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Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage · Society
Closures of churches in the departments and administrative reforms in the author's view
The Destruction of Churches in France: A Standard Procedure in the Package of Measures for Changing a Civilisational Substrate. Several churches a year in every département. The reasons may be purely formal, in this case administrative reforms that turn Christian places of worship into an expensive burden on the books
Monarchies · Museums · Society
The Role of Russian Troops in the Liberation of the Netherlands from the French in 1813
On 24 November 1813 Russian Cossacks liberated Amsterdam from the French invaders. Russian and Prussian troops helped the Dutch to free their country from the French, and soon after the events in Amsterdam the Netherlands proclaimed its independence. But the Dutch now react very painfully to statements along the lines
Archive · Moscow · Science · Society
The Great Solar Eclipse of 19 June 1936 and the Arrests of Soviet Astronomers
Muscovites observe the Great Solar Eclipse of 19 June 1936: a solar eclipse on the eve of the repressions. Photographs by Yefrem Yefremov. Against the purplish-grey sky there flared a silken, silvery corona, of the form typical of the epoch of solar maximum. The absolutely black disc of the
Faith · Art · Books
Alexey Khomyakov's 1841 verses on God's truth and earthly armour
The singing shepherd, for a martial feat, Took up no heavy sword, No helmet, no armour of tempered steel, No mail from Saul's shoulder; But, overshadowed by the spirit of God, He took a plain flint in the field - And the foreign-born foe fell, Flashing an. And
Faith · Art · Museums · Science · Mores
Restorers at the Amsterdam Museum find a comet tattoo in a 17th century group portrait
Oldest Tattoo in Dutch Painting Discovered. Conservators have discovered the image of a tattoo while examining a seventeenth-century group portrait that had returned from an exhibition. Specialists at the Amsterdam Museum believe the tattoo, found on the wrist of the presumably wealthy merchant Wessel Smits, to be the oldest
Faith · Books · Observations · Rome
Julien Green on Pope Pius XI's blessing in Saint Peter's Square in 1935
Hundreds of young German Catholics in the square shouted "Heil!", stretching out their right arms. Shortly after noon I found myself in St Peter's Square, among several thousand people. From the balcony of the loggia the Supreme Pontiff (Pius XI, Pope from 1922 to 1939) blessed
Art
James Pradier's Venus with a Shell: an Unsung Masterpiece of Neoclassicism
The first half of the nineteenth century
NB! · Coming Up · Art
Christie's to Sell Michelangelo's Study for the Libyan Sibyl in February
In February Christie's will offer for sale Michelangelo's study of the foot of the Libyan Sibyl, made for the Sistine Chapel fresco. The study, in red chalk, is estimated at $1.5 to 2 million
NB! · Observations
Fill It In and Come Along
Observations · Society · Humour
Greta Thunberg Banned from Venice for 48 Hours After Dyeing the Water of the Grand Canal Green
And why, pray, forty-eight hours? It might at least have been two years, with twelve strokes of a willow switch on the *forbidden word thrown in. And make her scrub the canals for a couple of weeks besides
Archive · Books · Mores · Society · People
Leonid Brezhnev's memoirs of his mother Natalia Denisovna
By nationality I am Russian, by origin a native proletarian, a hereditary metalworker. That is all that is known of my ancestry In the memoirs of Leonid Brezhnev, which are believed to have been written from his words by several prominent journalists and editors of the day and merely edited