Manic Bookstore Cafe

Last night I gave a dorm talk at Ohio State to try to explain the Sochi Olympics. My task was made much easier by NBC.com and the opening ceremony alphabet sequence, which took the Cyrillic alphabet and that sweet little Russian girl and laid out a narrative of Russian history and the achievements of Russian science and culture. But as I went through the presentation, I realized that there were a number of odd choices in how to represent Russian culture through its letters. So I've picked a few alternatives that in my mind fill in some of the gaps that the Russian Olympic organizers left out.   А   The first letter of the Russian alphabet is A, which stands for Азбука, or alphabet. Makes sense -- when people think of the Russian language, one thing they fear is those 33 letters that seem so impenetrable -- like the Russian soul or the vast taiga. The video clip  takes us back to Cyril and Methodius who invented the Cyrillic alphabet, and thus to the roo...

Russian Warsaw. We've only just begun to explore the physical manifestations of Russian influence on the Polish cityscape. Everyone knows about Stalin's gift to the Poles -- the huge "wedding cake" Palace of Culture that sits right in the middle of the city. But there's more. In 1830, the Poles were ready to throw off the tsarist yoke in Warsaw once and for all. The revolt was started by local Polish army cadets and carried out in November. Fighting continued through October of 1831, but in the end the Poles were vanquished. And reprisals rained down on those rebellious Poles. The tsarist government, not willing to give up this European outpost of empire, lay the foundations for a great citadel, intending to house troops in the city to keep a better handle on the population and to have somewhere to house the many intransigent Poles who would never really accept Russian rule (and who would continue to rise up in coming years). The cornerstone was set in place ...