Peer-reviewed journal "Philology and Culture"
Казанский (Приволжский) федеральный университет
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Addressee nomination in the presence of a third party in Russian and Arabic linguistic cultures
The article focuses on the linguistic analysis of addressee nomination in the presence of a third party as an element of speech etiquette in Russian and Arabic. The study aims to identify the mechanisms by which forms of address shift depending on the configuration of participants in a communicative act, as well as the pragmatic, sociocultural, and etiquette functions of this phenomenon. In Russian, addressee nomination is predominantly observed in family discourse through the situational use of kinship terms (e.g., “dad,” “grandpa”) directed toward a third party. In the Arabic linguistic culture, an analogous function is fulfilled by the kunya – a nominative structure of the type “Abu/Umm + child’s name” – which exhibits high sociolinguistic markedness used both as identificational and status-related functions. A comparative analysis reveals the structural, pragmalinguistic, and functional characteristics of addressee nomination in both languages, highlighting universal and culture-specific features. The research material comprises authentic fragments of oral communication in everyday, family, and religious contexts, as well as data from lexicographic and linguocultural sources. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the pragmatic strategies of speech etiquette that reflect the sociocultural norms of interaction in Russian and Arabic linguistic cultures. They may also prove valuable for further research in contrastive pragmatics and intercultural communication, as well as for the development of language teaching methodologies that take into account culture-specific features of verbal behavior.
Mediadiscourse: The concept, approaches to studying, research perspectives
This paper offers a media discourse conceptualization through a variety of theoretical perspectives and approaches. The emphasis is placed on examining media discourse through the prism of the communicative and interdisciplinary approaches. The aim of the article is to reveal the concept of media discourse in the aspect of communication theory principles, to review traditional approaches to its study and to identify the prospects for further research, offering new angles of the media text interdisciplinary analysis. The article is theoretical in nature, the main research methods are general scientific ones: a theoretical analysis, an abstract presentation with generalization and heuristic elements, the analysis and synthesis of theoretical data, the comparison, contrast and descriptive methods. The object of study is media discourse, the subject is its characteristic properties, the approaches to its definition in different fields of knowledge, primarily in philology. As a result, we identify promising directions of media discourse research and its characteristic features – dialogicality, “new” colloquiality, multimodality, discursiveness and global contextuality. The scientific novelty of the research is its orientation towards the communicative and interdisciplinary approach and the prospect of studying this object. Being a complex new phenomenon that is still developing, media discourse cannot be studied by the tools of one isolated field of knowledge (for example, linguistics), because it is a voluminous and highly complex structure that includes, in addition to language, situation, event, attitude to it, political narratives, social stereotypes and historical references. The practical significance of the study is the presentation of new approaches to the study of media discourse. The study of media discourse offers broad prospects for use in media education, political communication and communication-oriented research.
Functional-semantic features of neologisms from the area of “art” in newspaper discourse (a case study of the lexemes bestseller and happy end)
The article analyzes functional and semantic features of neologisms from the area of “art” in newspaper discourse based on the material of the National Corpus of the Russian Language (NCRY). The emerging onomasiological needs for the nomination of new concepts lead to the emergence of neologisms, while the interaction of countries and peoples determines the penetration of a wide flow of borrowings, primarily from the English language. The object of our research is two borrowed words that have become widespread in the Russian language – the lexemes “bestseller” and “happy-end” occupying an important place in the art vocabulary. The analysis is carried out using the newspaper corpus of the National Corpus of the Russian Language, therefore, in its implementation, our corpus analysis is combined with the elements of the lexical-semantic and discursive approaches. The article pays special attention to the role of neologisms in the implementation of nominative, evaluative, and expressive-stylistic functions, the function of a language play and the function of saving linguistic efforts. As a result of the study, we have revealed the frequency of use of these lexemes in the Russian literary language of recent decades and determined the paths of their semantic development, their functional status as borrowings and the degree of their assimilation in the Russian language system. The analysis of these lexemes’ compatibility has made it possible to determine the directions of the semantic volume expansion of borrowed words in the Russian language.
The paper examines the speech of a female native from the south of Russia. The aim of the study is to determine characteristic features that recreate, through her dialect, the speech portrait of a long-lived woman from Dubrovsky, the Sholokhov District of the Rostov Region. The subject of the article is the phonetic and grammatical qualities of the female farmer’s speech. The object of the scientific essay is the features of the speech portrait characterizing a linguistic personality. In the course of the research, the following methods were used: interviewing, stationary observation, description and analysis. As a result of the work, the speech portrait of a rural resident is presented through their individual speech, its components including phonetic and grammatical properties. This research activity allowed me to immerse myself in a difficult village everyday life with its various realities and spiritual beliefs: from events in the country and its history to a person’s deep faith in God. The article concludes that the originality of the 21st century Sholokhov’s Dubrovsky woman’s speech is the abundance of southern Russian dialectal features that are distinctive from the literary language. The individual portrait of the female farmer expresses priceless qualities – a manifestation of the Russian national character. It also reflects the dialect speaker’s idea of the past and the present. The represented material has been introduced into the scientific circulation for the first time.
New superword language units as an object of linguistic research
The article considers superword linguistic units (SU) as integral elements of the Russian language system. Emphasizing the importance of military SU, arising as a result of social, political events and armed conflicts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the article focuses on the phenomenon of neologization, which is becoming more active in the context of digitalization in an aggravated international situation. The study shows that neologisms not only enrich language, but also perform specific cognitive functions in military discourse. The SU that emerged in this type of discourse are divided into groups depending on their semantics, stylistic coloring and functional features. The neologisms under study can be divided into thematic groups: new names for military strategies and tactics of organization and maneuvering; neologisms naming types of weapons and vehicles used in armed conflicts; names for post-conflict settlement, etc. We have identified more than two hundred substantive and procedural military neologisms and analyzed them using comparative-historical, linguoculturological and linguocognitive research methods, involving the techniques of component and contextual analysis.
Activation of international prepositive elements in poetry at the turn of the 20th -21st centuries
This article examines the rise of international prepositive elements in Russian poetry at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries and the prefixoids euro-, post-, anti-, counter-, pseudo-, quasi-, and super-. The relevance of this work is the growing role of internationalisms in modern word formation, reflecting the processes of globalization and cultural transformation. The aim of the study is to identify the specific features of prefixoids’ functions in poetic usage, to determine their semantics, stylistic potential, and their role in the creation of artistic images. The research methodology includes word-formation, contextual, and semantic analysis of poetic derivatives based on the poetry of Alexander Levin, Vladimir Strochkov, and Natalia Gorbanevskaya. The article analyzes both common and occasional units, demonstrating the expansion of the word-formation potential of poetic language under the influence of international models. We have established that prefixoids in contemporary poetry not only enrich the nominative potential of language but also become a tool for language play, irony, and philosophical reflection. The article concludes that the activation of these elements directly reflects the processes of globalization and internationalization, and poetry serves as a linguistic laboratory where new word-formation models are tested, enriching the expressive means of the Russian language and capturing the dynamics of linguistic consciousness in the new era.
Cultural reference of verbal and visual representation of apparel in popular culture
The article analyzes the vestimentary code in Eduard Uspensky’s children’s novella and its screen adaptation. In mass culture, the stories about Prostokvashino have shaped the image of a space where hierarchies are dissolved – a significant and reproducible concept within the Russian cultural code. The study aims to interpret vestimentary fashion through the lens of the carnival paradigm and uncover the linguocultural subtext of the literary and animated narrative. By combining hermeneutic and phenomenological approaches, we decode linguocultural stereotypes mediated by specific sign systems and interpret them within the context of intracultural situations. The analysis concludes that the vestimentary code in the Prostokvashino stories performs both an aesthetic and a sense-making function, marking the opposition between official and carnival reality. The article argues that the stories about Prostokvasino generate a transmedial text by means of animated sequences of Soviet Animation, which expand the content of the original verbal narrative through translating static images into dynamic audio-visual ones. These findings demonstrate that the language of costume in both literary and cinematic texts not only shapes the visual appearance of characters but also deconstructs the world of late Soviet norms and values, contrasting official reality with carnivalesque freedom.
Formulas of expression and functions of addresses in the message of the President of the Russian Federation (based on the “Presidential address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation”, 29.02.2024)
This article examines the formulas for expressing addresses and their functions in the text of the “Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation” of 29 February 2024, and conducts a comprehensive linguistic, pragmatic and social analysis of linguistic addresses. We have established that addresses in political discourse are a multifunctional tool, their choice depends on the context and speech goals. The study indicates that the widely used presidential speech addresses, constructed in most cases according to the formula “agreed attribute + central noun”, perform important communicative, social and emotional functions. Thus, they reflect the social role and status of the audience, emphasize the formal or informal nature of communication; facilitate a smooth transition from one topic to another, making the speech more structured and logical; attract the attention of listeners, strengthen the emotional connection between the president and the addressees. The article notes that by skillfully using addresses, the president not only transmits information, but also shapes public consciousness, strengthens national identity and stimulates the solution of national problems. Thus, addresses are an important tool of political communication for implementing communicative strategies, strengthening national identity and mobilizing society, combining pragmatic and emotional aspects.
Blurred lines between non-fiction and fiction in contemporary prose about the Great Patriotic War
The paper analyzes the lines between non-fiction and fiction in contemporary prose about the Great Patriotic War. The main research question involves exploring the possibility and the scope of a “contemporary” view on the heroic events of the past. In contemporary Russian literature, there is a tendency towards blurring the lines between non-fiction and fiction. On the one hand, it is due to influence of postmodernism. On the other hand, the understanding of a fact is changing under the pressure of “new sincerity”, alternative reality, and tolerance. This is confirmed by the contemporary prose dedicated to the Great Patriotic War. The authors know about the war from books, memoirs, and films. Secondary perception of the war events allows writers to treat a historical plot as fiction, boldly and freely. The writers’ goal is to penetrate into the war philosophy and psychology, the existential nature of evil, and to understand the “soul’s dialectics” of man in war. The dominant feature of the Great Patriotic War prose is pacifism.
Features of Victorian fiction in the biography of a Victorian character: The motif of the “animated portrait”
This article examines the elements of the Victorian novel in Ben Macintyre’s documentary biography “The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief” (1997), with a particular focus on the motif of the “animated portrait”. The study analyzes the complex intertextual dialogue between Macintyre’s nonfiction narrative and the literary conventions of the Victorian era, notably the Newgate and sensation novels. A central case in point is Adam Worth’s obsessive relationship with the stolen Gainsborough painting of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, which is interpreted not merely as a valuable object but as a symbolic figure within the narrative. Drawing on Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of desire and Laura Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze, the article demonstrates how the portrait acquires subjectivity and functions as a reflection of the protagonist’s psychological fragmentation, moral duality, and constructed identity. Macintyre’s approach, which romanticizes the criminal figure in the tradition of the “gentleman-thief”, turns the biography into a postmodern reinterpretation of the Victorian novel, where the stolen painting emerges as both a literal artifact and as a metaphor for longing, loss, and unattainable social integration. The portrait becomes the protagonist’s double, lover, and mirror – a character in its own right.
Yu. N. Voronov’s travel essay “Six Months in Colombia”: Creative history, ideological context, and poetics of genre
Yuri Voronov (1874–1931) was a Russian botanist, the author of numerous scientific works on the systematics of the flora in the Caucasus and other parts of the world. In 1926, he organized the first Soviet expedition to South America to study the vegetation cover of this part of the land. Colombia, a country located in the North–West of the South American continent, attracted special attention of the researcher. He described this trip in a fascinating way in a short travel essay called “Six Months in Colombia”. The essay was published as a separate brochure in 1929, an appendix to the journal “Bulletin of Knowledge” and was released by publisher P. Soykin in a special series “Nature and People”. Once published, Yu. Voronov’s book has long been a bibliographic rarity, a most valuable publication. Telling its readers about the nature of Colombia, its cultural attractions, the people living there, their psychology, everyday habits, ethnic customs and religious beliefs, it is not only a popular science and educational work, but also the one revealing a literary element that deserves attention and study. It manifests itself in the totality of those description qualities that are associated with the concept of a “narrative subject”. In addition, of interest is the language (style) of the work, its structure (the plot and compositional scheme), as well as the genre form, whose main, core component is the “impression” of what was seen, the internally integral “sketch” of the things observed in a thoughtfully unified movement of the plot line. In other words, the essay by Yu. Voronov is located at the intersection of two image planes – documentary and fictional. The text of the scientist fits quite organically into the literary and genre canon of the past eras. At the same time, Yu. Voronov’s essay bears traces of the ideological views of the 1920s, according to which the social world is divided into “exploiters” and “the exploited”, “the poor” and “the rich”, and there is practically no connection between them (the country’s working population deserves a better fate than the one they have).
W. S. Maugham’s “Don Fernando” – reflections on culture and creativity under the cover of his travel essays
The article is dedicated to the English writer W. S. Maugham’s works related to travel literature, which is very popular in his homeland. The phenomenon of travel has existed in English culture since ancient times. Maugham traveled a lot around the world, visited Spain more than 10 times, about which he wrote several books. The article pays special attention to the work “Don Fernando: Or Variations on Some Spanish Themes” of 1935. Formally, this book can be classified as a travelogue or a travel essay, it has some distinctive features of this genre, as well as others – historical and biographical essays, literary reviews and so on. However, the problems it raises are much broader – the development of thought and art in Spain over several centuries, especially the era of the so-called Golden Age. The central theme of the book is the theme of creativity –his notes on Spanish authors and reflections on writing in general make up a significant part of the book. The difference between a professional writer and an amateur, the genre of the novel, the creation of a character and persona, drama, painting – these are the issues that the Englishman first addresses in his reasoning.
The OZM concept in the spatial and topological structure of Vladislav Krapivin’s cycle “Tales and True Stories of Deserted Spaces”
The article examines the significance of the OZM concept in the spatial and topological structure of Vladislav Krapivin’s cycle “Tales and True Stories of Deserted Spaces”. The article identifies the binary spatial structure of this cycle whose plot embodiment is the juxtaposition of real and Deserted spaces. The semantic dominant of the real space is the concept of OZM, which demonstrates the absolute degradation of real space. The OZM concept is correlated with the atmosphere of the post-Soviet period and receives a double artistic representation: specifically historical and conditionally historical; moreover, both variants are semantically homogeneous. In the first case, the texts widely present specific historical era signs of the 1990s with an emphasis on three themes: social deprivation, banditry/terrorism and Chechen campaigns. The conventional historical version of the OZM concept is also focused on the plot motif of the civil war. The novel “Lawns Where Birdhouses Dance” is of particular importance in creating a historically specific version of the OZM concept. The novel asserts the idea of the internal continuity of the Soviet and post-Soviet times, united by the perverted logic of the “adult” world. Within the framework of the OZM concept conditional historical representation, the dominant text is the story “The Explosion of the General HQ”. The plot motif of the civil war within the framework of the conditional historical version of the OZM concept representation is a system of figurative leitmotifs, among them are the images of a cruiser and a submachine gunner.
The image of a female doctor in memoirs by Jennifer Worth
The subject of our literary research is the memoir prose written by the contemporary English writer Jennifer Worth. There are three novels joined into the trilogy “Call the Midwife”: “A True Story of the East End of the 1950s”, “Shadows of the Workhouse”, “Farewell to the East End”. Later these stories, told by the author in her books, formed the basis of the cinematic genre: the BBC series of the same name, directed by Heidi Thomas, filmed in 2012–2025. Within these years 15 seasons were made and planned to be continued in 2026. The release of the series helped popularize the author’s prose, all three books are recognized bestsellers, currently republished. Critical works, dedicated to the works of art by Jennifer Worth, also attract the interest of the readership. The aim of this study is to consider the artistic features of presenting the image of a female doctor in memoir prose, written by a female writer, based on her own professional experience. The subjects of scientific reflection in this article are the genre specifics of the works under consideration, the writer’s reliance on her personal experience, and women’s writing about a woman in a profession. Jennifer Worth’s feminine gaze, refracted through the writer’s personal memories, determines the genre, compositional, and narrative modifications in the trilogy. In particular, it is necessary to recognize the dominance of the autobiographical component over the documentary one, the structuring of the text according to the laws of fiction, and the presence of a moral component in the assessment of the female doctor.
Images of the Silver Age poets in Don Nigro’s drama works
The American postmodernist playwright Don Nigro dedicated a block of plays to real historical figures, which includes the so-called Russian Cycle – the plays about the classics of Russian literature. Two of them are about the lives and works of the Silver Age poets – Marina Tsvetaeva and Osip Mandelstam. A philologist by education, Don Nigro writes biographical fantasies about famous poets, calling his plays the process of “searching for truth”. Nigro’s method of biographical writing is based on a consistent and detailed enthymeme. The play “Marina”, dedicated to the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva, has the character of “notes”, which are a stream of consciousness that is formed under the influence of the biographical context and contains the “product” of the main “text”, that is, conclusions about the personality of the Russian poetess. While the play “Mandelstam” is more focused on the historical context of the era; for Nigro, the story itself serves only as a palimpsest for the creative search for answers to the questions about the ambiguous and contradictory period in Russian history. In his plays about the repressed Tsvetaeva and Mandelstam, Nigro pays special attention to the theme of the poet and power: the playwright examines the old conflict from a new angle.
The role of literary allusions in Hélène Berr’s journal
The aspiring French writer Hélène Berr’s “Journal”, which she kept in 1942–1944, is one of the most expressive personal testimonies to the tragedy of the Holocaust. The article analyzes the semantic and structural features of the journal in which, on the one hand, the author’s biographical facts and psychological reactions are refracted in the prism of experiences prompted by reading literary works; on the other, they determine the sequence of their selection and interpretation, unfolding the tragic plot of her life. From the first page of the text, it is clear that Hélène Berr’s testimony cannot be separated from her literary interests. The author’s diary repeatedly refers to the works of French, English and Russian writers. The closest to Hélène Berr is John Keats, a romantic poet, the interest of her future undone dissertation. The life of the journal’s author becomes a text just like other people’s texts become the author’s life, mastered by her as metaphorical embodiments of her fate, thereby acting as a way of self-creation of the author’s “Self”. In 1942–1944, Berr became acutely aware of the gap between the usual form of life and the new inhuman reality that was increasingly penetrating everyday life. This awareness is refracted through literary works.
The synthesis of documentary and fictional elements in E. Limonov’s novel “In Syry: A novel in the industrial zone”
Статья посвящена исследованию синтеза документального и художественного начал в романе Э. Лимонова «В Сырах: Роман в промзоне». Особое внимание уделяется анализу поэтики автофикшна, где биографический материал автора трансформируется в эстетически осмысленный метатекст. Целью работы является выявление приемов формирования Э. Лимоновым нарративной идентичности главного героя на основе собственной биографии, а также интерпретация специфики эстетического осмысления реальности. Повествование романа характеризуется фрагментарным и исповедальным характером, позволяющим отразить духовную травму автора. Документальная основа, подвергнутая художественной обработке, реконструирует авторский миф, стирающий границы между фактом и вымыслом. Механизмы художественной рефлексии: интертекстуальные связи, символизация пространства, деконструкция семейных нарративов – позволяют отразить экзистенциальные темы одиночества, самоидентификации, конфликта собственного «Я» с социальными и общественными нормами. В сюжетно-композиционной структуре особняком стоит образ Фауста, который выступает связующим элементом синтеза документального и художественного. Лимонов, сравнивая свою биографию с жизнью гетевского персонажа, демонстрирует новую авторскую маску «пророка» и «ересиарха», возвышающегося над обыденностью, таким образом через фаустианский архетип герой декларирует свою исключительность. В завершении исследования подчеркивается новаторский характер стиля повествования романа, расширяющего жанровые возможности автофикциональной прозы, где сочетание факта и вымысла становится средством выражения авторского мировоззрения и философского осмысления эпохи постмодернизма.
Archetypal components’ analysis of fairy-tale images (plot ATU 480 B “Vasilisa the Beautiful”)
The article analyzes archetypal components of folk tale female characters. Within the framework of well-known archetype theories, there are no archetypal models and images of female characters at large. The article proposes a model for analyzing archetypal images based on a specific folklore material. The object of the analysis is the fairy-tale plot of ATU 480 B “Vasilisa the Beautiful” as the most representative one for describing four female images from folk ideas about age-related affiliation and about the opposition “ours/theirs”. Our purpose is to analyze and systematize female archetypal images based on one plot. To this end, we describe the existing theories of archetypes, as well as the basic dominants in the construction of fairy tale characters. Of these dominants, an actual embodiment scheme of a fairy tale female character, its characteristic features, models of behavior and the attitude of the audience is formed. This analysis allows us to make conclusions about the dependence of the plot structure construction on the quality and number of the described typical images, as well as on the nature and formation of stable cultural and behavioral patterns associated in particular with the rite of female initiation reflected in folklore. In the future, similar research work, based on different cultures, will identify not only genuine archetypal parts in the images of the characters, but also highlight cultural characteristic features of female images associated with national specifics.
From idea to text: On some creation stages of E. Chirikov’s tetralogy “The Life of Tarkhanov”
The article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of E. Chirikov’s epistolary heritage, addressed to A. Smirnov in the period from 1901 to 1917. This correspondence is considered to be an essential component of his literary biography. The central focus is Chirikov’s systematic references to the process of his work on the novel “Tarkhanov’s Life” (1914–1917), which occupies a significant place in his tetralogy and in the general evolution of his literary style. The study sets the task of correlating the biographical material, reflected in the letters, with the artistic content of the novel, thereby revealing the mechanisms of transformation of his life experience into a fictional narrative. Special attention is given to the loci, mentioned in the epistolary materials, later becoming the key setting of the tetralogy, as well as the identification of the main characters’ prototypes. The analysis of this corpus of letters makes it possible to reconstruct the dynamics of Chirikov’s creative process, to determine the principles of his aesthetic interpretation of personal facts, and to highlight the writer’s value-based attitude toward biographical reality as it enters the structure of the artistic whole.
Experience of creating an alternative history in A. Sobolev’s novel “Griffins Guard the Lyre”
The study examines the phenomenon of creating an alternative history in Alexander Sobolev’s novel “Griffins Guard the Lyre”. This technique in Russian literature is not only a means of writer’s fantasy, but also a tool for reflecting on the past and the future. Its popularity is due to the desire to rethink national identity by answering historical questions and offering readers alternative paths for the country’s development. The purpose of the research is to study the novel “Griffins Guard the Lyre” as a tool for dealing with trauma, ideology, and national mythology. The material used is the plot of the novel “Griffins Guard the Lyre”. The comparison of world events with the text of Alexander Sobolev’s novel leads to the discovery of conceptual differences. Taking them into account, we can say that the author under study seeks to recreate an unlived Russian history, different in texture from the reader’s usual experience. Intertwining real and fictional elements of the world, the author of the novel creates not only an alternative history, but also the culture of the Russian people.
Interaction of non-fiction and fiction in the book series “The Lives of Remarkable People”
The article presents the results of a study of the documentary and fictional content in the book series “The Lives of Remarkable People”. In the course of the structural and comparative analysis of V. Afanasyev’s books “Lermontov” (1991) and M. Roshchin’s “Ivan Bunin” (2000), devoted to the life and work of these outstanding writers, we found that both works are characterized by a genre synthesis that includes both the predominant documentary content (а biography, a diary, epistolary, interviews and memoirs) and the pronounced fictional origin (an essay, feature article, short story, novella and a novel). The combination of “non-fiction” and “fiction” in a biographical narrative significantly affects its plot construction, composition, narrative style, ways of expressing the author’s position and the choice of linguistic means. The research includes the tasks of identifying the features of coexistence of creative and strict factual interpretation, of objective and fictional elements in a single biographical text, as well as possible author’s bias. As the study proves, the absence of a unified format in the current “The Lives of Remarkable People” series provides greater scope for creative and scientific experimentation, allowing to coexist for both serious literary works and “literary novels”, sometimes characterized by prejudice and bias.
The image of China in “A Voyage around the World on the Ship Neva”
This article presents a critical analysis of representing China in the travelogue “A Voyage around the World on the Ship ‘Neva’” (1812) by Yuri Lisyansky. In contrast to earlier positivist interpretations, the study adopts an interdisciplinary approach, viewing the image of China as a narrative and ideological construct shaped within the framework of the author’s cultural self-consciousness. The aim of the article is to demonstrate how the discourse on China becomes a tool for Russia’s civilizational self-definition and a marker of its position within the East–West paradigm. Lisyansky’s travelogue signals a departure from Enlightenment romanticism in favor of a cultural critique discourse: China is portrayed not as an idealized “Eastern utopia”, but as a symbol of stagnation, opposed to the progressive West. In Lisyansky’s text, the image of China functions as an epistemological and civilizational marker, serving Russia’s efforts to position itself in the global cultural hierarchy. Particular attention is paid to the influence of British Orientalism, especially as mediated through the writings of the participants in the Macartney mission. By deconstructing exotic myths and empirically documenting cultural and social antinomies, Lisyansky constructs a new narrative, in which Chinese otherness becomes a mirror for Russia’s civilizational self-understanding at the beginning of the 19th century.
On the influence of O. Chukhontsev’s work on contemporary Russian poetry
The article analyzes O. Chukhontsev’s (b. 1938) poetic influence on his contemporaries: V. Korkia (b. 1948), M. Amelin (b. 1970), and G. Medvedev (b. 1983). The connections of these poets with Chukhontsev’s lyrical poetry are important for understanding the features of their work, but these similarities have not been researched before, which determines the novelty of the presented work. The poetry and drama by Korkia and Chukhontsev’s poetics are characterized by ideological and thematic convergence and a number of techniques, such as playing with phraseology, historical and socio-philosophical issues, saturation of the text with allusions across a wide range of works. Amelin’s poetics is characterized by overcoming time frames and synthesizing the epochs that are as far apart as possible, which is often found in Chukhontsev’s poems. The theme of time, one of the most relevant for Chukhontsev’s lyrical poetry, is becoming important for Amelin as well. Medvedev, for his part, directly declares his orientation towards his older contemporary: the cycle “Poems with Epigraphs” opens with a text and an epigraph, which refers us to Chukhontsev’s poetics. Formal indicators are also adopted by the poets in question: thus, they repeat the rhythmic side of his works, his prosaic style and some other features of the literary master. The relevance of Chukhontsev’s themes, ideas and techniques is confirmed by the appeal to his poetics by beginning and full-fledged authors.
Interpretation features of Scheherazade’s tales in B. Beaulieu and D. Mermoux’s graphic novel “A Thousand and One Lives in the Emergency”
For the first time in Russian literary studies, this article analyzes the graphic novel “A Thousand and One Lives in the Emergency” (Les mille et une vies des urgences, 2017) written by French authors Baptiste Beaulieu and Dominique Mermoux. We analyze the work from the point of view of its comparison with the ancient literary monument of Arabic and Persian literature “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights”. The aim of the work is to identify parallels between medieval and modern works. The relevance of the study is its appeal to the genre of the graphic novel, which is a controversial phenomenon in contemporary philological science. This genre, synthesizing verbal and visual principles, allows the authors not only to visually (literally – in the form of a drawing) present the transformation of medieval images and the space-time structure, but also to represent the creation of their own new Universe (the emergency department – as a separate world) based on the world of the ancient Scheherazade’s Tales. The study uses the historical-literary, comparative-contrastive and structural methods. We analyze the system of characters, in particular the central images of the auto-hero Baptiste Beaulieu and his terminally ill patient Firebird, establishing their parallels with the characters in the collection of the Arabian fairy tales. The character of Baptiste Beaulieu appears as a modern Scheherazade who is telling her tales in order to be able to prolong his patient’s life. In the case of this graphic novel, life is prolonged not for the central character – the intern doctor, but for the recipient of his “clinical tales” – the female character diagnosed with cancer. The spatial-temporal organization of the work allows us to conclude that the reality of the hospital is deliberately mythologized; here, the process of storytelling extends Firebird’s lifespan and pushes back the moment of her death. The article concludes that the authors of the graphic novel, choosing “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights” as a basis, emphasize the motif of healing the human soul through its interaction with artistic words. The creative act (storytelling) helps the characters overcome death, since the genre of the fairy tale assumes the transfer of experience from generation to generation.
African realities in Hilary Mantel’s novel “A Change of Climate”
The article examines the depiction of African realities in modern British literature, based on the novel “A Change of Climate” (1994) by the English writer Hilary Mantel. On the one hand, the work reflects the author’s personal experience; on the other, it addresses a specific period in the development of the South African state, in which the author refers to real historical facts and individuals. Due to their idealistic views on their mission and the role of white people in the lives of Africans, the main characters of the novel, missionaries Anna and Ralph Eldred, fail to soberly assess the dangers of their environment, leading to a tragedy – the loss of their child. By introducing into the novel descriptions of African realities, specifically historical, political, national, and cultural ones, Hilary Mantel emphasizes that the prolonged stay in the mission and the confrontation with the realities of South Africa during apartheid did not make the protagonists understand what truly was happening around them or how the local population perceived strangers.
Mythopoetics in Evgeny Vodolazkin’s prose: The novels “Solovyov and Larionov” and “Justification of the Island”
The article identifies the function features of mythopoetics in the prose of the Russian writer Evgeny Vodolazkin. The purpose of the work is to show the specifics of mythopoetics in Evgeny Vodolazkin’s prose based on his novels “Solovyov and Larionov” and “Justification of the Island”. The main categories of mythopoetics in Vodolazkin’s work are the connection of different historical eras (“inter-epochality”), mythological timelessness, and the moral category perceived through the prism of the Christian worldview. In addition, the article examines the images of the main characters and the features of the chronotope, which are also mythopoetic, used to highlight the writer’s conceptual vision of history and time. The specificity of Vodolazkin’s authorial myth is consistent in the two selected novels, although the writer develops the history and time categories differently in them. In the novel “Solovyov and Larionov”, history is presented as the interpenetration and interlacement of two historical eras. In the novel “Justification of the Island”, Vodolazkin addresses the history of a mythical non-existent Island. The synthesis of fictional and documentary elements is manifested in different ways – in “Solovyov and Larionov”, the documentary aspect is presented from the point of view of scientific discourse, in “Justification of the Island” – by means of a chronicle narrative. However, the documentary element in the named works only emphasizes the mythopoetic nature of fiction in these novels.
Virginia Woolf on her contemporaries and predecessors: The dynamics of the creative process according to the writer’s diaries
The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was the time of a search for new means of artistic expression and renewal of narrative forms in English literature. The concept of canonical aesthetics was undergoing a transformation. The article traces the search for a new method of depicting a person in Virginia Woolf’s diary entries, her justification of the “stream of consciousness” technique, and here assessment of her predecessors and contemporaries’ artistic skills. The article shows that Virginia Woolf’s diary entries served as brief summaries for future essays in “The Times” supplement and her two books “The Common Reader”. Virginia Woolf's diary can be perceived as an autobiographical space, as a means of the writer’s self-awareness, her cultural self-determination and the construction of her own personality. Our study reveals the artistic originality of Virginia Woolf’s creative individuality and her attitude to the authors in her reading circle. The article argues that despite her respectful attitude towards the literary traditions of the English classical novel in the 18th and 19th centuries, Woolf feels its certain exhaustion.
The novel “Return to Panjrud” by A. Volos in the perception of literary criticism
This article examines the novel “Return to Panjrud” (2013) by A. Volos, which holds a special place in the body of contemporary Russian prose dealing with the Eastern historical and cultural heritage. The author focuses on the artistic recreation of the poet Rudaki and the era of the Samanids. The narrative combines historical accuracy with philosophical depth. The article explores the structural features of the novel, the role of flashbacks and parables, the specificity of its style, and the author’s engagement with the poetic tradition of the East. Special attention is given to the critical reception of the text, particularly its interpretation by A. Salomatin who compares the novel with “Laurus” (2012) by E. Vodolazkin and highlights the unique role of both works in the development of the historical novel genre in 21st-century Russian literature. Volos’s novel represents not only an artistic engagement with the past, but also a philosophical reflection on universal themes – such as the relationship between the artist and power, time, human existence, and cultural memory. The purpose of the article is to identify the key features of A. Volos’s “Return to Panjrud” as an outstanding example of contemporary Russian historical prose that reconstructs the Eastern cultural and historical context of the 9th -10th centuries, and to determine the artistic devices, through which the author combines historical authenticity with philosophical depth. The study also aims to analyze the critical reception of the novel, especially in the interpretation offered by A. Salomatin, and to reflect on the role that “Return to Panjrud” plays in the evolution of the historical novel genre in 21st - century Russian literature.
The evolution of E. Zamyatin’s ideological complex: From the story “The Islanders” to the play “The Society of Honorary Bell Ringers”
The article deals with the theme of E. Zamyatin’s auto-interpretation and creative style, his intertextual connections and artistic evolution based on the story “The Islanders” and the play “The Society of Honorary Bell Ringers”. The article, using a thorough textual comparison, shows that the play has similarities with the story, but there are also differences in the plot, in the character images and in the artistic methods he used. Inheriting the essence of the story, the play intensifies the psychological depth of the characters and their symbolic potential, and more vividly reveals the dilemma of individual freedom in the conditions of collectivism. A comparative analysis shows that the play, through its multidimensional reconstruction of characters, recurring stage lines and metaphors of human puppets, more clearly expresses the warning about the alienation and mechanization of human nature in the name of ‘rationality’. The article concludes that, thanks to the author’s artistic search, the play “The Society of Honorary Bell Ringers” is a work of art that has its independent value in terms of conveying the main idea, describing the characters and the artistic techniques. The analysis of intertextual connections of the play and the story “The Islanders” demonstrates the consistent development of Zamyatin’s creative thinking and deepens the understanding of the writer’s dystopian concepts and their creative evolution.
The image of Kazan University in Tatar poetry
The article systematizes the corpus of poetic texts dedicated to the Tatar Department/Faculty of Kazan University. Our analysis is based on the lyrical and lyrical-epic works of Tatar poets in the second half of the twentieth century and the first quarter of the twenty–first century (Ayaz Gilyazov, Naki Isanbet, Radif Gatash, Rkail Zaidullah, Lenar Shaeh, Rahim Gaisin, Bulat Ibrahim, and Renat Haris). The study uses the cultural-historical, comparative and comparative methods. We have shown that these works are focused on glorifying Kazan University as a temple of science, a center of education and enlightenment in the Region, fostering a sense of pride in the university staff. The Tatar Department/Faculty is celebrated in the poems as a source of national talent and a center of national culture. The article proves that the Tatar poets demonstrate their commitment to the local myths of Kazan University, such as the imperial, “Leninist”, and “Tolstoyan” ones. In some of the poems, there are echoes of post-colonial trauma. The poets endow some elements of the university space (its white columns, the staircase) with a symbolic meaning like the Tatar book, which becomes a symbolic capital of the Turkic-Tatar civilization. The evidence of Tatar poets’ innovative contribution to the development of the university theme in Tatar literature is their identification of a historical parallel in the actions of Safa Girey and Alexander I, aimed to develop education and the theme of mentorship in the Region through the presentation of a gallery of scholars, teachers, and graduates who have made Kazan University and the National Department known in the world.
The other in “The Balkan Trilogy” by Olivia Manning
“The Balkan Trilogy” by Olivia Manning is one of the greatest books belonging to autofiction as the author moved to the Balkans at the outbreak of the war and returned to England in 1945; the experience provided the opportunity to create the eyewitness testimony. The research is focused on social problems; the background for the Other issue is the beginning of World War II. The main characters’ attitude both to the allied states and the confronting states is under analyses as well as the influence of stereotypes on the perception of the Other. The auto- and hetero images are shown through the British people’s reception. A specific attitude to Russia is due to the historical events, which influenced the world’s perception of the country. Russian territory is excluded from the European area owing to ideological and political reasons, which leads to the development of the Eastern European Other who is not included into the Our Own group. The same images of enemies are described in an absolutely different way, the fact explained by the confrontation of the countries. The European Other is a part of the Our Own group from geographical and cultural aspects; as a result, it is described in a positive way, while the Eastern European Other is characterized negatively.
The article analyzes the prose of front-line writers, using the concept of ‘the space of limit’ to characterize the artistic world. We also consider screen adaptations of literary works, analyzing the specifics of cinematic embodiment of battle plots. The inclusion of a document into a fictional narrative allows frontline writers to construct a system of internal links and interactions that broaden the perspective as well as the system of images. “The Star” by Emmanuil Kazakevich and “Ivan” or “In August 1944” by Vladimir Bogomolov present the variations of ‘the limit space’, embodying tragic collisions. A document, containing a literary plot in a ‘compressed’ form, allows the authors to deconstruct time frames and transform the temporal structure of their works. Personal military experience helps the writers to represent borderline situations, the extremity of life in war. Documentary and mythological layers determine the fictional world specificity in Kazakevich’s story. The writer and the filmmakers of his work visualize the markers of the frontier, the ‘alien’ space. Cinematographic interpretations of the story about frontline scouts reflect the cultural references of the epoch: the traditions of the “Big Style” (“The Star”, directed by A. Ivanov, 1948) and the polyphonism of the ‘noughties’: the film “The Star”, directed by N. Lebedev (2002). Screen adaptations of Vladimir Bogomolov’s works present various genre and style solutions to battle scenes. The black-and-white palette defines the visual range of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film and intensifies its tragedy (“Ivan’s Childhood”, 1962). The director expands the irreality, presenting apocalyptic images that deepen the philosophical content.
Jesmyn Ward’s novel “Salvage the Bones” as an example of “hurricane alley narrative”
The article deals with the work of the contemporary American writer Jesmyn Ward who represents the new generation of Black literature. The study is based on her second novel in the trilogy about the fictional southern state of Bois Sauvage “Salvage the Bones”, published in 2011. The novel has traditional features of the “hurricane alley narrative”, a corpus of natural disaster texts written after 2005. Among its main characteristics is the narrative, provided from the point of view of a teenager, telling the story of an African American family on the eve of a devastating hurricane and its consequences. The poverty and discrimination of the Batiste family is shown through the image of the house and a detailed description of their daily life. On the one hand, Esch Batiste embodies the image of a prophet, on the other - the image of a child who is forced to protect herself from the natural disaster and who suffers from sexual violence. Due to the early death of her mother and raised predominantly in a male environment, which also stands out as a fundamental feature of the “hurricane alley narrative”, the main character cannot form a correct idea of motherhood and sexuality. In the novel, one of the central images is Hurricane Katrina, which is endowed with feminine characteristics, and for Esch, serves as a possible role model for motherhood. In the novel, the hurricane is shown as a living creature, which has not so much a destructive, but a constructive origin.
The Turkish world in Russian literature of the 19th century
The article analyzes the representation of Turkey and the Turkish East in Russian literature of the 19th century and considers various artistic strategies for depicting the Turkish world based on the texts of A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol, F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy and V. M. Garshin. The dominant method of studying this problem is the hermeneutic analysis. The concepts of “other” / “alien” are at the center of the study, inextricably linked with the concept of “one’s own”. The binary opposition “ours”–“theirs” is the subject and, at the same time, the means of analyzing in many research practices. Herefore, the analysis of the problem of the Turkish “other” / “alien” in the artistic world of 19th-century Russian literature is carried out in the imagological and mythopoetic discourse. The focus is on the evolution from romantic exotization to realistic and ethnographic approaches, as well as the functioning of the image of Turkey as a mirror of national self-awareness. Russian literary criticism has few works on the understanding of the Turkish element perception in Russian literary classics. For obvious reasons, much more works on this topic are written by Oriental historians who study the specifics of state and cultural relations between Russia and Turkey at different stages of their historical development. The perspective of the topic is to study the specifics of the “Turkish element” perception in Russian fiction of the 19th century in the works by writers belonging to the second, non-classical series.
Methodological model for developing university students’ foreign language communicative competence by means of digital technologies
The article presents a methodological model for the formation of university students’ foreign language communicative competence (FLCC) based on modern digital teaching technologies. The relevance of the study is due to the global digitalization of education and the need to prepare graduates with a high level of foreign language proficiency for effective intercultural communication. The article describes the theoretical foundations of the FLCC concept, substantiates the inclusion of the digital component as a metacompetence, characterizing the key approaches to its formation. We propose a structural model that includes target, conceptual, procedural-methodical and result blocks, integrating digital educational resources and technologies, e-courses, web projects, virtual communication platforms, and artificial intelligence tools into the educational process. The article presents the results of our experimental test of the model based on the English language teaching: the use of digital technologies demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the level of FLCC in students of the experimental group compared to traditional teaching methods. In conclusion, the article formulates methodological recommendations for the implementation of the developed model in the practice of university foreign language teaching and outlines prospects for further integration of the new digital tools to improve the efficiency of the ICC formation.
On interpretation of the concept: “Adaptation skills of a teacher”
The article analyzes various interpretations of the concept “professional adaptation” and possible ways to solve the problem of a young teacher adaptation at school. We consider philosophical, psychopedagogical, socio-psychological, regional and ethno-cultural approaches to understanding this term in domestic psychological and pedagogical studies. The article highlights the fact that with an emphasis on the need for young teachers to adapt to a new educational environment - the process that requires both a change in personality traits and a transformation of their professional activities, insufficient attention is paid to the preservation of one’s “Self” and the opportunities for young teachers’ creative self-realization. Conflict situations - following the traditions of the established teaching staff and a new view on how educational work should be done, as well as interaction with students’ parents and the lack of experience in this field, indicate the importance of the socio-psychological aspect of adaptation in ensuring the success of young school teachers and their being comfortable in the profession. The article concludes that the concept of professional and pedagogical adaptation should include both the importance of young teachers’ professional and pedagogical preparation (their knowledge of the subject and methods of teaching), and their readiness to adapt to the specifics of a new environment with a view to creative self-realization.
Developing skills of extensive reading of local history texts in foreign languages in a digital educational environment
Instilling sustainable reading interest in students requires new and innovative teaching approaches. Both general and popular science literature, including local history texts, are under consideration. One of the approaches includes mastering speech skills, based on studying local history texts, using modern digital technologies. This vision of the problem determines the relevance of the research topic, its results are presented in the article. The article proposes new tools to solve this problem, emphasizing that it is not an easy task to get the Z-generation, born and raised in the digital world, involved in reading lengthy texts containing local lore information. This task requires new formats of teaching materials, one of them is a “multimodal text”. The study puts forward and substantiates the hypothesis that the use of multimodal local history texts in teaching foreign languages enables us to develop extensive reading skills and foster national identity, to strengthen historical memory and promote culture, which includes spiritual traditions and historical experience of the peoples living in the Republic of Tatarstan. To prove our hypothesis and validate the obtained results, we conducted a pedagogical experiment based on this methodology. Thus, the leading scientific method in the study is a pedagogical experiment, we also use the systematization and content analysis of scientific and methodological theoretical sources on a given topic.
An important contribution to the methods of the native language teaching
The article is a review of R.A. Yusupov's monograph "Döreслеk һәм gadellek hakyna" – "For Truth and Justice" (Kazan, 2025).