javljen 1951. godine. Ovaj roman je iznimno vrijedan i originalan doprinos svjetskoj književnosti.
Hadrijanove memoare su vrlo dojmljivo napisano djelo koje nas uvodi u svijet Rimskog Carstva i portretira život cara Hadrijana. Kroz memoare, Yourcenar nam daje dubok uvid u Hadrijanovu unutarnju borbu, njegove misli i osjećaje. Roman nam otkriva složene aspekte njegove ličnosti i dublje motive koji su oblikovali njegove odluke i djela.
Yourcenar odlično kombinira povijesne činjenice s fikcijskim elementima, stvarajući tako uvjerljivu priču koja intrigira čitatelja i potiče ga na razmišljanje. Njezin stil pisanja je besprijekoran i upečatljiv, s bogatom slikovitošću i izražajnosti.
Osim što je vrijedan umjetnički rad, Hadrijanovi memoari također su važan izvor za proučavanje povijesti Rimskog Carstva. Yourcenar je temeljito proučavala povijesni kontekst i vjerno ga prenijela kroz svoje djelo. Kroz roman saznajemo o društvenom i političkom okruženju tog vremena, kao i o ključnim događajima i likovima tog razdoblja.
Marguerite Yourcenar je bez sumnje jedna od najznačajnijih spisateljica svog vremena, a Hadrijanovi memoari ostaju kao njezino najpoznatije djelo i trajno naslijeđe u svjetskoj književnosti.
Born in 1951, he achieved unexpected success. This was followed by a period of intensive travel and writing a series of new works.
In 1981, the French Academy, which has only forty members, admitted Marguerite Yourcenar as its first female member in history. She passed away on her 84th birthday, June 8, 1987.
She left behind various literary works (novels, short stories, essays, plays, and poetry). She translated various writers from different languages, approaching each task with great conscientiousness and responsibility; she researched, studied, and compared because she believed that it is up to us to be more holy, that is, better, than what we are.
The work “Memoirs of Hadrian” is a historical-philosophical novel written in the first person. It is actually an extensive letter that Emperor Hadrian (76 – 138 AD) writes to his grandson, the adopted son of his adopted son Antoninus, and the future ruler Marcus Aurelius, a letter in which he speaks about life, illness, death, love, passion, power… Hadrian is in his sixties and suffers from Due to an incurable disease, he is aware that the end of his life is approaching and he wants to leave messages, advice, thoughts, explanations, and justifications of his actions to his future successor. The writer has convincingly described the time, environment, and spirit of the distant Roman Empire and its ruler because she has extensively studied all available historical sources. Along with the novel, she has also published a Workbook and a Bibliographic Note, listing all the historical sources she used, as well as the dilemmas and thoughts that guided her during the writing process.
We extract parts from her novel, “Hadrian’s Memoirs.”
Like all people, I have only three means at my disposal to assess human life: studying myself, the most difficult and dangerous, but also the most fruitful method; observing people who often try to hide their secrets from us or convince us that they have them; books, with their special mistakes in perspective that arise between the lines. I have read almost everything written by our historians. scholars, our poets, and even our storytellers, although the latter have a reputation for being unserious, I owe them perhaps more knowledge than I have managed to gather in quite diverse situations in my life. The written word taught me to listen to the human voice, just as the lofty stance of motionless statues taught me to appreciate gestures. On the contrary, it was life itself that interpreted books for me.
The true birthplace is the one in which a person first cast a reasonable gaze upon oneself: books were my first homeland. To a somewhat lesser extent, schools were also my homeland.
I will be forever grateful to Skaur for directing me to learn Greek at an early age… I fell in love with that language because of its flexibility, similar to the flexibility of a body in full strength, because of its rich vocabulary in which every word confirms a direct and indirect connection to reality, and because almost everything that people have said most beautifully has been said in that language. I know that there are other languages, but they are petrified or just being born… The Greek language is , on the contrary, has already accumulated its treasure trove of experiences, both human and national. From Ionian tyrants to Athenian demagogues… everything that each of us can try to harm our loved ones or be of help to them, a Greek has already done at least once. The same goes for our personal choices: from cynicism to idealism, from Pyrrhonian skepticism to Pythagorean holy dreams, all our refusals and acceptances, it has all already happened; our virtues and vices have their Greek prototypes. Nothing is as beautiful as a Latin oath or funeral inscription: those few words carved into stone encapsulate, with impersonal grandeur, everything the world needs to know about us. I ruled the empire in Latin; my epitaph will be carved in Latin on the walls of my mausoleum on the banks of the Tiber, but I thought and lived in Greek. (41)
I do not despise people. If I despised them, I would not have the right or reason to strive to rule over them. I know they are vain, ignorant, greedy, worried, almost ready to do anything for… In order to succeed, to become celebrated, even in our own eyes, or simply to avoid suffering. I know that I am like them, at least at times, or that I could have been like them. The differences I notice between myself and others are too insignificant to mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Therefore, I strive for my demeanor to be just as far from the cold superiority of a philosopher as it is from the arrogance of a Caesar. Even the darkest people are not without a glimmer of light: that murderer, for example, plays the flute well, that overseer who whips slaves’ backs may be a good son; that idiot might share his last crust of bread with me. There are few from whom one cannot learn something. Our great fallacy is that we try to extract virtues from everyone individually that they do not possess, and that we do not make an effort to develop in them the ones they do have. (45)
Life has been a horse whose movements we surrender to, but only after we have tamed it as best as we know and can. Everything is really a decision of the mind, but slow, imperceptible, which carries with it body. (46)
And I have done the most painful jobs effortlessly, as long as I loved them. As soon as something rejected me, I tried to study it, cleverly striving to find a reason to be happy about it. When encountering something unexpected or almost desperate, like an ambush or a storm at sea, I would take all necessary measures for the safety of others, and then try to accept that situation as something beneficial to me, enjoy what it unexpectedly brought me, so that the ambush or storm fit seamlessly into my plans or dreams without pain. (47)
If I ever have to endure suffering, and illness will definitely take care of subjecting me to torment, I am not sure I will be able to remain indifferent for long like Trazea, but at least I will be able to reconcile myself with my moans. (47)
I dreamt of an army trained to maintain order at our borders, corrected if necessary, but reliable. Each new growth of the immense imperial organism resembled a sick growth to me, like cancer or swelling from water disease. and what we will eventually die of.
None of these opinions could be presented to the emperor (Trajan). He reached that moment in life, different for each of us, when a human being surrenders to their demon or their genius, submitting to the mysterious law that commands them to destroy or surpass themselves. (69)
Humanitas, Felicitas, Libertas (Humanity, Happiness, Freedom): these beautiful words inscribed on the coins during my reign were not invented by me. Any Greek philosopher and almost every cultured Roman has the same worldview as me… And I thanked the gods for allowing me to live in an era when my duty is to rationally rearrange the world, not to extract something amorphous from chaos… (99)
My method of action is based on a series of long-standing observations about myself: every clear interpretation has always convinced me, every courtesy has won me over, almost every happiness has always rationalized me. Therefore, I did not pay much attention to well-meaning people. who claim that happiness irritates people, that freedom softens them, that humanity corrupts those to whom it is shown…
When unnecessary dependencies are reduced to the minimum possible, when unnecessary troubles are eliminated, there will still remain a whole range of true evils to maintain heroic virtues, such as death, old age, incurable diseases, unrequited love, broken or betrayed friendship, mediocre life with smaller spans than our plans and fainter than our dreams: all the troubles caused by the divine nature of things.
I must admit that I do not believe much in laws. When they are too strict, people rightfully break them. When they are too convoluted, human ingenuity easily finds holes in that stretched and weak net through which it will pass… Every law that is broken too often is bad: it is up to the legislator to annul or change it, so that the contempt that this crazy regulation has drawn upon itself does not spread to other, more just laws.
Our troubles partly stem from the fact that there are too many people shamefully rich or desperately poor. Misguided. (103)
Few people enjoy long journeys, the perpetual breaking of habits, the constant shaking of all prejudices. But I have strived to live without prejudice and with as few habits as possible. I have appreciated the sweet softness of a bed, but also the touch and scent of bare earth, the inequalities of every segment of the Earth’s circle. (106)
I must admit something here that I have not told anyone yet: I have never had the feeling that I completely belong to one place, not even to my beloved Athens, not even Rome. A stranger everywhere, I have never felt completely isolated. (107)
To build means to collaborate with the land: to imprint a human seal on the landscape that will change it for eternal times. (109)
I felt responsible for the beauty of the world. I wanted cities to be vibrant, airy, watered with clear water, populated by people whose bodies would not be marred by the traces of poverty or slavery, nor the bloatedness of vulgar wealth… I wanted the immense magnificence of Roman peace to spread to everyone, imperceptibly and permanently. Like the music of celestial bodies in motion; so that even the most modest traveler can journey from one country to another, from one continent to another, without arduous formalities, without danger, everywhere secure in the existence of a minimum of order and culture; so that our soldiers can continue their eternal war dance at the borders, so that everything flows smoothly, both in workshops and temples; so that beautiful ships sail the seas and carriages pass along the roads; so that in a well-ordered world, both philosophers and dancers have their place. To this essentially humble ideal, people would more often come closer if they served it with at least a portion of the energy they spend on foolish and cruel activities. (114)
…every person, always, in their short lifetime, must choose between eternal hope and wise lack of hope, between the pleasure of chaos and the pleasure of balance, between Titans and Olympians – choosing between them or finally harmonizing them. (116)
I have always been a friend of astronomers and a client of astrologers. The science of the latter is uncertain, inaccurate in individual cases. introspect, but perhaps accurate overall. Since the same laws that govern the heavens also apply to a man, a particle of the universe, it is not meaningless to search up there for the outlines of our lives, for the cold attractions that participate in our successes and mistakes. (123)
I fought with all my strength to encourage in man a feeling for the divine without sacrificing anything human. (137)
There, where a weaver would fix his weaving, where a skilled mathematician would correct his error, and an artist would perfect his still imperfect or slightly damaged work, nature prefers to start over from the very clay, from chaos itself, and this squandering is called the natural order of things. (195)
I have no children, and I am not sorry that I don’t. Of course, in moments of fatigue and weakness, when a man renounces himself, I have sometimes regretted not making an effort to conceive a son who would continue me. But this empty regret rests on two equally doubtful assumptions: that a son necessarily continues us, and secondly, that this strange heap of good and evil. , I, appreciate. Good human destinies, happy periods, partial progress, and human efforts to always start anew and continue, seem to me like a true miracle that compensates for the almost endless mass of evil and failures, carelessness and misconceptions. Disasters and failures will occur, chaos will prevail, but from time to time there will also be order. Peace will prevail again between two wars, and the words freedom, humanity, and justice will regain the meaning we have tried to give them here and there. Not all of our books will perish, someone will fix our broken statues, from our pediments and domes, other pediments and domes will sprout, some people will think, work, and feel like us; I dare to count on those continuers who will appear at irregular intervals throughout the centuries, on that interrupted immortality. If barbarians ever rule the world, they will be forced to accept some of our methods and in the end they will be similar to us. Descend into those pale places, harsh and bare, where you will have to give up your former games. Let’s gaze for a moment together at the familiar shore, objects that we will surely never see again… Let us try to enter death with open eyes… (233)