Маргиналии к Маршаку [Marginalia to Marshak]

The article is an attempt to find, in Soviet poetry exemplified by poetry for children, reminiscences and allusions to classical or modernist poetry. Thus, Marshak’s typically Soviet propagandist poem “Nash gerb” (“Our Coat of Arms”) is traced back to Cherubina de Gabriac's poem of the same title. Children’s verse by Marshak, as well as some lyrical and satirical poetry, comprise the main material of the paper. Some examples of Marshak’s influence on posterior Russian poetry are analyzed.KEYWORDS: Gabriel Superfin at 80, 20th-Сentury Russian Literature, Samuil Marshak (1887—1964), Sergei Mikhalkov (1913—2009), Subtext, History of Literature

Контуры одной традиции: «Ариец», «семит» и природа (Вокруг полемики Александра Блока и Акима Волынского об иудаизме Гейне) [Outlines of a Forgotten Prejudice: “Aryans,” “Semites,” and Nature (The Polemics of Alexander Blok and Akim Volynsky Concerning Heine’s Judaism)]

At the end of 1919, literary critic Akim Volynsky and poet Alexander Blok exchanged polemical remarks about Heinrich Heine’s attitude towards Judaism. In the course of this debate, one strange thesis arose, expressed by Volynsky and fully supported by Blok: the Jews, compared to the Aryans (they were talking about both religious and racial differences), turn out to be in their worldview indifferent to nature. An attempt to find the genesis of, and to comment on, this idea, strange for today, expressed by a prominent Russian literary critic and outstanding poet, leads the researcher to Hegel’s philosophy of history, its articulations by some of his readers and listeners (including Heine himself), the history of French thought of the 19th century, in particular to the philosophy of religion of Edgar Quinet and the history of Semitic languages written by Ernest Renan, as well as numerous echoеs of the deliberations of Renan (who canonized for European culture the idea of the indifference of Jews to nature) in the history of Russian modernism (Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vasily Rozanov). The outlines of this now almost forgotten intellectual tradition, without which it is impossible to understand some texts in Russian modernism, are the subject of this article.KEYWORDS: 20th-Century Russian Literature, Alexander Blok (1880—1921), Akim Volynsky (1861—1926), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770—1831), Heinrich Heine (1797—1856), Edgar Quinet (1803—1875), Ernest Renan (1823—1892), Judaism, History of Ideas

Governmentality in the Context of a Japanese-funded Farm-to- Market Road (FMR) in Agdangan, Quezon Province, Philippines

Recent studies have focused on the role of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in financing infrastructural projects and rural development programmes. This study contributes to this literature by demonstrating how Japanese and Filipino aid authorities facilitate a Japanese-ODA-funded Farm-to-Market Road (FMR) subproject as a solution aiming to achieve overall poverty reduction and rural economic growth in the Philippines. Drawing on Foucault’s governmentality, the paper analyses processes and interactions within the management stages of the FMR subproject. It examines the impact of the completed FMR among agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs). It argues that while the FMR fostered mutual understanding and beneficial relationships among aid authorities, more significant advantages were accrued by the non-poor sector. Consequently, ARBs clamour for further support to maximize FMR benefits

Positioning Post-Soviet Sociology in Global Sociology: Between the Global South and the Global North

Sociology in today's world often seeks to internationalise research and globalise problem solving. However, so-called ‘global sociology’ is far away from being actually global as it involves in the discussion only specific regions and communities. The voice of other regions, as a rule, is not heard in the established system of connections and positions, and the regions themselves act as passive objects of (re)positioning, which is determined by the needs of specific research carried out by the nominally ‘global’ sociological community. The goal of the current study is to position one of the excluded sociological communities – post-soviet sociology – in global sociology using the North-South analytical framework that is frequently applied in discussions of global academic inequalities. The findings suggest that post-soviet sociology is positioned closer to the Global South, though significant country-based differences are observed. Post-soviet sociology functions as fragmented and disconnected, and this is facilitated by its orientation towards the ‘northern’ standards of knowledge production, which is professed even to the detriment of originality and independence

Фрагмент из рыцарского романа «Парциваль» Вольфрама фон Эшенбаха в переводе Эллиса (Льва Кобылинского) [A Fragment of the Chivalric Novel _Parzival_ by Wolfram von Eschenbach in Ellis’ (Lev Kobylinsky’s) Translation]

This is the first publication of a previously unknown translation of over 200 lines from Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, which survived in Ellis’ (Lev Kobylinsky) anthology Pevtsy Germanii (Singers of Germany). Ellis started to compile this anthology with the purpose of demonstrating the incompatibility of genuine German cultural and religious traditions with the ideology of the Third Reich. His selection of texts for the translation was largely prompted by his previous studies, which included Richard Wagner and Wagner’s sources, esoteric interpretations of the image of the Holy Grail, and the reception of monuments of the Western European Middle Ages.KEYWORDS: Gabriel Superfin at 80, 20th-Century Russian Literature, Ellis (Lev Kobylinsky, 1874—1947), Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170—1220), Parzival, Translation, Textual Criticism

1921 February rebellion as a manifestation of Armenian war of independence

Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia declared their independence in the spring of 1918. After the signing of the Armistice of Compiègne and the annulment of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that had been agreed upon between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers, the Soviet Red Army started a campaign to capture the areas that had belonged to Russia. Armenia had to fight two enemies – the Turkey of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on the one side and Soviet Russia on the other. Turkey attacked Armenia in the autumn of 1920. Even though Soviet Russia had signed a treaty with Armenia in August, the Armenian Bolsheviks, supported by the Red Army, proclaimed the Soviet Republic of Armenia in November and began Sovietization of the country, accompanied by repressions against Armenian national politicians, military leaders and intellectuals. As a result of an uprising that began in February 1921, the Bolsheviks were ousted from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, but the counter-offensive of the Red Army in April restored the Bolshevik rule in Armenia

«Мачеха российских городов»: Берлин 1920-х годов глазами русских писателей [“The Stepmother of Russian Cities” Revisited: Berlin of the 1920s through the Eyes of Russian Writers]

The article examines images of Weimar Berlin in Russian literature of the 1920s. In contrast to the glamorization of Berlin as the center of modernity in art, technology, mass entertainment and sexual practices in the writings of German and West European authors of the period, most Russian writers echoed Spengler’s critique of Western civilization and portrayed the city in a negative light underlining its boredom, ugliness, and the lack of vitality. For them, Berlin was like a huge transfer station that they were eager to leave as soon as possible. A smaller group of Russian émigrés that stayed in Berlin for a long time tried to ignore the hostile outside world and absorb themselves in their Russian memories and cultural milieu. The only exception to these trends was the Berlin of Vladimir Nabokov, who managed to turn the foreign city into the main source and object of his Russian-language short stories and novels.KEYWORDS: Gabriel Superfin at 80, 20th-Century Russian Literature, Vladimir Nabokov (1899—1977), Russian Berlin, History of Literature

Noorte poliitiline osalus Twitteris: kuidas noored ennast säutsudes väljendavad?

Youth political participation on Twitter: how youth express themselves in tweets?AbstractSocial media allows young people to engage in new, alternative ways that differ from traditional political participation. Social media is considered to be one of the main means of self-expression for young people, which includes political self-expression. Young people prefer more personal ways of political participation compared to traditional participation, such as voting in elections or joining a political party. To increase youth political participation, it is important to understand how young people participate on different social media platforms. In addition, it is essential to find methods to include those who have not yet been involved by previous methods of involvement. This study focused on Twitter, intending to find out what supports and hinders participation on Twitter, what forms of participation young people use, what meaning participation on Twitter has for young people, what motivates them to participate, and what are the effects of participation on Twitter on other forms of participation in the opinion of young people. The author used ethnographic observation on the social media platform Twitter and semi-structured interviews with young Estonian Twitter users as data collection methods and thematic content analysis to analyze the collected data. Results revealed that although young people are interested in political and social issues, with interest primarily expressed through keeping themselves informed, they consider their own activity insufficient. According to young people, active political participation in social media manifests primarily in initiating discussions through original posts. Anonymity and positive feedback from other users were cited as factors supporting participation. Young people prefer social media to get news and see Twitter as a reliable source of information, but they emphasized the criticality of sources and the importance of fact-checking content posted on social media. They considered Twitter an important social media platform that supports participation through sharing information, raising awareness of current issues and participating in discussions through which changes in society can take place

Graduate Student Conference in Russian Language and Literatures (Helsinki—Tallinn—Tartu)

This is an overview of a newly established series of Estonian-Finnish conferences on Russian language and literatures (russkaia filologiia). In 2023, this conference united graduate students from Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Switzerland, the US and Uzbekistan. The first conference of the series took place at Tallinn University from May 12 to 14, 2023, while the upcoming two conferences will be held in Tartu (2024) and Helsinki (2025).KEYWORDS: Tallinn University, Tartu University, University of Helsinki, Conference Overview