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

Books · Education · People · Humour

John Milton, author of "Paradise Lost" and Foreign Secretary in Cromwell's government, was known during his student years at Cambridge (Christ's College) as the Lady of Christ's: he was long-haired, pale and languid, and sat under a tree in the Fellows' G

John Milton, author of "Paradise Lost" and Foreign Secretary in Cromwell's government, was known during his student years at Cambridge (Christ's College) as the Lady of Christ's: he was long-haired, pale and languid, and sat under a tree in the Fellows&

NB! · Archive · Art · Books

Boethius sees in a mirror how Lady Philosophy, for some reason standing at a distance from the bed, comforts and heals him in his sickness and infirmity

Aristocracy · Books · Monarchies · Mores

Though, in the respectable Nabokov family, things turned out melodramatic enough even without "Poor Nastya": Vladimir Nabokov's grandmother was married to his grandfather from the age of 15 and called her husband "a monkey with cold feet", at the time of

Though, in the respectable Nabokov family, things turned out melodramatic enough even without "Poor Nastya": Vladimir Nabokov's grandmother was married to his grandfather from the age of 15 and called her husband "a monkey with cold feet", while at the time of the wedding

Aristocracy · Books · Observations · Humour

Nabokov's paternal grandmother Maria Ferdinandovna was born Baroness von Korff

It turns out that Nabokov's paternal grandmother, Maria Ferdinandovna, was born a Baroness von Korff. I wonder whether she was related to Baron Korf from "Poor Nastya"? What an amusing turn of events that would be

NB! · Books · People · Humour

The Dadaist Poet Emmy Hennings (1885-1948), or Was She Really Dunya Smirnova?

Medieval miniature: a winged crowned Fortune at a golden wheel, a king seated at the top and courtiers falling down the sides.

NB! · Archive · Art · Books

Wheel of Fortune in a 15th-century illustration to Giovanni Boccaccio's work on the fates of noble people

The Wheel of Fortune in a 15th-century edition of Giovanni Boccaccio's "On the Fates of Illustrious Men and Women" looks like a carousel, with a king enthroned at the very top while courtiers tumble from the rickety side seats

In the Press · Books · Observations · Mores

What the antiques market sells as cocaine boxes and when cocaine became fashionable

Talking of the curious trifles of the past, people often mention cocaine boxes, and their existence surprises hardly anyone: well, what did folk not amuse themselves with in the old days. But if one looks into it, the end of the nineteenth century, say its second half, was nevertheless marked

Books · Mores · Humour

Excerpt from the notes of Diogenes Laertius published by the magazine

Once Diogenes of Sinope (the very one from the barrel) was pleasuring himself in the middle of the marketplace, remarking: if only hunger could be eased by rubbing an empty belly. From the notes of Diogenes Laërtius

Aristocracy · Books · Mores · People

If we are to believe that the prototype of the Queen of Spades was the old Princess Golitsyna, then we must of course bear in mind: Natalya Petrovna was one of the most beautiful women of her time, in Paris she was called the Muscovite Venus, Emperor Geor

If we are to believe that the prototype of the Queen of Spades was the old Princess Golitsyna, then we must of course bear in mind: Natalya Petrovna was one of the most beautiful women of her time, in Paris she was called the Muscovite Venus, Emperor George II gave

NB! · Books · People

In honour of Pushkin's birthday, let us recall one of the most popular covers of "The Queen of Spades"

Faith · Books · Humour

Ethiopians at the deathbed in the “Testimonies of Blessed Theodora” on the afterlife

There is a text called "The Testimony of Blessed Theodora", in which the spirit of a righteous woman of the tenth century, who lived in Tsargrad, tells the cleric who summoned her in a dream what befell Theodora in the afterlife. The pearl of the tale is, beyond

Archive · Books · Observations · Society · Humour

I Once Came Across a Remarkable Letter from the Jewish Writer Vergelis to the Party Bureau of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR on the "Vicious Peculiarities" of Jewish Literature

I once came across a remarkable letter from the Jewish writer Vergelis to the Party Bureau of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR on the "vicious peculiarities" of Jewish literature. The author surveys the work of several Jewish writers: Hofstein, Albirt, Fefer, Der Nister, Bergelson, Dobrushin,