Anne Applebaum, Between East and West
Am training the nightshift today, so spent the morning reading this instead of preparing for Horatio's arrival. A really interesting guide to the swathe of Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea and the people who live there. Poles in Lithuania where it used to be Poland, Lithuanians in Poland where it used to be Germany, Belarussians in Lithuania where it used to be Poland, and used to be Germany, and used to be Russia, Germans popping up everywhere, and Orthodox Christians who recognise the authority of the Pope. After that it moves on to Ruthenia and Bukovina and gets more complicated. . . I seem to have exhausted the english language guides to the Balkans, so I'm working my way north-easy. Smolensk by Christmas hopefully.
'Small nations must learn how to live with their conquerors, but large nations are condemned to fight back.'
'Patriotic Russian historians notwithstanding, when the Lord created mankind he did not place the Russians where they happen to be today.' (Richard Pipes)
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