At present, there is a transition under way from the industrial to the post-industrial phase of civi­lization, from the world of machines to the world of people. This transition is happening very quickly, in the form of a humanitarian and technological revolution. This makes even more urgent the problem of building a bridge between humanitarian and natural science culture, which is closely related to the deve­lopment of interdisciplinary approaches.

In its anniversary report, the Club of Rome “Come On!” put forward the idea of a New Enlightenment, intended to change the meanings, values, image of the future, the imperatives of development of the entire world civilization. The article presents potential directions of the new educational project. There is shown that they are associated with acquisition of the integrity of people, with their harmonious deve­lopment in rational, emotional and intuitive spa­ces. This is illustrated by the development of modern mathematics, in which the ideas of harmony, beauty, as well as, in many parts, its approximation to art, are beginning to play an increasingly important role.

The new era allows for a reinterpretation at a new le­vel of the concept of “Homo Ludens” by J. Huizinga, an outstanding cultural researcher. The play is acting as a basis for self-organization, for culture formation, science and technology development. The great challenges faced by humanity require a change of world outlook. The article shows that, at a new le­vel, there is occurring a return to the ideas of Russian cosmists and, in particular, to the concept of all-unity by V.S. Solovyov.

At the present turn, a choice is being made between the New Enlightenment and the New Middle Ages. At the point of bifurcation, which is being passed by humanity now, a key role can be played by the culture and education that correspond to the new realities. The article suggests approaches that will allow Russia to avoid the future shock and to be a subject ra­ther than an object of the changes associated with the New Enlightenment.

The article is devoted to cultural transformations, which are associated, by the authors opinion, with the global development of information and communication technologies, transcultural noma­dism, as well as with the virtualization of cultural practices and clustering of consciousness, which segment cultural reality in a new way. The article examines the options for understanding and using the concept of cluster in science, politics, economics, and gives its cultural definition. The analysis of the cluster consciousness phenomenon involves the cultural-phi­losophical, structural, and hermeneutic approaches. Referring to the positions of I. Kant, S. Freud, M. Heidegger, M. McLuhan, C. Ratti, M. Claudel and others, the authors investigate cultural changes and argue the thesis that modern human consciousness works in the mode of splitting the cultural reality and constituting the world according to the cluster type. The article concludes that the modern cultural rea­lity is taking the form of a global multiplex network, and has some cluster decentralized forms of organization. Unfolding as a temporary and logical unity of events, it forms the identity of the actors involved, and can be interpreted as a key factor in the cultural diffusion of the modern world. These arguments can be illustrated by examples of the tourism industry development, cluster ways of organizing cultural spa­ces, M. Augé’s concept of “non-place”, and other scenarios of the functioning of cultural heritage objects according to new symbolic parameters. The authors demonstrate that, resulting the existential conversion of the places of tourist pilgrimage, millions of people acquire only an ersatz of the culture for which they have undertaken the journey, and the local population itself is being deprived of the symbolic and cultural core and memory that ensure the continuity and authenticity of the local culture.

The article is devoted to modern comics, which are considered as a kind of “laboratory” for experiments in the field of visual narratives, focusing on the construction and dynamics of their spatial-temporal continuum. The entire perceptual “space” of comics is significative (Fresnault-Derruelle); all elements of this space constitute the narrative. It is not only about the “space” of a book or a magazine; contemporary comics are intensely exploring new media, a key feature of which is interactivity. The article examines both the “classic” way of presenting visual material (comics in the form of book, “codex”), and the web-comics, which are similar to scrolls in their form, and have a new (compared to books) potential for interactivity. The article provides a systema­tic comparison of the ways of chronotope organizing in comics and screen arts (cinema, video art, media projects, etc.), and draws an analogy between the behavioral models of a comic book reader and a gamer going through the plot of a video game. One of the main theses of the article is the following: even though there are significant differences between the formats of comic books and web comics, there is a basic commonality in the nature of their impact on the rea­der. The images on the pages of comics and the spacings between them create an illusion of time through the mechanism of “closure” (S. McCloud). Therefore, the real interaction between space and time is pos­sible only with an active participation of the viewers who add their corporeality to this equation, matching it with the visual and textual register. In this way, in the process of the “assembling” perception of co­mics, the corporeal and the intellectual merge.

The article deals with study and attribution of rare portable iconostases (“movable church”). Their features include the Sovereign tier (with the Royal Doors) absence, the small size, and the four remaining tiers (Deisis, Great Feasts, Prophets, and Patriarchs) painted on one board. Portable iconostases were used during long pilgrimages, missionary trips, or military campaigns, as well as in Bezpopovtsy (priestless) houses of worship.

In liturgical practice, both in ancient times and now, portable iconostases were used under certain circumstances for long journeys. They are easy to set up in any place, whether it is a house, a tent or a field. In the 16th century, embroidered iconostases, rapidly installable in field and stationary conditions, were brought along in military campaigns. Thus, in his military campaigns, Emperor Alexander I used a silk-painted iconostasis made by masters of the Moscow Kremlin Armory. Movable chur­ches were also used in remote and sparsely populated areas (for example, in the Olonets Governorate). The services were held in a big house and lasted for two or three days.

There were quite a lot of portable iconostases in the past, but only few of them have been preserved, among which there are rather peculiar ones, shaped as cupboards, nightstands, kiots. At the beginning of the 20th century, an iconostasis icon was painted with five tiers on one board.

Appealing to the stated topic is relevant because of the desire to concretize the knowledge of little-known in Russian musicology instrumental consorts (musical groups), as well as to expand the existing understanding of the court culture of Renaissance England and its musical and sound appearance. The main center of English consorts development was the Royal court of the Tudors — Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth I. Their heyday was at the peak of the “Golden Age” of English culture. Based on the results of scienti­fic research by Western scientists and visual and verbal sources available for study, the article outlines the milestones in the history of the main types of instrumental consort in England — the whole consort, consisting of instruments of the same family, and the broken consort, today often identified with the mixed consort, which connects heterogeneous instruments. The article notes that the early history of the recorder consort in England was closely connected with creative activities of the family of Venetian musicians Bassano. Extremely popular in musical circles of England, the consort of viol was originally formed thanks to Flemish and, somewhat later, Italian musicians. As for the mixed consort, which united performers of the viols da gamba and da braccio, lute, bandore, cistre and recorder, it started to be called “English” because of the stable combination of certain musical instruments. Analysis of consort music anthologies of the 16th—17th centuries made it possible to identify individual genre and musical-style reference points in musical groups’ repertoire, in which musicians improved the principles of instrumental polyphony and the stile concertante, topical in the Modern Period.

The article provides an analytical review of the memoirs on the history of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum (now the Russian State Library), which started with the collections of count N.P. Rumyantsev. The author considers the memories on the Rumyantsev Museum since its foundation in St. Petersburg in 1828, its transfer to Moscow, the activities of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev museums from 1862 to 1917. The author notes the role of memoir literature for the study of the history of librarianship. The article gives description of the sources containing the unique bibliogra­phic information, which reflects publications of me­moirs, diaries, letters about the Rumyantsev Museum in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The article presents the history of the transfer of the Rumyantsev Museum from St. Petersburg to Moscow and gives fragments from the memoirs of V.V. Stasov and “Diary” of V.F. Odoevsky about this event. The author also presents publications dedicated to the leaders of the Rumyantsev Museum and analytically discloses the memoirs placed in them. The article gives excerpts from memoirs, diaries, letters, which reflect the events and facts from the history of foundation and formation of the Rumyantsev Museum, the role of individuals who have made great contribution to the development of the Museum and its library. The author presents information from the memoirs, diary entries of readers about visiting the Rumyantsev library, their contribution to the accession of collections. The article also gives information about the publication of memoirs of the descendants of V.D. Golitsyn, the last Director of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museums who became its first Soviet Director. The author reveals the potential of memoir materials for further research of the history of the Rumyantsev Museum and its library, its role in the history of culture and spiritual life of Russian society.

Collections of Russian libraries contain unique letters of pianist, teacher and conductor A.I. Ziloti (1863—1945). They demonstrate one of the facets of his talent as a musical public figure and educator. The correspondence of A.I. Ziloti with town governors is a unique phenomenon not only in his creative heritage, but also in the history of musical culture. The letters help to understand the musician’s worldview, artistic views, creative principles, giving as well a description of the cultural and historical context of the early 20th century period. The article aims to convey the importance of A.I. Ziloti’s correspondence for educational activities organization in St. Petersburg. The article identifies the letters’ specificity and studies A.I. Ziloti’s handwriting. For the first time, there are published his petitions addressed to the Director of the Imperial Thea­ters V.A. Telyakovsky and St. Petersburg town governors. The scientific analysis’ objectivity, connec­ted with comprehension of the value significance of A.I. Ziloti’s cultural ideas, requires to recognize the results of his musical and educational activities as his main achievements. Being an outstanding musician and teacher, A.I. Ziloti remains in the history of Russian culture, primarily, as a representative of musical education.

The article examines a number of gra­phic works by M.V. Dobuzhinsky: the drawings “Magnificent City, Poor City...”, “View of a Petersburg House”, and a decorative drawing with a fragment of a house in the style of classicism. In spite of the fact that M.V. Dobuzhinsky’s creativity is quite well stu­died, these works are considered for the first time in the article, in order to explore the process of finding the original artistic language in which the master “spoke” about his favorite city. The article identifies the architectural monuments of St. Petersburg that served as prototypes of those depicted, reveals the sources (visual and literary), analyzes the stylistic features. The scientific novelty of the article is defined by a new methodological approach to studying M.V. Dobuzhinsky’s graphic heritage consi­dered in the context of intersection of literature and fine arts — Russian, Western European and Japanese. For the first time, the author makes an attempt to determine the stylistic affiliation of the mentioned works. Their traditional (formal) analysis, in comparison with works by Hiroshige, A. Dürer, G.B. Piranesi, E.E. Lansere, and J. Whistler, is supplemented by an analysis of M.V. Dobuzhinsky’s memoirs and letters. This significantly expands the existing ideas about the visual sources of the artist’s work. The article reveals that the drawings “Magnificent City, Poor City...”, “View of a Petersburg House”, as well as the decorative drawing with a fragment of a house in the style of classicism, depict the house of Galashevsky — V.Ya. Lebedev (87, Fontanka Embankment). The author ascertains the influence of Hiroshige’s woodcuts from the series “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” on the artistic solution of the drawing “Magnificent City, Poor City...”, as well as on the drawing “Market” by E.E. Lansere, who, in turn, had influenced the abovementioned drawings by M.V. Dobuzhnisky. The article shows that A. Dürer’s and G.B. Piranesi’s engravings influenced the artistic solution of the drawing “View of a Petersburg House”, likewise J. Whistler’s etchings and lithographs exerted influence on a number of works by M.V. Dobuzhinsky and E.E. Lansere. The author concludes that M.V. Dobuzhinsky’s works over various versions of images of the house of Galashevsky — V.Ya. Lebedev were in line with his intensive creative experiments: the search for his own vision of the ima­ge of Petersburg.

The article is a review of the monograph “Russian Mass Culture: From Baroque to Post-Modernism” by Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Russian State University for the Humanities, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences I.V. Kondakov. The book, which consists of seven chapters, is devoted to the history of the emergence and development of mass culture in Russia from ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century. Studying its ori­gins dating back to antiquity, the author proves that Russian mass culture received an “impulse of indepen­dence” in the 17th century, as the culture was becoming personified, which means a personal principle was coming forward in it. It was during that period, associated with the emergence of Russian Baroque, that two paradigms appeared — Pre-Renaissance and Pre-Enlightenment, which led to the subsequent juxtaposition of “mass” and “elite” cultures in Russia first before Peter the Great and then after his period. The author gives an interesting assessment to the period of the Russian Enlightenment of the 18th century, when there happened a demarcation of the noble culture into libe­ral-democratic and conservative directions. Moreover, the former contributes to “massification”, and the latter – to “individualization” of Russian culture. The crisis of the classical paradigm in the 19th century, including the “literature-centrism” and “critical-centrism” of Russian culture, ultimately led to the formation of new artistic movements, new genres and styles, that is, to the modernization of Russian culture at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries. In this regard, the Silver Age turned out to be an “exquisite and ephemeral construction of the Russian Renaissance” in paradoxical forms of symbolism and modernism.

The review reflected the structural and substantive aspects of I.V. Kondakov’s monograph, the features of his theoretical analysis, the specifics of style and language. The article evaluates the publication, reveals its uniqueness and scientific significance for modern humanitarian science, including history and cultural studies, literary criticism and philosophy, art criticism and aesthetics.

The review notes the specifics of understanding the Russian mass culture transformation, given by the domestic cultural studies expert, literary critic and philosopher I.V. Kondakov.

The monograph “Russian Mass Culture: From Baroque to Post-Modernism” is interesting for its relevant methodology, which allows to build a scientific model that can combine classical issues and mo­dern interpretations. The methodology is based on the principles of dialectical development of masscult; literature-centrism is considered the main idea of the author, which determines the main trends in the development of Russian mass culture. The author’s position of “out-presence” regarding to the subject of his research proves that it is legitimate to review the logical and illogical in the history and development of the Russian masscult. The architectonics of I.V. Kondakov’s scientific research is defined as having a circular structure, which connects the metho­dological foundations of the peer-reviewed monog­raph with H.-G. Gadamer’s “hermeneutic circle”. The author defines three features in the understanding of mass culture, defined by the negation of “-not”: its emergence is “not connected” exclusively with the 20th century; the origins “can not” have only ethno-national character; “do not belong” to a certain socio-economic formation. He manages to open the boundaries of the usual interpretations of mass culture due to a more voluminous approach to the subject of research. This approach, of course, required the scientist to apply not only encyclopedic know­ledge, but also a consistent analysis of the broad historical, cultural, and literary context of the undertaken research. The article notes the representativeness of the author’s sample of personalities for the study, which is reflected in the index of names, in particular.

The study is characterized as somewhat provocative, offering the reader an unexpectedly new interpretation of famous works, presented mainly by Russian literature.

The specificity of the author’s interpretation lies in the fact that the philosophical-culturological concept of the Russian masscult transformation not only brings a kind of research result, but also determines the vectors for further study of the issue.

In modern practices of Russian Orthodoxy, the feast of the Virgin Mary Dormition is so­lemnized with great splendor. During these celebrations in large and small religious centers, a liturgical image, in the Russian Orthodox Church called “The Theotokos Holy Shroud”, becomes the central temple image. This article, for the first time, makes an attempt to track down a continuity in the Dormition Shroud images creation — from royal craftwork rooms of medieval Russia to modern workshops. Learning on previous masterpieces, present-day apprentices contribute to preservation and deve­lopment of the unique traditions of national culture. The article introduces into scientific circulation a number of rare artifacts that become a subject of research for the first time. The study provides facts refuting the nowadays-widespread opinions that, in the alleged absence of material evidence (preserved monuments) of an earlier time, the period in which these images originated dates back to the late 19th century. This determines the relevance of the study. The author comes to the conclusion that, however brief and undescriptive the data recorded in documentary sources are, they make it clear that these relics already existed in the late Middle Ages, though questions of authorship and artistic value of the works still remain to be answered. This analysis becomes possible through studying the Synodal era images discovered in vestiaries of churches in the Moscow region, as well as those reported in some historical descriptions. Modern masters recreate works of high artistic le­vel, applying a combination of the ancient heritage and the modern variety of materials and innovative technologies. The data presented in the article contribute to further studying of the issues embra­cing emergence and spread of the liturgical images of the Theotokos Shroud in the practices of Russian Orthodoxy. It is also important to trace back the historical background of those selected artifacts first mentioned in this paper.

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