From the prologue, “The world was divided. There were places where Jews couldn’t live. And there were places they couldn’t enter” is a paraphrase of Chaim Weizmann’s statement before the Peel Commission, 1936.
Readings from Alexandra Kollontai’s manuscript in the chapter “Sunflowers” are based on her writings, including “Den nya kvinnan” [New woman], originally published in Sovremenyi Mir [Modern world] 9 (1913), Swedish translator unknown; and “Kvinnan och familjen” [Woman and the family], first published 1909, Swedish translation by Anita Göransson (Stockholm: Gidlund, 1976).
Passages from Kollontai’s journal in the chapter “17 Villagatan” are quotations from Aleksandra Kollontajs dagböcker, 1930–1940 [The diaries of Alexandra Kollontai, 1930–1940], Swedish translation by Lars Olsson (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2008).
In the same chapter there are quotations from Kollontai’s Kvinnans ställning i den ekonomiska samhällsutveckingen [The labor of women in the evolution of the economy], first published as a pamphlet in 1921, Swedish translation by Mauritz Persson (Stockholm: Sverdlov-Universitet, 1925).
In the chapter “The Opera Bar” is a quotation from Ernst Cassirer’s Drottning Christina och Descartes [Queen Christina and Descartes], Swedish translation by Bengt Wall (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1940).
In the chapter “Snow Crystals” there are quotations from Vitalis Pantenburg’s Rysslands grepp om Norden [Russia’s grip on the north], Swedish translator unknown (Malmö, Sweden: Dagens Böcker, 1940).
The chapter “Wagner Evening” contains quotations from Richard Wagner’s article “Das Judenthum in der Musik” [Judaism in music], first published anonymously in Germany in 1850, Swedish translations the author’s own.