Vera Mutafchieva was the last great Bulgarian historical fiction writer. She leaves us – and especially today’s young people who wish to pursue a career in literature – with an enormous task. She demonstrated that it is possible to be a Bulgarian intellectual writer.
– Ani Ilkov
NOVEL, 396 PAGES, 1975
ALCIBIADES THE GREAT
The brilliant historian and novelist Vera Mutafchieva offers a vibrant depiction of the charismatic military and political leader’s life. She traces his rise to power in Athens, where, as a beloved student of Socrates, he learns the rhetorical skills he later channels into war-mongering that nearly destroys the polis’s fragile democracy. After his brazen behavior leads to charges of sacrilege, Alcibiades switches his allegiance to Sparta, treacherously using his insider knowledge to all but strangle his former home—until his seduction of the Spartan queen forces him to flee to Persia. More than a millennium later, even Macchiavelli himself would point to Alciabiades as a cautionary tale of how demagoguery and ruthless ambition can lead a state, an individual and even an entire civilization to ruin. Mutafchieva’s masterful depiction of the Hellenic world will resonate with readers intrigued by Madeleine Miller’s work or Hollywood Odysseys; however, the book can also be read as a critical commentary on the communist dictatorship Mutafchieva was living and working under—she grasped firsthand the dangers of both unchecked “people’s power,” as well as the allure of a cult of personality.
In the novel’s Socratic debates, we see the author wrestling with key questions of her own era: are intellectuals and artists obligated to engage in civic action rather than simply retreating into the life of the mind? How can a state strike the delicate balance between a just distribution of wealth and power while still motivating talented individuals? How can a society be resilient against sophistry (and its modern descendant, propaganda), since such demagoguery can easily lead to violence and war? Indeed, these themes are every bit as relevant fifty years later in our era of resurgent populism, disinformation and charismatic strongmen. Using her trademark kaleidoscope of viewpoints and voices, Mutafchieva paints a psychologically gripping portrait of both the historical figure of Alciabiades as well as homo politicus more generally, in all his tragic complexity.
– Angela Rodel