P. P. Bazhov. The Malachite Box [Malakhitovaya shkatulka]: A scholarly edition

A review of the first scholarly edition of The Malachite Box [ Malakhitovaya shkatulka], a famous collection of tales (skazy) by the Russian writer Pavel Bazhov. Bazhov created his distinctive artistic world, which provided the basis for the subsequent emergence of the unique mythology of the Urals. Bazhov’s skazy are an example of stylised folklore, yet the stylisation is itself rooted in folklore tradition. This scholarly edition of The Malachite Box includes a comprehensive historical, literary and philological commentary. The editors examine the differences between all nine editions of The Malachite Box published in Bazhov’s lifetime and the first publications of the tales and their holographs and discover a number of minor textual discrepancies across all publications in question. The book has the tales arranged chronologically, which offers a chance to follow Bazhov’s creative evolution and get a better understanding of his connection with his time.

Alexey Slapovsky vs Fyodor Dostoyevsky, or Life Without Being

The article examines the dialogue in A. Slapovsky’s works of the late 1990s–2000s with F. Dostoevsky. The article highlights forms and functions of this dialogue: the mention of the writer's name, the reinterpretation of his works perform the function of an ironic, often parodic, reflection on the changed status of the author, the nature of the readership, the perception of literature during a crisis of literary centrism; the value deformations occurring in society are emphasized with the help of a literary prism. “Dostoevsky's context” reflects the writer's reflection on his own work and allows us to judge the direction of Slapovsky's creative evolution.

Time, Transcendence in Islamic Thought and an Embrace of “Catholic Modernity”

Taylor characterizes Western modernity as being very inhospitable to the transcendent, yet also as opening an opportunity for a renewed engagement with the transcendent from within modernity. This debate is also vivid in Islam and I will reconstruct it by focusing on the concept of time (dahr). Some strains in Islam condemned the posture of maximizing the “flourishing of life” within the limits of (a life)time as dahriya because it would, in their eyes, constitute a rejection altogether of the transcendent. This position was seen as the quintessence of “the philosophers” (al Ghazali) and of Western modernity (al Afghani). Opposing this view, I will then explain how and why I can make a rapprochement between Charles Taylor’s proposal of a “Catholic modernity” and Islamic modernity through the lenses of Muhammad Iqbal’s philosophy of time. Through his analysis of the hadith “Do not vilify time, because time is God,” Iqbal shows that time (dahr) should not be considered as the antithesis of transcendence, but that in time, from within dahr, transcendence is present: in “creative evolution” (Bergson), life is not enclosed in immanence, but on the contrary God is manifesting himself under his name dahr.

The cultural potential of Modest Mentsinsky's work in the context of the development of the musical culture of the early twentieth century

The purpose of the article is to establish the contribution of the opera singer and famous tenor Modest Omelianovych Mentsynskyi to Ukrainian and world music art. The methodology is based on using historical, biographical, and analytical methods, which allows distinguishing and reviewing the special features of the Ukrainian singer‘s ―internationally universal‖ performance style as well as tracking the stages of his creative evolution. The scientific novelty of the research is in the affirmation that the artist‘s work within the mentioned period, on the one hand, led to the ―Europeanization‖ of the Ukrainian music culture, which influenced the formation of the national vocal and opera school, and, on the other hand, his high vocal level and popularization of the Ukrainian music in the walls of numerous European theaters promoted the popularization of the Ukrainian music culture in the world. Conclusions. Relying on the achievements of the three most famous opera schools (Italian, German and French) and his own experience, the signer formed the ―internationally universal‖ performance style, which helped him make a considerable contribution to the development of opera art in at least three countries: Germany (as the most prominent singer of Wagner‘s plays with a vocal role of a ―heroic tenor‖), Sweden (as a performer and pedagogue who stood at the origins of the vocal school in this country) and Ukraine (as a talented interpreter of the Ukrainian chamber repertoire and popularizer of the national music heritage in the world).

The Samcheong Hanok and the Evolution of the Traditional Korean House

The hanok or traditional Korean house has evolved to meet modern conditions that are continually updated. The “Samcheong Hanok” located in Bukchon, the most representative hanok village in Seoul, is a typical example. The house was originally constructed around 1940 but underwent several stages of extension and repairs before finally being renovated by architect Wook Choi in 2000. It is arguable that the evolution of the Samcheong Hanok illustrates a typical history of modern hanok, which is characterized as two types according to certain periods. The first is the urban-type hanok, built approximately between 1930 and 1960, which is a standardized version that was mass-produced for anonymous clients by a developer. The second, introduced around 2000, is the contemporary hanok, an individualized and tailor-made version built for a specific client in general. Based on analysis and integration of Bukchon’s historical context and Samcheong Hanok’s records, this paper aims to trace and reconstruct a plausible history of the house to illustrate the typical historical aspects of modern hanok—urban-type and contemporary. In the conclusion, after revealing the rigidity of the current hanok support system, several suggestions for a creative evolution of hanok are offered.

Folklore and literary continuum in the north caucasian novel of the late xx-th century in the aspect of ethnopedagogy

The purpose of the work is to comprehend the folklore-literary continuum in the major epic works of national writers. The relevance of the research is due to the scientific and cognitive interest in folklore aesthetics, which determined the dynamics of the development of artistic thought. The novelty of the research is to study the specifics of the inseparable interaction of oral literature and literature within the chronological period of the 1960s-1990s. The main attention is projected on the novel prose of the classics of Ingush and Karachay-Balkar literature Idris Bazorkin (1910-1993) and Alim Teppeev (1937-2010), who made a significant contribution to the development of artistic and intellectual thought of the North Caucasus region. The creative nature of the connection of these aesthetic systems contributes to the philosophical understanding of the historical events recreated by the authors in the life of an ethnic group, the comprehension of national psychology. The appeal to the images of the Ingush and Karachay-Balkar Nart epos, folklore motives is due to the solution of the problems of the spiritual evolution of the literary hero in the context of time. The conducted research allowed us to conclude that the continuity of folklore and literature gives prose works a high aesthetic beginning, the factor of creative evolution contributes to the creation of a national picture of the world, the achievement of artistic expressiveness.

Translation of the fairy tale by Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland" ("Anya in Wonderland") in the context of V.V. Nabokov

Nabokov's translation of L. Carroll's fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland" is analyzed in the article in two aspects: in the context of the meaning of the translation made at the early stage of Nabokov's creative evolution, in the writer's work, as well as in the aspect of translation features aimed at russifying the original, which make it possible to identify the translation as free. Through a comparative analysis of the translated work "Anya in Wonderland" with later Russian-language novels ("Invitation to Execution", "Gift"), as well as the writer's English-language works ("Lolita", "Ada"), the author of the article comes to the conclusion about the heroine's identity Anya's translated fairy tale to Nabokov's heroes in the aspect of their search for an artistic world corresponding to their inner content.

Lessons of stage art by V.V. Sladkopevtsev in the works of S.A. Yesenin

The article analyzes for the first time the little-known information about meetings and performances of S.A. Esenin with an actor and a famous theater teacher of the 1920s V.V. Sladkopevtsev. The role of V.V. Sladkopevtsev’s lessons of the performing arts in Esenin’s stage skills, recitation and poetic creativity is revealed using the theoretical propositions and "consistent painting of classes" published by him in the book “The Art of recitation” (1910), as well as the currently known documents and testimonies of contemporaries. It is shown that communication with Sladkopevtsev and other figures of Society of the Artistic revival of Russia was important not only in revealing Esenin’s natural acting talent, in mastering the skill of sounding words and acting, but also in the poet’s creative evolution, in diverse manifestations of the synthesis of musicality and visualization of his works, as well as in the theoretical understanding of the issues of the connection between art and the life of the Russian people.

THE PECULIARITIES OF THE RECEPTION OF HENRY FIELDING’S DRAMATURGIC HERITAGE IN CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CRITICISM

The research is devoted to exploring the features of reception of Henry Fielding’s dramatic heritage. The aim of the study is to analyze literary critics’ research of Henry Fielding’s creative work. We make the conclusion that Henry Fielding’s unprecedented success was due to the relevance of the topics and issues which the author focuses on. The characters, plots and themes were extremely close to the audience of that time and that is why they gained incredible popularity. In literary criticism, it was thought that the dramatic works served as a kind of start for Fielding to create his further fundamental works. But the writer should be considered in several guises: Fielding as a playwright, Fielding as a journalist, Fielding as a novelist, each of which deserves the detailed study and can help to provide a complete picture of the search that became the key to success in each new round of his creative evolution. We consider the analysis of Fielding’s plays, which can become a material for studying the genre preferences of the writer, the key to the study of his novels and Fielding’s impact on the next generations of playwrights.