Good evening and welcome back everyone, I’m Elena from Italy and thank you for being once again at Alessandro III di Macedonia- your source about Alexander the Great and Hellenism! Sorry for the absence but even if I don’t write every day I dedicate a little bit of time to Alexander the Great and no particular news has come out about him. I don’t even have news about the publication of my book about him but on the contrary I have to tell you that for a whole series of reasons the writing is going slower than I thought. In any case today I’m writing to you because I just discovered the release of a trilogy that I would really like to read and that I hope will be translated into Italian at least into English. I confess that I’d be very tempted to buy the trilogy but it is in Polish and my only way to read it would be using Google Translate which I could do but it would take me a lot of time and I wouldn’t be able to evaluate if there were small errors. Anyway, let’s talk about this trilogy that was published 10 years ago and that I recommend reading to anyone who can read Polish and if any of you read it I would be happy to know what you think because in my opinion it must be a really beautiful trilogy.
Karol Bunsch
Publisher: Wydawnictwo SBM
Olimpias. Trylogia antyczna (The Ancient Trilogy) #1
Olimpias to dzieje rodziny wplecione w tryby wielkiej historii. Królowa, odtrącona przez męża niedługo po ślubie, wszystkie swoje uczucia przelewa na syna. Wrażliwy chłopiec wychowuje się rozdarty między dwójką ambitnych, zwalczających się wzajemnie rodziców. Gdy dorasta, zaczyna rywalizować ze swoim ojcem. Niebawem staje się jasne, że Macedonia jest dla nich dwóch za mała.
Olimpias is a family story woven into the gears of great history. The queen, rejected by her husband shortly after the wedding, pours all her feelings into her son. The sensitive boy is raised torn between two ambitious, mutually warring parents. As he grows up, he begins to compete with his father. It soon becomes clear that Macedonia is too small for the two of them.
Price: 59.00 PLN
ISBN: 978-838348437-2
Number of pages: 420
Format: 145x205mm
Binding: hard
Premiere:12/11/2024
Parmenion. Trylogia antyczna (The Ancient Trilogy) #2
Parmenion opowiada o czasie największej chwały Aleksandra Wielkiego. Po śmierci Filipa II młody król musi udowodnić, że jest jego godnym następcą. Rusza na bitewny szlak i odnosi szereg zwycięstw. Podbija Trację, Ilirów i Teby, Ateny się poddają, ale dla niego to wszystko za mało. Głównym celem staje się Persja. Doświadczony wódz Parmenion patrzy na poczynania króla z przerażeniem. Młodzieńcza brawura i zuchwałość wydają mu się drogą do zguby.
Parmenion tells the story of Alexander the Great’s greatest glory. After the death of Philip II, the young king must prove himself worthy of success. He sets out on the battlefield and wins a series of victories. He conquers Thrace, the Illyrians and Thebes, Athens surrenders, but for him it is not enough. Persia becomes the main target. The experienced leader Parmenion looks at the king’s actions with horror. Youthful bravado and audacity seem to him to be the path to ruin.
Price: 59.00 PLN
ISBN: 978-8383484365
Number of pages: 340
Format: 145x205mm
Binding: hard
Premiere: 12/11/2024
Aleksander. Trylogia antyczna (The Ancient Trilogy) #3
Aleksander to historia największych sukcesów, ale i upadku najpotężniejszego władcy swoich czasów. Po serii zwycięstw Aleksander czuje się królem świata, rozsadza go pycha i poczucie własnej boskości. Ku przerażeniu swojego dworu oddaje się hulaszczemu życiu. Wodzowie są zaniepokojeni, zaczynają dostrzegać u króla oznaki szaleństwa. Niebawem na Aleksandra spada ogromny cios – umiera jego najbliższy towarzysz, Hefajstion. Ta śmierć przypieczętowuje losy króla.
Aleksander is the story of the greatest successes, but also the fall of the most powerful ruler of his time. After a series of victories, Alexander feels like the king of the world, he is bursting with pride and a sense of his own divinity. To the horror of his court, he gives himself over to a life of riot. The generals are worried, they begin to notice signs of madness in the king. Soon, a huge blow falls on Alexander – his closest companion, Hephaestion, dies. This death seals the fate of the king.
Price: 59.00 PLN
ISBN: 978-8383484358
Number of pages: 340
Format: 145x205mm
Binding: hard
Premiere: 12/11/2024
In November, our publishing house will publish a unique trilogy about Alexander the Great – a captivating story about a man who rose to the heights of power and glory, and also experienced painful falls. This absorbing series by Karol Bunsch uncovers the secrets of Alexander’s life from childhood, through military triumphs, to moments of greatest doubt and personal drama.
Each volume presents a different aspect of his story – 📖 “Olimpias” is a story about the family intrigues that shaped the young Alexander, 📖 “Parmenion” presents battle triumphs and youthful ambition, and 📖 “Alexander” shows the ups and downs of the greatest leader of antiquity, up to the moment when he becomes a prisoner of his own ambitions.
📖 Full of emotions, wars and betrayals, the Ancient Trilogy is not only a fascinating read, but also an inspiring look at the life of one of the most important figures in history.
An Elena who dreams of reading this trilogy greets you and I hope to give you new and further news soon. I wish you a good evening,
Alessandro III di Macedonia 
Hi, I have just found by chance your YouTube clip on the trilogy. I’m a Polish native speaker and a big fan of Karol Bunsch books. As you might know (a Polish record on Wikipedia), he wrote about 15 novels (some titles consisting of 2 volumes) on the Polish history (covering the first ruling dynasty) and for these he is most famous in Poland. His “ancient” trilogy you are referring to, was somewhat less popular at the time it was first published (Olimpias in 1955, Parmenion and Aleksander in 1967) and I speculate that this was partly due to less support of the state institutions for the stories which did not address the story of the home country (Poland was a communist country at the time, so the publishers were imposed quota on paper, etc.) .
Now, I read the trilogy about 30 years ago, as I was about 16-17 years old. Already at that time, I had some interest on the history and I had known the “Polish”-novels of Bunsch. This trilogy was clearly somewhat different in style, but after I had finished Olimpias, I was convinced that this was the best book I have ever read. Parmenion and Aleksander kept up the level and I have not recognized that Bunsch took such a long break after writing the first book. After that time, I have never read the whole books again, but occasionally I scroll the pages and enjoy reading some text parts. Of course, this brings me also back the memories of my youth. So I cannot say for sure, if the books would impress me so much, if read them for the first time now – I am not the same person now, as I was then, after all. But, I guess I would still like them and I would definitely recommend to read them to anybody liking good historical stories.
Let me briefly describe the books content. Olimpias starts with the Herostratus and the fire of Artemis temple in Ephesus, followed by the birth of Alexander. It ends with the assasination of Philipps II. Among the historical events, it covers the relation development between the father, the mother and the son. Parmenion starts immediately with the Alexander throne accession and ends with the assassination of Parmenion. Among the historical events, it covers the rising tensions between the “youngs” (Alexander and his companions) and “olds” (Parmenion and the soldiers remembering Philip times) as the latter wonder about the limit of Alexander’s ambition and wonder if they will ever see homeland again. Aleksander takes the story up to Alexander death and some events afterwards, ending with the execution of Olimpias. Among the historical events, it covers the rising tensions between Alexander and his companions. The story after Alexander death focuses on the events in Greece&Macedonia (Diadochi wars events outside Greece are mentioned in terms of news reaching the persons in Greece).
The action is centred mostly around the royal family and notable Macedonians (companions of Alexander, Parmenion, Antipater). But there are also two other recurrent themes. First is the Athenian stance in the face of the Macedonian domination. The political clashes between war (around Demosthenes) and peace (around Phocion) parties were described in details. It showed also the weakness of the Athenian democracy affected by populism and demagogy against the unscrupulous Macedonian monarchy. The other theme was the person of Diogenes of Sinope who was appearing throughout all the parts having provocative dialogues on various philosophical questions and commenting human condition in light of the political events. While I think that his actual actions in the story were fictional, his philosophical views were depicted faithfully. As far as I can recall there is hardly any action on the Persian court or any “Persian view” represented in the story, so I would say the whole story is “hellenistic”.
At the end, I am really happy about you having these titles and I see that this edition looks really impressive (I live now abroad and do not follow the book market in Poland). I hope&pray that you will find the way to read the story and then enjoy it as much as I have. I am not aware of translations of any of Bunsch books to any languages. Ironically, Bunsch himself translated few books from English and German to Polish…
I wish you all the best and all the joy on your further “A3M” projects!
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Hi Wlad I’m Elena, thank you so much for your words! I’m glad you found my video on YouTube because I don’t have many views and thank you for the precious encouragement you gave me to continue my future projects on Alexander the Great! Thanks also to your detailed description of the Bunsch trilogy now I know something more and what you tell me makes me want to read it even more! I hope it will be translated sooner or later also into English (at least) and into Italian because there will surely be books on Alexander by Eastern European authors that aren’t as well known as they should be and it’s a shame because it’s all part of the bibliography produced on Alexander.
Thank you so much, I wish you all the best too and your comment made me really happy, thank you again! Elena from Italy
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