Astolphe de Custine i jego „Rosja w roku 1839”
Journal Title: Przegląd Wschodni - Year 2015, Vol 13, Issue 52
Abstract
Astolphe de Custine’s work Russie en 1839 has grown into legendary status. Its fragments, quoted many times over, have served as the most apt commentary for tragic events all over the world. Custine was cited when Soviet fighters shot down a Korean airliner over the USSR, after the Chernobyl disaster and recently, when Litvinienko was poisoned by means of Polonium 210. Many commentators point out that de Custine’s letters regarding the Tsarist Empire are excellent and are the best commentary on Stalin or Brezhnev’s Russia, while still contemporary in terms of Putin’s Russia. The following essay attempts to shed light on the nature of this specificity and the astounding topicality of this phenomenon. The main thesis of the article is based on the assertion that de Custine’s book is a thorough, precisely considered, even surgical, study of Russian despotism. The equivalent of this pathological social-political apparition was the French revolution and its shocking mechanism, which the French Marquis personally experienced during his existential adventure with it – the correlation between the Jacobite terror and Tsarist despotism is demonstrated in the first part of the study, in the sub-chapter: Stigma of the Guillotine and the Knout. Accepting the thesis that the whole text is full of the leitmotif of inhumane, barbarous despotism, the article was based on the findings of studies concerning the especially unique construction and distinct style of Custine’s letters from his journey around Russia. An analysis of the style of this “travel poetry” will serve as the main goal of the second party of the following work, aptly entitled: Travel Poetry. In the following sub-chapter, Custine’s Informer, the author takes advantage of the most recent works and yet unpublished source materials on the subject. In it he attempts to answer the question which plagues every researcher of Custine: who were Custine’s informers? At the end of the work there is a sub-chapter entitled The Phenomenon of Astolphe de Custine – Past and Present, which attempts to grasp and describe the specificity and uniqueness of Custine, as well as presenting the reception of his work at its time of publication; the only example of its kind: a literarypolitical work.
Authors and Affiliations
Remigiusz Forycki
Keywords
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