The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuściński

First published:Cesarz, 1978 (English translation, 1983)

Type of work: History

Time of work: 1963-1974

Locale: Ethiopia

Principal Personage:

• Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, 1930-1936 and 1941-1974

Form and Content

In May, 1963, the Polish journalist and essayist Ryszard Kapuściński was an observer at the establishment, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) under the sponsorship of Emperor Haile Selassie. In the intervening years he made other trips to Ethiopia. After the fall of the emperor in 1974, Kapuściński returned to Ethiopia to report on what had happened. There he made contact with former members of the deposed Emperor’s household. With their statements as its base, this book is Kapuściński’s presentation as well as his interpretation of the events and conditions that brought an end to Haile Selassie’s reign.

Kapuściński’s form here is not that of a newspaper reporter’s, with its emphasis on giving the facts as objectively as possible; he presents what he has to say largely in the form of transcriptions of “interviews” with these people. Onetime dignitaries, middle-level functionaries, and servants, they were hiding in Addis Ababa, fugitives from the new government, and consented to interviews only with the assurance that their identities would not be revealed. Therefore, each statement is preceded by the speaker’s initials only.

The book is divided into three major sections—“The Throne,” “It’s Coming, It’s Coming,” and “The Collapse”—each introduced by quotations from various sources chosen to set the tone of the division. Each of these larger sections is divided into smaller groupings of statements by the various speakers. Between these groups, the author enters directly into the work, speaking in his own voice and providing historical and personal background; his contributions are printed in italics, not only signaling to the reader that the author is using his own voice but also announcing a new step in the development of the particular larger division. The final two entries of the book are brief quotations from news reports: The first reports that the Emperor, although deposed, still believes himself to be Ethiopia’s ruler; the second, very brief and from the official press of the revolutionary Ethiopian government, reports his death from “circulatory failure.”

“The Throne” describes the Emperor’s mornings as ruler: After one of his servants relates how badly Haile Selassie slept as he grew older, another speaks of the Emperor’s first act of the day, a walk in the garden of the New Palace in Addis Ababa while listening to a series of reports by spies. He then would go to the Old Palace and hold his various audiences, hour by hour: the Hour of Assignments, when ministers, governors, clerks, were appointed or reassigned or removed; the Hour of the Cashbox, when money was given or promised to petitioners; the Hour of the Ministers, when the Emperor received reports. “The Throne” ends with the morning; Kapuściński never describes the afternoon, perhaps implying that only in the morning was any serious business undertaken.

“It’s Coming, It’s Coming” foreshadows the end of the reign through flashbacks to the events of the years 1960 and 1968. The Emperor spent most of his time traveling, in this manner escaping the problems of his nation. In 1960, while Haile Selassie was away in Brazil, a rebellion erupted, led by a young man on whom the Emperor had bestowed favors. The palace guard joined the rebellion, while the army supported the Emperor; the rebellion was quashed, the ringleaders committing suicide or being executed. In 1968, the peasants of Gojam Province revolted. This revolt was also suppressed, but it signaled the nation’s growing disaffection. The Emperor responded by instituting three more “hours,” in the afternoon: the Hour of Development, in which new modernizing and meaningless projects were set in motion; the International Hour; and the Army-Police Hour, in which the Emperor rewarded these protectors of the Crown.

In the last section, “The Collapse,” Haile Selassie is presented through the words of his courtiers as a passive sovereign, by his very inaction acquiescing in his own demise. A famine developed in the north, but the court denied that there was anything wrong. When a British broadcaster made a documentary on the famine victims, the facts could not be denied; still, the Emperor and his court failed to act, except to import Swedish instructors to teach calisthenics. The young, especially the young soldiers who had been educated outside the country, recognized the moral emptiness of the state and began to build their own power base. There is no violent revolt this time—there was no need for one. At last the conspirators moved: Saying that they were acting in the Emperor’s name, they arrested his closest advisers, until his whole demoralized court abandoned him and he was left in the palace with only his valet. The conspirators removed the Emperor to a distant palace and announced that he had been deposed.

Critical Context

Although Kapuściński’s work offers itself on the surface as an analysis of the fall of Haile Selassie, it is not simply that. The Emperor also addresses two broader issues: the suffering of the weak and poor in Third World countries and political reactions to that suffering by both the international community and movements within the countries; and the conditions in Kapuściński’s own nation, Poland.

There is no question that Kapuściński’s indignation about the state of the Third World is deeply felt. Kapuściński avoids any direct discussion of international political issues in The Emperor; he never mentions the massive American involvement in prerevolutionary Ethiopia except indirectly, when he speaks of how a fashion show by the American Peace Corps, in allowing university students to come together, sparks the revolution. Nor does he ever speak of the Marxist orientation of many of the revolutionary leaders. Nevertheless, American support of Haile Selassie as well as the political faith of the new rulers is there by implication—and both are criticized.

Polish writing has a long history of being “Aesopian,” using some other country’s troubles in order to speak of Poland and Poland’s problems—as a response to, a way of circumventing, censorship by foreign or domestic governments. Certainly The Emperor was read by most Poles not only as an examination of its declared topic but also as a parable of the Polish world itself, a description of the Polish Communist state of the 1970’s. No Polish writer of Kapuściński’s generation and sophistication could have written what he did without intending more than what he said. Speaking of the “Ethiopian” press, for example, one of Kapuściński’s informants points out that “even what is written loyally can be read disloyally. Someone will start to read a loyal text, then he will want a disloyal one.” That informant speaks for Kapuściński. Indeed, in presenting the dark side of the revolutionary world in Ethiopia, Kapuściński momentarily drops his fable and begins to hint at that “disloyal” text.

Bibliography

Blake, Patricia. Review in Time. CXXII (July 18, 1983), p. 66.

Osiatynski, Wiktor. Review in The Antioch Review. XLII (Fall, 1984), pp. 495-502.

Prescott, Peter S. Review in Newsweek. CI (April 11, 1983), p. 76.

Smiley, Xan. Review in The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVIII (May 29, 1983), p. 9.

Updike, John. Review in The New Yorker. LIX (May 16, 1983), p. 122.