An elderly white-bearded man stands on a windowsill looking outside, in a room with framed pictures, a wicker chair and a wooden armchair.

Archive · Books · People · Humour

Bernard Shaw, aged 61, standing on a windowsill in a photograph of 1906

George Bernard Shaw Has Climbed onto the Windowsill. There is absolutely nothing to see here, move along. The photograph dates from 1906; Bernard Shaw is 61 in it.

NB! · Archive · Cinema · People

Seeing this tattered poster of Sophia Loren in Portugal in the summer of 1956, Agnès Varda decided to wait for someone to walk past, so as to get a good shot of the scene

Seeing this tattered poster of Sophia Loren in Portugal in the summer of 1956, Agnès Varda decided to wait for someone to walk past, so as to get a good shot of the scene. The first to appear was a barefoot woman whose movements, by a strange coincidence, echoed the

NB! · Archive · In the Press · Art · People

In 1960 Life Magazine Ran Reproductions of Anatoly Zverev and a Piece by Alexander Marshack, “The Art of Russia That Nobody Has Seen”

NB! · Art · Moscow · Museums · People

Georgy Kostaki on Felix Vishnevsky, Founder of the Tropinin Museum, and the Moscow Artists of His Time

NB! · Archive · New York · People

Brodsky with Baryshnikov and Rostropovich

Faith · Society · Paris · People

Serbian judoka Nemanja Majdov, who crossed himself before a bout at the Paris Olympics, has been suspended for five months by the Judo Federation

Such is the effect of the Life-Giving Cross upon the unclean! It is officially declared that he violated the religious code of the Olympic Games, the offence being construed precisely "in the context of observing the rules and norms of the competition". Even before this, Majdov had

Books · Observations · Science · People

Verses by Julian Huxley, brother of the writer Aldous Huxley and grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, President of the Royal Society of London and corresponding member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences

Verses by Julian Huxley, brother of the writer Aldous Huxley and grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, President of the Royal Society of London and corresponding member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences. All three grandsons of that gentleman, by the way, became distinguished men, luminaries before whom one ought,

NB! · The East · Society · People

On 12 February 1929, Leon Trotsky, carrying a passport in the name of Sedov, was deported from the port of Odessa to Constantinople on the steamship Ilyich (formerly Nicholas II), together with his wife and their son Lev Sedov, escorted by officers of the

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Tolstoy and Chekhov in the Crimea in 1901

Tolstoy and Chekhov in the Crimea in 1901. Lev Nikolayevich is 73, Anton Pavlovich 41.

Figurine of a coachman in a green coat driving three horses, with two men in bicorn hats seated in the sleigh under a fur rug.

Art · People · Humour

Napoleon and his general in a Russian troika on a 20th-century Thuringian figurine group

Napoleon's Flight from Russia. It is curious that, according to the artist's conception, Napoleon and his general are speeding along in a Russian troika driven by a Russian coachman. Thuringia, 20th century

NB! · Art · Observations · People · Humour

Frédéric Bazille's Portrait of Renoir as a Reminder That All Our Beloved Old Men Were Once Young, and Perhaps Sat in an Armchair With Their Feet Up

In the Press · Interviews · Books · People

New Literary Observer has published "Doctor Zhivago as a Historical Novel", by the philologist Konstantin Polivanov, a study of Boris Pasternak's principal novel, of the prototypes of its heroes, of Pasternak's spiritual and political evolution, and of ho

New Literary Observer (Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye) has published "Doctor Zhivago as a Historical Novel" by the philologist Konstantin Polivanov. The book deals with Boris Pasternak's principal novel, the prototypes of the heroes of his famous work, Pasternak's spiritual and political evolution, and the way