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I would never die for my beliefs, because I might be wrong
Bertrand Russell
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· 1789 stories
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Books · Monarchies · People
Napoleon's death in exile on 5 May 1821 and Chateaubriand's response
5 May 1821, 203 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile. He himself used to say that “Death is nothing, but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day.” Many rejoiced, many mourned, and almost all agreed that one of the makers of history had departed. Chateaubriand
Books · Society · People
I laugh at those peoples, sunk in abasement, who, egged on by demagogues, dare to speak of freedom without having the least notion of it, and who, with hearts full of all the vices of slaves, imagine that to become free…
I laugh at those peoples, sunk in abasement, who, egged on by demagogues, dare to speak of freedom without having the least notion of it, and who, with hearts full of all the vices of slaves, imagine that to become free it is enough to be rebels. Proud and holy
Books
Mikhail Svetlov's 1962 poem about loss, grief and the nearness of death
Doing no harm to anyone, I lived and lived in the middle of the century, and trust came to me, the first friend of man. How many losses I have endured, How much my lips have kept silent! Now grief too has knocked at the door, And I welcomed it
NB! · Faith · Books · Mores · Ethnography
Preparing a Curd Paskha by Nineteenth-Century Recipes
NB! · Books · Humour
Agatha Christie Tries to Guess Which Pile of Books Will Collapse First
Archive · Books · Monarchies
A book on how Europe turned its gaze to Russia during Napoleon's threat
A triple portrait of Catherine II, Paul I and Alexander I from the German book of 1815, "The Glorious Self-Sacrifice of Russia for the Salvation of Mankind" The book tells how all Europe turned its gaze northwards at the moment of greatest peril from Napoleon to every
NB! · Books · Moscow · Museums
The pen with which Chekhov wrote The Cherry Orchard
The pen with which Chekhov wrote The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov House Museum, Moscow
Archive · Books · Mores · People
Tolkien's love for Edith from 1906 and the story of Beren and Luthien in “The Silmarillion”
In 1972, shortly after his wife's death, Tolkien wrote that he had never called her Lúthien, but that she was the source of the story at the heart of The Silmarillion. Ronald met Edith in 1906 and fell in love, but the orphaned Tolkien's guardian opposed
Books · Observations · Humour
In the closing stanzas of "The Little House in Kolomna", Pushkin makes an unexpected remark on the subject of gender
In the closing stanzas of "The Little House in Kolomna", Pushkin makes an unexpected remark on the subject of gender. The jocular ending looks like a parody of the moralising pronouncements that were customary in the conclusions to depictions of the passions in his day, but in our
The East · Books · Science · Society
The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, in the fourteenth century, described the dependence of society on tax rates as follows:
At the beginning of a dynasty, when the rulers' demands are modest, taxes are low, and crafts and trade develop freely. As crafts and trade develop, a taste for luxury awakens in the rulers. As the rulers grow accustomed to luxury, they raise taxes. When taxes rise, crafts and
Interviews · Books · Society · Pop Culture
A view on Joan Rowling's statement, society's reaction and Tsvetaeva's poetry
I asked Tatyana Tolstaya what she thinks of the persecution of J.K. Rowling over her much-discussed remark, and how she deals with the problem of separating the creator from the creation. On J.K. Rowling: her remark was perfectly normal, and society's reaction was utterly cretinous.