Histories of a Migrating Text: In the Country of the White Lilies (1890s-1930s)

This presentation explored the histories of a migrating text, a book popularly known in various languages as In the Country of the White Lilies, that presented an idealized vision of Finland as a model of successful social transformation. Alongside it traces the entangled life-stories of its author and translators. Their trajectories transcended the pivotal period marking the end of empires and the emergence of nation states and spanned across a wide geographic area, parts of which at certain points of time were ruled by the Russian and Ottoman empires, the kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and the newly established Turkish republic. Along the way it addresses the following questions: How did the meaning of this text change as it made its way through various countries and languages? And why did it capture the imagination of many people in the 1920s-30s?