Bloody Baron, by Vladimir Pozner
I decided I wanted to read a book about Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, the strange Bloody Baron of the Russian Civil War who briefly reestablished the Mongolian empire and attempted to restore the Russian empire. There are many rumors about this strange figure who may have believed he was the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, and who some even today view as an incarnation of Jamsaran, the Buddhist god of war. I found two books in English, James Palmer's The Bloody White Baron, and Vladimir Pozner's Bloody Baron. Not knowing anything about the book or the author, since Bloody Baron was published in France by a man with a Russian name in the 1930s I thought this one might have an interesting perspective, and may even have been written by someone who knew him. It was a mistake. The author is somewhat pro-Soviet, of Russian extraction but who had lived in Paris apparently his whole life. (I believe he is Vladimir Solomonovich Pozner, but am not certain.) In the first few chapters the author fills in space with invented conversations with a female interlocutor and writes about how hard it was to find out anything about Baron Ungern. Most of the book is a novel-style account of Baron Ungern's role in the civil war. The author admits in the last chapter that he made a lot up. The book was amusing at times, charming at others as the author talked about himself, but ultimately this book will probably only interest either Russian Civil War enthusiasts who have read everything else or people who enjoy historical romances and don't know anything about the Russian Civil War.