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The Wanderings of the Little Blue Butterfly in Fairyland
Anna Lesznai
1912
Illustration from the children’s book The Wanderings of the Little Blue Butterfly in Fairyland, first published in Budapest, Hungary, in 1912.
Illustration from the children’s book The Wanderings of the Little Blue Butterfly in Fairyland, first published in Budapest, Hungary, in 1912.
Amalia Moscovitz was born in Budapest and raised primarily on the estate of her affluent, assimilated family in Alsókörtvélyes (today Hrušov, Slovakia). Anna Lesznai—her artistic pseudonym—became active in Budapest’s avant-garde salons as a teenager. She wove her many different media—painting, poetry, illustration, scholarship, folktales, and Hungarian embroidery (himzés)—into a coherent artistic-intellectual modernist aesthetic. In 1939, Lesznai fled Hungary for America, with her soon-to-be (third) husband, Tibor Gergely. There she taught pedagogical and applied arts at Wellesley College and elsewhere.
For four hours I sat engrossed while old Gershon Falk told his story, feeling all the while as though I were listening to a fantastic saga—as though I were in the presence of one from another time…
Grininke beymelekh (Little Green Trees), no. 1 (Vilna: B. A. Kletzkin, 1914.) The title of this Yiddish children’s journal, the first of the genre to appear regularly, was drawn from the Yiddish poem…