3/2005 Empire & the Challenge of Nationalism: Searching for Modes of Self-Description

Барон Унгерн, “отравленный космополит”

Уиллард Сандерлэнд

3/2005

Публикуется на английском (на английской части сайта).

SUMMARY:

Статья Уилларда Сандерлэнда реконструирует биографию барона Р. Ф. фон Унгерн-Штернберга, представителя элиты многонациональной империи, активные годы жизни которого пришлись на канун русских революций, период распада империи и гражданской войны на имперских окраинах. Потомок знатного остзейского рода, Унгерн-Штернберг успел побывать казачьим офицером, героем первой мировой войны и легендарным полевым командиром антибольшевистского движения в Сибири и Моноголии. Его история высвечивает в необычном ракурсе проблему космополитического характера имперской дворянской элиты, драматическую трансформацию ее социального строя и духовного уклада в ситуации потери традиционных жизненных ориентиров. Сандерлэнд называет это состояние “отравленным космополитизмом” и разбирает поведение Унгерн-Штернберга в годы гражданской войны на Дальнем Востоке как особый случай этого “мутировавшего” космополитизма, который вместо толерантности приводил к беспримерной нетерпимости и беспощадности.

1.On Lenin and Iaroslavskii, see Robert Service. Lenin: A Biography. Cambridge, Mass., 2000; V. T. Agalakov. Emelian Iaroslavskii v Sibiri. Irkutsk, 1964; and P. S. Fateev. Emelian Mikhailovich Iaroslavskii. Moscow, 1980.↩

2.Sovetskaia Sibir’. 1921. No. 197 (557). 14 September. P. 1; Sud nad baronon Ungernom: obvinitel’nyi akt // Dal’ne-Vostochnyi telegraf. 1921. No. 41. 20 September. P. 1; Delo Barona Ungerna // Pravda. 1921. No. 207. 17 September. P. 2. Novonikolaevsk became Novosibirsk in 1926.↩

3.Kwame Anthony Appiah. The Ethics of Identity. Princeton, NJ, 2005. P. 220.↩

4.This is the invocation of the Nietzschean Zoroaster. See Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra / R. J. Hollingdale, trans. Harmondsworth, Eng., 1961. P. 231. See also Bernice Glazer Rosenthal. New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism. University Park, Penn., 2002. P. 78.↩

5.Ranajit Guha. Not At Home in Empire. Critical Inquiry. 1997. Vol. 23. No. 3. Pp. 482-493.↩

6.Terry Martin. The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939. Ithaca, NY, 2001. P. 19.↩

7.The quoted phrase is from Yuri Slezkine. The Jewish Century. Princeton, 2004. P. 110.↩

8.On the value of individuals as guides to the environments that shaped them, see Peter Gay. Schnitzler’s Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815-1914. New York, 2002. Pp. xix-xxv.↩

9.The scholarly literature on Ungern is sizeable, though there are no comprehensive biographies and almost no reconstructions of his life prior to the revolution and civil war. The fullest studies are Evgenii Belov. Baron Ungern fon Shternberg: biografiia, ideologiia, voennye pokhody 1920-1921. Moscow, 2003; and two volumes of annotated documents and memoirs: S. L. Kuz’min (Ed.). Baron Ungern v dokumentakh i memuarakh. Moscow, 2004, and Idem. (Ed.). Legendarnyi baron: neizvestnye stranitsy grazhdanskoi voiny. Moscow, 2004. See also Sergei Khatuntsev. Buddist s mechom: strannaia sud’ba barona Ungerna // Rodina. 2004. No. 9. Pp.51-57; Paul du Quenoy. Warlordism à la russe: Baron von Ungern-Sternberg’s Anti-Bolshevik Crusade, 1917-1921 // Revolutionary Russia. 2003. Vol. 16. No. 2. Pp.1-27; Leonid Iuzefovich. Samoderzhets pustyni: fenomen sud’by barona R. F. Ungern-Shternberga. Moscow, 1993; Jean Mabire. Ungern, le dieu de la guerre: la chevauchée du général-baron Roman Feodorovitch von Ungern-Sternberg, du Golfe de Finlande au désert de Gobi. Paris, 1987.↩

10.On the grand estate house, see Eesti mõisad: 250 fotot aastaist 1860-1939/Herrenhäuser in Estland: 250 Ansichten aus den Jahren 1860-1939/Estonian Manor Houses: 250 Photos from 1860-1939. Tallinn, 2004. P. 44. For information on the Ungern-Sternberg family, its most illustrious representatives, and its various genealogical lines, see Rudolf von Ungern-Sternberg. Nachtrichten über das Geschlect der Ungern-Sternberg aus autentischen Quellen gesammelt. Breslau, 1875. 2 vols.; O. M. von Stackelberg. Genealogisches Handbuch der estländischen Ritterschaft. Görlitz, 1931. Pp.439-475; Michael von Taube. Die soziale und politische Stellung des Geschlechts von Ungern in Altlivland // Baltische Hefte. 1959/60. Bd. 3. S.187-192 and Bd. 4. S. 246-256; Wilhelm Lenz (Hg.). Deutschbaltisches biographisches lexikon 1710-1860. Köln, Wien, 1970. S. 821-829; and Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg. Neue Nachtrichten über das Geschlect Ungern-Sternberg (1251-2001). Basel, 2001. There is also considerable unpublished genealogical material in the Ungern-Sternberg family holding in the Eesti Ajalooarhiiv (Estonian Historical Archives). F.1423. Nimist [opis’] 1. See also the full genealogy compiled for the Estland Registry Commission (Estlandische Matrikelkommission) in 1926: Eesti Ajalooarhiiv. F.1674. N. 2. Säilik [delo] 207.↩

11.For the father’s activities in these regions, see F. R. Ungern-Sternberg. O vinodelii na iuzhnom beregu Kryma. St. Petersburg, 1888; and his Die Orographie des Kaukasus in Beziehung zur alten Kultur in Vorder-Asien. St. Petersburg, 1891. See also the father’s doctoral dissertation in geology: Untersuchungen über den Finnlaendischen Rapawiki-Granit. Leipzig, 1882. His vita is appended to the back, S. 45-46.↩

12.Eesti Ajalooarhiiv. F. 1187. N. 2. S. 1801. The dissolution of the marriage appears to have been a mutual decision, though the reasons are unclear. Though far from the norm, divorce was “not rare” among the Lutheran Baltic German nobility in the late 19th century. See Heide W. Whelan. Adapting to Modernity: Family, Caste, and Capitalism among the Baltic German Nobility. Cologne, 1999. Pp.122-123.↩

13.Eesti Ajalooarhiiv. F. 860. N. 1. S. 1672. Leht [list] 1.↩

14.For a photo of the manor house, see Eesti mõisad. P. 176. For a description of the locality in 1912, with the count of verstas, see Spisok naselennykh mest estliandskoi gubernii k 1912-mu godu. Revel’, 1913. P. 14. Prior to the turn in his health, Ungern’s father also remarried. His second wife, Maria Pearce, was a British woman, fifteen years his junior. See Stackelberg. Genealogisches Handbuch der estländischen Ritterschaft. S. 465.↩

15.Eesti Ajalooarhiiv. F. 3654. N. 1. S. 54. L. 246-252. By 1913, Ungern’s stepfather had sold the estate and was living on the nearby but much humbler property of Wahhakant (Vahakõnnu).↩

16.For Ungern’s personal file and grades for part of the 1901-1902 academic year, see Eesti Ajalooarhiiv. F. 101. N. 1. S. 1266.↩

17.Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Voenno-Morskogo Flota (RGAVMF). F. 432. Op. 1. D. 7260. L. 13. For Ungern’s grade and conduct book, see RGAVMF. F. 432. Op. 2. D. 2162.↩

18.Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voenno-Istoricheskii Arkhiv (RGVIA). F. 319. Op. 1. D. 630. L. 144, 233.↩

19.Otchet glavnogo upravleniia kazach’ikh voisk za 1908 god. St. Petersburg, 1909. Pp. 21, 23, 61.↩

20.Kuz’min (Ed.). Baron Ungern v dokumentakh i memuarakh. P. 49.↩

21.P. N. Vrangel’. Zapiski (noiabr’ 1916 g. – noiabr’ 1920 g.). Moscow, 1991. Vol.1. P. 13. The first English translation of Wrangel’s memoirs puts it even more evocatively: “and there he was [Ungern], commander of the whole cavalry force of Mongolia!” The Memoirs of Count Wrangel: The Last Commander-in-Chief of the Russian National Army / Sophie Goulston, trans. London, 1929. P. 7.↩

22.This is the view suggested by Aleksei Burdukov, a Russian merchant from western Mongolia, who met Ungern in Mongolia at the time. See A.V. Burdukov. V staroi i novoi Mongolii: vospominaniia, pis’ma. Moscow, 1969. Pp. 100-102.↩

23.See, for example, the descriptions in RGVIA. F. 5281. Op. 1. Dd. 1, 2, 25, 26, 59.↩

24.Peter Gatrell. A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I. Bloomington, Ind., 1999. Pp.16-18, passim; Erich Lohr. The Russian Army and the Jews: Mass Deportation, Hostages, and Violence during World War I // Russian Review. 2001. Vol. 60. No. 3. Pp. 404-419; Alexander V. Prusin. The Russian Military and the Jews in Galicia, 1914-1915 // Erich Lohr and Marshall Poe (Eds.). The Military and Society in Russia, 1450-1917. Leiden, 2002. Pp. 525-544; Joshua A. Sanborn. Unsettling the Empire: Violent Migrations and Social Disaster in Russia during World War I // Journal of Modern History. 2005. Vol. 77. No. 2. Pp. 290-325. The term “war land” is drawn from Vejas Gabriel Liulevicious. War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity, and German Occupation in World War I. New York, 2000.↩

25.By May 1917, the loss rate for officers in Ungern’s division (the Ussurii Mounted Division) was approximately 170%. The rate for enlisted men and Cossacks was 200%. See RGVIA. F. 3532. Op. 2. D. 216. L. 360. On Ungern’s service in special behind-the-lines detachments, see Ol’ga Khoroshilova. Voiskovye partizany velikoi voiny. St. Petersburg, 2002. Pp. 78, 85, 96, 98-101, 103-104, 132, 198.↩

26.Kuz’min (Ed.). Baron Ungern v dokumentakh i memuarakh. Pp. 55-58.↩

27.This is Semenov’s account. See his O sebe: vospominaniia, mysli i vyvody. Moscow, 1999. Pp. 64-65.↩

28.Joshua A. Sanborn. Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905-1925. DeKalb, Ill., 2003. P. 80.↩

29.Charles Taylor. Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge, Mass., 1989. P. 18.↩

30.Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv chitinskoi oblasti (GACHO). F. 329. Op. 1. D. 78. Ll. 21(b)-24(b).↩

31.See the interview with Semenov in L. Kozheurov. Zadacha momenta: beseda s Atamanom Semenovym // Russkii vostok. Chita, 1919. 5 February. P. 2.↩

32.For Semenov’s order creating the division, see GACHO. F. 329. Op. 1. D. 13. L. 168.↩

33.Kuz’min. Baron Ungern v dokumentakh i memuarakh. P. 14.↩

34.GACHO. F. 329. Op. 1. D. 29. L. 46 (b).↩

35.The precise origins of Ungern’s anti-Semitism are not clear, but views of Jews as martially unfit, morally corrupt, and disloyal were prevalent in the tsarist officer corps by World War I. See D. Raskin. Evrei v sostave rossiiskogo ofitserskogo korpusa v xix – nachale xx veka // D. A. El’iasevich (Ed.). Evrei v Rossii: istoriia i kul’tura; sbornik nauchnykh trudov. St. Petersburg, 1998. Pp. 170-174; Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire. P. 137 passim; and I. Petrovskii-Shtern. Evrei v russkoi armii 1827-1914. Moscow, 2003. Pp. 353-356. Ataman Semenov, in contrast to Ungern, took a more ambiguous position on the “Jewish question.” See L. V. Kuras. Ataman Semenov i “evreiskii vopros” // Istoriia beloi Sibiri: tezisy vtoroi nauchnoi konferentsii (4-5 fevralia 1997). Kemerovo, 1997. Pp. 46-47; S. P. Zviagin. Evrei v usloviiakh “Beloi Sibiri” (1918-1920 gg.) // Istoriia evreiskikh obshchin Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka: materially pervoi regional’noi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii (4-5 noiabria 2000 goda). Tomsk, 2000. P. 81.↩

36.For a small sampling of these materials, see GACHO. F. 334. Op. 2. D. 138; D. 334. Op. 2. D. 154; F. 334. Op. 1. D. 65.↩

37.Ob”iavlenie shtaba Otdel’noi Vostochno-Sibirskoi Armii // Russkii vostok. 1919. 9 February. P. 1; and Khronika // Russkii vostok. 1919. 26 February. P. 4.↩

38.For Ungern’s dismissive view of law (zakonnost’) during wartime, see the additional remarks in his letter mentioned above: GACHO. F. 329. Op. 1. D. 29. L. 47.↩

39.Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv (RGVA). F. 39454. Op. 1. D. 9. L. 55 (b).↩

40.RGVA. F. 39454. Op. 1. D. 9. L. 53 (b).↩

41.For the text of “Order No. 15,” see Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv rossiiskoi federatsii (GARF). F. 5431. Op. 1. D. 40, ll.1-3 (b). The order has also been reprinted, most recently in: Kuz’min. Baron Ungern v dokumentakh i memuarakh. Pp. 169-173. (The wording of the biblical verse [Daniel, 12:1] that appears here is drawn from the King James edition.)↩

42.In 1921 Ungern’s division carried a banner marked on one side with the letter “M” and the Roman numeral “II,” clearly suggesting that the baron’s cause envisioned a future tsar Mikhail II. (The other side of the banner displayed the face of Christ and the inscription “S nami Bog” [God is With Us].) For a photo of the banner, see: Kuz’min. Baron Ungern v dokumentakh i memuarakh, between pp.256-257. Grand Prince Mikhail had been shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918, though this was not widely known at the time.↩

43.Peter Holquist. Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921. Cambridge, Mass., 2002, and his: Violent Russia, Deadly Marxism? Russia in the Epoch of Violence, 1905-1921 // Kritika. 2003. Vol. 4. No. 3. Pp. 627-652.↩

Ab Imperio

Ab Imperio

Барон Унгерн, “отравленный космополит”

Примечания