Photo de l'auteur
10 oeuvres 68 utilisateurs 3 critiques

A propos de l'auteur

Comprend les noms: Tiit Aleksejev

Séries

Œuvres de Tiit Aleksejev

Kindel linn (2011) 12 exemplaires
Kuusteist Eesti kirja (2018) 7 exemplaires
Leegionärid (2010) 6 exemplaires
Valge kuningriik : [romaan] (2006) 5 exemplaires
Kuningad : näidend aastast 1343 (2014) 5 exemplaires
SentiMentaalne valss (2018) 1 exemplaire
Puutarha vailla muureja (2023) 1 exemplaire

Étiqueté

Partage des connaissances

Date de naissance
1968-07-26
Sexe
male
Nationalité
Estonia

Membres

Critiques

A Garden Without Walls
Review of the Estonian language hardcover edition (2019)

This is the follow-up to the series of novels that began with Palveränd (The Pilgrimage) (2008) and Kindel linn (Stronghold) (2011).
This historical fiction novel takes place in the Middle East in the 11th-century and tells of the final years of the first Crusade. The main character of the novel is a former knight who has been declared an outlaw.
Syria, 1098.
After a decisive battle, in which the crusaders succeeded in crushing the Muslim relief force under Antioch, the protagonist, one of the heroes of that battle, is declared an outlaw, and his lover is held hostage by the Normans. He begins his journey to reach his beloved, to unite the divided forces of the peasant army and to take it to Jerusalem. It is a journey through darkness.
- translation of the Estonian language synopsis.

It has been a wait of 8-years since Tiit Aleksejev's Pilgrimage series of novels had its previous episode in Stronghold and we are now barely out of Antioch in 1098. It is now likely that either a tetralogy or a pentalogy of books is to be expected, although the series had been first described as a two-parter and then as a trilogy.

Review in progress
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
alanteder | Jun 1, 2019 |
Alternative History Theatrical Account of the Death of the Four Estonian Kings 1343

Kuningad: näidend aastast 1343 (Kings: A Play from the Year 1343) is historical novelist/playwright Tiit Aleksejev's retelling of the symbolic end of the St. George's Night Uprising by the local populace against the ruling Danish & Germanic nobility in mediaeval Livonia (present day Estonia & Latvia).

To the best of my knowledge, the entire story of the Four Kings is based on paraphrases of the now lost Younger Livonian Rhymed Chronicle written in the late 1340's by Bartholomäus Hoeneke, a chaplain of the Master of the Livonian Order of Crusading German Knights. Trusting this account is somewhat like trusting the American Indian Bureau's account of the death of Sitting Bull at the hands of its agents, i.e. it is more likely that a planned institutional murder was covered up and blamed on its victims.

Aleksejev takes this bare bones story and constructs a scenario with three kings, each of whom is a stand-in for various stereotypical rulers, e.g. the competent king, the naïve king, the lazy king. There is no actual fourth king as a character, but rather one exists either a symbol of hope in the lead character of the Salanõunik (the Privy Counsellor role) who does place a coronet on his head before heading into battle towards the end of the play OR as a fictional construct by the Master of the Livonian Order.

There are likely subtleties about modern day Estonian politicians in the play that I am missing out on (Aleksejev states at the front-end that all anachronisms are intentional) but that did not detract from my enjoyment of this alternative history version of a pivotal point in Estonian history.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
alanteder | Sep 9, 2018 |
“Palveränd” (The Pilgrimage) from 2008 is the 1st book of Tiit Aleksejev’s “Lugu esimesest ristisõjast” (A Story of the First Crusade) trilogy which is followed by 2011’s “Kindel linn” (Stronghold) and a 3rd and final book which is still awaited as of early 2014.

The first book takes the story from Pope Urbanus II declaring a Pilgrimage in 1096 (the term Crusade was not used until much later in history) to recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule through to the capture of Antioch in early 1098 by the Crusaders through a betrayal of the Muslim garrison. The books use a fictional character named Dieter who at first is a nameless servant to the scribe Raimondus but who later becomes a soldier (when he is mentored by an older soldier named Dieter) and then a knight (when he himself adopts his mentor’s name) during the course of the Pilgrimage journey from Provence, France to Constantinople and then to Antioch and finally to Jerusalem.

The younger Dieter is somewhat of a Forrest Gump character who finds himself in the middle of all the major events of the First Crusade during the years 1096 to 1099. Through his association with some Greek merchants and spies he leads the plot to capture Antioch and secretly agrees to do it for the Sicilian Norman forces of Earl Bohemond instead of his own Provencal lord Earl Raymond in order to gain permission to woo the Norman lady Marie of Tolouse who he is smitten by. The books also somewhat follows the story of the First Crusade as written by the real-life scribe Raimondus in his “History of the Franks who conquered Jerusalem” and the fictional Dieter is used as an information gatherer for the fictional Raimondus character in the books.

I was completely taken with the characters and atmosphere of “The Pilgrimage" and I think those who enjoy the medieval historical fiction of Bernard Cornwell and Robyn Young would enjoy it as well. Robyn Young’s Brethren trilogy (starting with Brethren: An Epic Adventure of the Knights Templar ) is a nice parallel as it similarly uses a fictional character inserted in the period of the end of the Crusades 200 years later.

I read “Palveränd” in the original Estonian language edition. It has been translated into Hungarian, Finnish, Italian, Latvian and Bulgarian as of early 2014. Check for translation updates at http://www.estlit.ee/elis/?cmd=book&a...
There is an English language summary with some sample chapter translations at http://www.euprizeliterature.eu/node/79 due to the occasion of the book winning the European Union Prize for Literature in 2010.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
alanteder | Apr 19, 2014 |

Prix et récompenses

Statistiques

Œuvres
10
Membres
68
Popularité
#253,411
Évaluation
½ 3.6
Critiques
3
ISBN
15
Langues
3

Tableaux et graphiques