John Oliver Wardrop an Hugo Schuchardt (06-12619)
an Hugo Schuchardt
28. 01. 1896
Englisch
Zitiervorschlag: John Oliver Wardrop an Hugo Schuchardt (06-12619). Kertch, 28. 01. 1896. Hrsg. von Frank-Rutger Hausmann (2021). In: Bernhard Hurch (Hrsg.): Hugo Schuchardt Archiv. Online unter https://gams.uni-graz.at/o:hsa.letter.10185, abgerufen am 18. 07. 2025. Handle: hdl.handle.net/11471/518.10.1.10185.
Kertch, January 28.1896
Dear Professor Schuchardt,
Your post-card and the copy of the review of my sister’s book1 have reached me. Many thanks! We are well aware of the importance of publishing a Collection of the Folk tales of Svanethi, and have much material gathered for the purpose.
At present we are preparing for the press a translation of the Life of Saint Nino, compared with all the best mscr.2 The text is not easy: many passages are obscure and evidently very corrupt. The Georgians must do a great deal of preliminary work before their older literature can be profitably read by foreign students.
We are expecting every day to receive some copies of the translation of The Hermit,3 and I |2| shall send you a copy.
Possibly some of my letters to you have miscarried. The postal department of this Country leaves much to be desired – e. g. a few boxes posted to me in Rome on the 14th of November did not reach me till the 26 th of January!
We are now in a state of almost complete isolation: the port has been frozen up for a month, and our only intercourse with the World is along the Theodosia road, which is so bad that it sometimes takes longer for a letter to go from Kertch to Theodosia than from Theodosia to London. The ice is not likely to break up before the middle of March.
With best wishes,
Believe me,
Sincerely yours
Oliver Wardrop
1 Schuchardt, „Rez. von: Georgian Folk Tales translated by Marjory Wardrop“, Literarisches Zentralblatt für Deutschland 47, 1896, 29-30. „Die Verfasserin sagt, es sei dies überhaupt the first attempt to translate into English any part of the … secular literature of the Georgian people, hoffen wir, daß sie oder ihr Bruder Oliver, da sie im seltenen Besitz georgischer Sprachkenntniß sind, bald weitere Uebersetzungen folgen lassen, auch solcher Schriften, die uns den Volkscharakter und das Volksleben der Georgier näher rücken, als das in den schließlich doch internationalen Ueberlieferungen geschehen kann“.
2 Marjory Scott Wardrop and J. O. Wardrop, Life of St. Nino, Oxford, 1900 (Studia biblica et ecclesiastica V,1).
3 The Hermit: a legend, by Ilia Chavchavadze; translated from the Georgian, by Marjory Wardrop, London: Bernard Quaritch, 1895.