The article draws attention to Ctesias’ unique place among Classical authors: the Greek, who spent many years in Persia and after his return home decided to nearer acquaint his compatriots with that country, possessed in full measure, so to say, insider information. As a historian he enjoyed and enjoys a deservedly law reputation; however, the situation is different in the parts of his Persica, where he speaks not as a historian as such but as an author of memoirs and tells about the events, which took place in his presence, and about persons, who he was personally familiar with (such as Darius II, Artaxerxes II, Cyrus the Younger, and especially Parysatis, one of the main informers of Ctesias). For the Hellene from Cnidus, in his high status of physician-in-ordinary, was well received in the most intimate chambers of the King and his family members; he was privy to many secrets and intrigues of the Persian court.

The article is the first to consider an issue of European parallels of the iconographic scheme used to depict the family tree of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in an engraving from the book by Archbishop Lazar Baranovich “The Spiritual Sword” of 1666. Visual genealogy, which was formed in the culture of the European West in the 11^th – 13^th centuries, became widespread in Russia only under the second sovereign of the Romanov dynasty. Until the beginning of the 18^th century, it was spiritual in nature and was aimed at representing the ruling family as chosen by God. The studied image of the royal tree includes only Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich with his wife and their children. The root of the tree is the Kiev Prince Vladimir, the baptizer of Rus’. It is almost impossible to accurately establish a sample for that iconography, since the collection of engravings of the Kiev-Pechersk Printing House where the book was published and its illustrations were made has not been completely preserved. Identifying the iconographically similar images was facilitated by the study in the Western European art material of the early Modern period. All of them go back to one of the versions of the “Tree of Jesse” growing from the body of the legendary ancestor. The closest analogy to the studied royal tree is the engraving of the Belarusian master Aleksandr Tarasevich “The Polubinsky Family” of 1675. Its analysis allows us to assume that customers and engravers in Eastern European lands in the 17^th century had access to some Western European book and easel engravings that served as common iconographic models for them.

The article deals with the restructuring of the educational system in closed women’s institutes, which took place in the early 1860s. The first part of the article considers a backstory of the reform, characterizes the academic part of the institutes, starting with the Smolny Institute, founded in 1764, up to the 1850s, as a dynamically developing structure. The second part is concerned with the activities of K.D. Ushinskii as a class inspector at the Smolny Institute. Ushinskii developed a new draft curriculum, justified approaches to the distribution of academic subjects by classes, depending on the age of students, whereas the native language was defined as the main subject of study. According to the project, the number of lessons increased by reducing their duration, a 7-year training period with an annual training course was established. Ushinskii’s project, approved in 1860, served as a normative model for other women’s institutes. In addition, the subject of the analysis was the conflict within the institute itself, which was the result of Ushinskii’s decisive actions, on the one hand, and the desire of the head of the Institute and her supporters to preserve the institute’s traditions intact, on the other. In conclusion, the inference is made about the significance of the transformations carried out by Ushinskii, and on the readiness of the Office of the Empress Maria’s Institutions for transformation.

The article describes the development of a project on the study of Soviet icons and foil icons in image cases of the 19^th century, which is held at the Center for Visual Studies of the Middle Ages and Modern Times of the Russian State University for the Humanities. The author studies the genesis of Soviet icons and describes craft of foil icons in image cases of the second half of the 19^{th –} 20^th centuries. The reasons for the popularity of prayer images of such a type are considered. In the 20^th century they became the “mother model” for Soviet icons – the craftsmen copied, with the help of new materials and tools, foil icons of the 19^th century. The article also refers to several centers for the pre-revolutionary craft of icon in image cases. The characteristic features of the traditions that existed in the Tver and Vologda provinces are highlighted. Using visual material, the author demonstrates the strategy of “transferring” church art into the foiled icon. Firstly, the masters of the 19^th century copied in the icons in image cases the decorative elements – patterns, cartouches, etc. – that they saw on the church images. Secondly, craftsmen in some regions sought to imitate the church interior itself. Columns, curtains, floor candlesticks with candles, etc. were created of foil (as well as paper, wax, beads). As a result, the home foil icon not only resembled a church icon in its morphology, but also turned into a miniature likeness of a church transferred to a home space.

The article describes the formation and functioning of one of the little-known local centers for the craft of popular icons in the Lukoyanovsky district of the Nizhny Novgorod province. Here, in the early 1870s, the peasants of the villages of Nikolay-Dar and Tolsky Maidan began to produce and sell foil icons. The impetus for the foundation of the new craft was a pilgrimage trip of peasants to Voronezh, from where new technologies for the icons production using smoked seals were transferred to the Nizhny Novgorod province. Such seals were used to make serial imprints with soot on foil. The case of the Lukoyanov foil icons is of undoubted interest, since it can show how Christianized colonies, large monopolistic centers of production and trade of icons and local crafts were interconnected. The main sources on the history of the “Lukoyanov folezhki” (foil icons) are two short articles from two issues of the “Nizhny Novgorod Collection of Papers”, edited by Gatsisky in the last quarter of the 19^th century. Two authors, independently but in the same local journal, with an interval of 13 years published descriptions of the local icon craft. The authors of the article compare those two descriptions and find out the specifics in constructing the foil icon research narratives. Thus, the article, analyzes not only the icon trade, but also its descriptions made in the 19^th century.

The article considers a parallel between photography and taxidermy and interrogates the attitudes to instant photography as a way of acquiring and communicating scientific knowledge by the professional community of taxidermists at the turn of the twentieth century. The debates as to whether snapshots of animals could serve as models for taxidermy shed light on the different approaches to visualization of nature in the historical period marked by the paradigm of scientific objectivity, as described in the seminal work by Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison. As the article shows taxidermists equally committed to the ideal of objectivity could welcome the increased knowledge on the mechanics of animal movements achieved through photography, or dismiss the information thus obtained as irrelevant. The article describes both positions and analyzes the influences which might have shaped them. The debate about the applicability of photography in general and instant photography in particular as a model for making stuffed animals illustrates the mobility of boundaries and the tense relationship between science and art, innovation and canon, visual and material, the representation of phenomena and communication of their essence to a wide audience.

On the example of the Karelian village of Pyalma the article considers the construction of the image of a traditional Northern Russian village by former and current townspeople. Based on their own ideas about the authenticity of the rural, they represent that rural tradition to urban tourists, whose knowledge of the rural is predominantly mediated by popular culture and is not supported by practical skills and abilities. By comparing the history of Pyalma and other examples of contemporary public work with natural and cultural heritage in Northwest Russia, it is shown that the typification and museumification of traditional rurality, characteristic today for many regions, is largely due to the individual desire to preserve the villages and ensure their development by attracting tourists and activities in the space of the “impression economy”. It is noted that for the majority of “seasonal” residents of such settlements, whether they are local or urban summer residents, the historicity of the place is not of fundamental importance, in contrast to the natural and infrastructural features of the location of a particular village. It is concluded that urban projections of rurality in historical settlements, seen today, are gradually more and more clearly subdivided into common and private commemorative-tourist and personal economic practices, which together form a post-productivist “new rurality” of historical villages in the Russian North.

The study focuses on the transformation of French cinema under the influence of processes that inevitably change modern culture. Today visual culture is rethinking the established boundaries of national cultures, and the natural concerns which arise in that regard. The migration processes, class inequality and religious pluralism are increasingly reflected in contemporary films. Such films highlight the phenomena related not only to political and social occurrences but also to cultural issues. The most pronounced changes occur in mainstream cinema, which attracts a broad audience. Thus, films created by French filmmakers, in particular, of the “Culture Clash Comedy” style, aim to appeal to audiences from different religious backgrounds and/or often serve an educational purpose, what leads to a gradual change in the visual habits of the audience. Schools play a crucial role in mediating new social norms and cultural patterns of behavior, and the films centered around educational themes convey the idea of nation-building based on the “republican model”. As a result, the theme of schools attracts attention of directors, followed by film researchers. The article provides a detailed analysis of the correlation between immigration processes, the influence of Islam, and the French educational system on the visual narrative of French cinema.