Vene ajalugu ja kultuur Jaan Krossi romaanis "Keisri hull"
Russian History and Culture in Jaan Kross’ Novel „The Czar’s Madman”

Summary/Abstract: the novel „the Czar’s madman” is set in the russia of the first third of the 19th century, while the theme of russian history is densely interwoven with the main theme of the novel – the fate of Estonians under a foreign yoke. Comparing the fate of the prototype of the „Czar’s madman” timotheus Eberhard von bock (1786–1836) with that of the timo of the novel, and bock’s memorandum to his Czar alexander I with timo’s letter the author of the article has found that the latter is hardly a replica of the original published version of bock’s letter. the character of timo and his letter have been created by jaan kross, all in the good spirit of the genre of historical novel. In places we find an assemblage, with an essential modification of meaning, of the paragraphs of bock’s letter and addenda from other sources, in particular from sergey solovyov’s History of russia from the Earliest times. In the novel the russian Empire is depicted as a despotic country with practically no distinction between the slightly more liberal rule of alexander I and the truly despotic rule of nikolai I. the state is symbolized by gendarmes and other attributes of a police state. Even though there are no direct allusions to the time of writing the novel, the way russia is depicted has not little to do with the realities of the soviet union of the 1970s (persecution of political dissidents, problems of voluntary or forced emigration, the thin line between loyalty and informing on people, etc.). between the lines the reader was encouraged to develop internal resistance to violence and given hope to get out from the political deadlock. Ljubov Kisseljova

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