Artist, Author Iris Hart Returns to Alaska After 60 Years
Contributed by R.L. Marcy
Beloved Parisian Portrait artist, editor and author Iris Hart is coming back to Alaska after 60 years, this July.
Iris will be in Alaska promoting the book “The Diary of Countess Anna Maria Berezowska”, about the life of the young 18th century Polish noblewoman. She will be at Black Birch Books in Wasilla, July 7th, from 2 to 5 p.m., and Barnes & Noble in Anchorage on July 8, from 2 to 5 p.m. More about the book can be found at: www.countessanna-diary.com
Iris recently answered a short interview with Alaskan R.L. Marcy about her work, here are here answers:
My name is Iris Hart. I'm from California but have been living in France for 43 years. I write, edit, translate, teach English to adults, and do portraits.
My friend John Stelnicki, her direct descendant, translated Countess Anna Maria Berezowska’shand-written diary into English when he was in high school, with his Polish grandparent’s help. He would speak to me often about this. Years later, he let the writer James C. Martin use it as the basis for a fictionalized version called Push Not the River, which I read in 2006.
Push Not the River was an award-winning novel and full of historical data. But I didn't have the feel of Countess Anna as a real flesh and blood person. I told John I'd like to read her real diary. He gave me a four-inch thick falling-apart binder of worn and crackled papers manually typed back in the day. Despite difficulties getting past the spelling and grammatical mistakes, faded spots, and uncertain chronological order, I couldn't put these writings down! This girl Anna camealive to me, and I determined to get her true story into print.
After 15 years of work, I'm delighted to say that Countess Anna's authentic diary is now available as a paperback, hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.
Countess Anna's fervent wish was to share her writings with posterity. It is a coming-of-age story written over a four-year period when, after losing both parents at age 17, she was thrown into unforeseeable situations ranging from the ecstacy of love to physical brutality, attempts on her life, and a bloody war.
Gone are the days of horse-drawn carriages, royal ball gowns and powdered wigs. Yet the issues Anna faced are still present today: abandonment, deception, subjugation of women, forced marriage, jealousy, unjust imprisonment, rape, single parenthood... And so are the emotions she so vividly describes: infatuation, devotion, entrancement, terror, rage, amusement, exasperation, excruciating pain, desperation, and love.
The enduring message Countess Anna conveys to us, as relevant now as it was over 200 years ago, is to never give up, never succumb to self-pity, bitterness, resentment, or depression. To see the bright side, keep focused on your goal. How she achieved this in all that she miraculously overcame is an inspiration for anyone, anytime.
I married Don Lewis Hart in 1961 and embarked with him on the aventure of trying to homestead in Alaska. Though we never did stake out a homestead, we did rough it in Spenard, then a wilderness. However, for multiple reasons, after two years I gave up the romanticism of the pioneering life and moved back to San Francisco.
Now that Anchorage is rebuilt after the 1964 earthquake and tourism has become a major state industry, I'm eager to see how it's become. And particularly, after 60 years, I passionately want to see Alaska's grandiose nature with fresh eyes.
John Stelnicki, the co-editor, doesn't use internet or even own any devices more modern than a telephone. When he gave me his ancestor Anna's diary to read, it was when I happened to be visiting in San Francisco.
Because I live in France and fortunately can make free calls to the States, all our collaborative editing and re-editing was done by phone with each of us working from a Word printout. It was arduous and painstaking. Each detail needed to be correct. Historical data and translations of Polish words, mostly by John's Polish grandparents in Florida, had to be verified.
For instance, harmonicas hadn't come into being yet. So we changed John's grandma's term for the instrument to "mouth harp," certainly what the young lad on horseback was whimsically playing. Same with bustles. Those weren't fancy dames' accoutrements till the mid-19th century. So the fashionable derrière enhancer that Anna stuffed between her backside and the long gowns she wore I called a "rump pad."
We also needed ro recount episodes chronologically. What a task! Sometimes Anna didn't have parchment, ink, or a quill for months. Then when she finally got writing implements, memories cascaded back to her, which she'd hastily jot down as they came, not always in the right order.
To make for more interesting reading, we tried to find synonyms for adjectives that were repeated, such as "beautiful" and "huge" -- always keeping the sense that we hoped Anna intended. She was a farm girl at heart, and the way she naively describes some of the ridiculously-attired hoity-toidies at royal balls, like comparing them to sows or goats, gives comic relief to what would otherwise be a somber tale of woe.
We tried to find a balance between old timey and contemporary English and strongly sensed that we were working in symbiosis with Anna. John, who felt this more than I, would sometimes call me at three in the morning, excitedly exclaiming, "I got a channeling from Anna! On page so-and-so she says we've got to say 'headdress' and not 'headscarf.'" Or that she told him to elaborate on the scandalous comportment of the wanton women at one of her cousin Sophia's wild parties.
Believe this or not, it's how we worked, at all times trying our utmost to respect the tone and spirit that the young countess intended.
I myself experienced something maybe paranormal once when I was riding my bike to work. I had to stop and pull over, get out my pen and paper, and write down these words: "The sun cast dappled shadows through the treetops overhead." (This is now in the book!) Otherwise, I did my best to stay attuned and allow words come to me rather than imposing my own.
And then there were the fill-ins. Like when Anna borrowed a dress but didn't write about returning it. In cases like that we endeavored to make these passages as much possible what Anna would have said, and in her particular way. It was like we'd attempt to get into her skin.
Anna was way ahead of her time and never in her heart accepted how women had to have everything decided for them, meekly accepting their lot. She had no one to confide in -- only the non-judgmental blank pages of her diary. She certainly would have been a forerunner in the #metoo movement.
John dream was and is to share his great-great-great-great grandmother Anna's story with the world. And several times in her diary Anna says the same. She wished for future generations to learn from it. The fact that these pages survived blizzards, fires, downpours, theft, and more convinces me that what Anna so meticulously put in writing is meant to be shared.
For John and myself, the over 15 years we spent on this project was an honor, a blessing, and a unique labor of love.
