News
“The North Attracts Me Greatly…”
27.03.2017
Within the Internet project “In Search of the Lost Library” the collection of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov was added with a complete collection of works by H.Ibsen in 4 volumes (Appendix to the journal “Niva” of 1909) published in Saint-Petersburg by A.F.Marx Partnership. This is an analogue of the collected works by the Norwegian writer; it was in the personal library of M.A.Sholokhov in the 1930–1940s and was lost during the Great Patriotic War.
The works by H.Ibsen were translated from Danish-Norwegian by A. and P.Hansen. Besides, they made a critical-biographical essay and forewords to his plays. The book covers were made of fabrics specially impregnated, and the author’s name and the title of the book were gold embossed on them. They bear pictures of Scandinavian nature and the information on the edition made in black.
The first volume contains four plays by H.Ibsen including “Per Gynt”, one of the most well-known plays. The second volume contains nine plays of different years including “Pillars of Society”. In the third volume there are nine plays including “A Doll’s House”, which was translated into almost all the European languages (in most of the translations it is entitled “Nora”). The fourth volume contains dramas, selected poems, articles, Norwegian legends, speeches, letters of H.Ibsen and an article “The World Fame of Ibsen”, and other materials about the life and work of the outstanding Norwegian playwright.
The work of H.Ibsen was very popular in Russia at the beginning of the XX century. His plays were staged in many theatres. A number of great figures of art–I.Annensky, L.Andreyev, A.Blok, A.Lunacharsky, V.Meyerkhold and others devoted their articles and researches to H.Ibsen.
The acquisition in the 1930s of the collected works by the world-known writer H.Ibsen from the secondhand bookshop was very important for M.A.Sholokhov. In the foreword for the 11th edition of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don” in Swedish in 1957, Sholokhov wrote: “Long, long ago, when a young schoolboy I dreamed of visiting Scandinavia. Unlike my contemporaries-southerners I feel the North attracts and entices me greatly” (M.A.Sholokhov. Collected Works. In 8 volumes. Moscow, 1980, vol.8, page 275).
Lyudmila Razogreyeva
