Abstract: In Russian literature culture has become the object of historical and sociological researches lately. All kinds of events and world cultural artifacts have been described. Many social discoveries of the phenomenon of culture have been made but still the philosophical aspect of the problem is not well studied. Modern philosophy raises many metaphysical cultural issues. Moreover, cultural philosophy (or philosophy of culture) aimed at philosophical understanding of culture as a universal and extensive phenomenon, has been formed as an independent branch of science. The author of the article appeals to creative work written by a famous poet T. Eliot and analyzes his thoughts related to cultural philosophy. Eliot believed that American culture did not have any deep roots. This is why it was filled with the spirit of pragmatism. It was not an accident that the poet called America ‘a vulgar country’. Associating American culture with ‘barbarianism’, the poet described the phenomenon of American culture as a denial from spirituality and tradition. The poet treated traditions with much respect and believed they contained social experience and roots. Thus, we can say that Eliot represented practical skills and consciousness of the ‘thinking’ intelligentsia. Most of all Eliot respected the spirit of culture.

Keywords: philology, culture, philosophy of culture, Rationalism, activity, archaism, spirituality, poetry, creativity, art.

Abstract: The article considers and analyzes one of the most important terms in Sufi philosophy – the path to the Truth (or God). The poem ‘Language of Birds’ devoted to the journey of birds to their king Simurg is composed by ‘Attar so that a particular poetic construct can be referred to a certain term in philosophy: ‘searchers for the truth’ (talib) are the traveling birds, the Truth (hakikat) is Simurg. The ‘Path to the Truth’ (tarikat) is described by ‘Attar through stages of the sufia path (‘valleys’). The author of the article focuses on the analysis of the poetic construct ‘valley’ (vadi) based on the example of the first three valleys (search, love, knowledge) and analyzes what philosophical concepts these images relate to.

Keywords: philology, Medieval Persian poetry, Farid ad-Din ‘Attar, Sufi poem ‘Language of Birds’, Path to the Truth, knowledge of God, valley of search, valley of love, valley of knowledge, poetic construct ‘vadi’ (valley).

Abstract: In this article the author is solving a very topical issue of interpreting mystical experience of Russian ‘prophet’ poets from the point of view of D. Mendeleev’s formula about ‘the mid-kingdom’. The ‘median’ idea, in fact, is the synonym of Russia overcoming the extreme points of its tragic fate. The author’s philological concept combines ‘philosophy’ and ‘science’ with ‘theology’ and allows to decode the codes of Russia, revolution and national identity.

Keywords: philology, middle of Russia, extreme points, Christ, national identity, Russian isomorphism, prophetic information, national revolution.

Abstract: The article is devoted to one of the most intriguing and frequently discussed topics in creative life of a Great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The author continues to describe grounds for and develop his own concept of understanding the nature of Alexander Pushkin’s ‘Hidden Love’ for O. Pototskaya-Naryushkina. When analyzing the primary sources in Pushkin’s creative work (finished and unfinished poems, drafts, drawings, commentary and etc.), the author bases on the results of the most recent studies of text and writings and takes into account different interpretations of this problem in Pushkin studies. It allows the author to offer a new solution of the problem. In its turn, the ‘solution’ allows to discover hidden connections between Pushin’s works at different stages of life. A crucial breakthrough in Pushkin’s anthropoesis appears to be the loss of harmony in the primary mental image of ‘Love and Freedom’. Is that an accident?

Keywords: Alexander Pushkin, poesis, mental image, ‘The Kiss’, love, mystery, friendship, freedom, drawing, mirror.

Abstract: Today’s theory starts to question the paradigm role of language in modeling of the world. Why does it happen and where does it take us? In order to answer these questions, we need to renew all our views on the history of language. The author of the article defines the stages of language development, from speech/writing to printing/text and finally, the death of language and/or human in writing/calculation. The latter is a true catastrophe for the language because it is a refuse to use the language to convey the meaning and a transition to digital ontology. Grammatology messages about a shift from human consciousness to artificial intellect. The world is entering the epoch of trans-modern. In order to preserve human reality, we need to protect the language and shift to the philosophy of opposition.

Keywords: philology, language, word, human, print, text, letter, grammatology, calculation, communication, digitalism.

Abstract: The article is devoted to ideological and political connotations in I. Ilf’s and E. Petrov’s novels ‘The Twelve Chairs’ and ‘The Little Golden Calf’. The author of the article is being rather skeptical about ‘Anti-Soviet’ and ‘Anti-Trotsky’ implications of these novels (M. Odessky and D. Feldman). At the same time, the author studies prototypes of Ostap Bender, ‘Kisa’ Vorobyaninov and Vasisualy Lokhankin. The author shows that one of the persons which biography was used by the Soviet authors for creating Vorobyaninov’s image was a well-known monarchist, deputy of the II, III and IV State Duma V. Shulgin. This is why the novels can’t be considered ‘Anti-Soviet’. As for the image of Lokhanin, the author of the present article agrees with Nadezhda Mandelshtam and believes this image to be a parody of Russian intelligentsia, opposing to some respected experts such as S. Lurye and Yu. Scheglov who thought it to be an inadequate approach. At the end the author offers his own classification of prototypes of literary heroes. The author underlines that the relationship between a prototype and a hero is quite complicated and sometimes can be somehow ‘reversed’ –when an imaginary hero starts to influence the cultural perception of a real prototype.

Keywords: prototype, image, literary studies, USSR, ‘The Twelve Chairs’, ‘The Little Golden Calf’, Bender, Vorobyaninov, Lokhankin, intelligentsia.

Abstract: At the age of business relations and information technologies every minute counts. Those who live in large cities have difficulty sparing some time to go to the theatre, movies or just to read a book. People become interested in audio means because they want to continue to receive information and do their everyday business at the same time. Users of modern gadgets actively consume online contents and listen to audio books and podcasts. You may think that it creates good grounds for development of radio theatre but unfortunately Russians are starting to forget about this form of broadcasting. Nevertheless, there are both audience and enthusiasts who are ready to write scenarios all day and night, work with actors in a studio, search for necessary sound and create original sound images and pieces. The only problem is that there is no time for the ‘sound theatre’ in broadcasting of modern radio stations. The only exceptions here are the Radio of Russia and the Radio of Russia: Culture stations. Revival of the radio theatre based on a great experience of the Soviet radio directors plus capabilities of new technologies should be one of the most important tasks of modern radio broadcasting. Based on researches of great radio playwrights, modern radio theatre and experience of creating a radio play ‘A letter from an Unknown Woman’ after Stefan Zweig’s novel, where the author of the present article acted as a scrip writer, director and music editor, the author tries to understand what the radio theatre of the New Times mean, what capabilities modern expressive means have and what contribution each of us can made to the development of the radio theatre.

Keywords: radio art, radio drama, radio directing, radio play, arsacoustics, literary readings, radio theatre, audio culture, acoustic collage, theatre-by-the-microphone.

Abstract: Based on the studies of the semantic field of a basic Gypsy socionim ROM, the author of the article views the problem of studying the linguistic picture of the world of minorities when their language and culture function under the situation of bilingualism and bi-culture. The author analyzes the core of socionims of gyspy roms which represent the primary relation (i.e. denotes the age, gender and social function). The author shows distortions of the semantic field of the rom socionim which appears when social Gypsy terms are discussed in other languages both by the researchers, representatives of the macro society, and Gypsy people themselves. It is described how the situation of intercultural communication leads to formation of ethnonymic semantics of the socionim in intercultural environment, on one hand, and on the way it is perceived by the researchers, on the other hand. Information and conclusions offered in the article are important for such fields as lingvoanthropology and lingvoculturology, psycholinguistics, ethnopsychology, studies of linguistic intercultural problems and translation theory.

Keywords: philology, Gypsy language (Romany), ROM, primary and secondary relation, social age and gender, social function, endoetnonym and excoetnonym, intercultural communication, semantic field, discursive images.

Abstract: The status and nature of Venice was completely changed when the hallows of St. Mark appeared there back in 828. St. Mark became the synonym of Venice and St. Mark’s hallows turned Venice into an independent city. St. Mark’s winged lion symbolizes Venice magnificence. From the very beginning Venice has been the shelter for outsiders and travelers. It has been an open city which readily assimilates everyone who enters it. German habitation was created for German traders, Armenian had their districts, too. A colony of Turkish merchants lived there and Jewish people also started to live in the city since XII. The first ghetto was created in 1516. Doves from St. Mark’s Square are the most cherished and spoiled birds in the world for they are protected by the old city tradition.

Keywords: philology, cult of St. Mark, open city, foreign traders, Jewish, ghetto, doves, Venice stones, hallows, habitation.

Abstract: The author of the article talks about the two books devoted to the theory of art and esthetic issues, Outlines of Esthetics and Theory of Art, N. A. Chrenov and A. S. Migunov as executive editors, and Richard Shusterman’s Pragmatic Esthetics. Live Beauty, Rethinking of Art. Outlines of Esthetics and Theory of Art contains the analysis of the most different conceptions. In fact, this is an attempt to create an encyclopedia of different philosophies devoted to the science of the beautiful and the ugly. It is underlined that even such unusual spheres as gestalt psychology and algorythmical esthetics are mentioned in the book. In his Pragmatic Esthetics Richard Shusterman develops the tradition of John Dewey and analyzes pragmatic aspects of fine arts.

Keywords: philosophy, art, esthetics, history, beauty, pragmatism, usefulness, reality, Post-Modernism, esthetic experience.