Tag Archives: NATO

Ukrainian journal

23 September 2024 Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Cambridge graduate historian and scion of a Russian family with opposition to autocracy in its DNA, has given an interview with The Times following his release from a 25-year prison sentence for ‘treason’. Instead … Continue reading

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Ukrainian journal

27 June 2024 A Russian opposition group called the Congress of People’s Deputies, consisting of over sixty exiled politicians who were once MPs in the State Duma, has met this week in Warsaw to discuss their plan to overthrow the … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 29

5 April 2024 I have received from a cousin the above image of our grandfather’s regimental sword. This plate on its scabbard seems to supply some context to what I knew about his military career. He joined up in 1894 … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 27

16 January 2024 I translated a few poems as a teenager and student (Rilke, Brecht, Hölderlin, Pushkin, Tiutchev, Mayakovsky, Yevtushenko, Brodsky), but bothered to see only a couple published. The fact was, I didn’t take verse translation very seriously. I … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 26

7 November 2023 Ukraine must win. There is no alternative, because Putin will never offer a true peace, only a breather before making another attempt to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state then torture, murder, deport and imprison its people. … Continue reading

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Cambridge Tales 5: ‘East of the Rhine’ (Concluded)

One afternoon in the last week of November, there was a soft knock on the door of my room. Before me stood an elegantly thin woman in her late twenties, wearing an extremely expensive-looking bleu nuit cashmere coat with a … Continue reading

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Man of sorrows

I was not planning or expecting to write this, but I feel I must, whether I prove right or wrong, because we all ought to be aware that the Russo-Ukrainian War is now at a critical point. It is the … Continue reading

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A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 4

23 April 2022 It is St George’s Day, hypothetically William Shakespeare’s birthday, and we are in Stratford-upon-Avon witnessing the civic celebrations, which are beautifully done,  inclusive, happy, humorous, almost a Spring flower festival, and a really moving tribute to Shakespeare’s … Continue reading

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A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 3

11 April 2022 Whilst coming back from the shop with today’s newspaper, I could see a neighbour on the other side of the street who was born at the gates of Mauthausen concentration camp six days before it was liberated … Continue reading

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A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 2

5 April 2022 When I contemplated the image from Kyiv that I posted last week, as well as Bruegel I thought of Isaac Babel’s stories Red Cavalry about the Russo-Polish War of 1919-21. Some of that war took place in … Continue reading

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Only one subject…

For the West, the most shameful part of the Ukrainian War is that if we had stood by the assurances of security that we gave Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 after negotiating the transfer of its nuclear arsenal to … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 17

24 January 2022 I have received several emails commiserating with me over my ‘anxiety’ and ‘nightmares’ about marking examination papers. The writers clearly assume I am Dr Robinson in my story Ghoune — that the story is strictly autobiographical and … Continue reading

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