Pussy Riot is a free-floating (except when jailed) band of punk rockers and activists in Russia. Their punk protest issues include LGBT and gender rights, as well as opposition to Putin and the government. They’re usually anonymous, and they change their assumed and actual names and personnel on a whim. They perform in balaclavas that hide their features, and wear bright-colored tights and plain, skimpy dresses, so anyone can easily don Pussy Riot gear. Hair, makeup, even gender — doesn’t matter. This is not rock star territory. Men can be members of Pussy Riot; so can anyone on the spectrum. They do not perform in clubs or theaters or at music events. Every performance is a guerrilla one. Vice interviews Pussy Riot (before the arrests). Salon
reports on the recent
detention of three members. Amnesty International
page.
posted by infini
on Jul 14, 2012 -
28 comments
Hanover Historical Texts Project is a collection of primary source texts from ancient times to the modern era in English translation. There is a great number of interesting texts, for instance accounts of
Zeno, he of the paradoxes,
the diary of Lady Sarashina, a lady-in-waiting in Heian era Japan,
a letter from Count Stephen of Blois and Chartres, a crusader writing to his wife,
Arthur Young's travels in France before and during the Revolution,
a report by the American ambassador in St. Petersburg on March 20th, 1917, immediately after the February Revolution, and finally
Petrarch's letter about his graphomania. That last one is from what is perhaps my favorite part of the website, a trove of
Petrarch's Familiar Letters. But there's much more in the Hanover Historical Texts Projects besides what I've mentioned.
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 24, 2011 -
6 comments
Mapping Petersburg "..explores the everyday life and the material, political, and literary culture of St. Petersburg
[..] at the beginning of the twentieth century. It maps eleven itineraries through the city with the purpose of creating a palpable sense of life in Russia's late imperial capital on the eve of the 1917 revolution and during the subsequent decade." [
About] [
via]
[more inside]
posted by peacay
on Apr 6, 2011 -
8 comments
Russian Satirical Journals of 1905. MeFi's own
peacay presents a selection of the amazing images produced after the lifting of censorship in Russia following the
1905 Revolution: "For a few brief months the journals spoke with a great and unprecedented rage that neither arrest nor exile could silence. At first their approach was oblique, their allusions veiled, and they often fell victim to the censor’s pencil. But people had suffered censorship for too long." Much more available at
Beinecke,
USC, and
Wisconsin.
posted by languagehat
on Aug 6, 2010 -
8 comments
Soviet Music "You are browsing a resource which is devoted first of all to the history and culture of the Soviet Union, the country which the West for a long time usually named as "The Empire of Evil", the country to which some people in the West perceive as "something big and snowy".
I offer you to try to look outside the frames of usual stereotypes, to try to understand life of a unique country, with its interesting history, beautiful culture and miraculous relations between people.
The music submitted on this site - is an evident sample of a totally new culture, which completely differs from all that, with what Hollywood and MTV supply us so much. This culture, being free from the cult of money, platitude, violence and sex, was urged to not indulge low bents of a human soul but to help the person to become culturally enriched and to grow above himself."
[more inside]
posted by tellurian
on Sep 23, 2008 -
16 comments
She interviewed Mussolini. She wrote plays for Eugene O'Neill's Provincetown Players. She got letters from Trotsky. Freud and Helen Keller were in her address book. She married journalist
John Reed, and Diane Keaton played her in
Reds. And she was nearly forgotten. Now,
Louise Bryant is remembered.
More here and much more here.
posted by digaman
on Nov 9, 2005 -
4 comments
The Orange Revolution --
A coup is taking place
right now in the streets of several Ukrainian cities. Following the "election" of Viktor Yanukovych, an election that
everyone from the Ukrainian man-on-the-street to
EU observers and
the US and
Canada say was marred by serious and obvious fraud, Ukrainians are turning out by the
hundreds of thousands to
show their support for the opposition candidate, the pro-West reformer
Viktor Yushchenko.
Individual cities and
municipalities, not to mention heads of
Ukrainian religious groups, have even announced that they will refuse to recognize Yanukovych as the Prime Minster.
The problem is, Yanukovych is supported by the Kremlin. Russia's state-run TV stations had been broadcasting propaganda on his behalf, they
called the election on his behalf before the polls were closed, and their increasingly despotic President Putin even congratulated him on his "win", before
backtracking slightly. And now reports are
trickling out--from
former American congressmen communicating via Blackberry, no less--about
Russian soldiers being flown across the border into Ukraine,
dressed in Ukrainian militia garb, and
set among the protestors. Phones have been cut across much of the country, including at the embassies. A semi-covert Russian-backed military push against the pro-democracy protestors is feared. Will this be another peaceful
Rose Revolution, as happened in Georgia one year ago today, or more like
Hungary, 1956? Stay tuned to
the Ukrainian bloggers and
webcams; this could
get messy.
posted by Asparagirl
on Nov 23, 2004 -
147 comments
