Historical Prototypes Research Articles

Stylistic and architectural art trends of worldwide experience in designing orthodox churches and complexes

Currently, in the scientific and practical space of Ukraine, there is no substantiated and systematized concept of the sacred architecture of the Balkan countries and the countries of the near abroad. Many countries have experienced a number of important changes and transformations over the last fifty years, which undoubtedly influenced the development of sacred architecture. In this study, the author proposes to consider the modern development of Orthodox churches and complexes of the specified countries of world Orthodoxy. In order to solve the tasks, literary sources were analyzed, highlighting the peculiarities of the analysis of sacred architecture. The fundamental researchers of the analysis of modern architecture include: C. Jenks, O. E. Gutnov, V. L. Hight, A. V. Ikonnikov and others. Modern researchers in the field of design and analysis of sacred objects include the works of O. S. Sleptsova, Yu. I. Kryvoruchko, M. Yu. Kesler. Taking into account the diversity and multifacetedness of the studied sacred objects, this analysis helped establish the directions and criteria for the analysis of Orthodox churches. The article presents the results of the analysis of the practice of sacred design of temple buildings of the countries that are included in the list of Orthodox autocephalous churches of the World Orthodoxy, in particular the temple architecture of the countries: Poland, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Belarus. Most of the general finishing has close ties with historical prototypes and stylistic polyphony of development, primarily Byzantine architecture, South Balkan and other architectural schools of a certain region. Also, isolated cases of modern and innovative searches for the modern image of the national temple have been established. As illustrative material, the article is supplemented with images with an analysis of the influence of historical prototypes on modern samples, as well as a table indicating general trends.

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PREREQUISITES OF THE FORMATION OF PUBLIC SAFETY CENTERS IN THE CONDITIONS OF UKRAINE

The purpose of publication is analysis of literary and archival sources in order to establish the historical stages of the formation of the Service of Emergency Situations, ascertaining of its main tasks, and mainly to identify the features of the structural and functional organization of historical prototypes for modern centers of public safety. In general, the process of formation and development of the fire protection system, its transformation into an emergency service has so deep roots, starting with the laws of the state Kievan Rus until today. An analysis of the development of the fire service on the example of separate cities of Ukraine showed, that in the process of its development it was placed in buildings of sacred (churches) and administrative (town halls) purpose. Later, a single network of a separate type of architectural objects was gradually formed (watchtowers, fire stations), which were expanding according to the development of the city. Buildings where fire service personnel were placed, contained all the necessary means for notifying the population, quick reaction, and counter measuring in the case of an emergency situation and updated with the advent of modern technologies. It should be noted separately that during certain periods of fire protection development this service was located together with the police service, which is an important prerequisite for the formation of a structural and functional organization of modern centers of public safety. Also noteworthy is the fact that the civilian population was involved in fire protection on a voluntary basis. In general, we can say that during the development of the fire service of Ukraine prototypes of networks of public safety centers in cities already existed, but they were not considered as a separate typological group of architectural and urban planning objects. Historically, it happened that the fire service, and in the 20th century - also the civil defense service (which initially was developing separately), during the last decade were united into a single state structure – SESU. The main stages (periods) of the development of which begin with the historical period (before 1494) and end with the modern period of development (arrangement of SESU) from 2012 to the present time.

Features of the Column Order of the Facades of Buildings in St. Petersburg at the Beginning of the XX Century

The order of the Saint Petersburg building facades has changed throughout the history of the city’s architecture. The order again acquired a dominant role in the compositional structure of the neoclassical building facades of the beginning of 20th century, but the order of this time is transformed in comparison with previous historical periods. Analysis of the use of the column order by architects V.A. Shchuko and M.S. Lyalevich makes it possible to identify main features of the order of the early 20th century: placement in the structure of the facade, proportions, detailing; discover the use of historical prototypes and the attitude of architects to classical theory. The study of all these features is necessary when researching, preserving and restoring numerous buildings in the neoclassical style of the early 20th century.

Russian classical literature of the 19th century and Kumyks: Images and prototypes

In the literature on the issue, the ethnikon Dagestan is traditionally used, which is interpreted as an ethnonym identified with the highlanders of Dagestan. However, the languages of the latter were called Dagestanian only beginning with the second half of the twentieth century. This calls into question the historical subjectivity of the Kumyks who were traditionally called “Dagestan Tatars” as far back as in the 19th century. That is what they are called, along with the Dagestan highlanders-Lezgins, in the “Notes from the House of the Dead” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Kumyks, under the name of “Tatars”, are also mentioned later - in Leo Tolstoy’s story “The Prisoner of the Caucasus”. A very significant fact is not only the images of the Kumyks in Russian fiction of the time under consideration, but also their historical prototypes’ fame, established by K. Aliyev. These works of fiction include A. Pushkin’s sketches and the plan of the “Romance on the Caucasian Waters” (1831), published in 1881, whose plot was connected with Shah-Vali, the son of Shamkhal of Tarkovsky Mehdi II. Crimea-shamkhal Ummalat-bek Buynaksky, an associate of the first Imam Gazi-Muhammad, was the prototype of the protagonist in A. BestuzhevMarlinsky’s story “Ammalat-Bek”. Bela is also considered to be a Kumychka who, together with her brother Azamat, belongs to the central images of M. Lermontov’s story of the same name. K. Aliyev found the Kumyk prototypes of some participants in the battle, to which M. Lermontov dedicated his poem “Valerik” (1842). We also draw attention to the Kumyk prototype of Colonel Khasanov, one of the characters in Leo Tolstoy’s story “The Raid. A Volunteer’s Story”.

Typological evolution of temporary accommodation facilities

Temporary accommodation facilities are largely a reflection of socio-economic processes in the middle of society at a certain stage of its existence. The structure of modern hotels bears the imprint of historical prototypes that were formed in countries with different cultural, social, and architectural traditions. Studying the historical evolution of such institutions makes it possible to determine certain historical stages of their formation, identify modern development prospects and outline futuristic directions for their modernization. The article examines the historical evolution of temporary accommodation facilities, the formation and development of their typology. The peculiarities of the architectural and planning organization of hotel establishments of different periods of construction are established. The impact of socio-economic factors on the formation of temporary accommodation facilities at various stages of human development is monitored. The main stages of the development of hotels are highlighted: the ancient period, the Middle Ages, modern times, the formation of the concept of "hotel" at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Selected periods of rapid development: the beginning of the 20th century up to the period of the world economic crisis of the 1930s; 1950-60 (the end of World War II, the formation of mass tourism); 1980s - the beginning of the 21st century (the flourishing of international tourism); 2020 - to the present days (the impact of the global pandemic Сovid-19, the war in Ukraine, the general global economic recession). During the last decades, taking into account the climatic, ecological, man-made and socio-political challenges, the hotel business has become characterized by: a certain departure from "internationalization" in the architectural and design solutions of hotel establishments; appeal to national cultural traditions; specialization of hotels; expansion of the network of institutions of medium-low level of comfort; the direction of ecological and energy-efficient construction; the use of "theatrical effects" and futurism in the design of hotel interiors and exteriors; spread of eco-hotels, "green tourism" facilities, "capsule hotels". The article deals with the issues of architectural and figurative transformation of buildings during the reconstruction of historical industrial enterprises (mid-eighteenth century - first half of the XX century). The main principles for the implementation of such a transformation are determined: ensuring urban integrity; preservation of the historical image of industrial architecture; nuances in their general architectural and spatial organization (symbiosis with the environment); contrast between old and new; compliance with national and regional cultural traditions; environmentally friendly solutions. Examples of the application of these principles in the world practice of the reconstruction of industrial buildings for various public functions are analyzed. Techniques that allow to implement these principles in the renovation of historical buildings are defined. These methods include: conservation and restoration of the characteristic elements of industrial architecture; reuse of authentic materials and designs; the inclusion of industrial equipment in the interiors and exteriors of objects of reconstruction; the use of forms, materials, structures, furniture - contrasting with the primary industrial structure while ensuring symbiosis with the environment due to the nuanced solution of the overall composition, the delicate inclusion of new elements, the preservation of rhythmic patterns, the use of building and finishing materials, elements of architectural «camouflage» (grids, perforations, glazing, openwork metal structures, etc.); «absorption» of old buildings or their parts by new structures. In addition, an accentuated appeal to the characteristic features of the national cultural traditions of the construction region, the use of local building and finishing materials, forms, structures, the use of local ornaments, patterns, objects of arts and crafts is proposed. It is recommended to use environmentally friendly materials, landscaping elements in the interiors and exteriors of buildings, the formation of a building area using the natural landscape along with the inclusion of industrial elements of industrial architecture.

Циклічність геоекономічних процесів

The economy is the basis for political processes, while the contradictions arising in the system of socio-economic relations determine the cyclical nature of social development, in particular, cyclical economic and political processes that have become global under the conditions of the capitalist world-system. The cyclic nature of geo-economic and geo-political processes is manifested primarily in the cyclical nature of the change of the world hegemon, whose presence indicates the existence of a global political and economic system. The prerequisites for the formation of the world political and economic system, which develops cyclically, arose already in the most ancient times. The historical prototypes of world hegemony were the Roman and Chinese empires, as well as the Mongolian empire, after whose fall the Western European civilization from the beginning of the "long" XVI century became a source of contradictions, giving rise to a cyclical process of struggle for world leadership, which is reflected in the main provisions of the theory of long cycles of world politics by J. Modelski and U. Thompson, theories of cycles of hegemony by I. Wallerstein, etc. The unfolding of long cycles of world politics and cycles of hegemony is coordinated with the unfolding of Kondratiev cycles, whose beginning and end are marked by wars, generated by political and economic contradictions and serving as a way of their partial resolution. The competition of the leading actors of geopolitics gives rise to global military-economic cycles, whose rhythm is set by world wars, and global geo-economic and geopolitical cycles create the basis for the deployment of cycles derived from them on a regional scale. The rhythm of cyclical geo-economic and geopolitical processes on a regional scale is determined by the dynamics of global cycles. Today, the increasing instability in the capitalist world-system indicates the beginning of crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles, whose unfolding leads to a cyclical change of the leader in the capitalist world-system, and the reformatting of the world geopolitical system, and creates the basis for the development of deep geo-economic and geopolitical contradictions, which are the internal driving force of the cyclicality of global political and economic processes.

Architecture prototypes of mountain tourist shelters

The use of the main prototypes of the architecture of tourist shelters in the mountains is investigated in this study. The origin of such prototypes is derived from similar samples in the practice of building and are their likenesses, namely: "dugout", "canopy", “alcove (gazebo)", “cowshed (shed)”, "hut", “house”, “farmstead (estate)” "hutsul cottage (hrazhda)", "villa", "inn (hotel)", "container", "shepherd`s hut (kolyba)". At the same time, the "dugout", "canopy", “alcove (gazebo)", "cowshed (shed)", as well as "container" each of them have their own independent tectonics based on a frame scheme by using different roofing and fencing materials. The rest of the above prototypes are rather varieties of residential buildings based primarily on solid wall and frame tectonic schemes. The buildings of mountain tourist shelters considered in this study resemble these prototypes primarily in terms of their external positioning, which create their image. Some characteristics in spatial sense such as positioning, sequence, connectivity, configuration and dimensions of the premises as well as such caracteristicse in constructive meaning as usage of materials, load-bearing capacity, design schemes, etc. refer to these prototypes in the architecture of shelters as well. The active use of prototypes was characteristic of this architecture until about the middle of the twentieth century. In recent decades, the architecture of mountain tourist shelters has been less likely to refer to building and artistic examples of the past, instead it creates new spatial, plastic, and artistic forms for these objects. This is largely due to the latest materials, designs, technologies, and unification in modeling. The actual allocation to historical prototypes concedes a daring technological approach in modeling of the architecture of mountain tourist shelters. Their remoteness from permanent residence and traditional architecture in the valley settlements seems to exempt from the duty to apply traditional forms for this type of architecture.

STAGES OF STYLISH DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF ELIZABETHGRAD AT THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH – BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The article is devoted to the architecture of Yelysavetgrad at the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, that forms a large part of the historical center of the city and contains information about the development of medium-sized cities in southern Ukraine. The article presentes a classification of stylistic features and stages of the development of the Yelisavetgrad architecture of the period under study. On the basis of field surveys, studses of literary and archival sources, patterns of stylistic development, depending on the preferences of the time and the functional purpose of the buildings were revealed.
 In the development of Yelisavetgrad architecture of the studied period, four stages are distinguished: two stages of the development of eclecticism and two stages of the development of modernism. The first stage is characterized by a close connection with the classical heritage of the previous period and the influence of romanticism. It was called retrospective, because historical prototypes were used in the creative search for new forms. At the second stage, eclectic combinations of forms and decor were developing.
 The third stage is the most innovative. It is characterized by the development of international trends of modernism (decorative and rational) in combination with forms and directions of eclecticism. A combination of modern and ancient is observed in modern architecture. At the final stage, neoclassicism is more pronounced and complete than in previous periods. The article analyzes the connections between stylistic directions at each stage and their genesis during the studied period.
 Stages in the architecture of the studied period differ in the quality of changes in the stylistic development of the research objects. The results of the study represent the classification of objects according to the period of construction, of the stylistic direction and typology. This work can be used in further studies of the features of the architectural and planning development of Yelisavetgrad architecture in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries.

TO THE DEFINITION OF HYBRID RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS

The concept of a hybrid residential building is at the stage of active formation; and the interpretation of the term in architecture is diverse and covers various aspects of the building as a system. In the course of the study; three directions of application of the term hybrid residential building were determined. Each of the directions of application of the term is based on historical prototypes. In addition; the terms associated with each of the directions are presented.
 The first direction is related to the strategy of hybrid construction and is determined by the use of hybrid construction methods; hybrid materials and structural schemes; which allows to increase their best characteristics of heterogeneous materials; objects and processes and overcome their shortcomings. The second direction is related to the combination of housing; work and business of the resident in one residential structure and is determined by the need to solve the need for homework. The third direction of application of the term is related to the program complexity of the object and the formation of functional hybrids; in which public service functions and other functions that were previously considered incompatible with housing are integrated into the residential environment. In this case; we are dealing with megastructures characterized by a high degree of integration of various functions ("a city within a city") and a high degree of integration with the environment. In this direction; the appearance of a typological hybrid was revealed; in which established residential typologies are mixed in one structure.
 All directions are developing in parallel; but under the influence of the ecological paradigm in architecture; there are cases of combining the 2nd and 3rd directions with hybrid construction. At the same time; we did not find any functional hybrids where the design task would simultaneously include solving the possibilities of homework. And in general; we are dealing with the development of a hybrid approach to design; which arose in response to the challenges and problems of urbanization with the aim of organizing cities; survival and sustainable development.

TDNet: A Novel Transductive Learning Framework With Conditional Metric Embedding for Few-Shot Remote Sensing Image Scene Classification

Few-shot learning, which aims to learn the concept of novel category from extremely limited labeled samples, has received intense interests in remote sensing image scene classification. Most of the existing methods inherit the philosophy of prototype learning and tackle classification as the prototype-based metric matching problem. Despite the achievement that has been obtained so far, the problems of interclass metric misalignment and intraclass variations have become two main challenges that obstacle the performance. In this paper, a novel transductive learning framework with conditional metric embedding is proposed to remedy these problems. First, a conditional metric embedding mechanism is introduced to perform anisotropic embedding for each pair of the support category and query instance. This design provides the model with flexible scalability to accommodate the metric biases across classes. Second, a transductive prototype learning strategy is presented to enhance the robustness of the prototype against intraclass variations. The unlabeled query instances are transformed into pseudo instances equipped with credibility coefficients and then leveraged to calibrate the prototype estimation bias in low data regimes. Third, a long-term consistency regularization is designed, which continuously memorizes the historical prototypes to generate additional supervision of interclass separation in the global label space. Benefiting from this design, the discriminability of the prototypes obtains obvious improvement. Finally, extensive experiments are conducted on three public benchmark remote sensing datasets. The experimental results demonstrate the validity and the superiority of the proposed method in low-shot conditions.

When historically cultural and creative products meet AR: the effect of augmented reality–based product display on consumers’ product evaluation

PurposeAugmented reality (AR), an innovative interactive technology that can realize the synchronization and integration of virtual and reality, has been widely used in commodity displays and museum exhibitions. However, few studies have examined the effectiveness of AR-based product display in the context of historically cultural and creative product (HCCP) marketing. This study aims to focus on whether and how the application of AR technology to the HCCP display will influence consumers’ product evaluation.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses three experiments to examine the impact of an AR-based product display on consumers’ evaluation of HCCPs. In experiments 1 and 2, the researchers compared the consumer’s evaluation of HCCPs under the AR-based product display condition and two other display conditions (i.e. 3D model display and photographic display) and examined the mediating role of perceived authenticity in the evaluation process. Experiment 3 tested the moderating effect of the availability of artistic detail information on weakening the negative impact of AR-based product display on the evaluation of HCCPs.FindingsThis study found that using AR-based displays harms consumers’ evaluation of HCCPs by impairing perceived authenticity. The spatial-temporal cues of real-time circumstances impede consumers’ processing of the historical attributes of the product. The dynamic AR-based display makes it hard for consumers to build the product’s connection with historical prototypes. Thus, consumers’ perception of the authenticity of HCCP is reduced. Providing artistic details during the presentation makes artistic attributes more prominent than historical attributes, allowing consumers to pay more attention to the sensory experience caused by the artistic design instead of the spatial-temporal cues of the product. At this point, the negative impact of AR-based product display on the evaluation of HCCPs will be attenuated.Originality/valueFirst, this study shows the adverse effects of AR-based product displays in the field of HCCP marketing. AR-based product display degrades product evaluations when the displayed product has historical attributes. Second, this study extends the perceived authenticity theory to the technological experience context and establishes a theoretical connection with the AR literature. Third, this study explores the multiple characteristics of HCCPs. The historical attributes are the central attribute of HCCPs, leading consumers to perceive lower sense of authenticity due to the conflict with real-time spatiotemporal cues risen from the AR-based display. However, the artistic attributes, which are beyond the limitation of time and space, will attenuate this conflict when they become prominent.

Delivery pattern planning in retailing with transport and warehouse workload balancing

Goods from warehouses must be scheduled in advance, prepared, routed, and delivered to shops. At least three systems directly interact within such a process: warehouse workforce scheduling, delivery scheduling, and routing system. Ideally, the whole problem with the preceding inventory management (restocking) would be solved in one optimization pass. In order to make the problem simpler, we first decompose the total problem by isolating the delivery scheduling. Then we connect the optimization model to the rest of the system by workload balancing goal that is a surrogate ofcoordination and criterion for the system robustness. This paper presents the practical application of top-down discrete optimization that streamlines operations and enables better reactivity to changes in circumstances. We search for repetitive weekly delivery patterns that balance the daily warehouse and transportation utilization in the absence of capacity constraints. Delivery patterns are optimized for the quality criteria regarding specific store-warehouse pair types, with a special focus on fresh food delivery that aims at reducing inventory write-offs due to aging. The previous setup included semimanual scheduling based on templates, historical prototypes, and domain knowledge. We have found that the system augmented with the new automated delivery scheduling system brings an improvement of 3% in the performance measure as well as speed in adjusting to the changes, such was the case with changes in policies during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Furniture art: the historical experience of combined multifunctional objects creation

The purpose of the article is to highlight the historical experience of creating combined multifunctional furniture-transformers and to reveal the main methods of combining several functions in one object of furniture art. The methodology of this work is based on the application of a number of theoretical methods of scientific research: analysis, comparison, analogy, abstraction, and generalization. Methods of analysis and comparison were used in the process of considering the evolution of furniture-transformers on the example of historical prototypes. The comparison of artistic means of surface treatment features of structural elements and characteristics of shaping allowed identifying some historical examples of furniture-transformers that were found in the electronic network without specifying the date or country of manufacture. To identify the main methods of combined furniture-transformers formation have been applied such research methods use analogy and abstraction. To summarize the results of the work it was used the generalization method. The scientific novelty of the work consists in summarizing the historical experience of combined multifunctional furniture creation and defining the leading methods of combined objects formation. Conclusions: the results of the research support the idea that in furniture art the main methods of the combination of several functions in one subject are: 1) the implementation of additional small functional blocks in a large-scale object; 2) the equal combination of two utilitarian objects in one object; 3) the multiple combinations of equivalent functional blocks into a single form.
 Key words: furniture art, furniture-transformers, historical prototypes of furniture, transformation systems.

«Encoding loci». Problems and prospects using of FACS in the interpretation of emotions and states in Maya terracotta (1st millennium AD)

The article is devoted to the study of emotions and psychoemotional states represented on Mayan terracotta (1st millennium AD.) The key direction of the analysis was the adaptation of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) that had not been previously used when working with archaeological material. The study of a representative sample of figurines in the amount of more than 300 units made it possible to determine the Action Units (AU) represented on the faces of the characters in all three floors of the face. The combination of AU on terracotta gave an opportunity to determine the features of almost all basic groups of emotions. Much attention is paid to the characteristics of Action Descriptors (AD) and the system for detecting various wrinkles, which allowed to reflect to some extent the emotional states of the depicted characters. The article discusses in detail the difficulties of FACS adaptation related to the degree of preservation of the material, iconographic features of images, anthropological specifics, static, which do not allow fixing some Action Units, due to their dynamism (blinking, swallowing, etc.). Despite these difficulties, the article describes successful application of FACS and the prospects for work in this area, expressed in the creation of software by definition AU and AD for Maya terracotta. In the future, this will simplify the mechanism for determining emotions and allow extrapolating images to their "historical prototypes".

The Relevance of Modern Municipal Heraldy of the Cities of the Republic of Crimea

The article presents the results of a comprehensive sociological study aimed at studying the relevance of municipal heraldry in modern society. The sample covered 1807 respondents living in the cities of the Republic of Crimea. The assessment of the relevance of the symbolic images depicted on the heraldic books was carried out depending on the calculated relevance index. It is shown that the ratio of symbolic elements depicting natural and economic objects in the studied region is (53.9% to 46.1%). Symbolic elements are often obsolete. Most of the economic identity depicted on the coats of arms, which were reconstructed from their pre-revolutionary historical or Soviet prototypes, are associated with similar difficulties in interpretation. Thus, a total of 73.6% of symbolic elements bearing economic significance are outdated and only 26.4% display a modern identity. Therefore, 62.8% of respondents do not know the heraldic symbols of their settlements. As a result, it can be concluded that heraldry is not very informative, since the interpretation and perception of symbolic images without special knowledge is difficult, and, therefore, the potential for use is limited.

Возникновение и становление мультимедийных площадок и конвергентной журналистики Республики Армения и Российской Федерации

The article examines the historical prototypes and stages of the formation of multimedia journalism in the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation. We could start the countdown of the history of multimedia journalism in Armenia and Russia beginning from 1994 (since the registration of the ‘.ru’ and ‘.am’ domains).

Virtual Reality from the Standpoint of Complexity Science

An extended approach to the comprehension of virtual reality is developed in the article. Virtual reality is understood not only as a logically possible or cybernetically constructed reality but also as continuous turbulence of potencies of the complex natural and social world we live in, the wandering of complex systems and organizations over a field of possibilities, such a realization of forms and structures in which many formations remain in latent, potential forms, and are in the permanent process of making and multiplying a spectrum of possibilities, lead to the growth of the evolutionary tree of paths of development. It is shown that such an understanding of virtual reality corresponds to concepts and notions developed in the modern science of complexity. The most significant concepts are considered, such as the nonlinearity of time, the relationship of space and time, the uncertainty of the past and the openness of the future, the choice and construction of the future at the moments of passing the bifurcation points. Some cultural and historical prototypes of these modern ideas of virtual reality are given. It is substantiated that the vision of virtual reality being developed today can play the role of a heuristic tool for understanding the functioning and stimulation of human creativity.

Tradition as a Homeland to Return to: Transnational Religious Identity of the Post-Soviet Orthodox Jewry

This article highlights the outcome of a long-term field research into the transnational identity of the post-Soviet Orthodox Jewry. It analyzes biographical interviews taken between 2015 and 2018 in St. Petersburg and Minsk to define the religious identity and day-to-day practices of post-Soviet Orthodox Jews. In this article, I argue that the modern post-Soviet Jewry is a new socio-cultural phenomenon with no historical prototypes. As to the research methodology, it was a combination of the transnational approach, random choice case-study targeting post-Soviet Orthodox communities of Orthodox Jewry in large cities, and the biographical method. The backbone of the post-Soviet Orthodox communities of different strains of Judaism was formed in 1990–2008. It is made up of three generations of men and women born in the late 1940s–1960s, mid-1960s–early 1970s, and the 1980s. Each of these generations is characterized by its own unique pattern of observance, the formation of which is directly conditioned by the circumstances of involvement in religious Jewry. The transnational pattern of observance of the Post-Soviet Orthodox Jews involves the model they confronted at the very beginning of their journey, the model they learned in overseas educational institutions or through incoming envoys and rabbis in the country of residence, and the model of balance between the required and possible in the modern post-Christian and post-atheist environment.

The phenomenon of cosplay: cultural prototypes and trends

The subject of this research is cosplay as a modern large-scale practice of copying and public demonstration of the costume, image and behavior of famous heroes of popular culture: movies, animated movies, comic strips, and video games within the framework of thematic festivals, processions, and clubs. This article provides scientific grounds for comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of cosplay as a modern cultural form and practice through determining its cultural and historical prototypes, as well as artistic and social development. The empirical material contains the interviews with the Russian cosplayers, observations, publications in field-specific mass media, and digital broadcasting of cosplay events. The novelty of this work consists in revealing the cultural-historical prototypes of cosplay – totemic primitive festivities, medieval carnival, first forms of theater, as well as in outlining the artistic and social trends of cosplay, among which are the development of the language of modern visual culture and improvement of popular culture through creative materialization of the characters of screen culture. The author describes the socio-psychological mechanisms, which underlie the practice of cosplay and are close to the genetic foundations of the existence of theater: imitation and identification. The article carries out the typology of cosplay genres; determines the universal features and the specifics of the national forms of cosplay.

Alexander Archipenko: Artistic and Aesthetic Principles of the European Avant-garde Epoch

he paradigm formation of Alexander Archipenko’s art (1887–1964) in the context of the European avant-garde was analyzed in the article. The study examined the historiography of the 20th century artistic movement from Cubism, Futurism to Expressionism. The author analyzed the sculptor’s conceptual connection with innovations of the period and underlined the main philosophical principles of the epoch, and their impact on the formation of the artist’s figurative plastic concepts. The focus was made on the accumulation of the universal cultural experience of the European avant-garde in the process of Alexander Archipenko’s personality formation. The social and cultural factors of the sculptor’s personality formation were traced. The sculptor’s phenomenon is inseparable from the conglomeration of the European avant-garde thoughts. The sublimity of the intellectual resource development of the period was the driving force in the formation of Alexander Archipenko’s innovation. The author of the present study analyzed the main cultural and artistic groups of the epoch, and revealed Archipenko’s direct participation in them. Archipenko, the inventor of the experimental space, showed the way to sculptors of the 20th century. The sculptor’s philosophic line was projected into multicultural and anthropological dimension. The consolidation of general experience of the existence is embodied in the sculptor’s seeking strategies. Archipenko’s methodology development passed through the multicultural synthesis of the world’s ancient experience. There was a certain inspiration by mythological, ritual and historical prototypes as well. The artist’s semantic field had the only basis where new variations of the form and content arose from. The synthesis of artistic, aesthetic and philosophical principles of European avant-garde in Alexander Archipenko’s art contributed to the formation of the ethno-national basis of his art.