Short stories
Pod starim krovovima
Not translated into English
Ksaver Šandor Gjalski · 1886
Opening lines
Nedaleko od mog doma bio star — da tako reknem — iznemogao dvor: onakav drveni u kakovim su pređi naši tako divnom ustrajnošću živjeli za svoju od sviju strana mučenu Hrvatsku i čekali svaki čas smrt: »Pro Deo et patria«.
Not far from my home stood an old, so to speak decrepit, manor: one of those wooden ones in which our forefathers, with such wonderful constancy, lived for their Croatia, tormented on every side, and awaited death at every moment: “Pro Deo et patria”.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from hr.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Twelve pieces taken from the manor houses of the Zagorje: an old gentleman who has nothing left but his Latin title and his pipe, a mill by the roadside, a Christmas Eve, a cemetery, a bailiff who was once their guest. Some hold firm, others give way, and the new century enters by every door.
Context
The collection appeared in Zagreb in 1886 from the Matica hrvatska, under a subtitle that announces its programme: notes and fragments from the world of the gentry. It brings together twelve pieces, including the one that had made its author known two years earlier in the journal Vienac, the portrait of an old man still referred to by his Latin title. The manner comes from Turgenev, whose slowness, interiors, landscapes and sympathy for people the author nonetheless shows to be doomed he holds to. His two novels of the same world, the one of 1885 and the one of 1890, revolve around this book, before as after.
Who it is for
Twelve short stories, which can be read separately. No French edition exists. It helps to know that these petty nobles had lost their feudal rights in 1848 without receiving anything in exchange.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by Croatian critics as the summit of its author's work, and as the most complete chronicle that the country's literature has given of its lesser nobility.