Van der Bellen II

Alexander Van der Bellen has been re-elected President of Austria. As I wrote in 2016, when he won his first term, Van der Bellen’s ancestors had moved from the Netherlands to Russia in the 18th century. They lived in Pskov from 1803 until 1919, when the Austrian president’s father – born in 1898 – escaped to Estonia. It makes me think of Bertrand Russell reminiscing about his grandfather, who had met Napoleon at Elba in 1814.