(Translated) Weird Tales from the 19th Century

October 4, 2019 11:34 PM

Elisabeth van der Meer, "Russian Ghost Stories" (A Russian Affair, 15 Oct. 2018): "Now that the evenings are getting longer again, it’s the perfect time to read ghost stories. And there were plenty of ghosts, witches and other scary things around in 19th century Russian literature!" The list includes Nikolai Gogol's "The Viy" (1835)--basis for the classic horror film Viy (1967; 72 mins.; IMDb; detailed review; enthusiasm for it on MeFi)--and Anton Chekhov's "The Black Monk" (1893; LitMed [spoilers]), an eerie tale connected to Braga's "Légende valaque" (lyrics). If a low-key drama set rather than written in the 19th C. sounds more appealing, there are many ghosts in the Russian paranormal mystery TV series Detective Anna (2016-2017; 56 eps.; IMDb).

A dozen stories of the uncanny available online in translation put ghosts, witches, and other scary things in wider perspective across the 19th Century:

• Johann August Apel, 1805, "The Family Portraits" (like other translations collected in Tales of the Dead, this story holds a formative place in the history of weird fiction in English: previously on MeFi, "200 years since the dreary summer that gave birth to literary monsters")
• E.T.A. Hoffmann, 1816, "The Sandman" (Wikipedia; see also Sigmund Freud's analysis in "The 'Uncanny'" [PDF] and Dorothea E. von Mücke's Guardian article "The Sandman: Tale of Madness and Trauma Still Haunts, 200 Years On")
• Wilhelm Hauff, 1825, "The Story of the Haunted Ship" (part of the story cycle, The Caravan; the non-supernatural story that followed it gets some attention in Freud's essay too and also appeared in Weird Tales)
• Prosper Mérimée, 1837, "The Venus of Ille" (Mérimée was at the time Inspector General of Historic Monuments: see Julian Barnes, "An Inspector Calls")
• George Sand, 1838, "The Orco" (in two letters from March-April, 1834, Sand describes her personal feelings about Venice and a separation there that became well-known; "The Orco" was perhaps an influence on the standalone "Taman" chapter in Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time; see also Sand's Légendes rustiques with notable artwork by her son)
• Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, 1852, The Strange Friend of Tito Gil, a.k.a. The Friend of Death (dryly eloquent novella featuring a friendly Death; see also the short fairy tale by Fernán Caballero [Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl de Faber], 1850, "Juan Holgado and Death," where Death is a friendly woman)
• Leo Tolstoy, 1863, "The Porcelain Doll" (unsettling letter, often taken as a short story; see Leah Bendavid-Val's Song Without Words: The Photographs & Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy at the Open Library for diary entries putting the couple's relationship into perspective)
• Villamaria [Marie Timme], 1873(?), "The Sea-Fairy" (a literary fairy tale especially full of weird oceanic beauty and horror)
• Guy de Maupassant, 1887, "The Horla" (Wikipedia; "The Horla" was reprinted in Weird Tales, along with the earlier story "On the River")
• Young women of the village of Sātsq on Deans Inlet, 1895 [1886-1887], "Wā'walis" (Nuxalk story about a sorcerer collected by Franz Boas; related mythology, including the country of the ghosts; Boas also collected a Heiltsuk version of the story in 1897; Jennifer Kramer's Switchbacks at the Open Library documents Nuxalk sentiments on Boas, linguists, etc. at a certain point; incidentally, an animated version of the legend "The Sniniq and the Little Girl" (2012; 6 mins.) tells a remarkable story about a 'Sasquatch'-like being)
• Shunkintei Ryūō, et al., 1896(?), "News from Kwaiba" (the ghost of O'Iwa seeks vengeance in a chapter from an English adaptation of mostly one Japanese version of Yotsuya Kaidan; see especially Jasmin Boehm, "On the Ghost of O’Iwa, and Why She’s Still Scary"; see also The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959; 76 mins.; IMDb))
• Marie Hyacinthe, Toulouzau, Port Blanc, 1898 [1891], "The Oarsmen" (from Dealings With The Dead: Narratives from "La Legende de la Mort En Basse Bretagne"--selections from a folklore collection edited by Anatole Le Braz but with relatively clear attribution; see also "The Five Drowned Sailors" told by Marie Mauchec from Quimper in 1891 and "Yannic-ann-ôd" told by René Alain from Quimper in 1889)

Previously: Weird Tales from the 18th Century.

posted by Wobbuffet (7 comments total)

I remember reading both "The Queen of Spades" and "The Live Corpse" in translation in my high school Russian Lit course, and then later reading excerpts of the former in Russian, in university Russian-language class. However, only little bits and pieces have stuck with me over the years.

I did sometimes call Ludmilla the cat "Pikavaya Dama" (Queen of Spades) because she was white and pointy with black spots.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:52 PM on October 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Excellent. Thanks for the post, lot's of things I'm eager to look into on it. The first being the movie Ghost Story Of Yotsuya, which I've wanted to watch for a while, but kept forgetting to actually track it down. I've gotten about half way through so far and it's as good as its reputation, so that alone has made the post worth it to me, everything else will just be an added bonus.

Oh, and I gotta agree with the enthusiam of that otter fella you linked about VIY, that movie's pretty great in its giddy balance of humor and horror. That guy's taste matches mine really well!
posted by gusottertrout at 2:16 AM on October 5, 2019

Just talking about Detective Anna the other day. My co-worker is Russian and said it was a good show.

Nice post, great links.
posted by clavdivs at 11:45 AM on October 5, 2019

This is great stuff, and should keep me thoroughly unnerved until Halloween.

I've just started on Detective Anna too, and I'm very much enjoying it so far. Trawling through the lower reaches of Amazon Prime video, I also came across Gogol (IMDB link), which features the author battling witches, demons and monsters, many of which will later appear in his stories. It's great stuff, rather like a Russian Penny Dreadful.
posted by Fuchsoid at 1:32 PM on October 5, 2019

Guy de Maupassant: Hi, old friend. In high school French class we read a collection of his stories. So my French vocabulary is limited to words like "sanglant", "horreur", "cadavre" and "macabre". I'm grateful I rarely need to speak French. [but I have fond memories of "Le Horla".]
posted by acrasis at 3:15 PM on October 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love this post so much.
Thank you, Wobbuffet!
posted by doctornemo at 5:05 PM on October 5, 2019

Viy (1967) is well deserving the enthusiasm. Well worth checking out (the same can't be said for the one from 2014).

Another story from this period I'm reminded of is Aleksey Tolstoy's The Family of the Vourdalak (memorably adapted in Mario Bava's Black Sabbath).
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:22 PM on October 5, 2019 [1 favorite]