An African offers emeralds from the Chavor mine on a golden tray. To European sovereigns, by all appearances. Balthasar Permoser's sculpture of 1724 is on show at the Luxembourg Museum and, by and large, is not in the least archaic. The exploitation of Africa has since taken on new forms, but has kept the same naive smile of incomprehension at what is going on
Something tells me, on this day of splendid quotations from presidents, that in response to the call not to allow society to be divided into a thinking intellectual elite and people who will find themselves in the second or third rank in their level of intellectual development zealous executors, should
The Voronezh meme finds a new incarnation, this time in a country of the First World
Our time needs men and women who have the courage to do good, even when it involves sacrifice. Draw near to those who are lonely, support the weary and seek out those who have lost their way. Have the courage to forgive, to begin anew and to enter into dialogue.
The Orientalist Grigory Alexandrovich Kozakov, surrounded by his relatives, his daughter-in-law Countess Anna Nikolayevna Tolstaya, the children and their tutor, at a picnic near the village of Zhikharevka in 1903