Венера в мехах

The Austrian writer and thinker Leopold von Sacher-Masoch can safely be called one of the most mysterious, strange and painfully refined authors of the 19th century. In his works, the mystical, historical, sublimely erotic and perverted are intricately intertwined: even his famous contracts to sell himself into slavery to two beloved and loving women both delight and horrify with their frankness. Thanks to Sacher-Masoch's most famous novel, Venus in Furs, the phenomenon now known as "masochism" not only got its name, but also became one of the philosophical and cultural problems of our century.