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"Hepimiz yüce majestelerinin ufak tefek olduğunu biliyordu. Bununla birlikte, İmparatorluk Makamı'nın yüceliği gereğince, İmparator'un diğer kişilerden düpedüz fiziksel bile olsa daha yüksekte bulunması gerekiyordu. Dolayısıyla, İmparatorluk tahtlarının bacakları uzun, oturma yerleri yüksekti... Yüksek bir taht ile saygıdeğer majestelerinin yapısı arasında bir çelişki doğmuştu; küçük bir çocuk gibi bacakları havada sallanan bir kimse tarafından gereken ciddiyetin nasıl sağlanabileceğini hayal etmek bile güç olduğundan, tam da bacaklar bölgesinde en duyarlı ve belalı olan bir çelişkiydi bu. Bu hassas ve çok önemli muammayı, yastık çözdü.
Yirmialtı yıl boyunca En Erdemli Majesteleri'nin yastık taşıyıcılığını yaptım. Majesteleri'ne dünyanın dört bir köşesine yaptığı yolculuklarda eşlik ettim ve doğruyu söylemem gerekirse-bunu gururla söylüyorum- Majesteleri bensiz hiçbir yere gidemezdi..."
"Majesteleri, Haile Selasiye'nin son günlerinin ve onun çılgın, ortaçağa ait sarayının parlak bir portresi. Kapuscinski'nin daima harikulade somut ve dikkatli eserleri, en ince ayrıntılardan anlam mucizeleri yaratıyor. Ve kitabı röportajı aşkınlıyor, bir güç kabusuna dönüşüyor... Sanki İtalo Calvino, Machiavelli'yi yeniden yazmış gibi... Unutulmaz, son derece komik ve nihayet sevecen bir kitap."
Salman Rushdie
Yirmialtı yıl boyunca En Erdemli Majesteleri'nin yastık taşıyıcılığını yaptım. Majesteleri'ne dünyanın dört bir köşesine yaptığı yolculuklarda eşlik ettim ve doğruyu söylemem gerekirse-bunu gururla söylüyorum- Majesteleri bensiz hiçbir yere gidemezdi..."
"Majesteleri, Haile Selasiye'nin son günlerinin ve onun çılgın, ortaçağa ait sarayının parlak bir portresi. Kapuscinski'nin daima harikulade somut ve dikkatli eserleri, en ince ayrıntılardan anlam mucizeleri yaratıyor. Ve kitabı röportajı aşkınlıyor, bir güç kabusuna dönüşüyor... Sanki İtalo Calvino, Machiavelli'yi yeniden yazmış gibi... Unutulmaz, son derece komik ve nihayet sevecen bir kitap."
Salman Rushdie
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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8011 people want to read
About the author
Ryszard Kapuściński
112 books1,983 followersRyszard Kapuściński debuted as a poet in Dziś i jutro at the age of 17 and has been a journalist, writer, and publicist. In 1964 he was appointed to the Polish Press Agency and began traveling around the developing world and reporting on wars, coups and revolutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe; he lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, was jailed forty times, and survived four death sentences. During some of this time he also worked for the Polish Secret Service, although little is known of his role.
See also Ryszard Kapuściński Prize
See also Ryszard Kapuściński Prize
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 639 reviews
February 3, 2019
The author is a Polish journalist and in this book he Chronicles the downfall of Haile Selassie, the longtime ruler of Ethiopia. The book is divided into three sections, and in the first he interviews those who worked in the palace. There is some tongue in cheek humor here as we learn many of the jobs they did and took do seriously were quite strange.a human cuckoo, whose only job was to bow on the hour, a functionary with a collection of pillows, so he could be sure to use the correct size to prop of the feet of the emperor. Much stuggling for positions, favor, who is closest, who did he speak to the most? Everything revolved around his majesty, nothing could be fixed, built without his approval.
The second section Chronicles the failed revolution, which forms at a fashion show of all things. Many were killed, their bodies displayed as a warning. It would be another ten years before his actual downfall, which is chronicled in the third act. Brought about because of the emperors lack of knowledge about the many starving in the northern parts of the country. This was brought to national attention. Remember, feed the world, with so many well known musicians. The dead and dying bodies on our news shows?
A short book which is actually an allegorical rendering of Selassies ousting, since it would be a full two years after this was published, that the autocrat falls. A short book, a series of interviews with various personages, with insertions by the author. A very different reading experience.
Also, im trying to give this book three stars, and Goodreads won't let me. I keep tapping on clear and it just gives me back the same four stars. So frustrating.
The second section Chronicles the failed revolution, which forms at a fashion show of all things. Many were killed, their bodies displayed as a warning. It would be another ten years before his actual downfall, which is chronicled in the third act. Brought about because of the emperors lack of knowledge about the many starving in the northern parts of the country. This was brought to national attention. Remember, feed the world, with so many well known musicians. The dead and dying bodies on our news shows?
A short book which is actually an allegorical rendering of Selassies ousting, since it would be a full two years after this was published, that the autocrat falls. A short book, a series of interviews with various personages, with insertions by the author. A very different reading experience.
Also, im trying to give this book three stars, and Goodreads won't let me. I keep tapping on clear and it just gives me back the same four stars. So frustrating.
December 31, 2024
در کتاب امپراتور و بازی امپراتور ، ریچارد کاپوشچینسکی روزنامه نگار معروف لهستانی به آدیسا بابا و اتیوپی رفته و با بازماندگان دربار آخرین امپراطور آن کشور گفتگو کرده و خاطرات آنها را در کتاب بازگو کرده و حاصل آن کتابی شده خواندنی .
قطعا هایله سیلاسی یک از ابله ترین دیکتاتورهایی بوده که جهان به خود دیده . خاطراتی که درباریان از او و حماقت هایش یاد می کنند بسیار خنده دار است .حتی عکس جلد کتاب هم که او را نشان می دهد به شدت مضحک است . این موجود حقیر لقب های بسیاری داشته مانند شیر آفریقا و خدای زنده ، حتی مانند شاه سابق ایران لقب بزرگ ارتشتاران را هم به خود عنایت کرده بود ، بدون آنکه در جنگی شرکت کرده باشد .
درباریان او شغلهای خنده داری داشتند و به مدت زیادی سرگرم این شغلها بودند ،مثلا امپراتور سگ کوچکی داشته که روی کفش درباریان ادرار می کرده و کسی هم بوده که شغل او پاک کردن ادرار سگ از روی کفش یا زمین بوده ، یا چون امپراتور ریز جثه بوده هنگامی که روی تخت سلطنت می نشسته پایش به زمین نمی رسیده و برای آنکه پای امپراتور در هوا آویزان نماند ، فردی باید بالشت زیر پای او می گذاشته و این فرد همواره در مسافرت های خارجی با سیلاسی همراه بوده و با خود پنجاه و دو عدد بالشت داشته که با توجه به ارتفاع تخت او بالشت مناسب را زیر پای امپراتور می گذاشته .
امپراتور کلمات گهر بار هم داشته ، مثلا یکی از درباریان از قول اعلیحضرت می گوید که حتی سرسپرده ترین روزنامه ها هم نباید کثیرالانتشار باشد ، چون این ممکن است عادت خواندن در مردم پدید آورد و سپس گامی فراتر نهند و به اندیشیدن عادت کنند.
اما همزمان که خواننده به کارهای سیلاسی می خندد ، ملت اتیوپی به دلیل قحطی و خشکسالی بزرگ شمال آن کشور ، جان می دادند . امپراتور با حماقت خود کشور را به آستانه شورش و جنگ داخلی برده بود ، تا زمانی که یک افسر جوان کودتا می کند ، دربار را منحل و خدای زنده را زندانی می کند ، امپراتور یک سال بعد فوت کرده و جنازه اش زیر توالتی دفن گردید . رژیم جدید در داخل کشور حکومت وحشت و ترور برقرار می کند و اتیوپی را به دوران تازه ای از جنگ داخلی ، قحطی و کشتار می برد ، دورانی که مسئول اصلی آن امپراتوریا پادشاه یا هر دیکتاتور دیگری ایست که در مقابل خواسته ملت خود مقاومت می کرده است .
بزرگ ارتشتاران اتیوپی به ایران هم سفر کرده و با این یکی بزرگ ارتشتاران، شاه ایران هم دیدار کرده بود . خدای زنده و شاه شاهان احتمالا درباره موضوعات منطقه و تحولات شمال آفریقا با هم گفتگو کردند ، شاید سند توافقات اقتصادی کوتاه مدت و بلند مدت هم امضا کرده باشند و طرحی هم برای همکاریهای بلندمدت در دست اقدام بود اما در پایان هر دو از جانب ملت خود طرد و رانده شدند ، جنازه یکی زیرتوالت دفن شد و دیگری در غربت دورتر از خاک وطن . در تاریخ از آن دو به عنوان خودکامه و جبار یاد شده و هر دو موضوع کتابی از ریچارد کاپوشچینسکی روزنامه نگار زیرک لهستانی شدند .
قطعا هایله سیلاسی یک از ابله ترین دیکتاتورهایی بوده که جهان به خود دیده . خاطراتی که درباریان از او و حماقت هایش یاد می کنند بسیار خنده دار است .حتی عکس جلد کتاب هم که او را نشان می دهد به شدت مضحک است . این موجود حقیر لقب های بسیاری داشته مانند شیر آفریقا و خدای زنده ، حتی مانند شاه سابق ایران لقب بزرگ ارتشتاران را هم به خود عنایت کرده بود ، بدون آنکه در جنگی شرکت کرده باشد .
درباریان او شغلهای خنده داری داشتند و به مدت زیادی سرگرم این شغلها بودند ،مثلا امپراتور سگ کوچکی داشته که روی کفش درباریان ادرار می کرده و کسی هم بوده که شغل او پاک کردن ادرار سگ از روی کفش یا زمین بوده ، یا چون امپراتور ریز جثه بوده هنگامی که روی تخت سلطنت می نشسته پایش به زمین نمی رسیده و برای آنکه پای امپراتور در هوا آویزان نماند ، فردی باید بالشت زیر پای او می گذاشته و این فرد همواره در مسافرت های خارجی با سیلاسی همراه بوده و با خود پنجاه و دو عدد بالشت داشته که با توجه به ارتفاع تخت او بالشت مناسب را زیر پای امپراتور می گذاشته .
امپراتور کلمات گهر بار هم داشته ، مثلا یکی از درباریان از قول اعلیحضرت می گوید که حتی سرسپرده ترین روزنامه ها هم نباید کثیرالانتشار باشد ، چون این ممکن است عادت خواندن در مردم پدید آورد و سپس گامی فراتر نهند و به اندیشیدن عادت کنند.
اما همزمان که خواننده به کارهای سیلاسی می خندد ، ملت اتیوپی به دلیل قحطی و خشکسالی بزرگ شمال آن کشور ، جان می دادند . امپراتور با حماقت خود کشور را به آستانه شورش و جنگ داخلی برده بود ، تا زمانی که یک افسر جوان کودتا می کند ، دربار را منحل و خدای زنده را زندانی می کند ، امپراتور یک سال بعد فوت کرده و جنازه اش زیر توالتی دفن گردید . رژیم جدید در داخل کشور حکومت وحشت و ترور برقرار می کند و اتیوپی را به دوران تازه ای از جنگ داخلی ، قحطی و کشتار می برد ، دورانی که مسئول اصلی آن امپراتوریا پادشاه یا هر دیکتاتور دیگری ایست که در مقابل خواسته ملت خود مقاومت می کرده است .
بزرگ ارتشتاران اتیوپی به ایران هم سفر کرده و با این یکی بزرگ ارتشتاران، شاه ایران هم دیدار کرده بود . خدای زنده و شاه شاهان احتمالا درباره موضوعات منطقه و تحولات شمال آفریقا با هم گفتگو کردند ، شاید سند توافقات اقتصادی کوتاه مدت و بلند مدت هم امضا کرده باشند و طرحی هم برای همکاریهای بلندمدت در دست اقدام بود اما در پایان هر دو از جانب ملت خود طرد و رانده شدند ، جنازه یکی زیرتوالت دفن شد و دیگری در غربت دورتر از خاک وطن . در تاریخ از آن دو به عنوان خودکامه و جبار یاد شده و هر دو موضوع کتابی از ریچارد کاپوشچینسکی روزنامه نگار زیرک لهستانی شدند .
July 30, 2017
A 3.5 star rating perhaps. This book contains accounts from those close to Ethiopia’s last emperor, Haile Selassie. It chronicles Selassie’s opulent lifestyle and his subsequent downfall. It speaks to the undoing of African leaders. I’ve always been intrigued by Selassie and was interested to know more about him.
The Emperor is a very dramatic account of Selassie's and I did get a slightly clearer idea of who Selassie was. He was very progressive in many ways, and he was quite eccentric as well. Overall he was painted as quite the despot in this book, something I’d never really heard been said about him
Kapuscinski managed to interview those close to the emperor, albeit anonymously, and put their thoughts into this book. However, the accounts sounded a bit too fictional to me. That’s not necessarily bad but I was looking for something more substantial and something that didn’t sound so one-sided.
I also felt that the book didn’t have a logical start; I expected everything to go chronologically, from start to finish. Perhaps this is my own error for having a wrong idea about what this book was trying to do.
In my opinion, Kapuscinski is better suited to write short anecdotes and make anthropological observations while on his reporting assignments. I’d really enjoyed Kapuscinski’s last book, The Shadow of the Sun, and had thought this would be just as enjoyable. I feel that someone like Emperor Selassie (and roads are named after him all around Africa after all) is deserving of a more factual, in-depth, properly-documented account. I wanted to know why he is so revered in the Rastafarian community for example, but this account didn’t go into that.
This book whetted my appetite for learning more about Selassie and Ethiopia. It was hard for me to accept the content as the Ethiopian people I know speak highly of Selassie. So many questions, not enough answers
The Emperor is a very dramatic account of Selassie's and I did get a slightly clearer idea of who Selassie was. He was very progressive in many ways, and he was quite eccentric as well. Overall he was painted as quite the despot in this book, something I’d never really heard been said about him
Kapuscinski managed to interview those close to the emperor, albeit anonymously, and put their thoughts into this book. However, the accounts sounded a bit too fictional to me. That’s not necessarily bad but I was looking for something more substantial and something that didn’t sound so one-sided.
I also felt that the book didn’t have a logical start; I expected everything to go chronologically, from start to finish. Perhaps this is my own error for having a wrong idea about what this book was trying to do.
In my opinion, Kapuscinski is better suited to write short anecdotes and make anthropological observations while on his reporting assignments. I’d really enjoyed Kapuscinski’s last book, The Shadow of the Sun, and had thought this would be just as enjoyable. I feel that someone like Emperor Selassie (and roads are named after him all around Africa after all) is deserving of a more factual, in-depth, properly-documented account. I wanted to know why he is so revered in the Rastafarian community for example, but this account didn’t go into that.
This book whetted my appetite for learning more about Selassie and Ethiopia. It was hard for me to accept the content as the Ethiopian people I know speak highly of Selassie. So many questions, not enough answers
August 31, 2023
فصل های زندگی و ظلم خودکامه ها حتی اگه خط به خط تکرار همدیگه نباشن و در تعداد قربانی و نوع جنایت تفاوت هایی داشته باشن، اما در نهایت پاییز و سقوط مشابهی دارن...
دنیای دیکتاتورها حفظ قدرت به زور سرنیزه س برای ی موجود تنها و مفلوک که ترس از دست دادن جان و تاج و تخت لحظه ای براش آرامش نمیذاره، حتی نمیتونه خودش باشه و مثل ی آدم واقعی و رها زندگی رو با لذت لمس کنه چون ممکنه پرده ها بیفته و نشونه های خاص بودن و برگزیدگیش محو بشه، ....اما خب همه ی اینها رو به جون میخره تا در نهایت ی اسم سیاه خون آلود از خودش توی تاریخ به جا بذاره...
با وجود اینکه خوندن این کتاب و درک حال و هواش برام تجربه ی جدیدی نبود (از همهههه نظر!!!) ، هنوز نمیتونم جز با توصیف کتاب هایی مشابه این کتاب، دنیا رو از چشم ی دیکتاتور ببینم تا بفهمم چی میتونه برای اون ارزشمندتر از سعادت و رفاه جمعی باشه؟!
این ترس و تنهایی، این ثروت که فقط شامل عده ی محدودی میشه؛دیدن فقر، عذاب و گرفتاری آدمای دیگه، مگه چه لذتی میتونه داشته باشه؟!!
کتاب امپراتور و بازی امپراتور ی سرگذشت خطی نیست، گفتگویی پراکنده و شرح اتفاقات منجر به سقوطه، از نگاه اطرافیان سلاسی.. در انتهای کتاب هم نمایشنامه ی بازی امپراتور هست که چیزی فراتر از متن کتاب نداره :
نمی دانم کاربرد واژه ی "قدرت" در مورد آن روزهای نهایی زوال حق مطلب را درست ادا میکند یا نه.
تمایز مرز میان قدرت حقیقی_قدرتی که هر چیز را مقهور میکند، قدرتی که جهان را به وجود می آورد یا نابود میکند، قدرت زنده، شگرف، حتی رعب انگیز_ و قدرت واهی_ لولوی سر خرمن، رقاص پای نقاره، خیمه شب بازی اقتدار، نادیدن جهان، ناشنیدن جهان، تنها در خود نگریستن_ بسیار دشوار است و از این دشوارتر تشخیص دادن لحظه ی تبدیل قدرت مطلق به ناتوانی محض است؛ نیک بختی به بدبختی، روشنی به تیرگی، این درست بلایی بود که سر درباریان آمد. چشم ها همه چنان به یک نقطه خیره شده بود که ناتوانی محض را قدرت مطلق دیدیم، بدبختی را نیک بختی و تیرگی را روشنی. به فرض هم که یکی در آن میان بینشی دیگر می داشت ؛ خب چگونه می توانست بدون به خطر انداختن سر خود به خاکپای همایونی افتد و بگوید: " شهریارا، قدرت شما پایان یافته، بدبختی همه جا را گرفته، روزگارمان تیره شده!"
اشکال ما در دربار آن بود که به هیچ وجه دسترسی به حقایق نداشتیم.
دنیای دیکتاتورها حفظ قدرت به زور سرنیزه س برای ی موجود تنها و مفلوک که ترس از دست دادن جان و تاج و تخت لحظه ای براش آرامش نمیذاره، حتی نمیتونه خودش باشه و مثل ی آدم واقعی و رها زندگی رو با لذت لمس کنه چون ممکنه پرده ها بیفته و نشونه های خاص بودن و برگزیدگیش محو بشه، ....اما خب همه ی اینها رو به جون میخره تا در نهایت ی اسم سیاه خون آلود از خودش توی تاریخ به جا بذاره...
با وجود اینکه خوندن این کتاب و درک حال و هواش برام تجربه ی جدیدی نبود (از همهههه نظر!!!) ، هنوز نمیتونم جز با توصیف کتاب هایی مشابه این کتاب، دنیا رو از چشم ی دیکتاتور ببینم تا بفهمم چی میتونه برای اون ارزشمندتر از سعادت و رفاه جمعی باشه؟!
این ترس و تنهایی، این ثروت که فقط شامل عده ی محدودی میشه؛دیدن فقر، عذاب و گرفتاری آدمای دیگه، مگه چه لذتی میتونه داشته باشه؟!!
کتاب امپراتور و بازی امپراتور ی سرگذشت خطی نیست، گفتگویی پراکنده و شرح اتفاقات منجر به سقوطه، از نگاه اطرافیان سلاسی.. در انتهای کتاب هم نمایشنامه ی بازی امپراتور هست که چیزی فراتر از متن کتاب نداره :
نمی دانم کاربرد واژه ی "قدرت" در مورد آن روزهای نهایی زوال حق مطلب را درست ادا میکند یا نه.
تمایز مرز میان قدرت حقیقی_قدرتی که هر چیز را مقهور میکند، قدرتی که جهان را به وجود می آورد یا نابود میکند، قدرت زنده، شگرف، حتی رعب انگیز_ و قدرت واهی_ لولوی سر خرمن، رقاص پای نقاره، خیمه شب بازی اقتدار، نادیدن جهان، ناشنیدن جهان، تنها در خود نگریستن_ بسیار دشوار است و از این دشوارتر تشخیص دادن لحظه ی تبدیل قدرت مطلق به ناتوانی محض است؛ نیک بختی به بدبختی، روشنی به تیرگی، این درست بلایی بود که سر درباریان آمد. چشم ها همه چنان به یک نقطه خیره شده بود که ناتوانی محض را قدرت مطلق دیدیم، بدبختی را نیک بختی و تیرگی را روشنی. به فرض هم که یکی در آن میان بینشی دیگر می داشت ؛ خب چگونه می توانست بدون به خطر انداختن سر خود به خاکپای همایونی افتد و بگوید: " شهریارا، قدرت شما پایان یافته، بدبختی همه جا را گرفته، روزگارمان تیره شده!"
اشکال ما در دربار آن بود که به هیچ وجه دسترسی به حقایق نداشتیم.
Read
June 24, 2022This a near perfect book and one that is readable yet complex.
The book is a mosaic portrait of the last twenty or so years of the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethopia. Ostensibly the book is the result of Kapuscinski interviewing former functionaries of the Selassie regime with the assistance of a former courtier.
But this is already were it gets complex. Quite a lot of the statements about life and work in the Imperial Palace are just a little too good to be true, particularly considering that I am reading this in English and it was written in Polish based on interviews with people who spoke one of Ethopia's many languages and presumably translated into English or French by Kapuscinski's fixer before being rendered into the Polish book.
Then I got the feeling of a double voice (at least) that reminded me of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities is this all about Ethiopia, or Communist Poland, or both simultaneously, or perhaps Kapuscinski saw an opportunity and was able to distil the essence of autocratic regimes into this book. It is a hugely resonant text, even if you don't currently live under an autocratic regime with a court culture, your ancestors may well have done, as much as I hate to say it it is that horrible thing; relevant.
Indeed, they didn't even know anything about conspiracies, and how were they going to find out about them if His Noble Majesty had forbidden the history of Ethopia to be written? Too young, brought up in distant provinces, they could not know that in 1916 His Highness himself had come to power thanks to a conspiracy; that aided by the European embassies, he had staged a coup and eliminated the legal heir to the throne (p.80), uneasy lies the head that wears the crown mingles with whoever controls the past controls the future, but the use of honorifics is perfection, suggesting layers of irony, detachment, and tragedy.
Beautiful too is the description of Haile Salassie's dawn walk, with his three principal informers, lurking by trees , stepping out behind him to report what their spies observed over night while the Emperor walks or feeds his collection of wild animals, until the emperor nods, and the man steps back to be replaced by the next informer. It's a fantastic scene, I imagine it shot in black and white from a 1950s Italian film, if it isn't true, I wish it was, it is too perfect a picture of power.
The book is a mosaic portrait of the last twenty or so years of the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethopia. Ostensibly the book is the result of Kapuscinski interviewing former functionaries of the Selassie regime with the assistance of a former courtier.
But this is already were it gets complex. Quite a lot of the statements about life and work in the Imperial Palace are just a little too good to be true, particularly considering that I am reading this in English and it was written in Polish based on interviews with people who spoke one of Ethopia's many languages and presumably translated into English or French by Kapuscinski's fixer before being rendered into the Polish book.
Then I got the feeling of a double voice (at least) that reminded me of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities is this all about Ethiopia, or Communist Poland, or both simultaneously, or perhaps Kapuscinski saw an opportunity and was able to distil the essence of autocratic regimes into this book. It is a hugely resonant text, even if you don't currently live under an autocratic regime with a court culture, your ancestors may well have done, as much as I hate to say it it is that horrible thing; relevant.
Indeed, they didn't even know anything about conspiracies, and how were they going to find out about them if His Noble Majesty had forbidden the history of Ethopia to be written? Too young, brought up in distant provinces, they could not know that in 1916 His Highness himself had come to power thanks to a conspiracy; that aided by the European embassies, he had staged a coup and eliminated the legal heir to the throne (p.80), uneasy lies the head that wears the crown mingles with whoever controls the past controls the future, but the use of honorifics is perfection, suggesting layers of irony, detachment, and tragedy.
Beautiful too is the description of Haile Salassie's dawn walk, with his three principal informers, lurking by trees , stepping out behind him to report what their spies observed over night while the Emperor walks or feeds his collection of wild animals, until the emperor nods, and the man steps back to be replaced by the next informer. It's a fantastic scene, I imagine it shot in black and white from a 1950s Italian film, if it isn't true, I wish it was, it is too perfect a picture of power.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2007
From the waning Gomulka regime forward, Kapuscinski fashioned a journalistic career out of exceedingly subtle swipes at the pretenses and tragicomic self-deception of Soviet-style Communism. The Emperor is aimed at Haile Selassie, who Kapuscinski paints as a vapid, self-important ignoramus.
How much of this is actually Selassie and how much is carefully picked in order to make fun of Stalin or Khrushchev or even Gomulka is up for debate, but that's exactly what makes this book a masterpiece: I can't think of a more bitter catalog of the pathologies that accompany political power, and by the end it doesn't matter all that much who's in the limo, surrounded by Quislings and sycophants.
One of the mysteries of this book is whether dictators like Selassie come into being due to good timing, canny manipulation, or people's gullible belief that they can change their own nature. Kapuscinski refuses to take sides on the question of which comes first, the Hitler or the Reich; he's more of a muralist than a satirist, which is part of what makes The Emperor so satisfying. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
How much of this is actually Selassie and how much is carefully picked in order to make fun of Stalin or Khrushchev or even Gomulka is up for debate, but that's exactly what makes this book a masterpiece: I can't think of a more bitter catalog of the pathologies that accompany political power, and by the end it doesn't matter all that much who's in the limo, surrounded by Quislings and sycophants.
One of the mysteries of this book is whether dictators like Selassie come into being due to good timing, canny manipulation, or people's gullible belief that they can change their own nature. Kapuscinski refuses to take sides on the question of which comes first, the Hitler or the Reich; he's more of a muralist than a satirist, which is part of what makes The Emperor so satisfying. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
July 25, 2020
By the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Elect of God”
A sovereign, a direct descendant from the Queen of Sheba and the King Salomon of Israel .. by law decree that is.
No wonder such title comes with almighty power –
The Bible isn´t very exact on the homeland of said queen and noting that Solomon allegedly had 700 wives and 300 concubines there would be offspring literally everywhere.
But it fits well into the narrative of an old kingdom to trace it´s lineage even longer back, and why not use a Biblical reference for the occasion, after all the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has existed since the middle of the fourth century thus giving a blessing to everything that would render a holy shine on the kingdom.
So, The Emperor isn´t just anybody …
What do you do with such power?
There are many views and many sources, some more reliable than others.
HS liked progress, cars, airplanes and to the degree that it didn´t interfere with state interests, also education.
One of the mantras was “You must Develop” but the development stopped right outside the palace and Ethiopia remained largely a feudal state where aristocracy and local notabilities got the better part.
There are schools – but the literacy rate is well below 20% - and there are hospitals, though you would have to prepare yourself well in advance should you need one.
And of course, there is a constitution.
The rich are getting richer and the poor going nowhere, except to die from starvation.
That is unless you have connections. Someone who knows someone in the palace, someone you might do a favor and get a little in return.
You would assume this was the chance of a lifetime, but ministers and secretaries were replaced at such speed that you should play your cards extremely well to stay on the “favored list”.
Everyone informs on each other and reports back to The Emperor, to display loyalty and to remain in favor – and The Emperor listens, nods and takes mental notes.
All along you get the impression that HS really didn´t care about others as long as the fanbase was at a steady level and showing the splendor of The King of Kings contributed to this.
Being seen in the admiring company of foreign heads of states, giving banquets and throwing the remains to the poor – poor because they are lazy – and presenting fireworks to the people out of grandness and goodwill, all looks like the final days of the Roman Empire.
And it is the final days. The interviews with palace officials ranking from the “purse bearer” to the “pillow bearer” and upwards mostly show a public accepting fate and adoring The King of Kings, a godly creature as infallible as The Holy Pope, a man who could do no wrong.
Only in the aftermath when the interviews took place, some show just a little doubt and humbly suggests that if just His Venerable Highness (though he only stood 5 feet 2) had been told by “someone” he would have set everything right.
The issue of course is that HS very well knew and had absolutely no intention of doing anything that would prove him less infallible, hence the many changes in the abundance of ministries, always have a scapegoat ready.
Was HS an evil dictator? Maybe, at least he chose with open eyes to enroll in the ranks of the privilege blind and never showed any regrets.
A sovereign, a direct descendant from the Queen of Sheba and the King Salomon of Israel .. by law decree that is.
No wonder such title comes with almighty power –
The Bible isn´t very exact on the homeland of said queen and noting that Solomon allegedly had 700 wives and 300 concubines there would be offspring literally everywhere.
But it fits well into the narrative of an old kingdom to trace it´s lineage even longer back, and why not use a Biblical reference for the occasion, after all the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has existed since the middle of the fourth century thus giving a blessing to everything that would render a holy shine on the kingdom.
So, The Emperor isn´t just anybody …
What do you do with such power?
There are many views and many sources, some more reliable than others.
HS liked progress, cars, airplanes and to the degree that it didn´t interfere with state interests, also education.
One of the mantras was “You must Develop” but the development stopped right outside the palace and Ethiopia remained largely a feudal state where aristocracy and local notabilities got the better part.
There are schools – but the literacy rate is well below 20% - and there are hospitals, though you would have to prepare yourself well in advance should you need one.
And of course, there is a constitution.
The rich are getting richer and the poor going nowhere, except to die from starvation.
That is unless you have connections. Someone who knows someone in the palace, someone you might do a favor and get a little in return.
You would assume this was the chance of a lifetime, but ministers and secretaries were replaced at such speed that you should play your cards extremely well to stay on the “favored list”.
Everyone informs on each other and reports back to The Emperor, to display loyalty and to remain in favor – and The Emperor listens, nods and takes mental notes.
All along you get the impression that HS really didn´t care about others as long as the fanbase was at a steady level and showing the splendor of The King of Kings contributed to this.
Being seen in the admiring company of foreign heads of states, giving banquets and throwing the remains to the poor – poor because they are lazy – and presenting fireworks to the people out of grandness and goodwill, all looks like the final days of the Roman Empire.
And it is the final days. The interviews with palace officials ranking from the “purse bearer” to the “pillow bearer” and upwards mostly show a public accepting fate and adoring The King of Kings, a godly creature as infallible as The Holy Pope, a man who could do no wrong.
Only in the aftermath when the interviews took place, some show just a little doubt and humbly suggests that if just His Venerable Highness (though he only stood 5 feet 2) had been told by “someone” he would have set everything right.
The issue of course is that HS very well knew and had absolutely no intention of doing anything that would prove him less infallible, hence the many changes in the abundance of ministries, always have a scapegoat ready.
Was HS an evil dictator? Maybe, at least he chose with open eyes to enroll in the ranks of the privilege blind and never showed any regrets.
January 22, 2018
Cuốn sách này khó xếp loại. Bề ngoài nó là một phóng sự về những ngày tháng cuối của triều đại hoàng đếHaile Selassie, vị hoàng đế cuối cùng của Ethiopia, trong triều đại Solomon kéo dài liên tục 700 năm từ năm 1270 tới năm 1974. Haile Selasie (H.S.) cũng như các vị vua của triều đại Solomon, tự nhận là dòng dõi của vua Solomon người Do Thái (thông qua nữ hoàng Sheba của Ethiopia được nhắc đến trong Kinh Thánh). Bản thân Haile Selasie cũng làm hoàng đế trong 44 năm, và lúc này ở tuổi 80.
Mặc dù bề ngoài là phóng sự, nhưng Kapuscinski không viết theo cách viết phóng sự thông thường, mà tác phẩm này là tập hợp các lời kể của những nhân vật trong triều đình H. S. về cách thức vận hành của triều đình, cách cai trị dân chúng, cách hoàng đế chi phối những phe phái trong triều đình, cũng như sự phản kháng và cuối cùng là lật đổ vương triều của một nhóm sĩ quan quân đội (thân Cộng sản). Có thể coi tác phẩm này là ở giữa fiction và non-fiction vì bản thân những lời chứng của những người kể lại cho Kapuscinski dường như được chọn lọc để phục vụ cho ý đồ của tác giả, cho một cái storyline và các ý tưởng mà tác giả muốn triển khai (và cả văn phong cũng tương tự nhau, và có thể thấy là văn phong của tác giả). Hình thức kể câu chuyện qua các lời chứng này sau này cũng được một số tác giả khác sử dụng theo cách tương tự, như Haruki Murakami trong Ngầm và nhà văn được giải Nobel Svetlana Alexievich trong Chiến tranh không có gương mặt phụ nữ.
Về ý tưởng, có thể thấy đây là một nghiên cứu về chế độ chuyên chê ở một nước thế giới thứ ba. Nhân vật H.S. dường như cũng chứa nhiều mâu thuẫn: ông là minh quân hay hôn quân? Một nhà cải cách hay một vị vua chuyên chế? là nhân tố đóng vai trò ổn định, duy trì tính dân tộc của nước Ethiopia hay là kẻ kìm hãm sự phát triển và tiến bộ, mị dân và tham nhũng?
Tuy nhiên, dường như Kapuscinski, với tư cách một công dân của một nước phát triển và "văn minh" hơi có phần đánh giá khắc nghiệt với vị vua này và chế độ quân chủ của ông. Cũng có thể vì chưa có độ lùi về thời gian vì Kapuscinski viết cuốn sách này khi chế độ quân sự vẫn chưa hoàn toàn kiểm soát nhà nước và thực hiện những chiến dịch thanh trừng khắc nghiệt. Chỉ trong vài năm sau đó, chế độ quân sự Derg đã thực hiện chiến dịch Khủng bố Đỏ tàn bạo (mà nạn nhân ngoài các quan chức chính quyền cũ, còn bao gồm các đảng Cộng sản và XHCN khác) dẫn tới cái chết của khoảng 500 ngàn người. Và tiếp theo đó là cuộc nội chiến Ethiopia (giữa chế độ quân sự Marxist với phe nổi dậy cũng theo Marxist) diễn ra trong gần 15 năm làm 1,5 triệu người chết nữa. Nếu so với những cái giá phải trả bằng máu đó và sự tụt lùi về kinh tế do nội chiến gây ra thì chế độ quân chủ của H.S. xem ra vẫn là một cõi bình yên bị đánh mất.
Về dịch thuật, bản dịch của Nguyễn Chí Thuật nói chung tốt, nhưng mắc một số lỗi không đáng có hoàn toàn có thể kiểm tra (và ở đây còn phải nói về vai trò mờ nhạt của biên tập) khi lẫn lộn giữa hai nhân vật cầm đầu đảo chính năm 1960 lúc thì người này là anh trai người kia, lúc thì ngược lại. Một lỗi nữa là khi đề cập tới các sĩ quan Derg, dịch giả dịch thành "các sĩ quan vùng Derg" trong khi Derg là Ủy ban, viết tắt của Ủy ban Quân sự cai trị Ethiopia sau cuộc chính biến năm 1974.
Mặc dù bề ngoài là phóng sự, nhưng Kapuscinski không viết theo cách viết phóng sự thông thường, mà tác phẩm này là tập hợp các lời kể của những nhân vật trong triều đình H. S. về cách thức vận hành của triều đình, cách cai trị dân chúng, cách hoàng đế chi phối những phe phái trong triều đình, cũng như sự phản kháng và cuối cùng là lật đổ vương triều của một nhóm sĩ quan quân đội (thân Cộng sản). Có thể coi tác phẩm này là ở giữa fiction và non-fiction vì bản thân những lời chứng của những người kể lại cho Kapuscinski dường như được chọn lọc để phục vụ cho ý đồ của tác giả, cho một cái storyline và các ý tưởng mà tác giả muốn triển khai (và cả văn phong cũng tương tự nhau, và có thể thấy là văn phong của tác giả). Hình thức kể câu chuyện qua các lời chứng này sau này cũng được một số tác giả khác sử dụng theo cách tương tự, như Haruki Murakami trong Ngầm và nhà văn được giải Nobel Svetlana Alexievich trong Chiến tranh không có gương mặt phụ nữ.
Về ý tưởng, có thể thấy đây là một nghiên cứu về chế độ chuyên chê ở một nước thế giới thứ ba. Nhân vật H.S. dường như cũng chứa nhiều mâu thuẫn: ông là minh quân hay hôn quân? Một nhà cải cách hay một vị vua chuyên chế? là nhân tố đóng vai trò ổn định, duy trì tính dân tộc của nước Ethiopia hay là kẻ kìm hãm sự phát triển và tiến bộ, mị dân và tham nhũng?
Tuy nhiên, dường như Kapuscinski, với tư cách một công dân của một nước phát triển và "văn minh" hơi có phần đánh giá khắc nghiệt với vị vua này và chế độ quân chủ của ông. Cũng có thể vì chưa có độ lùi về thời gian vì Kapuscinski viết cuốn sách này khi chế độ quân sự vẫn chưa hoàn toàn kiểm soát nhà nước và thực hiện những chiến dịch thanh trừng khắc nghiệt. Chỉ trong vài năm sau đó, chế độ quân sự Derg đã thực hiện chiến dịch Khủng bố Đỏ tàn bạo (mà nạn nhân ngoài các quan chức chính quyền cũ, còn bao gồm các đảng Cộng sản và XHCN khác) dẫn tới cái chết của khoảng 500 ngàn người. Và tiếp theo đó là cuộc nội chiến Ethiopia (giữa chế độ quân sự Marxist với phe nổi dậy cũng theo Marxist) diễn ra trong gần 15 năm làm 1,5 triệu người chết nữa. Nếu so với những cái giá phải trả bằng máu đó và sự tụt lùi về kinh tế do nội chiến gây ra thì chế độ quân chủ của H.S. xem ra vẫn là một cõi bình yên bị đánh mất.
Về dịch thuật, bản dịch của Nguyễn Chí Thuật nói chung tốt, nhưng mắc một số lỗi không đáng có hoàn toàn có thể kiểm tra (và ở đây còn phải nói về vai trò mờ nhạt của biên tập) khi lẫn lộn giữa hai nhân vật cầm đầu đảo chính năm 1960 lúc thì người này là anh trai người kia, lúc thì ngược lại. Một lỗi nữa là khi đề cập tới các sĩ quan Derg, dịch giả dịch thành "các sĩ quan vùng Derg" trong khi Derg là Ủy ban, viết tắt của Ủy ban Quân sự cai trị Ethiopia sau cuộc chính biến năm 1974.
May 21, 2009
The Emperor baffles any ready description. A Polish journalist, Ryszard Kapuscinski, renders an account of the last schizophrenic years of Ethiopia’s ancient kingdom and the demise of it emperor, whose ways are not our ways, to say the least. Reviews may not suffice to say exactly why or how the book works, but I’ll add mine anyway to the others that have noted its mystique.
The book's structure takes a straightforward path. The author interviews courtiers, associates and servants of the Emperor Haile Selassie in the months just after his dethronement. Selassie’s reign is recounted in parts, each starting with Kapuscinski’s observations about the situation at hand, followed by comments from the relevant courtiers to furnish color, detail and insight.
The tapestry woven from these remarks and the writer’s added observations depict an esoteric mindset. I’ve often wondered: When humans left their tribes to create the world’s first civilizations, what were those societies like? I don’t mean the art they created or the decrees of their leaders – I mean, did the people think and act like us? The fabric of the story gives us that answer, for Ethiopia was just such a place. And the answer is a mind-boggling no.
What we find is a land so ancient it’s not even medieval, a place where even feudalism would represent progress. But make no mistake, it is still a fully developed civilization, not some savage prehistoric amalgam. Kapuscinski knows he has stumbled into something unique, a culture whose primeval foundation neither lends nor refuses itself to any obvious interpretation. In this emperor, this court, and this society, a primordial human drama demands its stage.
Such a provenance makes conclusions or judgments about Ethiopia impossible to categorize. The declivities of class and hierarchy within this kingdom exceed anything known to man. An antediluvian social stucture showcases the raw exercise of power at its stripped-down worst, absent any modern guile. By design, mediocrity trumps merit as a tool to balance power and maintain social order, turning the country into a kind of Ayn Rand novel come to life. Such an order inevitably clashes with the outside. But more decisive are the its own internal contradictions.
The several speakers whose contributions build the story relate the details with elegance. In these vignettes lie much of the book’s narrative power; the interviewees tell what they know with a delicate economy that, page-per-page, conveys more detail, plot and feeling than any book I can recall. Here’s one such description, of the increasingly opaque autocracy:
This speaker later accentuates the dissipation gripping Selassie’s final decade:
The elliptical way the speakers tell their stories adds to the book’s kaleidoscopic dazzle. Their many points of view make truth a perspectival quest. No immediate verdict emerges upon the rule of Ethiopia’s last emperor; his sycophants both attack and defend his rule, and they’re right in each case. Yet all the while the reader can detect a bigger picture getting lost in the details. Under Kapuscinski’s journalistic guidance the gripping reality of this society emerges to recruit one’s sense of the grotesque. This regime outclasses modern ones in some ways: No violent purges or collective bloodbaths ever occur. But the extremes of hierarchy leave the tragic fates of the many to deface a benighted land.
Kapuscinski tells an amazing story amazingly, and his journalist’s sense of having discovered an unprecedented subject is dead-on right. The writing speaks for itself. Its object is unique. The story is a spellbinding discovery. The Emperor, in short, has all the qualities of a perfect book. You cannot go wrong choosing it to read.
The book's structure takes a straightforward path. The author interviews courtiers, associates and servants of the Emperor Haile Selassie in the months just after his dethronement. Selassie’s reign is recounted in parts, each starting with Kapuscinski’s observations about the situation at hand, followed by comments from the relevant courtiers to furnish color, detail and insight.
The tapestry woven from these remarks and the writer’s added observations depict an esoteric mindset. I’ve often wondered: When humans left their tribes to create the world’s first civilizations, what were those societies like? I don’t mean the art they created or the decrees of their leaders – I mean, did the people think and act like us? The fabric of the story gives us that answer, for Ethiopia was just such a place. And the answer is a mind-boggling no.
What we find is a land so ancient it’s not even medieval, a place where even feudalism would represent progress. But make no mistake, it is still a fully developed civilization, not some savage prehistoric amalgam. Kapuscinski knows he has stumbled into something unique, a culture whose primeval foundation neither lends nor refuses itself to any obvious interpretation. In this emperor, this court, and this society, a primordial human drama demands its stage.
Such a provenance makes conclusions or judgments about Ethiopia impossible to categorize. The declivities of class and hierarchy within this kingdom exceed anything known to man. An antediluvian social stucture showcases the raw exercise of power at its stripped-down worst, absent any modern guile. By design, mediocrity trumps merit as a tool to balance power and maintain social order, turning the country into a kind of Ayn Rand novel come to life. Such an order inevitably clashes with the outside. But more decisive are the its own internal contradictions.
The several speakers whose contributions build the story relate the details with elegance. In these vignettes lie much of the book’s narrative power; the interviewees tell what they know with a delicate economy that, page-per-page, conveys more detail, plot and feeling than any book I can recall. Here’s one such description, of the increasingly opaque autocracy:
"... People seemed unable to control things; things existed and ceased to exist in their own malicious ways, slipping through people’s hands. Everyone felt helpless before the seemingly magic force by which things autonomously appeared and disappeared, and nobody knew how to master or break that force."
This speaker later accentuates the dissipation gripping Selassie’s final decade:
"...Even conversation deteriorated, losing its vigor and momentum. Conversations started but somehow never seemed to be completed. They always reached an invisible but perceptible point, beyond which silence fell. The silence said, Everything is already known and clear, but clear in an obscure way, known unfathomably, dominating by being beyond helping. Having confirmed this truth by a moment of silence, the conversation changed its direction and moved on to a different subject, a trivial, second-rate, second-hand subject."
The elliptical way the speakers tell their stories adds to the book’s kaleidoscopic dazzle. Their many points of view make truth a perspectival quest. No immediate verdict emerges upon the rule of Ethiopia’s last emperor; his sycophants both attack and defend his rule, and they’re right in each case. Yet all the while the reader can detect a bigger picture getting lost in the details. Under Kapuscinski’s journalistic guidance the gripping reality of this society emerges to recruit one’s sense of the grotesque. This regime outclasses modern ones in some ways: No violent purges or collective bloodbaths ever occur. But the extremes of hierarchy leave the tragic fates of the many to deface a benighted land.
Kapuscinski tells an amazing story amazingly, and his journalist’s sense of having discovered an unprecedented subject is dead-on right. The writing speaks for itself. Its object is unique. The story is a spellbinding discovery. The Emperor, in short, has all the qualities of a perfect book. You cannot go wrong choosing it to read.
May 30, 2023
May 28, 1120am ~~ Review asap.
May 29, 720pm ~~ Ethiopia is one of those countries I had heard of but knew nothing about. I remember news reports of horrible famines back in the 1970's, and then civil war. And quite honestly, that was about it for my knowledge of the place.
I discovered this author last year, I believe it was, and have been working my way now and then through some of his titles. In this book he interviews people who worked at the Emperor's palace, trying to learn what the mood was during the time building up to during and after the coup that ousted Emperor Haile Selassie, ruler of the country from 1930 to 1974.
According to the back cover of my edition ~~
While the fighting still raged, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's leading foreign correspondent, traveled to Ethiopia to seek out and interview Selassie's servants and closest associates on how the Emperor had ruled and why he fell.
Each person interviewed is identified by their initials. I was too cauhgt up in the very bizarre world they described to keep track of how many of the men were cited more than once during the three sections of the book: The Throne; It's Coming, It's Coming; and The Collapse. Each part shines a light on what was happening in the Palace on a normal basis, during the time when rumblings began to be heard, and at the end.
It is all very captivating. Sometimes bizarrely so. It can be, as the back cover goes on to say, humorous, frightening, and grotesque. Totally different approach to government than anyone raised in a democracy could ever really comprehend. I kept wondering how any person could have so little self respect as to accept the conditions they were living under.
It was a cartoon world, in many ways. Everyone in the Palace was more concerned with their own position then the welfare of the country, and that includes the Emperor himself, at least according to these sources.
I still cannot quite get my thoughts sorted out even after a day of letting it all simmer. The utter indifference to the state of being of common citizens by everyone in the Palace, the casual acceptance of the deaths of thousands by famine simply because that is the way things have always been, the expectation that every single person must worship the Emperor and never look at him directly, and yet the worry about who might be coming to haul you off to prison for something you may not have even realized you had done. What a nightmare it must have been.
Supposedly there are no more emperors, but many countries around the world now have leaders who seem to expect the same thing Selassie did: blind obedience, submission to the point of disappearance, and unflinching loyalty. All these characteristics earned many people the loss of their heads, and not always by the ones who took over in the coup. The Emperor was very good at putting people in prison too.
This book should be read by anyone who believes a strongman leader is exactly what the world needs. But of course, anyone who believes that would not read a book like this, would they. That would lead to thinking, and as 'A. A.' reports on page 110, "...it is well known what inconveniences, vexations, troubles, and worries thinking causes."
So much easier to just let the strongman take care of everything. What could go wrong?
Not sure I want to be around to find out.
May 29, 720pm ~~ Ethiopia is one of those countries I had heard of but knew nothing about. I remember news reports of horrible famines back in the 1970's, and then civil war. And quite honestly, that was about it for my knowledge of the place.
I discovered this author last year, I believe it was, and have been working my way now and then through some of his titles. In this book he interviews people who worked at the Emperor's palace, trying to learn what the mood was during the time building up to during and after the coup that ousted Emperor Haile Selassie, ruler of the country from 1930 to 1974.
According to the back cover of my edition ~~
While the fighting still raged, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's leading foreign correspondent, traveled to Ethiopia to seek out and interview Selassie's servants and closest associates on how the Emperor had ruled and why he fell.
Each person interviewed is identified by their initials. I was too cauhgt up in the very bizarre world they described to keep track of how many of the men were cited more than once during the three sections of the book: The Throne; It's Coming, It's Coming; and The Collapse. Each part shines a light on what was happening in the Palace on a normal basis, during the time when rumblings began to be heard, and at the end.
It is all very captivating. Sometimes bizarrely so. It can be, as the back cover goes on to say, humorous, frightening, and grotesque. Totally different approach to government than anyone raised in a democracy could ever really comprehend. I kept wondering how any person could have so little self respect as to accept the conditions they were living under.
It was a cartoon world, in many ways. Everyone in the Palace was more concerned with their own position then the welfare of the country, and that includes the Emperor himself, at least according to these sources.
I still cannot quite get my thoughts sorted out even after a day of letting it all simmer. The utter indifference to the state of being of common citizens by everyone in the Palace, the casual acceptance of the deaths of thousands by famine simply because that is the way things have always been, the expectation that every single person must worship the Emperor and never look at him directly, and yet the worry about who might be coming to haul you off to prison for something you may not have even realized you had done. What a nightmare it must have been.
Supposedly there are no more emperors, but many countries around the world now have leaders who seem to expect the same thing Selassie did: blind obedience, submission to the point of disappearance, and unflinching loyalty. All these characteristics earned many people the loss of their heads, and not always by the ones who took over in the coup. The Emperor was very good at putting people in prison too.
This book should be read by anyone who believes a strongman leader is exactly what the world needs. But of course, anyone who believes that would not read a book like this, would they. That would lead to thinking, and as 'A. A.' reports on page 110, "...it is well known what inconveniences, vexations, troubles, and worries thinking causes."
So much easier to just let the strongman take care of everything. What could go wrong?
Not sure I want to be around to find out.
January 18, 2018
Ryszard Kapuściński luôn biết cách xóa nhòa ranh giới giữa các thể loại, phóng sự của ông hấp dẫn như một cuốn tiểu thuyết, chân dung vị Hoàng đế và những sự kiện lịch sử của đất nước Ethiopia được ông kể lại qua lời kể của rất nhiều nhân vật được ông phỏng vấn giấu mặt, giấu tên sống động và đầy những trăn trở dù ông luôn khách quan, không can thiệp quá sâu vào câu chuyện hay tâm trí người đọc.
September 9, 2017
This book was a gift to me from a friend who is a former Guardian journalist. During the Communist era Ryszard Kapuściński was foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Agency, and reported on civil wars and revolutions from all over the Third World. The introduction by Neal Ascherson reveals that after reporting on the coup of 1974 that destroyed the Abyssinian Empire, Kapuściński was approached by his publishers to write a book on it, but could not find a way to write it. Suddenly he remembered a story someone had told him about the emperor’s dog:
“It was a small dog, a Japanese breed. His name was Lulu. He was allowed to sleep in the Emperor’s great bed. During various ceremonies, he would run away from the emperor’s lap and pee on dignitaries’ shoes. The august gentlemen were not allowed to flinch or make the slightest gesture when they felt their feet getting wet. I had to walk among the dignitaries and wipe the urine from their shoes with a satin cloth. This was my job for ten years.”
Kapuściński realised he had his start, and so the book became a portrait of the fall of the Haile Selassie’s empire, in the voices of its former courtiers. Their accounts are eloquent, and wonderfully ironic. I imagine however that much of this stylistic elegance and powerfully apposite irony has been woven into the accounts by Kapuściński. Certainly the structure of the book into three sections, “The Throne”, “It’s Coming, It’s Coming” and “The Collapse” allow the courtiers’ descriptions to move from the ridiculous through the injurious to the appallingly brutal. Here is an early one, from “The Throne” that stuck in my mind:
“The masters of ceremony had to use all sorts of stratagems to prevent the Emperor from being embarrassed financially. I remember, for instance, how His Majesty paid the salaries of foreign engineers but showed no inclination to pay our own masons after the construction of the Imperial Palace called Genete Leul. These simple masons gathered in front of the Palace they had built and began asking for want was due to them. The Supreme Master of Palace Ceremony appeared on the balcony and asked them to move to the rear of the palace, where His Magnanimous Highness would shower them with money. The delighted crowd went round to the indicated spot - which enabled His Supreme Majesty to leave unembarrassed through the front door and go the Old Palace, where the court awaited him."
Writing about “The Throne” reminds me that there is an entertaining section where the courtier describes the Emperor’s carefully planned visits to outlying districts, where the district had to “be put in order first” (draining the Treasury) and imagines the effects of the Emperor not announcing his visit in advance but simply turning up. He arrives in an empty field. “What can you do? How can you act? Set up the throne and roll out the carpet? That would only make it more ridiculous. The throne adds dignity only by contrast to the surrounding humility . . .”
Is anyone else thinking of the solitary king on the deserted planet in St Exupéry’s “Le Petit Prince”? Both St-Exupéry and Kapuściński spent a lot of time in Africa!
The descriptions multiply of the Emperor’s reliance on informers, and the suspicion and fear that dominate an increasingly corrupt and frightened court. I happened to mention during lunch with a friend that I was reading this book and she remarked that in 1973 or 1974 she had worked with Haile Selassie’s daughter-in-law, who had had to flee the country. It all felt suddenly very near, and very recent. I had just finished reading Philippa Gregory’s “The White Princess” which describes the court of King Henry VII, and it was a bit depressing to think that the descriptions of Haile Selassie’s court were almost identical, except that over five hundred years separated the two.
Kapuściński’s skilful arrangement of the courtiers’ descriptions and comments becomes heartrendingly powerful as we come to the revolts, the vicious beating and killing of students (and any women or children who happened to be in the way) and then the discovery by Jonathan Dimbleby in 1973 of starving hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians, which led to international condemnation of the regime and ultimately to its collapse. A cruel ‘modus operandi’ emerges from the mouths of the courtiers, that hunger keeps a people too weak to rebel.
The last witness in the book is the Emperor’s old ‘valet de chambre’, whom Kapuściński had great difficulty finding. In the last days he would comfort the Emperor by leading him to the chapel, where he could not hear the unruly mob, and would read to him from the Biblical prophets: “They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.” Powerful imagery; plus ça change, moins ça change.
I hope to read “Shah of Shahs” and “Another Day of Life” by this author.
“It was a small dog, a Japanese breed. His name was Lulu. He was allowed to sleep in the Emperor’s great bed. During various ceremonies, he would run away from the emperor’s lap and pee on dignitaries’ shoes. The august gentlemen were not allowed to flinch or make the slightest gesture when they felt their feet getting wet. I had to walk among the dignitaries and wipe the urine from their shoes with a satin cloth. This was my job for ten years.”
Kapuściński realised he had his start, and so the book became a portrait of the fall of the Haile Selassie’s empire, in the voices of its former courtiers. Their accounts are eloquent, and wonderfully ironic. I imagine however that much of this stylistic elegance and powerfully apposite irony has been woven into the accounts by Kapuściński. Certainly the structure of the book into three sections, “The Throne”, “It’s Coming, It’s Coming” and “The Collapse” allow the courtiers’ descriptions to move from the ridiculous through the injurious to the appallingly brutal. Here is an early one, from “The Throne” that stuck in my mind:
“The masters of ceremony had to use all sorts of stratagems to prevent the Emperor from being embarrassed financially. I remember, for instance, how His Majesty paid the salaries of foreign engineers but showed no inclination to pay our own masons after the construction of the Imperial Palace called Genete Leul. These simple masons gathered in front of the Palace they had built and began asking for want was due to them. The Supreme Master of Palace Ceremony appeared on the balcony and asked them to move to the rear of the palace, where His Magnanimous Highness would shower them with money. The delighted crowd went round to the indicated spot - which enabled His Supreme Majesty to leave unembarrassed through the front door and go the Old Palace, where the court awaited him."
Writing about “The Throne” reminds me that there is an entertaining section where the courtier describes the Emperor’s carefully planned visits to outlying districts, where the district had to “be put in order first” (draining the Treasury) and imagines the effects of the Emperor not announcing his visit in advance but simply turning up. He arrives in an empty field. “What can you do? How can you act? Set up the throne and roll out the carpet? That would only make it more ridiculous. The throne adds dignity only by contrast to the surrounding humility . . .”
Is anyone else thinking of the solitary king on the deserted planet in St Exupéry’s “Le Petit Prince”? Both St-Exupéry and Kapuściński spent a lot of time in Africa!
The descriptions multiply of the Emperor’s reliance on informers, and the suspicion and fear that dominate an increasingly corrupt and frightened court. I happened to mention during lunch with a friend that I was reading this book and she remarked that in 1973 or 1974 she had worked with Haile Selassie’s daughter-in-law, who had had to flee the country. It all felt suddenly very near, and very recent. I had just finished reading Philippa Gregory’s “The White Princess” which describes the court of King Henry VII, and it was a bit depressing to think that the descriptions of Haile Selassie’s court were almost identical, except that over five hundred years separated the two.
Kapuściński’s skilful arrangement of the courtiers’ descriptions and comments becomes heartrendingly powerful as we come to the revolts, the vicious beating and killing of students (and any women or children who happened to be in the way) and then the discovery by Jonathan Dimbleby in 1973 of starving hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians, which led to international condemnation of the regime and ultimately to its collapse. A cruel ‘modus operandi’ emerges from the mouths of the courtiers, that hunger keeps a people too weak to rebel.
The last witness in the book is the Emperor’s old ‘valet de chambre’, whom Kapuściński had great difficulty finding. In the last days he would comfort the Emperor by leading him to the chapel, where he could not hear the unruly mob, and would read to him from the Biblical prophets: “They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.” Powerful imagery; plus ça change, moins ça change.
I hope to read “Shah of Shahs” and “Another Day of Life” by this author.
February 14, 2023
First published in 1978, The Emperor chronicles the last days of Haile Selassie’s regime in Ethiopia. The dethronement of Haile Selassie by a military coup in 1974 brought an end to the reign of the Solomonic dynasty which had ruled Ethiopia since the 13th century. As a foreign correspondent for a press in the then Communist Poland, Kapuściński’s role is unique in introducing the exoticism of the outside world to his native country, where foreign travel was a privilege unavailable to most of the population. More than anything else, his chronicle of the dethronement of Haile Selassie also serves as a bridge between the then-world and the present, between the feudal world of the past that had been in existence since time immemorial into the world of yesterday when countries experimented with alternative forms of government.
Perhaps what makes Kapuściński’s reportage uniquely his own is the way he preserves the original testimonies of the people he interviewed, leaving them raw by only censoring their identities. Through Kapuściński’s lens, we are brought into conversations with various individuals, both commoners and the courtiers who used to be present at Haile Selassie’s palace. We see their viewpoints, through their testaments about how the court worked in Haile Selassie’s regime. The testimonies vary, yet they talk about the same subject with a similar degree of deification when it comes to the role of Haile Selassie as the Emperor. He reigned supreme over the court and his populace. He is described with qualities that are more often than not bestowed upon deities (There are so many ways people would describe “His Majesty” throughout the book).
Divided into three sections, The Emperor presents us with a careful analysis of the downfall of Haile Selassie, which did not begin immediately in the 1970s. The first attempted coup by Mengistu Neway in 1960 brought repercussions and brought the inevitable decline in Haile Selassie’s empire. The message was clear. The empire needed development. New technologies and infrastructures needed to be brought into Ethiopia, while also ensuring power remains in the hands of the Emperor. As an Emperor, Haile Selassie travelled a lot. He was informed and he understood the outside world. Yet the tides of modernity brought about inevitable changes in the empire.
There is an episode in which the Emperor watched Jonathan Dimbleby’s film Ethiopia: The Unknown Famine right on the last day of his empire. Famine has always been in existence in Ethiopia as long as people can remember and there were different understandings of the nature of famine among the courtiers at that age with the modern Western Europe where Dimbleby’s film stirred debates and invited instabilities in Haile Selassie’s empire. The minimum interpretation of Kapuściński presents us with a raw message from what the courtiers thought at that time. And perhaps, it also brings a message about the danger of absolute power in despotism, when power is concentrated in the hands of the few, destabilising the country when the power is removed from the wielder.
Coming from Kapuściński who had to write for a Polish audience in Communist Poland, The Emperor is a brave reportage where censors could silence his narrative. Kapuściński somehow managed to interpolate his narrative, preserving as much truth as possible while adhering to the censorship standard of his time, bringing into being a rich narrative that is still interesting for a contemporary audience.
Perhaps what makes Kapuściński’s reportage uniquely his own is the way he preserves the original testimonies of the people he interviewed, leaving them raw by only censoring their identities. Through Kapuściński’s lens, we are brought into conversations with various individuals, both commoners and the courtiers who used to be present at Haile Selassie’s palace. We see their viewpoints, through their testaments about how the court worked in Haile Selassie’s regime. The testimonies vary, yet they talk about the same subject with a similar degree of deification when it comes to the role of Haile Selassie as the Emperor. He reigned supreme over the court and his populace. He is described with qualities that are more often than not bestowed upon deities (There are so many ways people would describe “His Majesty” throughout the book).
Divided into three sections, The Emperor presents us with a careful analysis of the downfall of Haile Selassie, which did not begin immediately in the 1970s. The first attempted coup by Mengistu Neway in 1960 brought repercussions and brought the inevitable decline in Haile Selassie’s empire. The message was clear. The empire needed development. New technologies and infrastructures needed to be brought into Ethiopia, while also ensuring power remains in the hands of the Emperor. As an Emperor, Haile Selassie travelled a lot. He was informed and he understood the outside world. Yet the tides of modernity brought about inevitable changes in the empire.
There is an episode in which the Emperor watched Jonathan Dimbleby’s film Ethiopia: The Unknown Famine right on the last day of his empire. Famine has always been in existence in Ethiopia as long as people can remember and there were different understandings of the nature of famine among the courtiers at that age with the modern Western Europe where Dimbleby’s film stirred debates and invited instabilities in Haile Selassie’s empire. The minimum interpretation of Kapuściński presents us with a raw message from what the courtiers thought at that time. And perhaps, it also brings a message about the danger of absolute power in despotism, when power is concentrated in the hands of the few, destabilising the country when the power is removed from the wielder.
Coming from Kapuściński who had to write for a Polish audience in Communist Poland, The Emperor is a brave reportage where censors could silence his narrative. Kapuściński somehow managed to interpolate his narrative, preserving as much truth as possible while adhering to the censorship standard of his time, bringing into being a rich narrative that is still interesting for a contemporary audience.
July 17, 2024
দেশ ও কাল নির্বিশেষে স্বৈরাচারদের কিছু পরিচিত বৈশিষ্ট্য থাকে। তারা সব সময় তা-ই দেখেন, যা তারা দেখতে চান ; তারা সেই শব্দগুলোই শোনেন, যা তারা শুনতে চান। অপ্রিয় ও তার একক কর্তৃত্বকে চ্যালেঞ্জ করে এমন কোনো কথা তারা শুনতে চান না ; সইতে পারেন না জাররা পরিমাণ ভিন্নমতকে। পূজা ও তোষামোদ তাদেরকে প্রাণশক্তি দেয় ; বাঁচিয়ে রাখে যতদিন ক্ষমতায় থাকেন। ক্ষমতাই তাদের একমাত্র আবেহায়াত। সেই অমৃতে ডুবে থাকেন জনগণ টেনেহিঁচড়ে গদি থেকে নামানোর পূর্বমুহূর্ত পর্যন্ত। ইথিওপিয়ার শেষ নৃপতি হাইলে সেলাসি প্রায় ৪৪ বছর ক্ষমতায় ছিলেন। সত্তরের দশকের মাঝামাঝিতে সেনাবাহিনীর একটি অংশ তাকে ক্ষমতাচ্যুত করে। গদি হারিয়ে বন্দি অবস্থায় কিছুদিন নিজের প্রাসাদেই বন্দি অবস্থায় বেঁচেছিলেন। ক্ষমতার আফ্রেদিতের অভাবে বয়োবৃদ্ধ স্বৈরাচার হাইলে সেলাসি মারা যান। সেই 'বিপ্লবের' পরেই ইথিওপিয়ায় হাজির হন রাইজার্ড কাপুচেনস্কি। পোল্যান্ডের এই মহত্তম সাংবাদিক যা দেখেছেন, যা শুনেছেন তা লিখেছেন এক মহাকাব্যিক দৃষ্টিকোণ থেকে। সংবাদকর্মীর 'রিপোর্ট' ছাপিয়ে বইটি হয়ে উঠেছে ইতিহাসের এক অনুপম দলিল। যা সাক্ষ্য দেয়, স্বৈরাচারের বিনাশ অবশ্যম্ভাবী এবং সেই সমাপ্তি হবে অত্যন্ত নিদারুণ।
ইথিওপিয়ায় চার দশকের শাসক গদিচ্যুত। দেশের সর্বত্র বিশৃঙ্খলা। নিয়ন্ত্রণে নেই কিছুই। বিভ্রান্তি ও গুজবের আড্ডাখানায় পরিণত হয়েছে পুরো দেশ। এমনই পরিস্থিতিতে ইথিওপিয়াতে যান কাপুচেনস্কি। তাঁর নিজস্ব লেখনশৈলী আছে। তিনি পতিত স্বৈরাচারদের ঘনিষ্ঠজনদের সঙ্গে কথা বলতে চেষ্টা করেন। যেমন: শাসকের গৃহকর্মী, গাড়িচালক, মালি ইত্যাদি। এদের সঙ্গে আলাপ করে শাসকের একটি ছবি পাঠকের মনে এঁকে দেন। এতটাই মনোমুগ্ধকর সেই বর্ণনা যেন মনে হবে, বিভূতিভূষণ অথবা তারাশঙ্করের লেখার মতো বিশদে সবকিছু দেখছেন!
কাপুচেনস্কির বইগুলো সহজ ইংরেজিতে লেখা না। পড়তে সময় লেগেছে। উপরন্তু, ইথিওপিয়ান নামগুলো অপরিচিত ঠেকছিল। ফলে পড়তে বারবার ধৈর্যচ্যুতি ঘটেছে। একবসার পড়ার মতো বই না৷ একনায়কের পতন নিয়ে জানতে আগ্রহী হলে পড়তে পারেন। সবচেয়ে বড়ো কথা, কাপুচেনস্কির সঙ্গে পরিচিত হতে পারবেন। আগে ওনার কোনো বই পড়া না থাকলে 'Shah Of Shahs' দিয়ে শুরু করতে পারেন।
ইথিওপিয়ায় চার দশকের শাসক গদিচ্যুত। দেশের সর্বত্র বিশৃঙ্খলা। নিয়ন্ত্রণে নেই কিছুই। বিভ্রান্তি ও গুজবের আড্ডাখানায় পরিণত হয়েছে পুরো দেশ। এমনই পরিস্থিতিতে ইথিওপিয়াতে যান কাপুচেনস্কি। তাঁর নিজস্ব লেখনশৈলী আছে। তিনি পতিত স্বৈরাচারদের ঘনিষ্ঠজনদের সঙ্গে কথা বলতে চেষ্টা করেন। যেমন: শাসকের গৃহকর্মী, গাড়িচালক, মালি ইত্যাদি। এদের সঙ্গে আলাপ করে শাসকের একটি ছবি পাঠকের মনে এঁকে দেন। এতটাই মনোমুগ্ধকর সেই বর্ণনা যেন মনে হবে, বিভূতিভূষণ অথবা তারাশঙ্করের লেখার মতো বিশদে সবকিছু দেখছেন!
কাপুচেনস্কির বইগুলো সহজ ইংরেজিতে লেখা না। পড়তে সময় লেগেছে। উপরন্তু, ইথিওপিয়ান নামগুলো অপরিচিত ঠেকছিল। ফলে পড়তে বারবার ধৈর্যচ্যুতি ঘটেছে। একবসার পড়ার মতো বই না৷ একনায়কের পতন নিয়ে জানতে আগ্রহী হলে পড়তে পারেন। সবচেয়ে বড়ো কথা, কাপুচেনস্কির সঙ্গে পরিচিত হতে পারবেন। আগে ওনার কোনো বই পড়া না থাকলে 'Shah Of Shahs' দিয়ে শুরু করতে পারেন।
January 28, 2018
Không kém, nhưng không hay bằng Du hành với Herodotus và Gỗ Mun.
May 6, 2024
Il racconto degli ultimi anni di potere dell'Imperatore Selassié I di Etiopia, tramite la penna di Kapuscinski.
Un racconto per certi versi sorprendente, vuoi perché in Italia non c'è molta conoscenza di questo paese a parte per il periodo del fascismo (dopo di che tendenzialmente scompare dai libri di testo), vuoi per la scelta stilistica dell'autore. Il libro infatti non è il racconto del giornalista di quanto visto e fatto da inviato in Etiopia, ma è scritto tramite le interviste, i racconti e gli aneddoti delle persone intervistate a giochi ormai finiti.
Perché l'autore, peraltro sfidando abbastanza la sorte, aveva rintracciato ex servitori e dipendenti del Palazzo sopravvissuti a rivolte e arresti, raggiungendoli di notte e convincendoli a condividere i loro ricordi dell'Etiopia che fu, della vita di Palazzo, e dell'Imperatore.
La prima parte mostra lo stato di decadenza e corruzione in cui versava il Palazzo, l'arretratezza in cui tutto era tenuto, tra il tradizionalismo degli aristocratici e l'apatia e la paranoia in cui col tempo era scivolato l'Imperatore stesso.
Reti di informatori che ogni notte rivaleggiavano tra loro per portare notizie al capo, avidità, lotta per i privilegi elargiti, la mediocrità che assurge al potere.
Poi abbiamo i primi tremolii, le prime rivolte contro un sistema ingiusto che vede pochi arricchirsi sui cadaveri delle masse che muoiono di fame.
Alla guida di queste prime rivolte i soldati, ispirati da giovani andati a studiare all'estero e tornati pieni di idee e di voglia di cambiare le cose. E successivamente gli studenti, a riprova del pericolo che il pensiero rappresenta per questi tipi di governo arretrati e dittatoriali. Un pericolo ma anche una necessità, visto che già allora il progresso e lo sviluppo erano visti come obbligatori se si voleva rendere più potente e ricca la nazione (e ovviamente al prestigio che portava uno sviluppo di tipo occidentale nelle industrie e nei beni).
E infine il crollo.
Un Imperatore ormai anziano e sempre più senile, probabilmente (o forse capace di prevedere come sarebbe finito tutto e intento a seguire l'unico sentiero che lo avrebbe tenuto al sicuro), il castello di carte formato da menzogne e furti che infine crolla, l'opinione pubblica internazionale che si rivolta contro chi aveva un tempo innalzato, le epurazioni...
Fa effetto l'acredine che ancora si avverte negli intervistati verso la rivoluzione, così come la sottile ironia che non capisco se sia propria di loro o se sia frutto della penna dell'autore (intendo quando, spesso, fingendo di difendere l'operato del governo mostrano tutta la sua meschinità e indifferenza alla sofferenza del popolo). Immagino questo comunque sia farina del sacco del giornalista, altrimenti questa amara ironia dovrebbe essere un tratto comune all'intera popolazione etiope vista la frequenza con cui si ritrovano queste "difese" nel testo.
Dispiace solo che, essendo tendenzialmente il punto di vista di questi servitori a restituirci la figura del sovrano, non abbiamo quasi alcun punto di vista esterno e imparziale a completare il quadro. Ma alla fine è proprio ciò che voleva ottenere Kapuscinski.
Un racconto per certi versi sorprendente, vuoi perché in Italia non c'è molta conoscenza di questo paese a parte per il periodo del fascismo (dopo di che tendenzialmente scompare dai libri di testo), vuoi per la scelta stilistica dell'autore. Il libro infatti non è il racconto del giornalista di quanto visto e fatto da inviato in Etiopia, ma è scritto tramite le interviste, i racconti e gli aneddoti delle persone intervistate a giochi ormai finiti.
Perché l'autore, peraltro sfidando abbastanza la sorte, aveva rintracciato ex servitori e dipendenti del Palazzo sopravvissuti a rivolte e arresti, raggiungendoli di notte e convincendoli a condividere i loro ricordi dell'Etiopia che fu, della vita di Palazzo, e dell'Imperatore.
La prima parte mostra lo stato di decadenza e corruzione in cui versava il Palazzo, l'arretratezza in cui tutto era tenuto, tra il tradizionalismo degli aristocratici e l'apatia e la paranoia in cui col tempo era scivolato l'Imperatore stesso.
Reti di informatori che ogni notte rivaleggiavano tra loro per portare notizie al capo, avidità, lotta per i privilegi elargiti, la mediocrità che assurge al potere.
Poi abbiamo i primi tremolii, le prime rivolte contro un sistema ingiusto che vede pochi arricchirsi sui cadaveri delle masse che muoiono di fame.
Alla guida di queste prime rivolte i soldati, ispirati da giovani andati a studiare all'estero e tornati pieni di idee e di voglia di cambiare le cose. E successivamente gli studenti, a riprova del pericolo che il pensiero rappresenta per questi tipi di governo arretrati e dittatoriali. Un pericolo ma anche una necessità, visto che già allora il progresso e lo sviluppo erano visti come obbligatori se si voleva rendere più potente e ricca la nazione (e ovviamente al prestigio che portava uno sviluppo di tipo occidentale nelle industrie e nei beni).
E infine il crollo.
Un Imperatore ormai anziano e sempre più senile, probabilmente (o forse capace di prevedere come sarebbe finito tutto e intento a seguire l'unico sentiero che lo avrebbe tenuto al sicuro), il castello di carte formato da menzogne e furti che infine crolla, l'opinione pubblica internazionale che si rivolta contro chi aveva un tempo innalzato, le epurazioni...
Fa effetto l'acredine che ancora si avverte negli intervistati verso la rivoluzione, così come la sottile ironia che non capisco se sia propria di loro o se sia frutto della penna dell'autore (intendo quando, spesso, fingendo di difendere l'operato del governo mostrano tutta la sua meschinità e indifferenza alla sofferenza del popolo). Immagino questo comunque sia farina del sacco del giornalista, altrimenti questa amara ironia dovrebbe essere un tratto comune all'intera popolazione etiope vista la frequenza con cui si ritrovano queste "difese" nel testo.
Dispiace solo che, essendo tendenzialmente il punto di vista di questi servitori a restituirci la figura del sovrano, non abbiamo quasi alcun punto di vista esterno e imparziale a completare il quadro. Ma alla fine è proprio ciò che voleva ottenere Kapuscinski.
November 12, 2017
Army Stings Clinging King
You can read a lot of books about Ethiopia, many very good. Similarly, you can read many studies of tyranny, studies of the worst of that ilk like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Franco, Pol Pot, Trujillo, Duvalier,and dozens more. Perhaps you've read Garcia-Marquez' "The Autumn of the Patriarch". Kapuscinski's amazing, deeply ironic book on Haile Selassie, last emperor of Ethiopia, bears more than a little resemblance to that latter volume. In fact, it's hard to believe that Kapuscinski was not influenced by that novel, which came out only three years before THE EMPEROR. Whatever the case, in this short book, the famous Polish journalist captures the psychology of tyranny and the tyrannized better than almost any other book I know. It also captures the mood in the capital as the Ethiopian Revolution was breaking out. The author claims to have ferreted out the last surviving officials in the palace and royal administration in Addis Ababa with the help of an elderly former official in the Ministry of Information. THE EMPEROR is a kind of collage of their testimony as to what went on in the palace, about the psychology of those who worked or made appeals there. It is heavily larded with Kapuscinski's own words, and own insights into how things had happened. These in turn must have developed from his experiences and observations in communist Poland, but he never mentions that (he wanted to keep on working). Though the book is ostensibly about Ethiopia, it can be read as a study of absolutism and its evils. A kind of black humor suffuses the pages. Haile Selassie is referred to as Venerable, Benevolent, Worthy, Unrivaled, Distinguished, Exalted, Noble, August, and many more titles as in "His Most Unparalled Majesty"---all tongue in cheek, and probably not uttered by the informants. In addition to the political dimension in the period 1964-74 as the Ethiopian monarchy slowly broke down, it helps to explain why the Ethiopian famine, so well-known in those years, was totally avoidable and a product of bad and indifferent government, not of nature. Haile Selassie had risen to power through a coup in 1916, gotten himself crowned Emperor in 1930, and then come to the attention of the world when the Italians invaded his country in 1935. He became a 'valiant fighter for freedom' and even a demi-god for the Rastafarian religion, named in his honor (he was called Ras Tafari before he was crowned.) However, in his own land, Haile Selassie was nothing if not an autocrat, sitting on top of a very oppressive structure of feudal landlords, conservative church officials, and bureaucrats. THE EMPEROR tells of his manipulative style, and his slow fall.
I also read a political history of Ethiopia up to 1964. Though it was far longer than the present work, it lacked the power, insight, and descriptive richness of THE EMPEROR, which may not be so strong on particular details. This is one of the best political works I have ever read. See for yourself !
You can read a lot of books about Ethiopia, many very good. Similarly, you can read many studies of tyranny, studies of the worst of that ilk like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Franco, Pol Pot, Trujillo, Duvalier,and dozens more. Perhaps you've read Garcia-Marquez' "The Autumn of the Patriarch". Kapuscinski's amazing, deeply ironic book on Haile Selassie, last emperor of Ethiopia, bears more than a little resemblance to that latter volume. In fact, it's hard to believe that Kapuscinski was not influenced by that novel, which came out only three years before THE EMPEROR. Whatever the case, in this short book, the famous Polish journalist captures the psychology of tyranny and the tyrannized better than almost any other book I know. It also captures the mood in the capital as the Ethiopian Revolution was breaking out. The author claims to have ferreted out the last surviving officials in the palace and royal administration in Addis Ababa with the help of an elderly former official in the Ministry of Information. THE EMPEROR is a kind of collage of their testimony as to what went on in the palace, about the psychology of those who worked or made appeals there. It is heavily larded with Kapuscinski's own words, and own insights into how things had happened. These in turn must have developed from his experiences and observations in communist Poland, but he never mentions that (he wanted to keep on working). Though the book is ostensibly about Ethiopia, it can be read as a study of absolutism and its evils. A kind of black humor suffuses the pages. Haile Selassie is referred to as Venerable, Benevolent, Worthy, Unrivaled, Distinguished, Exalted, Noble, August, and many more titles as in "His Most Unparalled Majesty"---all tongue in cheek, and probably not uttered by the informants. In addition to the political dimension in the period 1964-74 as the Ethiopian monarchy slowly broke down, it helps to explain why the Ethiopian famine, so well-known in those years, was totally avoidable and a product of bad and indifferent government, not of nature. Haile Selassie had risen to power through a coup in 1916, gotten himself crowned Emperor in 1930, and then come to the attention of the world when the Italians invaded his country in 1935. He became a 'valiant fighter for freedom' and even a demi-god for the Rastafarian religion, named in his honor (he was called Ras Tafari before he was crowned.) However, in his own land, Haile Selassie was nothing if not an autocrat, sitting on top of a very oppressive structure of feudal landlords, conservative church officials, and bureaucrats. THE EMPEROR tells of his manipulative style, and his slow fall.
I also read a political history of Ethiopia up to 1964. Though it was far longer than the present work, it lacked the power, insight, and descriptive richness of THE EMPEROR, which may not be so strong on particular details. This is one of the best political works I have ever read. See for yourself !
April 13, 2023
4.5*
"...în sistemul autocrat tocmai cel suprem este prima cauză, primul făptuitor a tot ceea ce se întâmplă. El știe perfect totul, și chiar dacă ceva nu știe, asta numai pentru că nu vrea să știe, pentru că faptul acela îi este incomod."
O carte care pare o distopie, dar este pură realitate. S-a întâmplat în Etiopia (și nu numai, de multe ori mi s-a părut că mă întorc în timp). Finalul este fabulos, nu poți pricepe cum acest "suprem", Regele regilor, era de fapt un "nimeni".
"...în sistemul autocrat tocmai cel suprem este prima cauză, primul făptuitor a tot ceea ce se întâmplă. El știe perfect totul, și chiar dacă ceva nu știe, asta numai pentru că nu vrea să știe, pentru că faptul acela îi este incomod."
O carte care pare o distopie, dar este pură realitate. S-a întâmplat în Etiopia (și nu numai, de multe ori mi s-a părut că mă întorc în timp). Finalul este fabulos, nu poți pricepe cum acest "suprem", Regele regilor, era de fapt un "nimeni".
July 19, 2020
Etiyopya'nın son Kralı Haile Selasiye'nin çöküşü.
Halkını aç bırakan hiçbir iktidar ayakta kalamıyor.
Halkını aç bırakan hiçbir iktidar ayakta kalamıyor.
April 10, 2019
O jornalista Ryszard Kapuściński chega à Etiópia em 1974, ano em que um golpe militar destitui Haile Selassie que governou o país durante quase quarenta anos.
O Grande Imperador, idolatrado pelo povo, considerado o Deus vivo do movimento Rastafari, que, em discursos, afirmava que o caminho para a paz seria não existirem cidadãos de primeira e segunda categoria e que deveriam ser garantidos a todos por igual os direitos humanos básicos, vivia na opulência enquanto o seu próprio povo morria de fome.
Recorrendo a depoimentos (modelo posteriormente adoptado por Svetlana Alexievich) de quem vivia no palácio (até havia um almofadeiro exclusivamente para colocar a almofada certa na cadeira do Real Senhor para que não parecesse muito baixinho), Kapuściński constrói uma preciosa obra histórica sobre mais um dos Grandes Ditadores deste mundo.
(No reino do deus até os animais usavam coleira...)
O Grande Imperador, idolatrado pelo povo, considerado o Deus vivo do movimento Rastafari, que, em discursos, afirmava que o caminho para a paz seria não existirem cidadãos de primeira e segunda categoria e que deveriam ser garantidos a todos por igual os direitos humanos básicos, vivia na opulência enquanto o seu próprio povo morria de fome.
Recorrendo a depoimentos (modelo posteriormente adoptado por Svetlana Alexievich) de quem vivia no palácio (até havia um almofadeiro exclusivamente para colocar a almofada certa na cadeira do Real Senhor para que não parecesse muito baixinho), Kapuściński constrói uma preciosa obra histórica sobre mais um dos Grandes Ditadores deste mundo.
(No reino do deus até os animais usavam coleira...)
October 23, 2014
Great historical book describing the mood of the palace in Ethiopia under the rule of Haile Selassie. Excellent in its description of mood. You actually see the insanity and chaos that Selassie created and nurtured in his palace and metaphorically throughout his country. And by the end of the book, you understand how the King of Kings was destroyed by the monster he created. The style was unlike any book I'd read in the past. It was really well done.
April 19, 2021
I know that Ryszard Kapuściński has been found guilty of intruding fiction into his nonfiction reportage. That does not bother me unduly: The way I see it, The Emperor is Kapuscinski's way of showing how an autocratic government -- like Communist Poland -- can fall by using the example of Emperor Haile Selassie's downfall in the Ethiopia of 1974. In Russian literature, this is referred to an Aesopic story.
Oxford University's Lexico site defines Aesopic writing as "using a style or language that has hidden or ambiguous meaning, especially as a device to disguise dissident political writing in allegorical form and so avoid official censorship."
Despite Kapuscinski's bending of Haile Selassie's downfall, he provides a fascinating picture of a society that seemed to be eternal coming under heavy pressure by exposure to the ideals of the West.
I have always loved Kapuscinski's work. The criticisms I have read have not changed my opinion by one iota.
Oxford University's Lexico site defines Aesopic writing as "using a style or language that has hidden or ambiguous meaning, especially as a device to disguise dissident political writing in allegorical form and so avoid official censorship."
Despite Kapuscinski's bending of Haile Selassie's downfall, he provides a fascinating picture of a society that seemed to be eternal coming under heavy pressure by exposure to the ideals of the West.
I have always loved Kapuscinski's work. The criticisms I have read have not changed my opinion by one iota.
April 3, 2020
Dokumentarni roman, esejizirana reportaža ili nešto treće, uglavnom knjiga koju je teško žanrovsku odredit. Sa distance, ironijom koja je ponekad na granici crnog humora Kapuscinski slika Etiopiju za vrijeme vladavine cara Haile Salassija i njegove detronizacije. Ali nije ovo knjiga samo o Etiopiju nego o svakoj autokratskoj vladavini, njenom usponu i padu; revoluciju i promjenama u društvu koje se mogu desiti bilo gdje.
Još jedan biser dokumentarne književnosti, koja mi definitivno polak postaje omiljeni žanr.
Još jedan biser dokumentarne književnosti, koja mi definitivno polak postaje omiljeni žanr.
November 28, 2013
Fascinating book - an oral history of the last days of Haile Selassie's empire told by his palace servants. It most reminded me of the second half of Murakami's underground, when the brainwashed former cultists still adhered to the Aum Shinrikyo ethos. There were sections here where I lost interest (mainly as a result of repetition), but what will always stick with me are the little absurdities (the revolution starting at a fashion show; the Swiss calisthenics instructors appearing days before the fall of the empire to conduct fitness classes); and the fascinating, depressing glimpses of professionalism in the person whose sole job was to open the door at exactly the right time, the person whose sole job was to bow just so on the hour, and the person who had to choose the right pillow out of 64 options to slide under The Emperor's tiny feet. It rings of Marquez's Autumn of the Patriarch too - especially in the chilling moment when the Emperor starts trying to govern the very coup that is overthrowing him.
It is a quick read, and a lean book, and a bold one. It suffers from diminishing returns, but it's recommended for anyone who find Selassie or the corrosive nature of power interesting.
It is a quick read, and a lean book, and a bold one. It suffers from diminishing returns, but it's recommended for anyone who find Selassie or the corrosive nature of power interesting.
January 8, 2018
Hĺbkový pohľad do sveta, v ktorom absolutisticky vládne jeden človek. Najviac sa mi páčili popisy toho, ako sa v takomto prostredí fyzicky menia osoby, ktoré sa dostanú k moci. Aj preto, že som si tieto prejavy všimla aj v našich reáliách, dokonca na ľuďoch, ktorých osobne poznám.
Druhé, čo ma nadchlo, boli popisy vládcových stratégií, ako sa udržať pri moci. My si z týchto praktík robíme často srandu a nevieme, či ide o náhodu, alebo vedomú snahu a tu nám to naservíroval Rišár bez servítky ako zjavne vedomú vec: rozdeľuj a panuj, obklopuj sa neschopnými a skorumpovanými, nikdy nič naozaj nepovedz, vyčerpaj protivníkov nezmyslami.. atď.
K tejto knihe sa ešte určite vrátim.
A vy si ju môžete požičať v Karloveskej knižnici.
Druhé, čo ma nadchlo, boli popisy vládcových stratégií, ako sa udržať pri moci. My si z týchto praktík robíme často srandu a nevieme, či ide o náhodu, alebo vedomú snahu a tu nám to naservíroval Rišár bez servítky ako zjavne vedomú vec: rozdeľuj a panuj, obklopuj sa neschopnými a skorumpovanými, nikdy nič naozaj nepovedz, vyčerpaj protivníkov nezmyslami.. atď.
K tejto knihe sa ešte určite vrátim.
A vy si ju môžete požičať v Karloveskej knižnici.
July 3, 2022
"In those years there existed two images of Haile Selassie. One, known to great international opinion, presented the Emperor as an exotic, gallant monarch, distinguished by indefatigable energy... who made a stand against Mussolini... The other image, formed gradually by a critical small segment of Ethiopian opinion, showed a ruler committed to defending his power at any cost...above all a demagogue and a theatrical paternalist... And both of these images were correct." [pg 101]
• THE EMPEROR: Downfall of an Autocrat by Ryszard Kapuściński, translated from the Polish William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczowska-Brand, 1978/1983.
In 1974, after several attempts to oust Selassie, one military coup was successful. "The Most Puissant Majesty and Distinguished Highness and Emperor of Ethiopia" is sequestered in Addis Ababa, only living a few more months into 1975 when he died of "natural causes".
Kapuściński returns to Africa for his special style of "literary reportage". He tracks down members of Selassie's court - the servants, the counsel - to get a bottom-up perspective of life in the Palace and with The Emperor, each person only identified by initials in the text. 👑 He meets the valet, the cooks and tasters, the people who count the house inventory. He meets the person who cleans up after Selassie's dogs, the person who fluffs his pillows, the person who raises animals to feed to Selassie's lions and panthers.
Kapuściński reports on an earlier failed coup attempt and the harsh justice meted out. He reports on the rush for progress and development in Ethiopia, bringing cars and televisions when many people did not even have food, hygiene facilities, or access to education.
It's a fascinating multi-voice approach to biography, almost more of a biography of the moment and the time than about a single person.
✍️Plenty of Kapuściński detractors out there, noting his 'massage' of facts, his spoonfuls of fictions mixed in with reportage... Not denying that happened - so be it.
My 3rd Kapuściński, 2nd this year even. His style fascinates me.
• THE EMPEROR: Downfall of an Autocrat by Ryszard Kapuściński, translated from the Polish William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczowska-Brand, 1978/1983.
In 1974, after several attempts to oust Selassie, one military coup was successful. "The Most Puissant Majesty and Distinguished Highness and Emperor of Ethiopia" is sequestered in Addis Ababa, only living a few more months into 1975 when he died of "natural causes".
Kapuściński returns to Africa for his special style of "literary reportage". He tracks down members of Selassie's court - the servants, the counsel - to get a bottom-up perspective of life in the Palace and with The Emperor, each person only identified by initials in the text. 👑 He meets the valet, the cooks and tasters, the people who count the house inventory. He meets the person who cleans up after Selassie's dogs, the person who fluffs his pillows, the person who raises animals to feed to Selassie's lions and panthers.
Kapuściński reports on an earlier failed coup attempt and the harsh justice meted out. He reports on the rush for progress and development in Ethiopia, bringing cars and televisions when many people did not even have food, hygiene facilities, or access to education.
It's a fascinating multi-voice approach to biography, almost more of a biography of the moment and the time than about a single person.
✍️Plenty of Kapuściński detractors out there, noting his 'massage' of facts, his spoonfuls of fictions mixed in with reportage... Not denying that happened - so be it.
My 3rd Kapuściński, 2nd this year even. His style fascinates me.
November 23, 2015
Iako je Kapušćinjski proglašen za novinara XX vijeka, iako je ispratio 27 državnih udara, pučeva raznih vrsta, revolucija i nasilnih i manje nasilnih promjena vlasti, iako je četiri puta stajao pred streljačkim vodom i za dlaku izbjegao smrt - gotovo je nemoguće doći do njegovih knjiga na srpskom.
Srećom, žena me je iznenadila engleskim izdanjem Penguina. Do sada sam zapravo samo jednu pročitao na srpskom, a to su "Putovanja sa Herodotom".
Ovo je knjiga o vladavini Hajla Salasija kroz oči njegovih dvorjana, a to je zaista prava riječ, jer je njegov dvor zaista bio konstituisan na jedan gotovo srednjevjekovni način i kao takav nije imao ni najmanju namjeru da se mijenja, što im je na kraju svima došlo glave.
Kapušćinjski je u danima nakon svrgavanja Hajla Salasija po Adis Abebi krišom tražio i slušao preostale dvorjane sakrivene iza navučenih zavjesa koji su u smrtnom strahu od postrevolucionarne vlasti jedva nalazili hrabrosti da mu se otvore. Što bi rekli oni clickbait naslovi, ono što je čuo će vas šokirati.
Čitajte Kapušćinjskog, nećete se pokajati.
Srećom, žena me je iznenadila engleskim izdanjem Penguina. Do sada sam zapravo samo jednu pročitao na srpskom, a to su "Putovanja sa Herodotom".
Ovo je knjiga o vladavini Hajla Salasija kroz oči njegovih dvorjana, a to je zaista prava riječ, jer je njegov dvor zaista bio konstituisan na jedan gotovo srednjevjekovni način i kao takav nije imao ni najmanju namjeru da se mijenja, što im je na kraju svima došlo glave.
Kapušćinjski je u danima nakon svrgavanja Hajla Salasija po Adis Abebi krišom tražio i slušao preostale dvorjane sakrivene iza navučenih zavjesa koji su u smrtnom strahu od postrevolucionarne vlasti jedva nalazili hrabrosti da mu se otvore. Što bi rekli oni clickbait naslovi, ono što je čuo će vas šokirati.
Čitajte Kapušćinjskog, nećete se pokajati.
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July 13, 2015I suppose the American frame of reference for The Emperor is probably the "new journalism" stuff from the '60s-- Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, all that. So I liked all those guys a grip when I was in high school, and now that I'm a bit more grown-up, I can appreciated Ryszard Kapuscinski. Rather than writing about kids dropping acid, he writes about the utter insanity of the court of King Haile Selassie at the twilight of the Ethiopian Empire.
And rather than being strict reportage, you get the sense of everything converging on this single piece of writing. History, ritual, materiality, memory, myth, and injustice are all laid out bare.
And rather than being strict reportage, you get the sense of everything converging on this single piece of writing. History, ritual, materiality, memory, myth, and injustice are all laid out bare.
August 10, 2023
'The Emperor' is a literary tour de force but also a wonderful work of history. It should be read in the same way we read St Simon's Memoirs of the court of Versailles under Louis XIV, as both a account of specific events and people and also as an account of how absolute power is exercised.
All too often it is forgotten that the 'court' of any absolute ruler is the means by which the ruler exercises control and projects his power. This is absolutely clear in the case of 20th century absolute rulers like Stalin, Hitler, Mao or Ceausescu though the similarity is often hidden or down played because they did away with so much of the ceremonial frippery that had surrounded older dynastic rulers. Indeed our over familiarity with the gilded ornamentation of monarchical rule, the court dress and ceremonial, enfilade of 'state' rooms that are passed through to approach the ruler, the state coaches and the flummery of plumes and uniformed postilions, etc. that survive in the toothless and pointless Windsor monarchy were created and existed for centuries as ways of exercising power - ruthless, implacable and utterly sure of itself, and willing to use force and leave bloody, death and destruction in its wake to preserve that power.
The empire of Ethiopia which Haile Selassie ruled over was the last feudal monarchy and that it survived into the late 20th century is amazing. That this ramshackle Ruritanian absurdity was the only African country to resist conquest during the 19th century is one of the most important reasons for its survival. It is only thanks to Ryszard Kapuscinski that we have any eyewitness accounts of how this 'time capsule' empire functioned. Calling it a feudal regime is not a metaphor, or an insult, it is a fact. Read Kapuscinski interviews with various functionaries and members of the Ethiopian court and you are transported back before the enlightenment, before Tudors, Bourbons, Hapsburgs to the Hohenstauffen, Capetian and Plantagenet monarchies and before them to world of the emperors of Rome and Constantinople and their freemen and eunuch household servants who ran their empires and you have the empire of Ethiopia. Every student of ancient, medieval and even the history of the Italian principalities of the Renaissance should read this book to understand how power exercised under monarchical government in its purest form.
That the finest, and oddly, understanding portrait of the last real feudal regime should be written by a journalist from communist Poland is only surprising to those who have never read anything by Ryszard Kapuscinski. That this absolutely accurate and faithful transcription of the words of the various servitors in the court of Ethiopia's last emperor was also a brilliant satire on the decadence of communism, something that was apparent to readers in Poland and later the west but failed to register on either the Polish authorities* or, not surprisingly the CIA**. If the CIA had bothered to take note of Ryszard Kapuscinki's writings they might have been less surprised by the emergence of Solidarity in Poland or the later collapse of the Soviet Union.
This is a wonderful book and I have only scratched the surface of its richness. That, unintentionally, many of those he interviewed provided vignettes of completely absurd hilariousness is just one of the books great treats.
I am going to conclude with an old man's rant - I can't help look on the writings of Kapuscinski and the documentary efforts of Jonathan Dimbleby when he broke the story of thee Ethiopian famine back in 1973 and launched the Ethiopian revolution which toppled Haile Selassie and his regime into history's dustbin as a standing reproach to almost all media providers today. You cannot return to the past, nor resurrect or recreate it but you could try and learn from it and maybe occasionally attempt to emulate its finest moments.
*That communist Poland spent scarce foreign currency to have a man like Kapuscinski as a wandering foreign correspondent whose reports contain not a trace of Marxist-Leninist dogma or theory says more about the essentially insubstantial nature of the regimes roots and its unlikely longevity.
**My contempt for the ability of 'intelligence' services to actually understand anything is boundless.
All too often it is forgotten that the 'court' of any absolute ruler is the means by which the ruler exercises control and projects his power. This is absolutely clear in the case of 20th century absolute rulers like Stalin, Hitler, Mao or Ceausescu though the similarity is often hidden or down played because they did away with so much of the ceremonial frippery that had surrounded older dynastic rulers. Indeed our over familiarity with the gilded ornamentation of monarchical rule, the court dress and ceremonial, enfilade of 'state' rooms that are passed through to approach the ruler, the state coaches and the flummery of plumes and uniformed postilions, etc. that survive in the toothless and pointless Windsor monarchy were created and existed for centuries as ways of exercising power - ruthless, implacable and utterly sure of itself, and willing to use force and leave bloody, death and destruction in its wake to preserve that power.
The empire of Ethiopia which Haile Selassie ruled over was the last feudal monarchy and that it survived into the late 20th century is amazing. That this ramshackle Ruritanian absurdity was the only African country to resist conquest during the 19th century is one of the most important reasons for its survival. It is only thanks to Ryszard Kapuscinski that we have any eyewitness accounts of how this 'time capsule' empire functioned. Calling it a feudal regime is not a metaphor, or an insult, it is a fact. Read Kapuscinski interviews with various functionaries and members of the Ethiopian court and you are transported back before the enlightenment, before Tudors, Bourbons, Hapsburgs to the Hohenstauffen, Capetian and Plantagenet monarchies and before them to world of the emperors of Rome and Constantinople and their freemen and eunuch household servants who ran their empires and you have the empire of Ethiopia. Every student of ancient, medieval and even the history of the Italian principalities of the Renaissance should read this book to understand how power exercised under monarchical government in its purest form.
That the finest, and oddly, understanding portrait of the last real feudal regime should be written by a journalist from communist Poland is only surprising to those who have never read anything by Ryszard Kapuscinski. That this absolutely accurate and faithful transcription of the words of the various servitors in the court of Ethiopia's last emperor was also a brilliant satire on the decadence of communism, something that was apparent to readers in Poland and later the west but failed to register on either the Polish authorities* or, not surprisingly the CIA**. If the CIA had bothered to take note of Ryszard Kapuscinki's writings they might have been less surprised by the emergence of Solidarity in Poland or the later collapse of the Soviet Union.
This is a wonderful book and I have only scratched the surface of its richness. That, unintentionally, many of those he interviewed provided vignettes of completely absurd hilariousness is just one of the books great treats.
I am going to conclude with an old man's rant - I can't help look on the writings of Kapuscinski and the documentary efforts of Jonathan Dimbleby when he broke the story of thee Ethiopian famine back in 1973 and launched the Ethiopian revolution which toppled Haile Selassie and his regime into history's dustbin as a standing reproach to almost all media providers today. You cannot return to the past, nor resurrect or recreate it but you could try and learn from it and maybe occasionally attempt to emulate its finest moments.
*That communist Poland spent scarce foreign currency to have a man like Kapuscinski as a wandering foreign correspondent whose reports contain not a trace of Marxist-Leninist dogma or theory says more about the essentially insubstantial nature of the regimes roots and its unlikely longevity.
**My contempt for the ability of 'intelligence' services to actually understand anything is boundless.
October 30, 2025
Says more on an allegorical level about the nature of greed than Kapuscinski’s other, more context-specific works. Recurring tropes like the trivialization of “development” or the unquestioning adherence to dead customs give this oral history a Kafkaesque feeling. Selassie isn’t spared from guilt. His holiness and “ineffable” divinity are stripped away to reveal the life of another power-hungry ruler gaining at the expense of his literally hungry subjects.
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