 | Zysk i S-ka
Poznań 2010
155x235
408 stron
ISBN: 978-83-7506-581-7
Translation rights: Zysk i S-ka |
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Elżbieta Cherezińska Playing Dice
Excerpt
The passage from the first to the second millennium was a period of crucial transformations all across the Old Continent—of transformations involving the formation of individual Eastern European states, the introduction of Christianity, as well as the first attempt at supranational union by Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor. It is about these very times that Elżbieta Cherezińska, who specializes in this period, has written her novel "Playing Dice".
The main characters of "Playing Dice" are a young Emperor Otto III and Bolesław, called Chrobry, prince of the Piast Dynasty in Poland. Also appearing in the novel, though only in people’s recollections of him, is Saint Wojciech-Adalbert, bishop of Prague, whose death as a martyr on a mission among the Prussians transforms him into much-desired capital in the politics playing out in Europe at the time. In the year 1000 AD an event absolutely without precedence takes place: there Otto III, heir of the Roman Empire, crosses—and is the first in history to do so—the borders of his own country with an aim other than waging war. He heads east, to the soon-to-be-rising star of the European Stage, Bolesław. His political aspirations encompass the entire continent. Will he manage to attain them in Gniezno, or will the political victor of the encounter be Bolesław?
It is during the preparations for the Emperor’s visit, during this visit itself, and a few years afterwards that the plot of this fascinating novel takes place. It is the story of a friendship between two seasoned politicians, of two visionary strategists, of two great men. One of them, Otto III, became a world-historical figure, while the other, Bolesław, ought to be granted a lasting place in world history, as well.
Cherezińska’s novel is especially powerful because it portrays very convincingly the early days of attempts at forming a kind of union in Europe, and it shows how our ancestors’ way of thinking was the same as ours, in many ways, as in the case of national and supernatural interests. The key element in her writing is the genuine passion, the ability to generate a clear and moving sense of the era, to present psychologically realistic characters, as well as her distance from the sentimentality that normally infuses talk about turn-of-the-millennium history. She shows how behind what becomes great history there are truly unusual, extraordinary people, but people who are also full of weaknesses and silly ideas. All in all, Cherezińska manages to create a story with the palpable atmosphere of a thousand years ago, told in the style of the twenty-first century.
Marta Mizuro
Elżbieta Cherezińska (born 1972) is trained in theater. As a writer of fiction, she specializes in the Middle Ages. She is the author of "The North Road", a novel set to the background of Norwegian history.
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