Czar's Madman FROM THE PUBLISHER
Even in the Baltic province of Estonia, ruled with an iron hand by Russia's Czar Alexander I, the new notions of liberty and freedom wafting across Europe had not been silenced by Napoleon's defeat. It was the fall of 1813, and Colonel Timotheus von Bock, a Baltic nobleman and favorite of the czar, had returned from the battlefields of Europe a hero, convinced that new and better ways were coming, and determined to play his part in bringing them about. He first scandalized his fellow aristocrats by spurning a far more appropriate marriage in order to wed a peasant's daughter. Then he committed an even more grievous infraction. Having sworn an oath to his sovereign always to tell him the truth, von Bock sent the czar a memorandum condemning his tyrannical rule. The reaction was prompt. Von Bock was banished from his estate and imprisoned for nine years in the Schlusselburg fortress. When Czar Alexander was succeeded by his brother Nicholas I, von Bock was released at last, and he returned to his impoverished estate and destitute wife. His physical health had been shattered by his imprisonment no less than his mental stability. Was he indeed the madman the czar certified him to be whose unstable mind had led him to his subversive ideas? Or was he really a utopian revolutionary, a man of the highest moral principles? Timo von Bock's story is the main thread in a richly worked tapestry evoking the world of nineteenth-century Russia and its Baltic provinces—a time of great turmoil that saw the birth of a new national awareness among the many peoples unwillingly held under the rule of the Russian crown. Recounting this tale from the pages of history, Jaan Kross takes the reader intothe passions of a time and a country that foreshadow the tragedies of our own century, creating at the same time a powerful vision of human emotion: honor and knavery, greed and sacrifice, love and desire.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Fyodor Martens is an outsider at an inside job. A low-born orphan from the subject Baltic nation of Estonia, he has stood shoulder to disdainful shoulder with the Russian nobility, representing the Czar at crucial negotiations, including the Portsmouth Treaty with Japan and the Peace Conference at The Hague. In 1909, with ``Nicky'' (Czar Nicholas) and ``Willy'' (Kaiser Wilhelm) meeting, Martens takes a train from his home in Parnu, Estonia, to St. Petersburg. During the ride Martens, like some political Scrooge, is confronted by ghosts of the past, present and future: a nationalist revolutionary nephew en route to his trial; a young socialist journalist; a bohemian lover; the son he has never seen; and the unrelated 18th-century diplomat Georg Friedrich von Martens, who, like Fyodor Martens, compiled volumes of treaties and also, in the name of professional detachment, helped the Napoleonic invaders rule his native Westphalia. Like his namesake, Martens helped organize peace abroad and enormous loans from the French at home. ``One might say that I'm the one who has helped the machinery of state to survive, that I have generated a rather essential portion of the energy it has needed to go on functioning during these years of massacres!'' Kross ( The Czar's Madman ) has created a touching novel that works on two levels: as a smart, somewhat old-fashioned tale of politics, philosophy and ethics and as the tender, melancholy story of a man waking up to life just as he nears its end. (Mar.)
Library Journal
Professor Martens's train trip is filled with gentle reveries of his career as an Estonian diplomat, jurist, and negotiator of Russian treaties. His memories are full of czarist and revolutionary politics, turn-of-the-century Russian and European culture, international relations, and musings on the fragile identity of Estonia, making this a fascinating historical novel. But it is also a personal work, built on a highly realized character whose frank examination of all his frailties makes him highly memorable. This excellent translation is only the second of Kross's works to appear in English, although his works have appeared in 22 other languages. (His first was The Czar's Madman, LJ 11/15/92.) Even if your collection calls for little or no Eastern European fiction, consider buying Kross. Highly recommended.-- Ruth M. Ross, Olympic Coll. Lib., Bremerton, Wash.
Home
