 First UK edition (precedes US) | |
| Author | Alan Furst |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | War novel/Historical novel/Spy novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | 2000 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-375-75826-7 |
| OCLC | 47643541 |
Kingdom of Shadows (2000) is a novel by Alan Furst. It won the 2001 Hammett Prize.
The story is set in Europe between April 1938 and July 1939, a time of ever-increasing fear and apprehension throughout the continent. Nicholas Morath is an expatriate Hungarian in his forties and the co-owner of an advertising agency in Paris. His uncle, Count Janos Polanyi, is a high-level functionary at the Hungarian embassy in France. Morath is in fact an amateur spy, sent on one dangerous mission after another at his uncle's behest (laundering money through the Antwerp diamond industry, or spending a week in a Romanian jail, for example). Polanyi tells his nephew little about the reasons for or the results of these excursions, and friction often rises between the two men. But after Polanyi disappears mysteriously, Morath continues his perilous work alone.
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 | This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic.(August 2023) |
Travel
"Maybe the Belgian border guards didn't care who came and went, but the French customs inspectors did."
Furst (a seasoned travel writer) uses travel and its related experiences to vividly depict the Europe his characters live in. Morath journeys across the continent by train frequently and sees a world of suspicious border guards, desperate passengers with the wrong papers, and tenuous luxury surrounded by encroaching violence and squalor. A random brick thrown through a compartment window symbolizes the collapse of yet another country. Paris, the adopted home Morath returns to time and again, is for him the endangered symbol of an older and more decent way of life.
Honor and Obligation
"'I'm just a fat old Hungarian man, Nicholas. I can't save the world. I'd like to, but I can't.'"
Like many veterans of World War I, Nicholas Morath believes that he squandered his youth in a meaningless and senseless conflict that knocked the world off its hinges. He views the prospect of another war with numb horror. But he and his uncle have a special cross of their own to bear, for they are among the scattered survivors of the old European upper class that failed to prevent the earlier war. A new evil is now engulfing Europe, and an unspoken obligation to fight it hangs over both of them.
Love and Redemption
"'You are really very good, Nicholas,' she said. 'Really you are.'"
Love (as in many works of literature) is presented here as one of the highest human aspirations, something that can energize a spirit and set it free. Morath lives for many years in a twilight world of secrets and danger, and seems to take solace in a series of easy women who ask no questions about the things that matter to him. By forging a relationship with someone who demands to know what is truly important to him (Mary Day), he finds his soul mate even as their physical world crumbles around them.
Carol II was the King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until his forced abdication on 6 September 1940. As the eldest son of Ferdinand I, he became crown prince upon the death of his grand-uncle, King Carol I, in 1914. He was the first of the Hohenzollern kings of Romania to be born in the country; as both of his predecessors had been born in Germany and came to Romania only as adults. As such, he was the first member of the Romanian branch of the Hohenzollerns who spoke Romanian as his first language and was also the first member of the royal family to be raised in the Orthodox faith.
The Battle of Mohács was fought on 29 August 1526 near Mohács, Kingdom of Hungary, between the forces of the Kingdom of Hungary and its allies, led by Louis II, and those of the Ottoman Empire, led by Suleiman the Magnificent. The Ottoman victory led to the partition of Hungary for several centuries between the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Principality of Transylvania. Further, the death of Louis II as he fled the battle marked the end of the Jagiellonian dynasty in Hungary and Bohemia, whose dynastic claims passed to the House of Habsburg.
Louis II was King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. He was killed during the Battle of Mohács fighting the Ottomans, whose victory led to the Ottoman annexation of large parts of Hungary.
Alexandra Feodorovna, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth, was the last Empress of Russia as the consort of Emperor Nicholas II from their marriage on 26 November [O.S. 14 November] 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917. A favourite granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, she was, like her grandmother, one of the most famous royal carriers of haemophilia and bore a haemophiliac heir, Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia. Her reputation for encouraging her husband's resistance to the surrender of autocratic authority and her known faith in the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin severely damaged her popularity and that of the Romanov monarchy in its final years. She and her immediate family were all murdered while in Bolshevik captivity in 1918, during the Russian Revolution. In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized her as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer.
Charles I or Karl I was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Croatia, King of Bohemia, and the last of the monarchs belonging to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine to rule over Austria-Hungary. The son of Archduke Otto of Austria and Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony, Charles became heir presumptive of Emperor Franz Joseph when his uncle Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in 1914. In 1911, he married Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma. He is venerated in the Catholic Church, having been beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 October 2004, and is known to the Catholic Church as Blessed Karl of Austria.
Ingeborg Hermine Morath was an Austrian photographer. In 1953, she joined the Magnum Photos Agency, founded by top photographers in Paris, and became a full photographer with the agency in 1955. Morath was the third wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller; their daughter is screenwriter/director Rebecca Miller.
Charles-Joseph Lamoral, 7th Prince de Ligne in French; in German Karl-Joseph Lamoral 7. Fürst von Ligne : was a field marshal, inhaber of an infantry regiment, prolific writer, intellectual, member of the princely family of Ligne. He fought as a field officer during several famous battles during the Seven Years' War and briefly returned to military duty in the War of the Bavarian Succession. He performed an important diplomatic mission to Catherine the Great in 1787 and led troops against the Ottoman Empire at Belgrade in 1789. Beginning in the 1770s, he authored an impressive volume of work. After his estates in the Austrian Netherlands were lost to France during the War of the First Coalition, he lived in Vienna. All three of his sons died before him, but his wife and four daughters all outlived him. His grandson, the 8th Prince, became a Belgian statesman.
The Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire were a set of revolutions that took place in the Austrian Empire from March 1848 to November 1849. Much of the revolutionary activity had a nationalist character: the Empire, ruled from Vienna, included ethnic Germans, Hungarians, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians (Ukrainians), Romanians, Croats, Venetians, and Serbs; all of whom attempted in the course of the revolution to either achieve autonomy, independence, or even hegemony over other nationalities. The nationalist picture was further complicated by the simultaneous events in the German states, which moved toward greater German national unity.
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia was a son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, a grandson of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and a first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
John Charles Polanyi is a German-born Canadian chemist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics.
Alan Furst is an American author of historical spy novels. Furst has been called "an heir to the tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene," whom he cites along with Joseph Roth and Arthur Koestler as important influences. Most of his novels since 1988 have been set just prior to or during the Second World War and he is noted for his successful evocations of Eastern European peoples and places during the period from 1933 to 1944.
Peter I was King of Serbia from 15 June 1903 to 1 December 1918. On 1 December 1918, he became King of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and he held that title until his death three years later. Since he was the king of Serbia during a period of great Serbian military success, he was remembered by Serbians as King Peter the Liberator and also as the Old King.
Count Mihály Ádám György Miklós Károlyi de Nagykároly was a Hungarian politician who served as a leader of the short-lived and unrecognized First Hungarian Republic from 1918 to 1919. He served as prime minister between 1 and 16 November 1918 and as president between 16 November 1918 and 21 March 1919.
The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I. The crisis began on 28 June 1914, when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. A complex web of alliances, coupled with the miscalculations of numerous political and military leaders, resulted in an outbreak of hostilities amongst most of the major European nations by early August 1914.
Charles V, Duke of Lorraine and Bar succeeded his uncle Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine as titular Duke of Lorraine and Bar in 1675; both duchies were occupied by France from 1634 to 1661 and 1670 to 1697.
The Imperial Russian Army or Russian Imperial Army was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of regular troops and two forces that served on separate regulations: the Cossack troops and the Muslim troops.
The Iron Curtain is a political metaphor used to describe the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, its allies and neutral states. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members, or connected to or influenced by the United States; or nominally neutral. Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain. It later became a term for the 7,000-kilometre-long (4,300 mi) physical barrier of fences, walls, minefields, and watchtowers that divided the "east" and "west". The Berlin Wall was also part of this physical barrier.
Nicholas II or Nikolai II was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernisation based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas's commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 304-year rule of Russia (1613–1917).
The regent of Hungary was a position established in 1446 and renewed in 1920. It was held by Admiral Miklós Horthy until 1944. Under Hungary's constitution there were two regents, one a regent of the ruling house, called the Nádor, and another called "Kormányzó". As the Entente had banned the legitimate Nádor from taking his place, the choice fell on electing a governor-regent: Admiral Horthy was chosen. Thus, he was regent of the post-World War I state called the Kingdom of Hungary and served as the head of state in the absence of a monarch, while a prime minister served as head of government. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary".
Midnight in Europe is the thirteenth novel in Alan Furst's Night Soldiers series of espionage thrillers. It was published in 2014 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in the UK and in the US by Random House.