IngentaConnect Text, context, interpretation: from Thomas Atkinson Witlam to Mih...

Author: Stancu, Eugen¹

Source: European Review of History, Volume 16, Number 1, February 2009 , pp. 169-181(13)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

In 1930, Mihail Sadoveanu, a well-known Romanian novelist, wrote The Nest of Invasions, inspired by Thomas Witlam Atkinson's travel accounts Oriental and Western Siberia; a Narrative of Seven Years' Exploration and Adventures in Siberia, Mongolia, the Kirghis Steppes, Chinese Tartary, and a Part of central Asia, which was published in 1860. As Sadoveanu explained in the foreword, his novel was part of a larger project (a whole series of novels) which aimed at reconstructing the life, culture and customs of various peoples and regions of the world before the development of science and technology transformed them. Sadoveanu's aim was to rescue and to restitute to the readers the diversity that had previously existed. Science and technology were considered a powerful menace which condemned everything to uniformity. However in the 1950s the novel was reprinted in a Science Fiction Magazine with a new foreword, in which the author fully re-examined what he wrote in the 1930s. This paper explores the genesis and transformation of the novel The Nest of Invasions, from its source of inspirations (Atkinson's text) to how the historical contexts of the interwar and early communist period influenced its narrative.

Keywords: Romania; communist science fiction; socialist realism; Mihail Sadoveanu

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/13507480802655519

Affiliations: 1: Central European University, Budapest

Text, context, interpretation: from Thomas Atkinson Witlam to Mihail Sadoveanu