Nederlandse Letterkunde - Volume 16, Issue 3, 2011

The PEN Club formed in London in 1921 as a dinner circle for writers. Though its founders preferred to emphasize the Club’s cultural significance, this article tracks PEN’s politicization during its first decade. A Cornish novelist named C.A. Dawson Scott proposed the Club as a way to heal the rifts of World War I. British writers of sufficient stature would meet monthly giving writers from abroad a forum to meet their British counterparts. PEN’s first President, the Nobel-prizer John Galsworthy, encouraged the group’s apolitical self-image. Writers should stand aside from politics, he argued, precisely so that they might influence the politicians, diplomats, and powerbrokers who had led the world to war. PEN members rarely spoke of politics when they gathered, instead debating the boundaries of “literary” writing and the role of art itself. By refining their conception of aesthetics and cordoning off a space for cultural activity within civil society, this article argues that PEN members made a bold move into the political sphere they professed merely to influence. In doing so they foreshadowed the position that predominated among centrist and liberal writers on the Western side of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

This article focuses on prevailing views on literary internationalism and the way it was institutionally organised and developed in the Belgian PEN Club. The organisation of the Belgian PEN and the way internationalism was set up there cannot be discussed independently of developments in the rest of the international intellectual field. It was an ‘entangled history’. I have limited myself to a comparison with other countries and literatures where it was hard to implement the original PEN model with a single coordinating branch for each nation state. What arguments were used to mark off autonomous entities from each other in an international intellectual world that became increasingly institutionalised between the wars? The Belgian case was interesting when it came to answering these questions. It was only in 1930 (formally in 1931), after lengthy discussions reflecting on these issues, that the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking authors in Belgium went their separate ways. In an article he wrote about the PEN Club in L’Europe in 1926, Stefan Zweig offered an interesting analysis of the difference between internationalism and cosmopolitanism. In Zweig’s opinion, the aims might have been more focused. The members of the club did well to opt decisively for genuine internationalism: ‘ce qu’il nous faut, c’est un internationalisme sincère, prêt à yous les sacrifices, une fidelité durable et indissoluble à la seule veritable patrie, qui est pour nous la communauté de l’esprit européen’. Has the PEN Club ever come anywhere near the ideal that Zweig outlined, the achievement of a sincere internationalism loyal to only one native land, ‘la communauté de l’esprit européen’? In fact to a certain extent it has, in that it was initially a chiefly European affair, but in other respects it has not at all. Previous research has already pointed out that, in spite of the noble aspirations of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and the related International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, it has never been possible to become detached from the power politics of governments and from affinities with such categories as race, nation, religion, class and so on. In addition, it was all too easily assumed that resourceful institutions with complex information networks and equally complex decision-making processes would smooth away any differences. Another of the principles of the PEN Club was to encourage intellectual cooperation and in this way it expressed the cultural internationalism that first saw the light in the shadow of the First World War. Such equally ingenious constructions as the voting procedures used in the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation regulated the balance between the large and small PEN centres with their proportional expectations. There are nevertheless also major differences between the PEN Club and the ICIC. In the first place there were few indications of direct political involvement in PEN by the great powers (the symbolic significance of PEN was too small to warrant it). Another difference is that in the view of the protagonists in PEN the cultural world order was not defined by a dialogue between major ‘civilisations’. There was little or no talk in the PEN Club of any ambition to mediate between civilisations. The literary world order was defined by dialogue between autonomous literatures. The basic entities involved in the organisation of literary internationalism were literatures and cities. These were supplemented by such additional entities as (native) countries, nations, world empires and regions, but the basic foundations consisted of a metropolitan literary culture. The world’s literary system is more complex than any economic world system with its clearly identifiable dominant centre and peripheral (or semi-peripheral) areas. The PEN Club does not fit into a model that takes Paris as its absolute centre. Between the wars, Paris was at most just one of several centres. If we nonetheless persist with the centre-periphery model, the PEN Club symbolises the loss of the French centralist model of culture that applied to the old nation states of the nineteenth century. The PEN never clearly defined what autonomous literatures were, though the Belgians (and others), with August Vermeylen at the forefront, requested a vague definition. What we see here at a macro level are the same mechanisms as those for determining who could be recognised as a ‘real’ writer: everything occurred in the form of co-option. ‘Real’ writers determine who the other ‘real’ writers are by means of all sorts of mechanisms and media for consecration. Representatives of ‘autonomous’ literatures within PEN determined what the other autonomous literatures were. In accordance with this organic process, the regulations under which it was hoped to organise literary internationalism were repeatedly discussed in the course of the 1920s. It was not until the congresses in The Hague and Amsterdam in 1931 that consensus was reached. The unitary Belgian branch of the PEN Club ceased to exist at the end of the 1930s too, at the same time as the end of the discussions on the organisation of the international club. The broad, interwoven view of the Belgian PEN Club demonstrates that the Belgian compromise, with alternating chairmanship and peaceful coexistence, can also be seen as a choice made out of sheer necessity, determined in part by centrifugal literary forces in other countries. The French-speaking Belgians were especially uncomfortable with the self-confident Flemish writers in their ranks. There was never any doubt about the autonomy of French and Dutch literature in the international PEN Club. But Belgium was by no means the only country where it was hard to implement the original PEN model with its single coordinating branch in each nation state. The organisation of a Yiddish PEN (a literature without territory) saw to it that for a long time two separate branches were not tolerated in a single city. This was compounded by the fact that the problems with national and regional attachment and the urge for independence always manifested themselves together with and building on other fault lines, including those between generations and political persuasions. This was the case in Germany even before the breakthrough of fascism. It was not easy to organise literary internationalism, let alone define it.

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 Circle) 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 members – 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 Netherlands 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 by the poet P.C. Boutens. He was also the chairman of the Vereeniging van Letterkundigen (Literary Association) (1905), which concentrated mainly on protecting 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’ dinners, 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 conspicuous 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 paradoxically enough, its internationalism meant that it did at the same time look outwards, 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.

PEN Nederland, the Dutch PEN Club, was set up at a time when the field of literature in the Netherlands was gaining greater structure: authors’ associations were being formed, which can be seen as a sign of cautious professionalisation, and all sorts of processes of distinction were appearing. In this regard, PEN Nederland can be considered a civil society in which people unite voluntarily around shared interests, aims and values that take shape within a specific organisational structure, but who also want to distinguish themselves from ‘lesser’ writers: participation in PEN was only possible by nomination and a ballot. The main aim was to create a group of distinguished ladies and gentlemen who were sufficiently representative to receive and address foreign guests. In the thirties, practical, material and immaterial values turned out to be closely interwoven at PEN Nederland. This is evident from the actions it undertook in the area of translation. It’s true that it was material concerns that were most important here – the aim was to increase the quality of translations – but the practical considerations were legitimised by an ideal: the quality of the Dutch literary heritage in an international context. Personal connections and shared interests also took shape between PEN Nederland and the Vereeniging Nederlandsche Vertalingen (VNV) (Dutch Translation Association), which was founded in 1932. It was mainly Johan Schotman, a member of the board of both PEN and the VNV, who repeatedly succeeded in getting the translation issue onto the agenda, despite all sorts of opposition, and this in the context of PEN international too. At an international PEN congress in 1935, for instance, Marinetti, the representative from the Italian PEN centre, took over Schotman’s initiative in favour of an international translation policy and tried to suit it to his own nationalist ends. At the end of the thirties, translation issues were pushed aside by the political discussions that started to monopolise discussions. Politically speaking, PEN Nederland, just like PEN International for that matter, was caught in a fundamentally ambivalent position. The basis of this was a matter of deontology: a code of behaviour, a collection of standards and rules of conduct that formed the guidelines for action and which had both practical and idealistic aspects. In the first half of the twentieth century, writers and other intellectuals developed a deontology against political meddling by governments, but at the same time felt called to become involved in social issues on the basis of this independent position (or their claim to it). The ‘true’ writers felt a form of responsibility. In their own view, they engaged in politics without engaging in politics, because they acted on the basis of their own set of immaterial, independent intellectual values. The claim to independence, to sole rights to intellectual values, and to universal authority, of course also implied a form of distinction. This makes it immediately clear that this deontology had a complicated and even paradoxical logic. In the years to come, this claim to independent intellectual leadership, which needs pay no heed to modern socio-economic developments, which surpasses politics in directorial power and which is an essential ingredient of the deontology of the modern author, came under repeated pressure, both nationally and internationally. However, PEN again and again fell back on its original intellectual outlook, although in time this deontology came to be formulated differently and adapted to new circumstances in negotiation with other spokespeople in the literary field such as Menno ter Braak and E. du Perron, who after all wanted to defend the same claim to independent authorship. PEN Nederland adopted a very detached position in the national and international debates on this that constantly flared up. Politics was to be avoided at all times. We see this attitude in the question of whether PEN Nederland should participate in an international PEN initiative to give talks on Berlin Radio (1932), in the case of the German writer Heinz Liepmann, who was prosecuted in the Netherlands (1934), in the action linked to the murder of García Lorca (1936) and in a protest to be made to Franco regarding the imprisonment of Arthur Koestler (1937). The aim was always to remain detached from political differences and political propaganda, while at the same time standing up for the intellectuals who were silenced, imprisoned or executed by their governments as political or religious opponents. In the thirties, the international PEN congresses were also the stage on which political action and attempts to avoid politics were the order of the day. In the final instance, the PEN notion of using international contacts between intellectuals as an instrument by which to work for their safety did imply taking up a particular political position. Ultimately, to react to political issues – such as the imprisonment of an author – on the basis of an independent intellectual position was a political act. Nevertheless, the idea that PEN served a purpose that transcended politics remained alive throughout the decade. PEN Nederland followed this course quite consistently: in principle no politics, but action was permitted if the personal rights of a writer were obviously being violated. This embodied PEN’s deontology. The tendency was to avoid all action that might be given a political interpretation, but when push comes to shove, one is ready, on balance, to undertake action of cautious engagement. Its justification is not political, but a higher, intellectual one. The ‘intellectual nobility’ that characterises artisthood and the higher unanimity that guides the action are considered of paramount importance. When the Second World War broke out, PEN Nederland had to make its voice heard, having been urged to do so by a circular from the International PEN Club in England. Here too, such notions as mind and responsibility were the relevant points in defining the position to be taken. The war put the members of PEN under pressure to preserve international solidarity. PEN Nederland opened its meeting on the war that had broken out with a word from the chairman ‘on the necessity, especially in times of war, to honour the intellectual significance of an association such as PEN’. A reaction was ultimately drawn up in which the writers were summoned to resist the dangerous forces the war unleashed, but only ‘by means of their work’.

Three separate PEN Clubs were founded in Spain during the turbulent period between the wars. The first Spanish PEN Club met for the first time in the celebrated Madrid restaurant Lhardy on 5th July 1922, precisely nine months after the International PEN Club was set up in London. It did not have its own accommodation, but gathered roughly once a month in this restaurant under the chairmanship of the renowned writer José Martínez Ruiz, better known by his pen-name of Azorín. It appears from the list of the club’s members, which was published in November 1923, that this varied company included a number of prestigious authors such as Díez-Canedo, Ramiro de Maeztu, Enrique de Mesa, Ramón Pérez de Ayala and José María Salaverría. In addition, the Spanish delegation also aspired to an international profile by incorporating nineteen international honorary members at the top of the list of members, originating from Spanish-speaking America, Portugal and England. Although several regional authors joined this first PEN Club, remarkably enough there were only two Catalan writers on the list: Eugenio D’Ors and Angel Guimerá, the latter as an honorary member. There was a great deal of criticism of the snobbish nature of the banquetes, the costly feasts the members took part in at their own expense. One of the fiercest critics was undoubtedly Rafael Cansinos Assens, who not only denounced the elitist nature of the gatherings, but was also annoyed by what he considered the overly regional and national tenor that characterised the club. However, the fact that the club was less internationally oriented did not mean, in the national context, that it reflected only one end of the ideological spectrum. The elitist nature of the club did not stop members with republican sympathies (such as Roberto Castrovido and Luis de Tapia) from joining. Journalists who had taken a critical attitude to the military campaigns in Morocco, such as Alfonso Hernández Catá and Manuel Ciges Aparicio, also found their way to the PEN Club. Even someone like Julio Camba, at that time closely linked to anarchist circles, was a member. It is striking that there were also a substantial number of members from the Liga de Educación Política, an association that José Ortega y Gasset had set up and which was part of the liberal Partido Reformista. The founding of the first Spanish PEN Club in 1922 also coincided with the structural crisis the Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid found itself in at about that time. It comes as no surprise that many of those in the PEN membership list in 1923 are also to be found in the January 1922 list of Athenaeum members. So the Spanish PEN Club was a valid alternative in the quest for a way of giving Spain’s literary life a minimum of independence and social embedment. Spain’s first PEN Club was not destined for a long life, however. Several reasons for this have been given over the years: the previously mentioned aristocratic nature of the club, the diversity of interests and poetics of its members, the lack of fellowfeeling among Spanish writers and the elitism of the Madrid writers with regard to authors from the periphery, especially those from Catalonia. But the increasing effect of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, who came to power in 1923, was also part of it. The same ideological polarisation and militarization had already led to the downfall of the Athenaeum in Madrid in 1924; a similar scenario was also to be played out at the German PEN Club in 1933. It was in 1924, two years after the Spanish club had been set up, that its Catalan counterpart came into being. On 7th January, in his capacity as chairman, the Catalan grammarian and liberal intellectual Pompeu Fabra sent out a letter in which he invited the Catalan intelligentsia to join the club. Although this letter emphasised that the PEN Club ‘had no political or propaganda tenor whatsoever’, it was obvious that cultural nationalism underlay the establishment of the Catalan delegation. Even before the club had been set up, its future secretary, Millàs Raurell, was already pointing out, in a letter sent to the International PEN member Herman Ould on 11th January 1923, that the Catalan club had no connection with the one in Madrid. This new delegation wanted to represent the ‘Catalan nation’, which belonged to a different culture from its Spanish counterpart. The Catalan association possibly had an even harder time of it than the Spanish PEN Club under the regime of Primo de Rivera: under these circumstances, for example, it was out of the question to organise an international PEN congress in Barcelona. This did change, however. After the Catalan PEN Club had fallen into obscurity for many years, in 1934 it enjoyed a new boost, at the time of the Second Republic. In May of that year the club was re-established in the Athenaeum in Barcelona, which from then on served as the club’s seat. The absolute climax of the activities of the Catalan PEN Club, however, was when the international PEN congress was held in Barcelona from 21st to 25th May 1935. It was the perfect opportunity to showcase the wealth of the Catalan artistic heritage and to give Catalan literature an international boost. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 put a final end to this glorious revival. The success of the international PEN congress in Barcelona was not to everyone’s taste, however. In a newspaper article, Ramón Gómez de la Serna criticised the total absence of Spanish writers from the congress. The prevailing dissatisfaction was the main reason for setting up what was called the ‘Second Madrid PEN Club’. The fact that this second Madrid – not Spanish – club developed in an extremely tense and polarised atmosphere hardly needs mentioning. Although there were still a number of republicans and liberals at the first banquet, such as Max Aub, Américo Castro, Tomás Navarro Tomás, Pedro Salinas, Luis de Tapia and Guillermo de Torre, their numbers steadily declined. The lists of participants at each of the feasts show that it was mainly writers with right-wing affinities (with all the shades of meaning that ‘right-wing’ implies) who attended. They included both adherents of Primo de Rivera’s Falangism (fascists) (Fernández Almagro, Manuel Machado, Sánchez Mazas) and more moderate right-wing intellectuals such as Baroja, el Conde de Romanones et al. As Miguel A. Iglesias has already pointed out in an article on this third PEN Club, this majority of right-wing intellectuals was an even more conspicuous presence since these right-wing movements were socially and politically in the minority during the Second Republic. The various Spanish PEN Clubs between the wars were neither the first nor the most successful attempt to unite Spanish writers regardless of their aesthetic or political tenor. In the 19th century the various liberal Athenaea were founded, as well as a considerable number of other associations that tried to defend the rights of authors, artists and musicians. A number of other initiatives arose between the wars, such as the Unión de Autores, the banquets that La Gaceta Literaria organised, and the publishing house named Compañía Iberoamericana de Publicaciones, which was set up with the financial support of the Bauer Bank. Despite their good credentials and undoubtedly extremely noble intentions, these initiatives were all to end in failure. The extreme heteronomy of the Spanish literary and artistic fields and the political polarisation between the wars explain why not only the PEN Clubs, but also other associations turned out not to be feasible in that period.