The following account is by Eve Leadbeater, a friend of my parents and me, who once met D. H. Lawrence's...
Russia
Visiting Tolstoy for his 190th Birthday
I have just reviewed Mud and Stars: Travels In Russia with Pushkin and Other Geniuses Of The Golden Age by Sara...
Russian Actor Vassily Livanov MBE’s Open Letter to the People of Britain
I break my long silence on my blog (students...exam-marking) to reprint the text of the open letter to the British...
Loveless
Dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev (1964-), Arte France Cinéma, Why Not Productions, released 13.5.2017, 128 minutes. To...
‘And What Did You Do in the War, Vati?’ My German Family’s Second World War
In my post Reflections on the Death of an Aunt I mentioned an incident in which my aunt was nearly raped by an...
The Death of Stalin
The Death of Stalin, 2017, dir. Armando Iannucci, adapted by Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin from the French...
A Journey through China and Malaysia
Our summer holiday this year consisted of a week in Shanghai visiting a friend, followed by a week in Malaysia...
Where Anti-Trumpism is Getting it Wrong; or, My Enemy’s Enemy is Not Above Reproach; or, Ends Do Not Justify Means
It is with some trepidation that I blog for the first time about Donald Trump. It is partly because I...
What is Good Sex Writing?
When Russians and Britons discuss literature – especially British fiction, especially if written since the Lady...
Vasilii Perov and other Household Names we’ve never heard of
National Portrait Gallery, London, 17th March-26th June 2016 One of the good things about this very good...
Deconstructing Russophobia
Imagine that Vladimir Putin were not a murderous autocrat and kleptocrat who has spent his fourteen years in power...