Speaking of Knut Hamsun, one inevitably resorts to adequate but overused definitions such as “a great writer”, “a genius”, etc. Hamsun did not like schematic thinking, was not fond of scientists, and would have never tolerated being interpreted in any standard terms. He hated anniversaries as they reminded him that he fit into the category of “prominent people” whom he ridiculed in his Mysteries. He escaped from home on his own birthdays when his countrymen could turn him – the pride of Norway - into an object of veneration. Did he realize that the distance from wide acclaim to people's hatred was short and that in a not-so-distant future the Norwegians who used to admire him would expel him from their democratic pantheon? Could he know that his destiny would be akin to that of Socrates – at first the admiration, then the rage of the demos? What the future held for Hamsun was actually worse: Socrates was mortified by the democracy of Athens which used to be blunt and free of hypocrisy, while Hamsun was to face the trial set up by the modern democracy which – not having the courage to sentence him – declared him having permanently impaired mental abilities. Every epoch has a weapon of its own, and the modern democracy is armed with hypocrisy and lies.

Perhaps the best way to describe Hamsun would be to say nothing, but silence is not among the talents appreciated nowadays. Our way of talking about Hamsun – praising him – may be the riskiest.

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August 4, 2009 was the 150th birthday of Knut Hamsun, Nobel Prize winner and one of the most popular authors in Europe and Russia. In Russia, where plenty of attention is typically paid to writers of much smaller caliber, the anniversary largely remained unnoticed. Knut Hamsun is too particular a figure representing an extraordinary literary and political phenomenon that the modern epoch simply cannot accommodate. He is often – and with sufficient reasons – likened to Dostoevsky, but, in terms of intellectual courage and sense of mission, Hamsun's actual counterpart in the Russian literature is Konstantin Leontyev. Hamsun's consequent and uncompromising anti-progressism led him to an apology of Hitler and romantically perceived national socialism. This fact alone would be enough to make “the last Viking of Norway” an unacceptable figure in our epoch.

There is yet another significant circumstance which makes Hamsun an alien in Europe and, strangely enough, in Russia. It is Hamsun's affinity for the latter. Quite possibly, denigrating Russia, portraying it as a “barbarian empire” would have earned Hamsun pardon for Quisling...

Hamsun invoked the theme of Russia several times. His In Wonderland is an account of a 1899 journey across Russia and the Caucasus. In terms of the literary genre, it stands somewhere between Mark Twain's account of the Hawaii trip and Dostoevsky's Winter Notes on Summer impressions. Attention to minute details of daily life and psychology puts Hamsun close to Mark Twain, while the philosophical depth and providentialism, disguised to varying extents, bring him close to the giant of the Russian literature.

In Wonderland may be the book where Hamsun expressed his concept of history, as well as his views on the objectives and limitations of human activity and the prospects for mankind in a more concentrated form than in any other of his books. The truth is that the prospects, in Hamsun's view, were dire. While Dostoevsky is widely regarded as the prophet who predicted the anti-utopias of the XX century, the prophesy of his Norwegian admirer and, to an extent, follower Hamsun clearly refers to the XXI century.

Knut Hamsun used to be blunt and straightforward in his writings, and his position is explicitly revealed already in the book's title. Wonderland means Russia, details like the lack of political liberties in the country, the Siberian exiles, etc. notwithstanding.

Hamsun's familiarization with Russia (the Great Russia, as he wrote) began in St. Petersburg, but what really impressed him was Moscow. Hamsun, who had been to practically all parts of the world, described Moscow as the most miraculous city he had ever seen.

Recalling his visit to Moscow, Hamsun addresses – for the first time in the book – the theme of Slavdom and its future; “Slavs! ... The people of the future, the masters of the world second only to Germans! Only a nation such as Russians can have such lofty and noble literature. The eight great Russian writers are like eight eternal hot streams. It will take us a long time to learn this literature and to get closer to it”. The statement could not possibly be clearer. Elsewhere in the book Hamsun portrayed sympathetically the Russians he happened to meet – Muscovites, peasants, officers, etc. He admired the life and poetry of the cossacks as the most militant and the only poetic people of the steppe.

Notably, Hamsun held in high esteem the people in military service. While Europe harbored a hidden fear of Russia which routinely translated into hatred, and permanently charged the country with militarism, Hamsun saw things in a totally different light. Interestingly, Hamsun liked the peoples of the Caucasus, but regarded their future exclusively as being an integral part of Russia.

On the whole, In Wonderland is one of Hamsun's brightest books. He wrote warmly, even with love about the Russian Empire and its peoples, particularly Russians. In Wonderland, obviously due to Hamsun's literally Slavophil views, collides with Marquis De Custine's 1839 Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia. No doubt, should Hamsun have written something like De Custine's collection of aspersions, the liberal Russia of today would have welcomed it much more than In Wonderland. Yet, Hamsun did the unthinkable – he wrote about Russia with admiration that neither the Europeans nor even the alienated Russian intellectuals of that epoch could understand.

There are quite a few Russian characters in Hamsun's other books, and they are portrayed as aristocratic, broad-natured, and poetic. In Hamsun's A Bit of Paris the story is told by a Russian.

Hamsun may appear a stranger to politics, but the impression is misleading. “The last Viking of Norway”, Hamsun actually outlines an unorthodox political philosophy in his writings, especially in In Wonderland. Indirectly and implicitly, he advocates the idea that politics must be guided by lofty goals. Such a goal for Hamsun is the spiritual life, a spiritual unity with nature and the soil. Not surprisingly, Hamsun was not disturbed by the Russian Empire's lack of political liberties – he used to be open about the contempt he felt for the holy cows of liberalism and humanism. Hamsun devised his own paradoxical but profound interpretation of the Russian history which converged with that of K. Leontyev, the conclusion being that Slavs had to be the future of Europe.

It is well known that Hamsun combined support for Russia and Germany, and the contradiction is illusory. Hamsun's aversion to the US and especially to Great Britain was indicative of his vision of the European future: it was a non-capitalist Europe with aristocratic spirit and culture, reinforced by the alliance of Russia and Germany, the two great nations with great cultures. The two great powers were to unite Europe in the opposition to the Anglo-Saxon cultural and political expansion.