BARON VON UNGERN

ROMAN UNGERN VON STERNBERG
“... the flickering light coming from the
lamps slowly outlined the large statue of
Buddha sitting in the lotus flower. The face
of the God was indifferent and calm, barely
illuminated by the weak rays of light. There
were thousands of small Buddha on each
side of the statue, brought by the faithful as
offering so that their prayers might be
granted. The Baron stroke the gong to get
Buddha’s attention on his prayer, and also
tossed a handful of coins in a large bronze
cup. And then, that descendant of
crusaders, who had read all the Western
thinkers, closed his eyes, brought is hands
up to his face, and started praying….”
… these last two lines, written in 1919
by the Polish writer Ferdinand
Ossendowski, the author of probably
the best book which talks about
Mongolia, are enough for us to
understand that Baron Roman Von
Sternberg was a man of “extremes”.
His own destiny was “extreme” both in
his greatness and in his weakness. Such
a destiny could only have been fulfilled
and written in no other place than in Mongolia.
This article seeks to re-read the Baron, which
so often and so simplistically is depicted by
various tour guides as bloodthirsty and
mad. Which of course he was, but his
personality is decidedly more multifaceted
and can be easily fit in the ever-lasting
dualistic conflict between good and bad,
folly and clairvoyant sanity, between yin and
yan in the country of Beasts, Men and Gods.
He was born in Austria in 1885 into a noble family. At a very early age he
enlisted in the naval military academy of St Petersburg. Once he graduated as
an officer he was stationed in Transbaikalia, with a Cossack cavalry division.
His arrival in Asia is uncertain; perhaps, tired of the European lifestyle, he
preferred the unlimited landscape of Siberia. He came back to Europe to fight
in the Great War, receiving praise for his courage and thus earning the Cross
of Saint George, a military sign of distinction from which he never became
separated during his life… legend has it that in 1921, a few moments before
being shot by a firing squad, he ate the medal so that the Bolsheviks would
not lay their hands on it.
In the October of 1917, we find him with the white Mensheviks, which, in an
attempt to flee from the Bolshevik purges, found refuge in the territories
bordering with China and Tibet. Thanks to Japan’s military and economic
support, Ungern takes part in establishing the Transbaikalia government and
a division of Asian cavalry which will be made up of men coming from very
different ethnical backgrounds: Cossacks, Buryats, Russians and Mongolians.
The idea was to create a Great Mongolia stretching from the Baikal lake to
Tibet and from Manchuria to Turkhestan.
The barons destiny started to
come to pass in October 1919,
when he decided to attack Urga,
the capital city in which the
Chinese were detaining Bogdo
Gegen, or Living Buddha, the
third most important leader in
Lamaism Buddhism after the
Dalai and Panchen Lama.
Bogdo Gegen, or Bogdo Khaan,
is shrouded in legend and he
himself would warrant attention. Von Ungerns’s aim, hardly a secret, was to
re-create the Central-Asian Empire, like Chinggis Khaan, as a kind of panMongolian state in which republican and nationalist Chinese and enemies
which were foreign to the Mongolian and Tibetan life style, were considered
to be like the Bolsheviks, deserving nothing but death.
After Urga was conquered and after Bogdo Khaan appointed him as the First
Prince of Mongolia, Ungern’s metamorphosis began, immersing himself
more and more in the practises of tantric Buddhism and in shamanic
divination. Besides the Cross of saint George, his entire body was covered by
charms and mala. The only element which still kept him connected to the
western world was, incredibly, a powerful red Fiat who nobody knows how
it got to Mongolia. The Baron used it especially at night during his spiritual
wakes to visit monasteries, as in the initial quote, to check out guard posts or
to reach godforsaken outposts to question prisoners.
The red Fiat undoubtedly helped to create the
legend, since his lightning fast and unseen
movements fuelled the belief among his allies
and his enemies that he could be in all places
and see all things.
While he was in Urga, the Baron leapt from
acts of extreme generosity, like building
hospitals or supplying the first citywide
lighting system, to acts of extreme cruelty.
Ossendowski talks about the training of his
army.
This training, in opposition to all military
manuals, was based on tantric opposites.
The soldiers were given huge amounts of
vodka and drugs during the night, and whoever, at sunrise, did not present
himself in perfect military order, was shot.
Another “curiosity” concerns one of his body guards, a massive Mongolian of
Uigurian ethnicity, whose name, loosely translated, meant “Teapot”.
In fact, whoever was admitted to the Baron’s ger and was unfortunate
enough to say something which displeased the Baron’s ear, was kindly
offered a cup of tea.
As soon as Von Ungern gave the order to serve the tea his assassin would
jump out and proceed to strangle the unfortunate guest.
Furthermore, Ungern’s decision were more and more based solely on the
words of his shamans and oracles who were continuously consulted. Legend
has it that they foretold that the Baron would die in bloodshed (not that that
took a great deal of imagination), and that he had no more than 130 days to
live.
The destiny of the General-Baron and of his men came to pass during the
fights with the red army and against the partisans of Sukhbataar, the future
founder of the Mongolian Socialist Republic.
Sukhbataar means “courageous hero”: a hero while the Russians were in
Mongolia and a statue cast from extremely resistant Soviet concrete still
dominates Ulaan Bataar’s main square, dedicated to him.
In defeating him Sukhbataar
completes Ungern’s destiny. The
Baron attempted uselessly to flee
to Tibet, but he was abandoned by
the Dalai Lama as well. Finally
captured by the red army he was
tried and sentenced to death by
firing squad; thus, on a cold and
clear September morning of 1921,
Baron von Ungern Sternberg fell
under the shots of a firing squad
and, as it always happens for
those defeated, forgotten by those
who write history.
But he certainly was not forgotten
by the steppe’s horse riders whose
mounts continue to imprint his
initial with every step they take:
the U-shaped hoof prints of the
small Mongolian horses remind
everyone traveling through
magical Mongolia that, even
though invisible, the Baron’s spirit
is there, and continues to ride
across this endless spaces on his
red Fiat.