1924 “La Niania” appears in the daily Le Matin (May 9). Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto. Desnos: Deuil pour deuil. Bulgakov: The White Guard. Ehrenburg: The Love of Jeanne Ney. Mann: The Magic Mountain. Ford: Parade’s End (to 1928).
1925 Last year in the Sorbonne University. Gide: Les Faux-monnayeurs. Morand: L’Europe galante. Cendrars: L’Or. Bunin: “Mitya’s Love.” Nina Berberova: The Billancourt Holidays (to 1940). Kafka: The Trial. Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby. Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway.
1926 Marries Michel Epstein, also a Russian Jew and the son of a well-known banker. Her first novel, Le Malentendu (The Misunderstanding), is published in the monthly Les OEuvres Libres. Writes the first version of David Golder. Cendrars: Moravagine. Aragon: Le Paysan de Paris. Kessel: Les Captifs; Makhno et sa Juive. Edmond Fleg: L’Enfant prophete. Nabokov: Mary. Babel: Red Cavalry. Tsvetaeva: The Ratcatcher.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Stalin becomes Secretary of Communist Party Central Committee. Russia becomes USSR. Mussolini’s march on Rome. British mandate in Palestine. Paris emerging as political and cultural centre of the Russian diaspora; Committee of the Zemstvos formed to set up schools and provide financial assistance for refugees. Forty Russian professors engaged by University of Paris. During the 1920s over a hundred Russian cabarets, restaurants and cafes open.
Hyper-inflation in Germany. Repeated German defaults on reparations lead Poincare (French prime minister once again) to send troops into the Ruhr Valley. Hitler’s Munich putsch fails. Matisse: Odalisque aux bras leves. La Roue— film directed by Abel Gance. Poulenc: Les Biches (ballet).
Dawes Plan ends reparation crisis. Poincare’s Bloc National beaten by a coalition of the left, the Cartel des Gauches. French financial crisis which a series of seven cabinets (to 1926) fails to resolve. France recognizes USSR. Death of Lenin. Russian conservatoire in Paris founded, the composer Rakhmaninov later becoming honorary chairman. League of Nations estimates number of Russian refugees living in France at Paris qui dort (first science-fiction film) and Entr’acte, directed by Rene Clair. Period of Franco-German reconciliation—apaisement—under foreign minister Briand (to 1930). Locarno Pact guarantees existing Franco-German frontier. French troops evacuate the Ruhr. Hitler: Mein Kampf. Society of Young Russian Writers and Poets holding regular literary evenings in Paris: lecturers include Zaitsev, Khodasevich, Shestov, Shmelyov, Berberova, Ivanov and Tsvetaeva. Russian artists working in Paris include Chagall, Bilibin and Goncharova. Picasso: Les trois danseuses. Bonnard: La Fenetre, Le Bain. Paris International Exposition of Decorative Arts & Modern Industries. La Peinture Surrealiste—the first ever Surrealist exhibition, at Gallerie Pierre in Paris. Russian Orthodox church and Theological Institute opens in Paris. Josephine Baker makes her Paris debut in La Revue negre. Union Nationale forms government led by Poincare, whose conservative policies (slashing government expenditure and raising taxes) stabilize the French economy. France sponsors Germany’s entry into the League of Nations. Briand and Stresemann share Nobel Peace Prize. Trotsky dismissed from Politburo in USSR. Jean Renoir directs Nana. Chanel launches the “little black dress.”
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
Zaitsev: The Golden Design. Kafka: The Castle.
1927 L’Enfant genial is published in Les OEuvres Libres. Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises. Proust: A la recherche du temps perdu (published in full, posthumously). Mauriac: Therese Desqueyroux. Khodasevich: Collected Verse. Bunin: “Sunstroke.” Remizov: Whirlwind Russia. Heidegger: Being and Time.
1928 Her second novel, L’Ennem i e (The Enemy), is published in Les OEuvres Libres, under the pseudonym “Nerey,” an anagram of “Irene.” Colette: La Naissance du jour. Breton: Nadja. Yourcenar: Alexis. Malraux: Les Conquerants. Saint-Exupery: Courrier sud. Kessel: Belle de jour. Nabokov: King, Queen, Knave. Ehrenburg: The Stormy Life and Lazar Roitschwantz. Shmelyov: The Light of Reason. Mayakovsky: The Bedbug.
1929 Le Bal (The Ball) appears in Les OEuvres Libres under the same pseudonym. Her daughter, Denise Epstein, is born in November. David Golder is published to great acclaim by Grasset in December, prompting comparisons with Tolstoy and Balzac. Irene dreams about writing the “script” of her own life. Cocteau: Les Enfants terribles. Eluard: LAmour, la Poesie. Giraudoux: Amphitryon 38. Edmond Fleg: Pourquoi je suis juif. Shmelyov: Entering Paris: Tales of Emigre Russia. Shestov: In Job’s Balances. Zweig: Buchmendel. Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms.
1930 First polemic on the so-called anti-Semitic themes in David Golder, in both Jewish and anti-Semitic papers (spring). Le Malentendu is released as a book (Fayard), as is Le Bal (Grasset). David Golder is nominated for the Prix Goncourt. Premiere of the film version of David Golder by Julien Duvivier (December 17). First night of the less successful stage version by Fernand Noziere, at the Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin (December 26). Albert Cohen: Solal. Nabokov: The Defense; The Eye. Berberova: The First and the Last. Cocteau: La Voix humaine. Freud: Civilization and its Discontents. Waugh: Vile Bodies.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Foundation of far-right Croix-de-feu league. Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight. First “talkies.” Trotsky expelled from Communist Party. Abel Gance directs 6-hour epic, Napoleon.
Devaluation of the franc to one fifth of its previous value. Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war and providing for peaceful settlement of disputes (accepted by Germany 1929). First Five-Year Plan in USSR. Stalin defacto dictator and object of nationwide cult. First Stalinist show trials (to 1933). Federation des Societes Juives de France (FSJF) established to care for needs of French Jewish community. Last performances of the Ballets Russes include Stravinsky’s Apollon musagete (1928) and Prokofiev’s L’Enfant prodigue (1929), starring Serge Lifar and with choreography by Balanchine. Ravel: Bolero.
Poincare retires. Young Plan: revised war reparations agreement; Allies to evacuate Rhineland by June 1930. Wall Street crash. Sheltering behind a high-tariff barrier, France appears at first immune from the consequences of the Depression. Forcible collectivization of agriculture begins in USSR: around ten million peasants killed, sent to concentration camps or exiled in the process. Death of Diaghilev. Salvador Dali arrives in Paris, holding one-man show. Maurice Chevalier, “Louise.”
The 1930s see increasingly unstable government in France, with 20 changes of premier. Construction of Maginot line begins (to 1939). Cocteau directs Le Sang d’un poete.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
1931 Les Mouches d’automne (The Flies of Autumn, English translation Snow in Autumn) is first published by Simon Kra (May), then Grasset (December). Premiere of film version of Le Bal by Wilhelm Thiele with the debutante actress Daniele Darrieux (September 11). Claudel: Le Soulier de satin. Saint-Exupery: Vol de nuit. Nizan: Aden, Arabie. Maurois’ life of Turgenev. J.-R. Bloch: Destin du siecle. Mark Aldanov: The Tenth Symphony. Balmont: Northern Lights Ivanov: Rozy. Poplavsky: Flags. Woolf: The Waves.
1932 Death of her father from a pulmonary embolism. Though a rich man, he leaves Irene a paltry inheritance. She begins to publish short stories. Celine: Voyage au bout de la nuit. Mauriac: Le Noeud de viperes. Romains: Les Hommes de bonne volonte (27 vols, to 1946). Chardonne: L’Amour du prochain. Nabokov: Glory. Roth: The Radetzky March. Huxley: Brave New World.
1933 L’Affaire Courilof (The Courilof Affair), a “terrorist” novel, published by Grasset. Financial troubles lead to an association with Gringoire, a high-circulation, right-wing weekly founded by Horace de Carbuccia in 1928, which from now on publishes the majority of her short stories. Malraux: La Condition humaine. Duhamel: Chronique des Pasquiers (10 vols, to 1941). Nabokov: Laughter in the Dark. Stein: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Buck: The Mother.
1934 Irene changes publisher, moving from Grasset to Albin Michel for the publication of Le Pion sur l’echiquier (The Pawn on the Chessboard). Meets the author Paul Morand, who edits her compilation of four stories, Films parles (Spoken Films) for Gallimard. Becomes theater critic for the daily newspaper Aujourd’hui. Cocteau: La Ma
chine infernale. Yourcenar: Denier du reve. Brasillach: L’Enfant de la nuit. Berberova: The Accompanist. Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (Nemirovsky writes preface to the French edition.)
1935 Le Vin de solitude (The Wine of Solitude), Albin Michel, a veiled autobiography. First appeal for naturalization as a French citizen. Moves to a new flat on avenue Constant-Coquelin (June). Becomes literary critic for the weekly La Revue Hebdomadaire. Giraudoux: La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu. Troyat: Faux jour. Tristan Bernard: Robin des Bois.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Germany suspends payment of war reparations (suspended indefinitely by her creditors at Lausanne in 1932, and repudiated by Hitler in 1933). Depression hits France. Briand runs for president and is defeated. Geneva disarmament conference (to 1934). Roosevelt becomes US president. Trial of Mensheviks. Rene Clair: Le Million.
Right-wing parties lose control to Radicals; Herriot becomes prime minister; Franco-Soviet non-aggression pact. President Doumer murdered by a Russian emigre. First TV images broadcast in Paris.
Famine in Ukraine and elsewhere in USSR (to 1934), claiming some five million lives, though Soviet grain continues to be dumped on world markets.
Hitler becomes German Chancellor: proclaims Third Reich; opposition parties banned. Germany leaves the League of Nations. Daladier—another Radical—becomes French prime minister. Growth of Fascist movement in France. Second Five-Year Plan in USSR. Jean Renoir’s film of Madame Bovary.
Stavisky Affair: financial scandal following the suicide of Russian emigre embezzler, Alexandre Stavisky, in which leading Radicals are implicated. A demonstration by far-right groups turns into a battle with police in which 15 people are killed and 1500 injured (February 6). Anti-Fascist general strike. Daladier resigns in favor of a National Union cabinet under Doumerge. King Alexander of Yugoslavia is assssinated in Marseilles. Jean Vigo: L’Atalante. Hitler becomes German Fuhrer. German rearmament commences. Stalin places national security under the soon-to-be notorious NKVD. Murder of Kirov, a protege and potential rival of Stalin (December) prompts the start of the Great Terror the following year. Premiership of Laval, whose unpopular attempts to combat the Depression lead to his downfall in 1936. Left-wing parties unite to form the Front Populaire. Mussolini invades Abyssinia. Nuremberg Laws in Germany debar Jews from public life. French-Soviet mutual assistance pact.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
1936 Jezabel, Albin Michel, a cruel portrait of her mother. One of her short stories, “Fraternite” (Brotherhood), is refused by La Revue des Deux Mondes on the grounds that it is anti-Semitic, although what Irene wanted to show was the “unassimilable nature” of emigrant Jews. Louise Weiss: Deliverance. Celine: Mort a credit. Bernanos: Journal d’un cure de campagne. Sartre: L’Imagination. Maritain: Humanisme integral. J.-R. Bloch: Naissance d’une culture.
1937 Her second daughter, Elisabeth Epstein, born. Begins to write Deux (Both). Breton: L’Amour fou. Bernanos: Nouvelle Histoire de Mouchette. Anouilh: Le Voyageur sans bagage. Camus: L’Envers et l’endroit. Drieu la Rochelle: Reveuse bourgeoisie. Sartre: La Transcendance de l’ego. Maurois: Histoire d’Angleterre.
1938 La Proie (The Prayer), Albin Michel. Irene meets the priest Roger Brechard, a model for abbe Philippe Pericand in Suite francaise. First stay in Issy-l’Eveque, a village in Burgundy. Her memories of 1917 are published in Le Figaro (“Naissance d’une revolution,” June 4). She thinks of writing a novel based on the life of Leon Blum, Leon Trotsky or Alexandre Stavisky. Irene and Michel apply for French citizenship (November). Sartre: La Nausee. Chardonne: Le Bonheur de Barbezieux. Queneau: Les Enfants du Limon. Albert Cohen: Mangeclous. Nabokov: The Gift.
1939 Still legally stateless, the family converts to Catholicism (February 2). Michel nearly dies from mumps and septicemia. Irene lectures on women writers on Radio Paris. Deux (Both) is published by Albin Michel. Though asked to re-produce documents already submitted (April), the Epsteins never receive an answer to their naturalization request. Final holiday in Hendaye, near the Spanish border (August). Irene sends the children to stay Sartre: Le Mur. Saint-Exupery: Terre des hommes. Drieu la Rochelle: Gilles. Brasillach: Les Sept Couleurs. Henry Bernstein: Elvire. Giraudoux: Ondine. Nathalie Sarraute: Tropismes. Ana?s Nin: Un Hiver d’artifice. Aldanov: The Fifth Seal. Joyce: Finnegans Wake.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
General election in spring bitterly contested. The Front Populaire win a narrow majority of the vote but a large majority of seats. Communists refuse to participate in government. Leon Blum becomes first Socialist prime minister— an intellectual and the first French premier of Jewish origin. Blum persuades employers to increase wages, ending wave of strikes, and embarks on program of contraversial social reform. Spanish Civil War. Blum’s alliance with the Radicals obliges him to opt for non-intervention though Spain has the only other Popular Front government in Europe. Hitler marches into demilitarized Rhineland. Three great Moscow show trials of leading Bolsheviks (to 1938). Unemployment in France remains high. Blum’s cabinet falls over his efforts to improve exchange controls (June). Exposition universelle in Paris. Stalin liquidates millions—many of them Communisty Party members, mainly from educated and managerial classes and from the armed forces (to 1938). German air attack on Basque town of Guernica. Picasso: Guernica. Jean Renoir directs Lagrande illusion. Chevalier: Paris en joie (revue).
Disintegration of the Front Populaire. France returns to the usual center coalitions, with Socialists in opposition. Daladier becomes prime minister. His finance minister Reynaud suspends most of Blum’s reforms. Hitler’s troops enter Austria and part of Czechoslovakia. Munich Agreement: Britain and France appease Hitler. Kristallnacht—Nazis terrorize Jewish community (November 10). Third Five-Year Plan in USSR. Chagall: La Crucifixion blanche.
Hitler occupies the rest of Czechoslovakia (March). Madrid’s surrender to General Franco ends Spanish Civil War (March). “Pact of Steel” between Italy and Germany (May). France and Britain press USSR to oppose Hitler but Nazi-Soviet pact signed (August). Germans invade Poland. France and Britain declare war on Germany (September 3). Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland and Finland. Jean Renoir directs La Regle du jeu.
DATE AUTHOR’S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT
with their nurse’s family in Issy-Eveque on the outbreak of war. She embarks on a life of Chekhov (La Vie de Tchekhov).
1940 Les Chiens et les loups (Dogs and Wolves), Albin Michel. Les Echelles du Levant (The Ports of Call of the Levant) is serialized in Gringoire (from May 18). Watching the exodus from Paris as the Germans advance, and recalling The Rains Came by Louis Bromfield (19”7), Irene conceives the idea of a choral novel,” Tempete en juin (Storm in June), the first novel of her Suite franc aise. Visits the children in Issy-l’Eveque (May) and decides to stay there, joined by Michel in June. Issy-l’Eveque is occupied by the Germans on June 18. First “Law on the Status Ofjews” (October): Fayard reneges on contract to serialize her new novel, Jeunes et vieux (Young and Elderly) in his weekly, Candide. Michel is fired from the Banque du Nord. Sartre: L’Imaginaire. Cocteau: Le Bel Indifferent. Maritain: De la justice politique. Troyat: Dostoevsky. Akhmatova: From Six Books. Koestler: Darkness at Noon. Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls. Greene: The Power and the Glory.
1941 Publishes stories under various pseudonyms in Gringoire, Carbuccia, though a collaborator, being sympathetic to her situation. In April Gringoire begins serializing Les Biens de ce monde (The Goods of this World), a new title for Jeunes et vieux. Most of her so-called friends in the literary world and previous publishers turn aside from her. Albin Michel, however, offers financial and moral suport. Second “Law on the Status Ofjews” (June). The German soldiers leave Issy-Eveque. Irene begins to write Dolce (July)—the second novel of Suite francaise. Aragon: Le Creve-coeur. Mauriac: Le Pharisienne. Blanchot: Thomas l’obscur. Simone Weil starts writing the Cahiers which form the basis of La Pesanteur et la Grace. Nabokov: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Brecht: Mother
Courage.
HISTORICAL EVENTS
Hitler’s armies advance rapidly through the Netherlands and Belgium (May), breaking French defensive line near Sedan and entering Paris on June 14. Government leaves Paris (June 10) for Tours, then Bordeaux. Petain, right-winger who favors surrender, gains control of cabinet. From London De Gaulle appeals to French patriots to continue the struggle. Armistice signed (June 22). France divided into an occupied zone (north and west coast) and an unoccupied southern zone. Daladier and others plan to set up a government-in-exile in Morocco but on Petain’s orders are arrested on arrival. Vichy parliament meets July 9-10, and votes itself out of existence on advice of Petain and Laval, thus ending the Third Republic. Petain dismisses Laval (December).
David Rapoport forms one of the first relief organizations for Jews in Paris at rue Amelot (June 15). Such organizations, run by both Jews and Christians, were to help many children to escape the Holocaust. Germans order Jews in the occupied zone to register (September 27). The Statut des Juif s—first anti-Jewish legislation introduced by Vichy government (October 3). First “Otto List” (October 4) of prohibited books in France. Auschwitz concentration camp established (April). Warsaw ghetto opened (October).
Germany invades Norwary and Denmark. Italy enters war. Dunkirk evacuation. Battle of Britain. USSR annexes Baltic states. Assassination of Trotsky.
German army invades USSR (June): Russia rallies under Stalin to embark on the Great Patriotic War. Hitler’s demands for money, raw materials and food from France become heavier as the Eastern front develops. French resistance movement now strengthened by participation of Communists. De Gaulle claims status of legal government-in-exile for his Comite National Francais. Vichy government establishes a Commissariat General aux Questions Juives (April) to work with German authorities to “aryanize” Jewish businesses in the occupied zone. German edict denies Jews access to their bank accounts (May 8). Jews rounded up for the first time in Paris (May 14): 3700 foreign Jews arrested and sent to camps at Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande. Second Statut des juif s (June 2). Arrests continue throughout the year: detention center opened at Drancy (August). Siege of Leningrad begins (September). Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: US enters the war (December).
David Golder, the Ball, Snow in Autumn, the Courilof Affair Page 3