Abstract: This study reconstitutes the impressions Balzac experienced and described during these three voyages to the Russian Empire in 1843, 1847, and 1848-50, through recourse to his correspondence and the Lettre sur Kiew in the absence of a diary or travelogue: brief notes, things seen, quick reactions to passing towns as well as to local customs and mores that remain sensitive to the ideological debate over the advantages and disadvantages of the autocratic regime.
