Ideas and Ideals

The current article says that transference and entrenchment of information in the space and time is possible due to the appearance of a written language. A text is characterized by the function of memory, because it is not only a generator of new meanings, but it is also a guide of cultural memory. A written language can store and accumulate reminiscences about preceding contexts. Speaking about reminiscences of a text we should note that a text becomes meaningful. Such meaningful text enters into relations with cultural tradition (or cultural remembrance), which is born in mind of addressees. Texts which store cultural activity include the ability to condense the information, formulated differently; the ability of storing historical and cultural remembrances appear in such texts. Hence texts, which are transferred from one generation to another through centuries, don’t lose the information.  This paper is devoted to the principles of replication of cultural information. In culture this task is performed by units of cultural information – memes. Mutations of memes are presented as transformation formulae. The current article deals with aspects of preserving non-genetic data. The subject of analysis is formulae and clichés of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Bible. The development of linguistic formulae is under scrutiny. The main types of transformation of formulae and clichés are defined. Different variants of formulae are given; they are registered on the basis of the Bible. The author describes four main types of transformations of formulae phrases, which demonstrate development of relations in the culture. These four main types are: type “A” which is reframing of conventional formulae; type “Б” which is lexical substitution of a key-term; type “B” which is production of new combinations and forms with new semantic structure, type “Г” is a description with substitution of a lexeme in the context of a formula, which denotes different events. The author demonstrates that formulae deal with innovative descriptions which are characterized with more detalization. Consequently, growth of information is described.

Taxonomy of the world traced back to classic commentator’s tradition of Porphyry. The works by Porphyry gives us foundation to judge the tempo of development of semiotics and philosophy of the name. Compiling the taxonomy of the natural world Porphyry drew subtle definition of objective and nonobjective substances in the live languages by means of their formal exposure. The characteristics of individual exposure of the world coincides with the consequence of layers in the map of the world since ancient periods until nowadays. Thus the sequence of floral, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic codes in interpretation of the world coincides with the natural taxonomy of the tree by Porphyry. The presentation of individual meanings is connected with the transition from poor sections of the taxonomy to the developed ones. So the individual properties of space are at maximum low, and many spatial substances acquire metaphorical meaning in floral, zoomoorphic and anthropomorphic codes. The degree of individual properties is increasing due to their denoting by proper names, which transfer the higher degree of discretion. The individual properties present themselves a sort of fossils, within which we detect the change of the mapping of the world. Therefore the most ancient Indo-European mapping of the world is connected with the concept of the world tree. So the researcher gets a possibility to register such fossils in the form of the individual texts which depict the image of the space in the evolutionary program of space. As a substitution of floral code zoomorphic code comes, when individual properties of space are described on the basis of the form of the animal. The body of the animal in individual properties is richer than the plant. Then the anthropomorphic code comes. The mapping of the world is a very important task in metaphors microcosm- and macrocosm. The metaphors lexically are independent from each other, which gives the evidence of low plausibility of mixture in the order of space. The deeper we penetrate into the ancient layers of language, the more specialized meanings we discover.

In the article the words “mir”, “volya”, “svet”, “pravda”. On the material of the Ancient Russian literature it is shown that each of these words has at least two substantially distinct meanings, and two (or three) meanings influence each other, creating game of senses inexpressible in other languages. At the same time, these words define the semantic core of national self-identification in modern times, forming the certain attitude to the key principles of life. In XIX-th century in Russian poetry “volya” is opposed to the Western “svoboda” (liberty) as the Christian goal to specific political position. The ambivalence of the national consciousness is presented by the fact that the ideal peaceful beauty of the mundane cooperative communal life coexisted with a free desire to get beyond the world-community and earthly world. Yet both ideals were receiving internal justification, intersecting with Pravda-truth as well as with pravda-justice.

The article is devoted to the anniversary of the birth (370 years ago) and the date of death (300 years ago) of the outstanding German philosopher, mathematician, physicist, jurist, historian, linguist, and diplomat Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz undertake a creative synthesis of science, philosophy and theology, producing a unique philosophical system. The foundation of this system is constituted by the doctrine of preestablished harmony. In all areas in which he worked, Leibniz made great discoveries. It inherited the gift of synthesizing the disparate views of different thinkers on the basis of the original methodological principle based on the universality and rigor of philosophical arguments in their logical sequence. Leibnitz is also a great theologian and originator of the profound ethical system. Ethical optimism of Leibniz's teleology has Christian religious worldview as its basis.

The article analyzes the stylistic and linguistic features of the so-called “Brezhnev’s diaries”. Within the framework of the “linguistic turn in the history” methodology, it attempts to identify the relationship between the specificity of Brezhnev’s writing and his personality. The authors pay special attention to the verification of the Brezhnev’s records genre which is defined as a "log book". The article analyzes the nature of the records in comparison with Brezhnev’s speaking. Brezhnev was known as a skillful, spontaneous storyteller, he had a quick reaction, a multiple choice of epithets – features, alien to the standardized, public-political vocabulary of Soviet newspapers and public speeches of party and state leaders. It was the other way round with written speech. It was totally different. There was no place for jokes and improvisation. Even in his personal diaries he used the standardized, stilted language, which he used to speak working as a party leader, commissar. The authors come to the conclusion that Brezhnev acquired the “Soviet newspeak”, which actually became his second nature. The absence of any signs of deliberate design of the text in Brezhnev’s personal records indicates that the text is really a reflection of the personality of the General Secretary.  

The work of Alan Garner (b. 1934), one of the most significant contemporary English writers, consistently ranks the local myth of the writer's birthplace, Alderley Edge in Cheshire East. The evolution of the plot development can be seen well in the trilogy that began in 1960 (translated into Russian novel "The Magic Stone Brezingamena" and "Moon on the eve Gomrata") and completed in 2012 (untranslated novel «Boneland»). The story follows the adventures of a brother and sister who settled on a farm Alderley Edge. At an early stage story is built like a fairy tale, with contrasting humanized space truss wild woods and the hollow hill. Borrowing characters, motifs and themes of the epic tales leads to fragmentation and imposition of functions of heroes guarding different places. Chief among them, the magician fron the traditional fairy tale, Cadellin works within the boundaries of the Arthurian myth, protecting the cave with a sleeping king, the role of guardians of other places assigned to other heroes. In searching for the future integrity the author refuses to use ready-made fairy tale and epic models. In the final part of the trilogy keeper of the place becomes an "ancestral character" whose existence lasts until there is a race. The leading method of constructing the plot becomes a parallelism of events that occur with the personifications of the ancestral hero. Writer refuses to opposite locales (humanized and wild, positive and negative, and so on) and eras (ancient and modern, old and new magic, etc.), fusing them together and saying peculiar to primeval consciousness syncretism of perception, the only correct view of the world. Ancestral hero, shaman, guardian and creator of the myth controls all habitats, making all living space cultured at its mythological development. Bearing structures of the local myth becomes a kind of continuity, mastering the same place over successive eras.

The article aims to identify the details of the internal structure of the Russian civilization in the aggregate of its constituent elements: the East Slavic, the Finno-Ugric, the Turkic-Mongol, etc. We correlated the analysis of provisions of the civilizational and geopolitical concepts with the specific character of historical experience of the development of Russia as a local civilization. The author highlights three stages of understanding the ethnic diversity role in the development of the Russian civilization: 1) Pre-Eurasian (1703-1907), 2) Eurasian (1907-1968), 3) Post-Eurasian, or contemporary. The article reveals the structural-genetic role of ethnic diversity in the development of the Russian civilization. The development of civilizational processes is connected to the qualitative complication of civilizational self-organization mechanisms. It implies transition from civilizational symbiosis to synthesis, which is accompanied by strengthening economic ties among ethnic groups, and transformation of less developed economies into more developed ones (preserving mixed economy). We propose the model of civilizational synthesis in which the ethnoses are "structural elements", stable interethnic interactions are "connections", and civilization itself is "substance". Two stages of genesis of the Russian civilization are highlighted: 1) Slavic-Finno-Ugric symbiosis under the political dominant of the eastern Slavs (pre- and early- civilizational stage, VIII-XV centuries); 2) Synthesis of two compounds, Eastern-European (Slavic-Finno-Ugric) and Turkic-Mongol (nomadic) under demographic, political, and cultural domination of Russians (XVI-XX centuries).

The author considers spatial forms of everyday culture of Siberian merchants. The aim of the article is to show the possibility of applying research tools of environmental approach in cultural studies. The article is based on the materials of investigations of the Russian urbanists, historians of architecture and design, art and cultural studies, as well as photographs, which preserved the image of Siberian trade arcades. The author analyzes the shopping passages in Siberia from the point of view of urban interior categories. Passages vertically stood out from the surrounding buildings of commercial organizations. They dominated other buildings in size and architectural design. The formation of the visual image of the passage as a special space contributed to the architecture of the building, and the angular accents of the main entrance, and substantive design of urban parterre. The interior method was used to create the atmosphere of homelike place. The size of the windows corresponded to the size of the flight of the building, that created the image of arcades. Different signs in the form of labels, names and emblems of small shops shaped the perception of a definite business establishment in its integrity. Thus, shopping arcades of Siberian merchants in the context of cultural studies are treated not just as a professional space, but also as an open space for buyers, their everyday interactions in the structure of everyday routine of the Siberian merchants, where there was space for a merchant city, merchant's house etc.

The article continues the earlier begun research in «Ideas and Ideals» (№ 19, 21, 23, 27). Now the author examines the aesthetic aspect of the function. The particularity of its study is to define the object of the transforming process, not the logic mechanism of action (like in other aspects). The object is music taste. Transforming of music taste implies the development of abilities to understand and to value the beauty in music. It is absolutely possible, Russian scientists have proved this thesis. Transforming goes either individually or with the help of more effective social means (enlightenment, education and mass media). The aesthetic aspect includes two subaspects – aesthetic (referring to music itself) and aesthetizing, which means “working” for the final purpose – to lead people to the world of Beauty through music taste development. Understanding of beauty in music morally transforms a man, who is perfecting the surrounding life. “Beauty will save the world” (Dostoyevsky). Aesthetizing subaspect is close to the ethical one – vectors of their functioning are parallel. Aesthetic subaspect represents the unity of means and purpose. The actions of two subaspects may be simultaneous and separate. In the final part of the article the author sums up the results of the research of the music transforming functions.

The XIX century is an era that gave birth to Genius not without a reason and praised him not without an intent. The article studies the phenomenon of Genius from the moment of formation and to the apotheosis point in Nietzsche’s works, he achieved in less than a hundred years.A starting point, is considered to be the aesthetic positions of Sturm and Drang era which signified artists’ interest to the human person and determined the difference of all 19-th century between ordinary people and chosen ones. The elite were seemed to be conducted by Christ’s prototype who was overestimated as a Genius living personification that is God’s and a person’s Oneness, or more precisely as a charismatic person. Finally, the Genius as the art creator and greatness as His representing point were “crowned” in Nietzsche’s philosophy, who raised up the Genius to the rank of a Superman. Christ’s prototype was rejected, God died and incarnated in the idea of a Superman. The Superman’s features which were endued by Nietzsche made Him just the idea which is incapable to exist in the real form of a specific person.

For this reason the Genius in Nietzsche’s philosophy transformed steadily into mythologem of his time.