Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Vasily Klyuchevsky’s A Course of Russian History (1902-04) was translated into English by C. J. Hogarth and published in 1911-31. All the five volumes can be found at archive.org by searching for Kluchevsky, without the first y. Judging by Volume I,…
In 2014 and 2016, I wrote several posts about Novorossiya (or Novorossia, or simply New Russia) as a historical term denoting certain areas to the north, northeast, and east of the Black Sea, as opposed to a latter-day political label. There…
Stephen Kotkin, the author of two biographical books on Stalin, wrote in this week’s issue of the Times Literary Supplement: Solzhenitsyn wrote it [The Gulag Archpelago] conspiratorially, in fragments, hiding his completed sections in the homes of trusted allies… In…
Eimuntas Nekrošius, the great Lithuanian theater director, died in Vilnius on November 20 on the day before his 66th birthday. He was loved and revered by Russian theater-goers and theater-makers. He was one of the masters whose achievement made possible…
Two teasers for a start. A new hotel on the outskirts of Moscow: It is even further out of town and stands next to an enormous strip club. Several of my fellow guests are wearing T-shirts with a picture of…
The German terms Cäsarenwahn and Cäsarenwahnsinn gained some currency in the second half of the 19th century thanks to a novel by Gustav Freytag, a psychiatric treatise by Friedrich Wiedermeister, and a historical study by Ludwig Quidde. In the last…
Streetwise Professor (Craig Pirrong) explained spoofing on electronic exchanges in this post three years ago. Yesterday, he wrote about the US Department of Justice (DOJ) indicting a group of traders for alleged spoofing. The stunning part of the indictment is…
I’ve linked before to James Wood’s review of Pushkin: A Biography by T.J. Binyon. I’m linking to it again for this observation: Sylvia Plath once longed to write a poem that might be roomy enough to include a toothbrush. But…
A few weeks ago, at an airport, I heard a lady instruct her kids over the phone to not use a floordrobe the coming night. A much-needed word! The next moment, I thought of a 101-year-old Russian poem: Truly, at…
Google Antopol, and you’ll get lots of hits related to Molly Antopol, the American author of The UnAmericans, a short story collection. Her ancestors, like Stephen Miller’s and David Glosser’s, once lived in that shtetl in the Grodno area, in…
David Glosser’s attempted attack on his nephew Stephen Miller opens with this introduction into their shared family history: It begins at the turn of the 20th century, in a dirt-floor shack in the village of Antopol, a shtetl of subsistence…
Sergei M. Soloviev, the great Russian historian, visited Brussels in 1842 (possibly 1843) as a young graduate of the Moscow University. He wrote of Belgium with great warmth: … and the cities – with their heroic medieval history, their blooming…