In 2004, the Modern Library in New York published a new paperback edition of Mikhail Lermontov’s classic novel “A Hero of Our Time.” The cover depicts a young man, maybe in his 20s, presumably from a wealthy background, not very … Read more

The Wanderers were a group of Russian realist artists that developed an artists’ cooperative in protest at, and in order to escape, the restrictions placed upon artists by the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts. The group called themselves The Society of Travelling … Read more

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/blackeuro/pushkinback.html Alexander Pushkin–one of Russia’s greatest writers–is a really interesting figure. I didn’t realize until last year that he was actually descended from an African prince (supposedly) turned Russian military engineer. Gannibal, Pushkin’s ancestor, was taken under the wing of … Read more

With the emancipation of the serfs in the 1860s, the changing socioeconomic led to the radicalization of a number of Russia’s younger intelligentsia. In 1863, students at the Russian Imperial refused to participate in the annual gold medal competition since … Read more

While we’ve touched on the growing idealization of the Russian peasantry – a tendency that eventually gives birth to artistic renderings such as this mixed medium work by Carl Fabergé – we haven’t dealt much with how Russians envisioned the … Read more

Despite the increased opportunities that the Industrial Revolution brought such as Social Mobility, Wage Labour and eventually, a minimal form of welfare, Nicholas I used writings by Charles Dickens to show the poverty and social alienation that had arisen in … Read more

In the introduction of the poem “The Bronze Horseman”, it claims to base the depiction of the flood on a factual, historical flood, recorded by V. I. Berkh and contemporary magazines. In November of 1824, an early winter froze enough … Read more