The author analyses the popular idea of Byzantine and Russian medieval iconography as a “canonical” art that used to be “canonical”, traditional, rarely subject to change, based on clear visual patterns and authoritative texts, clearly reflecting the Orthodox dogma. Such views are widespread in modern culture and mass media. They circulate not only in popular science, but also in the research literature. The article shows that the concept of “canonicity” in relation to iconography is constructed according to various criteria and the term itself appears to be vague and of little operational. The author focuses on various definitions of the “canon” that are found in scientific, popular literature and on the Internet. In conclusion, it is stated that iconography is a visual language, that is better analyzed with the help of terms used in folkloristic studies – variability, plasticity, ‘censorship of the group’. Having a wide arsenal of traditional (preserved and reproduced in a particular tradition) elements – visual methods, iconographic themes, motifs, figures and signs – and having no prescribed rules and regulations, the iconographic story used to be built and structured in different ways, modernized and varied. All that brings iconography and folklore together and provides new approaches to the analysis of the visual language of Christian art.

The paper is about the history of public criticism of the craft of so-called raskhozhaya (i. e. mass peasant) craft icons in the 16^th – 20^th centuries. Such icons produced most often by “lay icon painters” (that is, secular craftsmen from the peasants), were intended for the common people, and therefore were inexpensive, bright and quick to manufacture. The focus of attention is on the large craft center of the mass peasant icon – the so-called Suzdalshchina (Suzdal region), located in the east of the Vladimir province (Kholui, Palekh, Mstera and the surrounding villages). Already at the dawn of crafting the mass peasant icon such a craft had many opponents, primarily among manufacturers and consumers of expensive icons of the “high style” in icon painting. The production of mass artisanal icons as a socio-cultural phenomenon, was largely associated with Modern Times, was aimed at material and technological innovations (printed icons on paper, conveyor principle, the use of new cheap materials, capitalization of production, etc.). Therefore, public controversy was directed not only against the poor quality of the mass product or elements of Old Believer iconography, but also against the use of Western European innovations. Consistently, starting with the articles of the “Hundred–Domed Cathedral” and other texts of the 16^th century, the author considers the history of criticism of craft icons, identifies several types of semiotic ideologies – primarily the protective (positive) and the critical (negative).

In Diodorus’ work, there is a piece of evidence (dating to 404–403 B.C.), which has no corroborating parallels in other sources and so is often considered not authentic. According to that author, when in Athens during the period of the Thirty regime a conflict occurred between Critias, the leader of extreme oligarchs, and Theramenes, the leader of moderate ones, and the latter was executed as a result of that conflict, Socrates tried (although without success) to come to his aid. There are no other data on friendly relations between the philosopher and the politician in the sources. The article considers the question why in one version of the narrative tradition their names appear to be brought together. Theramenes was conferred extraordinarily contradictory evaluations by ancient authors; he was frequently perceived as an unprincipled person, what is, however, unjustified. The most weighed judgment on him can be found in the Constitution of Athens by Aristotle who emphasizes the main feature in Theramenes’ political position: he was, first of all, a champion of lawfulness, which was constantly violated in late 5^th century B.C. by both democrats and oligarchs. But an analogous commitment to rigorous observance of laws was characteristic also of Socrates.

The article considers the issue of possible Jewish influence on the formation of the image of the Copper Serpent in the artistic culture of Western Europe in the 11^th – 12^th centuries. For many centuries, textual mention and pictorial image of the scene of the exaltation of the Copper Serpent was tacitly taboo due to the difficulty of explaining the creation of the statue by Moses after receiving a ban from the Lord on the creation of idols. Active reference to the subject became possible only during the Crusades in the context of Christian typological exegesis, where the Copper Serpent is understood as a prototype of the Crucifixion. The development of the iconography of Num. 21:6–9 on the western and eastern banks of the Rhine occurred independently of each other, resulting in the formation of two distinct pictorial types. Herewith, on the west bank, especially in the territories of northern France and modern Belgium, the image of a winged dragon sitting on a column became widespread. According to the author, such a type attempts to ontologize the complicated image of the divine messenger, through whom the people of Israel were granted salvation from death. In that iconography the serpent itself is understood as Christ, which makes it impossible to depict him in the form of an ordinary snake, which in most cases is a symbol of sin and death. Most probably, the authors of the first iconographic programs of the type turn to the Jewish original source in search of possible ways of depiction, supported by Middle Eastern and directly Jewish art. Following such hypothesis, the dragon in the image of the Copper Serpent is Saraf or Seraphim, i.e. the embodiment of the angelic rank visible to humans.

The article is the first to consider in detail the semantics of depicting the family tree of Tsar Peter I on the title page of the book “Alphabet”, published in 1705 by Chernigov Archbishop John Maksimovich. Under the first sovereigns of Romanov dynasty, the visual genealogy of the tsar family was of a spiritual nature and was focused on representing the chosenness by God of the new dynasty. The image of the royal tree under study was the first in which political meaning predominated. It demonstrated the procedure for transferring the throne from great-grandfathers to ancestors on the basis, of legal law, later enshrined in Russian legislation, and not just religious ideas about the origin of the supreme power. The study of material from Western European visual genealogy of the early modern time made it possible to identify images that could serve as models for the compiler of iconography and the artist who engraved the title page of “Alphabet”. First of all, those are the works of French engraver Philippe Thomassin (1562–1622), who was the author of Bourbon family tree. His scheme was repeatedly reproduced in other European countries. Foreign influence is also revealed, both in the very principle of selection and arrangement of persons on the family tree of Peter I, and in the symbolic elements of the composition. Analysis of the image shows that the tree visualizes new political ideas and values that are actively being formed in Petrine absolutist state based on European models.

The author describes the features of three towers in the Upper and Middle Erman Villages at the source of the Big Liakhva in South Ossetia, at an altitude of about 2200 m. The area was inhabited from the north, out of the Kurtaty Gorge. On the corners of these towers or on each side there is a series of graffiti, including 4–5 tamga-signs and solar signs. Such towers had an entrance oriented to the south and stood below the others. Next to them there were vacant areas and a small building. Those are probably sanctuary towers (dzuar mæsyg), but it was not their original function. The feature came about after diminishing the war dangers for towers owned by clans that had illustrious ancestors. Such towers usually belonged to the most influential clans. The prayers and sacrifices were performed by a few elderly men, and the kuvd feasts were held outside. To the right of the entrance was depicted the emblem of the lineages (sometimes surrounded by solar signs) to which the tower belonged, as well as 3–4 tamga-signs of other lineages. Sometimes near such a tower there was a flat stone on which participants in prayers and banquets wrote their initials.

Azerbaijani cinema is considered in the article as a phenomenon of national Art in the transit period on the cross of avant-garde trends of the 1920s and the ‘great’ Stalinist style of the first half of the 1930s. That time film directors of the republic like many others in the Soviet Union were focused on ‘the women’s issue’. The local specifics combined with the cross-cultural and interregional dialogue in cinema formed the common thematic tasks that were all across the Soviet Union but the same time, local and national specific emerged on the screens. The article studies four films that explore the ‘female space of freedom’ such as: “In the Name of God” by A.-M. Sharifzadeh,1925; “Sevil” by A. Bek-Nazarian,1929; “Ismet” by M. Mikayilov, 1934 and “Almaz” by A.-R. Kuliev and G. Braginsky, 1936. The approach provides an opportunity to uncover two issues: historical and methodological. On the one hand, the study of early Azerbaijani films allows to deeper the understanding of the social processes that took place in the region and the ways of its representation in Soviet cinema. On the other hand, the study demonstrates the general process of interdisciplinary migration of concepts and related theories, shows the phenomenon of national cinema through the prism of interdisciplinary ideas and concepts.

The article considers the main categoriesof early Soviet art. Those include “life-building” (N. Chuzhak), “production” (N. Chuzhak), “socialization of aesthetics” (B. Arvatov), “art and production” (B. Arvatov), “proletarian artist” (O. Brik), “proletarian art” and others. Addressing those categories precedes outlining the context of the production art emergence in the USSR, which is characterized by the aestheticization of the industrial theme and the connection with the general competitive attitude. As part of the appeal to the latter, the article deals with the phenomenon of acceleration in the Soviet project, namely, attempts to manage time. The author emphasizes the growth and aggravation of the reflection of “collective immersion in the temporal” in the Soviet culture of the 20–30s. The famous refrain of the “poet of the revolution” V. Mayakovsky “Time, forward!” is considered as a gesture of radical denial of the old and at the same time the assertion of a new view of art and aesthetics undertaken in early Soviet Russia. According to the author’s intuition, all such attempts are ultimately connected with a new project of a person in a new state, which had to exist in a new way and reflect these ways of being in art in a new way.

The subject matter of the study is images of animals in the works of the Russian artist A.A. Borisov, compared with the written observations of that author. In the field of painting, his landscapes made in the open air at low temperatures, sketches of the life of the Nenets, images of sanctuaries and northern settlements brought from expeditions (1894–1901) gained world recognition. In the context of those works, one can identify a special artistic vision of the animals of the Arctic. It’s the point of view of an academic painter-researcher belonging to the Christian denomination, i.e. an outside observer from a different culture, seeking to give a figurative and understandable language for describing the Russian North. The article analyzes the images and descriptions of a deer, a dog and a polar bear, presented in the artist’s work, and matches them with the folklore tradition of the Nenets. As an interested traveler, A.A. Borisov demonstrates an alternative view, opposite to the popular opinion of his time about the Nenets as a ‘wild’ and ‘stupid’ people. The artist presents his approach to depicting the unique nomadic northern culture. Animals, on the one hand, are verbally described in a utilitarian, beneficial, rational focus, however, on the other hand, the visual material reflects an attentive, sensitive attitude towards them as part of the harsh, mysterious, but in its own way beautiful northern nature, an integral part of Nenets everyday life. Images of animals in the context of the formation of the Russian program for the development of the northern territories at the beginning of the 20^th century, in addition to factual description, serve as marking them as an asset to our world and a visual symbol.