Discovering the Far East...’: Images of the Territory in the Works of V. K. Arsenyev

The article explores the works of the Far East explorer V.K. Arsenyev (1872–1930) with the purpose of using his works to find the representational potential of the region’s image. Using social constructivism as a methodology, we outline and analyze scientific and artistic types of constructing the Far East image and demonstrate the place each of these types occupies in Arsenyev’s works.     Keywords: regional image, constructivism, construct, visualization, Russian Far East, V.K.Arsenye

Chekhov’s sakhalin: Photographic fixation of the Island

The article examines the photographic representations of Sakhalin in the end of XIX century, in the period of A. P. Chekhov’s stay on the island. Sakhalin is viewed as a peculiar cultural and geographical space with clear frontier characteristics. Sakhalin regional identity is seen as formed on the basis of ideas of “the remote island – continent” and “the place of nameless misery”. Beginning with an analysis of Sakhalin in the context of imperial imagination, authors rediscover a photofixation of the island in the above-mentioned period. Analysis of Chekhov’s photo collection is addressed to the works of frontier and memory studies as well as visual anthropology. The article is based on empirical data of Archive of Amur region Research Society (Vladivostok) and photos from Benedict Dybovsky’s (1833–1930) album that is stored in Kamchatka Regional United Museum (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky). Developing a discourse about photography as a valuable resource for visual representation of the frontier territories, the authors give systematization and classification of the main images of Sakhalin at the end of XIX century (a case of photographer I. I. Pavlovsky), present the correlation between photographic and literary images as well as reveal the role of those photos in perception of Sakhalin inside and outside of an empire. The article argued that visual criteria of Sakhalin’s life were created by means of typical protagonist’s positions and scenes (labor and everyday life of hard laborers), physical anthropology (indigenous faces, faces of criminals), architect and natural landscape of the island. The authors came to the conclusion that photos of Sakhalin as well as literary works on the island depict the visible margins between Sakhalin and other parts of Russia and present the specifics of Sakhalin regional identity. © 2020 Tomsk State Pedagogical University. All rights reserved

Traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film: Khanty. The case of the documentary film Tiny Katerina

This article investigates the representation of traditional culture in ethnographic films among the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The special attention is paid to childhood in traditional culture of Khanty peoples in Ugra. The article focuses on the documentary film Malen’kaia Katerina (Tiny Katerina; Ivan Golovnev 2004), which depicts the childhood of a Khanty girl in northwestern Siberia over the course of three years. Authors analyze the child’s relation to nature, adulthood, and the development of gender identity. The article looks into the cinematographic techniques used for the film creation and major episodes of the film such as “a child`s role in Khanty culture”, “play”, ‘the adult world”. Also explored are objective and subjective conditions in which the cinematographic image is created, with a special emphasis being put on studying filmmaker's (director's) role in film production. The conclusion drawn is that, on the one hand, the ethnographic film is a valuable contribution to Anthropology that adds to the corpus of documents on traditional culture of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. On the other hand, the film contains evidence of scientific criticism and allows one to explore cinematographic material from anthropological, historical, and psychological positions. Authors came to conclusion that ethnographic cinema can be seen as promising research methodology in the field of contemporary anthropology. This essay reelaborates and enriches some of the themes already present in a previous contribution The Representation of Childhood in Ethnographic Films of Siberian Indigenous Peoples: The Case of the Documentary Film Malen’kaia Katerina (Tiny Katerina) [Golovnev I., Golovneva E. 2016, 83-106].This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) as part of project No.18-09-00076 The traditional Northern communities in ethnographic film

The Far East in the films of A. Litvinov: constructing the image of space

The article was submitted on 28.04.2016.Дан анализ просветительского документального кино (культурфильмов) как средства конструирования образов региона в советскую эпоху. В 1920–1930-х гг. советская киноиндустрия была направлена на создание образов, которые позволяли зрительской аудитории по-новому взглянуть на образ жизни своей и иных территорий. Работая на «шестой части суши», кинематографисты показывали региональное разнообразие большой многонациональной страны, старались популярно рассказать советским гражданам о регионах. На материале фильмов А. Литвинова, сыгравшего важную роль в развитии практики экспедиционных фильмов в СССР, показано конструирование визуальных образов советского Дальнего Востока. Предпринятый авторами анализ ранних киноработ А. Литвинова Лесные люди (1928), По дебрям Уссурийского края (1928), Неведомая земля (1931) позволяет заключить, что они создавали образ Дальнего Востока прежде всего как «культурного фронтира», региона, основанного на природном и этническом многообразии. Дальний Восток в фильмах Литвинова предстает как особый пограничный регион Советской России. В то же время киноработы А. Литвинова на Дальнем Востоке – это первые кинематографические репрезентации «малых народностей» края, переживавших качественные изменения, связанные с распространением советской идеологии. Их отличительный характер состоял в том, что они заключали в себе научно-исследовательский подход, сочетали кинематографический метод и литературное творчество. Делается вывод о том, что в СССР культурфильмы представляли собой яркий пример дискурсивного и концептуального освоения отдаленных территорий, символического их «изобретения» и включения в систему восприятия новой империи.This article explores the educational documentary film (Kulturfilm) as a visual construct of a region in the Soviet epoch. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet film industry was actively engaged in developing particular images, which refashioned the way the audience saw their own territories and those of others. Working around the “sixth part of the world”, filmmakers elaborated a set of lasting visual images, describing the regional diversity of the great multinational state. They also attempted to “popularise” the region among Soviet citizens. Based on the films of Aleksandr Litvinov, who played a prominent role in establishing the expedition film practice in the Soviet Union, the paper considers the construction of visual images of the Soviet Far East. A contextual analysis of the Forest People (1928), Through the Ussuri Area (1928), Terra Incognita (1931) demonstrates that they continuously emphasised the image of the Far East as a cultural frontier, which featured the natural and ethnic regional diversity. The Far East in Litvinov’s films is a peculiar region with borderland status. At the same time, Litvinov’s films on the Far East can be viewed as the first cinematographic representations of the “small peoples” of the Far East under Soviet-inspired changes. The combination of filmmaking with a scholarly approach and literary narratives is central to the understanding of the peculiar character of those early films. Litvinov’s case demonstrates that Kulturfilms in the Soviet Union provide an insight into the conceptual and discourse conquest of the remote regions as well as their full symbolic ‘invention’ and inclusion into the perception of the new empire.Статья подготовлена при поддержке гранта РФФИ, проект № 16-33-01038 «Образ региона в культурфильме (на примере творчества А. Литвинова)»

Molecular dynamics study of cluster structure and properties of rotational waves in solid nanostructures

The paper reports a molecular dynamics analysis of rotary properties of a transformational wave generated due to compressive influence. Studies are performed in the time interval prior to the onset of elastic precursor reflection from the free boundary. It is shown that the leading front of a rotary wave coincides with the transformational wave front. The rotary wave velocity for copper is determined, being equal to 1300 m/s. The values of angular moment projections onto the coordinate axes in a plane perpendicular to wave propagation are found to be symmetrical, and their total sum equals zero

Soviet Anti-religious Film. “Sectarians” by Vladimir Korolevich (1930)

The article examines a unique phenomenon of Soviet cinema – the anti-religious film of the 1920s–1930s – a question insufficiently explored in humanitarian historiography so far. Being an organic part of the “cultural revolution”, on the one hand, anti-religious films of this period acted as an effective tool for the propaganda of the Soviet state in the fight against both the official church and manifestations of everyday religiosity. On the other hand, their creation was accompanied by detailed theoretical and methodological recommendations on the forms of interaction of party propagandists with the audience, and on the formats for the presentation of anti-religious attitudes. Based on previously unpublished archival materials, the authors bring to the fore one of the most indicative of such films titled “Sectarians” shoot by Vladimir Korolevich (Sovkino, 1930). The authors consider the film as a document of that time and analyze processes that ran parallel with one another in the Soviet culture and policy. Taking the film “Sectarians” as a case-study, the authors explore cinematic methods of constructing a negative image of sectarian organizations in the USSR and its broadcast to a wide audience in ideological way. The authors came to the conclusion that the Soviet anti-religious cinema, combining the techniques of avant-garde cinematography and scientific atheism, successfully fulfilled its propaganda mission. In this context, the film “Sectarians” is a valuable historical source, that represented the contradictory phenomena of its time and was aimed at the visual reconstruction of “Sovietness” as a new religion. © 2021, Amur State University. All rights reserved.This research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) as a part of the project № 21-18-00518, https://rscf.ru/en/project/21-18-00518/

Molecular dynamics study of cluster structure and properties of rotational waves in solid nanostructures

The paper reports a molecular dynamics analysis of rotary properties of a transformational wave generated due to compressive influence. Studies are performed in the time interval prior to the onset of elastic precursor reflection from the free boundary. It is shown that the leading front of a rotary wave coincides with the transformational wave front. The rotary wave velocity for copper is determined, being equal to 1300 m/s. The values of angular moment projections onto the coordinate axes in a plane perpendicular to wave propagation are found to be symmetrical, and their total sum equals zero

Иван Александрович Гончаров (1812-1891): книжно-иллюстративная выставка

On the book-illustrative exhibition, organized by the Russian State Library and devoted to the life and works of the outstanding Russian novelist Ivan Goncharov.О книжно-иллюстративная выставке, посвященной жизни и творчеству выдающегося русского романиста И.А. Гончарова, организованной в Российской государственной библиотеке

Epidemiologic Situation on Brucellosis in the Russian Federation in 2012 and Prognosis for 2013

Displayed is the analysis of epizootic and epidemic situation on brucellosis in the Russian Federation in 2012. Demonstrated is the fact that epizootic condition still remains tense. It specifies the character of epidemic manifestations. For 2013 leveling of the brucellosis incidence rate among the population of the Russian Federation is forecasted

The Far East in Vladimir Arsenyev’s Photographic Works: A “Repertoire” of Images

The article was submitted on 17.08.2018.This article explores the peculiarities of the photographic perception of the Far East by Vladimir K. Arsenyev (1872–1930), a traveller and researcher who wrote dozens of valuable literary and scholarly works about the region and created brilliant photographic images of its natural and ethnic diversity. The authors refer to previously unpublished archival data and photographic collections kept in the Archive of the Amur Regional Studies Society in Vladivostok and connected with Arsenyev’s expeditions in the Far East. Arsenyev’s photographic archive contains over 500 negatives, plates, and unique photographs with ethnographic, archaeological, and geographic images of the Far East, as well as images of the sovietisation of the Far Eastern frontier. These visual materials transfer historical information and are of great importance for contemporary researchers, though they still remain unstudied and unsystematised. Referring to the ideas of Russian and non-Russian researchers about photographic materials as important messages about cultures, this work starts a new historiographic page on the visual anthropology of Russia in the early twentieth century. The topic of the visualisation of the region in Arsenyev’s work is considered in the context of bearers of knowledge about the Far East and key approaches to its photographing in the early stages of photography’s development. The authors systematise the “repertoire” of photographic images found in Arsenyev’s archive according to the thematic and chronological principles. Finally, they make a conclusion about the importance of Arsenyev’s activity for the visual representation of the Russian Far Eastern frontier during the period in question.Рассматривается специфика фотографического видения Дальнего Востока в творчестве писателя и путешественника В. К. Арсеньева (1872–1930), не только создавшего научные и литературные произведения о крае, но и оставившего яркие фотографические «портреты» его природного и этнокультурного разнообразия. Эмпирической базой исследования являются не публиковавшиеся ранее архивные документы и фотоматериалы, связанные с экспедиционной деятельностью исследователя на Дальнем Востоке, хранящиеся в Архиве Общества изучения Амурского края (Владивосток). Личный фонд В. К. Арсеньева содержит свыше 500 единиц негативов, пластин, уникальных фотодокументов, запечатлевших этнографические, археологические, географические образы, а также картины советизации дальневосточного фронтира. Эти визуальные материалы из наследия В. К. Арсеньева транслируют информацию, навсегда ушедшую в историю, и поэтому представляют особую ценность для современных исследований, хотя до сих пор остаются неописанными и несистематизированными. Опираясь на идеи отечественных и зарубежных исследователей о фотоматериалах как значимых «сообщениях» об изучаемых культурах, авторы фактически открывают новую историографическую страницу в визуальной антропологии России начала XX в. Тема визуализации региона в творчестве В. К. Арсеньева раскрывается в контексте выявления носителей «визуального» знания на Дальнем Востоке, ключевых вопросов рассмотрения региона и приемов его фотофиксации в ранний период развития фотографии. Выделяемый авторами «репертуар» фотографических образов арсеньевского архива систематизируется по тематическому и хронологическому принципам. Отмечается значение деятельности В. К. Арсеньева в визуальной репрезентации российского дальневосточного фронтира в рассматриваемый период.Работа выполнена при поддержке гранта РФФИ, проект № 18–59–23007 «Опыты изучения и визуальной репрезентации фронтирных территорий России и СССР в визуальной антропологии первой половины XX века: на примере исследований российских и венгерских ученых и кинематографистов». Авторы выражают благодарность сотрудникам Архива Общества изучения Амурского края (Владивосток) и лично его председателю Алексею Михайловичу Буякову