Stahl, Pierre-Jules

Stahl, Pierre-Jules (pseud of Pierre-Jules Hetzel), b 18 January 1814 in Chartres, France, d 16 March 1886 in Monte Carlo. French children’s writer and publisher. He befriended Marko Vovchok in 1865 while she was living in Paris, and published nine of her stories in his journal Magasin d’éducation et de récréation. For many years Vovchok also served on the journal’s editorial board and corresponded with Stahl. In 1869 Stahl coauthored Le Chemin glissant ... with Vovchok. The novella appeared in Magasin in 1871 and then in several separate editions. In 1878 Stahl published Vovchok’s French adaptation of her novella Marusia, Maroussia, which gained great popularity in France, was reprinted more than 100 times, and received an award from the Académie Française. A Ukrainian translation appeared in Bratislava in 1965. Vovchok’s relationship with Stahl is discussed in considerable detail in Boris Lobach-Zhuchenko’s Pro Marka Vovchka (About Marko Vovchok, 1979).

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]