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the individual in Russia. Standing in front of the Winter Palace in Saint
Petersburg, he recounts the story of its renovation after an accidental fire:
In order to complete the work at the time appointed by the emperor,
unheard-of efforts were necessary. The interior works were continued
during the great frosts; 6,000 workmen were continually employed; of
these a considerable number died daily, but the victims were instantly
replaced by other champions brought forward to perish, in their turn,
in this inglorious breach ... During frosts when the thermometer
was at 25 to 30 degrees below 0 ofReaumur, 6,000 obscure martyrs–
martyrs without merit, for their obedience was involuntary - were
shut up in halls heated to 30 degrees of Reaumur, in order that the
walls may dry more quickly. Thus, these miserable beings, on entering
and leaving this abode of death - destined to become, thanks to their
sacrifice, the home of vanity, magnificence, and pleasure - would have
to endure a difference of 50 to 60 degrees [100 degrees Fahrenheit].
The secret of Russia-the reason why such an inhuman system
had survived for so long-Custine thought, lay in her plans for the
future. "That nation, essentially aggressive, greedy under the influence of
privation, expiates beforehand, by a debasing submission, the design of
exercising a tyranny over other nations: the glory, the riches which it
hopes for, consoles it for the disgrace to which it submits." Both of his
predictions - that of the Russian Revolution and of Russian expansion–
ism - turned out to be right. It was only their violence and its capacity
to engulf both revolution and expansion that surpassed his expectations.
Custine's book belongs to the then-new tradition of testimonial writing
about wars and revolution, "apocalyptic" reporting about history, That
tradition of testimonial writing continues today with innumerable books
about the "univers concentrationnaire" in the Soviet Union, Cambodia,
China, the Holocaust, and many other "minor" apocalypses. Custine's
Empire of the Czar
should be recognized as a classic of the genre.
IRENA GRUDZINSKA GROSS
