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Russia and Hungary: A dialogue of cultures in the space of literary texts: Book Review: Through "Alien" to "Own": Dialogue of Russian and Hungarian Cultures: Monograph / Edited by M.A. Lappo, V.V. Marosha. NGPU Publishing House, pp. 240. ISBN 978-00226-049-2, Novosibirsk, 2023
Views:283This monograph presents the results of a joint interdisciplinary project of Russian and Hungarian philologists to study the facts of interaction between Russian and Hungarian cultures in the space of literary texts. It examines various manifestations of the interaction of cultures: from the study of cases of direct influence to intertextual forms of assimilation and interpretation of elements of a foreign culture, current trends in translation reception. The volume includes papers by a wide range of authors whose texts made up the material of the study (from F.M. Dostoevsky and S. Veresh to E. Vodolazkin and Y. Berg).
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Cultural Policy of Russia and Hungary: Modern Discourse and New Actors
11 p.Views:360The authors of the article argue that contemporary cultural policy discourse is in the focus
of attention of scientific communities, social and political organizations and government institutions.
It represents a sort of symbolic struggle and nominations and has necessitated a
new approach to cultural policy structuring. The article shows that this necessity is demonstrated
by the development of cooperation between Russia and Hungary in terms of cultural
sectors and cultural heritage. Expert communities and non-governmental organizations are
becoming significant elements in the structure of cultural policy subjects. The association
“For Hungarian-Russian cooperation named after Leo Tolstoy” has become such a key issue.
The authors of this article attempt to highlight the most essential contemporary issues in
the sphere of cultural policy in general and in relation of two separate countries – Russia and
Hungary – through the scientific project “Hygiene of culture”. -
The Features of Theatre Activity in Hungary: The Legal and Financial Basis (II)
12 p.Views:317Hungarian theatre system is the main object of the following article. The first part of article contains the general questions connected with the existing model of theatrical activity. Then there is the analytical review of the modern Hungarian legislation of area of culture and special attention is paid to the structure and content of Law XCIX / 2008 “On support and rules of employment in organizations of performing arts”. In the following part of the article all models which exist and develop in the country nowadays of direct and indirect financial support of theatrical organizations are considered. Since Hungarian and Russian theatre systems have some similar characteristics, the final part is devoted to possible partial adoption of Hungarian experience with a view to develop the institutions for the additional funding of Russian theatres.
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«Chekhov’s Stage Set»: «The Cherry Orchard» in the Russian Poetry of the 20th – Early 21st Century
8 p.Views:368Chekhov’s text is one of the most significant constituents of the Russian poetry of the 20th – early 21st centuries. The one most frequently alluded to is the play by Chekhov – «The Cherry Orchard». The play written at the break of historical epochs turns out to be in tunes with the times of another turning-point. This fact conditions the allusion to the Chekhov’s text in a poem «The Young Poetry» by V. Kornilov. The main feature of the crucial time period in the poem is the category of freedom, unexpectedly granted during the historical turn and change. The key theme, which determines the historiosophical sense of the text, is a quotation from «The Cherry Orchard», a dialogue between Gaev and Fiers. I. Kabysh perceives the Chekhov’s play both mythopoetically and symbolically in such poems as «How Niveous-White Everything Is in Russia Today! » and «The Snow Started to Fall Without Delays». She introduces a different time into the text, models the reality after the events described in «The Cherry Orchard» and interpreted by the author of the poem in the lower clef (as in «crumbled estate»). The loss of the Garden, its disintegration, the loss of entity, is a gradual, step by step, process – into dachas, then into dust; that is the way the motif of vanishing space and culture appears.
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Coping with Trauma: Minority Art Practices in the Context of the New Sensuality of Metamodernism
7 p.Views:383The information age has provided new opportunities for the institutionalization and functioning of various subcultural movements including those uniting people by offering them an alternative mental state. The proposed material is analyzed as an example of these associations. The article provides a brief analysis of the historical dynamics of the study of minority art practices and of their role and significance at present. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of Art Brut. Today minority art practices find their new meaning also in the context of the new sensuality of metamodernism, which is based on co-creation. We believe that the
discourse of outsider art fosters a tolerant consciousness, raising issues of stigma, norm, deviation and internal liberation. -
The Features of Theatrical Life in Hungary: The Legal and Financial Basis
18 p.Views:229The present study is concerned with the Hungarian theatre system. In the first part general
questions connected with the existing model of theatrical activity are treated. This is
followed by an analytical review of modern Hungarian cultural legislation, in which special
attention is paid to the structure and content of Law XCIX / 2008 “On the support and rules
of employment in organizations of performing arts”. Then all the existing present-day models
of direct and indirect financial support of theatrical organizations are considered. Since the
Hungarian and Russian theatre systems have some similar characteristics, the final part is
devoted to possible partial adoption of Hungarian experience with a view to developing the
institutions for the additional funding of Russian theatres. -
Peculiarities of the Historiosophic Content of M. V. Lomonosov's Odes for The New Year 1762 and 1764
Views:283The paper deals with the formation of artistic historiosophy in the Russian literature of the 18th century. The main attention in the study is focused on the odic works of M.V. Lomonosov. The research demonstrates that in his odes Lomonosov used not only constant historiosophemes and ideologemes obtained from the general storehouse of philosophical, historical and political knowledge of his time, but also his own historiosophemes. The analysis of the two insufficiently studied M.V. Lomonosov's works – "… on Accession to the Throne and for the New Year 1762" and "… for the New Year 1764" – shows that an individualized historiosophic concept was developed in them. The range of Lomonosov‘s main historiosophic ideas is revealed, for example, summing up reign, the prosperity of Russia under the power of the House of Romanovs, "golden times", the dying and reviving god, and generally useful work for the benefit of Russia.
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Era of Post-Pragmatical Strategies
12 p.Views:259An extended definition of culture as a phenomenon that includes processes and results of human communities interaction with wildlife, e.g. viruses is propounded. An indicator of development limitations of Global civilization-cultural integrity is proposed. We put forward the concept of a post-pragmatic strategy of a cultural unit. The latter signifies social integrity that represents a separate culture – a stable set of traits, categories, patterns reproduced in series of generations. We believe a cultural unit to be a large-scale system. Our study is carried out in the context of the emerging intellectual discipline Hygiene of Culture with the help of methodology of sustainable reproduction of a cultural unit. The aim of the study is to form methodological bases for the reaction of cultural unit aimed at confronting phenomena similar to COVID-19. The result is altruistic post-pragmatic strategy, free of mistrust. We propose to supplement the known security dilemma as follows. Actors allocate their military budgets in proportion to confidence/mistrust rates to opponents while likelihood of risk events in the environment increases according to sandpile model and information noise rises.
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The Transformation of Spiritual Culture in the Context of the Formation of the "New Ethics" (Problem Statement)
Views:327The 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.
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Culture in Digital Format
12 p.Views:368The article analyzes the changes in traditional culture triggered by technologies and development of its new formats as a result, such as clip culture, screen culture, culture of computer games, etc. It touches upon the influence on culture of the personal computer and other numerous digital devices, in particular the Internet, artificial intelligence, computer graphics, and virtual reality. Traditional means of communication (books, photographs, audio and video recordings, digital TV, etc.) that are most influenced by digital technologies are also discussed. As traditional culture is losing its original features that emphasize the difference between different peoples, societies and their individual characteristics, all these processes are extensive, generating not only progressive, but negative trends. On the one hand modern culture has become accessible to everybody, on the other hand, it has lost the «romance» of personal communication. The article points out that nowadays the investigation of culture in digital format does not primarily mean analyzing its phenomena and artifacts in themselves. It is rather a matter of monitoring further transformations and contributing the unique features of traditional culture preservation, without diminishing the importance of digital technologies as a whole in society.
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The Search for a Social Ideal as a Cultural Tradition of Russian Thought
Views:268This study investigates some important lines of Russian social thought of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the context of the interpretation of the social ideal. Four perspectives of the problem are outlined: the first one is cultural geographic, divided into three branches (Westernism, Slavophilism and, Eurasianism), the second one is sociological positivism, the third one is philosophical liberalism, and the fourth one is religious thought. The cultural-geographic orientation created a wide field of the work of social thought in studying the paths of social development. Sociologists positivists P. Lavrov and N. Mikhailovsky, who were founders of ‘narodnichestvo’ movement, formulated the notion of social ideal as an object of sociological research. The positivist perspective that was intended for the ideals of social solidarity, transformed into the left the traditionalism that was narodnichestvo ideology. Narodnichestvo created the ideal prerequisites for the dissemination of Marxism in Russia. Liberal philosophic thought offered the original concept of the development of personality as a social ideal (P. Novgorodtsev). The fourth perspective was closest to the modern comprehension of the processes of unification of humankind and the development of the world economic system. The issue of social ideal thus became the main tradition of thought in the pre-revolutionary Russia.
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Global Culture: Discursive and Social Practices
10 p.Views:465The dynamics of modern society development is directly proportional to changes in its culture. In the discourse of global culture, there are many supporters of its real presence, and many opponents who claim that such a phenomenon does not exist in principle. The article considers various polar points of view. Arguments are presented that confirm the existence of a global culture formed as a result of multiple cultural contacts, including cultural tourism. Digitalization has become a new impetus for the development of global culture, which has large-scale ways to spread the achievements of world culture in General, and art in particular, to the population of the planet, regardless of location. Digital formats have proven their worth in specific social practices.
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The System of Comparative Tropes in «Aviator», a Novel by E. Vodolazkin
11 p.Views:435The article discusses the functioning of metaphors and similes in the text of E. Vodolazkin’s novel «Aviator». The tropes are divided into two groups: conceptualizing tropes and non-plot-forming ones. The main semantic types of comparative tropes are noted as proceeding from «tenors» and «vehicles» of metaphors and similes. It is shown that the tropes interact with each other and form a system in the text.
Emphasis is put on the dynamism of metaphors and similes in the novel: they regularly reflect the hero’s changing perceptions. Comparative tropes play an important role in the unfolding of the key motifs of the novel and are associated with its various temporal and narrative plans. -
New Trends in the Use of Metaphors and Similes Including Names of Food in Modern Russian Prose
Views:300The article discusses metaphors and similes including culinary vocabulary, functioning in modern Russian prose. The purpose of the article is to identify new trends in the use of such figurative constructions in modern prose compared with the previous period in the development of Russian literature. The work outlines the main thematic groups of names of food and drinks used in prosaic texts, and notes changes in their composition and character. New elements in the semantic classes of «vehicles» of metaphors and similes are also revealed. A tendency towards the differentiation and concretization of images of comparison, which is characteristic of modern prose, is noted, and the means of its implementation (specific names and qualifying definitives) are described. The article considers new subjects of comparison and figurative parallels used in modern prose texts.
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Ivan Goncharov’s Novel “A Common Story” and the Problem of “Petersburg Text”
Views:462The article raises the question about the nature of the “Petersburg text” in the novel “A Common Story”, about its correlation with the general body of the “Petersburg text” of Russian literature and about its individual meanings in Goncharov’s prose. Various levels of the “Petersburg text” are considered: the expression of the category of the “inner state” of the hero, as well as culture and nature. It is concluded that Goncharov’s novel does not fully fit into the mainstream of the “Petersburg text” of Russian literature, but adopts the basic principles of its construction, and also has great potential for the semantic increments of the individual local Petersburg dictionary, which is determined by Goncharov’s irony and symbolization.
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Artefact Metaphors and Similes in Modern Russian Prose
Views:327The article deals with comparative constructions (metaphors and similes) that include images of artefacts. The analysis involves the works of modern Russian prose writers such as A. Ilichevsky, E. Vodolazkin, O. Slavnikova, M. Shishkin, A. Volos, D. Bykov, D. Rubina, D. Glukhovsky, A. Makushinsky, S. Sokolov, V. Pelevin and others. It is concluded that modern Russian prose is characterized by the intensive use of artefact images as part of comparative constructions. The most common are metaphors and similes including the names of household items, fabrics, as well as machines, mechanisms, and their parts. These figurative means characterize, first of all, a person, parts of the human body, appearance, and people’s actions. Artefact comparative tropes giving a figurative description of various objects of nature are also widespread. Both traditional and new tropes including the names of artefacts in modern prose are discussed, in particular, the use of computer terms and names of new realities that have appeared relatively recently. A feature of modern prose texts is the regular use by writers of concretization and detailed transformation of images of comparison involving definitions of different types. Artefact metaphors and similes often act as key signs of the text and play a conceptualizing role in it.
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The Cultural Heritage of the Ancient Russian City of Yelets
Views:245This article provides scholarly evidence the small historical city of Yelets as a potential cultural heritage site in the context of its socio-cultural significance for the state, society and the local community. The paper overviews the results of a comprehensive sociological study of the issues of the cultural heritage of this ancient Russian city. The issues of the cultural heritage of Yelets is considered from the perspective of internal and external identification processes which transformed it and make it lose its unique urban identity. For the analysis of cultural heritage, the types of identity of the city are identified: historical and cultural, visual and spatial, socio-psychological and communicative spatial. The main factors of the identification processes of the city are analyzed, such as urban identity, history, culture, social interaction and language.
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Censor Nikolay Ratynsky’s Role in Russian Journalism of the Second Half of the 19th Century
12 p.Views:342Recently, the political climate in Russia has caused the question of censorship to become
an increasingly relevant issue, the history of which is necessary to explore and understand.
The prevailing view regarding censorship is that it is a tool used to suppress the freedom of
speech by stifling the writer’s thoughts. However, there were some eminent censors such as
the poet Fyodor Tyutchev and the writer Ivan Goncharov. In this regard, it has become commont
to consider censorship isolated from any moral categories and interpret g it only as a
professional activity. In this context, the work of the censor Nikolai Ratynsky is of particular
interest to us. Until now, little has been published on his influence as a censor on the writers
of his time on the high professional level of his work in this capacity. Most of the corrections
Ratynsky made were valid and justified by the political situation in the Russian Empire. He
himself is further proof that, along with Tyutchev and Goncharov, there were honorable and
qualified men among the censors of the time. All this allows us to claim that it is necessary
to objectively consider and study the work of censors and ignor preconceptions and stereotypes
that are usually associated with the word censor. -
A Story by A. P. Chekhov “The Wolf”: Historical-medical and Archetypal Aspects
Views:610The plot of A. P. Chekhov's story "The Wolf" (in the first edition the story was called "Hydrophobia (A true story)") is associated with the frequent facts of wolves attacking people in the 1880s in the central part of the country (called an epidemic at the time).The time of writing the story between March and December 1886 is a year after the discovery of the rabies vaccine in the laboratory of Louis Pasteur and its successful testing in 1885; and in the year the story was created, the first Pasteur stations in Russia were opened. The paramount aspect of a plot of the work by A. P. Chekhov is connected with the field of psychology. Fear, which takes possession over the character, the landowner Nilov, is a psychological phenomenon in the medical sense and leads to an understanding of the fact why Chekhov needs an emphasis on the wolf in the title of the second edition of the story. The image of a wolf with its archetypal component plays a fundamental role in recreating a clinically accurate picture of fear. The real clash with a real wolf becomes a reflection of the fight with the "mental wolf," with its own fears. The writer is interested not so much in the existential side of the phenomenon of fear, as in the psychological one. And the image of a wolf with its archetypal component plays a fundamental role in recreating a clinically accurate picture of fear.
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Camp prose: On the semantics and conceptual framework of the term
Views:275The paper analyzes camp prose as a unique literary phenomenon in 20th century Russian literature, shaped under the extreme conditions of Stalinists labor camps and repressions. The study looks into the effects of imprisonment on the linguistic personalities of both professional writers, such as V. Shalamov and A. Solzhenitsyn, and non-writers like E. Ginzburg and E. Kersnovskaya. The writings of these authors provide key points for analyzing the psychological, social, and individual transformations the authors experienced during incarceration. The use of metaphorical language in shaping their works is a major area of study. The authors succeed in delineating the unspeakable horrors of camp life by using metaphors as both stylistic elements and tools for reinterpretation. The study analyzes how these metaphors reflect the broader themes of dehumanization, endurance, and moral resilience. In addition, the analysis illustrates that camp prose goes beyond documentary testimony, becoming a means of linguistic resistance and creative survival. By exploring the lexical choices and narrative structures of these texts, the present study discusses methods in which authors build a new literary language and process in and of expressing trauma and memory. In doing this, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the interaction between personal experience, linguistic expression, and historical representation in Russian literature.
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Specificity of the Organization of Text Space in the Novel of E. Vodolazkin «Soloviev and Larionov»
9 p.Views:296The article analyzes the specificity of the organization of the text space in the novel, the relationship of its title and main characters is clarified. The main motives of the story that unite the heroes and motivate the interweaving of their destinies are highlighted: the railway, the sea, the horse and the rider, childhood, life and death. It is proved that the text of the novel is built as a search for an answer to the question about the secrets of the life of General Larionov.
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The Motive of Passage as a Cultural Universal In I.S. Shmelev’s Novel “The Story of a Love”: Semantic and Functional Aspect
Views:293The article considers the motive of passage from the point of view of its role in the plot inI.S. Shmelev’s novel and from the point of view of mythopoetic meanings. It has been established that in the work “The Story of a Love” the symbolism of the passage motive is associated not only with the situation of the transition, but also with the Fall, which is interpreted by the writer as a stage of the movement towards insight. The passage motive organizes two spaces of storytelling: real and mental. Real space is divided into a space of purity and sin, the transition from one spatial locus to another also signifies the transition taking place in the soul of the protagonist from purity to sin and vice versa. The motives of the passage and temporary death are combined with the Christian motive of the transformation, allowing I.S. Shmelev to show the spiritual toss of the main character more clearly – as a transfer from life to death and its subsequent revival, as well as to assert the main motivein his work – the merger of the “mundane” and the “heavenly”, the world of objects, the material world and the “invisible" world of divine light.
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Curator of Culture
Views:291In 2024 we celebrate the 80th birthday of Professor Zoltán Hajnády. The articles in this issue of Slavica have been written by his colleagues to express their respect for him and his work. In addition to the international significance of Zoltán Hajnády’s research on Tolstoy, which is the main focus of his articles, the laudation introducing the series of articles also mentions a broader aspect of his work on Russian–European relations and reveals his deep personality. A representative of humanistic values, a great educator and scientist, he works for the mediation and mutual enrichment of Russian–Russian and Hungarian cultures. For this endeavour, Hajnády was honoured with the Pushkin Medal in 2006.
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World Model in the Novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn
7 p.Views:497The paper deals with the world model and ways of its creation in a novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by A.I. Solzhenitsyn. In the process of world-modeling following basic categories are of a great importance: native-strange, light-darkness, principle of 3 levels. The space of camp is characterized by features of a strange world. Native world is narrowed to the boundaries of hut, bed and even to a hole in a mattress. World organization is also realized with the help of a system of prototypical images, e.g. a table, bread, sun, a stove, etc. Due to this concepts, which have hierarchic values, are formed. Solzhenitsyn achieves generalization following a peculiar way of depicting of a group of characters which can be conditionally called “convicts”. There we can see different social layers, nationalities, ages. It has metonymical nature: according to the principle “a part of the whole” the fate of the entire country is shown. In terms of sense complex “human-being – environment – their interaction” the world model in A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s novel has “human”, natural and social levels in its structure. The writer compresses time and space, satiates it with details, which are different in semiotic power of generalization, and as a result he receives solid world model.
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Gogol’s Vij and L.N. Tolstoy’s War and Peace in V.V. Mayakovsky’s Poem War and Peace
Views:469Representing himself in his poem War and Peace in the form of a fictional "absolute unit" - the new Vij - Mayakovsky demonstrates the infernality of a new type, in comparison with Gogol's one. Mayakovsky's ideacontrasts with Tolstoy's pacifism and the idea of "eternal peace" (the novel War and Peace). Unlike Tolstoy, refusing to notice and recognize the real diversity in the manifestations of man and the human principle, Mayakovsky reduces all people, their thoughts and concerns to their personal ideas.
