iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

These are two great images from an early 18th c. travel account: "extraordinary turnips" near Arkhangelsk and rhubarb and eggplant seen on the way to Persia via the Caspian. Per the author, eggplant "is admirable in soup, fried in butter and in several other manners."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

This just really doesn't have a consistent message. What does Henry VIII have to do with a country doctor??

Advertisement for Country Doctor Pipe Mixture tobacco, featuring an image of Henry VIII smoking a pipe with the message "Zounds! WIVES I changeth often, but NOT my tobacco! It doth smoke so smooth, so sweet, so mellow"

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I have no explanation for this one.

A woman screams as a person in a gorilla suit leaps at her (?!)

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

This is part of my absolute favorite nineteenth-century diplomatic ado, which is that Nicholas I was outraged by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte naming himself Napoleon III. He had problems with the III and with his fellow sovereigns calling him "my brother" instead of "my friend."

Hand-written letter saying: My Lord, Without at present entering into many details I may inform Your Lordship, as I am able to do on certain authority, that much resentment & anger has been manifested by the Emperor upon learning that the Sovereigns of Austria and Prussia have resolved upon employing the form of "mon frêre" in their correspondence with Louis Bonaparte."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I'm avoiding marking by cleaning out my screenshots folder. So many odd things I can't remember why I saved. Very very busy (and oddly humanoid?) beavers of Canada.

Black and white engraving showing a very very large number of oddly human-ish beavers building a dam near Niagara Falls. Text at bottom begins "A view of the industry of the beavers of Canada in making dams to stop the course of a rivulet in order to form a Great Lake, about which they build their Habitations."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I am marking something and it is making me SO HAPPY with my wonderful students. I have them turn in index cards with questions about readings each week, and this year I gave them all their cards back, asked them to read through them, and then to write a reflection on their own reading practice.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I love so many things about this page, including the fact that the 80s lasted a very long time, apparently. I also want to know what was going on in 2017. eu.daleofnorway.com/explore-dale...

eu.daleofnorway.com

Iconic sweaters

Dale of Norway has made official sweaters for the Norwegian ski team for every Winter Olympics and World Ski Championships from 1956 to 2022.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

I am writing a short piece about dacha-going and it taking so much will not to make a reference to Russians coming to the cottage.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

This is WILD. So many things! Folk tales! 19th century literature! An explanation of Tarkovsky's films! Why trees have leaves!!

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Would really really really love to see the 2026 version of Miliukov standing up in the Duma and giving the “is this stupidity or is this treason” speech.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Emotional support chickens, ready for exam-weeks duty.

Photograph of a desk with a laptop computer, a water bottle, and two knitted chickens.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

“The lead this Court takes in all the great transactions of Europe; the successes which attend every part of its public conduct, and at the same time the supineness and insufficiency of its administration, are facts so seemingly incompatible that, in a future day, they must appear incredible.”

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

One of Catherine the Great’s grandsons, when aged about nine, asked this about someone: “Is he a real genuine Briton? Does he appear frightened when he enters a room where there is any company? Is he at a loss where to put his hat, when he is so polite as to take it off?” (Reported by Swinton.)

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Now available (open access!): the article I might not have written had I not been department chair, on eighteenth century Russian rulers trying to stop people asking them for things. (Also on how autocracy works, should that be of current interest SIGH.) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

“To Each Their Grievance Is Bitter and Unbearable”: Petitions, Autocracy, and the Rule of Law in Eighteenth-Century Russia | Law and History Review | Cambridge Core

“To Each Their Grievance Is Bitter and Unbearable”: Petitions, Autocracy, and the Rule of Law in Eighteenth-Century Russia

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

My music group commissioned a piece by Beverley McKiver; she was inspired by the lost rivers of Toronto and wrote us a truly lovely piece: youtu.be/FcAnjaFS9Us?...

youtu.be

Lost Rivers

YouTube video by Wychwood Clarinet Choir

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Excellent description of Cyrillic from a 19th century American traveler: "the letters are all drunk and run the wrong way, like lopsided crabs."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Whew, Belinsky when he realizes he can't actually find rationality in the world around him is too relatable: "I am weary, cold, and empty. I have no hope of any personal happiness. Woe! Woe! Life is exposed."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

There is still an awful lot of awful out there, but gosh I have enjoyed Chicago Pope day.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Once again, I am reminded of the archive security guard who, in fall 2016, asked me who I was going to vote for. Before I could answer, he said “you’re probably going to say Clinton, but Trump would be better for Russia.”

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

I'm reading through 19th century mortality reports and holy shit we are so lucky to live in a world of modern public health. Why the hell would anyone want to go back to that? It is infuriating.

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Reposted by Alison K. Smith

Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Boris Nemtsov was assassinated 10 years ago today. The street outside the Russian embassy in Washington D.C. was renamed in his memory - a move instigated by a senator determined to hold the Kremlin accountable for its crimes. I wonder how he thinks that's going. www.voanews.com/a/us-bill-wo...

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

I knew Arcimboldo painted fruit/vegetable portraits but a BOOK portrait?? Amazing. I could not love this more. Source: samlingar.shm.se/object/465F6...

Portrait of a man made out of books! Several small books make up his face, with ribbons indicating his ear. A splayed open book is his hair/hat. A large red book makes up one upper arm, with a white and cream book with ribbons hanging out the end serving as lower arm and fingers. A blue/gray drapery behind serves as a cape.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Today I stumbled on this stunning piece of... embroidery? I think that's the best word for this kind of needle art? ... made by Maria Christina Frosterus in Uleåborg/Oulu Finland, 1820, in the collections of The National Museum of Finland. I love it.

Photograph of a piece white on white embroidery in the shape of a star with flowers and vines around the edges; the star is divided into many smaller triangles each with its own stitch pattern.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

The British ambassador to St. Petersburg in 1859 on his French counterpart: "...a kind hearted and conciliatory man, but troubled occassionally with that susceptibility which not uncommonly renders a Frenchman more intent upon trifles than upon matters of serious import.."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

A powder commonly in use among Russians to prevent cholera, taken “with such good results” by the British ambassador that he is sending the information on to the foreign office! NA FO 65/424/252

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

It is also fascinating and troubling to read the dispatches by the British ambassador in early 1853, passing on reports of increased Russian military presence in the south, and then following them up with what amounts to "but Nicholas can't possibly intend there to be war, Russia can't afford it."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Furthermore, Nicholas I and the Russian government did not "recognize the validity of the numeral III as adopted by the Emperor of the French."

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

TIL that in the run-up to the Crimean War, one issue was that Nicholas I did not want to call Louis Napoleon, recently declared emperor in France, "mon frère" and was OUTRAGED that the Austrian and Prussian emperors were willing to do so.

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Reposted by Alison K. Smith

Hildur Knútsdóttir @hildur.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

RÚV, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Agency, shows this dance EVERY New Years Day, and has done so as long as there has been television. Please click play and enjoy this magnificent spectacle, without which it could never feel like a new year is truly coming.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Suddenly I understand why my 8th grade social studies teacher (in Oak Park, just west of Chicago, in 1984-5) told us we were lucky because we’d be immediately dead if there were a nuclear war.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

I have been waiting for this day. Wordle 1,290 1/6* 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

I had a massive baking fail last week so the fact that this appears to have come out well is a relief!

Sliced pears arranged in the bottom of a cake pan.

Upside down cake right side up, with pears arranged in a rosette.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Сельдь под шубой may be the single most difficult to explain Russian dish even without fish heads.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

I cannot interpret this bookplate. The mix of Cyrillic and Latin letters, the ... math??

Drawing of an open book; one page shows a child holding a disembodied hand; the other says из Книг А. И. (From the books of A. I.) and then a bunch of letters that are hard to put together.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

This self-portrait by the prolific illustrator (and caricaturist) Vasilii (George) Timm from 1845ish is amazing. He looks like Freddy Mercury dressed up like a moth. And he's holding a pen like a sword!

Where to begin? Caricature of the torso of a man with short dark hair and a mustache, with moth wings and antennae, his initials (VT) like a tattoo on one arm, holding a pen like a sword under one arm, emerging from an inkwell.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

TIL that the Leninka has candy wrappers in its online catalog. A LOT of candy wrappers.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

A bit of festivity: a whole bunch of clarinet players (including me!) playing Sleigh Ride! youtu.be/Fo9MZmbR8H4?...

youtu.be

Sleigh Ride

YouTube video by Wychwood Clarinet Choir

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

TIL that in 1852 you could see giraffes ("the first in St. Petersburg") and an ostrich in on the Moika canal.

Etching showing several people looking at cages holding three giraffes. an ostrich, and two small horned animals, with a monkey above them. Text reads (in Russian) "Giraffes, the first in St. Petersburg, in Gartmann's zoo on the Moika, by the Pedestrian Bridge"

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

This is my other favorite shop sign (for a hair salon in St. Petersburg), and this one I can’t even begin to understand.

A round shop sign showing a cat with rouged cheeks and an elaborate curled hairstyle.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

One of my two all-time favorite shop names. An eyebrow (and tanning) salon named … well.

Shop sign reading Brezznev with a pair of very bushy, Brezhnev-esque eyebrows.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

1856 ad for a washing machine, an invention that won prizes in New York and Paris! This looks frankly enormously unwieldy.

Etching showing a woman using a big lever to work a washing machine (apparently??) with two representations of medals and the words: привиллегированная в России прачешная машина, для стирки белья посредством шаров.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Donations to help the wounded from the siege of Sevastopol include money, lint, bandages, tea, sugar, underclothes, and, from a priest, 100 copies of his own book, "A Remembrance of a Father and True Friend" (!!!)

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

This is amazing. A list of letters put in postboxes in St. Petersburg in January 1855 that can't be delivered. It lists the number of the postbox, the date, the recipient, and why it couldn't be sent (letters that weigh more than the stamp allows, no indication of the city).

As noted in skeet; all written in Russian.

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

I had not yet realized that it now requires me to include a "contribution percentage" for single-authored pieces of writing. Even worse, "100%" isn't an option. "91-100%" is, but I find that somehow ... insulting? To every single discipline that is mostly single-authored, i.e., the humanities??

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Alison K. Smith @profaks.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Grappling today with the Canadian Common CV and wondering, yet again, why it is so bad.

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