01 October 2024
How Bitter the Savour is of Other’s Bread? International Conference on European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800
Join us on Friday 15 November 2024 for the ‘European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800’ conference taking place in Pigott Theatre, Knowledge Centre at the British Library. This one-day in-person event will explore the rich history of political refugees from Europe who sought asylum in the UK from the 19th century onwards. International academics, scholars, and curators will investigate how European diaspora communities have woven themselves into the fabric of British society, fostering intercultural exchange and contributing to the shaping of modern Britain.
‘European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800’ conference poster
The conference is organised by the European Collections section of the British Library in partnership with the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC) London. It will be accompanied by the exhibition ‘Music, Migration, and Mobility: The Story of Émigré Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain’ and by events run by the conference partners.
The event is open to all and attendance is free, but registration is required. Booking details can be found here.
Programme
10:00 Welcome
10:05 Session 1: Artists
Moderator: Olga Topol, British Library
‘Leaving Home’ – Franciszka Themerson and Her Artistic Community in the UK, Jasia Reichardt, Art Critic and Curator
Austrian Musicians and Writers in Exile in the 1930s and 1940s, Oliver Rathkolb, University of Vienna and Vienna Institute of Contemporary and Cultural History and Art (VICCA)
On the Rock of Exiles: Victor Hugo in the Channel Islands, Bradley Stephens, University of Bristol
Music, Migration & Mobility, The Story of Émigré Musicians from Nazi Europe in Britain, Norbert Meyn, Royal College of Music, London
12:00 The stone that spoke screening
Introduction by Gail Borrow, ExploreTheArch arts facilitated by EUNIC London
12:15 Lunch
13:00 Session 2: Governments in Exile
Moderator: Valentina Mirabella, British Library
London Exile of the Yugoslav Government during the Second World War and its Internal Problems, Milan Sovilj, Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
The Spanish Republican Exile in Great Britain: General Characteristics and the case of Roberto Gerhard, Mari Paz Balibrea, Birkbeck, University of London
Fascism and anti-fascism in London's 'Little Italy' and Giacomo Matteotti's secret visit to London in 1924, Alfio Bernabei, Historian and Author
14:30 Break
14:45 Session 3: Building Communities
Moderator: Katya Rogatchevskaia, British Library
Tefcros Anthias: poet, writer, activist, and public intellectual in Cyprus and the Cypriot Community in London, Floya Anthias, University of Roehampton, London
The Journeys in Stories: Jewish emigration from Lithuania via United Kingdom, Dovilė Čypaitė-Gilė, Vilna Gaon, Museum of Jewish History, Vilnius University
Political migration from Hungary, 1918-1956, Thomas Lorman, UCL's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London
16:15 Break
16:30 – 17:00 Session 4: Writing Diaspora
Moderator: Anthony Chapman-Joy, Royal Holloway, University of London, British Library
Newspapers published by 19th-century German political exiles in England, Susan Reed, British Library
Clandestine WWII pamphlets, Marja Kingma, British Library
We look forward to welcoming you to the conference in November. In the meantime, we invite you to discover a new display of works by Franciszka Themerson ‘Walking Backwards’, currently on show at Tate Britain, and to explore the history of Lithuanian Jewish immigration to the UK at the annual Litvak Days in London.
23 September 2024
Wage Peace Not War. Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi on Violence, Nonresistance, and Love
The year was 1908. The shock waves of the 1905 Revolution still reverberated throughout the Russian Empire when two letters from an Indian revolutionary Taraknath Das reached Leo Tolstoy at home in Iasnaia Poliana. Das wrote to the ailing Tolstoy, then a world-renowned author, pacifist and anarchist, asking for his support for India’s liberation from British colonial rule. Das’s appeal prompted the 80-year-old Russian writer to pen a lengthy response expressing his sympathy with the oppressed and advocating for nonviolence as the only justifiable form of resistance. It was not the answer Das had hoped for, but when the letter was published, it immediately struck a chord with a young Indian lawyer grappling with racial and social injustices in Johannesburg, Mohandas Gandhi. He was so impressed by Tolstoy’s logic that he sought his permission to translate the letter into Gujarati and to republish it in South Africa. Although the two never met, they continued to exchange letters and ideas until Tolstoy's death in 1910. Their shared philosophy of peace, tolerance, and nonresistance to evil inspired such prominent political leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama. The letter to Das, mailed from Iasnaia Poliana on December 14, 1908, was about to influence the course of history on the Indian subcontinent.
Cover of Osvobozhdenie narodov: Pisʹmo Indusu by Leo Tolstoy (Iasnaia Poliana, 190?) RB.23.a.32254 and a photograph of
Mahatma Gandhi (Image from Wikipedia)
In the appendices of his book Indian Home Rule, Gandhi listed twenty books that impacted him as a political and spiritual leader. Tellingly, the first six works are all by Tolstoy, and the 5000-word missive published by Das as A Letter to a Hindu (AKA A Letter to a Hindoo; Pis’mo Indusu, 1908) is among them. In it, Tolstoy argues that only by overcoming the urge to retaliate and abiding by the principle of love and compassion for the enemy could the Indian people shake off the colonial yoke. He admonishes: “Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, the collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.” According to the author, only peaceful resistance epitomised by civil disobedience could break the cycle of violence perpetuating injustice and feeding hatred. He marvels at how a commercial company was able to enslave “two hundred millions of clever, capable, freedom-loving people” and concludes that the numbers speak for themselves: “it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves.”
Tolstoy’s definition of violence is broad, encompassing inequitable distribution of authority, power and wealth, as well as violation of one’s conscience. He divides the letter into short chapters, each of which opens with a range of ethical sources, including the Bible, quotations from the Vedas, and passages from Krishna.
Opening pages of Tolstoy’s Pis’mo Indusu
He warns against false ideologies, both religious and pseudo-scientific, that promote the use of violence and the necessity of war, distorting the sheer truth that it is “natural for men to help and to love one another, but not to torture and kill one another”. At the core of Tolstoy’s Christianity is the Sermon on the Mount, which he sees as a complete justification for nonresistance to evil. His literal reading of Jesus’s commandment to ‘turn the other cheek’ led to his questioning social, political and religious assumptions, including the authority of the state, the credibility of the Church, and the justifications of both for waging violence. Tolstoy admits that overthrowing oppressive regimes is not an easy task. Nonviolence, unlike physical force, requires great courage and readiness to expose oneself to political violence and unjust treatment.
Another book that profoundly affected Gandhi’s thought formation was Tolstoy’s Christian anarchist philosophical treatise, ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’ (Tsarstvo Bozhie Vnutri Vas, 1894). Banned in Russia for its espousal of Jesus’s nonviolent resistance teachings as true gospel, it inspired Gandhi to set up a community devoted to love, work, and simple living, known as Tolstoy Farm. He reflected on the impact the book had on him in his 1928 speech commemorating Tolstoy’s death: “At that time, I was skeptical about many things… I was a votary of violence. I had faith in it and none in nonviolence. After I read this book, lack of faith in nonviolence vanished.”
Title page of Tsarstvo Bozhie Vnutri Vas (London, 1898) 3926.bb.50.
In ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’, Tolstoy objects to the idea of Russian religious nationality as the rationale for political repressions inside Russia and imperialist oppression internationally. He points the finger at the corrupt union of religion and autocratic political power that coerces men to join the army and take part in unjust wars. Tolstoy is especially critical of conscription, which he sees as an extreme abuse of power and a form of slavery. He also opposes any form of modern patriotism but is not blind to the differences between oppressor and oppressed: “A Russian should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland, Armenia, should be separated, freed from Russia (...) The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.” Tolstoy asserts that the eponymous Kingdom of God could only be found inside the self and outside the state-run church with its stupefying rituals and ceremonies.
Tolstoy’s essay ‘The First Step’ (also known as ‘The Morals of Diet’; Pervaia stupen’, 1892) helped to shape Gandhi’s views on ahimsa, an ancient ethical principle of not causing harm to other living beings. It was instrumental in convincing Gandhi to maintain his vegetarian diet. The essay was published as a preface to a book by Howard Williams, The Ethics of Diet, which Tolstoy translated into Russian. It is likely the 19th century’s most important statement on the subject.
Cover of Tolstoy’s Pervaia stupen’ (Moscow, 1906) YA.2001.a.3749
The principle of nonviolence and refusal to participate in coercion is at the core of Tolstoyan vegetarianism. He views slaughtering and eating animals as “simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling—killing; and is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food.” While the pamphlet advocates for animal rights, it also takes on a religious tone, underscoring the need for self-abnegation, fasting, and renouncing worldliness. One can and should control bodily desires by exercising moderation, restraint and hard work, and refraining from eating animal flesh is the first step towards a moral life. Tolstoy concludes the piece with a bold statement that the killing and eating of animals compromise the ability of men to feel pity and compassion for fellow human beings.
Tolstoy enjoying a vegetarian meal (Image from Wikipedia)
Tolstoy’s philosophical and polemical works have often been deemed rigid and doctrinaire, becoming a neglected footnote to the widely acclaimed War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Nevertheless, their message is disturbingly relevant today as the world faces a swelling tide of imperial violence with Russia's brutal war against Ukraine. The question once posed by George Orwell: “Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing?” remains open. Orwell had no illusions - in a country without a free press and the right of assembly, where “opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again”, practising civil disobedience is a perilous exercise incapable of bringing a mass movement into being. While Russia is waiting for its Mahatma, dissenting voices and peaceful anti-war protests inside the country command the utmost respect and give hope for change. Gandhi prescribes patience: “You need not be afraid that the method of nonviolence is a slow long-drawn-out process. It is the swiftest the world has seen, for it is the surest.”
Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Interim Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections
References/further reading:
Charlotte Alston, Tolstoy and his disciples : the history of a radical international movement (London, 2014) YC.2014.a.11549
Imraan Coovadia, Revolution and non-violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela (Oxford, 2020) YC.2022.a.1259
Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy letters (Long Beach, California, 1987)
Ramin Jahanbegloo, Introduction to nonviolence (Basingstoke, 2014) SPIS303.61
Ilacai and Rajesh, V. Maniyan, The Russian Revolution and India (London, 2020) ELD.DS.554272
Tony Milligan, Civil disobedience: protest, justification, and the law (New York, 2013) m13/.13487
Keith Gessen, George Packer, George Orwell, All art is propaganda: critical essays (Boston, 2009) ELD.DS.678441
David A. J. Richards, Disarming manhood: roots of ethical resistance (Athens, OH, 2005) YK.2007.a.20263
Patricia M. Shields, Jane Addams: progressive pioneer of peace, philosophy, sociology, social work and public administration (Cham, 2017) ELD.DS.351903
Leo Tolstoy, A Letter to a Hindu (from Project Gutenberg)
Bryan S. Turner, War and peace: essays on religion, violence, and space (London, 2013) ELD.DS.83774
02 August 2024
Divided by Politics – ‘United’ by Sport? The German Unified Olympic Team
In 1936 Germany hosted what would be the last Olympic Games before the Second World War, an event that became infamous as a showcase for Nazi Germany. At the first Games after the war (1948) Germans were banned from participating, but in 1950 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) formally recognised a new German National Olympic Committee, paving the way for German participation in the 1952 Games.
However, there was one major problem: by 1950 there were officially two German states, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the West and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East. The FRG had founded the Olympic Committee and claimed that it represented the whole of Germany, in keeping with its policy of not recognising the GDR as a legitimate state. The GDR quickly set up their own National Olympic Committee and also sought recognition from the IOC, but this was refused. Instead, the IOC suggested that the two states should form a single committee and compete as a single team, but NOC members on both sides, under political pressure from their governments, refused, and only West Germany took part in the 1952 Games. (Although the Saarland, later to become part of the FRG but in 1952 a French Protectorate, also competed for the only time as a separate entity.)
The IOC, and in particular its new Chairman, Avery Brundage, felt that the situation in 1952 went against the ‘Olympic spirit’ of international and apolitical camaraderie in sport. In the years leading up to the 1956 Games they sought a solution. In 1954 the East German NOC was given provisional recognition on the understanding that the two German states would still compete as a single team. This time both sides accepted the compromise, and in 1956 what later became known as the ‘Unified German Team’ took part as ‘Germany’ in both the summer and winter Olympics.
Members of the East and West German Olympic Committees during negotiations over the 1956 Games. From Grit Hartmann, Brigitte Berendonk, Goldkinder: die DDR im Spiegel ihres Spitzensports (Leipzig, 1997) YA.2000.a.19519
This may have solved one problem, but it threw up several others, including that of which flag and anthem the team would use. The flag issue was not initially too hard to solve since in 1956 both countries used the same black red and gold tricolour as their national flag, but by 1960 the GDR had superimposed its national emblem of a hammer and compass in a garland of corn onto its flag. After some wrangling, it was agreed that from then on the team would compete under a German tricolour with the Olympic rings displayed in white in the central red panel. Meanwhile, the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony was chosen as the anthem for the team. Team members were selected in qualification competitions held in both Germanies, and it was agreed that the state with the highest number of qualifying athletes would provide the team’s ‘Chef de Mission’ and flag-bearer.
The flag of the German Unified Team, used at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
When the Unified Team first appeared at the 1956 Olympics, Brundage triumphantly declared that in uniting the two German states in this way, the IOC had “succeeded where the politicians could not”. He would continue to express similar sentiments throughout the lifetime of the Unified Team, but the reality for German politicians, athletes and fans was somewhat different. Politicians in both East and West Germany tried to use participation in the Games to promote their own ends. For the FRG this was primarily to boost its the claim to be the only legitimate German state; conversely, for the GDR it was to gain recognition on the international stage. On the personal level too, the Unified Team was far from united. The athletes from East and West generally lived and trained separately in the Olympic villages and had little personal contact. Sports fans, used to watching the two Germanies compete as rivals in other situations, probably felt a closer allegiance to their own athletes than to those of the other state or to any concept of a united Germany.
The German Unified Team at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-C1012-0001-026 / Kohls, Ulrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
This separation grew more marked over the years as the political situation between the two states deteriorated. Uta Andrea Bailer, writing about the Unified Team, describes its history as “also the history of the continued drifting apart of the two German states.” By 1964 this had come to a head following the building of the Berlin Wall three years earlier. In a dissertation on the team, Eike Birck quotes West German Olympic skier Rita Czech-Blasel: “Who came up with this crazy idea? A ‘unified German team’! The Communists put up a wall, finally chopped Germany in half, and we athletes were supposed to act as if it was all sweetness and light ...” Also in 1964, for the first time the GDR had more qualifiers for the Games, giving them the coveted post of Chef de Mission, something seen in the FRG as a serious humiliation.
Cover of Matthias Fink, Das NOK der DDR - zwischen Olympia und Politik: die olympische Bewegung der DDR im Spannungsfeld der deutsch-deutschen Geschichte 1945-1973 (Göttingen, 2012) YF.2015.a.21269
In the following years, the IOC bowed to the inevitable. In 1965 the East German NOC was given full recognition, and in 1968 a separate East German team competed, although they were still required to use the flag and anthem of the Unified Team. By 1972 the separation was complete and both the FRG (the host of that year’s summer games) and the GDR competed as separate countries under their own flags. It was around this time that the GDR began the state-sanctioned doping programme that brought spectacular Olympic success throughout the 1970s and 80s but had devastating effects on the lives and health of East German athletes.
In 1992 a single German team once more appeared at the Olympics, but this time it was representing a newly politically unified Germany. Despite Brundage’s hopes of sport achieving what politics could not, it was in the end politics that brought German Olympians truly together again.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
References/further reading
Uta A. Balbier, Kalter Krieg auf der Aschenbahn: der deutsch-deutsche Sport, 1950-1972: eine politische Geschichte (Paderborn, 2007) YF.2007.a.31226. Also available online at https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00052124_00044.html
Uta A. Balbier, ‘“Flaggen, Hymnen und Medaillen”. Die gesamtdeutsche Olympiamannschaft und die kulturelle Dimension der Deutschlandpolitik.’ In: Susanne Muhle, Hedwig Richter und Juliane Schütterle (ed.), Die DDR im Blick: ein zeithistorisches Lesebuch. (Berlin, 2008), pp. 201-209. YF.2010.a.1880. Also available online at https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/sites/default/files/uploads/files/2021-06/balbier_flaggen_hymnen_und_medaillen_ddr_im_blick.pdf
Christian Becker, Edelfrid Buggel, Wolfgang Buss, Der Sport in der SBZ und frühen DDR: Genese, Strukturen, Bedingungen (Schorndorf, 2001) YA.2003.a.25310
Eike Birck, Die gesamtdeutschen Olympiamannschaften – eine Paradoxie der Sportgeschichte (Doctoral dissertation, University of Bielefeld, 2013) https://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/download/2638227/2638228/Dissertation_Eike_Birck.pdf
Horst Geyer, Olympische Spiele 1896-1996: ein deutsches Politikum (Münster, 1996) YA.1999.a.12770
Juliana Lenz, Zwischen Politik, Protokoll und Pragmatismus: die deutsche Olympiageschichte von 1952 bis 1972 (Berlin, 2011) YF.2013.a.15633 (Original dissertation available online at https://rosdok.uni-rostock.de/resolve/id/rosdok_disshab_0000002138)
David Maraniss, Rome 1960: the Olympics that changed the world (New York, 2008) m08/.26791
30 July 2024
Defiance on the World Stage: Czechoslovak Protests and the Olympic Games
In November 1959, Frank Vadasz, a former citizen of pre-war Czechoslovakia, wrote to Josef Josten, a renowned Czech journalist in exile in London. In his letter, conceived a few months ahead of the Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley (now Palisades Tahoe), California, Vadasz asked Josten to lobby the US Postmaster General, Arthur Summerfield, to make a certain stamp official postage for the Olympic Games. Vadasz had heard that in March 1960, the US would issue two stamps depicting Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a pre-war statesman and father of Czechoslovak independence, as a champion of liberty. He wanted the stamp to be printed earlier to coincide with the Games and make it the only stamp available in the Olympic Village. He argued: “It would be great propaganda by the US Post Office and a slap in the face to the Czechoslovak communist regime if all the participants of the games had to write letters home with a Masaryk stamp (and the Olympic symbol). The Czechoslovak post would not be able to return such letters!” Unfortunately, Vadasz’s plan did not work, and the stamps were issued in March as planned. However, there were other, more successful, Czechoslovak attempts to use the Olympics as a platform for protest before and after Vadasz’s plot.
A letter from Frank Vadasz to Josef Josten, Josten Collection of Second World War Government in Exile material formed by Josef Josten (1913-1985), donated to the British Library Philatelic Collections in 1986.
Marie Provazníková, coach of the Czechoslovak women’s gymnastics team at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, where her team won the gold medal, decided to defect to protest the lack of freedom following the 1948 coup d’état by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. An activist in the Sokol Movement and a believer in democracy, she was a supporter of former president Edvard Beneš. Provazníková joined a group of six Czechoslovakian and two Hungarian Olympic team members who refused to return to their homelands. After settling in the USA, she continued to work actively for Sokol, promoting its ideals and writing about its history and principles.
Miroslav Tyrš and Jindřich Fügner, co-founder of Sokol. Illustration from Josef Kučera, Dějiny tělocvičné jednoty Sokol v Londýně : o předběžným pojednáním o minulých spolcích londýnských (Prague, 1912), RB.23.b.8302
The 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City witnessed another story of resilience and quiet protest by Provazníková’s compatriot, Věra Čáslavská. The Czech gymnast became a symbol of defiance against Soviet oppression. Following the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, Čáslavská faced many challenges. Her training facilities were seized, forcing her to improvise her regimen in the forests of the Hrubý Jeseník mountains: she lifted potato sacks for weights and balanced on logs as beams, trying to maintain her peak condition.
Cover of Vratislav Blažek, Věra Čáslavska. (Prague, 1968), X.441/1143
An outspoken critic of Communism, during Prague Spring, Věra signed the ‘Two Thousand Words’ manifesto protesting the Warsaw Pact troops’ invasion of Czechoslovakia. This act of defiance forced her into hiding in a remote mountain hut at Vřesová studánka, only securing her passage to the Olympics at the last moment. Despite everything, Čáslavská dominated the 1968 Olympics, winning medals in all six events.
Čáslavská's achievements were particularly poignant because of the political turmoil in Czechoslovakia. During the medal ceremonies, she protested the occupation with a symbolic gesture while standing on the podium alongside a Soviet competitor: she turned her head away and looked down while the USSR’s anthem was playing, showing her defiance against Soviet politics. Věra’s was not the only act of defiance in Mexico, with Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s black power salute from the podium being one of the most iconic images engraved in history.
Cover of Harry Blustein, Games of discontent: protests, boycotts, and politics at the 1968 Mexico Olympics (Montreal; Kingston; London; Chicago 2021), YC.2022.a.5826.
After the Velvet Revolution, Čáslavská became an advisor to President Václav Havel and the chairwoman of the Czechoslovak and later the Czech Olympic Committee, further solidifying her legacy as both a sports icon and a symbol of resistance.
The Olympic Games have long been a stage for athletes to promote democratic values and protest oppressive regimes. Although officially Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas,” the Games highlight the power of sports as a platform for advocating democracy and human rights. In Beijing in 2022, just before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Vladyslav Heraskevych flashed a blue-and-yellow sign reading “No War in Ukraine” after competing in a skeleton race for his country. Although the Games are apolitical in principle, the Olympic spirit goes beyond competition and includes a commitment to global justice and freedom.
Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections, with thanks to Richard Morel, Curator Philatelic Collections
Further reading:
‘Ord om frihet. Två dokument från Tjeckoslovakiens folk. Två tusen ord och Medborgarnas budskap’ = ‘Dva tisíce slov.-Poselství občanů předsednictvu ústředního výboru komunistické strany’ (translation: Eva Lindekrantz and Ulla Keyling), in: Literarní Listy: týdenník věnovaný literatuře, uměni, poučení a zábavě. Redaktorové: F. Schulz a ... E. Grégr, no 1-3. (Gothenburg, 1968) X.708/6288
Josef Kučera, Dějiny tělocvičné jednoty Sokol v Londýně: o předběžným pojednáním o minulých spolcích londýnských, Praha 1912. RB.23.b.8302
International Olympic Committee, Olympic Charter (Lausanne?, 1991) 6256.404730
28 April 2023
EOKA pamphlets at the British Library
1 April 2023 marked 68 years since the beginning of the E[thniki] O[rganosis] K[yprion] A[goniston] (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) struggle to end British colonial rule in Cyprus with the ultimate goal of achieving Enosis (union) of Cyprus with Greece.
Britain’s concession of the Ionian Islands to the newly formed Greek state in 1864, filled the Greek Orthodox Cypriots with optimism that the great power, protector of Greece, would reconfirm its support with the concession of Cyprus, as they took over the administration of the island from the Ottomans in 1878. Greek Cypriots would soon become increasingly disillusioned by the new government, realising that initial declarations in favour of Cyprus’s right to self-determination would remain empty promises.
Various internal forces disagreed as to the form the anti-colonial struggle should take, with the nationalist right opting for military action and the communist left advocating social unrest through workers’ strikes and civil demonstrations. Despite the different voices, on the night of 31 March-1 April 1955, EOKA began its first bombing attacks on various government, police and military facilities in the island’s major cities.
The EOKA struggle was officially launched with its leader Georgios Grivas’s first proclamation that circulated widely throughout the island on 1 April. Drawing from the examples of the ancient Greeks, as well as those of the 1821 Greek Revolution and the 1940 resistance to the Axis, Grivas called upon the Cypriot people to join the fight for liberation to the final victory or death.
Georgios Grivas’s first proclamation declaring the start of the EOKA liberation struggle. J/8030.d.4
The British Library holds an important collection of leaflets and pamphlets from the years 1955-1959, used by EOKA to propagate its views among its members as well as potential new recruits among the Cypriot people. This material provides valuable insight into the organisation’s operations, regularly reporting on its successes and paying tribute to those who lost their lives for the cause. On the other hand, it documents the organisation’s stance on contemporary political and socio-economic affairs both in the internal of Cyprus, as well as on the international scene.
A leaflet reporting on operations between 1-10 October 1958. J/8030.d4
A leaflet paying tribute to Kyriakos Matsis, who fell in Dikomo on 19 November 1958. J. 8030.d4
EOKA rejecting the “abomination” plan of the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the last colonial Governor of Cyprus Hugh Foot for a solution to the Cyprus issue. J/8030.d6
Through its leaflets EOKA often called for discretion, warning that even the most insignificant information could reach the British through their lurking agents and traitors, causing serious blows to the struggle.
A leaflet found in Kalo Chorio on 26 October 1958 recommending people to avoid chatter and gossip. J/8030.d4
A drawing of a killed fighter with the caption “A chatty person killed him! by saying that he was a member of EOKA”. J/8030.d.4
The leaflets also reveal a more extremist side to EOKA, issuing threats against dissidents and proceeding to punishments such as beating or execution of those considered as traitors.
EOKA‘s last warning against five Cypriots to discontinue their “anti-national and provocative behaviour”. J/8030.d.4
EOKA justifying the executions of Andreas Sakkas, Savvas Menoikou and Georgios Yiasoumis, who were “used as a pretext for communist P[agkypria] E[rgatiki] O[mospondia] (Pancyprian Labour Federation) to develop its anti-national activity, incited and protected by the British”. J/8030.d.4
Responsible for co-ordinating the military and political efforts was P[olitiki] E[pitropi] K[ypriakou] A[gonos] (Political Committee of the Cypriot Struggle), formed in July 1956. PEKA demanded the release of Archbishop Makarios from exile (March 1956 - April 1957) as the designated representative of the Cypriot people and the sole person authorised to negotiate the Cyprus issue.
A PEKA leaflet rejecting the Radcliffe constitutional proposals and demanding Makarios’s return to resume negotiations on the basis of self-determination. J/8030.d.2
PEKA called for passive resistance in the form of boycotting British goods, such as chocolates, alcohol, cigarettes and tobacco, soap, washing powder, fabrics, shoes and agricultural tools. Anything that could be a source of income for the British, such as the government lottery or football bets, were to be eradicated, while transactions with Greek banks, advertisements in Cypriot newspapers and exclusive use of the Greek language on signs, posters and products were strongly encouraged.
EOKA, represented here by Hercules, cuts off the multiple heads of the capitalistic British Hydra to offer prosperity to the Cypriot people, represented by Iolaus. J/8030.d.2
PEKA campaigned systematically against the attendance of British technical schools by Cypriot students, criticising the creation of technical schools in Cyprus as an attack against the institution of Greek school and a mere trick to create janissaries and servants for the British. Parents who chose to send their children to the British technical schools were characterised as ‘unworthy to be called Greeks’ and Greek Cypriots who taught there were shamed as ‘mercenaries’.
PEKA declares that “We will not sell the fate of our children to the British”. J/8030.d.2
From mid-1957, the youth of EOKA was organised in A[lkimos] N[eolaia] E[OKA] (Strong Youth of EOKA) who distributed the organisation’s leaflets, demanded Enosis through slogans on walls and student demonstrations, informed EOKA on the movements of the British forces, intercepted military equipment etc. ANE published its own monthly pamphlet Egertirion Salpisma (Reveille).
The cover of the fourth issue of ANE’s Egertirion Salpisma that circulated in March 1958. J/8030.d.2
Lydia Georgiadou, Curator, Modern Greek Collections
09 February 2023
La Nuit des Idées
Hélène Duchêne, Ambassador of France to the UK and writer Zadie Smith will open the 7th edition of the “Night of ideas” on Thursday 9 February 2023, at the Institut français in London.
This year’s edition will gather 40 leading figures from both sides of the Channel, including member of the House of Lords and former Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, writer Constance Debré, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at Southbank Centre Ted Hodgkinson and Thomas Jolly, Artistic Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 ceremonies.
Exchanging French and British perspectives, writers, philosophers, artists, scientists, academics, journalists, activists and students will explore the recent changes in our world through a series of free discussions. The question that will drive the debate is “MORE?” More preoccupations and risks, but also more questions, and more discussions. All debates and events in the Night of Ideas are free to attend and open to all, but prior registration is required.
The audience will be able to engage and tackle contemporary issues, from the climate crisis to post #Metoo politics, to the new geopolitics, and to feed your reflection – before or after the event! – Here are a few of the books, in French, that you could find in our collections (you could also find all the books of the authors based in Britain, but let’s focus on the French ones!)
One of the panels at the event “Sexual (R)evolutions” deals with the politics of sex, which has considerably evolved in the past decade, and asks, “are we living through a new kind of sexual revolution, only this time more preoccupied with gender identity, consent and justice? How do we represent desire, break existing norms and reinvent relationships in its aftermath?” You can find the latest book by panellist Constance Debré in our collection at shelfmark YF.2022.a.24144 and her novel Love me tender at YF.2022.a.24114. Ivan Jablonka’s Des hommes justes: du patriarcat aux nouvelles masculinités is available at YF.2020.a.5611 while his Un garçon comme vous et moi has just arrived at the library, and is awaiting cataloguing.
The panel “You’ve reached maximum capacity” discusses issues such as environmental costs, political radicalism or algorithmic discriminations linked to the digital worlds and our ever-growing dependence to the internet - You can find panel participant Guillaume Poix’s novel Les Fils conducteurs, which described the situation of legal and illegal environmental dumping of electronic waste (or e-waste) from industrialized in Agbobloshie, a commercial district near the centre of Accra, in Ghana, at YF.2018.a.3342
The new edition of L’Atlas des frontières: murs, conflits, migrations, by Bruno Tertrais, is also awaiting cataloguing. Bruno Tertrais takes part in the panel “A More Cordial Entente?” on how Franco-British relations have always had their ups and downs, their successes and shares of misunderstandings. Against a challenging and fast-evolving geopolitical backdrop and in light of the war in Ukraine, the panel and the audience will be looking at what brings France and the United Kingdom together.
All these works are available to you when you are a reader at the British Library. Registration is free and gives you access to our collections and Reading Rooms in London and Yorkshire).
This exciting series of events organised by the Institut Francais highlights the relevance of our French collections at the British Library – and as ever, do not hesitate to contact the curator to recommend books that will allow you to participate in the next debate!
Meanwhile you can find details of the panels highlighted above and the rest of the programme at https://nightofideas.co.uk/whats-on/.
Sophie Defrance, Curator Romance Collections
22 November 2022
British Library East View e-resources now available remotely
Good news! If you have a British Library Reader Pass, it is now possible to access most of the Library’s East View e-resources remotely on a personal device. From digital newspaper collections and election ephemera to de-classified archival documents, the resources include a wide range of material originating in the Baltic states, Belarus, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.
Available titles include the Chernobyl Newspapers Collection, 1979-1990; the Social Movements, Elections and Ephemera collection, including the Euromaidan Protests in Ukraine and the Belarus Anti-Fascist Resistance Leaflets, 1942-1944; Russian central and regional newspapers; the Pravda Ukrainy Digital Archive; the Izvestiia and Pravda digital archives; periodicals of Central Asia and the Caucasus; and The Moscow News (1930-2014) digital archive, as well as statistical and bibliographic databases.
In March 2021, we shared some newly acquired e-resources on our blog. Since then, we have added a further three collections to our offering: the Belarus Presidential Election 2020 Ephemera database; an extension to the existing Chernobyl newspaper and archival collections; and the Poliarnaia Kochegarka Digital Archive. By the beginning of 2023 we will add the Demokratychna Ukraina Digital Archive.
For more information on the Library’s East View collections available for remote access, and for detailed instructions on how to connect using a personal advice, please visit our website.
11 July 2022
Breaking the News - Breaking the Law
As part of the events programme accompanying our current exhibition 'Breaking the News' curators from the European, Americas and Oceania Collections department took part in an online 'Meet the Curators' event to introduce some stories about news media in the countries they cover. This blog post is based on one of the talks given at that event.
Living in 1980s Poland meant being surrounded by a graphic persuasiveness of visual communist propaganda. However, in this forest of policy-inspired art and slogans a perceptive passer-by could notice discrepancies: a leaflet handed over discreetly, posters popping up mysteriously during the night, often offering the familiar red discomfort of the favourite communist colour, but conveying a rebellious message. If you were curious and brave enough to risk your own comfort, and sometimes life, you could have access to a clandestine news network which functioned as an alternative to the official one-sided narrative of the communist government. A lot of these samizdat productions were prepared by members of Solidarity.
This organisation started as a trade union in the then Polish People’s Republic and evolved into a broad anti-authoritarian social movement that helped to build the foundations for overthrowing communist rule in Eastern Europe by means of civil resistance. One of the goals for Solidarity’s members was raising the nation’s civil awareness by fighting censorship and providing access to independent media.
A poster advertising the University of Poznań Solidarity journal Serwis Informacyjny Komisji Zakładowej NSZZ «Solidarność» przy UAM w Poznaniu. Sol. 764
This advertisement for the Solidarity journal edited by the students of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan is the perfect example of such civil resistance. The image of a man sitting on a clearly useless TV set reading the Solidarity magazine was self-explanatory to Polish citizens of the era. At the time television had only two channels and the state-owned broadcaster was a mouthpiece for the communist government. All news was meticulously censored before release and had to be approved by the General Office for Control of Publications and Spectacles. The agency’s main role was to suppress the freedom of news and free speech.
The relentless efforts of censors resulted in a backlash. Grassroots movements started spreading information coming to Poland from abroad and disseminating true stories of what was going on in and outside of the country. Samizdat books and the so-called ‘second circulation’ of illegally printed press flourished. Spreading pro-democracy news was dangerous and could result in imprisonment and torture – just like in today’s Belarus. Nonetheless, the oppressive situation only fuelled samizdat’s spread. Pamphlets such as this instruction manual made mockery of the government’s efforts to stop the circulation of independent news.
Przemiennik częstotliwości: z RWE na co dzień ('An RF radio frequency converter: for your daily dose of Radio Free Europe'; Warsaw, 1984), Sol. 215x
The manual teaches how to build your own radio frequency converter to listen to Radio Free Europe, as the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries were jamming Western radio broadcasts. In a foreword to the manual the author criticizes the West for not doing enough to support pro-democracy movements and a lack of technological investment that could counter Soviet efforts to block news. However, it is the author’s opinion on wider Western policy that makes contemporary readers take pause: ‘the supremacy of economy over politics in the West means that the West will purchase Soviet gas and construct pipelines as this lies in their interest. By doing so they are playing into Soviet hands – one frosty winter the Soviet Union will be able to turn off the tap and cut off heating in the entire West Germany.’ For those who broke the law to break the news recent headlines are no news at all.
Olga Topol, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections
For more information about the Solidarity collection, read our blog posts giving a general overview and focusing on satire in the collection. You can also read about some sensational news stories from interwar Poland here.
01 November 2021
Red Élisabeth: Émigré, Intellectual, Organiser, Communarde
The current struggle can only end with the triumph of the popular cause [...] Paris will not retreat, because it carries the flag of the future.
These words are taken from the manifesto of the Paris Commune’s largest and most effective organisation, l’Union des Femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés (the Women’s Union for the Defence of Paris and Care of the Wounded).
‘Manifesto of the Women’s Union for the Defence of Paris and Care of the Wounded Central Committee’, taken from Carolyn Eichner, Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune (Bloomington (Indiana), 2004) C.2006.a.8599.
The final signatory, Dmitrieff, belongs to one of the most interesting and important actors through the Paris Commune, the socialist and anarchist insurrection which toppled the hegemonic order for 72 days in the Spring of 1871.
Born in Saint-Petersburg, Elizaveta Lukinichna Kusheleva had already encountered socialist ideas thanks to her exposure to Nikolai Chernyshevksy’s novel What is to Be Done? (1863). Though born into a family of significant wealth, growing up she occupied a liminal social space because of the disparity in her parents ranking: a Russian aristocrat and a German nurse.
Nevertheless, a marriage blanc to retired colonel Mikhail Tomanovskii in 1867 saw her able to travel freely outside of Russia.
She chose Geneva to continue her studies. There, she was amongst the founders of the Russian émigré section of the International, as well as utilising what remained of her sizeable inheritance to fund their newspaper, Narodnoe delo, ‘The Cause of the People’.
In 1870, the Russian émigré section of the International sent her as an envoy to London. It was there she would meet and befriend Karl Marx. Their relationship was one defined by productive intellectual interactions, with Dmitrieff relaying to Marx her realities of economic and social formation in the communes of Russia.
After just three months in London, she was deployed again as an envoy of the International to Paris, this time on behalf of Marx. Arriving in late March, just as the Paris Commune had been proclaimed, she chose Dmitrieff as her nom-de-guerre in the hope that it would help her evade authorities.
Standing 1.66m tall, dressed with a certain elegance and a particular penchant for wearing black, Dmitrieff, aged just 20, would go on to be one of the most important figures of the insurrection.
Portrait of Élisabeth Dmitrieff, taken from Ivan Sergeevich Vetrov, Russkie deiateli pervogo Internatsionala i Parizhskoi Kommuny. E. D. Dmitrieva, A. V. Zhaklar, E. G. Barteneva [With portraits.], (Moscow, 1964). X.709/595.
In the weeks following her arrival, an ‘Appeal to the Women Citizens of Paris’ was published onto the streets of Paris, which alongside calls for revolutionary justice, appealed to women to join the newly formed Union des Femmes, set up by Dmitrieff and Nathalie Lemel. Though its immediate interest was finding work for women, the Union also pursued the task of economically and socially redefining traditional notions of women’s work.
Dmitrieff worked frantically through the Commune to the point of illness. This is demonstrated by the aforementioned manifesto, published on May 6th. Towards the end, the document states that:
The women of Paris will prove to France and to the world that they, at the supreme moment of danger – on the barricades, on the ramparts of Paris, and if the reaction forces it, the doors - will give their brothers their blood and their life for the defence and the triumph of the Commune, that is, the People!
Dmitrieff was no mere propagandist. She was injured on the barricades through the conflict in the last week of May which saw as many as 20,000 communards die. After a period of hiding in the home of a friend, Dmitrieff managed to evade capture and flee to Geneva, before returning to Russia.
After the death of her ‘husband’ in 1873, she married again, this time for love, to Ivan Mikhailovich Davydovskii. Together they had two children, before moving the family to Siberia following the exile of her husband – who had been implicated in an attempt by the so-called 'Jack of Hearts Club' to defraud a man of 20 thousand rubles by getting the victim drunk. Fascinatingly, the couple opened a pastry shop, hoping to cater to the political prisoners sent to Siberia. The venture would prove to be unsuccessful.
By 1902, Dmitrieff had left Davydovskii and returned to Moscow. It is here she and her daughters somewhat fall off the historical record. There is no clarity on the date of her death: estimates identify either 1910 or 1918 as likely dates.
As a figure of historical study, she was largely overlooked until Soviet histories emerging through the 1930s. Nevertheless, the Library holds several books across several languages which demonstrate her importance to both the Commune and its historians.
A starting point would be Russkie deiateli pervogo Internatsionala i Parizhskoi Kommuny. E. D. Dmitrieva, A. V. Zhaklar, E. G. Barteneva (‘Russian leaders of the First International and the Paris Commune. E. L. Dmitrieva, A. V. Zhaklar, E. G. Barteneva’) by Ivan Sergeevich Vetrov. Even if you don’t read Russian, the wonderful portraits included are still worth checking out.
Two French biographies, the first by Yvonne Signer-Lecocq, Rouge Élisabeth, and a second by Sylvie Braibant, Elisabeth Dmitrieff, aristocrate et pétroleuse, both take Dmitrieff as their centrepiece, offering sharp insights into her first experiences of Paris: a city she had never visited before her arrival in late March, 1871.
Another book worth consulting is Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune by Carolyn Eichner. The book takes three communardes as its subject: André Leo, Paule Mink and Dmitrieff, while referring to many others, to demonstrate the plurality of feminist-socialist interventions through the Commune. Eichner has written extensively on the subject, including a recent article on Louise Michel and the transportation of communards to New Caledonia and their eventual conflict with the indigenous Kanak community.
Place Élisabeth Dmitrieff, 3rd Arrondissement, 1851-1918. Militant feminist, co-founder of the Women’s Union for the Defence of Paris (1871). Source: Flickr
Now recognised by Paris in the form of a small square in the city’s third arrondissement, Dmitrieff’s involvement cannot be underestimated. Her practical applications of highly-centralised socialism, emanating from her experiences in Russia and Geneva, as well as her interactions with the works of Chernyshevksy and Marx, means that Dmitrieff’s star still shines over the Commune.
Anthony Chapman, CDP Student at the British Library and Royal Holloway, University of London
References/Further reading:
Sylvie Braibant, Elisabeth Dmitrieff, aristocrate et pétroleuse (Paris, 1993). YA.1993.b.11074.
Catherine Clément, Aimons-nous les uns les autres : roman (Paris, [2014]). YF.2018.a.11194
Carolyn Eichner, ‘Language of Imperialism, Language of Liberation: Louise Michel and the Kanak-French Colonial Encounter’, Feminist Studies, vol. 45, no. 2-3 (2019), pp. 377-408. Special issue: Indigenous Feminisms in Settler Contexts. 3905.197800
Yvonne Signer-Lecocq, Rouge Élisabeth (Paris, 1977). X:709/24054.
Ivan Sergeevich Vetrov, Russkie deiateli pervogo Internatsionala i Parizhskoi Kommuny. E. D. Dmitrieva, A. V. Zhaklar, E. G. Barteneva (Moscow, 1964). X.709/595.
27 September 2021
Angela Merkel - a leadership in books
Last weekend’s German Federal election marked the beginning of the end of Angela Merkel’s 16 years in office as Chancellor. Although she will remain in a caretaker role while the German political parties negotiate to form a ruling coalition, once agreement is reached she will stand down and retire from active political life. As the first woman and the first politician from the former German Democratic Republic in the role, Merkel has been the subject of great interest and many books. The following is an overview of some of the many that the British Library has acquired over the years.
Angela Merkel, In unruhiger Zeit: Reden und Aufsätze aus drei Jahren deutscher Einheit (Düsseldorf, 1994) YA.1995.a.651
Merkel first arrived on our shelves in 1994 via a collection of her speeches and essays, In unruhiger Zeit (‘In Unsettled Times’). The book bears witness to her swift rise in politics: she only became politically active in late 1989, joined the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) the following summer, and was appointed Minister for Women and Young People in the newly-united German government in 1991. As the journalist Fides Krause-Brewe says in her introductory essay, Merkel’s was “a career that only a revolution could produce”. The first ‘political biography’ of Merkel in the BL, by Wolfgang Stock, followed in 2000.
By 2005 we had acquired two more biographies and a book based on interviews with Merkel herself, Mein Weg (‘My Path’). After Merkel became Chancellor that year there was naturally an explosion of interest and publications. A theme often highlighted was the fact of Merkel being a woman, sometimes contrasted with male election rivals such as Gerhard Schröder (2005) and Peer Steinbrück (2013). Merkel is also sometimes compared to other women in positions of power and to contemporary female heads of state, for example in Patricia Lessnerkraus’s Merkel, Macht, Politik (‘Merkel, Power, Politics’).
Clare Throp, Angela Merkel (London, 2014) YKL.2014.a.394
As one of the world’s most powerful women, Merkel is often depicted as a role model. She features as one of the ‘Extraordinary Women’ in an educational series aimed at 9-11 year olds, and Joyce Marie Mushaben’s Becoming Madam Chancellor is “dedicated to girls everywhere looking for positive political role models”. Two of Merkel’s political nicknames show how such role models are still needed. Her mentor, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, called her his ‘Mädchen’ (‘girl’), despite the fact that Merkel was a professional woman in her mid-30s with a doctorate in quantum chemistry. A 2001 study of her background and her rise in the CDU was titled Das Mädchen und die Macht (‘The Girl and Power’). In recent years she has often been referred to as ‘Mutti’ (‘mum’), a title perhaps affectionately meant but which can also be read as patronising: it’s hard to imagine a male politician being referred to by equivalent masculine terms.
Merkel’s GDR background has also been subject to much study and speculation. In a ‘collective biography’ from 2010 Michael Lühmann compares her with two other politicians from the East, Matthias Platzeck and Wolfgang Thierse. He defines all three as ‘Wendepolitiker’ – figures who only became active in politics around the time the Berlin Wall fell but who quickly became familiar and influential in the years that followed. Meanwhile Ralf Georg Reuth and Günther Lachmann go in search of Merkel’s GDR life in Das erste Leben der Angela M. (‘The First Life of Angela M.’). The famously reticent Merkel once said of this period “People know hardly anything about 35 years of my life”, but it is well known that her father was a Lutheran pastor, and her own faith is the focus of a study by Volker Resing, Angela Merkel, die Protestantin (‘Angela Merkel, the Protestant’). Resing later edited a collection of speeches given by Merkel at national church meetings, shedding further light on her beliefs and how they influence her politics.
Volker Resing, Angela Merkel, die Protestantin: ein Portät (Leipzig, [2009]) YF.2012.a.8103
The majority of our holdings about Merkel are in German, but of course she also attracted international attention. We have a biography in French from 2006, but our earliest English-language work, rather surprisingly, dates from as late as 2013, and was written in the context of the 2008 financial crisis and its lasting negative effects in the Eurozone. In the same year a biography by Stefan Kornelius was translated into English, with an additional chapter for a UK audience entitled ‘The British Problem’. The problems in the Eurozone also form the background to Nicolas Barotte’s François & Angela, a study of the relationship between Merkel and French President François Hollande during the period. Despite the affectionate relationship implied by the cover photograph, Barotte highlights the tensions and disagreements between the two, calling them a “couple in crisis”.
Nicolas Barotte, François et Angela: Hollande contre Merkel: histoire secrète d'un couple en crise (Paris, [2015])
Although the Eurozone crisis and then Merkel’s welcoming of Syrian refugees to Germany in 2015 did considerable damage to her popularity at home, most of the publications we hold about her appear even-handed in their allocation of praise or blame. One of the exceptions is a study by Gertrud Köhler, a fierce critic of Merkel. Its title Die Patin (‘The Godmother’) with its mafia overtones gives an idea of Köhler’s opinion. Her latest book on Merkel is described as a ‘requiem’, and claims that Merkel’s leadership has weakened Germany. Another critical voice is Dirk Kurbjuweit, editor of news magazine Der Spiegel whose book Alternativlos (‘No Alternative’ – a term Merkel used to defend her handling of the Eurozone crisis) accuses her of failing to rise to the challenges of office, preferring a reactive to a proactive approach when faced with problems.
Despite this, Merkel’s approval rating in Germany is high as she leaves office, and in a YouGov poll this summer she was rated the most popular world leader by voters in six countries. Furthermore, a sense of affection for the former chancellor in Germany is reflected in the success of the ‘cosy crime novel’, Miss Merkel, by David Safier, which has Merkel retiring to a rural village near her childhood home and solving a murder mystery. And a limited edition commemorative Merkel teddy bear swiftly sold out this year.
David Safier, Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark (Hamburg, 2020) On order
No doubt we will continue to acquire books in coming years about Angela Merkel, her time in office, and her legacy (a collection of her major speeches is on order – and dare we hope for her memoirs?), building on our collections about perhaps the most significant figure in recent German and European history.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
References/Further reading
Wolfgang Stock, Angela Merkel: eine politische Biographie (Munich, 2000.) YA.2002.a.21061
Mein Weg: Angela Merkel im Gespräch mit Hugo Müller-Vogg (Hamburg, 2004) YF.2005.a.8655
Marcus Maurer [et al.], Schröder gegen Merkel: Wahrnehmung und Wirkung des TV-Duells 2005 im Ost-West-Vergleich (Wiesbaden, 2007) YF.2008.a.4259
Janis Eitner, Macht Macht männlich? Das Bild von Angela Merkel und Gerhard Schröder in der deutschen Tagespresse (Marburg, 2007) YF.2009.a.11222
Merkel gegen Steinbrück : Analysen zum TV-Duell vor der Bundestagswahl 2013 ed. byThorsten Faas, Jürgen Maier, Michaela Maier (Wiesbaden, 2017) YF.2019.a.6423
Florence Absolu, Les femmes politiques dans la presse: mythèmes, biographèmes et archétype : les représentations genrées de Ségolène Royal et Angela Merkel dans la presse française et allemande pendant leurs campagnes électorales = Politikerinnen in der Presse: Mytheme, Biographeme und Archetyp : Die gender-betonte Darstellung von Angela Merkel und Ségolène Royal in den deutschen und französischen Printmedien während ihrer Wahlkampagnen (Würzburg, 2014) YF.2015.a.3012
Regina Richter, Angela Merkel und andere kluge Frauen : Selbst- und Fremdbilder von Frauen in politischen Spitzenpositionen (Saarbrücken, 2007) YF.2010.a.3328
Joyce Marie Mushaben, Becoming Madam Chancellor: Angela Merkel and the Berlin Republic (Cambridge, 2017) YC.2018.a.511
Evelyn Roll, Das Mädchen und die Macht: Angela Merkels demokratischer Aufbruch (Berlin, 2001) YA.2002.a.38421
Michael Lühmann, Der Osten im Westen, oder, Wie viel DDR steckt in Angela Merkel, Matthias Platzeck und Wolfgang Thierse? Versuch einer Kollektivbiographie (Stuttgart, 2010) YF.2011.a.25124
Ralf Georg Reuth & Günther Lachmann, Das erste Leben der Angela M. 2nd ed. (Munich, 2013) YF.2016.a.1155
Angela Merkel, Daran glaube ich: christliche Standpunkte, ed. By Volker Resing (Leipzig, [2013?]) YF.2017.a.14480
Baudouin Bollaert, Angela Merkel (Monaco, 2006) YF.2008.a.25729
Alan Crawford & Tony Czuczka, Angela Merkel: a chancellorship forged in crisis (Chichester, 2013) YC.2013.a.12600
Stefan Kornelius, Angela Merkel: the chancellor and her world, translated by Anthea Bell and Christopher Moncrieff (Richmond, Surrey, 2013) YC.2014.a.7686. Original German edition: Angela Merkel : die Kanzlerin und ihre Welt (Hamburg, 2013) YF.2015.a.20431
Gertrud Höhler, Die Patin: wie Angela Merkel Deutschland umbaut, 2nd ed. (Zurich, 2012) YF.2014.a.8445
Gertrud Höhler, Angela Merkel: das Requiem (Berlin, 2020) Awaiting shelfmark
Dirk Kurbjuweit, Alternativlos: Merkel, die Deutschen und das Ende der Politik (Munich, 2014) YF.2015.a.3659.
Angela Merkel, Die grossen Reden, ed. Caroline Draeger (Munich, 2021) On order
Gerd Langguth, Angela Merkel. 2nd ed. (Munich, 2005) YF.2006.a.16958
Matthew Qvortrup, Angela Merkel: Europe’s most influential leader, Expanded and updated edition. (London, 2017) YK.2018.a.1175
European studies blog recent posts
- How Bitter the Savour is of Other’s Bread? International Conference on European Political Refugees in the UK from 1800
- Wage Peace Not War. Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi on Violence, Nonresistance, and Love
- Divided by Politics – ‘United’ by Sport? The German Unified Olympic Team
- Defiance on the World Stage: Czechoslovak Protests and the Olympic Games
- EOKA pamphlets at the British Library
- La Nuit des Idées
- British Library East View e-resources now available remotely
- Breaking the News - Breaking the Law
- Red Élisabeth: Émigré, Intellectual, Organiser, Communarde
- Angela Merkel - a leadership in books
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