Grammatical works of the end XVI – early XVII c. is the first recorded attempt to codify the rules of Church Slavonic of Russian edition, to bring into system a certain «discrepancies» in paradigms of words and to consolidate their understanding of the Church Slavonic norm of that period. The practical aim was to give study books for the Church Slavonic grammar schools and copyists and translators. In the first half of the XVI century along with grammary, was another source – the grammatical discourse concerning the Latin translation of grammatical theories; translation of the Latin grammar books and the attempts to adapt the Old Russian language theories to the Latin language, as well as understand the Russian language through the category of Latin grammar. Description of the grammatical rules of the use of forms of verbal in the end of XVI – early XVII c. is based on three grammars study material characterized by systematic exposition of grammatical material – Adelfotes (1591), Grammar of Lavrenty Zizaniy (1596) and Grammar of Melety Smotritsky (1619 and 1648).

The article discusses the functioning of the word pravda as a unit of a communicative level of language – the system that reflects the ratio of the positions of the speaker, the listener and the situation that is qualified by them. This system is organized by such units as the aim speech, the variative rows of the constructions which are correspond to them, and the two groups of means: some are specially designed for operation at this level; others may form the nominative content, but can be complicated by the communicative parametres. Word pravda belongs to the latter group. The article defines the invariant parameters of the word pravda, shows their fuctioning, the relationship of this unit with other means.

The application of semantic communicative analysis method to the wizards’ speech materials in children’s movies allows to reveal series of communicative strategies of a language personality, derived from the sharp discrepancy between an individual norm and norms of society. The article describes three of these strategies (ignoring outside norms, negative emotional reaction to outside norms and false submission to the norms of an alien society). The result of this analysis can be used in describing the communicative behavior patterns of individuals, characterized by the striking divergence between their individual ideas of a norm and the norms of a society (certain types of movie characters, persons with mental disorders, criminals etc...).

The article considers the functioning of the discourse particle donc / dunque in the french and italian versions of the St. Augustine’s Soliloquies (the copies of the XIV–XVth centuries). Compared with the latin prototype, the text shows the spectrum of various meanigs of dont / dunque, which translate in the vernacular version the latin discourse markers as autem, igitur, ergo.

The article considers the main peculiarities of Nabokov’s critical approach to the work of the famous Russian writers of the XIX-th century. Sharing the formal postulates of «New criticism» – a very influential critical trend in the USA at that time – and bent for new postmodern tendencies in literature he combines these two critical approaches in the evaluation of their work. According to Nabokov a talented writer as L. Tolstoy and N. Gogol created a unique new world, a kind of a mirage which has nothing to do with reality. Thus the work of genious is a phenomenon of style (or language) but not the picture of real life: one can even feel the existence of the parallel Otherworld in it, which transcendentally effects the artist’s consciousness. As a postmodern writer Nabokov perceives the text metaphorically with a great deal of associations and intuitionalism. Thus he depicts Gogol as a lonely insane marginal hero with a maniacal idea of reorganizing Russian society on new moral and religious principles. He finds in his works such postmodern patterns as simultaneity, irrationality, neologisms and the Otherworld, but as an artist he feels the poetry of genuine folk life – due to extended metaphors the Russian writer creates «tender warm» images of living people. Thus the metaphorical style of writing is of great importance for Nabokov in evaluation of the writer’s genius. He also praises Tolstoy who invented a new method of depicting life and death: the author is invisible in his works but his presence is felt everywhere like the presence of the Creator in the Universe. Nabokov considers death in «Anna Karenina» and «The Death of Ivan Illiych» from the point of view of a postmodern writer – as a new birth in the Otherworld, free from absurd chaos of earthly life. Metaphoric style is used by Nabokov while analyzing works of Turgenev and Chekhov: the latter’s stories are built on the system of waves, i.e. the shades of the author’s mood and spirits. Speaking about Chekhov and Turgenev as talented writers he tries to dethrone F. Dostoyevsky, to make him a broken idol. He argues that the writer created a gloomy world of the insane and his works lack harmony and beauty under the influence of western sentimental and gothic novels. Nabokov considers his work to be banal, tasteless and mediocre though he himself is much indebted him as a disciple. So Nabokov tries from the point of the postmodern aesthetic trend to revalue the «leading lights» of Russian literature: those are Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky. Such superliterary position is the source of his grotesque ludicrous parodical modus of narration. Possibly his negative pathos was also intended to hide certain traces of his literary predecessors who effected his works so whimsically and fancifully.

The paper is an interpretation of the poetics of chosen short stories of both collections of short stories by Zivko Cingo, which are continuously published under the names: Пасквелија and Нова Пасквелија. The study deals with this collection, putting it under the name Пасквелија. The interpretation is an attempt to re-examine the canon of values set in the period after the revolution and World War II, and the consequences, which the accepted norms have in relation with the individual and her inner world and morale.

Đura Jakšić (1832–1878) expressed, through his poetic and prose works, as well as his paintings, his support for the Serbian insurgents in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The united Serbian youth in Novi Sad collected aid for the insurgents, and Serbia provided support in taking care of the wounded and refugees. The arts were directed to the propaganda in the fight for the liberation from the Turks and uniting of the Serbian people. The rebellions of the Serbian people were suppressed in blood with the help of England, and instead of liberation came new slavery and even crueler authorities of Austria-Hungary in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In spite of all disappointments, Đura Jakšić remained a patriot and fighter for freedom, both as an artist and as a man.

This essay on the 56th Venice Biennale examines the new role of Venice in the world, far from the idea of «Death in Venice». This Biennale is not exceptional, but the important is that there are some successful works; it’s enough. This essay examines the ability of contemporary artists to understand the older artists, and therefore their ability to understand the world in general. Despite the desire to make an expostion about All the World’s future, the impression is that the works are focused on the actuals news and problems, not on the future. Thus, the mention of Walter Benjamin’s text on the Angelus Novus (in the presentation of Okwui Enwezor) seems pretentious, because the exhibition is not as deep as this quote.

Literary group «nichevoki» (1920–1923), that proclaimed itʼs goal in «refining of the verses in the name of Nothing», is remembered by itʼs provocative and outrageous antics, which connects them with Western European Dadaists. One of the outstanding group of collections is called the «dog box» (1922), which suggests the presence of another «related» connection «refined revolutionary ramblers» – with the teachings of the Cynics.

The past centuary was a period of considerable historical changes that caused the transformation of most conventional conceptions and symbols. This process, often tragic and irreversible, affected the comprehension of the Solovki as a sociocultural sign. The profoundness of the consequences of the turn might be estimated by a comparison of associations released by references to the toponym by authors of the memoirs about the Solovetsky concentration camp and the jail operated at the territory of the Russian North in1923–1939 and those arised at our contemporaries.

The silver cauldron, found in 1891 in a peat-bog near Gundestrup (Jutland, Danmark) is considered to be one of the most interesting testimonies of the Continental Celts’ religion, despite the uncertainty of its attribution. A number of scholars suggest its Thracian origin; others find Sarmatian elements, as well as figures of Greek mythology and culture. However, no major work on Continental Celtic culture is likely to avoid referring to the Gundestrup Cauldron and reproducing its images and scenes. The discovery is generally attributed to the 2nd–1st century BC. The cauldron consists of seven outer plates (the eighth is lost) containing, supposedly, deities and of five inner plates with heroic scenes. Both outer and inner plates show humanlike beings, explicitly unequal among themselves, regarding the figures’ size (gods, heroes, simple warriors) similarly to the Ancient Egypt’s system. Furthermore, the cauldron represents animals (elephants, dogs, lions, gryphons, snakes, dolphins, deer, bulls, birds) some of which are not common to the Celtic art, while others find parallels in Pictish stone carving, as well as in late insular illuminated manuscripts. We suppose that the cauldron originates from the Celto-Thracian zone in the Balkans, probably from the Tylis kingdom. Then it was stolen during attacks of Cimbri and Teutoni in the late 2nd century BC and finally arrived to Jutland with a number of other Celtic objects of cult. Our aim is to take the example of the Gundestrup Cauldron to show a certain symbolic pictorialism dating from ancient times, but at the same time taking supplementary meanings given that the only means to compose a pre-written ʻtextʼ was its visualisation. Such ʻsymbolic writingʼ seems to be common to the Classic culture as a whole, but it also takes place in the art of Early Christianity and even in much later times. We suppose that the necessary condition for the appearance of such ʻtextsʼ might be the existence of some shared basic knowledge of a community, moreover, the linguistic component no more prevails in this case. But sometimes the plane of expression predominates the plane of content, which causes, in its turn, generation of new meanings within the old semantic paradigm. The Celtic presence in the Balkans in the period from the 3rd century BC to approximately 2nd century AD provided conditions to a phenomenon of a kind of ʻcultural unionʼ (Kulturbund).

The article considers artistic aspects of V. Nabokov’s work, mainly the time and space perspective structure of his novels. This is not only the physical space of people’s world (Russia, Europe, the USA), but also the Otherworld that ensures philosophical depth of his work, his neoplatonic world outlook. The poetics of romanticism (the double worlds and double heroes) is used to counterpose two other worlds – the strange emigration world with its dull grey life as if beyond the grave and Nabokov’s Russia of his youth and childhood which is depicted as a vivid multicolored rainbow world with beautiful butterflies, the beloved, relations and the Motherland. Also Nabokov uses symbolic images and leit-motives to create these two worlds. Thus a huge Faber pencil, a Mother’s present, becomes in his novels a symbol of the enormous poetic gift of the young protagonist and his future fate of a famous writer. In Invitation to the Beheading the diminishing of the pencil brings the death of Cincinnat C. closer, etc. A model-carriage of Nord-Express as well as a picture of a wild forest with a narrow path in it become the symbols of emigration, homelessness and transference to the other world, from which one can’t return. There are three categories of time in Nabokov’s prose: the present time of the narrator, the past time – hero’s life abroad and the past perfect time – his childhood and youth in Russia. Also there are various artistic layers and kinds of intertextuality in Nabokov’s work. For instance, in Lolita there are the Old Testament’s Biblical symbolic images and the poetic correlation of Lolita’s image with the famous heroines of world literature in the works of Dante, Petrarca, E.A. Poe, L.Carroll, P. Merimée, etc. Such ramified intertextuality depicts the mythological consciousness of the marginal protagonist Humbert, the expert in European literature, who perceives everything through the prism of world literature. Thus the poetic world in the novel represents the richness of the language and metaphorical style in various semantic correlations, expressive poetic wealth and mere rythmical organization.

This article analyses the text of the Introduction to the Gospels written by Theophylact of Bulgaria which is included into the Gospel from Peresopnitsa (Peresopnitskoye Evangeliye). The Introduction to the Gospel of Mathew included in the Peresopnitskoye Evangeliye correlates with the second version of the introduction in Church Slavonic. The introductions to the other three Gospels are translated into Ruthenian language (prosta mova). The author pays special attention to the translation of the quotes from the Gospels used by Theophylact of Bulgaria. The analysis of these quotes allows specify the range of possible sources for this manuscript. In particular the Athos version of the New Testament and West Slavic editions of the Bible were used in the translation.

The author highlights some aspects of how M.Y. Lermontov’s works were represented in textbooks in 1840-1850. The article is supplemented with a list of Lermontov’s works included into textbooks and anthologies. The article analyses frequency of occurrence and geography of publications, presenting results in charts and diagrams, which demonstrate trends in contemplation of Lermontov’s works in the period of 17 years, from 1843 to 1859.

The message presents the new manuscript version of the latin Life of the St. Stephan of Muret found in the French National Bibliothec. The list belongs to the famous french historiographer and erudite André Duchesne.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the unique concept of time in the novel The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962) by the 20th century Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes. The main feature of its composition is fragmentation. There are three narrative voices in the novel: the pronoun ʻIʼ with the verbs in the present tense, ʻyouʼ – in the future and ʻheʼ – in the past. The changing of viewpoints reflects the permanent transition from one time dimension into another. The passages with the pronoun ʻIʼ reflect the intention of the consciousness to stop the march of objective time which approximates death. In the narration from the third person we can find the linear time of the history. The voice that narrates from the second person belongs to the eternity which can simultaneously embrace the past, the present and the future. The lifetime of the main character represents the model of a circle, he is born and dies in the same day, his active social life takes 52 years that is a circle in the Aztec calendar. The complicated time structure of the novel reflects the main idea of the whole Fuentes’ narrative. In his or her life everybody should obey two principles: the memory of the past that is compared to the heaviness of gravestones and the anxiety for the future, for the legacy that everyone leaves to his or her motherland and to the whole humankind.

The article discusses the concepts of ʻsouthernessʼ and ʻsouthern code of honorʼ in the antebellum plantation novel The Valley of Shenandoah, or Memoirs of the Graysons (1824) by George Tucker and the way they are interpreted in the Reconstruction Era novel White Rose of Memphis (1881) by William Clark Falkner. It identifies how Faulkner remains true to the traditions of the southern pre-war novel and how he breaks with it. On the example of the main characters of the novels – Edward Grayson Harry Wallingford – is shown the transformation of the canonical image of the gentleman-cavalier who represents typical southern consciousness. The article examines the characteristics of the southern worldview, studies attitude to public opinion, dueling code, misalliance, financial insolvency, choice of profession from the perspective of the southern code of honor.

The article deals with the issue of corporal metaphor in Tristan Tzara’s poem Approximate Man. The analysis serves to characterize the general poetics of the poem and to educe the role of surrealistic metaphor in Tzara’s artistic evolution.

This article is devoted to the analysis of culture paradigm of a myth in T. Tolstaya’s creation. The author of the article shows complicated attitude of the writer to the myth and ambiguity of the status of mythological images. Inspite of the fact that the most part of it isn’t written in a serious manner, in the prose of Tolstaya there could also be found examples of ontologization of the mythological images, which are created with the help of modernism’s model, two characters are considered in the article: kys from an eponymous novel and Sirin from the short story «Svidanie s ptitcey» («The Meeting with a Bird»). But these images turn out to be linked with the comic episodes, which particularly discredit the ontological status of the myth. This combination of mythologization and demythologization are considered in the article as the typical trait of postmodern art.

In this paper, the genre of the theatrical adaptation made by authors themselves in Russian fairytale drama of 1930–1950s is studied. The process of adaptation for the stage of non-dramatic works by their authors was rather widespread and productive during that period. As a result, such classical children’s fairytale dramas as «Tri tolstyaka» («Three fat men») by Yu.K. Olesha, «Zolotoy kluchik» («A small gold key») by A.N. Tolstoy, «V gostyakh u Kashcheya» («On a visit at Kashchey’s») by V.A. Kaverin had been created. In the article, the transformations made by the authors in the course of transposition of original works into drama form are analyzed. The main changes consist in sharpening and deepening of conflicts, strengthening of logical motivations, special construction of the composition, enrichment of characteristics of heroes and introduction of new characters. Nevertheless, such fundamental features of texts as an author’s position, a perspective, main conflicts, a system of heroes and a plot usually are preserved.

The given research deals with Saint Augustine’s metaphor of bishop’s burden – the sarcina episcopatus. This metaphor was most likely based on Saint Matthew’s ʻlight burdenʼ from Mt. 11:30 and can be considered as an example of Augustine’s paradoxical language. Metaphor’s meanings describe all the varieties of duties in the episcopal office, which, at times, were quite unpleasant and sufficiently tiring. Numerous mentions on the Fear of the Last Judgment are clearly emphasizing the weight of the bishop’s burden. However, bishop’s love for God and his congregation overcomes this fear and all the challenges of the episcopal office and makes this burden light.

The article describes one of the main phenomena of Internet-literature – fanfiction – as a discourse. The fanfiction discourse consists of the ʻcanonʼ (the source for the literary creative fans’ works) and ʻfanonʼ (the complex of the authoritative fans’ interpretations of the source). We focus on the creations of the Russian ʻHarry Potterʼ fan community.

This article is devoted to the analysis of one of the most important artistic devices, typical for metarealistic poetry, – ʻinside-outʼ. This technique was firstly mentioned by Konstantin Kedrov, but has not deserved enough attention from scholars because of the unclear explanation of the term. At the same time, the interpretation and clarification of many complicated metarealistic poems seem impossible without using all ʻtoolkitʼ of poetic techniques. This article presents the analysis of several episodes, taken from poem ʻNeftʼ (written by Alexey Parschikov), ʻOsypaetsja slozhnogo lesa pustaja prozrachnaja shemaʼ (written by Alexander Eremenko) and ʻNa novyj godʼ (written by Ivan Zhdanov). As for the ʻinside-out techniqueʼ, it gives the heroes a poetic ʻsupervisionʼ, which allows them to see through the earth; moreover, this artistic device helps to ʻembodyʼ complicated metaphors such as biblical metaphor ʻoutward as inwardʼ. Thus, ʻinside-out techniqueʼ and metarealistic optics of inverted perspective are used as efficient means for creating unique, outwardly paradoxical poetic images and they could be used for analyzing metarealistic poetry.