In an 1855 letter, Herzen asks Alexander II for freedom of speech and the abolition of serfdom

Sire, give freedom to the Russian word. Our intellect is cramped, our thought poisons our breast for want of space, it groans in the stocks of the censorship. Give us free speech... we have something to say to the world and to our own people.
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Wash from Russia the shameful stain of serfdom, heal the blue weals on the backs of our brothers, those dreadful marks of contempt for man.
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I am ashamed at how little we are ready to be content with; we want things whose justice you doubt as little as anyone...

Herzen, in a letter to Alexander II, 10 March 1855.

And yet little has changed. So very little. Apart, that is, from a thoroughly decent tsar, Alexander Nikolayevich.

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Mass adult baptism at an Orthodox mission in Hendersonville, North Carolina

A server holds the phelonion of Father Photius Parks during the mass baptism of adults at the mission of Saint Anthony the Great of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese in Hendersonville, North Carolina. At present, about 24% of all Orthodox Christians in the United States are adults who have

A literacy circle for housewives in a 1931 photograph from the photo-essay "24 Hours in the Life of the Filippov Family"

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

Screenshot of a news item: at a rally in Nebraska Trump suggested Iran could destroy Los Angeles and San Diego.

The Voronezh meme recurs in Trump's remarks on Iran and Los Angeles

The Voronezh meme finds a new incarnation, this time in a country of the First World

Pope Leo XIV on the courage to do good, to forgive and to enter into dialogue

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.

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Mass adult baptism at an Orthodox mission in Hendersonville, North Carolina

A literacy circle for housewives in a 1931 photograph from the photo-essay "24 Hours in the Life of the Filippov Family"

The Voronezh meme recurs in Trump's remarks on Iran and Los Angeles

Pope Leo XIV on the courage to do good, to forgive and to enter into dialogue