The Imperial Life Guards Regiment during the uprising of December 14th 1825 Senate Square. (19th Century). Vasily Timm (1820 -1895).The Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. ‘The historical value of revolutions depends upon three conditions: upon what they destroy, upon what they create and upon the legend that they leave behind…The Decembrists have not destroyed anything or […]
Category: Small Acts of Kindness
Controlling the corpse: the autocratic reaction to death
Berlin, demonstration after the murder of Alexey Navalny. 18th February 2024. Photograph: A Savin, Wikipedia Following the murder of the opposition leader, Alexey NavaIny, the Russian security services have, until yesterday, been attempting not only to retain control of his body but also to dictate the nature of his funeral. Such evidence of official paranoia […]
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 […]
‘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 […]