Miklós Szentkuthy
Burgundian chronicle
About 180 pages. 6 illustrations. Half-cloth. 42″x62″.
Like Romain Rolland’s famous Colas Breugnon, Szentkuthy’s new book goes back to the Middle Ages for its subject. The scene is set in Liege in the middle of the 15th century. The Duke of Burgundy expels the inefficient and incompetent bishop of the town and seats his own nephew in the episcopal chair. He usurps his sway over the town by despoiling its inhabitants. There are riots and the people revolt against the cruel rule of the Duke. The Pope intervenes and anathematizes the sinful community. At last it is an adventurer who seizes power and it is at this point that the reader is going to realize that “behind the truthful symbols the author is in search of the fundamental secrets and deeper conflicts and of the truth of history.” The book is a perfect cross-section of the age. It is playful and comic like the folkplays of the 15th century but, at the same time, it is also deep in the philosophical meaning of the word, it is rich in thoughts and courageously confronts the arising problems.