Continuing the author’s column of the writer and mathematician Alexander Melikhov (1947) “National cultures and national psychoses” - another essay “Second-class Europeans and collective Athens.” The author’s main idea is unchanged: “Small nations can become subjects of history only in the creative field.” The heroine of the “Nothing Funny” column is the American Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), who became famous, among other things, for her caustic wit. “IL” publishes three of her stories and several aphorisms translated by Alexander Averbukh, as well as an essay about her by our regular observer of American literature, Marina Efimova. In the “Crossing of Cultures” section, literary critic and translator from English Alexander Livergant (1947) talks about five English writers , “who came to Yasnaya Polyana in September this year for a literary seminar held as part of the Year of Language and Literature of Great Britain and Russia...” Category “BibliofIL”. In the “Among Books” section, Vladimir Skorodenko honors the translator Elena Surits in connection with the publication of a volume dedicated to her in the “Masters of Literary Translation” series. And then, as usual, “Food for thought. Non-fiction with Alexey Mikheev.” Foreign literature, 2016 No. 12