Russian history is steeped in art, slathered in politics and bathed in blood. Few eras in few places on earth can claim the same level of conjoined enlightenment and depravity as Russia in the early 20th century.
The Western understanding of that violent and intellectual expanse has been improved by the pages of a new book. Actually it is an old book, but it was confined to the bookshelves of Denmark and was dusty.
The combination of Danish retired rancher and cultural observer Carl Aastrup and Canadian retired professor and author John Harris brought 42 Aar i Czarriget og Sovjet to modern life in the English language for the first time. Its title on this side of linguistics is 42 Years In the Realm of the Czar and the Soviets. It has just been published by Repository Press of Prince George, the city in which both these men live.
Harris and Aastrup were neighbours for decades before they ever considered working together on literary projects.
Aastrup raised spring calves into fall steers and a healthy herd of cows on his spread in the Buckhorn area southeast of the city. Harris was a veteran of the College of New Caledonia English Department and had the adjoining acreage where he raised words into sentences and paragraphs. Over time the two ended up moving into the urban core but maintained the connections.
It first turned artistic in 2012 when Aastrup showed Harris a lengthy propaganda pamphlet distributed across Denmark by the Nazis soon after their occupation of the Scandinavian country.
Aastrup was a youth at the time, remembered the invasion and his family farm receiving the pamphlet. It was an interesting bit of Second World War insight, looking back on it now, so Aastrup went to work translating it with Harris, for the benefit of English-language understanding.
They had such a good time working together, it was already decided before the pamphlet project was finished that they would do it again.
Aastrup knew exactly which document he wanted to bring into the modern English realm next. His sister had done some domestic work for an elderly Danish painter, back in Aastrup's youth. His sister told him about this matriarch who was famous for spending most of her life in Russia where she was a favourite artist of the last Russian royal family and especially their enigmatic advisor Rasputin. She painted 12 portraits of the cultish figure who held a significant degree of power as the spiritual leader - almost a personal shaman type of confidante - to Czarina Alexandra and her husband Czar Nicholas II.
Aastrup learned from his sister that when the Russian monarchy's autocratic reign was stopped by a grotesquely bloody period of civil war and rebellion, this painter managed to maintain her station as a favoured portrait artist of the new leadership structure. Her commissioned sketch of Russian president Kalinen is the cover image of both the Danish and English books.
His sister found this elderly woman fascinating, as she did chores for her and learned her story, bringing them home to tell the Aastrup family.
The painter's name was Theodora Krarup.
Krarup returned to Denmark in 1938 and died in 1941.
Although elderly and somewhat afraid of Russian reprisals if she spoke out too critically, the old woman was nonetheless able to pen an article for a major Danish newspaper.
She then became the subject of a big series of articles by a Danish reporter who knew a good human interest story when he saw her.
She also published her autobiography in book form, which these days is difficult to find. But Aastrup knew of the book, and he set to work with Harris to find a copy. They did, at a small bookstore in Denmark with an online ordering system. This formed the basis of the second Aastrup-Harris translation project. Short of traveling to Europe themselves, they scoured every source they could turn up.
"I always felt Russian history was pretty damn fascinating stuff," said 91-year-old Aastrup.
"There was no real way of tracing a lot of what the book and the articles talked about, but the Danish journalist and his editor did a lot of their own verifying back then, they were skeptical by journalistic nature, so that helped us. We would have to go to Russia and spend a lot of time looking, but I'm convinced a lot of this stuff would turn up, like more of her portraits and her writings. We did manage to account for some stuff, and it led us to believe in the stories Krarup was telling."
The single most interesting point of all Krarup's stories is the one most impossible to verify. She said that Rasputin entrusted her with his personal memoirs, a diary of sorts. Its monetary and political science value today would be astronomical, but long after Rasputin's assassination and the installation of a new and punitive regime, Krarup opted to destroy the book rather than risk it falling into hostile hands or cause her consequences for possessing it.
She did express her view that, from her time spent with Rasputin, he was a man who urged peace, if only to preserve the monarchy. He felt war and broad conflict would be a fatal error for the royal family.
"We started thinking of this work as historical value," said Harris. "That was its main providence, we decided, so we kept that in mind as we made our choices."
Choice is the chief labour of translation. Aastrup would give a literal, raw interpretation of the Danish words into English words. Harris would then smooth Aastrup's ESL English into more artful English. In between, though, they would talk at length about the true intent of the Danish before they selected words and turns of phrase in their revised account.
"I thought many times about how smoothly we were working together," said Aastrup.
"From the Nazi pamphlet, I knew we could produce some decent stuff. We also knew we couldn't do this alone; we needed each other for this kind of thing. I know the old story about the cook who praises his own meals, but I think we did very well."
It took them about a winter of work, getting together frequently each week, but only for a few hours at a time.
42 Years In the Realm of the Czar and the Soviets is now available at Books & Company and other participating bookstores.
It can be ordered online at www.chickenbustales.com.
Meet Aastrup
On Saturday, Carl Aastrup will be at Books & Company for a book signing. Copies of 42 Years In the Realm of the Czar and the Soviets will be on sale for $22, and he will autograph any purchased. He will be at the bookstore from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
