Imperium

An account of the author's travels across the vast territories of the Soviet Union, undertaken in 1989 as the Russian Empire convulsed and collapsed. Kapuscinski visited 15 republics, recording the views of hundreds of ordinary Soviet citizens as they voiced their hopes and fears.

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During the year the Berlin Wall came down, as the empire convulsed and died, Kapuscinski talked to hundreds of ordinary people about their extraordinary lives and the terror from which they were emerging. Imperium is a race to capture people's memories, and their fears for the future, before the wonderful, terrible events of 1989 receded into the past.