Medieval Bohemia, the petty nobility nothing more than highwaymen,
literally robber barons, and the king has to dispatch troops to restore
order. Marketa Lazarova was promised to God at birth, destined to live
her life in a convent, but she is abducted by one of the neighboring
Kozla-k clan and discovers her sensual self. Told in shifting
perspectives, mixing the archaic with the modern, the elevated with the
vulgar, Vancura's tale is a compressed epic, less historical novel (the
history of his ancestors) than paean to honor, courage, life, carnality,
and above all a love that undermines conventional notions of the profane
as it shifts to a sacred outside the sanctions of religious dogma. In so
doing, he shows the nexus between Crown and Church to subjugate those
who prefer to follow their own natures over following imposed laws and
precepts. Cinematic in approach to draw the reader into the action, as
if it were happening right before one's eyes, Marketa Lazarova deserves
its place among the classics of interwar modernism, and it was awarded
Czechoslovakia's State Prize for Literature upon its publication in
1931. Yet the novel has been largely known by Frantisek Vlacil's 1967
film adaptation, generally considered one of the greatest achievements
of Czech cinema, and unavailable in English until now.
