Intangible Cultural Heritage: Conceptual Approaches to the Phenomenon Definition

The article considers the main conceptual approaches to the definition of the phenomenon of intangible cultural heritage in contemporary humanitarian knowledge, in the international institutional and legal discourse of UNESCO, in Russian legislation and cultural policy. Despite the widespread use of the term “intangible cultural heritage” in international cultural practice in the interpretation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, national approaches to understanding and theoretical justification of this concept in all three of the above directions differ at the level of fundamental foundations.

Structural changes in the Russian cultural sphere and the transition to sustainable development strategies using the potential of intangible cultural heritage led to the transformation of practical aspects of its protection and representation. In this regard, the issues of determining the intangible component of culture and improving the terminological base are an urgent area of research from both theoretical and practical points of view. The article analyzes the main stages of the formation of the term “intangible cultural heritage” in UNESCO’s international activities, the most significant directions of this discourse, its understanding in Russian normative and legal practice (in matters of defining and typologizing heritage, the relationship between its material, spiritual, contextual, spatial and landscape components, authenticity and integrity), as well as its impact on cultural policy and practice of protecting such heritage. In addition, the authors highlight the content and functional approaches to the determination of this phenomenon in social and humanitarian knowledge, examine the basis of the criteria of authenticity, and offer an author’s definition of intangible cultural heritage.

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