Holy Saturday Between the Sublime and Beautiful: Fantastic Realism in Kristeva and Desmond's Dostoevskian Ideal

This article examines Dostoevsky's "fantastic realism," which challenges the explanation of rationalism or empiricism in the need for determinate categories fixed in nature. His use of paintings by Hans Holbein, Claude Lorrain, and Raphael in terms of the sublime and beautiful exemplify an understanding of Holy Saturday and its status between death and resurrection. Julia Kristeva's reading of Dostoevsky's melancholy as exemplifying a religious ideal and William Desmond's metaxological philosophy allows us to propose a terminology that rhymes with Dostoevskian between-ness, a conclusion that does not resolve the space between the beautiful and the sublime but remains open to the confessional enigmatic liminality that is Holy Saturday.

A COMPARISON ON THE WORKS OF EROL DENEC AND ERNST FUCHS

Fantastic Realism, rising from the surrealism movement, began with the Vienna Fantastic Realism school, founded in 1945 by Rudolf Hausner, Ernst Fuchs, Wolfgang Hutter, Anton Lehmden and Arik Brauer after World War II. Famous critic Prof. Johann Muschik named this core group "Fantastic Realists" due to the religious, mysterious subjects and symbolist approaches, that they dealt with in their works. In this research, the works of Ernst Fuchs (1930-2015), one of the world's leading representative of the fantastic realist art movement, "The Cross (1950)" and the "Human, Horse, Eagle Trio (1991)" by Erol Deneç (1941-…) are analyzed by using E. B. Feldmann’s "investigative art criticism" method, which is included in the discipline-based art education. E. B. Feldmann's method of "investigative art criticism"; consists of description, analysis, interpretation and judgment sub-titles. After examining the works independently, they were compared in terms of their similarities and differences. Despite the subject and technical richness of fantastic realism, a comparative study of the works of two artists from different lives and cultures produced with similar characteristics emphasizes the importance of the study, in this aspect it is thought that it will contribute to art education and shed light on researchers interested in the field. Keywords: Fantastic Realism, Ernst Fuchs, Erol Deneç, investigative art criticism

‘Weird and fantastic realism’: Science and Stories in the Work of Grant Allen

Grant Allen (1848-1899) was a well-known populariser of natural history who was widely recognised for his extensive knowledge of science and his ability to refashion complex ideas for general audiences. But his status as a popular writer, coupled with a lack of formal training, placed him at the margins of professional science and impeded his serious scientific ambitions. Although Allen tended to portray fiction-writing as an economic necessity, both contemporary and recent critics have noted stylistic innovations that place him within germinal popular genres of the fin de siècle. This paper aims to show that Allen’s contributions to late-Victorian popular literature derive in part from his negotiation of fiction and non-fiction genres. Focusing particularly on his experiments with the short story, it considers how and to what extent he distinguished scientific from literary writing, while revealing his views on plausibility in fiction to be more complex than is typically recognised. Little-studied reviews of Allen’s popular fiction suggest the wider contemporary impact of his experimentations. That critics recognised his style as unconventional endorses a reappraisal of his place within developments in late-Victorian popular literature.

Kultūru mijiedarbe kā impulss laikmetīgā teātra attīstībai. Klaipēdas Universitātes aktierkurss Liepājas teātrī

The young actors of Liepāja theatre who graduated from Klaipeda University can serve as an excellent sample of successful interaction between cultures, traditions, and schools. Having acquired acting skills both in traditions of Lithuanian theatre and in the paradigm of so-called ‘fantastic realism’ by Evgeny Vakhtangov developed in the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute, proposed by their pedagogues Vytautas and Velta Anužis, they can perform as actors of psychological theatre as well as postdramatic theatre performers. Evidence of this is the international success of their work in Konstantin Bogomolov’s post-dramatic chronotopic experiments “Stavanger (Pulp People)” and “My Blaster is Discharged”, and Sergey Zemlyansky’s non-verbal searches for psychological plasticity in Rainis’s tragedy “Indulis and Ārija”, and Nikolay Gogol’s comedy “The Wedding”.

Periferni likovi u romanu U registraturi Ante Kovačića

In this paper, the author examines a work of one of the most significant Croatian literary writers, Ante Kovačić, whose novel U registraturi (In the Registry Office) is considered by many literary critics and theoreticians to be the best writing of Croatian realism. It is an author who was not understood at the time when his work appeared, which is why the text was published in the form of a novel with a twenty-three year delay. Nonlinear composition of the text, elements of fantasy literature and innovative literary process in creating a fabula and sujet course of events confused literary critics as well as readership, which points to the fact that Ante Kovačić was treated for a long time as a peripheral author. In this narrative text, the misery and helplessness of peasants and their revolt against their feudal lords in Croatia are described, therefore the object of our analysis will be the characterisation of figures from various layers of society, with a particular focus on the “peripheral characters” of Kovačić’s prose. Using the term “peripheral characters” we will attempt to bring close those characters of subjugated peasants in relation to the feudal-capitalist social layer and thereby emphasise their role in the novel in relation to their fate. Unlike the characters of the peasants – Ivica Kičmanović (whom the social order turns into a lackey and scoundrel); Jožica Zgubidan (the personification of a poor person from Zagorje), Anica (a patriarchal girl with an angelic face); Miha; Perica; the neighbouring Kanoniks; and the Medonjićes – Kovačić brings us harsh, drastic images of moral vacillations in the city in which figures, distorted into caricatures, dominate. By contrasting the rural environment with the city life, the author is writing an “epopee of the village and city” in which the “peripheral characters” become tragic ones. These characters are the carriers of elements of “fantastic realism,” and their function is to show all the depravities of society and to announce the phenomenon of the innovative processes of narration familiar to authors of the modern literature. Finally, we come to the conclusion that Ante Kovačić made a step forward in relation to the generation of realists, with the peripheral position of his creation disappearing with the emergence of modern literary achievements, which ultimately gives the author and his work a polished place in Croatian literature.

Vsevolod Meyerhold’s Biomechanics and Boris Zakhava's Educational Work

The article deals with two different approaches to training actors. One of them is Stanislavski’s system, and the other is Meyerhold’s biomechanics. Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko are reformers of the Russian theater. As the Art Theater founders, they understood that the emergence of a new drama would require a completely different approach to working with actors and a different design of the stage space. With regard to new performances, it became possible to pose critical social questions related to everyday life before the viewer. Therefore, it was logical that the director's profession became very important. Working on his system, Stanislavski paid great attention to the need for an actor’s comprehensive development. Many wonderful actors who attended his acting school were among the students of this great theater director. Vsevolod Meyerhold was one of them. However, the latter chose his direction and began to engage in staging performances actively and search for new means of expression, having come to an absolute convention on the stage. Meyerhold created his method of working with an actor, known as biomechanics, in the theatrical environment. The principle of this approach is the opposite of Stanislavski's system. With all the difference in views on the theater, in the early stages of Meyerhold's independent practice, Konstantin Stanislavski offered him the opportunity to cooperate, which led Vsevolod Meyerhold to the Studio on Povarskaya Street in Moscow. Evgeny Vakhtangov was another student of Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko. At the request of Stanislavski, Vakhtangov was engaged in educational work in the studio of Moscow Art Theatre. Unlike Meyerhold, he thoroughly mastered the system and then created his theatrical direction called fantastic realism. Vakhtangov's legacy was preserved thanks to the activities of his students, among whom was Boris Zakhava. He turned to Meyerhold for help and spent several seasons with the master, gaining invaluable experience, including revealing the features of biomechanics in practice. Boris Zakhava remained faithful to Vakhtangov’s principles and continued his teacher’s work at the Shchukin Theater Institute.

INNOVATIVE CODES OF THE LANGUAGE OF STAGE ART OF EUGENIY BAGRATIONOVICH VAKHTANGOV ON THE MATERIAL OF PERFORMANCES OF THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY

The creative work presented at the International intramural and extramural festival competition of youth theater companies - “Prometheus of a Rukh” - “Spirit of Prometheus” became a threshold of the present article, devoted to the Year of theater in Russia and to the 100 anniversary from the date of the birth of the National poet of Bashkortostan, the playwright Mustaya Karim, and gained the diploma of the Winner of the First degree. In the present work, as part of the creative path, the practice and theorist of the field of art of Eugeniy Bagrationovich Vakhtangov, the language of fantastic realism as the language of artistic theatre is studied. The starting point of the research is to establish the elements of the language of conditional theater based on scenographic, acting and directing decisions in Vakhtangov's performances. For this purpose, the author makes a retrospective appeal to the director's performances. In the analysis of the chosen performances, the artistic deals with innovative instrumentation of Vakhtangov’s theatre language, which formed the director 's own understanding of the artistic style of the theatre as fantastic realism. Elements of the theatrical language of the most significant performances are considered: “Peace Holiday”, “Cricket on an oven”, “Eric XIV”, “Gadibuk” and “Princess Turandot”. Based on the sources in which the performances are described, the Vakhtangov theatre language (style) is analyzed. As a result, descriptive definitions of the concepts of Vakhtangov style and fantastic realism are given. Interfacing analysis with the basic provisions of the concept of fantastic realism, elements of the language of conditional theatre are combined into a single table, which is one of the main results of the work. The work is written within the framework of the project XI.170.1.2. (0325-2017-0013), № АААА-А17-117022250128-5.

“Miraculous realism” in Zaitsev’s, Shmelev’s, Bunin’s prose (in context of magical realism, fantastic realism, mystical realism, spiritual realism, etc.)

There are many terms that denote the invasion of the inexplicable into a realistic narrative, such as: magical realism, fantastic realism, mystical realism, spiritual realism, transcendental realism, metaphysical realism, Christian realism, etc. The author suggests the term “miraculous realism” to describe the realistic works in which there are miraculous (means associated with the category of something unbelievable) event inserts are present. Such miracles lead to obvious violations of the laws of nature and do not fit into the “scientific picture of the world”. “Miraculous realism” in Bunin’s prose, in Zaitsev’s and Shmelev’s autobiographical works, considered in comparison to Chekhov’s materialistic method.

The irrational and the shift of human boundaries in contemporary novels by Castillon, Martinez and NDiaye

The infiltration of magical, marvellous and fantastic features in novels which have a realist anchoring is a remarkable trend in contemporary literature by women writers in French. In order to reveal the issues conveyed by such an imagery built on various literary traditions, I examine the representations of the irrational in recent novels by three authors: Eux (2014) and Les Pêchers (2015) by Claire Castillon, Du Domaine des murmures (2011) and La Terre qui penche (2015) by Carole Martinez and Ladivine (2013) by Marie NDiaye. I use the term “irrational” as a comprehensive notion referring to the fantastic and supernatural elements in the novels, including altered perceptions, paranormal and strange occurences, metamorphosis, staging of an alter ego, monstrosity and animality in human beings, life-after-death issues, emphasised relations to nature, and other phenomena and states that can not be explained by logic. Formulations of the irrational theme exploit a literary patrimony, related in particular to the traditions of medieval marvellous literature, the fairy tales, fantastic literature, surrealism and fantastic realism. I find that the irrational articulates a shift in human spatiotemporality towards vegetal states, animality or monstrosity, and initiates an altered approach to the world. A displaced sense of reality stemming from irrational phenomena and perceptions leads to a dislocation of human consciousness which is performed through the narrative voices. The framework for the analysis consists of a feminist and posthumanist conceptualisation which involves the notions of ‘performativity’ and ‘traces’ developed by Butler and Derrida.