HETERO-TEXTUALITY AND CO-SPATIALITY: FROM THE SEMIOTICS OF THE CITY TO THE TRANS-SEMIOTICS OF THE POST-CITY

Literary texts can be considered as the most attractive research material for analyzing the key features of both the semiotics of the city as a whole and the semiotics of individual cities, to which many works of art are devoted. The urban space of Modernity as a result of the processes of powerful semiotization can be considered as both textual and intertextual. The intertextuality of Modern urban spaces presupposes sets of “floating” topological signifiers corresponding to similar sets of “floating” topological signs. In the traditional semiotics of the city, the existence of two realities is assumed — the “real” reality and the “semiotic” reality, between which clear logical correspondences and/or relations can be observed and analyzed. The appearance of non-classical/post-classical urban narratives focused on the problems of dis-communication at the beginning of the 20th century became one of the important signs of the primary formation of the post-city and post-urbanism phenomena. The post-city is not a text and can not be regarded as a text; at the same time, it can generate separate texts that are not related to each other in any way. Post-urban texts, which are the communicative results of specific co-spatialities, remain local “flashes” that do not form a single text or meta-text (super-text). Hetero-textuality is a phenomenon of post-urban reality, which is characterized by the coexistence, as a rule, of texts that do not correlate with each other, relating to certain stable urban loci. Trans-semiotics in general context is understood as the study of any texts that involve the creation of sign-symbolic breaks or “gaps” with any other potentially possible correlating texts in the process of signification. Trans-semiotics of post-cities are studies of (literary) texts that involve the creation of sign-symbolic breaks or “gaps” with any other potentially possible correlating texts related to a particular urban locus in the process of signifying any urban loci. The post-city heterostructuality can be considered as the co-spatiality of mutually exclusive texts corresponding to “non-seeing” post-city loci. Post-urban trans-semiotics in the course of their development form a kind of “dark zones” that reject or neutralize any attempt at any semiotic interpretation.

THE PROVINCE IN NATALIA KHATKINA’S POETRY

The article contains a conceptual analysis of the province in the works of the Donetsk poet Natalia Khatkina (1956–2009). The main features of overcoming the creative provinciality are revealed: 1) an aspiration for the center; 2) a detached attitude to provincial realities; 3) an awareness of the essential identity of metropolitan and provincial poetry; 4) a creative product of the provincial center, similar to the capital. Semiotics of intentions of provincial life are shown on the examples of the Donetsk city text: 1) the desire for Moscow; 2) “provincial paintings” of the Donetsk life; 3) experiments of the author’s psychopoetic analysis; 4) experiments of the author’s creative reorientation. Province and provinciality are contrasted as interrelated, but diverse and not always coinciding factors of creative realization. “Province” — the location in relation to an administrative center; it’s the specifics containing a generalization; it is a common place that unites the diversity of certain areas into a single topos. “Provinciality”, on the contrary, is an abstraction that is filled with concrete psychological and social manifestations caused by the center-peripheral circumstances of creative existence. Overcoming provincial conditionality is understood as an ontological energy of aesthetic results. Poetic experience, in addition to its aesthetic value, also has the ontological power necessary to overcome external and internal circumstances. The analysis of poetic reflections which define the acts of creative overcoming and vectors of author’s intentions makes it possible to comprehend vital and creative experiences that have overcome external circumstances.

GROUP BURIAL IN AN ABANDONED WELL ON THE SCYTHIAN-ERA HILLFORT NEAR THE CITY OF ZADONSK

During the excavations of the hillfort located on the river Don near the village of Verkhneye Kazachye (Lipetsk region) the burial of four people, dating back to the 4th–3th centuries BC, was discovered in a pit left over from an abandoned well of the beginning of the Scythian era. It was done simultaneously, although it included heterogeneous remains. At a depth of about 4 m the full bodies of three men aged more than 50 years were buried. Above, a partially decomposed corpse and individual bones of another man aged more than 60 years were laid. Parts of cow carcasses and fragments of stucco dishes apparently accompanied the burial. The well pit, filled up to the top, was blocked by clay and carbonaceous layers left over from the site where the ritual actions were performed. There were two bone harpoon tips in the backfill. No traces of violent death were found on the remains of people. There was also no evidence of dismemberment of corpses. Markers of physiological stress and pathologies (caries, tartar, periodontal disease, osteophytes, lifetime fractures, etc.) were traced on the bones. The lifetime growth of individuals is determined. A graphic portrait reconstruction is performed for one of them. The studied object is interpreted as a funerary-sacrificial complex. In general, it is similar to the burials of the same time known at another Don hillfort in the city of Semiluki, which contained complete and scattered skeletons, traces of post-burial rituals.

THE PROBLEM OF ANNUAL PAYMENTS TO THE CRIMEAN KHANATE DURING THE RUSSIAN-TURKISH NEGOTIATIONS IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE 18TH CENTURY

Тhe paper considers diplomatic struggle around fixing in the Russian-Turkish agreements the refusal of annual payments to the Crimean Khan. This problem was one of the key issues in Russia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate during the Petrine era. The participation of Crimean diplomacy in the discussion of the problem at the Russian-Turkish peace talks remains poorly studied in Russian historiography. The Treaty of Constantinople (1700) secured the abolition of annual payments to the Crimean Khanate. However, the failure of the Prut campaign and non-fulfilment of Russian-Turkish peace agreements obligations by the tsar led to the renewal of the demand for annual payments. In 1711 and 1712, during negotiations with Russian ambassadors, the Ottomans did not insist on including to the peace treaty a clause on payments to the Crimean Khan and were content with oral promises. A difficult diplomatic struggle on the “Crimean dacha” unfolded at the peace talks in 1713, when Kaplan I Giray joined the active discussion of the problem. The clause on Crimean payments (without declaring direct obligations) was included in the text of the Adrianople (1713) and Constantinople (1720) treaties. By supporting the “khan’s claims” at the Russian-Turkish peace talks, the Sublime Porte demonstrated the readiness to protect the interests of its vassal. Peter I regarded the return of the clause about the “Crimean dacha” as a blow to Russia’s international prestige.

INFORMATION POTENTIAL OF BONE ARTIFACTS’ ORNAMENTED FRAGMENTS FROM THE CHERNOOZERYE COLLECTION

The research is aimed at updating the attention to the collections from museum storerooms, to the artifacts fragments that make up the bulk of their funds. The late Paleolithic Chernoozerye II site is located in the Sargatsky district of the Omsk region, it was discovered and studied in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the Ural archaeological expedition led by V. F. Gening and V. T. Petrin. Materials of this complex are well published by its discoverers. Bone artifacts decorated with ornaments are represented by a dagger, fragments of diadems, pendants, and a “hatchet”. The study is focused on two fragments of bone artifacts with a disturbed ornamental record, they are stored at the Omsk State Museum of History and Local Lore (OMK 9675/710, OMK 9675/713). The author discusses the technical algorithm of ornamental practice that is typical for this complex. The revealed stylistic features of ornamental plots contribute to the development of certain topics of paleoart studies — morphology of ornamental plots/signs, chronological markers of ornaments, principles of observation and fixation of patterns, cultural and genetic aspects of the development of simple plots. The results are offered as arguments for the development of a discussion about the vectors of cultural development in the south of Western Siberia in the final Paleolithic. For the first time, based on the characteristics of the key parameters of ornamental plots (the form of signs and the syntax of their constituent elements), the paper has indicated to the connection between the Chernoozerye material and the Ural ornamental tradition of the final Paleolithic — early Mesolithic.

THE PERM CIS-URALS IN 5th–7th CENTURIES: RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SETTLEMENT SYSTEM USING GIS

The article on the base of GIS-technologies reconstructs the tribal settlement system of the “Harin time” (5th–7th centuries) in the Perm Cis-Ural region. The basis for reconstruction is materials of 45 sites, forming five territorial groups. Each of these groups can be interpreted as a community (tribe) settlement area with internal economic unity. The comparative analysis of topographical peculiarities of the sites location, specifics of space organization, population dynamics, probable population size, communication links of groups made it possible to distinguish two types of adaptive strategies of human interaction with the environment. The first type has a producing economy (cattle-breeding) as its basis. This type was situated within the Tuisko-Poludenskaya and Sylvenskaya groups. The location of the settlements on the terraces above the floodplain in groups of two or three villages at some distance (about 3 km) from the necropolis is typical for this type. There are two or three groups of settlements within one territory, the distance between groups is about 6 km. The boundaries of the territory can be marked by hillforts, making up a single defensive / signal line. The second type is oriented to the appropriating economy — hunting and gathering — and was typical for the northern territories of the region (the Lologskaya, Gainskaya and Velvinskaya groups). The location of cemeteries near settlements (no more than 1 km) is typical for these territories. In this case, one cemetery often adjoins one village. There are from one to three or more such groups within the territory. The distance between them is 3–4 km. As a rule, there is one single hillfort in the territorial groups. In the first type, we can see the prevalence of local “Glyadenovo” traditions, and in the second — of foreign “Kharino” ones.

IN THE TRAJECTORY OF ECONOMIC REFORMS: SCIENCE AND SCIENCE POLICY IN THE YEARS OF THE “KHRUSHCHEV’S DECADE”

The paper is devoted to the problems of the USSR scientific and technology (S&T) policy during the “Khrushchev’s decade”, presented as part of the macroeconomic policy. The analysis is carried out in the context of economic reforms and experiments implemented in the country. The main components of S&T policy are revealed, the evolution of its structure and content in comparison with the first post-war decade is shown. In the analysis of S&T policy, the main attention is paid to the reflection of the status of science as a driver of economic development in the context of global challenges and the formation of new techno-economic paradigms. The emphasis on the applied function of research and development (R&D) proclaimed in the framework of S&T policy is presented as a reflection of the traditional for the USSR interpretations of the place and role of science in society under new conditions of scientific and technological revolution as a Soviet counter-thesis to the concepts of post-industrial society. The connection of decision-making mechanisms in the field of S&T policy with general line of Khrushchev’s populism, and the emerging practice of “bureaucratic bargaining” is outlined. The basic trends of approaches to planning in science and coordination in the field of R&D are identified, the directions of organisational restructuring in the governing of the scientific and technical complex are shown. It is concluded that S&T policy in the mid-1950s — 1960s remained a function of economic policy, that a unified S&T policy in the country under N. S. Khrushchev had not been formed. At the same time, the return on innovation remained at a low level.

REPRESENTATION INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE LATE SOVIET BOOSTERISM: URALS AND WESTERN SIBERIA

The article, based on the corpus of Soviet geographical poetry dedicated to the Urals and Western Siberia, examines the infrastructure set up to represent industrial projects. The adopted approach to studying geographical images of the Soviet industrial expansion of the 1950–1970s relies on the ideas of the “infrastructural turn” in the social sciences and uses as a research tool the methodology of “distant reading”. The author argues that the goals of the late Soviet representational project cannot be reduced to direct propaganda or mobilization. It was formed as a local version of modern boosterism — an expansionist ideology characteristic of the situation of forced creation of new territorialities and aimed at the formation of patriotic identities in new settlement centers. The Late Soviet geographical poetry was the product of this Soviet representational infrastructure, and the quintessence of its ideology, functioning within the framework of consolidating rhetoric, and giving rise to the figure of the poet, who was identified with poems dedicated to a certain infrastructure project. The Soviet boosterism implied placing the representations of industrial projects in a situational administrative-social context, while simultaneously producing indirect infrastructural effects that were crucial for the formation of urban “normality”, subjectivity and identity. The article outlines the main stages of the formation of the Soviet representational infrastructure, standard forms of its functioning in the late Soviet period; it describes historical geography of this network in the Urals and Western Siberia, which assumed different forms of dealing with the projects for representation of which it was created.

“NEW” REGIONAL PARADIGM AND THE DISCOURSE OF COLONIZATION

The article analyzes the conceptual novelties in the regional history studies, which in the 1980s led to the formation of a “new” regional paradigm in historical researches, and later, in the 1990–2000s, — the concept of “settler colonialism” as one of its applications to the study of colonization processes. A regional “turn” in historiography associated with the use of descriptions of regional situations as a model for analyzing larger levels of historical reality (including region-oriented institutionalism in economic history), as well as with changes in the thematic focus of regional history studies (environmentalism, structures of everyday life, ethnic history, history of mentality), formed — mostly on the materials of the colonized regions of the U.S. West — the paradigm of “new” regional history. In line with the criticism of the shortcomings inherent in F. J. Turner’s “frontier” concept, the “new” regionalism offers as a research paradigm a deeper and multidimensional view of the natural basis of the region and its typical everyday life structures, identifying the unique specifics of each region, structural analysis of the region’s societal composition, emphasizing the multicultural and multi-actor nature of the colonization process, the multiplicity of development strategies and the “nodal” character of social interactions. In turn, these methodological ideas formed the basis of the “settler colonialism” concept focused on the structural analysis of “societies” arising in the process of colonization, and their characteristic array of complicated socio-institutional and interethnic interactions. This allows us to characterize the “new” regionalism and its application to the analysis of the colonization phenomenon as an important stage in a more in-depth and multifaceted study of colonization problems.

SANITARY GUARDIANS IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA

The article describes the history of creation and activities of sanitary guardians in the cities of the Russian Empire. The study aims to identify organizational and social contradictions in guardianships’ activities, which hindered citizens from involvement in solving local sanitary problems. Boards of sanitary guardians were established by order of local authorities to involve the population in the fight against epidemics and conducting sanitary measures. The sanitary guardians’ activities consisted of timely notification of local authorities about the emergence of epidemics, participation in sanitary inspections of households, and conducting preventive conversations with homeowners about their compliance with public health and urban improvement regulations. The practice of citizens social participation in monitoring the urban area’s cleanliness was intended to level out the contradictions between homeowners and temporary doctors and sanitary executive commissions “alien” to the city community. Still, it often provoked conflicts between sanitary guardians and homeowners who defended the rights to inviolability of their property. In general, public oversight conducted by sanitary guardians has proven ineffective in the long term.