Cornelius Hell

"Der eiserne Wolf im barocken Labyrinth - Erwachendes Vilnius" by Cornelius Hell is part of a publisher series that I like and I have read two other books by this author that I enjoyed very much, so I was looking forward to this one.
Unfortunately the titles of the series are all quite awkward, this one translates as The iron wolf in the baroque labyrinth - Vilnius awakening.

This book is part of the publisher series Lesereisen ("reading journeys") by the Austrian publisher Picus Verlag. The series contains many, many books on different places in the world, all of them feasible travel destinations, and each book containing essays or short reports about the place written by one contemporary author. I like this series a lot and although it is not my aim to collect all of the books, I often buy books about places I have already traveled to or plan to visit in the near future.
This one was even better than most others because the author, who is from Salzburg, has strong ties to Vilnius as opposed to only having traveled there a few times. He moved there in the 1980s to teach German at the university, learned Lithuanian, and has since then worked as a translator, traveling there at least once a year. His love for Vilnius and Lithuania shines through every page, although he also talks about negative aspects and is not shy to criticize when that is due. Weaving his personal experience over the years into the history of the city, telling stories about close friends while describing buildings, streets and other points of interest, he creates a vivid impression of the city. It was wonderful to read this book and learn about Lithuanian history as well as the Lithuanian language, the architecture of Vilnius and its culture. Sometimes the namedropping of the author became a bit much and I would have liked to learn a little more about the city in general than about his life, but that is just a minor point.… (más)