Continuity and Creative Development in the Practice of Inheriting China’s Architectural Culture
Natalia Bagrova,  Liang Yupeng
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.2.2-428-447
Abstract:

The issue of continuity and creative development has arisen repeatedly throughout the more than fi ve-thousand-year history of Chinese culture. Today, amid accelerating modernization and the homogenizing influence of globalization, China’s distinctive and profound culture is entering into active cross-cultural dialogue. In this process, foreign architects interpret and adapt the principles of Chinese vernacular architecture, while Chinese masters, in turn, reinterpret borrowed forms.

The aim of this article is to identify and analyze the specific mechanisms and strategies of contemporary inheritance practices through which traditional architectural elements are integrated with modern creative concepts, including an analysis of examples of cross-cultural communication. The object of the study is iconic architectural works in China created during the modern period of the 20th and 21st centuries. The research methodology is based on a comprehensive approach, including historical-genetic analysis, formal-stylistic analysis, and a comparative study of examples of the interaction between tradition and innovation.

The scientific novelty of the work lies in systematizing inheritance strategies, identifying patterns in the incorporation of sacred meanings and structural elements of traditional architecture into the current language of modern formbuilding, as well as in analyzing the bidirectional nature of cultural exchange. The study demonstrates that true continuity in architecture is achieved not through stylization or museum-like preservation, but through a deep reinterpretation of structural principles, spatial archetypes, and cultural symbolism – allowing tradition to gain new life in a global context without losing its unique identity.

The issue of continuity and creative development has arisen repeatedly throughout the more than fi ve-thousand-year history of Chinese culture. Today, amid accelerating modernization and the homogenizing influence of globalization, China’s distinctive and profound culture is entering into active cross-cultural dialogue. In this process, foreign architects interpret and adapt the principles of Chinese vernacular architecture, while Chinese masters, in turn, reinterpret borrowed forms.

The aim of this article is to identify and analyze the specific mechanisms and strategies of contemporary inheritance practices through which traditional architectural elements are integrated with modern creative concepts, including an analysis of examples of cross-cultural communication. The object of the study is iconic architectural works in China created during the modern period of the 20th and 21st centuries. The research methodology is based on a comprehensive approach, including historical-genetic analysis, formal-stylistic analysis, and a comparative study of examples of the interaction between tradition and innovation.

The scientific novelty of the work lies in systematizing inheritance strategies, identifying patterns in the incorporation of sacred meanings and structural elements of traditional architecture into the current language of modern formbuilding, as well as in analyzing the bidirectional nature of cultural exchange. The study demonstrates that true continuity in architecture is achieved not through stylization or museum-like preservation, but through a deep reinterpretation of structural principles, spatial archetypes, and cultural symbolism – allowing tradition to gain new life in a global context without losing its unique identity.

G. Mazzini’s Early Works on Philosophy of History: Challenges of Translation and Interpretation
Aleksandr Vukolov
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.2.2-448-467
Abstract:

This article focuses on some challenges and nuances of translating two early texts by the Italian thinker Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) into Russian: the article Of a European Literature (1829) and open anonymous letter to King Charles Albert of Sardinia (1831). The author analyzes different translations for the existing ambiguous units and also presents possible interpretations of these works on philosophy of history, justifying each translation decision. The paper’s first part explores the meaning of the word “una” in the title of the article Of a European Literature (D’una Letteratura Europea). Tracing the history of the “Goethean” epigraph to this Mazzini’s writing and examining its content, the author comes to the following conclusion. In this case, “una” can be perceived as either a numeral meaning “united” (in a moral sense) or an indefinite article, which indicates the unspecified and hypothetical nature of the concept of European literature. The article’s second part covers interpretations of the characteristic “Un Italiano” found at the beginning of the letter to Charles Albert. As the author shows, it can be applicable both to the Sardinian monarch, who is called to head a “united, free, and independent” Italian nation, and to Mazzini himself, who had already used the signature “An Italian” in several of his previous works. Furthermore, this part discusses the practical goals Mazzini may have had when distributing this letter among Italians in the summer of 1831. In the author’s opinion, following P. Ricœur, such parallelism of different but equally relevant interpretations should be viewed as “not a drawback or vice, but a virtue of understanding, which forms the essence of interpretation.”This article focuses on some challenges and nuances of translating two early texts by the Italian thinker Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) into Russian: the article Of a European Literature (1829) and open anonymous letter to King Charles Albert of Sardinia (1831). The author analyzes different translations for the existing ambiguous units and also presents possible interpretations of these works on philosophy of history, justifying each translation decision. The paper’s first part explores the meaning of the word “una” in the title of the article Of a European Literature (D’una Letteratura Europea). Tracing the history of the “Goethean” epigraph to this Mazzini’s writing and examining its content, the author comes to the following conclusion. In this case, “una” can be perceived as either a numeral meaning “united” (in a moral sense) or an indefinite article, which indicates the unspecified and hypothetical nature of the concept of European literature. The article’s second part covers interpretations of the characteristic “Un Italiano” found at the beginning of the letter to Charles Albert. As the author shows, it can be applicable both to the Sardinian monarch, who is called to head a “united, free, and independent” Italian nation, and to Mazzini himself, who had already used the signature “An Italian” in several of his previous works. Furthermore, this part discusses the practical goals Mazzini may have had when distributing this letter among Italians in the summer of 1831. In the author’s opinion, following P. Ricœur, such parallelism of different but equally relevant interpretations should be viewed as “not a drawback or vice, but a virtue of understanding, which forms the essence of interpretation.”

Cultural Landscape of Veliky Novgorod in Digital Media
Lyubov Grigoryeva
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.2.2-468-489
Abstract:

Abstract

The research of Veliky Novgorod cultural landscape in the context of urban representation in digital media reveals how the interaction between cultural and natural elements of the urban environment infl uences the urban image formation. The cultural landscape includes not only material, but also natural components, whose combination is a complex unity that is accessible to human perception. Each person creates his own cultural landscape image, but due to media representation or coverage of phenomena, reality events, created by media resources (photography), and broadcasted through digital media (the Internet), numerous created individual images are integrated into collective representation. During this process, a single person is both an observer who perceives the cultural landscape, and an active participant in its representations modeling. The main method of the study is visual data content analysis, which allows identifying the key components of the cultural landscape based on photographs that capture it. Photographic materials are classified according to representations types and forms developed by V. N. Kalutskov, taking into account additional factors introduced by the researcher, including seasons, time of day, and natural phenomena which allow revealing the key components of the cultural landscape. The author selected Veliky Novgorod as empirical material for the analysis, enabling the mechanisms demonstration for the urban representation formation through the visual aspect of its perception. The study’s findingsconfirm the hypothesis that Veliky Novgorod’s perception is based on its cultural landscape representation formed from visual components such as the city’s planning system, geographic location, natural features, architectural monuments, and buildings (churches, temples, and cathedrals). These composite elements of the cultural landscape form the basis for Veliky Novgorod’s cohesive and recognizable image, which is broadcast and perceived in the digital media sphere. Thus, the study demonstrates the importance of the cultural landscape’s visual components in urban image formation. The article contributes to the mechanisms study for representing the cultural landscape and emphasizes the role of visual means in this process.

Abstract

The research of Veliky Novgorod cultural landscape in the context of urban representation in digital media reveals how the interaction between cultural and natural elements of the urban environment infl uences the urban image formation. The cultural landscape includes not only material, but also natural components, whose combination is a complex unity that is accessible to human perception. Each person creates his own cultural landscape image, but due to media representation or coverage of phenomena, reality events, created by media resources (photography), and broadcasted through digital media (the Internet), numerous created individual images are integrated into collective representation. During this process, a single person is both an observer who perceives the cultural landscape, and an active participant in its representations modeling. The main method of the study is visual data content analysis, which allows identifying the key components of the cultural landscape based on photographs that capture it. Photographic materials are classified according to representations types and forms developed by V. N. Kalutskov, taking into account additional factors introduced by the researcher, including seasons, time of day, and natural phenomena which allow revealing the key components of the cultural landscape. The author selected Veliky Novgorod as empirical material for the analysis, enabling the mechanisms demonstration for the urban representation formation through the visual aspect of its perception. The study’s findingsconfirm the hypothesis that Veliky Novgorod’s perception is based on its cultural landscape representation formed from visual components such as the city’s planning system, geographic location, natural features, architectural monuments, and buildings (churches, temples, and cathedrals). These composite elements of the cultural landscape form the basis for Veliky Novgorod’s cohesive and recognizable image, which is broadcast and perceived in the digital media sphere. Thus, the study demonstrates the importance of the cultural landscape’s visual components in urban image formation. The article contributes to the mechanisms study for representing the cultural landscape and emphasizes the role of visual means in this process.

English Aesthetic Thought in the Context of British Philosophy: Stages and Transformations
Vasiliy Kelsiev
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.1.2-356-365
Abstract:

This article examines the formation and transformation of English aesthetic thought within the framework of the British philosophical tradition. The study focuses on the development of key aesthetic concepts such as taste, imagination, the sublime, and beauty from eighteenth-century empiricism to analytic aesthetics and contemporary interdisciplinary approaches. The research employs a historical-philosophical method combined with conceptual analysis of major aesthetic theories articulated by British philosophers and theorists of art. The article demonstrates that English aesthetics did not emerge as an abstract speculative system but developed as a reflection on perceptual experience, moral sentiment, and cultural practices, closely connected with moral philosophy, literary criticism, and philosophy of language. The analysis reveals a consistent internal logic in the evolution of British aesthetics, moving from the problem of taste and sensibility toward the examination of artistic practices, institutional forms of art, and the linguistic conditions of aesthetic judgment. The article argues that the specificity of the British aesthetic tradition lies in its empirical orientation, emphasis on individual experience, and openness to interdisciplinary dialogue, which ensures its continued relevance for contemporary philosophy of culture and theory of art.

Common Features of Tengrism and Mazdaism
Lena Fedorova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.1.2-381-393
Abstract:

The Sakha (Yakuts) are the northernmost Turkic people. Like many peoples they preserved folklore art in a living existence. Part of it consists of myths, including cosmogonic ones, which are found primarily in the heroic epic of Olonkho, religious beliefs and in the form of separate mythological narratives. In this work the main attention is paid to the cosmogonic and related myths of the Yakuts, searching for parallels to them mainly from the mythology of the ancient Indo-Iranians. These searches are motivated by ancient ethnogenetic ties. The main source for the preparation of the work was materials from Olonkho. In the religious beliefs of the Yakuts, the cult of the bright god Yuryung Ar Aiyy Tangara occupies a central place, with which the kumysny ysyakh is associated. It is associated with the early nomadic Indo-Iranian mythological view, which was based on the cult of the bright deity Ahura Mazda.

Using comparative, geographical, etymological and genetic methods as well as the author’s fi eld materials the evidence of the Yakut epic Olonkho ‘about the valley-mother of Kyaladyky in the Middle World, where sacred white cranes winter – sterkhes (Siberian Cranes)’ is confi rmed. The sterches who spent their summers in Western Siberia wintered in northern Afghanistan, Pakistan and India before their complete extermination. The conclusions of the works of geneticists on the Aryan and Turkic ancestry of the Sakha (Yakuts) are presented, which also confi rm the evidence of the Yakut Olonkho. The materials obtained as a result of the study lead to parallels between the myths of the ancient IndoIranians and the Sakha (Yakuts), which indicates the origin of Yakut tengrism – the belief in the Ar Aiyy Tangara, in the same region.

As a result, a conclusion is drawn about the ancient cultural and ethnogenetic contacts of the proto–ancestors of the Indo–Iranians and the Uranhai Sakha, which took place in the area of the junction of the highest mountains of Asia: Karakorum – Hindu Kush – Himalayas.

 

The Siberian Supertext as a Cultural Hyperpalimpsest: Towards a Problem Statement (Based on the Urban Subtext of Kemerovo)
Yulia Tatarnikova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.1.2-394-416
Abstract:

This article develops an analytical model for studying the phenomenon of the Siberian supertext through a cultural studies lens, conceptualizing it as a cultural hyperpalimpsest. The research is motivated by a methodological defi cit in the study of complex regional cultural texts, which require comprehensive tools to account for their multi-dimensionality, depth, and inherent conflict. The methodological framework synthesizes N.E. Mednis’s concept of the supertext [10], V.N. Toporov’s semiotics of local texts [14], and the theory of the cultural hyperpalimpsest, adapted from the works of A.A. Zaliznyak [4] and A. Huyssen [21]. The core of the study involves examining the urban subtext as a multi-layered semiotic formation within the three-component fi eld structure of the Siberia concept: the historical-eventual, cultural-geographical, and fi gurative-metaphorical components (the latter falls outside the scope of this article). Each of these components undergoes a dual-aspect analysis – synchronic and diachronic – to reveal both current semiotic interactions and the historical stratifi cation of meanings. The totality of such urban subtexts, united by the overarching Siberia concept, forms the Siberian supertextin its hyper-palimpsestic multi-dimensionality. The practical application of the model is demonstrated through a case study of Kemerovo, which represents a type of industrial center with high semiotic tension. The analysis reveals the conflictual interaction of its historical layers (agrarian, resource-extractive, industrial), structured around binary oppositions such as center – periphery and victim – hero. The study confirms the model’s heuristic potential in identifying dense semantic stratifi cations, significant regional lacunae, and the multi-channel, non-linear dynamics of regional identity formation.

Monument as a Cultural Tool of Human Pre-Adaptation in the 21st Century
Elena Lekus
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.1.2-366-380
Abstract:

Ordering the world of things and phenomena is one of the tasks of symbolic activity as an important anthropological characteristic of man. An individual builds and uses a system of reference points in the socio-cultural space of traditional and modernist societies with the help of objectifi cation and de-objectifi cation of symbols. A monument as one of the forms of symbolic culture historically plays the role of such a reference point: it perpetuates generally signifi cant meanings that have the highest value, provides an axiological connection between generations, sets existential coordinates on the path of life. However, at the modern (post-historical) stage, traditional and modernist meanings and values  are losing their signifi cance as universal pointers. Nevertheless, the need for orientation not only does not disappear, but turns out to be extremely relevant in the conditions of uncertainty of a complex world. Today, a number of artists create their works in new territories of a complex world, inhabited through art. The author examines this trend using examples from works by Anish Kapoor (ArcelorMittal Orbit, Cloud Gate and the sculpture at 56 Leonard Street in New York City) and Antony Gormley’s project (One & Other). These artistic experiments offer an unconventional experience for the viewer, revealing the possibility of harnessing the creative potential of uncertainty. The works discussed in the article act as accumulators of ambiguity. Installed in public spaces, they not only accumulate uncertainty but also transmit it back into the human world, repeatedly concentrated through artistic means. The author demonstrates that among the goals of contemporary monumental art, one of the main objectives is reconciling people with an unstable reality through pre-adaptation. In modern psychology, pre-adaptation is viewed as a preventative measure that allows people to adjust to constant, unpredictable change. Pre-adaptation, carried out with the help of monumental art, is based on the principles of developing a creative attitude to the world.

Apophatic Stylistics as a Version of the Ontology of Art
Alexander Markov,  Oksana Shtayn
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.1.2-322-337
Abstract:

This article proposes an ontological revision of the foundations of art historical analysis, which has traditionally relied on the hermeneutics of style expressed through a system of binary oppositions (from Wölffl in to Baxandall). In contrast to this relational model, which defi nes an artistic phenomenon through its difference from another style, the theory of apophatic stylistics is put forward. Borrowing its fundamental gesture from negative theology, the theory postulates that an artistic principle or pattern asserts itself not dialectically, but through a radical negation of all that it is not–of the entire mute materiality of the world of “things themselves.” The article provides numerous examples from various arts, from classical to the most recent, substantiating the necessity of apophatic stylistics as a sub-discipline of art history and, simultaneously, an essential practical component of the philosophy of art, crucial for the accuracy of intermedial generalizations.

The article argues that this approach has direct ontological implications, resonating with Graham Harman’s project of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO). Within OOO, a work of art is understood not as a representation or a product of artistic will, but as an autonomous object possessing a “withdrawn reality.” The task of the artist, therefore, shifts from mimesis to the act of revealing this objecthood, which transforms the formula summarizing the spirit of Duchamp’s enterprise: “the whole world readymades itself.” Through a reinterpretation of Rosalind Krauss’s concept of the index and the category of “zadannost” (“givenness,” in the Neo-Kantian and Bakhtinian tradition), the article demonstrates how apophatic stylistics shifts the focus from anthropocentric categories of intention and cultural context (“point of assemblage”) to an encounter with the otherness of the artistic object itself in its self-suffi cient being (“point of vivifi cation”).

The article substantiates the apparatus of apophatic stylistics, provides a detailed innovative terminology for this discipline, and justifi es its analytical procedures. This enhances the practical signifi cance of the article, making it not only a contribution to the philosophy of art but also an instructive foundation for analyzing any work of art using the author’s proposed method.

The Influence of G.R. Derzhavin’s Creative Work on the Formation of a Median Culture in Russia
Ivan Kokovin
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2026-18.1.2-338-355
Abstract:

This article is a critical attempt to understand the phenomenon of Derzhavin’s infl uence   on the ideologies of the median culture in Russia. The research methodology is based on the concept of A.S. Ahiezer. He proposed a “mediational methodology for the socio–cultural analysis of Russian society”, in which there are categorial concepts: ‘inversion’, ‘mediation’, ‘median culture’, ‘inversion trap’, etc.  The main issue for Derzhavin was the question of self–determination of the individual in the context of serving the state system. In these conditions, individuals will have to leave the fi eld of ‘inversion’ traditional thinking through ‘mediation’, the search for mediation. Derzhavin, engaged in serving the autocratic state, sought to avoid the extremes of the binary approach.

 The author tried to analyze the phenomenon of Derzhavin’s poetic and prose vocabulary in order to discover elements of the median culture in the writer’s texts. It is important for the author to show Derzhavin’s poetic space fi lled with binary oppositions that are intricately related to each other.  This space, in turn, is connected to the socio–cultural space of Russian Classicism in general. The author presents his methodology for studying the Russian Enlightenment of the XVIIIth century.

Derzhavin’s work is presented as a focus on developing a new type of relationship with the government. The poetic discourse is a response to a system of historical challenges, the main one being the challenge of binary consciousness. The deployment of mediation practices in some cases determines the specifi c structure of his literary work. The author shows how all of this relates to the poetics of Russian classicism and the state ideology of autocracy. The new forms of social organization in the 18th century involved the struggle for personal liberation including from state violence. Speaking about the relationship between the individual and the state, Derzhavin enters into internal polemic with the revolutionaries on the one hand and the court conformists on the other.  

The Science of Memory: Logic and Pragmatics of the “Memorial Boom” in Socio-Humanitarian Research
Oleg Vereshhagin,  Natalya Belova,  Vera Kolosova
DOI: 10.17212/2075-0862-2025-17.4.2-318-336
Abstract:

The article presents a critical analysis of the logical and pragmatic foundations of the “science of memory” as an independent subject area of socio-humanitarian
research. Articulation of the mechanisms and ways of functioning of group (collective) memory helps the authors to reveal the consistent logic of the formation and development of the memoriological paradigm. The methodological
principles and tools used in the work are designed to smooth out the contradictions of internalist and externalist strategies of scientifi c analysis, demonstrating the complementarity of internal and external factors in the genesis of memoriological
knowledge. At the formative stage, social memoriology developed in a specifi c polemic with historiology in terms of challenging the exclusivity of historiographical
methods and techniques for studying the past. The modern stage of the relationship between offi cial historiography and memoriology is characterized by the smoothing out of differences in understanding the nature and essence
of historiographical activity, and the convergence of their methodological principles and rules. In the pursuit of increasing inclusivity and plurality in the representation of the past, there is a noticeable local tendency towards the resacralization, remythologization and partially profanization of historical experience. The article attempts to problematize the epistemological status of modern memorial research in the logic of the Nietzschean strategy of ‘forgetting’ as an
opportunity and ability of society to balance and poise group ‘mnemonic experience’ and the experience of organized collective amnesia. The recognition of the redundancy and toxicity of a part of historical experience, the social provocativeness of certain fragments of world and national
history gives grounds to assert that oblivion can prevail over memories at a time when ‘memory events’ are explicitly or implicitly capable of deepening existing forms of intolerance and xenophobia, as well as becoming a dangerous manipulation tool on the part of the main benefi ciaries of confl ict and destructiveness in society. In the current mental context, according to the authors, it is not the
maxim of the existence and functioning of group (collective) forms of memory that is being problematized, but their modern institutionalized and codifi ed explications
and embodiments in mnemonic practices of subjects of media police and media culture.