On Some Developmental Trends for The Russian-Mongolian Relationships

This article made available for publication is compiled on the basis of a report presented at the International Science Conference that took place on September 2nd, 2021, in the city of Vladivostok (Russky Island). It deals with the ordinary and megatrends reflecting the specific aspects in relation to the current stage of the Russian-Mongolian bilateral relationships. Such trends include, for example, diversification of external ties or orientation towards multidimensional collaboration. It is asserted that, throughout the century-old history of close interaction between Russia and Mongolia, since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two states, there have been a lot of epoch-making events and developments of landmark nature, which up to date constitute the meaningful elements of historic memory for our peoples, defining the overriding megatrend of our mutual understanding and affinity that bears a sustainable character, defying any influence of the political and economic environment factors.

The white and red forces of the Civil War: problems of modern public interpretation of historical memory in Finland

The article characterizes the modern public discourse in Finland on the impact of the red and white forces on the developments unfolding in the course of the Civil War through the interpretation of historical sources. It also draws a conclusion about the transformations that historical memory has experienced in Finland over the past decades. The research tasks are solved by using the methodology of historical trauma and mechanisms of its overcoming, the historical narration of everyday life, sociological methods. The article considers the concepts of official scientific and public discourse on controversial historical issues, indicates the different functional content of these categories. The fact of granting independence to Finland in 1918, and most importantly, the fact that the independence was maintained further on, was actualized in the public narrative in 2018. On this basis, it is possible to analyze the assessment of the white and red forces within modern Finnish society, due to the higher interest to the Civil War in connection with the Jubilee data and comparatively larger number of sources on historic memory that have appeared in scientific discourse. In the interwar period, Finland saw the cult of the Civil (“Liberation”) War, where the red forces were presented as opponents of the independence of the state, and the whites, on the contrary, contributed to the acquisition of the sovereignty. However the statistical data, commemorative products, cultural phenomena presented in the article show that the public discourse about the Civil War tends to smooth the categorical evaluations, despite the fact that the discourse about the further Winter War and, moreover, the World War II tends to exacerbate the approach. The Finnish society is aware of the need to investigate crimes against the reds, preserves the memory of war crimes on both sides, and keeps the war graves of both Reds and Whites in the similar way. The rethinking of the legacy of civil confrontation is the potential for humanitarian dialogue between Russia and Finland.

Museums: Preserving Heritage, Comprehending Past, Forming Identity

Perception of museums as space of co-operation between public and collections is rethought constantly, with primarily taking into account a sociocultural situation. It is reflected on the specifics of the direction of activity and determination of the mission of different museums. Nowadays, scientists interpret the museum space as social space and regard museums as institutes of social memory (historical memory or cultural memory). Communication, interactivity, and participation are considered to be the main components determining the development of the modern museum. The aim of this study is to analyse the strategy of determination of priority directions of the museum activity and the place and role of museums in the processes of memory. Museums accumulate and translate the experience of a certain culture and the way they present this experience; it is a part of the complicated process of formation of the nation identity. Museum professionals often say that an important task now is to choose one and only line among the events and to create a common collective experience that in turn influences the self-identity of an individual. First, every museum must choose the educational strategy and define the priority directions of their activity. The sharpest discussions in Ukraine concern the direction of the national museums. If a museum considers the priority direction of the activity organization of leisure, then the question is whether it can have the status of national. The function of leisure is important but cannot be basic; in fact, the essence of the museum is the function of cognition. A special attention should be paid to the fact that a tendency of “walls without the museum,” that is the museum without traditional collections, now undergoes substantial changes. Such museums afterwards begin to complete their own collection. It is presently impossible to ignore such an important theme as the maintenance of the cultural heritage and digital transformation. Museums actively use multimedia technologies for the maintenance and popularization of the heritage. But a specific feature of the museum as an institution of storage, study, andtranslation of subject forms of culture has not been lost. Museum objects themselves are the basis of adaptive and inculturation possibilities of the museum. In the epoch of globalization, a museum can create optimal terms for the cultural identification. Presently our task is not consideration of certain historic events and their influence on forming the historic memory of the Ukrainian people. It is important to mark that potential of museums as grounds of proceeding in the national memory and Ukrainian identity considerable enough, but not exposed, and not only by regional museums. The study and use of experience of the creation of complex narratives on difficult questions of history in the museums of the world are important enough for Ukrainian museum professionals. Modern museums, while developing projects related to traumatic remembrances, questions of firmness, dialogue, problems of reconciliation in conflict periods of history, run into numerous problems but must not forget that these projects will assist a reflection among the public.

The Alans between a Scholarly Paradigm and Ethnocentrism: the “Memory Wars” and Their Background

A social (historic) memory and an alternative history are discussed with respect to the hot and very emotional issue dealing with the claims of certain North Caucasian peoples for the Alan ancestors. One should make a difference between academic approaches, on the one hand, and pseudo-scholarly, often highly politicized motives of the alternative history authors, on the other hand. Yet, even scholars who have dual loyalty have to make an uneasy choice between the scholarly paradigm and ethnocentric constructions which serve ethno-national interests. The author argues that a scholarly approach demands for, firstly, a nuanced treatment of the name of the “Alans” which had different meanings in the different historic periods, and secondly, a careful analysis of such names which initially could serve social or political goals rather than ethnic ones.

Language as a Concept of Russian Aphoristics

The article describes aphoristics as an integral part of the language and culture studies reflecting the value system of the people's mentality diachronically and synchronically. Russian aphoristics has been preserving national identity, morale and values throughout centuries, for generations transferring cultural and historic memory of the people. However, aphoristics reflects not only unique, specific features of Russian culture and mentality but also demonstrates unanimity of the culture codes and the universal character of human values. The study specially focuses on the Russian aphoristics sphere of concepts whereas, possible to outline and depict dozens of concepts specified on the level of culture as well. The concept LANGUAGE represents one of the key concepts of the human cognitive system, hence it is widely and diversely exposed in the corpus of the Russian aphoristics of the 18th-21st centuries. In aphoristics, LANGUAGE emerges in different ways. In Russian aphoristics, the specification of the concept LANGUAGE has got an ambivalent nature. Here LANGUAGE is realized in the homonymic phraseo-semantic field being verbalized by means of the most frequent components of the core and periphery of the phraseo-semantic field: LANGUAGE (Russian language, native tongue), foreign LANGUAGE, word, parole, syllable, etc.

HISTORIC MEMORY IN THE CONTEXT OF INFORMATION STRUGGLE

The article considers the causes of actualization of the problem of preserving historical memory in modern society. The characteristics of categories "historical memory" and "historical consciousness" are given. The peculiarities and contradictions of formation historical memory, its function and importance in the conditions of information struggle are considered

The City and the University: One Destiny for Two

The article is devoted to faculty staff and students of the Stalingrad mechanical Institute who were the participants of the Great Patriotic war and home front workers, considers the destiny of the city and the University as one for two. The authors describe the activities of scientists, teachers and students of the Stalingrad Mechanical Institute during the Great Patriotic War, both during the Battle of Stalingrad and in evacuation in Chelyabinsk. The subject of scientific and applied work devoted to solving a number of technical problems on the creation, improvement and repair of military equipment, mainly the most massive tank of the Great Patriotic War T-34, rocket launchers «Katyusha» and several others. The results of a sociological survey of Volgograd students about their attitude to the Battle of Stalingrad are given. More than 70% of respondents are aware of the names of the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad, the historic places, streets, squares associated with this event. The young generation carries the historic memory conveyed by the elder generation. The authors believe that it is necessary to develop the historical memory in University students using historic materials, mass media, Internet-resources, family archives, museum expositions.

SEMIOTIC AND LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF RUSSIAN NATIONAL FLAGS

The present research was provoked by high necessity in the analysis of the role of historic memory in interpretation of contemporary state symbols and legal regulation of their use in different political, ideological and cultural contexts. The legal regulation of the national flags, including historical ones, cannot be properly done without taking into consideration their symbolic value for different groups of population, sharing different political views and attitudes to the past. Semiotic aspects are also important for judicial and administrative practice, which should be aimed, as well as the legislation in this area, at formation of the common political identity and should not lead to separation instead of unification. Visual representation of flags as symbols, which can transmit variety of meanings is understood differently by different audiences, is also a means to show how contexts may affect self-identification of the nation. The methodological basis for the research comprises works in legal semiotics, hermeneutics and visual communication. This is accounted for the fact that legal regulation of flags as state symbols cannot be investigated without understanding of their interpretation in non-legal discourses, such as vexillology, heraldry, history and political science. Semiotics unites legal and non-legal discourses and serves as a basis for interdisciplinary research in symbols, their use and interpretation. The authors benefited from the ideas developed in the works by Yu. Lotman, S.A. Knowlton and M. Leone.The article presents the semiotic analysis of three flags in their historical perspective: the black-yellow-white flag of the Russian Empire, the Soviet red banner and the contemporary white-blue-red national flag of democratic Russia. In the context of multiple connotations caused by demonstration of the imperial flag and of the red flag, the attempts to provide them with the special status in the current Russian legislation have been analyzed. The national white-blue-red flag may also be used as an official symbol of the nation and as unofficial symbol of different political movements. The evolution of its visual representation with time is explored. Having been placed into semiotic discourse, visual representation of national flags shows that image of an official flag may receive its own meaning for the audience or different types of audiences, and that, as Steven A. Knowlton put it, "symbols may have meanings beyond just representing the signified, which are often assigned by an official body". The thesis of overlapping, intertwined and sometimes confused meanings of flags as state symbols, which Massimo Leone put forward, should be borne in mind when it comes to legal regulation of the use of flags, responsibility for their desecration or misuse. Judicial practice should take into account the meaning of the signified, or a message, conveyed by the user of flags and the aim of the legal rule. Without attention to specific nature of the symbols the law implementing practice will be apt to mistakes and inadequate interpretation. Contemporary legal regulation of the use of the national flag includes provisions of the Constitution, administrative and criminal law. Their application in practice confronts with the lack of legal certainty, which makes the interpretation of these provisions even more complicated.

Múzeá kultúr národnostných menšín ako súčasť špecifických foriem turizmu

The cultural heritage of a locality, region or country plays a significant role in the domestic tourist industry. Institutions of historic memory, in particular museums are concerned with specialist processing of cultural heritage elements. They register, document, administer and ultimately present these elements. The objective of this study is to characterise the importance of specialised museums of ethnic minority cultures in Slovakia, as cultural heritage intermediaries for specific forms of tourism. The study is based on ethnological field research, with updated semi-standardised interviews and participating observations. The outcome of the study determines two aspects. One of them relates to various forms of the tourist industry, which the museum network in Slovakia also participates in. The other one specifies the researched museums of ethnic minority cultures and their involvement in the development of cultural and ethnic tourism, as well as tourism of compatriots.