NB! · Observations · Society · Humour
Internet joke about the Boston Tea Party as a nod to the origins of the American Revolutionary War
An unexpected analysis of the preconditions of the American War of Independence
Section
· 1924 stories
Society
Moscow · Observations · Society
What a Square Metre of Housing Costs in Moscow and European Cities According to Global Property Guide
Everything is known by comparison, and property prices above all. While we rightly lament the exorbitant cost of housing in Moscow, the analytical portal Global Property Guide has published a fresh ranking of the price per square metre in European cities. If this table is to be believed, housing costs
Books · Observations · Society
Dickens and Rousseau on Caring for the Distant at the Expense of the Near, and a Remark by an American Blogger
Do you remember the heroine of Dickens's Bleak House who saved an African tribe while her own children were tumbling down the stairs? Today, apropos of this, I came across the following remark by an American conservative blogger: The very people who refuse to make any sacrifice for
Faith · Heritage · Society
Thirty communities of the Lithuanian Orthodox Church appeal to the Seimas against bills on churches
By 10 November, thirty parishes and monastic communities of the Lithuanian Orthodox Church, which belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate, had sent appeals to the leadership and deputies of the Lithuanian parliament. The communities object to bills that alter the legal status of the church, curtail its rights and transfer a
Books · Heritage · Society · People · Nature
Writer Oleg Volkov left the nature and monument protection societies as fruitless
And, incidentally, having gained experience and taken a closer look, I withdrew from the Society for the Protection of Nature, which had put me on its central council. I also stood aside from the work of the Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, in whose organisation and
Faith · Observations · Society · People
Preacher Ignaty Lapkin of Poteryaevka, dissident and community founder, has died
It is nine days since the preacher Ignaty Tikhonovich Lapkin of Poteryaevka completed his earthly journey. Within my memory Ignaty Lapkin was perhaps the most vivid and original preacher in all the Russian land. And, curiously, in his last years he gained particular renown through the vast number of admirers
Monarchies · Society · People · Ethnography
Prince William meets Maori Queen Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō, elected in 2024
Prince William has met the Māori Queen. This is a ceremonial title created in the nineteenth century to unite the Māori tribes. In September 2024, after the death of King Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, a council of 12 elders chose his youngest daughter, Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō,
Coming Up · Faith · Art · Museums · Society · Paris
Léon Frédéric’s triptych “The Ages of the Worker” from the Musée d’Orsay at the “Brussels 1900” exhibition at the Petit Palais
A triptych by the Belgian Symbolist Léon Frédéric entitled "The Ages of the Worker", painted between 1895 and 1897. It belongs to the collection of the Musée d'Orsay and is currently on show at the "Brussels 1900" exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris.
Archive · Mores · Society
How Maternity Leave Emerged in the USSR and What Kolkhoz Women Received from 1935
Under the Stalinist charter of collective-farm life, the peasant woman of the kolkhoz receives leave for a month before the birth and a month after it Before 1917, maternity leave did not exist in Russia. Whether a pregnant working woman kept her place depended on the decision of her
Art · Society · People
Picasso's heirs challenge in the Aix-en-Provence court the authenticity of silver dishes and gold medallions
The heirs of Pablo Picasso are going to law over counterfeit silver dishes and gold medallions made after his designs. A preliminary investigation on the complaint of Paloma Ruiz-Picasso, filed on behalf of nine heirs, is being conducted by the court in Aix-en-Provence. The case file speaks
Archive · Observations · Science · Society
Nitoburg's 1969 Review of the Kerner Commission Report, and the Fate of Its Forecasts
I have been reading, in Sovetskaya etnografiya for 1969, a review headed "The Country Is Heading for a Split…". Its author is the Americanist Eduard Nitoburg (1918-2008). He examines the report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which President Johnson set up in July 1967
Archive · Art · Society · People
Marijan Molnar began the series “For the Democratisation of Art” in Zagreb in 1979
ZA DEMOKRATIZACIJU UMJETNOSTI! A photograph from the series "For the Democratisation of Art" by the Croatian conceptual artist and performer Marijan Molnar, taken from a small-run book of 1981. Molnar began the cycle "For the Democratisation of Art" itself in 1979, when he went out