Observations · Society · Humour
In the fourth century the government of Rome commanded 30,000 officials. In the empire's heyday, in the first and second centuries, there was one official to every 5,000 subjects, which is to say some 10,000 to 12,000 officials in all. At the same time
NB! · Archive · Observations · Society · People
The spirit of the age is Alla Gerber and her fellow law students smiling beside a poster that reads "Judges are independent and subject only to the law". The cult of personality had been denounced only recently, and hopes still glimmered...
Archive · Monarchies · Society · People
By the favouring mercy of God, We, Alexander the Second, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod; Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of the Tauric Chersonese, Tsar of Georgia; Sovereign of Pskov and Grand Duke of Smolensk,
Archive · Monarchies · Science · Society
Alexander I invited Jeremy Bentham to court, corresponded with him and took his advice. Bentham devised the secret ballot for Parliament, but Karamzin said it would never take root in Russia, and a good idea was quashed.
Books · Observations · Society
Klyuchevsky has these words:. "Why do people so love to study their past, their history? Probably for the same reason that a man who has stumbled in mid-stride likes, once he is back on his feet, to look round at the spot where he fell." When we
Archive · Science · Mores · Society
Dorland's Medical Dictionary of 1901 defines heterosexuality as an "abnormal or perverted appetite" towards the opposite sex /by default/, but also towards one's own sex. That is to say, at the beginning of the twentieth century, according to Dorland, relationships involving "perverted"
Faith · Observations · Science · Mores · Society
On 2 September 1752 Great Britain switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian, some 170 years after Pope Gregory XIII proposed abandoning the outdated system of reckoning time. And so, in Britain in 1752, 2 September was followed directly by 14 September. Eleven days vanished from the history of
London · Mores · Society
In medieval and early modern England the laws were harsh, and judicial practice spared a great many people. Right up to the end of the eighteenth century, and in some cases the middle of the nineteenth, men and women were sentenced to death for crimes that were serious, to be
NB! · Observations · Society · Humour
NB! · Books · Society · People
The book by KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, "The Soviet Special Services in the Secret War", contains a curious episode about Pasternak. His words on the attempt by Western intelligence services to promote a "dissident" sound especially lively
Science · Society
The family business of Christian Dior was a remarkable one, and is written of with great respect in works on the economic history of France. The production of quality fertilisers gave serious support to the agricultural boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was precisely in these
NB! · Science · Education · Society · People
Professor Roald Fyodorovich Matveyev, the country's first Doctor of Political Science and an eminent scholar, has died at the age of 89. He was a remarkable teacher and a remarkable man. May his memory be blessed