''Sabujpatra'', also known as 'Sabuj Patra' (English: ''Green Leaf'') was liberal and pro-

Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

Bengali

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

. It was named ''Sabujpatra'' as its cover page was illustrated by a green palmleaf drawn by

Nandalal Bose Nandalal Bose (3 December 1882 – 16 April 1966) was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism, Contextual Modernism. A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his ...

(no other colors were ever used). It was edited by

Pramatha Chaudhuri Pramathanath Chaudhuri (7 August 1868 – 2 September 1946), known as Pramatha Chaudhuri, ''alias'' Birbal, was a Bengali essayist, poet, and writer. He was the nephew of Rabindranath Tagore as his mother was Sukumari Debi, the second sister of ...

and first published on 25th

Baishakh Boishakh (, , ''Bôishakh'', ''Baishakh'') is the first month in the Bengali calendar and Nepali calendar. This month lies between the second half of April and the first half of May.Between 14th April and 15th May. Etymology The name of the mo ...

1321 BS (April 1914). The magazine had no advertisements and no pictures. In the first phase it was being published up to 1329 BS (1922). Its second phase started in 1332 BS. The magazine folded in 1334 BS (1927). Short-lived, ''Sabujpatra'' was a major force in remolding Bengali language and literary style for the post-First World War generation. Pramatha Choudhury preferred spoken Bengali to the written and a new style of writing, often called 'Birbali', after his pseudonym 'Birbal'. From then on colloquial Bengali dominated the Bengali literary scene. Sabujpatra initially contained writings from Rabindranath Tagore,

Satyendranath Dutta Satyendranath Dutta (also spelt Satyendranath Datta or Satyendra Nath Dutta; ; 11 February 1882 – 25 June 1922) was a Bengali poet and is considered the "wizard of rhymes" ('ছন্দের জাদুকর'; ). Satyendranath Dutta was ...

and the editor himself. Some of the intellectuals who gathered around Pramatha Chowdhury became literary luminaries later. Dhurjatiprasad Mukhopadhyay, Atul Chandra Gupta, Barada Charan Gupta,

Suniti Kumar Chatterji Suniti Kumar Chatterji (26 November 1890 – 29 May 1977) was an Indian linguist, educationist and litterateur. He was a recipient of the second highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Vibhushan. Life Childhood Chatterji was born on 26 Novem ...

Kiran Shankar Roy Kiran Shankar Roy, also credited as Kiron Sankar Roy (; 25 October 1891 – 20 February 1949) was an Indian politician, academic, and freedom fighter. He was one of the leading figures of the Swaraj Party in the anti-British independence move ...

wrote articles in ''Sabujpatra''; Kanti Chandra Ghosh, Amiya Chakraborty and Suresh Chakraborty contributed poems. In everything it published, Sabujpatra expressed the spirit of freethinking and advocated rationalism, democracy and individual freedom.

Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi The Pashchimbanga Bangla Akademi (, , ) is the official regulatory body of the Bengali language in India. It was founded on 20 May 1986 in Kolkata to act as the official authority of the language and is entrusted with the responsibility of ref ...

Library,

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

has archived a complete set of ''Sabujpatra''.

Rabindranath Tagore and ''Sabuj Patra''

Rabindranath Tagore was a regular contributor to ''Sabuj Patra''. Many of his early 20th century works including the '' Balaka'' poems, two of his novels, ''

Ghare Baire ''The Home and the World'' (in the original Bengali, ঘরে বাইরে (''Ghôre Baire)'' lit. "At home and outside") is a 1916 novel by Rabindranath Tagore. The book illustrates the battle Tagore had with himself, between the ideas o ...

'' and ''

Chaturanga Chaturanga (, , ) is an Traditional games of India, ancient Indian Strategy game, strategy board game. It is first known from India around the seventh century AD. While there is some uncertainty, the prevailing view among chess historians is t ...

'', a play titled ''Phalguni'' and a considerable lot of short stories and essays were published in this journal. In ''Sabuj Patra'', Tagore expressed his revolutionary view on society and political situations of contemporary times through his fiction and prose. ''Haimanti'' and ''Streer Patra'' caused a frown of contemporary Bengali society as well as his essays ''Bastab'' and ''Lokohito'' were severely attacked in conservative journals like ''Sahitya'' and ''Narayan''.

Other contributors

, *

Satyendra Nath Bose Satyendra Nath Bose (; 1 January 1894 – 4 February 1974) was an Indian theoretical physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, in developing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statist ...

* Barada Charan Gupta *

Page 35, Makers of Indian Literature: Pramatha Chaudhuri, Arun Kumar Mukhopadhyay

References

{{Authority control 1914 establishments in India 1927 disestablishments in India Bengali-language magazines Defunct literary magazines Defunct magazines published in India Literary magazines published in India Magazines established in 1914 Magazines disestablished in 1927 Works by Rabindranath Tagore