When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, effectively making Moscow a global pariah overnight, Emmanuel Carrère, one of France’s most celebrated nonfiction authors, chose to board a plane for the Russian capital.
Despite warnings from his agent about the ill timing of traveling to a country on the very day it invades its neighbor, Carrère felt compelled to go. He had a professional obligation, but more importantly, he needed to confront what had become of a nation he had long cherished and which had inspired some of his most successful books.
Carrère spent ten days in Moscow, witnessing a dramatic shift. New laws criminalized calling the conflict a ‘war,’ and many of his friends desperately sought to leave. Most unsettling for a writer whose deep affinity for Russia once led him to immerse himself in a remote Russian town for weeks (a period chronicled in one of his novels) was the widespread support for the war, or the deliberate indifference, among many Russians.
“Something inside me was shattered, and still is, and my love for Russia has taken a serious blow,” Carrère reflected during a recent interview in his minimalist Paris loft. He observed that the very elements that once drew him to Russia—its rich literary heritage, its profound history, and its vibrant personalities—now seemed to have converged into a devastating conflict. “There’s a kind of dizzying depreciation of Russian values,” he remarked.
This profound re-evaluation forms the core of his latest work, “Kolkhoze,” released in France last August and set for American publication next year. A French bestseller and a contender for the prestigious Goncourt Prize, the book is an introspective autobiography delving into Carrère’s Russian ancestry and his relationship with his mother, who was a leading French historian of Russia.
His new book provides crucial insight into his long-held “deep love” for Russia, an affection now thoroughly questioned by the war and the influences that shaped it. Seeking clarity, Carrère ventured into war-torn Ukraine to listen to those actively resisting Moscow. He also visited Georgia, a Caucasus nation Russia invaded in 2008. Despite his Georgian grandfather and a presidential cousin, he had never visited Georgia before, always prioritizing his Russian connections.
Carrère’s honest self-reflection on Russia has also resonated with many in France, including his late mother, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse. His sharp critique of her complacency toward the Kremlin highlights a distinct French fascination with Russia, rooted in a shared historical narrative of revolution, empire, and cultural masterpieces. Léna Mauger, editor of the French magazine Kometa, which featured Carrère’s dispatches from Ukraine and Georgia that contributed to his book, noted, “If we’re so interested in his story, it’s because it reflects back on ourselves.”
Now 67, Carrère began his literary journey as a novelist but has dedicated the last quarter-century to mastering nonfiction. His diverse subjects have included the tragic story of a man who murdered his family after years of deception, his personal journey into meditation, and an account of the trial following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.
Yet, Russia remained a constant theme throughout his career, forming the subject of two books and numerous articles. As he states in his latest book’s opening, “Russia, for better or for worse, is a family affair.”
His mother, raised by a Russian-Prussian aristocrat and a Georgian immigrant who spoke Russian, was a prominent historian of Russia, frequently appearing on television to discuss the Kremlin. She instilled this passion in her son, taking him on a research trip to Moscow and, at just 13, introducing him to Dostoevsky’s sprawling work, “The Idiot.” This upbringing, Carrère explained, gave him a sense of a “more intense life” within Russia.
He started traveling to Russia regularly in the late 2000s, captivated by its enigmatic figures. He wrote about a Hungarian World War II soldier found decades later in a remote Russian mental hospital. In 2011, he focused on Eduard Limonov, a Russian writer who evolved from Soviet dissident to ultranationalist politician. During this time, Vladimir Putin was solidifying his authoritarian rule and pursuing imperial ambitions, including denouncing NATO expansion in 2007 and seizing Georgian territory in 2008. Like many, Carrère initially paid little heed, viewing Putin as a “mafioso” who could still be negotiated with.
His mother, who passed away in 2023, was especially deluded, Carrère recounts in “Kolkhoze.” He writes, “Her love for Russia is real, visceral. The tragedy is that it morphed into indulgence for Putin, and for the past 20 years she continuously carried the Kremlin’s message” to French presidents, assuring them that “Russia is a great country that cannot be judged by our standards and that Putin is a man of peace — provided he is not humiliated, of course.” Carrère now reflects, “Looking back, one realizes we should have understood much sooner.” But he didn’t, not until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On the day of the invasion, Carrère was scheduled to fly to Moscow to participate in a film adaptation of his Limonov biography, directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, a Russian filmmaker who later faced Kremlin repression and fled. Despite initial hesitation, his curiosity ultimately led him to board the plane.
In Moscow, he observed “this Russia at war take shape,” he noted, as aggressive rhetoric dominated public discourse and Kremlin propaganda was quietly accepted by many. To understand the unfolding situation, Carrère decided to experience Russia through the perspective of those affected by its aggression. He first journeyed to Georgia, where he met with his cousin Salomé Zourabichvili, the country’s former president, who had resisted the increasing pro-Russian influence there. In Georgia, he began to perceive Russia through a colonial lens, understanding it as a power that historically dominated its smaller neighbors, first through empire, then the Soviet Union, and now sought to reassert that dominance. He admitted, “War made me realize it. I honestly don’t think I would ever have thought of Georgia as a colonized country before.”
Next, he traveled to Ukraine, joining Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko on visits to frontline cities like Kherson and Kharkiv in late 2023. Their conversations explored Ukraine’s efforts to shed Russian cultural influence and assert its independence from Moscow. This experience profoundly affected Carrère, helping him comprehend why Dostoevsky, with his anti-Western, nationalist views, is so reviled in Ukraine. Despite this, he hopes that a more measured approach will emerge once the war concludes. Yermolenko emphasized the importance of the trip in revealing to Carrère “what the Russian world actually means, what it really brings” beyond the surface appeal of Russian culture. He led Carrère through Kherson’s shell-emptied streets and to a poetry event in a Kharkiv basement, sheltering from Russian attacks.
Did these encounters alter his earlier writings on Russia? Carrère paused. He confessed that had he known then what he knows now, his portrayal of Limonov, who despite growing up in Soviet Kharkiv, disparaged Ukraine as a nation, might have been different. “It’s a story of deconstruction,” observed Léna Mauger. “He was shaped by something, and now he’s deconstructing it.”
Since 2022, Carrère has visited Georgia four times and Ukraine as often. Will he continue writing about Russia? He is uncertain, stating a desire to find new inspirations. As he expressed in Kometa in late 2023, “Because a void has opened up. Because I loved Russia and, however shocking it may be to say this about an entire people, one can still love some Russians, but one can no longer love Russia.”