I very much enjoyed Armin Rosen’s essay about the Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (“Tarkovksy’s Sublime Terror,” October 2023), but I’m afraid he has made an error of fact about Tarkovsky’s film Nostalghia. Rosen says the protagonist, Andrei Gorchakov, “swallows poison and then . . . . Continue Reading »
On Saturday, October 7, a band of Hamas terrorists breached an internationally recognized border and crossed into Israel. Over the next twelve hours, they committed unspeakable horrors against a defenseless civilian population. They beheaded babies and burned entire families alive. They raped women . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1909 the academic economist and former Marxist Sergei Bulgakov, a priest’s son who had recently and very publicly returned to Christian faith, published a long essay on the crisis of Russian culture and the mentality of the Russian intelligentsia. It is important to recognize that this . . . . Continue Reading »
It's useful to imagine different, more helpful things Pope Francis might have said about Russian history while addressing Catholic young people in Putin’s land. Continue Reading »
Judge Stephen P. Friot joins the podcast to discuss his new book Containing History: How Cold War History Explains US–Russia Relations. Continue Reading »
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow have claimed that Russia’s so-called Special Operation is needed to defend the wider russkiy mir, the “Russian world.” By this term they mean the Orthodoxy-based Russian-language civilization that Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus . . . . Continue Reading »
Amidst a war involving the world’s foremost nuclear powers, Pope Francis has been a lonely voice for peace. For his pains, he has been criticized by commenters on left and right and by leaders in both Russia and Ukraine. Yet he has continued to speak. There is a great deal at stake in whether the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Victims of Communism Museum opened only last year after decades of thoughtful planning, and the care that went into the project shows. Visiting the museum is a powerful experience. Continue Reading »