Standards of Russian culture

This short culturological course “Standards of Russian culture”isaimed to give initialideason the bases of Russian cultural tradition. It is based on the material of architecture, art, language and literature.

Course program.

  1. Russian spaces.Meaningfulness in theRussian linguistic picture of the world of thewords “space”, “distance”, “spaciousness” and “expanse”.

Illustrations: paintings of Shishkin, Levitan, Kustodiev.

  1. Volga as a symbol of Russian space. The image of Volga in Russian songs, proverbs and paintings. Volga as a robber river and as amother-river.

Illustrations: paintings of Levitan, Surikov

  1. Churchas a traditional dominant of theRussian landscape. Some peculiarities of ancientRussian churcharchitecture (common construction and decoration of the church, different forms of thecupola). A short history and appearance of themostpopular Russian churches: Pokrov-on-Nerli, Vasili Blazhennyi, thechurch ofVoznesenia inKolomensk, Kizhi island church, cathedral of Kremlin and theChrist Savior temple.

Illustrations: photographs of thelistedmonumentS of architecture.

  1. Russian icon.Thepurposeand setting of the iconostasis. Difference of the icon from the painting: inverted perspective, thesymbolism. Main symbols of theicons, meaning of theircolors (gold, blue, purple). Relation of theicons (Vladimirskaya, Kazanskaya, Feodorovskaya) withthehistory of Russia.

Illustrations: common appearance of the iconostasis, icons of Andrew Rublev (first of all, “The Trinity”) and Dionisii, theicon of God Mother “Vladimirskaya”.

  1. Appearance of saint George in Russian culture. George Victorious as a governmental symbol, as a hero of THE Russian folklore and classic poetry (poems of Tsvetaeva and Pasternak).

Illustrations: the icon “The Miracle of George andserpent”, image of saint George in the emblem of Moscow and the state emblem of Russia.

  1. The legend onthe invisible city ofKitezh.The national legend onKitezh and its new interpretation bycomposers, writers and philosophers of XX century.

Illustrations: photography of the lake Svetloyar, the “Kitezh” paintingof Nesterov.

Dependingontheposibilities: music fragments (theoverture and “battleatthe Kergenets”) from theRimskii-Korsakov opera“thestory onthe invisible city Kitezh and thegirl Fevronia (the audiorecord)”.

  1. Paskha (the easter) and paskha-motif (amotif of the resurrection) in Russian culture.

Paskha-motif of theRussian name of seventh day of the week (cf. Voskresenie andSunday and dimanche). Paskha subjects in the novels of Dostoevsky (“Crime and punishment”, “Karamazov brothers”), Bulgakov (“Master and Margerite”) and Pasternak (“Doctor Jivago”).

Illustrations: paskha postcards ofXIX-XX century.