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culture culture
protagonist Razumov (a name derived from
the Slavic word for “reason”) is an industrious
and ambitious student in Sankt Peterburg – a
self-made man aspiring a good public service.
Yet, misled by Razumov’s industriousness and
frank talk, a fellow student with revolutionary
views, who has just killed a brutal head of
police (story based on historical facts), runs
to him for help to escape. Instead, after a night
of torment, Razumov reports on his colleague
to the police, which arrests the idealistic youth
and executes him. Next, the Tsarist police
recruits Razumov and sends him to Geneva to
spy on the revolutionary emigree community,
which formed there at the beginning of the
The house on who lived in an overcrowded boarding-house twentieth century. In the book, that community
avenue de la room with fresh mind and dignity. includes the mother and sister of the executed
Roseraie 25, youth. Razumov’s horrendous dilemmas are
where Joseph Conrad came to Geneva for treatment at the exacerbated by his falling in love with the
Conrad stayed in Champel hydro-therapeutic baths on four sister of the boy he has betrayed. When the
1891, 1894, 1895 occasions: in 1891, 1894, 1895, and 1907. psychological pressure makes him confess his
and 1907. Photo Every time he stayed at the hôtel-pension La traitorous act, the emigree community sends
by the author. Roseraie, which still stands today at Avenue its hitman (also a historical figure) to torture
de la Roseraie 25. He had already finished a and maim Razumov.
sailing career and become a recognized writer,
but his health was ailing, affected by the stress Critics see in this novel signs of Conrad’s
he had endured, nervous breakdowns, and disdain for revolutionary activities. As in other
a tropical disease he had contracted in the works, Conrad argues here that both tyranny
Congo.
and violent revolution are incapable of solving
human problems. The novel is intrinsically
Geneva and La Roseraie proved to be related to Russian history and experts discern
propitious for Conrad’s creativity. It was in in it the influence of Crime and Punishment.
1907 at La Roseraie that he rapidly completed Yet for Conrad, in general, Dostoevsky was
his first novel with a spy plot - The Secret “too Russian” - something that shed a shadow
Agent – a story set in London, involving on his opinion of other peoples’ concerns and
terrorism, spies, and Russian diplomats. Most dreams.
importantly, that stay in Geneva gave him
the inspiration and the setting for his next Conrad’s works stand out among his
novel – Under Western Eyes - one of his major contemporary British and other writers
works. Set in Sankt Peterburg and Geneva, a with their practically global coverage – from
psychodrama about an ordinary person who Central Africa and the South Chinese Seas
is recruited as a spy by a ruthless regime. The
to the British Isles, Poland, and Geneva. In
this sense, Conrad can rightfully be called
“Geneva and La Roseraie proved to be a forerunner of globalization. Yet Conrad’s
propitious for Conrad’s creativity. It was in global mobility associated him to another
1907 at La Roseraie that he rapidly issue that he faced in his life and revealed in
his works – the pain of exile. Under Western
completed his first novel with a spy plot Eyes, like other Conrad’s works, contemplates
- The Secret Agent – a story set in London, on the condition of exile in modern society.
involving terrorism, spies, Geneva, the meeting-place of the hapless
refugees depicted by Conrad, has all the
and Russian diplomats. ” cruelty of a place of exile, a cruelty not wilful,
w w w. d i va i n t e r n at i o n a l . c h
but passive and unintentional. Häusermann
3
maintains that for Conrad Geneva is a
harsher place than Siberia or the east coast of
Borneo. Through the eyes of his protagonist
Razumov, Conrad describes the city as
“indifferent and hospitable in its cold, almost
scornful toleration – a respectable town of
refuge to which all these sorrows and hopes
[of the exiles] were nothing”. For Razumov
Geneva is “the respectable and passionless
abode of democratic liberty, the serious-
minded town of dreary hotels, tendering the
same indifferent hospitality to tourists of all
nations and to international conspirators of
every shade”. Conrad contrasts the tranquil,
orderly, and content city - a “town, comely delay. He had nervous breakdowns and wrote The plate on the
without grace, and hospitable without several short stories in between. When reading wall of the house
sympathy” - with his flamboyant Slavic it, one can feel that it was not an easy piece. on avenue de
characters. Those characters are devoured by The torments of the characters somehow la Roseraie 25,
passions, still cherishing the broad harmony transpire from the text. The novel was finally commemorating
of spirit and belief in the brotherliness of all published in 1911. At the time, the Russian Joseph Conrad.
human beings, which we see in their hopes revolution of 1905 was already history and The inscription
and sorrows. called for one reading of the novel. Six years in Latin reads,
Conrad starts his novel Almayer’s Folly: A later, the Bolsheviks’ October Revolution “Geneva hid up”.
Story of an Eastern River with an exclamation called for a different reading. Today, after the Photo by the
by Henri-Frédéric Amiel – the Genevan poet end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union, author.
and moral philosopher - qui de nous n’a eu sa after the Snowden revelations and similar
terre promise, son jour d’extase et sa fin en exil? stories originating in Geneva, one can read
the novel in a new light.
Conrad himself, like his father and many of his
family, was an exile. Whether in the western
world or under tropical skies, the exiles are
alien to the land that gives them refuge.
They always feel the difference, a sense of
unwantedness, if not enmity. The fate of many
characters in Conrad’s stories broadens into a
symbol of the destiny of mankind. The sorrow
of exile is deep inside the psyche of so many Bibliography:
people in this globalized world, dissolving Conrad, Joseph. Almayer’s Folly: A Story of an Eastern River,
their hopes and pride of achievement, making Guttenberg Project 2006, online https://www.gutenberg.org/
them suffer from that distress altogether. The files/720/720-h/720-h.htm
frontiers that have the strongest impact and Conrad, Joseph. The Heart of Darkness, Guttenberg Project 2006,
online https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/526/pg526.html
are most difficult to tackle are in the minds of Conrad, Joseph. Selected Short Stories, Ware, Wordsworth
men, as the French geographer Jean Gottmann Classics 1997, xxvii-238 p.
once put it. Describing the pain of living with Conrad, Joseph. Under Western Eyes, Guttenberg Project 2006,
these mental frontiers is one of the important https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2480/2480-h/2480-h.htm
achievements of Conrad. Hochschild, Adam. “Stranger in Strange Lands: Joseph Conrad
Conrad finalized Under Western Eyes with
and the Dawn of Globalization”, Foreign Affairs, March/April
2018, pp. 150-155.
Häusermann, H. W. The Genevese Background, Häusermann, H. W. The Genevese Background, Studies of Shelley,
Studies of Shelley, Francis Danby, Maria Edge- Francis Danby, Maria Edgeworth, Ruskin, Meredith, and Joseph
worth, Ruskin, Meredith, and Joseph Conrad in Conrad in Geneva, London, Routledge 2016, xiii-224 p.
Geneva, London, Routledge 20 6, p.2 .
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