Polish early printed books in the British Library collections, although small in number, include many rare items. The collection is also known by its Latin name Polonica, meaning written documents of Polish origin or related to Poland. So what constitutes a Polonicum in the BL collections?
                 
The criterion is based on geographical and linguistic principles. This means that the collection contains books in Polish published in any country and books in other languages published within the historical boundaries of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It should be emphasized that the frontiers kept changing over the centuries. This narrow approach excludes a large number of books by Polish authors whose works, written mainly in Latin, were published in Western Europe. However, the criteria established in the 19th century by the great Polish bibliographer and librarian Karol Estreicher, and used ever since in Polish bibliography allow for a broader practice.  Therefore works by such distinguished authors as Copernicus, Cromerus or Sarbievius are included in the Polonica collections by the Polish standards.

The strength of our collection is enhanced by the wide range of subjects covered from religious works, political tracts and legal documents to historical volumes, astronomical treatises, poetry and prose. It represents the intellectual life of the Polish-Lithuanian state and is an excellent source of information for researchers of that period.

The collection contains over 2000 items. The 16th century treasures include books by Mikolaj Rej, the “father of Polish literature”, the first Polish grammar by Piotr Stojenski-Statorius (1568), the first codification of law in the Kingdom of Poland (1506) and the first printed history of Poland (1521). The richness of the collection also lies in the variety of early Polish Bibles.

Zwierciadlo (Kraków, 1567-8;  C.125.e.20) by Rej is a work written partly in prose and partly in verse in a vividly colloquial language. It reflects the author’s view on the mentality and behaviour of the Polish gentry of that century (see two images below). A full set of images of this work are available here.  

Commune Incliti Poloniae regni… (Kraków, 1506; C.107.g.14) is known as Łaski’s Statues. Łaski, Chancellor and Primate of Poland, was asked by the Sejm (Polish Parliament) to bring together all the legislation up to that time. The Statues remained in force until the last partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795.

Commune Incliti Poloniae regni… (Kraków, 1506; C.107.g.14)

The most notable among the bibles is the Radziwiłł Bible (Brest-Litovsk, 1563; C.11.d.6). It is the first complete Protestant Bible translated into Polish and represents some of the best usage of the Polish language at the time (see three images below). This copy was once a treasured possession of Bishop Józef Załuski, co-founder of the first Polish national library (1747), plundered by the Russians in 1795. It bears his signature and was marked by him with six stars as rarissimus. 

Hippica by Krzysztof Dorohostajski (Kraków, 1603; C.185.b.1) is one of the finest books of the 17th century collection. This handbook on horse-breeding and horse-training was very popular among the Polish aristocracy and gentry, who were great lovers of horses (images below).

 
Among the 18th century items the most remarkable is the first modern constitution in Europe and one of the world’s greatest documents of freedom Ustawa rządowa (‘Government Act’; Warsaw, 1791; Cup.403.l.8) enacted on 3 May 1791 (see picture below). Images are available here. 

Magda  Szkuta, Curator Polish Studies

The spectacular display of Jazz (Paris, 1947), one of the greatest livres d’artiste, is one of the highlights of the magnificent exhibition Matisse: the Cut-outs at Tate Modern (until 7 September; then at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, 12 October  2014-8 February 2015).

The book, a turning-point in Matisse’s use of the cut-out technique, is a life-affirming explosion of colour and energy produced in the face of life-threatening illness (Matisse started to work on it in 1943 while convalescing from a serious operation). It was published in a limited edition of 270 copies, and 100 albums of just the prints were also produced. In the exhibition all the prints from one of these albums are shown, together with facsimiles of all the texts. The display of the book in its entirety has the great virtue of allowing visitors to compare all 20 original cut-out models (the maquettes) with their stencil reproductions in the printed book shown with Matisse’s accompanying handwritten texts. It also enables them to appreciate why the artist was originally disappointed with the resulting loss in the book (despite the extreme care taken by the printers to reproduce the exact colours of the originals –the production of the book took nearly five years), of the contrast between the different paper surfaces of the original cut-outs. 

In his introduction Matisse plays down the importance of his texts and asks for the reader’s indulgence, explaining that their role is a purely visual one, as a black and white counterpoint to the colours of the plates or as ‘asters to the composition of a bouquet of more important flowers’. This is a modest way of introducing his succinct and enthralling reflections and aphorisms on art and life. In one of them he compares his technique of cutting with scissors directly into the gouache-coloured paper to a sculptor’s carving into stone. In another, he describes lagoons (recollections of his trip to Tahiti in 1930 and the subjects of three prints) as one of the seven wonders in the paradise of painters. Some texts are veritable prose poems. The subjects of the book’s 20 plates are taken from the circus, folklore, mythology, and personal artistic practice or reminiscences. The title Jazz was thought up by Tériade, the book’s publisher, whose ambition was to to produce a modern illuminated manuscript. Though unrelated to the subjects depicted, the title is perhaps an indication of the book’s spirit of discovery and improvisation.

Tériade was a key figure in the Parisian art scene for some five decades. Born in Greece in 1897 (‘Tériade’ is a francized form of his real name, Efstratios Eleutheriades) he went to France in 1915 to study law but soon abandoned his studies for art journalism and, later, art publishing, following in the footsteps of his compatriot Christian Zervos (the publisher of the monumental catalogue raisonné of Picasso’s works). He first met Matisse and published his first article on the artist in 1929 and the collaboration between the two men continued until Matisse’s death 25 years later

Henri Cartier-Bresson  ‘Tériade and Matisse’ 1953. Photograph taken in the garden of Tériade’s Villa Natacha. From Tériade & les livres de peintres (Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 2002) British Library L.B.31.b.28002

Matisse was a subject or contributor in all of Tériade’s editorial or publishing ventures. The entire range of their collaborations  is listed and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Matisse et Tériade (Arcueil, 1996; L.B.31.b.16914), from the first article Tériade wrote about Matisse in Zervos’s Cahiers d’art, to Matisse’s contribution in Minotaure, the avant-garde magazine which Tériade edited between 1933 and 1936, for which the artist designed one of its famous covers and the various Matisse-related issues of Verve (the arts magazine published by Tériade, 1937-1970), nos 1(1937), 3 (1938), 4 (1938), 8 (1940), and 13 (1945).

 

Minotaure, Cover of no.9 (1936). C.180.d.1. Lithograph after Matisse’s ink drawing.

 

Cover of Verve: revue artistique et littéraire, no 8, June 1940 (Cup.800.g.3.), showing ‘La Symphonie chromatique’, a lithograph after Matisse’s cut-out maquette for which 26 colours were used. 

Tériade’s greatest publishing venture was the 27 livres d’artiste illustrated by, among others, Chagall, Braque, Giacometti, Léger and Picasso. Matisse illustrated five of them (the highest number by a single artist): Stéphane Mallarmé Poésies (1932), Lettres de la Religieuse Portugaise (1946), Jazz (1947), Poèmes de Charles d’ Orléans (1950), and Une Fête en Simmerie (1963), and these are also richly-illustrated and documented in this catalogue. Moreover, the catalogue led to the generous donation by Tériade’s widow, Alice, of her husband’s publications, art collections and part of his archives to the Musée Matisse at Le Cateau-Cambrésis (the artist’s birthplace). The occasion was marked in 2002 by the inauguration of a permanent gallery dedicated to Tériade and the publication of Tériade et les livres de peintres, a comprehensive catalogue of all the artists’ books he published.

Both catalogues are a valuable and touching reminder of a great and fruitful friendship, also celebrated in the wonderful series of photographs taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1951 in Tériade’s Villa Natacha at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, in the last of which Matisse is only present in spirit, by his signature on the great painted tile decoration (‘L’Arbre’ – the preparatory study of which, now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, is in the exhibition) which can be seen behind Tériade, its dedicatee, a personification of the joie de vivre that characterises all his collaborations with Matisse.

Henri Cartier-Bresson,  Tériade in the dining room of Villa Natacha, 1953. From From Tériade & les livres de peintres

Chris Michaelides, Curator Italian and Modern Greek

References:

Minotaure: revue artistique et littéraire (Paris, 1933-39) C.180.d.1.

Verve (Paris, 1937-60) Cup.800.g.3 (French edition), or Cup.800.g.4 (English edition).

Henri Matisse Jazz  (Paris, 1947). C.108.eee.16.; a modern edition with facsimile of the prints and transcription and translation into English of the texts (Munich, 2001) is at YC.2003.a.11186.

Hommage à Tériade (Grand Palais, 16 May to 3 September 1973). (Paris, 1973). S.E. 293/49

Hommage à Tériade [Diploma Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts]. (London, 1975). X.419/3145.

Jack D. Flam Matisse on Art. Revised edition. (Berkeley, 1995) 95/24994.

E. Tériade Écrits sur l'art. (Paris, 1996). YA.1997.a.3905

Claudia Beltramo Ceppi Zevi (ed), Matisse et Tériade [Exhibition, 1996-1997: Museo Mediceo, Florence and Musée Matisse, le Cateau-Cambrésis] (Arcueil, 1996). LB.31.b.16914.

Beatrice Lavarini  Henri Matisse Jazz (1943-1947) : ein Malerbuch als Selbsterkenntnis (Munich, 2000) YA.2001.a.22816

Tériade et les livres de peintres [Exhibition, Musée Matisse, 2002]. (Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 2002) LB.31.b.28002.

Karl Buchberg [et al.], Henri Matisse: the cut-outs (London, 2014). [Awaiting shelfmark]

 

Cover of the catalogue Matisse et Tériade (Arcueil, 1996). L.B.31.b.16914

Having recently seen a revival of Brian Friel’s  dramatic adaptation of Fathers and Sons  “after the novel by Turgenev”, I am struck how central Bazarov  is to this novel even though in this version he hardly says anything when he first appears. Instead of hearing his Nihilistic philosophy set out reinforced by all the strength  of his personality, we hear Bazarov’s beliefs and aspirations described in the words of his disciple Arkady Kirsanov with brief interjections of confirmation of correctness from Bazarov.

Turgenev in 1838 from A.G. Ostrovsky, Turgenev v zapisiakh sovremennikov (Leningrad, 1929)  X.958/4290.

It is fascinating to think Turgenev found the inspiration for the strength of Bazarov’s personality when on a visit to the tempestuous Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight (This inspiration is explored in Tom Stoppard’s play Salvage (The Coast of Utopia - Part III, p.84-87) in which Turgenev appears; you can read the relevant excerpt here.) But do we see this force expressed when he confronts his most fearsome ideological adversary, the anglophile Pavel Kirsanov?  On the contrary he is quite submissive and refuses to express any interest in the duel in which he is invited to take part.

Ironically, where Bazarov does express a good deal of emotion and passion is in his declaration of love for the wealthy widow Anna Odintsova, a love of the romantic kind which he has earlier dismissed as a myth. Perhaps this, then, is the whole point of the novel – to show the impossibility of a totally nihilistic personality (at least with his background – better attempts at this type of character were made by Dostoevsky). Bazarov inherits the ordered approach to life of his doctor father with his commitment (though using outdated methods) to improving society embodied in his continual use of Latin quotations, but he also has the passion of his mother (which in her case is directed towards religion, which Bazarov despises).

What is also brilliantly realised in this dramatization and in Lyndsey Turner’s production at the Donmar Warehouse  is the lasting effect that Bazarov has on others, notably in the final scene after his death where Arkady has an emotional outburst reminding the chattering classes who have almost returned to their trivial preoccupations what a great loss has occurred to them and Russia in the death of Bazarov – the force of his personality is very much present in that last scene even though he isn’t.      

 

The British Library holds a copy of the first edition of the original Russian text of Fathers and Sons (Отцы и Дети) published in Moscow in 1862 (12590.h.25). The title page of this copy is reproduced above.  The first English translation of the novel by Eugene Schuyler  was published in 1867 (12590.bb.21). Among the notable subsequent English translations held by the British Library is that of Constance Garnett. Translated as Fathers and Children (the literal meaning of the title), this was included in the Novels of Turgenev  (London, 1894-99; 012590.e.50.)

Peter Hellyer, Curator Russian Studies

References

Brian Friel,  Fathers and sons: after the novel by Ivan Turgenev (London, 1987). YC.1987.a.9790

Patrick Waddington,  Turgenev and England (London, 1980) X.950/2479