The article’s problematics is examined in the socio-cultural context. The pandemic phenomenon is considered as a metaphor derived from a pandemic of infectious diseases. The latter is nothing more than a model projected on various social evils. It is in this capacity (not in the viral-infectious one) the pandemic is used in the article. The article broadly interprets the concept of a pandemic as a universal type of general massification of a threatening nature. It is accompanied by fear, aggression, ideological delusions, economic and demographic catastrophes.

Like the biomedical pandemic, its associative counterparts have been repeated with unpredictable regularity in human history. Even today, we can assume that the unforeseen consequences of information and communication technologies in the digital age bear the signs of impending pandemics. In the article, the infectious disease pandemic serves as a matrix model for characterizing an invariant version of other heterogeneous pandemics. The author builds his theoretical judgments on the material of well-known philosophical and cultural sources (L. Wittgenstein, M. Heidegger, M. Bakhtin, L. Vygotsky, S. Averintsev, R. Girard et al.), as well as on the history of art, its species and genre varieties.

Particular attention is paid to the works of art whose authors intentionally give them an ambivalent meaning. A significant role is given to the subtext of the material presented, the importance of which is determined by the goal to realize the main semantic intent of the article. There is an attempt to substantiate the relevance of postmodernism culture to the modern picture of the world, to the highly ambivalent civilizational changes. The article uses the material of extensive artistic practice to trace the manifestations of postmodernism as both a symptom and a mocker of the absurdism of human existence. The final part of the article prognosticates a number of possible post-pandemic changes in various areas of public life.

The technological revolution of recent decades has already brought art to the broadest masses, and the unexpected intervention of the pandemic has significantly accelerated the process of migration of theatrical art to the virtual space, causing the corresponding dynamics of the audience. What is the theater audience in the era of digitalization and the spread of alternative forms of cultural consumption? How does the theater build its relationship with the audience today? In search of answers, we conducted a series of sociological surveys of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater’s audience — both at the theater’s performances and in the online community of its fans. The purpose of this phase of the study was to answer the fundamental questions: do spectators surveyed in the theater and those surveyed online represent the same audience; what are their main differences; and what are the drivers of their spectator behavior? The article presents the main results of a comparative analysis of two images of the Moscow Art Theatre’s audience based on a number of content parameters by two types of surveys, as well as the results of a regression analysis of the theater attendance. The study resulted in definition of the qualitative and behavioral differences between the theater visitors and the viewers surveyed online, and identification of the factors of theater attendance for both of the represented audience groups. The study made it possible to clarify the role of age and other socio-demographic parameters in cultural activity, as well as the influence of preferred forms of cultural consumption (live contacts or online views) on one’s attitude to art, motivation and spectator behavior. The conclusions of the study, despite the uniqueness of the object, reflect the general patterns of the modern art audience’s dynamics.

Envisioned by its founders as a storehouse of historical evidence — material artifacts, written and oral testimonies, photographs and films — the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC is the repository of a significant archive of music salvaged from the Nazi ghettos and camps. This paper focuses on the Museum’s single largest music collection, that of the Polish camp survivor Aleksander Kulisiewicz (1918—1982). A native of Kraków, Poland, who spent over five years as a political prisoner in Sachsenhausen, Kulisiewicz in later life grew obsessed with documenting the repertoire that his fellow Poles and an international cadre of musicians, authors, and artistes created and performed while captives of the Germans. The collection he amassed during his final decades consists of hundreds of songs, choral works and instrumental pieces gathered from survivor memoirs, manuscripts, and multiple recorded interviews with former inmates. Approximately 70,000 pages of documentation encompass music-related artworks, biographical details of camp poets and composers, and copious additional corroborating material. Apart from providing an overview of the collection, the paper will discuss Kulisiewicz’s cultural and intellectual background in interwar Poland, and postwar career as a performer, activist and author. Music illustrations will be drawn from Kulisiewicz’s archive of sound recordings, including selections from his own series of autobiographical songs written in Sachsenhausen. A final set of musical examples demonstrates the collection’s utility as a resource for musicians and programmers seeking overlooked, yet revivable repertoire, and for composers inspired to create new works based on “rescued” music preserved in the Museum’s archive.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich (the august poet K. R.) were linked by many years of friendship and creative cooperation. After the composer’s death (October 25, 1893), K. R. became involved in the process of perpetuating his memory. The posthumous dialogue was manifested in various forms: Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich’s participation in church and secular memorial ceremonies, private commemorations, and his close communication with M.I. Tchaikovsky and V.L. Davydov — the composer’s brother and nephew. In addition, K. R. reexamined his creative and epistolary communication with the composer, whose memory he would pass on to his children. These and other aspects are considered in three sections of the proposed article: 1) “Under the Sign of the Liturgy Op. 41” (this spiritual and musical work runs through the whole life of the Grand Duke); 2) “The Grand Duke and M.I. Tchaikovsky” (a key figure in the “human” aspect); 3) “K. R. Reads ‘The Life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’” (one of the most important findings was a copy of the book ‘The Life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’, which belonged to Grand Duke and bears his notes; they retrospectively reflect the process of in-depth family reading). The article is based on documentary materials from Russian and foreign collections (including the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Library of Congress, USA), many of which are introduced into scientific use for the first time. The article uses methods of comparative source studies. The materials of the article can be used in a course of the history of Russian music, as well as in a modern commented edition of the epistolary heritage and diaries of P.I. Tchaikovsky, M.I. Tchaikovsky and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.

The article is the first attempt to present, on the basis of on a large number of pre-revolutionary sources, the history of formation and existence of various military-scientific, literary-scientific, cultural-educational, and entertainment societies, as well as special interest circles and clubs in the Military Department. The author analyzes in detail the history of creation and activities of the comradeship meetings of “dvoryane” and “konstantinovtsy” as one of the forms of historical memory of fellow officers. The article presents the activities of the military educational institution’s graduates on creating the Library Department of the Konstantin Military School, which consisted of its former students’ works on military science, history and literature. The article contains a comparative table for 1901 and 1916 with the names of authors and the number of literary works, created by the former students of the Noble Regiment and its successor institutions, donated for the Special Department of the Konstantin Artillery School’s library. The article focuses on the fact that this initiative found universal support among the students of the school and was one of the cultural traditions in other military educational institutions and military units of the Military Department.

Boris Sushkevich and Nadezhda Bromley (Sushkevich-Bromley) are remarkable theatrical figures, actors and directors whose lot was connected with the bright and dramatic periods of our country’s theatrical life from the beginning to the middle of the 20th century. They devoted a part of their professional life to the 1st Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre (from 1919 — Moscow Art Academic Theatre), which later became a separate theater (Moscow Art Academic Theatre II, 1924—1936). Since the middle of the 1930s, they worked in leading Leningrad theaters — the Leningrad State Academic Drama Theater (Alexandrinsky Theatre) and the New Theater (1933—1953, now the Saint Petersburg Lensoviet Theatre). This article introduces little-studied archival sources of biographical nature related to the work of these outstanding cultural figures.

Nadezhda Nikolayevna Bromley was a heiress of the Bromley — Sherwood creative dynasties, which had made a significant contribution to Russian culture. She joined the troupe of the Moscow Art Theater in 1908, performed on the stage of the 1st Studio (1918—1924), was one of the leading actresses of the Moscow Art Academic Theatre II after its separation, participated in its Directing Department being in charge of the literary part. Generously gifted by nature, N. Bromley wrote poems, short stories, novels; her fictional works “From the Notes of the Last God” (1927) and “Gargantua’s Descendant” (1930) earned critical acclaim. Two plays by N. Bromley were staged in the Moscow Art Academic Theatre II. One of them — the full of hyperbole and grotesque “Archangel Michael” — was passionately accepted by E.B. Vakhtangov and A.V. Lunacharsky, though never shown to a wide audience. At the Leningrad State Academic Drama Theater and the New Theater, N. Bromley not only successfully played, but also staged performances based on the works by A.P. Chekhov, A. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, F. Schiller, and W. Shakespeare.

Boris Mikhailovich Sushkevich, brought up by the Theater School of the Moscow Art Academic Theatre and in the Vakhtangov tradition of the playing grotesque, is one of the most interesting and original theater directors of his time. His directorial work in the play “The Cricket on the Hearth” based on a Christmas fairy tale by Charles Dickens became the hallmark of the 1st Studio (and later of the Moscow Art Academic Theatre II as well). This play remained in the theatre’s repertoire until January 1936. B. Sushkevich was a recognized theatre teacher — with his help, the Leningrad Theater Institute (now the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts) was established in 1939. Together with N. Bromley, he managed to fill the New Theater with bright creative content and make it a favorite of the Leningrad audience.

This research expands the understanding of a number of yet unexplored aspects of the history of theater in our country and recreates the event context of the era.

For the first time in Russian, the article reconstructs the history of the free school of drawing founded by the French artist and talented teacher J.-J. Bachelier (1724—1806); analyzes the charter and rules of this institution, its educational programs and practical activities; determines the role in the development of artistic craft in France. The article’s subject matter is multidisciplinary and is located at the intersection of the theory and history of art, art education and pedagogy. In view of the small number of comprehensive studies on the history of art education in France, this study expands the notion of it on the example of this educational institution. The school was opened in Paris at the initiative of J.-J. Bachelier for boys from the craftsmen environment. Although many different schools had been founded throughout France, the educational institution of Bachelier had special conditions of origin and a fortunate destiny — later it became part of the National School of Decorative Arts. From 1750, Bachelier became head of the Painting Department of the Vincennes (later Sevres) Porcelain Manufactory. According to his notes, his first concern was to make specialists. That is why he decided to organize a school where children were accepted from the age of eight and spent six years receiving the highest quality secondary art education of that time. Until now, Russian scientific literature has not paid enough attention to the history of French educational institutions in the field of art, despite the fact that France used to serve as a model for the whole of Europe in this regard. This article partially fills this gap, as well as provides a brief overview of other (less successful, but no less interesting) projects of J. Bachelier, for example, an art school for girls, the brilliant idea of which was never realized.

The article introduces a previously unpublished speech of the outstanding Russian scientist-physicist, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, academician Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov, which was delivered by him at the anniversary meeting held on June 5, 1949, at the monument to Alexander Pushkin in Moscow in connection with the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the great Russian poet’s birth. S.I. Vavilov was a great connoisseur of Pushkin’s poetry and literature about him. In the second half of the 1940s, Vavilov actively participated in projects to prepare the anniversary celebrations dedicated to Alexander Pushkin and perpetuate the memory of the poet. Analysis of S.I. Vavilov’s speech, which, unlike his other “Pushkin speeches”, was not intended for the press, shows that in evaluating the great poet’s work, along with the use of cliches, traditional for the epoch, the scientist also took certain liberties. In particular, he did not utter the ritual words praising Stalin, the Communist Party and the Soviet State. The poet Ya.P. Polonsky quoted by Vavilov was not among the classics recognized by Soviet literary criticism, and the selected quote from him could be interpreted as a hint of condemnation of the surrounding Stalinist reality. Numerous fragments of the scientist’s personal diaries indicate his critical attitude towards the latter, in particular.

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