Volume 37, Number 10 · June 14, 1990
Neither Salvation nor Sausage
By Viktor Erofeyev, Translated from the Russian by Shirley M. Benson
Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia (Russia in 1839)
by the Marquis de Custine, foreword by Daniel J. Boorstin, introduction by George F. Kennan
Anchor Books, 631 pp., $14.95 (paper)
Russia in 1839 depicts Russia as it has never been portrayed before, or since. Through images that seem to be reflections in separate distorting mirrors, the Marquis de Custine almost involuntarily created a composite portrait of a backward Russia that was otherwise hidden from view to other visitors, although hardly to the Russians themselves.
Review, 3724 words
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