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International

Geneva

and Joseph

Conrad as

father of the

modern spy

novel:

an impression

By Mario Apostolov

Joseph Conrad Among the personalities who lived and Polish nationalist activist in the struggle for
in 1916 by Alvin created major pieces of art in Geneva Joseph liberation. It was due to this activism that in
Langdon Coburn Conrad stands out as father of the modern spy 1862, when Conrad was just four, the Tsarist
- NYPL Digital novel. Overall, he is one of very few writers, regime sent the family to Vologda, 500 km
Gallery who became classics in the literature of a north of Moscow, known for its harsh climate.
language that was originally not their own. In 1865, after the return from exile, Conrad’s
Critics say that despite his troubled life and mother died of tuberculosis. In 1869 his father
fragmented education, Conrad exemplified moved to Krakow, in Austrian-held Poland,
the highest standards of the genres he was but soon after that he died, leaving Conrad
writing in. As for Geneva, it relates to a major orphaned at the age of eleven.
transition in Conrad’s artistic investigation,
at an advanced stage of his writing career. If Apollo influenced Conrad’s interest in
we know him primarily for his short stories literature and writing. Yet the young boy
and novels with a nautical setting, reflecting soon broke with his father’s other interests:
the rich impressions of his seafarer experience fervent nationalism and somewhat leftist
around the world, the works that saw the light revolutionary activism. Conrad left his native
of day in Geneva echoed his observations on lands at the age of 16 to realize his dream of
life and psychology in the world of espionage. sailing abound the world. His first stop was
Joseph Conrad was born as Józef Teodor Marseille, where he enlisted as a crewman
Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857, in Berdychiv, on a ship. Curiously, some of his first literary
then in the Russian Empire and now attempts were in French. Circumstances later
in Ukraine, into a family of rich Polish took him to Britain. In 1888, he reached the
landowners. His father, Apollo Korzeniowski, top of his seafarer’s career as captain of a
was a writer, translator and, above all, a barque. When he switched to writing, most

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