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A Mystery
by Michael Gregorio
Book Reviewed by:This article relates to A Visible Darkness
Baltic Amber & Prussia
Baltic Amber
As I read 'A Visible Darkness' I was fascinated by the act of collecting
amber. Michael G Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio, who write under the pseudonym
Michael Gregorio, were kind enough to answer my questions plus give a
bonus teaser about the next Hanno Stiffeniis novel already in the works...
Q. There is, it seems, a rich history surrounding Baltic amber. How much did
you know about the amber trade before embarking on your novel? How did you
research this?
A. We were looking for an original setting for the third story in the
series, and the Baltic coast seemed the ideal place, given that amber has been
collected on the shore for many centuries. It was a dangerous job. You could be
swept off your feet, drowned or maimed. We were fascinated by the bravery and
the desperation of young girls working in the sea, searching for precious amber
deposits, sometimes stealing what they found, often being murdered for it. There
was plenty of scope for a novel based on the world of amber.
We knew very little when we started, but it's surprising what you can
discover. We read books from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, notably
"Succini Prussici" by Phillip Jacob Hartmann, and the ancient laws which
governed the gathering of amber in Prussia, and the punishments for stealing it.
There were no milestones on the Baltic shore, but there was a gallows every
mile!
The social history of amber was equally interesting. It had been sold in
ancient times as "Baltic gold" to the Romans and the Greeks, yet it had enduring
phallic and religious implications. In the early nineteenth century, many
Prussians believed that Prussia was the original Garden of Eden, and amber "insertions" (these creatures from a lost world) provided
"visual proof" of the
fact. In this period, "natural philosophers" (a.k.a. scientists) such as
Linnaeus and Lamarque were working on pre-Darwinian theories of evolution, and
they regarded amber as vital evidence of the changes which animals and
vegetables undergo in the course of many aeons. And yet, at the time our novel
takes place, Biblical calculation suggested that the Earth was no more than ten
thousand years old!
Q. You did have Herr Stiffeniis speculate that it was predominantly young
women who harvested the amber because the pay was too low for men. Is that so or
were there other reasons these dangerous jobs were better suited to or attracted
young women?
A. By the early 1800s it had become traditional for women to gather amber
from the sea, working with nets and long-handled digging tools. Men worked there
too, but we decided to make it an exclusive province of women for dramatic
purposes. The women in our book are preyed upon by just about everyone: the
French soldiers, the Prussian amber traders, jewelers and thieves. But it is
the women who survive, and thrive on the Baltic coast. We portray them as a
tribe of Nordic Amazons. At the same time, questions of pay and the availability
of young working men (most of whom were in the army, or had been invalided out
of it) make it likely that women did most of the work. Men in the Napoleonic age
were too busy fighting for or against the Emperor. Continue reading
Prussia
Prussia was a former state in north-central Germany that
existed, with varying borders and territories, from 1440 to 1918 (maps).
At the height of its power, Prussia comprised over two-thirds of the German
empire, occupying more than half of present-day Germany, plus parts of the
neighboring countries - from The Netherlands and Belgium in the west to
Lithuania in the east. After Germany's defeat in World War I, Prussia was
abolished as a state and its territory was divided, broadly speaking, among
Germany, the Soviet Union, and Poland.
The Hanno Stiffeniis series to date consists of three books,
Critique of Criminal Reason
set in 1804,
Days of Atonement
set in 1806,
A Visible Darkness set in 1807, and Unholy Awakening.
The period covered by the three most recent books was a low point for the Prussian empire. Reacting to
France's decision to return the Kingdom of Hanover* to the British king in
exchange for peace, Prussia went to war with France in 1806 and suffered a
devastating defeat at the hands of Napoleon's army at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, losing half of its area and reducing it to a second rate
nation under the thumb of the French. Prussia returned to power in 1815
when its troops provided a crucial contribution at the Battle
of Waterloo, which saw Napoleon finally defeated. Prussia's reward was the
recovery of its former territory and the addition of new territories including
the Rhineland, which allowed it to become the dominant power in Germany and the
newly formed German Confederation.
*Hanover was the former family seat of the British Hanoverian monarchs, starting
with George I in 1714 and ending with Victoria in 1901. When Victoria's son,
Edward VII, finally took over as monarch he started a new line named after his father,
Prince Albert - the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
dynasty.
When Edward died in 1910 he was replaced by his son, George V, who, in 1917, expediently changed the family name to Windsor. Apparently, George was reluctant to make the change but in light of the ongoing war with Germany (led by his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II) and the increasing resentment against the royal families of Europe, he was persuaded that it was the sensible thing to do if he wished to keep his crown. The decision became particularly pressing when bombs started to drop on London which were delivered by the first bomber airplane capable of crossing the English Channel - unfortunately named the Gotha G.IV. The British royal family are still known by Windsor today.
Another notable to renounce his German title
in favor of an Anglicized version was Prince Louis of Battenberg. Louis's
grandson, Philip, would later marry Elizabeth II, becoming Prince Philip, Duke
of Edinburgh.
This "beyond the book article" relates to A Visible Darkness. It originally ran in April 2009 and has been updated for the
April 2011 paperback edition.
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