraine will notice proud displays of old postcards in many lovely decorated coffee houses, especially in Lviv.
Our Ukrainian and Polish collections hold a dozen colourful albums of old postcards from these vivid cosmopolitan places, for example Nasz ukochany Lwów na dawnej karcie pocztowej 1896-1939 (‘Our beloved Lwów in old postcards 1896-1939’; 2000; YA.2001.b.2435); Lwów na dawnej pocztowce (‘Lwów in old postcards’; Kraków, 2006; YF.2008.b.1023), Posztówki lwowskie i kresowe "Książnicy-Atlas" (‘Postcards from Lwów and Kresy by Książnica-Atlas’; Katowice, 2006, YF.2008.a.41284); Zolota doba kolomyiskoi lystivky (‘The Golden Age of Postcards from Kolomea’; Kolomyia, 2010; YF.2012.a.10282); Lviv u starykh lystivkakh (‘Lviv in old postcards’; Kyiv, 2011; LF.31.a.3729).
During the First World War Ukrainians, being members of a stateless nation, fought in several armies: in the army of the Austro-Hungarian empire, in the Russian army, and in the Canadian army. This photograph of Filip Konoval, a Ukrainian who served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force from 1915 to 1919 and was awarded the Victoria Cross, is now digitised in the project “Europeana 1914-1918” (image from the Imperial War Museum).
Photograph of Corporal Filip Konoval (© IWM)
Most of the postcards sent by Ukrainian soldiers are to be found in Western Ukraine and relate to the Ukrainian unit in the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sichovi Striltsi (Ukrainian Sich Riflemen). The British Library holds a lovely book about the Sich Riflemen in postcards, Ukrainski Sichovi Striltsi – lytsari ridnoho kraiu (Kolomya, 2007; YF.2007.b.3418).
Many postcards were sent home from the Eastern Front by German and Austrian soldiers. Often they depicted Ukrainian landscapes or villagers in their colourful costumes. Soldiers loved to take photographs with local people, especially with beautifully-dressed Ukrainian girls and children. Some of these photographs held in various European libraries have been digitised in “Europeana 1914-1918” (left: Ukrainian Girls dancing; below right, Ukrainian girls from the Kalush region, photographs from the Austrian National Library)
More than 160 painters, amongst them some Polish and Ukrainian artists, were involved in creating propaganda postcards in Germany and Austria. Their postcards depicted the same subjects as those created by Western artists and displayed in the exhibition: soldiers fraternizing, crimes committed by enemy forces, the invincibility of their own forces, acts of heroism, etc. Ukrainian painter and graphic artist Olena Kulchytska (1877-1967) painted the sufferings of the civilian population and refugees. Her works were reproduced as postcards by the Ukrainian Women's Committee to Aid Wounded Soldiers in Vienna. We hope that one day the postcards published by this Committee will be collected and published.
As the war raged these small works of art were sent back and forth to families, friends and loved ones, bringing joy and sorrow. The picture of World War One would be incomplete without these testimonies of “grief, grit and humour”. As Ukraine prepares to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of its independence on Sunday 24 August amid new turmoil, memories of both World Wars are vivid there as never before.
Olga Kerziouk, Curator Ukrainian Studies
11 August 2014
Albinia Lucy Wherry and Russian “knights” on war-time postcards
Among other material in the Wherry Collection, donated to the British Library in 1962, I came across three Russian postcards.
Albinia Lucy Wherry (1857-1929) worked at the Women’s Emergency Canteen in Paris during the First World War and was awarded a badge of service for her efforts. The Canteen opened in April 1915 underneath the Gare du Nord, one of the main railway stations for Allied troops on their way to or from the front, as well as other military destinations. Albinia worked at the Canteen from 1915-1918, and it is believed she put together and displayed a collection of postcards whilst working there. The postcards form part of the collection of material which she later donated to the British Library. A selection of humorous postcards and items relating to the Women’s Emergency Canteen in Paris are now on display in our current exhibition in the Folio Society Gallery Enduring war: grief, grit and humour, and the majority of the Wherry Collection postcards are currently on exhibition in Case 1 of the Philatelic Exhibition on the Upper Ground Floor in the St Pancras building (the three Russian postcards can be found in slide 21).
The images are of a very distinctive artistic style close to the tradition of Russian icons. In the early 20th century some artists adopted it for illustrating children’s books, fairy tales, popular literature, calendars and presentation albums and theatre programmes.
Les Solennités du saint couronnement. Ouvrage publié avec l'autorisation de Sa Majesté l'Empereur par le Ministère de la Maison Impériale sous la direction de M. V. S. Krivenko, avec la collaboration de MM. N. Opritz, E. Barsow. (St Petersburg, 1899) LR.25.c.20
One of the best-known artists who worked in such a style is, of course, Ivan Bilibin. His pictures were often used in postcards, like this one (HS.74/2027, vol. 7):
However, these images (reproduced below) are related to the First World War and bear the initials“BZ”.
“BZ” appears to be a Russian artist, Boris Zvorykin (1872-1942?). He was born in Moscow into merchant family and studied for a year or so at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. By the beginning of the First World War he had become a successful illustrator, designer of postcards, theatre programmes and celebratory dinner menus, who was greatly in demand, working with various Russian publishers including the famous Sytin.
In 1919 Zvorykin worked for the Moscow magazine Krasnoarmeets (‘The Red Guard’) (the British Library holds a jubilee issue of this journal published in 1921 to celebrate its third anniversary – shelfmark 8820.f.41). His most famous work of that period is a poster Boi krasnogo rytsaria s temnoi siloi (‘The Red Knight fighting with the Dark Force’; Cup.645.a.6.).
However, in 1921 Zvorykin emigrated to Paris where he also worked as a book designer, illustrator and later as an icon painter for Orthodox churches abroad. It was in France that he illustrated Pushkin’s books, including Boris Godunov. A copy of this edition is also held by the British Library.
A.S. Pushkin, Boris Godounov (Paris, 19??); RB.23.b.5893.
Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead East European Curator (Russian)
20 June 2014
Švejk in the First World War – and beyond
Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923) was a Bohemian in every sense of the word. Before turning to literature, he had a chequered career as a chemist’s assistant, bank clerk and journalist, rising to become the editor of a magazine entitled Animal World. Here, however, his overactive imagination proved his downfall; instead of writing informative articles about real animals he concocted highly plausible ones about imaginary creatures, and was sacked after advertising genuine werewolf puppies for sale – a notice which attracted interested enquirers. He pawned the office bicycle to buy drink, and was rescued from an apparent suicide attempt on Prague’s Charles Bridge by a theatrical hairdresser. His marriage in 1910 to Jarmila Mayerová was predictably short-lived, and after a year she returned to live with her parents. The union produced one child, a son named Richard, but Hašek’s immortality was assured far more successfully by the offspring of his imagination – Josef Švejk.
Soviet stamp from 1963 commemorating 40th anniversary of Hašek's death (from Wikimedia Commons)
Hašek had originally intended Švejk’s adventures to fill six volumes, but when he died, aged 39, of heart failure caused by alcoholism and morbid obesity, he was just over halfway through, expiring at the beginning of volume four. His publisher Adolf Synek asked the journalist Karel Vaňek to complete the story with an account of Švejk’s adventures in Russia during the Revolution.
The novel begins with the news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which reaches Švejk in his local pub, the Chalice (U Kalicha). On hearing that ‘they’ve shot our Ferdinand’, he announces that he knows two Ferdinands and neither is any loss – the first of a series of comic misapprehensions which marks his progress through captivity and military service, which he attempts to evade only to end up in a hospital for malingerers, his certification as an `official idiot’, being lost at a game of cards by a bibulous chaplain to whom he serves as batman, and his ‘anabasis’ to join his regiment on foot after missing his train and wandering halfway across Austria-Hungary.
Švejk is at once a very Czech figure and a universal one – so much so that he has even given his name to a psychological syndrome. In his combination of ingenuous slyness and blithe disregard for authority, his appeal transcends all national borders; the book has been translated into 60 languages including Esperanto (BL shelfmark YF.2010.a.700), dramatized for stage, screen and television, and turned into an opera. Visitors to Prague can not only visit Švejk’s favourite hostelry and enjoy the beer which he relished, but buy puppets whose features faithfully replicate the famous illustrations by Josef Lada which, for many readers, embody the character in classic form.
Švejk restaurant in Prague (Photograph by Silar from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
After his creator’s premature death, Švejk lived on – and on. Inevitably such a colourful individual inspired sequels to his adventures – most notably, perhaps, Bertolt Brecht’s Schweyk im zweiten Weltkrieg, with settings of the songs by Hanns Eisler. The British Library also holds a little volume published in 1940 by an unknown author, Švejk in the Protectorate, (X.907/12094), issued by the exile publishing house ‘The Czechoslovak’. Here the narrative begins with an account of the Munich beer-hall bombing: ‘So they’ve nearly killed our Adolf…’, and the familiar characters from Hašek’s original novel appear in the sinister circumstances of what the preface describes as ‘a cruel and bitter satire where laughter is mingled with the fighting spirit of revenge and hatred’.
The novel was translated into English by Paul Selver in 1930, but in 1973 a second translation appeared by a figure who was closely associated with Czech studies in Britain, the diplomat Sir Cecil Parrott, who also wrote a biography of Hašek, The Bad Bohemian (X.989/52235). Having served in Czechoslovakia, he maintained a great affection for the country and amassed a considerable collection of Czech and Slovak books which he took with him on his retirement to Lancaster and, on his death, bequeathed to the university there. As Czech and Slovak were not taught at Lancaster, the collection was offered to an institution better able to make use of it, and in the early 1980s it travelled to Oxford. The ultimate result was the establishment of a fellowship by special election, held for over 30 years by the late James Naughton (1950-2014), and the growth of a flourishing tradition of Czech and Slovak studies there. Of all the unlikely twists and turns of Švejk’s picaresque progress, this is one of the most surprising, and would no doubt have bemused both the irreverent ‘good soldier’ and his creator – but needless to say, his adventures still hold a central place in the curriculum, as well as in the hearts of readers throughout the world.
Susan Halstead, Curator Czech and Slovak
21 August 2013
The Georgian anarchist prince and his gift
Musha (“The Worker”): a journal of the socialist- revolutionary party in Georgia [Or.5315]
This is how Oliver Wordrop describes this Manuscript in his Catalogue of the Georgian Manuscripts in the British Museum [W 349].
This is a monthly hand-written journal by working men; the numbers are dated 1889-1891. It is apparently the work of one hand, including the illustrations, initials and borders. The names of the authors of articles in prose and verse could be, for obvious reasons, fictitious.
This journal obviously aimed to spread propaganda amongst peasants and workers, but when we look at it doesn’t give the impression of a revolutionary organ. The handwriting is very neat and resembles that of a diligent schoolboy rather than an angry worker.
The articles are naive; some, especially those in verse, sound more like prayers or dreams of better times to come rather than fuming calls to revolution. It brings together a very interesting combination of different items including sermons.
This journal was presented to the British Museum on February 10 1898 by Prince Varlaam Cherkezishvili, quite a remarkable person.
Varlam Cherkezishvili (also known as Warlaam Tcherkesoff or Varlam Cherkezov in the Russian manner) was a Georgian nobleman, intellectual, politician and journalist and a well-known figure in the International Anarchist Movement. He sensationally claimed that Marx and Engels plagiarized The Communist Manifesto and The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. He was later also involved in the Georgian national liberation movement.
Varlam Cherkezishvili
He was born in Georgia (then part of Imperial Russia) in 1846 and moved to St Petersburg for further education. There he joined the Socialist movement, was arrested, imprisoned and exiled to Siberia in 1874. Two years later, he escaped to Western Europe, where he stayed for most of his life, settling in Britain in 1907. A few times during his exile he managed to return to Georgia, both legally and illegally.
He worked with the Russian émigré press and with fellow anarchists. He was also prominent in his criticism of Marxist ideas. His pamphlets Pages of Socialist History (1896), which was translated into nine languages, and Forerunners of the International (1899), followed by his book The Doctrines of Marxism (Geneva, 1903) provoked discussions and disputes in Russian and European socialist circles. Cherkezishvili tried to prove that Marx and Engels based The Communist Manifesto on the ideas of Victor Considerant , while Engels in his book The Condition of the Working Class in England lifted the work of the French socialist Buret. Cherkezishvili’s s sharp attack on Marxist philosophy made the young Stalin dispute with him in his famous work Anarchism or socialism? These polemics continued during 1905-1907 in Georgian periodicals.
Actively involved in the Georgian national liberation movement, Cherkezishvili helped to found the Georgian Socialist-Federalist Party , which demanded national autonomy for Georgia; he wrote a series of articles for the Times to bring the political situation in Georgia to the attention of an English-speaking audience. He expressed his support for Georgian independence vocally and in print; in 1907 he delivered a special declaration on this question at the Hague Peace Conference.
Along with other Georgian anarchists he took part in the publication of the first legal anarchist newspapers in the Georgian language: The Call (1906), The Voice (1906), and The Worker (1906). Georgian anarchism combined in a unique form ideas of freedom with those of national independence.
During his time in Britain he helped to found the Anarchist Red Cross; in 1912-16 he became the acting editor of a proposed 10-volume edition of Bakunin’s collected works , writing a biography of Bakunin for the first volume (London, 1915; 08285.de.96.). During World War I he endorsed “war to the end against German militarism” and signed in 1916 the so-called Manifesto of the Sixteen.
After the Russian revolution of 1917 Georgia gained its independence. Cherkezishvili returned to Georgia in 1918 and was offered a seat in the Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. The Soviet occupation forced him to leave Georgia in March 1921. According to eye-witnesses, “the Soviet victory was a great tragedy for him.” He returned to London where he would continue to fight again for Georgia’s independence until his death in 1925.
The biography of this extraordinary person could be the subject of further research, as could the history of the manuscript donated by him to the British Library.
His most important works are held in the BL's printed Collections:
Páginas de historia socialista; doctrinas y actos de la democracia-social (La Coruña, 1896) [8285.bbb.80.(2.)]
Sociaal-Demokratie in haar leeringen en daden. Een stuck socialistische geschiedenis. (Amsterdam, 1899) [08275.g.12.(2.)]
Pages d'histoire socialiste. Précurseurs de l'Internationale. (Bruxelles, 1899) [08276.df.20.]
Doktriny marksizma. (Zheneva, 1903) [8247.bbb.51.]
Concentration of Capital. A Marxian fallacy. [From “Pages of Socialist History.”] (London, 1911) [X.0529/1082.]
La Géorgie, ses traditions et ses droits politiques. (Paris, 1919) [8095.g.29.]
Anna Chelidze, Curator Georgian Studies
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