La Russie en 1839 du marquis de Custine et ses sources contemporaines
Abstracts
Contemporary sources of Custine’s “Russia in 1839”. – Astolphe de Custine has long been considered a prophet of anti-Sovietism before its time, and making an impartial analysis of his book on Russia as an historical document has been next to impossible. At one point, French scholars placed Russia in 1839 in its historical context and cited some of the work’s sources, but these antedate Custine’s work. This article aims at showing what Custine’s vision of Russia owes to the French press of the time and to his contacts with the Baron de Barante, the French ambassador to Russia, a fine connoisseur of Russian life. As Custine himself stated both in his book and private correspondence, he had very few contacts with Russian aristocrats, so that his knowledge of certain facts and rumors about Russian life has always puzzled researchers. Our purpose is to demonstrate that Custine gathered his information from Parisian newspapers and Barante’s travel accounts.
References
Bibliographical reference
Vera Milchina, “La Russie en 1839 du marquis de Custine et ses sources contemporaines”, Cahiers du monde russe, 41/1 | 2000, 151-164.
Electronic reference
Vera Milchina, “La Russie en 1839 du marquis de Custine et ses sources contemporaines”, Cahiers du monde russe [Online], 41/1 | 2000, Online since 15 January 2007, connection on 19 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/42; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/monderusse.42
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