Vol 27, No 1 (2022)

A staged version by V. Krylov and G. Sutugin of Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot (1899) is the only staging of this novel in the XIX century that was approved by censors and directed in two theaters: the Maly Theater and the Alexandrinsky Theater. Other adapations were banned for scene as a result of low quality and of impropriety of the novel and Dostoevsky in general on the stage. Dostoevsky’s work seemed too realistic and pessimistic for stage and mass performances: lack of virtue and chastity in the characters and their actions gave rise to censorship assertions that Dostoevsky was absolutely not a stage author. However, intriguingly, Krylov’s play differed little in quality from the previous ones: it was also a compilation of the chapters of the novel, concentrated on the love “triangle” between Nastasya Filippovna, Rogozhin and Myshkin. But the ending of Krylov’s text (it is believed that it was Krylov who took the main part in its creation) was full of moralizations and was completely invented by the authors. Perhaps it was this fact that influenced the positive decision of the censors. In this article, we will consider censorial acts and try to puzzle out key to success by Krylov and Sutugin.

The meaning of the mysterious dialogue between the poet and the Muse in the final part of the poem is revealed in the process of consistent reading. It should be noted that in the human and natural world, the separation of darkness and light, sleep and wakefulness, idle life and devotion, is reflected in the poet’s preference for his Muse to earthly honors, youth and independence. This brings together two poets from different historical epochs in the finale of the poem: the poet who lives now, like the Renaissance poet, continues to serve the Muse. The Muse in this poem has a human-like appearance, body, voice and look. This visual detail of the image of the Muse is important for the poetic persona and the reader because it transforms something important and sublime into an intimate, personal dimension. The personal communication plane is marked by the stylistic opposition of “laurels” and “dear”. Her attribute (αὐλός) corresponds more to Pan than to Apollo-citharoedus. Therefore, the natural state of the world here is not hostile, but representative of human life. In the course of the study, it turns out that the reference to the Divine Comedy is supported not only by the obvious mention of Dante in the finale, but also in the very first stanza.

The article discusses the issue of reception of Russian drama of the 20th century in China on the basis of the theatrical and critical reception of A. Arbuzov’s play Old-Fashioned Comedy , which was repeatedly staged in theaters of the country at different cultural and historical stages and in recent years has again been in demand among theatrical figures and audiences. An analysis of the performances of a well-known text, reviews and readers' reactions to it make it possible not only to trace changes in the perception of the play in a foreign cultural space, but also to examine the social processes that cause such changes, as well as to touch upon the theatrical life itself and stage experiments in China. The conclusion is made that the universal human content of the playwright's plays, the timeless values that are affirmed in his work, and the inherent scenicity, the organic nature of the dramatic language help to successfully adapt the author’s works not only to the modern Russian theater, but also for the foreign language ones. An example of a successful dialogue of cultures in the theatrical and dramatic sphere is the stage history of the play Old-Fashioned Comedy in China.

This article deals with the specifics of female imagery in Chinese poetry of the Six Dynasties period ( Liuchao ). The aim is to characterize female imagery in the works of the poets of this period and find out what changes these images underwent in comparison with previous epochs, and how the structure of these images differs in female and male poetry. The aim is to analyze the “women topic” in the works of the leading poets of the Six Dynasties period. The conclusion is made that in men’s poetry of the mentioned period the female image remains idealized, unified and narcissistic. Male poets used a standard set of artistic means to portray female images. The woman was presented as an object of aesthetic pleasure, and appeared to the reader in an inseparable connection with her surroundings and boudoir objects. In this regard, the thesis of the emergence of the image of a “beautiful lady” in Luchao poetry is put forward. Nevertheless, in both women’s and men’s lyrics more individualized images began to appear and a departure from traditional gender stereotypes is obvious; the main change in Six Dynasties poetry is the development of self-awareness in female and male poems, both in life and poetry, and the increasing understanding of their own subjectivity. The female characters of the Luchao era turn out to be endowed with reflexivity and psychologism. Lyrics on women’s themes developed both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Salman Rushdie’s latest novel Quichotte , inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quixote , revolves around the journey of a fictional character named Ismail Smile who adopts the name Quichotte as he embarks on a fantastic quest across America to win the heart of celebrated actor and talk-show host Salma R, since his perception of reality has been muddled by incessant immersion in television shows, just as the mind of Cervantes’ don had been addled by his preoccupation with chivalric romances. While Cervantes’ protagonist, through his various misadventures, ironically exposed the many maladies of contemporary society, Quichotte’s journey across America, accompanied by his son Sancho, whom he miraculously imagines into existence, also operates as a picaresque narrative that methodically dissects the alarming aberrations of contemporary world order. Taking Quixote’s inability to distinguish between the real and the fictional as his starting point, Rushdie’s text eclectically foregrounds the menacing fissures of a social order where a rampant disregard for facts also becomes a platform for widespread regression into atavistic atrocities. The proposed paper will focus on such issues and more in order to highlight how the famed Man of La Mancha continues to operate as a relevant figure even within the fractious contradictions of our times.

This discussion article envisages five different contemporary challenges and pays special attention to the arguments as to why contemporary journalism losses its professional priorities and gets mixed in with other types of mass communication, particularly with public relations (PR) and propaganda. This clarification is of great importance not only for purely professional purposes, but also for broad social priorities. Arguments concerning the role and mission of journalism place it anywhere between watchdog and lapdog which makes the process of studying journalism uncertain and even contradictory as it is caught between the binds of historical values and the traps of contemporary practice.

This study examines the role and place of youth media in changing the vocabulary of the Russian language. For a comparative analysis, three words were used, the factors of popularity of which are political propaganda, the frequent use of the word in a certain youth magazine and the widespread prevalence of the word on the Internet. A wave-like dynamics of an increase in the frequency of the word, which has become popular thanks to publications in the youth media, has been revealed: matured readers of the magazine, after 20-25 years, begin to actively use the word introduced into their vocabulary by the authors of the publications. The question is raised about the significance of the mass media for the dynamics of changes in the vocabulary of the language. A method has been developed to prove the influence of the mass media on the dynamics of changes in the vocabulary using the tools of quantitative linguistics. The history of the frequency of use of the analyzed words in the Russian language allows us to speak about the importance of youth mass media as determining the worldview and linguistic picture of the world of the text. Moreover, for other words in which the frequency correlates with the historical setting, the contexts of use themselves indicate the connection of the increased frequency with the personality of a particular publicist or writer and with the texts he generates.

In the context of the increasing influence of the products of the Internet field (social media, blogging) on social everyday life, media education is becoming especially relevant. The symbolic status of the audience is changing, which becomes not only a consumer, but also a producer of media content. The current stage in the development of media communications can be considered unique with some reservations. However, in the history of the XIX-XX centuries, there was a precedent, since in society periodically there were periods of a large-scale surge of interest in media literacy as the main category of media education, depending on a number of socio-cultural factors. This increase in the importance of media literacy is wave-like. The subject of this article is the waves of media education, which are considered from the standpoint of synchronicity and diachrony. A complex of methods is used: historical and cultural analysis; structural analysis; contextual analysis; secondary analysis of sociological and statistical data. Based on the results of the study, it is concluded that the modern media communication conditions in which the “new media” develop are similar to those that were in the formation of the audience of cinema and television. The Internet and, in particular, social media are no less rapidly conquering the audience. At the same time, the modern mediated world requires a high level of media competence and the development of critical thinking from society.

Any network media platform, as an integral multifunctional multimedia system, a priori has a set of technological advantages for broadcasting socially significant information, at the same time, media text is a key element of Internet communications. In this regard, the media platform can be considered as one of the most effective means of state image formation. The authors test this hypothesis on the empirical material of specific media platforms in Serbia: they study media texts for the period of 2020-2021 highlighting Russia (its politics, culture, history). The research question consists in the formational features identification and promotion of the image of Russia on the «digital territory» of the kindred peoples. There is both an interdisciplinary theoretical and practical need to study media text of network platforms as a phenomenon that actively assimilates the multimedia format and various distribution channels. The authors use a linguistic analysis of texts about Russia, revealing the stereotypes inherent in the inhabitants of the Balkans in relation to Russians. It was found out that the modern image of the Russian Federation in this region is influenced by stereotypes reflected in the texts posted on Serbian media platforms. Special attention is paid to media texts reflecting the period of strengthening of the international authority of Russia as an independent state that consistently implements its foreign policy. Our research is relevant for an objective assessment of the attitude of the Balkans to Russia in the context of age-old interstate relations and traditions of the Slavic world. The texts of the Serbian online media demonstrate the authors’ understanding of the value of the common national cultural heritage, linguocultural basics of Russian and Serbian peoples. The functioning of modern media in the Balkan Peninsula, published in the Serbo-Croatian language, is considered in relation to the formation of a national civil society interested not only in the native language, but also in integration into Slavic culture in general, in the development of effective cooperation with Russia. Having used the technological capabilities of media platforms, it was established that the image of Russia in Serbian media modelling in the period of 2020-2021 is an element of the complex multimedia controlled impact on their audience. The results of our research show that the representation of the image of Russia was carried out systematically - taking into account the values, needs and preferences of the South Slavic peoples.

Like many other developed democracies, most democratic countries in West Africa are facing challenges of trust in news media for political information, particularly with the emergence of the non-mainstream media - new social media. Previous research revealed that alternative news media trust is correlated with lower levels of trust in news in Africa and that the presence of private media have failed to offer alternative sources to government media. This paper for the first time seeks to investigate reasons for the increase in distrust in news media among the mainstream and non-mainstream media in West African Ghana and Nigeria, which is the main source for political information in the region. We conducted the study through online surveys for the audience of news media in Ghana and Nigeria who are interested in political news and are frequent users of both mainstream media and new social media for political information. We found out that even though people in these two countries use social media as an alternative source of obtaining political information, yet, they largely still trust mainstream media news for political information rather than social media.

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