The year 556. In a half-abandoned country between the Vistula and the Oder, the descendants of the former inhabitants are trying to survive under the leadership of the old Krakow. His sons sharpen their teeth on the throne, his daughter Wanda, not wanting to renounce her love for her beloved, decides to take a radical step, dark forces breed under the royal hill. The mighty conspire, the strangers and their own threaten war, and cruel gods crave vengeance. Monsters like people and people like monsters. The old world is declining …
“Who would want a woman there, who, instead of spinning and cooking, rides a horse and shoots a bow?” – one of the heroes asks when the story has barely begun and we are only just getting to know the land on the Vistla. “The Last Summer of the Vandals” is the story of many men and a few characteristic women. Including the one, famous “Wanda, who did not want a German”. Only that in the great novel by Jakub Urbańczyk everything is different than in the legend. I was caught up in the rapid, dense with events and meanings, “The Last Summer of the Vandals” current. The world of the Vandals and Sklavins caught me off guard, because although created by Urbańczyk from scraps of messages and chronicles, it seems tangible and real. The strengths of the story are the heroes – expressive and determined, although ambiguous. They stayed with me for a long time. They filled the void on the hill above the Vistla.
Elżbieta Cherezińska