Vladimir Bartol: Prophet
by Brian J. Pozun

Copyright ©2003 Transitions Online
Reprinted by permission

A 65-year-old fantastical novel set in medieval Persia rings eerily true today, and its author finally begins to earn recognition from his fellow Slovenes.

"...a thoroughly compelling novel from cover to cover." --Midwest Book Review Paperback available through the trade from Random House Distribution Order from Amazon Click for Larger Image $10.00 The hardcover edition is available only through special orders Hardcover Ordering Options: FAX: 206.789.2221 PHONE: 206.706.3339     Secured by:

On 24 February, Slovenia marked the centennial of the birth of one of its least appreciated literary figures, Vladimir Bartol. Critical reception of Bartol's most important work, the novel Alamut, was so cold when it was first published in 1938 that the book was threatened with oblivion. But in the 1980s, the younger generation in Slovenia rediscovered the book, and this year, it became required reading for high school students.

Enormous success in translation has been a major factor in the re-evaluation of Bartol's legacy in Slovenia. Alamut has been translated into many languages, and is the best-known Slovenian novel around the world. Unfortunately, it has yet to be published in English, and so it remains largely unknown in the United States and the United Kingdom.

[Publisher's Note: This article was published in April, 2003, prior to the current Scala House publication.]

If and when Alamut does appear in English, it is virtually assured of popularity, given the way its subject material meshes with current events and the means and motives of terrorism--radical Islamic terrorism in particular. A review of the French translation of the book, published in L'Express in November 2001, captures Alamut's relevance: "If Osama bin Laden did not exist, Vladimir Bartol would have invented him."

THE AL QAEDA HANDBOOK?

Alamut is set in northern Persia in 1092 and is based on the actual history of one of the Shiite sects that set themselves in opposition--theological, social, or occasionally physical--to the Sunni sultans. The plot revolves around Hassan Ibn Saba, an old intellectual, Islamist and teacher, who founds a sect called the Assassins. The sect exists to liberate Persia from the Seljuk Turks. Ibn Saba sets up a training camp at his castle in the mountains, called Alamut, or the Eagle's Nest--which is also the name Adolf Hitler gave his Alpine retreat at Berchtesgaden.

The Assassins are neither mercenaries nor soldiers in any traditional sense. Ibn Saba gathers them from both inside and outside of Persia, and teaches them a wide range of subjects, from mathematics to literature. They learn their neighbors' languages and religious beliefs in order to gain advantage over them. But most of all, Ibn Saba indoctrinates his students with his radicalized vision of Islam, which requires blind obedience and not the slightest fear of death.

The training process is helped along by hashish and promises of a heavenly reward, including harems of beautiful virgins and crystal palaces. Once the Assassins are transformed into living daggers drunk with fanaticism, Ibn Saba sends them off to attack the Turks.

Though most translations of Alamut have been well received, the book is of course particularly interesting to the Middle East. As Bernard Nezmah, writing in the Slovenian news magazine Mladina, points out, the Farsi translation raises a significant question:

"Whoever wants to understand the success of the Al Qaeda leader's strategy should read Bartol. It is as if Osama bin Laden himself concocted the most powerful fist of his organization only after reading Alamut! The dates line up fatally: The novel was published in Iran in 1995 and was clearly so attractive that it was translated again within four years. In 1996 [sic], the suicide attack on the American Embassy in Kenya begins. -- ?"

No direct ties have been found between the book and bin Laden, but the similarities are often uncanny. Most reviewers in recent years have noted Alamut's illusory quality of having been written yesterday.

WRITING ALAMUT

The story behind Alamut begins in Vladimir Bartol's childhood. Bartol was born in 1903--the same year as George Orwell--in the village of Sveti Ivan just outside Trieste, in what was then the Austrian empire. In his youth, he saw firsthand the bloodshed and carnage of the Soca Front, one of the most apocalyptic battlefields of World War I--which also inspired Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Though too young to serve in the military at that time, Bartol lived nearby, and the horrors of war that he witnessed are clearly reflected in his later works, among them Alamut.

Bartol's family moved to Ljubljana when he was 18. Five years later, after graduating from the University of Ljubljana, he spent a year in Paris continuing his education at the Sorbonne.

A fellow member of a Paris literary circle, Josip Vidmar, is credited with inspiring Alamut by introducing Bartol to Marco Polo's accounts of his world travels. In 1927, Bartol returned to Ljubljana and started work on Alamut. He undertook extensive research, using such sources as Niccolo Machiavelli's 16th-century guide for rulers, The Prince, and the Koran. In total, the book took 10 years to complete.

Bartol wrote Alamut as he watched totalitarian regimes emerge in Europe after World War I. While Hitler and Stalin were the most prominent internationally, Mussolini and the Croatian Ustasa movement were the most threatening to Slovenes.

One-third of the Slovenian nation, living in the coastal Primorska region around Trieste, was subject to Mussolini's Italy. At the same time, radical Croatian nationalists threatened the integrity of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and, more important, had their own designs on Slovenian territory.

In Hasan Ibn Sabbah's Assassins, Bartol made clear allusion to Hitler's SS and the Ustasa militias. However, when the German translation of Alamut was published in 1992, reviewers saw shades of the then-current war in Bosnia in its pages. On 11 September 2001, a new, more pressing connection emerged. Hassan Ibn Sabbah became the harbinger of Osama bin Laden, and the Assassins, Al Qaeda. The parallels are more than clear.