This article examines the emergence of the philosophical and literary concept of genius in early nineteenth-century Russia. The concept’s semantic content became a point of discussion in Europe, particularly in relation to the themes of true creativity and inspiration. The author cites translated literary, critical, and essayistic publications in magazines whose publishers adopt divergent ideological and artistic positions. European literary theorists (Voltaire, J.-F. de la Harpe, etc.) provided a foundation for Russian authors to critically assimilate translated material, as evidenced by the conceptual apparatus. Therefore, the comparison of génie (genius) and gout (taste) is a topic of interest for French criticism. It first appears in translated publications and is subsequently examined in original theoretical and literary articles. Genius is often considered a natural and innate ability. As a psycho-emotional characteristic of a person, it intersects with the acquired “ability to recognize”, i.e. taste. The article provides an analysis of the works of N. Brusilov, I. Martynov, A. Shishkov, and P. Karabanov. These authors adopt largely polemical positions in their assessment of the role of the European tradition in the emerging new Russian literature. However, for all the authors studied, the starting point of their reasoning was Western works and, above all, the Lycée, ou cours de littérature ancienne et moderne by de la Harpe, a theorist of French classicism. Enlightenment aesthetics, which dominates in the translated works devoted to the definition of genius in comparison with the concept of taste, is transferred to Russian soil simultaneously with the actualisation of the national peculiarities of Russian literature and the steady preservation of the ancient tradition, which is presented as a reference combination of genius and taste.

This article examines the process of industrial identity formation at one of the largest industrial enterprises in the USSR and Russia, i.e. UralVagonZavod (Eng. Ural Railroad Car Factory) in Nizhny Tagil. The author identifies the most important stages of this process and key elements that formed the discourse about this enterprise. It is demonstrated that the initial characteristics of UralVagonZavod in the 1920s and 1930s were built around the concept of “American technology” in the Urals, emphasizing the innovative production scheme for the USSR, which included a car-producing conveyor. The unprecedented size of the workshops of UralVagonZavod for the country, in particular, the largest car assembly shop, allowed it to be characterized as a “great plant” (an expression of the writer I. I. Likstanov). However, the difficulties associated with the development of flow-conveyor production did not allow UralVagonZavod to take a place in the Soviet public sphere on a par with other giants of the five-year plans. Even though during the Great Patriotic War UralVagonZavod became the world’s largest tank manufacturer and maintained a defence component in its production programme in the following decades, defence themes did not play a significant role in public perceptions of the plant until the 1980s. In the 1950s, a view was formed of UralVagonZavod as a keeper of the original tradition of “Ural masters” dating back to the eighteenth century (historicism). Later, an idea was formed of the plant as an outpost of a kind of industrial humanism (comfortable work environment, formation of a “new man”). It is concluded that the emergence of a narrative identity of industrial production, despite the existence of certain models, is largely a product of factors unique to each specific enterprise.

Based on archival documents, this article considers the activity of the first school on the territory of Krasnoyarsk mining district at the state Lukazsky Plant, which has never been done previously. The author examines the peculiarities of its opening in connection with the resettlement of all service class people from the Kolyvan-Voskresensky Plant after its return to A. N. Demidov in Krasnoyarsk Uyezd in 1737. A unique phenomenon was the beginning of its activity even during the construction of the Lukazsky Plant, two years before its commissioning. The article considers issues underlying the appointment of teachers, provision of the school with teaching aids, and composition of students. Also, the author examines the difficulties the school faced with teaching children from around Irbinsky Plant 95 versts away and from distant mining districts. It demonstrates the insufficiency of the state salary (3 roubles a year) which was not enough even to feed pupils due to the high prices in Siberia and their fathers’ low salaries. Most of them could not financially sustain children studying far from their homes and asked for schools to be opened at their places of residence. Forced expulsion of these children from school in 1740, assignment of state wages from 1743 only to orphans, children of retired men, soldiers, and recruits caused the number of students to shrink two times. The children of craftsmen and factory workers were enrolled in school only with the consent of their fathers to support them at their own expense. Additionally, the author describes the reasons for the transfer of pupils in 1746 to the school at the Nerchinsk Plant. She mentions the high indicators of spatial mobility of craftsmen and labourers who were transferred from Ekaterinburg with their families and at the will of their superiors in 1735 to the Kolyvano-Voskresensky Plant, from there in 1737 to the uninhabited territories of Krasnoyarsk Uyezd, and in 1746 from Lukazsky Uyezd to the Nerchinsk Plant; they covered a distance of 4,538 versts during ten years, including more than 2,000 versts to their final destination in Nerchinsk.

This paper explores the origin and occurrence in modern literature of the motif of the hero-reader’s revolt against the book, from late traditionalism to postmodernism. Special attention is paid to Benigsen’s novel GenAcide, which demonstrates the changes associated with the dogma of literaturocentrism in Russian culture at the turn of the twenty-first century. The article aims to demonstrate the specific relationship between the reader and the book. On the one hand, illusions about living according to what is written have been shattered. On the other hand, the book becomes an instrument of communication and understanding of the Other. Literature itself can play the role of the Other. The reader’s interactions with the Other are frequently influenced by the literary response to the contemporary aesthetic theory, which determines the type of protagonist — a professional philologist (librarian, writer, interpreter). The novel GenAcide depicts an experiment in the introduction of book knowledge and its tragic consequences at the plot level (riot, death, fire in the library). The action is illuminated by the plots of Russian classics, the images of the characters are correlated with the figures of writers (from A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, L. Tolstoy to A. Chekhov and M. Gorky) and famous literary characters (the key position is taken by the image of Chichikov), which opens the prospect of multiple interpretations. The study utilises the comparative-historical method and a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the text. The analysis concludes that forcibly introducing literature into existence does not harmonise it at all. Russian history does not move along the path of humanistic comprehension of the Other but is marked by a Platonic version of history — a pit or a rut, as demonstrated by the logic of GenAcide. The novel, which began with the project of cosmicising the world through the efforts of a man who reads, finishes with a picture of ashes. History is going backwards, the signs of the book riot and the details of its investigation are disappearing, and the books that survived after the auto-da-fe are being taken home by the inhabitants, which promises the repetition of another existential circle, closed in on itself.

W. C. Miller’s book analyses the original rhetorical strategy of English intellectuals. By studying the texts of H. More, J. Locke, A. A. Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, J. Swift and their contemporaries, Miller identifies a common literary device based on the figure of the Enthusiast. Uncovering the meanings and implications of enthusiasm in the context of historical events in early modern England, Miller identifies three reasons for the Enthusiast’s popularity as an independent literary image. The result of Miller's study is the reconstruction of a series of transformations that led to a change in the connotation of the words ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘enthusiast’ from negative to positive. The problem of the semantic ‘drift’ of the concept of ‘enthusiasm’, which is extremely relevant in the English discursive tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is not typical of the Russian literary tradition. Therefore, the task of comprehending the historical variability of English enthusiasm for the Russian reader is of special cultural interest.

At the conclusion of the Ancient Age in India (5th–6th AD), the period of active formation of Hindu iconography was characterised by the emergence of complexly composed sculptural images. The explanations of these images cannot be found in written sources, and no similar images have been identified either. One of these monuments is a stele with the image of Shiva, crafted from white granite, which was discovered in a location known as Parel (presently within the boundaries of the metropolis of Mumbai, the capital of the state of Maharashtra). This high relief is still a mystery for researchers, not only its iconography, but also the dating and the purpose of the relief itself are unclear, because of which it has changed its name several times: in the suburb of Parel, this image still bears the name Saptasvaramurti (‘Lord of the Seven Notes’), but in all studies of recent years it is already mentioned as Heptad. What is the most probable dating of the monument? Did this iconography develop in the medieval period and what is its significance? This article makes an attempt at clarifying these questions. The iconographic analysis of the image and its comparison with monuments close in time of origin are carried out. As a result, the author concludes that the stele was not the main object of worship, it was (or should have been) located to the right of the object of worship, i.e. the lingam. An assumption is made that in this iconography through the images of Shiva Saptasvaramaya and five gana musicians, the concept of ‘divine music’ is visualized: in the images of 12 characters of the stele, one can see the embodiment of the Indian musical system consisting of 12 svaras. This iconography is not repeated in the history of Indian art, but the image of Shiva the musician is enshrined in another iconography, namely, Shiva Vinadharadakshinamurti, the Great Teacher of Music, who also displays aspects of asceticism and is often depicted on the right side of the object of worship.

World War II remains popular in English-language literature. The article analyses novels by leading British and Australian writers dedicated to the war that were written in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The analysis is conducted against a broad historical background; the author refers to historical and documentary sources, as well as facts of the national literary tradition development. The main research methods include historical and literary analysis of the novels and, more particularly, their characteristics. The goal of the analysis is to identify the continuity of trends in the depiction of war — twenty-first-century novels are compared to those of the twentieth century. At the same time, the analysis helps to identify new trends that have appeared in the literature of the new century. The following novels by the English writer Kate Atkinson Life After Life (2013), A God in Ruins (2015), Transcription (2018) and by the Australian writer Richard Flanagan The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) are studied in detail. The article shows that such trends as documentary basis, an appeal to the experience of World War I (the Great War in the minds of the British), and an interest in descriptions of the Blitz are still relevant for twenty-first-century English-language literature. On the other hand, contemporary authors draw a direct link between the images of the war to problems of national identity. Besides, all the war novels under discussion are characterized by a complex narrative structure, a unique representation of time and space continuum, other features of post-postmodernist prose (variable endings, non-linear structure, etc.), which, in the author’s opinion, is explained by the unique historical period of the creation of the novels.

This article reveals the meaning of one of the key elements of Buddhist iconography, i.e. the phenomenon of mudra (folding of fingers) and asana (body posture). The author analyses the terminological diversity of the designation of mudra and associated meanings in research literature, as well as the history of this phenomenon in the culture of India as a source of formation of the principles of Buddhist iconography and imagery. Based on the etymological analysis given by D. Todaro and the history of the development of the phenomenon of mudra and asana in the art of Buddhism, these only externally similar phenomena in Indian culture in general and Buddhist art are distinguished. Additionally, the author highlights the semantic connotations of gesture and asana in images of Buddha Shakyamuni, associated with the historical context, and the further diversity of this phenomenon in the iconography of bodhisattvas, associated with the internal aspects of the teachings of Buddhism. The meaning of gesture in the practice and art of Tantrism is discussed separately. The author puts forward the thesis that gesture and asana in Tantrism are the key to understanding this phenomenon in the art of Buddhism in general, including images earlier than tantric images. Referring to several sculptural images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, which are considered masterpieces of Buddhist art (museums of India and Mongolia), whose iconography includes similar mudras and asanas, the author shows, analyses and describes the diversity of the artistic image that is born within the same iconography with regard to the artistic historical manner in which there is a difference between the symbolic essence of a gesture (mudra) and body position (asana) and their artistic images.

The author of this article analyses the mechanism Napoleon elaborated in his memoirs to create the most advantageous version of the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1799 for him, considering the example of the battle of El Salheya on August 11, 1798. This military clash is presented in Napoleon’s work as an indisputable success of French weapons. According to his version, a relatively small French cavalry detachment consisting of hussars, mounted chasseurs, and dragoons launched several successful attacks against the vastly superior Mamluk forces and recaptured a significant part of the convoy of Ibrahim Bey, the de facto co-ruler of Egypt. Napoleon, however, casually admits that the French suffered significant losses in the “last” of such attacks, but blames Colonel Lasalle for it, as he allegedly undertook it on his own initiative, craving the treasures of Ibrahim Bey. The author of the article deconstructs Napoleon’s version by comparing it with the testimonies of six other participants in the battle of El Salheya, i.e. officers of Bonaparte’s army head staff and cavalrymen who directly clashed with the Mamluks. According to the testimonies of all these people, the battle of El Salheya was a great setback for the French army. In the only cavalry attack launched by Bonaparte himself against an approximately equivalent Mamluk detachment, the French, who were significantly inferior to the enemy in terms of weapons and combat training, suffered heavy losses. The only thing that saved the French cavalry from complete destruction was the enemy’s unwillingness to prolong the battle and their desire to take away Ibrahim Bey’s caravan to Syria as soon as possible. However, describing these events in his memoirs, Napoleon, without violating the general outline of events, presented a picture of the past favourable for himself, skillfully “correcting” the details and placing accents in his own way.

This article studies and analyses the formation and construction of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by historians of the Russian diaspora and the preservation of its memory among the Russian emigration, and among young people in particular. Referring to national and foreign historiography, as well as scholarly works of historians of the Russian diaspora (A. K. Jelačić, N. P. Ottokar, E. F. Shmurlo, A. V. Florovsky, G. V. Vernadsky), the authors of the article reveal the key problematic issues of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The problems of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the role of “Western Russia” were fully considered in the fundamental generalizing works of E. F. Shmurlo and G. V. Vernadsky. As a result of the analysis, the authors identify several approaches to the study of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russian-Polish, and Russian-Lithuanian relations: detailed and consistent presentation of the events of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, including, on the one hand, analyses of the political system of the Lithuanian-Russian state, Lithuanian-Horde and Russian-Polish relations, and, on the other hand, unbiased coverage of ethno-confessional issues of the development of the Lithuanian state; conservative approach, on the one hand, including detailed analyses of the facts and events of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, on the other hand, preserving and conveying ethno-confessional confrontation; a brief and neutral coverage of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the framework of lecture courses on Russian history; a summary of the events of the history of the Lithuanian state with negative value judgements regarding Polish influence, in the context of Russian-Polish relations.