Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa 

by Ninu Cremona

Published by L-Akkademja tal-Malti and Klabb Kotba Maltin, 2024

The fourth edition of Ninu Cremona’s classic play Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa, originally published in 1935, marks the launching of a noteworthy initiative by the Akkademja tal-Malti. This is the first in a series of publications of the classics of Maltese literature, all of which are now practically unavailable after having been out of print for a long time.

And it is indeed an elegant hardback production made possible also with the financial help of the National Book Council which is subsidising the republication of out-of-print books. The end result is a most handsome volume which will be published with a very limited run of 300 numbered copies which will be welcomed by students and scholars of Maltese literature.

The book includes an excellent wide-ranging critical appreciation by Ġużè Diacono as well as a short biography of Cremona, whose original footnotes have been duly preserved in the text.

Ninu Cremona

Originally written in 1914, incidentally just two years after Dun Karm wrote his first poem in Maltese, the play was first published in book form in 1936. Written in hendecasyllabic verse, it was a veritable tour de force for Cremona also keeping in mind the time it was written, that is at a time when Maltese plays tended mostly to cater for a popular mentality.

The play is set in Aragonese Malta at the time when King Alfonso had enfeoffed Malta to Monroy for 30,000 florins in 1420

The play is set in Aragonese Malta at the time when King Alfonso had enfeoffed Malta to Monroy for 30,000 florins in 1420, whose tenure was marked by his efforts to extract as much as possible from the scanty resources of the islands, then also subject to regular razzias by Muslim corsairs.

The poor Maltese peasants often ended up abused in an atmosphere of lawlessness until they are finally led to rise against Monroy’s tyrannical exploitation. Against this historical background of the Maltese who rise against the foreigner, with Monroy’s wife ending up barricaded in the Castrum Maris, is set the travailed love story of Pietru l-Baħħari and Rożi tal-Qerrieda.

The king’s offer to the Maltese to repay the 30,000 florins to Monroy naturally caused extreme hardship among the poor people, who made every effort and more to raise this considerable sum. Actually before his death Monroy would eventually return the sum collected until then to the Maltese, except for 10,000 florins that were to be used to improve the defences of the island.

The second edition of Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa in 1948.

For the first time in their history, the Maltese felt the need to unite as a declaration of national identity. It is all so aptly put in the statement that “Ċkejkna ħafna/ kienet din l-art minn dejjem u n-nies tagħha/ għaxet taħt is-saqajn dejjem ferħana;/ il-weġgħa qatt ma ħaset, kielet dejjem/ loqom ta’ ħobż u l-id ta’ sidha lagħqet”. Words that echo Mikiel Anton Vassalli’s clarion call Alla Nazione Maltese in the 1796 edition of his Lexicon. More than the ransom of a few peasants, the play is about the ransoming of a nation.

Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa has stood the test of time as a fine literary work but is ironically almost impossible to stage to a live audience. Its long declamatory speeches will not go down well with modern spectators while the romantic overtones of the Pietru-Rożi scenes are certainly passé. Moreover, its very length and long speeches that lack naturalism make it difficult for the actors to handle.