Departure of a Dignitary from Middelburg, by Adriaen van de Venne, 1615. Rijksmuseum, D. Franken bequest, Le Vésinet.
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Miscellany
In 1937 the Dewey Commission conducted an investigation into the charges against Leon Trotsky made during Joseph Stalin’s Moscow show trials. “Of what country are you a citizen, Mr. Trotsky?” the commission asked. “I am deprived of my citizenship in the Soviet Union. I am not a citizen of any country,” Trostky replied. “What, if anything, did you do when you were informed of the deprivation of your citizenship?” “I wrote an article about it,” he said. “I am a man armed with a pen.”
Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but most important, it finds homes for us everywhere.
—Hazel Rochman, 1995
