The article describes principal events of the 4th Saint-Petersburg International Cultural Forum dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the UNESCO: its conferences, meetings, awards, round-tables, exhibitions, in the course of which the results of the Russian cultural life development in 2015 in the global context were summarized. There were presented a number of documents which laid down the guidelines for further devel- opment of the cultural sector. Information on activities of the “Literature and Reading” section was given, as well as on work of the interactive exhibition “Territory of Culture”. Laureates of the Anatoly Lunacharsky’s Award of the Saint-Petersburg International Cultural Forum Directorate were named.

The article conceptualizes the metaphysical essence and meaning of photography and recording (audio, video) through the prism of the author’s interpretation of the concept of chronotope by A. Ukhtomsky and M. Bakhtin. The author suggests that these methods of capturing or fixing the reality using technical means serve in their philosophical substance as some special chronotope entities which conserve the image, essence, and meaning of a certain time, person and life. The inner microcosm of photography and recording has existential significance for the person who refers to it, because it bears and expresses the meanings and values that existed in the past, that are not present in the world now, but can be actually relived by appealing to the own reality of the image captured in the photograph. The material media with their mediatory, instrumental entity serve as a basis for existence of the captured past in the world around.

From the interdisciplinary positions, the article examines the program of culture building developed by W.F. Ostwald, an outstanding chemist and philosopher. In that context, it considers the development of mathematical arts in the cultural system. Based on the given analysis, the authors offer their opinion on that what should be changed in the approach to mathematics and mathematical education in Russia.

The article is devoted to the emergence of the Slow Life subculture and of the Slow Living practice in the modern Western society. It considers the origins of the Slow Movement, its disciplinarity, stages of its development, its ideology, objectives and tools. The Slow Movement is a subculture which advocates slowing down the pace of life; it focuses on a contemplative and thoughtful way of living. Followers of the Movement believe that multitasking and undertaking extra commitments are unproductive, but at the same time they deny any austerities. Cultural and philosophical foundations of the Slow Movement are rooted in ancient theories and constructions, referring to the texts of B. Russell and P. Lafargue. The New Ideology is associated with the “society of impression” of G. Schulze and with the “society of multitude” of P. Virno as well. The emergence of the Slow Living practice is possible only in the stable, well-established world, where the peak of development intensification has been overpassed, and the orientation of rationality has shifted from external to internal - to the emotional “life experiencing”. That allows us to speak about “the New Hedonism” and the tendency to the consumer settings renovation. The practical experience of the “Slow City”, “Slow Food”, “Slow TV”, “Slow Education” etc. comes well ahead of the cultural-philosophical understanding of the phenomenon.

This article is dedicated to the formation of imagology as a science whose aim will be the creation of objective images. The authors characterize the term of “image” and define its different meanings. In the article, the concept of the dialogue of cultures is examined through the literary imagology.

Resting upon the empirical research conducted in 2013 in the Rostov Region, the article seeks to explore the mutual influence of the real space and time and the media time and space. The author raises the issue of changes in the people’s attitude to space and time under the conditions of modern media practices’ development. The media reality forms another time and another space. In the system of rural life, this factor is superimposed on the large-scale processes of the urban and rural cultures’ diffusion. Characteristics of the rural residents’ everyday life have an impact on the existing system of media consumption, which adopts the technological part of the innovations, but as to the content’s evaluation - it gives a clear priority to the images of the past. Dominance of categories of the media reality is reflected in the everyday life of the respondents, emphasizes the media content, and influences the formation of the attitude towards the content.

The article presents a structural-semantic approach to the analysis of the Landscape Complex of Versailles by means of the axiological module developed by the authors, which allowed revealing the semantic dominant that provided the esthetic wholeness of the object. Acquired as a result of the research and visualized at the level of “pervotectonic” symbols and archetypes, the mental construct serves as a harmonizing beginning for all the system of semiotic text and compositional structure. This approach opens up new opportunities for cultural space analysis and for object and spatial design.

His article analyzes Karaite images in the works of the sentimentalist Bari Egiz. Egiz’s favorite genre was portrait, in which he always placed the images of people who were in close contact with him, his soulmates. The artist performed his pictorial and graphic works using different techniques: oil, pastel, watercolor, lead pencil, charcoal. The first Karaite portrait of the artist’s sister Vera Egiz was drawn in 1905, after that there were some ethnographic portraits during his trip to the Crimea (Dzhuft Calais 1910-1911). Living as an emigrant in Turkey, Egiz drew three works about the Karaites. The period of his residence in Lithuania (1938-1940) was the most fruitful. In that period, he created the most professional paintings of famous Karaite historical figures and of his Karaite friends. In the closing stages of his life, Egiz drew five Karaite portraits.

The article concerns an unusual and almost unexplored aspect of work of choreography masters of the Silver Age of Russian culture. This aspect is their work in the field of pictorial representation of the dance. The main purpose of the article is to study different facets of the ballet dancers and choreographers’ pictorial works, their experiments in different kinds of plastic arts and styles in the context of the era which they lived and created in. The author draws special attention to the pictorial material’s detailed internal transformations - when the stage images born in a sheet of paper or in a sculptural volume begin to perform a variety of emotional and semantic functions justified by the expressive language of plastic arts. Analyzing different materials (old publications, archival collections, museum and private collections), the author manages to find and bring together the rare information on artistic heritage of such ballet masters as: A.M. Pavlova, V.F. Nizhinsky, the brothers N.G. and S.G. Legat, P.I. Goncharov, M.M. Fokin and B.F. Nizhinskaya. The analysis of pictorial, graphic and sculptural works of the masters allows us to reach the level of stylistically-plastic synthesis, which is a significant step in the theoretical study and understanding of their artistic heritage.

The article explores the history of the failed presentation of the play “Paul I” by D.S. Merezhkovsky at the State theatres in 1917. There is ascertained that the presentation, that seemed to be ready for realization, was declined for a number of reasons, among which there were the huge costs of the premiere, the author selling the rights for the play to other theaters, as well as the “indiscretion” and “impertinence” of presenting on stage such a play depicting a regicide.

The article is dedicated to the outstanding Russian musical figure, choirmaster and teacher Victor S. Popov. There are described some essential aspects of his artistic world, performing style, conception of vocal and choral education. Artistic activities of the different choirs led by him are presented in the article. The author also brings up the issue of specifics of vocal and choral education as a mode of the ancient sacral traditions’ development.

The author examines the phenomenon of charity from the perspective of L.N. Tolstoy’s ethical position by the example of social and cultural activities of Countess P.S. Uvarova. The article shows the special attitude of the Countess to the charity activities aimed at preservation of the Russian cultural values and development of the education, science and arts. Materials from the State Archive of Vladimir Region are used in the article as an evidential basis.

The article analyzes the set of social functions of a symbol in culture, the roles of the symbolic production in social communication, the building of the general concepts of a language as symbols. There are compared the role of religion and art and the role of language and social behavior as sources of the symbolic production.

The article explores the interrelation between the invention of photography and the bodily practices in use in the European culture of the 19th century. Photography is considered as an instrument of self-discovery: different photographic genres provide certain links between the viewer and his or her body. The essence of photography as a medium reflects some contradictory processes in the culture where it became a universal tool for exploring the worlds of both matter and spirit.

This article reviews the activities of Archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin), a well-known ecclesiastical scholar, who greatly contributed to the book culture development. It tells about a royal pilgrimage to the Holy Land, about the history of Russian ecclesiastical mission, the topics which interest modern researchers. There is a document published for the first time, describing the pilgrimage of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich to the Holy Land, revealed by the study of the archive of Archimandrite Leonid (Kavelin) stored in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library.

This article is of theoretical nature. It analyzes the operating conditions of stage direction in the post-Soviet theatre, the period when the market economy and consumer society were formed. In the cultural space, generally reduced status of an artist could be noticed, in comparison with the previous generations, referred by the author to the modern era. In this context, there are reviewed the new ways to adapt to the market, public, to find popularity or new approaches to public relations. It is concluded that not only the status of the post-modern stage direction significantly changed but also its creative psychology did.