The perils of permissiveness
The erotic adventures of a teenager who finally meets her match became a succès de scandale in 1920, and will still raise eyebrows today
The indispensable impresario
‘What exactly is it you do?’ asked a bamboozled King Alfonso XIII of Spain upon meeting Sergei Diaghilev at a…
Siege mentality
Take the Red Line north, heading out of St Petersburg, and you’ll eventually reach Courage Square on the city’s outskirts…
A moving target
‘They’ll slowly undress us first and then kill us, so our clothes won’t get bloody and our banknotes won’t get…
Looking back on Baku
The discovery of oil in Baku brought Ummulbanu Asadullayeva’s family respect if not respectability. Peasant-born, her grandparents ranked by the…
