In the novel "Empire, to si ti" the Spanish writer Javier Moro tells about significant, but also incredible, historical events that led to the formation of Brazil, the largest country in South America. With a skillful and pleasant writing manner and a refined tendency towards seemingly less important details, but never useless, the author tells an interesting story about that vast country and its first rulers. A novel like this involved a huge amount of research, documented with reliable data from Brazilian history and culture. It is full of colorful characters and events, and covers a period of some thirty years. This novel is said to be about the birth of the modern nation of Brazil, an epic saga that is in many ways stranger than fiction. It deals with a significant historical period, a period of major changes in America, but also in Europe. "Empire, to si ti" is the seventh book written by this novelist and won the prestigious (albeit controversial) Planet Award for the best novel in the Spanish language in 2011. She translated the book from Spanish Milica Maletic, and begins with a two-page vignette about the first contact between Europeans and Indians in the territory that later became part of Brazil. This line represents a kind of reconstruction of the moment of meeting the Portuguese admiral Alvares Kabrala Stone with the Tupi Indians, the inhabitants there, when a sailor with a crew accidentally landed on the unknown shores of that part of South America. The cause of that landing was the strong winds of the Atlantic Ocean, which prevented him from following the route of his predecessor Vaska de Game and to pass the Cape of Good Hope to reach India. The plot of the novel mostly takes place in chronological order with several flashbacks.
The book is a fictional biography Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (1798 - 1834), founder and first ruler of the Brazilian Empire. In this spirit, the author leads us through the story of Pedro and his four years younger half-brother Miguel, to boys from the court of the ruling family who lived in the palace of San Cristobal. This palace was only five kilometers from the center of Rio de Janeiro and was the seat of the Portuguese monarchy moved to Brazil after Napoleon In 1807, occupied Portugal because it did not want to join the French continental blockade of Britain. It was a unique case - the relocation of a metropolis to a colony...
Pedro was the fourth child of the King of Portugal Joa VI and when he arrived in Brazil he was only seven years old. In the novel, it is said that Pedro and Miguel have been very naughty boys ever since they arrived on the soil of South America and left the royal palace in Keluza, a small and lonely place not far from Lisbon, where they were born. The courtiers could hardly cope with them, because they were the favorite target of their mischief. Because of this, neither the courtiers nor the servants were too selective about the words they used to address these boys. They told them that they were scoundrels, treacherous, rude, lazy, liars, and these insults were even fiercer after the boys began to wait for them in the spacious corridors of the palace and shoot them in the legs from two small bronze cannons that were presented to them by an admiral of the British fleet, a friend of their father. At the same time, they did not miss any opportunity to evade the supervision of the tutor and the servants and for both of them to escape to the huge park that surrounded the palace, only so that they could hide there better, and later mock and mock them for their clumsy search. But the boys loved to play war most of all, not realizing that one day they would actually fight bloody battles and a real war. Both boys were cruel and arrogant. Pedro was at the forefront of this, although in his early teens he liked, probably just for fun, to do menial jobs. He learned to saddle and ride horses at an early age, but he did not neglect his carpentry skills either. He was thin, tough, impetuous and impudent. The younger boy, Migel, hid behind his half-brother's back whenever he could, so the servants also called him "the runaway". But even so, his greatest desire was to beat Pedro in every competition in which they competed, and they were numerous. Over time, this desire of Miguel's developed into a real obsession.
From his father João VI, Pedro inherited subtle intelligence, kindness, but also stinginess with money and a fondness for fine and light music. From mother, Spanish Karlote Hoakine, daughters King Carlos IV he inherited a passion for horses, a strong spirit of independence and a penchant for banking and various parties. He was convinced that this hereditary tendency was so strong when he once watched a beautiful French ballerina perform with incomprehensible grace at the Royal Theater in Rio de Janeiro. Although he thought that, despite his youth, he was hardened in his relations with women, after that ballet performance, he was convinced that he was wrong because he experienced real seas of love. Even in the later period, Pedro was known for his mythical sexual appetite, a trait that followed him throughout his life. He was increasingly in the company of a local French ballerina Noemí, even when his marriage with Maria Leopoldina, Archduchess of Austria. Here, Javier Moro foreshadows one of the central elements of the story that follows in this novel, in fact, he points to some of the key events that develop in the narrative: fortuitous circumstances that lead to incredible moments, starting with the accidental landing on the shores of Brazil at the beginning of the novel, as well as to the causes of many unusual but important events for Pedro's way of life.
The novel "Carstvo, to si ti" is extremely extensive, but it is far from a boring novel. In short: it's fun, well-paced and extremely meaningful. It is divided into nine parts, including the aforementioned prologue and epilogue. The story is mainly set in Rio de Janeiro, where the Portuguese king Joao VI fled into exile with his family and the entire royal court. The first part presents the future emperor Pedro and the king's second son Miguel. Pedro was born into a rather problematic and one might say - unstable marriage between a weak-willed, suspicious, but benevolent father and a mean, ambitious mother, so the boy was rather neglected from the beginning, in fact, he was raised with a lack of care and affection. Thus, Pedro was quite distant from his parents, especially from his father's political affairs and state affairs. In the novel, he is depicted more as a joker with a wild streak and an untamed character, as a young man with a formal, rather average education, a young man who was more skilled in physical activities: horse riding and carpentry, than in intellectual pursuits of any kind.
The second part of the book is dedicated to Leopoldina, who often, but not aggressively, appears as one of the more sympathetic characters in the novel. Ispčetka appears as a young woman in Austria, with an emphasis on morality and intellectual pursuits. She was fascinated by life in America, in an exotic natural environment. And this was an arranged marriage, which was common for the aristocracy at the time, so the marriage was a product of political alliances, not a product of sincere love or attention.
When there were changes in the internal political situation in Portugal, when the transition to a constitutional monarchy took place, King João VI returned to Lisbon, and left his son Pedro in Rio de Janeiro to take over the position of regent in Brazil.
In the following chapters of the novel, the author guides the reader through complex political processes not only in Portugal but also beyond; primarily in Brazil. In particular, it deals with Pedro's role in gaining Brazilian independence, then consolidating his power as a liberal emperor, and his selfless attempts to reconcile his authoritarian tendencies with the progressive ideology he espoused. The novel also deals with the growing influence of Brazil on Portugal, especially at the time when this new country was in the phase of constitution. In the book, the hostilities in personal and political relations between some prominent individuals were not overlooked, such as, for example, between his father João VI and his mother Carlota. Carlota had a hard time experiencing Pedro's political and personal decline, she considered it extremely unfair, she did not understand enough why the nationalists were increasingly demanding, why they sought to erase every trace of the Portuguese presence within the ruling structures of Brazil, in their former colony. Such a transformation of Brazil into a modern nation, its independence from Portugal, was unique on American soil. Let's remember that Pedro I also had a hard time enduring such a development of the situation as a native Portuguese, in 1831. he decided to abdicate, like his father João VI, in favor of his son Pedro of Alcantara, the future Face Stone II. After that he left Brazil forever and later that former emperor became the Duke of Braganza and was involved in international diplomacy. Finally, he decides on a very risky move - to wrest all power from the hands of the traitor Miguel, his half-brother, which he had in Portugal, in favor of his daughter. Maria da Gloria, and to appoint himself as regent. However, he did not succeed in his plan, because he soon succumbed to tuberculosis, a disease that was draining his strength more and more rapidly day by day, and in 1834 he died quite young, at the age of 35.
In this novel, Pedro, a young man who became the emperor of Brazil at the age of 21, is presented with all his contradictions: at the beginning as an extremely mischievous and impudent boy, then as a liberal idealist, then a schemer by format, and then as a victim of betrayal and end up as a despot.
In the novel "Empire, to si ti" there is considerable tension, which mostly stems from the conflict between the liberal philosophies he advocated and again his absolutist tendencies. In addition, multiple political pranks and frauds are present here, especially numerous intrigues among his closest family members, especially his parents, then between his wives Leopoldina and Amelie, and lover Noemí i domitile.
Pedro, although previously married to Leopoldina, had an affair with a beautiful young local woman, Domitila, whom he appointed as lady-in-waiting to his first wife Leopoldina. The Austrian princess and Brazilian empress died very young, most likely exhausted by such events at her husband's court. In this novel, the author portrays Pedro as a loving and caring father, even with six illegitimate children born to him by his lover Domitila.
Javier Moro is a journalist and a famous Spanish writer. He was born in Madrid in 1955, and is one of the most important writers of his generation. He also worked in the world of film as a screenwriter and producer. His most famous books are: Paths of Freedom (1992), Foothills of Jaipur (1995), Buddha Mountain (1998), It Was Midnight in Bhopal (2001), in collaboration with Dominik Lapier, Indian Passion (2005), Red Sari (2008), The Empire, It's You (Planet Award 2011), My Sin (Spring Award 2017) and Fireproof (2020).
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