MEMORY OF THE WORLD REGISTER. The Karen Blixen archives. (Denmark)

Transcription

1 MEMORY OF THE WORLD REGISTER The Karen Blixen archives (Denmark) Ref N PART A ESSENTIAL INFORMATION 1 SUMMARY This nomination is the result of a co-operation between the Royal Library, Copenhagen and the Rungstedlund Foundation, including the Karen Blixen Museum in Rungstedlund. The voluminous Karen Blixen archives were acquired by the Royal Library in The collection of documents encompasses private letters, diaries, manuscripts, drawings and sketches. The archives provide a unique insight into the life and work of one of the most outstanding and original European writers of fiction in the 20 th century. The archives have been and will in the future be of indispensable importance for books and articles on the style and themes of her books and their biographical background. The archives are of fundamental importance to a new critical edition of her literary oeuvre currently in production by the Danish Society of Language and Literature. The works of Karen Blixen are not only of European, but of worldwide importance. Her book Out of Africa gives a unique insight into the thought-provoking encounter between African and European culture. The screen version of the book renewed international interest in her works. Her works, including her published letters, have been translated into close to 35 languages. In the 1950s she was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in literature, and in 1959 by the majority of the Nobel Prize Committee. Today we know from the Nobel Archives that she was rejected only because 3 other Nordic novelists had received the prize in the previous 15 years, and the Nobel Committee found this to be a disproportionate representation of the Nordic countries. 2 DETAILS OF THE NOMINATOR 2.1 Name (person or organisation) Erland Kolding Nielsen, the Royal Library, Copenhagen 2.2 Relationship to the documentary heritage nominated The nominator is Director General of the Royal Library and National Librarian 2.3 Contact person (s) Bruno Svindborg, research librarian, mag.art., Manuscript Department, The Royal Library. Marianne W. Asmussen, mag. art., literary executor of the Rungstedlund Foundation, former director of the Karen Blixen Museum at Rungstedlund, Northern Zealand. 2.4 Contact details (include address, phone, fax, )

2 Bruno Svindborg Manuscript Department, The Royal Library P.O DK-1016 Copenhagen K bs@kb.dk Tel: IDENTITY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE DOCUMENTARY HERITAGE 3.1 Name and identification details of the items being nominated The Karen Blixen archives refers to the papers left by Karen Blixen at her death in 1962 and acquired by The Royal Library in Description See attachment A. 4 JUSTIFICATION FOR INCLUSION/ ASSESSMENT AGAINST CRITERIA 4.1 Is authenticity established? The authenticity of the archival material is established by the fact that Karen Blixen herself produced, received and collected the documents during her lifetime. Rungstedlund was Karen Blixen s ( ) home all of her life. Even in the years , when she also had a home in what is now Kenya, she spent roughly a third of the period in Denmark. Karen Blixen herself collected all the archival material at Rungstedlund, from where it was sold to the Royal Library in Is world significance, uniqueness and irreplaceability established? The world significance is found in the fact that the documents reflect the life and work of one of the most famous writers of fiction in the 20 th century. The original letters, manuscripts and drawings cannot be replaced. Karen Blixen published her first book, Seven Gothic Tales, in 1934 (Syv fantastiske Fortællinger, 1935). She wrote both the English and the Danish versions herself. The English edition, her debut, was, prior to publication, chosen as the Book-of-the-Month, a remarkable debut. Her second book, Out of Africa, 1937 (Den afrikanske Farm, 1937) received the same reception in America. When the latter book formed the basis in 1985 for Universal Film s production Out of Africa, which received seven Oscar nominations, Karen Blixen s works became known throughout the world. She has been translated into close to 35 languages and was in the 1950s (last in 1959) nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in literature. The Karen Blixen archive is unique in that it represents all genres: 1. manuscripts, typed or handwritten, in both Danish and English 2. sketch books from her youth which contain rough drafts for stories accompanied by drawings, for example of characters from the French Revolution 3. radio talks 4. letters both to and from Karen Blixen, especially a copious correspondence with her family during the years in Africa. Her correspondence after her return to Denmark with her family, authors, publishers and friends bears witness to a large and interesting set of contacts 5. guest books, diary entries, for example from a four month stay in Paris in her youth in 1910

3 6. accounts from running the coffee plantation in Africa 7. passports and other personal papers 8. drawings from the period spent in the preparatory class at the Art Academy in Copenhagen The archive provides unique insight both into her life and works, as well as the creative process behind the individual works. Karen Blixen is one of very few authors who wrote with the same literary quality in two languages. The archive contains, for example, her own bilingual manuscript for Out of Africa. 4.3 Is one or more of the criteria of (a) time (b) place (c) people (d) subject and theme (e) form and style (f) social, spiritual and community significance satisfied? (b) The documents describe, among other things, Karen Blixen s stay in Kenya as a coffee farmer. (c) The correspondence in the archives with Karen Blixen s family, friends, and colleagues gives a vivid representation of the personal and cultural background of Karen Blixen s life and her career as a writer. (d) Karen Blixen was born at Rungstedlund, north of Copenhagen in She grew up in a family of five, where she was the middle of three sisters and had two younger brothers. Wilhelm Dinesen, her father, was from a landowning and military family, and her mother, Ingeborg Dinesen, born Westenholz, came from a merchant family. Shortly before her tenth birthday, her father committed suicide, and this loss left lasting scars on the young girl. Karen was perhaps the child closest to her father and she later discovered in herself his longing for wide open spaces, need for independence, literary propensities and depressive tendencies. Throughout her life she struggled to find her own place between the bourgeois moderation of her mother s family and her father s love of adventure. She was educated at home, as were girls in good families at that time. Her mother and her maiden aunt, Mary Bess Westenholz, were two strong women, who put their stamp on the children. Education was the acquisition of cultural background in literature, music and history. The intention was to make the three daughters suitable marriage partners, while the two boys were allowed to go to school. Karen Blixen did have drawing lessons outside her home and was in 1903 admitted to the preparatory class for women at the Art Academy in Copenhagen. The years of her youth were characterized by restlessness and idleness, trips to Paris in 1910 and to Italy in 1912, and social life at the manor houses of family and friends. Her engagement to her second cousin Bror von Blixen-Finecke in 1913 and marriage to him on arrival in Mombasa in January, 1914, was the decisive turning point in her life. For 17 years in Africa she strove, though in vain, to create a life as a coffee farmer. First, together with her spouse, and then, after their divorce, (proceedings were started in 1920 and finalized in 1925), she attempted to run the plantation on her own. The coffee plantation remained a failure, but her encounter with the native people and their land created an author of unique power and originality. Loss, first represented by the loss of her father, became a common motif in her life. Later her marriage failed and her close friend Denys Finch Hatton died in a plane crash a few months before she was forced to accept that she had lost both the plantation and her identity as a farmer. At the age of 47, Karen Blixen had no other choice but to move back to her childhood home. Without any education, no professional identity and no financial resources for an independent life, she moved in with her mother at Rungstedlund. The literary attempts of her youth, a few of which had been published, and the tales she had started on in her last years in Africa determined her fate: to become an author. She chose to dramatize her new identity by making a pact with the devil that from that time on, she would transform everything that happened to her into stories. But her works are in no sense autobiographical.

4 Seven Gothic Tales (Syv fantastiske Fortællinger) was published first in English in 1934 in the United States and England and in Denmark the next year. Prior to publication in New York, the book was selected as the Book-of-the-Month, a remarkable international debut. In 1938 The New York Times Book Review referred to Blixen as The Danish master of English prose. Later she wrote all her books both in Danish and English. The tales all take place in the 1800s, and Blixen created her very own interpretation of the short story genre. The gothic tales, in their literary form, are, all at once old-fashioned, completely contemporary and even ahead of their time. They were a far cry from the realism and culture wars of that time, and in Denmark she was viewed as a poorly adjusted eccentric. Out of Africa (Den afrikanske Farm): Only after her successful debut did Blixen dare to make use of her impressions from the 17 years in Africa. The book, which was published simultaneously in Danish and English in 1937, has more the character of a beautiful myth about a lost paradise than a actual memoir. It has since been published in many languages, and after the Oscar-winning film version in 1985 with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in the starring roles, it was re-printed in many languages in large editions. Winter s Tales (Vinter-Eventyr) is Blixen s third book. It appeared under difficult conditions during the Second World War in 1942 in both Danish and English. It is a collection of stories which, in contrast to Seven Gothic Tales (Syv fantastiske Fortællinger), are placed in Denmark. The eleven tales all revolve around the theme of fate, and the language is less exotic and extravagant than in her debut book. The Angelic Avengers (Gengældelsens Veje) appeared under the pseudonym Pierre Andrézel in It was a thriller, which Blixen herself viewed as a lighter genre, and not until 1956 did she acknowledge the book as hers. Blixen wrote, as did her father, under various pseudonyms, first as Isak Dinesen, which was her identity at her English debut. In her works she also plays with the many identities of her characters. Last Tales (Sidste Fortællinger) appeared in Illness had forced her to take a break, but this was not her last book, since the very next year she published Anecdotes of Destiny (Skæbne-Anekdoter) a collection of tales that Blixen had published in the Ladies Home Journal and other magazines in the 1950s. One of these was Babette s Feast (Babettes Gæstebud) and the film version, which won an Oscar, again brought Blixen new readers. Shadows on the Grass (Skygger på Græsset), the last, and seventh, book that appeared in Blixen s lifetime, is a fine short book of four essays with themes from Africa. She remembers reflectively and lovingly "her country and "her native friends and her works come full circle with this book. Completed manuscripts for a few tales were found at Rungstedlund after her death, and these were published posthumously, as was the large collection of letters from her years in Africa and her time in Denmark. The editions of the letters provide a valuable picture of a great artist. When the French edition of the letters from Denmark appeared, Le Figaro Littéraire spoke of her as one of the twenty best European letter writers of the twentieth century. No other Danish author s literary works in the twentieth century have attracted so much international attention, and they continue to do so. She is read in many different cultures, and her work is still the object of new books and studies. Theatrical productions and films about her life and of the tales continue to be made. In 2010 it came out that the Nobel Prize committee had recommended her in 1959 for the Nobel Prize in literature, but the Swedish Academy highly unusually chose to ignore the recommendation. The committee s attention in particular was concentrated on Out of Africa (Den afrikanske Farm). This book is still viewed as one of the books that best depicts, in talented literary form, the meeting of two cultures with dignity and equality. Despite its origins in the seventeen years

5 in Africa, it is not particularly biographical, and thus has universal validity as an existential document, which appeals at all times to people in all cultures. Karen Blixen may well be the only author whose two homes have both been set up as museums. Her African plantation was opened as a museum in 1985 and has about 80,000 visitors a year, whereas Blixen s Danish house, The Karen Blixen Museum, which opened in 1991, has a slightly lower number of annual visitors. It was in the tension between the Danish and African homes that this unique body of works was created. Rare also is the case that a whole body of literary works has been written in the same physical framework, which was as well the childhood home of the author. The museums contribute in each their culture to the broad dissemination of a universal body of works. Towards the end of her life Karen Blixen set up a foundation, Rungstedlundfonden, to which she left her house, its large park and the rights to her works. In the charter of the foundation, she determined that the park should be preserved and maintained as a bird sanctuary and the successful result is a rich and varied bird life. A desire to protect nature and ecology was also characteristic of Karen Blixen s way of thinking. She was born at Rungstedlund on April 17, 1885 and died the same place September 17, 1962 at the age of 77. And it was here that she wrote her seven books. The archive, which contains such rich and various materials that illuminate these works of international significance, was also collected and kept together at this place, until transferred to the Royal Library in Are there issues of rarity, integrity, threat and management that relate to this nomination? Rarity: An archive containing many original documents that describe in detail the life and work of one of the 20 th century s best known writers is unique. Integrity: The papers represent what Karen Blixen left at her home at her death. Threat: The archive material is handled, stored and divided up in accordance with physical and safety related requirements. Management plan: Due to an arrangement between The Royal Library, Copenhagen and the Rungstedlund Foundation central parts of the collection will be digitized in the near future and this work will take place at the Royal Library. The digitized documents will be published on the web, and this measure will ensure that over time parts of the archives will become more accessible to researchers and other interested parties. 5 LEGAL INFORMATION 5.1. Owner of the documentary heritage (name and contact details) The Karen Blixen Archives have been in the possession of the Royal Library since 1976 when they were bought from the Rungstedlund Foundation 5.2 Custodian of the documentary heritage (name and contact details, if different to owner) Same as Legal status: (a) Category of ownership Full ownership by the Royal Library.

6 (b) Accessibility With prior permission from the Rungstedlund Foundation (until the year 2032) the Karen Blixen Archives are accessible to scholars and other interested persons in the Manuscript Department s high-security reading room upon written request. Parts of the archives have been, and will, be accessible to the general public in several exhibitions. (c) Copyright status Copyright owned until the year 2032 by the Rungstedlund Foundation. (d) Responsible administration Department of Manuscripts, The Royal Library, Copenhagen. (e) Other factors 6 MANAGEMENT PLAN 6.1 Is there a management plan in existence for this documentary heritage? YES/NO Yes. See 4.4. The documents are in general in good physical condition. Some preservation work on selected parts of the archives has been undertaken by the staff of the Preservation Department of the Royal Library. A regular analysis of the archives will be made by specialists from this department. 7 CONSULTATION 7.1 Provide details of consultation about this nomination with (a) the owner of the heritage (b) the custodian (c) your national or regional Memory of the World committee (a) The nominator and the owner are identical. (b) The nominator has appointed the custodian. (c) The nominator is currently president of the Danish Memory of the World Committee. PART B SUBSIDIARY INFORMATION 8 ASSESSMENT OF RISK 8.1 Detail the nature and scope of threats to this documentary heritage (see 5.5) Although the material is stored in accordance with physical and safety related requirements, there will always be a risk when handling the unique and sometimes fragile original documents when used in the reading room. This is one of the main reasons for digitizing central parts of the archives. 9 ASSESSMENT OF PRESERVATION 9.1 Detail the preservation context of the documentary heritage (see 3.3) The Karen Blixen archives are kept in the security storage of the Royal Library, Copenhagen.