Travels in Siberia (74 page)

a road leading nowhere: “The Czars’ Russia . . . wanted, above all, to break down the cruel barriers that contained her within a continent-wide blind alley” (Lengyel,
Siberia
, p. 6).

two public-policy experts: Hill and Gaddy,
Siberian Curse
.

Those on the positive side of the argument: See, e.g., Trubetskoy,
Legacy of Genghis Khan
; Rasputin,
Siberia, Siberia
; and Hill and Gaddy,
Siberian Curse
, pp. 170ff.

resources and hard-to-subdue vastness: Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
, p. 142.

“Russia is an Asiatic land”: Lengyel,
Siberia
, p. 384.

escaped from Siberia six times: Sebag Montefiore,
Stalin
, p. 24; see also Lengyel,
Siberia
, p. 178.

style himself officially as tsar:
The Treasures of the Golden Horde
(St. Petersburg: Slavia Publishing, 2000), p. 51.

“Lord of All the Siberian Land”: Armstrong,
Yermak’s Campaign
, p. 3.

In 1552, Ivan led a large army: Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
, p. 475.

had his clergy sprinkle the streets: Lantzeff and Pierce,
Eastward to Empire
, p. 67.

Farther to the east, the khan of Sibir: Armstrong,
Yermak’s Campaign
, pp. 1–2; also, Lantzeff and Pierce,
Eastward to Empire
, p. 70.

In 1581 and 1582: Armstrong,
Yermak’s Campaign
, pp. 5ff.

a rich tribute of sable furs: Lantzeff and Pierce,
Eastward to Empire
, p. 110.

His mother, Ivan said: Izhboldin,
Essays on Tatar History
, p. 31.

a progenitor named Pruss: Florinsky,
Russia
, 1:186.

“the Third Rome”: Avvakum,
The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum
, p. 8; see also Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
, p. 107.

exceeded the size of the surface of the full moon: Pipes,
Russia Under the Old Regime
, p. 84.

Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid: For more on the early work of Komar and Melamid, see Carter Ratcliff,
Komar and Melamid
(New York: Abbeville, 1988).

a humor magazine called the
Harvard Lampoon
: Reed was elected to the
Lampoon
in February of his sophomore year. As a Westerner (Portland, Oregon), Reed did not have the social standing required for election to prestigious clubs like the Porcellian, and so the
Lampoon
became an important refuge. He rose to the position of Ibis, the
Lampoon
’s second-highest office. Reed also was a cheerleader at Harvard football games and wrote a fight song that defied Yale. See Hicks,
John Reed
, pp. 28–40.

following Pancho Villa’s armies: See Reed’s excellent
Insurgent Mexico
, a book of his Mexican dispatches.

banned from the Western front: Hicks mentions this incident (p. 168), as does David C. Duke in
John Reed
(Boston: Twayne, 1987), p. 149. Reed never wrote about it himself, but a reporter named Robert Dunn, who was with him at the time and also took two shots at the French, later wrote up the adventure for the
New York Evening Post
, which ran the account on February 27, 1915, p. 1.

“Russia’s is an original civilization”: Reed,
War in Eastern Europe
, p. 210.

“The whole beautiful land is even more glorious”: Freeman,
American Testament
, p. 270.

two months in a rented room: Hicks,
John Reed
, pp. 170, 325; also Duke,
John Reed
, pp. 41, 114.

Lenin himself admired it: See Gardner, “
Friend and Lover
,” p. 187. After the book’s publication, Reed wrote Bryant, “The big chief [Lenin] thinks my book the best.” Lenin later contributed a one-paragraph “introduction” praising the book. Today this paragraph would be called a blurb.

not quite thirty-three: Reed died three days before his thirty-third birthday. See Reed,
Education of John Reed
, p. 38.

in the Kremlin Wall: Reed is buried next to Inessa Armand, girlfriend of Lenin, who died the same year; see the photo of the site in Gardner, “
Friend and Lover
.” The other American buried in the wall is “Big Bill” Haywood, a union organizer.

Farley Mowat, the Canadian author: Mowat,
The Siberians
, p. 14.

Valentin Rasputin, the Siberian short-story writer: Rasputin,
Essays
, pp. 94, 72.

Among scholars who have studied the question: Baikalov,
Notes on the Origin of the Name Siberia
, pp. 287–89. See also Bretschneider,
Mediaeval Researches
, 2:37.

Etymologists say: Baikalov,
Notes on the Origin of the Name Siberia
; see also the entry for
Sibir’
in Vasmer,
Etimologicheskii Slovar’ Russkogo Yazyka
, vol. 3. This is the authoritative etymological dictionary Russians use.

The first appearance of the word
Sibir’
: Pritsak,
The Origin of the Name
Sibir’, pp. 271–72.

“After Joci had subjugated the People of the Forest”: Rachewiltz,
Secret History of the Mongols
, pp. 164–65. (I have not reproduced certain orthographic symbols in the translation.)

in the reign of his son Batu: Florinsky,
Russia
, 1:56.

Jochi’s line, by the way: Izhboldin,
Essays on Tatar History
, p. 31.

the Persian traveler and historian Rashid ad-Din: Bretschneider,
Mediaeval Researches
, 2:37; also Howorth,
History of the Mongols
, p. xxi, and Quatremère,
Histoire des Mongols de la Perse
, p. 413.

in the Russian chronicles of 1406: Baikalov,
Notes on the Origin of the Name Siberia
, p. 288.

The first known reference: Ibid.

Schiltberger led a tumultuous life: Schiltberger,
Bondage and Travels
.

King Sigismund of Hungary: Schiltberger spells the name “Sigmund”; elsewhere it is more usually spelled “Sigismund.” See an account of this crusade in Norwich,
A Short History of Byzantium
, pp. 359–60.

This former Turkic tribal chief: For more on Tamerlane, see Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
, pp. 406ff.

reciting the Ave Maria: Schiltberger,
Bondage and Travels
, p. xxviii.

Barguzin is more than 350 years old: See map in Grousset,
The Empire of the Steppes
, pp. 534–35, which gives 1648 as the date of Barguzin’s founding.

Katarina Breshkovskaya: This well-known revolutionary appears often in the accounts of the time. Both John Reed and Louise Bryant met and admired her—see his
Ten Days That Shook the World
, p. xxii, and Gardner, “
Friend and Lover
,” p. 90. George Kennan regarded her as a hero—see his
Siberia and the Exile System
, 1:12–22.

“Barguzin Wind”: Rytkheu,
Stories from Chukotka
, p. 18.

traded furs and gold by caravan: Barguzin is older than Irkutsk (founded 1661), historically the main city of that part of Siberia. Barguzin was an important entrepôt on an early route of caravans to China. Even today, the fanciest sable fur sold in America is called Barguzin sable. See Lantzeff and Pierce,
Eastward to Empire
, p. 151.

Wilhelm Küchelbecker: On Wilhelm Küchelbecker and his duel with Pushkin, see Vitale,
Pushkin’s Button
, pp. 266–67.

Barguzin’s Küchelbecker: Sutherland,
Princess of Siberia
, p. 255. For more on Mikhail Karlovich Küchelbecker, see Barratt,
Voices in Exile
, p. 257.

highly fashionable accessories: Sutherland,
Princess of Siberia
, p. 214. When the craze for Decembrist shackle rings and bracelets took off, ironsmiths in Siberia soon began to turn out counterfeits (Barratt,
Voices in Exile
, p. 260).

Russians can really dance: This trait must go back a long way. The Marquis de Custine, in
Empire of the Czar
, about the journey he made in 1839, called Russia “this nation of dancers” (p. 181).

even for someone who knows how: See
Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov
, vol. 3,
Selected Poems
, translated by Paul Schmidt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).

George Kennan: Basic biographical details of George Kennan’s life are from Travis,
George Kennan and the American-Russian Relationship
.

A relative named Sam Wildman: He was the brother of Emily Jane Wildman Wickham (1838–1919), my two-greats grandmother.

My three-greats grandfather: Frederick Christian Wickham (1812–1901), editor of the
Norwalk Reflector
, published George Kennan’s letter from Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka, on January 30, 1866. At the time, Kennan was twenty years old.

piano lessons from George Kennan’s sister: Henry Timman, esteemed historian of Norwalk, Ohio, doubts that George Kennan’s sister could have taught Winthrop Wickham piano, due to the difference in their ages and the fact that their life spans had not many years of overlap. But Cousin Winthrop (or “Wumpy,” as the family called him), who is now dead, did tell me he had studied with her.

an underwater cable from Newfoundland to Ireland: The Atlantic Telegraph Company, organized in 1856, laid a transatlantic cable in July 1858. Queen Victoria sent President Buchanan a congratulatory telegram over it, but the connection went dead when the cable broke three weeks later. The company, reorganized as the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, finally laid a working cable in July 1866. See Strouse,
Morgan
, pp. 64–65.

Perry McDonough Collins: Bobrick,
East of the Sun
, pp. 351–52. The spirit of Collins’s enterprise may be found in Collins’s
A Voyage Down the Amoor
, in which he says, “Russia, descending from the heights of the Altai to the great Eastern Ocean by way of the mighty Amoor, and the United States, descending to its opposite shore from the heights of the Sierra Nevada, will shake the friendly hand in commercial intercourse upon that mighty sea, and here two great nations will only vie with each other in developing the resources of their respective countries” (p. 78).

“in a state of boyish wonder”: Travis,
George Kennan
, p. 28.

In a letter from St. Petersburg: Ibid.

He gave his first Siberia lecture: Ibid., p. 38. Of the lecture Kennan gave in Norwalk soon after, the
Reflector
(December 6, 1869) said, “The large audience who filled Whittlesey Hall on that occasion, will bear witness that it was one of the most interesting ever delivered in Norwalk, the merits of which would not deteriorate in comparison with the best.”

On a grand tour he made as tsarevitch: Wortman,
Rule by Sentiment
, pp. 745–51.

where no member of the Imperial family had ever been: The significant fact that no tsar, tsarina, or tsarevitch until Alexander II had ever crossed the Urals appears in ibid., p. 747; see also Florinsky,
Russia
, 2:879. (There was a rumor, however, that Alexander I, who died in the Crimea in 1825, had actually faked his death and gone to Siberia to spend the rest of his life in the guise of a holy hermit named Fyodor Kuzmich. If so, Alexander I would own the distinction of being the first Siberian-traveler tsar.)

forty-eight million serfs: Randall,
N. G. Chernyshevskii
, preface.

a young man named D. V. Karakozov: Florinsky,
Russia
, 2:974.

a bomb in the Winter Palace: Bely,
Petersburg
, p. 309
n
; see also Florinsky,
Russia
, 2:1080ff.

blew the tsar apart: Bobrick,
East of the Sun
, p. 299; Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
, p. 317. The day was snowy, and the bombs were painted white, to resemble snowballs (Warner,
Tide at Sunrise
, pp. 59–60).

His successor, Alexander III: Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
, p. 318; also Florinsky,
Russia
, 2:1139–40.

a ship called the
Jeannette
: Mowat,
The Siberians
, p. 157; also Bobrick,
East of the Sun
, p. 357.

“the hardest journey and the most trying experience”: Kennan,
Siberia and the Exile System
, 1:x. There are more recent editions of this book, but I found the original 1891 edition the most useful, and it is the one I refer to throughout.

ashamed to go on the street: Ibid., 2:73–74.

he found himself weeping: Ibid., p. 28.

“the flower of Russian young manhood”: Ibid., p. 451.

the outlandish colors the people loved: Ibid., 1:23; also 1:353.

“thank God for dynamite!”: Travis,
George Kennan
, p. 178.

when they were smuggled into Russia:
Siberia and the Exile System
was banned when it came out in 1891. The ban was lifted after the 1905 revolution. See Stephan,
Russian Far East
, p. 68.

George Frost Kennan: For details of Kennan’s life, see his
Memoirs
, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967–72).

He and the original George Kennan: John Lewis Gaddis, biographer of George Frost Kennan, told me the story of the two George Kennans’ meeting. George F.
had told it to him. In his memoirs, George F. does not mention ever meeting his namesake. I thank Professor Gaddis for his generosity in sharing his research with me.

“the relationship of Kennan’s work”: Kennan,
Siberia and the Exile System
, abridged edition, p. xvi.

“had no personal interest in the crime”: Hosking,
Russia and the Russians
, p. 312.

upward of four thousand local and national officials: Ibid., p. 360.

Breshkovskaya had also smuggled bombs: She joked with Louise Bryant about it; see Gardner, “
Friend and Lover
,” p. 90.

Alexander Ulyanov: Bobrick,
East of the Sun
, pp. 299–300. See also Warner,
Tide at Sunrise
, pp. 62–63.