No 2 (2024)

The article analyzes representations of the lifeway in Soviet films made in the period from the 1930s to the early 1950s (the Stalinist period of Soviet cinema). The idea of the certainty of the lifeway of Soviet people and the predetermined nature of their future is described. This trend is based on the sustainability and reproducibility of behavior patterns that can be transmitted through the arts. Soviet cinema can be considered as a source of behavioral models. The article analyzes what examples of living life were created in Soviet films of the Stalinist period and how this relates to the values of modern people. The research question is posed: What meanings and significance describe the representations of the “lifeway” presented in Stalinist cinema? Based on the review of literature, two tendencies stand out: biography glorification and biography typification. This, in the context of the tasks of the art of socialist realism, was necessary to create Soviet people’s behavioral models. For an empirical analysis, a technique is used that is based on the ideas of the structural-semiotic approach. Based on psychological approaches to understanding of the lifeway, the main units of film analysis are identified: life events and time perspective (attitude to the past, present, future). The films were selected according to the criterion of correspondence of the central theme to the description of the Soviet people’s life events presented within the framework of the film over a certain period. Initially, a general analysis of films about Soviet people’s “lifeway” was carried out, and then, with the help of a case study, the film The Village Teacher (year 1947) was considered in more details. The representations of the lifeway are analyzed on the basis of the events’ content and distribution by life spheres. The following life themes are highlighted: (1) the character’s labor formation is shown as the focus of the most significant meanings of his life; (2) the theme of love is closely related to work activities; love is the “reward” of characters who are successful at work; (3) the collective is shown as a significant context of human life. The character’s internal qualities include willpower, persistence, and unity of purpose. Choosing a difficult path is also associated with heroism. Orientation towards the future, idealistic plots, and lack of information about the character’s past characterize the time perspective of Soviet films. Based on the case study, the cyclical dynamics of the “lifeway” is described as a way of “controlling the collective future” and as an optimistic confidence in it. The results are discussed in the context of the stability and reproducibility of certain values presented in Soviet films in modern people’s behavioral patterns. It is concluded that the attractiveness of perceiving life as stable is determined by a sense of comprehensibility of the structure of the world, certainty of the future, and confidence in the tomorrow.

This article studies the phenomenon of video games as instruments of constructing ideas about historical and political reality in the mass consciousness. In the modern world, video games became one of the most popular forms of entertainment along with other types of visual content – cinema, animation, online and print publications, etc. However, due to the specific technical tools, video games represent a fundamentally new means of constructing meanings because they create the effect of the player’s immersion and presence in a virtual reality. Such interactivity makes it possible for video games to be especially effective in broadcasting certain values and patterns of behavior to players, forming a specific socio-cultural reality around them. All the mentioned makes video games not only a kind of entertainment but a serious “soft power” tool for modern states. In the study, the authors make an attempt to find out the images and tools that allow modern video games form a certain reality in the mass consciousness. For this purpose, the authors use the case-study as a method of descriptive analysis, B. F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning, Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory, and the method of expert interviewing. The authors resort not only to the theoretical understanding of the essence of video games based on foreign and domestic research in the sphere of game studies, but also to a practical analysis of the mechanisms used by the creators of video games to form a specific world view for gamers on the example of the Russian game Metro Exodus. The game action takes place in a post-apocalyptic world – an alternative Russia of the future, where people are forced to survive after a technogenic disaster. The game contains a lot of images of the Russian political elite, among which are a member of a secret service, controlling the media and oppressed population – the personification of the Russian government; a priest, deceiving his flock and connected with the criminal – the personification of the Russian Orthodox Church; the military and employees of the Ministry of Defence, literally “devouring” the population – the personification of militarism and the state of military structures in modern Russia; an oppressive southern autocrat, controlling the oil reserves and oppressing a local population – probably an allusion to the raw materials economy of Russia and related problems. The game’s creators use various visual problems, referring to the modern Russia, for instance, modified emblems with double-headed eagles, architecture which is typical to Russian cities, Russian military uniforms. The game plot is based on the victory of players over negative characters representing the Russian government– according to that, the authors of the article conclude that this video game forms similar patterns of behavior in the minds of players, whose ultimate goal is to overthrow the current state system in Russia. Along with that, the authors conclude that it is quite difficult now to evaluate the degree of emotional perception of these patterns among gamers. This will be possible only if an active protest movement in Russia arises.

The article analyses various aspects of comprehending the city as a cultural phenomenon, which has both a material, visible side and an imaginary, conceivable side. The author identifies the correlation of perception, representation and imagination in the process of understanding the city and argues that imagination plays a constitutive role in this process. It is emphasised that in urban studies the prevailing approach to the city is focused primarily on the consideration of its visual parameters. However, auditory, olfactory, tactile and other characteristics are significant in the process of perceiving urban spaces, since they also influence the formation of the city’s image and make this image more saturated and multidimensional. Based on the work “Imagination and perception” by P. F. Strawson, the author proves that imagination is a necessary component of the city perception. In addition, knowledge about the city and comprehending the city are considered in the article as different cognitive levels. Representation is associated with the concept of the city, and imagination is associated with comprehending the idea of the city, grasping its meaning. The increasing role of imagination in the process of cognition of sociocultural reality is determined by the change in the interpretation of this process itself in postnonclassical science and philosophy of culture. In the postnonclassical approach, the process of cognition is understood not simply as a mirror reflection of reality, but as the construction of an image of reality in consciousness, conditioned by specific linguistic, symbolic and cultural practices. The understanding of imagination in its transcendental dimension (the productive imagination in Kant’s terminology) is complemented in the article by an analysis of its sociocultural dimension. From the author’s point of view, this dimension is primarily important for understanding the city as a symbolic space of meanings that determine the uniqueness of a particular topos and its value for a person.

The beginning and end of this article record two literary examples, the meanings of which are conceptually interpretated. The first example – the Unseen University – captures the problem of domestic education caused by ignoring the essence of education. According to the authors, the essence of education is that education systems (of any scale) are self-organizing systems; the mechanisms of their self-organization are information processes (they represent an invariant sequence of stages); each stage of the information process expresses the result of its “work” in a semiotic form. The invariant sequence of stages strictly distributes the characteristics of information by which it is possible to judge the achievement of a “semiotic optimum” (a concept proposed by the authors) in the structure of the educational process at a particular university. These characteristics lead not so much to some kind of pedagogical innovation but rather serve to define the application boundaries for many techniques – those application boundaries that often remain “unseen”. To a first approximation, these characteristics represent the dependences of education results on the interpretation of what the goals of education subjects’ actions express. Therefore, the condition for achieving the semiotic optimum is the effectiveness of managing the goals of the subjects of education. Secondly, the effectiveness condition is the concision of the method of goal achieving. However, in the reality of life, the concision of a method is never a straight line segment connecting the “start” and “finish” points. The characteristics of information are presented in graphical and analytical form, which is not the simplest but the most concise way. A similar method – laconic graphics of conceptual schemes – is chosen to construct a semiotic optimum in lecture notes. The pursuit of this optimum determines the way the lecture itself is prepared. The lecture preparation by an educator is subordinated to the construction of the optimal balance of goals stated in the work program of the discipline, in the curriculum of a particular program, and in the potential range of students’ life aspirations. From the standpoint of the authors’ concept “pedagogical bioethics”, this range of students’ life aspirations should be accepted by the educator in a modality similar to the doctor’s acceptance of the suffering of patients. For this reason, the content of a lecture is not a moralistic sermon but an explanation of the distribution of communicative formats and communicative roles within the scope of a specific idea of morality. The construction of a semiotic optimum in the circumstances of the Unseen University meets the potential of visual semiotics: finding unseen reasons for actual visibility. The second literary example in the article is Hogwarts School since its structure contains a magical instrument – the Sorting Hat – for determining those inclinations and life aspirations of students that students are yet to know how to recognize. The role of the Hat can be played by the optimal relationship between the actual goals of all subjects of education (students and their parents; teachers and developers of training programs; managers of the educational process and potential employers). Hogwarts ghosts serve as a marker of possible errors in recognizing individual goals. With sad irony, the ghosts express possible deviations within the scope of a specific idea of morality. The chosen topic of the lecture most fully corresponds to the research problem: elucidating the potential of the syntax of the goals of the main subjects of education for constructing an optimum in fixing the content of the lecture (translation in synchrony) and the content of the student’s individual work (translation in diachrony), in particular, fixed in students’ notes. It is such notes that can become a textbook created by students for themselves, that is, in awareness of the limits of personal autonomy.

Today, in the context of withdrawal from the Bologna process, further transformations of our educational system are being carried out. The purpose of these transformations is proclaimed to be the creation of a national education system based on the accumulated experience and return to the best domestic traditions. At the same time, the proposed measures, which actually concern only the ratio of the three levels of higher education and do not address a number of sore points of the existing system, can be called “reforms” very roughly. This leads us to a broader problem - a number of key words that define the discourse within which our education is discussed are imprecise and ambiguous. And this not only prevents any agreement, but in some cases also proves to be simply harmful. A number of important words and concepts related to them are analysed in the historical context and in the context of the ongoing changes in the education system. The materials are words and concepts behind them, the criterion of selection of which is the reflection of important features of the current education system. The words are reform, competence, humanitarian component and a number of others. A comparative analysis of these words is carried out, taking into account the experience of foreign countries. It is shown that the imprecise use of the given words does not allow setting the necessary tasks clearly and, in general, introduces serious confusion in the discourse related to education. Moreover, since the selected words turn out to be profoundly interrelated in this discourse, their uncertainty increases, and, ultimately, the participants of the educational process find themselves in a situation where meaningful dialog is practically impossible. As a result of the word-by-word analysis, it is easy to demonstrate that, without clarifying the meanings of the named words and the concepts they denote, meaningful discussion of educational problems does not yield the desired consequences. It is suggested to work on purifying the language of educational discourse. This can be done through precise definitions of the used words-terms and argumentation aimed at clarifying any proclaimed goals and objectives. Only then can we achieve at least a relative common understanding and appropriate effectiveness in working together to improve our education.