Learn German: Sie betonte, rückblickend sei das Jahr dort wunderschön gewesen. - She emphasized that, in retrospect, the year there had been wonderful.

This is a shift in perspective. In her original direct quote, she likely used hier (here): "Das Jahr hier war wunderschön." Because the person reporting the speech is no longer in that location, hier must change to dort to accurately reflect where the wonderful year took place.

Why is the verb sei right after rückblickend? Shouldn't reported speech put the verb at the end?

Normally, a reported clause starting with dass sends the conjugated verb to the end. However, German allows you to drop dass in reported speech. When you omit dass, the reported clause uses standard main-clause word order. Here, rückblickend takes the first position, so the conjugated verb sei takes the second. If we included dass, it would be: ... dass das Jahr dort wunderschön gewesen sei.

Why use the form sei ... gewesen instead of just war?

sei ... gewesen is the past tense of Konjunktiv I, the grammatical mood primarily used for indirect speech in written German. Because the year being wonderful happened before or during the time she talked about it, we must use the past form. It is built using the present Konjunktiv I of the helping verb (sei) plus the past participle (gewesen).

How is the word rückblickend formed?