The article analyzes the correlation between the screen reality and the first-order reality in the digital culture. Specific concepts of the scientific paradigm of the late 20th century are considered as constituent principles of the on-screen reality of the digital epoch. The study proves that the post-non-classical cultural world view, emerging from the dynamic “chaos” of informational and semantic rows of TV programs and cinematographic narrations, is of a fractal nature. The article investigates different types of fractality of the TV content and film plots, their inner and outer “strange loops” and artistic interpretations of the “butterfly effect”.

The article examines Immanuel Wallerstein’s views, set out in a number of his articles, on some processes of cultural development. The multidimensional nature of the concept of culture, the phenomenon of national culture, and the opportunity of constituting a world culture are studied. The article also focuses on the issue of universalization of culture and on correlation of this process with the globalization. Connection between the fundamental topic of his research, the world-system approach and its applicability to an analysis of the modern world, and the interpretation of specific problems of cultural knowledge is shown.

The universal educational metaphors become a prism through which one can examine an integrated educational Text. Education is a cultural-historical industry which provides for needs of a society a definite type of person. The article examines universal metaphors, such as “educational walk”, “prayer as a labor”, “educational trip”, “industrial workshop” and “pied piper”, which are useful tools for study and evaluation of changes and continuity in the historical-cultural industry.

Using the historical and culturological approach, the author analyzes key phases of genesis and evolution of foreign scientific and technical museums as a cultural phenomenon. Scientific and social potential of the technical museums and their role in the modern society are conceptualized in the article.

In this article, the author examines the perception of art as a field of implementation of the aesthetic function of advertising. Being based on research works in the field of receptive aesthetics and phenomenology, the author analyzes the relevance of the aesthetic perception of advertising communications. The article examines the advertising communications as a complex phenomenon; there is presented a comparative analysis of the values of perception of works of art and of advertising samples. The article opens a new perspective on the aesthetic component in advertising. The author goes beyond the classical idea of its implementation through artistic techniques and shows a vast field of actualization of the aesthetic component in advertising.

The article reconstructs sociocultural genealogy of the process of childhood medicalization. The author reveals a social context that causes the establishment of medical regulation of various phenomena of a child’s existence as a norm in the contemporary European culture; some global anthropological effects of the regulation are demonstrated. Reconstructing the origin of childhood medicalization from the culture of charity institutions, the author determines interrelations between the modern project of children’s health protection and the process of control of children’s existence’s marginal phenomena and defines some existential consequences of the typical for the present medico-technological identity of childhood.

The article analyzes some modern media communications and practice of user interaction where the “participatory discourse” appears, when the viewers can influence the process of creation of new films, series, and network projects. The users appropriate and transform different elements of the media content and collectively take part in creation of the “participatory discourse” as a form of social-productive relations which generate a special type of culture. This type bases on the concepts of “participatory culture” and “collective intelligence”.

He increasing interest to the one-actor theatre in Korea is caused by the existence of the pansori, a ballade performed by narrator to the accompaniment of a drum, in the Korean folk tradition. Nowadays, the Korean folk performance tradition is widely used by directors in contemporary monodramas. The article analyzes two performances: “The Byeoksok Fairy” (director - Sohn Jin chaek, actress - Kim Sung nuy) by Bae Sam Sik, a well-known Korean dramatist, which uses the traditions of the Korean folk performance madan nori; and the “Mother Courage and Her Children” (director - Nam In woo, actress - Yi Ja ram) by Bertolt Brecht, staged in the pansory style.

The 15th International Tchaikovsky Competition took place in the year of the Russian composer’s 175th anniversary and is remembered for an extremely high level of its contestants. Names of new stars illuminated the musical firmament. Undoubtedly, their future will henceforth be under the spotlight of art lovers from all over the world - so magnetic was the talent of the young performers, so intense were their mastery and charisma. The Competition is memorized for a lot of remarkable features, which are represented by the author of the article on the basis of her own impressions of this great musical festival

The amateur photography is a phenomenon spread almost over each sphere of the everyday life. Combining the results of the survey of Moscow citizens aged from 18 to 25 (total amount of the surveyed people is 265) and the data of several in-depth interviews with respondents of age from 45 to 52 (6 questionnaires), the author reveals some patterns and features of the generations’ self-presentation through the amateur photographs. Applying the clipping principle of S. Eisenstein while analyzing the data, the author receives some peculiar results concerning the meanings of photographs in the end of 20th - beginning of 21st century as well as the main themes for the photographs of the two generations.

The State Museum of Furniture was founded in Moscow in 1919. It was located in the mansion of V. O. Hirschman whose furniture collection initially formed the basis of this Museum. In the spring of 1920, the Museum moved to the Alexandrinsky Palace. The Museum’s collection had constantly been enlarged and by 1927 numbered about 3,000 exhibits of the 15th-20th centuries. There were displayed some items received from Moscow and Moscow-area palaces, manor houses, and city apartments; in addition to metropolitan furniture workshops, there were presented, in a significant number, pieces of work of country craftsmen. Created in this way, the Museum of Furniture was a unique, first in the country special collection where the furniture took up the position of an object of art. In the spring of 1927, the Museum of Furniture was closed down.

The article is devoted to the poorly explored question - the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius as an object of culture in the pre-revolutionary period in the context of the problem of interrelation between the Church and society. The author compiles and analyses the examples of museum approaches to the interpretation and using of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius’ historical and artistic heritage, which builds the image of a National museum.

The article reviews Nadezhda Woytinskaya’s manuscript letters to her brother Wladimir Woytinsky. Nadezhda Woytinskaya was an artist, translator and writer. Wladimir Woytinsky was a revolutionist, economist and specialist in statistics. In the letters, the Woytinskies family members are mentioned and some important for them events that happened in the period of writing (from 1911 to 1917) are described. The stylistics and the content of these letters are typical for Russian intelligentsia’s epistolary heritage, yet sometimes the problems specific for everyday life of a Jewish family in the pre-revolutionary Russia are brought up there.

The article considers and analyses creative principles, methods of depiction, and world outlooks of A. Golovin, that influenced his art. Connection and similarity between the views of the artist on the process of painting and the views of masters of the association “Union of Russian Artists” are traced. The causes of this similarity are discovered - they are in their common artistic schooling. The role of color in Golovin’s works is accentuated.

The article discusses the phenomenon of the Internet, the dynamics of its development, and the features of cultural policy in the context of information society. A certain part of the article is dedicated to the programs of informatization and internetization of our country, programs of removal of the digital divide and providing the country with the Internet access to its cultural heritage. The author presents the results of the information readiness monitoring of several regions of Russia, the results help to reveal the threats concerned with the globalization and with the implementation of information and communication technologies as well as to open the prospects and trends for future development of the Electronic Russia and the culture of “new opportunities”. The article’s publications review covers more than 50 sources. There are monographs, textbooks, dissertation abstracts, which allows to see who and how explores the new reality.

The article provides an overview of current approaches to the definition of “culture” in accordance with their systematization proposed by the historian and cultural theorist L. E. Kertman. They are the philosophical, anthropological, and sociological approaches. The authors consider the systematic approach to the definition of the phenomenon of culture, proposed by M. S. Kagan, the most perspective and set out their vision of culture systemic interpretation based on the dialogue theory, initiated by the works of M. M. Bakhtin, and on the concept of culture developed by A. A. Pelipenko and I. G. Yakovenko.

This article is devoted to the textual problems and the history of creation of M. A. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” (based on M. A. Bulgakov’s archive). The main aim of this article is to prove the principles of determination of the novel’s basic text and to illustrate the importance of publishing the manuscript drafts of the novel. On the basis of textual, historical, and biographic researches, the author introduces all the manuscript drafts and the basic text of “The Master and Margarita” (M. A. Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita. Complete Collection of the Manuscript Drafts. The Basic Text: 2 vol., Moscow, the Pashkov House Publ., 2014).

Review of the book M. A. Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita. Complete Collection of the Manuscript Drafts. The Basic Text: 2 vol. Moscow, Pashkov House Publ., 2014.

The article considers several aspects of spiritual formation of literature in the first stages of the Modern Age’s artistic and literary conception through the analysis of the works of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), and other Renaissance writers. The author notes the existence of a genetic relation between the religious atmosphere of that time and its fiction, defines the forms of interaction of the literature and the religion, and determines the correlation between the spiritual-religious and literary-esthetic world views. The article places special emphasis on the consideration of parallels between the building of life and artistic position of a Renaissance writer and his religious views, parameters of a literary man’s spiritual ideal, ways of comprehension of religious subjects in the artistic and literary format.

The article deals with the way of sound records creation as a special interaction between a man and a technology in music culture, beginning from the technical and aesthetic ideas of the Modern Period up to their complete practical implementation by sound engineers of the Digital Age. The author describes the dynamics of aesthetic perception of technical solutions in the sound recording, which have subsequently determined the contemporary musical art.

The article is devoted to the existence of masquerade racing sledges - special carriages for court festivities - in Russia. Basing on the study of archival materials and monuments of the art of carriage-making from the State Historical Museum (SHM), the author identifies and analyzes some features of the masquerade racing sledges manufacturing and using and also determines chronological framework of the existence of this type of carriages in Russia.