Wu Ming’s Reformation: Mythopoesis, Utopia, and Global Politics

Abstract

The collective group of writers Wu Ming,1 in their two novels Q (written as Luther Blissett, 1999) and Altai (2010), provide representations of war set around the time of the Reformation that span states, empires and religions. The first novel deals only very briefly with Martin Luther’s proposed reforms against the Roman church, and focuses primarily on the radical movements of the Reformation, from Thomas Muntzer’s religious activism and the 1525 Peasants’ War against the German princes, to the subsequent spread and struggle of Anabaptism in Europe. If Q portrays how these subversive movements were driven by the utopian project of overthrowing the earthly authorities of the time—including the Church and Holy Roman Emperor—, and of establishing a communistic “New Zion” where all things would be shared, it also illustrates the attempts of the Church to defeat these movements through espionage and repression. The “sequel” novel Altai, although mostly unrelated to Q treats the aftermath of the Reformation and explores the consequences of the internal fragmentation within Christianity, with particular reference to the conflict between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire—and Catholicism and Islam—within the specific contexts of the Siege of Famagusta of 1570 and the Battle of Lepanto of 1571.