Vol 23, No 4 (2018)

At the beginning of the 1920s Moscow was in the middle of a housing crisis: after the revolution the housing resources in Moscow have decreased, while the population has increased. The housing shortage has become the sign of decade and has been treated therefore in many satirical magazines by Sergei Garin, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Pantelejmon Romanov and other satirists. Mikhail Bulgakov, who went through this crisis himself, also belonged to these satirists. The present article deals with Bulgakovs feuilletons and stories which treat the housing question in Moscow. The analysis includes following stories and feuilletons: “Vospominanie”, “Stolitsa v bloknote”, “Ploshchad’ na kolesakh”, “Moskva 20-kh godov”, “Moskovskie stseny”, “Samogonnoe ozero”, “Nr. 13 — Dom Ėlpit-Rabkommuna”.

The article is devoted to the anthroponym function of the name “Silva” in two novels by Dina Rubina: “Belaya golubka Kordovy” (“The white dove of Cordoba”, 2009) and “Sindrom Petrushki” (“The Punch Syndrome”, 2010). The name “Silva” is repeated in the texts of these works and there are two characters which have it - in the first novel it’s a woman, in the second one it’s a man and the functions of these two characters are similar. The plot analysis and the character details comparison allows us to see the function homology: Silvas help to the main characters to “come to themselves”, “see themselves as are” and to “find themselves”. The novels “Belaya golubka Kordovy” (“The white dove of Cordoba”) and “Sindrom Petrushki” (“The Punch Syndrome”) are the parts of the trilogy “Lyudi vozdukha” (“Air people”), the main theme of which is the description of the people who have unusual characteristics. The “Silvas” characters help to the main character to compensate this “unusuality” and to have a chance for a “normal” life. The images of Silvas take to the text the motives of “alien name”, “alien child” and the theme of father-child relationship. Besides the episode function of the “Silvas” both characters concentrate in themselves the motives which are communicated with the fate of the main hero, tragic o happy final of the novel. The name “Silva” also has an intertextual communication with the “Silva” (“Chardash Queen”) operetta, the plot of which is also used in the novels “Belaya golubka Kordovy” (“The white dove of Cordoba”) and “Sindrom Petrushki” (“The Punch Syndrome”) by Dina Rubina.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the political media memes’ structure and to compare them with simulacra according to the theory of Jean Baudrillard. We consider, that media memes have a clear structure via they could spread in social media. This structure also allows media memes to spread in media. Through analysis of political media memes’ spreading, generating and evolution as viral units, we could understand post-truth policy. Comparison of political media memes with simulacra could became one more step to better understanding of viral information and post-truth.

The article presents the results of the thematic analysis of the TV talk show “Let them talk” (within the season 2017) - the highest rated program of the First Channel. The main goal is to identify the real values promoted by its creators and participants to the public. The relevance of the study is explained by the fact that the federal television in modern Russia reproducts the socially significant patterns of thinking and behavior of citizens in an attempt to unite society on the basis of common values. If the program “Let them talk”, according to its authors’ attitudes, brings to discussion the sensible subjects for “all of the Russians without exception”, there is a reason to discover and comprehend the explicit and implicit subjects using the content analysis and thematic analysis. As a result of our analysis we identified the values’ paradox: though the word “child” was the most mentioned in season 2017 the narrative role attributed to the children in the TV-show in question is to be “Me Guffin” (A. Hitchcock’s terminology). The substance of the above-mentioned paradox is that the child itself is important only as a tool for achieving the goal and at the same time the child is often the reason of conflicts between the show participants. The main results of the study were presented in english as a paper “Let Them Talk as Encyclopedia of Russian Life: Latent Accursed Questions on Russian Television (2017)” for the the Eighth International Scientific and Practical Conference “Modern problems of linguistics and didactics: Interdisciplinary approach in the humanities and social sciences”.

The article is devoted to the prose translational publications of the first Russian popular science magazine “Monthly Essays for Benefit and Entertainment”. These publications are moralistic. Their sources were Western European literary magazines, as well as collected works of European authors. Translated literature was in the XVIII century was almost the main channel through which the Russian educated society spontaneously assimilated the ideas of the European Enlightenment. Along with this, a culture of literary and artistic translation developed. Journal Editor Academician G.F. Miller believed that translated moral prose combines both of the fundamental principles of his journal - “benefit” and “entertainment”.

The article focuses on the analytical research of the crucial thesis of the Fareed Zakaria’s CNN film “The most powerful man in the world” and offers also a political characteristic. Proceeding from the political and media reality peculiar for the analyzed film, we reveal its role and predestination in the political and informational global opposition of the USA and Russia in the newest period of history. According to the implemented analysis, the authors have revealed a totally stereotypic approach to the informational, political and psychological estimation of Russia and its reality. The same problem is typical for the attitude towards the Russian elites.