Feoder Chaliapin as a "revolutionary leader" in Russia in 1905

On this early 20th century photograph you can see the Russian opera bass singer Feodor Chaliapin (third from the right) talking to writer Maxim Gorky (third from the left). According to the Swedish news magazine Allers Familj-Journal, which published the picture in March 1905, Gorky and his "closest friends" - in addition to Chaliapin, from left to right, writers Skitalets, Andreyev, Chelekov, Chirikov and Bunin - "are the young men everybody is talking about in Russia."

The Swedish magazine described the young men as "the leaders of the modern and literary revolutionary party, from which the great movement has sprung, which has caused the foundations of the mighty Russian Empire to shake."

"The bass singer Chaliapin is one of the most popular singers in Russia. He has a permanent contract with the  Imperial Opera in Moscow, which pays him huge fees for his appearances. This winter he was on leave from the opera, and performed in Nice, where he received rapturous cheering from the international Riviera audience."

Even if Chaliapin was some kind of a "revolutionary" in 1905, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 led to a disarray in his personal life, and after 1921 he never returned to Russia, although he still maintained that he was not anti-Soviet. 

An interview with L.N. Tolstoy in 1905

The only known color photograph of Tolstoy. (Yasnaya Polyana, 1908).
(image by wikipedia)

In its March 5, 1905 issue, the Swedish weekly Hvar8 Dag published an interview with

Count Lev Nikolayevich (Leo) Tolstoy. The Swedish interviewer, who used the pseudonym Oleg, had met Tolstoy at his Yasnaya Polyana estate in the Tula region.

Below is a selection of Tolstoy's views, as published in the interview:

On Sweden and Swedes

”Oh, you are Swedish, I have always been interested in Sweden, and you may know that one of my sons is married to a Swede; for the time being, he is living in St. Petersburg. But do you know, what has saddened me, is that also in your country people have more and more began to spend their energy on armaments. The blame for all this goes to the insane patriotism, and the governments, which incite peoples against each other.”

On small nationalities

”I feel a deep sympathy for all these small and subdued nationalities, Poles, Finns, Armenians and others. Their cause is right, and their fate has always grieved me.”

On Maxim Gorky

”I cannot say that I admire him as much as is fashionable now. Of course, he is not without talent, but he has not built himself a stable world view, which one would like to find in a writer, no norm according to which he judges things.”

On Anton Chekhov

”As a playwright he is of minor importance, only for entertainment. However, among his short stories, there are many, which are of a very high quality.”

On classic writers

”It appears, after all, that all these modern ones in the end are so small compared with the classic writers. I have to restrain myself not to lose interest in them, when I think of the old masters, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schopenhauer.”

On August Strindberg

”I have not read anything by him, so I know about his views only in a general way. Is he not a half mad person, even worse than Ibsen?

Anthony Powell on his time in Finland

Emma Fielding as Lady Isobel Tolland and James Purefoy as Nick Jenkins in the television series. 

The other night, when I had finished watching the excellent 1997 eight hour television adaptation of Anthony Powell's "Dance to the Music of Time", I remembered my brief correspondence with the novelist in 1991, when I lived in London. In one of the letters Powell reminisces about his two Oxford vacations, 1925 and 1926, which he spent in Finland. (His father was in the autumn 1924 sent to Finland as staff-officer to the major-general heading a British Military Mission, requested for an advisory role by the Finnish Government):

In another letter, Powell recalled that the article about his time in Finland - of which he did not have a copy - was probably written in 1925/1926 for a magazine called "something like The New Quarterly, which "lasted, I suspect, only one number".

In late June, 1925, Finland's minister of defense organized a reception in honour of a British naval visit to Helsinki. The youngish British officer in middle of the picture (immediate left from the door) could be Anthony Powell's father. 

In his memoirs, Powell gives some interesting glimpses of his time in Helsinki, and also mentions that his second novel Venusberg (1932) "recalls some of these Finnish interludes, though much of the novel's background, especially the political circumstances, are altogether imaginary, with no bearing on what happened in Finland at the time, nor for that matter in the neighbouring Baltic States, not yet overrun by the U.S.S. R." "The town described in Venusberg is a mixture of Helsinki and Reval (as Tallin was still apt to be called), the Estonian capital across the Gulf of Finland, where I spent a weekend."

A photograph of the Northern Esplanade in Helsingfors (Helsinki) in the mid 1920s.

There are two interesting descriptions of social life in Finland in Powell's memoirs:

During his stay in Finland, Powell also visited Viborg, Finland's then second largest city (which Finland had to cede to the Soviet Union after the Winter and Continuation Wars):

Powell also touched upon his time in Finland in an interesting reply to a question by Michael Barber (who later wrote a Powell biography), which was part of an interview, published in the Paris Review in 1978:

Coincidence plays a large part in determining the pattern of the Dance—too large a part, according to some critics.

POWELL

Well, I think in human life it happens a thousand times more than I would ever dare bring it in, and I could mention the most extraordinary coincidences that have actually taken place in my own life. But yes, I think one does have to be careful about not using it too much simply because people do think it is unconvincing.

INTERVIEWER

Can you give an example of coincidence in your own life?

POWELL

Well, yes, this is a perfectly straightforward one: When my father was sent in 1924-5 on a military mission to Finland, I went out there for two Oxford vacs. And there was a family we knew there whose daughter I used to dance with occasionally. Well, about ten years ago, when our younger son wanted to go to Spain and learn Spanish, the Spanish wife of a friend of ours recommended a place which we wrote to, and they wrote back and said No, they couldn't take him, but they could recommend somebody else. Well, when he went there it turned out that the head of the family was married to this girl I used to dance with in Finland. It's not a bad one, is it really? But if you put that in a book it would be considered absolutely absurd. I mean, there's no particular tie-up in it: You can't say, Oh well, naturally everybody was interested in books or paintings or something . . . It was just sheer, extraordinary coincidence  . . . I mean there was no earthly reason why she should have married a Spaniard.

In his book "Finland in the New Europe" (1998) the Finnish diplomat, writer and journalist Max Jakobson makes a reference to Anthony Powell:

"In the major capitals of Europe, the entry of the sovereign republic of Finland into the international community was received with a degree of skepticism. A Finnish diplomat who complained to the editor of London Economist that the paper persisted in printing out-of-date maps showing Finland as part of Russia was told that the Economist took a long view of international affairs without letting transient phenomena lead it astray. To people used to a world ruled by the great dynasties, the new states that emerged from the ruins of World War I seemed artificial creations, not to be taken seriously."

"This attitude was caught by Anthony Powell, the British author, in his novel Venusberg (1932) in which a lady representing a fictional newly independent small country - presumably Finland - tells a British diplomat: "We are only a little country. A little new country. You must not be surprised if sometimes we do not seem to do things so well as you big countries who have been big countries for so long. You big countries do not know what it is like to be a little country ...."

While in Helsinki, Powell must have visited the Academic bookstore, already then the largest bookshop in the Nordic countries. 

Stora Sundby - "The Swedish Abbotsford"

Stora Sundby, "the Swedish Abbotsford", in a late 19th century photograph. 

The books of Sir Walter Scott made him and his Abbotsford House well known all over the world. Sweden was no exception.

When the rich nobleman, count Carl de Geer in 1824 bought the 16th century manor Sundby Hus at lake Hjälmaren in Södermanland, his wife, who had read Scott's novels about the noble knight Ivanhoe, wanted their new home to be converted to a "Swedish Abbotsford". 

The count did not want to disappoint his countess, which is why an English architect, Peter Frederick Robinson, was commissioned to redesign the old manor in the style of Abbotsford. The conversion was not an easy task, which is why it took 16 years to complete. But in 1848 the new "romantic knight's castle" was finally inaugurated. 

The house, renamed Stora Sundby (Great Sundby) by de Geer, is now the home of Johan and Tina Klingspor and their children.   

For a comparison, here is a late 19th century photo of the real Abbotsford, which became a model for the modern revival of the Scottish baronial style:

Three photographs of August Strindberg

Last year's August Strindberg anniversary - marking that a hundred years have passed since he died - has been celebrated widely both in Sweden and abroad. My own somewhat belated homage to the great  writer comes in the form of these portraits, which the Swedish weekly Hvar 8 Dag published in its May 19, 1912 issue, five days after the writer's death:

(Photographer: Herman Hamnqvist, Stockholm)

(Photo by unnamed photographer of the Hvar 8 Dag magazine)

(Photographer: Sandels J:or, Stockholm)

J.L. Runeberg - the poet who gave Finland a moral identity

Albert Edelfelt, one of the first Finnish artists to reach international fame, illustrated The Tales of Ensign Stål. His illustrations have been admired by generations of Finns and Swedes. This drawing shows a part of the Lake Saimaa district, one of the "national landscapes" of Finland.

Finland's national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804 - 1877) is nowadays not very well known outside his own country, and perhaps Sweden (Runeberg wrote in Swedish, his mother tongue), but there was a time he was a "celebrity" in wider international circles. 

In an article, published in the National  Biography of Finland, historian Matti Klinge describes Runeberg's crucial role in the shaping of the Finnish identity: 

The poet J. L. Runeberg created an ideal of Finland's people and Nature, and he gave the country a moral identity, a justification for its existence, with his lyrics, epics and Fänrik Ståls sägner ('Tales of Ensign Stål'). Even during his lifetime, but especially after his death, he became a very important cult figure as a creator of a feeling of nationhood and the writer of the poem Vårt land (Finnish: Maamme; Our Country), which became the national anthem of Finland.

Runeberg was a notable lyric and epic poet; his creative work acquired an especial importance from the era and environment in which he was active. Along with Lönnrot, Runeberg helped to raise the newly created Grand Duchy of Finland to the status of a cultured nation in the eyes of both Finns and foreigners. In the 1830s and 1840s he created an ideal of Finland's people and Nature, and he gave the country a moral identity with his Fänrik Ståls sägner ('Tales of Ensign Stål'). Runeberg's ideological stance was influenced by the neo-humanists' admiration for Greece; politically, it adhered to the conservative line of the era of Emperor Nicholas I. Even during his lifetime, but especially after his death, he became a very important cult figure, particularly as a creator of a feeling of nationhood and the writer of the poem Vårt land (Finnish: Maamme; Our Country), which became the national anthem of Finland.

--

All of Runeberg's works were translated into Finnish, starting as far back as the 1840s. Runeberg began to become known in Russia as early as the 1830s. Many of his works were translated into German, Danish, French and English; Hanna, Nadeschda, Kung Fjalar and Fänrik Ståls sägner at the least were translated into these languages; Hanna and Nadeschda were translated into Italian; and so forth. The celebrations marking the centenary of Runeberg's birth also attracted widespread interest abroad. In Sweden, Runeberg has always been numbered amongst the most prominent writers of Swedish.          

The Tales of Ensign Stål consists of tales of the War of Finland of 1808-09 between Sweden/Finland and Russia. In the war, Sweden lost Finland, which then became a Grand Duchy in the Russian empire. 

Sven Duva on the bridge. Illustration by Albert Edelfelt.

One of my own  favorites in The Tales of Ensign Stål is Sven Duva, below in a translation by Charles Warton Stork, published in an Anthology of Swedish Lyrics in 1917:

Sven Duva

His father, once a sergeant, was poor and old and gray,
For he had fought in 'eighty-eighty, was old then, you
   might say.
And now he farmed a bit of ground his daily bread to gain
And had around him children nine, the youngest was 
Sven.

That old man Duva had himself enough of brains to share
Among a brood as large as his, one hardly could declare.
He surely gave the elder ones too much of his small wit, 
For the son that last was born was left the tiniest bit.

Sven Duva grew up just the same, was strong and broad 
   of chest,
Toiled like a slave in field or wood with unremitting zest,
Was willing, gay, and kind of heart, far more than clever
   folk,
Would turn his hand to anything, but was in all joke.

"In gracious heaven's name, poor son,what can you ever
    be?"
The old man often said to him in sad perplexity.
But when such talk would never end, Sven Duva's pa-
   tience failed,
At last he set his head to work for all that it availed.

So one fine day it chanced when sergeant Duva cooed 
   again.
The old unanswered song: "What will become of you,
    my Sven?"
The old man started backward in astonishment, because
"I'll be a soldier," said the son, and spread his uncouth
  jaws.

The aged sergeant smiled a smile full of contemptuous
   doubt:
"You rascal, take a gun and be a soldier? Oh, get out!"
"Well,"said the lad, "I make a botch of all I take in hand;
Perhaps I'll find it easier to die for king and land."

Old Duva was surprised and touched, a tear rolled down
   his face;
And Sven - he shouldered knapsack for the first recruit-
ing-place.
Full size they found him; brisk and strong; 't was all they
   asked, and he
Became forthwith a raw recruit in Duncker's company.

And now came Duva's time to drill and go through ex-
   ercise,
To watch was a wondrous sight; he drilled in curi-
   ous wise.
The corporal might shout and laugh, might laugh and
   shout his best,
The new recruit went on alike for earnest or for jest.

When all the rest were tired out, he never seemed to fret.
He tramped until the ground would quake, and marched
   till all a-sweat;
But when the order came to turn, 't was his unhappy
   lot,
To face to right or face to left, whichever he should not.

Then he was tought to "shoulder arms," and tought to
    "ground arms," too.
"Present arms,""lend bayonets," - all these they thought
    he knew;
When "Should arms!" was called, he'd "lend bayonets" maybe,
At "Ground arms!" up his gun went to his shoulder in-
   stantly.

So finally Duva's drill grew famous far and wide,
The officers and soldiers came and laughed until they 
   cried;
But still he kept on patiently, untroubled by a doubt,
And waited for a better time - 't was then the war broke
   out.

When orders were to break up camp, the questions had
   to come,
Had Duva wit enough to fight or should he stay at home.
He listened calmly to their plans, but soon proposed his
   own;
"If I can't go with all the rest, I'll have to go alone."

They left him gun and knapsack to do his own behest,
A soldier he when battle raged, a servant for the rest;
And fighting-man or serving-man, alike sedate and cool,
He never played the coward, though he sometimes played
   the fool.

One day with Sandels in retreat, the Russians on each 
   flank,
Our troops were drawing slowly back along a river bank.
Right in the army's line of march a little foot-bridge 
   spanned.
The stream, and there an outpost stood, scarce twenty
   in the band.

Merely to mend the broken road this band was sent ahead,
Which done, far off from shot or blow, they rested free
   from dread.
They happened on a farmer's home and stripped the larder bare.
And Duva passed the victuals round, for he was with 
   them there.

But on a sudden all was changed, for from the near-by
   steep
With foamy horse an adjutant came spurring leap on leap.
"Go to the bridge," he shouted, "lads, for God's sake,
   no delay!
We've word a troop of enemy would cross and 
   bar our way."

He bade the leader, "Get the bridge demolished if you can,
And if you can't, well, hold it it then, and fight to the last
   man!
The army's lost if now the foe should tak us in the rear.
Sandels will come to your support, he'll soon himself be
   here."

He galloped off. But scarce the band had gotten to the 
   bridge
Before platoons of Russians rose above the farther bridge.
They opened ranks, closed up, took aim and fired. At the
   sound
Of their first volley eight bold Finns went reeling to the
   gound.

The rest shrunk back; why tarry there when nothing 
   could be gained?
Another crash of musketry, and but five Finns remained.
The all obeyed the sergeant's call "Trail arms!" and 
   then "Retreat!"
 Only Sven Duva got it wrong and leveled bayonet.

Still worse, the order to retreat got twisted in his head,
And, far from facing right about, down to the bridge he
   sped.
He stood there firm with shoulders squared, quite calm
   and easy still,
Ready to show to all that came how well he know his
   drill.

They didn't give him long to wait, for ere he took his 
   stand,
Behold, upon the little bridge there thronged a hostile
   band.
Man after man they rushed across, but each as he came on
Got face-to-right or face-to-left, fell over, and was gone.

No human arm was strong enough to make that giant
   to yield,
And when the rear ranks tried to shoot, the front ranks
    were his shield.
The fiercer was the foe, the more his hope would come 
    to naught,
When up came Sandels, with his men and saw how 
   Duva fought.

"Bravo!" he shouted, "fine; keep on you splendid fel-
   low, you!
Throw every devil off the bridge, hold on, for God's 
    sake, do!
That's how a Finn should fight, ay, that's a soldier you
   may say.
Come on boys, hurry to his help! for he has saved the
   day!"

The enemy soon found themselves checkmated in the
   game;
The Russians, turning right about, retreated whence
   they came.
When all was quiet, Sandels left his horse and went to
   see
The soldier who stood on the bridge and fought so gal-
   lantly.

They pointed out Sven Duva then. His battle-lust was 
   gone,
For he had fought there like a man, and now the strife 
   was done.
It seemed as though in weariness he rested after play,
No longer bold and confident, but very pale he lay.

Then Sandels bent him down above that face so white
   of hue;
No unfamiliar man was that, but one whom all men 
   knew.
But Sandels saw that underneath his heart the grass was
   red.
His breast was pierced, and through the wound his life
   now had sped.

These were the words the general spake: "We'll all of 
   us admit
That bullet knew far more than we, it knew the place to
   hit;
It left unhurt the poor lad's head, which was not of the
   best,
And found itself a worthier mark, his noble, valiant
   breast."

And afterwards whenever men would tell about the fight,
They each and every one agreed that Sandel's words 
   were right.
"It's true," they used to say, "his mind did did less than
   most men's could,
A sorry head Sven Duva had, his heart, though, that was good."


(The text is published in the same way as it appeared in the anthology).

Here are a few more illustrations to the Tales of Ensign Stål by Albert Edelfelt:

Sir Walter Scott's stunning Abbotsford in the late 19th century

Sir Walter Scott's stunning home Abbotsford in the 1880s.

This is Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's stunning home, photographed in the 1880s. The romantic castle, designed by the first English-language author to have a truly international career, is since 2007 in the care of The Abbotsford Trust, a charity created to safeguard the future of the estate and the legacy of Sir Walter Scott. 

This is how the trust defines its task and the house it safeguarding:

 The trust is determined to restore the house and redevelop the estate in order to make it self-sustaining. It is the objective of the trustees to ensure that Abbotsford becomes the centre of a renaissance of Scott’s works, but in a way that a modern audience will appreciate.
-

Perhaps nowhere else in the world can evoke the power of the romantic past more than Abbotsford, stunningly located on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders. Abbotsford sits at the heart of the landscape that inspired the poetry and novels of its creator, Sir Walter Scott. Unlike the homes of other great writers, this is a house that the writer himself designed and as such uniquely embodies a physical representation of the Romantic Movement that he helped to create. When you touch the bricks and mortar of Abbotsford, you are touching the soul of Scott.

The house contains an impressive collection of historic relics, weapons and armour, including Rob Roy’s gun, dirk and sword, and an extensive library containing over 9,000 rare volumes. It sits amid formal gardens and a wider landscape that Scott designed and planted.

Here you can read more about The Abbotsford Trust. 

On conversation - some good advice from Jonathan Swift

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood
William Shakespeare

Good conversation is one of the things that makes life enjoyable. Regrattably it also seems to be a vanishing art. The conversational deterioration may be linked to the ever faster lifestyle of ours - there seems not to be enough time for good conversation - and perhaps also to the new  communications media, which occupy so much of our time now.

Be it as it may, it is interesting to note that there were voices lamenting the lack of good conversation already much before our time. Jonathan Swift, the Dean of St. Patrick´s Cathedral in Dublin (and, of course, the author of Gulliver´s Travels) noted a number of of these deficiencies in his "Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation".

Below is a selection of the observtions and comments that Swift makes in his essay. I think also you will recognize that not so many things have changed from Swift´s time (1667 - 1745):

"For instance: nothing is more generally exploded than the folly of talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five people together, where someone among them has not been predominant in that kind, to the great constraint and disgust of all the rest."

"Another general fault in conversation, is that of those who affect to talk of themselves; some, without any ceremony, will run overr the history of their lives; will relate the annals of their diseases, with the several symptoms and circumstances of them; will enumarate the hardships and injustice they have suffered in court, in parliament, in love, or in law."

"Where a company has met, I often have observed two persons discover, by some accident, that they were bred together at the same school or university; after which the rest are condemned to silence, and to listen while these two are refreshing each other´s memorey, with the arch tricks and passages of themselves and their comrades."

"I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can ber allowed to dictate and preside: he neither expects to be informed or entertained, but to display his own talents."

"It now passes for raillery to run a man down in discourse, to put him out of countenance, and make him ridiculous; sometimes to expose the defects of his person or understanding; on all which occasions, he is obliged not to be angry, to avoid the imputation of not being able to take a jest."

"There are two faults in conversation, which appear very different, yet arise from the same root, and are equally blameable; I mean an impatience to interrupt others; and the uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves."

"There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with a plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion in all companies, and, considering how low conversation runs now among us, it not altogetherr a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two unavoidable defects, frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so that, whoever values this gift himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company."

"The degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious consequences thereof upon our humours and dispositions, has been owing, among other causes, to the custom arisen, for some time past, of excluding women from any share in our society, farther than in parties at play, or dancing, or in the pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period of politiness in England (and it is of the same date in France) to have been the peacable part of King Charles I´s reign; and from what we read of those times, as well as from the accounts I have formerly met with from some who lived in that court, the methods then used for raising and cultivating conversation were altogether different from ours; several ladies, whom we find celebrated by the poets of that age, had assemblies at their houses, where persons of the best understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass the evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were occasionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime platonic notions they had, or personated, in love and friendship, I conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low." 

(image by antiqueprints.com)

PS
This article on the art of conversation, published in the December 19 2006 issue of The Economist is well worth reading.