Fatland, Erika "The Border"

Fatland, Erika "The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage" (Norwegian: Grensen: En reise rundt Russland gjennom Nord-Korea, Kina, Mongolia, Kasakhstan, Aserbajdsjan, Georgia, Ukraina, Hviterussland, Litauen, Polen, Latvia, Estland, Finland og Norge samt Nordøstpassasjen) - 2017

I usually don't review books here that have not been translated into English, yet. However, I have read that this one is supposed to be published soon and therefore, I want to whet your appetites already.

The author is a Norwegian journalist and she took a trip all around the Russian border. She visited every single country, even those that are not internationally recognized, like the de facto sovereign states in the Caucasus, though, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Adjara, Nagorno-Karabakh and Donetsk. It was not easy to get into some of them. To get into Nagorno-Karabakh, she had to travel into Armenia because you cannot enter it from Azerbaijan to which it still officially belongs.

She visited all those parts with a lot of difficulties and spoke to the people there who told her about recent and former history and you can learn a lot about that part of the world. I think it's good if we know more about the largest, very powerful and probably most dangerous country in the world.

We talk about a great, well-written book where we feel we are travelling with the author, we discover the countries with her, the people who live there and their history. Fantastic.

This is the second book about Russia and its history that Erika Fatland has written. Her first one "Sovietistan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan" is on my TBR pile now. I am sure I will learn just as much from that book as I did from this one.

From the back cover: (translated)

"Russia's border is the longest in the world. Erika Fatland takes us on a trip to Russia's fourteen neighbour countries, from North Korea to North Norway and through the North-East Passage. The journey goes through wonderful landscapes and highly diverse communities what only have one thing in common: We are all Russia's neighbours.

It's also a trip through the dramatic stories of Russia's neighbours'. In any case, they have been influenced by the proximity of this mighty empire. We meet tsars that are addicted to conquests, brave adventurers and courageous individuals and Chinese dictators. The author visits contemporary conflict areas like the Ukraine whose borders with Putin's Russia have started to move again. 

Erika Fatland shows her special abilities again to get close to people whom she meets on her way and lets them tell her a bit about the big stories of living near the border."

 

Expected publication in English: February 2nd, 2021.

Kross, Jaan "Professor Martens' Departure"

Kross, Jaan "Professor Martens' Departure" (Estonian: Professor Martensi ärasõit) - 1984

I meant to read a book about Estonia for my project "Travel the World Through Books".

And I read a book about Estonia through the life of an Estonian diplomat under the Russian Czar, Friedrich Fromhold Martens. So much history there. Professor Martens wrote a lot of books about international law and was highly involved in establishing what we would call International Law now. He was among those politicians who negotiated after the end of the Russo-Japanese war and was even falsely reported of receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace which he certainly would have deserved. But he received various other prizes and honorary degrees. One of his major achievements was the establishment of the World Court in The Hague.

So, even though this claims to be a novel, it reads as a biography and it is probably more accurate than many others who claim to be one. It doesn't take long while reading this book that you want to know more about the character and whether he really was as described. Google is full with articles about him. And this book is full with details, a very rich tale of an interesting life in an area we still don't know enough about.

From the back cover:

"Widely read in Europe, the Estonian novelist Jaan Kross is considered one of the most important writers of the Baltic region, and is an often-named candidate for the Nobel Prize.

His new historical novel, Professor Martens’ Departure, is written in a classic elegiac style reminiscent of Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, and it evokes the complex world of czarist Russian society at the turn of the century. The character of Professor Martens is based on an actual official of the czarist reign, a distinguished Estonian jurist curiously reminiscent of Henry Kissinger.

Faced with a dire financial crisis in Russia, Professor Martens orchestrates a major loan from the French government to stave off famine; as time passes, however, he realizes that he has managed to perpetuate a brutal regime that keeps its political prisoners in chains.

This fictional memoir, written at the end of Martens’ life, finds him reliving his past and questioning the degree to which he has sacrificed himself to maintain a corrupt regime, one that ultimately disdains both him and his people. Considered an outsider by the czar’s adviser, Martens is nonetheless needed for his skills. Still, he is marginalized and kept in the shadows.

Far more than just a political or philosophical novel, Professor Martens’ Departure is an astonishing reconstruction of czarist Russia."