From the Archives: Word with a Past: Genocide
I'm dragging with a nasty respiratory virus. Instead of writing through the fog, or leaving you without a Friday blog post, I've chosen an old post from 2014 to share. (Enjoy may not be quite the right word.)
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Genocide as an activity is probably as old as the concepts of “us” and “them”.
Genocide as a word is relatively new, coined by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, several years before the world knew about the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps
As a result of studying the history of anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia, the mass murder of Armenians by the Ottomans in 1915-16 (now considered genocide by most scholars), and other examples of violence directed at specific groups, Lemkin made the introduction of international legal safeguards for minority religious and ethnic groups his life’s work. He first proposed such legislation at an international legal conference in 1933.*
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Lemkin tried to persuade his family to seek asylum outside of German-occupied territories, with no success. (Forty-nine members of his family, including his parents, were imprisoned by the Nazis and later gassed in Treblinka.) Lemkin himself escaped through unoccupied Lithuania and Latvia to Stockholm.
In Stockholm, Lemkin studied Nazi actions through the lens of jurisprudence, using information regarding Nazi laws, regulations and proclamations provided by Swedish diplomats in Nazi occupied territories. In 1944, now an analyst with the United States’ War Department, he published his monumental study of patterns of destruction in Nazi-held territories, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in which he introduced the term genocide to describe “the crime without a name”:
“By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the author to denote the old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing)….It is intended to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.
After the war, Lemkin worked as a prosecutor at the Nurenberg trials. He was able to get the word “genocide” included in the indictments, but genocide was not yet recognized as a legal crime and was not reflected in the final verdicts.
When Lemkin returned from Europe, he took on the task of pushing the Genocide Convention through the newly formed United Nations. The recognition of genocide as an international crime became an all encompassing crusade for Lemkin. He gave up adjunct teaching positions at Yale and New York University in order to give all his time to the task. Impoverished and sometimes homeless, he relentlessly lobbied national delegations and influential leaders for their support. The UN passed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide on December 9, 1948--in large part due to Lemkin’s efforts. The United States finally signed the Genocide Convention forty years later,.
Genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group
* Several months after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.
Fairy Tales, Pt. 4 Madame d’Aulnoy Coins the Term “contés de fees”(fairy tales)
As best I can tell, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness[1] d’Aulnoy (1652-1705) led a wild life.
At the age of 13, she was married to the Baron d’Aulnoy, who was a “freethinker,”[2] a gambler, and thirty years her senior. Three years and three children later, her husband was accused of treason. The accusations were proved to be false and his accusers were executed. There was speculation that she and her mother were involved in the plot against d’Aulnoy as a way of getting rid of a dissolute and possibly abusive husband.[3] A warrant was issued for their arrest. Madame d’Aulnoy escaped through a window and hid in a church. Her mother fled to England.
Madame d’Aulnoy spent the next twenty years traveling throughout Europe, occasionally making brief stops in Paris. Other than the fact that she had three more children, little is known of her life during this period. She later claimed she spent the time traveling in England, Holland, and Spain. Some believe she worked as a secret agent for King Louis XIV..
In 1685, Madame D’Aulnoy returned to Paris for good. Once re-established in Parisian society she enjoyed a successful career as an author, and hosted one of the most popular salons of the period. She published a popular novel and three pseudo-memoirs about her travels in England and Spain. But she was best known for her fairy tales, a term she invented. The tales were written for adults in a conversational style that reflected the salon culture of the day and featured strong female characters. (No waiting around to be rescued by a prince--for Madame d’Aulnoy or her heroines!) They don’t always end happily ever after
She often read her fairy tales at her salon before they were published. Her guests followed her lead, reciting fairy tales as part of the evening's entertainment and occasionally coming in fairy tale costumes.
Altogether, she published twenty-five fairy tales in two collections, some of which were included by Andrew and Nora Lang in their popular fairy tale collections in the late nineteenth century.[4] Neither Madame d’Aulnoy nor her stories are remembered today, but she created a taste for fairy tales in the French court in which Charles Perrault and Antoine Galland could build. Perhaps making her the genre’s fairy godmother?
[1] Or perhaps comtesse. The records is not clear. We’ll just call her Madame d’Aulnoy going forward.
[2] A term that can be taken many ways. In this case, I assume it means not adhering to church doctrine. Or not.
[3] I could not find details about his eventual death in 1700.
[4] The Langs published twelve collections between 1889 and 1913, known as the Coloured Fairy Books. As happens all too often , Nora was not credited for the books on the cover or title page even though Andrew acknowledged in the preface of The Lilac Fairy Book, which appeared rather late in the series, that “The fairy books are almost wholly the work of Mrs. Lang, who haas translated and adapted them from the French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish Catalan and other languages.” Grrr.
Overwhelmed and Very Grateful
I keep looking for another vintage Thanksgiving postcard, but most of them have creepy children wielding axes and heading toward apprehensive turkeys.
As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel in Miami. I spent yesterday at the Miami Book Fair, where I spoke about Sigrid Schultz, signed books, attended a couple of panels, navigated crowds, and listened to some wonderful music. It’s been exciting, humbling, nerve-wracking, and exhausting.[1] In a couple of hours I will catch a plane back to Chicago, where I’ll have two days at home before My Own True Love and I head to the Missouri Ozarks for Thanksgiving with my family.
In some ways, this is emblematic of my last year: lots of travel, lots of chances to talk about The Dragon from Chicago (on line and in real life), lots of stepping outside my comfort zone. Even though I occasionally have to remind myself just how lucky I am, I am grateful for the opportunities. (And the fact that people have showed up at my events. Every author I know lives in fear of the event where no one comes.)
I say it every year, but I am also so very grateful for those of you who read History in the Margins, week after week. You send me comments and suggestions. You ask hard questions. You share my posts with your friends. Without you, I would be talking to myself.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.Here’s to another year of exploring history together.
[1] I did not go to the parties on Friday and Saturday night, or take advantage of any of the other opportunities to meet and mingle with my fellow authors. Which would have been a good thing, but I just didn't have the juice. This kind of thing is difficult for those of us who are very introverted and more than a little shy.
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Speaking of sending me ideas, I am currently issuing invitations to my annual Women’s History Month series of mini-interviews. I have some great people on board already, but I need more. If you “do” women’s history in any format, or know someone who does, or have an idea of someone you would love to see in the series, drop me a line. I’ve interviewed academics, biographers, podcasters, historical novelists, tour guides, poets, and even a textile artist, but would be happy to talk to people who explore women’s history through music, puppet shows, graphic novels, other visual arts, interpretive dance….