Aristocracy · Books · Mores · Society
What Do the Nobility Think of Commoners Who Have Made Their Way in the World? "These plebeians, who somehow or other force their way up: in all the many I have met, I have found them a remarkably capable and clever lot… Seminarists, petty townsfolk, all this small fry:
Archive · Books · Observations · Humour
How about this self-portrait of Pushkin as a horse? Drawing on the draft of the poem “Andrei Chénier”, 1825
Moscow · Observations · Society
It has become known that Anatoly Shuliev, a graduate of the Shchukin School, has been appointed chief director of the Vakhtangov Theatre. Why is this news of interest? First, the Vakhtangov is the richest and, to all intents and purposes, the foremost theatre in Russia. Second, for a long time
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NB! · Art · Moscow · Observations · Society Pages
Faith · Art · Mores · Rome
Attacks on Michelangelo's fresco "The Last Judgement" on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel began while it was still being painted. The grievances were various: some disliked the treatment of the subject, others were displeased by the realistic manner of depiction. The masterpiece was called
NB! · Art · Museums
Art · People · Rome
When Orest Kiprensky presented a portrait of his father to the Roman Academy of Painting, the president declared, on behalf of the Academy, that the Russian artist was attempting to pass off as his own work a painting from the brush of Rubens. Certain academicians expressed their conviction that the
Art · Mores · People · Rome
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, already a very celebrated artist in Russia (1805: Large Gold Medal for the painting “Dmitry Donskoy on the Field of Kulikovo”; 1812: academician; his contemporaries called him the Russian Van Dyck), lived for long stretches in Rome, which he first reached in 1816, at the age of
NB! · Cinema · Observations · Society · Pop Culture · Humour
Well, well: the petition to axe the history-falsifying show about a black Cleopatra has simply been taken down. How democratic
Archive · Faith · Science · Mores · People
Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov makes a most unexpected connection between the Easter festivities and a rise in mortality. In one of his letters to Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov, written in 1761, speaking of Easter, Lomonosov describes the dangers to life and the multitude of deaths that overtake the Orthodox people every year.
Archive · Faith · Books · Mores · Ethnography
"The bright Resurrection of Christ draws near, the universal joy of Christendom. Then, though the Passion of the Lord is read almost without cease and many times repeated, our thoughts are already upon Holy Week: one pictures to himself pleasant and rich dishes; another wonders whether his clothes will