“Shagi / Steps” the Journal of the SASH

Abstract:

Abstract: This study investigates the overlap of personal names used within different groups of elites in oracle bone inscriptions (13–11 cent. BC, ancient Chinese Shang state). Eight groups are examined: zi (princes), hou (lords), bo (chiefs), xiao-chen (minor servants), quan (kennelmen) shu (guards), Qiang people (or clan), and royal diviners. Firstly, I present updated registers of personal names, with 213 unique names including 48 cases of repeated names. The numbers of repeated and unique names vary in different groups, as does the overall number of names in each group. The task was to find out which pairs of groups share repeated names more often than expected, given their size. It transpired that four pairs of groups share names more often than expected, namely: zi and Qiang; quan and shu; xiao-chen and hou; shu and diviners. Further research is needed to understand whether or not this phenomenon indicates actual connections between these groups of people. The analysis has also revealed two subgroups to be mutually exclusive: the first includes bo and Qiang, and the second includes hou, xiao-chen, quan, shu, and diviners,. Such isolation probably indicates ethnic (Shang and non-Shang) or social (nobility and gentry) boundaries. On the other hand, zi names can be found in both of the subgroups, suggesting ethnic or social heterogeneity of the ‘princes’.

Abstract: The article analyzes the archaeological material of monuments in the capital centers of Qizhou and Feng-Hao of the state of Western Zhou (1027–771 BC) and of the era before the foundation of this state (ca. 1095–1027 BC). The emergence and decline of sacred cult complexes within the metropolitan regions reflects the course of the political struggle at the court of the ruler, the result of which was the decline in the status and role of the early capital of the state in Qizhou and their increase in the second capital of the state in Feng-Hao within the framework of domestic policy. The construction of a new sacred-political center in Feng-Hao was an attempt to expand the territory of the arable lands of the state, which led to the need to interact with the Shang people and to borrow certain features of the architecture of the sacred-cult complex. These borrowings, combined with the culture of the early Zhous, form a single cultural space in the Zhou royal domain and beyond in the appanages belonging to representatives of the Ji royal family. The monumental construction of a new large palace and temple complexes in Feng-Hao confirms the creation of a new center and the increasing role of its rulers at the court in the then largest state of Shang-Yin. Qizhou continued to exist as the old residence of the ruler and as a sacred center, but the political center was located in the new capital — in Feng-Hao.

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to study and systemize foreign and Russian literature on key Hittite settlements in terms of the problem of the crisis of the Hittite Kingdom at the turn of the 13th–12th centuries B. C. Due to a lack of generalizing historiographical summaries on this issue in modern Russian scholarship, as well as in view of the large number of new archaeological data that have appeared since the early 2000s as a result of modern archaeological excavations in Turkey, there appeared a real need for analysis of the latest materials, thanks to which a new outlook on the phenomenon of the decline of the Late Bronze Age civilization of Anatolia is possible. The main sources of this study consist primarily of archaeological surveys and excavation reports from Hittite settlements in Central Anatolia, articles from academic journals and research series and monographs. The analyzed data made it possible to identify several stages in the development of historiography and to show the need for a gradual correlation of new archaeological materials from settlements in Central Anatolia with known written sources in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the events of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age in Anatolia.

Abstract: The article presents an analysis of the collection of Japanese Buddhist didactic tales (setsuwa) Konjaku monogatari-shū (early 12th century) in order to reconstruct the ideas of the compilers about time, their attitude to the endless flight of time and to the chain of events taking place in the world. All tales in Konjaku describe events that happened “a long time ago” and belong to history. So the readers look at what is happening with detachment, but within the stories time is either compressed or stretched out, creating a dramatic effect of presence. The tales in Konjaku are arranged in chronological order in the text as a whole and in its major parts. Sometimes some dates are given, but in and of itself this is not so important for the compilers. In some tales events follow each other very quickly, with no pauses. Or the action can go slowly, allowing readers to turn contemplative and to dispassionately follow what is taking place. The tales can also be divided into those that deal with a single episode in the life of the protagonist, those that describe his life as a whole, and those that tell of the lives of more than one generation of heroes. Stories about “causes and consequences” stand out. The narrator there directly focuses the attention of readers on the causal relationship between events. One of the main goals of the compilers of Konjaku is to show the readers the immutability of this connection and of the law of retribution. The article shows how the time setting of the tales and the treatment of time overall serve this purpose.

Acknowledgements: The paper is made in Institute for Logic, Cognitive Science and Development of Personality within the project “Tradition and Methods of its Development in Japanese Religious and Philosophical Thought of the 9th–12th Centuries: According to the “Konjaku monogatari-shū”” (RSF, project № 22-28-01384).

Abstract: The question regarding suicide in Japanese Buddhist thought does not have a clear answer. A person should cherish his life in the world of people, where conditions are very favorable for asceticism, for moving towards liberation; however, determination to sacrifice oneself for the sake of others raises the ascetic to an even higher level, from the path of people to the path of bodhisattvas. The reasons why people choose to voluntarily die, and how this choice affects their fate after death, are much discussed in the tradition of ­setsuwa didactic tales, in particular, in the Hosshinshū (1210s). Here, the stories of people who have decided to die can be divided into four categories: 1) people pass on to follow someone dear to them, whose death makes their life meaningless; 2) people strive to leave this world before illness or old age prevent them from meeting death with the proper attitude; 3) people sacrifice themselves to prove their devotion to the Buddha Dharma; 4) people risk their lives for the sake of their fellow human beings. Basing himself on these examples, the compiler of the collection, Kamo no Chōmei, discusses whether it is worth protecting the body, received under the law of retribution. “To throw away the body” is good in any case, but what is better, to hasten one’s death or to spend one’s remaining time on good deeds, everyone must — and can — choose for himself. The article contains translations of selected stories from the Hosshinshū and an analysis of the sources followed by Chōmei.

Acknowledgements: The article was written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme.

Abstract: There are many tales in Kojidan (Tales about Old Matters), a setsuwa (short didactic tales) collection compiled in the early 13th century by the nobleman Minamoto-no Akikane, which deal with Buddhist monks. Amongst those monks one can find a multitude of well-known names: there are the founders of the major Japanese schools of Buddhism, such as Kūkai and Saichō, famous miracle-workers (including rainmakers), saints, as well as common monks. The biggest section of Akikane’s collection, consisting of 108 tales, is devoted to monks, but characters who took the vows also appear in other parts of Kojidan. To demonstrate what is the way of the monk, Akikane put together stories about the personal virtues of various characters, as well as tales about a variety of miracles. The ability of working miracles acts as some kind of measure of efficiency on the Way, but it can’t guarantee that a man will not fall from this path if he still is attached to worldly passions and still has bad affections. The author may talk about great saints and builders of temples, but he also includes tales about sinful and cruel monks. As in other collections of setsuwa tales, a picture of the cosmos is constructed, where a miracle is something natural and normal, something that takes place in accordance with the laws of causes and consequences, and due to the response of a buddha or kami to prayer and ritual.

Acknowledgements: The article was written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme.
I would like to express my gratitude to N. N. Trubnikova, my teacher, who graciously works with translations of tales from Tales about Old Matters as an editor.

Abstract: “Scar Literature” (伤痕文学) was a mainstream movement in Chinese literature in the late 1970s — mid 1980s. It dealt mainly with the fate of the younger generation, which under the influence of political propaganda had abandoned genuine human values, with the tragic fates of the intelligentsia, and with the betrayal of loved ones. “Scar Literature” also used to describe the lawlessness that occurred in prisons and labor camps. In the first years after the “cultural revolution”, the controversy about “Scar Literature” was concentrated mainly around the themes and the name of the trend, almost without discussing the literary aspects themselves. Despite the weakening of ideological control after the end of the “cultural revolution”, the name “Scar Literature” was not approved by the authorities and even had a negative connotation: in 1979, articles appeared in the Chinese press, the authors of which opposed the use of the expressions “Scar Literature” and “exposure literature”, urging writers not to focus on the dark sides of the past and pointing out the high reputational risks for the CPC. In a broader sense, the polemics about “Scar Literature” were a dispute about a possible reassessment of the relationship between literature and politics, and the essence of realism as a creative method. After several decades, when the ideological tension regarding the “cultural revolution” has decreased, “Scar Literature” continues to arouse interest — but now as a literary representation of experiencing psychological trauma.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the linguistic and compositional analysis of “Jinse” (Brocade Zither, 1993), a short story by Ge Fei, a modern Chinese avant-garde prose writer (born in 1964). In the story, the main character, Feng Zicun, finds himself in various time periods of Chinese history, switching roles from a mysteriously imprisoned hermit to a medieval literatus to a tea merchant and, finally, to an ancient state ruler in the time of Western Chu (206–202 BC). The main features of the story include a complex narrative structure represented by episodes tied together in a system of “dream in a dream”, each episode going farther back in time, as well as a complex language style. The text of the story starts with the modern Chinese language and by the end gradually shows more and more similarities to the classical Chinese language wenyan with its classical syntax structure, conjunctions, one-syllable lexis, parallelism, rhythm, etc. The text of the story actually acts as a “time-machine” that invites the reader to travel back in time. Such features make Ge Fei’s prose very challenging for a researcher and a translator. The article also addresses the concept of time in Ge Fei’s fiction and a significant number of allusions in his writings (as the story title is an allusion to Li Shangyin’s poem).

Abstract: The article analyses the scroll Seolsongdo (설송도) of Yi Insang (이인상), an outstanding Korean painter of the late Joseon era. The scroll depicts snow-covered pines, an image through which the artist managed to most clearly embody the complex syncretic set of ideas inherent in Korean culture, and to display the inner spiritual state. The author makes an attempt to use the example of Yi Insang’s work to reveal the peculiarities of the artistic image of the pine tree, to identify the symbolic meaning and explain the ideological component of the image, defining its place and significance in Korean fine art as an important element of the visual system, necessary for the preservation of the cultural tradition and national character. The main conclusion of the article is that the image of the pine tree, being one of the key images in Korean fine art, characterized by spiritual content and depth of philosophical and aesthetic ideas of the Joseon era, has vitality and does not lose relevance in the works of Korean artists of today, embodying elements of a new conceptual perception of the national cultural code, integrating and enriching it with new forms, modern technology and various materials.

Abstract: This article investigates the story of Abraham’s hospitality in Gen 18:1–16, which became a kind of paradigm for behavior toward strangers in Judaism and Christianity as well as the source of mystical, Christological and Trinitarian interpretations. This story was further developed in later texts, among which the medieval Palaea literature (texts which combine biblical paraphrase, theology, and polemic, as well as some apocryphal legends) has to be specially emphasized. Unfortunately, this literature is often neglected by scholars dealing with Abraham’s hospitality. The article focuses on the story of Abraham’s hospitality in the context of this literature and related texts, as well as the possible influence of this tradition on Eastern Christian iconography. The article demonstrates that in this stratum of Christian tradition as well as in other exegetical works, the story about Abraham goes beyond the narrative of hospitality. In addition to concerns about the identification of the three strangers, which is a typical topic of Christian exegesis of Gen 18:1–16, in this literature, liturgical and Christological elements appear in the episode about Abraham’s fasting before the coming of the three strangers and in that about the resuscitation of the slaughtered and cooked calf which the patriarch earlier offered to his guests. The legend of Abraham’s refusal of food and water while waiting for guests is probably of Byzantine origin, while the account of the resurrection of the slaughtered calf may go back to an ancient Jewish source, which is also reflected in Test. Abr. A 6.4–5.

Acknowledgements: The article was written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme.

Abstract: The legend of Hilaria belongs to a group of narratives about cross-dressing saints and tells the story of a fictional daughter of the Byzantine emperor Zeno: disguised as a man, she led a life of rigid asceticism among the monks of Scetis. Having emerged in the Coptic milieu (6th–7th centuries), the legend was translated into Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic. The present article examines the changes undergone by the story in the process of rewriting, which might have been caused by translators’ and scribes’ ambivalent attitude towards the plot, given that they were mainly from a monastic society. Analysis of the Syriac version demonstrates that its author, who expanded the abridged redaction he had in his possession, borrowed some details from other, similar legends, in particular, from the Life of Euphrosyne, but he was also guided by the intention to “correct” the story of Hilaria in accordance with his conception of the ideal manly “holy woman”. Therefore, he made her older, more prepared for ascetic life both physically and spiritually, but chose to change the end of the legend by attaching a narrative, which exists in other stories about cross-dressing saints. Whereas in the Coptic version Hilaria’s stay in the monastery is sanctioned by the authority of abba Pambo, who becomes aware of her true sex through divine revelation, in the Syriac version he is completely absent, and his disappearance can be traced in Arabic redactions.

Acknowledgements: The project was supported by funding from the Mikhail Prokhorov Charitable Foundation (“Karamzin Scholarships: Internship at the School of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, RANEPA-2022”).

Abstract: A. T. Bolotov, a Russian writer and memoirist of the second half of the 18th — early 19th century, can be considered one of the main theorists and practitioners of happiness in Russian culture of his time. Firstly, he is the author of a three-volume work entitled A Guide to True Human Happiness, as well as the ode “To a person who wants to be happy”, and a number of short poems and essays on this topic. The concept of happiness outlined in these writings is largely a compilation and is based on several works by German philosophers whom Bolotov regarded as authoritative (primarily J. G. Sulzer and Ch. A. Crusius). But A Guide is the only major Russian-language work on happiness, published by the leading Russian printing house owned by N. I. Novikov, and taking into account the latest achievements of European philosophical thought. Secondly, in his memoirs and accompanying texts, Bolotov constantly leads the reader to the idea that, thanks to a correct life strategy, he himself is a model of a happy person and hopes to pass on this experience to other people, both his descendants and strangers. To a large extent this practical philosophy serves Bolotov as justification for offering the reader a description of his daily life. The proposed article discusses three main subjects: the essence of Bolotov’s concept of happiness, its foreign sources, as well as examples of its practical application and dissemination. The article uses unpublished materials from the personal archival funds of Bolotov and his family.

Acknowledgements: The study was supported by grant from the Russian Scientific Foundation no. № 22-28-01402, https:rscf.ru/project/22-28-01402, IRLI RAS.

Abstract: In the Stalin era, the category of happiness was sharply politicized, and a new canon of representation of Soviet happiness was established in literature and cinema. The article presents empirical data that permits a quantitative evaluation of the scale and nature of the Stalinist transformation of the happiness narrative in a single genre — realistic children’s prose. The corpus of 19th–20th century Russian prose for children and youth (Detcorpus) served as the source of data. The scale of changes was assessed by measuring the frequency of the lexemes ‘happiness’ and ‘happy’ in the corpus. Semantic transformations were assessed based on changes in the contexts of the use of these lexemes, measured using diachronic word embeddings. The results of the study partially confirm the findings of previous studies and raise new questions. In particular, the number of mentions of happiness dropped sharply in children’s literature in the 1920s. It can be assumed that the “cancellation” of happiness was the first stage in the formation of the Stalinist canon. The data also provides evidence that, starting in the Stalin period, emotions became much more relevant in the representation of happiness in children’s literature. This process could also be linked to the formation of the Stalinist canon.

Abstract: The paper, based on field research into cultural practices and institutions in several Russian cities (2019–2021), is the first attempt to describe and conceptualize atmosphere as a special mode of cultural production and consumption. The authors argue that atmosphere is an important element of modern cultural industry and can provide a special kind of cultural pleasure. The phenomenon of “cultural atmospheres” is considered within the field of atmosphere studies that has become widespread in recent years in philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences. In this theoretical context the research focus is set using key properties of the atmosphere phenomenon such as material nature and supermaterial effects, homogeneity, affectivity, lack of distance between the object and the subject, etc. The authors analyze the reflections and representations of their informants’ cultural life experience and show that atmosphere appears in discursive constructions not only as a characteristic of a certain place or event, but also as an independent source of affects, impressions and pleasures expected from culture. The atmosphere mode of culture consumption, implying relevant attunements provided by the perceiving subject’s work of imagination and cultural experience, free him from the “cultural consumption” imperative understood as the acquisition of a ready-made product. One of the authors’ hypotheses is that it is this quality that gives cultural atmosphere a special charm.

Acknowledgements: The research is fulfilled as a part of the project “Culture of Happiness: the role of Cultural Institutions in the Personal well-being of Russian Residents”, supported by the Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation (project no. SGM 59-19).

Abstract: The article analyzes the museum’s interactive program as a ritual of cultural production that allows it to transform the material substance of a gastronomic delicacy into a symbolically significant cultural artifact, and for the participants of this ritual to acquire cultural experience and “taste history”. Problematizing the existing approaches to the study of culture and starting from Annemarie Mol’s book on the body multiple, the author aims to analyze cultural production as an act of transubstantiation, through which culture becomes the result of making and acquires materiality, without losing at the same time its ephemeral properties. The paper is based on the materials of an ethnographic study in Kolomna, near Moscow, the appearance of which has significantly changed over the last decade, owing to the emergence of initiatives to create museums of Kolomna pastille and the establishment of pastille production according to ancient recipes. The author turns to the analysis of various forms of contestation of the status of new museums by employees of more traditional cultural institutions, and the boundaries set by various organizations for demarcation in the cultural sphere. Choosing a different perspective and considering one day in the life of a museum as a ritual of transubstantiation, the author offers a new approach to the analysis of cultural production.

Acknowledgements: This paper was completed as part of the project “The Culture of Happiness: The Role of Cultural Institutions in the Personal Well-Being of Russian Citizens” (Vladimir Potanin Foundation, Project No. SGM 59-19).
I express my sincere gratitude to all the informants who agreed to talk to me during my work in Kolomna, to the staff of museums and other cultural institutions that helped and supported me during the project. I also thank all the members of the research team who participated in the discussions and fieldwork, helping with advice, comments, and insights.

Abstract: The present article considers the specifics of the Soviet ‘national literatures project’, as it was implemented in Turkmenistan in the mid-1930s. The article aims to reveal the influence of Soviet cultural policy on the region, the literary context of which has been almost left unanalyzed. Archival sources, such as the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art and the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, provide a clearer view of the Turkmen literary situation in the 1930s, in particular, shortly before and after the 10-year anniversary of the republic in 1934. A plan for literary work, which included collaboration between Russian and Turkmen authors and orientalist scholars, was devised specifically for Turkmenistan. Thus, authors were supposed to learn Turkmen or Russian, respectively, and had not only to rely on folklore, but also to consider the Turkmen classics. The task of constructing a history of Turkmen literature and moving from poetic works to monumental and prosaic ones was postulated as a matter of necessity. Works by women and the topic of women’s emancipation were of primary importance, as it was especially relevant for the Central Asian republics. Another tendency was an attempt to teach creative writing, taking the national specifics of the region into account. Overall, the policies of the 1930s were aimed at ‘creating’ a new national literature; however, due to the particular situation in the region (language barrier, literacy level, particularities of circulation of texts, national identity issues) there had to be certain amendments to the all-Soviet project.