№ 4 (24) (2024)

The article examines one of the nominations of an admirer (a suitor) frequently found in Russian folk ditties (chastushkas) – “yagodinochka” (derived simultaneously from homonyms – old-fashioned “cheek” and “buttock”). The author reveals the erotic undertone of the word, caused by such ancient binary oppositions in human consciousness as top/bottom, desirable/unacceptable, giving birth/killing, terrible/funny, etc. All this found reflection in traditional comparison of the head and the lower body, the face and the buttock (the ritualised inversion of these oppositions, as well as their ‘carnival’ function, was studied – albeit on Western European material – by M.M. Bakhtin). The article explores various semantic nuances of such a comparison as they are manifested in different genres of Russian folklore, in the comic culture of folk performers, and in certain ritual practices.

The article presents an analysis of the functioning of fairy tale genre forms in the texts from the collection "The Secret of the Lilac Valley". Created for reading and discussion in group therapy sessions with children, Anna Movshevich's fairy tales relate to the main types of literary fairy tales: magic, short stories, and animals. In the process of analysis, the article reveals how the therapeutic purpose of a fairy tale determines the composition of characters and the plot structure of the text, and therefore its genre variety. And that, in turn, forms the inertia of the reader's perception, which provides intuitive filling of semantic gaps and generates the desired therapeutic effect of the fairy tale. Thus, in a single artistic chronotope of the book, various, but systemically related types of plot collisions unfold, realizing the full range of therapeutic tasks.

The article examines the features of artistic representation of the main theme of Russian literature, "family idea" and its relationship with historical time in the story "Chuk and Gek" by A.P. Gaidar (1904–1941). The author gives a critical review of the latest scientific receptions of this story, in which the family theme is considered in a historical context, selectively determined by political markers, which leads to the perception of the work as a utopian literary project. The article offers a contextual analysis of the story "Chuk and Gek", where the military theme (events of big and small history) comes to the foreground, which is associated with all of Gaidar’s works and which makes a significant impact in the content of the text in vivid and expressive details. It is shown how Gaidar’s fairy tale form of narration dissolves elements of a fairy tale narrative without destroying the realistic authenticity of the depicted world of the story. It is claimed that in the story "Chuk and Gek", as in many of Gaidar’s later works, imbued with a premonition of a great war, "family idea" is inextricably linked with "state idea".

The article examines the choreographic embodiment of Pushkin’s poem "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" in the ballet of the same name, the which not only started the ballet Pushkiniana in the 1930s, but also marked the birth of a new direction in ballet – choreodrama. The transformation of a literary text into a choreographic one is considered in the article as an intersemiotic type of translation, according to the classification of R. Jacobson. The purpose of this work is to show how the language of choreography turned out to be optimal for the stage interpretation of Pushkin’s poem, and the ballet itself became the pinnacle and example of the direction of choreodrama. This became possible as a result of the translation of Pushkin’s text into a ballet play by the libretto author N.D. Volkov, director S.E. Radlov, as well as careful treatment of the original source by the composer B.V. Asafiev, who managed to hear the era through Pushkin’s poem, and choreographer R.V. Zakharov, who relied on Stanislavsky’s system when translating a literary text into the language of choreography. Research methods are determined by the interdisciplinary nature of the analyzed material. Interdisciplinary and general philological descriptive research methods are used. The material of the article confirms the idea of the literary-centricity of the Russian ballet theater. At the same time, the choreographic reading of a work of art as a phenomenon of intersemiotic translation involves various types of interpretation.

The article is devoted to evolution of the dual-world’s boundary in the time-space continuum of the late-Soviet and post-Soviet ballads. Using as examples the ballads "Test by the Mirror" (Y. Kuznetsov) and "Ballads" (B. Kenzheyev), united by presence of the eternal plot of a meeting with the Devil, the article reveals a tendency of levelling / elimination of the boundary between the worlds. The role of "magic" objects and magical animals, as mediators of dual worlds, decreases within the process of the boundaries blurring and convergence of the two worlds. Chronotopic universals are combined with the objects and images of modern everyday life, resulting in an expansion / inversion of their meanings. Aliens from the other world freely penetrate the house: and, the "house" topos loses its semantics of a protective space. The literary parallels show an inextricable connection of the modern ballad with the genre canon / with tradition of the Silver Age, and also become a code to multi-level reading of the ballads. The intertext helps to reveal new meanings of mythological images and details of the chronotope, to define hidden collisions of the plot and to determine the type of ballad heroes. Within the open borders, the catastrophic changes in two worlds indicate a chaos of the world order. The mental crisis of a modern hero (the ballad action takes place on the other side – either in a state of sleep or in a borderline state) is caused by the total loneliness of a person, who finds himself alone with a hostile world / lack of a sense of security in an unprotected space of a house. In a state of transgression, the hero comes into a conflict with the changed world, i.e. into a conflict with himself. The image of the Other (hero's trait / second self) becomes an expression of the internal spiritual conflict / contradictions of the surrounding world. The technique of irony used in the ballads of the late 20th – early 21st centuries is a way of "defamiliarizing" the reality and an opportunity to distance the author and his heroes from the disharmony of the universe.

The article examines the main topics, discussed during the international scientific conference "Boldino Readings" in 2024. The work presents the chronology of the sessions, formulates the main ideas that made up the content of the reports.