Happy 250th Birthday, America! 🦝 Celebrating a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males who didn't want to pay their taxes.

#OTD 1 July 1876, Michael Bakunin died in Bern, Switzerland, aged only 62. It was Bakunin, in his arguments with Marx, who first defined anarchism as a separate political movement, and not just part of the package-deal-left. I wish more "anarchists" would bother to read him. 🏴

"Peter the Painter, the legendary Latvian anarchist terrorist who defied Winston Churchill and to whom Filips Rufs dedicated a formidable book (available in English and Latvian) is being honoured on France Culture (Radio France)" - Nicolas Auzanneau www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

Does Max Stirner lie headless in his grave? freedomnews.org.uk/2026/06/26/d... @freedompress.bsky.social

Russia preparing possible ‘provocation’ in Baltic states or Poland, sources say Kremlin may attempt to test Nato cohesion as Russia comes under growing pressure from Ukraine, according to sources from two countries www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j... #Latvia #Baltics #Poland

"Līgo" / "Jāņi" is the Midsummer festival, celebrated in Latvia on 23-24 June. In pagan times, Jānis was the God of Summer, fertility, and the Summer Solstice. Christianity demoted him to "Saint John". But the ancient pagan rituals remain in the modern celebrations. Priecīgus Līgo svētkus!

UFO spotted over Moscow

Celebrating the Latvian midsummer festival in Sigulda, 1935. #Latvia #Baltics 🍻

Baltic pro-Russian activists flee to Belarus, embark on propaganda mission www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-e... #Baltics

I need to start a new campaign - to keep me out of bookshops! 🧐

New think-tank urges: be more Baltic eng.lsm.lv/article/poli... @edwardlucas.bsky.social #Baltics #Estonia #Latvia #Lithuania

And on Bakunin's birthday, don't forget the anarchist fighters in Ukraine who are still resisting Russian military occupation. 🌻

Happy birthday Michael Bakunin, father of modern anarchism, born 30 May, 1814. 🏴

Security experts dismiss media speculation about Russian attack on Baltic states news.err.ee/1610039380/s... #Baltics #Estonia #Latvia #Lithuania

What’s going on in Baltics with falling drones and Russian threats against Latvia? www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl9Z... #Baltics #Estonia #Latvia #Lithuania

Ariane Gransac is dead: a life that was intense, rebellious and anarchist

RIP dear Compañera. 🏴

I live near the port when I'm in Rīga, so I see these ships roll in. This one is just an accident waiting to happen. eng.lsm.lv/article/econ... #Latvia #Baltics

John Lennon on the cover of the Rolling Stone, 21 January, 1971.

Ansis Cīrulis, “Jaunsaimnieks" (The New Farmer, 1928. Latvian National Museum of Art). Starting in 1920, Latvia adopted a sweeping post-independence land reform. Baltic German and Russian aristocratic estates were nationalised and redistributed to Latvia's landless peasantry. #Latvia #Baltics

In memoriam: Andrejs Ritins Born, Hamburg, Germany, 14 September, 1946 Died, Canada, 10 May, 2026 RIP 🍃

Happy Mothers' Day, Mum - Winifred Mary Ruff (nee Holloway, 19 June, 1921/ 25 December, 2001) - and to all mums out there. 🌹🥂

#AbsentFriends 🥂

Наслаждайтесь, товарищи!

Remembering Albert Meltzer #AbsentFriends freedomnews.org.uk/2026/05/07/r...

"They STILL haven't finished the damn thing!" - Albert Meltzer 🏴

Mr Natural "Does the Dishes"

A very merry Beltane to all! Vasaras sveicieni visiem! ☀️

Me outside an exhibition of Stalinist kitsch, Riga, 21 June, 1989 (Photo: David Campbell).

Ballroom Biltz - "And the man at the back said, 'Everyone attack'..." - suddenly, quite topical! 🤣 youtube.com/watch?v=r8pY...

Older but arguably no wiser, outside what used to be the almost historic Centro Iberico (June 1973 - September 1976), 23 April 2018. Miguel Garcia in the kitchen, Albert Meltzer giving-forth in the meeting room and me as the third Musketeer, 1975. #AnarchistBlackCross #BlackFlag

Nav miris Lāčplēša gars - The spirit of Bearslayer is not dead (Rihards Zariņš, 1934). Lāčplēsis is an epic poem by Andrejs Pumpurs (1888), set during the Livonian Crusades, about the mythical hero "Bearslayer" - a symbol of Latvian resistance to foreign occupation. #Latvia #Baltics

Soviet poet, body-builder & futurist Vladimir Goltzschmidt hypnotizing a chicken, 1930s 🐓

Thunder cross: fascist antisemitism in twentieth-century Latvia - reveiwed by @kasparszellis.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/eprint/3YYS7...

In 1882, Karl Marx visited Algiers. Because of the heat, he had his hair cut and beard trimmed. But please don't ask me to tell that story about him getting drunk afterwards and waking up two days later with a camel tattooed on his bum. It's bad for my image as a serious historian. 🐫

The Confession, written by Bakunin in solitary confinement in the Peter & Paul Fortress, 1851. From his arrival in Berlin in 1840 to his arrest by the Saxon police in May 1849 for his part in the Dresden uprising. And Penal Servitude and Exile (about Bakunin), Moscow, 1926.

April 2025, JD Vance shakes hands with Pope Francis - the Pope dies. April 2026, JD Vance shakes hands with Viktor Orban - Orban is voted out of office after 16 years in power. Who's next? 🤔

Moon mission complete.

Priecīgus Lieldienas svētkus!

Lidojošā Varde (The Flying Frog) is my secret headquarters in Riga. When I die a brass plaque will be screwed to the wall inscribed: "An old anarchist who loved Latvia schemed schemes here." Ja jūs to redzat, paceliet glāzi, laipnie biedri. Photos: 2008, 2019, 2025

Oh dear, Peter Mandelson has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office - and on #PinocchioDay too! 🧐

"The little Baltic nations", as seen in the USA in 1939, on the eve of the first Soviet occupation.

When I came into the anarchist movement in 1972 (no computers then, kids!), Avrich was THE ONLY source of information about Russian Anarchism. Not much has changed since then. Hats off! freedomnews.org.uk/2026/02/16/r... @freedompress.bsky.social

Baltics, Nordics, Poland and Ukraine are 'Europe's shield' eng.lsm.lv/article/soci...

#OtD 9 Feb 2007 Alejandro Finisterre, anarchist poet and inventor of the Spanish table football (foosball) died in Zamora, Spain. He invented the game following injury during the Spanish Civil War so injured children could still play football workingclasshistory.com/2018/07/29/s...

"The Queens", Crouch End Broadway, London N8 - I often used to have a liquid lunch there during the 1970s (I worked around the corner); also a popular watering hole of Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer (photo, 1968).

Hitler's pet Otto Skorzeny always kept an ace up his sleeve - The Strange Case of a Nazi Who Became an Israeli Hitman www.motl.org/the-strange-...