Ryszard Kapuscinski, in Imperium

The whole does not end with a higher and definitive synthesis, but, on the contrary, it disintegrates and falls apart, and the reason for this is that in the course of writing the book, its main subject and theme fell apart--namely, the great Soviet superpower (x).

The author does not pretend to know what will happen to what remains of that collapse, and he does not even pretend to have written a "history" of the eras covered before and during that collapse. He never pretends to be offering an objective analysis of his subject. Instead he presents "a personal report" with highly subjective observations about a remarkable nation at various, turbulent points in its evolution. Kapuscinski maintains at the end of the book the same open-ended perspective he claims at the beginning. Starting with the chaos of the Soviet invasion of Poland, and ending with the fall of the Soviet Empire, he is far more concerned with portraying (and celebrating) the conflicts of Russia than with coming to a neat understanding of its pa

. . .
about to depart. Where to? The grown-ups said Siberia. I didn't know where that was, but from the way in which they pronounced the word, it was clear that even thinking about this Siberia was enough to make one shudder (14). Nineteen years later Kapuscinski the journalist visits Eastern Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway. He expresses the fear of life on the border, fear of the customs inspectors, fear of the power of the state to do what it wants to do with the individual. Again, the author is not trying to give the reader a statistical or theoretical portrait of Russia, but rather an emotional and psychological sense of what it was like for him as one human being to experience the Russia of these particular times and places. In the section from 1958, the author, "surrounded by barbed wire and lookouts, fierce dogs, sentries stuff as stone," remembers looking for a sign of human warmth in the faces of those custom inspectors: "You, what are you grinning at?" a customs inspector inquires sharply and suspiciously. A chill goes through me. Power is seriousness: in an encounter with power, a smile is tactless, it demonstrates a lack of respect. Similarly, one must not stare too long at someone who has power (23). The leade
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Soviet Union, Imperium Russia, Stalin Beria, Kapuscinski Imperium, Trans-Siberian Railway, Soviet Empire, Soviet Imperium, Nineteen Kapuscinski, history russia, Eastern Russia, Vintage International, russia modern era, beginning imperium, modern era, russia modern, russia book, falls apart, future russia, personal report, absolute power, portrait russia,
Approximate Word count = 1633
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)