Author | Jules Verne |
---|---|
Original title | Michel Strogoff |
Translator | Agnes Kinloch Kingston (published under her husband's name: W. H. G. Kingston) |
Illustrator | Jules Férat |
Language | French |
Series | The Extraordinary Voyages #14 |
Genre | Adventure novel |
Publisher | Pierre-Jules Hetzel |
Publication date | 1876 |
Publication place | France |
Published in English | 1876 |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Preceded by | The Survivors of the Chancellor |
Followed by | Off on a Comet |
Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar (French : Michel Strogoff) is a novel written by Jules Verne in 1876. Critic Leonard S. Davidow, [1] considers it one of Verne's best books. Davidow wrote, "Jules Verne has written no better book than this, in fact it is deservedly ranked as one of the most thrilling tales ever written." Unlike some of Verne's other novels, it is not science fiction, but its plot device is a scientific phenomenon (Leidenfrost effect). The book was later adapted to a play, by Verne himself and Adolphe d'Ennery. Incidental music to the play was written by Alexandre Artus in 1880 and by Franz von Suppé in 1893. [2] The book has been adapted several times for films, television and cartoon series.
Michael Strogoff, a 30-year-old native of Omsk, is a courier for Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Tartar khan (prince), Feofar Khan, incites a rebellion and separates the Russian Far East from the mainland, severing telegraph lines. Rebels encircle Irkutsk, where the local governor, a brother of the Tsar, is making a last stand. Strogoff is sent to Irkutsk to warn the governor about the traitor Ivan Ogareff, a former colonel, who was once demoted and exiled by this brother of the Tsar. He now seeks revenge: he intends to gain the governor's trust and then betray him and Irkutsk to the Tartar hordes.
On his way to Irkutsk, Strogoff meets Nadia Fedor, daughter of an exiled political prisoner, Basil Fedor, who has been granted permission to join her father at his exile in Irkutsk; the English war correspondent Harry Blount of the Daily Telegraph ; and Alcide Jolivet, a Frenchman reporting for his "cousin Madeleine" (presumably, for some unnamed French paper). Blount and Jolivet tend to follow the same route as Michael, separating and meeting again all the way through Siberia. He is supposed to travel under a false identity, posing as the pacific merchant Nicolas Korpanoff, but he is discovered by the Tartars when he meets his mother in their home city of Omsk.
Michael, his mother and Nadia are eventually captured by the Tartar forces, along with thousands of other Russians, during the storming of a city in the Ob River basin. The Tartars do not know Strogoff by sight, but Ogareff is aware of the courier's mission and when he is told that Strogoff's mother spotted her son in the crowd and called his name, but received no reply, he understands that Strogoff is among the captured and devises a scheme to force the mother to indicate him. Strogoff is indeed caught and handed over to the Tartars, and Ogareff alleges that Michael is a spy, hoping to have him put to death in some cruel way. After opening the Koran at random, Feofar decides that Michael will be blinded as punishment in the Tartar fashion, with a glowing hot blade. For several chapters the reader is led to believe that Michael was indeed blinded, but it transpires in fact that he was saved from this fate (his tears at his mother evaporated and saved his corneas) and was only pretending.
Eventually, Michael and Nadia escape, and travel to Irkutsk with a friendly peasant, Nicolas Pigassof. They are recaptured by the Tartars; Nicolas witnesses Nadia cruelly insulted by a Tartar soldier and murders Nadia's assaulter. The Tartars then abandon Nadia and Michael and carry Nicolas away, reserving him for a greater punishment. Nadia and Michael later discover him buried up to his neck in the ground; after he dies they bury him hastily and continue onwards with great difficulty. However, they eventually reach Irkutsk, and warn the Tsar's brother in time of Ivan Ogareff. Nadia's father has been appointed commander of a suicide battalion of exiles, who are all pardoned; he joins Nadia and Michael; some days later they are married.
Exact sources of Verne's quite accurate knowledge of contemporary Eastern Siberia remain disputed. One popular version connects it to the novelist's meetings with anarchist Peter Kropotkin; however, Kropotkin arrived in France after Strogoff was published. [3] Another, more likely source, could have been Siberian businessman Mikhail Sidorov. Sidorov presented his collection of natural resources, including samples of oil and oil shales from Ukhta area, together with photographs of Ukhta oil wells, at the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna, where he could have met Verne. [3] Real-world oil deposits in Lake Baikal region do exist, first discovered in 1902 in Barguzin Bay and Selenge River delta, [4] but they are nowhere near the commercial size depicted by Verne. [5]
Verne's publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel sent the manuscript of the novel to the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev in August 1875 asking him for his comments on the accuracy of the conditions described in the book. [6]
While the physical description of Siberia is accurate, the Tartar rebellion described was not a rebellion and the strength as well as the geographical reach of the Tartars is highly exaggerated, although there had been one sizeable insurrection under Isatay Taymanuly in 1836–38 and a major uprising against Russia led by Kenesary Kasymuly between 1837 and 1847. After the Khanates had been gradually pushed back further South earlier in the 19th century, between 1865 and 1868 Russia had conquered the weakened Central Asian Uzbek Khanates of Kokand and Bukhara, both located much further South than the cities through which Strogoff travelled in the novel. While there thus had been war between Russia and "Tartars" a few years before Jules Verne wrote Michael Strogoff, no Tartar khan at the time was in a position to act as Feofar is described as doing; depicting late 19th-century Tartars as able to face Russians on anything resembling equal terms is an anachronism.
Title | Year | Country | Director | Strogoff | Notes | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Michael Strogoff | 1910 | US | J. Searle Dawley | Charles Ogle | silent one-reeler produced by Edison Studios, The Bronx, New York | [7] |
Michael Strogoff | 1914 | US | Lloyd B. Carleton | Jacob P. Adler | silent; the master negatives and initial prints for this screen production burned in the 1914 Lubin vault fire | |
Michel Strogoff | 1926 | France / Germany | Victor Tourjansky | Ivan Mosjoukine | silent | [8] |
Michel Strogoff | 1936 | France | Jacques de Baroncelli, Richard Eichberg | Anton Walbrook | [9] | |
The Czar's Courier | 1936 | Germany | Richard Eichberg | Anton Walbrook | [10] | |
The Soldier and the Lady | 1937 | US | George Nicholls, Jr. | Anton Walbrook | later released as Michael Strogoff | [11] |
Miguel Strogoff | 1943 | Mexico | Miguel M Delgado | Julián Soler | [12] | |
Michel Strogoff | 1956 | France, Italy, Yugoslavia | Carmine Gallone | Curd Jürgens | [13] | |
The Triumph of Michael Strogoff | 1961 | France, Italy | Victor Tourjansky | Curd Jürgens | [14] | |
Strogoff | 1970 | Bulgaria, France, Italy | Eriprando Visconti | John Phillip Law | Released in Germany as Der Kurier des Zaren and in France as Michel Strogoff | [15] |
Michel Strogoff | 1975 | Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary | Jean-Pierre Decourt | Raimund Harmstorf | 4-part TV drama | [16] |
Michele Strogoff, il corriere dello zar | 1999 | Germany, France, Italy | Fabrizio Costa | Paolo Seganti | [17] | |
Les Aventures extraordinaires de Michel Strogoff | 2004 | France | Bruno-René Huchez, Alexandre Huchez | Anthony Delon | ||
Michael Strogoff | 2013 | Italy | episode of TV series "JV: The Extraordinary Adventures of Jules Verne"; totally divergent plot | [18] |
The town of Marfa, Texas was named after the character Marfa Strogoff in this novel. [19]
In 2017 a board game was published by Devir Games, designed by Alberto Corral and developed and illustrated by Pedro Soto. Similar to the book, in the game players are couriers racing across Russia to thwart the assassination plot by Count Ivan Ogareff. Players will race one another but will also race the Count, who moves across Russia on a separate track. Along the way, players must face and overcome troubles such as bears and bad weather, avoid the spy Sangarra who tries to delay their progress, and avoid capture by the Tartar forces who conspire with Count Ogareff. Players must balance the racing element of the game, resting enough to preserve health, and dealing with the troubles they face along the way before crisis ensues. The game usually ends when a player confronts Ogareff in Irkusk and a showdown ensues. The game is highly thematic and true to the novel, with artwork that draws on traditional Russian carving techniques from the era. [20]
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). His novels, always well documented, are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account the technological advances of the time.
Irkutsk is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is the 25th-largest city in Russia by population, the fifth-largest in the Siberian Federal District, and one of the largest cities in Siberia.
Marfa is a city in the high desert of the Trans-Pecos in far West Texas, United States, between the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park, at an elevation of 4685 feet. It is the county seat of Presidio County, and its population as of the 2020 United States Census was 1,788. The city was founded in the early 1880s as a water stop; the population peaked in the 1930s and has continued to decline each decade since. However, today Marfa is a tourist destination and a major center for minimalist art. Attractions include Building 98, the Chinati Foundation, artisan shops, historical architecture, a classic Texas town square, modern art installments, art galleries, and the Marfa lights.
The Voyages extraordinaires is a collection or sequence of novels and short stories by the French writer Jules Verne.
Khovanshchina is an opera in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was written between 1872 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto based on historical sources. The opera was almost finished in piano score when the composer died in 1881, but the orchestration was almost entirely lacking.
The Trans-Siberian Highway is the unofficial name for a network of federal highways that span the width of Russia from the Baltic Sea of the Atlantic Ocean to the Sea of Japan. In the Asian Highway Network, the route is known as AH6. It stretches over 11,000 kilometres from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. The road disputes the title of the longest national highway in the world with Australia's Highway 1. The highway became fully paved on 12 August 2015.
Mathias Sandorf is an 1885 adventure book by the French writer Jules Verne first serialized in Le Temps in 1885. It employs many of the devices that had served well in his earlier novels: islands, cryptograms, surprise revelations of identity, technically advanced hardware and a solitary figure bent on revenge. Verne planned Mathias Sandorf as the Mediterranean adventure of his series of novels called Voyages extraordinaires. He dedicated the novel to the memory of Alexandre Dumas.
"A Drama in Mexico" is a historical short story by Jules Verne, first published in July 1851 under the title "L'Amérique du Nord, études historiques: Les Premiers Navires de la marine mexicaine."
Jules-Descartes Férat was a French artist and illustrator, famous for his portrayals of factories and their workers.
Strogoff is a European adventure film directed in 1970 by Eriprando Visconti. It was an international co-production between Italy, West Germany and France. It is based on Jules Verne's 1876 novel Michael Strogoff reinterpreted through the lens of psychological realism.
Journey Through the Impossible is an 1882 fantasy play written by Jules Verne, with the collaboration of Adolphe d'Ennery. A stage spectacular in the féerie tradition, the play follows the adventures of a young man who, with the help of a magic potion and a varied assortment of friends and advisers, makes impossible voyages to the center of the Earth, the bottom of the sea, and a distant planet. The play is deeply influenced by Verne's own Voyages Extraordinaires series and includes characters and themes from some of his most famous novels, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon.
Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. Most famous for his novel sequence, the Voyages Extraordinaires, Verne also wrote assorted short stories, plays, miscellaneous novels, essays, and poetry. His works are notable for their profound influence on science fiction and on surrealism, their innovative use of modernist literary techniques such as self-reflexivity, and their complex combination of positivist and romantic ideologies.
The Soldier and the Lady is the 1937 American adventure film version of the oft-produced 1876 Jules Verne novel, Michel Strogoff. Produced by Pandro S. Berman, he hired as his associate producer, Joseph Ermolieff. Ermolieff had produced two earlier versions of the film, Michel Strogoff in France, and The Czar's Courier in Germany, both released in 1936. Both the earlier films had starred the German actor Adolf Wohlbrück. Berman also imported Wohlbrück, changing his name to Anton Walbrook to have him star in the American version. Other stars of the film were Elizabeth Allan, Margot Grahame, Akim Tamiroff, Fay Bainter and Eric Blore. RKO Radio Pictures had purchased the rights to the French version of the movie, and used footage from that film in the American production. The film was released on April 9, 1937.
Michel Strogoff is a 1956 historical adventure film directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Curd Jürgens. It is based on 1876 novel of the same title by Jules Verne. Made as a co-production between several European nations, it was shot at the Kosutnjak Studios in Belgrade using CinemaScope.. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Léon Barsacq and Vlastimir Gavrik. Jürgens also appeared in a 1961 follow-up The Triumph of Michael Strogoff.
Michel Strogoff is a 1926 French silent historical adventure film directed by Viktor Tourjansky and starring Ivan Mozzhukhin, Nathalie Kovanko, and Acho Chakatouny. It is an adaptation of Jules Verne's 1876 novel Michael Strogoff. In 1961 Tourjanski directed a sequel titled Le Triomphe de Michel Strogoff.
Michel Strogoff is a 1975 French / Italian / German miniseries directed by Jean-Pierre Decourt. It is based on the novel of the same name by Jules Verne.
Michael Strogoff is a 1944 Mexican historical drama film directed by Miguel M. Delgado and starring Julián Soler, Lupita Tovar and Julio Villarreal. It is based on the 1876 Jules Verne novel Michael Strogoff.
Michel Strogoff is a 1936 French historical adventure film directed by Jacques de Baroncelli and Richard Eichberg and starring Anton Walbrook, Colette Darfeuil and Armand Bernard. It is an adaptation of the 1876 novel Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne. A separate German version The Czar's Courier was also made.
The Czar's Courier is a 1936 German historical drama film directed by Richard Eichberg and starring Anton Walbrook, Lucie Höflich, and Maria Andergast. It is an adaptation of Jules Verne's 1876 novel Michael Strogoff.
The Triumph of Michael Strogoff is a 1961 French-Italian historical adventure film directed by Viktor Tourjansky and starring Curd Jürgens, Capucine and Claude Titre. It is inspired by the 1876 novel Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne. Jürgens had previously played the role in the 1956 film Michel Strogoff.