The Star of Kazan

The Star of Kazan

First edition cover
Author	Eva Ibbotson
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Children
Publisher	Macmillan
Publication date	2 July 2004
Pages	388
ISBN	978-1-4050-5002-9
OCLC	156782900

The Star of Kazan (2004) is a novel written by Eva Ibbotson. It is about a child called Annika who was left as a baby just days old in a church. A cook and a housemaid take her home to some peculiar professors who live in Vienna.

It won the Nestlé Children's Book Prize Silver Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.^[1][2]

Plot summary

It was set in 1908, the story opens with two Viennese servants, Ellie and Sigrid, who on their day off, discover a baby girl left behind in a church of the alpine village of Pettelsdorf. With the infant (the baby) is a note asking her to be taken to a nunnery in Vienna. When Ellie and Sigrid find that the nunnery is in quarantine for typhus, they decide to take the baby home and raise her as their own. They name her Annika after Ellie's mother. When the three house master professors decide not to give away her after the typhus quarantine is over, Annika grows up as a servant in the house where Ellie and Sigrid work. For Annika, life in Vienna is perfect. She has friends, Pauline and Stefan, and she loves her adopted family (Ellie and Sigrid, and the three professors who they all work for) very much.

Annika is asked by Loremarie Egghart, a snobby rich girl whom Annika despises, to read to her great-aunt. Annika does so and the two (Annika and Loremarie's great aunt) become friends, telling each other about their lives. Loremarie's great aunt was a famous theatre personality who went by the stage name La Rondine. They become so close that the great-aunt leaves Annika her jewels when she dies, having been told that the jewels are pastings of the real ones which she had sold through a jeweller.

Annika is delighted but sometimes wonders about the missing piece of the puzzle: the mystery of her real mother and why she was abandoned. When the beautiful, rich Frau von Tannenburg comes to the professors household and announces she is Annika’s long lost mother, Annika is delighted. Her mother takes her to Spittal, the family's estate in Germany, and she meets her brother Hermann, her uncle Oswald, and her cousin Gudrun, but she doesn’t enjoy it. The mansion is derelict and gloomy, the walls are crumbling, and the paint peeling. She meets a friendly Romany/gypsy boy called Zed who works on the farm and cares for Hermann's horse Rocco. Although her friends back in Vienna are pleased for Annika they can't help but feel uneasy about the whole thing - especially Ellie.

Annika's mother asks her to sign some important documents without really explaining them, and then goes to Zurich. Annika has actually signed over La Rondine's jewels, including her famous Star of Kazan, but is unaware of what she has done. When her mother comes back, she says a relative died and left them lots of money, but in fact she sold some of Annika's jewels so Hermann can go to the army school that he wants to attend, and Annika can have galoshes, which her mother buys a size too small.

One day while Annika is walking with Zed she discovers some remnants of La Rondine's trunk in the lake. Yet there is no sign of the jewels. Upon asking Frau Edeltraut of the trunk's mysterious appearance her mother retorts that Zed must have stolen it. With the fear of arrest Zed flees Spittal with Rocco and arrives in Vienna to tell the professors his suspicions about Annika's mother.

Annika is then sent away to a very harsh boarding school for young ladies called Grossenfluss, but the professors and Ellie and Stefan manage to rescue her after discovering that a pupil died there. (The pupil died by committing suicide but the police were not allowed to investigate and were told that it was an accident.) Annika manages to escape back home to Vienna, to those she loves.

Frau von Tannenburg however hears of the incident at Grossenfluss and visits Vienna to collect Annika. Pauline upset from the proceedings decides to spend her time on her hobby of collecting news articles of heroic deeds but spots a piece stating that the lawyer who signed Frau Edeltraut's birth certificate for Annika was imprisoned. This spurs Pauline to visit the midwife in Pettelsdorf, only to discover that the women had a stroke twenty years beforehand and can only sign her name. With this knowledge Pauline returns to Vienna and informs the rest of the forgery of the birth certificate. Unfortunately at this moment Annika is already on the boat with her mother with it due to set off on its voyage. Fortunately Herr Egghart has arrived on his motor car and they speed of to the river Danube. They manage to alert Annika and inform her that Edeltraut is not her mother. Annika instantly acknowledges this and jumps into the river.

With Edeltraut discredited, Annika splits the wealth of the jewel sales with the Eggharts and proceeds to live a content life with her friends, Zed and the professors and Sigrid and Ellie, who she now recognises as her mother.

Characters

Some of the main characters are: Professor Emil, Professor Gertrude, Professor Julius, Zed, Stefan, Pauline, Gudrun, Loremarie, Hermann, Rocco, Edeltraut von Tanenberg, and of course Annika.

Zedekiah (Zed)

Zed is a friendly gypsy boy who works for Edeltraut von Tannenberg. He is the son of a horse dealer and is descended from gypsies. His mother is dead and his father died trying to stop a fight when Zed was very little. Edeltraut von Tannenberg's father, and the master at the time, had ordered a horse from Zed's father before the father’s death so when the horse was delivered, Zed came with it. The master gave Zed a job and sent him to school. The horse, Rocco, was bought for the master's grandson, Hermann, but always preferred Zed, so the Master decided to get his grandson another horse and give Rocco to Zed but had a stroke before he could tell anyone.

Stefan

Stefan Bodek is the son of a poor washerwoman. His father is a groundsman in the Prater. He is the third of six brothers and the strongest. He wants to be an engineer but fears that he can't afford to study.

Ellie

Ellie has worked for the professors as their cook since she was 14 years old. She is a very good cook and so were her mother and grandmother, from whom she inherited a recipe book. Ellie often goes on walks in the countryside with Sigrid on their days off from work.

Sigrid

Sigrid works for the professors as a housemaid. She works well, but can be a little 'snappy' at times. Sigrid is very good friends with Ellie and is a hardworking role model for Annika.

Pauline

Pauline is Annika and Stefan's friend who lives with her grandfather and helps him look after his bookshop. She is a thin girl with black eyes and frizzy black hair. She loves reading books and keeps a book with newspaper clippings about heroic people. She suffers from agoraphobia (the fear of new or public places).

The Professors

The professors are all siblings and have lived in the same house all their lives. None of them are married and are unlikely to be any time soon.

Professor Gertrude is the youngest and the only female of the siblings. She plays the harp and always smells of lavender water. She suffers from cold feet and needs a hot water bottle to sleep. Also, she is sometimes very anxious, doesn't smile much, and always has bits of food on her skirt.

Professor Emil is the middle child. He has a "sensitive stomach" and cannot cope with spicy foods. He is an art expert and is able to tell who painted a picture by looking at the feet of its main subjects.

Professor Julius, who specializes in geology, is the eldest. He was once engaged but his bride died before they could be wed. He has a picture of her in his room and has Annika pick out and arrange flowers in front of the picture every morning.

Edeltraut von Tannenberg

Frau Edetraut von Tenenberg is Annika's 'mother'. Edetraut has one sister, whose husband helps Edetraut steal Annika's jewels. Edetraut's husband gambles away all their money and flees to America, leaving Edetraut to take care of their son, Hermann, and the family estate until Hermann comes of age.

Hermann

Hermann is Edeltraut's son, and heir to the family estate. He dreams of being in the army and, even when the family can't afford to send him to St. Xaviers, still follows the timetable.

Loremarie

Loremarie is a snobby little girl whose father is very rich. She never really cared for her great aunt, known in the theater as La Rondine, because La Rondine was now old.

Hector

Hector is a water spaniel who was bought for Hermann by his grandfather. Zed told Annika that Hermann wanted to train Hector to be an army dog and to not be scared of guns of explosions, so Hermann tied firecrackers onto Hector's leg and tail. Hector was blinded in one eye and lost one of his legs and most of his tail because of this. Edeltraut wanted Hector put down but Zed saved him. Hector is described by Zed as being able to swim like a fish even with only three legs. Hector likes to collect items from the lake, including his favourite sock suspender.

Gudrun

Gudrun is a rather pathetic looking girl who is the daughter of Edeltraut von Tannenberg's sister and cousin to Hermann, whom she worships as a hero. She always wants whatever Hermann desires. Her most rebellious scene is when she ignores her mother and tells Ellie and the professors that Annika has been sent to Grossenfluss. Gudrun is not as evil as her mother.

Rocco

Rocco is a gentle, bay-coloured horse belonging to Zed. Although the Master bought him originally for Hermann, he changed his mind and left Rocco to Zed after having a stroke.

La Rondine

La Rondine is the Eggharts' great-aunt. Annika used to read to her because Loremarie was disgusted by La Rondine. La Rondine told Annika about herself and how she used to be a great actress. She had two chests of jewels she thought to be fake. When she sold her jewels a jeweler with a crooked back loved her and gave her her money and her jewels back. She died without knowing that they were real so in her will she wrote them to Annika. This is the reason Frau Edeltraut pretends to be Annika's mother.

References