From Anna Birkbeck’s Album
Author: Emi Del Bene (Birkbeck, University of London)
Anna Birkbeck’s album contains a rousing poem about the Polish independence cause by Polish author, translator, and exile Stanisław Egbert Koźmian. By contextualizing this seemingly unusual political entry, inter-album connections are revealed, offering insights into networks of European political exiles and insurrectionists in London in the 1820s and 1830s. This analysis shows how the medium of the album could use feminine tropes to carry political meanings, acting as a repository of family values and reflecting the causes supported by the Birkbecks and their circles.
Keywords: Stanisław Egbert Koźmian, Anna Birkbeck, album, Polish independence
How to Cite: Del Bene, E. (2024) “‘A flower of an exile’: International Political Networks in Anna Birkbeck’s Album”, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century. 2024(36). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.11148
On 26 February 1837, Polish author, translator, and exile Stanisław Egbert Koźmian contributed a rousing sonnet about the Polish independence cause to Anna Birkbeck’s album (Figs 1 and 2).1 Titled ‘Do Anny Birkbeck’ (‘To Anna Birkbeck’), written in Polish, and followed by a prose version in English, this poem appears among more typical entries for an early nineteenth-century album: original and transcribed poetry; watercolours by well-known authors and artists as well as family friends; tributes to Anna’s husband Dr George Birkbeck, founder of the London Mechanics’ Institution; pasted-in tickets; and autographs.2 By looking at this seemingly unusual entry in the context of a curated collection, I will examine its inter-album connections and offer insights into networks of European political exiles and insurrectionists associated with the Birkbeck family, showing how feminine tropes can carry political meanings.3
Much has been said about the album as a feminine endeavour.4 In scholarship, albums are often characterized as ‘feminine paraphernalia’, ‘part of a […] culture of femininity’, ‘a feminine practice’, and ‘a feminized subculture’.5 Yet many, if not most, of the contributors in this period were men.6 Koźmian’s sonnet performs some of the conventions and expectations placed on album poems, such as expressing feelings of gratitude and friendship towards the album owner and activating many of the commonplaces of the feminine album poem, such as references to flowers and wreaths: ‘A flower of an exile, a mournful song, | Will it not defile your wreath with sadness?’.7 The familiar image of the wreath functions as a symbol for both the elegance and the miscellaneity of the album form, to which his sonnet is a subdued addition (in the English prose, a ‘flower of sorrow’). This self-referential tone is not unusual in album poems, which often take the album itself as their subject, and is one of the ways in which Koźmian situates himself in relation to other entries.8 However, it complicates the feminine, floral imagery: the album wreath is woven by both ‘daughters of grace and beauty’ and ‘sons of bliss and glory’, and its rousing political message is not diluted.
A rose is prominent on the title page of the album and a recurring image throughout,9 but in Koźmian’s writing it becomes a symbol of liberation:
Someday, when Freedom shines, maybe my hand Will fit in it a Rose of more splendour, And this bud of hope will bloom With a wealth of life from a wreath of sorrows!’10
Entries in albums owned by women associated with well-known men were sometimes used as a way to reach those men, using the woman as mediator as well as subject and recipient of contributions.11 Messages openly addressed to George rather than to Anna Birkbeck, or addressing her only to praise him, can be found throughout the album.12 However, this does not mean that Koźmian’s political message is covertly aimed at the men reading the album. The poem’s mode of address appeals to a feminine reader in the second person, using the trope of the bud of hope to plead on behalf of Polish independence: ‘Let your tender care look after it | Let the charm of faith spread over it’.13 Koźmian’s addressee is endowed with feminine qualities that match the feminine floral imagery used to carry political content and entrust the flower of Liberty ‘coiled up in the leaf of sorrow […] to the guardianship of your generous feelings’.
Koźmian’s appeal calls attention to the Birkbecks’ real-life interactions with the Polish exile community, and familiarity and support of the Polish independence cause. As early as 1832, just after the failed Polish uprising that displaced Koźmian and many other exiles, the Mechanics’ Magazine, closely associated with Birkbeck’s London Mechanics’ Institution, asked, ‘who is there that longs not for the time when unhappy Poland shall be free?’.14 This rhetorical question suggests an implied familiarity with the events of Eastern Europe. The Polish cause attracted the type of radical, progressive thinkers that surrounded the Birkbeck family, who often gathered around European independence movements. Norman Davies argues that liberals took on the cause as a ‘cheap crusade in distant parts’, a way of showing support for their ideals in a conveniently unthreatening non-domestic setting.15 However, there is evidence that the Birkbeck family was actively involved in the Polish cause beyond the general sympathy that might have been expected by their social and cultural circles.
George Birkbeck was a member of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland.16 Founded in 1832 by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell, the association set out to ‘assist in the diffusion of information respecting the rights and conditions of Poland’ and provide ‘assistance to Polish political exiles’.17 Birkbeck remained involved with the cause until his death and, according to one biographer, at his funeral ‘exiles from a foreign land, the unhappy Poles, whom he had greatly befriended, attended to mourn a benefactor lost’.18 The Birkbecks’ eldest son William Lloyd acted as honorary chair of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, leaving a significant sum to it in his will.19 Their daughter Anna Margaret co-published books and articles about Eastern Europe with her Hungarian husband; her involvement fulfils the engagement expressed in Koźmian’s emphatic: ‘The hour of our liberty is near at hand! Even long ages of misery cannot destroy a nation.’20 The Birkbecks’ intergenerational engagement in Eastern European politics confirms the role of the album as a repository of family values.
Koźmian’s choice of Polish is in itself a political statement, at a time when the language was threatened by partitioning powers trying to impose Russian or German as the official language of Poland.21 The English prose translation beneath the poem demonstrates that there was no expectation that album readers would understand Polish, suggesting that the choice of a bilingual entry is a deliberate statement. While a political entry may be notable in a British album, messages of this type were not uncommon in Polish albums of the same period: Justyna Beinek argues that Polish albums provided ‘a forum for imagining elements of national identity and for discussing the concept of the nation-state’.22 Themes of exile dominated contributions. The Polish language, with its associations with insurrectionary politics, stood for the ideal of a Polish ‘homeland’, making up for the shortcomings of politics.23
Along with the language itself, Polish literature was key to shaping national identity and attracting support abroad. It is not incidental that the group that might have introduced Koźmian to the Birkbecks was a ‘Literary Association’ founded by a poet.24 In advocating the patriotic cause, Koźmian echoed Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz’s The Books and the Pilgrimage of the Polish Nation (1832). Album readers might have been familiar with Mickiewicz’s work through its translation in English, published only a year after the original.25 Mickiewicz’s presence is particularly felt in the ending: after images of the wreath tainted by tears and the ‘flower of sorrow’, the poem turns from an almost elegiac tone to a patriotic conclusion: in the Polish, ‘the People do not die!’; and in the English prose, ‘Nations never die!’.26 Compare this to Mickiewicz’s ‘the Polish nation is not dead! Its body, indeed, is in the tomb, but its SOUL has ascended from the surface of the earth.’27 While the album sonnet lacks the overt religious imagery of The Books and the Pilgrimage, the reverberations of that work in this album sonnet reflect one way in which Koźmian and other exiles used Polish literature to further knowledge of the independence cause.
Another album contributor, politician and writer John Bowring, had led in the dissemination of Polish verse by publishing an anthology of his English translations in the late 1820s, working on it with Lach Szyrma, the secretary of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland.28 Bowring had little understanding of the Polish language, and instead relied on paraphrased summaries by Szyrma on which he based his poetic translations.29 Bowring’s translations were quoted in Polonia, the short-lived monthly magazine of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, and were praised elsewhere by some Polish exiles for having ‘given to his countrymen a fine idea of the grand imagination of the Polish poets’ with his ‘elegant translations’.30 Koźmian was less generous and judged the translations ‘somewhat spiritless’, although he was complimentary about one of the poems.31 Writing in Polish, as well as distributing works of Polish literature in translation, was as much of a political statement as the content of the writing itself.
Many Polish exiles combined their political activities with writing, publishing, and lecturing on the history and literature of Poland. Koźmian himself wrote two detailed pieces on the literature of Poland in the Athenaeum in 1838.32 In 1836 and 1837 the London Mechanics’ Institution hosted several lectures ‘On the Literature of Poland’ and ‘On the History of Poland’ by a Mr Zaba.33 Polish exile, author, and lecturer Napoleon Feliks Żaba had co-written and published an almost 300-page ‘account of Poland’, The Polish Exile, in English in 1833, and travelled the country giving ‘deeply interesting and eloquent’ lectures on Polish topics, ‘delivered with extraordinary power’, and ‘an elegance and correctness very rarely attained by a foreigner’.34 No comparable classes teaching the history and literature of other non-British cultures are recorded in the London Mechanics’ Institution minutes in this period, suggesting that it was a deliberate decision by Birkbeck and the institution to organize these lectures to show support for the Polish independence cause through the dissemination of its literature and history.35 Birkbeck’s fame as a ‘friend to the Poles’ further confirms Koźmian’s sonnet’s significance as a political entry in the album.36
A broader look at the album reveals further connections to the Polish cause. The page following Koźmian’s entry features another Polish exile expressing gratitude: Tadeusz Skrzydlewski, who can be found alongside Koźmian and Żaba as a signatory in a letter addressed to the ‘Editor of the Morning Chronicle’ in November 1838. The letter, simply titled ‘The Poles’, sets out to defend the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland against a police report alleging that the association failed to provide financial support to exiles in need.37 The defence in the press is emphatic in expressing a ‘deep sense of gratitude […] particularly to [the association’s] Vice-President, Lord Dudley Stuart’.38 Lord Stuart features in Anna Birkbeck’s scrapbook, a few pages after an image of another signatory to the letter, Charles Szulczewski,39 in a portrait dated 1837 and inscribed ‘The Poles to their Friend’.40 Lord Stuart was a true believer in the Polish independence cause and died while on a ‘Polish mission’ to Sweden, where he went to plead with the Prince Royal to join the Western League to aid the Polish reconstruction, against his doctor’s advice.41 Despite the tireless dedication of individuals, some doubts were cast on the political effectiveness of organizations such as the Literary Association in achieving real change and engendering support in the House of Commons, sometimes even by friends of the association such as Koźmian and Żaba.42 They joined a formal committee of Polish exiles in London, the Komitetu Ogółu Emigracji Polskiej w Londynie (General Polish Emigration Committee in London) founded in 1836, and in their first English-language address in the press they condemned that too little had been achieved to advance the Polish cause in Britain. However, they optimistically set out to ‘animate and combine the sympathies of the British nation in behalf of their country [sic]’.43 One reason for this optimism was the influence of British support in a victorious European independence fight in the previous decade — that of the Greeks.
The connection between Polish and Greek independence is embodied in the materiality of the album: Koźmian urges the reader to ‘turn only this page’ to reveal the contribution of ‘a free Greek’, proof that ‘the rights of the Nation are not erased by the age of defeat’.44 Overleaf, the album contains entries by Spyridon Trikoupis (in French, untranslated) and, on the previous page, his wife Aikaterini Trikoupi (in Greek, untranslated). At the time of his contribution to the album in 1835, Trikoupis was the Greek ambassador to London, after serving as the first prime minister of the independent Hellenic Kingdom.45 His laudatory entry about the ‘great men in wisdom and in patriotism’ populating Britain illuminates another political connection within the album and the Birkbecks’ social circles.46 In the 1820s the Greek cause had united many of the same radical, progressive thinkers who were rallying around the Polish cause in the 1830s, and other album entries reveal their continued connections with the family. Another contributor to the album, Leicester Stanhope, fought in Greece and worked on establishing a free press there.47 Stanhope was involved with the Greek Committee, which operated from the Crown and Anchor Tavern, where the London Mechanics’ Institution was also founded in the same year in 1823.48 John Bowring, also a contributor to the album and already mentioned in relation to his role in the dissemination of Polish literature, was a key figure in both, as one of the founders of the London Mechanics’ Institution and the secretary of the Greek Committee.49
The Trikoupis were also connected with another album contributor, Mary Shelley, through Aikaterini’s brother and Spyridon’s political partner, Alexandros Mavrokordatos. One of the political leaders of the Greek Revolution, Mavrokordatos had taught Mary Shelley Greek and Ancient Greek in Pisa in the early 1820s in exchange for English lessons.50 Here too, as with the Polish a decade later, a link was formed between support for the Greek cause and its history and literature. References to Greek mythology are present in Mary Shelley’s unpublished poem ‘The Death of Love’, also included in the album.51 Percy Shelley dedicated his Hellas (1822), inspired by Aeschylus’ tragedy Persae, to Mavrokordatos, openly discussing the Greek cause in its preface.52 Throughout his time in Pisa, Mavrokordatos passed on any news of developments in Greece directly to Mary Shelley, rather than to the men in the Pisa circle.53 The expectation that she would share the news with others does not mean that she was simply the messenger. The emerging nation states of Europe were an arena in which women could be politically active, ‘arguing that it was part of a mission to bring liberalism and British values to the emergent new nations’.54 Both the Shelleys became increasingly involved with the cause, supporting what has been labelled a ‘propaganda campaign’ for the British public, orchestrated by Mavrokordatos.55 Conversely, Mavrokordatos’ movement towards liberalism, distancing himself politically from Russia and turning to Britain, may have been a direct result of the influence of the Shelleys.56
Given the numerous connections to the Greek cause, it may seem surprising that the album features a contribution from the Turkish ambassador, Mustafa Reşid Pasha, signing with his title and alternative spelling, Mustapha Rechid Bey, in 1837.57 Pasha was on the opposing side to the Greeks the Birkbecks’ circle supported in the 1820s, when as a young man he worked in various bureaucratic positions for the Ottoman Empire.58 In the preface to Hellas, Shelley characterized the Ottomans as ‘Turkish tyrant[s]’ and ‘the enemies of domestic happiness, of Christianity and civilization’.59 Album contributor and Greek Committee secretary Bowring spoke of the ‘Turkish yoke’ enslaving Greeks and Serbs in the 1820s.60 By the late 1830s, however, it had become possible for members of the Turkish embassy to inscribe their name in the album alongside the Greek ambassador and the many members of the London community who had raged against them just over a decade earlier. This shift in attitudes was reflected by the fact that, in addition to the warm album entry, in June 1837 Pasha received an honorary membership to the London Mechanics’ Institution as ‘a distinguished foreigner and a liberal promoter of the Arts and Sciences’.61 Pasha may have been more readily welcomed by the circles surrounding the Birkbecks and the institution due to his European education and his commitment to modernizing the Ottoman Empire.62 The Turkish ambassador’s bilingual contribution — translated into French — is apolitical and more in line with the stereotypical album entry: a somewhat rote message expressing how flattering it is to be asked to sign his name alongside so many illustrious ones, indicating a less personal acquaintance with Anna Birkbeck and her family than Koźmian. His mere presence, however, shows how the album records shifts in the political associations of the social and professional circles the Birkbecks operated in.
More evidence of these international, interconnected networks and of the links between the literary and the political can be found in two seemingly more typical entries by Italian expats Guido Sorelli and Francesco Paolo Bozzelli. Their contributions are pastoral poems, focusing on sweet promises and idyllic happiness between lovers, rather than on explicitly political content.63 However, when considering the identity of the contributors, their inclusion in 1827 points to the seeds of another international political movement that would gain supporters in the Birkbecks’ London circles. Bozzelli (1786–1864) had been a successful lawyer in Naples before being imprisoned and then exiled following the failed insurrections of 1820–21, going on to spend fifteen years in Paris, London, and Brussels before returning to Italy and taking on a prominent position in the moderate liberal party in Naples.64 Sorelli (1796–1847) was a poet and translator of Milton, Petrarch, and Grillparzer. He left Italy in 1821 having been involved with members of the Carbonari, a revolutionary society advancing liberal ideas, in Florence.65 In those same years, Italian poet Ugo Foscolo had aimed to ‘promote his national literature and history as a means to future Italian independence’ with his ‘exile journalism’ during his time in London (1816–27).66 Sorelli’s autobiography was published by Rolandi, whose shop became a sort of ‘Italian Library’ acting as a meeting place for Italian exiles in London. Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini was a regular visitor to Rolandi’s shop during his time in London in 1837.67 There were links between Polish and Italian insurrectionists too: Polish independence fighters had been introduced to the Italian Carbonari during the Napoleonic Wars in Italy, and some, such as Ludwik Mierosławski (1814–1878), joined the Carbonari, as well as starting a Young Poland (Młoda Polska) in the image of Mazzini’s Young Italy.68 At least one of the signatories of the first statement of the Polish Committee in London, Adam Sperczyński, belonged to Młoda Polska.69 Mazzini went on to organize the People’s International League, founded in 1847, to represent foreign exiles in London, ‘mainly Italians and Poles’. In its founding year album contributor Bowring became chairman of the International League.70 Unlike Koźmian’s and Trikoupis’ contributions, Sorelli’s and Bozzelli’s entries do not feature explicit references to their political causes of national independence. However, by following their trajectories, the album can help reconstruct its contributors’ political networks, revealing the Birkbecks’ interest and involvement in a European network in which international connections were continually being forged.
The complex international networks emerging from an examination of Anna Birkbeck’s album reveal the political range and potential of the album entry. Far from being limited to derivative or superficial contributions, members of the Birkbecks’ circles used the album entry to encourage support for their international political causes and strengthen existing involvement. Poems and messages document shifts in political associations and record connections even before they become relevant to the public political sphere. They point to a multilingual community, where certain languages — French, Italian, Greek — are assumed not to need translation, while others do. The bilingual Polish and Turkish entries highlight the importance of language and literature in political and national identity by including native tongues the album reader was not expected to understand. In this way, the album acts as a record of the Birkbecks’ varied international networks, hosting politically charged contributions and political inflections of feminine tropes that are enhanced, rather than limited, by the medium of the album.
Do Anny Birkbeck Sonet
Kwiatek wygnańca, pieśn żałobney treści, Czyż twego wianka smutkiem niezeszpeci? Edenu wdzięków, szczęścia, sławy dzieci Błogą go dłonię splotły ku twej cześci.
Kiedyś w nim może ma ręka zamieści Rożę świetniejszą, gdy Wolność zaświeci, I ten tu pączek nadziei rozkwieci Bogactwem życia z zawoiu boleści!
Jego niech chowa twa czuła opieka Niech nad nim urok wiary rozpościera; Naszey wolności chwila niedaleka! A praw Narodu wiek klęsk niezaciera; Odwroć tę kartę, a wolnego Greka Dowiedzie imie, że Lud nieumiera!
Londyn 26 Lutego 1837 roku Stanisław Koźmian
———
Will not this flower of sorrow, bedewed with the tear of an exile, defile the splendour of the wreath, which in homage to you, has been here woven by daughters of grace and beauty, by sons of bliss and glory?
One day perhaps, when the sun of Liberty shall rise for me again, I may entwine in it a worthier token of remembrance. Then this bud of fond Hope, coiled up in the leaf of sorrow, shall expand into a corolla of exuberant life.
Till then, I entrust it to the guardianship of your generous feelings.
Look on it with hope; smile at it with Faith. The hour of our liberty is near at hand!
Even long ages of misery cannot destroy a nation. You doubt it? Turn only this page, and the name of a free Greek shall tell you that Nations never die!
S.K–Feb-y 26, 1837
Translation
To Anna Birkbeck Sonnet
A flower of an exile, a mournful song, Will it not defile your wreath with sadness? The children of Eden’s grace, happiness, and fame Wove it with a joyful hand in your honour.
Someday, when Freedom shines, maybe my hand Will fit in it a Rose of more splendour, And this bud of hope will bloom With a wealth of life from a wreath of sorrows!
Let your tender care look after it Let the charm of faith spread over it; Our time for freedom is near! And the rights of the Nation are not erased by the age of defeat; Turn this card over, and a free Greek Will prove that the People do not die!
London 26 February 1837 Stanisław Koźmian
Translation by Professor Eliza Borkowska of SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland.
