NB! · Archive · The East · Society · People
The Mongolian Stalin, Khorloogiin Choibalsan (1895-1952), took a matronymic because he was the illegitimate son of a shepherdess named Khorloo. In the photograph from the parade marking the 26th anniversary of the October Revolution he stands at the microphone
Archive · Books · Society · People
Ever since the ancient Scythians, our forebears have yielded more reluctantly than any other people to classical civilisation, and if they distinguished themselves by anything, in the words of Herodotus, it was only by a bent for drunkenness and internecine strife. The father of history says plainly that the Scythians,
Aristocracy · Society · People
Skobelev was disliked in high society, evidently for his popularity, though they added that he was too Russian: a peasant's grandson. The general was invariably reproached for his love of the common man. The way he treated his soldiers is astonishing. Once, in a field camp, he noticed
Archive · Society · People
In his lifetime Skobelev was called the White General for his love of white uniforms and white horses, and the wreath from the General Staff Academy at his funeral bore the inscription: “To the hero Skobelev, commander, the equal of Suvorov”. Indeed, since Suvorov no other commander had enjoyed such
Architecture · Faith · Heritage · Society
During the war Novgorod was almost destroyed: the Nazis wrecked the white-stone monasteries and churches, monuments of the 11th and 12th centuries. One of the first stone structures in Rus', the Cathedral of St Sophia in the Novgorod Kremlin, was disfigured beyond recognition: its interior was reduced to
Archaeology · Museums · Heritage · Society
Talk of wartime vandalism is often reduced to a few simple psychological regularities, which tie together the humble origins of the common soldier, the hardships of army life, the constant fear of death and the sight of war's horrors, all leading to dehumanisation. It is often said that
Books · Moscow · Observations · Society
There is a well-known passage from a Lotman lecture on the psychological and social causes of boorishness, which applies equally to the modern hooligan and, as it turns out, to many a civil servant. A simple formula explains the defiant, odious conduct of people who knowingly destroy what is
NB! · Observations · Mores · Society
It is a pity that the genre of the deathbed farewell, the bedside conversation, the portrait of the dying man has been utterly lost, especially in political culture. Besides, leaders so rarely die these days. And today is the anniversary of Napoleon's death
Archive · Heritage · Society · People
Destroyed by human error and restored by human hope. In international law, the history of the protection of cultural property begins in the nineteenth century: the Lieber Code, the Brussels Conference, the Hague Conventions and Declarations and, finally, the Roerich Pact, or Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific
Museums · Observations · Heritage · Society · People
Kholmogorov absurdly links the handover of Khan Kenesary's head to Kazakhstan with the Kazakh script's switch to the Latin alphabet. The head, he says, has not been handed over yet, so one may "answer" the Kazakhs' farewell to Cyrillic with a moratorium on
NB! · Art · Society · People
Archive · Society
At the elections to the Central Committee at the Seventeenth Congress of the VKP(b) in 1934, Stalin was struck off 292 ballot papers. But Stalin ordered 289 of them to be destroyed, leaving only the three cast against him. As a result, the protocol presented to the 1,966