The Legend of Novgorode

"The Legend of Novgorode" was the first poem of Blaise Cendrars published in 1907. This text was considered for a long time as lost, or as a product of his author's imagination, until in 1995, a copy was discovered by chance in a Bulgar bookshop. After a raging controversy, this copy is now mostly considered as a fraud, with a very good impersonation of Cendrars' (signing at that time Frédéric Sauser) style. This first poem would reveal the origins of the nickname that was chosen by Fréderic Sauser. The authenticity of the document still today questionable.

The Legend

Blaise Cendrars when he wrote The Legend of Novgorode

Frédéric Sauser would have written this poem in 1908, just after the death of girl he loved when he lived in St-Pétersbourg, since 1905.