Author: Jennifer Antill

Two people in one

Alexander Mikhailovich Murav’ev (1802-1853) Lithograph. (1822) Piotr Feodorovich Sokolov (1791- 1848) There can be problems when a writer tries to combine an engaging plot with historical truth. This can be particularly true when it comes to depicting characters who are ‘real’ people. Historical novels vary widely in their historical accuracy, ranging from books that are […]

Kossoff and Soutine at the Seaside.

T There are a couple of months still left for art enthusiasts to get down to Hastings Contemporary to spend quality time with two 20th Century artists of note, one originally from Belarus, the other from Ukraine. The current exhibition,  ‘Soutine/Kossoff’, juxtaposes the work of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) with that of  Leo Kossoff (1926 – […]

Sphinxes on the Neva

Standing on University Embankment on  the right bank of the Great Neva river,  among some of the oldest buildings of Saint Petersburg, tourists, particularly those passing on the river in boats, are often surprised to encounter two large Egyptian sphinxes.  Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign at the turn of the Nineteenth century stimulated an interest in all […]

Child abduction by Russia in wartime is nothing new

Russian abduction of children in a time of war is nothing new! One of the more disturbing features of the current war in Ukraine has been Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children, ostensibly in order to give them ‘better lives’ in Russia. In some cases the children have been sent to so called ‘Summer Camps’ from […]

Razputitsa

Etymologically the Russian word Razputitsa deconstructs as ‘separation parting or tearing of a road or route’. It is conventionally used to describe periods of the year when the roads turn into an impassable sea of mud, whether on account of rain turning the summer dust into a quagmire in the autumn, or as a result […]

‘I dreamed I dwelt in marble halls’*

Recently, ‘Peterskaya Uslada’ (Petersburg Delight) posted pictures on Twitter of the extraordinary marble hall that can be found in the Palace that was owned from 1830 onward by the Kushelev-Bezborodko family (see image above). Although the interior was remodelled in the middle of the 19th century by the son of the first owner, Count Nikolay […]

Russia in North America

At least one scene in my novel, Small Acts of Kindness, a tale of the first Russian revolution, takes place in the offices of the Russian American Company.  One of the principle characters, the radical Kondraty Ryleev, was office manager at the company in the months before the Decembrist uprising in 1825.  The large building, […]