Today, Victory in Europe Day, marks the anniversary of the end of World War II on the Eastern European Front on 8 May 1945. We are delighted to share the video-recording (hosted on Cambridge University Library’s YouTube channel) of the talk on the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation collection (1944-1946) we gave on 19 March, as part of the 2024 Cambridge Festival, in partnership with the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics.
This year will mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings and the Liberation of France from German occupation, at the end of the Second World War. As part of the ongoing promotion of and research into Cambridge University’s Library Liberation collection (1944-1946), we have been delighted to shed light on Sophie Dubillot’s AHRC-funded collaborative (Cambridge UL and Open University) PhD project: ‘Ce n’est pas une blague: Purposes and Limits of Visual Humour in Early Post-War France (1944-46)’ and on the Liberation Collection (1944-46) Visiting Scholarship at Cambridge UL, whose first recipient will be announced in the next few weeks. We would be very happy to welcome you on Tuesday 19th March, 5-6pm at the Faculty of Divinity on the Sidgwick site, for Sophie Dubillot and Irène Fabry-Tehranchi’s talk on the Liberation collection: Illustrated books and humour in Cambridge University Library’s Liberation collection (1944-46), as part of the Cambridge Festival (you can register here).
This talk will examine a selection of the Liberation collection’s illustrated works (ranging from deluxe fundraising anthologies to commemorative works, clandestine printing and poetry), as well as humorous drawings representing struggles (such as restrictions, housing issues, and missing family members), in an ideologically divided country in dire need of reconstruction.
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi
We are delighted to share the new webpage designed by the University Library Research Institute (ULRI), for the AHRC-funded doctoral award on France and the Second World War, a collaborative project of the Open University and Cambridge University Library.
The PhD candidate, Sophie Dubillot, previously contributed to this blog pieces on the French résistante Madeleine Riffaud and the collaborationist Auguste Liquois; the résistant priest Père Jacques de Jésus (who inspired Louis Malle’s 1987 film Au revoir les enfants) and Julien Unger’s Le sang et l’or : souvenirs de camps allemands (1946).
Sophie is using material from the Chadwyck-Healey Liberation Collection and the abundant press of the Liberation period to examine humorous drawings in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War in France (1944-46). Her project aims to examine visual humour’s forms, functions, and limits at a time when the French had to negotiate the delicate post-war transition back to peace. Sophie’s research focuses on how humour served to redefine the French nation in the early post-war period and how different influences on the drawings encouraged or stifled particular voices.
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi
Thanks to vocal support from researchers across the University following trial access earlier this year, the Library has now purchased permanent access to the electronic backfiles of Krokodil and Literaturnaia gazeta. These purchases provide our readers with full accessibility to these very important titles for the first time. Continue reading “‘Krokodil’ and ‘Literaturnaia gazeta’ electronic backfiles”
Are Germans funny? This question arose in our department recently when a book about German humour crossed my desk. Being German and therefore naturally taking our humour quite seriously, the holdings of the UL dealing with this phenomenon seemed worthwhile investigating – especially with the so called “fifth season” (also known as Karneval or Fasching) in Germany currently at its peak (during Mardi Gras). Contrary to popular belief, it seems that humour is in fact quite important and deeply rooted in German culture. However, German humour is vastly different from British, even though both forms often rely on puns (but, due to linguistic differences, German puns are constructed in a way that makes it often impossible to translate without losing their wit). In Germany, political humour, satire and caricatures are also widespread, and comedy shows and programmes regularly feature on TV. It is therefore no surprise that the UL holds several books dealing with humour in a German context (such as caricatures, satire and the phenomenon of carnival during Germany’s turbulent history).
In August 1914, Germany and Austro-Hungary declared war on Russia, and the bloody Eastern Front of the First World War opened. The war saw a great deal of propaganda on all sides, some surprisingly humorous. We look at a mischievous pamphlet from Petrograd (renamed from the Germanic “Sankt-Peterburg” that same month) about Kaiser Wilhelm.
Imperial Russia’s involvement in the First World War was disastrous, seeing the deaths of millions of soldiers and eventually the empire’s own demise too. The bloody Eastern Front opened after Russia’s incursion into Galicia with the Battle of Tannenberg, a battle lost so catastrophically by the Russians that their commander, Aleksandr Samsonov, chose to commit suicide than face the Tsar.
Anti-German sentiment was at fever pitch in Russia, and in August 1914, the empire’s capital, Sankt-Peterburg (St Petersburg) was renamed Petrograd to be more Slavic. The University Library has about 30 publications printed in 1914 with the place of publication given as Petrograd. Among these is Chto dumaet Vil’gel’m kogda emu ne spitsia? (What does Wilhelm think about when he can’t sleep?; CCC.54.469), by N.A. Ratomskii.
Languages across Borders 