Ideas and Ideals

The article examines A. Varlamov’s novel “My Soul Pavel” and its production at the Russian Academic Youth Theater (RAYT). The research methodology is based on the hermeneutical approach, and also relies on the techniques of narratological and intertextual analysis. As a result of the analysis, the features of the genre nature of the work are established; its mythopoetic basis; the functioning of the intertext in the novel; the ratio of the author and the hero. The author shows a change in the dramatization of the original conception of the novel by his grandmother.

In the structure of the novel, the author refers to the artistic possibilities of such techniques as intertextuality and autocitation. These techniques are aimed at an educated audience and connect the text with routine postmodern poetics. Varlamov’s scientifi c erudition and writing professionalism are manifested in a demonstrative reliance on a liminal plot and an initiation scheme. The genre characteristic of the work given by the author is ‘the novel of growing up’. In addition, the novel uses the plug-in genre of vision. In the image of the main character Pavel Nepomiluyev, such important features of the Russian mentality as the traditional idea of wandering and the cult of power formed by the Soviet era are combined. The relationship between the author and the hero is considered through the prism of M. M. Bakhtin’s concept and is classifi ed as characteristic of romantic literature. The hero’s growing up implies his discovery of the negative aspects of Soviet reality: such as irresponsible management, theft, national problems, and the death of the village. The novel establishes an understanding of the elite of society as people who are fi rst and foremost distinguished by their love for their Motherland.

In the play “My Soul Pavel” in RAYT, playwright Polina Babushkina changed the concept of the novel, shifting the focus to criticism of the Soviet way of life. The mystical storylines of the text have been eliminated from the production, including an important episode of the vision for the meaning of the whole. However, there are interesting staging solutions in the play: reading a fragment of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, an independent musical series involving a variety ensemble. As a conclusion, it is said about the modernity and artistic independence of the novel, as well as that the play is able to live on the stage of the theater, having internal resources for modifi cation.

The author of the article examines the dynamics of images of Russia in the works of art of Yu. V. Mamleyev. In the writer’s early works there is no refl ection on Russia as a historical and cultural whole. Mamleyev depicts the hidden world of Soviet marginals who undermine their consciousness with crimes and sexual deviations. The fear of death awakens the attraction to it and the desire of the heroes to know death, fi nding themselves in an uncertain state between life and death. The image of “external” Russia in Mamleyev’s early works is also deeply pathological and demonstrates all kinds of mental disorders among its inhabitants. The writer’s departure for emigration awakened an interest in artistic refl ection on the present and future of Russia in him. Now madness and lack of depth (two-dimensionality) seem to the author to be its essential characteristics. The story “Refl ection” captures this image of Russia, which has lost its cultural identity and is deprived of historical memory. After returning to his homeland, the writer’s work became increasingly marked by apocalyptic motifs, characteristic of the national cultural tradition. In the novel “After the End,” Mamleyev creates an image of Russia in the distant future after the End of the World. It is inhabited by creatures deprived of the image and likeness of God, and seized by all kinds of madness. Their existence is an existence between life and death. It’s unbearable. But there are only two ways to get out of it: either to disappear completely from all levels of reality, or to leave the divine Creation into the Abyss of Non-Existence, devoid of any potential. In both cases, this means the end of the Russian Idea, the end of Russia. The author’s inability to fi nd an artistic embodiment of a different, positive image and meaning of Russia’s existence forces him to turn to philosophical journalism, where he constructs his ideal of “eternal Russia.”

In fi lm theory, in the hermetically academic form to which it has come today, there is a quasi-conciliatory conventionality, according to which any fi lm text fi nds its ‘legitimate’ place in the catalog of types, genres, movements, historical and cultural contexts. In the spirit of postmodernism, as described by Jean-François Lyotard, mass cinema is no longer the antithesis of cinema-as-art, but yet another ‘kind’ of cinema, etc. This allegedly allows one to think cinema as a totality, albeit diverse, but still united by a certain general principle. Using the example of Sergei Eisenstein’s and Andrei Tarkovsky’s approaches to constructing and understanding the fi lm image, this article shows that it is possible to talk about different cinemas, phenomena which differ not just on the dramatic or aesthetic level, but rather on the ontological one. We use the theme of hieroglyph and the East, which the above-mentioned fi lmmakers have been addressing in their theoretical works, while understanding it in completely different ways, as a template by which their fi lms are assessed. The differences that appear at the level of interpretation of the hieroglyph allow, in turn, to deduce fundamental differences inherent not only in those specifi c theorists and practitioners of cinema, but also to outline two essentially contradictory traditions of cinema, one of which, as it seems at the moment, has suppressed and supplanted the other.

This article explores the development of Orientalism in the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff, who, infl uenced by both Russian and Eastern musical traditions, creates a unique synthesis of cultural elements. Here, the expression of national identity is refl ected through the lens of personal experience. The music of one of the greatest Russian composers of the 20th century represents a complex intertwining of cultural infl uences, emphasizing the uniqueness of the Russian character, which is marked by a pursuit of infi nity and freedom through the concept of “elemental forces”, as well as through symbols of rebellion, space, and solitude. The article highlights the importance of understanding Russian culture not merely as a collection of customs and traditions, but as a valuable mosaic piece of the global cultural palette, unique in its multifaceted nature and depth of meaning. The author analyzes how Eastern motifs in the composer’s works become not just exotic insertions, but vital structural components that refl ect the musician’s inner world and personal experiences. Through an examination of pieces such as “Piano Concerto No. 2”, “Symphony No. 2”, “Études-Tableaux for Piano, Op. 39”, and “Alexander Nevsky”, it is shown how Rachmaninoff transforms Eastern melodies, adapting them to his artistic language and creating multilayered musical textures. The article emphasizes that Orientalism in Rachmaninoff’s music serves not only as a means of self-expression but also as a philosophical tool for contemplating questions of human nature and identity.

In conclusion, it is underscored that the composer shapes a musical space where personal and national experiences intertwine, creating a profound emotional revelation that mirrors the complex nature of the Russian spirit, refl ecting its quest for self-understanding and comprehension of the surrounding world. It concludes that through his artistry, Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff advocates for the preservation and understanding of Russian culture as an integral part of the world’s cultural heritage, which is crucial not only for maintaining historical memory and spiritual legacy but also for enriching humanity as a whole.

The article discusses the problem of rejecting the image of beauty in modern dance. It is indicated that the theme of despair, fear, violence and depression begins to dominate in modern dance since its inception in the 20s of the last century. The characteristic features of movements and plasticity in expressionist dance, in the school of M. Graham, are described: broken vertical, inwardly turned chest and feet, sharpness and convulsiveness of movements, blows aimed at oneself, etc. The article consistently examines the possible causes of this trend, such as technical ease and accessibility, lower energy cost of ‘sad dances’, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate originality, nonconformism, express social protest, etc. There is an opinion that the expression of pathological motives, negative feelings, fears in art contributes to the liberation from their destructive effect in real life. This approach is questioned, because there is also a reverse mechanism: as a result of viewing relevant plots (for example, scenes of violence), infection with emotions occurs, role models arise, and the thresholds of what is permissible decrease. Along with criticism of a number of trends in contemporary art, the importance of the concept of ugliness for culture is emphasized. Meeting one’s own infi rmity and imperfection, be that physical, psychological or moral, plays an essential role in the spiritual development of a person. However, modern art, including the dance performances considered, follow the path of establishing ugliness as a new norm and cultivate the perverted reality of the ‘sick’ creativity of a disintegrating personality. The expression of beauty, on the contrary, is characteristic of an integral personality striving for perfection and praising life.

Religion is the dominant aspect of Rozanov’s creativity. The main topics of Rozanov’s spiritual search include: God, the world and man are focused around this dominant. The peculiarity of this topics is the explication of intuition of a single whole. This intuition was realized by means of symbols that belong to the world of traditional religions. Rozanov’s creativity actualizes the opportunity of vision of religion as a phenomenon despite the prevalence of images of material things in his texts. This vision is based on a metaphysical foundation of suggestions, examined in the work “On Understanding”, where he understands religion as a temporal undetermined phenomenon. Contact with the world of religion allows us to explicate the human spirit as unity. Rozanov’s vision moves from a description of religion as unity to the description of single images of paganism, Judaism and the Christianity. Rozanov emphasizes this particular content, but his search is inspired by the doctrine of religion as having a certain potency. The realization of this certain potency is the historical development of religions, that conditions the occurrence of new religion in a cultural vacuum, and appears after the distraction of Christianity. The presentiment of metaphysical emptiness is the culmination of Rozanov’s search for God and at the same time the tragedy. Rozanov conceptualizes this intention as the absolutisation of particular things. The transparency of the religious search and the concentration on religion itself makes Rozanov’s position in some aspects close to the narrative of the classic phenomenology of religion. We study the creativity of Rozanov by means of historical-philosophical reconstruction, using elements of hermeneutic analysis.

In less than a century, the stable concept of «French garden» is formed and consolidated, having become the result of the activity of very specifi c historical fi gures (André Lenôtre and Louis XIV) in the national consciousness of the French and in the language. The concept can be classifi ed as a linguocultureme with a clearly expressed nationally colored semantic meaning. The article proposes to explore the ethnocultural features of the linguocultureme «French garden», as well as to determine its role and place in the national consciousness of the French, and to outline its infl uence on the formation of the French national picture of the world. The concept of «French garden» in the linguocultural aspect is not well-studied, which emphasizes the novelty of this work.

The author conducts the research using a complex of scientifi c methods, including contextual-interpretive analysis, diachronic research, and analysis of linguistic and cultural objects. It is also worth noting that the author for the fi rst time cites, in the author’s translation from French, primary sources of French scientifi c research and publications on the topic of landscape gardening, unknown to Russian readers. As a result of a comparison of theoretical generalization and analysis of linguistic material, the author comes to the conclusion that at certain stages of history, some concepts and traditions are formed in the collective consciousness of a nation, which can become elements of the cultural code and form the basis of the national linguistic picture of the world. Such a concept and a tradition stretching back centuries for the French is the desire to cultivate a garden, in which its aesthetic component acquires particular importance.

The present research paper is devoted to philosophic motifs in the creative work of one of the leading cultural fi gures of the Silver Age, the poet, writer and philosopher N.S. Gumilyov. His personal fate (executed in 1921 by order of the Petrograd Cheka) is one of the examples of the sad poetic “tradition” of Russian culture: Pushkin, Lermontov, Mayakovsky, Yesenin and others. This paper analyzes philosophical and linguistic peculiarities of the “Akmeism” poetic and theoretical style, which was originated by Nikola Gumilev. In socio-philosophical aspect, Gumilyov’s intentions were associated with the formation of the concept of “Adamism”, which implied the analysis of man as a personality (most fully refl ected in the compositions “The Captains”, “The Conquistadors’ Way”, etc.) in comparison with the Nietzschean “superman”. For Nietzsche, his slogan ‘God is dead’ did not mean the exaltation of man, but merely stated the overabundance of the individual in every personality. In this case, Gumilyov adhered to the idea of “transcendental man”, which implied the unity of Man’s natural essence in synthesis with supernatural (higher, i.e. spiritual) origins. This was the purpose of this article. Analysis of Gumilyov’s poetic and publicistic works argues in favour of the proof of the philosophical idea of “transcendental man”, which was later developed in N.A. Berdyaev’s philosophy of personalism. Both Russian philosophers and writers defended the idea of a creative and free Man, capable of self-assertion. Self-affi rmation of Man for them is inextricably linked with the ability to Self-knowledge. But it should be noted that the views of Berdyaev and Gumilev on the role of society and the state in human life had certain differences.

The subject of the article is neopragmatic aesthetics; its formation, methodological foundations and specifi city of the object of research. To reveal the stated goal, the author turns to the works of the American philosopher Richard Shusterman, who most consistently and clearly substantiates his philosophical position. The American philosopher, despite the strong infl uence of the analytical school, restores the connection with pragmatism, with the aesthetics of John Dewey, points out the dead ends and problematic points of the analytical approach. The article presents the evolution of American philosophical aesthetics with an emphasis on the transitional stage from the analytic tradition to a neopragmatic one. It is shown that Shusterman’s attempt to get rid of the “Platonic stigma” in the philosophy of art is carried out at the expense of criticizing analytic aesthetics. Thus, Shusterman makes critical arguments about the established habit of identifying art in its multivariate manifestation with the notion of “high” fi ne art associated with the sublime and true art. Shusterman shifts the focus of attention from the problem of defi ning art to the analytics of aesthetic experience, which allows him to transform aesthetics into somaesthetics - a body-oriented, practical philosophical discipline. The author concludes that Shusterman’s concept of somaesthetics emerges in a polemic with fundamentalist foundations in aesthetics, namely, the tradition of distinguishing objects, works of art from what is not, i.e. defi ning art. The author notes that a key fi gure for the formation of the theoretical basis of somaesthetics was Shusterman’s acquaintance with the position of Noel Carroll, who moves from the search for the essence of art to the investigation of the internal standards and motives of art. Schusterman, picking up on this strategy, affi rms his anti-essentialist position. In polemics with his colleagues, he shifts and rethinks the problem fi eld of aesthetics, declaring war on “Platonism,” criticizing the Greek philosophical tradition, to which we owe the fact that practical activity has become valued much less than theoretical activity. Along with this, the author concludes about Shusterman’s sophistic strategy and logic of thinking, citing arguments from the work of postmodernist researcher Barbara Cassin.

The subject of research in this article is the artistic practices of modern Russian Germans, implemented within the framework of the cultural festival “German Sloboda”. It is proved that festival artistic practices belong to the “culture of ethnos” (according to V. G. Babakov’s classifi cation), that is, they are a combination of ethnic and externally introduced components. The latter are the artistic practices of postmodernism, such as performance, happenings, environment and their varieties. The scientifi c novelty of this work is the consideration of the traditional culture of Russian Germans in the context of artistic forms, methods and techniques of modern times. The objectives of the work include: an analysis of the artistic practices of the cultural festival of Russian Germans “German Sloboda” from the point of view of correlating ethnic content and modern forms of its presentation, as well as the development of the above-mentioned artistic practices in the history of the festival. To achieve the set goals and objectives, a historical-genetic method is used, which allows us to trace the relationship between ethnic traditional and modern innovation in artistic practices, as well as a structural-functional method that demonstrates the artistic practices of modern Russian Germans as an integral part of their spiritual culture. As a result of the analysis of the artistic practices of the cultural festival of Russian Germans “German Sloboda”, a conclusion is made about the culture of modern Russian Germans as a synthesis of the immanent and transcendent, as a combination of following the sociocultural experience of previous generations – traditions – and the desire of the current generation for changes – innovations. The “culture of ethnos” of modern Russian Germans is in the stage of modifi cation and transformation of its forms, creative experimentation, search for an individual-personal beginning with constant reliance on the collective traditional experience of the past. The seven-year history of the cultural festival of Russian Germans “German Sloboda” clearly demonstrates the active use of postmodern artistic practices, in which art leaves traditional spaces (galleries, museums, concert or theater halls) and conquers new spaces that are not necessarily associated with art.