Vol 3, No 3 (2022)

The research deals with the comprehension of urban identity. On the one hand, this phenomenon is understood as a set of authentic features and characteristics (inherent in a particular city) that perform an attributive function and reveal the specificity of the phenomenon. On the other hand, urban identity is considered as both the process and result of a particular person’s identification with the city, which is associated with an acceptance of the local identity and is accompanied by an emotional self-inclusion into the realm of both object and symbolic urban environment. The main results of the research of the urban identity of residents of several industrial cities in the Southern Urals (such as Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Zlatoust, Ozyorsk, Karabash, and Satka), performed through a mass survey of 1050 people, are presented in the article.

The article deals with a contextual analysis of one chapter in the novel Kys’ by Tatyana Tolstaya, a contemporary Russian writer. The linguistic peculiarity of this work is shown together with the importance and role of certain elements of colloquial syntax (such as incomplete sentences, syntactic parallelism, rhetorical questions, repeats, etc.). Specific ways and techniques of transforming syntactic units from a neutral plane of an utterance to an expressively emotional one are revealed on concrete examples. Arguments are provided that the functions of the colloquial syntax elements in the novel are to create a comical effect, to strengthen the emotionality of both the characters and the text in general, to organize the speech rhythm, as well as to reveal both the protagonists’ inner world and an aesthetic atmosphere of this unusual work.

The article deals with two genres of Italian vocal music of the beginning of the 17th century: the duet and the dialogue. The preconditions of their emergence and stylistic differences are revealed based on the principles of expressing poetic texts in music. This difference manifests itself most fully in the harmonic solution of a vocal piece, so special attention is paid to both the poetic text and its musical expression; in so doing, certain regularities of the musical-poetic formal structure are revealed, illustrated by analytical essays as exemplified by two vocal pieces of the stated time period.

The article deals with little-studied issues related to the role of women, who represented various social classes, in the foundation and development of private libraries in three provinces of the Upper Volga area during the second half of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries. As exemplified by the Vladimir, Kostroma and Yaroslavl Provinces, women’s contribution to the foundation of libraries in both urban and rural areas has been studied. Based on numerous archival materials from today’s Russian regions, the author concludes that private libraries founded upon women’s initiative at the beginning of the 20th century were one of the significant components of the library realm in the Upper Volga area.

On the basis of some documents from the collections of both the Bakhrushin State Central Museum of Theatre, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art and the Russian State Art Library’s Department of Archival Materials, the history of preparing an unimplemented edition on the Soviet ballet is examined. Four versions of the manuscript Terpsikhora strany sovetov (“Terpsichore of the Soviet Country”), written by N.D. Volkov and Yu.I. Slonimsky in 1939–43, are described in the article. Changes in both the structure and the content of the unpublished monograph are traced, as well as its connection with these authors’ later projects is shown.

The article contains a description of the life and work of S.S. Aksakov, the first composer from Samara and an outstanding representative of a famous noble family who has left rich musical and pedagogical legacy. The educator’s activities in both China and the USSR are considered. A contribution of teachers of the Samara State Institute of Culture to the popularizing of S.S. Aksakov’s oeuvre through the holding of concerts and conferences, as well as through the carrying out of scholarly publications, is shown.

The editorial board of journal presents a conversation between Prof. V.I. Ionesov, Doctor of Culture Studies (the Samara State Institute of Culture), and Prof. N.A. Khrenov, Doctor of Philosophy (the Moscow State Institute of Art Studies), discussing various aspects of historical and contemporary transformations of culture together with the change of its life cycles, as well as its social and artistic paradigms. Special features of the cultural code are considered in the context of Russia’s intellectual traditions; the roles of art, of symbolic practices, and of the dialog of cultures are substantiated in the context of a changing world. The meanings of such concepts as “the leader of culture,” “the driver of culture,” “social myth-making,” “transitional processes,” “visual communication,” and “art transformation” are revealed.