Name: Poblamiento del Continente Americano
ISBN: 978-9929-687-90-5

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Tatyana Gnedich, arrested in 1945, translated Byron’s “Don Juan” in prison

“Gnedich was arrested right at the end of the war, in 1945. By her own account, she had denounced herself. What she told was scarcely plausible, yet it may have been the product of a peculiar wartime psychosis: supposedly she, then a candidate member of the Party (at the Central

NB! · Books

George Gordon Byron, Don Juan

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Pushkin's letter to his friend Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky of 27 May 1826

"I despise my fatherland from head to foot, of course, but it vexes me if a foreigner shares this feeling with me" Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, in a letter to his friend Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky, 27 May 1826

NB! · Books · Museums

A Display Devoted to Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature at the National Library of Kazakhstan

Archive · Art · Books

The Murder of Julius Caesar in an Illustration to Boccaccio's Book, 1475 Edition

The death of Julius Caesar, from Giovanni Boccaccio's "On the Fates of Illustrious Men and Women". 1475 edition. Bleeding, Caesar, crowned and wearing an ermine-trimmed mantle, clutches at a marble column surmounted by a statue, while five helmeted soldiers attack him, two of them running

Books · Observations · Science · Humour

On citing Foucault as absolute truth and on the humanities as interpretation

First of all, my regards to all those who so love to cite Foucault, apropos of anything and nothing, as the last word in truth. It is curious that it is mostly people acquainted with just one of his books, "Discipline and Punish", who do so. Secondly, it

Archive · Books · Observations · Society

Could Europeans, Englishmen or Americans of the nineteenth century ever have thought of banning Russian culture, which was precisely then acquiring worldwide significance and influence?

I doubt it. Especially when I read, for instance, in a letter from Charles Dickens to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whether he knows of the new Russian authors, such as Nikolai Gogol and his "Taras Bulba".

NB! · Aristocracy · Books · London · Mores

A Few Words on the Correct Pronunciation of English Aristocratic Surnames and Proper Names, According to a Reference Work on the British Aristocracy

Books · Education · Society

Mikhail Pogodin, in an 1832 lecture, on Russia's primacy among the European powers

Having looked upon Russia in a moment of her repose, let us now consider one of her deeds, accomplished before our very eyes. All Europe, having made ready for several years and gathered its forces, in the persons of twenty tongues, burst through undefended frontiers into the very heart of

Books · Observations · People

Turgenev on Cosmopolitanism and Nationality in “Rudin” of 1856

Rudin's misfortune is that he does not know Russia, and it is certainly a great misfortune. Russia can do without any one of us, but none of us can do without her. Woe to him who thinks so, and double woe to him who actually does without her!

NB! · Architecture · Books · Mores

The Interior of Marcel Proust's Apartment

Books

Anna Akhmatova's 1934 poem on the smell of blood, the Roman governor and the Scottish queen

Wild honey smells of open space, Dust, of a sunbeam, A girl's mouth, of the violet, And gold, of nothing at all. Mignonette smells of water, And love, of an apple. But we have learned for ever That blood smells only of blood… Literal translation And in vain