Матеріал до уроку "Mark Twain's life experience in Ukraine"

Mark Twain's life experience in the south of Ukraine.

 Part I                                                        

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

Back in the States, Samuel Clemens became known to the world under his pseudonym Mark Twain.  In January 1867, he traveled to New York with the aim of conquering the city with his works. Unfortunately, nobody in the metropolis had heard of the writer or read his works.  Newspaper editors refused to employ him, and publishing houses had no interested in his collected stories.  Moreover, his humoresques, which gained great popularity in San Francisco, could not find a niche in the Big Apple.

In these rather morose days, Twain came across an interesting announcement: "A journey to the Holy Land, Egypt, Crimea and Greece and transit places are of great interest."  The route, including the Crimean part, was described in detail: “After Constantinople, the ship will pass through the Bosporus Straits and the Black Sea to Sevastopol and Balaklava.  The journey will last 24 hours.  It is recommended to stay in Crimea for two days and visit seaports, fortifications and battlefields."

A ticket for the journey by sea was very expensive.  Twain came up with the great idea of proposing his services as a journalist to the California newspaper Alta, where he was well-known.  The editorial agreed to pay for his trip.

   On June 8, Quaker City departed from New York City.  The ship traveled across the Atlantic and in August dropped anchored in Sevastopol. "I arrived in Sevastopol 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.  He decided to stay in Constantinople with the intention of boarding a ship on its way back. In those years, passports had only a written description of a person without any photograph and Twain did not correspond to the description given in the document of his cabin mate.  Twain recalled: “As soon as we dropped anchor, an officer sent by the governor boarded the ship and asked if he can be of any assistance to us and made us feel at home in Sevastopol!”  Twain's fears proved to be in vain, since nobody checked his passport.

The future author of the famous Adventures of Tom Sawyer saw Sevastopol, which had not recovered from Crimean War, as follows: "Wherever you look you see ruins, only ruins!  Destroyed homes, collapsed walls, piles of ruined remains -total destruction..."

Americans were taken on a tour to Inkerman and Balaklava.  They returned to the ship with many souvenirs, including cannon balls, broken ramrods and splinters of shrapnel.

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."

Part II

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!

The guests spent a day and a night in Odessa.  A wire was sent to the tsar, who gave a positive reply.  The Quaker City hastily weighed anchor and set out to Yalta.

The U.S.  Consul in Odesa set out to meet Tsar Aleksandr II.  Compatriots of the American asked him to explain how they should behave with the emperor in order to create a positive impression.  Un- fortunately, the diplomat only made it to a reception of Odesa governor-general.

In Yalta, which Twain found much similar to Sierra Nevada, the American tourists spent several days before the day of meeting the tsar was set.  They also received an invitation to visit the palace of the tsar's younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail.

 According to etiquette, the guests had b to make a speech greeting the emperor. Seeing as Twain was the only literary man on board the ship, he was entrusted with writing the speech.  Demonstrating his outstanding diplomatic skills, the writer composed several impressive paragraphs. One of the passages in his speech sounds rather humorous today: "America is much indebted to Russia in many respects..."

At noon, the guests gathered on the lawn of the Livadia Palace.  Interestingly enough, in those years the present-day spacious building had not yet been built. Instead, there stood a modest two-storied building built by the former owner of this mansion Count Lev Potocki.

 The Russian emperor soon came down to greet the guests with his family.  Twain recalled:   "Several high-ranking imperial officials accompanied the emperor, though they were not dressed in festive attire. Everybody took off their hats and the consul made the tsar listen to our address. He endured patiently, then took our clumsy paper and handed it over to one of the highest officers to take it to the archives or maybe even to the stove."

The emperor greeted the guests. "Then the empress held conversations with the ladies. Several gentlemen took to light conversation with the emperor... Everybody spoke English". Then the tsar and his wife invited their American guests to visit the Livadia Palace. "They did not charge an admission fee," Twain wrote in amazement.

Then 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.

The Americans spent half a day with the imperial family.  The next morning, the Quaker City departed to Constantinople and from there embarked to the U.S.  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.

Mark Twain's sayings for discussion:

 "Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them, the rest of us could not succeed."

 "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society."

 Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

 Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

 Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of our-selves and how little we think of the other person.

 It is by goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

 The report of my death was an exaggeration.