Riquewihr (France)

Riquewihr, France.

Riquewihr is a beautifully preserved medieval town located in the Alsace region of northeastern France, nestled between the Vosges Mountains and the famous vineyards of Alsace. Often referred to as one of the "most beautiful villages in France," Riquewihr is renowned for its half-timbered houses, cobblestone streets, and vibrant flower displays, all set within its 13th-century fortified walls.

Dating back to the Roman era, Riquewihr became prominent during the Middle Ages, flourishing as a winemaking town. Its well-preserved architecture reflects centuries of history, with structures from the Renaissance era and the Middle Ages standing side by side. The town's rich viticultural tradition remains strong, producing some of the finest Alsace wines, particularly Riesling.

Riquewihr’s charm, history, and location along the Alsace Wine Route make it a popular destination for visitors seeking both cultural and gastronomic experiences in one of France's most picturesque settings.

Saint Lucia of Syracuse

The statue of Saint Lucia of Syracuse, Catedral Vieja de Salamanca (Spain)

Saint Lucia, born in Syracuse, Sicily, during the 3rd century, led a life devoted to Christianity. Legend has it that she promised her life to God, vowing chastity and service. Despite persecution by Diocletian, she remained steadfast, even surviving attempts to martyr her. One tale recounts her clandestine visits to Christians in prison, bringing them food and light. She wore a wreath of candles to illuminate her path, symbolizing hope in dark times.

The plate with two eyes, a curious detail, is often attributed to her own actions. In one of the stories, Lucia plucked out her eyes to deter a persistent suitor who admired them. Miraculously, her sight was restored by divine intervention, leaving her with a plate depicting her eyes as a reminder of her unwavering faith and miraculous healing.

Today, Saint Lucia is celebrated on December 13th, embodying the virtues of courage, compassion, and the triumph of light over darkness.

The Church on Friesland’s Highest Mound (Hegebeintum, The Netherlands)

The church at Hegebeintum (The Netherlands).

In the tiny Frisian village of Hegebeintum, the church seems to float above the surrounding fields. It stands atop the highest terp—an artificial dwelling mound—in the Netherlands, rising about eight and a half metres above sea level. Built in the 12th century, the Romanesque church of brick and tuffstone replaced an earlier wooden structure, serving both as a place of worship and as a refuge during floods.

Over the centuries, the church was altered in Gothic style and fortified with a stout tower. Inside, you can still see medieval fresco traces and a richly carved 17th-century pulpit. The terp itself has its own story: much of it was dug away in the late 19th century for fertile soil, leaving the church standing even more prominently against the horizon.

Today, the church and terp together form a striking landmark—a meeting point of human resilience, medieval faith, and the ever-changing Frisian landscape.

The interior of the church at Hegebeintum (The Netherlands).

Dinkelsbühl (Germany)

The Nördlinger Tor, Dinkelsbühl (Germany).

Hidden on Bavaria’s Romantic Road, Dinkelsbühl looks almost too perfect to be real. Encircled by intact 15th-century walls and punctuated by sixteen towers, it feels as if time stopped when merchants and guilds still ruled the cobblestones. But its charm is more than just picture-book beauty.

One of the town’s most intriguing chapters dates back to the Reformation and the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Dinkelsbühl was declared a paritätische Stadt—a “city of parity.” That meant Catholics and Protestants shared power equally, an extraordinary arrangement in a century marked by bitter religious wars. Councils, schools, and even church use were organized to respect both confessions. This rare compromise spared Dinkelsbühl the sectarian violence that scarred so many other towns and shaped a culture of cooperation that lingers to this day.

Stroll the narrow lanes to St. George’s Minster, admire the gabled merchants’ houses, or follow the nightly Rothenburg-style night watchman tour, and you walk through layers of civic peacekeeping as well as medieval splendor.

Dinkelsbühl isn’t just beautifully preserved—it’s a reminder that lasting harmony can grow where tolerance takes root, a lesson as valuable now as it was nearly four centuries ago.

Segringer Strasse, Dinkelsbühl (Germany).

Coal, Catholicism, and Community: Henri Poels and the Social Fabric of South Limburg (1900–1930, The Netherlands)

Henri Poels.

When coal was discovered in South Limburg at the turn of the 20th century, it promised jobs, prosperity—and potential trouble. Across Europe, industrial regions had already shown how rapidly growing workforces could become hotbeds of labour unrest, socialism, and political radicalism. In The Hague and in church offices alike, there was quiet concern: how could Limburg’s mining communities grow without becoming a social powder keg?

That challenge found its champion in Monsignor Henri Poels, a priest from Venray who would become known as aalmoezenier van de arbeid—chaplain to the working class. Poels understood that keeping the peace in the mines meant more than sermons on Sunday. It required housing, leisure, and a sense of belonging firmly rooted in Catholic life. His mission was both pastoral and strategic: to “bind the worker to the soil,” as one famous slogan put it, by giving them a stake in stable, faith-based communities.

In 1911, Poels founded Ons Limburg, a cooperative housing association designed to tackle the chronic shortage of decent homes for miners and their families. Good housing, he believed, was a bulwark against the appeal of socialist promises. But bricks and mortar were only the beginning. Poels actively encouraged a dense network of Catholic associations—sports clubs, choirs, youth groups, and mutual aid societies—that would anchor miners’ lives in a shared moral and cultural framework.

His reach extended into the cultural sphere as well. Through initiatives like the NV Tijdig, he supported Catholic-friendly cinema and theatre, offering wholesome entertainment that kept people within the Church’s orbit even in their leisure hours. In the process, he helped shape a “pillar” of Catholic life in Limburg—parallel to, and often in competition with, socialist and liberal networks.

The results were tangible. Catholic miners’ unions provided an alternative to secular labour movements, offering advocacy on wages and conditions without breaking ranks with the Church. Housing cooperatives ensured that miners lived in neighbourhoods designed with parish life in mind—complete with churches, schools, and clubhouses. For decades, this model of faith-led community building kept Limburg’s mining region socially cohesive, even as it absorbed waves of migrant labour from other parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and beyond.

By the 1930s, the coalfields of South Limburg were more than an economic engine; they were a laboratory for a uniquely Catholic approach to industrial society. Poels’ legacy still lingers in the brick façades of garden villages, in the archives of miners’ associations, and in the memory of a time when the Church was not only a place of worship, but the architect of an entire way of life.

Banner of the Dutch Roman Catholic Miners’ Union, Geleen branch in South Limburg (1920).

Further reading

• BWSA, Henri Poels (Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis)

• Canon van Nederland, Limburg-venster: Ons Limburg and housing policy

• T. Oort, Film en het moderne leven in Limburg (chapter on associations and cinema)

• S. Langeweg, Mijnbouw en arbeidsmarkt in Nederlands-Limburg, 1900–1965

• Katholiek Zuid-Limburg en het fascisme (Maaslandse Monografieën 19)

• Open Universiteit, “Mijn en Kerk” thematic article

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: The Second World War and a New World Order

Pact with the Devil, Joseph Stalin shakes hands with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop at the Kremlin, Moscow, 1939. Based on photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H27337 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 DE.

The Second World War was both a catastrophe and a crucible for the Soviet Union. It transformed the USSR from an embattled revolutionary state into one of the two global superpowers — but at a staggering human cost.

The Pact with the Devil
In August 1939, the world was stunned by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union, sworn enemy of fascism, signed a non-aggression treaty with Nazi Germany. A secret protocol divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. When Germany invaded Poland from the west on September 1, the Red Army marched in from the east two weeks later, seizing territory promised in the pact. Within a year, the USSR had annexed the Baltic states and parts of Romania, and waged a bitter war against Finland in the Winter War of 1939–1940.

Operation Barbarossa: The Shock
At dawn on June 22, 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion in history. Three million German soldiers, supported by allies, surged into Soviet territory. Stalin had ignored multiple warnings from Western intelligence and his own spies, convinced Hitler would not break the pact so soon. The result was chaos: Soviet forces were encircled, millions captured, and vast swathes of land overrun in the first months.

A War of Survival
Yet the Soviet Union did not collapse. Moscow did not fall. The Soviet leadership relocated industry east of the Urals, away from German bombers. Ordinary citizens endured unimaginable hardship — cities under siege, villages burned, families torn apart. The Siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days, killing over a million through starvation, shelling, and cold. The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943) became the turning point: a brutal, house-to-house struggle that ended with the surrender of an entire German army.

The Road to Berlin
From Stalingrad onward, the Red Army went on the offensive. In 1944, Operation Bagration annihilated Germany’s Army Group Centre, liberating Belarus and pushing west. Soviet troops advanced through Poland, Romania, Hungary, and into the heart of Germany. On May 2, 1945, Berlin fell to Soviet forces, and on May 9, the USSR celebrated Victory Day.

The Human Cost and Political Gain
The Soviet Union emerged victorious, but the toll was staggering: at least 20 million dead, countless wounded, and vast destruction of towns, farms, and infrastructure. Yet geopolitically, the USSR gained enormous influence. Communist governments, backed by Soviet military presence, took power across Eastern Europe. The wartime alliance with Britain and the United States soon gave way to suspicion and rivalry — the Cold War was already germinating.

Further Reading:

• Richard Overy – Russia’s War (1997)

• Antony Beevor – Stalingrad (1998)

• Catherine Merridale – Ivan’s War (2006)

• Evan Mawdsley – Thunder in the East (2005)

The Tombstone of Sentia Amarantis (Mérida, Spain)

Funerary stele of Sentia Amarantis, a freedwoman shown drawing wine from a barrel—likely her daily work. Dedicated by her husband, Sentius Victor, after 17 years of marriage. 2nd–3rd century CE, Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, Mérida. Catalogue no. MNAR 676.

In the Roman city of Emerita Augusta—modern-day Mérida, Spain—archaeologists uncovered a remarkable tombstone. At first glance, it’s a simple funerary relief. But on closer inspection, it tells a vivid, personal story: not just of death, but of life.

Carved into the stone is the figure of a woman. Her body twists slightly as she reaches for a jug with one hand, while with the other she opens the spigot of a small barrel resting on a stand. She wears a tunic pulled tight at the waist and her hair is neatly tied up. This is Sentia Amarantis, a freedwoman whose daily work—perhaps running a modest tavern—is proudly shown beside her name.

The inscription, in slightly cursive Latin, tells us:
“To the spirits of the dead. For Sentia Amarantis, aged 45. Her husband, Sentius Victor, made this for his most beloved wife. They were married for 17 years.”

The upper part of the tombstone is shaped like a small marble temple, with curved ornaments and a semicircular pediment—clearly inspired by elite monuments, but rendered in a more modest, popular style. Scholars believe this adaptation reflects both the aspirations and the economic limitations of the couple—likely former slaves.

This gravestone doesn’t show a goddess or a myth. It shows a working woman, mid-action, remembered not through abstract virtues but through the gestures of her trade. The small barrel and jug, so carefully carved, speak of labor, routine, and care.

It is a quiet but powerful monument to everyday love, work, and dignity in the Roman world.

The Weeping Maid of Laarne (Belgium)

The Castle of Laarne, by Jacques Sturm (1807-1844).

Somewhere in East Flanders, just east of Ghent, sits the Kasteel van Laarne, a formidable moated fortress of grey stone and whispered memories. Its towers have seen nobles rise and fall, its walls have held courtly banquets and wartime secrets—but among its most enduring stories is one far more intimate and tragic: the tale of The Weeping Maid.

The tale originates in the 17th century, when a young maidservant named Margriet entered the castle’s service. She was a local girl, known in the nearby village for her gentle heart and striking beauty. But life behind the thick stone walls of Laarne was not always kind.

It’s said that Margriet caught the unwanted attention of the castle’s lord—a man of power and pride. When she resisted his advances, he turned vengeful. One stormy night, she vanished. The official word was that she had fled. But other servants spoke of a scream from the tower, muddy footprints on the cellar stairs, and a fireplace hastily sealed with new stone.

Years later, during renovations, human remains were reportedly found behind a wall near the tower. A small brooch—Margriet’s—was recovered alongside them. Since then, stories persist of strange happenings: unexplained sobbing in the halls, cold drafts from nowhere, a flicker of movement in the shadows. Some claim to have seen her—pale, dressed in servant’s garb, staring silently from a high window before vanishing into the air.

They call her the Weeping Maid.

The Castle of Laarne in 2025.

The Gravestone of Lutatia Lupata

Gravestone of Lutatia Lupata, a 16-year-old girl shown playing a stringed instrument. Erected by her nurse, Lutatia Severa, in a gesture of deep affection. Late 2nd century CE, Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, Mérida. Catalogue no. MNAR 6033.

Deep in the Roman city of Emerita Augusta (modern-day Mérida, Spain), archaeologists uncovered a small but touching monument: the gravestone of a girl named Lutatia Lupata, who died at just 16 years old. Her tombstone, carved around the late 2nd century CE, shows her not in mourning or death—but in music.

In a shallow niche framed by a miniature temple (edicula), Lutatia is depicted standing frontally, dressed in a tunic, her hands gently playing a stringed instrument—possibly a pandurium, a kind of Roman lute. It’s a rare and vivid portrait of youthful grace and everyday joy.

The inscription below reads:
"To the spirits of the dead. Lutatia Lupata, aged 16. This was made by her nurse, Lutatia Severa, who raised her. May the earth rest lightly upon you."

This wasn’t a monument commissioned by parents or a wealthy family—it was made by her nurse, who likely raised her from infancy. The word alumna tells us Lutatia may not have been a daughter by blood, but she was certainly a daughter by love.

Her grave marker—simple, intimate, and quietly joyful—reminds us that grief in the Roman world, like today, was deeply personal. Lutatia’s music may be long silenced, but her memory still plays on, carved in stone.

Saint-Mystère Remains Silent: The Tourists 07

The Swiss.

They arrived in an older red car, polished and humming softly, like it had been freshly tuned just for the journey. The Swiss couple stepped out without hurry—he in a well-pressed suit, she in a heavy wool cardigan and a skirt dotted with quiet flowers. They looked like they had stepped out of another time, or perhaps into one.

They brought their own chairs and sat near the edge of the village green, backs straight, hands folded. From a small leather bag came their lunch: thick slices of Zopf bread, cubes of Sbrinz, a tightly wrapped bundle of Bündnerfleisch, and a thermos of warm Ovomaltine. A bar of dark chocolate followed, divided evenly in silence.

They said little. Observed much. A nod here, a glance there. No sunglasses, no camera, no music. Only a sense of exactness, as if their being here had been calculated, pencilled in years ago.

They left just before dusk, without speaking to anyone.
Only the flattened grass where their chairs had stood remained.

In Saint-Mystère, no one tried to smooth it out.

Limburg Torn Between Two Countries: Faith, Identity, and Relations with the New Order for the Low Countries after 1839

A map with the division of Limburg from the Treaty of XXIV Articles (London, 1839).

When revolution erupted in Brussels in 1830, Limburg found itself at the nexus of Europe’s great powers. For nine uneasy years, the province lived in political limbo. Belgium had declared independence; the Netherlands refused to let go. In the meantime, Limburg’s towns and villages experienced a tug-of-war not just between two capitals, but between two different worlds.

Much of Limburg’s population sided—openly or quietly—with the Belgian cause. Catholic to the core, many Limburgers felt culturally and spiritually closer to Belgium and its Church than to a Protestant-dominated Dutch state. The Catholic Church became both an anchor and a shield: an institution that spoke their language, celebrated their feast days, and upheld traditions that had shaped village life for centuries. In the uncertain 1830s, clinging to the Church was as much an act of identity as it was of faith.

Politically, the situation was volatile. In the early months of the Belgian Revolution, places like Sittard, Roermond, and Venlo joined the uprising; only Maastricht held out for the Dutch king, guarded by its fortress commander. Diplomacy played out in London’s conference rooms, with maps repeatedly redrawn—first in the so-called XVIII Articles of 1831, then in the far harsher XXIV Articles of 1839. These final terms carved Limburg in two, assigning the eastern half, including Maastricht, to the Netherlands.

The decision was met with resentment on the ground. Limburgers had grown accustomed to the broader freedoms they enjoyed under Belgian administration during the 1830–1839 interlude. Many resisted the new Dutch order: over 3,500 people formally opted for Belgian nationality, and thousands more quietly crossed the border. Even for those who stayed, the bond with “Holland” was thin. Daily life—markets, schooling, professional networks—often still pointed south to Liège, Hasselt, and Brussels rather than north to Amsterdam or The Hague.

In this climate, the Catholic Church’s role deepened. It provided continuity in a time when political allegiance was in flux. Parish life, religious festivals, and clergy influence became subtle markers of a Limburg identity distinct from the Dutch national narrative. For decades afterward, this sense of difference lingered. By the time Limburg was fully integrated into the Netherlands in the late 19th century, its Catholic heritage was not just a religious fact—it was a quiet statement of who they were, forged in the shadow of a political split.

Further reading

• Piet Lenders, Honderdvijftig jaar scheidingsverdrag België–Nederland en de opsplitsing van Limburg, 1989

• W. Jappe Alberts, Geschiedenis van de beide Limburgen, 1972

• K. Schaapveld, Local Loyalties: South Limburg During the Belgian-Dutch Separation, 1998

• L. Cornips, Territorializing History, Language, and Identity in Limburg, 2012

Europe at the Crossroads

Europe stands on a knife-edge. While China relentlessly builds and the United States races ahead in technology, the European Union risks drifting into slow decline—economically weaker, strategically dependent, and exposed to forces it cannot control. The Draghi report on EU competitiveness warns that without decisive action Europe will forfeit not only growth but its ability to defend its way of life.

The threats are multiple and reinforcing. Industrial capacity has thinned as factories moved abroad; vital know-how in energy technology, semiconductors and advanced manufacturing erodes further each year. Clean-tech ambitions clash with energy costs that remain far higher than in the U.S. or China. Fragmented capital markets and labyrinthine rules slow down every promising innovation until competitors elsewhere seize the lead. At the same time China dominates global supply chains for rare earths, batteries and pharmaceuticals, leaving Europe exposed to political leverage from Beijing.

To these economic headwinds comes the hard edge of security. Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine is no longer a distant regional conflict but a strategic earthquake. A revanchist Kremlin openly threatens NATO’s eastern flank, tests Europe’s airspace and cyber-defences, and bets on Western fatigue. A continent that struggles to produce artillery shells fast enough, or to coordinate its own air-defence procurement, cannot assume that the U.S. nuclear umbrella will always suffice. Economic fragility and military vulnerability feed each other: a weaker industrial base makes rearmament harder, while insecurity discourages long-term investment.

What Europe needs is not another round of cautious communiqués but a surge of purposeful action. The Draghi report calls for hundreds of billions in annual investment to rebuild manufacturing and energy systems, but money alone will not be enough. Decision-making must be faster, regulation simpler, and the single market finally completed so that ideas, capital and skilled workers can move as freely as ambition demands. Industrial policy must target critical sectors—clean energy, digital infrastructure, advanced defence technologies—while integrating climate goals with competitiveness rather than setting them in tension.

Europe has shown before that it can reinvent itself when the stakes are existential. Today the choice is stark: either remain a mosaic of well-meaning but slow-moving states, or act as a true union capable of building, defending and innovating at scale. The alternative is a future where prosperity ebbs, dependence grows and security is left to others. In an age when power belongs to those who can out-build and out-last their rivals, Europe must decide whether it wants to shape the century—or be shaped by it.

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: From Lenin to Stalin - Building the Soviet State

Joseph Stalin

The birth of the Soviet Union in 1922 was both the conclusion of the revolutionary struggle and the beginning of a new experiment in governance. The Bolsheviks had won the Civil War, but they inherited a country ravaged by years of conflict, famine, and economic collapse.

Lenin’s Pragmatic Retreat
To stabilize the economy, Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. It was a tactical retreat from full socialism: small businesses and private markets were allowed to operate, peasants could sell surplus grain, and foreign investment was cautiously welcomed. The policy brought modest recovery, but also ideological unease among hardline communists.

The Succession Struggle
When Lenin died in January 1924, he left no clear successor. The ensuing power struggle pitted Leon Trotsky — charismatic leader of the Red Army — against Joseph Stalin, the party’s General Secretary. Stalin used his position to quietly build alliances, control appointments, and marginalize rivals. By the late 1920s, Trotsky was exiled, and Stalin stood unchallenged.

The First Five-Year Plan
In 1928, Stalin launched the First Five-Year Plan, aiming to transform the USSR from an agrarian economy into an industrial superpower. Massive projects such as the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and the Magnitogorsk steelworks became symbols of progress. Industrial output surged, but at tremendous human cost — workers endured harsh conditions, shortages, and strict discipline.

Collectivization and Famine
In the countryside, Stalin forced millions of peasants into collective farms. Those who resisted — labelled “kulaks” — were deported or executed. Grain was requisitioned to feed cities and finance industrialization, even during poor harvests. The result was famine on a massive scale. In Ukraine, the Holodomor of 1932–1933 killed millions, a trauma that still shapes Ukrainian–Russian relations.

The Great Terror
By the mid-1930s, Stalin’s paranoia turned inward. A wave of purges swept the Communist Party, the military, and the intelligentsia. Show trials extracted confessions through torture; executions and Gulag sentences followed. Entire generations of revolutionary leaders vanished. Yet even as fear spread, the Soviet state consolidated its grip, and Stalin’s image as the “Father of Nations” was cultivated through propaganda.

The Soviet Union on the Eve of War
By the end of the 1930s, the USSR was a formidable industrial power with a centralized command economy. The human toll had been immense, but Stalin believed the sacrifices had prepared the country for the challenges ahead — challenges that would arrive sooner than anyone expected.

Further Reading:

• Stephen Kotkin – Stalin: Paradoxes of Power (2014)

• Robert Service – Stalin: A Biography (2004)

• Orlando Figes – Revolutionary Russia 1891–1991 (2014)

• Sheila Fitzpatrick – Everyday Stalinism (1999)

Lampa, the Mystery Girl of Roman Mérida (Spain)

Marble relief of a naked female figure with the inscription “LAMPA” above her head. Found in Augusta Emerita (modern Mérida), 2nd–3rd century CE. Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, Mérida.

In a quiet gallery of the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano in Mérida, a small marble plaque draws the eye. A young naked female is carved into its surface, her posture elegant and reserved—one hand resting over her chest, the other hanging by her side. Modest in size and style, the relief seems classical, serene. But look closer, and the story deepens.

Above her head, in Greek letters, is a single word: LAMPA. Next to it, also in Greek, her age: thirteen.

From the start, scholars noted that the use of Greek—and the very young age—might suggest that this figure was not a goddess or an elite Roman matron, but a foreign girl. Some early interpretations proposed she was commemorated in death. But newer readings have shifted the focus.

The plaque was found in the necropolis of Augusta Emerita, reused in a later burial. Yet its original purpose may have been something else entirely. Her hairstyle matches that of Faustina the Elder, dating the image to the mid-2nd century CE. Her pose—nude, decorative, and non-mythological—aligns with known depictions of women linked to the world of Roman brothels, or lupanars.

The theory now gaining ground is that this relief once adorned the façade of a brothel, and that Lampa, whether her real name or not, represents one of the many young, likely enslaved, girls who worked within. The Greek language reinforces this possibility, as Greek was often used for names of non-citizens and enslaved people in Roman Hispania.

Whether Lampa was a specific girl or a symbolic name advertising youth and availability, the effect is haunting. She may have been only thirteen—an age etched into stone, but robbed of voice, context, and choice.

Today, she stands silent in marble. Not a goddess. Not a noblewoman. But a girl, remembered not through love or honor, but through commerce and objectification. A body preserved. A childhood lost.

Saints Cosmas and Damian

Saints Cosmas and Damian, Church of Saint Peter in Teruel (Spain).

Saints Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers who lived in the 3rd century AD and are revered as martyrs. Born in Cilicia, a region on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor, they worked as physicians in the port city of Aegea (now Ayas, Turkey). Known for providing free medical services, they were called Anargyroi (Greek for “the silverless”) due to their refusal to accept payment. Their charity is believed to have led to many conversions to Christianity. The brothers are credited with several miracles, including a legendary leg transplant in which they replaced a man’s lost leg with that of a deceased Moor.

Under Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians, they were arrested, tortured, and eventually beheaded for their faith. Veneration of Cosmas and Damian began soon after their deaths, with churches dedicated to them appearing in Jerusalem, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. In 527, Pope Felix III converted the Temple of Romulus in Rome into a basilica in their honor. Their skulls are kept in the Clarisses convent in Madrid, though other relics exist in cities like Munich, Vienna, and Venice.

Cosmas and Damian are patron saints of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and the sick, as well as barbers and confectioners. Their feast day is celebrated on September 26. They are also invoked for protection against seasickness, inflammation, and plague. In Dutch history, two major floods, known as the Cosmas and Damian Floods, occurred on their feast day in 1477 and 1509, causing significant damage to Zeeland and Flanders.

Gold, Gods, and the Sea: The Story of the Phoenicians in Spain

Phoenician-style gold necklace from Tomb 18, Les Casetes necropolis, Villajoyosa (Alicante), Spain. — This ceremonial necklace, dating to the late 7th–6th century BCE, is composed of 38 elements including gold discs, cylindrical beads, glass inlays, and granulated spacers. (Image: adapted version of an image by the Vilamuseu, Villajoyosa.)

Long before the Romans marched into Iberia, and even before the Greeks set sail for the western Mediterranean, there came a people from across the sea. They were not conquerors, but sailors. Not empire-builders, but merchants and craftsmen. These were the Phoenicians — ancient seafarers from the eastern Mediterranean — who arrived on the shores of Spain over 2,800 years ago, and left behind treasures, stories, and mysteries that still stir the imagination today.

Who Were the Phoenicians?

The Phoenicians came from a narrow strip of coastline in what is now Lebanon and coastal Syria. Their cities — Tyre, Sidon, Byblos — were small but fiercely independent, and known across the Mediterranean for their maritime skills, purple dye, and fine goods. The Greeks called them phoinikes, or "purple people", for the deep purple dye they produced from murex sea snails — a luxury color fit for kings.

But the Phoenicians were much more than traders. They were cultural transmitters. From the 9th century BCE onward, they sailed westward, not to conquer, but to connect. They brought with them ideas, scripts, technologies, and beliefs — and they left behind colonies, trading posts, and cemeteries that now tell us their story.

Phoenicians in Iberia

By the 8th century BCE, Phoenician ships were reaching the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. They founded settlements like Gadir (modern Cádiz) — one of the oldest cities in Western Europe — and Malaka (Málaga). From there, they moved up the coast, establishing outposts, trading with local Iberian tribes, and spreading their influence as far north as Villajoyosa on the coast of present-day Alicante.

What did they trade? Metals, above all. Spain was rich in copper, silver, and tin — highly sought after in the ancient world. In return, the Phoenicians brought luxury goods: fine textiles, ivory combs, glass beads, perfumes, and gold jewelry. But they also brought religious symbols, writing systems, and artistic techniques that profoundly shaped local cultures.

A Cemetery by the Sea: Les Casetes

One of the most revealing places where this Phoenician-Iberian connection comes to life is the necropolis of Les Casetes, just inland from the coast of Villajoyosa. Used between the late 7th and 6th centuries BCE, this burial ground contained over a hundred tombs, many of them belonging to members of a wealthy local elite — Iberians who had adopted Phoenician customs and prestige goods.

Some graves held weapons, others fine ceramics, and a few contained jewelry of remarkable craftsmanship. These weren’t mere decorations — they were status symbols, ritual offerings, and expressions of power and belief.

The Necklace of 38 Pieces

One of the most dazzling discoveries from Les Casetes came from Tomb 18: an elaborate gold necklace made up of nearly 38 individual elements. This magnificent piece features a combination of gold discs, cylindrical beads, glass elements, and intricate spacers, arranged in a symmetrical, ceremonial layout.

Each component was crafted with precision. Some were engraved with geometric patterns, others adorned with granulation — tiny gold spheres applied to the surface in decorative clusters. The inclusion of both gold and blue glass hints at trade networks stretching across the Mediterranean, and at symbolic meanings that blended Phoenician, Egyptian, and Iberian traditions.

The necklace was likely worn by a high-ranking individual, possibly a woman of great status. It speaks not just to wealth, but to belief — in protection, in legacy, in connection with the divine. It also illustrates the technical mastery of goldsmiths working in Iberia at the time, whether local artisans influenced by Phoenician style or visiting craftsmen from the East.

A Legacy Carried in Gold

The Phoenicians left no empires behind, no monumental cities in Spain. What they left was something more subtle — and perhaps more lasting. They were among the first to connect East and West, to blend belief systems and artistic styles, and to set the foundations of Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange.

In places like Les Casetes, their story is still being written, one excavation at a time. And in objects like the necklace from Tomb 18, their vision of a connected, meaningful world — adorned, luminous, and layered with memory — still speaks across the centuries.

Saint-Mystère Remains Silent: The Tourists 06

The Spaniards.

They arrived with the morning sun—by car, music playing, laughter echoing off the stone walls. Spanish tourists, full of life and colour, sweeping into Saint-Mystère like a festival no one expected.

They brought everything with them: enormous hams wrapped in cloth, dark bottles of red wine glinting in the light, tins of olives, fresh garlic, and tomatoes so ripe they seemed to glow. On a folding table near the fountain, they prepared pan con tomate with the care of a ceremony. Passersby slowed their steps, drawn by the scent, the ease, the joy of it all.

They toasted often. To life, to friendship—perhaps even to Saint-Mystère, though no one could be sure.

And just as the sun slipped behind the hills, they packed up. Not hurriedly, but without farewell. No plates left behind. No trace of where they had gone.

We never learned their names.
But for one day, the village remembered how to breathe.

Odysseus on a Lamp: Myth and Daily Life in Roman Mérida (Spain)

Terracotta oil lamp from the 1st century CE, depicting Odysseus tied to the mast of his ship. Found in Mérida, Spain, and now housed in the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano.

At first glance, it’s just a small terracotta oil lamp, tucked away in a museum in Mérida, Spain. But look closer, and you’ll find an epic scene from Homer’s Odyssey—carved into clay, for everyday use.

The image shows Odysseus tied to the mast of his ship. He wears a short tunic and a pileus, the soft cap that marks him in ancient art. Around him, the heads of his crew peek over the side of the ship. The sail is raised, but it’s the rowers who power the boat—just like in Homer’s tale, where Odysseus orders the sail taken down so he can listen safely to the Sirens’ deadly song.

Strangely, the Sirens themselves are missing.

Most likely, this was a practical decision: the lamp’s small surface left no room for them. But it also shifts the focus. What matters here is not the danger, but the restraint. By the 1st century CE, this story had become a moral symbol: the hero as the rational man, resisting temptation, bound by reason.

In Roman homes, lamps like this lit the night. Their warm glow told stories, not just to entertain, but to teach. And so Odysseus—on a simple lamp—reminded his owner of the strength it takes to resist what calls to us most sweetly.

Raymond Carr’s "Spain a History"

Raymond Carr’s Spain a History.

Raymond Carr’s Spain a History is widely regarded as one of the most insightful and balanced English-language histories of modern Spain. It traces the country’s transformation from a traditional agrarian society under absolute monarchy to a modern, yet authoritarian, industrial state under Franco — with stops along the way at civil war, imperial collapse, and recurring social unrest.

The book opens with the dramatic shock of the Napoleonic invasion in 1808, which threw Spain into chaos and resistance. In response, liberal reformers produced the Constitution of Cádiz (1812) — a milestone in Spanish liberal thought. Yet this early step toward constitutional government was swiftly undermined by the restoration of Ferdinand VII, who reimposed absolutism, setting the stage for nearly a century of instability.

Throughout the 19th century, Spain oscillated between liberal and conservative rule. Carr emphasizes the Carlist Wars (1833–76) as not merely dynastic disputes, but deep cultural and political divides between rural traditionalism and urban liberalism. Under Isabella II, political life was marred by corruption, instability, and frequent military interventions — revealing a fragile political structure and a reliance on the army as a political actor.

The Glorious Revolution of 1868 and the brief First Republic (1873–74) represented attempts to break with the past, but these experiments in democracy failed due to internal divisions, weak institutions, and lack of public support. The result was the Bourbon Restoration under Alfonso XII, introducing a constitutional monarchy with a rotating two-party system — the so-called turno pacífico. While this appeared to offer stability, Carr shows that it excluded broad swathes of society and failed to address economic or regional disparities.

By the early 20th century, regionalism (especially in Catalonia and the Basque Country), anarchism, socialism, and new nationalist ideologies began to undermine the old order. The loss of Spain's American colonies in 1898 further eroded national confidence. The Second Republic (1931–36) arose with the hope of modernization and secularism, but quickly descended into violent polarization, with radical reforms on one side and reactionary resistance on the other.

Carr devotes careful attention to the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), framing it as both a class conflict and a battle between competing versions of Spanish identity. His treatment is even-handed: he does not romanticize the Republicans nor absolve Franco’s brutalities.

The Franco regime, which ruled from 1939 to 1975, initially aligned itself with authoritarian nationalism, Catholicism, and corporatism. Carr shows how the regime gradually evolved — especially after World War II — into a more pragmatic dictatorship. In the 1960s, economic liberalization brought rapid growth, modernization, and a new middle class, even as political repression continued.

By the time of Franco's death in 1975, Spain was no longer the backward country it had been in the 1930s, but a semi-modernized society aching for political freedom. Carr’s work ends here — just before the transition to democracy — but it lays all the groundwork for understanding how Spain arrived at that point.

Carr’s strength lies in his willingness to address complexity. Rather than offering a linear tale of progress or decline, he portrays Spain as a country where multiple historical forces — ideology, geography, class, religion — continually collided. His account is rigorous, rich in detail, and refreshingly free of ideological bias.

Russia, The Eternal Return of Suppression: 1917 - Two Revolutions and a Civil War

The year 1917 was a whirlwind that shattered centuries of monarchy and reshaped the map of Eurasia. It began with bread queues and strikes, and ended with the birth of the world’s first socialist state.

February: The Fall of the Tsar
By February, Petrograd was gripped by strikes and food riots. Soldiers refused orders to fire on crowds and joined the demonstrators instead. Within days, the centuries-old Romanov dynasty collapsed. Nicholas II abdicated, and a Provisional Government took over, promising liberal reforms and elections.

Dual Power and Disillusionment
The Provisional Government shared power uneasily with the Petrograd Soviet, a council of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies. The government kept Russia in World War I, hoping to honor alliances with Britain and France. This decision proved disastrous, as the war continued to drain resources and lives. Radical parties gained support, especially the Bolsheviks, who called for “Peace, Land, Bread.”

October: The Bolshevik Takeover
Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks staged an armed uprising on October 25 (November 7 in the modern calendar). They seized key points in Petrograd and toppled the Provisional Government almost without bloodshed. The new Soviet regime withdrew from the war through the harsh Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ceding large territories to Germany.

Civil War and Red Victory
From 1918 to 1922, Russia descended into civil war. The Bolshevik Red Army fought the White forces — a mix of monarchists, republicans, and foreign intervention troops — across a vast front. Nationalist movements sought independence in Ukraine, the Baltics, and the Caucasus. The Reds ultimately triumphed, consolidating control through the Cheka secret police and “War Communism,” which requisitioned grain and suppressed dissent. In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was officially proclaimed.

Further Reading:

• John Reed – Ten Days That Shook the World (1919)

• Sheila Fitzpatrick – The Russian Revolution (1982)

• Richard Pipes – The Russian Revolution (1990)

• A. Beevor – Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 (2022)