Презентація "Mark Twain and Ukraine".

Mark Twain and Ukraine. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910)

In August 1867, an American steamship named the Quaker City moored at the Grafska pier in Sevastopol. One of the passengers was the American writer Mark Twain.

"I arrived in Sebastopol harbor, trembling with fear, and thought that I would be exposed and hung," the writer confessed in his diary. The fact is that Twain lost his passport and managed to get to Crimea on the passport of his cabin mate.

Americans were taken on a tour to Inkerman and Balaklava. The messengers of the governor proposed to arrange a meeting with Russia's Tsar Alexander II, who was on holidays in Crimea. Twain wrote with a tinge of sarcasm in his diary, "Unfortunately we did not have enough time, were running out of coal, and were forced to refuse the pleasure of meeting the emperor."

The Quaker City departed from Sevastopol to Odesa to stock up on coal. Upon arrival the writer admitted, "From the guide-books we understood that there was absolutely nothing to see in Odesa. In any case, we had the entire day to enjoy a casual walk through the city."

Twain liked Odesa. He even compared it to America: "I set foot on the roads of Odesa and for the first time after a long time finally felt completely like home. Odesa looks exactly like an American city: beautiful, wide streets and small homes, acacia trees lining the sidewalks, streets and stores bustling with customers, and pedestrians walking to work in a rush. Wherever you look-to the right or to the left -you see America!”

He wrote:“We only found two pieces of statuary, and this was another blessing. One was a bronze image of the Duc de Richelieu, grand-nephew of the splendid Cardinal. It stood in a spacious, handsome promenade, overlooking the sea, and from its base a vast flight of stone steps led down to the harbor—two hundred of them, fifty feet long, and a wide landing at the bottom of every twenty.”

After a day and a night in Odesa the ship set off to Yalta

At Livadia, The Emperor offered to show the Livadia Palace and its park and then invited the guests for a breakfast with the royal family, where they served lemon tea with sushka (cracker ring). "They did not charge an admission fee," Twain wrote in amazement.

The tourists went to visit Oreanda, where they were received by the tsar's brother Grand Duke Mikhail and his wife. Twain wrote down in his diary, "The ceremony of introduction was just as simple as the one the emperor gave." At 2:30 in the afternoon, all the guests were summoned to the table. "They call breakfast what we call lunch," Twain noted in his diary.

In 1869 Twain's first major novel entitled “The Innocents Abroad” was published. Needless to say, the Crimean episodes made their contribution to the fame of Mark Twain.

The cruise had a happy ending for Mark Twain. During the trip he met a fellow passenger Charles Langdon, who showed him a picture of his sister Olivia. She will become his wife, after a long court. The Writer later claimed to have fallen in love! with her at first sight.