Mala Zvona

In 1934, Christiane Ritter, a thirty-seven-year-old housewife, mother of one child and a woman with some artistic education, set off for Svalbard – more precisely, for the northern coast of the island of Spitsbergen – at the invitation of her husband, a sea captain and a lover of the far north. She was equipped with everything that well-meaning people had advised her to take with her, but none of them knew exactly what awaited her at her destination. Sailing by ship towards the northern latitudes, she hid the ultimate goal of her journey from the other passengers, knowing that in the opinion of most, such an undertaking was not for a woman. Because, indeed, before Christiane, no woman from the so-called civilized world had dared to go to the harsh polar regions; they were associated exclusively with men, explorers, conquerors of the wilderness. However surprised and even intimidated by life in the Arctic wasteland at first, Christiane Ritter  embarks on the adventure bravely. She adapts to a cramped hut, 250 kilometers from the nearest settlement, a dwelling that offers only rudimentary protection from the forces of nature, and tries to run a household for her husband and his assistant Karl. Often left alone – while the two men go hunting, fresh and frozen meat and offal forming the basis of their diet – she manages to cope with the physically demanding circumstances, fear and anxiety.

Even in such situations, her experience of the far north is dominated by admiration and awe of the surrounding natural world. Recording impressions and daily activities in words and images helps her cope with loneliness, and even with the deep, long-lasting darkness of the polar night. These notes will eventually serve as the basis for a book on which the author will work for another two years after returning home, trying to give a literary dimension to her experiences. She completely succeeded; she describes the Arctic world, its animal inhabitants and climatic specifics, the northern lights, the arrival of ice, the harshness of the rocky coast, the life of the minute summer vegetation in an extremely impressive way. Unlike other (male) reports from the polar regions, hers does not emphasize the enterprise and courage of explorers and hunters (although this is also mentioned), but rather the unearthly beauty of the far north and the effect of its extremes on the human psyche. Christiane Ritter’s book is considered a classic work of travel literature, and has been continuously printed in the original German language since 1938, when it was first published. It has been translated into eighteen languages ​​and has also been highly regarded as a translated edition; this is the first translation of this book into Croatian.