His books have sold 80 million copies. They have been translated into over 20 languages and many of them have become international bestsellers. No Polish author of the interwar period achieved such fame and popularity in the world as Ferdynand Ossendowski. So why today hardly anyone remembers him?
In the biography of Ferdinand Ossendowski it is very difficult to distinguish fiction from truth. The writer himself did it. One thing is certain. Born in 1878, a descendant of the Polish nobility settled in Livonia, he was an extremely prolific author.
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Translations in over 20 languages
Her first novel, titled Clouds over the Ganges published in 1899, while still in college. He himself claimed to have written about 130 books throughout his life. According to Przemysław Słowiński in the recently published publication Prince of Adventure. Biography of Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski:
In total, seventy-seven books by his authorship have been published in Poland, with nearly one hundred and fifty translations into more than twenty languages. (…)
In the interwar period, the world’s leading publishers made efforts to purchase the publishing rights to his manuscripts in the first place. It so happens that some of Ossendowski’s books were first published in English, French, Italian or Spanish, and only later were delivered to readers in Poland.
In the West, Ossendowski has been compared to greats like Rudyard Kipling, Jack London and even Joseph Conrad. With so much writing activity, the Pole’s work presented a whole new level. However, it cannot be denied that no author from the interwar Vistula region came close to Ossendowski’s international popularity.
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The first international bestseller
His worldwide recognition was ensured by a book published in New York at the beginning of 1922. Beasts, Men and God. It was fictional:
(…) an account of the incredible adventures which befell the writer when, during the Russian Civil War, he escaped from the Bolsheviks through Central Asia – Siberia and Mongolia – to the British possessions in the southern China and further afield in Japan.
Overseas, the publication sold up to 300,000 copies. Later that same year it was also published in London. Later it “reached a record number of nineteen language translations”.
As a result, Ossendowski found himself “on the list of the five most read authors in the world”. Also on the Vistula – published under the title Through the land of men, animals and gods – enjoyed great popularity, awaiting several reissues.
A book that exposed Lenin
Ossendowski was a true master of reporting. People read his descriptions of his travels in Asia and Africa. His next major international best-seller was his biographical novel titled Lenin.
He was supposed to show the true face of the red criminal co-responsible for the deaths of millions of people. As Przemysław Słowiński notes:
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The Pole was, if not the first, certainly one of the first to dare to strike at the myth, the symbol, the legend, the idols, the idol of millions of poor people all over the world, brutalized by hunger and misery.
Many people in the West were then duped by the propaganda message served up by the Kremlin, in which Lenin appeared as the savior of humanity. The Polish writer in his book denied this image, but not only. He also exposed the methods used by the Bolsheviks to deceive foreigners.
The biography of the Bolshevik leader has been translated into most European languages. Its numerous fragments have been printed in the press, and foreign critics have spoken of it very favorably.
The book, however, caused a real outcry in the Kremlin. At the request of the Moscow authorities Lenin was kidnapped throughout Italy. Communists also undertook similar activities in other countries. Apparently, Stalin himself had to demand the head
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Condemned to oblivion
The writer, however, never fell into the hands of the NKVD wetboys. He died on January 3, 1945 in a hospital in Grodzisk Mazowiecki. According to surviving reports, after the Red Army crossed the Vistula, his grave was dug in order to verify whether the writer was really dead.
Maybe the communists didn’t get their hands on the author Lenin, but they effectively erased his name from the minds of the Poles. As we read in prince of adventure first, Ossendowski’s works were censored and “from 1951 they were subject to immediate withdrawal from libraries and withdrawal to be crushed or burned in boiler rooms”.
As a result, although after the change of political regime in 1989:
(…) his works can be officially published in Poland (previously there were only samizdaty without debit), the name of Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski, known and popular throughout the world before the war, almost says nothing to the average reader, both the younger generation and the middle-aged.
It’s hard to believe that it only took 45 years of communist rule to forget a man whose books have sold worldwide with a total circulation of around 80 million copies.
Also read about the forgotten Polish genius. His inventions are still used around the world
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Bibliography
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