Abstract: The myth of the founding of Lipetsk includes a narrative related to the development of the southern borders of Russia and the development of metallurgy. But the 23-fold increase in the population of Lipetsk during the entire 65 years of the XX century (from 21.4 thousand people in 1926 to 490.3 thousand people in 1990) makes us turn back to the Soviet period of the city's history. Having considered the modes of circulation of "soft" and "hard" memory, as well as using the optics of different scales formulated by E. Rigni and C. de Cesare and the intuitions of J. Assman, who identified the communicative and cultural areas of memory, the author checks whether Lipetsk today pays due tribute to the Soviet past. The appeal to the key markers of Lipetsk's identity (metallurgical plant, mineral water, aviation center) related to cultural memory showed that today many residents of the city do not have a sense of continuity with the past. It is concluded that the post-war period of the USSR is a particularly significant memory space around which the identity of the Lipchans could be built, the memory of the local community could be formed. However, today Lipetsk residents have to face a completely different memorial policy initiated by local authorities, in which the Soviet past is gradually being replaced by new symbolic practices and objects, as a result of which the urban space is becoming more and more eclectic.

Abstract: The emergence of avant-garde and formation of the explicit social mythology is associated with the active political processes in social life of the XX century. It is noted that avant-gardism and social myth are united by implementation of the project and manipulative functions, which contribute to appearance of the mass man on the forefront of social life. The main instrument in the avant-gardists’ and mythmakers’ fight for dominance over public consciousness becomes the insidious symbolic, appealing to the archaic through masterly use of political and artistic conjuncture. The modern social myth represents danger, mostly because of jangling the meaningful symbols, it is involved in mythmaking and mythologized processes, thus enhancing manipulative effect on a human. The author explores such elements of social mythology as the processes of mythologization and mythmaking; compares the functions of social mythology and avant-garde. The appearance of the mass man on the forefront of social life of general public with the own group mythology contributed to the true emergence of avant-garde and social mythology. The author comes to the conclusion that at the present time, same as a century ago, art is a part of social processes; the new forms of art factor into communication revolution, while the myth – through the contemporary mass media – translates a suggestive function.