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Maria Bashkirtseva’s 1876 diary entry on how her father and others treat her

I can only admire myself: people yield to me, flatter me and, what is more important, love me. Father, who at first wished to cast me down from the throne, has now almost fully understood why I am shown royal honours, and, despite a certain hardness of character, shows them

Fresh News on the Radio, 1958

Photo by Yevgeny Khaldei

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · People

Nicholas II at the hunting lodge in 1894

Black-and-white photograph of a woman and a small girl holding hands beside a wrought-iron railing, with trees behind.

Archive · Books · Paris · People

Marina Tsvetaeva on France and a photograph of the poet in Paris

In some respects of history we (France and Russia) coincide; more than that: there are sides of history that we feel upon our own sides. Marina Tsvetaeva on France. In the photograph: Tsvetaeva in Paris

Ink drawing of a two-storey house with a chimney: a girl with pigtails labelled Valya in the upper window, Baba Yaga in the lower one.

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Mikhail Belomlinsky drew a house for Kostyor magazine where Valya and Baba Yaga live

Valya and Baba Yaga, or, as the estate agents say, "Wonderful, considerate neighbours!" Illustration for the magazine Kostyor. Mikhail Samuilovich Belomlinsky

NB! · Archive · Books · People · Nature

Vladimir Nabokov Hunting Butterflies

Archive · Art · Humour

No Bremen residence permit, no leave!

Illustration from the magazine Krokodil, Viktor Alexandrovich Chizhikov

Archive · Observations · Humour

A French Soldier Lights a Cigarette for a Macedonian Child during the First World War

A German soldier offers a cigarette to a Serbian child. What touching, unfeigned solicitude for childhood.

Black-and-white group photograph of nine men seated in two rows on a step by a window.

NB! · Archive · Art · Paris · Humour

Man Ray, Éluard, Dalí, Breton and Crevel change places in a photograph of the Surrealists

The Surrealists have changed seats. Man Ray has moved to Paul Éluard's place, Paul Éluard to Dalí's, Dalí to André Breton's, André Breton to René Crevel's, and René Crevel to Man Ray's. Tristan Tzara, Jean Arp, Yves Tanguy and Max

Archive · Art · Books · Paris

Surrealists and the Dadaists Who Joined Them, from Tzara to Man Ray

Surrealists in Paris in 1933: Tristan Tzara, Paul Éluard, André Breton, Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, René Crevel and Man Ray. Tristan Tzara was a poet and a founder of Dadaism. In early 1930, together with Francis Ponge and Paul Nougé, he supported the first issue of

Archive · Monarchies · Mores

Alexander III with his children watering trees in the garden

Late 1880s.

NB! · Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies