Stephanie Jane recenzis The Haiduks de Panait Istrati
How the Haiduks came to be
3 steloj
The synopsis of The Haiduks led me to expect that this story would be an adventure tale. In reality, the novella comprises of five short stories in which members of Floarea's Haiduk group take it in turns to tell each other their personal stories of how they chose this outlaw life. As historical fiction, The Haiduks has an unsettling sense of timelessness where it is difficult to pin the tales to an exact era. Wikipedia describes Haiduks (or hajducs) as bandits or freedom fighters who lived across the Balkans from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
I felt that there were a lot of similarities here to the English Robin Hood myth - one of the Haiduks is even a monk - in the way a small band set themselves the task of alleviating their fellow villagers sufferings by staging attacks on the feudal overlords and redistributing their ill-gotten gains …
The synopsis of The Haiduks led me to expect that this story would be an adventure tale. In reality, the novella comprises of five short stories in which members of Floarea's Haiduk group take it in turns to tell each other their personal stories of how they chose this outlaw life. As historical fiction, The Haiduks has an unsettling sense of timelessness where it is difficult to pin the tales to an exact era. Wikipedia describes Haiduks (or hajducs) as bandits or freedom fighters who lived across the Balkans from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
I felt that there were a lot of similarities here to the English Robin Hood myth - one of the Haiduks is even a monk - in the way a small band set themselves the task of alleviating their fellow villagers sufferings by staging attacks on the feudal overlords and redistributing their ill-gotten gains back to the neediest. The stories gave an interesting insight into peasant life during the Ottoman occupation of Romania, but they don't have much by way of dash and excitement. Instead there are philosophical discussions on the aspirations of slaves, and lots of love at first glimpse! I liked the details of people's occupations, clothing, housing etc, and Penuel's decision to leave a scattering of specifically Romanian nouns untranslated really adds to the authenticity. Overall though The Haiduks came across to me as the just beginning of what should have become a longer work (which I don't think it is). We've now met our merry band of do-good outlaws, but instead of following them into battle, the book ends.