There are historical figures one believes one knows — until a direct account brings them forward, almost alive, before us.
In Ungern, one of the most striking episodes recounts the arrival of a journalist at Baron Ungern von Sternberg's headquarters in Daouria. After many difficulties, he is finally ushered into a modest room. There, he discovers an unexpected sight: not a Russian general fixed in his insignia, but a man with a long reddish moustache, wearing a Mongolian silk cap and a brilliant national costume, yet bearing the gilded epaulettes of an imperial officer. The scene has something unreal about it, almost legendary.
Then Ungern speaks. And everything shifts.
With glacial calm, he explains that only terror can conquer terror. The witness realizes he is facing not a simple military leader but a frontier figure — caught between war, mysticism, discipline, and violence. More troubling still: behind the reputation of the "bloody baron," he also discovers a man deeply familiar with Mongolian customs, who inspires in his soldiers a loyalty mixed with fear.
This is what makes the book so powerful: it does not merely present a legend — it makes her audible through archives, testimonies, and scenes that carry the force of lived experience. One does not find here a fixed portrait of Ungern, but a presence — unsettling, unforgettable.
And this is only the beginning.