Perm University Herald. Russian and Foreign Philology

The Editorial Strategy of N. N. Zhivotov in the “Bulletin of the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals”, 1886–1888

2026-04-20T12:44:33+00:00

The article reconstructs an underinvestigated episode in the history of Russian periodicals – the editorial work of the St. Petersburg writer and publicist N. N. Zhivotov for the journal Vestnik Rossiiskogo obshchestva pokrovitel'stva zhivotnym (Bulletin of the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals) between 1886 and 1888. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to introduce into scholarly discourse the facts that reveal the mechanisms of the literary-journalistic field in the late 19th century. The study aims to analyze N. N. Zhivotov's editorial strategy aimed at reformatting a narrowly specialized publication into a universal journal. The study materials include the issues of Vestnik Rossiiskogo obshchestva pokrovitel'stva zhivotnym, documents from the Russian State Historical Archive, and periodical publications of the late 19th century. Methodologically the article is based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the literary field. Drawing on this theory, the study interprets the editing of the journal not as a creative process, but as an attempt to overcome a social gap within the literary-journalistic field. The paper describes the history of the journal's publication from 1886 to 1888, its planned and actual structure, financial model, typical genres and themes.

The study has found that, despite the official program of the journal, N. N. Zhivotov violated the canons of a specialized publication, expanded the publication's thematic scope, and rejected topics prescribed directly by the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals. It is concluded that the main objective of the journal under the editorship of N. N. Zhivotov was to increase his symbolic capital, thereby strengthening his position in the eyes of the authorities.

Gendered Interpretation of the Ancient Atreid Myth in Jennifer Saint’s Novel “Elektra”

2026-04-20T09:34:30+00:00

This article examines the interpretation of ancient plots within the literary phenomenon of retelling. In this study, retelling refers to works of mass literature in which classical proto-plots are transformed and adapted to new socio-cultural contexts. One notable example in 21st-century literature is J. Saint’s novel Elektra (2022), which reimagines the ancient narrative of the Atreides’ ancestral curse through the personal perspectives of three female characters – Clytemnestra, Elektra, and Cassandra. Each heroine demonstrates subjective experiences, feelings, and emotions while encountering aspects of life such as social inequality and dependence on male power. The article aims to analyze Elektra in the context of the artistic reception of ancient myth in contemporary women’s literature. The methodological framework of the research is complex, it includes historical, cultural, comparative, and hermeneutic methods. The study demonstrates that the author modernizes ancient figures and provides them with psychological motivation, filling familiar mythological forms with new ideological and ethical meanings. The novel actively employs allusions to original mythological plots, including the works of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Quintus Smyrnaeus. By returning to classical narratives, Saint highlights the importance of the problem of women's limited opportunities in a patriarchal culture. The results of the analysis make it possible not only to discuss the specifics of mythological retelling in the literature of the 21st century but also to outline the prospects for further research, in particular, the study into poetological aspects of similar retellings in the works of other contemporary authors.

The Motif of Night Dances and Its Implementation in the Fairytale Plot ATU 306

2026-04-20T09:41:51+00:00

The article analyzes the fairytale plot ATU 306, which is built around the central motif of night dancing, the archetypal roots of which can be non-obvious. The plot is attractive for research since, despite the wide variability of the characters and their actions depending on the cultural context, the motif itself demonstrates stability. The article aims to trace the diachronic transformation of the motif from archaic rituals to modern interpretations. The study employed the motif-imagery and comparative methods and was carried out based on the theoretical works of A. N. Veselovsky, V. I. Propp, E. M. Meletinsky. The material under research includes European and Russian versions of the fairytale plot ATU 306. Numerous variations and interpretations of this plot are found in European literature, cinema, and theater. It was rarely addressed in Russia, although its variations are known to Russian folklore and are present in the collection of A. N. Afanasyev. This article makes an attempt at analyzing the genetic sources of this motif, traces the gradual transformation of the ideas about the topos of the cursed kingdom, and explores the female images in their connection with other close plots. The author of the article draws conclusions about the origin of the motif of night dances from archaic rituals of fertility and ritual meetings of unmarried boys and girls, and also makes an assumption about a purely formal, rather than genetic, convergence of the ATU 306 and ATU 307 and 308. The final part of the article deals with the implementation of the studied plot in Russian literature through the example of Fyodor Sologub’s Night Dances and notes the shift of the pole of significance from the ritual or late religious dogmas to the individually author’s interpretation.

Visual Code and Cultural Memory in Lev Loseff’s Cycle of Ekphrases

2026-04-20T11:22:05+00:00

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of Lev Loseff’s cycle Podpisi k vidennym v detstve kartinkam (Captions for Pictures Seen in Childhood), which is a unique phenomenon in Russian poetry of the second half of the 20th century. The article proposes a new approach to analyzing ekphrasis as a technology of meaning generation, where the visual image becomes a node connecting personal experience, cultural memory, and philosophical reflection. The cycle is examined as a holistic metatext that models the formation of artistic consciousness through the reconstruction of personal visual experience. The innovative aspect of the research lies in revealing the structural unity of the cycle, organized according to the principle of a five-part dramaturgy, where each poem represents a stage in the formation of artistic consciousness. The central hypothesis of the work is the concept of a ‘machine of non-oblivion’ – a special mechanism of memory aimed at preserving the marginal, private, and technological aspects of the experience of encountering art. It is proven that the visual imagery of the cycle stems from a contamination of classical engraving (Gustave Doré, Albrecht Dürer) and the Soviet children's book of the 1940s–1950s. The methodological basis of the study is a holistic structural analysis, supplemented by intertextual and cultural-historical approaches. The conclusion is made about the democratic nature of the poet's gaze, shifted from the peaks of the canon to peripheral details, which forms a special poetic optics akin to children's perception. The article demonstrates how the poetics of the "stroke" in Loseff's cycle becomes not only a formal device but also a metaphor for poetic creativity based on work with absence and void. The cycle demonstrates the democratization of the very idea of the classic, which appears not as a frozen monument, but as a living organism that generates a complex ecosystem of cultural connections.

Stylometry Studies and the Controversial Origin of the German Hymnographic Tradition

2026-04-20T11:32:44+00:00

In contemporary literary studies, a perplexing scholarly controversy regarding German Catholic hymnals and their development revolves around the descriptive philology paradigm, focusing on the directly observable external characteristics of a literary text, as opposed to a more profound insight into intrinsic literary properties of texts. The paper is a pioneering attempt at applying stylometric tools, successfully utilized for authorship identification, to reconstruct the historical development of a literary genre. Stylometry is shown as a valid tool for building an adequate development model for the German hymnographic tradition. The purpose of the study is to test the possibilities of Burrows’s Delta in modeling the historical development of the liturgical-literary genre of the German Catholic hymn. This approach represents a specific case of stylometry. Unlike conventional stylometry studies, assessing similarities between texts of known and anonymous authorship to unmask or link pseudonyms to an author’s identity, the present paper analyzes the similarity rates across text collections belonging to particular historical-cultural periods. The analyzed text collections are taken from the main parts (Germ. Stammteil) of two editions of Gotteslob (GL 1975; GL 2013) – a Catholic hymnal common for all German-speaking cultures (except Switzerland). The total sampled database includes 41,596 words. The stylo R package was utilized to analyze the frequency lists comprising the top 100, 200, and 300 most frequent words per each text collection perceived as representing a particular historical-cultural period and belonging to the living hymnographic tradition. The study shows that the genre of German hymns developed not according to a linear sequential development pattern, but followed a specific development trajectory of a ‘reinvented tradition’. The Gotteslob of the first generation (GL 1975) largely relies on the Gründerzeit traditions, rooted in the Reformation era and exhibiting a retrospective reference to Baroque Renaissance as a hallmark of the Adenauer’s era of “new Gründerzeit.” In contrast, the second-generation Gotteslob (GL 2013) rejected the ‘new Gründerzeit’ trend, with the editorial board favoring texts that reflected the sentiments typical for the liturgical movement of the first half of the 20th century.

“My Children” by G. Yakhina: Individual-Ethnic Aphasia and Resistance

2026-04-20T11:49:24+00:00

This article is a comprehensive study of how individual and ethnic experiences of the Volga Germans in the 1920s-1930s are represented in the novel My Children by the contemporary writer Guzel Yakhina. This analysis examines the aspiration of Russian Germans to create their own “heterotopia” and the influence of significant historical events of the first half of the 20th century – such as wars, famine, exile, etc. – on the formation of both personal and collective identity of the Gnadenthal colony. These processes are analyzed through the prism of the image of the protagonist, Bach Jakob, existing in two (real and fairy-tale) spaces. Psychological trauma of the hero is manifested in somatic symptoms, in particular, Bach loses the ability to speak, which can be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the loss of voice by the German ethnos under the influence of heavy social and political pressure. In other words, aphasia caused by harsh reality is manifested not only at the personal level of the hero but also at the group level. Despite all the hardships of his existence, the character makes his way to the gaining of confidence and courage. At the same time, an entire community of Russian Germans shows persistence and caution in protecting their national cultural roots, using traditional fairy tales and other cultural forms. Thus, in the novel, Russian-German individuals and ethnos preserve their “traces” in history, manifesting their ethnic identity and leaving an eternal memory of their existence.

“Paroles” by Jacques Prévert in M. Yasnov’s Translations

2026-04-20T12:07:00+00:00

The article examines the methodology of the translator Mikhail Yasnov through the lens of his work on poems from Jacques Prévert's debut collection Paroles (1946). The study aims to identify the strategies that enabled Yasnov to adequately render into the Russian language Prévert's complex poetics, which combines irony, lyricism, absurdity, and surreal imagery. The analysis is based on a comparative study of the originals and the translations included in the anthology Stikhotvoreniia (Poems, 2016). The study demonstrates that Yasnov consistently adheres to the principles of the Soviet (Leningrad) school of translation, whose foundation is a meticulous pre-translation analysis aimed at comprehending the author's system and the cultural context. Using specific poems as examples (Alicante, At the Florist's, The Message, etc.), the article shows how the translator establishes a flexible hierarchy of artistic priorities: by sacrificing literal accuracy, he preserves the spirit, emotional tone, and key dominants of the original including wordplay, the rhythm of free verse, the cinematic quality of Prévert's thinking, and the intonation balancing the tragic and the absurd. The main conclusion of the study is that Yasnov's translation practice constitutes a reasoned artistic decision, resulting not in adaptations but in integral poetic works in the Russian language that fully represent Prévert's creative legacy. Yasnov engages with the source material at every level of the text: he is attuned to the sound of the verse, its genre features, intertextual connections, and lexical composition.

The Rural Non-Literary Diary: The Figure of the Addressee and the Reflected Everyday Life

2026-04-20T12:30:18+00:00

The article is devoted to the study of "naive" non-literary diaries reflecting the everyday life of rural inhabitants at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. The research material consists of two diaries belonging to residents of the Yurlinsky District in the Perm Region. The study examines significant genre characteristics of the diary texts as well as the aspects of rural private life reflected in them. Each diary exhibits pronounced formal features: in one case, it is the presence of visual elements, in the other – collective (dual) authorship. This largely determined the subject of our analysis: the article deals with such aspects of diary poetics as the figure of the addressee, the authors’ writing style, the structure and functions of the entries, and their visual design. In both cases, the rural personal diaries include the genre traits of household notebooks and weather diaries. In the dual-authored diary, the figure of the addressee becomes more complex since, in addition to auto communication, the entries serve as a means of mediated communication between the co-authoring spouses. The main focus of the article is on an analysis of the everyday life reflected in the diaries, which enables the reconstruction of an "internal" perspective on rural life during a transitional era. The diary authors concentrate on their "immediate world": the entries document everyday chores, the social contacts, which are limited to kinship ties and interactions within the rural community. Gender and age-related attitudes, the notions of social norms and deviations are manifested in succinct descriptions of daily routines, celebrations, conflicts, and mutual assistance. The diary records reflect the ongoing transformation of rural life, marking a transition to modern practices not only in public and professional spheres but also in private, personal domains.

Social Communication in the Mirror of Food Metaphor

2026-04-19T15:29:04+00:00

The article discusses the interpretation of various aspects of social communication in gastronomic images characteristic of the metaphorical fragment of the Russian linguistic picture of the world. The article analyzes texts of the artistic, journalistic, and media types of discourse in which the transfer of information between individuals, groups, and public organizations is presented through food metaphors. The research material includes contexts that were selected during the compilation of a series of dictionaries of Russian food metaphors and were partially included in the illustrative zone of dictionary entries. The study has identified a system of gastronomic images that characterizes aspects of social communication the lexical- phraseological representatives of which are conventional linguistic metaphors, idioms, proverbs, as well as expanded authorial figurative expressions. The article describes cognitive metaphorical models and the bases of analogy between various elements of communicative activity and gastronomic phenomena. The conducted analysis led us to conclusions about the axiologically significant features of assessing the role of a person as a communication participant, the quality of information received and the channels of its transmission. Figurative vocabulary and phraseology motivated by the names of gastronomic processes and phenomena demonstrate a predominantly negative attitude toward the current state of communication processes: lack of trust in the information received from outside and in its authors, lack of critical thinking of the addressee, primitive nature of the texts, and tendentiousness in the presentation of information.

The Discursive Function of Noun Phrases With Double Determination in the Macedonian Language

2026-04-19T16:07:48+00:00

This study examines the discursive function of double-marked nominal phrases in the Macedonian language. These are constructions whose core is a noun accompanied by a demonstrative pronoun and a postpositive definite article. Such constructions are a typical feature of the Balkan Sprachbund, to which the Macedonian language belongs. The syntagms are most widely used in the substandard, although their use is also possible in standard variants of the language.

The analysis is based on 200 contexts extracted from Macedonian forums, along with excerpts from literary, scientific, and journalistic texts. The study aims to identify the structural, semantic, and pragmatic characteristics of noun phrases with double determination as well as to describe their functions in real speech contexts.

The article traces the history of the issue and examines the main aspects of research into this phenomenon. The study involved the stages of data collection, categorization, analysis, and visualization using the Semograph information system and the SciVi software. As a result, nine possible combinations of demonstratives have been identified, along with their formal functions (agreement, substantivization, hesitation) and semantic functions (deictic, anaphoric, emotive-evaluative, explanatory, contrastive, etc.). The analysis allowed us to draw a distinction between the core and periphery of the system as well as to identify the most frequent discursive strategies employed by speakers. The study confirms the polyfunctionality of double-marked constructions and demonstrates their significance in discourse structuring. The use of digital tools provided deeper insights into the mechanisms underlying the functioning of such syntactic structures in spontaneous Macedonian speech.

Creative Dimensions of Decision-Making in Translation

2026-04-19T16:16:53+00:00

This article investigates creativity as a fundamental component of professional translation practice, analyzing its manifestations in the decision-making process. The study systematically examines contemporary theoretical approaches to translation creativity developed in both Western and Russian academic traditions, with particular focus on four defining characteristics of creativity: (1) novelty of the solution, (2) its functional adequacy, (3) the translator’s ability to overcome constraints, and (4) the capacity to bridge conceptually distant elements. The research presents a comprehensive typology of translation decisions that positions creative decisions within the spectrum of the most complicated ones: reflected (requiring conscious analysis) and constructed (implying innovative problem-solving). The study demonstrates how these decision types are influenced by multiple factors including the translator's professional experience, motivation patterns, goal-setting abilities, and repertoire of strategic approaches. Analysis of empirical data reveals that the cognitive complexity of creative solutions evolves throughout a translator's career development. Another contribution of this work is its critical examination of the conventional "free vs. literal translation" dichotomy. The article argues that this binary framework fails to consider the complexity of creative decision-making in professional contexts. Instead, the author proposes a multidimensional model that incorporates: (1) cognitive processing mechanisms, (2) situational and contextual constraints, and (3) the dynamic nature of professional translation practice. This model provides a more nuanced understanding of how creativity actually functions in translation processes. For researchers, the study offers a structured framework for investigating translation creativity. For educators, it provides evidence-based insights for developing creative competencies. For practitioners, it suggests concrete approaches to enhancing decision-making skills.

Stylistic Vectors of Using Neural Network Solutions in the Work of a Regional Television Company

2026-04-19T16:26:11+00:00

The paper examines the experience of implementing neural network solutions in text work at the Sverdlovsk Regional Television channel. The editorial team is engaged in the search for a regulation on the use of AI that would not undermine the value-based principles of professional journalism. The alteration in text formation mechanisms under the influence of technological innovations raises pertinent questions regarding the functional-stylistic determinacy of content generation. The terminologically opposed stylistic concepts of M. N. Kozhina, V. G. Kostomarov, as well as researchers of writers’ idiolect, are harmoniously integrated with notions of the distinctiveness of speech and text, as manifested in the functional semantic-stylistic categories and constructive principles (both general and specific). Based on the material of publicly accessible (Yandex services) and proprietary (Media-P.A.U.K.) prompts (requests for content generation by artificial intelligence), the article substantiates the necessity of developing regulations for the use of AI in professional media outlets, demonstrates the demand for textological analysis skills, and justifies the relevance of transferring achievements in functional stylistics to the realm of natural speech. The article proposes a case study of text editing, which has proven effective at the Sverdlovsk Regional Television. The case demonstrates prompts for the initial editing of journalistic text along the stylistic vectors "speaking clearly and accessibly" and "eliminating inappropriate embellishment." The diversity of specific practices of AI usage by editorial teams of television companies brings specialists back to the functional-stylistic characteristics of speech and contrasts the unconscious use of technological advancements with a scalable professional editorial approach.

On Universal Communicative Units of Text and Discourse (As Exemplified in the Language of Mass Communication)

2026-04-19T16:37:14+00:00

The article is devoted to the consideration of the communicative units functioning in media texts and discourse and defined by the author as universal. Their universality lies in the ambivalent essential-functional nature, which allows them to simultaneously demonstrate their cognitive-modeling and fascinative potential. In other words, these heterogeneous units not only constitute but also highlight the content of the message, ensuring an impact on the addressee both at the level of constructing a certain image (fragment) of reality and at the level of its emotiogenic design. These criteria are primarily met by metaphors in their broadest sense and polycode expression; however, any words and expressions highlighted by intonation or contextually acquiring a stylistic meaning can potentially be considered verbal universal communicative units. Non-verbal universal units are visual and acoustic images that carry a semantic load and simultaneously convey an emotiogenic signal. In general, universal communicative units discursively demonstrate their complex potential for a harmonious combination of form and content on a fascination basis. Their use makes the impact more productive due to the communication of the message simultaneously at the rational and emotional levels, including on the basis of the interaction of heterogeneous semiotic units that form mental representations of the persuasive-suggestive order. The proposed nomination develops the conceptual and categorical apparatus of modern linguistics and reflects the main provisions of the author’s concept of the communicative matrix of the information-psychological impact, which reveals the fundamental structure of modern media discourse. The article is recommended for linguists, teachers of philology, and specialists in stylistics of the Russian and foreign languages.

Psychological Traits of Political Party Leaders as Manifested in Internet Texts of Their Author Telegram Channels

2026-04-19T16:44:30+00:00

The article deals with the psychological traits of the leaders of the main Russian political parties as one of the significant extralinguistic factors that determine the linguistic personalities of the politicians. These psychological traits influence the content and the speech organization of online texts functioning in political media discourse. Texts published in the author Telegram channels of G. A. Zyuganov and D. A. Medvedev in the period 2022–2024 serve as the research sources. In accordance with the concept of linguistic personality developed by Yu. N. Karaulov, the paper reveals the semantic, cognitive, and pragmatic-motivational aspects in the speech embodiment of Zyuganov’s and Medvedev’s linguistic personalities. The article identifies the features of the political leaders’ lexicons, highlights the axiologemes that form the idea of the main components of the cognitive level of the politicians’ linguistic personalities, describes the most characteristic communicative strategies and speech tactics as well as linguistic means reflecting the pragmatic-motivational level of these linguistic personalities. The consideration of the features of the politicians' linguistic personalities through the prism of V. D. Olshansky's political leadership concept has revealed that in the texts of Medvedev's Telegram channel the features of the leader-axiologist psychological type are manifested to a greater extent, while the texts of Zyuganov’s Telegram channel exhibit the properties of the leader-demonstrator psychological type, i.e., of a politician who demonstrates certain patterns of behavior. It is concluded that the application of the basic ideas of the political leadership concepts when scrutinizing the linguistic personalities of politicians makes it possible to identify the speech embodiment of the political leaders’ psychological traits in their texts.