Theological Discourse in the Formation of the Literary Tale: How Worldview came to Dominate Narrative

This study is motivated by new perspectives that help to expend the boundaries of multidisciplinary research. The article examines the discourse on the literary tale with regard to its theological specificity of narrative and how worldview came to dominate it. The most significant examples of German, Russian, Polish, Romanian and Ukrainian tales are analysed, taking into consideration national ethos. The specifics of the genre are explored in their historical and cultural contexts, with an emphasis on the difference between the literary tale and the folktale. Previous research indicates that the poetics of literary tales of this type has not been studied sufficiently. The paper aims to examine the literary tale within an ethno-national historical context, considering the main aspects of the Christian religious ethos of the 19th century. Our methodology includes an integrative multidisciplinary approach that combines the principles of historical poetics, hermeneutics, receptive poetics and classical methods of folkloristics in the light of transitivity theory. The findings support the idea that reception peculiarities of Christian tale poetics predominantly focus on plot development, personosphere, chronotope, Christian tokens, divine symbols and paradigms. The focused was both on the encoded religious intentions of literary tales (requiring receptive decoding of allusions) and the transparently expressed appeals to God with an emphasis on Christian hermeneutic instruction. Accordingly, fabulous archetypes related to religious morality were analysed using the example of Pushkin’s literary tales. Overall, distinction between the genres of Christian fairy tale, Christmas tale and Christian fantasy appeared to be the most productive. We conclude that the genre matrix of the fairy tale remains open to various modifications, and consequently, fairy tale narrative structures when combined with Christian motifs actuate other genre forms. We emphasise that reception of theological discourse on a literary tale depends on the readers’ psycholinguistic competencies and the peculiarities of their religious identity

The long-term consequences of antibiotic therapy: Role of colonic short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) system and intestinal barrier integrity.

Epidemiological studies revealed that antibiotics exposure increases a risk of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) development. It remained largely unknown how antibiotic-induced dysbiosis confers the risk for enhanced inflammatory response. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that SCFAs, their receptors and transporters mediate the antibiotic long-term effects on the functional state of colonic mucosa and susceptibility to the experimental colitis. Male Wistar rats were treated daily for 14 days with antibiotic ceftriaxone (300 mg/kg, i.m.) or vehicle; euthanized by CO2 inhalation followed by cervical dislocation in 1, 14 or 56 days after antibiotic withdrawal. We found increased cecum weight and sustained changes in microbiota composition after ceftriaxone treatment with increased number of conditionally pathogenic enterobacteria, E. coli, Clostridium, Staphylococcus spp. and hemolytic bacteria even at 56 days after antibiotic withdrawal. The concentration of SCFAs was decreased after ceftriaxone withdrawal. We found decreased immunoreactivity of the FFA2, FFA3 receptors, SMCT1 and increased MCT1 & MCT4 transporters of SCFAs in colon mucosa. These changes evoked a significant shift in colonic mucosal homeostasis: the disturbance of oxidant-antioxidant balance; activation of redox-sensitive transcription factor HIF1α and ERK1/2 MAP kinase; increased colonic epithelial permeability and bacterial translocation to blood; morphological remodeling of the colonic tissue. Ceftriaxone pretreatment significantly reinforced inflammation during experimental colitis 56 days after ceftriaxone withdrawal, which was confirmed by increased histopathology of colitis, Goblet cell dysfunction, colonic dilatation and wall thickening, and increased serum levels of inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α and IL-10). Since the recognition of the importance of microbiota metabolic activity rather than their composition in the development of inflammatory disorders, e.g. IBD, the present study is the first report on the role of the SCFA system in the long lasting side effects of antibiotic treatment and its implication in IBD development