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Maugham’s Mysterious Epigraph

Once upon a time in ancient Greece there were three “ladies” who led a very busy life with their tasks at hand: to carefully spin the lines of people’s destinies. Their names were Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter),…

Culture

WHO WAS G. W. LEIBNIZ?

This title is somewhat provocative: anyone who knows a little about Leibniz will also know that such a question is practically impossible to answer in a short article like this one. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born on…

Culture

The Fifth Great Invention of China: The 24 Chinese Solar Terms

The well-known ‘four great inventions of China’ are papermaking, printing, gunpowder and the navigational compass. They are celebrated as emblems of scientific and technological advancement in ancient China. However, the inscription of the tradition of the 24…

Culture

Chinese Solar Terms and the Zodiac

In recent decades, the Western signs of the Zodiac have become popular because of an increasingly widespread interest in astrology, the ancient belief in a connection between the movements and positions of the Sun, the Moon, the…

Culture

O Fortuna

The ‘Fortune’ (the famous Roman goddess of chance) addressed in Carmina Burana’s lyrics is not necessarily a fatalistic destiny, nor necessarily a negative one. The poem compares Fortune (‘Fortuna’) with the moon – ever-changing, ever waxing and…