This section of TWL was written after the Russian Revolution, but much of
it was not. But there is no reason I can see that the conversation
recorded would need to have been then. The actual conversation Eliot
had with Marie is not dated, but he was in Germany before the war.

It is simply not determined by the text of the poem.
Nancy



Date sent: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 22:51:42 +0100
Send reply to: "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum." <[log in to unmask]>
From: Gunnar Jauch <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Hofgarten and the hyacinth garden
To: [log in to unmask]

am 9.2.2003 18:39 Uhr schrieb [log in to unmask] unter
[log in to unmask]:

> On your web page, Rick, you have pointed out that the "Starnbergersee"
> (mentioned just before the characters enter the Hofgarten) is the
> historic site where a royal member of the Hapsberg family, Ludwwig, was
> found dead under suspicious circumstances, possibly having been killed
> by members of his own royal family. When TWL was written, the Russian
> revolution has already happened, and the Tzar (and the family of the
> Tzar) has been killed by fellow Russians (the Bolsheviks). So, while
> they 'drank coffee and talked for an hour' (that is, they were
> conversing a long time and there is conversation missing from the
> reader) I can imagine a conversation like this:
>
> "Ludwig was killed at the Starnbergersee by his own family -- kind of
> like the Russians killing their own Tzar. Say, you're not Russian are
> you, since your family seems to act like the Bolsheviks?"
>
> (indignantly) "I'm not Russian. I'm from Lithuania. Pure German."

A well imagined dialogue, dear Steve.

My grandmother was Estonian, a citizen of another Baltic state, and she
used to tell me that their people felt much closer to the Germans than to
the Russians whom they considered peasants.

Therefore being taken for a Russian was an insult. The revolution of the
proletariat was, of course, a menace to the bourgeois class she belonged
to.


Gunnar