Journey Through Eleven Time Zones

Imperium

First-hand accounts, rescue-style records, deciphering the unimaginably complex Soviet "Empire"
"The history of this country is like an active volcano, with no signs of it entering a dormant period."
Special inclusion: Margaret Atwood's recommended afterword
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🌏 Highlights of the Work:
💡1. "Hard as nails" century journalist, spanning fifty years of the "Empire": Traveling tens of thousands of kilometers across the entire Soviet Union, personally visiting fifteen republics. "The most passionate, engaging, and profound historical narrative about the Soviet Union" (Michael Ignatieff, renowned politician, George Orwell Prize winner, author of "Fire and Ashes") —
Over forty years as a foreign correspondent, with footprints in over one hundred countries. Witnessed twenty-seven revolutions and coups, was detained and imprisoned over forty times, and sentenced to death four times. Authored over twenty non-fiction works, translated into over thirty languages, and won over fifty national and international awards.
"A true master" (Gabriel Garcia Marquez); "An astonishing fusion of journalism and literature" (Salman Rushdie); "The extraordinary magician of modern journalism" (John le Carré).
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💡2. A private report with radar fully open, a struggle for survival and a writing of destiny under the Soviet sky: "He was everywhere... wherever there was chaos, he was there." (Margaret Atwood) —
A vast world, the "Empire's" total territory exceeded 22 million square kilometers, and its land border was longer than the equator, stretching 42,000 kilometers.
A unique guide, taking you to explore the immensely vast and unfathomable Soviet Union: "In this journey, I tried to reach everywhere that time, strength, and opportunity allowed me to reach."
Part One "First Encounters (1939-1967)": From the Soviet army entering the Polish town of Pinsk in 1939, to the author's journey across snowy, desolate Siberia, and his adventures in the Transcaucasian region and the Central Asian republics.
Part Two "Bird's-Eye View (1989-1991)", chronicles several longer wanderings across the vast territory of the "Empire" during the years of its decline and ultimate disintegration. The author undertook these journeys independently, bypassing official agencies and routes, from Brest on the Soviet-Polish border to Magadan on the Pacific Ocean, from Vorkuta within the Arctic Circle to Termez on the Afghan border. The total journey covered sixty thousand kilometers.
Part Three "To Be Continued (1992-1993)", thoughts, observations, and predictions arising during intervals of travel, conversations, and reading. "While I was writing this book, the main object and subject disintegrated. In its place, a series of new states emerged, including Russia, a vast country inhabited by people who for centuries were inspired and united by the empire." "Russia began the 20th century with the 1905 revolution and ended it with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The history of this country is like an active volcano, constantly churning, with no sign of it calming down and entering a dormant period."
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💡3. Personal experience and rescue-style records, deciphering the unimaginably complex Soviet Empire: A must-read book for understanding Russia and the Soviet Union, "This book is a treasure" "It's like describing a whale from inside its belly" —
Pinsk in the Stalin era, Siberia in the Khrushchev era, the inaccessible southern republics in the Brezhnev era, and long journeys across the entire territory during the years of disintegration...
From the barbed-wire-covered permafrost to the oil-rich sleepless cities built in the middle of the sea; from miners' strikes in the Arctic Circle to life-and-death bus trips through war-torn Caucasus; from the "Magic Mountain" of the Kremlin to the abandoned Gulag in Kolyma... First-hand accounts, rescue-style records, when history becomes a prophet:
▶️ "Our teachers disappeared. Children from other classes also disappeared more and more frequently. Soon, no one even asked why they weren't there, or where they had gone. The school became increasingly empty."
▶️ "Endless barbed wire connecting the sky and the earth. The earth has no end here; the world has no end here. Man is not born for this infinitude."
▶️ "Which of them was a prisoner, which was a guard? Old age and poverty gave them temporary equality; soon, the permafrost would bring them to their final, eternal reconciliation."
▶️ "Rusty shipwrecks, decaying watchtowers, deep pits left after ore extraction. A depressing, lifeless emptiness. Silence everywhere, as the exhausted columns have passed, disappearing into the eternal cold fog."
▶️ "This map was a visual compensation for Russians, a special sublimation of emotion, and an undisguised pride. It could also explain and defend all shortages, mistakes, poverty, and weakness."
▶️ "Today's empire is like a lake, with volcanoes beneath its surface awakening. Bubbles suddenly emerge on the calm, smooth lake. Over time, there will be more and more bubbles. The water boils everywhere. In the depths, a low rumble can be heard."
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💡4. A new translation of a classic work, a long-awaited return after years out of print. Special inclusion: Margaret Atwood's afterword, "The Sense of Wonder" —
"While Kapuscinski's creative background is diverse and his material varied, his fundamental themes remain constant: fear and oppression, and how people cope with or transcend fear and oppression; adversity and how adversity can distort or ennoble people; the suffocating, prolonged torment brought by monolithic politics, and humanity's eternal yearning to own its soul. ...Kapuscinski was shy and charming, and somewhat hesitant. But this was only on the surface; deep down, he was as hard as nails. I think he must have been both: in the chaos of civil war, shyness, charm, and hesitation kept him from being shot at barricades, while his 'hard as nails' quality led him to those barricades in the first place."
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🌏 Reviews and Recommendations
"This is the most passionate, engaging, and profound historical narrative about the Soviet Union I have ever read." – Michael Ignatieff (politician, George Orwell Prize winner, author of "Fire and Ashes")
"Kapuscinski is a fascinating guide, combining endless energy, elegant prose, childlike curiosity, and the erudite authority of a true intellectual... This book is a treasure, an engaging combination of bleak history and black comedy." – The New York Times Book Review
"Kapuscinski is an extraordinary journalist... He starts with external phenomena and, with his remarkable poetic talent, irony, and ability to capture contradictions, delves layer by layer into the essence of things. It's as if he's describing a whale from inside its belly." – The Los Angeles Times
"When our descendants want to understand the brutal history of the second half of the 20th century, they should read Ryszard Kapuscinski's work... When such a brilliant writer as Kapuscinski writes about the ice and steppes of Siberia, and describes the dying Aral Sea and Kyiv, any image seems superfluous." – The Wall Street Journal
"The most outstanding witness of our time... While Kapuscinski's creative background is diverse and his material varied, his fundamental themes remain constant: fear and oppression, and how people cope with or transcend fear and oppression; adversity and how adversity can distort or ennoble people; the suffocating, prolonged torment brought by monolithic politics, and humanity's eternal yearning to own its soul." – Margaret Atwood
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🌏 Synopsis
For most of the 20th century, a group of nations were united under a single identity – the Soviet Union, whose territory spanned eleven time zones. This book is Kapuscinski's personal report and memoir of this superpower, from the Soviet army's advance into his hometown of Pinsk (then part of Poland) in 1939, to his journeys through desolate Siberia, the southern Transcaucasian region, and the Central Asian republics in the 1950s and 1960s, and then across the vast territory of the entire Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s, visiting all fifteen constituent republics – from the oil fields of Azerbaijan to the deserts of Turkmenistan, from the Kremlin in Moscow to the mountains of Bashkir, from Yakutsk within the Arctic Circle to settlements near the Aral Sea... In this book, Kapuscinski traveled tens of thousands of kilometers, witnessing events firsthand, conversing with hundreds of Soviet citizens, presenting moments of their life stories and destinies, and weaving together his thoughts, insights, and historical narratives from the road.

2025-01-01

民主与建设出版社

Ideal Country

440

9787513946391