Spy And Nostalgia

Whose Spy Was He?

Shaun Walker | Guardian | 13th August 2026

An 27-year-old Russian political activist, living in exile in Poland, has been convicted of espionage and collaboration with the FSB. Allies can't decide if he was a super spy or a fool. "He is convinced that Rogov was genuinely against Putin, but suspects he was so weak-willed that he was co-opted into working for the FSB, thinking he could make some money without doing anyone much harm" (6,600 words)

On Nostalgia

Boris Dralyuk | Poetry Foundation | 1st May 2026

Conveying nostalgia in poetry is tricky. "There is often a sweetness to nostalgia, a sugar coating that, left unchecked, thickens until it obscures the 
painful kernel. The longing for a past purified of its faults — or a past we never knew firsthand — becomes an indulgence. What makes nostalgia difficult to treat honestly in poems is how easily some of us fall under its spell" (1,200 words)