di Amodio of War
There are characters that history puts on the back burner.ย The Great History, the one with a capital "S", the one taught at school, high school, university, marginalizes, forgets, excludes these characters.ย I have never found the name of Roman Fรซdoroviฤ Nicolaus von Ungern-Sternberg in those โfashionableโ encyclopedias, in โofficialโ books, in university manuals. When we talk about the Russian Civil War, and especially the White Army, the names of the admiral are always mentioned Kolchak, of the generals Vrangel ', Kornilov, Denikin, but I have never heard of the name "von Ungern-Sternberg".
General von Ungern-Sternberg, the ยซBloody Baronยป, ยซUngern Khanยป, the ยซGod of Warยป are among those secondary characters, mysterious and cursed, that history prefers not to name.ย And yet there would be a lot of talk about the "Mad Baron". He is not "anyone" our Roman.ย Highly decorated of the Great War, courageous officer with the white troops, liberator and protector of Mongolia, last defender of Tsarist Russia; rivers of ink could be thrown only on von Ungern-Sternberg's military exploits.
Some have talked about it: most of all it comes to mind Ferdinand Ossendowski, Which in its Beasts, Men, Godsย [cf. The Underground Kingdom (F. Ossendowski, "Beasts, Men, Gods")] dedicates an entire chapter to him. Or the fictional biographies of Jean Mabire or Vladimir Pozner. Books and articles have been written in all languages โโabout von Ungern-Sternberg, but it's always that story a little naive, that somewhat ideologized "counter-history", that history with a small "s" that official history often ignores and blurs.
We could talk about the military, the politician, even the psychopath, but what I find particularly interesting is the "mystical" side of von Ungern-Sternberg, his relationship with Religion and the Divine. As the Italian esotericist Pio Filippani Ronconi says: "The importance of Baron Ungern and his multicolored army, made up of Cossacks from Transbaikalia, Buryats, Mongols, Tibetan volunteers and White Guards of all origins, was above all of a spiritual nature".ย Ungern Khan - The brutal asceticย was the title of a 2009 conference organized by the Raido Cultural Association on the figure of the Estonian baron, and I believe never was a better description than this.
So let's start by asking the question: what did von Ungern-Sternberg believe in? Can we define it "religious"?ย It is impossible to give a certain and exhaustive answer.ย Almost all authors show us an Ungern follower of the Buddha; in all Soviet films, the white general is seen performing Buddhist rituals. However, we must not separate the character from the context: Mongolia in the early twentieth century is a country in which Buddhism is grafted onto ancient magical-religious practices such as shamanism, and Mongolian Buddhism itself, like Tibetan one, has clear Tantric influences. For this reason von Ungern-Sternberg could have "used" Buddhism for "practical purposes", even if his superstitious and telluric personality (kh'ro-ba, the frenzied and wrathful aspect of the Protectors of the Dharma) fits perfectly into this Shamanic-Tantric Buddhism; hence the excellent definition of "brutal ascetic".
But at the same time, in almost all the texts, a Christian apocalyptic Ungern appears to us, almost like a crusader, a Miles Christiย willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to defeat the demonic Bolshevik Revolution. In the official speech held in Urga in February 1921, after havingย freed the Mongolian capital from the Chinese and returned it to the hands of the Bodg Khan, the general turning to the Kutuktu will say:
โSovereign, and you Mongolian brothers, God has sent me to you to sacrifice my life in the fight against the perverted West. "
I would then start with a direct testimony, that of Ferdinand Ossendowski, who met von Ungern-Sternberg in May 1921 and was his guest.ย These are the words that the Russian general confides to the Polish writer:
โI have devoted my life to war and the study of Buddhism. My grandfather introduced me to Buddhism on my return from India and my father and I made it our religion. In Transbaikalia I tried to establish the Buddhist Military Order to relentlessly fight the revolutionary depravity [...] because I am convinced that evolution leads to God and revolution to bestiality [...] Then I established the obligation of celibacy, the absolute renunciation of woman, to the comforts of life, to the superfluous, according to the teachings of the Yellow Faith. "
Also according to the testimonies of Ossendowski, the commander makes him visit several Buddhist temples:
ยซLet's go to the great and merciful Buddha [โฆ] The baron struck the gong to draw the attention of the Great Buddha to his prayer and threw a handful of coins into a large bronze cup. And then that descendant of the Crusaders who had read all the Western philosophers closed his eyes, folded his hands in front of his face and prayed. I noticed a black rosary on his left wrist. He continued to pray for ten minutes. "
According to the account, there should be no doubt about von Ungern-Sternberg's Buddhist faith; but the baron at one point asks his brotherly friend, the Mongolian prince Djam Bolon, to keep an ancient promise:
"Djam Bolon went back into the yurt in the company of a small middle-aged woman who crouched in the oriental in front of the flames of the brazier [...] I later learned that she was a fortune-teller and a prophetess famous among the Buryats, daughter of a gypsy and a Buryat. She pulled a small bag from her waistband around her waist and pulled out bird bones and a handful of dry grass. He began to whisper unintelligible words at intervals [...] After the fortune-teller had burned all his dry grass, he placed the bird bones on the glowing coals, turning them over and over with a pair of bronze tweezers and when they were blackened, he began to examine them [...] and in convulsions, he began to utter short broken sentences:ย "I see ... I see the God of War ... his life runs away ... horribly ... After, a shadow ... black as night ... Shadow ... Still one hundred and thirty steps left ... Then, the darkness ... Nothing ... I see nothing ... The God of War It's disappearedโฆ".ย The Baron bowed his head. The woman fell on her back, her arms outstretched. She was passed out. "
Von Ungern-Sternberg's Buddhism here gives way to something primitive and profound, Mongolian shamanism. Even if it is not really a passage, but a mixture, a fusion. This is a peculiar feature of Ungern Khan's mysticism, the merging of the faiths and beliefs that he passed through and that he had to deal with.ย And in fact Ossendowski ends the story about the white general with the last agenda that he addressed to his soldiers and which referred to the Book of Revelation:
โLet no one stop the revenge against the corrupters and murderers of the soul of the Russian people. The revolution must be eradicated from the world. The Apocalypse warns us to beware of it with these words: "And the woman was dressed in scarlet and purple garments and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls, she held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filth of the her shamelessness, and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF ALL THE HARASSES AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw this woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus โ. "
It is no coincidence that Ossendowski's tale of von Ungern-Sternberg starts with Buddha, passes through Shamanism and ends with Jesus. Because the "mad baron" was at the same time a Buddhist, a shamanist and a Christian.ย And in fact it is the Polish writer himself who realizes this when he says:
"The pirate's nephew [referring to von Ungern-Sternberg, ed], citing scientific theories, works and names of writers and scientists, the Holy Bible and Buddhist books, mixing French, German, Russian and English, continued:" In the Buddhist texts and in the ancient Christian books we read apocalyptic prophecies relating to the time when the war between good and evil spirits will begin. Then the unknown curse will be unleashed which will overwhelm the world, destroying civilization, annihilating morality and all peoples. Its weapon is the revolution. [โฆ] Man will be removed from all that is divine and spiritual. [โฆ] But it is precisely then that the Curse appeared which was foreseen by Christ, the apostle John, Buddha, the first Christian martyrs, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe and Dostoevsky. [โฆ] The Great Spirit has placed Karma, which knows no anger or forgiveness, on the threshold of our life. It will settle our accounts, and the result will be famine, destruction, the death of culture, glory, honor and spirit, the death of states and peoples. I already see this horror, this mad and dark destruction of humanity โ. "
Hungarian spiritualism is syncretistic. It is the fusion not only of faiths and beliefs, but of politics and philosophy. Full of apocalyptic visions, it is almost a new Faith. The War that Ungern Khan fights is not only military, it is metaphysical, and his men are free to believe in whatever they want, from Buddha to the shaman, from Christ to Allah.ย In this respect, I believe Mehmet Frugis' analysis in The terrible Lord:
"At least nominally, Ungern remained a Lutheran, but he was also an avowed mystic, and the Russian mystics of that time showed tendencies that we would now call 'totalizing': either ultra-Orthodox, in holding all remaining religions and confessions instruments of the devil, or universalistic, in considering the basis of the elements common to all religions (or, which is the same, the transcendental unity in which they converged). Ungern was a mystic of this second type, and although apocalyptic and fundamentalist, his religious conception was still inclusive: in his vision, the theological dynamic of the Russian empire also had to be expansive and universalistic, capable of including all the seeds at its core. , from the Muslim to the Buddhist to the Russian Orthodox. "
Von Ungern-Sternberg sees war not from a merely military or political point of view, but above all from a religious point of view. And the famous phrase of Joseph de Maistre in The Evenings of St. Petersburgย -ย ยซWar is therefore divine in itself because it is a law of the worldยปย -ย could be the perfect motto of the white general.ย The work of Jean Mabire, The god of war, it hits a lot on this key:
โThe Bolshevik partisans will ask themselves what we are preparing for them. Quite simply, another Revolution, a little more terrible than theirs. They love the red star. We celebrate the yellow sun. War of religion. "
And yet:
ยซThey await [the Mongols] only the leader who will lead them to the holy war. Pleonasm. Every war is holy. The law of force is the only law in the world. If there is a God, it can only be a struggle. "
And in his vision of the world and of war Ungern Khan cannot but be "God of War":
โMilitary leader, political leader, religious leader, I am the right hand of the divine emperor. My legend of the reincarnated god of war becomes reality. I myself will end up believing it ... "
It is Kutuktu himself, the living Buddha, who blesses him as such:
ยซYou will not die: you will reincarnate in the form of higher being. Remember this, living God of War, grateful khan of Mongolia. "
Clearly, in Jean Mabire's interpretation, a "God of War" can be neither Christian nor Buddhist:
โWell, everyone thinks I'm a Buddhist because I put Kutuktu back on the throne and because I respect the yellow faith of the Mongols. [โฆ] How could a soldier be a Buddhist? [โฆ] I hate priests who turn defeats into victories and would like to show you that death is life. The lamas are of the same race as the pope, with their absurd formulas. "
But if "tactically" it is necessary to show oneself Buddhist in a Buddhist country, the Ungern of Mabire can be shamanically pagan and anti-Christian convinced, so much so that he compares Christianity to Bolshevism:
โDespite Buddhism, they have some vague nostalgia for solar worship. Not long ago Asia was white. Fire was worshiped there, from the Sea of โโJapan to Finland. Shamanism remains the religion of the roots. [โฆ] To revive all these ancient cults. [โฆ] Temples enclose God. To find him, you have to tear down the walls. The sun. The wind. The forest and the ocean. Ice. Our ancestors knew the messages of the earth. Superstition, you are the wisdom. "
And then:
ยซIt has been for two thousand years that priests have betrayed our universe [โฆ] Christians hate our world [โฆ] Christianity saidโ All that is mine is yours โ. Communism claims: โAll that is yours is mineโ [โฆ] the result is the same. Illuminated by love or imposed by terror, it is always the same religion [โฆ] Christianity is the ancestor of Bolshevism. "
It is interesting to note how the ideological-religious substratum of the French author, defined as neo-pagan and anti-Christian, greatly influences the character; if therefore we can hardly doubt the testimony of Ossendowski, instead it is legitimate to have some doubts about the Ungern of Mabire's novel.
Extremely interested in von Ungern-Sternberg's spirituality were also various European esotericists.ย Renรจ Guenon believed that "moved by influences of a very different order [...] he was not exactly what one might call a "neo-Buddhist" because, according to information provided to us by another source, his family's adherence to Buddhism went back to the third generation. In other respects, it has been reported that phenomena of "obsession" have occurred in the castle of Ungern; could it not be some manifestation of "psychic residues"?ยป.
According to Julius Evola "almost mystical traits were present in him. Even before going to Asia he professed Buddhism [...] Some supernormal faculties were present in him: for example, we speak of a kind of clairvoyance that allowed him to read in the soul of others according to a perception as exact as that of physical things.ยป.
For Pio Filippani Ronconi was "religiously affiliated with a tantric current headed by the Hutuktu of Ta-Kurรจ [โฆ] The counter-revolution was for him only a pretext to evoke on the earthly level a hierarchy already implemented on the invisible one. This hierarchy had to be projected on a mandala whose center would be the "Great Mongolia" [...] There, he thought, the regeneration of the world would take place under the sign of the Sovereign ofagartha ("elusive") Sambhala, the "Land of the Initiates", where Zla-ba Bzan-po [the King of the World] and his 24 successive heirs perpetuated the secret teaching of Kalacakra, the "Wheel of Time", given to them by the Awakened 2500 years ago ยป.
Another direct testimony of Ungern's mysticism comes from the philosopher-count Hermann Keyserling, who met him personally as his sister married the baron's brother. These are the salient features of the letter that Keyserling wrote to Vladimir Pozner and which he reports in his biographical novel The bloody baron:
ยซHe is a being that seems suspended between Heaven and Hell, devoid of the slightest notion of earthly laws. There was an exceptional mixture of profound metaphysical tendencies and cruelty in him. [โฆ] Yet he possessed the natural gift of second sight, or rather that of prophecy. [โฆ] His metaphysical conceptions were very similar to those of the Tibetans and Hindus. He didn't belong in this world, and I can't help but think that here on earth he was just a passing guest. "
Also in Pozner's text we see von Ungern-Sternberg oscillating between Buddhism, shamanism and Christianity: ยซit is even said that he converted to Buddhism. In any case it seems that he had a strong sympathy for this religion (probably because of his mystical inclinations) ยป; ยซHe was very superstitious [โฆ] Yes, Protestant. But he is said to have later embraced Buddhism "; "He didn't give an audience to anyone, apart from fortune tellers and fortune tellers."ย Interesting, from this point of view, is the legend about the conquest of Urga. Apparently there were lamas in Commander Tubanov's squadron tangut from Tibet:
โThe lamas wanted to do their job. They could not tolerate fighting without first consulting the oracles. [โฆ] The lamas had worn the ceremonial dress. They were arranged in a circle around a black goat, held on the ground with ropes. The beast followed with a meek and unaware gaze the evolutions of those men who uttered shrill cries and blew their trumpets: "When the goat's heart has stopped beating, we will be able to march on Urga" [...] The third day was about to end when the lamas came to announce to Ungern that the beast's heart had stopped beating and that Urga would be conquered in three days. "
But once again von Ungern-Sternberg yields to biblical prophecies:
ยซOrder for Russian detachments on the territory of Soviet Siberia - N.15 - Urga, May 21, 1921 [โฆ]โ Peace, the supreme gift of heaven, is necessary. In the struggle for peace we must carry out the deeds that the one of whom the holy prophet Daniel speaks, who foretold the cruel times of the ruin of the lords of debauchery and desolation and the advent of peace in the world ... ""
Propaganda? Is it possible that von Ungern-Sternberg is a Buddhist with the Mongols and a Christian with the Cossacks? Is it possible that in the Mongolian capital he is praying to the Buddha, to ingratiate himself with Kutuktu and the Mongolian princes, while when he is preparing to attack the Bolsheviks in Siberia he uses biblical prophecies to urge the Russians to fight to the death? Nothing can be ruled out.ย But let's not forget that the defeated white general is looking for a desperate retreat to Tibet, where he can regenerate himself and the tattered remains of his Division.ย Thus Filippani Ronconi:
โHe moved solitary in a direction that no longer had a relationship with the geographical reality of the place and with the military situation, in the postremo attempt, not to save his life, but to reconnect before dying with his own metaphysical principle: the King of the World. His desperate migration towards the setting Sun was actually a last act of worship towards the Light that had supported his exploits. "
So what? ย Buddhist? Shamanist? Protestant? Orthodox? I think that giving an exhaustive answer to the question "what did von Ungern-Sternberg believe in?" doesn't really matter. He, drinking the water of Buddhist practice, inhaling the smoke of shamanic rites and swallowing the Cross of St. George before being shot, symbolically incorporates and merges the three faiths in his creed: being devoted to himself to the last. . Devoted to the God of War.
Bibliography:
- Ferdinand Ossendowski - Beasts, Men, Gods - Mediterranean Editions
- Vladimir Pozner - The bloody baron - Adelphi
- Mehmet Frugis - The terrible Lord - Editions of Ar
- Jean Mabire - The god of war - Editions of Ar
- AA.VV - Steppe empires, from Attila to Ungern Khan - Vox Populi Study Center
- AA.VV. - Ungern Khan. History and myth of Baron Von Ungern Sternberg - Raido Cultural Association
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