• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.50
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• pp.283-311
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• 2018

The Russian poet A. C. Pushkin left more than a hundred self-portraits in his lifetime. These self-portraits are the subject of a special research project. Pushkin liked to sketch himself disguised in various shapes in his manuscripts. Besides Pushkin, many authors have portrayed themselves, but in terms of their quantity and fame, it is difficult to find self-portraits that transcended those which are as detailed and revealing as that of Pushkin's. Focusing on this point, this paper first examines the position of the poet's self-portraits in the context of the tradition of the self-portrait, as a painting genre full of romanticism as manifested and revealed in the 19th century. Subsequently, this article explains the meaning of the Pushkin's typical self-portraits in profile, which were mostly drawn in his manuscripts. Finally, in order to explore the philosophical implications contained in this poet's self-portraits, this paper attempts to read poet's self-portrait in comparison with Rembrandt's self-portrait, and Montaigne's Essais as well for a comprehensive comparison of the three entities.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.45
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• pp.167-194
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• 2016

V.V. Rozanov, a well-known writer and thinker, has wrote many critical essays about Russian literature and writers. The most famous literary criticism written by him is an essay about F. Dostoevsky - Legend of the Grand Inquisitor (1894), which has been highly appraised by N. Berdyaev. If Dostoevsky was the best and the most admirable writer by Rozanov, Gogol was one of the most condemned one by him. This paper, first of all, aims to analyze Rozanov's literary essays about Gogol. At this time, our subjects of analysis included writer's critical essays about Pushkin and Dostoevsky because Rozanov tried to investigate the nature of a creation of Gogol through comparative studies. Based on these analyses, we attempted to deduce an overall view of Rozanov about Russian literature. We also examined the influence of Rozanov on the later criticism.

• Lingua Humanitatis
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• v.8
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• pp.291-313
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• 2006

Previously, studies concerning the Russian dialects have been mainly focused on northern, central, and southern dialects limited to western Russia of Ural Mountains. On the contrary, the Siberian and Far-eastern dialects have been completely disregarded to the main stream of the Russian dialectology. As a result of a poll concerning this idea, the majority has answered that there is no dialect in Siberian and Far-east regions. Though the reasons for the outcome of the poll could vary, it could not be simply accepted that there is no dialect in such vast regions. Thus, a survey has took place to examine the existence of dialects in the regions of Siberia and Far-east. The first phase of the survey inquired the residents of the regions including Siberia and Far-east to respond to questions regarding 83 vocabularies on wedding in contrast to the regions covering western Ural and Moscow. The 23 informants were residents of the concerned regions who have come to visit Pushkin National Institute of Russian Language and, others, Korea. The questionnaires used in this survey were partly obtained from the questionnaires originated by the Language Institute of St. Petersburg National University. Although the limited range of regions and a small number of respondents who partook in this survey could raise some issues on the table, it is relevant to understand that this study would open up the path for the development of studies concerning regional dialects in the future.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.23
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• pp.7-32
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• 2011

In this article, we tried to introduce a little-known work of M.A. Bulgakov "Snowstorm" and provide some various clues for reading this short story. This study is focused on "snowstorm-plot", grasping the structure and the theme of the present work. To this end, in the Chapter II we tired to seek for the meanings of Bulgakov's "snowstorm" based on intertextuality shown from the works by those writers such as Pushkin, Gogol and Tolstoy. In this short story "snowstorm" is presented not only as a natural phenomenon but as a "participant" which provides young doctor-narrator with short time break and let him go to a dying bride, and at last place him on the crossroads of life and death. Indeed "snowstorm" plays a role of the framed structure of Bulgakov's text. In the Chapter III we observed the creative expression of Bulgakov's work which is comprised of overlappings with dream and reality. In other words, in the short story "Snowstorm" the outside and the inside story of frame are described as a dream of the one same night. We can guess that the Shermetievo story is a kind of dream of young doctor who fell asleep in Tuesday night, asking himself "how many patients will come tomorrow?". By the way the Shermetievo story unfolds as an incident which is happened on Wednesday. In this way in Bulgakov's "Snowstorm" it is hard to draw clear lines of demarcation between dream and reality. Therefore existential themes like these "Life and Death", "Professional calling and personal conscience", "The great nature and the week human being" are resonated with original structure "Dream in Dream".

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.29
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• pp.257-285
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• 2012

The theme of Caucasus in Russian literature stemmed from A. Pushkin's The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1820) became expended when it reached to writer Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. The writer's magnum opus, Allamat-Bek (1832), was based on a real historical event. Being proponent to the side of Russian ideology, this work strongly presents that the primary task the Russian Imperialist government paused in this region at the time was civilization of the Caucasus through diplomatic and humanistic ways. There are three main protagonists in this work, but Berkhovsky and Sultan Akhmet-Khan are the characters who stand for the contradictory views toward the "war between Russia- Caucasus." While the former, Berkhovsky, thinks that the conflict between the two parties might be solved by means of communication and cooperation, the latter, on the other hand, is opposed to any of peaceful completion of this war. Allamat-Bek, the main hero of this work, however, passes away, going back and forth between loyalty and renegation. The author goes on to describe that Berkhovsky considers the Caucasus as Eden, the land of fruits, unlike Russia which appears as the land of labor. Yet, for Berkhovsky the Caucasus is presented as the land which needs enlightenment. This is the transformation of the so-called typical Western Orientalism. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky does not take side of either evil or good between the Russian Orthodoxy and the Islam, that is the conflict between the two opponent parties. The writer, instead, argues that this is just difference between the familiar and the strange, that is, the svoi and the chuzhoi. What is the very picture the writer wants to show the reader, then, is that it is petty and sad to see the unavoidable violent progress which happened and experienced by the indigenous people during the civilization of the Caucasus by the Russian Imperialist government.