Russia in the eyes of Marquis de Custine

Abstract

The publishing of the abridged Serbian edition of Marquis de Custine's book Russia in 1839 is one of the main motivations behind this review of Custine's work. In the interpretation of Custine's book, the author uses the frames of current debates on 'symbolic geography' and the processes of 'mental mapping'. Using theoretical insights about both the different ways of representing the 'Other' and 'Otherness' and the discursive practices of 'orientalisation' (Said, Wolff, and Todorova), Custine's work is an adequate illustration for a long lasting practice of 'exoticising' and 'essentialising' Russia as the opposite of 'Europe' or the 'West'. Simultaneously, the author argues that one of the main axes of the Russian culture itself, was the similarly constructed polarity between Russia and the West (Chaadaev, the Russian Slavophilism, Westerners, etc). As a consequence of the strong impact of this dual model of thinking, Custin's work was able to reach such a broad recaption and popularity for such a long period of time. Numerous Custine's characterizations of Russians as 'slaves' who 'adore their tyrants' and Russia as the 'Orient without a sun' were repeatedly describing the Soviet Union during the Cold War period. During that period, Custine's descriptions of Russian 'national character' were seen as self-evident and his travel writing about Imperial Russia was evaluated as an example for a new science - 'sovietology'. In this essay the author is not presenting a contradictive or alternative version of social and political reality in Russia at any time. Custine's representation of Russia and its reception during the Cold War period are examined through their appropriation and meaning in an identity creating discourse. Thus the author's interest is focused on investigating the function of the creation and representation of the 'Other' in the process of creating and negotiating the own identity. In other words, in this article the author doesn't treat the question of adequacy of these representations with the historical and political reality. In the second part of the essay, Custine's views on Russia are interpreted from the perspective of his biography and the socio-political contest of his time. Through the author's analysis, some internal contradictions of Custine's political and philosophical points of view are detected. The journey to Russia is described as a drama of Custine's personal conversion, in which he as a follower of the ancient regime and the absolute monarchy, becomes a committed advocate of constitutional governance. In this way Custine's case anticipates the fate of many western intellectuals who later on, upon returning from the Soviet Union, abandon their former believe in communism.