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Now available (open access!): the article I might not have written had I not been department chair, on eighteenth century Russian rulers trying to stop people asking them for things. (Also on how autocracy works, should that be of current interest SIGH.)
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
“To Each Their Grievance Is Bitter and Unbearable”: Petitions, Autocracy, and the Rule of Law in Eighteenth-Century Russia | Law and History Review | Cambridge Core
“To Each Their Grievance Is Bitter and Unbearable”: Petitions, Autocracy, and the Rule of Law in Eighteenth-Century Russia
www.cambridge.org
My music group commissioned a piece by Beverley McKiver; she was inspired by the lost rivers of Toronto and wrote us a truly lovely piece: youtu.be/FcAnjaFS9Us?...
Lost Rivers
YouTube video by Wychwood Clarinet Choir
youtu.be
Excellent description of Cyrillic from a 19th century American traveler: "the letters are all drunk and run the wrong way, like lopsided crabs."
Whew, Belinsky when he realizes he can't actually find rationality in the world around him is too relatable:
"I am weary, cold, and empty. I have no hope of any personal happiness. Woe! Woe! Life is exposed."
"I am weary, cold, and empty. I have no hope of any personal happiness. Woe! Woe! Life is exposed."
There is still an awful lot of awful out there, but gosh I have enjoyed Chicago Pope day.
Amazing.
The Guardian
@theguardian.com
· Mar 5
Canada goose fights off bald eagle in rare, symbolism-laden battle on ice
Photographer captures 20-minute clash between birds emblematic of Canada and US amid high political tensions
For the second time in weeks, a Canadian icon has emerged as the unlikely victor in an existential battle on the ice.
Mervyn Sequeira, an…
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by: Alison K. Smith
Canada goose fights off bald eagle in rare, symbolism-laden battle on ice
Canada goose fights off bald eagle in rare, symbolism-laden battle on ice
Photographer captures 20-minute clash between birds emblematic of Canada and US amid high political tensions
For the second time in weeks, a Canadian icon has emerged as the unlikely victor in an existential battle on the ice.
Mervyn Sequeira, an…
www.theguardian.com
He then later shared the news report that Lavrov’s gift to the new president was going to be a lap dog.
Once again, I am reminded of the archive security guard who, in fall 2016, asked me who I was going to vote for. Before I could answer, he said “you’re probably going to say Clinton, but Trump would be better for Russia.”
Reposted by: Alison K. Smith
I need a good shorthand to describe the now regular feeling of being not at all surprised by what happens, yet still horrified and repulsed when it does happen.
Also I honestly did not realize how much of a problem wolves were in nineteenth-century Russia.
I wish I could say that surprised me but it totally doesn't -- it really was!
I'm reading through 19th century mortality reports and holy shit we are so lucky to live in a world of modern public health. Why the hell would anyone want to go back to that? It is infuriating.
Reposted by: Alison K. Smith
Boris Nemtsov was assassinated 10 years ago today. The street outside the Russian embassy in Washington D.C. was renamed in his memory - a move instigated by a senator determined to hold the Kremlin accountable for its crimes. I wonder how he thinks that's going. www.voanews.com/a/us-bill-wo...
I knew Arcimboldo painted fruit/vegetable portraits but a BOOK portrait?? Amazing. I could not love this more.
Source: samlingar.shm.se/object/465F6...
Source: samlingar.shm.se/object/465F6...
Today I stumbled on this stunning piece of... embroidery? I think that's the best word for this kind of needle art? ... made by Maria Christina Frosterus in Uleåborg/Oulu Finland, 1820, in the collections of The National Museum of Finland. I love it.
It is a bonkers take. Making music with other people is the best.
Honestly the thing that might turn me into a diplomatic historian is all the snark.
The British ambassador to St. Petersburg in 1859 on his French counterpart: "...a kind hearted and conciliatory man, but troubled occassionally with that susceptibility which not uncommonly renders a Frenchman more intent upon trifles than upon matters of serious import.."
A powder commonly in use among Russians to prevent cholera, taken “with such good results” by the British ambassador that he is sending the information on to the foreign office! NA FO 65/424/252
It is also fascinating and troubling to read the dispatches by the British ambassador in early 1853, passing on reports of increased Russian military presence in the south, and then following them up with what amounts to "but Nicholas can't possibly intend there to be war, Russia can't afford it."
Furthermore, Nicholas I and the Russian government did not "recognize the validity of the numeral III as adopted by the Emperor of the French."
Alison K. Smith
@profaks.bsky.social
· Jan 2
TIL that in the run-up to the Crimean War, one issue was that Nicholas I did not want to call Louis Napoleon, recently declared emperor in France, "mon frère" and was OUTRAGED that the Austrian and Prussian emperors were willing to do so.
Reposted by: Alison K. Smith
Heiða var að kynna mig fyrir Korktappadansinum sem var sýndur eitthvað svona einu sinni í Finnlandi en hefur verið sýndur hver einustu áramót síðan hjá RÚV og ég hef bara aldrei séð þetta
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6KA...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6KA...
Korktappadansinn
YouTube video by María Sól
www.youtube.com
Suddenly I understand why my 8th grade social studies teacher (in Oak Park, just west of Chicago, in 1984-5) told us we were lucky because we’d be immediately dead if there were a nuclear war.
Reposted by: Alison K. Smith
A new post on Doomsday Machines for your post-holiday light reading, on the wild nuclear maps of "Wild" William Bunge.
open.substack.com/pub/doomsday...
open.substack.com/pub/doomsday...
"The battlefield is everywhere"
The nuclear maps of "Wild" William Bunge (1988)
open.substack.com