Balthasar Begins.

“The Ropewalker” is Volume 1 of a 3-volume English translation of Jaan Kross’s Estonian-language “Kolme katku vahel. Balthasar Russowi romaan, I-IV” (Between Three Plagues) (1970-80) by Merike Lepasaar Beecher. “Kolme katku vahel” was actually issued as 4 books in its original printings but many subsequent editions, including this translation, have elected to combine the shorter Books I and II as Volume 1. Volume 2: A People without a Past (original Book III) will be published in 2017 and Volume 3: A Book of Falsehoods (original Book IV) will complete the trilogy in 2018. The volume titles have been added for the English translation.

“Between Three Plagues" was the first novel and magnum opus of Jaan Kross (1920-2007) who had been primarily known as a poet and translator in his native Estonia after his 1954 return from the Gulag after serving an 8-year sentence for anti-Soviet activities. It became the template for many of his subsequent historical-based works which featured Estonian-associated protagonists making their careers while living and comprising under the rule of foreign regimes. As such, they were proxies for the Estonian people as a whole. Previous English translations have featured the characters of Timotheus von Bock (1787-1836) (in The Czar's Madman) and Friedrich Martens (1845-1909) (in Professor Martens' Departure) and the Jaan Kross-proxy character of Peeter Mirk (in The Conspiracy and Other Stories, also in the untranslated Väljakaevamised (Excavations)).

The English translation marketing for the Balthasar Russow trilogy is comparing it to that of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell in the Wolf Hall Trilogy. There are certainly parallels in that both historical characters were born of lowly origins and both came to be advisors and confidantes of leaders and rulers even if Russow’s are not quite on the same world-stage level of England’s Henry the VIIIth.

Balthasar (Bal) Russow (1536-1600) was born into an Estonian commoner family and was the son of a wagoneer. This was a time when the area of Livonia (present day Estonia and Northern Latvia) was under Germanic rule through the Teutonic Knights and German landholders. Unlike most commoners he had a schooling in the Hanseatic City of Reval (present day Tallinn) and was mentored by his brother-in-law and had a further schooling in Stettin (Szczecin in present day Poland) before returning to Livonia to become the Estonian language Luteran pastor of the Church of the Holy Ghost in Reval and writing his Liivimaa kroonika (Chronicle of the Province of Livonia) (1577, 2nd edition 1584) which covered the history of Livonia from 1185 to 1583. It was popular in its day due to its readability and down-to-earth reportage of the foibles of both the ruling class and the peasants. It is one of the sources for the story that the first Christmas trees originated in Estonia (in seasonal celebrations by the Guild of the Brotherhood of Blackheads).

“The Ropewalker” mostly tells Bal’s schoolday origin story from 1546 at the age of 10 to his return to Estonia from abroad in 1562 at the age of 26. The introductory chapters let us see his inquisitive nature when he plays truant from school to attempt to discover the secrets of a troupe of Italian tightrope artists (i.e. ropewalkers) entertaining the town crowds in Reval and his adeptness with languages and other school subjects by which he impresses the young schoolmaster Frolink Meus who also finds a wife in Baltasar’s older sister Annika. Bal finds other mentors along the way and has his first schoolboy crush with a village girl named Epp and his first adult affair with the bewitching wife of his erstwhile mentor Doctor Friesner. His encounters with nobility and some of the best passages in the book range from a midnight icebound sleigh-ride mission to Johan, Duke of Finland (1537-1592) [later King Johan III of Sweden] to report on the Muscovy invasion of Livonia in 1558 to being a secret advisor and representative of the Peasant King in the Estonian Peasant Uprising of 1560. Along the way he is always grounded by his family and his childhood Estonian friend Märten whose possibilities are not as expansive as Bal's. Having Books 1 and 2 in Volume 1 also allows a nice framing device as Book 1 Chapter 1 starts in the tower of St. Olaf's Church in Tallinn and Book 2 Chapter 7 mostly ends in the tower of St. Ansgarius Church in Bremen. Jaan Kross uses the few known facts of Russow’s real-life, the latter's and other’s Livonian Chronicles, histories and his own novelist imagination to immerse us in an entire Mediaeval world of epic Tolstoyan proportions.

Merike Lepasaar Beecher has done a superb job in making Kross’s often elaborate Estonian (the synoptic chapter headings are often harder to understand than the chapters they are meant to introduce) with his penchant for run-on sentences to be entirely readable. Excellent notes*, historical biographies** and explanations of archaic weights and Estonian place-names make this very reader friendly introduction to a world that is still somewhat viewable in the present-day preserved Old City of Tallinn. I am eagerly looking forward to reading Volumes 2 and 3***.

Stray Observation
• As mentioned by the character Herr Sum (pg. 511) “Balthasar” means “Baal protects the king.” You can take the name “Baal” to mean “God” or “Lord”. The history of the name is interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balthaz...

* Further Notes (re: Appendix 1)

pg. 260 “...my little Kratt…” The doctor calling his wife Katharina by the nickname of Kratt is not a typo. It is the Estonian word for a treasure-hunting goblin.

** Further Selected Historical Figures (re: Appendix 2)
[I looked these up via English, Estonian and Russian language Wikipedia so in case anyone else is interested in these further historical figures that appear in or are mentioned in the book.]

Aleksei Danilovich Basmanov, Voivode of Narva/Ivangorod (c1514-1570). Voivode is Old Slavic for Warlord. Alexei Basmanov was one of the originators of Ivan the Terrible’s personal guard/secret police enforcement group/policy Oprichnina which he boasts about in “The Ropewalker". He was executed after falling out of favour with Ivan.

Fedor Alekseyevich Basmanov (c1545-1571) son of Aleksei Danilovich Basmanov. Later alleged lover of Ivan the Terrible. Exiled after his family fell out of favour. Trivia Note: in the film “Ivan the Terrible” by Sergei Eisenstein, Fedor Basmanov performs a dance for the Tsar.

Ivan IV aka Ivan the Terrible aka The Muscovite (1530-1584). Grand Duke aka Grand Prince of Muscovy from 1533 to 1547, afterwards crowned Tsar. In an attempt to gain access to the Baltic Sea and its major trade routes, Ivan IV began the Livonian War (1558-1583) versus the Swedish Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Teutonic Knights of Livonia.

Shighali aka Shahghali, Khan of Astrakhan (1505 - 1567). Ally of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) and the leader of the Russian advance forces at the beginning of the Livonian War (1558-1583).

*** Typos (in case anyone from MacLehose Press is reading this and would like a free proofreader for Volumes 2 and 3 ;) :

pg. 200 Book 1 Chapter 7 “Annnika” s/b “Annika"
pg. 208 Book 1 Chapter 7 “…Bal now dared once more glance…” s/b “…Bal now dared one more glance…"
pg. 371 Book 2 Chapter 3 “Tisehhusen” s/b “Tisenhusen”
pg. 438 Book 2 Chapter 5 “...had he not been not known for his nearsightedness.” s/b “...had he not been known for his nearsightedness.”
pg. 484 Book 2 Chapter 6 “…looked greedily over their shoulder sat him.” s/b “…looked greedily over their shoulders at him." ( )

Lugesin uuesti Kolme katku vahel I-II ettevalmistamisel lugeda uut inglise keele tõlget The Ropewalker.

Reread Between Three Plagues I+II in advance of reading the new english language translation The Ropewalker. ( )