scholarly journals History, people and female characters in “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-39
Author(s):  
Elena Yu. Poltavets

The article deals with the female characters in “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy. The aim of the article is to advance a new view at Tolstoy’s heroines and to improve and extend the modern ideas of Tolstoy’s gender perceptions. The applied methods are the structural, semiotic and mythopoetics analyses. General opinion about Tolstoy’s gender perceptions is based on the character of Natasha Rostova. The usual approach to the study of Tolstoy’s matrimonial philosophy has passed into belief that Natasha Rostova is the main and the ideal female character in Tolstoy’s novel. So it is generally accepted that Leo Tolstoy gives recognition to the patriarchal family only (Bezukhov’s family in the epilogue of “War and Peace”). But to obtain a fuller understanding of Tolstoy’s gender perceptions it is necessary to introduce the analysis of other female characters. First of all, it is princess Mary. She became aware of the cruelty of war and overcame the tragedy of loneliness. She is a self-sacrificing daughter and aunt (her little nephew is an orphan). So her life is much more sorrowful than Natasha’s. However, her family in the epilogue of “War and Peace” is not patriarchal. Tolstoy represented two kinds of women and two types of families in the epilogue of his novel. According to the traditional view, Tolstoy confines a woman to her family circle, but the character of princess Mary is connected not only with the family problems, but with the problems of philosophy of history, folk confidence, non-resistance and the most profound spiritual achievements of Tolstoy’s as well. The image of Princess Mary Bolkonskaya in Tolstoy’s novel “War and peace” is a rare female image in the history of world literature that invites the reader to discuss a wide range of topical philosophical, religious, and socio-historical issues.

Author(s):  
Rebecca C. Johnson

Zaynab, first published in 1913, is widely cited as the first Arabic novel, yet the previous eight decades saw hundreds of novels translated into Arabic from English and French. This vast literary corpus influenced generations of Arab writers but has, until now, been considered a curious footnote in the genre's history. Incorporating these works into the history of the Arabic novel, this book offers a transformative new account of modern Arabic literature, world literature, and the novel. This book rewrites the history of the global circulation of the novel by moving Arabic literature from the margins of comparative literature to its center. Considering the wide range of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century translation practices, the book argues that Arabic translators did far more than copy European works; they authored new versions of them, producing sophisticated theorizations of the genre. These translations and the reading practices they precipitated form the conceptual and practical foundations of Arab literary modernity, necessitating an overhaul of our notions of translation, cultural exchange, and the global. The book shows how translators theorized the Arab world not as Europe's periphery but as an alternative center in a globalized network. It affirms the central place of (mis)translation in both the history of the novel in Arabic and the novel as a transnational form itself.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Stas’

This article considers the main results of identity research on Siberian urban history. The author identifies the seven most extensively developed topics in studying the history of urban identities. The first topic focuses on the formation of a city’s general identity in the initial stages of its formation. Historians aim to reveal the mechanisms of general city identification, as well as the sources, criteria, and values underlying the identity of a particular city. The second topic includes studies of the drift of urban production and industrial identities in the context of industrialization: quite often, it was industrial markers that determined the direction of a city’s identification. The third topic covers the study of ethnicity in urban spaces. Historians reveal the reaction of ethnicity to processes of adaptation and acculturation. The fourth issue concerns the study of gender identity in the context of the masculine orientation of urbanisation processes. Historians focus on the study of mechanisms underlying the dominance of masculine culture in the urban environment and the development of the socio-cultural significance and functions of women, their limitations and emancipation. The fifth topic concerns the identification of social stratification in urban systems. Urban history gains new knowledge through studies which examine urbanisation as a factor of differentiation in urban society and classical structures of society (estates and classes), as well as in works on the identification of the middle class, social mobility, the formation of marginal groups, and vernacular culture. The sixth topic is expanded by works dealing with the historical imagology of the city. Images are forms of identity representations in cultural and public discourses. Therefore, in studying them, urban history today makes a practical contribution to the development of modern urbanism. The seventh topic focuses on the historiographical analysis of the identification research strategies of urban historians themselves. In the process of revealing urban identities, the research model should be based on a wide range of sources of a predominantly narrative nature and the anthropological approach. It seems appropriate to use the potential of memoirs, oral history, periodicals, fiction, and journalistic literature. Studies on the identity palette of Russian urban history go beyond purely historical issues and are based on deep interdisciplinary interaction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 270-275
Author(s):  
L. V. Egorova

A review of the collective monograph by researchers of the A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the RAS into the origins and evolution of the biography as a genre. The first section of the book discusses composing a writer’s biography with the examples of Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson, the myth and the truth in Camões’ biography, as well as the specific features of this genre in the Latin American tradition. The second section of the monograph covers the history of the genre in Russia. Here, the authors discuss a wide range of problems, from the historical and cultural context of Simeon Polotsky’s biography to attempts of the genre’s theoretical interpretation. Also considered is P. Furman’s project, a series of biographies adapted for children’s reading. The third section focuses on documents at the source of poets’ biographies, criminal proceedings of the Decembrists, and case files of our contemporaries who fell victim of the Stalin terror.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 280-291
Author(s):  
Zukhra A. Kuchukova ◽  
◽  
Burkhan A. Berberov ◽  
Liana B. Berberova ◽  
◽  
...  

The article examines one of the notable in the history of world literature experiences of transcultural creativity on the material of the novels by the American J. Salinger “The Catcher in the Rye” and the German G. Böll “Through the Eyes of the Clown”, linked not only by intertextual calls, but also by the name of R. Wright-Kovaleva, who translated both novels into Russian. Within the framework of such three-dimensional intercultural communication, a wide range of issues related to the phenomena of literary translation, palimpsest, prototext, comparative studies, game poetics are considered. The cultural codes identified by the method of continuous sampling include “the child as a narrator”, “infantilization of society”, “the disease of historical time”, “the lack of culture of Eros”, “art as a spiritual poison”.


Author(s):  
Kevin Haworth

The Comics of Rutu Modan: War, Love, and Secrets is a biography and analysis of the work of Rutu Modan, a groundbreaking female graphic novelist from Israel. Modan is best known for her two graphic novels, Exit Wounds and The Property. Modan’s work depicts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Holocaust, and most significantly, the effects of war and trauma on individuals. This book begins with a history of Israeli cartooning from its roots in early Zionism. It provides an in-depth look at the female Israeli cartoonists who preceded Modan, as well as the counter-culture Israeli comics of the 1970s and the art comics boom of the 1990s. The book explores Modan's comics within the Israeli historical, political, sociological and literary background. It offers a history of the comics collective Actus Tragicus, of which Modan was a founder, and shows how the collective paved the way for modern comics to take root in Israel. Using the recurring themes of absence and presence, the book analyzes Modan's strong female characters, the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in her work, and the lingering effects of the Holocaust on Israeli society. The book also explores Modan's lesser-known but still important projects, including her comics journalism, her family narratives, and her line of children's comics that revitalizes Israeli classics.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyudmila Ternovaya

The monograph reveals the features of vestimental, i.e. related to clothing, a person's choice that determines the nature of his communication with other people. These actions may be dictated by a person's national, social, professional, gender, or other group affiliation. At the same time, clothing that has its own fashion language can help decipher the most intricate social and political symbols and thus clarify complex situations in international relations. Many meanings of power and subordination, war and peace, labor and celebration are transmitted through clothing. Times change, and with them not only mores change, but also the understanding of the purpose of fashion. Today, it is able to Express environmental values and implement charitable projects. It is intended for specialists in the history of international relations, geopolitics, sociology, and cultural studies. It will also be of interest to a wide range of readers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4335-4350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth E. Tichenor ◽  
J. Scott Yaruss

Purpose This study explored group experiences and individual differences in the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings perceived by adults who stutter. Respondents' goals when speaking and prior participation in self-help/support groups were used to predict individual differences in reported behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Method In this study, 502 adults who stutter completed a survey examining their behaviors, thoughts, and feelings in and around moments of stuttering. Data were analyzed to determine distributions of group and individual experiences. Results Speakers reported experiencing a wide range of both overt behaviors (e.g., repetitions) and covert behaviors (e.g., remaining silent, choosing not to speak). Having the goal of not stuttering when speaking was significantly associated with more covert behaviors and more negative cognitive and affective states, whereas a history of self-help/support group participation was significantly associated with a decreased probability of these behaviors and states. Conclusion Data from this survey suggest that participating in self-help/support groups and having a goal of communicating freely (as opposed to trying not to stutter) are associated with less negative life outcomes due to stuttering. Results further indicate that the behaviors, thoughts, and experiences most commonly reported by speakers may not be those that are most readily observed by listeners.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Sullivan ◽  
Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild

This introduction surveys the rise of the history of emotions as a field and the role of the arts in such developments. Reflecting on the foundational role of the arts in the early emotion-oriented histories of Johan Huizinga and Jacob Burkhardt, as well as the concerns about methodological impressionism that have sometimes arisen in response to such studies, the introduction considers how intensive engagements with the arts can open up new insights into past emotions while still being historically and theoretically rigorous. Drawing on a wide range of emotionally charged art works from different times and places—including the novels of Carson McCullers and Harriet Beecher-Stowe, the private poetry of neo-Confucian Chinese civil servants, the photojournalism of twentieth-century war correspondents, and music from Igor Stravinsky to the Beatles—the introduction proposes five ways in which art in all its forms contributes to emotional life and consequently to emotional histories: first, by incubating deep emotional experiences that contribute to formations of identity; second, by acting as a place for the expression of private or deviant emotions; third, by functioning as a barometer of wider cultural and attitudinal change; fourth, by serving as an engine of momentous historical change; and fifth, by working as a tool for emotional connection across communities, both within specific time periods but also across them. The introduction finishes by outlining how the special issue's five articles and review section address each of these categories, while also illustrating new methodological possibilities for the field.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Brandon W. Hawk

Literature written in England between about 500 and 1100 CE attests to a wide range of traditions, although it is clear that Christian sources were the most influential. Biblical apocrypha feature prominently across this corpus of literature, as early English authors clearly relied on a range of extra-biblical texts and traditions related to works under the umbrella of what have been called “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” and “New Testament/Christian Apocrypha." While scholars of pseudepigrapha and apocrypha have long trained their eyes upon literature from the first few centuries of early Judaism and early Christianity, the medieval period has much to offer. This article presents a survey of significant developments and key threads in the history of scholarship on apocrypha in early medieval England. My purpose is not to offer a comprehensive bibliography, but to highlight major studies that have focused on the transmission of specific apocrypha, contributed to knowledge about medieval uses of apocrypha, and shaped the field from the nineteenth century up to the present. Bringing together major publications on the subject presents a striking picture of the state of the field as well as future directions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-54
Author(s):  
Dildora Alinazarova ◽  

In this article, based on an analysis of a wide range of sources, discusses the emergence and development of periodicals and printing house in Namangan. The activities of Ibrat- as the founder of the first printing house in Namangan are considered. In addition, it describes the functioning and development of "Matbaai Ishokia" in the past and present


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