Abstract: The article contains the results of the analysis of existing investigations into the ways how Latin religious sources were adopted and adapted in Anglo-Saxon homiletic literature. The present analysis may be of value when it is important to understand how religious contexts were borrowed and presented to a different culture, moreover the motives of adaptation of Latin texts may add to better understanding of the writer’s personalities and thus to a clearer insight into their works. Two eminent old English writers: Aelfric and Wulfstan worked closely with Latin texts following various strategies. While Aelfric in most cases translated the texts verbatim or slightly modified them, Wulfstan put much effort to give the text his own personality. Both writers still depended on the rhetoric traditions employed in Latin and their individual styles coincide in with usage of some stylistic features such as assonance, alliteration and repetition, but still were rather different. Aelfric himself considered the translation to be a separate rhetoric device as the text converted into a different language does not only carry the message to the target audience, but makes the process of communication easier. For Wulfstan the message itself is of importance, not the source, so he elaborated his unique style of communicating his ideas to the target audience. The practical and scientific value of the article is expressed in the need to structure the existing studies of the influence of the Latin language on Old English and opens up the perspective of further study in the field of rhetoric and pragmalinguistics.

Keywords: history of the English language, Latin, Old English, hagiography, homiletics, pragmalinguistics, stylistics, rhetoric, translation, persuasion

Abstract: The subject of the research is Kumyk post-war prose, in particular, the works of such famous Kumyk and Dagestan authors as Atkai, M.-S. Yahyaev, I. Kerimov, and others. The object of the research is the "labour" theme in national prose, the peculiarities of its artistic embodiment. The author examines such aspects of the problem as the influence of extra-literary, ideological factors on the development of the topic of production in Soviet literature in general and in the national literature in particular, on the basis of the concepts of contemporary Russian literature, notes the positive and negative aspects of such influences on the artistic process. At the same time, attention is focused on the fact that the positive national literature has provided the actualization of the “production” theme in the postwar period, in 1945-1955. Particular attention is paid to the innovative quest of Kumyk authors, identifies the characteristic features, the poetics of the works. Research methods are analytical, comparative, cultural and historical. The research methodology is based on modern scientific developments devoted to Soviet literature, the literature of socialist realism, primarily those belonging to the IMLI scholar. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the holistic study of Kumyk post-war prose in this article is carried out for the first time. One of the main conclusions is that during this period the official ideology made a certain “order” to depict the theme of production, which led to the creation of large-scale works in the national literature, with a wide reproduction of national life, with highlighting the national essence of images. In addition, in the studied literature there is a turn towards the lyricization of subject-object relations, moral issues, etc., which is also revealed and argued for the first time in this article.

Keywords: poetics, image, labor, production, the story, post-war period, Kumyk literature, new reading, national originality, evolution

Abstract: The present article is devoted to the attempt to analyze the disintegration of the connection of times and how modern authors overcame it in such novels as 'Yakov's Stairs' by L. Ulitskaya, 'Letter Writing Guides' by M. Shishkin and 'Aviator' by E. Vodolazkina. Shakespear's play The Tragical Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke is taken as the main motif of such disintegration. In this regard, Bochkina also analyzes the concept of time in the aforesaid literary works. According to the researcher, time does not structure the narration in a literary text but often becomes the matter of the writer's reflection. The research method used by Bochkina in her research is the comparison of texts and culture-historical approach. The theoretical basis of the research includes B. Uspensky's, A. Gurevich' and E. Vodolazkina's researches on philology. Thus, the researcher analyzes different interpretations of the problem in the aforesaid novels and deffines the mutual influence of the main Medieval and Post-Modernism concepts of time. The researcher underlines that even though these authors have a very different concept of time, they have a common idea about disintegration of time as they present it in their word choice and narrative structure. This idea is realized by writers through memoirs and letters written by novel characters. 

Keywords: historical time, end of history, medieval concept of time, disintegration of the connection of times, modern novel, Vodolazkin, Ulitskaya, Shishkin, time, word

Abstract: The siege of Leningrad continues to be an actual topic for interdisciplinary research in various fields. From the point of view of cultural studies the blockade of Leningrad is a unique cultural phenomenon, the appearance of which induced a number of factors and primarily to the geographical destiny of St. Petersburg, the city that emerged in spite of the seemingly unfavorable natural and cultural environments. The author aims to determine the role of the influence of geographical coordinates of Leningrad in the process of metamorphosis of its culture in the blockade time, as well as clarify cultural and historical significance of the siege of the city for the course of the great Patriotic war. The author suggests to clarify the infuence of the geographical factor on the citizens' mind and culture of Leningrad through introducing the concept of 'geographical destiny'. This is the term used by Yury Lotman in his article 'Modern Times Between the East and the West'. Georgraphical coordinates of St. Petersburg that later became the grounds for the Russian intellectual and social discourse of a new cultural concept 'Window on Europe' as it was raised by Alexander Pushkin in his poem 'Bronze Horseman', all of the sudden became the reason of its transformation into a completely different 'open' semantic concept, 'blockaded' or 'besieged' Leningrad. The narrow piece of land that used to take the Russian culture to European strategic development model through the sea became the place where the Russian culture that had European values (at all levels of culture and as an 'ideal' city for Europe itself) faced the countercultural and antihuman foces. It was the place where the main battle of the Second World War took place and it was the battle between 'barbarity' and culture. The nature of the battle considerably defined the historical and geographical factor as well. 

Keywords: military-political significance, urban culture, barbarism and civilization, symbolic and historic static, geographic destiny, siege of Leningrad, culture of wartime, symbolic value, counterculture and inhumanity, Peter I The Great

Abstract: The author considers the history of the development of existentialism in America. The economic crisis of the thirtieth years developed into moral crisis of the fortieth, and "alienation of masses" under the influence of the psychology and economy of war developed into "alienation of the individual". Alienation becomes the keynote of the post-war decade. In art, the ideas broadly called existential began to prevail. Language of existentialists became part of the criticism in the late forties - early fiftieth. The big role in judgment of the artistic process was played by Sartre. During his long visit to the United States Sartre gave lectures at many American universities. In addition, Friedrich Nietzsche, with his prophetical tone and appeal to antiquity (Apollonian and Dionisian) also happened to be in tune with the feelings and creative urges of many artists belonging to New York School. The myth problem did not draw former attention of artists at the beginning of the fiftieth any more, and all traces of mythical hints disappeared from paintings. 

Keywords: Nietzsche, Sartre, art criticism, anxiety, psychology of war, individual, alienation, existentialism, New York School, problem of myth

Abstract: During the Victorian epoch the former parochial structure of London, which required that the people obligatorily visited their parish, had vanished. For those, who wished to visit Anglican church service, England offerd confusing variety of such services, which were grouped around the so-called wide, high and low Churches, to which the followers of ritualism had later joined.  The regular visits to church were considered to show decency among middle class and upper class people, while the share of the lower class people in the parish was very small. The London cemeteries were overfilled after the Plague of 1665. From the mid-XIX century the private cemepteries started to open, and new fashionable burial tendencies appeared.

Keywords: Victorian London, religious movements, Anglicanism, Anglo-Catholics, quackers, Hebrew, cultists, cemeteries, burial rituals, mourning

Abstract: Liza Picard describes the process of preparation for the International Industrial Exposition in 1851. She also describes the openning and popularity of the Exposition with the Great Britain citizens as well as the role of the Exposition in the development of culture and industry. The author also raises questions about education, in particular, school education (so called 'ragged schools' as a great achievement of the Victorian age) and talks about different institutions, courses and available libraries. 

Keywords: public libraries, Crystal Palace, Koh-i-noor , railway excursions, opening night, International Exhibition, ragged schools, Lancastrian systems, Jewish schools, teaching girls