Ideas and Ideals

The author considers the degradation of peasant labour culture in the Soviet kolkhozes, which still affects the modern village. Peasantry is presented as the community of rural inhabitants occupied with crop growing and cattle breeding who possess socio-cultural legacy of ancestors. The author highlights the idea, that traditional culture of peasant labour in Russia was very high. To prove the fact, the examples from the research work of classical writers of the Russian history, ethnographers’, foreigners’ evidence about Russia and the Russian folklore are given in the article. According to the author the policy of collectivization led to the socio-cultural degradation of the traditional labour culture of peasants. The absence of private property, material and moral interests as well as super-exploitation of peasants by the state, low-paid work, cultural revolution and "equal rights" for everybody were the main factors, which led to degradation. And as the result, such phenomena as low productivity of labour, economic indifference, imitation of labour were formed and all the previously mentioned factors led to moral degradation. The author supports the formulated conclusions with the testimonies of former peasants which have been collected in the new scientific genre "oral history". In the opinion of eyewitnesses of collectivization and the author of the article for the modern village recovery it is necessary to give peasants private property and freedom of creativity.

The article tells about a base anthropological conflict between properly human indefinite and free integral part and his/her biological animal nature. The conflict is the fact, that having anxiety and fear of excess of their anthropogenic freedom, people create corporate culture for recovering their biological balance broken by freedom. In this context, culture is a try of reviving of animal natural state harmony. A great number of symbols and ideas sacralized by culture serve to this purpose. But freedom cannot exist with the normative construction. All unpredictable dynamics of human history is based on the continuing process of the conflict.

In various epochs, the peculiarities of human language were described in comparison with sounds made by animals. Such recourse to animals deserves special analysis, since, in essence, it is directed at a better understanding of man and human language. All the thoughts expressed in connection with this are equally important, as landmarks in the history of ideas, irrespective of the fact whether they had followers or remained as author’s original concepts. The man-animal paradigm, studied in the context of language, undergoes significant changes with the passage of time. In antiquity and in the Middle Ages a hierarchical attitude with the prior role of the man was established. In the modern era, alongside with the traditional interpretation, a version of correlation emerges: the talking bird and the man are placed on the same rank in the story about a cognitive parrot mentioned by Locke. In the beginning of the 20^th century Vossler goes even further. Creative ability serves as an evaluation criterion for him; proceeding from this he observes in man features characteristic of the parrot. However, in the structure of man conceived this way, the hierarchy of antique-medieval model is observed again.

It is an important question – what power brings people to the Revolution? Why many revolutionaries completely change their vision and ideas as soon as they reach mature years and put away their dreams to change the world and to create a new society manifesting a new culture? Why someone becomes famous after just one episode of a secret group activity while another one is forgotten by the History even remaining faithful to the youth ideals till the very end?  In this report I’ll try sort out the intricacy of the fate of one Russian woman-revolutionary and to fill up one of the gaps and return the name of a woman who dedicated her life to fighting for “happiness of all mankind” sacrificing her personal happiness, happiness of a wife and a mother.

The paper analyses how the set of images and events in the poem “Dionysiaca” by Nonnus of Panopolis reflects the ancient notion of time. The immortal gods of Olympus abide in eternity; however they have to reckon with the earth time and the order of things. Nevertheless, the time of the gods and the time of human beings are represented by different gods: Chronos and Aion, respectively. The original ancient gods, Phanes, Chaos, Chronos, can claim to be fully independent of the time of the mortal, and they abide in a sort of “timelessness” rather than eternity. Thus, there are three positions in relation to time: timelessness – complete independence from time of ancient gods, immortality, and eternity. At the same time, there is Olympic gods’ involvement in the earth time and complete subordination to the laws of the earth time on the part of the mortal. Dionysus is characterized by a spiral pattern of time. Zagreus, Dionysus, Iovakh are both a single whole and different. They are the past, the present and the future. Events in their lives are repeated, but not precisely. The above corresponds to the Platonic interpretation of time, and substantial similarity can be noticed.

The article analyses the text of the mystical «Revelations» of st. Birgitta and references to her “Revelations” in diplomatic correspondence during Hundred Years' War. In this text she calls on those warring parties for laying their arms down in the name of Jesus. The focus is on the argument in favor of the authenticity of the divine origin of the "Revelations" contained inside the text, and in external comments. These techniques of persuasion, as addressed to the recipient of the message, attempt to use conventional conceptions of established law. Based on a detailed analysis of how they were used, as well as how and why they were successful, we can reconstruct the role of religious elements in the legal and political relations of this era.

The Government of the Russian Federation in the "Strategy of innovative development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020" sets ambitious targets of long-term development. It plans to achieve a high level welfare of the population, strengthening the country's geopolitical role as one of the global leaders. The only possible way to achieve these goals is considered to be the transition of the Russian economy on an innovative socially-oriented model of development. The article is devoted to the statistical study of the innovation potential of Russian regions. Provide comparison of methods for the study of innovative activity and innovative potential of the territories. Developed methodological apparatus of statistical research of innovative potential of regions of the Russian Federation for a series of years. Held typology of the Russian regions in terms of innovation potential.

The article assesses the discriminatory content posted on the website "The World of Statistics" that encroaches on Russian identity in the field of statistics. Being only an episode of the virtual negative information impact on professional Internet users, this action cannot but causes regret. "The World of Statistics" is not only a hyperbolized concept of characterizing a wide arsenal of tools and databases used in the process of cognition of the phenomena of the objective world, but also a geographical concept. International statistics should be out of politics. Attempts to exclude individual countries or groups of countries from international statistical space or context are counterproductive. Isolationist policy imposed against Russia in various fields by the international opponents, does not make the world safer and more sustainable, does not contribute to progress in achieving the Millennium development goals contained in the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations.

In the article the reasons to develop metrics alternative to conventional scientometric and bibliometric indicators for assessing the scientific work of the scientist or whole organization are analyzed. Altmetrics is an young discipline (started in 2010), the subject of which is the creation and study of new metrics (alternative metrics) to assess the scientific product (articles, books, presentations, speeches and discussions on the topic of scientific research, computer software, etc.) within the virtual space (the number of discussions in social networks, downloads and views in the scientific repositories and bibliographic managers, and others.) The altmetrics tools are observed. And the positive aspects of the altmetrics and criticisms expressed toward them are considered.

Principles of the formal structure of the axiological system are analyzed in the article. Ideology is considered as a variant of this system. It proved that political ideology unites all other options are ideological constructions, including the value of the right of submission. It is shown that the elemental composition corresponds to the structure of the political ideology of the political relationship. The formal structure of political ideology allows for meaningful interpretation and samples historical types of political value judgments are given in the paper.

Soviet electoral statistics of the 1920s provides a wealth of material for studying political as well as social developments in Russia, including the data on the age, education, property, social composition of voters and deputies of councils and congresses at all levels. This paper refers to the archive material introduced into scientific use for the first time to reconstruct the rise and development of the electoral statistics in the RSFSR in the 1920s as reflecting the main stages in establishing the election machinery and policy fluctuation in Soviet Russia within the timeframe. Institutional and organizational uncertainty in the first half of the 1920s had a negative impact on the completeness and reliability of the information submitted to the NKVD by local executive committees. The concentration of all functions for the organization and management of the election campaign in the Central Election Commission of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee in 1926 unified and formalized the data collection, improved the registration of voters, increased the accuracy and coverage of the electoral statistics. The variability of the parameters used in the electoral statistics during the 1920s to determine the socioeconomic status of the population seriously complicates their analysis, often making the indicators incomparable.

In the article, Russian regions are the classified in terms of cultural capital  development by cluster analysis method. Inside the allocated clusters, generalized factors are defined by the method of principal components; the effect  of indicators  of  cultural capital on the level of economic activity of the population is measured. The obtained multiple regression equation was used for forecasting the level of economic activity of population in 2016-2018 years.  

The author attempts to explain the changes taking place in different historical periods in the private and public spheres of social life. The content of these transformations is described as social privatization. The direction of social privatization is defined as the movement of the society towards de-politicization, de-socialization and privatization (ochastnivaniye). The author provides the examples of changes, the essence of which is social privatization; he also considers a decrease of civic activity of the population, the emergence of fenced and quasi-public spaces and turning of the state into a private corporation. The author argues that social privatization can act as a mechanism by which individuals and groups are trying to adapt to adverse changes in the social environment. Socially dangerous consequences of social privatization are characterized by the inability and unwillingness of people to hear and see each other, to carry out collective and cooperative activities in the public interest. The book is intended for sociologists, social philosophers, historians, graduate students and students of social theory, sociology of management, sociology, state and law, sociology of the city.

This culturological essay identifies the interpretative codes of the Orphic myth in world culture. A century ago, Innokenty Annensky astutely observed that ancient myth determines not only the material, but also the forms of our creative thought. The criterion here is not accuracy, but depth... This is the space of discoveries, revelations, foreknowledge, and existential insights. The book explores the borders of the essayistic chronotope from Alexander Pushkin and Gérard de Nerval to Vladimir Nabokov and Wystan Hugh Auden. However, the logic of the how the study unfolds is dictated not by chronology, but by associative and unpredictable links of interpretative meanings. The Orphic myth reveals how the old truth and its new artistic and philosophical understanding can be linked together.

The book contains the articles of a well-known Russian philosopher; M. A. Rozov (1930-2011) devoted to the problems of culture perception, understanding of the social life of people, the issues of philosophical ethics and anthropology. The author developed an original theoretical apparatus for the analysis of complex cultural, historical and social phenomena (the so-called "reflection systems"). Thanks to the theory of “social relays” developed by him, the author was able to offer a non-trivial approach to consider the so-called problems of human life’s meaning. In his philosophical and journalistic works the author considers the problems of space-time existence of a human being, axiological questions of regulation of human activities and behavior, the relationship of scientific knowledge and values. The author analyzes the specifics of existence and reproduction of philosophy in modern Russia, the difficulty of teaching the principles and techniques of philosophical thinking. The book also presents essays, memories of famous Russian philosophers written by M. A. Rozov to various anniversaries and events. Some of the works have never been published yet. The book is designed for philosophers, culture experts, historians, as well as teachers, students and graduate students specializing in the field of philosophy of culture, ethics and philosophical anthropology.

The monograph was prepared by the author in the English version [The Information Resonance in Social System: Monograph / V.I. Ignatyev - Novosibirsk: NSTU Publisher, 2016. - 287 pp.] by the order of the Novosibirsk State Technical University with the aim of expanding overseas readership of NSTU Publishing.   The reason which inspired the author to present his view on the role of information in the modern world was a premonition of a new revolution in social theory, the desire to acquaint the reader with ideas, which stimulated the author in recent years to publish articles on the effects of information taking place in the social structure. The author believes that the fundamental social theories potential of the last half of the past century, is largely exhausted. The transformation of information into the substance of the society requires a revision of the ontological foundations of the modern social theories. The author proposes to discuss a new social ontology - the information ontology.