Orsinian Tales is a collection of eleven short stories by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...

, set in the imaginary country of Orsinia.

Themes

The stories 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, though not always, romantic — set against the backdrop of much larger political events such as wars and revolutions. Continually reasserted are the right of the individual — sometimes alone, but often in conjunction with others — to his or her own thoughts and emotions, not dictated by society, or convention, or the State.

Continuations

Additional stories in the cycle include the novel Malafrena

Malafrena

Malafrena is a 1979 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Although she is best known for science fiction and fantasy, the only unusual element of this novel is that it takes place in the imaginary Central European country of Orsinia, which is also the setting of her collection Orsinian Tales.In many ways,...

(1979), set in the Orsinia of the 1820s; the Borges-like story "Two Delays on the Northern Line" (1979, anthologized in The Compass Rose

The Compass Rose

The Compass Rose is a 1982 collection of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is organized into sections on the theme of directions, though not strictly compass-related as the title implies....

1982), containing two tangentially linked episodes of uncertain date; and "Unlocking the Air" (1990, anthologized in Unlocking the Air and Other Stories 1996). The last-named story extends Orsinian history to the time of 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

Fictional country

A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof....

 somewhere in Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

, at different times in the period 1150-1965 (though only two take place before the 20th century). This country, "Orsinia", appears in Le Guin's earliest writings, and was invented by Le Guin when she was a young adult learning her craft as a writer. The names Orsinia and Ursula are both derived from Latin ursus "bear" (ursula = diminutive of ursa "female bear"; ursinus = "bear-like"). Le Guin once said that since Orsinia was her own country it should bear her name.

The history of Orsinia follows, in general, that of other countries of Central Europe, particularly those formerly part of Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

. Formerly an independent kingdom (The Lady of Moge), by the 19th century it was a dependency of the Austrian Empire

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

 (Malafrena) It was involved in the First World War (Conversations at Night), and was thereafter independent for a while. Its fate in World War II is not mentioned, but in 1946 or 1947 it became a satellite state in the East bloc. A revolt was attempted in 1956 (The Road East), but was crushed and followed by reprisals (A Week in the Country), and 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 régime promising free elections (Unlocking the Air). Le Guin has not published any Orsinian stories dealing with its history since then.

The Orsinian stories borrow episodes from, and sometimes explicitly refer to, the history of the Czech lands

Czech lands

Czech lands is an auxiliary term used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic. The Czech lands had been settled by the Celts , then later by various Germanic tribes until the beginning of 7th...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, and other countries of Central Europe - for example, it is landlocked and in the 19th Century rebelled unsuccessfully against Habsburg

Habsburg

The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

 rule. It is not however, 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 and reaction to historical events.

Contents

• "The Fountains"
• "The Barrow" (1976, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
  The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
  The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
  
  , 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)