Jaan Kross

Anselm Hollo

Timo von Bock, a Baltic nobleman, is imprisoned for nine years because of a critical letter he sent to Czar Alexander I

A Novel

The Czar's Madman

Timo von Bock's release by the Czar from nine years' incarceration does not spell the end of the Baron's troubles: he is confined to his Livonian estate to live under the constant eye of police informers planted among his own household, and is subjected to endless humiliations. It is claimed that he is a madman and in need of "protection:" a man would need to be insane, after all, to have taken a Czar at his word when asked for a candid appraisal of the state's infirmities. From the year of his release from prison and return to his wife Eeva, a woman of peasant stock to whom, with her brother Jakob, he has given a solid education, the Baron's life is recorded in a secret journal by this same Jakob, a shrewd and observant house-guest. Reconstructing the events leading up to the Baron's incarceration in 1818 and subsequent to his release in 1827, Jakob little by little brings to light mysteries surrounding the "Czar's madman." Was his madness genuine? What was the secret understanding between him and his boon companion Czar Alexander I, who committed him to prison? In The Czar's Madman, Jaan Kross weaves together the elements of intrigue surrounding those historical characters who survived in post-Napoleonic Russia, and by a skillful shifting of chronology and viewpoints, creates a superbly rich and moving narrative.

Gavin

Pleasant, mostly fabricated historical novel about an obscure Estonian nobleman who sent his friend Czar Alexander a draft constitution which ended the absolute monarchy, and inherited titles, and removed the Czar from military command, and gave out universal education and the franchise, and who got what you'd expect in return. All the events come to us filtered through a ignoble narrator representing the standard 'enlightened' view of the time: sure the Romanovs are evil, but for God's sake don't say so. 

Lots to admire, in the slow, tense pace - nothing really happens in the present, it's all uncovered in letters - or in his handling of Timo's idealism/insanity. This prison scene made me laugh, on the tube:
'Timo - are you really sure it was the Czar?'
"I wasn't sure at first. He was wearing a short black cloak with a hood covering his head. I couldn't open my eyes and look straight at him, because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Then I recognized him with certainty, in the light... he stepped back from my cot, and – just imagine this! – knelt down on the floor that was covered with rat droppings – I watched him through my eyelashes – and began to pray – two feet away from my ear! I could hear every word he whispered: 

'... I beseech Thee, Lord, make him see reason and make him apologize to his Sovereign for his unimaginable words — so that I might forgive him and become free of the burden it is to me to keep him im­prisoned...’ He closed his eyes and said, as if to himself: ‘But if Thou hast decided otherwise, I say like Thy son said to Thee at Gethsemane: Father, I pray to Thee — but let Thy will be done, not mine. ’ And then, Jakob — then he lowered his head and opened his eyes, and looked straight into mine...
“Well. Two words was all we exchanged. He whispered:
'...Timothee?!'
And I said, 'Tartuffe!'

“He covered his ears with his palms and ran out of the casemate, in rather an unimperial fashion. And I haven’t seen him since.” Timo cleared his throat and added, sounding somewhat self-deprecating: “At least not awake, that is...”
I said, “Timo, this story — surely it was only a dream?”
Timo had walked over to the far corner of the room where the
shadows cast by the sconce mirrors combined to create near­
darkness. He stood there, almost invisible; even the glow of the
pipe he was holding had gone out. Then he laughed and said: 
“Well — whatever you think best... ”

But Kross is clumsy in inserting an enchanting peasant as Timo's wife; everyone who knows her is a complete Eeva fanboy, rhapsodising. But it's not clear why; she's brave and catty but otherwise pretty indistinct. There's definitely an undercurrent of promoting Estonian accomplishments here - not many of Timo and Eeva's grand and broad virtues are attested in the evidence, which makes them Mary and Marty Sue in Kross' fanfiction - but it strikes me that this is not just chauvinism, given Kross' context. Consider: an Estonian living under Russian totalitarianism writes about an Estonian speaking out against Russian totalitarianism.

I resent Kross for the M. Night Shymalan ending, a bit, though it is possible that I should be resenting the narrator's fantasies of it instead.

The Czar's Madman A Novel

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