Bobinska Helena
Helena Bobinska (b. 1887, Poland, Warsaw – d. 1968, Poland, Warsaw) was a Polish writer and journalist.
From 1917, she worked first in Petrograd, then in Moscow in the editorial office of the newspaper “Trybuną”. She visited Georgia and traveled to Khevsureti. Based on her journey there she wrote the novel The Revenge of the Kabunauri, which describes the very impressive landscapes, customs and traditions of Khevsureti, as well as colorful pictures of old Tbilisi.
The book had extraordinary success: it was published in Warsaw in 1930, in the same year it was published in Russian (for the second time it was published in 1931), and in 1931, the two Berlin publishing houses “Universum-Bücherei” and “Jugendinternationale” printed it in German almost simultaneously; Two years later the work was translated and published in English and Norwegian. During the years of fascism in Germany, the book was burned along with other works. The work was published in 1947 by the Vienna publishing house “Globus-Verlag” independently of the German publishing houses, in 1948 – by the Bratislava publishing house “Pravda” in Slovak, in 1949 – the Berlin publishing house “Neues Leben” republished it and in 1952, it was published in Hungarian in Budapest.
In 1966, Hans Frosch and Heinz Krüger, employees of the German magazine “Freie Welt”, visited Khevsureti during a trip to Georgia and wrote a report In the Land of Kabunauri (1967, No. 49). Excerpts from Bobinska’s book were included in the curriculum of the 8th grade of the schools of German Democratic Republic.
V. Kakhniashvili
