Vol 23, No 3 (2018)

The myth about Hades and Persephone is analyzed in this article as an archetypical pattern, “characters’ structural precondition”. The pattern was widely used by artists and writers throughout the history of humankind. The paper is based on Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Metamorphoses by Ovid and a novel written by A. Beliy The Baptized Chinaman. Additional resources are the Renaissance and the Pre-Raphaelites art masterpieces and psychological work by C.G. Jung and С. Kerenyi Essays on a Science of Mythology. Methods such as comparative, mythological, psychological and linguistic analysis are applied in the paper. Cultural and philosophical ground of Hades and Persephone’s archetypes is examined. The most important characteristic among others is highly controversial relationship between gods and ambivalence of their characters, which demands a link component (mediator) to resolve the conflict. Pomegranate seeds are used as such symbolic mediators in the myth and a child narrator - in A. Beliy’s novel. The representation and embodiment of Hades’ archetype is Michael Letaev, while Kotik’s mother possesses Persephone’s traits. Plot allusions were distinguished and linguistic comparisons were made to prove the notion that neomyth about Hades and Persephone became the source of A. Beliy’s “desperate symbolism”. This neomyth contains archetypical motives and images which help Beliy to cross the line between reality and the world of unconscious, between words and symbols.

The article looks upon characteristic properties of poetic style of one of the brightest examples of the “Paris note” movement - of baron Anatolii Sergeevich Shteiger (1907-1944). It finds etymological roots of his ascetic lexicon and imagery that determine the immanent characteristics of one of Georgy Adamovich’s most fascinating poetic followers. It outlines a methodological analysis of structural features that reflect the poet’s tendency for architectonic and lexical minimalism. The article justifies the necessity to systematically study Anatolii Shteiger’s legacy as part of Russian Émigré Literature.

This article is a panoramic slice of the modern Russian poetry. According to the author, now it’s hard to talk about “leading directions and currents”, because domination of the formal content of private poetics is obvious. Every authors tries to adhere to their stylistic stratagem. It follows from the consideration of the oeuvre of some of the most famous modern poets. The author believes that the Russian poetry has never been so multifarious as in the last two decades. Speaking about the significant trends in modern domestic lyrics, the author noted the appearance of the so-called “philological lyrics”, gradual moving from the phenomenon of prosaizing and marginalization towards the “lyrical essence as it is”. The author’s reasoning and conclusions are based on many critical and analytical publications in recent years.

The article presents the results of a special study of top-managers of Russian media. The authors’ goal is to compile their generalized socio-demographic portrait. The study was conducted in two stages. The result of the first stage was a validated list of four criteria, on the basis of which the surveyed top managers were selected - 50 people for different media segments (television, radio, press) who worked as heads of the leading Russian media enterprises in 2000-2015. At the second stage, the biographies of selected top managers were analyzed. The collected data was subjected to statistical processing (calculation of percentage and average values).

The article presents the results of an empirical study, which was held shortly before of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The goal was to identify the features of the presentation of the Brazilian teams in social networks. The hypothesis that the authors tested was that popular teams have Internet resources that are very close to the ideal model. The authors identified the existing parameters of the ideal Facebook page and the ideal account model in Instagram and then extrapolated the results to the most ranked, according to official statistics, Facebook pages devoted to football: the Brazilian Football Confederation, the Flamengo clubs (Rio de Janeiro) and Corinthians (Sao Paulo). Accordingly, Instagram accounts of the same organizations were also studied. The results did not confirm the hypothesis and revealed communicative problems in the interaction of Brazilian football clubs with their fans in social networks.