Yeah, this was my thought as well. 1939 would be a very late date for books to become affordable for the first time.
Virtually all the 19th century novels on the Polish school curriculum first appeared in chapters published in newspapers, appealing to mass reader and yet still managing to touch important social and political issues, often under disguise.
Here in Germany where I live now, the situation is different because of protectionist policies towards publishing (it's illegal to sell a book below the asking price of the publisher). There are publishers specializing in affordable editions of classics (Reclam, Nikol) and some publishers run their titles in multiple paperback editions with different prices, but obtaining any recent work is a costly endeavor.
Long before that, a known religious zealot used to close his online store on Sundays and put out a very in-character lecturing note if you tried to visit it anyway.
It generated me an Anatolian farmer from the 19th century who spoke... Ottoman Turkish. It's like taking a peasant Briton from the 1200s and claiming that they spoke French, because it was an official language of the country back then. (Ottoman Turkish was an artificial literary register which was incomprehensible to most of the population.)
I hope that the author learns from the comments in this thread that dry encyclopedic data does not define reality.
Since we are on HN, the analogy that comes to my mind is becoming a founder in an area you have no expertise or even sincere interest in. Not a rare phenomenon at all.
In the left-wing spheres here, terms such as "political act" or "solidarity" are just bloat used to make your message sound more left wing. It's a faux pas not to virtue signal in a way that sounds radical and ensures that it won't affect anyone from outside your bubble as well.
An example from recently would be posters for an expensive kinky rave in Berlin offering discounted "solidarity tickets" for refugees, trans folks, sex workers, and BIPOC people. The dress code alone ensures that it's only friends of friends using these labels who will get in anyway.
Virtually all the 19th century novels on the Polish school curriculum first appeared in chapters published in newspapers, appealing to mass reader and yet still managing to touch important social and political issues, often under disguise.
Here in Germany where I live now, the situation is different because of protectionist policies towards publishing (it's illegal to sell a book below the asking price of the publisher). There are publishers specializing in affordable editions of classics (Reclam, Nikol) and some publishers run their titles in multiple paperback editions with different prices, but obtaining any recent work is a costly endeavor.
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