Friends, I've recorded a fresh podcast on "The White Lotus" in the context of Eastern cultures

With my co-host and fellow Orientalist Lesha Strizhov, we discuss how the plot of the series is connected with the history of Thailand. What do the heroes of "The White Lotus" have in common with the heroes of Eastern epic? What mythological and religious parallels can be traced in the fabric of the series? And what place do incest, gratitude and irresponsibility occupy in the narrative?

This is the first episode of my new project for "The Magical East".

Download, listen, share, comment! The second episode follows in a week.

For now the podcast has been uploaded to Yandex Music, Litres and Apple, other platforms should appear shortly, but in any case the link gives you a convenient player with the option of downloading the whole file

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is 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

Friends, I've recorded a fresh podcast on "The White Lotus" in the context of Eastern cultures

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

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