Brühl

12 hrs. 39 min.

Language Russian

Author Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

Narrator Vyacheslav Gerasimov

“Brewel” is an ode to intrigue, baseness, greed, and flattery. Thus, Heinrich von Brewel is a page who made a dizzying career at the Saxon court and became virtually the first man in the country after the king—though with a weak, spineless monarch, perhaps not practically, but still the first. A person who concentrates in his hands practically all governmental positions, a man whose lavish clothes and palaces amazed contemporaries. And a man who emptied the treasury and pushed the country to the brink of financial collapse—which later became the cause of defeat in the Seven Years’ War.

In the novel, step by step, the path of the favorite’s rise is described—a path on which Brewel stopped at nothing practically, using any methods of deception, bribery, and flattery. In general, when reading the novel, many proverbs describing this person come to mind. Here are some: “to try to sit on two chairs,” “to get burned with someone else’s hands,” “our boy has managed to be everywhere,” “ours and yours as well,” “offered a hand—then stuck in a leg,” and many others. Basically, on the basis of such expressions, not only the careers of court parasites were built, but practically the entire political life of the royal courts of the 18th century. And Brewel was a worthy representative of his time.

1. Countess Cosel (narrated by Vyacheslav Gerasimov) 2. Brühl 3. From the Times of the Seven Years' War (narrated by Vyacheslav Gerasimov)