VLACHICA

A historical novel set in the late-18th century dramatizes the plight of the Vlachs, an ancient but beleaguered people in the Balkan Mountains.

In 1770, Ali is a young, politically naïve man, bewildered by the labyrinthine political tumults of the day, “that stormy sea of clashing Empires.” He has only one aspiration: In the wake of his father’s death, he wants to restore his Tzepeleni clan to its former glory in Epirus, which would also rebuild his family’s wealth. His cunning mother, Khamko, not only ensures that he becomes the clan’s next commander, but that he becomes accustomed to the corridors of power. He learns Turkish and Greek, and he joins the sultan’s army, hoping to take advantage of the Ottoman Empire’s emphasis on merit rather than class. He rises to positions of considerable influence but falls in love with Shana, a member of the Gramostea clan, promised already in marriage to two others for political reasons. Also, the sultan orders Ali to make war against the Vlachs, including Shana’s clan, an order supported by the Christian Orthodox Church in Constantinople.

Roznoveanu hails from a long line of Vlachs, a forgotten people she vividly portrays. Consider this synoptic reference given to Omar, the Grand Vizier of the sultan: “He explained that the Vlachs’ secret realm south of the Danube had been a totally different reality built by completely unlike people, a sort of Empire on the mountaintops, having no ruler but bold, rich, and independent citizens. Their cities—linked together by almost the same language, geography, and ancestral customs—were built higher and higher all over Rumelia by those who took refuge from the third century on, when invaders started to come.” Ali, who is quietly half Vlach, is a fascinating figure—handsome and brimming with charm; he’s also capable of extraordinary brutality. Furthermore, he’s inclined to a philosophical worldview and wonders deeply about his lot in life. “Could love travel through time in families? Are we the same or different from those before us? Is our fate decided by their choices? Do we have to fulfill their unfinished tasks?” Roznoveanu’s knowledge of the Vlachs—including the culture and geography of the region and its complex political and theological divisions—is impressive. The plot is punishingly convoluted, however. A legion of characters peopling just as many subplots proves bewildering. The author seems eager to ensure not a single detail, no matter how granular or germane, is excised, leaving the reader buried under minutiae. The book concludes with a series of genealogical tables and maps, reference tools that are essential to understanding the story. The result of this narrative approach, which seems better suited to a historical rather than a novelistic account, is that the storyline dawdles. Roznoveanu’s writing style doesn’t help—long sentences densely packed with information, some of it essential and some entirely peripheral, often clumsily conveyed, are typical. At one juncture, pages and pages of debate regarding the differences and similarities of Islam and Christianity appear, a digression the reader could do without.

A thorough but slow and entangled historical novel.