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A Reader's Review of "Imperium"

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Ryszard Kapuściński is without doubt Poland’s greatest reporter. Although his figure has stirred controversy in recent years, I value his craft enormously, setting aside any judgement of him as a person — that is none of my business. I love (!) reading his books and the pleasure they bring is immense every time. This time I revisited Imperium, his study of the Soviet Union.

Imperium is divided into three parts. The first covers 1939–1967 and describes travels through the Soviet Union mainly in the 1950s and ’60s, including Kapuściński’s first encounter with the Empire — the entry of the Red Army into Pinsk, the city where he was born and grew up. The second part observes the disintegrating communist organism through expeditions to the outermost points of the USSR in 1989–1991. The third part offers the journalist’s impressions of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and its consequences.

"Scenes from Life in the Empire" — a review of "Imperium"

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Izabella Sariusz-Skapska. Source: Znak no. 3/1994. Published: 1994-03-01

The material for describing the Empire was supplied to Ryszard Kapuściński by notes from several journeys, begun at a time when even the greatest dreamers had not dared imagine they would live to hear the Soviet Union referred to in the past tense. Kapuściński describes his encounters with that world in three acts, so to speak. The First Encounter (1939–1967) begins with the entry of Soviet troops into the author’s hometown, Pinsk in Polesie. The Second Encounter contains the section A Bird’s-Eye View (1989–1991), set at the twilight of the communist colossus, when Kapuściński, like “an ubiquitous reporter,” traversed many republics — the counter on those expeditions clicking over “some 60,000 kilometres.” And finally — the third act: The Sequel Continues (1992–1993). In other words: is the succession after the Empire still up for grabs? Or is this ending simply a journalist’s trick — never closing a topic? A threatening memento…

"Why Did the World Flash Past Me So Fast" — a review of "Imperium"

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Author: Ryszard Pietrzak. Source: Nowe Książki no. 6, 1993. Published: 1993-01-01

This is a line from a poem by Ryszard Kapuściński, contained in his Notebook. That poem speaks more penetratingly than any of his statements or interviews about the problems bound up with his reportage prose. It is short and worth quoting in full: “Why / did the world / flash past me / so fast / would not let itself be stopped / come closer / be addressed as thou / it rushed off / a vanishing point / in fire and smoke.”

Ryszard Kapuściński on the book "Imperium"

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote Imperium instead of a different book. In the mid-1980s I had an idea to write a trilogy about dictators. The first volume was “The Emperor,” the second “Shah of Shahs,” and the third was meant to be about Amin — an extraordinarily cruel military dictator in Uganda in the 1970s. I had been there many times, gathering material and was preparing to write that book, when in 1985 Perestroika began in the USSR. It was a major world event. Amin was a completely marginal topic compared with what was happening in the East. I could not stay away — I knew I had to go there, see the USSR and try to describe it.