Anyone who is familiar with the Old Masters of European art history knows how carelessly they place biblical scenes or legends of saints in their own everyday reality.
That the saints are dressed like sinners according to the latest fashion is the least.
The artists even boldly disregard the internal chronology of salvation history: in Lorenzo Lotto's Nativity from 1523 a crucifix already hangs on the wall of the stable with the newborn Jesus child, and in Hieronymus Bosch there is a late medieval Dutch town, complete, in the background of Christ's crucifixion with churches and crosses.
The anachronisms show us what is celebrated in the church year: the history of salvation takes place always and everywhere.
In 1978, Otfried Preussler, who has long been world-famous as a children's book author and whose birthday will be the hundredth anniversary of this year on October 20, published his first book for adults.
It is entitled The Flight into Egypt – Royal Bohemian Part, and from this alone it is clear that the author was as determined to ignore the laws of geography as he was those of chronology.
The starting point is known from the Gospel of Matthew.
So that the divine infant does not fall victim to Herod's henchmen, the Holy Family must flee from Bethlehem to Egypt immediately after the visit of the three kings.
But the shortest escape route in this book is straight through northern Bohemia, namely royal northern Bohemia in the late nineteenth century.
For the authority of this unexpected route, the author refers to his two grandmothers, who had told him about it;
Grandmother Dora in particular, in her inexhaustible love of storytelling, instilled in her grandson the tendency to tell stories.
It is not made easy for the emigrants.
For when Herod found out that the murder of the children in Bethlehem had missed its target and the fugitives were already outside his jurisdiction, he sent (not without Lucifer's influence) a telegram to Emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna with the request that he "by way of mutual Official assistance” to pick up the family of the carpenter Joseph from Nazareth in Bohemia, arrest them and send them back to the Jewish country.
With the best of intentions, this request is forwarded to the Imperial-Royal Lieutenancy in Prague and from there in bureaucratic twists and turns down to the kk Gendarmerie Post Commander Leopold Hawlitschek in the municipality of Hühnerwasser.
Hell, which understandably has its own interest in thwarting the divine plan of salvation,
an aspiring young talent to the side, namely the middle chief devil on probation Pekloslav Pospišil, Department of Infernal Affairs of the Kingdom of Bohemia.
This drives into the butcher and smoker's dog Tyras, who is placed at Hawlitschek's side to search for clues, and, as the author notes, he does so "from behind".
But even the Holy Family is not without supernatural help, because the archangel Gabriel entered the donkey with which one embarks on the flight – in a somewhat more noble way, presumably, than the devil.
This is the starting point for this road movie in book and legend form.
This drives into the butcher and smoker's dog Tyras, who is placed at Hawlitschek's side to search for clues, and, as the author notes, he does so "from behind".
But even the Holy Family is not without supernatural help, because the archangel Gabriel entered the donkey with which one embarks on the flight – in a somewhat more noble way, presumably, than the devil.
This is the starting point for this road movie in book and legend form.
This drives into the butcher and smoker's dog Tyras, who is placed at Hawlitschek's side to search for clues, and, as the author notes, he does so "from behind".
But even the Holy Family is not without supernatural help, because the archangel Gabriel entered the donkey with which one embarks on the flight – in a somewhat more noble way, presumably, than the devil.
This is the starting point for this road movie in book and legend form.
Roast pork with dumplings
So at stake is nothing less than the salvation of the world, but knowing how things turned out, both narrator and reader can - if only in the face of the setbacks that the overzealous devil Pospišil throws at himself one after the other - for a long time stay deeply relaxed.
Especially since flight and persecution in the Kingdom of Bohemia in no way tempt people to neglect their physical well-being and the investigator Hawlitschek is always happy to put his job on hold for "roast pork with Bohemian dumplings and finely steamed white cabbage" and other delicacies for the time being, especially since these are from the still quite young and reschen's widow Makhachka downright forced on them.