Roman von Ungern-Sternberg

Roman von Ungern-Sternberg appears not as a character in an unfolding personal storyline but as the subject of a story within the book: a historical figure whose mixture of military authority, violence, and mystique fascinates both Dugin and Eduard Limonov. His significance lies partly in what the story says about him and partly in the power with which Dugin tells it, turning his life into an example of the dark charisma that captivates Limonov.

Identity and Historical Background

In 1918, Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, a Latvian aristocrat and virulent opponent of the Bolsheviks, led his division as far as Mongolia to fight alongside the White armies. The account presents him as a commander distinguished by bravery and an ability to wield authority over his men, but also by cruelty. He professed a form of Buddhism that included a taste for highly refined torture, a disturbing conjunction of spiritual language and physical violence that makes him difficult to reduce to a conventional military hero.

His appearance and reputation intensify the legend. He is described with a gaunt face, a long, thin mustache, and very pale eyes. Mongol horsemen believed he was a supernatural being; even his White allies grew afraid of him. These details make the fear surrounding him more than a report of battlefield power: the story shows how his authority became the basis of a near-mythic presence.

Command, Isolation, and Defeat

As he grew distant from his White allies, Roman von Ungern-Sternberg moved deeper into the steppes at the head of his cavalry unit. The unit became completely isolated and formed what the narrative describes as a sect of visionaries, obeying only his command. The shift from division to isolated, leader-centred group gives the story its starkest image of authority: loyalty becomes enclosure, and command is no longer tempered by a wider alliance.

The account describes him as drunk on power and violence. His trajectory ends not in reconciliation or escape but in capture by the Red Army and execution by hanging. The abrupt defeat closes the arc of a man who had seemed almost supernatural to those around him, returning the legend to the physical vulnerability that his power had seemed to overcome.

Dugin’s Story and Limonov’s Fascination

Roman von Ungern-Sternberg enters the narrative during a conversation among Dugin, Limonov, and others about the Moldovan warlord Kostenko. After several nights talking with Limonov, Dugin proposes that the next toast honour Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. Limonov agrees, but admits that he does not know who the man is. Dugin feigns astonishment, while also taking evident pleasure in having a story ready for the occasion. Kostenko’s violent life has prepared the company for a more extreme example: in Dugin’s telling, Roman von Ungern-Sternberg becomes a super-Kostenko, a figure whose fate promises the story its dramatic force.

The book presents Dugin’s account as an act of performance, not merely a recitation of historical facts. He builds suspense and uses his resonant, cello-like voice to bring the figure to life. The narrator compares the resulting portrait to Werner Herzog’s Aguirre and Kurtz, the character in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Limonov, who normally disdains intellectuals, is bewitched by Dugin’s storytelling. The episode also reveals what he wants from stories about power: he would like someone, one day, to tell his own life with the same dramatic command.

Recurrence and Narrative Significance

The story returns beyond that private conversation. In the National Bolshevik milieu, Dugin uses the tale of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg’s paramilitary Buddhist sect in Mongolia as one of the remarkable episodes with which he can captivate both fashionable artists and provincial adolescents. His black beard, bushy eyebrows, and warm voice help restore the persona of a magus who had once seduced Limonov. The repeated appearance of the story makes Roman von Ungern-Sternberg an emblem within the book of history transformed into political and theatrical myth.

That emblem also points to a difference between Dugin’s gifts as a speaker and his work as a political writer. His stories can enthrall audiences, but his abstract, tedious articles do not exert the same persuasive charm on Limonov. Roman von Ungern-Sternberg’s force in the narrative therefore comes less from a developed portrait of his inner life than from the way successive tellers use his legend: first to fascinate Limonov, then to hold the attention of a broader and divided political circle.