Archive · Books · People

Nominations of Boris Pasternak for the Nobel Prize from 1946 to 1958

It Turns Out Pasternak Was Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature Six Times. The first occasion was in 1946, when Boris Pasternak's candidacy was proposed by the English Slavist and translator of Silver Age poetry Cecil Maurice Bowra. He nominated Pasternak again in 1949. In 1948 and

NB! · Archive · Faith · The East · Society · People

Saint Gabriel (Urgebadze) of Georgia burns a twelve-metre portrait of the godless Lenin during the May Day demonstration in Tbilisi in 1965

NB! · Archive · The East · Geography

View of Yerevan, from "Chardin's Travels in Persia", undertaken by the merchant Jean Chardin in 1666

Archaeology · Archive · The East · Books · London · Museums · Observations · Ethnography

Inflated skins in Assyria and on the Pamirs in the accounts of Zarubin and Bobrinsky

I am reading the diary of Professor Ivan Ivanovich Zarubin about his journey to the Pamirs in the summer of 1914. He describes sailing down a mountain river on a raft made of inflated goatskins. It brought to mind the Neo-Assyrian relief of the 8th century BC from the

Archive · Books · Society

Book print runs in the USSR according to the 1939 collection “Pechat Strany Sotsializma”

The 1939 volume "The Press of the Land of Socialism" offers valuable data on the state of the publishing industry in the USSR. For example, it gives a comparative breakdown of book output and the print runs of books issued in particular fields and by particular authors. If

Archive · Art · Heritage

Relocation of Michelangelo’s David to the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence in 1873 and its replacement by a copy

The removal of Michelangelo's David from Piazza della Signoria to the Galleria dell'Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in 1873. A copy was set up in the square in place of the original; otherwise, in all likelihood, the legendary sculpture would by now have suffered badly

An American soldier in a helmet and a Soviet soldier in a side cap stand with their arms around each other in a black and white photograph.

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Soviet and American troops meet on the Elbe on 25 April 1945

On 25 April 1945, exactly 80 years ago, the meeting on the Elbe took place. Advance units of the Soviet army met troops of the US First Army. After that, Hitler's army lasted for about two weeks

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Heritage

The Athenian Acropolis in Photographs of the 1890s and Today

Engraved page of an old book with musical staves and images of a rooster, a hen with chicks, a cuckoo, a quail and a parrot, with notation of their calls.

NB! · Archive · Science · People · Nature

Jesuit Athanasius Kircher notated birdsong in the seventeenth century

The seventeenth-century German polymath and Jesuit monk Athanasius Kircher is known for his description of China, his microscopic researches and his unsuccessful attempt to decipher Egyptian writing. But we understand that this man was a genuine genius when we see his musical notation of birdsong

Archive · Books · Education

The Soviet Union is a great country

A Soviet English textbook, 1953

NB! · Archive · Mores · People · Humour

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife, Louisa Hawkins, on a tricycle in 1892

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife, Louisa Hawkins, on a tricycle in 1892. Thank God, not on a scooter

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God Is Light

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, a painting by Arkhip Kuindzhi. This is the most enigmatic of Kuindzhi's works, which he showed, together with a few others, after 20 years of silence. And those who saw it were his 4 pupils. The second time, Kuindzhi showed the picture