The Country of the Knout
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On the immutability of Russian history, Ivan Golovin, and Mikhail Lermontov’s poem “Farewell, Unwashed Russia” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, the French say, and the expression seems tailor-made for Russian history. Certainly a perusal of any 19th-century text about Russia written by a chronicler at a safe distance from its borders would…