The United States of America in Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done? and Sergey Yesenin’s Biography: the Way over the Ocean and the Folklore Motif of Wanderings

The article discusses possible sources of Yesenin’s acquaintance with Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s novel What Is to Be Done? and its critical evaluation. Deep comprehension of the the novel on a subconscious level could lead to the fact that the poet’s personal life began to resemble the fate of literary heroes. Yesenin's trip with Isadora Duncan through Western Europe and the United States of America is to some extent reminiscent of Chernyshevsky's characters’ travels abroad; descriptions of their travels in the novel influenced the poet’s attitude to the way of life in different countries. In his autobiographies, Yesenin mentions his trips to America and Western Europe – the fact that emphasizes the importance of these continents in his biography and work; letters from different countries indicating geographic places of stay find parallels with the toponymy in Chernyshevsky’s novel. There is a certain similarity the names in Chernyshevsky’s novel and in Yesenin’s works: Charles and Charin, Jim. Mentioning Ryazan and Tambovskaya guberniia in connection with Lopukhov-Beaumont should have attracted Yesenin’s attention, who was a native of Ryazan region that he praised in his poems; he also wrote about the neighboring Tambov province. Political and economic questions of America raised by Chernyshevsky, Yesenin considered in his Iron Mirgorod

“Prayer to the Archangel Michael” and “The Dream of Our Lady” in the Records of Petr G. Bogatirev (On the Archival Materials)

This is the first publication of “The Dream of Our Lady” and “The Prayer to Archangel Michael,” two pieces recorded by Petr G. Bogatirev in 1914–1915 in the village Bavykino of the Moscow region with a commentary. The publication contains extensive passages from Bogatirev’s presentations on collected works of spiritual folklore and proceedings of the meetings of the Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography (OLEAE) dedicated to Bogatirev’s lectures about apocrypha and other results of his folklore expeditions. Bogatirev attempted to prove that at the beginning of the 20 th Century, traditional folklore was still preserved in the settlements near large industrial centers. Already during his first expedition as a student of Moscow University, he recorded the work of the entire folklore complex in dialect. His valuable works on spiritual folklore bearing on book and church sources exist both in verbal and written form. While preparing presentations about his expeditions, Bogatirev pointed out a corpus of already published analogical works and compared it with his own folklore discoveries, analyzed previous research on the subject and made his own conclusions. Keywords: Petr G. Bogatirev, expeditions, Moscow region, Serpukhov district, apocryphal prayer, “The Dream of Our Lady,” Commission of the Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, Moscow linguistic group

Model of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus for Development of a DNA-Modified, Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Sensor with a Novel Hybrid Plasmonic Platform in Sandwich Mode

The recent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has posed a great challenge for the development of ultra-fast methods for virus identification based on sensor principles. We created a structure modeling surface and size of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and used it in comparison with the standard antigen SARS-CoV-2—the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the S-protein of the envelope of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the Wuhan strain—for the development of detection of coronaviruses using a DNA-modified, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based aptasensor in sandwich mode: a primary aptamer attached to the plasmonic surface—RBD-covered Ag nanoparticle—the Cy3-labeled secondary aptamer. Fabricated novel hybrid plasmonic structures based on “Ag mirror-SiO2-nanostructured Ag” demonstrate sensitivity for the detection of investigated analytes due to the combination of localized surface plasmons in nanostructured silver surface and the gap surface plasmons in a thin dielectric layer of SiO2 between silver layers. A specific SERS signal has been obtained from SERS-active compounds with RBD-specific DNA aptamers that selectively bind to the S protein of synthetic virion (dissociation constants of DNA-aptamer complexes with protein in the range of 10 nM). The purpose of the study is to systematically analyze the combination of components in an aptamer-based sandwich system. A developed virus size simulating silver particles adsorbed on an aptamer-coated sensor provided a signal different from free RBD. The data obtained are consistent with the theory of signal amplification depending on the distance of the active compound from the amplifying surface and the nature of such a compound. The ability to detect the target virus due to specific interaction with such DNA is quantitatively controlled by the degree of the quenching SERS signal from the labeled compound. Developed indicator sandwich-type systems demonstrate high stability. Such a platform does not require special permissions to work with viruses. Therefore, our approach creates the promising basis for fostering the practical application of ultra-fast, amplification-free methods for detecting coronaviruses based on SARS-CoV-2