On this day: the Publication of Thumbelina

1873 illustration from the first Ukrainian translation. X

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen‘s fairy tale Thumbelina was published for the first time on the 16th of December, 1835.

The story, about a “thumb-sized” girl who goes on an adventure involving toads, birds, and a mole, and who then meets a miniature prince, wasn’t well-received at the time because it didn’t teach any morals.

The first English translation of the book was completed by Mary Howitt in the 1840s.

Usually omitted from English versions of the story, Andersen’s original featured a bluebird telling the story to Andersen himself. The bird had been in love with Thumbelina, and was heartbroken when she married the prince.

Merry Christmas – again.

Today is Christmas Eve according to the old calendar, and tonight millions of people (including Ukrainians like me) celebrate with a twelve-dish dinner.

With the disaster surrounding us and a house full of smoke, this is going to be an odd one.

On this day: a film premiere in 1900

 

Source

Early French filmmaker Gabriel Veyre premiered À travers l’Indochine (1° série). Embarquement d’un boeuf à bord d’un navire (Through Indochina (1st series). Bull being loaded on a ship) in Lyon.

It was part of a series recorded in Tonkin (present-day Vietnam) between 1899 and 1900.

On this day: an assassination attempt in Belgium

Italian anarchist Gennaro Rubino tried – and failed to assassinate Belgian King Leopold II in Brussels on the 15th of November, 1902.

The would-be assassin in 1894.

The King, who was returning from a service to honour his wife Marie Henriette, who had died two months earlier, was not hit by any of the three bullets Rubino fired. However, Grand Marshall, Count Charles John d’Oultremont was nearly killed.

Rubino, who had fled Italy to avoid a lengthy prison sentence there, died in prison in 1918. Prior to the failed assassination, he had been working in Britain as a spy on Italian anarchists – a position he lost when it was discovered he sympathised with them.

At the time of the attempt on his life, the King – in his late sixties – had been estranged from his wife for some time, and had taken a teenage girl as his mistress. He died in December, 1909.

Happy Halloween!

Le Squelette Joyeux – 1890s

Happy Halloween

1890s

On this day: the death of a Russian imperialist

In 1865

Count Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, a Russian imperial statesman infamous for his policies of forced Russification across the empire, died on the 12h of September, 1866.

Born in Moscow in 1796, Muravyov worked hard in what is now Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus to suppress nationalism by targeting religion and language. Catholic churches were torn down, and schools teaching in Polish and Lithuanian languages were closed. Russian teachers were brought in from elsewhere to take over the education system.

A Catholic church in Vilnius being torn down in 1877.

Additionally, the Roman alphabet was banned, and replaced with Cyrillic.

Similar policies were put in place by Russian officials in other regions – particularly Ukraine – and continued to be used by the Soviets.

Muravyov was recorded as saying: ‘What the Russian rifle did not succeed in doing, will be finished off by Russian schools.’

On this day: the death of Pope Pius IX

Pope Pius IX, head of the Catholic Church, died in the Apostolic Palace in Rome on the 7th of February, 1878.

Photographed in the 1860s

Born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti in 1792, the Italian port town of Senigallia, Pius IX became the longest-running elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, with a papacy that lasted for over thirty-one years, from the 16th of June, 1846 until his death.

The Pope was beatified on the 3rd of September, 2000.

On this day: the birth of a photography pioneer

Daguerre in 1844

Photography pioneer Louis Daguerre was born in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Val-d’Oise, France on the 18th of November, 1797. He became known as a father of photography after inventing the daguerreotype photography process.

Daguerre’s 1837 photograph recreating a still life is the earliest daguerreotype with a reliable date.

Above is Daguerre’s circa 1838 image of Paris. It is the first known candid photograph of a person. A man having his boots polished stood still long enough to be captured.

Also a painter and the inventor of the diorama theatre, Daguerre died in Paris in July of 1851, at the age of sixty-three.

On this day: a Russian attack on Warsaw

This 1837 painting by Mikhail Lermontov depicts Russian Guard Hussars attacking Warsaw, Poland on the 7th of September, 1831. The original date given was the 26th of August, as the Russian Empire followed the old calendar.

The Battle of Warsaw was part of the Polish–Russian War of 1830–31 (otherwise known as the November Uprising). Tens of thousands were killed in the battle that resulted in the defeat of Polish uprising and victory for the Russians.