Berezin, N.I.: In the Caliph’s Claws. Torments and Tortures of a European Prisoner Among the Fanatics of Sudan

Title

V kogtiakh khalifa. Mucheniia i pytki plennogo evropeitsa u fanatikov Sudana, Sankt-Peterburg 1912² (first edition: 1901)

In the Caliph’s Claws. Torments and Tortures of a European Prisoner Among the Fanatics of Sudan

Keywords

Summary

This volume is an adaptation of the memoirs In Ketten des Kaliffen (1899) by Karl Neufeld (1856-1918), a German merchant who was caught up in the Mahdist rebellion after taking part in the Gordon Relief Expedition of 1884-1885. He remained a prisoner in Omdurman for twelve years, during which he married an Abyssinian woman and converted to Islam. After being freed by the Anglo-Egyptian contingent in 1898, he returned to Germany. He would later become a German undercover agent in the Middle East. Berezin’s adaptation is divided into fourteen chapters, of which the first two (A New Prophet, The Mahdist Rebellion) familiarise the reader with the political situation in Sudan, while the others are focused on Neufeld’s years in imprisonment up to his liberation. Berezin adopts a clear and very simple style, accessible to children and people of lower education. While the original version features an array of photographs, Berezin’s adaptation is accompanied by drawings that recall the adventure genre and that are taken from other Western sources, like R. Slatin’s Fire and Sword in the Sudan (illustrations by R. Talbot Kelly). The book is part of the popular series “Library of travels by land and sea” (cf. the entry for N. Berezin, In the Land of Greed and Slavery).

Bio

The son of the renowned Orientalist Il’ia Berezin, professor at Kazan and Saint Petersburg universities, Nikolai Berezin was a writer, geographer and schoolteacher, who dedicated himself to popularise the life and works of many Western explorers, like Nils Nordenskiöld, James Cook, Gustav Nachtigal. He also translated the adventurous accounts of Joachin von Brenner-Felsach’s travel to Sumatra and Sven Hedin’s to Central Asia. A passionate traveller himself, he thoroughly documented some of his experiences, writing, for instance, a reportage of a journey through Karelia, complete with photos. In addition to popular literature, he also compiled several geography textbooks and manuals for schoolchildren and teachers.

Sources

Ukazatel’ nauchno-populiarnykh knig po geografii, Sankt-Peterburg 1914², p. 123;

I. Masanov, Slovar’ psevdonimov russkikh pisatelei, uchenykh i obshchestvennykh deiatelei, t. 4, Moskva 1960, p. 63.

A.F.

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