Letters of Love in World War 2. Have I mentioned that I’m really enjoying this series? In Episode 2 North Africa: Lost Messages, Cyril is sailing off to Egypt, but Olga doesn’t really know quite where he is. The mails are interrupted, and there are whole weeks of silences. In Episode 3 Siege of Tobruk: Battlefields and Reality, Cyril writes Olga a long,18 page letter after the battle of Tobruk. It’s surprising that it got through the censors, but I guess the battle was over by then and it didn’t matter what information he gave. His long letter, full of battle, is interwoven with her gentle letters about life back home, shifting house, just getting on with things. I’m not surprised by their anti-facism, but they are both rather radical and even pro-communist.
Revolutionspodcast. Episode 10.12 The Decembrists led an uprising against the Tsar as part of the revolutionary ferment during the 1820s. But it didn’t go well. Mike Duncan has been doing these Revolutions podcasts for years and years (literally) and now it’s all paying off as the connections between the different revolutions become clear.
Outlook (BBC) A year ago Brazil’s National Museum burnt down. In Keeping my country’s burned past alive, one of the anthropologists talks about the loss of artefacts relating to the indigenous Wari’ people, although fortunately she had digitized many of the voice recordings that were destroyed. She, and her fellow museum workers, decided to get tattoos to mark their grief at the loss of the museum.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 