ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЙ ГОРОД В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ КУЛЬТУРЕ: КУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ ДИСКУРС И ЮРИДИЧЕСКИЙ СТАТУС

Abstract

The article aims to define the essence of the concept «historic city» in contemporary humanitarian knowledge. The article is based on analyzing the legal and culturological discourses on the historic city. Historical and cultural research method allows us to identify the reasons for the definition «historic city» to appear and trace the process of its development and transformation. The author focuses on the legal context in which the process of understanding the category of «historic city» goes through the search for and justification of unified criteria and signs of «historicity» of the city, determined by the value of architectural and urban heritage, and on assigning the status of «historic» to the city. There are certain criteria used for assessing historical and cultural value of a city. They are sign-markers of time, style and image, sign-symbols and sign-copies used for determining urban planning, historical, functional, architectural, aesthetic, emotional, artistic and scientific-cognitive value of the city historic environment. Apart from the subject of protection (valuable urban objects, planning, three-dimensional structure, compositional and visual connections), the legitimacy of the official status «historic city» is determined by such categories as protection zones and the boundaries of protection zones. The culturological discourse of the historic city is based on an a priori acceptance of the city as a unique phenomenon and then on its comprehensive integrative study. A defining characteristic of the historic city is the thesis of its integrity, the impossibility of «detailed» consideration. Scientists formulate the view of the historic city through the prism of this thesis in different ways: the city as a complex social organism with its own physiology, anatomy and psychology; the city as an integral socio-cultural formation, a complex self-developing system, represented in the material, spiritual and artistic culture; the Russian provincial historic city as a cultural universe, where two major problems come to the fore, i.e. the problem of the formation context and current existence of the historic city and the problem of personality. The author notes that the cultural discourse is more versatile and relevant, and should be taken into account in determining the legal status of the historic city.