Novel
Careva kraljevina
Not translated into English
August Cesarec · 1925
Opening lines
Nad carevom kraljevinom vladao je tada, devetstotina i dvanaeste tutor, i jedan je atentatorski hitac, opaljen u njega, kresnuo u njenoj tami, i naskoro potom, u oktobru, gruhnuli su kroz tišinu njenu balkanski topovi.
Over the emperor's kingdom there ruled at that time, in nineteen hundred and twelve, a guardian, and an assassin's shot, fired at him, flashed in its darkness, and soon afterwards, in October, the Balkan guns thundered through its silence.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
Zagreb, 1912, a single day in the remand prison. Political prisoners, thieves, guards: from dusk to dawn, from dawn to noon, from noon to evening, they talk, they wait, and each goes back over what brought him there. In less than twenty-four hours, each will have to say who he is and which side he takes.
Context
The book was written between 1923 and 1924 and published in 1925 in Koprivnica, by the bookseller and publisher Vinko Vošicki, in the eastern variant of the language and under a subtitle that states its subject: a novel about us as we were. It is divided into three parts named after the hours of the day. Its author had known the house where he set it: compromised in 1912 in the preparation of an assassination attempt on the King's representative, he had been imprisoned. Historians of Croatian literature have noted its technical innovation: in an enclosed space and in less than a day, all the characters have to express their position and declare themselves. The posthumous edition of 1946 was so thoroughly reworked by the person who prepared it that it cannot serve as a reference.
Who it is for
A prison novel, without a plot in the ordinary sense, best read knowing what Croatia was in 1912. No French edition exists.
Prizes and reception
Its author's first completed novel, and the picture of pre-1914 society that Croatian critics retain.