Summary
Using archival material, Prussian diplomatic dispatches and letters from Prussian consuls in Sarajevo, Amer Kapetanović wrote an exciting novel about the political circumstances and destinies in Bosnia and Herzegovina before and after the Austro-Hungarian occupation. Many of the characters in this novel, such as the consuls, are not fictional: Ottoman pashas, Austro-Hungarian officials, Hadži Lojo, Benjamin Kalay... Both real and "fictional" characters in the novel make their way, sometimes skillfully, and sometimes tragically, through the conflicting interests of the great powers, trying in times of turmoil to either find a place for themselves in history or just survive it. Great political upheavals are inseparable from the small destinies of consuls, their domestic assistants, but also rebels, conspirators, spies, assassins, adventurers... Such a historical legacy in this novel will resonate loudly a century later, in our time.
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