His ancestors took part in the crusades, one of the Ungerns fell at the walls of Jerusalem under the banner of Richard the Lionheart, and eleven-year-old Ralph Ungern died in the tragically ended children's crusade. The father of the legendary baron, Fyodor Ungern, married Countess Sophia Fliorkovskaya in 1885. In 1889 their first-born Roman was born in Riga.
Biographical milestones
After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, the 17-year-old baron dropped out of the St. Petersburg Naval Cadet Corps and entered an infantry regiment as a volunteer. For bravery in battles he was promoted to corporal. After the end of the war, the mother of the baron died, and he himself entered the Pavlovsk military school in St. Petersburg. He took part in three punitive expeditions to suppress riots in Yakutia and repeatedly fought in duels. After the start of the Mongol uprising against China, he applied for permission to volunteer in the Mongol troops, where, according to Baron Wrangel, he actually served. In Mongolia, Ungern studies Buddhism, Mongolian language and culture, converges with the most prominent lamas. With the outbreak of the First World War, Ungern was called up for military service for mobilization, fought bravely, making sabotage sorties to the rear of the Germans and was awarded five orders.
In July 1917, the Provisional Government instructed Esaul Semyonov (a fellow soldier of the baron) to form volunteer units from Mongols and Buryats in Transbaikalia. Together with Semyonov, the baron ended up in Transbaikalia. Ungern's further odyssey is partially described below.
On September 15, 1921, one of the most mysterious and odious leaders of the Civil War was shot in the city of Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk) by the verdict of the Siberian Revolutionary Tribunal. The location of the baron's grave is unknown.
The entire Soviet, and then practically the entire post-Soviet history in the question of Baron Ungern von Sternberg is based on myths authored by Messrs. Comrades Shumyatsky (authorized by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in Siberia and Mongolia and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Red Banner Army) and E. Yaroslavsky (Gubelman) (in 1921, a member of the Siberian Bureau of the RCP (b), prosecutor at the trial against Ungern, later, since 1939, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences - historian of the Bolshevik Party and atheism).
The fruits of their imagination, as well as the desire to pass off the wishful thinking and show the opponents of Soviet power in the most unattractive light, formed the basis of the myths about Baron Ungern, some of which the author tried to refute.
Promotional video:
Myth One: "The Baron Was Crazy"
Seriously speaking, only a psychiatrist could have made the final diagnosis to the baron, and none of the doctors even tried to do this in absentia. By ordinary standards, he was crazy, but just as crazy as he could be a man who spent almost 6 years in the war, every day faced with death, dirt and blood. Most likely, we can talk about a global reassessment of values associated with the impact of war, under the influence of the fall of the traditional way of life of society, when human life has lost its value, and the concepts of good and evil have acquired a different shade. All the same, the baron's actions - a vow of sobriety and the introduction of Prohibition on the eve of the campaign against Urga, diplomacy, skillful use of the customs of the Mongols and the Chinese - indicate the presence of a sober mind.
As for the bloodthirstiness and cruelty of the baron, the answer can be sought in his own words: "Against the murderers I have only one remedy - death." All the actions of the baron, his mysticism, the creation of legends about heroic ancestors and the search for truth in the East (which is very fashionable in our time) speak not of madness, but of the immaturity of his personality and the desire to fill the inner spiritual emptiness with something.
Myth two: "The Baron was a Japanese spy"
With regard to Ungern, this thesis was clearly invented by the Soviet security officers in order to further discredit the personality of the odious baron. The OGPU-NKVD-MGB were very fond of making such accusations. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, in Ungern's Horse-Asian division, no one had the right to give advice to Ungern on pain of being slashed by tashur at best. Death awaited the most "insolent" advisers. Even the military council of division commanders was first assembled only on the eve of the second assault on Urga. A detachment of Japanese volunteers, which was part of the Asian Horse Division, does not mean that Ungern was a "Japanese hireling". Until a certain point, Japan really benefited from Ungern's military operations aimed at expelling Chinese troops from Mongolia. However, Ungern hardly thought about serving in the interests of Japan, his plans extended much further.he thought in completely different categories. The division itself was recruited on a volunteer basis and everyone could enter it.
The Asian Horse Division included representatives of 16 nationalities. Ungern himself, in a letter to the Bargut prince Tsengde-gu-n in March 1921, wrote: “It is absolutely in vain that many rely on Japan, I think there has also begun decay inside, among the troops and the people. She must put an end to this evil and only then can she be an active helper."
Myth Three: "The Baron was a White Guard General"
The first volunteers began to call themselves "White Guard" only to counterbalance the "Red Guard". Be that as it may, under the White movement in history it is customary to call anti-Bolshevik forces, the slogan of many of which, but not all of them, was the restoration of "United, Indivisible Great Russia", the Orthodox faith and the struggle against the Bolsheviks.
Calling Ungern a White Guard was very beneficial for official Soviet history, remembering his atrocities and violence, thereby turning his name into a banner of anti-White Guard propaganda.
Even now, the mention of the baron by modern historians among the generals of the White movement casts a shadow on the banner of the White struggle. Indeed, in none of the white armies, violence was not officially encouraged by the leaders and was only a manifestation of the cruelty of individuals.
Was Ungern an anti-Bolshevik leader - yes, but by no means a White Guard. He never stated that he recognized Denikin or Kolchak, and over the latter, according to the testimony of his colleagues, he constantly laughed.
In addition, the slogan of the White movement - "For a United, Indivisible Great Russia", as well as a number of leaders of the anti-Bolshevik forces, Ungern also denied. His aspirations lay on a different plane - the creation of the "Order of Military Buddhists", the fight against the corruption of the West, the restoration of monarchies in Mongolia, China, Russia and the creation of the Middle Empire led by the Mongol khan. At the same time, the vast lands of the Russian Far East, Siberia, Central Asia, i.e. for the purpose of Ungern was the rejection of part of the lands of the Russian Empire, since, in his words, "the Russian people are not able to organize themselves."
Ungern constantly stressed that he was "not a Russian patriot." In addition, Ungern, who was a Protestant from birth, declared himself a Buddhist and accepted Mongol citizenship, and the baron often put the Kol-Chak officers against the wall.
The fourth myth: "The Baron was the dictator of Mongolia"
Also a very dubious statement. The baron, according to him, only "fought for the restoration of all overthrown monarchies."
After Bogdo Khan reigned on the throne in Khalkha, Ungern prudently did not interfere in his politics, but began preparing the next stage of his grandiose plan - a campaign in China to restore the Qing dynasty.
When in early March 1921 Bogdo Khan formed the government of the Autonomous Outer Mongolia (Khapkhi), Ungern was not even in Urga, he was on a campaign in the south, where he participated in the Battle of Choiri-Sume. Ungern was only later appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Khalkha Armed Forces. The fact that Ungern used, as they would say now, PR actions to recruit Mongol volunteers into the ranks of the Asian Horse Division, does not mean that he possessed dictatorial powers. The real mobilization of the Mongols did not take place by order of the baron, not by him personally and not into the ranks of the Asian Cavalry Division.
In addition, according to a number of historians, Ungern invaded the territory of the Far Eastern Republic and the RSFSR due to the fact that Bogdokhan and the Mongol princes inclined in favor of an alliance with the so-called. "Red Mongols" (Mongolian People's Government of Sukhe-Bator) and Ungern with his division after the victory over the Chinese was already superfluous in Khalkha. Having accepted independence from the hands of the baron, the Mongol princes quickly forgot about any kind of gratitude. The plans for a campaign in China failed, the division began to decay caused by inaction, a real threat arose from the Mongols, and the baron had no choice but to oppose the FER. Of course, a war with the Bolsheviks was in Ungern's plans, but he planned this war at a later date.
Contemporaries about Baron Ungern
From the certification of the Esaul of the 1st Nerchinsk Cossack Regiment of Roman Fedorovich Ungern von Sternberg:
“In the regiment he is known as a good comrade, beloved by officers, as a chief who has always enjoyed the adoration of his subordinates, and as an officer - correct, honest and beyond praise … In military operations he received 5 wounds. In two cases, being wounded, he remained in the ranks. In other cases, he was in the hospital, but each time he returned to the regiment with unhealed wounds.
General V. A. Kislitsyn:
"He was an honest, disinterested person, an officer of indescribable courage and a very interesting conversationalist."
From the characteristics given to Ungern by Baron Wrangel:
“He lives in war. He is not an officer in the generally accepted sense of the word, for he not only does not know the most elementary rules of service, but he often sins against both external discipline and military education - this is the type of amateur partisan, hunter-tracker from the novels of Mine Reed. Ragged and dirty, he always sleeps on the floor, among his hundreds of Cossacks, eats from a common cauldron and, being brought up in conditions of cultural wealth, gives the impression of a person completely detached from them. The original sharp mind and next to it a striking lack of culture and an extremely narrow outlook, amazing shyness, knowing no limits extravagance … this type had to find his element in the conditions of real Russian turmoil.
I. Ladygin. “An interesting newspaper. Secrets of history №4 2009