Starožitnosti 10 Starožitnosti

LIFE ORK LEACY THE ENDLESS M. KARLINJOURNEY OF ALMA BARBARA TRNOVEC Alma M. Karlin (12 October 1889 – 14 January 1950) was anti-Nazi views, of whom she was considered one. She was a -born writer, journalist, world traveller, amateur watched by the Gestapo and during one interrogation learnt researcher, polyglot and theosophist who travelled the world that she was considered “an enemy of Hitler’s regime” . She from 1919 until 1927. She travelled alone, continuously, was also kept under surveillance by the Partisans, whom she for eight years, supporting herself throughout the course joined in the summer of 1944. For some time she was even of her journey by working: teaching languages, translating watched by Tito’s wife Herta Haas. Given her anti-Nazi and writing articles for publication in numerous European and anti-Communist views and her pro-British stance, she newspapers. The nature of her travels places her, in my was fortunate not to be liquidated. Not unexpectedly, she 8 estimation, among the greatest travellers of all time. was also watched after the war. Her name appears in the 9 record of the main hearing at the Nagode Trial, the first of During the course of her life’s journey, fascinating to any the post-war political show trials staged by the Communist observer, Alma M. Karlin transcended all possible boundaries. authorities in . It appears that the post-war author- As I have already written elsewhere: she transcended the ities were very afraid of her escaping abroad. boundaries of physical limitations, the boundaries of her sex, the boundaries of the social class to which she belonged, Delving into the background of some of these fabrications the boundaries of her constructed national identity, the has significantly helped us to crystallise an image of this re- boundaries of physical distance, and also the boundaries of markable woman. She traced her own path at a very young the spirit of the age. Even today her ideas seem fresh and age, and then followed it with incredible determination. At relevant – they are in fact timeless – and continue to address the age of sixteen she realised that the only way to escape and inspire a growing number of people. her suffocating environment and the extremely negative influence of her mother Vilibalda – whose pressure upon She was brave. Independent. Resolute. Thirsty for know- her prompted her first thoughts of suicide at the age of just ledge. Focused on her goal. This was the spirit in which her thirteen – was through knowledge. Through knowledge father Jakob Karlin raised her, and we can read all of this in that could be converted into earnings and thus a path to the defiant expression on the face of the little girl with the independence. It was then that she began to learn languages. boyish haircut. Even then she was seen as different and was At the age of eighteen she set off into “voluntary exile” to unaccepted by her own environment. So it would be until and in 1914 passed (with flying colours) examina- the end of her life – and even for decades after her death. tions in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Russian at the famous Royal Society of A number of fabrications were circulated about her, seven Arts and the London Chamber of Commerce. A year later, of which are covered in the book. These were either the when she was living in Norway, she discovered her life’s fruit of misunderstanding, gossip, slander, envy or the mission: writing. interests of individuals and groups, or the result of oppor- tunism, superficiality and lack of professionalism on the part When she returned to Celje in 1918, she was firmly resolved of researchers. In some cases they were the result of fear: to set off on a journey around the world. Between 1919 and those who tried to portray her as mad and to minimise the 1927 she travelled the world in a way that no one – man or importance of her work also kept her under surveillance and woman – had ever travelled it before her. In the late 1920s sought to eliminate her. Documents from the 1930s held and the first half of the 1930s she enjoyed considerable suc- in the German federal archives show that a file was being cess as a writer and traveller – both in Europe and beyond. kept on her even then. Following the German occupation This was something she had dreamt about as a young girl. INTRODUCTION of Celje during the Second World War, she was one of the After this, however, came some very dark years. Right to first to be arrested. Even before the occupation, the the bitter end. members of the Celje Kulturbund had collected a variety of confidential information, including about Slovenes with On the evening before her departure, in reply to her moth- The next day, 19 February 1920, she went aboard the Bo- er’s question as to why she was going, she answered: “Be- logna clutching her third-class ticket. “Because I had once cause I must. Something inside me is urging me, and I will seen pictures of third-class accommodations aboard a ship, I not find peace if I do not obey this impulse.” 1 Asked when imagined I knew everything … ” 6 The crush, the unbearable she would return, she replied that she would be back in two stench and the noise in the bowels of the liner bothered her and a half years, three at the most. And added: “And then less than the thought that she could not afford to travel in you will have good reason to be proud of me!” 2 first class. As the ship steamed through the Strait of Gibral- tar, she bade farewell to Europe, but it was not until the 12 A year after the end of the First World War and a month Bologna left Tenerife that it hit her: “I had turned my back 13 after her thirtieth birthday, Alma M. Karlin set off on her on my homeland for goodness knows how long.” 7 She set journey around the world with the modest savings she had off into the unknown like “a crazy Columbus” , summoned accumulated by giving language lessons.3 She took with up her courage “with Columbian dreams” , saw herself as her a suitcase (in which space was found for a manuscript “a modern Columbus” discovering the world. copy of her own ten-language dictionary), a small leather handbag and her indispensable typewriter – her cherished 1 Alma M. Karlin, Sama: Iz otroštva in mladosti (Celje: In lingua, Erika. Celje railway station was dark. A light, icy rain was 2010), 307. 2 falling and she was chilled to the bone. When the over- Karlin, Sama, 307. crowded train stopped at the platform, she bade farewell 3 She managed to save 130 dollars and 950 marks. “The mark had practically collapsed even before I arrived abroad, so all I to the friends who had come to see her off and boarded was left with were the dollars.” (Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 8). 4 her carriage. The date was Monday, 24 November 1919. Alma M. Karlin, Samotno potovanje v daljne dežele: Tragedija ženske (Celje: Celjska Mohorjeva družba, 2007), 11. 5 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 21. Her original aim was to travel first to Japan, but as a result 6 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 22. of circumstances – lack of money or the wrong papers 7 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 37. – she instead took passage at Genoa on a ship bound for Mollendo, the southernmost port in Peru, reasoning that “if all roads lead to Rome, sooner or later they will surely lead me to Japan.” 4

She spent the last evening before her departure on the Ponte Monumentale, from where she had a fine view of Via XX Settembre. “From here one could peer into the gardens CELJE AND GENOA of old palazzi, the depths of dark courtyards and through November 1919–February 1920 curtainless windows into humbler abodes … and behind all this, like a deep blue endless shadow, spread the sea, inviting and promising. Clouds steeped in red raced past me like kites of many shapes … Below me, the roar of the life I had known. This was Europe. My intention was to I MUST. SOMETHING return after three years covered in wisdom and glory … ” 5 INSIDE ME IS URGING ME…

In Genoa she bought a ticket to Mollendo, the southernmost port in Peru, and on 19 February 1920 embarked on the steamer Bologna. (Held by B. T.) Alma M. Karlin’s return to Celje, after a voyage that took an eccentric. Now they come to gawp at me as they do my her through the Suez Canal and on to Trieste, with brief collections, as though I were a wonder worth seeing. Only a stops in ports along the way, appears to have occurred on 28 few people also tried to find a heart in this wonder, which is December 1927. Whatever the exact date of her arrival in her why almost no one ever did.” 139 hometown, a profound disappointment awaited her at Celje railway station. Having announced her return home in the Whatever her reception at home, in other countries she was Cillier Zeitung, the local newspaper in which she had “pub- received with respect and admiration. The lectures by the lished around 200 articles” 136 during her journey. She hoped famous and very successful writer in European capitals – Vi- 62 that her fellow citizens would be present to welcome her with enna, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, London, and else- 63 cheers and applause – a scene she had frequently pictured in her where – were the subject of enormous interest.140 Her fame imagination – but this did not happen. From the station, she and success were largely due to her travelogues, which were set off towards her home opposite the Narodni Dom, passing published in Germany between 1929 and 1933. Following the former Deutsches Haus on her way. Clutching spears from the publication of her travel trilogy in 1933, the New York New Guinea, lugging two suitcases (containing, among other Times reviewer noted that her trip around the world was “in its things, a variety of seeds and teas) and clasping her precious manner unprecedented for a woman” .141 As far as it is possible Erika. Dressed in a red-and-white coat, sunburnt, and utterly to ascertain from the available information, no one, woman exhausted. What a sight she must have made! or man, had ever made such a journey before her. The nature of her travels places her, in my estimation, among the greatest She knew that her path as an explorer and writer would be a travellers of all time. thorny one. Scarcities, difficulties, dangers, disease – this was a price she was prepared to pay for all the new things she would 136 Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 101. learn on her journey. But the idea that people at home would 137 Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 382. not recognise the importance of what she had done was some- 138 Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 381. 139 thing she could not accept. Her disappointment on her return to Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 383. 140 Celje is illustrated by her own words: “Was it for this that I had Heinrich Schreiber, Chronik des Kirchspiels Brunshaupten, Bund II., 168. The Evangelical pastor Heinrich Schreiber, spent eight years on a journey of study and discovery around summarised in the Brunshaupten parish chronicle a pair of reports the world, to now return here? It was as though someone had that appeared in the newspapers Ostsee-Bote (No. 142, 23 June 1934) and Anzeiger für Brunshaupten, Arendsee und Umgegend travelled to the Moon and brought back a pebble he might (No. 50, 23 June 1934). 137 141 have found by any stream.” She was further affected by the “A German Trilogy of Travel” , New York Times, 26 November 1933, no page number. return to the “snow-covered home, the neglected house” of I first defined the nature of Alma M. Karlin’s journey in 2009, as I her birth. Her description of her reunion with her mother is also mentioned in my monograph Columbus’s Daughter: The Life and Work of Alma M. Karlin (p. 25), published in 2011. That same shocking in that it shows that not even in such a moment were year I suggested that the nature of her travels – travelling alone, she they capable of closeness or of talking frankly. She did not journeyed continuously for eight years, circumnavigating the globe and surviving on what she was able to earn along the way – places her want to upset her mother and told herself: “I must be stoical among the greatest travellers of all time. I supported this thesis with CELJE AND EUROPEAN CAPITALS and cheerful regardless of what I feel.” 138 It appears that they an analysis and comparison of the journeys made by other travellers considered to be the greatest of all time. Several lists – some more remained strangers to one another until the end. relavant than others – exist of these “greatest travellers” (for example: December 1927–June 1934 https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/10-greatest- travellers-all-time-6104262.html). Among the names that appear At the beginning of January, despite her disappointment, Karlin most frequently are: Christopher Columbus, Xuanzang, James Cook, Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, Charles Darwin, Richard invited “my dear fellow citizens of Celje” to come and view her Francis Burton, Yuri Gagarin, Fridtjof Nansen and Michael Palin. In HER TIME HAD COME collection. And come they did. “I have long been considered 2012 I presented my findings to the public.

Despite her disappointment, she invited “my dear fellow citizens of Celje” to come and view her collection. “I have long been considered an eccentric. Now they come to gawp at me as they do my collections, as though I were a wonder worth seeing.” (Held in the NUK Manuscript Collection) WHAT THINGS I SHALL BRING WITH ME! Alma M. Karlin’s areas of interest, collection policy and collection

“What things I shall see, learn, achieve … what things I shall fever, “three-quarters dead” , she continued to research, to discover on my journey, what things I shall bring with me, paint and to write.305 what things I shall give to humanity!” 299 These were the thoughts that filled Alma M. Karlin as she set out on her “I wanted to study, write and draw and share the wonders I 106 107 journey around the world. These words reveal the motives experienced with others in the fullest possible measure.” 306 that sent her on her journey and also express her intention to She wrote several books during her journey, for which collect artefacts along the way and lay the foundations of her reason the Australian journalist Elizabeth Leigh, mentioned own collection. In this, she was successful. Her collection is earlier, described her travels as a literary journey. “Half of inseparably connected to her eight-year journey and sheds my stories would never have been written had I not spent light on its nature. Just like the travelogues, newspaper ar- so much time wandering through secluded backstreets ticles and literary works for which she drew material from teeming with mysteries,” she wrote in Beijing.307 During her travels. These writings at the same time reveal her areas her stay at the mission on Ali Island she wrote: “As week of interest and collection policy. after week passed by and I remained stuck in this place, I wrote one work after another. I finished ‘The Idol’ and Before setting off, she prepared herself for her journey in ‘The Brown Vampire’, began writing a new book ‘In the a number of ways. She read works of history, geography, House of Man’ and completed my collection of South Sea comparative religion and botany, as well as travel writings. stories.” 308 She also wrote numerous newspaper articles. As already mentioned, she studied drawing and painting The fees for these – when they reached her – represented with the Celje painter August F. Seebacher so as to be able a modest but important source of income for her during to depict the plants she encountered on her journey. She her travels. She collaborated with more than twenty news- intended to use her knowledge of foreign languages to papers and magazines,309 accompanying her articles with “earn a crust” while travelling.300 Once she had bought a rich illustrations, whose purpose was not only to illustrate typewriter, she considered herself to be ready. but to reinforce the points she made. It was important to her that her reporting should be reliable and credible. She She set herself a task. “When I set off into the wide world, did not wish to write anything made up or invented.310 I want to discover the interior of things. By this I mean the 301 299 soul of peoples, plants and animals … ” At the start of her Karlin, Sama, 306. 300 journey she saw herself “in the role of a modern Colum- Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 7. 301 302 Karlin, Sama, 251. bus discovering the New World” . Her intention was to 302 303 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 7. She painted her watercolour of the medicinal margosa plant (Azadirachta indica) when she return after three years “covered in wisdom and glory” . 303 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 21. herself had a temperature of 40 degrees, a detail she indicated on the back of the watercolour. 304 When chance companions she met in the course of her Karlin, Popotne skice, 8. This plant is used in traditional medicine to lower the temperature during attacks of malaria. (Held 305 journey asked her whether she was on holiday, she replied Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 60. in the NUK Manuscript Collection) 306 somewhat indignantly that she was on a “study trip” .304 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 44. 307 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 303. She was unshakeable in her efforts to complete the task she 308 Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 136. had set herself. Even when seriously ill with malaria on the 309 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 283. Pacific island of Api (today known as Epi), when she was In Beijing, for example, she mentions 23 newspapers and magazines, both German and Austrian, for which she was close to despair because she had no money, she tirelessly writing at the time. 310 continued her work. Despite her open wounds and a high Karlin, Sama, 298. Alma M. Karlin’s areas of interest were extremely numerous. Mori was a great connoisseur of the island’s flora and named She visited libraries throughout her journey and in them many of Taiwan’s indigenous plants.323 consulted literature and other sources with the help of which she prepared herself for the journey that lay ahead. Alma M. Karlin loved nature – whether in parks or the 108 109 San Francisco, for example, was “a very beautiful city” that wilderness – and enjoyed discovering flora and fauna. She however lacked the “charm of the unpredictable” .311 The greatly enriched her own collection by gathering speci- two things she liked best about it were Golden Gate Park mens. The following illustrative journal entry was written and the “wonderful public library” , in which the “tables in in Sydney: “I continued to visit museums and to spend my the great hall” simply called out to her to immerse herself evenings in the extremely good public library. I sought in study.312 In the New Caledonian capital of Nouméa, out people who could provide me with information and I despite a bad toothache, she “went to the National library attended talks by lovers of the natural world.” 324 With some and studied there” .313 She wrote that “one cannot forget of the latter, she made frequent visits to the nearby national about one’s life’s work for the sake of a tooth.” 314 The library had premises in a museum that was “full of beautiful Kanak 311 315 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 196. artefacts” . She viewed the collection with great interest 312 Ibid. (Also: Karlin, Popotne skice, 55.) and copied various patterns from the exhibited items. She 313 Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 45. also visited the museum library in Jakarta (then known as 314 Ibid. Batavia). She would go there in the morning and stay until 315 Ibid. The Kanak people are the indigenous inhabitants of the island early afternoon. She would sit in “comfortable old chairs of New Caledonia. 316 316 and read an enormous amount about Java” . Because Karlin, Urok Južnega morja, 226. silence reigned in the library, she also managed to write a 317 The museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in memory of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the lot in this period. last descendant of Hawaii’s royal Kamehameha dynasty. Today it is designated Hawaii’s State Museum of Natural and Cultural History and boasts extraordinarily rich collections presenting She visited many museums. In the case of the famous Bishop the natural and cultural heritage of numerous Pacific cultures. 317 318 Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, she not only viewed the Karlin, Samotno potovanje 1969, 149. 319 collections but spent some time translating literature from Karlin, Popotne skice, 112. 320 Danish into English for the museum.318 In Taiwan she had Ibid. 321 Robert Thomas Tierney, the privilege of “wandering through the closed museum Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame (Berkeley, Los Angeles on a public holiday” .319 We can conclude that she was and London, University of California Press, 2010), 85–89. Mori came to Taiwan in 1895 as a Chinese interpreter with accompanied by the best guide imaginable at the time. In the Japanese army of occupation. His interest in Taiwan’s her writing she mentions “the most eminent ethnologist, Dr indigenous population had begun even earlier. In 1899 he worked with the eminent Japanese anthropologist Ryuzo 320 Mori” . This was almost certainly Mori Ushinosuke, one of Torii, who was his mentor in the field of ethnographic field research. After more than two decades of fieldwork in Taiwan, the first anthropologists in Taiwan and a great connoisseur Mori had become one of the leading experts on the island’s of the culture of the island’s indigenous inhabitants.321 He indigenous inhabitants. His contribution in the field of botany is also extremely important. was the deputy director of the central museum in Taipei 322 Karlin, Popotne skice, 112. Although she was already planning a collection before setting out on her journey, for the most (then known as Taihoku) and the curator of the collec- 323 Tierney, Tropics of Savagery, 85. part she did not collect things systematically but rather at random. The result of this approach is tion of indigenous artefacts. Karlin also wrote that “the 324 Karlin, Samotno potovanje, 383. reflected in the diversity of the collection itself. 322 best-known botanist shared his knowledge with me” . Beetles, Oceania, 1920s, Alma Karlin Collection, PMC, K 738 Alma M. Karlin was highly critical of National Socialism, and still faced with the threat of expulsion.575 In connection describing Nazis as being “in thrall to dark forces” 566 and with admission to the SHB, she was also summoned by the calling the Gestapo “the dregs of humanity” .567 She prayed Gestapo, where during one interrogation she learned that for their destruction. It was hard for her to get used to the she was considered “an enemy of Hitler’s regime” 576 idea that were enemies, but “one must choose to stand on one side or the other” , and she had made her When a Gestapo interrogator by the name of Sums asked choice.568 She actively opposed the rise of National Social- her what she believed the reason to be for the powerful and ism. In as early as 1937 and 1938 she had given refuge in open dislike shown towards her by the people of Celje, she 569 577 148 Celje to Joachim Bonsack, a German political refugee, replied that it was because she thought with her own head. 149 and Ubald Tartaruga, a Viennese Jew.570 Furthermore, she In autumn 1942 she unsuccessfully attempted to escape to refused to join the Kulturbund. Erika Madronič explained Switzerland. In August 1944 she joined the Partisans. She that “Although she considered herself a German, she had believed that with their help she would be able to fly from little tolerance for the pro-German faction or the members liberated territory to Bari in and from there to England, of the Kulturbund.” As a result, they soon took their revenge where she would be able to continue her work. She had on her. Even before the German occupation, the Kulturbund published nothing in Germany since 1939578 and her books had collected a variety of confidential information, including were banned.579 “My cupboard was filling up with books, about people’s political orientation or about Slovenes with none of which had been published. It appeared that my life’s anti-Nazi views. The members of the Kulturbund in Celje work would go unrewarded, that all my sacrifices would counted Alma M. Karlin among the latter. bear no fruit. … My books were to me what children are

This explains why she was arrested and interned in the period 566 571 Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 31. of the first expulsions of Slovenes to , in June 1941. 567 Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 153. She was transferred from the Capuchin convent in Celje to 568 Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 109. the Marburg Landwehrkasarne Lager, a collection camp set 569 Both she and Thea Schreiber Gammelin are said to have fallen in love with Joachim Bonsack and to have quarrelled over him. up in the Melje barracks in . She was released from She was even asked about this by the Gestapo. (Karlin, Moji there on 26 June 1941 thanks to the persistent intervention zgubljeni topoli, 155) of Thea Schreiber Gammelin and some influential German 570 This is the pseudonym of the Viennese writer and police 572 official Edmund Otto Ehrenfreund. They already knew each friends. In this way she avoided expulsion to Serbia and other indirectly in the period in which she was travelling perhaps even deportation to Dachau.573 After her release around the world and he wrote a report on her for the Neues Wiener Journal. Later they met in person in Vienna, when she from the camp, she faced a range of new problems. In was giving a talk there. He died at the concentration camp in the summer of 1941 the Germans confiscated her villa in Dachau in November 1941. 571 The exact date of her arrest is not currently known. CELJE AND LIBERATED TERRITORY Zagrad,574 although she and her friend continued to live 572 The document confirming her release from the camp at the in it. In early 1942 she received the first summons from Melje barracks in Maribor is held by H. O. 1937–1945 573 the admissions committee of the Steirischer Heimatbund Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 51. 574 (SHB; Styrian Homeland Association) but was not admitted, Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 65. 575 Karlin, , 84–89. although membership was a precondition for obtaining Moji zgubljeni topoli 576 Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 157. German citizenship. As a result, she merely had the status 577 Ibid. JUST A COG IN THE of a “protected person” , which in practice meant, as she 578 Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 185. 579 MACHINE put it, that she was under surveillance, without legal status Karlin, Moji zgubljeni topoli, 101.

Božidar Jakac, portrait of Alma M. Karlin, pencil drawing, paper, 1 December 1944, PMC, G/XI–476 The life story of writer, journalist, world traveller, amateur researcher, polyglot and theosophist Alma M. Karlin (12 October 1889–14 January 1950) is astonishing and inspiring, yet also moving. She traced her own path at a very young age and then followed her dreams uncompromisingly and unpredictably. From 1919 until 1927 she travelled the world like no one before her; travelling alone, she journeyed continuously

for eight years, surviving on what she was able to earn along the way. The nature of her 10 Starožitnosti travels places her among the greatest travellers of all time. In the early 1930s she enjoyed great success as a writer, both in Europe and beyond, but dark years were to follow.

Even as a girl in Celje she was seen as different and failed to find acceptance in her home environment. So it would be until the end of her life and even for decades after her death. A number of fabrications were circulated about her. These were either the fruit of misunderstanding, gossip, slander, envy or the interests of individuals and groups, or the result of opportunism, superficiality and lack of professionalism on the part of researchers. In some cases they were the result of fear: some of those who tried to portray her as mad and to minimise the importance of her work also kept her under surveillance and sought to eliminate her. This is no surprise, given that she publicly and decisively expressed her anti-Nazi and anti-Communist views. During the Second World War she was first watched by the Gestapo and then by the Slovene Partisans – for a while even by Herta Haas, the wife of Josip Broz Tito. She was lucky to survive that period: not only was she scheduled for deportation to the Dachau concentration camp but her name was placed on a liquidation list when she arrived in Partisan-held territory.

This first comprehensive scholarly monograph on Alma M. Karlin is the result of 23 years of research by the author. It covers a number of already known facts in greater depth and at the same time provides many new insights. Everything is based on reliable sources which are consistently cited and connected together to form a consistent whole. The most important sources of the new insights, besides the writings of Alma M. Karlin herself (and an insightful selection of quotations that tell her story in her own words), are newly discovered documents from Slovenia and Germany and first-hand accounts from individuals, particularly those who knew her personally.

Barbara Trnovec is an anthropologist and ethnologist, the curator and custodian of the Alma Karlin Collection at Celje Regional Museum, a research assistant at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Arts, a writer and lecturer, the author of the well-received monograph Columbus’s Daughter: The Life and Work of Alma M. Karlin (2011), which THE ENDLESS M. KARLINJOURNEY OF ALMA sold out upon publication, and the creator of the exhibition Columbus’s Daughter: Alma M. Karlin at Cankarjev Dom, Slovenia’s most important temple of culture (2017). Having spent many years researching the life and work of Alma M. Karlin, she knows her subject thoroughly and is singularly well qualified as her biographer.

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