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

Medieval miniature: a crowned woman with a child in radiance, red multi-headed dragons and an angel with a sword on a starry blue ground in a gold frame.

Archive · Faith · Art · Books

Revelation of John the Divine, Chapter XII, on the Woman and the Dragon in a medieval miniature

The Woman Clothed with the Sun, with the Moon under Her Feet, Who Gave Her Child up to Heaven and Fled into the Wilderness from the Seven-Headed Dragon, from a Magnificently Illustrated Netherlandish Apocalypse of the Fifteenth Century. The text cited is the Revelation of St John the Divine,

Black-and-white Gary Larson comic “The Far Side”: a frightened man at a desk in an office, with buildings and windows outside.

Books · Pop Culture · Humour

Anatidaephobia, the fear of ducks, in Gary Larson’s comic “The Far Side”

In 1988 an American artist and cartoonist invented (or merely formulated and set down?) a fear known as anatidaephobia: the dread that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you. The idea first appeared in the comic strip "The Far Side". The name of the condition, anatidaephobia, derives from

NB! · Faith · Books · Ethnography

The Gospel in Chuvash

Books · Observations

Everything Finest That Men Have Said Was Said in Greek

The French writer Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

Archive · Books · Monarchies · Moscow

"And having so taken counsel, they came together at Moscow…": The first mention of Moscow in the Patriarchal (Nikon) Chronicle for 1147, from a manuscript presumably compiled at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery from the mid-14th century

"In the year 6655. Grand Prince Yury of Suzdal, son of Vladimir Monomakh, grandson of Vsevolod, great-grandson of Yaroslav, great-great-grandson of Vladimir the Great, gathered an host, and went and took the town of Novy Torg, and along the river Msta laid waste many districts; and

Archive · Books · Society · People

Griboyedov's arrest in 1826, his interrogation about Russian dress and his release

In 1826 Griboyedov was arrested on the testimony of Prince Trubetskoy, who had named him among the members of a secret society. Alexander Griboyedov was interrogated by General Vasily Vasilyevich Levashov, a veteran of Borodino. Among other things, Griboyedov was asked at the interrogation: - In what sense and to what

Art · Books · Museums · People

Bourdelle’s “Hannibal’s First Victory” in Montauban and the Eagle in Flaubert’s “Salammbô”

In French Montauban there is an Ingres-Bourdelle Museum, named for the city's two most famous sons. For a hundred and fifty years the museum bore only the name of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, whose collection formed the basis of its holdings; now Bourdelle, the second distinguished native

Archive · Art · Books · Monarchies · Moscow

The State Coat of Arms: the Double-Headed Eagle and the State Seal in the Manuscript "Titulyarnik" or "The Great Sovereign's Book" of 1672

The State Coat of Arms: the Double-Headed Eagle and the State Seal in the manuscript book "Titulyarnik" or "The Great Sovereign's Book" of 1672. Pen, watercolours, shell gold. Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. In this historical and diplomatic reference work, presented to

NB! · Books · Mores · Humour

Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov, champion of the old style, proposed to use "sharokat" instead of the word billiards, and "sharopikh" instead of the word cue

Books

Varlam Shalamov on his poems, which were born on Sundays and survived

With cave dust, with blue mould My poems are smeared. They were born on Sundays, Sparing of words and quiet. They grew up fast, like beasts, Baptised with Epiphany snow In frosty darkness, in marsh damp. And yet they survived. They do not boast of ancestors, They care nothing for

Art · Books

Gavriil Derzhavin wrote “Anacreon by the Stove” in 1795 about Maria, her harp and Cupid

Should Anacreon chance To visit Maria, Between them Cupid Would flit like a butterfly. The winged godling flew Around the beauty, And fitted his feathered arrows To his bow. He shot from her heavenly And blue eyes, And from the roses on her charming lips, And from the lilies on

Archive · Books · Monarchies

A Rather Flowery Dedication to Empress Anna Ioannovna in the "Life and Deeds of Marcus Aurelius", Printed by the Academy of Sciences in 1740:

"To the gloriously warring heroine of all Russia, who makes triumphant peace, the most serene, most autocratic, great sovereign lady of ours, Empress Anna Ioannovna, Autocrat of All the Russias, most gracious sovereign lady, this most submissive offering"