The political mess in Chechnya matches the military one: the Kremlin-backed puppet government is divided, weak and discredited, particularly because it is unable to protect ordinary Chechens against licentious Russian soldiers.

ECONOMIST: A gleam of hope for peace in miserable, war-weary Chechnya

But long before Ms Feinstein considers Pushkin's downfall amid the hostile, treacherous and sexually licentious members of Nicholas I's court, she draws a sympathetic, if not always approving, portrait of Pushkin's contradictory and flawed genius.

ECONOMIST: Russian writers