#ChoralMarch: March 15th. Bonus: full performance of Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil from Smolensk Cathedral
Tag: russia
#ChoralMarch: March 12th, “Arise Ye Russian Peoples”, from Alexander Nevsky, Sergei Prokofiev
Is Sergei Prokofiev’s score to Alexander Nevsky, the Eistenstein tale of a heroic Russian unifier defeating a Teutonic foe which was naturally enough suitable propaganda for Stalin, the greatest soundtrack…
Russian Modernism and Byzantine Iconography – another false dichotomy
A recurrent pattern in the history of ideas is a dominant narrative creating dichotomies that, at the time, did not exist. I have blogged about these before – false tension…
I Taught Myself To Live Simply – Anna Akhmatova
I taught myself to live simply and wisely, to look at the sky and pray to God, and to wander long before evening to tire my superfluous worries. When the…
Daniel Kalder on Cold War Armageddon
Children of the 1980s recall the pervasive atmosphere of imminent nuclear devastation which we somehow survived. Not unlike Daniel Kalder with the naval base warning siren, I found that the…
Laptop Warriors – on the “Stealing the Network” series. SAU Blog, October 2007
As it stands, my last contribution to the Social Affairs Unit blog is this piece on two novels written by (firstly) Ryan Russell, Tim Mullen (Thor), FX, Dan “Effugas” Kaminsky, Joe Grand, Ken…
Some extracts from “The Woman Who Waited”, Andrei Makine
‘She is a woman palpably meant for happiness (if only purely physical happiness, mere bodily well-being) and yet so casually, it seems, she has chosen solitude, loyalty to an absent…
William Gerhardie – a perpetually “lost writer” rediscovered again. SAU Blog, 2005
William Gerhardie is a writer whose fame rests on obscurity. Prominent early in his career, and feted by Waugh and Greene as their better, he later became “lost.” Being “lost”…
Séamus Sweeney 