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• The transformation of the camp theme in Sergei Lebedev’s novel “Oblivion”

  Zsuzsanna Kalafatics

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  231

  Sergei Lebedev’s novel Oblivion offers an original reworking of the tradition of Russian camp prose. Its central themes are the legacy of Stalinist terror, the intergenerational transmission of trauma, and the necessity of a conscious resistance to their consequences. This paper explores how Lebedev, drawing on the concept of post-memory, intertwines personal family history with questions of collective memory, highlighting the destructive effects of silencing the past and the absence of accountability for historical crimes. At the core of this interpretation is an analysis of the narrator’s journey through space, time, and self-discovery, structured around the mythological motif of descent (katabasis). The funeral ritual plays a key role in the novel’s initiation structure: the symbolic burial and mourning of victims who vanished without a trace becomes an act of memory restoration, offering the possibility of reconciliation and a new beginning. Lebedev critically engages with contemporary Russian memory politics, stressing the moral imperative to uncover and give voice to the traumatic past.

• The Transformation of Spiritual Culture in the Context of the Formation of the "New Ethics" (Problem Statement)

  Andrey Chukurov

  Views:

  343

  The article is devoted to the analysis of the spiritual values that are being formed today and the reasons for the actualization of the New Ethics. Catastrophic dynamism leads to the elimination of the stable social groups as well as to the maximum diffuseness of personal boundaries. At the same time, the transformation of the communication system brings an extremely vulnerable virtual body to the forefront of cultural life. The new communication system, social atomization, the lack of understandable guidelines in the process of socialization and self-identification - all this turns the concept of “border” into a basic one for the New Ethics. However, the design of boundaries and self-defense mechanisms does not always lead to the expected positive results. We come to the conclusion, that an initially inadequate assessment of the aggressiveness of the environment forces a person to build the most aggressive defense mechanisms: the man himself is transformed into a source of toxicity, which in turn makes the environment even more toxic than it was originally.

• Historical Data and the Modern Linguistic Landscape of the City of Berehove (Transcarpathian region, Ukraine)

  Volodymyr Shylov

  Views:

  168

  The first mention of Berehove dates back to 1063 when the Hungarian prince Lampert (the youngest son of the Hungarian king Béla I) built his palace here. Until the beginning of the 16^th century, the village (since 1247 the town) bore the name of its founder (first “Lampertháza” and then “Lampertszász”). In 1504 (according to other sources, in 1499), the name “Beregszász” appeared for the first time. The modern Ukrainian name for the city is “Berehove” (in Russian “Beregovo”), but the old Hungarian version “Beregszász”is also sometimes used. Now it is a city of regional importance with a population of about 26 thousand people (according to the latest official data from 2001), located in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, a few kilometers from the Hungarian border.

• “Hungarian Subject Matter” in Chekhov (The Short Story The Unnecessary Victory)

  Tatyana Ilyuhina

  Views:

  294

  The paper considers “The unnecessary victory” as one of the notable works of the earliest stage of Chekhov’s creativity. The Hungarian theme of the story, inspired by the novels of Mór Jókai translated into Russian, and its plot, related to the traditions of the European career novel, address a wide audience. The young writer plays along with this reader with exotic narrative elements and delineates the difference between serious and marginal literature. This hoax, together with other skits of those years, reveals the young writer’s view of literary pursuits as an exciting game in which the main expectation is to be truthful and graceful. The same goals, according to Chekhov, characterize literature in general, regardless of the field of its competence and of the readership coverage.