Children of the Cave by Virve Sammalkorpi (2016) is a fictional account of an expedition of discovery in 1819 in Russia. With permission, the novel is based upon the photography series (1991-1994) of Finnish artist Pekka Nikrus as part of his art thesis about a fictional expedition. Let’s be clear – this novel is a fictional account of fictional scientists based on fictional subjects in photographs.
Pekka Nikrus (born in 1968) created photographs and a short fictional synopsis (The Children of the Shadows) about two Finnish adventurers finding a cave in Russia where children lived – the first expedition occurred from 1819 to 1825 and the second exhibition to the region was in the 1860s. The photographs show children with animalistic appearances. Pekka says the photographs and account of the expedition were destroyed.
Finnish author Virve Sammalkorpi (born in 1969) begins with Pekka’s synopsis and formulates her own children’s story – the backstory if you will – of the story based on the “saved pages of the explorer’s diary.” Incomplete pages, I should add. The original title was: Paphlagonian heirs – the saved pages from Iax Agolasky’s diary. Mother-and-daughter team, Emily and Fleur Jeremiah, translated the story into English.
Young Russian-born Iax Agolasky went to Paris to study science, where he became assistant to French anthropologist Professor Jean Moltique. In 1819, the two men – Iax, naïve in his early twenties and Jean, an arrogant controversial scientist – set off into the northwestern Russian wilderness. A year into their journey, they find a group of children, with animalistic appearances and traits, living in a cave. Are they “a tribe of ancient peoples” or animals? The scientists camp outside the cave to observe the “creatures.”
How did the children get there? Where are their parents? Who are their parents? Why do they need to be protected from a return to society? What does it mean to be “civilized” with social tendencies?
The youth is the narrator, who is surprised by his companion’s reaction to the children. Do they “treat” the children as “scientific discoveries” – like animals – or as humans and with compassion? Iax thinks, “I am surprised that an experienced and esteemed scientist like him, albeit one who is sensational and controversial, is not more critical of his own ideas.”
Iax forms a close bond with the children, and tensions arise between the two men. Tensions form about science, ethics, morals, faith, truth, reputation, and scientific glory. But what do they do when the children’s health and safety are threatened?
Is this a human story or a scientific story? Author Virve Sammalkorpi imagines what would happen if the children really existed. She examines the difference between human and animal and the fine line in between.
Sammalkorpi’s writing style is interesting – through Iax Agolasky’s short notes and snapshots in time. This is an interesting and poignant tale, but also disturbing and self-reflective.
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MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009). She lives in Paris.
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