Our Next Event 21/11/2023

Published: 14 November 2023

LITERARY POLITICS OF RUARAIDH ERSKINE'S MAGAZINES

ABOUT THE PAPER

Ruaraidh Erskine of Mar (1869–1960) was an influential activist, author, and editor, deeply involved in the cultural and political flux at the fin-de-siècle and in initiatives related to Scottish independence and revitalisation of Gaelic. My current research project explores the five Gaelic periodicals Erskine founded and supported – "Am Bàrd" (“The Poet”, 1901–1902, monthly), "Guth na Bliadhna" (“The Year’s Voice”, 1904–1925, quarterly), "Alba" (“Scotland”, 1908–1909, weekly), "An Sgeulaiche" (“The Storyteller”, 1909–1910 monthly, 1911 quarterly), and "An Ròsarnach" (“The Rose Garden”, 1917, 1918, 1921, 1930, annual) – in the context of their production and reception. The periodicals attracted a network of local writers and international contributors and combined a cosmopolitan outlook, political radicalism, and popular appeal. In the talk, I will focus on the literary politics of especially "Guth na Bliadhna", "An Sgeulaiche", and "An Ròsarnach", discuss what kind of literary content they published and by whom, comment on the representation of Gaelic and English, and outline the impact of these periodicals on the development of modern Gaelic fiction, drama, literary criticism, and journalism.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Petra Johana Poncarová is a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Glasgow. She serves as secretary of the International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures (iassl.org) and is one of the co-directors of Ionad Eòghainn MhicLachlainn | National Centre for Gaelic Translation (gaelictranslation.org). She was the manager of the 3rd World Congress of Scottish Literatures (Prague, 2022). With the ASL, she published a Scotnote on Thomson’s Gaelic poetry in 2020, and her monograph "Derick Thomson and the Gaelic Revival" (https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-derick-thomson-and-the-gaelic-revival.html) is forthcoming from the Edinburgh University Press. She is part of the editorial team of the academic journal "Litteraria Pragensia" (https://litterariapragensia.ff.cuni.cz/). Before joining the University of Glasgow, she was based at Charles University in Prague. She translates directly from Scottish Gaelic into Czech, including "Deireadh an Fhoghair" (The End of Autumn, 1979) by Tormod Caimbeul, which is the only rendition of the acclaimed novel in any foreign language so far.

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