Ideas and Ideals

The article raises the problem of a methodologically correct variable description of sociocultural transformations models as the basis for effective models regulating the corresponding processes. In the paradigmatic field of sociocultural research, there is a whole range of interpretations of the sociocultural approach put forward in connection with the analysis of the socio-cultural dynamics and sociocultural transformations of various world regions. On the basis of highlighting various interpretations of the sociocultural approach, the authors explicate different models of sociocultural transformations. The importance of the methodological heritage of P.A Sorokin for the analysis of this process is emphasized. The authors offer their vision of this prominent Russian-American sociologist’s research on the description of sociocultural transformations, and an assessment of its possible use in relation to contemporary Russia.

According to the authors, in the terminology of P.A. Sorokin pre-revolutionary Russian and Soviet cultures should be identified as ideational cultures that developed in the paradigm of Orthodoxy and its reformation. The history of Russia can be viewed as a series of successive and growing tides of ideational culture that were occasionally held back by the temporary rise of sensual culture. The post-Soviet period is viewed as a controversial process of planting sensual culture. In the future, another tide of ideational culture is possible.

It is concluded that in the diagnosis of the sociocultural dynamics of modern Russia, it is possible to use various interpretations that provide an empirically-specific description of the course of sociocultural transformations. The use of competing methodological interpretations and model typologies can provide a diverse and panoramic analysis of sociocultural dynamics, which is an important theoretical prerequisite for determining the optimal models for its regulation at different levels of social organization in the perspective of sociocultural integration of Russia. Taking into account its wide regional and ethnocultural diversity, it is possible to implement various phase models of sociocultural transformations depending on the type of region, characteristics of the ethnocultural and ethno-confessional landscape.

   The article analyzes two pictures by the Dutch artist Arent de Gelder (1645-1727) “Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah” (circa 1690, Leiden Collection, New York) and “Tobias Welcomed by His Mother Hanna” (circa 1705, Museum of the Monastery of St. Catherine in Utrecht). The subject of these paintings is associated with the book of Tobit written in Palestine in the II century BC. This book is a part of the Catholic and Orthodox biblical canons; in Protestantism and Judaism it is considered to be apocryphal. The central role in these paintings (by de Gelder) is played by mothers - Edna and Anna, which is uncharacteristic of the works by other Dutch artists who turned to the book of Tobit. It seems that the interest of Arent de Gelder in these female images is related to his (or his unknown patrons) comparison of the texts of the book in the Vulgate of 1592 and the Dutch Bible, published in 1637, and based on the part of the book of Tobit on the Septuagint. In the text of the Vulgate, where there is a difference between the behavior and feelings of the father and mother, the closeness of the position of the spouses is emphasized, that is, the feelings and actions of the fathers of the family are shared by their wives. In the text of the Septuagint, on the contrary, in several places there is a juxtaposition of the behavior of men and women. A careful reading of the Bible in the 17th century Holland was dictated by the idea of reformers that every believer had to read the Scriptures and interpret them to the best of their understanding. The image of the Old Testament characters during this period gained great popularity in the visual arts. The interpretation of biblical scenes and individual images was notable for its direct perception and individual approach to the depiction of the theme of work.

The paper analyzes the problems of interpersonal relationships such as matchmaking, the relations between men and women; in other words, the authors describe manifestations of the biological “axioms” in human behavior. Besides, domination can also be viewed as an expression of the biological in interpersonal relationships. The object of study of the present research includes the problems of matchmaking, gambling games, entertainment, and feasts.

As empirical material for the given description, the authors consider literary texts from the Armenian literature of the XIX-XX centuries (M. Nalbandyan, S. Shahazis, G. Sundukyan, A. Ayvazyan and others). The paper is an essential part of the “Tbilisi Text of Armenian Literature”, which adds something new to the “Tbilisi Text of the Georgian Literature”. Those two discourses, in their turn, show a certain commonality with the “Caucasian Text of the Russian Literature».

The authors apply a semiotic meta-language; implicitly, they use the theory of the French sociologist P. Bourdieu together with a typological approach, since the analysis is conducted on recurrent motifs, aiming at the identification of general semantic units.

The main thesis of the present paper is the “elevated” Armenian literature of Old Tiflis (XIX c.), which represents one of the central discourses for the critical presentation of the biological in the middle and the lower class of Old Tiflis. The biological and the principles of “wild capitalism” were destroying the families of small and medium tradesmen not only in the horizontal, class dimension (family, interpersonal), but also in the vertical dimension (inequality of social roles).

The analysis of the empirical material demonstrated that money-hunger guzzles spiritual and social values, such as national identity; the idea of statehood is lost, and the center of aspirations of city inhabitants becomes idle lifestyle: food, feasts, building houses, entertainment (home carnivals), matchmaking, etc. Of course, in the paper, the biological is contrasted to the cultural as well. The Armenian society of Old Tiflis had strategically thinking cultural figures, Armenian princely families, patrons, philanthropists (the Bebutovs, Tumanovs, Arguntinians, Alikhanovs, Yevangulyans, Mantashevs, Tamamshevs), who invested enormous financial means for the multiplication of national values (Nersisyan Seminary of Tiflis). Noteworthy is also the investment by great Armenian philanthropists (the Mantashevs) in the education of gifted Armenian minds abroad (Germany, Russia, etc.), who already in the 1920-ies formed the intellectual basis for the establishment of a national university in Yerevan (1919). 

The article discusses the relationship of the need for privacy with the development of the individualism. The right to privacy as the autonomy of the self first appeared in Western European culture basing on the idea of individualism. Privacy protects an individual from the unwanted interference of society and the state. The realization of the right to privacy depends on the social environment - the norms and customs of society. The process of individualization took place as a result of the transition from the traditional society to the modern society, which gave a person both the right and the duty to make decisions regarding his own life. An individual received a chance to become the creator of his own destiny, which had previously been socially predetermined. The development of privacy and individualism requires an appropriate sociocultural foundation that emerged during the evolutionary process, which originated in the High Middle Ages and accelerated during the transition to the New Age. Individualization is associated with the development of the inner world as the basis of subjectivity, which was particularly influenced by the Catholic confession, which prompted the analysis of one's own spiritual motives and the teachings of Protestantism with its idea of personal responsibility. The reflection of the growth of the individuality of consciousness is reflected in the art of portrait and self-portrait, depicting a human face in its originality. Increased interest in one’s own self, in one’s own emotional life, is expressed in introspection, analysis of one’s own feelings and motives, as evidenced by the growing number of autobiographical sources. The growing literacy of the population led to the popularity of literary and philosophical societies, which discussions created a platform for bourgeois publicity. Industrialization, which entailed the separation of the place of work and home, served to create a home as a closed private space and a nuclear family as one of the most important values of bourgeois society. Individualization brought for a person both new chances in the form of the right to self-determination and self-development, as well as certain risks and contradictions: the fear of loneliness, the feeling of being thrown out into the world, the need to make an independent choice and solely responsible for its consequences.

  Abstract The paper deals in detail with the biographies of three women representing three consecutive generations in computing and programming. All the three have firm personalities and work with commitment and perseverance towards the objectives set in their academic career development. They have displayed a high level of competence and ability to strategize in various social, political and economic situations. In addition to reconstructing the biographies of these three scholars on the basis of documents, we have done some research (using the microanalytical strategy) to determine how general and specific gender imperatives have influenced their view of the world and life quality. The general gender imperatives derive from the patriarchal or feminist picture of the world, and specific gender imperatives become apparent in problem situations related to career, self-realization, double standards, etc. All the three women are/were affiliated with Soviet/Russian Academy of Science, have a degree in mathematics and computation and specialize in programming.

The participants in the Round table “The Value of Scientific Journal” discuss a number of problems that are currently encountered by authors and publishers of corresponding journals. Will scientific journal be preserved in its present form in the competitive environment with drastic growth of electronic communications? Is a printed on paper journal the best way to present scientific results? Are its functions changing? What is the audience of authors and readers of scientific journals in recent time? These questions get different answers. The traditional functions of a scientific journal can now be carried out in new forms, and it is not clear what will remain of the habitual printed copy in the nearest future. In particular, this concerns the function of presenting scientific knowledge, which is gradually moving to specialized electronic portals. The issue of the relationship between socio-humanitarian journals and journals which present natural sciences is discussed separately. The standardization and formalization of the presentation of results for humanitarian articles is in most cases unacceptable, but it is this feature that is one of the most important when including the journal in most significant international databases. The same applies to journals that popularize science at the serious level. The problem of scientometrics’ objectivity is discussed. What does the fact of a higher citation level, for example, in economics, mean when Keynes and Marx are inferior to many modern researchers according to the Hirsch index? The participants discuss the problem of the scientific level of authors in Russian conditions, the problem of the lack of originality of publications, and some other issues.

Stanza della Segnatura ("Signature Room") painted by Raphael, is one of the most famous works of the great master. At the same time, the relations between the paintings on the four frescoes and other images in this room, as well as this room itself, form a kind of “abstract object” that can be decoded. The key to this decoding can be the text on the slate, which is presented on one of the frescoes, the most famous of the cycle, known as the "School of Athens." Perhaps we will never know for sure whether Raphael himself invented all the mathematical schemes that can be found in this room, or whether he simply carried out the arithmetic plans that were imposed on him by the Pope or his advisers. Nevertheless, we can assume with a high degree of certainty that the visual iconography in Stanza della Segnatura with a reliable “margin of error” is indeed consistent with the central features of the mathematical theory of music described in Plato's “Timaeus”. It can be shown that the relations between the frescoes obey quite definite mathematical relations. If Stansa della Segnature is really a "room for a signature", then this "signature" is a musically harmonious ‘World soul’, described in the Plato’s “Timaeus”

The article is a study of the “Divine Service of Thanksgiving ...”, dedicated to the Poltava victory of 1709, according to a handwritten copy (the first half of the XVIII century) from the Chekuevo village, Onega district of the Arkhangelsk region. Hermeneutic analysis of the service text and the study of the manuscript history reveal the significant characteristics of the Peter's time culture. The service text, attributed to Archbishop Theophilactus (Lopatinsky), is strictly canonical, but while meeting the traditional service form, the author creates his work in accordance with the Baroque aesthetics of the modern era. Using the moral and rhetorical exegesis principles allows Archbishop Theophilactus to extract “all the potency of the visual” (A.V. Mikhailov) from the verbal image. Traditional expressions in the battle description acquire visual expressiveness. At the same time, the author does not draw the detailed battle pictures, but only names the most significant semantic points. One of such significant events for the author is the fact of Charles XII wound in the leg. It is subjected to multilayer allegorical interpretation in the text. “Emblematic” thinking of the era is manifested in a special attention to the exegesis of the Swedish heraldic lion. Freedom of association and a wide scope of combining meanings is the essence of the Baroque combination game as a manifestation of creative thought, the very essence of human culture. Throughout the eighteenth century, the text of the “Divine Service of Thanksgiving ...”, published in 1709, 1711 and 1717, was distributed in manuscript copies. One of such lists is the manuscript found by this article authors in the Chekuevo village. The manuscript history connects such historical subjects as Peter I's visit to the Russian North and the Solovetsky monastery and the events of the Northern war. It reveals the Northern peasantry's awareness of involvement in the naval successes of Russia, and demonstrates the specifics of the peasant and monastery libraries functioning.

The article analyzes self-management as a science of rational construction of one’s own life. The authors highlight the most important resource – the resource of time. The culture of using one’s own time and the time of other people is the most important aspect of the general culture of a person. The authors show that up to now self-management has been mainly considered as a set of some positive recommendations, or ready recipes of life. This is how it is mostly presented in modern literature. However, building your own life is a creative process, and these ready-made recipes do not work here. They do not take into account individual qualities of a person, as well as many other circumstances. The article presents another approach to self-management, which can be referred to as “inversive self-management”. It mainly deals with errors and difficulties (limitations) in self-management. Limitations in self-management are shown not as insufficiently developed skills, but as independent destructive stereotypes of behavior. In contrast to the methods of self-organization that require an individual approach, the limitations of self-management are quite stereotypical. In order to study them, the inverse relationship analysis is used. Inversion is a form of intra-system relationships in which the lowest element in the hierarchy actually becomes dominant in it, formally remaining in the same subordinate position. Hierarchical relationships are provided by the work of several organizational principles in the hierarchy. Inversion appears when there is a conflict between these organizational principles. So there are many limitations to self-management. Some components of human behavior that have adaptive significance begin to work against human productivity when the importance of these components is too great. The article examines a number of such examples. This article is an abstract of a more extensive study, which provides an analysis of the particular manifestations of restrictions in self-management, where the authors consider the difficulties in the formation of their own lives, caused by dependencies, adverse life scenarios, time orientation, etc. A number of these limitations are deeply rooted in culture.

The article considers the iconography of Christian art associated with the rainbow motif. A rainbow is a beautiful optical phenomenon in the atmosphere that occurs when light is scattered on water droplets; it has the form of a multicolored arc or two arcs. The shining rainbow in Scripture is closely related to God's acts of communication with the chosen people such as Noah and the prophets. In such iconographic schemes as the Last judgment, the All saints’ Day and the Ascension of the Lord, the rainbow motif, based on the prophetic visions of Ezekiel and John the Apostle, is a symbol of the radiance of the Divine Glory and Majesty of God in His appearance to the prophets. In these iconographies, the rainbow is depicted with different degree of conventionality. Thus, it can be represented in one or two colors, but can also be made with expressive brightness in several colors of the spectrum. In these iconographies, the rainbow often represents the throne of the Lord within the mandorla - an oval or round frame around the figure of Christ or the Virgin, which has a complex symbolism associated with the image of a cloud, with the Divine Glory, as well as with the special nature of the image of Christ or the Virgin, which is outside the physical time and space. In a number of other iconographic schemes, the rainbow motif has the meaning of God's mercy. These are compositions associated with God’s Covenant with Noah, as well as with the Lord Covenant with the chosen people – the Church, which is reflected, in particular, in the compositions of Noah's Ark and the iconography of Our Lady of Mount Nerukosechnaya.