Vitae as a Subject Source in the West European Pictorial Art of the 14–17th Centuries (On the Example of the Image of Saint Jerome of Stridon)

For many centuries, Western European art drew its subjects from ancient history, mythology and the Bible. The artists paid great attention to the depiction of saints, for each of whom, over time, a pictorial canon with its own attributes and certain subjects was formed. As a result, the viewer not only easily recognized a particular saint, but he could also get acquainted with the facts of his biography and the role he played in the history of the church. Saint Jerome of Stridon was one of the most popular among artists, of all the Fathers of the Church he was portrayed more often than others. The article discusses the formation of this canon on the example of Jerome’s life and work. It is based on a literature review of this topic and it contains the main studies of the biography and literary activity of Jerome, from which the artists drew subjects for their works. The article describes chronologically the vitae of St. Jerome, his hagiography from Jacobus de Voragine’s “The Golden Legend”, biography and posthumous legends, miracles and appearances of the saint from “Hieronymianus” by Giovanni d’Andrea. Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote a historical biography of Saint Jerome. Since the 19th century a large number of scientific studies of Jerome’s life and work has appeared. The article analyzes specific works of Jerome, which were also sources for pictorial images. Special attention is paid to a review of art history literature, as well as medieval bestiaries, since the paintings with St. Jerome are filled with numerous symbolic animals. A review of literature and sources on the stated topic will help stimulate researchers to further study the relationship between the lives of saints and their iconography in art, identify gaps in research on this topic and specify aspects that researchers have not yet paid attention to.

The genre of biographical essay in the works of Udmurt writers

Introduction: genre transformation in the Udmurt journalism of the end of the XX century is most clearly manifested in the biographical essays, based on real-life facts from the lives of famous representatives of the intelligentsia, natives of Udmurtia. The biographical essay in the Udmurt literature of this period demonstrates the presence of the elements of memoir, biography, elements of portrayal, problematic, biographical, social, historical essays as well as document / fact and fiction within the same work; the mental, intellectual principle is strengthened in it. The relevance of the article is due to the . fact that for the first time an attempt was made to consider the problems and poetics of the biographical essay in the work of Udmurt writers. Objective: to study the features of the biographical essay in the Udmurt social and political journalism at the end of the XX century; to describe the content and the formal components of the biographical essay, based on particular texts by Udmurt authors. Research materials: biographical essays of the Udmurt publicists M. A. Lyamin and S. A. Samsonov. Results and novelty of the research: the article is one of the first attempts of comprehensive analysis of the genre of the Udmurt biographical essay. The peculiarities of the modern Udmurt biographical essay are largely due to the desire of writers to convey the complex of the personality traits of their famous fellow countrymen – public figures, scientists, politicians, culture professionals. A biographical essay which combines «portrait-biography» and «portrait-characterization» as well as the parameters of a documentary story, a literary portrait and a historical biography testifies to the expansion of the aesthetic boundaries of Udmurt prose.

Converted Jews

The aim of the scientific paper to reconstruct the life strategies of the father of the famous figure of the Great Reform era M. Posen, as well as to attempt to study the little-known early stage of his biography. Research methods: biographical, reconstruction, hermeneutics, intertextual analysis, comparative studies, systemic-structural, conceptual method of M. Epstein, etc. Main results. Thanks to the use of a number of approaches, it was possible to reach broader issues, such as the reconstruction of the identity of two generations of the Posens, identification strategies for their entry into the imperial society and determination of the position and opportunities of converted Jews in the era of Alexander I. Thus, the principle of new historicism made it possible to analyze texts in their primary context, which in turn made it possible to investigate Posen’s attitude to texts, which was reflected in his project for changes in censorship. The systematic principle made it possible to reflect on the whole the process of development of the institution of censorship in the Russian Empire and the role of converted Jews in it on the M. Posen’s example. The study of legislative acts was carried out using the historical-juridical analysis and A. Etkind’s philosophy of reconstruction, which made it possible to inscribe the Posens’ history to the historical and cultural context of the era. Thanks to scientific tools and the involvement of previously unknown sources, it became possible to clarify the main milestones of M. Posen’s early biography, while he working in various departments, as well as possible reasons for career growth in the context of the Alexander era. Practical significance: the accomplished developments can be used in the future to create generalizing works on historical biography, Jewish study, interethnic history, social history, etc. Scientific novelty: for the first time, attempts were made to reconstruct the biography of M. Posen’s father based on the initial materials and the activities of the first generations of the Posens in Russia Empire. Type of article: analytical.

The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson

On December 8, 1941, Grace Holmes Carlson, the only female defendant among eighteen Trotskyists convicted under the Smith Act, was sentenced to sixteen months in federal prison for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. After serving a year in Alderson prison, Carlson resumed organizing for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and ran for vice president of the United States under its banner in 1948. Then, in 1952, she abruptly left the SWP and returned to the Catholic Church. With the support of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who had educated her as a child, Carlson began a new life as a professor who now advocated for social justice as a Catholic Marxist. The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic, Socialist, Feminist is a historical biography that examines Carlson’s story in the context of her times. Her experiences illuminate the workings of class identity within the context of various influences over the course of a lifespan. Her story contributes to recent historical scholarship exploring the importance of faith in workers’ lives and politics. And it uncovers both the possibilities and limitations for working-class and revolutionary Marxist women in the period between the first- and second-wave feminist movements. The long arc of Carlson’s life (1906–1992) reveals continuities in her political consciousness that transcended the shifts in her partisan commitments, most notably her lifelong dedication to challenging the root causes of social inequality. In that struggle Carlson proved herself to be a truly fierce woman.

A. YA. ZAKS, TEACHER OF THE TVER WOMEN'S TEACHER'S SCHOOL NAMED AFTER P. P. MAKSIMOVICH, IN THE AUTO-BIOGRAPHIC MEMORY OF A. M. NIKOLSKAYA

Статья посвящена восстановлению неизвестных деталей исторической биографии преподавателя Тверской женской учительской школы имени П.П. Максимовича и Тверского педагогического института, основоположника экскурсионной работы в СССР, организатора Института методов внешкольной работы Арта Яковлевича Закса. На основе исследования неопубликованных автобиографических документов Александры Михайловны Никольской анализируются неизвестные факты общественной и частной жизни педагога, выясняется сопряженность личного и исторического прошлого. Особое внимание уделяется проблемам источниковедческого потенциала женской автобиографической памяти, зафиксированной в эго-документах, гендерным особенностям памяти. В заключении делается вывод о том, что «количественная» достоверность женской социальной памяти, связанная с датировкой событий, может уступать «качественной» информации о реакции на произошедшее. The article is devoted to the restoration of unknown details of the historical biography of the teacher of the Tver women's teacher's school named after P.P. Maksimovich and the Tver Pedagogical Institute, the founder of excursion work in the USSR, the organizer of the Institute of Out-of-School Work Methods Art Yakovlevich Saks. On the basis of a study of the unpublished autobiographical documents of Alexandra Mikhailovna Nikolskaya, unknown facts of the teacher's public and private life are analyzed, and the interconnection between the personal and historical past is revealed. Special attention is paid to the problems of source study potential of women's autobiographical memory, recorded in ego-documents, gender peculiarities of memory. In conclusion, it is concluded that the «quantitative» reliability of women's social memory associated with the dating of events may be inferior to the «qualitative» information about the reaction to the event.

Ceramika z Bolesławca — dziedzictwo w tranzycie

This article analyses the phenomenon of stenciled ceramics from Bolesławiec, a city in Lower Silesia, which was annexed to Poland after the Second World War. On the basis of theories from the field of cultural heritage, memory studies, and economics, the authors trace the discrepancy between the modern view of these ceramics and their social and historical biography. As a result, they propose the use of two new terms, “heritage with multiple heirs” and the “economy of (non)memory,” which would help people to understand this multidimensional phenomenon and would encompass the appropriation of cultural heritage, the negotiation of its meanings, and the role of cultural heritage in a neoliberal economy.