“Many persons from all parts of the world,” is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s written
assertion, “set out for Persia and began to investigate wholeheartedly the
matter.” The Czar of Russia, a contemporary chronicler has written, had
even, shortly before the Báb’s martyrdom, instructed the Russian Consul in
Tabríz to fully inquire into, and report the circumstances of so startling
a Movement, a commission that could not be carried out in view of the
Báb’s execution. In countries as remote as those of Western Europe an
interest no less profound was kindled, and spread with great rapidity to
literary, artistic, diplomatic and intellectual circles. “All Europe,”
attests the above-mentioned French publicist, “was stirred to pity and
indignation... Among the littèrateurs of my generation, in the Paris of
1890, the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the
first news of His death. We wrote poems about Him. Sarah Bernhardt
entreated Catulle Mendès for a play on the theme of this historic
tragedy.” A Russian poetess, member of the Philosophic, Oriental and
Bibliological Societies of St. Petersburg, published in 1903 a drama
entitled “The Báb,” which a year later was played in one of the principal
theatres of that city, was subsequently given publicity in London, was
translated into French in Paris, and into German by the poet Fiedler, was
presented again, soon after the Russian Revolution, in the Folk Theatre in
Leningrad, and succeeded in arousing the genuine sympathy and interest of
the renowned Tolstoy, whose eulogy of the poem was later published in the
Russian press.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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