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# "The Angel of History," wrote Benjamin, "has his face turned toward the past, but a storm is blowing from Paradise and propels him irresistibly into the future
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/angel-istorii-pisal-beniamin-obrashchion-litsom-k-proshlomu-no-uragan-iz-raia-neuderzhimo-nesiot-ego-vperiod/
- Published: 2026-04-07T13:53:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:26:22.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: In the Press, The East, Museums, Heritage, Society, Paris

"The Angel of History," wrote Benjamin, "has his face turned toward the past, but a storm is blowing from Paradise and propels him irresistibly into the future. What to us appears as a chain of events, to him is one single catastrophe." March turned out to be precisely such a month. We recall the key publications of the Parnassian Mockingbird over the past month in the digest.

🔴 For the first time in the whole history of Christianity the Pharisees have [forbidden](https://theparnassian.com/vpervye-v-istorii-khristianstva-khram-groba-gospodnia-zakryt-na-neopredelennyi-srok/?ref=theparnassian.com) services in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the days of Holy Week. They have closed what neither the Crusaders, nor Napoleon, nor two world wars ever closed.

🏛 The director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, has [resigned](https://theparnassian.com/sluchilos-to-chto-dolzhno-bylo-proizoiti-chetyre-mesiatsa-nazad-posle-ogrableniia-luvra-ego-direktor-lorans-de-kar-podala-v-otstavku-a-prezident-frantsii-ee-prinial/?ref=theparnassian.com) after the October robbery. For her, as for her predecessor, a post that had never existed before was promptly devised. This is called keeping up a brave face.

📚 In Russia scholars have [begun to be fined](https://theparnassian.com/v-rossii-fiksiruiutsia-sluchai-shtrafov-za-upominanie-materialov-ot-universitetov-i-obrazovatelnykh-tsentrov-priznannykh-miniustom-nezhelatelnymi-organizatsiiami/?ref=theparnassian.com) for references in scientific articles to foreign universities declared "undesirable", including for publications many years old. The courts regard this as a "continuing violation".

🎭 A theatrical set by Salvador Dalí, twenty by thirty metres, for the 1939 ballet Bacchanale, has been [put up for auction](https://theparnassian.com/parizhskii-auktsionnyi-dom-bonhams-vystavit-na-torgi-samuiu-bolshuiu-kartinu-salvadora-dali-a-vernee-teatralnuiu-dekoratsiiu-20-na-30-metrov/?ref=theparnassian.com). Coco Chanel and the legendary set designer of the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo, Prince Shervashidze, worked on the production.

🎬 American silent cinema is [one of the summits](https://theparnassian.com/v-2013-godu-biblioteka-kongressa-ssha-opublikovala-doklad-s-krasnorechivym-nazvaniem-vyzhivaemost-amerikanskikh-nemykh-khudozhestvennykh-filmov-1912-1929-iz-kotorogo-sleduet-chto-my-nav/?ref=theparnassian.com) of world art. Three quarters of its legacy was destroyed on purpose: the studios melted down the film for the silver. Of the 11,000 films of the era only a small part has come down to us.

⚔️ During the repair of the floor in a Maastricht church a [skeleton was found](https://theparnassian.com/v-tserkvi-sviatykh-petra-i-pavla-v-maastrikhte-pri-remonte-povrezhdionnogo-pola-obnaruzhili-skelet-kotoryi-predpolozhitelno-prinadlezhit-dartanianu-nastoiashchemu-ofitseru-stavshemu-pro/?ref=theparnassian.com) with a French coin of the seventeenth century and a fragment of a musket ball. For twenty-eight years a Dutch archaeologist searched for the grave of the real d'Artagnan, and may well have found it.

🚂 In 1933 in Gorky Park the Soviet monorail aerotrain of the engineer Waldner was [tested](https://theparnassian.com/aeropoezd-valdnera-sovetskii-poezd-budushchego-kotoryi-nikuda-ne-poekhal/?ref=theparnassian.com): 300 seats, 300 km/h, Tupolev at work on the design. The project was closed. The idea was rediscovered in the West half a century later and called an innovation.

📜 The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences has [opened](https://theparnassian.com/khochu-skazat-bolshoe-spasibo-kollektivu-instituta-vostokovedeniia-ran-za-publikatsiiu-v-otkrytom-dlia-vsekh-besplatnom-dostupe-knig-napisannykh-sotrudnikami-instituta-za-vsio-vremia-eg/?ref=theparnassian.com) free access to everything its staff have published over the decades: thousands of monographs on the history of the East, Central Asia, Japan and China, and translations of the classics. A rare case when one simply wants to say thank you.

⚽️ UEFA has [fined](https://theparnassian.com/serbskii-futbolnyi-klub-tsrvena-zvezda-oshtrafovan-uefa-na-95-tysiach-evro-za-to-chto-ego-bolelshchiki-vylozhili-na-tribunakh-izobrazhenie-pravoslavnogo-sviatogo-prepodobnogo-simeona-mi/?ref=theparnassian.com) the Serbian club Crvena Zvezda 95,000 euros because its supporters displayed an image of an Orthodox saint in the stands. The European football union deemed Christian symbols out of place at a sporting event.

🗝 A [conversation](https://theparnassian.com/samoe-vazhnoe-o-chem-mne-udalos-pogovorit-s-mikhailom-piotrovskim-eto-ne-permanentnyi-direktoropad-v-moskve-ne-ograblenie-luvra-i-dazhe-ne-isteriki-vokrug-kolonialnykh-muzeev-a-ochen-ko/?ref=theparnassian.com) with Mikhail Piotrovsky about the modern museum, and one unexpected question: will the Hermitage return the fourteenth-century lamps from a Kazakhstan mausoleum, taken to Leningrad in 1935 "for temporary safekeeping"? Of the six, two and a half ended up in Russia