The article analyzes the treatise of Jean Gerson, the outstanding French theologian of the 15^thcentury and Chancellor of the University of Paris, “Le traictié d’une vision faite contre Le Ronmant de la Rose”, written on May 18, 1402. This work was created in the midst of the so-called dispute about the Roman de la Rose, in which prominent intellectuals of the early 15^thcentury, the first French humanists — Christine de Pizan, Jean de Montreuil, the brothers Gontier and Pierre Col — took part. The treatise is an account of a vision in which Jean Gerson was allegedly present at the trial brought against Jean de Meng, the author of the second part of the Roman de la Rose, which is strikingly misogynistic. The article analyzes in detail the literary techniques used in this work, the genre of the treatise, and also raises the question of why Gerson needed to transfer the real literary debates that were going on between supporters and opponents of the Roman de la Rose into a fictional reality and give them the character of judicial debates. The author concludes that Jean Gerson’s treatise may have been based on the idea of dreams as Divine revelations, as omens of future — and quite real — events. Thus, the verdict regarding the Roman de la Rose and its author, Jean de Meng, was to be pronounced not in a dream, but in reality, and not by a fictional character, but by the chancellor of the University of Paris himself.

The epistolary polemic between Stephen Báthory and Ivan the Terrible unfolded in 1576–1578 and reached its climax in 1579–1581. It ended through the mediation of the Holy See. The Jesuit Antonio Possevino’s mission to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia left a lasting imprint on diplomatic correspondence and negotiations, opening new perspectives for both parties as well as for the Holy See against the background of plans for a union of Churches and for confronting the Reformation and the Turkish threat to Christian states. The article clarifies the conclusions of previous studies on the course of the negotiations and shifts the emphasis from the projects of the Roman See to a multilateral lens. This allows us to reconsider the positions of the three main participants, which changed during the peacemaking mission. The main attention is paid to Ivan the Terrible’s letter to the Polish king of June 29, 1581, Stephen Báthory’s reply of August 2, 1581, prepared with the assistance of the Crown and the Lithuanian chanceries, and Ivan the Terrible’s ‘speeches’ (posolskiie rechi) delivered in Staritsa on September 12, 1581. These extensive ‘speeches’ concluded the “hot” epistolary and oral phase of Ivan the Terrible’s war with Stephen Báthory, but they were merely an opening for Antonio Possevino’s efforts to realize the Holy See’s aims.

Early Modern European culture abounded in various forms of public controversies. These included university debates, literary dialogues, printed polemical works, etc. The Reformation and the resulting confessional conflicts added numerous religious disputations. Religious disputations were closely linked to conversions to the ‘true faith’ and could be addressed to either national audiences or to relatively small groups. How were these ‘private disputations’ perceived and described by those who witnessed such events? In the 16^th–17^thcenturies the European audience was well versed in the arguments of both Catholic and Protestant theologians. What, then, could be considered a victory when almost every argument of the disputants was predictable? The article presents an analysis of a disputation narrative — the story of the debates between an Anglican divine, William Chillingworth, and a Jesuit, Thomas Holland, which were held in 1634 at the house of Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland. The disputation was organized to help persuade the daughters of Lady Falkland, newly converted Catholics and future nuns Anne, Lucy, Elizabeth and Mary Cary, who experienced a religious crisis. The disputation narrative was part of the biography of Lady Falkland written by her daughters. The story was closely connected to the narrative of the conversion of the mother and the daughters to Catholicism. The process was presented as an “intellectual conversion” through rational arguments. However, the story of the disputation focuses not on the arguments but on the behavior of all the participants, and on their emotions. This is a reflection of the views of the 17^th-century polemicists regarding the role of emotions and pas[1]sions in the process of religious conversion and the search for truth.

During 1714–1716, a stormy, if short-lived, polemic broke out in France over Homer and his place in the literary canon. Its participants debated how his works should be assessed and how they should be translated, verbatim or freely. Homer’s opponents, led by Houdar de La Motte, pointed to the immorality of Homeric heroes, their stubbornness and cruelty; they also dwelled on the compositional flaws of his poems, showing their incompatibility with modern aesthetic standards. For their part supporters of the ancient poet, led by Madame Dacier, insisted on the historical and cultural distance which separated the works of Homer from modernity, and argued that they could not be evaluated according to the standards of another era. In this exchange of opinions, both sides used the same topoi and figures of speech because they were engaged in public controversy and therefore competed in rhetoric. The article considers one such topos, which equates Homer with an artist — a sculptor or a painter — and treats his writings as sculptures or paintings. This equation represents an interesting twist on the traditional saying ‘ut pictura poesis’, and is used by both parties, but for different purposes and with varying rhetorical effectiveness.

The article attempts to comprehend the phenomenon of religious consciousness. The aim is to describe, as an immanent experience, psychotechnics (work on oneself) — that which understands itself and describes itself in its own language with the help of metaphysical concepts. The introduction considers the so-called “Eulogy” of Moscow priest Alexei Mechev, previously analyzed by P. A. Florensky and V. N. Toporov. What is incomprehensible and intriguing about the “Eulogy” is that it is composed to himself and by himself in the most commendable way (and by no means in a humble tone, as one would expect) and essentially is a glorification of oneself as a saint. In parts I and II of the article, the same phenomenon is examined on the basis of works of 14^thcentury German mystics: the autobiography “Vita” by the Constance mystic Heinrich Suso (1295/1297–1366) and the diary notes of the Zurich visionary Elsbeth von Oye (d. 1341/1342), which have survived in the original. In both the first and the second case, attention is paid to the phenomenon of double voicing, when statements endowed with performative power and devoid of any doubt about their complete, unconditional rightness are adjacent to the most derogatory and humble self-assessments. This is what the replacement of subjectivity looks like: as the human subjectivity of the charismatic is eliminated, the subjectivity of God, the divine “spark” unfolds in him: the emanation of God that is in him, which. however, is of another nature than the charismatic, in relation to which the charismatic himself acts as an instrument. Setting itself no limits, the imperative and categorical discovery of a “spark” in a humble charismatic corresponds to the glorification of oneself in Father A. Mechev’s “Eulogy”, which is emphasized in the Conclusion and explicated in several findings.

The article examines a type of “autobiographical sadness” — the author’s feelings associated with the creation and publication of books. Varied manifestations of self-reflection and emotions are found in texts of the autobibliographic genre, which flourished in the era of humanism and early printing. The synthesisof bibliography and biography, which had Greek and Roman prototypes and was characteristic, among others, of humanist handbooks in bibliography, contributed to the explicit expression of the authorial “self” in such seemingly technical, dry and “objective” works. The very structure of these handbooks implied the inclusion of an article about its compiler in the text. In this article, two examples of such texts are analyzed — namely, the autobibliographies by the Swiss polymath Conrad Gessner and by the English clergyman and historian John Bale. Written only three years apart (in 1545 and 1548, respectively), they nevertheless differ significantly, in both the organization of the biographical narrative and in the nature of book presentation. The article shows that the peculiarity of these texts is largely due to differences in the self-identification and self-presentation of their authors. While for Bale the acquisition of the true faith and confessional polemics were of fundamental importance, Gessner, though also a Protestant, places his own formation as a humanist author and interaction with book publishers in the focus of the story.

The personal diary of a prominent Russian statesman, M. A. Korf, is a rare example of a fusion of personal and state interests, in particular, of a deeply personal experience of sociopolitical events. Most of the entries relate to incidents in the highest institutions of the Nicholas I’s regime (the imperial family, the State Council, the ministries and special committees). These events seem to be the main life interest of the author and provoke his strongest emotional response, often expressed melancholically: with sadness and distress. Korf reacts no less emotionally to foreign policy events, in particular, the revolution of 1848 in France; as well as, in his opinion, his own overly slow career growth. At the same time, traditional reasons for sadness, such as illnesses and deaths of colleagues and acquaintances, arouse in him nothing but cold curiosity. The image of the author in his diaries appears twofold: the individual features of an educated nobleman of the mid-19^thcentury merge with an approach inherent to the elite of the 18^thcentury, namely, forming the image of a God-like monarch and the corresponding attitude towards him. Various forms of sadness expressed by Korf in his diariesvividly describe the model of the power hierarchy established by Nicholas I. The emperor is the very centre of this model: he is the source of major joys and sorrows for senior officials and courtiers, and their sadness increases in direct proportion to their distance from the emperor.

Taras Shevchenko’s diary of 1857–1858, a well-known and even iconic text, remains poorly commented and conceptualized to an even lesser degree. This despite the fact that it describes and interprets one the most important periods in Shevchenko’s life. When his exile ended, he returned to St. Petersburg and to artistic production, became extremely popular as a key figure of Ukrainian nation-building. The article intends to demonstrate, on the example of one extended entry from April 30^th, 1858, how a multifaceted commentary reveals the wide problematics of this diary. To achieve this goal, the first monographic commentary to the named entry was compiled, reconstructing and examining numerous contexts of that day, such as the historical, the biographical, the artistic, the urban, and the ideological. As a next step, the plots identified were interpreted within the framework of the optics of transition underscored by Shevchenko himself. The results of the study are: explication of several obscure or unnoticed passages; revelation of multicentered conflict as a main line of the text (“former I” vs “actual I”; Art vs state/Church; sacred Art vs. ignoble naturalism); analysis of structure and poetics of the entry. The emotional scenario of the day is explicated as developing from discontent to annoyance, then from disappointment to rage and indignation. The study demonstrates which rhetorical patterns are used and how the author defines himself by two symbolic figures, Karl Bryullov and Ivan Krylov. Painter and poet, respectively, they represent Shevchenko’s double-sided avatar, and also serve as tools for analysis of his traumatic past strongly influencing a new stage of his biography.

This article deals with the issue of digital reading of personal diaries based on the analysis of two projects by Phil Gyford involving the publication of Samuel Pepys’ diary — on a site specifically dedicated to the diary and on the microblogging platform Twitter. When discussing the genre of the personal diary and its publication, generally the problem of privacy and its violation comes to the forefront: it is seen as central to understanding the impressions as well as the experiences of a reader “immersed” in someone else’s private life and experiencing both a feeling of guilt, opposing him/herself to the author/hero, and nostalgia for missed opportunities, which brings closer to the text the view that the diarist himself might have, upon re-reading his/her notes. Consideration of the forms of diary publication on the Internet, which sought to create “a living reading” and assumed a reading model fundamentally different from that of a printed book, allows us to pay attention to other aspects of the reader’s perception of someone else’s personal diary, conditioned by the specifics of the media and everyday practices. Analysis of the image of Pepys himself, of his text, and of the past in general as they appear in the comments of the users of both projects touches upon three main aspects — the influence of media on the perception of the narrative, the framing of the text being read, and the inclusion of the diary in the reader’s everyday life. The comparison of the two projects, which reveals, in full correspondence with Marshall McLuhan’s idea of “the medium is the message”, a significant difference in the perception of the same text, problematizes the already criticized genre definition of the diary and its characteristics. Users’ comments allow us to speak not only about other mechanisms of forming a sense of privacy and closeness to the author, which are considered to be among the most important for defining the private diary genre, but also regarding the issue of privacy: in certain practices of reading personal diaries the angle of “peeping” can change into its opposite — the diary’s interference in the private life of the reader.

In Tretyakov Gallery there is a portrait of a lady in a light green dress and turban, painted by Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky. In the most recent catalogue, it is labelled as the portrait of Mme de Staёl, but this attribution is accompanied by a question mark in parentheses. The identification of Borovikovsky’s model as the famous French writer Germaine de Staёl (1766–1817) arose a century ago. Most likely, it was prompted by the unquestionable fact that in 1812 de Staёl spent three weeks in Petersburg, where Borovikovsky was living, as well as by similarities between the face of the woman depicted on the portrait with what is known about the appearance of the authoress. Until now no other proofs have been offered. The article discusses a number of Mme de Staёl’s “distinguishing features” which make quite clear her difference from the lady in the portrait. The latter wears a turban and Mme de Staёl did in fact like turbans; however, the turban in the portrait is pale green, while memoirists were unanimous in affirming, even many years later, that de Staёl’s turban was always red or crimson. The woman in the portrait is covered in jewels: a pearl bandeau, a bracelet, earrings, a necklace. No jewels are to be found on any of de Staёl’s known portraits. Finally, perhaps the main “clue”, or, more precisely, its absence. Everyone who wrote about de Staёl described a gesture which practically became her emblem: she always held in her hand a small green twig or a sheet of paper — this is how she is depicted on many French portraits. By contrast, Borovikovsky’s lady holds nothing in her hands. It is also significant that neither in her memoir, Ten Years of Exile, nor in her diary from 1812 does de Staёl mention sitting for a portrait. All this leads to the conclusion that someone else is depicted in Borovikovsky’s painting.

The article is focused on the emotional contexts of the biography of Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), written by the distinguished author Miranda Seymour. One of the main emotional attitudes of the biographer is sorrow and sadness. The reason for this is the distorted image of Lady Ottoline in memoirs and fiction; she was portrayed in several novels in an unfair and satirical manner. Literary representations of her can be found in Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence, Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf and several other contemporary works of fiction. Special attention is paid to the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Lady Ottoline Morrell, the difference in their characters and their attitudes to dress. Lady Ottoline is judged in terms of “integrity” (the concept of George Moore) but her character does not fit into the philosophical schemes. This case study includes analysis of Lady Ottoline’s vestimentary habits, her bohemian style. Another important emotion of the biographer arises from the difficulty of discovering the truth, since Lady Ottoline’s memoirs and diaries were selectively censored, cut and edited upon publication. With access to documentary sources in the archive, the author reconstructs the full scope of lady Ottoline Morrell’s biography. Besides sorrow, Miranda Seymour demonstrates genuine admiration and compassion for her heroine and always defends her against unfair representations.

The article is devoted to an analysis of some aspects, pro[1]fessional as well as creative ones, of the biography of Mathilde Hollitscher, Sigmund Freud’s eldest daughter. In this context her life story is presented as a point of convergence of several research trajectories, including the history of the psychoanalytic movement and biographical studies related to the founder of psychoanalysis and his relationship with the world of clothing and textiles. At the same time, this research focuses on the shift of the practices of women’s creative work from the invisible area of domestic labour to the sphere of professional activity implemented in the public space in the 20^th century. The article considers the professional life of Freud’s eldest daughter as an illustrative example of such deterritorialization, and also outlines the connections of the Freud family with the world of textiles and clothing. All this opens up new possibilities to elucidate a number of episodes in the history of the psychoanalytic movement, as well as some facts of Sigmund Freud’s biography. The presented materials also create additional perspectives for comprehending the legacy of the founder of psychoanalysis.

The article examines the tension between the individual and the collective in current mainstream photographic practice, which is considered within the long-term historical context of commercial portraiture. The individualizing tendencies of this representational tradition as well as its status as (auto)biographical fiction were astutely analyzed by the Russian avant-garde thinkers Alexander Rodchenko and Osip Brik. Criticizing the persistence of “painterly” clichés in studio photography of their time, they saw these conventional elements as something that obscures and distorts reality, substituting for it a beautiful picture. For these leftist theorists, reality was primarily defined by the interplay of social forces, and isolating the subject within the picture frame was sufficient grounds for their disapproval. Taking up their notion of cliché applied particularly to posing, this article proposes to view it, instead, as an entry point into the usually invisible collective dimension of each individual portrait. The first section of the article discusses historical precedents to current mainstream photographic portraiture in terms of class- and gender-specific pressures on the sitters which have contributed to the homogenization of the genre’s visual canon. The suggestion to view stylistically similar images of individuals as expressing a latent collectivity is developed in the second part of the article, which analyzes Jana Romanova’s photographic series W through the theoretical framework borrowed from Lauren Berlant (“intimate public”, “female complaint”) and Gayle Letherby (“auto/biography”).

Israeli secret analytical reports from the late 1970s expressed anxiety over the growth of neshira — “dropping out” of Jews who left the Soviet Union on Israeli visas but chose to reside in other Western countries. Neshira went hand in hand with another disturbing phenomenon — yerida, the departure of new Soviet immigrants from Israel to Europe or America, or their return to the Soviet Union. The Soviet press kept reporting about “re-emigrants” with a completely different intonation, as did KGB reports. The article examines negative impressions of Israel as transmitted, perhaps in an aggravated form, by Soviet journalists, and as presented in the ego-documents of new immigrants, future re-emigrants included. The stories of the absorption experience related in the egodocuments and therefore deemed trustworthy confirm the relative authenticity of newspaper reports and reveal that the main reason for disappointment were not financial, climatic or other difficulties, but the attitude of the Israeli bureaucracy and fellow citizens perceived as deliberate humiliation of human dignity. When relating their Israeli experience, former Soviet Jews demonstrated their commitment to familiar values, including a preference for the spiritual over the material (e. g., human dignity over prosperity), and social stratification habits, such as differentiation between educated cultural Jews from the big cities and provincial, or shtetl, Jews.

The article is devoted to the Freudian term melancholia, which is widely used in psychoanalysis, gender studies and postcolonial studies, and is also applied to diaspora studies. Scholars link diasporic melancholia with the traumatic experience of diaspora history and loss of the homeland, which is thought of as an ideal abstraction. At the same time, in studies of Korean-Americans’ literature, the word han is often used instead of the term ‘melancholia’, despite the fact that the scholars cite works by Freud and Judith Butler. Han is a Korean politically and culturally labeled term of emotion which denotes a combination of rage, sadness and despair. The meaning of han as a collective emotional state was not developed until the colonial period (1910–1945), however, this meaning became essential in South Korea, where it is used in the doctrine of some Christian churches (as so-called minjung theology) and in the realm of art. Among Korean-Americans han also became a popular concept in literary autobiographies and academic papers. In these works, han is interpreted as an inherent emotion which defines ethnic and cultural identity. Even for the second generation han carries inexpungible remains of memory of the lost homeland, and this interferes with assimilation into American society.

In the summer of 1879 Vladimir Korolenko was sent to the east across the Russian North regions to Vyatka province, into exile. He noted in his diary that on the border of the Kostroma and Vyatka provinces (in the village of Dyukovo, present-day Kostroma oblast) people cheerfully and noisily celebrated a certain holiday. According to Korolenko that day was All Saints’ Sunday and the eve of St. Philip’s (Christmas) Fast. However, a calculation of the chronology shows that it was in fact the beginning of St. Peter’s Fast, not St. Philip’s. It turns out that Korolenko made a mistake in counting the weeks after Easter and mixed up two of the four annual Orthodox fasts, calling the summer fast the winter one. Such a strange oversight is a sign of the young writer’s detachment from folk daily life and Orthodox tradition. For this reason, the paper deals with the question of Korolenko’s religiosity, as well as the time and degree of his familiarization with the traditions and everyday life of the Russian people. The evidence of Korolenko’s mindset during some periods of his life, including autobiographical evidence from his book The History of My Contemporary, is considered. We conclude that apparently even Korolenko’s childish religiosity was not overly simple or oriented towards rituals. Subsequently, in his youth, he developed a kind of a non-church religiosity, for which the calendar and other formalities did not matter.

A review of: Pashtova, M. M. (2020). Fol’klor cherkesskoi diaspory: lokal’naia traditsiia i ee nositeli [Folklore of the Circassian diaspora: Local tradition and its bearer]. IP Pashtov Z. V. 338 p. (In Russian).