Ukrainian literary tastes, according to Folio’s publisher. Defying Putin’s cultural erasure
Oleksandr Krasovitsky is 58 years old, born in Kharkiv, 40 kilometers from the northeastern border with Russia, and is the founder and editor-in-chief of Folio, one of Ukraine’s leading publishing houses. I meet him in the provisional peace of a Milan apartment, at the home of a mutual friend, the translator Elena Kostioukovitch. He shows […]
Chasing Armenian flowers, in a journey toward Europe
For the first time, Yerevan’s supermarkets are selling flowers. It strikes Armenia’s three million citizens as strange, since the main streets of their cities are already full of florists. Armenia, wedged into the mountains of the southern Caucasus between Turkey and Azerbaijan, has always had a flower-giving tradition: flowers are given as gifts, seen as […]
The panic in Ceuta, the collapse of European solidarity, and other August surprises
A crisis-prone August The European Union is officially on holiday in August. The Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU wound down their activities between mid- and late July. The “rentrée” is scheduled for Monday, August 31, with an informal meeting of defense ministers in Denmark. Ursula von der Leyen and her […]
The floating Traviata, the mirrors of Ukraine and a betrayed ospitality
AUGUST 20-23. LOUISIANA LITERATURE / COPENHAGEN, DENMARK Reading recommendations from Louisiana Literature The YouTube channel of Copenhagen’s Louisiana Museum is a precious archive of conversations with writers, artists, architects, and designers invited by the institution for an exhibition or event. The most anticipated is the Louisiana Literature festival, held in the museum’s magnificent garden. This […]
Europe pontificates about values but still hasn’t built a digital market
European politicians in Brussels, Rome, Berlin, and Paris “pontificate about European values and about how the European digital market is different from the American one, but the truth is we don’t have a European market. It doesn’t exist, it’s a fiction: there is no single European digital market,” says Nick Clegg, the former British deputy […]
How nice it would be to overhear Europeans once Trump leaves the room
The man who turned Stalin’s death into one of modern cinema’s sharpest political comedies came to Stalin’s birthplace to talk about laughter. In a café in Tbilisi, Armando Iannucci, the director of “The Death of Stalin”, spoke about the thing dictators have always feared most: being laughed at. Russia proved his point. In 2018, authorities […]
Robots take the risk or why Russia spends men, while Ukraine spends machines
In modern war, territory is no longer the decisive measure. Control of ammunition, casualty evacuation, and supply lines now determines survival under relentless drone surveillance. Lose control of them, and no number of tanks will salvage the fight. In autumn 2025, a severely wounded Ukrainian soldier lay pinned behind Russian lines for 33 days. Seven […]
Tbilisi lost its freedom along with the man who stood up to the concret
As Europe opens its doors to new paths of integration, Georgia keeps drifting further from that idealized continent which, for decades, stood for the promise of freedom. Tbilisi is heading the other way entirely toward a steady tightening of political, civic and even physical space. The protests have now gone on for more than five […]
Hungary’s revival, with the media in pieces
Imagine a country that, sixteen years after an illiberal, freedom-crushing regime, finds itself, just months after the electoral revolution that restored its democracy, without a single printed daily newspaper. Ten years ago, Hungary, a country of 9.5 million people, could count on four national political dailies: two controlled by the government (Magyar Nemzet and Magyar […]
Inside the Gegenbauer factory, where the world’s best vinegar is made
“Vinegar dad,” “culinary ambassador,” “taste fanatic”: there are many labels for Viennese entrepreneur Erwin Gegenbauer, 65, and they’re all fitting. But the impression you get after meeting him and visiting his remarkable factory in Vienna’s 10th district is, more than anything, that of an alchemist devoted to creating, blending, and fermenting vinegars of exceptional, unmistakable […]