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Egy az isten #1-3
Manasseh: A Romance of Transylvania
Translated by Percy Favor Bicknell
210 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1877
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39 people want to read
About the author
Mór Jókai
883 books98 followersMór Jókai, born Móric Jókay de Ásva, outside Hungary also known as Maurus Jokai or Moriz Jokai, was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. He was born in Komárom, the Kingdom of Hungary (today Komárno, Slovakia, southern part remains in Hungary).
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 9, 2021
I was duped. This is the truth of the matter. I was deceived strikingly but it was worthwhile as it paid off eventually - it shed a brighter ray of warm light over a topic of historical interest. Doubtless, I wish and hope I will be duped just the same in near future, too :)
'Manasseh: A Romance of Transylvania' – a title that greeted my eyes delightfully - is not precisely a romance novel like I thought, well as I imagined, to be. It's true it contains also a romance affair, but the background plot and its development are dominantly focused on a much different theme - basically it tries to awaken to life the story of Szeklerland, and this is really an impressive story.
The Hungarian title of the book is “Egy az Isten” – “One is the Lord” – the watchword of the Unitarians of Transylvania (it seems that the Unitarians had an especial horror of bloodshed). I confess – pray forgiveness – with such a title I wouldn’t have chosen (yet) this book now. So, it’s just great that the want of an adequate English equivalent of this motto has led to the adoption of another title, where love, war and adventure furnish the plot and vital interest of the narrative. On a side note, it helped me refresh that the Unitarian Church was first recognized by the Edict of Torda, issued by the Transylvanian Diet under its Unitarian Prince John II Sigismund Zápolya (January 1568), and it was deemed heretical by both Roman Catholic as well as Protestant religions. Basically, three years after the introduction of Unitarianism into Poland, John Sigismund Szapolyai, the liberal and enlightened voivode (prince) of Transylvania, issued a decree, granting his people religious toleration in the broadest sense.
The main story and the narrated events take place in the stirring days of 1848, when the revolutionary spirit swept over Europe, and called forth deeds of heroism. Getting deeper into the novel, we are told about some existing hostilities between the Magyars and Szeklers, on the one hand, and the Wallachians, on the other - a state of feud on which the plot of the story largely hinges, and let it be remembered that during those times Transylvania was already incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary and ruled by Habsburg imperial princes. It is mentioned that some secret arrangements - encouraged strongly by the government at Vienna, led to a revolt against the Hungarians. The most frightful atrocities were committed by the insurgents: hundreds of families were butchered in cold blood, and whole villages sacked and burned. These acts of massacre and rapine were especially numerous on the eastern borders of Transylvania, among the so-called Szeklers, or "Frontiersmen".
The scene of the present narrative is chiefly laid in Szeklerland. Historically, the Szeklers - who call themselves Attilans - claim descent from a portion of that vast invading horde of Attila the Hun, and has occupied the eastern portion of Transylvania ever since. The Magyars are of the same or a nearly kindred race, and speak the same language, but their ancestry is traced back to a later band of invaders who forced their way in from the East early in the tenth century.
The love story occupies a little part of the novel – and certainly, being short-lived, it has upset me for a while – but the way the events were developed into the second part of the book caught my attention even better. I realized that the adventures the male hero had to go through were more impressive for his becoming an ideal hero.
His name is Manasseh Adorjan, he is of good old Szekler descent, and he has seven brothers and a twin sister. They all live at home (well, in fact, our hero was travelling to Rome at the beginning of the story, where in a train, he meets the princess ex-Cagliari (on her way to Rome to petition for divorce), his future sweetheart and wife Countess Blanka Zboroy) in their ancestral castle. Some of his brothers have married, but all live together peacefully under one roof and form one household. Manasseh seems to have been recognized by the family as the gifted one – his brothers are nothing more than honest and intelligent Szeklers, -- and for his education and advancement in the world all worked in unison. When he was only twenty years old this young genius became a candidate for the council (as in that time, in Transylvania it was the custom to make the higher government appointments from all four of the recognized religious sects – Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Unitarian).
And, so on and so forth, we are yielding to a sort of drowsy lullaby of the smoothly rolling wheels of the train :)) …
My only fear is that – and I regret exceedingly – the novel has been abridged during its translation into English (and I have no copy in Romanian, presently). The proof is that there are only two hundred and something pages, but also you can feel that each chapter is cut, just out of sudden, and the details are not covered in the right proportion. It gives you the feeling that the author is in haste to make it to the end (let’s not forget, Haste makes waste!), though eventually it’s a happy end. But for me, these broken threads and occasional inconsistencies led to a sort of depressing effect – thinking I was given less for something that it’s truly much more, considering that I have been already convinced of the excessive wealth of incident of the author’s style when reading the Golden Man (fortunately, the Romanian translation was just perfect) – so I am infinitely indebted to him :D
'Manasseh: A Romance of Transylvania' – a title that greeted my eyes delightfully - is not precisely a romance novel like I thought, well as I imagined, to be. It's true it contains also a romance affair, but the background plot and its development are dominantly focused on a much different theme - basically it tries to awaken to life the story of Szeklerland, and this is really an impressive story.
The Hungarian title of the book is “Egy az Isten” – “One is the Lord” – the watchword of the Unitarians of Transylvania (it seems that the Unitarians had an especial horror of bloodshed). I confess – pray forgiveness – with such a title I wouldn’t have chosen (yet) this book now. So, it’s just great that the want of an adequate English equivalent of this motto has led to the adoption of another title, where love, war and adventure furnish the plot and vital interest of the narrative. On a side note, it helped me refresh that the Unitarian Church was first recognized by the Edict of Torda, issued by the Transylvanian Diet under its Unitarian Prince John II Sigismund Zápolya (January 1568), and it was deemed heretical by both Roman Catholic as well as Protestant religions. Basically, three years after the introduction of Unitarianism into Poland, John Sigismund Szapolyai, the liberal and enlightened voivode (prince) of Transylvania, issued a decree, granting his people religious toleration in the broadest sense.
The main story and the narrated events take place in the stirring days of 1848, when the revolutionary spirit swept over Europe, and called forth deeds of heroism. Getting deeper into the novel, we are told about some existing hostilities between the Magyars and Szeklers, on the one hand, and the Wallachians, on the other - a state of feud on which the plot of the story largely hinges, and let it be remembered that during those times Transylvania was already incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary and ruled by Habsburg imperial princes. It is mentioned that some secret arrangements - encouraged strongly by the government at Vienna, led to a revolt against the Hungarians. The most frightful atrocities were committed by the insurgents: hundreds of families were butchered in cold blood, and whole villages sacked and burned. These acts of massacre and rapine were especially numerous on the eastern borders of Transylvania, among the so-called Szeklers, or "Frontiersmen".
The scene of the present narrative is chiefly laid in Szeklerland. Historically, the Szeklers - who call themselves Attilans - claim descent from a portion of that vast invading horde of Attila the Hun, and has occupied the eastern portion of Transylvania ever since. The Magyars are of the same or a nearly kindred race, and speak the same language, but their ancestry is traced back to a later band of invaders who forced their way in from the East early in the tenth century.
The love story occupies a little part of the novel – and certainly, being short-lived, it has upset me for a while – but the way the events were developed into the second part of the book caught my attention even better. I realized that the adventures the male hero had to go through were more impressive for his becoming an ideal hero.
His name is Manasseh Adorjan, he is of good old Szekler descent, and he has seven brothers and a twin sister. They all live at home (well, in fact, our hero was travelling to Rome at the beginning of the story, where in a train, he meets the princess ex-Cagliari (on her way to Rome to petition for divorce), his future sweetheart and wife Countess Blanka Zboroy) in their ancestral castle. Some of his brothers have married, but all live together peacefully under one roof and form one household. Manasseh seems to have been recognized by the family as the gifted one – his brothers are nothing more than honest and intelligent Szeklers, -- and for his education and advancement in the world all worked in unison. When he was only twenty years old this young genius became a candidate for the council (as in that time, in Transylvania it was the custom to make the higher government appointments from all four of the recognized religious sects – Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Unitarian).
And, so on and so forth, we are yielding to a sort of drowsy lullaby of the smoothly rolling wheels of the train :)) …
My only fear is that – and I regret exceedingly – the novel has been abridged during its translation into English (and I have no copy in Romanian, presently). The proof is that there are only two hundred and something pages, but also you can feel that each chapter is cut, just out of sudden, and the details are not covered in the right proportion. It gives you the feeling that the author is in haste to make it to the end (let’s not forget, Haste makes waste!), though eventually it’s a happy end. But for me, these broken threads and occasional inconsistencies led to a sort of depressing effect – thinking I was given less for something that it’s truly much more, considering that I have been already convinced of the excessive wealth of incident of the author’s style when reading the Golden Man (fortunately, the Romanian translation was just perfect) – so I am infinitely indebted to him :D
November 18, 2017
Mor Jokai published Egy az isten (One is the Lord) in 1901.
An enjoyable book from an author who was well acquainted with the stories and legends of the time then and past.
He manages to describe the Transylvanian landscape in such beauty. And his take on culturally brimming Rome is very plausible.
One of the characters is a modest, intellectual Unitarianist that habitually is moved to praise the creator for the nature around him and uses freely the name of God, Jehovah, as in Mor's other Tyrian book 'THE CITY OF THE BEAST - A CHAPTER FROM THE HISTORY OF A VANISHED CONTINENT.'
This is in agreement with the fact that in around 1560 the king of Hungary, John Sigismund Szapolyai, after becoming an anti-trinitarian himself, issued a decree to grant broad toleration for the anti-trinitarian Unitarians which later led to non-trinitarian influence in Hungary, Transylvanian (region of Romania) and Slovakian education.
An enjoyable book from an author who was well acquainted with the stories and legends of the time then and past.
He manages to describe the Transylvanian landscape in such beauty. And his take on culturally brimming Rome is very plausible.
One of the characters is a modest, intellectual Unitarianist that habitually is moved to praise the creator for the nature around him and uses freely the name of God, Jehovah, as in Mor's other Tyrian book 'THE CITY OF THE BEAST - A CHAPTER FROM THE HISTORY OF A VANISHED CONTINENT.'
This is in agreement with the fact that in around 1560 the king of Hungary, John Sigismund Szapolyai, after becoming an anti-trinitarian himself, issued a decree to grant broad toleration for the anti-trinitarian Unitarians which later led to non-trinitarian influence in Hungary, Transylvanian (region of Romania) and Slovakian education.
September 8, 2022
Manasseh is the story of two lovers in mid-19th century Central Europe, and the trials and tribulations of their courtship and early married life, with splashes of Gothic novels thrown in. You can expect the sexism and racism (against the Roma and Sinti) of the period. Overall, the story was interesting and full of cultural detail, but it really failed to hold my interest.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews