Baron's Cloak

Willard Sunderland

Description

Baron Roman Fedorovich von Ungern-Sternberg (1885-1921) was a Baltic German aristocrat and tsarist military officer who fought against the Bolsheviks in Eastern Siberia during the Russian Civil War. From there he established himself as the de facto warlord of Outer Mongolia, the base for a fantastical plan to restore the Russian and Chinese empires, which then ended with his capture and execution by the Red Army as the war drew to a close. In The Baron's Cloak, Willard Sunderland tells the epic story of the Russian Empire's final decades through the arc of the Baron's life, which spanned the vast reaches of Eurasia. Tracking Ungern's movements, he transits through the Empire's multinational borderlands, where the country bumped up against three other doomed empires, the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Qing, and where the violence unleashed by war, revolution, and imperial collapse was particularly vicious. In compulsively readable prose that draws on wide-ranging research in multiple languages, Sunderland re-creates Ungern's far-flung life and uses it to tell a compelling and original tale of imperial success and failure in a momentous time. Sunderland visited the many sites that shaped Ungern's experience, from Austria and Estonia to Mongolia and China, and these travels help give the book its arresting geographical feel. In the early chapters, where direct evidence of Ungern's activities is sparse, he evokes peoples and places as Ungern would have experienced them, carefully tracing the accumulation of influences that ultimately came together to propel the better documented, more notorious phase of his career.Recurring throughout Sunderland's magisterial account is a specific artifact: the Baron's cloak, an essential part of the cross-cultural uniform Ungern chose for himself by the time of his Mongolian campaign: an orangey-gold Mongolian kaftan embroidered in the Khalkha fashion yet outfitted with tsarist-style epaulettes on the shoulders. Like his cloak, Ungern was an imperial product. He lived across the Russian Empire, combined its contrasting cultures, fought its wars, and was molded by its greatest institutions and most volatile frontiers. By the time of his trial and execution mere months before the decree that created the USSR, he had become a profoundly contradictory figure, reflecting both the empire's potential as a multinational society and its ultimately irresolvable limitations.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USSR
• World War I
• Soviet Union
• Russia
• History of Asia
• History of Europe
• Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801471070
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

THE BARON’S CLOAK

THE BARON’S CLOAK

A History of the Russian Empire in War and Revolution

WILLARD SUNDERLAND

cornell university press ithaca and london

Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2014 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Sunderland, Willard, 1965– author.  The baron’s cloak : a history of the Russian Empire in war and revolution / Willard Sunderland.  pages cm  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801452703 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. UngernSternberg, Roman, 1885–1921.2. Generals—Russia— Biography. 3. Generals—Soviet Union—Biography. 4. Soviet Union— History—Revolution, 1917–1921. 5. Siberia (Russia)—History— Revolution, 1917–1921. 6. Mongolia—History, Military—20th century. 7. Russia—Description and travel. 8. Soviet Union—Description and travel. I. Title.  DK254.U5S86 2014  947.08'3092—dc23  [B] 2013045239

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For HM

In the beginning, all the arrangements for building the Tower of Babel were in fairly good order. —Franz Kafka, “The City Coat of Arms”–

CONTENTS

List of Maps ix

Preface xi

Timeline xiii

Introduction 1

1. Graz 12

2. Estland 25

3. St. Petersburg, Manchuria, St. Petersburg 43

4. Beyond the Baikal 63

5. The Black Dragon River 83

6. Kobdo 100

7. War Land 124

8. The Ataman’s Domain 141

9. Urga 164

10. Kiakhta 190

viii Contents

11. Red Siberia 209

Conclusion 228

Acknowledgments 235

Abbreviations 237

Notes 239

Bibliography 301

Index 335

MAPS

1. The Russian Empire, ca. 1914 xv

2. Central Europe, late nineteenth century 18

3. Estland province and the eastern Baltic region, ca. 1900 27

4. St. Petersburg (center), ca. 1900 46

5. The Trans-Baikal region and the Russian Far East, early 1900s 91

6. Outer Mongolia, early 1900s 110

7. The Russian fronts of World War I 134

8. The Trans-Baikal and Outer Mongolia, ca. 1917–1921 167

9. Ungern’s attack on Urga, February 1921 173