First Russia, Then Tibet

This book combines the travel notes of the English traveler, journalist, art historian, and writer Robert Byron (1905–1941) about Russia, India, and Tibet — three countries that, in the early 1930s, were on the brink of significant changes in society and culture. Byron immersed himself in the study of ancient Russian painting but still managed to interact with the creators of the avant-garde, particularly Shchusev and Grinberg. From a country that is the apotheosis of the industrial revolution, through the tumultuous India, he set off to pre-industrial Tibet, where the Dalai Lama sheltered in the palace and moved exclusively in a palanquin. Byron undertook his journey in search of alternative models of social organization to the West, as well as to understand, 'from whom and what this world consists,' and as a result, it resulted in an honest, passionate, and visionary account of an eyewitness about the antagonism of two great cultures and the loud historical upheavals of the first half of the 20th century.