In many ways, this review marks a triumph: the completion of my quest to locate and read all of Kristína Royová’s books in English! (See the now-complete bibliography at the end of this post.) The title is not literal—in Slovak the book is called Moc svetla, “The Power of the Light,” with an epigraph from John 1:5. A whole seventy years passed between in its initial publication in Slovak and its translation into English.

It was no small thing to add this last Royová novel to my collection. The only used copies I could locate online originally cost upwards of $200! I wrote a few pleading emails to the vendors to broker a deal. None of them ever responded, but not long after, one dropped the price to $60. Still a bit much for a faded mass market paperback, but I wasn’t going to let the chance slip away. Collectors are always at the mercy of dealers!

I wish I could say that this almost 600-page book was worth the 10¢ per page. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the 3-star rating for The Heiress is awarded on the same arbitrary grounds that I gave the same rating to Bellevue: a split between a 5 for the book achieving its intended purpose and a 1 for the enjoyment I took in reading it.

It’s pretty funny, actually, that I would have the same issue with these two particular Slovak novels in English, because they are about as diametrically opposed in outlook as humanly possible. Bellevue is bleak and nihilistic; The Heiress is chirpy and optimistic. In truth, the best characterization I can think of for The Heiress is “religious soap opera”…

This is the fifth novel by Royová that I’m reviewing, following upon Sunshine Country, Three Comrades, Only a Servant, and Kept by a Mighty Hand. But, as it turns out, Martinko is the very first book she wrote!

It was published originally in 1893 until the title Bez Boha na svete, or “Without God in the World,” though the protagonist does bear the name Martinko. Royová wrote it in response to a general challenge for someone to produce some kind of children’s literature “for God.” It now stands as the single most translated work of Slovak literature—the introduction to my copy notes that it has appeared in innumerable German editions as well as Hungarian and Russian.

So that’s pretty cool. However, Royová went on to write nearly seventy novels, and frankly it’s pretty obvious that this one is her first. I’ve spoken warmly of the emotional and spiritual complexity in some of her other works, but this one is so pious as to border on the saccharine. A poor little orphan boy, kept alive but not well-loved by the townspeople, yearns for God, finds a Bible and some mentors, inadvertently re-enacts certain aspects of Jesus’ ministry, and dies tragically from injuries gained while saving a lost sheep, young but saved and an inspiration to the half-hearted Christians all around him. The christological allusions are heavy-handed, at best.

But as so often is the case with Slovak lit translated before the Velvet Revolution, the circumstances of its translation proved to be the really interesting facet of this story…

Though originally published in 1921, thus a few years after the end of the First World War, the story clearly reflects the prewar period—not only on account of the utter absence of destruction that said war brought on the Balkans but also because of its use of intact aristocratic estates. A few clues indicate that the action is set mainly in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, as it was then known, a product of ongoing turmoil in the political Kingdom of Hungary after the expulsion of the Ottomans.

More specifically, the two estates in questions are located “across the bend of the Danube into Slavonia,” the latter being the easternmost, inland area of Croatia. The protagonist is called Michael Hodolich, the English rendering of Hodolič, which is in turn the Slovak rendering of Hodolić, a surname from that very part of Croatia, centered on the city of Ilok, which indeed sits on the Danube. Michael inherits the Hodolich estate, located not far from Orlov or “Eagle Castle”—note that Ilok has an impressive castle on the hill—and it is said more than once that the principals speak “Horwat,” which oddly enough is the Polish word for “Croatian” (Hrvatski in Croatian itself, chorvátsky in Slovak). I have no idea what possessed Lukesh to use this word, as “Croatian” has existed in English since the 1540s! The only Polish connection in the book is that Lady Zamojsky of Eagle Castle “was married to a Polish nobleman and lived many years in London, where he was ambassador.” Royová adds, “There, also, she left the church of Rome,” a point that probably pleased Lukesh since he was, unfortunately, involved in an “Away from Rome” society in his native Czech Lands.

As you can no doubt tell, I enjoyed ferreting out these details from passing clues in the book, in part because it seems so absolutely unremarkable to the author that there would be so many languages and nations represented, reflecting the fluidity of the Austro-Hungarian empire in its various iterations before the nation-state fixed firm borders with aspirations of ethnic purity…

With Gaudeamus I reached the astounding milestone of having unearthed twenty-five Slovak novels in English, with only slight fudging on the definition of the term. But since then, things have gotten… complicated. Let me tell you why.

The first problem is a simple one of access. Time will remedy that in a couple of cases; two Slovak novels in English are due to be published in the summer, assuming the pandemic doesn’t put the plans on hold.

I could read a portion of a novel that has been only partially translated, Tatarka’s The Demon of Conformism, but I have to admit I’m just not excited about reading a mere excerpt when my self-imposed mandate is for complete novels or, in a pinch, novellas.

Finally, in a couple of cases, the print book is so exceedingly rare that I just can’t find a copy to lay my hands on. So please, if you happen to have Seller of Talismans by Jozef Cíger-Hronský or Dead Soldiers Don’t Sing by Rudolf Jašík lying around the house, be a pal and mail it to me, OK?

So I figured the well was going to run dry pretty soon.

But then, a funny thing happened…