The first Russian study of smell as a significant aspect of our everyday lives, this unusual book contains articles by Russian and Western perfumers, biologists, linguists, psychologists and anthropologists. The authors attempt to uncover the hidden significance of various aromas and to understand the intimate links connecting smell with the human body, as well as our memory, imagination and intuition. Widely discussed in this collection are such figures as Patrick Süskind, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Sigmund Freud and the well-known perfumer Edmond Roudnitska. A number of researchers in the humanities are now studying the smells of various periods in history and attempting to create new academic disciplines such as historical aromatics or the grammar of aroma.