A Journey to Nowhere by Jean-Paul Kauffmann: book review

A Journey to Nowhere: Detours and Riddles in theLands and History of Courland (2009, English version 2012) is a long title for a novel about a place that no longer exists.

Kauffmann’s book is part historical essay, part novel, and part travelogue. It is about Courland, a region in the Baltic country Latvia. The Teutonic Knights held control from 1237 and it was part of Latvia and Estonia until 1561 after which time it was an independent duchy until 1795. In 1795 the Duke of Courland ceded the duchy to the Russian Empire. After World War I, Courland became one of four provinces in Latvia that initially gained independence in 1918. Germany occupied it in World War II and Soviet Russia re-conquered it in 1944. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it became part of independent Latvia.

The novel commences in the late 1960s in Montreal, Canada, where Kauffmann, a Frenchman, meets a Courlander, although she had never been there. Thirty years later, working as a journalist in Paris, he meets another Courlander, a direct descendant of Dorothear of Courland, who also had never been there. His editor-in-chief suggested that he travel there to produce an article. With his fascination for French King Louis XVIII, who spent time in exile in Courland, the author packed his bags.

In the late 1990s, Kauffmann begins his Courland experience in Liepaja (formerly Libau), a naval port built in 1890 and a Soviet military base until 1994. With closed factories, ruins and deserted farms, it had a “curious feeling of a wasteland” – graffiti shows two hearts joined by a safety pin. Partially sunk shipwrecks lie offshore as a reminder of the Soviet base. Known as “the city where the wind is born” it was also the port where Russian Jews fled from to migrate to New York from 1906-1914.

Kauffmann travels to the enclave, Karosta, “isolated by a swivelling bridge … a masterpiece of modern architecture” designed by Gustave Eiffel – of the Eiffel Tower fame. He visits a disused country mansion in Katzdangen, the Sabile vineyard, Moricsala (an island), the village of Pope, the Ventspils castle, Blankenburg and Talsi.

It is Mitau that is most fascinating. It reminded Louis XVIII of Versailles, near Paris. Of 23 years in exile from France the French king spent the years 1791-1801 and 1804-1807 in Courland. His chateau, called Jelgava Palace, was Russian Rococo style with “a touch of Versailles … [but] nothing of the Grand Siecle, however.” Bartolomeo Rastrelli, born in Paris of Italian heritage, built the palace in 1700. He also constructed the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia, which houses the Heritage Museum. 

Kauffmann notes that one of Courland’s famous residents, from the city Dundaga, was Arvids Blumentals, also known as Australia’s Crocodile Dundee, portrayed by Paul Hogan in the movie.

Courland, with the Gulf of Riga to the north, the Baltic to the west, and Lithuania to its south, it is now part of Latvia, and therefore no longer exists as a separate country. Kauffmann concludes that Courland “is the land of joyful desolation,” possibly a reference to Buzz Aldrin, the first man to walk on the moon, who described its surface as “magnificent desolation” in 1969. Courland has been “losing its identity since 1945.”

Kauffmann’s style is easy to read, entertaining, and interesting. He has a conversational style, open to commenting on his thoughts and feelings as he researches a place that has obsessed him since the 1960s due to his Courlander lover in Canada. While he never actually falls in love with Courland, he does have a wistful tone to his descriptions and a sincere curiosity for the past and its memories.