Ever since the war in former Yugoslavia has been raging, the reputation of Serbs in Europe is forever ruined. Even Mihajlo
Kazic, the writer and engineer who has been living in Germany since 1991, had to fight against the undertow of hardening prejudice,
and not least against literary criticism. The link between the individual and his origins appears unavoidable. I too, when
reading his first novel "Emperor of the Galatians", initially fell into the trap of pigeonholing him politically. The opening
chapters of course prove that he is above suspicion in this respect. What Mihajlo Kazic offers us in his first novel, presented
as a "Saga of Men and Monsters", is an enigmatic unmasking of power mechanisms in a totalitarian state, which treats human
beings with contempt.
From the very first line, the reader is catapulted into an aura of mystery. "This is", it reads, "a dream about the all-powerful
ruler Bonifacio, two imperial ministers and three poor young men". The Holy Roman Empire, ruled by Bonifacio, is located in
a no man's land between past and future. It resembles the real Roman Empire in only one aspect: the brutality of the methods
used to hang on to power is the same as it was 2000 years ago. Its effectiveness in the age of the computer-assisted Big Brother
state has however been honed to perfection. However, as the Roman Empire itself demonstrated, such seemingly impregnable omnipotence
is not invincible. In order to halt the moral decline in the empire, the ailing emperor Bonifacio is to be cured with outside
help. Guided by a long, mysterious hand, the unsuspecting Arnoldo is smuggled through the finely meshed net controls. He thereby
proves that resistance is possible even under the most challenging circumstances.
Even if Mihajlo Kazic clearly follows in the wake of George Orwell's novel "1984", he still knows how to lend his text an
individual touch. His simple, at times offhand prose repeatedly condenses into irritating metaphor, exposing the unchanging,
timeless pattern of human insanity.
The novel "Emperor of the Galatians" is shored up by the constant smouldering and skilfully stirred up suspense. This bases
in the first place on the fact that the actions of the Emperors appointed saviours, descendants of the small book-loving Galatian
folk, are unpredictable. They possess the only weapon that can match the machinery of a totalitarian state. By this is meant
the hidden power of identity, nourished by the native language and the old myths shrouded in mystery.
