Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
If any of the wrongs that Russia’s government has recently committed merits international interference or protests, it has to be the conviction of Svetlana Bakhmina, a former corporate lawyer with YUKOS, for “embezzlement” and “tax evasion.” The convicted mother of…
This time at Sean’s Russki Blog, while commenting on the unnatural affection for the Georgian monster common not only among the underclass but among the people who, by virtue of their education, have a duty to know better: Russians are…
Alexandr Dolinin on perceptions of early America in old Russia, in his review — mostly scathing — of Alexandr Etkind’s Interpretation of Travels: In Chapter VII of Part 2 (“De l’omnipotence de la majorité aux Etats-Unis et de ses effets”)…
As one Russian LiveJournal blogger remarked, if David Irving deserves three years in jail, Anatoly T. Fomenko deserves the firing squad. Fomenko, a member of the Russian Academy of Science, is a distinguished mathematician with an all too avid interest…
Stories of Syrian protesters “spontaneously” gathering by the Danish embassy for a round of stone-throwing remind me of Soviet students throwing inkpots into the windows of the Chinese embassy. MGU (Moscow State University), my alma mater, is within a walking…
From a comment I left elsewhere: “The basis for authoritarianism” that is probably buried in the Russian soul is a desire to stay clear of politics as an ugly business and to have somebody else sort it all out and…
J. Cassian has translated Fear, a story by Guy de Maupassant. P.S. As J.C. points out, Maupassant wrote (at least) two stories entitled La Peur; this one is the lesser known. Knowing that lots of Maupassant have been translated into…
Having read this dressing-down of Bernard-Henri Lévy’s new book on America, American Vertigo, I am tempted to compare Lévy’s writings on America to Custine’s writings on Russia but respect for the Marquis tells me to resist the temptation. A nobleman…
In the days before and after the feast of Epiphany, or Baptism of the Lord (Jan. 19 for the Russian Orthodox) the weather in European Russia is supposed to be particularly cold and severe. This is known as kreschenskie morozy,…
Black Brazilians and Americans come to Benin to join Voodoo worshippers: At a ceremony in the southern town of Ouidah, Voodoo high priestess [of what god?] Nagbo Hounon Gbeffa sacrificed a goat, a rooster and a chicken as divine offerings…
I did not know January 10 was Voodoo Day in Benin. According to AP, The religion was repressed in Benin, then banned during incumbent President Mathieu Kerekou’s first 18-year stint in power, which ended in 1991. Kerekou’s Marxist regime believed…
The 20th century produced two outstanding Russian scholars of the same name, Gasparov. Mikhail L. Gasparov, the linguist, translator and literary scholar, died in Moscow last month. Boris M. Gasparov, a culturologist if I may call him so, teaches at…