culture
Notes: 34
"Sabre Dance" and "Flight of the Bumblebee"
"Sabre Dance" is a piece from Aram Khachaturian's ballet "Gayane," created in 1942. It is known for its breakneck tempo and vivid orchestration…
"Thanks for Being Alive": a Song by Vladimir Vysotsky
The phrase "say thanks you're alive," which the novel's protagonist hears, refers to one of the most poignant and autobiographical works by Vladimir…
Academic Painters: Tradition and Canon in Art
European academicism in painting: its origins in the royal art academies, its golden age, and its eventual eclipse by Realism and Impressionism.
Andrei Mironov: the whirlwind of Soviet comic cinema
Andrei Mironov, the whirlwind Soviet comic actor and screen Ostap Bender, whose sudden death at 46 in 1987 shook the country.
Britpop at its 1996 peak
Britpop at its commercial and cultural peak in 1995-96, from the Blur-vs-Oasis chart battle to its odd usefulness as a pickup line at a Russian…
Carambole
Carambole is an old French dance from the 17th-18th centuries, fast-paced with rhythmic foot strikes creating a distinctive sound effect. The name…
The Fourth Position of the Feet in Classical Ballet
The fourth position of the feet is performed as follows: one foot is placed in front of the other, with the heel of the front foot facing the toe of…
Harpsichord
The harpsichord is a stringed keyboard instrument of the Baroque era, in which sound is produced by plucking the strings. Its golden age ran from the…
Oleg Mityaev's Song "How Wonderful"
The song "How Wonderful" was written and first performed by Oleg Mityaev in 1978 at the Ilmen Festival of Author's Song.
Kazbek Volkov: the character's debt to Winston Wolfe of "Pulp Fiction"
A literary allusion tracing the character's roots to Quentin Tarantino's professional "problem solver."
La Toussaint: The Catholic Feast of All Saints
La Toussaint (French for All Saints' Day) is one of the most important Catholic feasts, honoring all the saints, both those canonized by the Church…
Lavrenty Yemelyanovich Masokha (1909-1971)
Lavrenty Yemelyanovich Masokha was one of the most vivid figures in mid-20th-century Soviet cinema, whose career became closely tied to portraying…
M-Radio
The first Russian-French commercial radio station, on air from 1991, whose eccentric French-accented jingles — voiced by Sylvester Stallone's French…
Marionettes and Puppet Theater
The history of marionettes from Ancient Egypt to the present day: puppet-theater traditions, control techniques, and the symbolic meaning of the…
MoMA: where Roman finally sees the originals behind his childhood reproductions
MoMA: the museum that shows Roman what his Soviet-childhood reproductions had been hiding all along.
Moscow Music Peace Festival
The 1989 Luzhniki "Rock for Peace" festival — Bon Jovi, Scorpions, and Ozzy Osbourne playing to a billion-strong TV audience, the shirt Roman is…
Nemirovich-Danchenko
Why toasting "the great Nemirovich" and, separately, "the equally great Danchenko" is a joke — they're the same man.
Oleg Dal: the melancholy face of the Soviet "superfluous man"
Oleg Dal, the melancholy Soviet actor of 'superfluous men,' whose Zilov became shorthand for detached, reflective disillusionment.
On Reproduction and Replication
The philosophical distinction the novel leans on: a reproduction is an approximate copy, a replica is the same original person existing in more than…
Postmodernism
In the early 1990s, postmodernism became a fashionable term in Russia, making its way into intellectual circles along with a wave of Western cultural…
Ship
"Ship" — a matchbox filled with marijuana. "Blow up the ship" — smoke its contents. Not to be confused with "Blow up" — to light or be first to take…
Soviet childhood reproductions: what magazine print quality had been hiding all along
The mass-circulation Soviet magazines that gave millions their first, imperfect glimpse of world painting.
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski (1863-1938). An outstanding Russian and Soviet theater director, actor, teacher, theorist, and reformer of the…
Tapestry: the Art of Woven Stories
A tapestry is a hand-woven wall hanging with a pictorial or ornamental design, created by weaving weft threads. The art form flourished in the…
The Dalí Theatre-Museum: the red-lips couch Roman recognizes from his own visions
The history of the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Dalí's self-declared "last work," including the Mae West room and his crypt beneath the dome.
The Doric Order
The oldest and sternest of the classical orders, and why its shabby, over-ornamented Soviet-institute imitations felt like such an apt symbol of a…
The Film Travelers' Club
"The Film Travelers' Club" was a legendary Soviet TV show that ran from the 1960s to the 1990s, opening the world to viewers through documentary…
The Krakowiak — Dance of the Polish Gentry and the Russian Ballroom
The krakowiak (Polish: Krakowiak) is a Polish folk dance which by the end of the nineteenth century had become one of the most popular ballroom…
The Starry Night: the Van Gogh painting that overwhelms Roman at MoMA
Van Gogh's most famous painting, made at a psychiatric asylum in Provence and now the centerpiece of MoMA's collection.
The 1990s Craze for Turquoise
Turquoise in the 1990s symbolized freshness and the environmental movement in the US, reflecting the influence of Southwestern style. It became an…
The V&A: the museum Prince Albert built to fix British design
The Victoria and Albert Museum: born from Prince Albert's alarm at British design after the Great Exhibition of 1851.
TsDKh: the Central House of Artists banquet where Roman meets his Canadian namesake mix-up
The history and role of Moscow's Central House of Artists as a hub of 1990s art, exhibitions, and society banquets.
The Monologue "The Barge Demolition Man" by Mikhail Zhvanetsky
Zhvanetsky's story about a barge demolition man
Знакомство Остапа Бендера с Еленой Станиславовной
Знакомство Остапа Бендера с Еленой Станиславовной - по ссылке