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De Beginjaren 1923-1930 Van De Letterkundige Kring, PEN-Centrum Voor Nederland

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De Beginjaren 1923-1930 Van De Letterkundige Kring, PEN-Centrum Voor Nederland De beginjaren 1923-1930 van De Letterkundige Kring, PEN-centrum voor Nederland Ton van Kalmthout (Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis) Abstract In 1923 a few leading Dutch writers took the initiative of founding a dining club, a private society of kindred spirits and their guests who regularly dine together and discuss their shared interests. The model for this Letterkundige Kring (Literary Cir- cle) was the PEN Club in London, established two years previously, which was an association of Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors and Novelists that endeavoured to set up a branch in every country in the world. To this end, the leaders of the London establishment – the chairman John Galsworthy and the founder Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, helped by her daughter Marjorie Watts – had approached several well-known literary figures in the Netherlands. Anyone who became a member of one PEN centre was automatically welcome in all the others. As one of the national PEN centres – by 1930 there were already 46, with a total of about 3000 mem- bers – this new Literary Circle endorsed the internationalist and pacifist thinking of the international PEN club: by offering hospitality to writers from all countries and actively bringing them together, the peoples they represented would by degrees be reconciled and even ultimately bring world peace within reach. This signified that the PEN club had an idealistic and, involuntarily, also a political agenda, even though it considered itself to be emphatically a-political. This article describes how The Literary Circle fared in its early years as the PEN Centre and analyses the role it played in the literary and cultural life of the Nether- lands in the 1920s. The archives covering the early years of this Dutch section have largely been lost, but it has turned out to be possible to get a picture of that period on the basis of scattered archive items and reports in the press of the time. Like its mother organisation, the Dutch PEN centre was a fairly informal enterprise that was able to steer an independent course. It was from the very beginning headed 182 NEDERLANDSE Letterkunde • Jaargang 16 • nr 3 • december 2011 Guest (guest) IP: 170.106.40.139 De beginjaren 1923-1930 van De Letterkundige Kring, PEN-centrum voor Nederland by the poet P.C. Boutens. He was also the chairman of the Vereeniging van Let- terkundigen (Literary Association) (1905), which concentrated mainly on protect- ing the material interests of writers. There was nonetheless never any cooperation between the two organisations. They were also very different in nature. Whereas the Vereeniging van Letterkundigen relied on the largest possible membership, De Letterkundige Kring deliberately limited the number of members. All that can be established is that 94 authors, many of them living in Amsterdam or The Hague, were members for varying periods in the early years. It was quite a select company, usually of older male literary figures, which one could only join by invitation. It was however possible for outsiders to more or less follow the comings and goings of both the Dutch section and those abroad in the national daily and weekly press, with which several members of the Kring were associated. One of the most important activities of the Dutch centre was the members’ din- ners, to which they invited guests, the most famous of whom were Thomas Mann (in 1924) and Georges Duhamel (in 1926), both of whom were touring several PEN centres. By the same token, three prominent and active PEN members from the Netherlands – P.C. Boutens, Herman Robbers and Jo van Ammers-Küller – were received as guests of honour at distinguished PEN gatherings abroad. From 1925, Dutch writers were also able to extend their international network at the annual PEN congress, even though at that time they were still not playing any conspicu- ous part, either in numbers or contributions. A large part of these congresses was in fact devoted to entertainment, though serious issues were also dealt with. A lot of attention was naturally paid to the writer’s pacifist and internationalist task, but also to the intellectual and material circumstances under which he was best able to fulfil this task, such as copyright, freedom of expression and the interests of the translator. In the first few years social intercourse was the main business of the Dutch branch too. Its exclusiveness made it a somewhat inward-looking company, where young talent remained in the minority. Partly as a result of this, the dynamism of the club could have been greater, and this was not good for its reputation. But para- doxically enough, its internationalism meant that it did at the same time look out- wards, which is one of the major reasons why it must have been attractive to many Dutch writers. In this way De Letterkundige Kring made an essential contribution to the internationalisation of literary life in the Netherlands. In maart 1923 – de exacte datum is onbekend – ontvingen 48 min of meer bekende Nederlandse schrijvers een circulaire waarvan de inhoud volgens het opschrift ‘Streng vertrouwelijk’ was. De ondertekenaars waren P.C. Boutens, Frans Mijnssen, Martinus Nijhoff, Herman Robbers en J.W.F. Werumeus Buning, en hun circulaire droeg het briefhoofd ‘De Letterkundige Kring’. Onder deze naam wilden ze een nieuw genootschap stichten, zo zetten ze uiteen, een genootschap waarvoor zij nu het draagvlak onderzochten. Blijkbaar voorzagen ze enige weerstand, want ze ver- zekerden meteen dat ze er niet op uit waren een concurrerende organisatie op te richten naast verwante genootschappen, de Vereeniging van Letterkundigen met name. Dat de ondertekenaars zich niet wilden begeven in het vaarwater van deze 183 Guest (guest) IP: 170.106.40.139 Ton van Kalmthout vereniging, was te verwachten, want Boutens en Robbers waren er voorzitter respec- tievelijk vice-voorzitter van. Waarom dan wel een nieuwe vereniging? • Ons plan is, een niet te grooten kring te stichten van Nederlandsche schrijvers, die elkander gaarne zoo nu en dan eens ontmoeten, en die daartoe bijeenkomen niet op de gewoonlijk onvermijdelijke vergaderingen, doch aan een paar goede jaarlijksche maaltijden. • De vereeniging, welke wij den naam dachten te geven van ‘De Letterkundige Kring’, zal aansluiting vinden bij gelijk gezinde buitenlandsche vereenigingen, in de eerste plaats bij de ‘P.E.N.-Club’ te London, waarvan Galsworthy de leider is. • Buitenlandsche letterkundigen, die in ons land vertoeven, kunnen door den Nederlandschen Kring worden ontvangen en ingelicht, terwijl onze leden in het buitenland eveneens ont- vangst en wegwijzing zullen vinden. • Wij gelooven niet, dat de winst zich zal bepalen tot tafelgenot; doch groote leuzen zijn aan dit alles ook niet verbonden; wij vertrouwen in de sfeer die ontstaan zal, hopen op vruchtbaarheid en groei. Op uitnodiging zouden ook nieuwe leden mogen toetreden en de contributie hoef- de niet meer te bedragen dan fl. 5,--. Toch zou de nieuwe vereniging beperkt van omvang moeten blijven. Wie als een van de aangeschreven auteurs vóór 24 maart aan Buning liet weten iets voor zo’n kring te voelen, zou een uitnodiging krijgen voor de oprichtingsvergadering.1 De Letterkundige Kring zou er inderdaad komen. Dit artikel bespreekt hoe het hem de eerste jaren verging, jaren waaraan nog nauwelijks aandacht is besteed.2 Aldus analyseert het welke rol de Kring heeft gespeeld in het literair-culturele leven van kort na de Eerste Wereldoorlog en hoe hij die rol vervulde. Omdat het genootschap in Nederland zou gaan fungeren als een van de dependances van de genoemde, internationaal opererende PEN-club van John Galsworthy, zal ik de ont- wikkeling van de Nederlandse afdeling relateren aan die van de koepelorganisatie en nu en dan ook van zusterafdelingen in enkele andere landen. Voor Nederland baseer ik mij op nogal verspreide bronnen. Het archief met betrekking tot de beginjaren van de Nederlandse PEN-afdeling is nagenoeg geheel verloren gegaan.3 Voor archiefmateriaal ben ik dus voornamelijk aangewezen op stukken die bewaard zijn in de persoonlijke nalatenschappen van betrokkenen en op enkele documen- ten in het centrale archief van de internationale PEN-club.4 Daarnaast blijkt er over de Nederlandse situatie de nodige informatie te vinden in de contemporaine dag- en weekbladpers. 1. Oprichting Toen De Letterkundige Kring in het leven werd geroepen, was de internationale PEN-club nog tamelijk onbekend in Nederland.5 Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, die 184 Guest (guest) IP: 170.106.40.139 De beginjaren 1923-1930 van De Letterkundige Kring, PEN-centrum voor Nederland zich graag ‘Mother of the P.E.N.’ liet noemen,6 had haar in 1921 opgericht als een traditionele Engelse dining club, een besloten gezelschap van gelijkgestemden en hun eventuele gasten, die op gezette tijden een gezamenlijke maaltijd gebruikten en daarbij gemeenschappelijke interesses bespraken, in dit geval dus die van Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors en Novellists. Het waren betrekkelijk informele diners; de traditionele toast op de koning bleef achterwege. Dawsons Scotts dochter Marjorie Scott fungeerde als secretaresse van de club en de wereldberoemde schrij- ver John Galsworthy, toekomstig Nobelprijswinnaar, had het voorzitterschap op zich genomen. Een Executive Committee in Londen, waarvan Galsworthy, Dawson Scott en Marjorie Scott eveneens deel uitmaakten, promootte van meet af aan de oprichting van nieuwe PEN-centra in andere landen. Daartoe werden invloedrijke auteurs aangeschreven, ‘a carefully chosen list of distinguished foreign
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