Gifts in world culture from ancient gift exchange systems to the presents of literary heroes

What is better to give one's beloved: sperm whale teeth, a leg of lamb, a little gold, or a bouquet of tulips in the old-fashioned way? In the pre-holiday Kommersant Style supplement I have mused on the place of gifts in the annals of world culture. For an author there can be no better present than good readers. But where a lady is concerned, one must be rather more careful. Let us think together about how the people of antiquity found their way around intricate systems of gift-giving and how this came to be reflected in our culture; how hard it was in the distant past to make sense of what a gift meant and to grasp what was expected in return; what literary heroes gave one another, and why, and what a dish of French cuisine has to do with it all. I hope I have made my own contribution to the general confusion over presents.

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

Gifts in world culture from ancient gift exchange systems to the presents of literary heroes

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s