Words Of Power & The Power Of Words

Curator Peter Toth explores the crucial role that writing has played, plays, and will continue to play in human history – as shown in cuneiform, hieroglyphs, runes, letters and emojis inscribed across a fascinating exhibition on show at the British Library

- Peter Toth

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’, as the old saying goes, and it is true that those physically more threatening swords can be governed by pens (or even the humble pencil) and the words generated by them. It is not hard to realise the tremendous power of the written word if we think about wars and the way that they started. Students are taught that the four-year horror of the First World War began when Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia on July 1914. This declaration was followed by a number of countries across Europe and resulted in one of the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts in human history – and the message that started it all, in 1914, was on one sheet of paper, a telegram sent from Vienna to Belgrade transcribed with pencil in a dozen or so lines, in French, concluding that: ‘From this moment on, Austria-Hungary considers itself in a state of war with Serbia.’

We all know that the war was about to break out. Its reasons and the fact that it had been imminent for a long time have been told, analyzed and discussed hundreds and hundreds of times – but it did not actually start until those 12 lines were telegraphed from Vienna to Belgrade. Those written words and the ‘pen’ behind them were needed to put the swords in action.

So, what is the formidable power that writing possesses, where does it come from, how did it come about and what is happening to it in the current digital age? These are some of the questions that lie behind the British Library’s current exhibition, Writing: Making Your Mark.