Orsinian Tales (1976)

Orsinian Tales is a collection of eleven short stories by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, most of them set in the imaginary Eastern European country of Orsinia.

Themes

The stories in the collection share few links, except those derived from the use of a common geographical setting. The only link between characters appears in the stories Brothers and Sisters and A Week in the Country, both of which deal with members of the Fabbre family (whose history is continued in the later story Unlocking the Air). Common to all the stories, however, are emotionally moving personal events—often romantic—set against the backdrop of much larger political events such as wars and revolutions. Continually reasserted are the rights of the individual—sometimes alone, but often in conjunction with others—to his or her own thoughts and emotions, not dictated by society, convention, or the State.

Continuations

Additional stories in the cycle include the following:

the novel Malafrena (1979), set in the Orsinia of the 1820s the Borges-like story "Two Delays on the Northern Line", containing two tangentially linked episodes of uncertain date

"Unlocking the Air"

The last-named story extends Orsinian history up to the downfall of Communism in Orsinia—and the rest of Eastern Europe—in the winter of 1989.

Orsinia

The stories are set in a fictional country somewhere in Central Europe, at different times during the period 1150–1989 (though only two stories take place before the 20th century). This country, "Orsinia," appears in Le Guin's earliest writings, and it was invented by Le Guin when she was a young adult learning the craft of a writer. The names Orsinia and Ursula are both derived from the Latin word 'ursus,' 'bear' (ursula is the diminutive of 'ursa,' 'female bear'; ursinus means 'bear-like'). Le Guin once said that since Orsinia was her country, it should bear her name.

The history of Orsinia generally follows that of other countries of Central Europe, particularly those that were formerly part of Austria-Hungary. Formerly an independent kingdom (in "The Lady of Moge"), by the 19th century it was a dependency of the Austrian Empire (in Malafrena). Orsinia was involved in the First World War (in "Conversations at Night"), and after that war it was independent for a time. Its fate during World War II is not mentioned, but in 1946 or 1947, it became a satellite state in the Eastern bloc. A revolt was attempted in 1956 (in "The Road East"), but it was crushed and followed by reprisals (in "A Week in the Country"); Orsinia remained a repressive police state for several decades. In November 1989, following a series of non-violent protests, the government fell, to be replaced by a transitional regime promising free elections (in "Unlocking the Air"). Le Guin did not publish any Orsinian stories dealing with its history since that event.

The Orsinian stories borrow episodes from (and sometimes explicitly refer to) the history of the Czech lands, in addition to Hungary and other countries of Central Europe However, the collection is not a mere fictionalization of any real country but rather one imagined with its own unique characteristics and history, distilled from Le Guin's personal interpretation of and reaction to historical events.

Contents

"The Fountains"

"The Barrow" (1976, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1976)

"Ile Forest"

"Conversations At Night"

"The Road East"

"Brothers and Sisters" (1976, The Little Magazine, Vol. 10, Nos. 1 & 2)

"A Week in the Country" (1976, The Little Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 4)

"An die Musik" (1961, The Western Humanities Review, Vol XV, No. 3)

"The House"

"The Lady of Moge"

"Imaginary Countries" (1973, The Harvard Advocate)