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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 1

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a chronicle of events, literatures, politics, and the arts

1895. X-rays discovered; invention of the cinematograph; trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde; Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband; H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.

1896. Wireless telegraphy invented; Abyssinians defeat occupying Italian forces – first defeat of colonising power by natives; Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure; Anton Chekhov, The Seagull; Daily Mail first published.

1897. Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee; Henry James, The Spoils of Poynton , What Masie Knew; Bram Stoker, Dracula.

1898. Second Anglo-Boer War begins. Henry James, The Turn of the Screw ; Thomas Hardy, Wessex Poems; George Bernard Shaw, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant; H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds.

1899. British disasters in South Africa. Schoenberg Verklarte Nacht; Henry James, The Awkward Age; Kate Chopin, The Awakening; Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya.

1900. Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim; Deaths of Nietzsche, Wilde, and Ruskin; Max Planck announces quantum theory. Daily Express started.

1901. Queen Victoria dies – Edwardian period begins; First wireless communication between UK and USA; H.G.Welles, The First Men in the Moon; Rudyard Kipling, Kim; First Nobel prize for literature – R.P.A.Sully Prudhomme (F).

1902. End of Boer War; Henry James, The Wings of the Dove;
Arnold Bennett Anna of the Five Towns; Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Nobel prize – T. Mommsen (G).

Click for details at AmazonOxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English is a new reference guide to English-language writers and writing throughout the present century, in all major genres and from all around the world – from Joseph Conrad to Will Self, Virginia Woolf to David Mamet, Ezra Pound to Peter Carey, James Joyce to Amy Tan. Includes entries on literary movements, periodicals, and over 400 individual works, as well as articles on some 2,400 authors, plus a good introduction by John Sutherland.

1903. First flight in heavier-than-air machine by Wright brothers in USA; first silent movie, The Great Train Robbery; Henry James, The Ambassadors; Daily Mirror started; Nobel prize – B. Bjornson (N).

1904. New York subway opens; Russo-Japanese war begins; Henry James, The Golden Bowl; Joseph Conrad, Nostromo; Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard; Death of Chekhov; Nobel prize – F. Mistral (F) and J. Echegary (Sp).

1905. ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre of protesters in St Petersburg; Einstein, Special Theory of Relativity; Freud, Theory of Sexuality; E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread; Nobel prize – H. Sienkiewicz (P).

1906. First Liberal government in UK; death of Ibsen; General strike in Russia – followed by first (limited) democratic parliament; Women’s Suffrage movement active; San Francisco destroyed by earthquake and fire; Labour Party formed. Nobel prize – G. Carducci (I)

1907. Belgium seizes Congo; Austria seizes Bosnia and Herzegovina; Picasso introduces cubism; first electric washing machine; Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent; E.M.Forster, The Longest Journey; Nobel prize – Rudyard Kipling (UK)

1908. Ford introduces Model-T; Elgar’s First Symphony; E.M.Forster, A Room with a View; first Old Age Pensions; Nobel prize – R. Eucken (G)

1909. Ford produces first cheap cars – Model T; Death of George Meredith; Bleriot flies across English Channel; Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto; Vaughn Williams Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis; Nobel – S. Lagerlöf (S)

The Twentieth CenturyTwentieth-century Britain is an account of political, industrial, commercial, and cultural development in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. It’s particularly strong on the changing face of government, and it also relates issues of the day to the great writers and artists of the period. This ‘very short introduction’ series offers a potted account of the subject in handy pocket-book format, with plenty of suggestions for further reading.

1910. Death of Tolstoy, Edward VII, and Florence Nightingale; E.M.Forster, Howards End; Arnold Bennett, Clayhanger; H.G.Wells, The History of Mr Polly; Nobel prize – P. Heyse (G).

1911. Rutherford discovers structure of atom in Manchester; Chinese revolution; Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes; D.H. Lawrence, The White Peacock; Nobel prize – M. Maeterlink (Be).

1912. China becomes a republic following revolution; Sinking of the Titanic; railway, mining, and coal strikes in UK. Daily Herald started; Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire; Nobel prize – G. Hauptmann (G)

1913. New Statesman started; first crossword puzzle; Thomas Mann, Death in Venice; D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers; Stravinsky The Rite of Spring; Nobel prize – R. Tagore (In)

1914. Outbreak of first world war; first traffic lights; Panama Canal opened; James Joyce, Dubliners; Marcel Proust begins to publish A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past); Nobel prize – not awarded.

1915. First air attacks on London; Germans use poison gas in war; Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis; Einstein, General Theory of Relativity; D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow; Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier; D.W.Griffith, The Birth of a Nation; Nobel prize – R. Roland (F).

1916. First Battle of the Somme; Battle of Verdun; Australians slaughtered in Gallipoli campaign; Easter Rising in Dublin; James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Prokofiev Classical Symphony; Nobel prize – V. von Heidenstam (S).

1917. USA enters the war; October Revolution in Russia; battle of Passchendaele; T.S. Eliot Prufrock and Other Observations; Nobel prize – K. Gjellerup (D) and H. Pontoppidan (Da).

1918. Second Battle of the Somme; German offensive collapses; end of war [Nov 11]; Votes for women over 30; influenza pandemic kills millions; Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1919. Peace Treaty ratified at Versailles; Einstein’s Relativity Theory confirmed during solar eclipse; Breakup of former Habsburg Empire; Alcock and Brown make first flight across Atlantic; prohibition in US; Ronald Firbank, Valmouth; Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony; Nobel prize – K. Spitteler (Sw).

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© Roy Johnson 2005

Twentieth century literature
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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 2

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a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

1920. League of Nations established; Oxford University admits women;
D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love; Nobel prize – K. Hamsun (N).

1921. Irish Free State proclaimed; extreme inflation in Germany; Fatty Arbuckle scandal in US; Nobel prize – Anatole France (F).

1922. Fascists march on Rome under Mussolini; Kemel Ataturk founds modern Turkey; T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land; James Joyce, Ulysses; Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus; John Galsworthy, The Forsyth Saga; Nobel prize – J. Benavente (Sp).

1923. Charleston craze; BBC begins radio broadcasting in the UK; William Walton Facade; Nobel prize – W.B. Yeats (Ir).

1924. First UK Labour government formed under Ramsey MacDonald (lasts nine months); Deaths of Lenin, Franz Kafka, and Joseph Conrad; Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain; E.M. Forster, A Passage to India; Nobel prize – W. Raymont (P).

1925. John Logie Baird televises an image of a human face; Webern Wozzeck; Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf; Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; Nobel prize – George Bernard Shaw (UK).

1926. UK General Strike; first demonstration of television in UK; Fritz Lang, Metropolis; Nobel prize – G. Deledda (I).

1927. Lindbergh flies solo across Atlantic; first talkie film – Al Jolson in ‘The Jazz Singer’; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Nobel prize – Henri Bergson (Fr).

Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature - Click for details at AmazonOxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English is a new reference guide to English-language writers and writing throughout the present century, in all major genres and from all around the world – from Joseph Conrad to Will Self, Virginia Woolf to David Mamet, Ezra Pound to Peter Carey, James Joyce to Amy Tan. Includes entries on literary movements, periodicals, and over 400 individual works, as well as articles on some 2,400 authors, plus a good introduction by John Sutherland.

1928. Women in UK get same voting rights as men; Death of Thomas Hardy; first Oxford English Dictionary published; penicillin discovered;
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall; Nobel prize – S. Undset (N).

1929. Slump in US, followed by collapse of New York Stock Exchange; Start of world economic depression; Second UK Labour government under MacDonald;
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own; first experimental television broadcast; Kurt Weil The Threepenny Opera; Nobel prize – Thomas Mann (G).

1930. Mass unemployment in UK; Death of D.H. Lawrence.
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Nobel prize – Sinclair Lewis (US).

1931. Resignation of UK Labour government, followed by formation of national coalition government; Empire State building completed in New York; Virginia Woolf, The Waves; Nobel prize – R.A. Karfeldt (S).

1932. Hunger marches start in UK; scientists split the atom; air conditioning invented; Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; Nobel prize – John Galsworthy (UK).

1933. Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany; first Nazi concentration camps; prohibition ends in US; Radio Luxembourg begins commercial broadcasts to UK; George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London;Jean Vigo, L’Atalante; Nobel prize – Ivan Bunin (USSR).

1934. Hitler becomes Dictator; Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust; Samuel Beckett, More Pricks than Kicks; Nobel prize – Luigi Pirandello (I).

1935. Germany re-arms; Italians invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia); Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1936. Death of George V in UK, followed by Edward VIII, who is forced to abdicate; Stalinist show trials in USSR; Civil War in Spain begins; Germany re-occupies the Rheinland; BBC begins television transmissions; Aaron Copland El Salon Mexico; Nobel prize – Eugene O’Neil (USA).

1937. Neville Chamberlain UK prime minister; Destruction of Guernica;
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier; Nobel prize – Roger Martin du Gard (Fr).

Twentieth Century Britain - Click for details at AmazonTwentieth-century Britain is an account of political, industrial, commercial, and cultural development in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. It’s particularly strong on the changing face of government, and it also relates issues of the day to the great writers and artists of the period. This ‘very short introduction’ series offers a potted account of the subject in handy pocket-book format, with plenty of suggestions for further reading.

1938. Germans occupy Austria; Chamberlain meets Hitler to make infamous Munich ‘agreement’ to prevent war; Samuel Beckett, Murphy; John Dos Passos, USA; Nobel prize – Pearl S. Buck (USA).

1939. Fascists win Civil War in Spain; Stalin makes pact with Hitler; Germany invades Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany; helicopter invented;
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake; Nobel prize – F.E. Silanpaa (Fi).

1940. Germany invades north-west Europe; Fall of France; British troops evacuated from Dunkirk; Battle of Britain; Start of ‘Blitz’ bombing raids over London; Churchill heads national coalition government; assassination of Trotsky; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1941. Germany invades USSR; Japanese destroy US fleet at Pearl Harbour; USA enters the war; siege of Leningrad; Deaths of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf; Orson Wells, Citizen Kane; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1942. Battle of Stalingrad; Battle of Midway; Beveridge report establishes basis of modern Welfare State; T-shirt invented; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1943. Anglo-American armies invade Italy; Warsaw uprising; Nobel prize – not awarded.

1944. D-Day invasion of France; ball-point pens go on sale; German V1 and V2 rockets fired; R.A. Butler’s Education Act; Aaron Copland Appalachian Spring; Nobel prize – J.V. Jensen (Da).

1945. End of war in Europe; Atomic bombs dropped on Japan; first computer built; microwave oven invented; United Nations founded; huge Labour victory in UK general election; Atlee becomes prime minister, George Orwell, Animal Farm; Nobel prize – G. Mistral (Ch).

1946. Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech; Nuremberg war trials; bikinis introduced; United Nations opens in New York; Nobel prize – Herman Hesse (Sw)

1947. Marshall Plan of aid to Europe; Jewish refugees turned away by UK; Polaroid camera invented; coal and other industries nationalised in UK; transfer of power to independent India, Pakistan, and Burma. Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus; Nobel prize – A. Gide (Fr)

1948. Berlin airlift; state of Israel founded; Railways and electricity nationalised in UK; Bevan launches National Health Service in UK. Nobel prize – T.S. Eliot (UK)

1949. East Germany created; Mao Tse Tung declares Republic of China; NATO founded; Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex; George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four; Nobel prize – W. Faulkner (USA)

The Twentieth Centurynext

© Roy Johnson 2009

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Twentieth Century – literary timeline – part 3

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a chronicle of events, literature, and politics

1950. India declares itself a republic; UK and USA attack Korea; first credit cards; first organ transplant; Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard; Nobel prize – Bertrand Russell (UK)

1951. Festival of Britain; first colour TV; Conservatives defeat Labour in UK general election; Churchill becomes prime minister; UK troops seize Suez Canal zone; Benjamin Britten Billy Budd; Samuel Beckett, Malloy; Nobel prize – P. Lagerkvist (S)

1952. Death of George V. Accession of Queen Elizabeth II at 25;
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Nobel prize – F. Mauriac (Fr)

1953. DNA discovered; conquest of Everest; Death of Stalin – and Prokofiev on same day; Nobel prize – Winston Churchill (UK)

1954. British troops withdrawn from Egypt; Four-minute mile broken; Nobel prize – E. Hemingway (USA)

1955. European Union created; Warsaw Pact founded; V. Nabokov, Lolita; Patrick White, The Tree of Man; Nobel prize – H. Laxness (Ic)

1956. Khruschchev denounces Stalin at Communist Party Conference; Anglo-French invasion of Suez, followed by withdrawal; Hungarian uprising crushed by Soviets; Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies; Nobel prize – J. Ramon Jiminez (Sp)

Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature - Click for details at AmazonOxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English is a new reference guide to English-language writers and writing throughout the present century, in all major genres and from all around the world – from Joseph Conrad to Will Self, Virginia Woolf to David Mamet, Ezra Pound to Peter Carey, James Joyce to Amy Tan. Includes entries on literary movements, periodicals, and over 400 individual works, as well as articles on some 2,400 authors, plus a good introduction by John Sutherland.

 

1957. European Economic Community established; Homosexuality decriminalised in UK; Patrick White, Voss; Nobel prize – A. Camus (Fr)

1958. Orson Wells, Touch of Evil; Nobel prize – B. Pasternak (USSR) [forced to refuse it]

1959. Castro overthrows Batista regime in Cuba; first motorway opened in UK; Nobel prize – S. Quasimodo (I)

1960. Sharpville massacres in S Africa; new republics declared in Africa; Lady Chatterley’s Lover cleared of charges of obscenity in UK; J.F. Kennedy elected US president; Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho; Nobel prize – A. St. Leger (Fr)

1961. Adolf Eichman on trial for role in Holocaust; USSR makes first manned space flight; USA-backed Bay of Pigs attack in Cuba fails; Berlin Wall erected; Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot; Samuel Beckett, Happy Days; Nobel prize – L. Andric (Y)

1962. US sends troops to Vietnam; Cuban missile crisis; Nelson Mandela jailed; Please Please Me first Beatles hit; Nobel prize – J. Steinbeck (USA)

1963. French veto Britain’s application to join European Common Market; Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech; Profumo scandal in UK; Kennedy assassination in USA; Nobel prize – G. Seferis (Gr)

1964. Khruschchev deposed by Breshnev in USSR; Vietnam attacks US destroyer in Gulf of Tonkin; Labour party gains power in UK under Harold Wilson; Saul Bellow, Herzog. Nobel prize – J-P. Sartre (Fr) [prize not accepted]

1965. Malcolm X assassinated; India invades Pakistan; US air raids in Vietnam; anti-war protests in US and Europe; Harold Pinter, The Homecoming; Nobel prize – M. Sholokov (USSR) [authorship subsequently disputed]

1966. Black Panthers established in US; Cultural revolution under Mao in China; Britain wins Wold Cup in football; Nobel prize – Samuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs (Il)

1967. Israel seizes land in 6 day war; first heart transplant; first colour TV transmissions in UK; Stalin’s daughter defects to west; ‘Summer of Love’ hippy demonstrations in San Francisco; decriminalisation of homosexuality in UK; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude; Nobel prize – Miguel Angel Asturias (Gu)

1968. Martin Luther King assassinated; student protests in Paris; USSR invades Czechoslovakia; theatre censorship abolished in UK after 23 years; Tet offensive in Vietnam; Nobel prize – Yasunari Kawabata (Jp)

1969. UK troops sent into N Ireland; US puts first men on the moon; death penalty abolished in UK; precursor of the Internet, ARPANET created; Woodstock music festival; Monty Python’s Flying Circus first broadcast; Nobel prize – Samuel Beckett (Ire)

1970. My Lai massacre; Rubber bullets used in N Ireland; Allende elected socialist president in Chile; anti-government demonstrations in Poland; age of majority lowered to 18 in UK; invention of computer floppy disks; Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch; Patrick White, The Vivesector; Nobel prize – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (USSR)

1971. Open University begins in UK; internment without trial in N Ireland; China joins UN; Nixon resumes bombing of Vietnam; video recorders introduced; Britain negotiates entry into EU; Nobel prize – Pablo Neruda (Ch)

1972. Miners strike in UK; Bloody Sunday in N Ireland; Watergate scandal begins in US; Nobel prize – Heinrich Böll (Gr)

1973. Allende government overthrown by Pinochet in Chile; industrial strikes in UK; Arab-Israeli war; abortion legalised in US; US pulls out of Vietnam; Britain enters the European Common Market; Nobel prize – Patrick White (Aus)

1974. Miners strike in UK; Impeachment and resignation of president Nixon in US; Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist; Nobel prize – Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson (Sw)

1975. Margaret Thatcher elected leader of Tories in UK; Vietnam war ends with hasty retreat of US troops; first elections in Portugal for 50 years; Microsoft founded; Nobel prize – Eugenio Montale (It)

1976. Jeremy Thorpe resigns as UK liberal leader following sex scandal; Britain found guilty of torture in N Ireland; Jimmy Carter elected president in US; Patrick White, A Fringe of Leaves; Nobel prize – Saul Bellow (USA)

1977. First democratic elections in Spain since 1936; student activist Steve Biko tortured to death in S Africa; Punk rock fashionable; Nobel prize – Vicente Aleixandre (Sp)

1978. World’s first test tube baby; Nobel prize – Isaac Bashevis Singer (USA)

1979. Shah leaves Iran; Ayatollah Khomeni returns from exile in Paris; Islamic republic declared; Margaret Thatcher elected first woman PM in UK; first heart transplant; Pol Pot convicted of murdering 3 million in Cambodia; Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now; Nobel prize – Odysseus Elytis (Gk)

Twentieth Century Britain - Click for details at AmazonTwentieth-century Britain is an account of political, industrial, commercial, and cultural development in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. It’s particularly strong on the changing face of government, and it also relates issues of the day to the great writers and artists of the period. This ‘very short introduction’ series offers a potted account of the subject in handy pocket-book format, with plenty of suggestions for further reading.

1980. USSR Nobel peace prizewinner Sakharov sent into internal exile; Mugabe’s establishes one-party ZANU(PF) state in Zimbabwe; outbreak of Iran-Iraq war; Solidarity trade union recognised by Polish government; Ronald Regan elected US president; John Lennon shot in New York; Nobel prize – Czeslaw Milosz (Po)

1981. Greece joins EEC; Social Democrats launched in UK – merges with Liberals; Peter Sutcliffe convicted of Yorkshire Ripper murders; Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer; first reports of AIDS; Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children; Nobel prize – Elias Canetti (UK!)

1982. Argentina invades Malvinas (Falklands); UK re-takes islands; General Galtieri resigns; Polish government abolishes Solidarity; death of Breshnev; Nobel prize – Gabriel García Márquez (Co)

1983. Demonstrations in 20 Polish cities; IRA prisoners escape from Maze prison; US-backed invasion of Grenada; Cruise missiles installed in UK; Nobel prize – William Golding (UK)

1984. UK miners strike against pit closures; USSR boycotts Olympics in LA; Mrs Gandhi assassinated; Nobel prize – Jaroslav Seifert (Cz)

1985. USSR reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika called for by Gorbachev; Greenpeace ship sunk by French agents in NZ; Nobel prize – Claude Simon (Fr)

1986. Westland scandal in UK government; press disputes lead to move from Fleet Street to Wapping in UK; legal independence for Australia; US bomb Benghazi and Tripoli; Chernobyl nuclear disaster; 180-day detention without trial in S Africa; US and Commonwealth impose sanctions on South Africa; Nobel prize – Wole Soyinka (Ni)

1987. Gorbachev begins critique of Breshnev in USSR; white-only elections in S Africa; Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie guilty of crimes against humanity; Iran attacks US tanker in Persian Gulf; DNA first used to convict criminals; Nobel prize – Joseph Brodsky (USA)

1988. IRA members shot by UK in Gibraltar; first Gulf war begins; Gorbachev proposes democratic reforms in USSR; George Bush Snr president in US; Nobel prize – Naguib Mahfouz (Eg)

1989. Khomeini issues fatwa on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses; Tiananamen Square massacre; elections, protests, and shakeups in Communist block; E Germany closes borders after demonstrations for reform; Iron Curtain begins to be removed; Romanian leader Ceausescu executed; playwright Vaclav Havel becomes Czech president; Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web; Nobel prize – Camilo José Cela (Sp)

1990. Lech Walesa becomes first president of Poland; Nelson Mandela freed after 27 years in jail; John Major replaces Margaret Thatcher as UK prime minister; Derek Walcott, Omeros; Nobel prize – Octavio Paz (Mx)

1991. Collapse of the Soviet Union; Apartheid laws repealed in S Africa; Iraq invades Kuwait; first Gulf war begins with Operation desert Storm; Satellite-based communications become established for TV and Internet; Nobel prize – Nadine Gordimer (SA)

1992. Official end of Cold War; Nobel prize – Derek Walcott (SL)

1993. Bosnian civil war; Use of the Internet grows exponentially; Nobel prize – Toni Morrison (USA)

1994. Channel tunnel opens in UK; Mandela elected president of S Africa; Rawandan genocide; Nobel prize – Kenzaburo Oe (Jp)

1995. Nobel prize – Seamus Heaney (Ire)

1996. Prince Charles divorces Princess Diana in UK; Mad cow disease hits UK; Nobel prize – Wislawa Szymborska (Po)

1997. Hong Kong returns to China; Princess Diana dies in car crash in Paris; Tony Blair wins landslide victory in UK with New Labour Party; Nobel prize – Dario Fo (It)

1998. India and Pakistan test nuclear weapons; US President Clinton in sex scandal; use of mobile phones and Internet becomes commonplace; digital technology widely introduced into broadcast media; Nobel prize – José Saramago (Pt)

1999. New Euro currency introduced; NATO forces in Serbia; hereditary peers abolished in UK House of Lords; Nobel prize – Gunter Grass (Gr)

2000. First elected Mayor of London in UK; Legal age for consensual gay sex reduced to 16;Nobel prize – Gao Xingjian (Fr)

2001. Labour Party re-elected with huge majority; Twin Towers attacked and destroyed in New York; Britain joins US in Afghanistan war; Nobel prize – V.S. Naipaul (UK)

2002. Nobel prize – Imre Kertész (Hu)

2003. Nobel prize – J.M.Coetzee (SA)

2004. Nobel prize – Elfriede Jelinek (Au)

2005. Nobel prize – Harold Pinter (UK)

2006. Nobel prize – Orhan Pamuk (Tk)

2007. Nobel prize – Doris Lessing (UK)

2008. Nobel prize – J.M.G Le Clezio (Fr)

2009. Nobel prize – Herta Mueller (Gr)

2010. Nobel Prize – Mario Vargas Llosa (Pe)

2011. Nobel Prize – Thomas Transtroemer (Sw)

2012. Nobel Prize – Mo Yan (Cn)

2013. Nobel Prize – Alice Munro (Ca)

2014. Nobel Prize – Patrick Modiano (Fr)

2015. Nobel Prize – Svetlana Alexievich (By)

2016. Nobel Prize – Bob Dylan (USA)

2017. Nobel Prize – Kasuo Ishiguro (UK)

2018. Nobel Prize – not awarded

The Twentieth Century

© Roy Johnson 2009

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Twentieth-century Britain: an introduction

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Politics. history, and society in 20th C Britain

This introductory history comes from a new series by Oxford University Press. They are written by specialists, aimed at the common reader, and offer an introduction to the main cultural and philosophical ideas which have shaped the western world. Kenneth Morgan’s account of Twentieth-century Britain begins with great éclat at the First World War. This was a politically much more complex issue than we are normally led to believe, and he reminds us of the contemporary political contradictions which are now often forgotten.

Twentieth-century Britain: a short introductionThen he goes on to the General Strike of 1926; the artistic influence of the Bloomsbury Group; the depressions of the 1930s; and Britain’s attempts to stay out of war until it was finally dragged into 1939 and its aftermath. It’s a slightly strange experience to read the social history of a century, much of which one has lived through oneself. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that the inevitable generalisations of a brief survey often fail to capture the depths and complexities of ‘what it was really like’.

I could hardly believe my eyes when he described the 1960s as ‘that miserable decade’ . Economically turbulent it might have been, but socially and culturally it was the most liberating, creative, and dynamic period I can ever remember.

He’s on much firmer ground when he deals with the social unrest of the 1970s and 1980s, with their strikes, high unemployment, inner city riots, and falling production.

However, the long view does have some advantages, such as helping to keep events in perspective. The Falklands/Malvinas war for example:

it seemed improbable that a war to retain these distant and almost valueless outposts, scarcely known to British people before the fighting began other than from postage stamps, would encourage a revived mystique of imperial grandeur … But the jingoism of the Falklands [triumph] petered out almost as soon as it began.

Yet I still question his overview from time to time. It seems unwise to the point of ill-judged to conclude his upbeat account of the end of the century with the image of the Millennium Dome – surely the most potent symbol of government vainglory and financial mismanagement imaginable.

But for those who want an overview, or those who would like the major themes revealed, this approach is speedy and efficient. This is a very interesting and attractive format – a small, pocket-sized book, stylishly designed, with illustrations, endnotes, suggestions for further reading, and an index.

© Roy Johnson 2005

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Kenneth O. Morgan, Twentieth Century Britain: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp.128, ISBN: 019285397X

Types of Jazz

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traditional, swing, big band, be-bop, modern

Types of jazz

Jazz was born in New Orleans. It was a fusion of folk music, hymns, marching bands and ragtime music. The earliest musicians played military instruments left over from the Civil war – ones that were easily portable for the funeral parades in which they played a prominent role. It started at the beginning of the twentieth century and was known as ‘Dixieland’ – from the name given to the southern states of the USA. Since that time, the types of jazz have diversified.

The lead instruments were normally the trumpet or cornet, the clarinet, and the trombone. The rhythm and harmonic structure was provided by guitar or banjo, a tuba or Sousaphone, and drums. When the music passed from the streets to the dance halls and drinking clubs where it flourished, this supporting function might be provided by piano and double string bass.

The essence of traditional jazz is that a lead instrument will play the melody of a tune, and then improvise on it, whilst other instruments in the ‘front line’ will play variations or paraphrases of it at the same time. This creates a polyphonic effect. which is sustained whilst other instruments take their turn to improvise their solos.

The melodies played by such groups all tended to be well known by the players, so there was no requirement for written scores.

George Lewis New Orleans Jazz Band

Mahogany Hall Stomp

Swing

This began in the 1930s and featured a strong emphasis on the rhythm section, which comprised piano, double string bass, and drums – with the occasional addition of a guitar. The front line instruments might be any combination of trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, trombone, or even violin.

Many swing bands were led by an outstanding instrumentalist, such as Benny Goodman (clarinet), Tommy Dorsey (trombone), and Artie Shaw (clarinet). They played for a mixture of dancing and concert performances, and became very popular with the spread of radio throughout the United States.

Because there were more musicians in the group, more formality in the structure of the performance was required. Music was arranged and written down, and players often supported an improvisation from the star player. However, the musicians might be playing the same tunes night after night at separate concerts, and could eventually dispense with the written scores.

Some groups also used ‘head’ arrangements: that is, patterns of playing which were improvised and then committed to memory by the entire band.

Duke Ellington Orchestra

‘Old Man Blues’ from the 1930 movie ‘Check & Double Check’

Big band jazz

As the name suggests, big bands feature multiple numbers of trumpets, trombones, and saxophones, plus piano, double bass and drums to provide rhythm and harmonic support. These large orchestra-sized combinations were popular from the 1930s up to the late 1950s when they played either for dancing or in concert performances.

What made them different from other forms of jazz is that the tunes they played were heavily arranged and elaborated – either by the bandleader or a professional arranger. The musicians played from written music, with deliberately orchestrated gaps during which a featured performer would improvise a solo.

These bands commonly supported singers, and often featured music played at loud volume, with screeching trumpets and noisy drum solos.

Woody Herman Band (1948)

‘Caledonia’ + ‘Northwest Passage’ – featuring Jimmy Raney (g), Stan Getz (ts), Al Cohn (ts), Shorty Rogers (t), Zoot Sims (ts), Serge Chaloff (bs) Don Lamond (ds)

Be-Bop

This form of modern jazz arose in the early 1940s. It was generated by musicians who had acquired a high degree of proficiency working in dance bands, but who wished to extend jazz music technically and harmonically.

It is characterized by tunes played at fast tempo, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisations based on the harmonic structure of popular songs, some of which were given entirely new melodies. The classic instrumental format was piano, bass, and drums, with two lead soloists – on trumpet and saxophone.

The rare archive material below exemplifies all these characteristics. The tune is ‘Hot House’, written by Tadd Dameron but based on the harmonies and structure of Cole Porter’s ‘All the Things You Are’. After the solos it also illustrates the feature of musicians taking alternate four bars of the song as it progresses – called ‘trading fours’.

Hot House (Tadd Dameron)

Dizzy Gillespie (t) and Charlie Parker (as) George Shearing (p) Stan Levy (ds)

Modern jazz

This term is so wide it has almost lost any meaning. It can describe just about any jazz music of the post-1945 period, which could be played in any number of styles. But it is perhaps best used to denote the products of the late 1950s and early 1960s when it entered its most fertile period of invention.

Instrumentation retained what had become the classic quintet format of piano, bass, drums, and two lead horns. And the approach to musical content remained focussed on playing a melody, then improvising on its harmonies.

However, around this time some musicians started to use modal concepts of harmony, which meant using scales rather than a sequence of chords. Two of the main exponents of this approach were Miles Davis and John Coltrane. The video that follows features one of the earliest compositions of this klind – So What. In the years that followed, both musicians went on to develop this approach much further.

So What (M. Davis)

Miles Davis (t) John Coltrane (ts) Jimmy Cobb (ds) Paul Chambers (bs)

© Roy Johnson 2011

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Uncommon Arrangements

by

married life in London literary circles 1900-1939

Most people know about the strange personal relationships which existed amongst the Bloomsbury Group, of whom it was said that they were a “a circle of friends who lived in squares and loved in triangles.” But the truth is that many other people in the artistic and literary circles of the period 1910-1930 were making what might politely be called ‘experiments in living’, or less politely, ‘having your cake and halfpenny as well’. In Uncommon Arrangements Katy Roiphe takes six examples of marriages and partnerships which were tested almost to the limit. These people were consciously overthrowing the restraints they felt Victorian and Edwardian mores were placing upon personal liberty – particularly the right to have sex with whoever one chose.

Uncommon ArrangementsHer examples include H.G.Wells whose wife Jane tolerated his long string of mistresses, including Rebecca West, the one featured here. Katherine Mansfield gave as good as she got from her faithless husband John Middleton Murry. The feisty Elizabeth von Armin (Katherine Mansfield’s cousin) clung masochistically to Earl Russell, even whilst he treated her with disdain and physical violence. Vanessa Bell lived with her lover Duncan Grant, who was a homosexual. Una Troubridge performed a slavish role as wife and helpmeet to her lesbian ‘husband’ Radcliffe Hall, whilst Hall (who called herself ‘John’) enjoyed a nine year affair with a young Russian Evguenia Souline.

The examples might reflect only the author’s tastes and enthusiasms, but in all of them the men come out worst as monsters of egoism, opportunism, double standards, and worse.

H.G. Wells treated his wife like a doormat, pleading that she could not meet his sexual needs, and all the time protesting that he loved her dearly. John Middleton Murry left his wife Katherine Mansfield on her own when she was suffering a terminal illness, and wrote endless letters saying how much he missed her. And Earl Russell (Bertrand Russell’s brother) engaged not one mistress alongside his marriage, but two. The same was true of Philip Morrell, who announced to his wife Ottoline that both his mistresses were pregnant, in the hope she would help him out of an embarrassing scrape – which she did.

The one exception she explores is Vanessa Bell, who managed to keep her husband Clive Bell, her lover Duncan Grant, and her ex-lover Roger Fry co-existing as friends together under the same roof without any overt friction.

Katy Roiphe reveals the facts and recreates dramatic episodes of these people’s lives in a successful journalistic manner, but when it comes time to analyse contradictory behaviour she often retreats behind rhetorical questions. Why did X tolerate this? Why did Y never leave him/her?

Her evidence for these accounts comes from what they left behind in letters and diaries. This is a slightly risky procedure, because what they said needs to be placed in its context. The motivation for saying something needs to be taken into account, and contradictions with other evidence noted.

But there’s a more obvious and serious weakness in her approach: it’s that she fails to recognise the legal and economic basis of marriage, and (to quote Frederick Engels) its relationship to the family, private property, and the state. She is more interested in comparing these social pioneers with the plight of contemporary relationships. As she rightly observes

Marriage is perpetually interesting; it is the novel that most of us are living in.

Of course, as Victoria Glendenning has observed, “physical fidelity was not greatly valued in the marriages of the British upper classes” – which is true, so long as the all-important conventions of inheritance are not disturbed. The niceties and social concerns of who couples with whom are something of a smokescreen; they are the superstructure of which concern for preserving inherited capital are the base. And as soon as we look at the economic foundations of these relationships, many of the mysteries evaporate immediately.

Jane Wells tolerated her husband’s flagrant infidelities because he was rich and kept her in economic security. Elizabeth von Armin kept the receipts for items she purchased for her own home, so as to be able to prove ownership in the event of a dispute with her husband Earl Russell – a dispute which did eventually take place in the courts of law.

Una Troubridge clung to her humiliating position as Radcliffe Hall’s lesbian ‘wife’ for nine years, and was rewarded by being made Solo Executrix to Hall’s will – whereupon she took economic revenge on her former rival.

In fact these cases of strange arrangements could have been made more acutely with other examples. She could have included Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville West, as well as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, both of whose marriages tolerated sexual plurality (though Virginia’s tolerance was never tested) as well as the most extraordinary union between Dora Carrington and Ralph Partridge, who lived together with the man they both loved, Lytton Strachey.

It might be that the solution found by Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackvill-West was easier to tolerate. They both had lovers of the same sex. Does this leave people less existentially threatened? (to sound for a moment like Katie Roiphe). But when Vita ‘eloped’ with Violet Trefusis, Nicolson and Dennis Trefusis chartered an airplane and flew across the Channel to bring them back.

This book raises a number of contentious issues which are still of interest today. Ho does one reconcile the desire for sexual freedom with the comforts and protection of pair-bonded monogamy? Can women ever have the same sort of freedoms as men unless they have economic independence?

It’s a readable and very stimulating narrative, but it lacks a serious theoretical underpinning – though she does in the end show that many of her chosen examples, no matter how radical they appeared to be on the surface, were at a structural level clinging to the Victorian conventions they thought they were rebelling against. After all, the Bloomsbury radicals were still summoned to breakfast, luncheon, and dinner by bells rung by servants at fixed times throughout the day.

But readers who don’t already know the shenanigans and the apparently ‘curious arrangements’ of this sub-group will be very entertained. This book doesn’t pretend to answer any of these questions, but it presents examples of pioneers who thought the struggle worth fighting for.

© Roy Johnson 2008

Uncommon Arrangements Buy the book at Amazon UK

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Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements, London: Virago, 2008, pp. 343, ISBN 1844082725

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Ursule Mirouet

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tutorial, study guide, web links, and further reading

Ursule Mirouet was first published 1841, and forms part of Scenes of Provincial Life in the grand scheme of Balzac’s Comedie Humaine. The story is set in Nemours, just south of Paris in the years 1829-1837. As is common in many of the novels that make up Balzac’s gigantic picture of French society, it concentrates heavily on money, inheritance, property, and the fight between virtue and greed.

Ursule Mirouet

It’s worth noting that the story also includes elements of mystery and crime. In the years that followed Ursule Mirouet there was a vogue for such stories in the English literary world – known as ‘the sensation novel’. These were narratives featuring events designed to shock the reader. In this sense Balzac was the father to novelists such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and even later writers such as Thomas Hardy who included elements of mystery and crime in their work.

Ursule Mirouet – commentary

Choosing a text

During his short life Balzac wrote a prodigious amount – novels, stories, novellas, journalism, and even plays. His work appeared in newspapers, magazines, and as individual printed books. Because he is so famous as a classic novelist, his works have been translated many times, and they are available in any number of formats.

One thing is worth noting in making your choice of text. Balzac broke up the overflowing torrent of his original narratives into separate chapters with sub-titles. These individual headings were particularly suitable for newspapers and magazines, where unbroken blocks of text do not look attractive. But in various editions of his work produced later in book form, these sub-titles were sometimes omitted in order to save space.

This apparently innocent change can be a sad loss – for two reasons. The first is that the novels become more difficult to read without these chapter breaks. The second is that Balzac’s choice of sub-titles often present a form of satirical running commentary on the content of the events he describes. They are both an aid to interpretation and a source of amusement. They also reveal the structure of the work, which is not always apparent when the story is presented as one continuous block of text.

The Comedie Humaine

Balzac produced most of his works at fever pitch, racing to stay ahead of printing deadlines. This sort of compositional approach is not conducive to careful plotting and structure. His narratives are often erratic, backtracking chronologically on the story to fill in necessary details.

But at the same time Balzac certainly had in mind a grand design. There are in the whole Comedie Humaine more than two thousand named characters – and examples of two of them make brief appearances in Ursule Mirouet. Some have first been introduced in an earlier novel, others are due to become major figures in a later novel.

For instance the Abbe Chaperon’s frugal domestic household expenses are described as ‘more meticulous than Gobseck’s with his – if indeed that notorious Jew ever did employ a housemaid’. Gobseck is the central character in the 1830 novella that bears his name and is a notorious miser. Balzac throws in this allusion (plus a small instance of casual racism) as if confident that readers were familiar with his entire works.

Similarly, when Minoret wishes to develop Ursule’s skills ‘he now had an able music teacher coming down once a week from Paris, an old German named Schmucke’. This character Wilhelme Schmucke was to become one of the principals in Cousin Pons which was not published until five years later in 1846 – which indicates that Balzac certainly had this world of characters and events in mind.

In fact both Schmucke and the eponymous Cousin Pons are musicians in an orchestra at a theatre run by the impresario Felix Gaudissart, who was first introduced in a short story of 1833, The Illustrious Gaudissart.

When Savinien de Portedures is in Paris, his advising friends include Eugene de Rastignac, and Lucien de Rubempre – both of whom have appeared as major characters in earlier novels and would continue to rise socially in works that followed.

There is no need for a first-time reader to have knowledge of these secondary characters. Ursule Mouriet stands independently as a work in its own right – but a knowledge of their existence in other novels reinforces Balzac’s claim to be creating an in-depth world of French society. It might in the end be a work which he never managed to complete – but the attempt is impressive.

The Napoleonic Code

There is one feature in the background to events of this novel which may not be immediately apparent to readers unfamiliar with French society and its laws. Following the revolution of 1793 there was a radical overhauling of the legal system – which became known as the Napoleonic Code. This included a law specifying that property and capital must be inherited solely via family connections.

All real estate in France is governed by succession laws dating from 1804, which include compulsory inheritance provisions. Children are ‘protected heirs’ and cannot be disinherited. They receive a certain proportion of the estate, depending on their number and on the existence of a surviving spouse. It’s also worth noting that in the case of people who die without heirs, their property is swallowed up by the French government.

Today, if you are English with a million pounds in the bank, you can leave this money to whomever you wish by making a will. You can nominate as legatees your children, your friends, or even the Battersea Dogs Home. But in France, your money (and property) can only be willed to your family. This is an over-simplification of a very complex system.

Hence the significance of this law in the plot of Ursule Mirouet. Dr Minoret is a widower whose children have died in infancy. Ursule is his niece, but she is his illegitimate protected god-daughter – not a natural heir. His nearest legitimate relatives are remote members of extended family networks, whom he avoids socially. He has helped them all financially, but they are rapaciously anticipating his death and their inheritance of his wealth – to which they know they are entitled by law.

Much of the drama in the novel arises from their vulgar greediness, and their fear that Minoret might in some way outsmart them, depriving them of money they already think of as theirs, even before his demise. They are also frustrated by the fact that they do not know accurately the extent of his wealth – which they both over and under-estimate.

The weaknesses

There are three weaknesses in the plot of the novel which undermine its serious claims to greatness. The first is Balzac’s idiosyncratic belief in supernatural phenomena. He was well known for proselytising on behalf of the Catholic church and French royalty – but he also had a gullible streak which led him to give credence to mystic events.

The first instance of this ocurrs when the rational Encyclopedist Dr Minoret is suddenly converted to religious belief. He is persuaded by his old friend Bouvard’s demonstration of ‘Magnetism’ to overthrow the scientific basis of his beliefs in favour of an immediate conversion to Catholicism.

There is no demonstrated or argued connection between somebody’s apparently telepathic knowledge of events taking place elsewhere and a sudden religious conversion. Yet Balzac goes out of his way with a lengthy ‘digression’ to persuade us that this is reasonable. This interpolated lecture is itself something of an affront to literary cohesion and realistic credibility.

The use of supernatural-based plotting is then repeated when Ursule has nocturnal revelations of the exact circumstances of the theft of her guardian’s final will and instructions. These mystical plot devices are difficult to accept in the context of a narrative which is otherwise fundamentally based in social realism.

Balzac, as a former operative in a lawyer’s office, well knew the intricacies of law relating to wills, property, inheritance, and the Napoleonic Code that had sought to redress injustices perpetrated by aristocrats against the middle class. These form the legal niceties that make the novel a fascinating study in power, class, money, and legal rulings.

But the central dramatic incident of the novel is based upon a naive improbability. The sophisticated and intelligent doctor writes a will and last testament, making financial provision for both Ursule and her intended husband Savinien. This will is stolen and destroyed by the villainous heir Minoret.

In a novel bristling with lawyers, notaries, magistrates, and justices, it is virtually unthinkable that someone like Dr Minoret would not lodge a copy of such a will and statement of intentions with legal representatives. The idea of a single handwritten note tucked away in a bureau drawer is not really credible.

Not only that, but the details of the doctor’s government scrips are finally discovered in the most improbable manner. We are asked to believe that not only is the secret of the original theft revealed in a dream, but that the Abbe Chaperon then detects the imprint of three serial numbers that have been transferred to the pages of an old book. This permits both the money and its rightful destined owner to be traced via government records. We are offered plotting of a kind that belongs to the lower levels of serial narratives – or what we would now call ‘soap operas’.

There are similar weaknesses in the dramatic reversals of character that litter the final pages of the novel. For no persuasive reasons, some characters suddenly reform themselves. Minoret confesses his crime – and becomes a changed man. The snake-like Goupil who has spent the entire novel menacing Ursule suddenly repents of his crimes. Mme de Portenduere suddenly abandons her aristocratic disapproval when her son wishes to marry the daughter of an illegitimate band-master.

And if these improbable voltes face were not enough, there are also a couple of grand guinol flourishes to bring the narrative to its close. The unfortunate Desire Minoret, for no reason connected to the plot, is involved in a coaching accident, has both legs amputated, and dies as a result of the operation. Meanwhile his mother is so shocked by the event that she becomes deranged, it put into an insane asylum by her husband, where she dies shortly afterwards.

This is Balzac packing out La Comedie Humaine with ‘events’ at the expense of producing a well crafted novel. But it has to be said that his primary intent was the creation of a whole multi-faceted fictional world, and we are forced to accept his greatness where it emerged – along with these occasional blemishes.

Ursule Mirouet – study resouces

Ursule Mirouet Ursule Mirouet – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK

Ursule Mirouet Ursule Mirouet – Penguin Classics – Amazon US

Ursule Mirouet Collected Works of Balzac – Kindle – Amazon UK

Ursule Mirouet Collected Works of Balzac – Kindle – Amazon US

Ursule Mirouet Selected Stories – NYRB – Amazon UK

Ursule Mirouet Selected Stories – NYRB – Amazon US

Ursule Mirouet

Ursule Miroet – plot synopsis

PART ONE

1. The Heirs are Alarmed

On a Sunday in Nemours in 1830, rich Dr Minoret goes to church – which is unusual. His relatives speculate about his intentions and worry about the possible effect on their inheritances.

2. The Uncle Worth a Fortune

Dr Minoret rises to fame during the revolution and then retires to Nemours. He moves into a refurbished house with Ursule, a baby girl. He acts with financial generosity towards his relatives, but keeps them at bay.

3. The Doctor’s Friends

The doctor befriends Abbe Chaperon, the virtuous and frugal parish priest and M. de Jordy an ex-army captain with a sad background. They form a quartet of friendship with the magistrate M. Bongrand. The doctor prefers their company to that of his relatives. His family regard him as a miser, and they speculate about the extent of his wealth.

4. Zelie

A relative Desire Minoret arrives by coach and notices Ursule as she emerges from church with her godfather the doctor. The relatives are surprised by his church attendance, and are obsessed by the potential repercussions on their inheritances.

5. Ursule

Dr Minoret becomes godfather to Ursule via a remote family connection. When his own children die, he raises Ursule as his own daughter. She is educated by his friends. When the captain dies he leaves her a small inheritance. She becomes a devout Catholic.

6. A Brief Digression on Magnetism

Dr Minoret is summoned to Paris by his old friend Bouvard to witness a demonstration of ‘magnetism’ given by a follower of Swedenborg. A hypnotised ‘medium’ provides a detailed account of Minoret’s house and Ursule’s growing love for a neighbour Savinien Portenduere.

7. The Double Conversion

Dr Minoret returns to Paris for further proof – and is given a detailed account of Ursule’s bedtime preparations. He drives back to Nemours and next day checks that they were indeed accurate. The whole of his scientific belief system is undermined; and he becomes a religious believer.

8. A Double Consultation

The notary Dionis explains to the family heirs that Ursule is the illegitimate niece of Dr Minoret and cannot inherit his money – unless he marries her. The heirs explore several self-interested alternatives. Dr Minoret and Bongrand discuss the same issue.

9. The First Confession of a Secret

Dionis visits Dr Minoret, who rejects the heirs’ plans. He then explains to Ursule why Savinien would not be a suitable match for her. Savinien is currently in a debtor’s prison. She has fallen in love with him at a distance.

10. The Portendueres

Savinien de Portendures goes to Paris, spends all his money in six months, and ends in a debtors’ prison. His friends advise him to return home and marry into money. His mother’s appeals for financial help are refused by her relatives. Abbe Chaperon advises her to make a request to her neighbour Dr Minoret.

11. Savinien is Rescued

Dr Minoret agrees to rescue Savinien from his debts and the prison. He goes to Paris with Ursule and raises the money. Savinien returns to Nemours and promises to reform himself

PART TWO

12. The Lovers Meet with Obstacles

Savinien’s mother snobbishly disapproves of Ursule, and resents having to borrow money from Dr Minoret, whom she regards as her social inferior. The doctor thinks it safer for the two families not to socialise under these circumstances.

13. A Betrothal of Hearts

Ursule and Savinien exchange letters and pledge their love. He joins the navy as the first step in his moral recovery. Ursule and the doctor travel to Toulon to see him embark for Algeria.

14. Ursule Becomes an Orphan Again

In 1830 the heirs gain more political power. The doctor spends money on luxuries for Ursule. Savinien distinguishes himself at the capture of Algiers. By 1834 the doctor is dying. The heirs express their greed openly by his bedside. He has prepared a will and a written statement of intent to protect Ursule, but the documents are stolen by his relative the postmaster

15. The Doctor’s Will

Dr Minoret left separate provisions fo both Ursule and Savinien, but the postmaster burns the documents. On the day of the doctor’s death the heirs immediately seize all the doctor’s property and expel Ursule from her home.

16. Two People at Loggerheads

Ursule is forced to buy a small house in Nemours. The heirs sue Mme de Portenduere for the money she owed to Dr Minouet. Postmaster Minoret buys and lives in the doctor’s old house. The heirs wonder where all the doctor’s money has gone. Minoret wants to drive Ursule out of Nemours to ease his conscience.

17. The Terribly Malicious Tricks that Can be Played in the Country

Goupil sends anonymous poisonous pen letters to Ursule and Savinien’s mother. Mme de Portenduere wants her son to marry a fellow aristocrat. Savinien refuses to marry anyone other than Ursule. Goupil threatens Ursule and arranges menacing recitals of music outside her house.

18. Two Acts of Revenge

Mme de Portenduere suddenly decides to forgive and accept Ursule, whilst Goupil just as unexpectedly confesses his persecution of Ursule. But he claims he was acting for Minoret. Savinien threatens Minoret and his son with a duel.

19. Ghostly Apparitions

Ursule has a dream which reveals all the details of Minoret’s theft. She reports this to the Abbe Chaperon, who then challenges Minoret with the details. Minoret denies everything. There is a second apparition, which has the same consequences

20. The Duel

Savinien arranges the duel with Desire Minoret, who confesses the theft of the doctor’s will to his mother, who tries to persuade Ursule to marry Desire.

21. How Difficult it is to Steal What Seems Easiest

Abbe Chaperon finds the imprints of the doctor’s government scrips in an old library book – and the theft is exposed. The money is restored and the duel called off. Minoret becomes a reformed man. Desire is in a coaching accident and has both legs amputated, then dies. Zelie Minoret goes mad and is placed in an asylum, where she dies. Ursule and Savinien are married then move to live in Paris.

Ursule Mirouet – characters
M. Minoret

postmaster at Nemours
Zélie

the postmaster’s acerbic wife
Desire Minoret

his self-indulgent son, a law graduate
Dr Denis Minoret

a rich retired former Encyclopedist
Goupil

a dissolute clerk, friend to Desire
Abbe Chaperon

parish priest, friend of Dr Minoret
Dionis

a local notary
Ursule Mirouet

niece and ward of Dr Minoret
Mme de Portenduere

a proud and aristocratic widow
Savinien de Portenduere

her son, a reformed rake

© Roy Johnson 2017

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Varian Fry

by

secret refugee escape co-ordinator Marseilles 1940-1941

Varian Fry saved the lives of hundreds of refugees during the second world war in what was virtually a one-man rescue operation. He’s been called the ‘American Schindler’, and the list of people he helped to escape from the Nazis (and from the French Vichy government) ranges from Hannah Arendt, via Marc Chagall and Max Ernst, to Arthur Koestler, Wanda Landowska, Jacques Lipchitz, and Max Ophuls. His story reads like the script to a Hollywood thriller, with romantic heroes perilously outwitting spies, double agents, and the police.

Varian FryAndy Marino sprints through the early years of Fry’s biography, but emphasises his scholarly background in classics at Harvard and his left-wing sympathies. Fry seemed destined for an academic career, but as a result of an undergraduate prank he ended up in journalism, working for various liberal political causes. Then at the age of only thirty-two he was recruited into a job that would change his life.

Fry was despatched from America as the agent of an Emergency Rescue Committee which was set up in New York. His task was to co-ordinate efforts to help prominent artists and intellectuals to escape along the various routes which led from the south of France to the Atlantic and onward transit to America. The money that funded the Committee was coming from wealthy sponsors in the United States, and they drew up lists of those who were deemed worthy of assistance.

The story is one of Fry’s selfless devotion to a righteous cause, assisting those in danger – yet what is most astonishing is the fact that the Committee had right from the start an overtly elitist ethos. Only the most ‘important’, famous, and favoured individuals were to be helped in their attempt to escape. Not for one moment was a general concern for refugees considered.

But it is to Fry’s credit that when faced with the task of distributing assistance, he broadened his remit. He was in something of a cleft stick, because the Americans would only grant entry visas to ‘people of exceptional talent’, but he found other countries in Latin-America, North Africa, and the middle East who would accept those who were not famous writers and Nobel Prize winners.

There is a useful account of the events leading up to the outbreak of the second world war, reminding us of Hitler’s ruthless progress to dictatorship, Stalin’s equally corrupt power-mongering, and the apathy of western European democracies. When France collapsed abjectly before the Nazi onslaught, millions of refugees were squashed into the parts of south-east France which were not (at first) occupied.

After the preliminaries, the story switches to the lives of those who were being threatened – people such Fritz Werfel and his mercurial wife Alma Mahler, Walter Mehring, and Walter Benjamin. They are surrounded by refugees suffering poverty, deracination, and persecution – many of them driven to the point of suicide.

The first part of Andy Marino’s account provides a kaleidoscopic vision of (largely German) refugees fleeing in all directions to escape the persecution of the Nazis. A number of refugee biographies are woven into the story, which backskips into the 1920s and 1930s to show the intellectual and social pedigree of writers such as Werfel, Leon Feuchtwanger, and Heinrich Mann.

Set against the collapse of France in 1940, he sketches the debacle with the verve of a good novelist:

As their train made its way south the Werfels would have seen from their window a fair proportion of the ten million French people on the move. Most went on foot, and the rest were inching their way forward on anything that had wheels—bicycles, carts, tractors, autos, trucks, buses, prams, even resurrected tumbrels from an earlier age. They were ladened and barnacled to within a straw’s weight of collapse with bodies and possessions—those pathetic keepsakes of lost domesticity—which were both discarded as they lost their relevance to the new reality of unending heat, hunger, and danger. The roadsides were festooned with an honour guard of abandoned vehicles, their doors hanging open like the mouths of dead men.

All of these characters eventually converge in Marseilles, where Varian Fry arrives with $3,000 taped to his leg and lists of people to save, but no clear idea of the task he has undertaken. He thought he would be there for about three weeks.

The Nazis in France did not have to do all the dirty work of pursuing these refugees and anti-fascists. The appallingly anti-semitic French Vichy government was eager to do its work for it. Many people were hunted down and handed over to the Gestapo under Article 19 of the Armistice ‘agreement’ (‘surrender on demand’) and the government even introduced emergency laws revoking people’s citizenship. People could become stateless overnight, with no ‘papers’ to protect them.

The unknown refugees of the early pages of this account begin to re-emerge in the second part of the book as assistants to Fry – like the characters in a large scale well-plotted Victorian novel. Fry ran his operations from a room in the Hotel Splendide in Marseilles, supplying false papers and passports which were printed in Bordeaux under the very eyes of the Nazis. He was acting illegally, and was even rebuked by his own US diplomatic services for doing so. However, he lied to them that everything was in order – and carried on with his mission.

He was assisted by Dr. Otto Albert Hirschmann, a young multilingual Jew from Berlin who had changed his name to Albert Hermant, but who was known to Fry as ‘Beamish’ because of his smile and irrepressible good spirits. Beamish’s principal role was to mix with Marseilles gangsters and to launder money at illegally high rates to avoid official scrutiny. Another helper was Charlie, a roguish young Virginian who ‘married’ several Jewish women in order to gain qualification for an American exit visa – to save them from the many concentration camps dotted along the coast.

It is amazing to think that what are now major French tourist resorts – Agde, St Cyprian, Argeles – were only seventy years ago an area where the French government imprisoned its own citizens along with refugees. Even children had their own concentration camp at Rivesaltes. In the camps the inmates would either die of starvation, be handed over to the Gestapo for execution, or packed off in trains to the gas chambers in Auschwitz and elesewhere.

Fry personally escorted the distinguished group of Heinrich Mann’s family, Franz Werfel, and Alma Mahler across the border into Spain. The refugees had to walk over the Pyrenees: Fry took Alma Mahler’s mountain of luggage which contained music scores by her dead husband Gustav, the original manuscript of Bruckner’s Third Symphony, and her third husband’s latest novel.

Despite all his meticulous planning, there were terrible setbacks for Fry. Some of his earliest ‘customers’ actually wrote back to him on postcards, thanking him for arranging their escape – and thereby betrayed all the secrets of his operations to the police.

Shortly after the disaster of a mass escape of refugees on a boat that turned out to be a fictitious scam, Fry took over the spacious Villa Air-Bel on the outskirts of Marseilles. Unfortunately, this had the effect of attracting the Dada poet Andre Breton, Russian novelist Victor Serge, and art collector Peggy Guggenheim where bohemian parties and loose behaviour attracted the attention of the police.

Fry and his team made detailed inspections and reports on many of the one hundred and twenty concentration camps the Vichy government created in the unoccupied zone, but their evidence of atrocious conditions was ignored. He appealed to the authorities in Vichy, but he was turned down. Even his own government regarded him as a troublemaker at a time when America was making diplomatic efforts to stay out of the war.

Fry’s problems were intensified when the rescue committee in New York sent a blundering and arrogant Ernest Hemingway-like figure to replace him. Fry dug in his heels and resisted the move, carrying on with his work. With all land borders closing down, he established new escape routes via sea to Casablanca, Dakar, and even Martinique.

Meanwhile relations with his wife Eileen back in America were becoming strained. She was defending him to an ever more critical Relief Committee, but complaining to him that his letters were rather practical and unloving. She also hinted that she had fears he might be involved in gay liaisons – of which there were clear signs in his weekend trips with younger male colleagues. She wittily alluded to these as possible Death in Venice episodes. But he reassured her that there was no time for that sort of thing, and that he had merely visited brothels a few times. It is hardly surprising that the marriage did not survive the war.

As 1941 rolled on and the Vichy regime became more overtly pro-fascist, some of the first refugees to reach America only brought fresh worries to Fry and the Committee. Walter Mehring for instance had immediately on landing in New York secured a well-paid job in the Hollywood film studios, but instead of repaying the 31,000 Francs he had been lent for living expenses, he bought a flashy new Packard Roadster and drove up and down Sunset Boulevard, showing off.

The Vichy clampdown intensified and finally resulted in Fry being arrested and expelled from France. By October 1941 he himself was back in New York – and there was no hero’s welcome waiting for him. The Rescue Committee rapidly dissociated itself from him, and his marriage fell apart. He took up the position of editor on The New Republic where he wrote articles warning America about what we now call the Holocaust.

And curiously enough, the remainder of his life tailed away in a series of failures. He tried journalism, did some spells of teaching, and went into psycho-analysis. He even bought a television production company and ran that for a while – but it went bankrupt. He ended up working for Coca Cola – until he was eventually sacked. A second marriage produced three children, and appeared to be successful – but that too ended up in divorce, followed by a confused reconciliation, shortly before his early death in 1967.

The tragectory of Fry’s life was a steep arc, peaking in this extraordinary period of just over a year in which he felt himself living to full capacity twenty-four hours a day. He helped countless numbers of people to escape the gas chambers, and he worked tirelessly for no profit to himself except the feeling that he had done the right thing. Amazingly, it has taken the intervening half century for his story to become more widely known.

Varian Fry Buy the book at Amazon UK

Varian Fry Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2013

Andy Marino, A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999, pp.403, ISBN: 031220356X

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Victor Serge a biography

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the life of a revolutionary and a great novelist

Victor Serge (1890—1947) was one of the most talented writers and intellectual historians of the early twentieth century, and yet his work still seems to be unknown outside a small group of left-wing enthusiasts. His output was colossal — novels, histories, biography, literary criticism, documentaries, journalism, poetry, and diaries — and yet he wrote under incredibly difficult conditions – often in exile or in jail, and most of the time poor and hungry. He was also an active revolutionary – which is possibly why he doesn’t sit easily within the western literary mainstream. His accounts of the reign of terror unleashed by Stalin in the 1930s anticipate later work such as Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940) and Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) , and offer a far more insightful explanation of the forces that were at work.

Victor Serge a biographySo far the majority of the information we have about his life history comes from his own magnificent Memoirs of a Revolutionary (1941) written towards the end of his life when he was an exile in Mexico. This offers a breathtaking political journey through the first four decades of the twentieth century, with Serge active in many of its key events – except that he spent most of the first world war in a French jail. But immediately on release he joined forces with insurgents, first in Barcelona, then he travelled to his spiritual homeland of Russia to join the Bolshevik revolution. Although he had been born in Belgium, his father was a Russian left-wing exile. Serge was a talented writer, translator, editor, and activist. He joined forces with the Bolsheviks, and although he had no ambitions for personal advancement, he was given important roles in the new government which enabled him to witness the mechanisms of power close up, at first hand.

Although he arrived a year after the revolution had taken place, he quickly became engaged in its essential issues, and since he took a stance to the Left of the mainstream, he had to work a difficult path for himself. Disillusioned with official policy after the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion, Serge accepted a posting to Berlin as an agent of the Comintern. When the Berlin revolution of 1923 was aborted – all wholly directed from Moscow – Serge moved on to Vienna and lived there for the next two years. During this period he turned his attention to literature, for as Susan Weissman observes in this huge and detailed examination of his political life, ‘Serge was first and foremost a political animal, and it was only when barred from political action that he turned to literary activity’.

In Vienna he began writing his first novel Men in Prison, which was based on his experiences of being jailed in France after being sentenced for his (tangential) part in the notorious anarchist Bonnot gang raids, and he also produced the series of articles later collected in Literature and Revolution which examined the relationship between culture and social class.

But in 1925, alarmed by the stranglehold Stalin was imposing on the Party, he returned to the Soviet Union to support the Left Opposition, which was headed by his friend Leon Trotsky. Serge could easily have stayed comfortably in western Europe, and his motives for returning to Russia – to support the revolution – were noble, but if ever there was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, this was it. As a result, he spent much of the following decade in exile and prison.

Stalin rose to power during this period, packing committees with his henchmen; falsifying reports; rigging elections; re-writing history; banning all forms of critical debate; and hiring other people to slander rivals. And he did all this claiming to have the highest possible ethical motives. But of course he also took this wholly illegal and paranoid policy to an extreme, and began murdering anyone who opposed him.

Serge helped Trotsky organise the Left Opposition, but by 1927 — the tenth anniversary of the revolution — they were all expelled from the Party. Having been removed from political life Serge once again returned to his role as author, writing articles on the Chinese revolution which were published in France – a factor which later helped to save his life. The appearance of this work abroad was used as the pretext for his first arrest in early 1928, from which he was released after protests from French intellectuals.

Having almost died whilst in prison he decided on release to devote himself to literature – specifically to record the revolution and its aftermath in a series of documentary novels, which turned out to be the double trilogy Men in Prison, Birth of Our Power, Conquered City, Midnight in the Century, The Case of Comrade Tulayev, and Unforgiving Years. There is also the very elusive The Long Dusk and other manuscripts which were confiscated by the secret police and have never been located since. Serge and his family were harassed by the GPU: his mail was opened and his conversations recorded. His wife suffered a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered, dying in a mental institution in the south of France in 1984.

Victor Serge a biographySerge was arrested in 1933, held in solitary confinement, and interrogated endlessly, accused of ‘crimes’ based on the confessions of others which the GPU had actually written. Refusing to co-operate with his captors, he was exiled to Orenberg on the borders of Kazakhstan. He lived there with his son Vlady for the next three years, cold, hungry, and under constant surveillance – but at least free to write. He produced Les Hommes perdus a novel about pre-war French anarchists, and La Tourmente, a sequel to Conquered City. He despatched several copies to Romain Rolland for publication in Paris, but they were ‘lost’ in the post. Ironically, the Post Office was obliged to compensate him for each loss, and he earned ‘as much as a well-paid technician’. He shared the money he earned and the support he received from western Europe with his fellow exiles – on one occasion dividing a single olive with his fellow inmates, who had never tasted one before.

Meanwhile, his supporters in France formed pressure groups to campaign for his release, and eventually Rolland petitioned Stalin in person. This was at the time of the 1936 international congress of writers, and Rolland argued that the continued detention of Serge was causing embarrassment within the congress. Miraculously, Stalin agreed to release him (though he almost immediately regretted his decision) and Serge was released in 1936. But the GPU confiscated his writings as he was crossing the border, bound for Europe.

He settled in Brussels, then Paris- though his papers were not in order, and his political status terribly uncertain. Wherever he went he was pursued by vilification from the orthodox Communists (whose orders were all dictated from Moscow) and by Stalin’s secret agents. He was sustained intellectually by his renewed correspondence with Trotsky, who was in exile in Norway at the time. It was the terrible year of 1936 which saw the Moscow show trials and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Serge wrote on both these topics, but the only outlets for his work were small left-wing journals and newspapers.

Unfortunately at this point in Susan Weissman’s narrative Serge disappears almost completely – to be replaced by detailed accounts of the spies and assassination squads Stalin despatched into Europe in his quest to eliminate all vestiges of the Old Guard. The network spread from the Balkans to the Atlantic, and even crossed into the USA. There is also a protracted account of the misunderstandings and the spat between Serge and Trotsky which makes them both seem like petulant sixth-formers arguing over the results of a cricket match – even though the issues of contention were the Fourth International and the prospects for the working class at a time of rising fascism, Stalinist totalitarianism, and the growing prospects of war.

The last part of Weissman’s account covers almost a decade and one of the most fertile periods of Serge’s career – and yet it’s over in what seem like a few pages. It begins with the fall of France in June 1940. Serge left on the very day that the Nazis entered Paris, fleeing along with thousands of others for the unoccupied South along with Vlady and Laurette Séjourné, who was twenty years younger than him and was to become his third wife. This defeat at the hands of ‘the twin totalitarianisms’ and the fight for survival were to be documented in his novel Les Derniers Temps (The Long Dusk in English translation). They arrived almost penniless in Marseilles, only to learn of the assassination of Trotsky in Mexico. Serge was one of the last Oppositionists left alive, and he knew his name would be on the GPU’s hit list.

Fortunately, they were rescued thanks to the efforts of Varian Fry and the American Relief Committee which helped to smuggle hundreds of refugees out of France under the very noses of the Gestapo. There was an amazingly idyllic period of a few month when Fry hosted a group of artists, intellectuals, and even surrealists at a large chateau on the outskirts of the city – but Serge was eventually asked to leave because his reputation as a Trotskyist was putting other people at risk. He finally got away from France in March 1941 on a ship bound for Mexico.

En route Serge was separated from his luggage, which had been labelled as destined for the USA, where his publisher Dwight Macdonald (editor of the Partisan Review) had offered him hospitality. The contents of the suitcases were confiscated and photographed by the FBI, which then translated all the manuscripts and compiled summaries which were sent for the personal attention of J. Edgar Hoover.

el_lissitzky_1919

Serge was interned and interrogated in both Martinique (under French Vichy control) and the Dominican Republic, then put into a concentration camp in Cuba, finally arriving in Mexico in September 1941. The last years of his life were spent in poverty, ill-health, and what he felt as a terrible intellectual loneliness – but at least he could write. This was the period in which he produced his most mature work, the late masterpieces Memoirs of a Revolutionary, The Case of Comrade Tulayev, and Unforgiving Years. There was also The Long Dusk, though he himself considered that something of a failure. He also continued his work on political, economic, and social theory – trying to make sense of a world which by the mid 1940s had seen tens of millions of people killed by both the Nazis and by Stalin.

His ending was as grim as his life had been – cut short by a heart attack after hailing a taxi in Mexico City, dressed in a threadbare suit and with holes in his shoes. His son Vlady suspected he had been poisoned, and even wondered if his stepmother might have been responsible. Serge’s marriage had not been a success, and shortly after Serge’s death Laurette Séjourné married a prominent Mexican Communist and even joined the Communist Party herself.

So – what is to be made of this monumental piece of scholarship? I was disappointed to realise that Susan Weissman’s account of Serge’s political ideas begins in 1917, as he made his way to Russia, which he regarded as his homeland, despite never having lived there. There is no account of the formation of his beliefs and his ‘education’ as a young man (he barely went to school at all, in the sense we know it) and his politicisation as the son of a Russian oppositionist, nor of his radicalisation whilst working as a a printer and a type-setter in Brussels. Neither is there any real attempt to look in detail at his years flirting with anarcho-syndicalists.

A consideration of these early years of Serge’s life are important because it was the skills he had acquired as a self-educated scholar, a linguist, a writer, a printer, and an editor which enabled him to take such an active part in the early days of the Russian revolution, where he worked as a political organiser, propagandist, author, editor, translator, secretary, and even secret agent. His knowledge of anarchism and syndicalism also had an effect on both his theoretical understanding of Marxism and his practice as a revolutionary.

Susan Weissman’s account also seeks to put Serge in the right at every step of his career – even though for a number of years he was working essentially as an agent for the Comintern. It’s true that he thought the formation of the Cheka (the Bolshevik’s secret police) was the first big mistake of the revolutionaries; but this opinion was only formed later. He suggested alternative strategies at the crisis of the Kronstadt rebellion, but ultimately sided with the Party in its tragic massacre of the sailors and workers. And he was amongst the first to identify totalitarian elements within Soviet society and the way it was being governed; but he remained loyal to the Party in what he later called ‘Party patriotism’ – that is, the Party can do no wrong.

This was the major weakness in their policy – Serge (and others) believed in the infallibility of the Party; they believed in their own slogans and rhetoric; and they were very slow to acknowledge the complete divide between aspirations, theory, and the reality of the world in which they lived. They clung to the completely deluded idea that the Party was right because it represented the will of the working class – neither of which suppositions were logically tenable or practically correct. Serge was fortunate enough to eventually reject this supposition – and it helped to save his life.

Susan Weissman rightly gives her account the sub-title ‘A Political Biography’ – because it is not anything like a biography in the conventional sense. There is no account of the first twenty-seven years of Serge’s life; hardly any details of his personal or family life (he was married three times); and no account of where and how he managed to live with apparently no regular source of income. What we get in abundance is a tracking of the debates which fuelled his confidence in the importance of the Russian revolution and his conviction that it should be rescued from the clutches of the Stalinist counter-revolution. There is impeccable scholarly referencing throughout, but very little of the fluency, the facts, the details, and the sap of real life.

In fact this is a biography Susan Weissman has been writing for more than two decades. She published Victor Serge: The Course is Set on Hope in 2001 with the same publisher – and my copy of the latest version still has this sub-title on the title page. although this version has been brought up to date with more recent research, there is very little acknowledgement of the fact in the text. The original publication was based on a 1991 PhD thesis entitled ‘Victor Serge: Political, social and literary critic of the USSR, 1917-1947; the reflections and activities of a Belgo-Russian Revolutionary caught in the orbit of Soviet political history’ — which would explain the first half of the unexamined lifespan, the plethora of historical and political detail, and the paucity of human interest. A review of the original publication by the Serge scholar Richard Greeman which makes similar points is available here.

Susan Weissman has devoted huge amounts of scholarly discipline to this enterprise – and has even made attempts to recover the ‘lost manuscripts’ of Serge’s work confiscated by the secret police. The publication carries an enormous record of Serge’s writings, a series of potted biographies, and a gigantic bibliography of sources which make this an unmissable publication for anybody interested in Serge’s life – but I think the definitive biography has still to be written.

Victor Serge a biography Buy the book at Amazon UK
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© Roy Johnson 2014

Susan Weissman. Victor Serge: A Political Biography, London and New York: Verso/New Left Books, 2013, pp.406, ISBN: 1844678873

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Victor Serge an introduction

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the life and work of a revolutionary and novelist

Victor Serge an introductionVictor Serge (1890-1947) wrote under the most difficult conditions, much of the time whilst living in exile – in his adopted homeland Russia, in France, and in Mexico. He frequently had to write in secret and he smuggled his work out of the Soviet Union to be published in France and Spain. His work was banned throughout the communist period in Russia, and it has only recently become available there. It also has to be said that his work goes in and out of print rather a lot in English-language publications. A gifted linguist, he chose to write in French. Besides being the preferred language of Russian intellectuals of his generation, French assured him an international audience.

He wrote in a great variety of literary forms – poetry, journalism, novels, and political history, as well as some very good literary criticism and an excellent autobiography. All his work is very political, but it is shot through with what might be called a militant humanism. That is, he never let political dogma over-rule his compassion for his fellow men.

Victor Serge an introduction -Memoirs of a RevolutionaryIf you have not read his work before, a good place to start is his autobiography, Memoirs of a Revolutionary 1901-1941 written when he was in exile in Mexico. It outlines his astonishing life in the first four decades of the twentieth century. He was active first as an anarchist, then as a socialist militant, as a typographer, a journalist, and then as a professional revolutionary. He spent time in poverty, in jail, and in armed struggle. And he seemed to know everybody who was important – people such as Leon Trotsky, Lenin, and Georgy Lukacs.

The pages of this memoir are packed with events and people, and he writes in a vivid, sparkling style which holds you gripped. His life is almost unbelievably dramatic, and he is not in the slightest self-pitying as he endures poverty, political persecution, jail, and exile. And all the time, not matter what the circumstances, he is being creative as a novelist, a historian, or a journalist. It is truly amazing that he survived a period which he himself called ‘Midnight of the Century’, and it’s a tribute to his creativity that this is what saved him, because his fame as a writer had spread so wide. He was sent into ‘internal exile’ by Stalin because of his oppositionist views, but a campaign for his release was launched in western Europe, and was eventually successful.

Victor Serge an introduction - Men in Prison The novels of Victor Serge fall into two sets of trilogies. The first deals with his early prison experiences, the failed Barcelona uprising, and the successful Bolshevik revolution. Men in Prison (1930) is based on his own life as a prisoner of the French during the first world war. Politically, it deals with his early anarcho-syndicalist beliefs, but in literary terms it belongs to the very Russian tradition of prison literature. More than anything, it is a heartfelt plea of human sympathy for the underdog, and a call to arms in favour of rebellion and resistance to all forms of repression and tyranny.

Victor Serge an introduction - Birth of Our Power Birth of Our Power (1931) is losely basd on Serge’s own experiences following his release from prison. It is centred on the events of the Barcelona uprising in 1918 and then after its failure moves on to the immediate aftermath of the successful Russian revolution in St Petersburg. Politically, these events trace the development of his allegiance from that of an anarcho-syndicalist to that of a Bolshevik, but a communist in the old sense – one with liberal-humanist values and a respect for democratic values.

Differences of opinion with the Stalinists who took over in the USSR led to him being sent into ‘internal exile’, where all of his writings and personal papers were confiscated by the secret police. There have been several attempts made to have these released, especially after the fall of communism in 1989, but they have still not been located.

Following a successful campaign in the west for his release, he returned to France in 1936 and resumed work on two books on Soviet communism, From Lenin to Stalin (1937) and Destiny of a Revolution (1937). He also published a volume of poetry, Resistance (1938) about his experiences in Russia. there was also a voluminous exchange of correspondence with Leon Trotsky, though the two oppositionists eventually agreed to disagree.

Victor Serge an introduction - Unforgiving YearsWhen the Germans invaded France in 1940, he left Paris and travelled to Marseilles, and in 1941 left on the same ship as Andre Breton and Claude Levi-Strauss. His destination was Mexico – the only place which would grant him a resident’s visa. As soon as he settled there he became the object of violent articles and threats to his life from Stalin’s agents – who had recently assassinated Leon Trotsky.

His last years were full of poverty, malnutrition, illness, police surveillance, slander and isolation. Yet he continued to publish novels such as The Long Dusk, Unforgiving Years, and his masterpiece, The Case of Comrade Tulayev. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, was first published in the United States in 1945. Serge’s health had been badly damaged by his periods of imprisonment in France and Russia. However, he continued to write until he died of a heart-attack in Mexico City on 17th November, 1947.

© Roy Johnson 2010

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