Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘Savrola’ : A review :Indranil Sarkar Introduction: Sir Winston Churchill was a prolific writer besides being an artist, orator, diplomat and a key-figure and architect of the World War-II. Sir Winston Churchill received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953 for his numerous published works. Till date, he is the only politician and diplomat to be honoured with the Nobel in Literature. Although his essays, letters and Magnum Opus, six volumes of prose work entitled ‘The Second World War’ are well known to the reading world, his position as a writer of fiction is not so well acclaimed. Again, although every English knowing man knows that it was Sir Winston Churchill who shaped the final course of World War II and as such shaped the destiny of the Modern World, it remains almost overlooked that writing was the main earning source of this versatile personality. But, his writing career continued parallel to his political career of nearly sixty years. Churchill started writing under compulsion.
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7/28/2019 Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘Savrola’: A review
Sir Winston Churchill ’s ‘Savrola’: A review:Indranil Sarkar
Introduction: Sir Winston Churchill was a prolific writer besides being an artist,
orator, diplomat and a key-figure and architect of the World War-II. Sir Winston
Churchill received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953 for his numerous
published works. Till date, he is the only politician and diplomat to be honoured
with the Nobel in Literature. Although his essays, letters and Magnum Opus, six
volumes of prose work entitled ‘The Second World War’ are well known to the
reading world, his position as a writer of fiction is not so well acclaimed.
Again, although every English knowing man knows that it was Sir Winston Churchillwho shaped the final course of World War II and as such shaped the destiny of
the Modern World, it remains almost overlooked that writing was the main earning
source of this versatile personality. But, his writing career continued parallel to his
political career of nearly sixty years. Churchill started writing under compulsion.
7/28/2019 Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘Savrola’: A review
After the death of his father he had no alternative but to write for survival and
also to pay off his father’s debt s. His first published work was a series of five
articles captioned ‘Cuban War of independence in the Graphic’. At that time it was
just a bread earning source for him. His first published book was ‘The Story of the
Malakand Field Force’. It was published in 1898 and was a narrative of the military
campaign in the present day Pakistan and Afghanistan. And since then his pen went
on pouring out one after another beautiful and highly intellectual literary gems
from the fountain of his creative and active mind. These writings ultimately
established him as a stalwart in English prose especially non-fiction. His comment
on writing is really memorable. “Writing is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toyand an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it
becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to
your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public ”, Churchill said in
one of his speech.
Strange though, it’s a fact that the great military General as well as the most
powerful war-time diplomat also tried his hands not only in writing a fiction but
also a poem entitled ‘Our Modern Watchwords’. The 40-line Churchill poem was
written in 1899 or 1900 when Churchill was serving in the 4th Hussars. It was
published only in 2011. Critics call it a nature poem in the line of Wordsworth and
Tennyson. It was the only signed poem of the poet that got published.
The name of his only fiction is ‘Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania ’. It was
published in 1899. Here, Churchill poured his maturing political philosophy into the
character of his hero Savrola. It has been argued that this lifted the novel from
the 'Ruritanian romance' genre and made it one of Churchill's most significant
literary efforts. It's a moderately fun read, but at heart remains a 'Ruritanian
7/28/2019 Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘Savrola’: A review
romance'. The writing style appears bad when read through modern eyes. It is also
speculated that some of the main characters of the story were members from his
own family heritage.
Ruritanian Romance: - A Ruritanian Romance gets its name from the central
European country Ruritania. This genre is also called Graustarkian Romances. This
genre of novels deals mainly with love, romance, and battle in a fictional country.
The characters belong to the aristocratic ruling circle of the society. They are
mainly Kings, Princes, and the like. Here, a tune of Myth remains dominant. The
battle is generally fought for honour and national peace and prosperity. The
general endings of these novels are the restoration of monarchy after a fierce
battle for the throne. Anthony Hope’s ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’ ( 1894) is said to be
the first of this genre of fictions although R.L.Stevenson wrote a similar novel
named ‘Prince Otto’: A Romance’ in 1883, which was published as early as 1885.
Blenheim Palace , the Churchill family home
Author ’sBio.:Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG,OM,CH, TD, DL, FRS, Hon.RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician who was
the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951
to 1955. He was born in an Aristocratic family as the grandson of the 7 th Duke of
Marlborough. Marlborough family was a branch of the noble Spencer family. His
7/28/2019 Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘Savrola’: A review