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Women's Prose: Past, Present and Future
Views:144The very expression "women's prose" in Russian literary discourse is debatable, since even many female writers refuse to identify themselves as such. A woman writer has all the rights of a writer, but she also has the additional right to self-identify as a representative of "women's prose". Women's prose requires a double research point of view: looking at it as an integral part of fiction and identifying the specific features of works created by women writers. During the period of perestroika (the second half of the 1980s), women's activity in Russian prose became more active, and L. Petrushevskaya and T. Tolstaya came to the forefront of literary life. An important milestone in the awareness of the specifics of women's prose was the series "Women's Handwriting" by the publishing house "Vagrius". A characteristic trend in the development of modern Russian women's prose is the democratization of the artistic thinking and language, the attraction of high prose tothe mainstream, to mass nature and the feeling of accessibility. In this regard, the article examines the prose of V. Tokareva, O. Slavnikova, D. Rubina, M. Stepnova, N. Abgaryan, G. Yakhina and others.
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Chekhov in New York: the Functions of Frame in Louis Malle's "Vanya on 42nd Street" (1994)
10 p.Views:162This paper focuses on Luis Malle’s creative adaptation of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya”. The frame location of "Vanya on 42nd street" is not only documentary evidence and a sign of admiration for the actors' ensemble, creating the spirit of live improvisation in the unfinished theatrical production by Andre Gregory. It is argued that the film is far from being another spectacular 're-citing' of Chekhov's ‘transcultural capital’. A set of framing elements foregrounds Chekhov's art in general and the way he represents Vanya’s stoic endurance in particular as resonating with the living experience of a person of any culture in whatever language (Russian, English, Bengali, theatrical, cinematic, etc.) holds general validity. Among leitmotifs which interconnect the frame and the drama performance within the film there are also those of kinship, unselfish friendship and true involvement in life as an ongoing rehearsal and improvisation on an inescapable life project that is never successful.
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Harms – Gogol – Dostoevsky (“Old Women” – “Vij” – “Crime and Punishment”)
14 p.Views:173In terms of historical poetics and intertextuality, parallels are drawn between "Old Woman"
by D. Harms, "Vij" by N. Gogol and "Crime and Punishment" by F. Dostoevsky. As far as the
three authors are concerned, their common features are revealed, together with the transformation
of the motives of the ugly infernal old woman, which are depicted in the context of
mythopoetics, historiosophy and social history by the three authors. Concerning the texts produced
by their followers the term “post-text” is introduced, which is meant to include the dialogical
connotations of literary evolution. The role of “vertex composition” (a term coined by
V.M. Zhirmunsky) in works of Modernism/ Avant-garde is also touched upon. -
The Search for a Social Ideal as a Cultural Tradition of Russian Thought
Views:155This 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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Folklore and Literature: Once Again about the Research Methodology
Views:96When using the methods of analysis applied in folkloristics in literary works, narrative models and character types formed in myths, fairy tales and rituals are distinguished. Different literary characters enter into one archetypal paradigm and display the same invariant functions, properties and attributes. In this regard, the research of common traditional elements of the structure and poetics of literary works and that of the interpretation of individual literary texts in terms of the interaction of "ready-made" and individual values and rules of construction is made possible.
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From the Classic Novel to the Crime Novel: A Genre Paradigm Shift in Artistic Reception
Views:68The article deals with the cases of classical works completion, in which their genre nature undergoes a change. The texts are transferred from the sphere of high literature to the low one, as the continuing of the plot with the criminal line becomes the main method. The material for the analysis is “The very same Tatiana” by A. and S. Litvinovs, as well as the novel “Death Comes to Pemberley” by P.D. James. I show that one of the most relevant genres in this change of genre paradigm is “by victim investigation”, which allows to retain some recognizable items of the classic primary source.
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Gender and Space in Literature and Cinema (Bogomil Rainov’s Roads to Nowhere and Metodi Andonov’s A White Room)
Views:97The article discusses the structural link between the gender model and the fictional space in Bogomil Rainov’s short story Roads to Nowhere (1966) and its film adaptation—Metodi Andovov’s A White Room (1968). The transformations of the original text are traced via several semantic oppositions (masculine-feminine, rational-emotional, order-chaos) and the influence of two aesthetic paradigms—noir and the existentialist “new wave”. These transformations are interpreted in the socio-cultural context of the Bulgarian “thaw” with its quest for the marginal, regional, personal alternatives within the socialist system.
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Non-blame and/or Forgiveness: Observations about L.N. Tolstoy’s Theology on the Background of the Philosophy of I. Kant and M.M. Bakhtin
10 p.Views:188The problem of correlation of non-blame and forgiveness in L. Tolstoy’s world is put in the context of Kant’s and Bakhtin’s philosophy. The author comes to the conclusion that for L. Tolstoy non-blame is above forgiveness.
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The features of the use of color and light in the best works of the festival of video poetry “Videostikhiya”
Views:23This paper deals with video poetry as a phenomenon of contemporary art. A brief excursion into the history of video poetry is presented. The popularity of video poetry in the early 21st century is explained in this paper throughmany factors, one of which is the systematic, since 2002, holding of various festivals and contests of poetic video clips. The main attention is focused on the analysis of video clips presented at the international festival of video poetry ‘Videostichia’. The peculiarity of the use of such a technique as color in the best video clips is revealed. It is noted that video poetry revises the idea of color, making it more symbolic and memorable. Each clip transforms the ordinary perception of color, turning it into a symbol of art and life.
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Censor Nikolay Ratynsky’s Role in Russian Journalism of the Second Half of the 19th Century
12 p.Views:172Recently, 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. -
Coping with Trauma: Minority Art Practices in the Context of the New Sensuality of Metamodernism
7 p.Views:266The 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. -
Between Cyborg and Larva: A Vicious Circle That Human Beings Experience in the Post-humanist Era
8 p.Views:185The article reveals the reasons for and specific features of the transition to the posthumanist
era. The author of the study reviews the criticism of classical humanism and analyzes
the relationship between the concepts of "trans-humanism" and "post-humanism." In a
situation in which a permanent identity is impossible and people move to a “current” “unstable”
identity, the Imaginary becomes the main guideline for the self-identification process.
Human beings are unable to cope with the challenges of our time and are aware of their own
inferiority. That is why they are trying to improve themselves through the available body
modifications. However, this process gives them a new panic attack over the potential loss
of control over the body. Analyzing these processes, the author turns to the most controversial
and specific phenomenon of popular culture – "body horror". This genre reveals the deep
layers of consciousness, fears and insecurity of human beings in the post-humanist era. -
Historia Morbi of the Hero of A.P. Chekhov's Short Story The Black Monk: Textual and Intertextual Forms of its Presentation
Views:53The ambiguity of the presentation of the illness of the protagonist of Chekhov’s short story The Black Monk and the author's attitude to it is discussed in this paper. The essential role of irony in the story is noted, due to the historical and literary context and the intertext that arises on its basis. The ironic modality is induced, on the one hand, due to the connection of the story with the early work of the writer, and on the other hand, with the works of other authors. The role of Griboyedov's comedy Woe from Wit as a catalyst for irony is also discussed. The ironic modality does not exclude the formulation of a serious problem of the inauthentic existence of humans but gives it an ambivalent character. The interweaving of the conditional beginning and the unconditional in the depiction of the hero and his illness allows Chekhov to pose the ontological problem of the inadequacy of the self-esteem of the individual.
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Zoomorphic Metaphors and Similes in the Modern Russian Prose
17 p.Views:275The article represents the main circle of zoonymous images common in the modern Russian prose, they are classified into thematic groups of the “Animals” class, the most frequent vehicles of metaphors and similes are identified, the circle of tenors is outlined, distributed according to the relative frequency of use in literary texts. By means of comparison with the traditional images of the class in question, presented in the dictionary of metaphors and similes of the previous period of the Russian literature, and with the figurative uses of zoonyms in the Russian linguistic world image based on materials of linguocultural dictionaries, the main directions of evolution of zoomorphic tropes in modern Russian prose are determined. Some aspects of textual functioning of zoomorphic tropes are studied: individual preferences in choosing their groups, their conceptualizing role in the text. The results of the study make it possible to get an idea of one fairly significant fragment of the figurative world image of the modern Russian prose.
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«Doktor Zhivago» and Leonid Pasternak
Views:102In this article, we analyze the transformation of values in the literature and art of the first half of the 20th century through the creative strategies of two closely linked people: the poet Boris Pasternak and his father, the painter Leonid Pasternak. An academician of painting, Leonid Pasternak renewed the traditions of realism, being in close contact with Leo Tolstoy while working on the illustrations for Tolstoy’s novel “The Resurrection”. Having made a creative journey from the movement of “peredvizhniki” (“the Itinerants”) toward Impressionism, he did not accept the newest trends, as opposed to his son who had undergone a long period of fascination with Futurism, as well as the influence of Modernism. This conflict of aesthetics lost its poignancy with the passing of the years and with the geographical distance (Pasternak the father having emigrated in the beginning of the 20s). Thus, Boris Pasternak returned to the poetics of the classical Russian prose in his novel “Doctor Zhivago.” But the Christian values on which the conceptual basis of the novel rests, remained unknown to the father, who had passed away just before his son began working on the novel. The result was the novel itself with its covert subtextual influence and the polemics of the son and the father, the poet and the artist.
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Comedy against a tearful background: The interference of catharsis in L.S. Petrushevskaya’s play Colombina’s Apartment
Views:18The paperraises the question of catharsis in modern dramaturgy as a complex and ambiguous aesthetic reaction of the reader. The concept of “interference of catharsis” is introduced, meaning the combination of two of its types, laughter and tears, due to which a synergistic effect occurs that enhances both reactions. The introduced definition is tested based on the analysis of Petrushevskaya’s one-act play Colombina’s Apartment, which is recognized as an example of a philosophical farce. It is noted that in modern drama, the place of pure tearful and laughter catharsis has been taken by their reduced derivatives. Irony replaces open laughter, and feelings of bitterness or regret replace tears. The analyzed play is recognized as an example of modern metadrama. Petrushevskayauses not only the traditional characters of the commedia dell'arte (Harlequin, Pierrot, and Columbine) ata new time and in a new setting, but also the poetics of puppet theater, as well as the realities of Soviet children's theater. Laughter, which operates throughout the entire play, is removed at the end by the bitterly ironic aesthetic reaction of the readers, which is caused by compassion for the funny characters. Superimposed on one another, they create what is called the interference of catharsis.
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Turgenev Today: On the Problem of Perception
17 p.Views:186The article deals with the question of how Turgenev’s work is perceived by the modern
reader. There are identified aspects related to the complexity of understanding the writer’s
texts, which are largely due to stereotypes that have developed in the culture of perception,
and are also features of his poetics. There are different ways of new interpretations of Turgenev’s
famous texts – those of the novels “Fathers and Sons” and “The Noble Nest”. In “Fathers
and Sons” the idea of reconciliation with contradictions is emphasized, and ‘The Noble’s
Nest” is considered a successful social project in literature. The article briefly highlights
the main stages of Turgenev’s popularizing Russian culture in the West. -
One can only Understand a Journey by Embarking on it
Views:101The present article is devoted to a new field of research in humanities–the „hygiene of culture” and its leader – Olga Szűcs. The formation of an international researh community is a long and difficult procedure. In the course of the development of the theoretical and the empirical basis of the „hygiene of culture” owing to Olga Szűcs’s personal qualities,the scientific and ethnic norms of a collective of researchers working in different fields of humanities have been set. The results of the research have been published in collective monographs. The paper considers Olga Szűcs’s main scientific contributions to this field and the role she played in this scientific project.
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Trans-Disciplinary Methodology: Procreation Capital as a Basic Factor in the Viability of a Civilizational-Cultural Unit
12 p.Views:142The main problem raised in the paper is in line with a new trend of research, conceptual programs and practical activity that can be termed “hygiene of culture”. The study is transcritical in its character and proposes to consider the category of capital generated by the economy in relation to the reproduction of the population in its structural units of civilization and as a cultural community. Trans-discipline methodology is currently being developed, which makes the work is up-to-date. It develops basic aspects of the procreation capital category, which claims to be a generalization of the human capital category. The problem is the restoration of European culture, which has been eroded by the distortion of the ideas of market economy. The reason why it is particularly urgent to find a solution to the problem is the threat posed by the demographic situation of the developed countries of European culture and the adjacent countries of the Slavic-Orthodox cultural cluster by the actual organization of housing.
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Angelika Molnar: Text, Genre, Word: Studies in Russian literature of the 19th–21st centuries. Moscow, Azbukovnik 2022, 424 pp. ISBN 978-5-91172-221-0
Views:181This review contains a critical analysis of Angelika Molnar's new book, her monograph entitled Text, genre, word: Studies in the Russian literature of the 19th-21st centuries is devoted to various texts of different eras from Pushkin’s to Sorokin’s, however, the focus of the study is Molnár's favorite Russian writer, Goncharov, whose work, unfortunately, rarely attracts the attention of Western researchers. In Molnár's book, the main, clearly indicated methodological principle is discursive poetics, which works well when studying intertexts within the framework of both large and small literary and historical series. Therefore, Russian literature is considered by the researcher as a single text in which the "old" is updated by the "new". The review emphasizes the significance of the monograph, which first of all offers an up-to-date interpretationof Russian classics in the context of modernity. The book will be of interest both to a professional researcher of Russian literature and to everyone who is interested in Russian culture and the Russian worldview.
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Specificity of the Organization of Text Space in the Novel of E. Vodolazkin «Soloviev and Larionov»
9 p.Views:152The 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:142The 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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The chronotope of O. E. Mandelshtam’s Poems about the Unknown Soldier
Views:27The chronotope of O.E. Mandelstam’s Poems about the Unknown Soldier has at least three levels: (1) the level of internal time-space as immanent to the subject, the author-hero; this is the level of subjective refraction of events in individual consciousness/thinking; (2) the level of external time-space: the historical and natural beginning of world life (historical and physical cosmos) in their correlation; here worldly life is presented as if outside any of its perception from the outside, “by itself”; and (3) the mythical-symbolic dimension shining through the other two; the events here are interpreted in their parabolical content, including in the aspect of the philosophy of culture and intertextuality as a kind of “new mythology”.
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Era of Post-Pragmatical Strategies
12 p.Views:141An 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:153The 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.