Philology: scientific researches - rubric Editor-in-Chief's column

Abstract: Soon it will be 40 years since the date of death of an American literary critic and essay writer Lionel Trilling (105 — 1975). His literary and philosophical ideas are analyzed and studied by the author of the article. Lionel Trilling’s works have been quite popular in America. His discussions on TV got him most of his fame. His discussions appealed to so called ‘intellectuals’ but not the mainstream audience. While many USA writers were absorbed in mysticism, Lionel Trilling emphasizes the need for further development and enrichment of the practice of rationalism. The author of the present article uses the method of reconstructing the life story of a critic. He also uses the methods of comparative analysis and metaphysical reflection and adopts the techniques of axiological measurement of human being. The novelty of this research article is the following: this article is the first one in Russian scientific literature to acquaint the readers with Lionel Trilling and his essays on literature an society such as ‘The Liberal Imagination’ (1950), ‘The Opposing Self’ (1955), ‘A Gathering of Fugitives’ (1956), ‘Beyond Culture’ (165) and others.

Keywords: philology, philosophy, liberalism, society, mind, belief, rationalism, consciousness, utopia, nihilism.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.1.14921

Abstract: The article presents an analysis of prose writing of a famous author and philosopher Vladimir Kantor. In a sense, his numerous works reflect the history of the Soviet society through unique images of the main characters. Of course, Vladimir Kantor does not see himself as a story writer of previous decades. He describes the everyday life and personalities of his heroes based on his own memories ad impressions. The writer himself tells us about it. He says it does not make any sense to retell his biography because his life is all shown in his creative work. However, it is not his own life Vladimir Kantor focuses on. He describes existential experience of several generations. Vladimir Kantor's vision of the events described in his books can be associated with European and world philosophy and amazes with its profound generality and insight into human nature. In his analysis of Kantor's creative work, Gurevich applies the methods of literary research and comparative analysis. Gurevich also tries to provide a general description of Kantor's prose writing. In fact, Kantor's works have never been analyzed as an independent research subject. Kantor's books usually had brief reviews or prefaces but there is a very limited number of articles or researches devoted to Kantor. Meanwhile, the reading audience is showing more and more interest towards Kantor's books with every year passing by. This is why in his article Gurevich does not only review particular novels or stories written by Kantor but also tries to describe the writer's prose writing activity in general. Kantor's works and activity have been so versatile that they deserve to be the subject of an independent monographic research but not just an article.

Keywords: literature, prose, philosophy, images, tragism, biography, developed mind, intelligentsia, love, death

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.1.66417

Keywords: literature, prose, philosophy, images, tragism, biography, developed mind, intelligentsia, love, death

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.1.18192

Abstract: The predicting power of philosophy is well known. Everyone also knows how immense artistic intuition can be. Rereading such science fiction authors as Ivan Efremov, Stanislav Lem, Arthur Clarke, the Strugatsky brothers, Ray Bradbury, Alfred Harrison, Kurt Vonnegut and others, we can be surprised at how much they predicted. American writer Robert Sheckley has a lot of philosophical plots in his works, too. His imagination has no limits. However, these are not just fruits of imagination as it seems. The writer tried to understand what consequences social transformations and scientific discoveries could have for the human future. In this research Gurevich uses the method of hermeneutical analysis that allows to understand the writer's messages. Using satire the author describes absurd situations created by the technological progress. It is for the first time in the academic literature that Robert Sheckley's stories are being analyzed as philosophical plots. The author of the present research article underlines that being familiar with psychoanalysis and gestalt psychology, Robert Sheckley tried to define the predicting power of those stories. He shows that reality is often just a fragile picture created by our senses, emotions, memory, experience and imagination. The surrounding reality is, in fact, fictitious. It is comprised of a million of details that are rooted in our subconscious and may become evident at every given opportunity.

Keywords: philosophy, literature, fantasy, psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology, technology, murder, cruelty, hallucinations, crime

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.1.67581

Keywords: philosophy, literature, fantasy, psychoanalysis, gestalt psychology, technology, murder, cruelty, hallucinations, crime

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2017.1.22353

Abstract: The article is devoted to a new conceptual term of literary studies, ontological poetics. Being a unique phenomenon of historical poetics, ontopoetics plays an important role in the process of analyzing historical and contemporary processes of artistic creativity. Ontopoetics can be also viewed as a special method of hermeneutical text analysis. Being related to the material world, ontological poetics is not limited to the analysis of reality. On the contrary, it tries ot connect the personal existence of a writer to the overall cosmic existence. These are spiritual contacts and ontological intuitions that help researchers to define the plot and image structure of a writing and understand specific symbols and metaphors of a writing. The author uses the principle of historicism demonstrating the development of ontological poetics in researches by L. Karasev and N. Shogentsukova. The author pays special attention to hermeneutics of artistic writings. The author tries to demonstrate what makes ontological poetics be of such high demand today. Ontological searches of poetry always address to philosophy. In its turn, philosophers have interest in poetry, too. Contemporary philosophers take a deep poetical image as a universal concept of existence. When concepts are helpless or insufficient, philosophers such as Martin Heidegger addresses to a poetical image, and Word acquires a deep ontological meaning.

Keywords: historical poetics, inomorphic, meaning, ontological melancholy, image-structure, hermeneutics, metaphor, symbol, ontological poetics, poetics, theory of poetry

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2021.8.36216

Abstract: This article reviews the headline structure on the online news portals that are dedicated to sport events. The object of this research is a typical model of heading complex, while the subject is the specificity of text heading strategy during a notable sport event, such as the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The article employs the method of continuous sampling of headlines, classification and interpretation of the acquired material, comparative analysis, as questionnaire-based survey of young journalists – students of the faculty of Journalism. The answers of respondents indicated that these information portals have become a traineeship for the students majoring in sports journalism. The novelty of this article is defined by the following factors: most common headline structure on the sports information portals consists of two simple sentences; there are four types of relationships between the parts of headline. The author determines the reason for the dominance of the two-part headline complex: on the one hand, it is explained by the general evolution of headlines of the Internet media – from drawing attention towards purely informative, which virtually replaces reading of the material. On the analyzed Internet portals, this is complemented by the tendency towards copying the structure of the post in social media: the image and short description it, which can unfold to a larger text upon the desire of the reader. It is assumed that namely the prevalence of young journalists in sports media and the focus on young audience that follows sports events t leads to the increase of headlines of such type.

Keywords: internet mass-media, youth journalism, sports journalism, heading, header layout, heading complex, sports media, Youth media, strategy intituling, simple sentence

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2013.2.62892

Abstract: In Russian literature culture has become the object of historical and sociological researches lately. All kinds of events and world cultural artifacts have been described. Many social discoveries of the phenomenon of culture have been made but still the philosophical aspect of the problem is not well studied. Modern philosophy raises many metaphysical cultural issues. Moreover, cultural philosophy (or philosophy of culture) aimed at philosophical understanding of culture as a universal and extensive phenomenon, has been formed as an independent branch of science. The author of the article appeals to creative work written by a famous poet T. Eliot and analyzes his thoughts related to cultural philosophy. Eliot believed that American culture did not have any deep roots. This is why it was filled with the spirit of pragmatism. It was not an accident that the poet called America ‘a vulgar country’. Associating American culture with ‘barbarianism’, the poet described the phenomenon of American culture as a denial from spirituality and tradition. The poet treated traditions with much respect and believed they contained social experience and roots. Thus, we can say that Eliot represented practical skills and consciousness of the ‘thinking’ intelligentsia. Most of all Eliot respected the spirit of culture.

Keywords: philology, culture, philosophy of culture, Rationalism, activity, archaism, spirituality, poetry, creativity, art.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.2.14364

Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of the aesthetic ideas of the German philosopher, psychologist and educator Eduard Spranger. Last year his book «Types of men: the psychology and ethics of personality» was fully published for the first time in the Russian language. Among six human types Eduard Spranger singls out the aesthetic man. Reconstructing this type, he turns to aesthetics and exposes his opinions about the nature of the beautiful and aesthetics as a psychological character. A special role belongs to his ideas about prominent philosophers and poets who, he believes, represent the aesthetic type. The author of the article uses methods and techniques of aesthetic analysis of works of art. The typology of forms of life is deduced from a comprehensive picture of the philosophy of spirit. The article is based on hermeneutic analysis of artistic creation and aesthetic practice. The aesthetic man in the works of Eduard Spranger is analyzed for the first time in Russian literature. The author of the article points out that an aesthetician as Soren Kierkegaard understands it and the aesthetic man of Eduard Spranger are not similar by their conceptual interpretation. The expressionist and impressionist forms of existence are being compared and analyzed. In his article Gurevich underlies that certain provisions of the aesthetic theory of Spranger are not new and sometimes require critical assessment.

Keywords: beauty, literature, forms of life, aesthetic man, art, artistic image, fantasy, imagination, poetry, beautiful

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.2.66771

Keywords: beauty, literature, forms of life, aesthetic man, art, artistic image, fantasy, imagination, poetry, beautiful

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2014.2.12207

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2014.2.65032

Abstract: The essay is devoted to the memory of a poet Alexander Aronov. This year it will be thirteen years since his death. Alexander Aronov was born on August 30, 1934 in Moscow. His mother was uneducated but well read. She named her sons after the brothers Pushkins. She named her eldest son Alexander and her youngest son Lev. Alexander Aronov’s father was a musician. He tried to teach his son some music but Alexander, as he himself admitted, ‘would fall on the piano hitting his forehead and go to sleep’. However, he discovered another talent – a gift for poetry. Alexander started to write poems when he was a school student. His poems were often published in newspapers much time had passed by till a book of his poems was published. Aronov’s first book ‘The Island of Safety’ was published in 1987 when the author was 53 years old. His second book ‘The Text’ came two years later. However, many Russians still hum his verses from the movie ‘The Irony of Fate’ that became words of the famous songs in the movie such as ‘If you have no house, it will never go on fire, if you have no wife, she will never leave you for anyone else, if you have no aunt, she will never decease, if you don’t live, you will never die’ and etc. The author of this essay uses the literary critical analysis of Alexander Aronov’s works. He also compares his poetry with the poems written by other poets and uses the method of phenomenological analysis of poetry. Many authors have written about the poet such as Bella Akhmadulina, Evgeny Rein, Vadim Chernyak, Sergey Nitochkin, Igor Guberman, Alexander Eremenko, Alexander Minkin, Sergey Aman, Gennady Aygi, Ivan Zhdaov, Leoid Zhukhovitsky, Tatyana Bek, Sergey Mnatsakanyan, Oleg Khlebnikov, Andrey Chernov and Andrey Yakhontov. But there is no limit to understanding poetry so the author of the present essay offers his own interpretation of the poetry of a famous Russia poet Alexander Aronov.

Keywords: poetry, poet, Aronov, speech, word, prophet, love, anxiety, moment, fate.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.2.19320

Abstract: The article is devoted to the poetics of fashion as it is analyzed in the monograph of a famous culture expert Inna Osinovskaya. It is noted that fashion could be created only in the kind of society that had at least some redundance of things. In her book Osinovskaya analyzes the 'vocabulary' of glossy magazines and press releases. At the same time, fashion brings forth the world of ancient myths and old fairy-tales which images have been always inwrapped with mystery. The main purpose of Inna Osinovskaya is to analyze the poetics of fashion and the system of images in fashion. In her research Osinovskaya applies the principle of historicism allowign to include numerous myths and fairy-tales in the analysis of modern fashi8on. As a result, considerable literary texts have been included in the spghere of fashion poetics. A lot of researches seem to have been written on the topic of fashion. However, thorough analysis of the topic demonstrates that there are a lot of fashion aspects that have never been studied. In particular, the graphic structure of fashion and singular poetics of fashion. Appealing to this topic, the researcher shows what a recipe book, glamour magazine and sacrifice, catwalk show and sacramental rites have in common. Osinovskaya studies typical fairy-tale characters such as the spinstress, tailor and shoemaker. She traces back the influence of these images on the poetics of modern fashion. Thus, the researcher manages to show the internal relationship between folklore and modern literature.

Keywords: literature, holiday, things, simulacrum , cult, luxury, glamour, image, fashion, poetics

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.2.68038

Keywords: literature, holiday, things, simulacrum, cult, luxury, glamour, image, fashion, poetics

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.3.16885

Abstract: Thirty years ago the novel 'The Scaffold' written by Chyngyz Aitmatov provoked intense debates and ideological disagreements. Many readers and critics wondered whether spiritual searches must necessarily lead to religion. There have been people whose spiritual experience prove that there are certain transcendental forces that are beyond our understanding. These people believe in God who suffered for the sake of humans because he loves us. Sometimes a person gets the feeling of being very close to the Divine and being able to communicate with God directly. The believer says a prayer in the hope of God hearing his confession. Such person attains religious experience that helps him to live and overcome difficult situations. These people believe that the mystery of human life refers to special divine mission. However, many people do not have such religious experience. They believe that the world was created on its own, without the interference of the transpersonal absolute. These people seek for other spiritual supports unrelated to God, first of all, in human himself, emancipation of consciousness and grandiose creativity of the humankind. It is almost pointless to discuss religious topics with them, because their soul cannot generate anything besides scepsis. This creates a rather odd conversation, interlocutors can't find a common language with each other, one trying to prove that there is God and the other one trying to say that there is no God. The author of the present article bases his work on recent researches conducted in the sphere of philosophy of religion. His presumption is that the religion phenomenon has always interested philosophers, historians and sociologists. Religious searches and insights have been also reflected in literature. Analyzing Chyngyz Aitmatov's novel 'The Scaffold', the author of the article tries to describe tremendous changes in the social mind of Russians during the previous thirty years. Fashion for religiosity is overwhelming. We don't even notice that religious maxims have replaced the slogans of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They are written on the banner above the highway. When we turn on TV, we may feel even surprised if we don't see Orthodox vigils. Politicians always mention their religious revelations when telling us their biography. Where are you, undefeated heretics? What is actually typical for the religious life of Russia? Can we actually speak of religious revival in our country? Are the churches actually uniting or on the contrary religious practice causes disunity? Finally, are there prospects for the development of the ecumenic movement in Russia? All these questions cannot be answered without involving secular humanistically oriented philosophers and thinkers. Can we actually revive the abandoned religious tradition in our country? As a result of totalitarian despotism, many people have been knocked out of their national, religious and cultural niche.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.3.20559

Abstract: In this article Gurevich tries to track back the influence of psychoanalysis on the fate of the novel in the XXth century. The transformation of the novel as a genre at the beginning of the last century was closely related to the countercultural movement against the Victorian system of values. The Victorian era was characterized by the evangelistic-puritan ethics, utilitarianism and liberalism, hypocrasy and dictate over the erotic behavior. However, the Victorian era was replaced by the other system of life and practical attitudes. The new system was called anti-Victorian. In the beginning new values were established in the everyday life and way of thinking but later started to have a significant influence on arts. This is how the first movement of the Pre-Raphaelites appeared in the British culture during the Victorian era. However, the most significant changes happened in the sphere of novel writing. In his research Gurevich used the principle of historicism which allowed him to compare two eras in the history of the Great Britain and describe similarities and differences therein. For the first time in the Russian academic literature the transformation of the novel as a genre that happened at the beginning of the last century is compared to the origin of Freudism and the strong influence of Freudism on artistic intelligentsia. The artistic process itself happened to be influenced and changed by the new values. British philosopher Herbert Spencer described philosophical grounds for the new sense of values towards making hedonistic attitudes 'legal'. This is how the transformation of the novel began and from that moment on the novel was aimed against hypocracy. Changed involved not only the plot. Many traditions that characterised the poetics of the novel changed, too. The novel started to have a more open nature and the novel did not have a previously estabilshed scheme any more.

Keywords: values, art, heroization, psychology, literature, Victorian era, plotlines, unconscious, psychoanalysis, novel

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.3.67170

Keywords: sacrifice, personality, morals, spirituality, atheism, God-seeking, art, literature, faith, redemption

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.3.68239

Keywords: values, art, heroization, psychology, literature, Victorian era, plotlines, unconscious, psychoanalysis, novel

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2013.3.9594

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2013.3.63566

Abstract: The article tells us about traditions related to researching the myth and fairy tale as a part of semiotics. The author of the article underlines the role of Vladimir Propp in the analysis of oral folk arts from the point of view of semiotics. The author also provides a description of Claude Levi-Strauss’ structural anthropology, emphasizes peculiarities of semiotic interpretation of the myth and fairy tale and describes traditions in interpretation of this topic represented by Franco-Belgium school and American researches. At the same time, the author shows that the most recent researches of modern folk arts refer to returning to traditional methods in philology. It allows to record the rise in diachronic researches of folk arts. Folklore studies have always been very close to the science about language and literature. Due to the fact that folklore researchers were quite interested in methods of structural linguistics, structural-semiotic studies on the basis of the synchronous approach became the major field of research. However, very soon the researchers realized that such an approach was too one-sided and limited so they became interested in diachronic researches, i.e. evolution of folklore genres and dynamics of the structure in folk artwork. There is a growing interest towards structural-semiotic studies of forms of folklore and social environment influencing the verbal folk arts. In Russia methods of philological research are now associated with the methods of structural-semiotic folklore studies.

Keywords: philology, structural anthropology, folk art, tradition, semiotics, myth, fairy tale, creative work, folklore studies, methodology.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2014.3.13004

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2014.3.65663

Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s views on the role of intelligentsia in the modern world. That topic became very important for Sartre after the trial of Joseph Brodsky in the USSR. After he had failed to obtain the repeat of the sentence on the poet, Sartre started to work on the book devoted to intelligentsia. His book ‘In Defense of Intelligentsia’ is devoted to the analysis of creative activity and the role of intelligentsia in the life of society. Why did Sartre state his views on the mission of that particular social stratum? He shared his thoughts on who could be considered to be intelligentsia and what functions an intelligent had in the society. Sartre defended intelligentsia who inherently were opposed to the government and criticized the thesis that intelligentsia performed only spiritual-protective functions. Based on the contents of the writer’s book, the author of the present article raises a question about the mission of intelligentsia and focuses on the phenomenology of knowledge and the need of the society in implementation of the social-critical function. The novelty of the article is conditioned by the fact that Jean- Paul Sartre’s book and his ideas on the phenomenon of intelligentsia and its role in the society were not known in the Russian academic community. The author of the article also stresses out that Sartre described the three main features of modern practical knowledge. He also underlines that an intelligent will always remain an agent of practical knowledge, i.e. he will always use the same research methods to analyzing the reality even beyond his competence. It is shown that intelligentsia was created as a result of the contradiction between the universal needs of their profession and particular interests of the ruling class.

Keywords: intelligent (member of intelligentsia), functions of intelligentsia, practical knowledge, ideology, writer, praxis, knowledge, elite, pseudo-intelligent, social criticism.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.4.17487

Abstract: The purpose of the research is to analyse the monologue of Philip the baron in Alexander Pushkin's tragedy 'The Miserable Knight'. Pushkin's little tragedies are enormously rich in psychological findings. As a branch of science, psychology was only about to be born, but a true genius does not need to read books. He looks into the nature of personalities and human passions. Pushkin fearlessly reveals the duality of human feelings. He demonstrates that one emotional state may insensibly turn into the opposite emotion which was hidden at the bottom of the triumphant feeling. The feeling of unlimited power creates fear and uncertain sensation of a catastrophe in the baron's heart. The fear as it is is distinguished from the awe which is a deeper emotional state unexplainable by logic when 'it is both fear and pleasure'. It is not an accident that Albert addresses to the moneylender with a paradoxical greeting: 'Damn Jude, honorable Solomon'. In his research Gurevich has usedthe methods of psychological and linguistic analysis such as decoding of ambivalent human feelings, analysis of emotional states and the character's speech. Gurevich also appeals to modern Pushkin studies and makes an attempt to carry out his own storyboarding of the monologue of the Miserable Knight from Pushkin's little tragedy. The author also tries to actualize the message of the poem and to define paradoxical logic of feelings. At the same time, in his article Gurevich tries to illustrate the Miserable Knight's speech with references to modern psychology. Thus, analysis of the little tragedy's content is included into the phenomenology of people's sensible world.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2015.4.67366

Keywords: Pushkin studies, little tragedies, richness, power, passion, fear, awe, feelings, ambivalency, metaphor

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2014.4.13414

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.4.21364

Abstract: The article is devoted to the great contribution of Nikolay Karamzin to the reformation of the Russian language. Many words created by Nikolay Karamzin are now commonly use4d. However, the process of their creation was not so easy or socially recognized. It is partly due to the competition in word invention that was famous in the 18th - early 19th centuries and performed by not only poets such as V. Grediakovsky or M. Lomonosov but also historians and literary critics. Each word-forming experiment was based on a certain ideological or philosophical tradition. It was rather difficult and risky to look into the future of the langauge and linguistic tendencies under the conditions of ideological disputes of those times. Nikolay Karamzin's achievements were faultless from this point of view. Certain words used by him did not only enrich the Russian language but also promoted serious philosophical research. The author of the present article uses the principle of historicism that allowed to demonstrate not only the results of the word polemics of those times but also the process of their painful and difficult development. Analyzing Nikolay Karamzin's achievements in the Russian langauge reformation, the author tries to show the change in linguistic preferences of Nikolay Karamzin, to reveal failures of some experiments and define general cultural attitudes and trends in the Russian language improvement typical for that time. According to the author of the article, due to Nikolay Karamzin's 250th jubilee many his achievements in the spheres of philosophy, history and literature have been finally appreciated and described. As for Nikolay Karamzin's language and linguistic tendencies, this part of his heritage still needs to be researched further.

Keywords: Slavic wisdom, style, aesthetics, literature, epistolary (correspondence) genre, linguistics, reform, language, language arts, Karamzin

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2014.4.65769

Abstract: The article is devoted to the vision of a prophet that Lermontov had. Much is said about Lermontov as a messenger. The author of the present article tries to clarify what meaning the word ‘prophet’ acquires when we talk about a poet. It is noted that the poet’ vision of the future almost in all cases coincided with what actually happened some time later. Such a gift, as Pavel Gurevich states, is usually typical for the personality type called ‘intuitive’ by Carl Jung called. People with this personality type have a weak connection with the reality, they address to the world of ideals and spiritual absolutes. Mikhail Lermontov is a bright representative of this personality type. He can be called a ‘tragic philosopher-visionist. In his research article Pavel Gurevich uses methods of hermeneutic analysis of text. The author has also used the historicism method allowing to understand the social environment when this or that prophecy was created by the poet. Pavel Gurevih has also used the comparative approach allowing to compare the poet’s gift of prophecy with a similar gift of Alexander Pushkin. The novelty of the article is in the author’s attempt to analyze what is usually meant when researchers talk about Lermontov as a prophet. The author of the article does not only discuss the poet’s capability to predict future events. He also talks about Lermontov’s personality and analyzes feature that are generally typical for intuitive introverts. These personality types have unique features. They can actually see ahead and foresee future events which cannot be viewed by other personality types.

Keywords: poetry, prophet, philosopher, future, vision, messenger, prophecy, prediction, genius.

DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2016.4.68539