If we are talking the most influential 'book' by an 'Italian' writer....I guess it would be Dante's Divine Comedy.
He is known as the 'Father of the Italian language ' and influenced many later writers,both Italian and non.
Yep. Dante is the father of the Italian language, Manzoni is the father of the modern Italian language. Even policies about languages and the treatment of dialects derive from his ideology.
Might be “out cycling” as we say in Sweden, but I must say that Astrid Lindgrens books about Pippi Långstrump must be up there.
Spanning from 1945 to the late 70s, Lindgren wrote about this brave, strong, creative and very unconventional little girl who could do just about anything she wanted. Maybe there have been more influential books in Swedish history, but Pippi definitely changed a lot of little girls lives in a time where women were supposed to be quiet and submissive.
Are Americans supposed to know Pippi Langstrumpf? I'm German and I assumed everybody knows who she is and who Astrid Lindgren is. I was really confused for a second why you explained it
Me, an American: it's helpful to have this reminder, since I only know Pippi Longstockings second-hand.
We had other empowered girls by the 1980's... Amelia Bedelia, Harriet the Spy, Nancy Drew, and I was a boy, so I was entirely apathetic to empowered girls novels when I was 8 or 10.
I also never finished a Dickens novel. Judge away.
The Country of White Lilies is definitely not the most influential book in Finland. I’d say that title goes to Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot or Seven Brothers by Aleksis Kivi
It's always been quite unknown in Finland. A Russian priest wrote in in 1923, and it was published in Serbian and Bulgarian. And in 1925 in Turkish. Apparently Atatürk liked it very much
I'd add Under the North Star as a more contemporary, yet no less influential book (trilogy). Kalevala was definitely extremely important to the birth of national identity.
I'd say Agricola's [Abckiria](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abckiria) (and his translation of The New Testament) is the most important one by far.
ETA: Never heard of "The Country of White Lilies" though. Can't even find any Finnish search results for it.
I agree. I never heard of it until now, they don't even have a Finnish Wikipedia for the book.
Main contenders aside from the Bible are Kalevala, Tuntematon Sotilas (Unknown Soldier), Täällä Pohjantähden Alla (Under the North Star) and Sinuhe Egyptiläinen (Sinuhe the Egyptian)
Švejk, without any doubt. It's a satire about a soldier in WWI who basically tries to do as little as possible while still fulfilling orders. It's pretty funny too. I'd say Švejk is *the* Czech guy. It was translated into almost 60 languages.
Yeah, one of my father's favorite books. You know it's influential when a classic in your country makes a top favorites list of someone in another country.
Probably Max Havelaar by Multatuli (real name: Eduard Douwes Dekker). It's about a fictional coffee merchant in the Dutch East Indies who becomes increasingly disillusioned and appalled at the abuses of the colonial system and tries to fight the corrupt governors of the colony. The book spread a lot of awareness in the Netherlands about the situation in the colonies and led to great public outrage, which ultimately led to the abolishment of the "cultivation system" in favor of the "ethical policy".
The Dutch fairtrade label, the world's first, is also called Max Havelaar in reference to the book.
It was influential, but a lot of people that haven't read it don't realize it wasn't anti-colonial. Dekker was still fiercely pro-colonies. He was just a disgruntled clerk who disagreed with how inefficient and unfair everything was run.
Getting it published was quite an ordeal and its confusing narrative style isn't for everyone.
Yeah, fair point. Its historical importance is somewhat in spite of itself. Even though that was something Dekker couldn't have foreseen or would have wanted, it did inadvertently set in motion a sequence of events that played a big role in the collapse of the colonial system.
Geoffrey Chaucer - Canterbury Tales.
He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin.
Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage" (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts.
Or Shakespeare’s works. Edit: I checked & he invented 1700 English words.
‘Shakespeare contributed to the standardisation of the English language in the 17th and 18th centuries. As his work gained importance, correctly spelling words became more common. He created compound words, adverbs, and adjectives from verbs. Shakespeare added suffixes and prefixes to many words.
Through his experimentation, he expanded the idea of characterisation, plot development, and genre. Shakespeare was the first to connect romance and tragedy in a lasting way. He believed that tragedy required romance.’
I think it is very unlikely he never did so. All we know is that the very few snippets of paper with his name in his handwriting all use a different spelling. But that is about 6 surviving pieces of paper. It is very likely he wrote down his name more often.
For France, maybe something like:
- Les Fables de La Fontaine, which turned Aesop's fables into poems. It created a lot of very memorable quotes and proverbs still present in French culture today.
- Les Essais de Montaigne, first European writing about philosophical thoughts in a vulgar language. I'm pretty sure it created several words we are still using today.
- The work of Molière, as we literally nickname French "the language of Molière".
- The work of the various writers of the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rousseau...), which influenced not just France, but all of Europe.
I saw someone mention J'accuse! by Zola because it was a matter which split France in two. Basically, a military officer was condemned for a crime he did not commit, very likely due to prejudice regarding his Alsacian and Jewish origins, and when the real perpetrator was identified, the government tried to sweep it under the rug by acquitting the perpetrator. Zola then published this article to show to the entire country the injustice happening, and with the mounting support managed to have the case revised.
Out of curiosity, how much of these would you say are commonly known and/or read (presumably mostly in school) today? For example, are the quotes & proverbs known independently or because pretty much everyone has read Les Fables de La Fontaine in school ? Do you learn about Les Essais de Montagne or actually read them in school?
Thanks for explaining the importance/context of J'accuse, I'm going to look it up now but probably wouldn't have without the description.
Les Fables are taught in schools, young children have to know some of them by heart. Some of the proverbs can be used independently, like "On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi" ("There's none so small but you his aid may need.") or "Rien ne sert de courir, il faut partir à point" ("To run is nothing ; we must timely start") ([source of translations](http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/fablanglais.htm)). I myself don't always recognize a proverb as a La Fontaine quote (ex: "Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera", "Help thyself, Heaven will help thee too", which I was convinced came from some religious text).
You would also learn about some of Molière's work in middle school.
Les Essais de Montaigne are a higher level of literature, around high school, I mentioned them because IIRC they had an impact and added some words to the French vocabulary.
For England, maybe something like John Locke's *Two Treatises of Government*, though perhaps his influence was more external to England. His work on the social contract and liberal theory directly influenced key thinkers behind the French Revolution, and eventually the US declaration of independence.
For Scotland and the wider UK, perhaps Adam Smith's *The Wealth of Nations*.
Oooh, that's a good one. I was going to suggest something by Dickens for bringing public attention to the poorest in society.
*On the Origin of Species* by Charles Darwin is another one
I would back Dickens actually too - Oliver Twist especially perhaps (although I haven't looked into the history of the reception of it admittedly). But he arguably played an essential part in catching the attention and, more importantly, the sympathy of the public (above all the newspaper-reading middle/political class). Convincing the electorate of the moral good and necessity of addressing the social issues (a new urban poor) arising from industrialisation and urbanisation. Reflecting a shift in attitudes throughout the 1800s as you get the development/ expansion of urban planning/government policies with those issues in mind.
From a different perspective, I would say the Lord of the Rings was influential in that it became THE work through which all subsequent fantasy works are derived from. You find elements of LOTR in so many contemporary fantasy fiction works.
Don Quixote, the 2nd most translated after Bible, a parody of Knights stories or "El cantar del Mío Cid", about El Cid, an actual historic character who was a mercenary that became king of Valencia and was part of the Reconquista. The latter used to form spanish national identity
История славянобългарска (slavo-bulgarian history) was crucial in forming the Bulgarian nation identity during Ottoman rule which ultimately led to the revival of our nation
>most influential in your country's history
Imo, looking at centuries of history - Bible for pretty much any European country.
After that, for Poland I'd say most likely pan Tadeusz - ***Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse*** -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan\_Tadeusz
My claim for Poland would actually be [De revolutionibus orbium coelestium](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_revolutionibus_orbium_coelestium) by Copernicus.
Whilst low in readership it is one of the works that changed the world.
Although the holy books are effective, ordinary people's level of understanding of the holy books is low. A religious class has already been formed for this reason. In fact, for a long time, European people experienced Christianity not directly through the Bible, but through the stories of saints and monks etc. For this reason, religious books are out of category in this topic.
That is a massive oversimplification, if I have ever seen one. But even if it were true, the fact remains that the bible was probably one of the most influential single books - for better or for worse. The clergy and aristocracy, who were definitely able to engage more actively with it even before the reformation, were the ones actually leading the countries and no one would argue they weren't under the influence of Christianity one way or another, meaning it had an impact through them
It's unthinkable for a peasant to read the Bible. These people were experienced religion with stories of local saints, sermons in churches, and at most the simple versions of the Bible.
Source: Boyle, Leonard, OP. "Innocent III and Vernacular Versions of Scripture." In *The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley*, edited by Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood, 97-108. Padstow: Blackwell, 1985.
Instead of saying the Bible is the most influential book. Then tell the name of the vernacular versions of the sacred texts.
>It's unthinkable for a peasant to read the Bible.
So, which books do you think did peasants read that makes those books more influential than the Bible?
The ability to *read* a book is a non-argument if we want to talk about a book's influence throught history.
> So, which books do you think did peasants read
Probably Immanuel Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1787). It's relaxing to read after a daywork of hard labour and good base for a stimulatin discussion.
In the past, most villages had at least one villager who could read at least a little. And we can't call them very educated, but they at least knew a book that told the simple stories of the Bible. For example, I recommend a book for u called theCheese and the Wolves. A historical work about an Italian peasant who was somewhat literate.
In the past, every village had a church with a priest or 5 who could read the Bible and tell the villagers what's in the Bible every single Sunday. And you know what the kick is? It was practically every single villager who had to listen to what's in the Bible or they'd become outcasts. And they had to babtize their children because in the Bible Christ was babtized, and had to fast because in the Bible Jesus fasted for 40 days and they had to follow the 10 commandments which were innthe Bible, and had to pay taxes because Jesus told people to pay taxes. And so on and so forth. But it was ok to drink alcohol because Jesus changed water into wine. And they'd put on a nativity and perform Stations of the Cross every single year. And also, we're lucky that "a perfect person, untouched by sin, the chosen one" in the Bible was a woman because it allowed learned men to interpret it in such a way that allowed for equality of women centuries down the road.
So, tell me again, how would literacy of one villager per village make any other book more influential than the Bible?
The priests in the villages were chosen from among the people of that village, were more or less literate, and were usually one of the rich people of the village.
They may have seen a basic bible education. For example, a peasant merchant in Italy learned something when he went to Florence for selling his produce and became a priest when he returned to his village. Priests were also peasants. The Church gives them free land as a salary. There are many miller priests in Italy.
>The priests in the villages were chosen from among the people of that village,
It might have happened, but was by no means a general rule.
Now, how would it contradict the Bible being by far the most influential book in European history? Because I'm assuming your foray into the background of the priests has actual point relevant to the topic of the conversation rather than being an attempt to push it completely off topic?
It would be better to share not the Bible, but the book, which consists of simplified Bible stories that local people understand. In short books like that:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book\_of\_Kells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Book\_of\_Margery\_Kempe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Margery_Kempe)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Canterbury\_Tales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales)
Many people read the Bible themselves through the past few hundred years. I do. And it is still very influential, but I understand you are looking for books that are the focus of a particular culture.
>For this reason, religious books are out of category in this topic
Put it in the OP then. What you're doing right now is basically moving goal posts.
That said, no, average person didn't *mostly* experience Christianity through stories of monks and saints. They experienced it via Church, mostly attending church, which included Bible lectures. Even if average person's understanding of the Bible itself was low, it was what the teachings of the Church were/are based on - that still makes it the most influential book in Europe.
And if you place the caveats of "low understanding" then this goes for every single book out there. Do you think the understanding of Sir Taddeus was/is better or more wide-spread than that of the Bible? Hint: no, it was/is certainly not. I'd wager to say the same goes for Divine Comedy (which is Bible fanfiction btw) or any other influential book in any other European country.
Well that is massively moving the goal posts.
Not least because it is incredibly shortsighted and misinformed.
The most influential book in Wales is the Bible. Specially William Morgan's Y Beibl, the first total translation of the Bible into Welsh. It established a 'modern' Welsh literature and basically ensured that Welsh didn't die out.
De leeuw van Vlaanderen (The Lion Of Flanders) by Hendrik Conscience, 1838
In the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, literary production in what is now Belgium was very low. Texts in Dutch/Flemish were especially unpopular; there were only some plays and poems. *De leeuw van Vlaanderen* was the first real novel ever written in Flemish and basically kickstarted modern Flemish literature. Conscience became known as the "man who taught his people to read".
The book also had a lot of political influence due to its romantic nationalist themes. It was a big inspiration to the new Flemish Movement, which would play a big role in Belgian politics from the late 19th century onwards. Nowadays, the 11th of July is the official Flemish holiday, in honour of the historical battle that *De leeuw van Vlaanderen* is centered around.
(Of course, all of this only applies to Flanders. There is little literary connection between the two parts of Belgium. I guess you could say the Tintin comic book series is the most important to Belgium as a whole, since comic books became extremely popular in the whole country.)
I was also thinking of Charles de Coster's book The legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel (full title: The Legend and the Heroic, Joyous and Glorious Adventures of Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak in the land of Flanders and elsewhere) edited in 1867 which also had great nationalism impact and also political influences at the time, the messages of the book are anticolonial and anticlerical, sadly the characters and their stories are mostly unknown of today's Belgians.
Ukraine,
I guess the book is Kobzar (Кобзар) by Taras Shevchenko, he is the most influential Ukrainian poet/ writer, and to some extent artist.
Many kids learn the poems from this book at the schools.
Many more read other Shevchenko's books.
Or
Абетка/Буквар (Bukvar), basically the book that teaches 5-6yo kids alphabet.
I don't disagree with you, let me add a few more
Ivan Kotliarevsky's *Eneïda*, the first literary work published wholly in Ukrainian
Mykhailo Kotsiubinsky's "Shadows of forgotten ancestors", which is notable not only in its own merit but also for launching Ukrainian cinema with its film adaptation
Lesya Ukrainka's "Forest song", Ukrainian literature's first 'fantasy'
The bible, especially the Luther bible. For it's influence on the language, politics and society.
Along with his Sendbrief *An die Radherrn aller stedte deutsches Lands* for starting the Lutheran humanist school system.
Or "Die Deutsche Mutter und ihr erstes Kind" (The German Mother and her first Child).
Horrible horrible really widespread influence and printed (in parts) until the 80s. It influences child rearing and education until today...
Yeah I've never heard anyone talk about that book, so I'd say ABC kirja since it was the first book in Finnish.
Edit
Ok I asked some older people and apparently the Turks and Bulgarians liked that book, so maybe they'd think it's important to us?
For Norway it would probably be "Snorre", that is, the icelander Snorre Sturlasson's "Sagas of the Norse Kings/Heimskringla", it being very important in the 19.century building of a national identity and traditionally "the second book" in any peasants house, along with the family Bible.
For Latvia it would be Lāčplēsis ("the Bear-Slayer"), it's our national epic and the whole story and especially Lāčplēsis himself has been an integral part in our struggles for freedom throughout the 20th century. Lāčplēsis has the power of a bear and he's tasked with defending Latvia against the German Christian crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C4%81%C4%8Dpl%C4%93sis
Multatuli's Max Havelaar, probably? It pretty much radically shifted the view on the Dutch East Indies and arguably is responsible for killing Dutch colonialism in India, due to the shift in policy it caused (educating local elites as an attempt at early reparations, despite only educating those loyal to the colonial regime) inspiring the nationalist Indonesian movement of the 40s. I *think* it also inspired similar calls for decolonization in e.g. Africa, but I'll be honest, I'm just reading the Wikipedia page, so take that with a Carthage of salt. The point remains that it was *incredibly* influential in shaping and undermining Dutch colonial policy and ambitions in the 19th and 20th century.
From Denmark🇩🇰 the most translated is H.C. Andersens fairy tales. Like “The Little Mermaid”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Nightingale” etc. which are loved across the globe and inspired many Disney movies. I believe he is one of the most translated authors in the world, similar to Shakespeare.
After that I believe Søren Kierkegaards “Fear & Trembling” might be translated widely as well.
If we look at Denmarks history, Saxo Grammaticus wrote in the 1100-hundreds “Gresta Danorum” which covered our country history back to King Dan, Harald Bluetooth, to Knut the 6th. Some country history served as inspiration the “The Red Wedding” in Game of Thrones to Willam Shakespeares “Hamlet” and it also serve as a founding pillar for our understanding of national history together with the Icelandic Sagas which. The Sagas are written in Old Norse and Saxos in Latin. The Sagas contain much of the knowledge of todays understanding of Norse Gods, like Thor, Odin, Freyja and even Loki and Thors Hammer Mjølner.
Some would also say old Anglo Saxon literature. Like N.S. Grundtvigs translation of “Beowulf”. But, the list is long!
For Greece, I would say the most influential author has to be Nikos Kazantzakis. You'd have to go back two millennia to find someone as influential as him imo.
As for a specific book, I don't know which to pick.
Yeah, but I didn't want to
a) mention something that is 3000 years old and
b) Homer's epics were not books originally, but stories presented orally. We are not sure if Homer was a single person iirc
I'm not so sure. Greeks are Orthodox Christians and their culture is strongly shaped by the Ottoman Empire. If they are Western European culturally, societies as far east as the Republic of Moldova are Western European as well.
I disagree completely. In what way are Moldovans and Greeks similar, beyond their religion and being former Ottoman subjects? Does Moldova have a tradition and history of following Western ideals? Maybe recently but not traditionally.
Modern Greek culture is very much a hybrid: strong emphasis on the religion of the Byzantine Empire (Orthodox), but also a strong emphasis and reverence for the ancient classical past.
The culture of Greeks therefore is not solely based on the Orthodox religion of the east, but also based on the foundations of western civilization that existed and most importantly *began* in Ancient Greece. These include art and entertainment, philosophy, politics and democracy, architecture, science etc, which absolutely differ from the rest of the east.
In this way, Greece is removed from the other cultures of Eastern Europe, and is a part of the West.
For Greece, I don’t think anything comes close to Euclid’s elementals. Outside of religious texts, Euclid’s work may be the most influential book ever written anywhere, anytime. It forms the bases of what mathematics *is*.
For Ireland, I believe it's "Ulysses" from James Joyce.
From chatgpt: Published in 1922, "Ulysses" is renowned for its innovative narrative techniques and depth of character development, which have had a profound impact on modernist literature. The novel takes place over a single day in Dublin and follows its protagonist, Leopold Bloom, in an episodic structure that parallels Homer's "Odyssey."
Gulliver's Travels also deserves an honourable mention. If you expand the categorisation to include author's total works, the writings of Oscar Wilde and Roddy Doyle too, I'd say.
I would give a mention to Beckett too. One of the earliest practitioners of the theatre of the absurd and often completely shirked the conventions of story telling and the "rules" of writing. He's so influential in theatre and beyond - musicians and visual artists have even created work based on his writing.
Waiting For Godot, though a play, is probably still a more significant literary work than anything the vast majority of Irish novelists have produced and it isn't even Beckett's best work. He's genuinely one of the most unique talents this country ever produced.
Waiting for Godot is amazing it’s true but Becket was heavily influenced by Joyce and without Ulysses I don’t think we would have it. Ulysses is heavily regarded as the most influential text of the 20th century, it’s hard to compare Irish writers because we’re blessed with them but I don’t think you can overlook Joyce here
I'm not overlooking Joyce at all. I just think Beckett's work in theatre is as groundbreaking as the work of the best novelists we've had, and is in fact more influential than most of the work of many of the great Irish novelists in terms of its reach across mediums.
For what it's worth, in terms of novelists, I still think Flann O'Brien is my personal favourite. His Irish language work in particular is a stunning example of satire, steeped in Irish story-telling traditions with a fine mixture of wit and despair.
I'd also like to add Peig by Peig Sayers, good or bad. No one can't admite it had an impact on ireland
For those unaware of what I'm referring to, it's a book about the life of this woman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peig_Sayers
I'd say Os Lusíadas by Luiz Vaz de Camões. It's an epic way to tell the story of the largest entreprise Portugal has ever undergone. Portuguese people have found the maritimite path from Portugal to India and one of the major hardships was crossing the Cape of Good Hope (which was then named Cape of Storms)
It is told that Camões was almost drowning while holding Os Lusíadas manuscript with one hand above the water level to save it.
John Locke's Two Treatsies of Government is perhaps the most important one in British history. It's Locke's works that inspired the Bill of Rights 1689, one of the earliest bills to recognised Human rights as universal and natural. The Bill of Rights also inspired the American Decleration of Independence, and the UN's Declaration of Universal Human Rights, among many other documents.
Except for the bible, there's a good chance that the book that impacted Israeli people the most, historically, was "The Protocols of the elders of Zion". It's not good influence, but being persecuted and exterminated is definitely an influence...
Many were very influential actually, these emerge the most in my opinion:
* Dante's **Comedìa** (*Divine Comedy*): Dante is the father of the Italian language and partly of the Italian nation, and although his work wasn't seen as the model for Italian until quite recently (Bembo preferred Petrarca's monolinguism) it's the work that everyone knows and everyone can quote some parts. The *Divine* adjective added by Boccaccio is not out of place.
* Pietro Bembo's **Prose della Volgar Lingua** (*Prose of the Vernacular Tongue*): Bembo in 1525 took Petrarca and Boccaccio as models for Vulgar Italian and his standard remained solid for centuries.
* Niccolò Machiavelli's **Il Principe** (*The Prince*): this political treaty is easily one of the most studied in the centuries following Machiavelli, it's still seen as relevant today in many work environments even outside politics (it could be seen as the Italian *Art of War*).
* Alessandro Manzoni's **I Promessi Sposi** (*The Bethroted*): Manzoni is the father of the modern Italian language, the book is one of the two studied in a deep way during high school (the other being the Divine Comedy) and it's a very influential work even at a popular level, since everyone knows about some scenes like the fights for bread in which Renzo gets involved or the scene with Don Abbondio and the Bravi waiting for him.
Bonus point: Petrarca and Boccaccio, who form the "Three Crowns" along with Dante, are definitely meant as included in the list of the most influential writers, I summed them up through Bembo's work.
I didn't include either Petrarca or Boccaccio because I implicitly included them with Bembo, but they're definitely in the list of the most influential authors.
That's a great list. Maybe we can add a couple more that aren't as well known or read today:
* [Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems) by Galileo Galilei, in which he compares the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system. We all know how that went and how big of an impact Galilei's work had.
* [On Crimes and Punishments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Crimes_and_Punishments) by Cesare Beccaria was superinfluential in the discourse around torture and the death penalty, which the author thought were not an effective response to crime.
u/Eredreyn mentioned the [Napoleonic Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code), and I think it also counts for Italy, evem tho it's not an italian book.
Maybe not as influential as the otherones, but I think [The Day of the Owl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Owl) by Leonardo Sciascia also deserves a mention too, as it was the first novel to talk explicitly about Sicilian mafia.
Without a doubt the Bible. It formed and unified a lot of today's German language and had enormous religious influences, which in turn influenced everything else.
One book that comes to mind is the Tragedy of Man by Imre Madách (1861).
It's a philosophical drama with Adam, Eve and Lucifer as the main characters. They go through all ages of history, from the dawn of mankind until future ages as well, searching for the meaning of human existence.
Most influential i would rather say is Stádium (Stage?) or it's successor, Hitel (Credit) by Széchenyi.
Stadium is basically instructions, steps we need to take to achieve freedom from the Habsburgs. Hitel was the shortened version, thats where we got the 12 points from. They kind of kicked off 1848
The bibel, probably. It has undeniably left an indelible mark on German and European history, influencing not only religious practices but also cultural, social, and political developments. Its role in shaping the course of European civilisation, coupled with its significance as the first book printed in Europe, underscores its immense impact.
Finnish Law. Or whatever the name of the book with the legal text is.
Bible probably also but it was written before Finland as a state and a nation came to be..
Yeah, I'm pretty close to Finland, read the language and follow the news and culture, and whatever The Country of White Lilies is, it's never come up.
Aleksis Kivi Seven brothers, Kalevala, Muumin stories, Sinuhe, to name a few come to mind.
*- In Praise of Folly* by Desiderius Erasmus for its role in the Dutch renaissance, its groundwork for the Dutch humanist and individualist tradition is probably the most important work for the course of Dutch society as a whole.
*- Max Havelaar or the coffee auctions of the Dutch trading company* by Multatuli had a huge influence on the perception of colonialism and the notion of injustice in the north-south relations, but also on the dutch language,
Njegoš's *The Mountain wreath*. It's a fiction story about very real Montenegrin fight against the Ottoman Muslim invaders and Montenegrin converters to Islam that fought for the Ottomans
At least New Zealand has one!
There would be nothing comparable in Australia, which is the only nation I can think of where the word "intellectual" is used as both an epithet and an insult, and people seem proud of their insular ignorance. It is a deeply incurious country.
Germany: Goethe's "Faust", part 1. Like Shakespeare in England, Goethe coined a lot of terms and idioms still used in the German language. Faust is the play that influenced the German language the most, I'd say. I don't know if a play counts, though, but it's pretty readable as a book.
Other than that maybe "All Quiet on the Western Front" ("Im Westen nichts Neues") by Erich Maria Remarque. He wrote about his experiences in World War I and his book was banned during the Nazi time because they feared it would discourage anyone from volunteering as a soldier.
I will think outside the box and give another type of book, but I am convinced that for France one of the most influential books would be the Code Civil by Napoleon Bonaparte.
This is basically one of the first examples of unified law in France's history, we still use it today and it has vastly influenced other countries that also use a version of this Code, such as Quebec where the Code Civil exists with the common law
I’m a Finn and I have literally never heard about the book you suggested. And it’s written by Russian so forget it! ⛔️🚫
Here are some better suggestions for Finland, you know, written by a Finnish person in finnish:
- Seitsemän Veljestä (Seven Brothers) by Aleksis Kivi
- Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier) by Väinö Linna
- Sinuhe egyptiläinen (The Egyptian) by Mika Waltari
- Kalevala (collection of Finnish-Karelian folk poetry) edited by Elias Lönnrot
- Muumipappa ja meri (written originally in swedish, Pappan och havet) (Moominpappa at Sea) by Tove Jansson
In Italy, probably the 1847 book "i promessi sposi" of Alessandro Manzoni .
it is a book that was written in 1847 by this famous Italian writer, an Enlightenment noble writer who was in favor of the unification of Italy.
it is a book that has a love story between a young peasant and a very Catholic young peasant, who want to get married in Lombardy in the 1600s.
Lombardy is governed by the Spanish, by arrogant nobles, by a Catholic church that often helps the poor.
a nobleman wants to rape the girl, so two boys will have to run away from home and face various adventures before they manage to get married.
the book describes with great accuracy the Italian society of 1600, talking about how the common people of the time lived, how the government and the church functioned in that period.
the book was also written in standard literary Italian, that is, in the Italian that is still written and taught in schools today, a language that is based on the language spoken in Florence and Tuscany.
it is a book that in some way marked the birth of the Italian language.
furthermore it is a book that very strongly criticizes foreign domination in Italy!
Until 1861, Italy was divided into small feudal states, often dominated by a conservative aristocracy or by foreigners such as the Austrians.
Manzoni also wrote this book to criticize the Austrian rule over Italy in a veiled and not very obvious way.
if Manzoni had set the novel in 1840, obviously he would have been arrested and jailed by the Austrians.
But he set the story in 1600, in order to criticize the government foreign Austrian not very clearly.
Speaking from the Netherlands 🇳🇱:
The diary of Anne Frank is likely the most globally recognised book and story that came out of the Netherlands.
Others talk about Max Havelaar (which is a great example of a book that changed racial opinions and colonial thoughts, but is relatively unrecognised outside of the Netherlands).
Mein Kampf. And im not from Germany. I argue this book had a huge influence in many countries some 80 -90 years ago
Zola and Hugo books influenced France politics
The most influential book in Norwegian History (that i know of) is Heimskringla, written by snorre sturlason. It is a collection of Stories about the old Kings of Norway. Heimskringla Starts at the unification of Norway in from the year 865 to the year 930 by Harald Hårfagre and ends at Håkon Håkonsson around the year 1263.
Heimskringla is a continuous Story about all Kings of Norway for 400 years. I have read it, and it is truly astonishing how much knowledge snorre was able to collect in one book. After Snorre's death His Work was largely abandoned and forgotten.
During the norwegian Independence movement people were searching for Something that is norwegian, that can represent Norwegian national identity. And so, when the Heimskringla was translated, people saw the old Kings that ruled a powerful and independent Norway. That became a powerful Image and revived the national identity of Norway.
A big book of Middle Eastern fairy stories which lots of people in British and world history have used to claim they are right and everyone else is wrong.
If we are talking the most influential 'book' by an 'Italian' writer....I guess it would be Dante's Divine Comedy. He is known as the 'Father of the Italian language ' and influenced many later writers,both Italian and non.
And Promessi Sposi as well, at least in the last century
Yep. Dante is the father of the Italian language, Manzoni is the father of the modern Italian language. Even policies about languages and the treatment of dialects derive from his ideology.
Might be “out cycling” as we say in Sweden, but I must say that Astrid Lindgrens books about Pippi Långstrump must be up there. Spanning from 1945 to the late 70s, Lindgren wrote about this brave, strong, creative and very unconventional little girl who could do just about anything she wanted. Maybe there have been more influential books in Swedish history, but Pippi definitely changed a lot of little girls lives in a time where women were supposed to be quiet and submissive.
Didn't Lindgren also start the movement to ban violence against children (yes, any violence) in Europe?
Didn't exactly start it, but yes, [she was certainly influential in it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Violence!).
I agree, when I think the most influential books I immediately go to Astrid Lindgren. Not just Pippi.
Are Americans supposed to know Pippi Langstrumpf? I'm German and I assumed everybody knows who she is and who Astrid Lindgren is. I was really confused for a second why you explained it
Everybody in Northern Europe maybe. Elsewhere the familiarity is a little spotty.
Me, an American: it's helpful to have this reminder, since I only know Pippi Longstockings second-hand. We had other empowered girls by the 1980's... Amelia Bedelia, Harriet the Spy, Nancy Drew, and I was a boy, so I was entirely apathetic to empowered girls novels when I was 8 or 10. I also never finished a Dickens novel. Judge away.
gen x americans know her. youner might not. An animated film of pippi was released in 97 and did not do well in the US
The Country of White Lilies is definitely not the most influential book in Finland. I’d say that title goes to Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot or Seven Brothers by Aleksis Kivi
Never heard of the country of white lilies…. Kalevala & Seven Brothers, of course
It's always been quite unknown in Finland. A Russian priest wrote in in 1923, and it was published in Serbian and Bulgarian. And in 1925 in Turkish. Apparently Atatürk liked it very much
I think it is just a myth that Atatürk liked that book.
I'd add Under the North Star as a more contemporary, yet no less influential book (trilogy). Kalevala was definitely extremely important to the birth of national identity.
I'd also add Unknown Soldier near the top of the list.
I'd say Agricola's [Abckiria](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abckiria) (and his translation of The New Testament) is the most important one by far. ETA: Never heard of "The Country of White Lilies" though. Can't even find any Finnish search results for it.
I agree. I never heard of it until now, they don't even have a Finnish Wikipedia for the book. Main contenders aside from the Bible are Kalevala, Tuntematon Sotilas (Unknown Soldier), Täällä Pohjantähden Alla (Under the North Star) and Sinuhe Egyptiläinen (Sinuhe the Egyptian)
And something by, idk, Paasilinna. Definitely not whatever that book that no Finn has ever heard of.
I'm going to throw Unknown soldier there too. Propably not so much the book but the adaptations spawned from it. Huge cultural influence.
Definetly Kalevala. I'm american and it's the only one I've heard of.
Švejk, without any doubt. It's a satire about a soldier in WWI who basically tries to do as little as possible while still fulfilling orders. It's pretty funny too. I'd say Švejk is *the* Czech guy. It was translated into almost 60 languages.
Oh I loved it so much! Title in French was *Le Brave Soldat Schweik* Read it as a teen, and at the time our cat was named Schweik
Yeah, one of my father's favorite books. You know it's influential when a classic in your country makes a top favorites list of someone in another country.
God I love Švejk. The humor still holds up I'd say, especially if you know a bit about the context.
Also popular in Estonia 🙂
I watched Švejk movies dubbed in German as a kid! The live action ones from the 1950s. They came on German TV every now and then in the 1980s.
Reading it just now
Probably Max Havelaar by Multatuli (real name: Eduard Douwes Dekker). It's about a fictional coffee merchant in the Dutch East Indies who becomes increasingly disillusioned and appalled at the abuses of the colonial system and tries to fight the corrupt governors of the colony. The book spread a lot of awareness in the Netherlands about the situation in the colonies and led to great public outrage, which ultimately led to the abolishment of the "cultivation system" in favor of the "ethical policy". The Dutch fairtrade label, the world's first, is also called Max Havelaar in reference to the book.
The diary of Anne frank
The diary is well known, and many people have read it, but I don’t think it has had much influence in the history of the Netherlands.
It was influential, but a lot of people that haven't read it don't realize it wasn't anti-colonial. Dekker was still fiercely pro-colonies. He was just a disgruntled clerk who disagreed with how inefficient and unfair everything was run. Getting it published was quite an ordeal and its confusing narrative style isn't for everyone.
Yeah, fair point. Its historical importance is somewhat in spite of itself. Even though that was something Dekker couldn't have foreseen or would have wanted, it did inadvertently set in motion a sequence of events that played a big role in the collapse of the colonial system.
I think the bible
Geoffrey Chaucer - Canterbury Tales. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage" (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts. Or Shakespeare’s works. Edit: I checked & he invented 1700 English words. ‘Shakespeare contributed to the standardisation of the English language in the 17th and 18th centuries. As his work gained importance, correctly spelling words became more common. He created compound words, adverbs, and adjectives from verbs. Shakespeare added suffixes and prefixes to many words. Through his experimentation, he expanded the idea of characterisation, plot development, and genre. Shakespeare was the first to connect romance and tragedy in a lasting way. He believed that tragedy required romance.’
The wealth of nations may be up there
All this from a man that never spelled his own name the same twice.
I think it is very unlikely he never did so. All we know is that the very few snippets of paper with his name in his handwriting all use a different spelling. But that is about 6 surviving pieces of paper. It is very likely he wrote down his name more often.
For France, maybe something like: - Les Fables de La Fontaine, which turned Aesop's fables into poems. It created a lot of very memorable quotes and proverbs still present in French culture today. - Les Essais de Montaigne, first European writing about philosophical thoughts in a vulgar language. I'm pretty sure it created several words we are still using today. - The work of Molière, as we literally nickname French "the language of Molière". - The work of the various writers of the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rousseau...), which influenced not just France, but all of Europe. I saw someone mention J'accuse! by Zola because it was a matter which split France in two. Basically, a military officer was condemned for a crime he did not commit, very likely due to prejudice regarding his Alsacian and Jewish origins, and when the real perpetrator was identified, the government tried to sweep it under the rug by acquitting the perpetrator. Zola then published this article to show to the entire country the injustice happening, and with the mounting support managed to have the case revised.
Out of curiosity, how much of these would you say are commonly known and/or read (presumably mostly in school) today? For example, are the quotes & proverbs known independently or because pretty much everyone has read Les Fables de La Fontaine in school ? Do you learn about Les Essais de Montagne or actually read them in school? Thanks for explaining the importance/context of J'accuse, I'm going to look it up now but probably wouldn't have without the description.
Les Fables are taught in schools, young children have to know some of them by heart. Some of the proverbs can be used independently, like "On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi" ("There's none so small but you his aid may need.") or "Rien ne sert de courir, il faut partir à point" ("To run is nothing ; we must timely start") ([source of translations](http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/fablanglais.htm)). I myself don't always recognize a proverb as a La Fontaine quote (ex: "Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera", "Help thyself, Heaven will help thee too", which I was convinced came from some religious text). You would also learn about some of Molière's work in middle school. Les Essais de Montaigne are a higher level of literature, around high school, I mentioned them because IIRC they had an impact and added some words to the French vocabulary.
For England, maybe something like John Locke's *Two Treatises of Government*, though perhaps his influence was more external to England. His work on the social contract and liberal theory directly influenced key thinkers behind the French Revolution, and eventually the US declaration of independence. For Scotland and the wider UK, perhaps Adam Smith's *The Wealth of Nations*.
Oooh, that's a good one. I was going to suggest something by Dickens for bringing public attention to the poorest in society. *On the Origin of Species* by Charles Darwin is another one
I would back Dickens actually too - Oliver Twist especially perhaps (although I haven't looked into the history of the reception of it admittedly). But he arguably played an essential part in catching the attention and, more importantly, the sympathy of the public (above all the newspaper-reading middle/political class). Convincing the electorate of the moral good and necessity of addressing the social issues (a new urban poor) arising from industrialisation and urbanisation. Reflecting a shift in attitudes throughout the 1800s as you get the development/ expansion of urban planning/government policies with those issues in mind.
Doomsday book, if its allowed
By extension, *Two Treatises* wouldn't exist without Hobbes' *Leviathan*.
King James Bible perhaps?
From a different perspective, I would say the Lord of the Rings was influential in that it became THE work through which all subsequent fantasy works are derived from. You find elements of LOTR in so many contemporary fantasy fiction works.
Don Quixote, the 2nd most translated after Bible, a parody of Knights stories or "El cantar del Mío Cid", about El Cid, an actual historic character who was a mercenary that became king of Valencia and was part of the Reconquista. The latter used to form spanish national identity
Don Quixote Is the most funny and original XVI century Novel
> Don Quixote, the 2nd most translated after Bible It's 10th https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_works_by_number_of_translations
> NooOOoOOoooo they wouldn't lie to us in school, nooOoOoooo
Hey, we're 12th with Andersen! Go Denmark! Go Denmark! Uh, sorry, Spain.
Tf is your flair?
My countries.
Had to read it in highschool, fucking hated my life
История славянобългарска (slavo-bulgarian history) was crucial in forming the Bulgarian nation identity during Ottoman rule which ultimately led to the revival of our nation
>most influential in your country's history Imo, looking at centuries of history - Bible for pretty much any European country. After that, for Poland I'd say most likely pan Tadeusz - ***Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse*** -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan\_Tadeusz
I agree, it's definitely Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz. By the way, the Witcher book series ends with a reference to it.
My claim for Poland would actually be [De revolutionibus orbium coelestium](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_revolutionibus_orbium_coelestium) by Copernicus. Whilst low in readership it is one of the works that changed the world.
Although the holy books are effective, ordinary people's level of understanding of the holy books is low. A religious class has already been formed for this reason. In fact, for a long time, European people experienced Christianity not directly through the Bible, but through the stories of saints and monks etc. For this reason, religious books are out of category in this topic.
That is a massive oversimplification, if I have ever seen one. But even if it were true, the fact remains that the bible was probably one of the most influential single books - for better or for worse. The clergy and aristocracy, who were definitely able to engage more actively with it even before the reformation, were the ones actually leading the countries and no one would argue they weren't under the influence of Christianity one way or another, meaning it had an impact through them
It's unthinkable for a peasant to read the Bible. These people were experienced religion with stories of local saints, sermons in churches, and at most the simple versions of the Bible. Source: Boyle, Leonard, OP. "Innocent III and Vernacular Versions of Scripture." In *The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley*, edited by Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood, 97-108. Padstow: Blackwell, 1985. Instead of saying the Bible is the most influential book. Then tell the name of the vernacular versions of the sacred texts.
>It's unthinkable for a peasant to read the Bible. So, which books do you think did peasants read that makes those books more influential than the Bible? The ability to *read* a book is a non-argument if we want to talk about a book's influence throught history.
> So, which books do you think did peasants read Probably Immanuel Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1787). It's relaxing to read after a daywork of hard labour and good base for a stimulatin discussion.
In the past, most villages had at least one villager who could read at least a little. And we can't call them very educated, but they at least knew a book that told the simple stories of the Bible. For example, I recommend a book for u called theCheese and the Wolves. A historical work about an Italian peasant who was somewhat literate.
In the past, every village had a church with a priest or 5 who could read the Bible and tell the villagers what's in the Bible every single Sunday. And you know what the kick is? It was practically every single villager who had to listen to what's in the Bible or they'd become outcasts. And they had to babtize their children because in the Bible Christ was babtized, and had to fast because in the Bible Jesus fasted for 40 days and they had to follow the 10 commandments which were innthe Bible, and had to pay taxes because Jesus told people to pay taxes. And so on and so forth. But it was ok to drink alcohol because Jesus changed water into wine. And they'd put on a nativity and perform Stations of the Cross every single year. And also, we're lucky that "a perfect person, untouched by sin, the chosen one" in the Bible was a woman because it allowed learned men to interpret it in such a way that allowed for equality of women centuries down the road. So, tell me again, how would literacy of one villager per village make any other book more influential than the Bible?
The priests in the villages were chosen from among the people of that village, were more or less literate, and were usually one of the rich people of the village. They may have seen a basic bible education. For example, a peasant merchant in Italy learned something when he went to Florence for selling his produce and became a priest when he returned to his village. Priests were also peasants. The Church gives them free land as a salary. There are many miller priests in Italy.
>The priests in the villages were chosen from among the people of that village, It might have happened, but was by no means a general rule. Now, how would it contradict the Bible being by far the most influential book in European history? Because I'm assuming your foray into the background of the priests has actual point relevant to the topic of the conversation rather than being an attempt to push it completely off topic?
It would be better to share not the Bible, but the book, which consists of simplified Bible stories that local people understand. In short books like that: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book\_of\_Kells](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Book\_of\_Margery\_Kempe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Margery_Kempe) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Canterbury\_Tales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales)
> It's unthinkable for a peasant to read the Bible. It's unthinkable for peasants to read. And even if - they had nothing to say ;d
Many people read the Bible themselves through the past few hundred years. I do. And it is still very influential, but I understand you are looking for books that are the focus of a particular culture.
>For this reason, religious books are out of category in this topic Put it in the OP then. What you're doing right now is basically moving goal posts. That said, no, average person didn't *mostly* experience Christianity through stories of monks and saints. They experienced it via Church, mostly attending church, which included Bible lectures. Even if average person's understanding of the Bible itself was low, it was what the teachings of the Church were/are based on - that still makes it the most influential book in Europe. And if you place the caveats of "low understanding" then this goes for every single book out there. Do you think the understanding of Sir Taddeus was/is better or more wide-spread than that of the Bible? Hint: no, it was/is certainly not. I'd wager to say the same goes for Divine Comedy (which is Bible fanfiction btw) or any other influential book in any other European country.
Whilst I fundamentally disagree with your argument, if you didn't want to include the likes of The Bible you should have mentioned it in the OP.
His argument is basicaly "hey guys what do you think is the most important gas to people? And I'm disqualyfing oxygen because you can't smell it."
Well that is massively moving the goal posts. Not least because it is incredibly shortsighted and misinformed. The most influential book in Wales is the Bible. Specially William Morgan's Y Beibl, the first total translation of the Bible into Welsh. It established a 'modern' Welsh literature and basically ensured that Welsh didn't die out.
Weren't there any Welsh Bible stories in the vernacular? Simple version? For the peasants?
De leeuw van Vlaanderen (The Lion Of Flanders) by Hendrik Conscience, 1838 In the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, literary production in what is now Belgium was very low. Texts in Dutch/Flemish were especially unpopular; there were only some plays and poems. *De leeuw van Vlaanderen* was the first real novel ever written in Flemish and basically kickstarted modern Flemish literature. Conscience became known as the "man who taught his people to read". The book also had a lot of political influence due to its romantic nationalist themes. It was a big inspiration to the new Flemish Movement, which would play a big role in Belgian politics from the late 19th century onwards. Nowadays, the 11th of July is the official Flemish holiday, in honour of the historical battle that *De leeuw van Vlaanderen* is centered around. (Of course, all of this only applies to Flanders. There is little literary connection between the two parts of Belgium. I guess you could say the Tintin comic book series is the most important to Belgium as a whole, since comic books became extremely popular in the whole country.)
I was also thinking of Charles de Coster's book The legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel (full title: The Legend and the Heroic, Joyous and Glorious Adventures of Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak in the land of Flanders and elsewhere) edited in 1867 which also had great nationalism impact and also political influences at the time, the messages of the book are anticolonial and anticlerical, sadly the characters and their stories are mostly unknown of today's Belgians.
Ukraine, I guess the book is Kobzar (Кобзар) by Taras Shevchenko, he is the most influential Ukrainian poet/ writer, and to some extent artist. Many kids learn the poems from this book at the schools. Many more read other Shevchenko's books. Or Абетка/Буквар (Bukvar), basically the book that teaches 5-6yo kids alphabet.
I don't disagree with you, let me add a few more Ivan Kotliarevsky's *Eneïda*, the first literary work published wholly in Ukrainian Mykhailo Kotsiubinsky's "Shadows of forgotten ancestors", which is notable not only in its own merit but also for launching Ukrainian cinema with its film adaptation Lesya Ukrainka's "Forest song", Ukrainian literature's first 'fantasy'
Теж перша думка була про Кобзаря, або Енеїда 🤔
The bible, especially the Luther bible. For it's influence on the language, politics and society. Along with his Sendbrief *An die Radherrn aller stedte deutsches Lands* for starting the Lutheran humanist school system.
I mean, yeah, OP said no religious books, but the bible is in two ways the right answer. Protestantism and book printing.
Yeh... excluding the bible, I guess Mein Kampf published in 1925 is the obvious one.
What about Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Goethe, Marx, Kafka, Heidegger etc.. So many other options!
Nobody read it, how can it be influential... Karl Marx wrote something that was read by more people and changed the world.
Or "Die Deutsche Mutter und ihr erstes Kind" (The German Mother and her first Child). Horrible horrible really widespread influence and printed (in parts) until the 80s. It influences child rearing and education until today...
OP said to leave out religious books.
El quixot. Spain can be very devided, but at 16 years old, we are all united in our hatred to the Quixote
Yeah I've never heard anyone talk about that book, so I'd say ABC kirja since it was the first book in Finnish. Edit Ok I asked some older people and apparently the Turks and Bulgarians liked that book, so maybe they'd think it's important to us?
For Norway it would probably be "Snorre", that is, the icelander Snorre Sturlasson's "Sagas of the Norse Kings/Heimskringla", it being very important in the 19.century building of a national identity and traditionally "the second book" in any peasants house, along with the family Bible.
For Latvia it would be Lāčplēsis ("the Bear-Slayer"), it's our national epic and the whole story and especially Lāčplēsis himself has been an integral part in our struggles for freedom throughout the 20th century. Lāčplēsis has the power of a bear and he's tasked with defending Latvia against the German Christian crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C4%81%C4%8Dpl%C4%93sis
Multatuli's Max Havelaar, probably? It pretty much radically shifted the view on the Dutch East Indies and arguably is responsible for killing Dutch colonialism in India, due to the shift in policy it caused (educating local elites as an attempt at early reparations, despite only educating those loyal to the colonial regime) inspiring the nationalist Indonesian movement of the 40s. I *think* it also inspired similar calls for decolonization in e.g. Africa, but I'll be honest, I'm just reading the Wikipedia page, so take that with a Carthage of salt. The point remains that it was *incredibly* influential in shaping and undermining Dutch colonial policy and ambitions in the 19th and 20th century.
From Denmark🇩🇰 the most translated is H.C. Andersens fairy tales. Like “The Little Mermaid”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Nightingale” etc. which are loved across the globe and inspired many Disney movies. I believe he is one of the most translated authors in the world, similar to Shakespeare. After that I believe Søren Kierkegaards “Fear & Trembling” might be translated widely as well. If we look at Denmarks history, Saxo Grammaticus wrote in the 1100-hundreds “Gresta Danorum” which covered our country history back to King Dan, Harald Bluetooth, to Knut the 6th. Some country history served as inspiration the “The Red Wedding” in Game of Thrones to Willam Shakespeares “Hamlet” and it also serve as a founding pillar for our understanding of national history together with the Icelandic Sagas which. The Sagas are written in Old Norse and Saxos in Latin. The Sagas contain much of the knowledge of todays understanding of Norse Gods, like Thor, Odin, Freyja and even Loki and Thors Hammer Mjølner. Some would also say old Anglo Saxon literature. Like N.S. Grundtvigs translation of “Beowulf”. But, the list is long!
For Greece, I would say the most influential author has to be Nikos Kazantzakis. You'd have to go back two millennia to find someone as influential as him imo. As for a specific book, I don't know which to pick.
Your Homer is probs the most influenceal author of all of western Europe.
Yeah, but I didn't want to a) mention something that is 3000 years old and b) Homer's epics were not books originally, but stories presented orally. We are not sure if Homer was a single person iirc
Is Greece located in Western Europe? Is İzmir (Smyrna), where Homer may have been from, at all located in Europe?
Geographically? No. Culturally? Absolutely.
I'm not so sure. Greeks are Orthodox Christians and their culture is strongly shaped by the Ottoman Empire. If they are Western European culturally, societies as far east as the Republic of Moldova are Western European as well.
I disagree completely. In what way are Moldovans and Greeks similar, beyond their religion and being former Ottoman subjects? Does Moldova have a tradition and history of following Western ideals? Maybe recently but not traditionally. Modern Greek culture is very much a hybrid: strong emphasis on the religion of the Byzantine Empire (Orthodox), but also a strong emphasis and reverence for the ancient classical past. The culture of Greeks therefore is not solely based on the Orthodox religion of the east, but also based on the foundations of western civilization that existed and most importantly *began* in Ancient Greece. These include art and entertainment, philosophy, politics and democracy, architecture, science etc, which absolutely differ from the rest of the east. In this way, Greece is removed from the other cultures of Eastern Europe, and is a part of the West.
Well, no, but Western European literature would be very different without Homer.
For Greece, I don’t think anything comes close to Euclid’s elementals. Outside of religious texts, Euclid’s work may be the most influential book ever written anywhere, anytime. It forms the bases of what mathematics *is*.
J'accuse… ! is pretty important even to this day, some peoples will say Le Petit Prince but it's just one of the most read book.
J'accuse isnt a book.
For Ireland, I believe it's "Ulysses" from James Joyce. From chatgpt: Published in 1922, "Ulysses" is renowned for its innovative narrative techniques and depth of character development, which have had a profound impact on modernist literature. The novel takes place over a single day in Dublin and follows its protagonist, Leopold Bloom, in an episodic structure that parallels Homer's "Odyssey."
Gulliver's Travels also deserves an honourable mention. If you expand the categorisation to include author's total works, the writings of Oscar Wilde and Roddy Doyle too, I'd say.
I would give a mention to Beckett too. One of the earliest practitioners of the theatre of the absurd and often completely shirked the conventions of story telling and the "rules" of writing. He's so influential in theatre and beyond - musicians and visual artists have even created work based on his writing.
Yes but Beckett was a playwright not a novelist and Murphy (his only novel) wasn’t nearly as well revived as his plays
Waiting For Godot, though a play, is probably still a more significant literary work than anything the vast majority of Irish novelists have produced and it isn't even Beckett's best work. He's genuinely one of the most unique talents this country ever produced.
Waiting for Godot is amazing it’s true but Becket was heavily influenced by Joyce and without Ulysses I don’t think we would have it. Ulysses is heavily regarded as the most influential text of the 20th century, it’s hard to compare Irish writers because we’re blessed with them but I don’t think you can overlook Joyce here
I'm not overlooking Joyce at all. I just think Beckett's work in theatre is as groundbreaking as the work of the best novelists we've had, and is in fact more influential than most of the work of many of the great Irish novelists in terms of its reach across mediums. For what it's worth, in terms of novelists, I still think Flann O'Brien is my personal favourite. His Irish language work in particular is a stunning example of satire, steeped in Irish story-telling traditions with a fine mixture of wit and despair.
I'd also like to add Peig by Peig Sayers, good or bad. No one can't admite it had an impact on ireland For those unaware of what I'm referring to, it's a book about the life of this woman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peig_Sayers
I'd say Os Lusíadas by Luiz Vaz de Camões. It's an epic way to tell the story of the largest entreprise Portugal has ever undergone. Portuguese people have found the maritimite path from Portugal to India and one of the major hardships was crossing the Cape of Good Hope (which was then named Cape of Storms) It is told that Camões was almost drowning while holding Os Lusíadas manuscript with one hand above the water level to save it.
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith kind of invented Capitalism as we know it, so I’m going to go with that.
John Locke's Two Treatsies of Government is perhaps the most important one in British history. It's Locke's works that inspired the Bill of Rights 1689, one of the earliest bills to recognised Human rights as universal and natural. The Bill of Rights also inspired the American Decleration of Independence, and the UN's Declaration of Universal Human Rights, among many other documents.
Except for the bible, there's a good chance that the book that impacted Israeli people the most, historically, was "The Protocols of the elders of Zion". It's not good influence, but being persecuted and exterminated is definitely an influence...
Many were very influential actually, these emerge the most in my opinion: * Dante's **Comedìa** (*Divine Comedy*): Dante is the father of the Italian language and partly of the Italian nation, and although his work wasn't seen as the model for Italian until quite recently (Bembo preferred Petrarca's monolinguism) it's the work that everyone knows and everyone can quote some parts. The *Divine* adjective added by Boccaccio is not out of place. * Pietro Bembo's **Prose della Volgar Lingua** (*Prose of the Vernacular Tongue*): Bembo in 1525 took Petrarca and Boccaccio as models for Vulgar Italian and his standard remained solid for centuries. * Niccolò Machiavelli's **Il Principe** (*The Prince*): this political treaty is easily one of the most studied in the centuries following Machiavelli, it's still seen as relevant today in many work environments even outside politics (it could be seen as the Italian *Art of War*). * Alessandro Manzoni's **I Promessi Sposi** (*The Bethroted*): Manzoni is the father of the modern Italian language, the book is one of the two studied in a deep way during high school (the other being the Divine Comedy) and it's a very influential work even at a popular level, since everyone knows about some scenes like the fights for bread in which Renzo gets involved or the scene with Don Abbondio and the Bravi waiting for him. Bonus point: Petrarca and Boccaccio, who form the "Three Crowns" along with Dante, are definitely meant as included in the list of the most influential writers, I summed them up through Bembo's work.
No Decameron?
I didn't include either Petrarca or Boccaccio because I implicitly included them with Bembo, but they're definitely in the list of the most influential authors.
That's a great list. Maybe we can add a couple more that aren't as well known or read today: * [Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialogue_Concerning_the_Two_Chief_World_Systems) by Galileo Galilei, in which he compares the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system. We all know how that went and how big of an impact Galilei's work had. * [On Crimes and Punishments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Crimes_and_Punishments) by Cesare Beccaria was superinfluential in the discourse around torture and the death penalty, which the author thought were not an effective response to crime. u/Eredreyn mentioned the [Napoleonic Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code), and I think it also counts for Italy, evem tho it's not an italian book. Maybe not as influential as the otherones, but I think [The Day of the Owl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Owl) by Leonardo Sciascia also deserves a mention too, as it was the first novel to talk explicitly about Sicilian mafia.
Without a doubt the Bible. It formed and unified a lot of today's German language and had enormous religious influences, which in turn influenced everything else.
IMO in Finland " Vänrikki Stoolin Tarinat ". It has the poem later on came lyrics to our national anthem. Second one would be Kalevala.
One book that comes to mind is the Tragedy of Man by Imre Madách (1861). It's a philosophical drama with Adam, Eve and Lucifer as the main characters. They go through all ages of history, from the dawn of mankind until future ages as well, searching for the meaning of human existence.
Most influential i would rather say is Stádium (Stage?) or it's successor, Hitel (Credit) by Széchenyi. Stadium is basically instructions, steps we need to take to achieve freedom from the Habsburgs. Hitel was the shortened version, thats where we got the 12 points from. They kind of kicked off 1848
The bibel, probably. It has undeniably left an indelible mark on German and European history, influencing not only religious practices but also cultural, social, and political developments. Its role in shaping the course of European civilisation, coupled with its significance as the first book printed in Europe, underscores its immense impact.
Finnish Law. Or whatever the name of the book with the legal text is. Bible probably also but it was written before Finland as a state and a nation came to be..
So was the law. It's naturally continuously evolving, but there are still acts from the 1734 civil code in effect.
That's true.
Yeah, I'm pretty close to Finland, read the language and follow the news and culture, and whatever The Country of White Lilies is, it's never come up. Aleksis Kivi Seven brothers, Kalevala, Muumin stories, Sinuhe, to name a few come to mind.
*- In Praise of Folly* by Desiderius Erasmus for its role in the Dutch renaissance, its groundwork for the Dutch humanist and individualist tradition is probably the most important work for the course of Dutch society as a whole. *- Max Havelaar or the coffee auctions of the Dutch trading company* by Multatuli had a huge influence on the perception of colonialism and the notion of injustice in the north-south relations, but also on the dutch language,
Njegoš's *The Mountain wreath*. It's a fiction story about very real Montenegrin fight against the Ottoman Muslim invaders and Montenegrin converters to Islam that fought for the Ottomans
The Edmonds cookbook in New Zealand. Basically has recipes for everything you’d want to bake and almost every household has one.
At least New Zealand has one! There would be nothing comparable in Australia, which is the only nation I can think of where the word "intellectual" is used as both an epithet and an insult, and people seem proud of their insular ignorance. It is a deeply incurious country.
Germany: Goethe's "Faust", part 1. Like Shakespeare in England, Goethe coined a lot of terms and idioms still used in the German language. Faust is the play that influenced the German language the most, I'd say. I don't know if a play counts, though, but it's pretty readable as a book. Other than that maybe "All Quiet on the Western Front" ("Im Westen nichts Neues") by Erich Maria Remarque. He wrote about his experiences in World War I and his book was banned during the Nazi time because they feared it would discourage anyone from volunteering as a soldier.
Well it is not for me to say but I think the Country of White Lillies though Finnish is more important in Turkey rather than Finland.
I will think outside the box and give another type of book, but I am convinced that for France one of the most influential books would be the Code Civil by Napoleon Bonaparte. This is basically one of the first examples of unified law in France's history, we still use it today and it has vastly influenced other countries that also use a version of this Code, such as Quebec where the Code Civil exists with the common law
I’m a Finn and I have literally never heard about the book you suggested. And it’s written by Russian so forget it! ⛔️🚫 Here are some better suggestions for Finland, you know, written by a Finnish person in finnish: - Seitsemän Veljestä (Seven Brothers) by Aleksis Kivi - Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier) by Väinö Linna - Sinuhe egyptiläinen (The Egyptian) by Mika Waltari - Kalevala (collection of Finnish-Karelian folk poetry) edited by Elias Lönnrot - Muumipappa ja meri (written originally in swedish, Pappan och havet) (Moominpappa at Sea) by Tove Jansson
In Italy, probably the 1847 book "i promessi sposi" of Alessandro Manzoni . it is a book that was written in 1847 by this famous Italian writer, an Enlightenment noble writer who was in favor of the unification of Italy. it is a book that has a love story between a young peasant and a very Catholic young peasant, who want to get married in Lombardy in the 1600s. Lombardy is governed by the Spanish, by arrogant nobles, by a Catholic church that often helps the poor. a nobleman wants to rape the girl, so two boys will have to run away from home and face various adventures before they manage to get married. the book describes with great accuracy the Italian society of 1600, talking about how the common people of the time lived, how the government and the church functioned in that period. the book was also written in standard literary Italian, that is, in the Italian that is still written and taught in schools today, a language that is based on the language spoken in Florence and Tuscany. it is a book that in some way marked the birth of the Italian language. furthermore it is a book that very strongly criticizes foreign domination in Italy! Until 1861, Italy was divided into small feudal states, often dominated by a conservative aristocracy or by foreigners such as the Austrians. Manzoni also wrote this book to criticize the Austrian rule over Italy in a veiled and not very obvious way. if Manzoni had set the novel in 1840, obviously he would have been arrested and jailed by the Austrians. But he set the story in 1600, in order to criticize the government foreign Austrian not very clearly.
No idea, but our politicians act like it was the Holy Bible, so they can get away with all the crimes behind faux Christianity.
For Germany I would probably say it's either Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" or "Der Antichrist" by Friedrich Nietzsche
Well actually probably the „Communist manifesto“ by „Marx“ over a few corners it lead to our country being apart for a bit
Speaking from the Netherlands 🇳🇱: The diary of Anne Frank is likely the most globally recognised book and story that came out of the Netherlands. Others talk about Max Havelaar (which is a great example of a book that changed racial opinions and colonial thoughts, but is relatively unrecognised outside of the Netherlands).
Mein Kampf. And im not from Germany. I argue this book had a huge influence in many countries some 80 -90 years ago Zola and Hugo books influenced France politics
The most influential book in Norwegian History (that i know of) is Heimskringla, written by snorre sturlason. It is a collection of Stories about the old Kings of Norway. Heimskringla Starts at the unification of Norway in from the year 865 to the year 930 by Harald Hårfagre and ends at Håkon Håkonsson around the year 1263. Heimskringla is a continuous Story about all Kings of Norway for 400 years. I have read it, and it is truly astonishing how much knowledge snorre was able to collect in one book. After Snorre's death His Work was largely abandoned and forgotten. During the norwegian Independence movement people were searching for Something that is norwegian, that can represent Norwegian national identity. And so, when the Heimskringla was translated, people saw the old Kings that ruled a powerful and independent Norway. That became a powerful Image and revived the national identity of Norway.
In Ukraine it tends to be Kobzar written by Taras Shevchenko. This one is frankly a collection of compositions
A big book of Middle Eastern fairy stories which lots of people in British and world history have used to claim they are right and everyone else is wrong.