Feikhtwangger. chosen (set of 3 volumes) Jew Zyussa. Goyai. Spanish ballad

The first historical novel to bring Feihtwanger world fame was the Jew Zyuss. The story of the Jewish financier, who did the first minister with the Duke of Württemberg and pursued a cruel, ruin politician, turned by Feihtwanger so that “historical pessimism” receives a moral and philosophical excuse. “Goya, or a difficult path of knowledge” is a novel that still has no equal among works devoted to the life and work of an outstanding Spanish artist. Feihtwanger tells him not only about the unknown pages of Goya’s fate, but also reveals the secrets of his soul to the modern reader. The novel reveals the personality of the artist, shows his internal conflict, bordering on the madness, which overwhelmed his life from time to time, his life in society and the influence that they had on each other, and, most importantly, his love story with a brilliant, charming and passionate duchess Albo. The book is dedicated not only and not so much the main character as the era in which he lived and created. The novel can be called an encyclopedia of the Spanish life of the line of the 18th - early 19th centuries, from which we learn about the traditions and trends of that time. In the historical panorama represented by the author, the reader falls on Corrida, sits together with the heroes in the theater bed, becomes a witness to the execution - “spectacles, more tempting than the most interesting corrida”, as well as a participant in royal techniques and spiritual judicial - autodafa of the Inquisition.
Having crossed the seventy -year line and approaching the end of his life, Feihtwanger wrote one of his most remarkable works - the Spanish Ballad. This novel is the anthem of love and human wisdom, triumphing over the darkness of superstitions and prejudices, over small selfish calculations and large political intrigues. The plot of the Spanish Ballad was worried about Feihtwanger for decades. However, reading the works dedicated to the love of the Castile King Alfonso VIII to the daughter of the Seville merchant Rakeli (the play by Lope de Vega “Jewish from Toledo”, the play of the same name Franz Grilparzer), he found that the authors missed something important: “None of the literary The processing of this topic does not say about the history of the country, ”he noted. - Meanwhile, the fate of lovers with her is closely connected. And the more thoroughly the researcher will take the state of affairs in the then Spain, the more deep meaning he will reveal in the history of the rocket and the king. ”
Creating his historical works, Feihtvanger deeply studied the era in order to reflect it in his books as true. It is not for nothing that the demanding artist of the word Thomas Mann admired his good faith and the ability to penetrate the very essence of historical events