Robbins, Richard G. Jr Overtaken by the Night: One Russian's Journey through Peace, War, Revolution, and Terror (review)

Abstract

SEER, 96, 4, OCTOBER 2018 786 modernity.Withacapacious,interdisciplinaryunderstandingofspace,Bilenky deploys spatial theory in a way that is accessible to historians while inviting social scientists to partake in the conversation about imperial urbanism. Department of History Marcel Radosław Garboś Harvard University Robbins, Richard G. Jr. Overtaken by the Night: One Russian’s Journey through Peace, War, Revolution, and Terror. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 2017. xviii + 564 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39.95. Biographies are not in fashion among academic historians. Whilst the reading public seems to love consuming the lives of famous figures, many historians feel biography provides a restricted view on events, prioritizes one individual’s views and experiences, and risks eulogizing the subject and over-emphasizing human agency. Even when historians tackle these issues directly, they usually do so through a few famous individuals. All this is a shame, for as Richard G. Robbins demonstrates in this informative study, biographies of less prominent figures can provide invaluable insights into a wide range of issues. The subject of this study, Vladimir Dzhunkovskii, takes the reader into the centre of power in late imperial Russia. Born into the nobility, he was educated at the Corps of Pages before joining the elite Preobrazhenskii Guards regiment. Soon afterwards, he was appointed an adjutant to the regiment’s commander, Grand Duke Sergei, cementing personal ties that gave him unusual access into court circles. As Sergei became Governor-General of Moscow, Dzhunkovskii was introduced to local politics, taking on various roles before becoming, amid the revolutionary turmoil of 1905, vice-governor and then governor of Moscow province. His rise continued in 1913 when he was appointed as Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs with responsibility for the security police (Okhrana), a post he held for two years. Dismissed in part due to his criticism of Rasputin, he served at the front, deliberately selecting a regular army unit. The February Revolution saw him struggle to maintain discipline and his unit’s fighting effectiveness, whilst the October Revolution brought arrests, departure from the military and the material struggle to survive. For ‘former people’ like Dzhunkovskii, it was impossible to escape their past, but this could work both ways. On the one hand, it brought threats, either serving as a witness (in the trial of the Bolshevik police agent, Roman Malinovskii) or as a defendant in his own trial. On the other, his specialist knowledge of security matters meant he was not entirely discarded, but consulted for advice and protected from the worst persecution. Dzhunkovskii spent much of the 1920s and 1930s taking on REVIEWS 787 various jobs to survive and writing his memoirs before his past — as with so many others — caught up with him in 1938 and he was executed. Robbins covers all of this in a comprehensive and entertaining chronological account,andindoingsohetouchesonawiderangeofissuesfromnational,local andcourtpoliticstohighsociety,socialreformandtherevolutionarymovement. Throughout, Robbins displays extensive knowledge of his subject, defers to others when their knowledge is greater, and provides careful judgements and evocative detail. This is not to say, however, that some of the perils of biography do not rear their heads. Robbins has researched his subject widely, including in archives, but he remains reliant on Dzhunkovskii’s extensive memoirs to structure and inform his account. This allows Dzhunkovskii’s thoughts and beliefs to come to the fore and Robbins is suitably critical in places, but for every critique, there are numerous other instances when the analysis is very much Dzhunkovskii’s own. This leads at times to the biographer’s greatest danger — excessive sympathy with the subject. Dzhunkovskii, as Robbins readily admits, was a monarchist at heart and served an often repressive regime for many decades. To be sure, his brand of conservatism was far from the reactionary politics practised by others. Indeed, shining a light on the complex and often contradictory mix of authoritarianism and reform that made up conservatism during this period is one of the achievements of this biography. Yet one does feel that more attention is given, for instance, to Dzhunkovskii’s desire for reform, whether for workers or for the secret police, than some less salubrious episodes, such as the suppression of violence...