MARY CONWAY applauds the revival of a tense, and extremely funny, study of men, money and playing cards
Lest we forget
Massive emotional tribute to anti-Nazi heroes
Brest Fortress Memorial
MEHDI ACHOUCHE explores the constant fascination of cinema with Marxist alienation from Fritz Lang and Chaplin to Bong Joon Ho
FIONA O’CONNOR steps warily through a novel that skewers many of the exposed flanks of the over-privileged
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Brest Fortress Memorial, Belarus
ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1971, just over 30 years after the momentous if doomed defence of the Brest fortress by the Soviet Red Army against Nazi invaders, a memorial to its defenders was unveiled by the 19th-century star-shaped citadel that sits astride the Mukhavets River and faces the River Bug.
On the present boundary between Belarus and Poland, within the latter’s borders before WWII it served as one of its places of internment for socialist activists.
Two weeks after Nazi Germany’s treacherous attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, Joseph Stalin ordered the Red Army to advance west and secure territories up to the River Bug, including the Brest fortress. Permitted under the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 1939, it was a move designed to keep German armies at arm’s length.
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MICHAL BONCZA recommends a compact volume that charts the art of propagating ideas across the 20th century
MICHAL BONCZA reviews Cairokee gig at the London Barbican
