Getting to know the real Van Gogh
After 15 years’ research into Vincent van Gogh’s letters, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Huygens Institute in The Hague are now putting out a book entitled Vincent Van Gogh – The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition. There was no dearth of material, says Trouw: the Dutch post-impressionist left behind 902 letters, each of which has now been re-dissected and re-analysed to reveal the “real” Vincent in a six-volume set of over 2,000 pages, published in Dutch, English (2164 pp. plus a CD-ROM, published by Thames & Hudson) and French versions. This painstaking scrutiny has yielded “a far more nuanced image” of the painter than the myth that has grown up around him over time. Apparently, “Van Gogh was not as poor or as mad as all that, and he did enjoy some recognition, even if not from the public at large,” explains the Amsterdam daily. The research on his letters, “those literary gems” with their wealth of biblical, literary and artistic allusions, has also given rise to the creation of a multilingual scholarly website: www.vangoghletters.org. From 8 October all the letters will be accessible online, in facsimile and in English translation, replete with a sophisticated search engine for in-depth exploration of Vincent’s epistolary universe.
In a time of crisis with high unemployment, young Lithuanians are following in the footsteps of their emigrant ancestors. Tens of thousands have left the country in search of a better life, mainly in the British Isles and Scandinavia. The weekly Veidas reports: 
Two camps, two theories, and two visions of France: 18 years after the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis, the precise role played by Paris is still the subject of heated debate, fueled by the findings of successive criminal investigations. 
Agree to new austerity measures or risk being kicked out of the eurozone: that’s the alternative presented to Athens on the day the euro group is meeting. It’s a situation Greek politicians have failed to avoid, regrets To Vima.