“Kolkhoze” by Emmanuel Carrère, tribute to his mother Hélène Carrère d’Encausse

On October 3, 2023, a national tribute was paid, in the Court of Invalides, to Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, historian specialist in Russia and perpetual secretary of the French Academy, died on August 5. In a masterful speech, including Emmanuel Carrère, his son, quotes extracts at the beginning of his story, Emmanuel Macron evokes “the child of poor emigrants who learned French at 5, who became the embodiment of the French Republic and his language”. It highlights the exceptional journey of the immortal.

A few months after his death, Emmanuel Carrère’s father had disappeared in turn, “in my opinion as sorrow,” confides his son. When he empties the family apartment, he discovers thick files. In secret, the discreet and erased husband, Bordeaux bourgeois fallen in love for the meteorite Hélène Zourabichvili, patiently gathered the puzzle of the extravagant genealogy of his wife, descending by his mother of the fallen Russian aristocracy, and by his father of a line of Georgian intellectuals. “Everything is ready, classified, stored, the characters identified, their summary biographies, their legendary portraits,” says the writer. As if, from where he is, my father said to me: to you now. »»

Kolkhoze* is born from this paternal injunction and from the desire to go beyond quarrels with his mother, in particular due to the publication ofA Russian novelin 2007. The writer brought to light a part of the unaware of family history, which his mother would have liked never to see revealed: the unexplained disappearance of his own father at Liberation.

Grand matriarch

Kolkhoze could be a catch -up session. It would be without counting the furious desire for veracity of Emmanuel Carrère. “If I am my slope, I’m wrong to make this new story the monument of filial piety that I would like to be,” explains the writer. I commit myself anyway, hoping that it will surprise me, that by drilling in the crust of resentment and mischief laminated for more than fifty years, I will accede to what must be the source of this book: the limitless love that united us in my childhood. The title chosen by the writer for this book illustrates this strong relationship: often, the children brought their mattresses to their mother’s room to sleep there all together; Hélène called this custom “doing kolkhoze”.

So, did Emmanuel Carrère succeed in this “monument of filial piety”? Yes, in a certain sense, with the queen mother, nicknamed the “tsarine”, like a Saint Sébastien pierced with arrows, but so admired, so loved. Grandiose matriarch. Demanding, first towards herself, the academician “wants to excel in everything and, if she does not excel, assures that it does not interest her!” Incredible historian, who had understood that the USSR was a colossus with clay feet, and incredible actress, who, invited to France Musique, praises songs and musicians whom she says in private Exercre!

Monument of literature, certainly. Renouring with an intense feather and pinches-rire, documented and carnal, Emmanuel Carrère offers a romantic journey in the intimacy of a family, a mother and a son, and in the great history, of the Bolshevik Revolution in Putin, from the white Russians to the two world wars. Even if the beginning is dense (you get lost a little), the skill of the writer then does wonder, mixing unexpected testimonies, adventures and intimate torments. A bewitching and delightful work.

* Collective farm in USSR.