The article presents a questionnaire related to “Soviet icons”, that is, folezhny (foil) icons (in image cases) crafted in the Soviet years. The questionnaire is preceded by an introduction with a brief characterization of the social, material and technological aspects of the craft of the Soviet icon as a unique phenomenon of religious life in the Soviet decades. The authors give references to existing research on that issue. The published methodology provides a framework for conducting interviews on Soviet icons in any region. The questionnaire consists of four semantic blocks: 1) the name, morphology, types of foil icons; 2) the creators of foil icons; 3) foil icons in the Soviet years; 4) foil icons in the post-Soviet era. In addition, the questionnaire provides a basis for collecting information about modern moderators who deal in own, collect or dispose Soviet icons, and about the semiotic ideologies that determine their assessments and actions. The proposed sequence of questions reflects the desired course of the conversation and takes into account logical links between topics. The article is recommended as a practical guide for expedition work and research of local traditions of Soviet icons in different regions of Russia and in other post-Soviet countries where Orthodox traditions were maintained during the Soviet era.

The article is dealing with the Internet sermon, an important and dynamically developing genre of the modern Orthodox tradition. The paper reveals the specifics of dialogueness as an essential feature of Orthodox preaching. It is proved that external dialogueness is a type of dialogueness of the genre of religious style and it also updates the addressing of the utterance. The specifics of the external dialogueness of Internet sermons are investigated on the material of the video blog “Batushka will answer”. It establishes the linguistic means by which the orientation of the Internet sermon to the addressee is realized. It is demonstrated that, along with the consistent rendition of constitutive language markers of external dialogueness for the genre, it is possible to modify individual means, in particular addresses and greetings, as well as to attract new ways of dialogization. It is proved that the use of classical means of external dialogueness in Internet preaching makes it possible to indicate the presence of a second participant in communication, to stimulate active perception of information, to convey the coexistence of hierarchy and symmetry inherent in the genre in the relationship of the addresser and the addressee. The author reveals that the use of new methods in organizing a priest’s dialogue with his audience weakens the semantics of motivation, levels the solemnly elevated register of communication familiar to this genre, adds intimacy to the linguistic space of religious communication and reduces its stylistic quality.

Antiphon was a significant figure in Athenian public life and social thought of the last half of the 5th century B.C. The article raises a question whether his opinions in ethical and especially political sphere changed. with the course of time. In his late career, Antiphonte acted as a staunch opponent of democracy, and in 411 BC he is known to have co-leaded an oligarchic coup in Athens and the resulting regime of the Four Hundred (for which he was executed after the overthrow of this government). The author proceeds from the following chronology of Antiphon’s work: “Tetralogies” and “On the truth” – 440s B.C., “On the concord” – 430s or 420s B.C., forensic speeches – 410s B.C. There are the following conclusions. In the field of ethics, Antiphon in his early treatise “On the truth” expressed some non-traditional opinions, which were even chocking for their cynicism, but in his later works he held more conservative views. As to his political position, it was never really democratic. Antiphon was and remained an opponent of democracy and proponent of oligarchy; it is possible that he gradually changed from a more moderate oligarch to a more radical one.

Throughout the 14th – 15th centuries, French intellectuals actively used the concept of body politic in their works – in mirrors for princes, sermons, ballads and first political treatises. In this vein, both ancient examples of the construction of such models and medieval works were subjected to rethinking. The metaphor of the body politic became a constant leitmotif of the 14th century mirrors for princes, who with the help of that trope tried to explain the complex social structure and reflect on the abstract nature of the state. While in them the political body often served as an ideal, a model of correct state structure, the antipode became the image of a sick or monstrous body. Eustache Deschamps refers to such an image in his ballads, using it to demonstrate the deplorable state of the French kingdom, mired in feuds and the hardships of war with England. The metaphor of the political body was interpreted in a variety of ways: it was a concept designed to consolidate opposing social groups and political factions around the figure of the monarch, but at the same time it could be used to criticize the corruption of the ruler’s close associates. Such different strategies of interpretation of that concept compel to further analyze the genesis and development of metaphorical descriptions of the state.

The article deals with the history of forming the local cult of Joan of Arc in her native village of Domremy (Lorraine). In modern historiography under the “local cult” usually mean the veneration of Joan of Arc in Orleans, whose inhabitants since the second half of the 15th century perceived the girl not only as a savior of their city from the English siege of 1428–1429, but also as a saint. However, the other most important place of veneration of the Virgin, her native village of Domremy in Lorraine, for long remained without much attention of historians. Based on the material of written and visual sources, the author analyzes the features of the veneration of the heroine of the Hundred Years’ War in Modern times and identifies two main periods of the formation of a specific “place of memory” in Domremy – the era of the Restoration of the monarchy in the early 19th century and the years following the Franco-Prussian War. The author comes to the conclusion that the main distinction of the local cult was its secular orientation. Unlike Orleans, where already in the 15th century the veneration of Joan of Arc was purely religious in nature, the “construction” of the cult in Domremy initially became the work of the state, starting with King Louis XVIII and ending with the local municipality. The difference was especially pronounced during the so–called dispute between the two Frances – republican and monarchical.

The author focuses on the visualization of the apocryphal legend of Abel’s funeral. The legend is based on a mythological motif about a bird that taught people to bury the dead in the ground. It is known in Jewish and Muslim literature in different versions and is widespread in the Near East, Asia, the Caucasus; its variations were also recorded in the Arctic. The story of a bird who buried another bird and taught Adam and Eve what to do with the dead, passed into Christian literature from the Jewish sources and appeared in various texts. It was included in the popular in Russia “Tolkovaya Paleya”, which said that the body of Abel remained incorruptible for 30 years, until two turtledoves sent by God flew to Adam and Eve – one died, and the second dug a hole and buried her. The whole story – the murder of Abel, the two birds and the funeral – was sometimes depicted in the iconography of the 17th century, also on the deacon doors of Russian iconostases. The author consideres the doors to the altar of the second half of the 17th century from the collection of the Pereslavl-Zalessky museum, where birds are not depicted, but the story is represented by three separate scenes.

The article is in analysis of the visual, musical and textual aspects of the relevant scientific issue – the concept of intermedial intertextuality – on the example of two engravings created in mezzotint technique based on the selfportrait of the outstanding Baroque portraitist of Bohemian origin Johannes Kupetsky with his son Christoph, and on Christoph’s posthumous portrait. The first one was created by the Nuremberg engraver Bernhard Vogel, the second – by him or by his apprentice Valentin Daniel Preissler. In addition to the images, those prints contain poetic inscriptions, quotations and musical texts. In a lifetime portrait the musical text was identified as the incipit of an aria of the Baroque opera by Reinhard Kaiser. Thanks to it, the quote from Statius’s “Thebaid” in the engraving was associated with the experience of marital adultery. In the posthumous portrait of Christoph, accepting from Manus Dei a scroll with the emblem of “Τετέλεσται”, the motto bears the evangelical connotations – the execution of the sentence and the completion of the earthly path. The image of the siren on the emblem corresponds to the image of the personification of Eternity in the Iconology by Cesare Ripa. However, the siren in the Nuremberg mezzotint holds not a ball but a compass, outlining an incomplete circle – a motif associated with the personification of Perfection. The emblem on the mezzotint illustrates a syncretic image of Perfection found in Eternity.

After the narrative turn and blurring of the boundaries of narratology, after the shift from classical scientific paradigm, based on formalism and structuralism, to post-classical one, closely related to interdisciplinarity, the issues of terminology and methodology became an important part of debates, visual studies included. That important shift influenced not only the scientific framework for new researches, but also the theoretical principles. The notion of “visual narrative” emerged at the intersection of interest in the field of the visual and narrative, and it can be fully called the result of the interdisciplinarity development. In Western European literature there are two main terms that connect the narration with the sphere of images – these are pictorial and visual narrative. Both belong to the postclassical period of development of narratology. The article deals with the key concepts and significant authors (V. Tyupa, M. Bal, W. Schmid, W. Wolf, W. Steiner) whose works address the very possibility of visual narration in fine Arts, its most significant characteristics, the boundaries between the text and image; attempts have been made to define the essence and borders of visual narrative.