Cinema · Books · Moscow · Mores

Premiere of “104 Pages About Love” after Radzinsky’s play at the Taganka Theatre

Another premiere this week is "104 Pages About Love", based on the play that made Edvard Radzinsky famous sixty years ago, a play about how people fall into love as one falls under a train. It is the very play on which Natanson based his legendary 1968 film

The East · Cinema · Books · Mores · Pop Culture

The 1914 Tokyo staging of “Resurrection” and the Katyusha craze in Japan

Speaking of the fashion for foreign cultural phenomena in Japan, one cannot fail to recall the quite peculiar feeling the Japanese have for Leo Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection" The Japanese writer Shimamura Hogetsu staged "Resurrection" at the Art Theatre in Tokyo in 1914. In the

NB! · Aristocracy · Mores · People

Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (1920-2014)

Architecture · Mores · Ethnography

Stone dovecotes on stilts in France and their economic purpose

Old Dovecotes in France. Curious stone structures on tall legs can be found in many regions of France. The dovecotes stood apart from the other buildings, somewhere on the grounds of the estate, and always above ground level, to protect the birds from damp, rats and small predators. Pigeons were

NB! · Books · Mores · Nature

Wolves turn up so often in Latin fables and tales that Italian has kept the expression "lupus in fabula", "the wolf in the tale", which means much the same as the English "speak of the devil"

Cinema · Mores · Humour

Mikhail Romm recalled how, during the filming of his 1934 debut, "Boule de Suif", after the story by Guy de Maupassant (itself, incidentally, a debut), two acknowledged beauties of the day came into collision on set: Galina Sergeyeva, who played the lead…

The young actresses were both 20 years old, and both were fresh and lovely. But it so happened that all the men of the film crew showed an interest in only one of the two girls: Okunevskaya captured the whole of the male attention. And this upset Sergeyeva greatly, the

NB! · Mores

The Inconvenience of Wigs

Books · Mores · Pop Culture · Ethnography

After the success of the novel Little Lord Fauntleroy in the 1880s, the outfit of beret, dark jacket, knee-length breeches, coloured silk sash and lace-and-bow shirt became almost obligatory in a boy's wardrobe on both…

After the success of the novel Little Lord Fauntleroy in the 1880s, the outfit of beret, dark jacket, knee-length breeches, coloured silk sash and lace-and-bow shirt became almost obligatory in a boy's wardrobe on both sides of the Atlantic. Suddenly English, French, American and even

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Mores

Venus in a golden bikini from Naples and the two-piece garment of women in ancient Rome

The Venus in the Golden Bikini from the Naples National Archaeological Museum. She is not the only evidence that women in ancient Rome wore a costume of two separate parts: an upper bodice covering the breasts and a lower part covering the hips. It could serve as underwear or as

Aristocracy · Monarchies · Observations · Mores

Prince Harry's children receive titles as Prince Joachim's children in Denmark lose theirs

All Happy Families Are Alike; Every Unhappy Family Is Unhappy in Its Own Way. The children of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have officially received the titles of Prince and Princess. At the same time, the children of Prince Joachim of Denmark, likewise the younger child of a reigning monarch,

Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · People

Isabella II of Spain, her lovers and her husband Francisco de Asis, Duke of Cadiz

The reigning Queen of Spain (1833-1868), Isabella II, great-great-great-grandmother of the present King of Spain, Felipe VI, was known for her fiery temper and her easy way with men. She changed lovers as other women change gloves, while her openly despised husband was made to acknowledge

Art · Mores · People · Humour

Young George Frideric Handel secretly taught himself the harpsichord in an attic

This is exactly what you were thinking! Papa with a lantern and the entire family burst into the attic to catch their son at a shameful occupation. Little Georg Friedrich Handel was strictly forbidden to study music. The four-year-old child found an abandoned old harpsichord and taught himself