Will Nicoll

Enver Hoxha: Stalin’s devilish disciple

14 May 2016 9:00 am

In his final public appearance, the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha addressed a Tirana crowd to commemorate the capital’s liberation from…

Admiral Kolchak, supreme ruler of the Whites: when shown his likeness, some peasants guessed that he was ‘probably an Englishman’

When the Russians killed Mother Russia

5 March 2016 9:00 am

On the 24–25 October 1917 (according to the Julian Calendar, or 7–8 November according to the Gregorian) the political disputes which…

The museum which once displayed Enver Hoxha’s pyjamas now houses a pro-democracy radio station

30 May 2015 9:00 am

Albania is a small country of 2.7 million people, wedged within the Balkan peninsula. Separated from both Greece and Italy…

British colonialism is once again under attack in Aatish Taseer’s sprawling Indian epic

21 March 2015 9:00 am

Early in the second section of Aatish Taseer’s The Way Things Were we are presented with a striking description of…

A Siberian exile prepares to shoot a black fox (c.1819)

Siberia beyond the Gulag Archipelago

16 August 2014 9:00 am

Larger than Europe and the United States combined, Siberia is an enormous swathe of Russia, spanning seven time zones and…