Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
The latest from the US Treasury: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in consultation with the Department of State, today designated seven Russian oligarchs and 12 companies they own or control, 17 senior Russian…
Historian Alexander Yanov has lived in the US since 1974 and has taught Russian history at the University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, and CUNY. He must have retired from regular teaching but keeps contributing to Russian media projects and sites,…
Innokenty Annensky wrote in The Second Book of Reflections (1909, Brand-Ibsen, pp. 173-179): Perhaps what’s captivating in Brand is that Brand does not fear being a psychological absurdity from time to time, that we’re judging Brand, marvel at him, go…
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…
Gooseberry is on the list of American imports that China might subject to retaliatory tarriffs (I think it’s the last one on line 66, or 08112000, of the product list published by the PRC’s Ministry of Commerce). The etymology of…
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…
It seems to me that quite a few Russian speakers have appreciated the comic quality of the latest address by the Russian president-for-life. It fits nicely with the latest surge in grotesque Russian news – including cocaine smuggling by presidential airplane –…
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…
Central Russia has gotten too much snow in the past week – ideally, it should have fallen over a few weeks, not days – but the cities and the countryside are finally looking the way they ought to in the…