Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
The demented belligerence of latter-day domestic Putinist propaganda was not at all typical of its Soviet predecessor in the late 1970s and the 1980s. “The Soviet block has always sought peace; NATO has always wanted war,” so went the official story.…
Jill Dougherty, one of America’s most experienced foreign-affairs journalists, wrote last month: Russia is now “Fortress Russia,” with Putin as its defender, an image hammered home by state-owned media, a stance supported by some Russian voters smarting over what they…
Why would Bashar Assad order the chemical attack in eastern Ghouta? I’ve come across a helpful counterquestion asked by someone in the Russian-speaking parts of the web: And why did Mikhail Tukhachevsky use poison gas against the Tambov insurgents in…
This past Thursday, the US Department of the Treasury announced that John E. Smith will be leaving his position as Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in early May. Mr. Smith has served as OFAC’s Director/Acting Director…
And now for a lighter note. While Googling “John Bayley” & “Wuthering Heights” yesterday, I stumbled on this: The greats we hateSpectator writers and others on the classic books they most dislike Christopher Howse, The Spectator‘s religion columnist, confesses: I…
Johnny Cash sang this at Folsom Prison 50 years ago: Yes, they’re hanging Joe Bean this morningfor a shooting that he never did.He killed twenty men by the time he was ten –he was an unruly kid. It might be…
One of the memorable works at last year’s Someone 1917 exhibition in Moscow was this 1917 painting (alternative links: 1, 2) by Vladimir A. Kuznetsov (1877-1960). Its title can be translated as God’s People or Godly Folk. These are Old Believers praying…
Some three weeks ago, Himadri (the Argumentative Old Git) wrote about the change in his perception of Bruckner’s symphonies, which he used to love as a young man: But it struck me recently that it has been a long time…
Two extracts from 20th-century Russian classics in lieu of commentary to Thursday’s State of the Federation address. “What the hell are you trying to get out of me?” “The same thing that my childhood friend, Kolya Osten-Baken, wanted to get…
RAI, the Italian national broadcaster, has some good images from yesterday’s march in the memory of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow. One of the small signs – white on black – reads, literally, “Who is the customer?” What does it mean?…
Ivan Bunin, the first Russian author to win the Nobel prize in literature, was prone to grumbling about fellow writers’ and poets’ follies. His bitter shots hit the mark most of the time, but occasionally he missed and got hit…
Almost three weeks ago now, the Argumentative Old Git (Himadri Chatterjee) wrote of his plan to re-read Ibsen’s mature works, which include Brand, Peer Gynt and the twelve plays from The Pillars of Society (1877) to When We Dead Awaken…