Nordic Noir and the Moomins

27:28Actually, it was the beginning of the human rights movement, but at the time it was unprecedented. At the age of 15, I treated it as something natural, as something obvious. Well, how else to react to this outrage? The fact that two writers are imprisoned for publishing their books abroad. This is Danielle's son, Alexander.

27:53But my mother was so amazed. Amazed. She is the daughter of a man who was arrested in Stalin's time. She remembered, when her father was arrested in 1936, how acquaintances crossed the other side of the street so as not to greet her and her mother. It was a strong childhood impression for her. So when she faced the exact opposite reaction in 1965, she was amazed. It meant a lot to her. Despite the protesters' demands, the trial, when it begins in February the following year, is closed to the Western press. It is symbolic of a new era in the Soviet Union. The liberal leader, Nikita Khrushchev, has been ousted in favour of hardliner Leonid Brezhnev, and dissenting political views are being cracked down on.

28:49They brought us from prison to the courthouse in different black police vans, even though it would have been simpler to put us in the neighbouring cells in one van. But they were afraid we would call out to one another and hatch up some plans. This is Szynjavsky speaking to the BBC's Russian service about his friendship with Danielle. The two men had been sending their work to the West and publishing under pseudonyms. Their actual offence was anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. Defendant Szynowski, do you plead guilty to these charges, in whole or in part? This is a recreation of the trial made by the BBC in 1967 from transcripts that had been smuggled out to the West.

29:36Defendant Daniel, do you plead guilty to the charges, in whole or in part? No, I do not. Daniel is called first to defend his novel This Is Moscow Calling. It imagines a scenario where the government announces a sanctioned day of public killing. But if you saw nothing anti-Soviet in your writings, why didn't you take them to Soviet publishing houses? I knew very well that their editors wouldn't publish anything on such highly charged subjects. My writings have a political colouring and they wouldn't have been printed on political grounds. The author explains he'd been inspired to write the novel because of what he saw happening in his country, the rise of Brezhnev and the end of the liberal period.

30:22Once again, there was one man who knew everything. One person was again being held up to us. Once again, there was one man dictating his will to agricultural experts, artists, diplomats, writers. And once more, we had one person's name being splashed in the papers and on the posters. and again the most banal and crude statements of this one person was being held up to us as a revelation, the quintessence of wisdom. So, out of fear that the cult of personality might be restored in this country, you turned to an American publisher. I'm not talking about why I sent the story out, but why I wrote it.

31:00I came to the conclusion, and I'm a pessimist by nature, that the terrible times of the cult of Stalin might be repeated And as I may remind you, in his day things happened which were far more terrible than anything I've written. Mass purges, the deportation and annihilation of entire peoples. In comparison, what I wrote was child's play. Then it's Siniasky's turn to be questioned. He is seen as the instigator, the corrupting force, and faces a harsher sentence.

31:36In difficult moments in the cross-examination when the judge and the prosecutor were cornering me, Daniel stuck up for me. Of course, they interrupted him every time and wouldn't let him carry on speaking, but it cheered me up to realize what a friend I had in those circumstances. I'll never forget how, in the dock, it was a rather long bench so we couldn't exchange a word. They set us apart so we couldn't whisper to one another or slip one another a note. It was impossible. And in the dock, under the table, out of sight, we reached out our hands towards one another as if to shake them. It raised my spirits enormously.

32:16Within the Soviet Union and internationally, the case galvanises support for freedom of expression. In the UK, novelist Graham Greene speaks out at a meeting of writers in London to condemn the Soviet's attitude towards the two authors. I'm an admirer of the Soviet Union. I'm an admirer of the communist system. But in any government, there grows up a hideous establishment of stupid men. But when we defend others, we are defending ourselves because one day, God knows, we shall need to be defended. Before sentencing, the two men are given one last chance to speak. This is the actor of Danielle speaking in that BBC recreation.

33:08I knew that I should have the right to make a last plea and I wondered whether to relinquish this right altogether, as I am at liberty to do, or to confine myself to the usual conventional remarks. Then I realized this wasn't only my last word in the legal sense of this trial, but perhaps the last word I wish to ask forgiveness of all those who are near to me and of my friends whom we have caused distress. I also wish to say that no articles of the criminal code, no accusations against us will deter us, Sinjavsky and myself, from thinking that we are men who love our country and our people. That is all.

33:51I am ready to hear sentence. For Danielle, five years hard labour, and for Signefsky, seven years. After the court, Signefsky asks when he and Danielle will be allowed to share a cell together, a common practice for accomplices after a trial.

34:13Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, they told me, but they never let us be together in that cell. They understood during the trial that we had an enduring kind of relationship, which would carry on into the future. From their point of view, we were as thick as Steve's.

34:32You will not dare to think your own thoughts, sigh for home or refuse to eat the food. Daniel's son, Alexander, remembers visiting his father in prison and memorizing his prison poems so they would be saved. You are a lens. You are a blank sheet of paper. You are cast into this water like a net. I learned them by heart, and I still remember them. They are stuck in my memory after all this time. Alexander Daniel was speaking to Vicky Farncombe. The fate of Danielle and Szynjewski shows how fiction with a message can get writers into trouble under regimes without free speech. Our next author from the past had nothing of that sort to fear.

35:23Thirty years ago, a single 30-something woman with big knickers and blue soup first appeared in a weekly column of a British newspaper. Bridget Jones quickly became a cultural icon as she tried to make sense of life and love. The book Bridget Jones's Diary became a bestseller and the character has gone on to feature in three more books and four films. Bridget's creator, Helen Fielding, looks back at this cultural phenomenon with Megan Jones. It's February 1995 in the London office of the Independent newspaper, surrounded by cigarette smoke and the hum of fax machines. Journalist Helen Fielding is sitting at the political desk, completely unaware her career and life is about to take a very different path.

36:08One of the news editors, Charlie Ledbetter, came up to me and said, would you write a column as yourself? And I said, no, that would be hopelessly exposing and embarrassing, but I'll make someone up. I had a friend who had a friend called Bridget, who was always getting to scrapes. So it was always, you never guess what Bridget's done. So I thought, oh, she can be called Bridget. And then I just saw an ordinary surname, so I said Jones. That's ordinary surname needed a face to go with it. There was a girl called Susanna Lewis who worked at The Independent and she was really pretty and she had a really nice outfit on that day.

36:42So we said, do you mind if we take a picture of the silhouette and that can be the picture because I didn't want it to be me. On the 28th of February, readers were introduced to Bridget Jones and her diary for the first time. Eight stone 13, alcohol units two, excellent cigarettes seven, calories 3100 poor 2 p.m oh why hasn't daniel rung hideous wasted weekend it was very much based on how i was feeling but it was a comic exaggeration i would take things that happened in my life and my friends lives and then push them further and further and further to make it into comedy but some things didn't need much comic exaggeration when i was having a dinner party and I wanted to make vichy suave.

37:33Which is a thick soup made with leeks. And I had to tie some vegetables up with string but I only had blue string and I was like oh it'll be fine and pour cream in and all this and then when I looked at it was actually blue. The blue soup became one of Bridget's many misadventures and while the weekly column didn't take off overnight Helen kept writing anonymously. The fact that I thought nobody was going to read it freed me up to be really emotionally honest. Then word began to spread. The editor got a lot of letters. One of them said, Dear Sir, I would quite like to shag Bridget Jones. Could you let me have her phone number, please?

38:14Many thanks, yours faithfully. Soon, everyone was talking about Bridget Jones. Bridget Jones. Bridget Jones. Bridget Jones. Bridget Jones. And it's turned a little bit of a cut. It's a sort of fever pitch for girls. It's about cellulite and trying to get rid of it and smoking and trying to stop it and alcohol and trying to give it up and men and, well, men. At the time the columns got popular, I was still really self-conscious about it. So I was keen to distance myself from Bridget and to say, I don't drink or smoke and I am a virgin, which was an obvious lie. Helen's identity didn't stay a secret for too long, though.

38:56My close friend, Tracy McLeod, who was kind of the Jude character, said, have you read this Bridget Jones column? And I said, yeah, what do you think of it? She said, oh, it's really funny. So I immediately said, Tracy, it's me. Bridget's journey was only just beginning as the idea of a book was then mentioned. I didn't have a plot. The BBC Pride and Prejudice was showing at the time on TV. The streets were silent on Sunday nights. So I thought, well, I'll just steal that plot because I thought Jane Austen wouldn't mind in any way she's dead. That borrowed plot worked as the book became an international bestseller and is credited for launching the chick-lit genre, written with women in mind.

39:40It started at number six, then it went five, four, three, two, one, and I cut out the bestseller list every week and I stuck it under the lid of this box because I didn't want my friends to come round and think I'd been sticking it on the wall. The British bestseller Bridget Jones's Diary, the fictional journal of a single 30-something living in London, is currently being launched in America. The big question for the publishers is whether the book's quirky British humour will survive the journey across the Atlantic. I was very nervous about bringing it out in America and then I remember when I got to my hotel room, there was a bunch of flowers from the publisher and it said, congratulations it had been dictated this is awesome and that's like what's happened and it had gone straight onto the bestseller list the book's success meant talk soon turned to a film adaptation but none of us thought it was going to work and there was one first screening when everyone laughed and people were like wait we haven't messed it up it's gonna work it was a surprise to everyone and really amazing.

40:45In April 2001, the first film was released in UK cinemas with Rennie Zellweger from Texas in the USA taking on the very British role.

41:02Well, I don't know. I suppose it doesn't help that underneath our clothes, our entire bodies are covered in scales. She's really bright. She's one of those women, a bit like Bridget, who seems very soft and fluffy around the edges, but that doesn't mean she isn't super smart. Colin Firth became Mark Darcy, the uptight human rights barrister and love interest. I like you very much, just as you are. I love everything that Colin does. When I first wrote the film and the book, Mr Darcy, Mark Darcy and Colin Firth were all the same creature. And he's always enjoyed that joke. Hugh Grant played Bridget's charming but unreliable boss, Daniel Cleaver, and Darcy's romantic rival.

41:48His ad-libs are some of the best lines. Like in the first movie, when he's seducing Bridget and she remembers she's wearing, you know, basically Spanx. And he says, oh, don't worry. I'm wearing something rather similar myself. Oh, mummy. Hello, mummy. That was all Hugh, but he coined the expression mummy pants. I'm sorry, I have to have another look. They're too good to be true. There's nothing to be embarrassed, but I'm wearing something quite similar myself. From blue soup and mummy pants, to a trip to Thailand, becoming a mum, and then a widow raising two children. Bridget's been on quite the journey, featuring in a total of four films based on Helen's four books, which have sold millions of copies and been translated into at least 30 different languages, with new fans still discovering her story.

42:42There's a new generation of the Gen Zs. I think what they relate to is the fact that it's all right to just be all right. It's all right to mess up, it's all right to be a human being, it's all right to be vulnerable. Nobody wants a friend who comes home and says, oh I'm so thin, successful and marvellous and I've done all these wonderful things you want the friend who comes home and says you'll never guess what I've just done, get me a glass of wine Could there still be another chapter to come for Bridget? Bridget's really important to me and I'm very protective of her and I only want to write a story for her if there's something new to say and something important to say otherwise she just won't mean anything anymore and she'll lose her integrity

43:29Bridget Jones' creator Helen Fielding was speaking to Megan Jones. A good book and a bit of creative fiction can be a source of comfort in difficult times. The first Moomins story was published in 1945 during the Second World War. The Moomins and the Great Flood was created by the Finnish writer and artist Tuve Janssen. The children's books highlighted the difficulties of those who'd been displaced by war, introducing readers to the lives of Moomin troll, Moomin mama and Moomin papa and they've since been published in more than 60 languages. Reena Stanton-Sharma has been hearing about the inspiration behind the Moomin world.

44:08Her life and her artistic output are very intertwined and you can't really separate them. She is sort of her own artwork if you can say things that way but well actually she really sort of lived what she preached. But you do see that she uses nature as an inspiration for so many of the illustrations. They're fantastical, but it's all about the lushness of nature, different sized leaves and flowers and tree trunks. And then maybe in the later books, there's more, you know, the scaries of the archipelago. And yeah, I think nature is very, very present. That's Sophia Jansson, remembering her aunt, Tuve Jansson, who wrote and illustrated tales about the Moomins, a family about the size of a telephone book who live in harmony with nature between the mountains and the sea in Moomin Valley.

45:04They get up to endless jaunts, much like the Jansons themselves, who would spend their summers on remote islands in the Gulf of Finland. Our life in the archipelago was so similar to the life of the Moomins in many ways that it all felt very normal and natural. The family was very prone to going on adventures of different kinds. I mean, I remember us getting in the boat and sort of going to pick her up because we were going on a picnic on an even more remote island somewhere. I mean, even in her 50s or something, you know, you could imagine, no, I need to work. I can't go or something. But she was always like, oh, wonderful, great, you know, and what can I bring?

45:45And she was always the enthusiasm of doing seemingly quite simple things, but making them into something fun. She obviously had the seriousness of work and life and the world on one side, but she was always willing and happy to sort of counterbalance that with fun stuff like going on picnics. So I just I love these memories I have in my head of flying kites with her and swimming. You know, she loved swimming. so for a child it was just heaven, sort of jump in the water and swim with her. But she was always ready to play. Just like Moomin Troll himself. Tuver was born in Finland, but was part of the Swedish-speaking minority, and that's the language the original stories were published in.

46:34Now, if you've never heard of the Moomins, here's a crash course. The Moomin family, it's Moomin Mama and her little son, Moomin Troll. and in the first book their father's gone missing and the house as well in the big flood and they find him in a valley in a beautiful valley and he's built him a new cylindrical beautiful house so there's Moominpapa Moominmama and their little son Moomintroll but then there are a plethora of other characters that come into the stories so in Comet in Moominland we already meet Snufkin He's sort of a vagabond and, you know, he travels south in the wintertime because he doesn't like the cold.

47:13And, you know, he sleeps in a tent and he has a harmonica and, you know, he's the sort of epitome of freedom. And he becomes Moomin Troll's really good friend. And then there's a little creature Sniff that comes in, has a long snout and sort of a long rat-like tail. And he's another good friend. And then there's Snork Maiden. They meet on an adventure. She's a snork. And then there's her brother, the snork. Before life as an author took off, Tuver worked as an artist and was a cartoonist for the Swedish magazine Garm. That's where the Moomins first popped up, as a cartoon signature next to her name and her drawings.

47:55And in 1945, she published her first story, The Moomins and the Great Flood, introducing us into their whimsical world.

48:08It was a story that she wrote during the war as a sort of escapist exercise to get away from the tragedy that was happening around her. And she later wasn't super proud of it. Nevertheless, she wrote this story and then she put it in sort of a drawer. And I think some artist colleague of hers said, why don't you just publish it and illustrate it? Because after all, you're an illustrator. And it's sold in kiosks. It's sort of a bit like a magazine, but inspired by that, she decides to start a real adventure novel based on the same characters. And that's the one I consider and I think she considered to be the first Moomin book, Comet in Moominland.

48:52Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. The Moomin family had been living for some weeks in the valley where they had found their house. after the dreadful flood, which is another story. Asterix, it was painted blue. Moomin houses usually are. It was a wonderful valley, full of happy little animals and flowering trees. There was a clear, narrow river that came down from the mountain, looped around the Moomin house and disappeared in the direction of another valley, where no doubt other little animals wondered where it came from. She grew up in Helsinki, which is at the time a small city on the coast, a southern coast of Finland.

49:41So she was surrounded by water. And you can tell in Tove's stories that it sort of creeps into every story. And it's like nature has a role of its own. In the days when Tove and her partner Tutti decided to move out to this tiny little island with no trees on it. I do think lots of people thought, how are they going to make it out there? So people came to see them and, you know, somebody brought post and somebody brought drinking water and they loved it. And on top of it, they built a small cabin on the island with just the one room. But then they ended up sleeping in a tent most of the time because they loved sleeping in tents.

50:25And, you know, so for them, it was all a big adventure all the time. The success of the Moomins, which had been turned into plays and even an opera, also saw TV companies come knocking, first in Germany and then Japan. But Tuve didn't approve of the Japanese animation broadcast by Fuji Television Network.

50:52The first animation series of Moomin was broadcasted in 1969, and the interpretation was quite freely taken. For instance, Moomin Troll was in pale blue, and Snoke Maiden was in pale pink, and Snuff King was tall and played guitar, not harmonica, and he was just like a sing-songwriter Donovan. That was Mayumi Tomihara, who has translated many of Tuve's novels into Japanese. But Moomin mania, which was sweeping the world, eventually became all too much for Tuve. And she wrote in her notebook, Those damn Moomins, I could vomit on those Moomin trolls. Her other projects included adult fiction, short stories, poems and plays.

51:47She even wrote songs and continued to paint. But she'll always be best known for creating the cuddly creatures with their big white snouts. She taught me and everybody else never to become jaded and always be open to the fact that anything can happen and also good things can happen and just sort of be curious and be curious about life and never sort of become cynical. I think that was one of the most important, valuable gifts I think she could have given me. Sophia Janssen, Tuve Janssen's niece, was speaking to Rina Stanton-Shalmer and remembering the creation of a world which has enchanted children for generations.

52:29Finally, we're going to end today not with a writer, but with a runner, one, however, about whom at least one book has been written. In 2015, Meera Rai took the international sky-running scene by storm, winning gold medals in ultra-endurance events. At first, little was known about this young Nepalese competitor, but behind her calm demeanour was a personal story which would shock the ultra-running world. She's been speaking to Hunter Charlton.

53:02That race was all uphill and downhill. Challenging, but not new for me. However, there was snow, and then I slipped and I fell down. At that time I thought, oh my God, this is what snow on the hills is like. Despite growing up and training in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal, Meera's never encountered this particular hazard before. I thought, oh my God, how can I run here? It was hard for me back then. But all the runners, Europeans, the people I was running with, this is nothing for them. This is nothing for me because I never saw snow. Dusting the powder from her shoes, she returned to the long, punishing route ahead.

53:4580 kilometres on rugged trails surrounding Europe's tallest mountain, Mont Blanc. I didn't think about it. I didn't have the concern. Just run. My only vision, mission, run. Growing up in an isolated farming community 150 kilometres southeast of Kathmandu, Mira's pathway into the world of elite sport was far from certain. My father worked in the village farming and my mother would go to the market in Dhankuta to sell rice. That way we earned a living. We collected money for salt, oil, for food. We managed that way. Carrying sacks of rice to market every day, each weighing 28 kilograms, Life was not easy for Meera, who left school at the age of 12 to support her parents.

54:40I worked very hard in the village, but I didn't see any opportunity or future for myself here. Life just continued. I wanted something better than this. During this time, Nepal was going through a civil war. It was a guerrilla conflict between the armed forces of Nepal's incumbent royal family and the rebel Communist Party. Mira was recruited to the rebel communists when they visited her village. I joined and became a child soldier, but I didn't know anything about the war. I just wanted to do something, make a better life. She doesn't remember exactly how old she was when she left her village, but she thinks it was when she was between 14 or 15.

55:23The last thing she told her parents was that she would be back in a week. For two years, I never came home. For a while, I was completely out of contact, disappeared. Because back then, there wasn't a working phone network. I was on my own mission. There were so many things to learn, and I was seeking opportunities. Almost a whole year passed with the rebel communists before Meera sent her anxious parents a letter and a photograph of herself. When it arrived in the village, my mother, my parents were very happy because they saw that I was alive. So what was it like living away that long? Were you scared?

56:04No, I wasn't scared really. I learned a lot with my friends and our leaders. They told us, today do this, today do that, this training, that training, go to this place, running in the forest, organization. We learned everything and had many duties. When the civil war ended, she tried to enlist again, this time in the Nepali army, but was rejected for being too young. So she studied agriculture, took up athletics and moved to Nepal's capital city, Kathmandu. During her time as a child soldier, Meera had been lucky. If she'd been captured while serving with the rebels, she faced imprisonment or even capital punishment.

56:44Luckily, she managed to avoid live combat. But it's estimated 17 ,000 people lost their lives during the Civil War. I did training, went to the athletics track, trained with the national team with the coach. I trained roughly for one month. Then after that, the money ran out. So I stopped going to the athletics track. Clearly very gifted and not deterred by a lack of funding, Meera began running loops around Kathmandu's heavily polluted capital ring and exploring the local trails before she befriended members of the Nepali Army's running club in 2014. One day, they invited me at 4am for a run.

57:21At first, I thought it was training, but it turned out to be a race. I had only a t-shirt, jeep shoes and shorts, which coach had bought for me. Having been tricked into thinking it was a casual jog by her buddies in the army, Mira was totally unaware she'd been entered into a 50-kilometre trail race. Most people would be pretty annoyed. But I liked races, so I thought, OK, I'll participate. It was very hard. And at that last checkpoint, some other runners said to me, don't go on. But I insisted, no, I will finish the race. After that, I was alone in the jungle, running in the hail and the rain, and I was sleeping.

58:03I was falling. But I just ran on without thinking, and then I finished. Astonishingly, she'd come first and was awarded 7 ,000 rupees and a new pair of running shoes. Only afterwards did it dawn on Meera that certain opportunities as well as a route to a better life might be possible through dedicating herself to running. After finishing that race, I realized I can do something with this sport for myself, for my community and my country. But always, you know, nobody supported the idea. Sport isn't a life career. Everyone said that, you know. Despite these disparaging words, her natural talent was immediately spotted and nurtured by coaches and through sheer grit and determination, her arrival into the elite world of skyrunning was soon announced.

58:52Similar to ultramarathon running, skyrunning requires athletes to cover vast distances on foot. However, courses sometimes take days to complete. Runners must hit checkpoints and complete high elevation climbs on exposed routes, testing their legs, concentration, and nerve. In 2015, Mira ran in events from 50 to 160 kilometers, averaging almost one race a month. She was on a winning streak when a devastating earthquake hit Nepal, affecting family and friends. When the earthquake struck, she was running not far from the epicentre. I was running in the Mustang trail race. I didn't know what was happening.

59:31So I laid on the ground, which was moving. Luckily, she was unharmed. But roughly 9 ,000 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands of buildings were destroyed, including her family home. It was in this context that Mira entered her next race, the Mont Blanc 80km, one of the most gruelling races in the Sky Running World Series. And aside from the risk of snow patches, her checkpoint transitions had to be seamless. I had only 1 minute 30 seconds to change my water and then shot out of the checkpoint and continued running. With the rest of the field closing in, she kept a cool head. I felt like I was just out training, not competing.

1:00:15I was enjoying myself in the beautiful mountains. All that remained was the final hill climb. I climbed and then ran down very fast. Exhausted, she'd crossed the line. I felt so happy that race and so proud of myself. It was a big race for my family too. We had lost our home in the earthquake. We lost a lot of friends, family. and crossing the finish line, I held Nepal's flag in the air, fluttering in the wind. It was a stunning end to an epic race that would cement Mira as one of the greatest runners in the sky running circuit. And realising the value of her incredible story, to have come from a farming village to serving as a child soldier and then entering the world of elite sport, Mira founded an initiative shortly after the Mont Blanc 80K in 2017.

1:01:07it aims to support young women in Nepal through the influence of running programmes. These girls can be made strong and can win races. They can be happy and make their family and society proud. They can motivate their friends. Now they need a platform. Meera Rai was speaking to Hunter Charlton for this week's Sporting Witness in that EMBA audio production. And that's it for this edition of the History Hour. We'll be turning the pages of more gripping first-hand stories from the past for you next week. But until then, this is Max Pearson. From all of us here, thanks for listening. Goodbye. Sporting Witness takes you to the events that have shaped the sports world through the eyes of the people who were there.

1:01:50We weren't going to ask permission. We were just going to do it. It was such an amazing feeling. It was incredible. He started to write a story about how he came up with the idea for the red and yellow cars. I got to go. We cried a bit. We laughed a bit. It was wonderful. There's a magic during those moments that carries your soul. We were truly blessed to be a part of history. Sporting Witness. Subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:02:17I want to put all the issues on the table that keep me up at night. The Interview. The best conversations from across the BBC. We're coming up against technology companies that are richer and more powerful than many nation states. With the people shaping our world. There are those that believe that the power of law should be replaced by the law of power. The interview from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about. It's called the dark web. Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web, US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse.

1:03:03Move in now. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.