Between the tiara and the eagle
Vratislav: The First Czech King and the Struggle for Power
The first Czech king Vratislav is a personality unjustly neglected in Czech literature. It was thanks to him that the Czech lands first became a significant force in Central European politics.
This dramatic story from the second half of the 11th century tells the story of his long and turbulent life based on surviving historical sources. The struggle for power, bloody battles and the plundering of enemy territory are intertwined with the everyday life of the Přemyslid court. Stories of love and infidelity unfold in a colourful mosaic, describing jousting tournaments, coronation celebrations and banquets. The fate of the Přemyslids enters into the struggle of the emperor against the pope, the struggles of the Polish and Hungarian kings for power, but also into the lives of the leading Czech nobles. The stage for the story is the whole of Europe at that time.
As in his previous books, the author has conjured up a perfect illusion of medieval life, rendered in a modern and readable style. In terms of scope and historical verisimilitude, it is one of the most interesting novels of recent years.
Vlastimil Vondruska
He studied history and ethnography at Charles University in Prague, worked at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and then at the National Museum in Prague. About 50 scientific studies and the first short stories date from that time. For over thirty years he has been a mountaineer. After the revolution in 1989, he founded a glassworks where he produced copies of historical glass. At that time he returned to writing fiction and has been a freelance writer since 2007. To date, he has published some 70 historical novels and detective stories, several children's books and, together with his wife, 20 popular history books. According to statistics from the National Library, he has been the most widely read Czech author for many years, selling nearly two million printed books and over 100,000 audiobooks, and several titles have been published abroad. He is also the author of the screenplay for the film In the Name of the King, as well as a writer of radio and stage plays. He has received numerous literary awards (e.g. the IBBY Award, the Czech Learned Society Award, the Honorary Award of the Mensa, the MOBA Readers' Prize). His novel The Hussite Epic won the Bestseller of the Year title in 2015. He also writes journalism, for which he received the Kramer Prize from the Association of Independent Media. In 2017, he received a state award for literature from President Miloš Zeman.
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Format & type of protection
| Code: | EK12873 |
| Manufacturer information |
Moravská Bastei MOBA s.r.o, Koliště 13a, Brno 60200, Česká republika, 541 246 978, www.mobaknihy.cz, [email protected] 
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