Our Notes & References

Russian counter-paganda in the 19th century: a response to the famous ‘russophobe’ memoirs by the Marquis de Custine.

Rare: we could not trace any copy at auctions or in American libraries; Worldcat locates 5 copies (BL, Sächsische Landesbibl. Dresden, National Library of Poland and 2 copies at BnF), to which we can add a copy at RNB (St Petersburg).

La Russie en 1839, written by Astolphe de Custine upon his trip to St Petersburg, Moscow and Yaroslavl, immediately became an international bestseller upon its publication in 1843: translated into German and English the same year, it was also reprinted at least 7 times in France and Belgium by 1855. Custine wrote that he went to Russia to seek arguments against the republic – but he returned if not a republican, then at least a convinced opponent of absolutism. His book doesn’t hesitate to criticise Tsar Nicholas I, who personally received the author in 1839, and Russia at large with its “bureaucratic tyranny”, absence of freedom and “barbarism”. Gertsen (Herzen) found Custine’s work “the most entertaining and intelligent book written about Russia by a foreigner”.

As a result the Russian authorities immediately banned the book in Russia (the first full edition in Russian appeared only in 1996) and responded with a special campaign of counter-propaganda: several Russian contemporaries of Custine were requested to publish critical reviews of his book in France. We count among them Un mot sur l’ouvrage de M. de Custine, par un Russe (1843) by Xavier Labensky (also Jean Polonius) and Examen de l’ouvrage de M. le marquis de Custine intitulé „La Russie en 1839″ (1844) by Nikolai Grech, as well as this booklet. It was written by Mikhail Ermolov (also Michel de Yermoloff; 1794-1870), a Russian general, the son of Catherine the Great’s favourite Aleksandr Ermolov and a man of letters based in France since 1836. Ermolov very likely was also affiliated with the Russian government. In the preface however, he claims that he wrote his personal corrections of Custine’s mistakes and inexactitudes before discovering Labensky’s similar edition, which had just been published. Ermolov still resolved to publish his own observations, hence the title ‘Encore quelques mots’.

Bibliography

George F. Kennan, Markiz de Kustin i ego Rossiia v 1839 godu, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1971.