First published in 1846, Nobleman Zavalnia or Belarus in Fantastical Tales is one of the earliest works of Belarusian literature. At Zavalnia's hearth, peasants, nobles, and wanderers spin stories of witches, restless souls, enchanted forests, and haunted battlefields. Their tales reflect a society still bound by serfdom, set against the strange year of 1817, known as the "year without a summer."
Written four decades after the Russian Empire's annexation of much of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where Belarusian lands lay, Barszczewski's collection blends folklore, folk horror, and political allegory. Behind its supernatural figures and uncanny landscapes lie the encrypted memories of a people struggling to preserve their identity. With its mix of oral tradition, Gothic imagination, and historical witness, the book has been called "European voodoo".
This edition is the first full English translation of Barszczewski's tales, presented here together with two companion tales, The Wooden Old Man and the Insect Woman (1846) and The Soul Not in Its Own Body (1849). Translated by Olya Ianovskaia and illustrated by Nasta Lee, the present volume makes a 200-year-old classic available to English readers for the first time.