The article discusses votive gifts that are relevant to the contemporary Russian temple environment. The rapid revival and spread of the votive tradition in post–Soviet Russia is one of the most striking phenomena of religious culture in recent decades (along with practices related to the appropriative strategy and the active spread of “Orthodox nomadism”, pilgrimage tourism). The variety of gifts and related practices, discussions around that phenomenon, and different options for its moderation by clerics and church workers indicate that the tradition has turned out to be one of the most lively and in demand; it is relevant among different social groups – parishioners, pilgrims, occasional visitors to churches. The author reviews modern offerings, typologizes votive gifts (characteristic and rare, which have spread since the 1990s and have appeared in recent years), analyzes their connection with the icons being gifted. The focus of attention is also on the attitude of clerics and church workers to offerings; on the practice of distributing gifts in the church space (storage, hanging etc.). The analysis is based on interviews collected in 2018–2022s in the churches in dozens of cities in different regions of Russia.

The article is about the tradition of creating handmade icons with foil rizas in the village Lipovka, located in the Ardatovsky district in the south-west of the Nizhny Novgorod region. The focus is on the genesis of the “flower tradition” of decorating Ardatov icons and on its comparison with other artistic styles in the Nizhny Novgorod Southwest. Also, they study the memories of local residents about Raisa Vasilyevna Serova the craftswoman icon-painter from the village of Lipovka. Cultural and historical origins of the Ardatov tradition of decorative and applied crafts. A hypothesis has been put forward about the presence of the Mordovian ritual substrate in the traditions of decorating foil icons in 20th century. To substantiate it, data from the more eastern districts of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (Diveyevsky and Pervomaisky), as well as from the Republic of Mordovia are presented. According to these data the same practices of decorations with bright paper flowers were preserved in relation to pre-Christian ritual artifacts in the wedding rites of the local Mordva-Erzya (wreaths and ceremonial pies) until the end of the 20th century It is assumed that such more archaic ritual practices of the Mordva could be transferred to Christian ritual artifacts after they adopted Christianity in the 18th century. The authors describe the artistic techniques of the Ardatov icon tradition, characterize the artistic manner of a craftswoman from the Ardatov village of Lipovka and describe the religious landscape of that village during the Soviet era.

The article considers a variant for the origin of the Serpent of brass also known as Nehushtan. Following the hypothesis of the pre-monotheistic origin of the image, it can be assumed that the Serpent of brass was not originally an attribute of Yahve, but was an idol or votive of one of the Semitic deities associated with healing. The most appropriate god in terms of the worship time and common attributes is the Syro-Canaanite Ḥorān, whose veneration was widespread during the late Bronze Age. Being a deity representing the forces of primordial chaos, Ḥorān was considered the creator of poisonous snakes and, possibly, was originally a dragon himself. According to the currently known cuneiform texts of Ugarit, Ḥorān was a conjurer, healer and defender against snakebites. Also, one of the most important functions of Ḥorān was to protect the royal power granted by the gods from the unworthy. The name of the deity Ḥorān is etymologically close to the creature Seraph in Hebrew, which in turn was represented as a flying, fire-breathing serpent. In the Tanakh, traces of the existence of Ḥorān in the culture of the Jews are preserved in the form of stable phraseological units using his name, while each time he appears in the context of the measure of God’s righteous judgment: all-consuming and incinerating, like fire, anger, striking the wicked, but not scorching the righteous. All of the above suggests a fairly ancient origin of the Serpent of brass and its connection with the Ḥorān as an independent pagan deity or spirit in the service of the Lord.

The genre of political pamphlet, which reached a high flourishing in Greece in the 4th century B.C. (Isocrates and others), appeared in the previous century. Usually scholars begin its history from the “Athenian Constitution” of Pseudo-Xenophon (420s B.C.). However, the article deals with an earlier (evidently, simply the earliest) pamphleteer, Stesimbrotus of Thasos, who wrote in the time of Pericles. His fragmentarily preserved treatise “On Themistocles, Thucydides and Pericles” represented a very lively written tendentious pamphlet (of mainly invective a tone) with some features of memoirs. The article analyzes biographical testimonies on Stesimbrotus and extant fragments of his principal work. As it represents leaders of radical democracy, Themistocles and Pericles, in negative light, but Cimon, a statesman from the opposite camp, is represented in it more positively, the author makes a conclusion on generally antidemocratic political orientation of the pamphlet, and that corresponds with the prevalent position of Greek intellectuals if the period in question.

The article deals with a rather rare for Russian art of the 17^th century story of the Seven Sacraments. Its source was the engravings of the printing house of the Kyev Pechersk Lavra, which were among the book “projects” of the head of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Constantinople Orthodox Church, Petro Mohyla (1632–1647). A few images of that motif have long been known to researchers, but the origin of its variations has not been revealed. The issue is studied on the examples of two icons of the last quarter of the 17^th century “Crucifixion with the Seven Sacraments”. Their distinguishing feature is the depicting the optional for all Christians sacrament of marriage in the foreground. The author of the article suggests that the creation of such an iconography was associated with the marriage of Tsar Feodor Alekseyevich. The development of baroque aesthetics also prompted artists to combine elements of different iconographic schemes in one composition and create a complicated version of the Life-Giving Tree with scenes of the seven Sacraments and the Passion of Jesus cycle. They used several literary and visual sources. The surviving samples of such a composition demonstrate the variability of its iconography and the creative nature of the work of Russian icon painters in the 17^th century, who could create completely independent works on the same subject with pronounced individual characteristics.

The author researches the theme of the facial pictorial proskinitariums – jerusalemija. They were the manifestations of hierotopia, reflecting the sacred topography of the Holy Land within the iconic space. At the same time the jerusalemija visualized the pilgrim’s journey in the Holy Land in the 18^th – early 20^th centuries through images available to the pilgrim. The name of the place was visualized by creating an associative pictorial symbol, while the visual image was often supported by text referring to the lines of the New or Old Testament. The iconography of ‘jerusalemija’ dates back to the engravings of Western European masters of the 16^th – 17^th centuries and to the engravings of illustrators of printed proskinitariums (“walks”), for example, Christopher Zhefarovich. Traditionally Palestine and in particular Jerusalem was the center for the production of “jerusalemija”, also known as the pilgrim’s icon-eulogy “Topography of the Holy Land”. When studying the published monuments from foreign and Russian collections, the author identified the main iconographic types of “jerusalemija”, originating from different protographs: 1) “jerusalemija” as a map-icon, where the topography is primary, and the prayer image is secondary; such a type existed in a small and expanded versions; 2) “jerusalemija’ is a prayer image (souvenir icon for pilgrims) that consisted of two subgroups that differed in the degree of significance of the prayer component and the presence of topography. That group of sources includes a rare image from a private Russian collection, which was not painted in the workshops of Palestine, but executed as a copy of the eulogy icon by an iconographer of one of the Chernigov monasteries in the middle of the 18^th century. The author analyzes its program and iconographic features. The paper is also focused on the iconographic schemes of various groups of “jerusalemijas”, and reveals their characteristic features and specifics as a hierotopic project.

The article studies the art of the famous Iran-American artist and director Shirin Neshat. The recognition of Neshat’s talent around the world and the demand for her works show to the relevance of the issues spotlighted in her works. Shirin Neshat’s video installations have become classics of modern art and the subject of scientific study for art historians, orientalists, cultural scientists, philosophers and a wide range of researchers. The artwork by Neshat is wildly known as the symbol of modern Iranian art. It reflects all the painful political events of the modern Iran history. The article focuses on corporeal practices considered on the example of key works of the artist. The video installations “Turbulent” (1998), “Rapture” (1999), “Soliloquy” (1999), “Fervor” (2000), “Passage” (2001). The article provides a consistent and detailed analysis of corporeal practices (facial expressions, gestures, body plasticity, voice vibrations, etc.) and the body itself as a tool through which the author constructs the space of an artistic statement. The article presents the new classification of the corporeal through the concepts of “political body”, “poetical body” and “autobiographical body” in the art of Shirin Neshat.

The article analyzes the South Korean TV series in the genre of “fantasy” as a holistic text in order to identify the features of the construction of the space in which the action takes place. The popularity of series produced in the Republic of Korea is undeniable, as is their popularity with foreign audiences. However, not only the phenomenon of popularity itself and not only the reception of South Korean TV series abroad can be the subject of consideration in a humanitarian study. The construction of the narrative, the types of characters, the established standards and deviations from them – all that also represents a very promising material for analysis. Streaming services are increasingly becoming co-producers or sole producers of new series, among which Netflix stands out in particular. TV series created for exclusive demonstration on the Netflix platform are aimed not only at the domestic Korean audience, but also at the global one, therefore, from such series one can expect both tracing of global examples of the genre and bold experiments with South Korean standards. And the technical capabilities provided by Netflix allow the series in the fantasy genre to realize the rather complex ideas of the show’s creators. And the 2020 series “The School Nurse Files” very promising example of a South Korean fantasy TV series made for the Netflix platform.