The article is focused on the history of news in Early Modern Europe, namely the history of newsletters — the predecessors of newspapers, which informed Europeans about current political affairs. Until quite recently it was widely accepted that only men read newsletters because they were interested in political events. In the last decade, however, studies of female epistolary culture have demonstrated that women also were part of the newsletters’ audience. The article presents an analysis of newsletters sent to Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (1527–1608). Her correspondence is much better preserved than letter archives of any other woman of Tudor England. Five surviving newsletters from the Shrewsbury archive were addressed to the Countess by Hugh Fitzwilliam and written between 1569 and 1574. These letters contain domestic political news, as well as news from abroad. Analysis of the letters makes it possible to conclude that in the 1570s the news format available to Englishmen and Englishwomen was not yet a specialized news bulletin but newsletters sent from clients to patrons. In these letters, the news was focused on topics that were of interest to the patrons, and that could be explored in more detail on demand. The case of the Countess of Shrewsbury demonstrates that aristocratic women were interested in the same political topics as were the men of their families, and, like the men, ordered, consumed and disseminated the news.

Unremarkable details of a past life often remain a set of curious facts that have no place in a scientific picture of the past. All the more valuable are those rare cases when disparate events can be linked together, revealing their place in the series of phenomena. The article is dedicated to Ivan Ivanovich Schilt (1757– 1796), Chief Secretary of the Senate, who had not previously come to the attention of researchers. Schilt’s contribution to Russian literature is insignificant. He wrote one rather mediocre poem on the occasion of the marriage anniversary of the Procurator-General of the Senate, A. A. Viazemskii (1782), printed and preserved probably in a single copy, and probably two translations: a poem from French and a poem into German. However, Schilt’s influence on the literary process in Russia at the end of the eighteenth century is much more significant, thanks to his critical remarks regarding the poet and senator Ivan Dmitriev, recorded in the latter’s memoirs. The article establishes the facts of the unremarkable biography of Schilt the official and shows that in the history of literature it is necessary to take into account, if possible, those subtle and elusive interactions of the reading and writing public that shaped the space of literature and literary tastes at the end of the 18^th century.

The article examines the life-story and autobiographical writing of Solomon Borisovich Dolnik (1901–1986), a Jewish activist in the Soviet Union who practically single-handedly engaged in underground Zionist samizdat during 1960–1966 and was sentenced to four years in a labor camp for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” The article examines both the controversial aspects of Dolnik’s biography — his relationship with other activists before and after his trial, the actual reasons for his conviction, the background for the uncordial reception he received in Israel — and the idiosyncrasies of his conception of himself and his life writing. The article is primarily intended to highlight a forgotten historical figure, restoring another page in the history of the Jewish national movement in the USSR, the beginning of which, due to the almost complete replacement of the activist cohorts, is usually attributed to a later period. In addition, some observations are made as to how Dolnik (and this might be applicable to other Zionists of his generation) assessed the Jewish destiny in the USSR, the disposition of his fellow Jews, the abilities and determination of Jewish youth and activists among them. Another focus of the paper is the way Dolnik has constructed his autobiographies as both a manifesto, a polemics, an accusation, and an auto-apology.

The anthropology of the academic community is an understudied topic in Soviet women’s history. This article examines it and draws on published memoirs of female contemporaries, their oral histories (recorded by the author), and periodicals. The main working hypothesis is that traditions of academic life have been preserved from generation to generation and that features have developed that have formed stable traditions and unwritten rules observed by representatives of different generations of academic workers. The author analyzes details of the lifestyle of three generations of female academics in the USSR and Russia who achieved professional recognition and had highly cited publications. The first are women born in 1917–1949; the second are children of the postwar baby boom, born in 1950–1969; the third — those born during 1970–1999. Comparison of the attitude of female scientists to their own achievements in comparison with the success of their friends who did not become scientists, the life attitudes of the daughters of contemporary female scientists with the attitudes of older generations led to the conclusion about the need to correct the hypothesis. Working with memories, analyzing subjective assessments of successes and failures one can conclude that significant transformations in the motivations of female scientists in Russia are connected with the changes in the public life of the country and in everyday life practices over the past 70 years. High motivation, focus on self-sacrifice in the name of Science among older women has been replaced by strict rationality and much less sentimentality in their daughters.

The article analyzes the representation of gardens and parks in Soviet feature films from the 1920s and 1930s, set against the backdrop of evolving state cultural policy during that era. It compares the state’s cultural policy guidelines regarding the purpose and functionality of garden and park spaces with their cinematic portrayals in films from the same period. The study is based on a sample of ten films set in Soviet urban everyday life. For a detailed investigation, episodes set in gardens and parks were chosen. The analysis focused on the role of these episodes in the plot, the visual elements within the frame (such as objects and infrastructure), and the content of intertitles and dialogues. The dominant themes of state cultural policy are selectively reflected in these films. In the mid-1920s, cinema primarily depicted the existing conditions of gardens and parks. By contrast, films from the late 1920s and early 1930s began to reflect the ideological directives of that time, particularly emphasizing the educational role of parks. In the mid-1930s, some films reintroduced a politically neutral image of parks as spaces for private life, aligning with a shift in official park requirements. Films produced in the latter half of the 1930s fully embraced a new direction in state cultural policy, portraying park recreation as depoliticized. The authors link these fluctuations to historical contexts such as the New Economic Policy and its subsequent rollback, the intensification of the “cultural revolution” associated with industrialization, and the “conservative turn” of the mid-1930s.

The article explores the problem of interaction between radical art and institutions. The problem of the Radical as such is examined, taking into account the complexity and ideologization of the term. The authors try to trace how exactly the Radical was implemented in contemporary art practices, who exactly and why resorted to radicalization of their own artistic language, and by what social shifts and contexts was this radicalization conditioned. First of all, the connection of the problem with the history of institutional critique is analyzed — new contexts are proposed for scholarly engagement with the legacy of institutional critique as such, given its a priori radicality assumed by its creators. Next, attention is paid to the problem of theorizing subcultural groups working at the intersection between rock and industrial music and radical art. For further analysis, the authors consider three examples illustrating three different forms of interaction: COUM Transmissions with ICA London in the UK of the 70s; the art group “Voina” with the state prize “Innovation” in Russia in the first half of the 2010s; Antonina Baever and Dmitry Fedorov with an unnamed museum in Russia in the second half of the 2010s. Accordingly, the authors distinguish static, maneuverable and allergic interaction.

The article offers an analysis of Russian performance art of the 1990s through the concept of the public sphere introduced by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. The late Soviet period of performance history in Russia was characterised by the closed status of the events, the preference for suburban spaces, the presence of personal invitations and the calm or quiet character of the artists’ actions. The 1990s saw significant changes. The frequency of performances increased: dozens of events could take place per year. Performances became more visible: they began to be written about in daily newspapers. Artists prefer to behave defiantly and loudly, favouring shocking actions. All this takes place on city streets and squares: in the crowd of passersby, among everyday events. The author proposes to examine the changes in artistic strategies through the components of the concept of the public sphere. The analysis includes the characteristics of action locations, their historical, social and other features, the type of news materials published in newspapers and the specificity of language, as well as the formation of the public necessary for the public sphere. Thus, the article shows that the publicity of the place determines the strategy chosen by the artist.

The article examines the rethinking of nature in contemporary art and design practices. Special attention is paid to the use of living organisms, which become a design tool and change the processes of production, agriculture, food culture, medicine, clothing, and energy sources. In numerous studies, design, done in conjunction with living organisms, has been identified as a new ecological paradigm that acts as a solution to the catastrophic consequences of the industrial revolution and modern production methods. In the academic field, the morphology of the new ecological paradigm has barely been formed. The paper analyzes an approach to art and design based on mimicry of nature, its imitation, and a biointegrated approach, using living materials and processes. It is concluded that both approaches are based on the same scientific method, which implies interdisciplinary design activities and collaboration between artists, designers, biologists and representatives of the respective scientific fields. Particular attention is paid to the description of terms with the prefix bio, such as biomorphism, biomimetics, biomimicry and bionics, which are part of the bio-inspired approach. We note the essential difference between biomimetics and biomimicry and the practice of biodesign, where living organisms are used as the main component of a product. Two ways of working with the living organism are highlighted: by choosing biological raw materials of plant, animal or microbial origin, and by the participation of the living component in the functioning of the product. Thus, the article shows how artists and designers within the new ecological paradigm work with living materials and attempt to move beyond a human-centered understanding towards design with nature. The conclusion identifies a number of challenges in scaling this practice and applying product prototypes to real-world production.

The article discusses the practice of using photographs in graphic design and reveals the concept of fotografiks as a special approach to working with photography. The lack of extensive research in the field of fotografiks makes the study of photographs in design highly relevant. We demonstrate a process for defining a structure from different types of images and then building systems through which photography works in design and which can be used for practical purposes. To analyze fotografiks, the author uses the method of extrapolation: she transfers the idea of the French art critic André Rouillé about the four functions of photography to the special case of its use in graphic design. André Rouillé’s book, Photography: Between document and contemporary art, is analyzed. The article examines and analyzes the four functions that Rouillé writes about: photography as document, photography as expression, photography as tool, and photography as material. Photography as a document reveals a close connection with the referent, denotes what is depicted, and is often used in design projects. Photography as expression is capable of imparting more meaning to an image than an ekphrastic reading of that image, and is used to create atmospheric images with hidden meanings and details. Photography as tool gives designers a powerful toolkit for constructing new images. Photography as material allows one to create design projects comparable to works of art in terms of the depth of their concept and implementation. Each of these functions is discussed using examples of music album cover design from the 1970s– 2010s. Based on the results of the study, the author concludes that A. Rouillé’s proposal to consider photography through its functions is applicable both in design theory, for the study of created works, and in practical applications in the field of graphic design.

The article is devoted to the study of the genesis of Yevlampy Nadkin, one of the first widely known heroes of Soviet comics, and his embodiment in early Soviet media. Utilizing materials from newspapers and magazines such as Satyrikon, Novyi Satyrikon, Smekhach, Gudok, Begemot, and Leninskie iskry, as well as diaries and memoirs from the early 1900s to the 1930s, the study reveals that the artist Boris Antonovsky created Yevlampy Nadkin in 1925. This figure was based on Telegraphist Nadkin, a pre-revolutionary character originally conceived by Arkady Averchenko for the satirical journal Satyrikon. The editorial staff of Smekhach, many of whom were former employees of Satyrikon and Novyi Satyrikon, supported Antonovsky’s character, maintaining the biographical legend established by Averchenko. The similarity between the two figures may have been ignored in Soviet historiography due to Averchenko’s anti-Soviet views. The article traces Nadkin’s trajectory through the Soviet media during the 1920s and 1930s, illustrating how he migrated between publications amidst the centralization of Stalinist power. By 1933, Nadkin transformed into Yasha Nadkin in the children’s newspaper Leninskie iskry, where he continued to appear in comic strips, feuilletons, jokes, and caricatures until 1941. Even after Boris Antonovsky’s death in 1934, the character persisted in print. Additionally, the article highlights the theatrical and ballet adaptations of Yevlampy Nadkin for the first time.

The article analyzes modern trends in scientific research on Soviet urban planning and architecture of the Stalin era. The text provides a brief overview of domestic and foreign books of the last decade, which reflect current scientific approaches. The author argues that the Soviet scientific paradigm has not been replaced by a new holistic scientific concept, but there is a plurality of authors’ interpretations. The research is dominated by the interdisciplinary approach, which gives impetus to the enrichment of problems, sources and research methods. The author believes that the main research trend is also a shift in optics from the object to processes and contexts, and within this framework, the topic of the relationship between the authorities and the professional community, the study of the forms and mechanisms of state regulation of architectural creativity dominates. Among other research lines, the article considers such priority areas as the revision of knowledge about the masters of Soviet architecture, the study of professional discourse, and international communications of Soviet architecture. The last topic notes the importance of shifting the emphasis to the concept of “cultural transfer”, which implies not one-sided borrowing, but transnational circulation and exchange. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite all the differences in thematic perspectives, there is a general tendency to consider the research object in a socio-cultural context, in a complex process of interrelations and mutual influences.

The article provides a review of up-to-date academic knowledge of Soviet architecture of the 1930s–1950s, usually labeled in public discourse as Stalinist, as if the Soviet dictator was in fact its true supreme author. Of course, it is impossible to cover in one article the whole variety of problems associated with the study of the phenomenon of Stalinist architecture. For this reason, the author’s attention is focused on the most significant research trends. First of all, these include the search for the most appropriate terminology that would allow one to avoid excessive journalisticism (like the popular phrase “Stalinist Empire style”), would reflect the internal dynamics of the architectural process over the course of two decades, and would designate the place of Soviet architecture in the global context (primarily the Western one). From the point of view of methodology, the empirical approach still prevails, and the stage of identifying and systematizing the material is actually continuing. At the same time, the importance of microhistorical and biographical studies dedicated to specific regions and particular personalities is significantly increasing. Among a number of factors that negatively affect the research process, it is necessary to note the tendency towards politicization and re-ideologization of academic discourse in architectural history.

The article is based on archival materials dealing with the discussions of the manuscript of “Concise Course of the History of Soviet Architecture” at the Leningrad branch of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR. The course was the first comprehensive work on the history of Soviet architecture prepared at the turn of the 1940s–1950s by the staff of the Academy and published in mass circulation only in the post-Stalin period. The materials demonstrate a degree of diversity of opinions unexpected in the epoch of political and ideological dictatorship. Along with the “Moscow” (or “Central”) viewpoint, there were also some “local” ones characteristic of local architectural communities, even within the Soviet metropole. In particular, there was the Leningrad school of architecture and architectural history with its characteristic values, priorities, and hierarchies (related to both historic and contemporary construction). The peculiar “local view” on the history from the city’s architecture during the three Soviet decades can be seen in architects’ attempts to establish the professional succession from the pre-Revolutionary architecture and to claim the succession of the classical tradition, in their unexpectedly loyal evaluation of Leningrad Constructivist architecture, in their constant stressing the ensemble qualities of the architecture of Saint Petersburg — Leningrad, in the choice of buildings and personalities for the “Concise Course”.

The publication presents a series of short interviews with several prominent historians of Soviet architecture. During the last few decades, there has been an explosive increase of research in this field. Such a wave of publications might be viewed as either the revision of existing concepts or as their development. Is there any peculiar perspective and specific methodology typical of recent studies of Soviet architecture of the first half of the 20th century? Is it fruitful to employ a “political” methodology that connects architectural processes, buildings and designs, above all, to the taste and demands of Soviet power? What scope of research seems to be the most promising: from the general history of Soviet architecture to the microhistory of specific phenomena? What issues do the interviewees focus on in their research: the history of professional institutions, the works of individual architects, the history of architectural form, ideas, theory, schools, design techniques, center-periphery relations, etc.? In their opinion, what types of research are still missing?

The article precedes the publication of three documents signed and personally written by Queen of France Anne of Austria (1601–1666), wife of Louis XIII and mother of Louis XIV. They are stored in the Scientific and Historical Archive of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (as part of the collection of Nikolay Likhachev), and in the Department of Written Sources of the State Historical Museum in Moscow. The publication complements the previous publication of seven letters by the Queen from the collections of Peter Dubrovsky, Peter Sukhtelen and the Hermitage collection, which appeared in 1997 in the yearbook “Middle Ages.” It includes an order of Anna of Austria regarding the protection of the city gates of Paris in September 1636 during the Franco-Spanish confrontation within the framework of the Thirty Years War, as well as her official message to Marshal de Lambert, governor of the border fortress of Metz, demanding the maintenance of military and administrative order in connection with the death of Louis XIII and the accession of the child king. The third of the messages, written in her own hand and of a private nature, is a request to the Grand Duke of Tuscany to influence one of his Florentine subjects, Luca Fabroni, to sell Anne of Austria the jewelry of Maria de Medici that ended up in his hands. All three autographs are of historical value and serve as an important illustration of socio-political events in France in the first half of the 17^th century.

V. G. Korolenko in his journalism could not ignore such a significant figure in Russia at the end of the 19^th — beginning of the 20th century as John of Kronstadt (Ivan Ilyich Sergiev). This topic occupied the writer for quite a long time, which was reflected in the writer’s diaries. However, a number of materials revealing Korolenko’s perception of the personality of the rector of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Kronstadt remained in the writer’s draft manuscripts only in the form of sketches or preparatory materials in the form of newspaper notes pasted into notebooks. These messages covered not only the activities of the priest, but also curious incidents associated with his person. The article considers Korolenko’s and Mikhailovsky’s assessments of John of Kronstadt’s literary activity, as well as the literary activity of such odious figures as Mikhail Sopotsko-Syrokomlia. In his sketches, Korolenko also addressed the political activities of John of Kronstadt, the position taken by the latter during the Jewish pogrom in Chisinau in 1903, which marked a right turn in his activities. Some of Korolenko’s archival materials are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

A review of: Molok, N. (2023). David Arkin: “Ideolog kosmopolitizma” v arkhitekture [David Arkin: “An ideologist of cosmopolitanism” in architecture]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. (In Russian).

A review of: Paul, H. (2022). Historians’ virtues: From Antiquity to the twenty-first century. Cambridge Univ. Press. 66 pp. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108993067.

A review of: Walklate, J. (2023). Time and the museum: Literature, phenomenology, and the production of radical temporality. Routledge. 210 p.

A review of: Albrektson, A., & Macintosh, F. (Eds.). Mapping Medea: Revolutions & transfers 1750–1800. Oxford Univ. Press. 288 p.