The article is focused on the analysis of the theory of space and time by the Japanese neoMarxist philosopher Tosaka Jun. Tosaka was one of the first in his country to act as a critic of Western philosophy, whilst also being a follower of one of its directions. The relevance of studying this cultural phenomenon lies in the possibility of supplementing knowledge about Asian philosophies in the context of the ongoing pivot to the East. The empirical basis of the research was a series of Tosaka’s essays written in 1920-30s focused on the problems of space and time, as well as his monograph “Japanese Ideology.” The main methods used in the article were the methods of comparative analysis, discourse analysis, and (based on the analysis of concepts and terms) the techniques of logical and semantic reconstruction of the system of ideas associated with a particular problem. The author sets the goal of investigating the content and features of the interpretation of space and time in Japanese thought of the 20th century using the example of Tosaka’s philosophy in the context of discussing the role of everydayness as an epistemological basis for philosophical teachings. In this regard, the task of identifying the original solutions and approaches of the Japanese thinker was realized, allowing us to consider his legacy a significant part of the historical and cultural process, as well as to understand the significance of his philosophical ideas in modern discussions. Another important task of the study was to determine the paths of transfer and transformation of ideas, in particular, the refraction and critical rethinking of Western concepts in the Japanese intellectual space. As a result, for the first time in scientific literature, a detailed reconstruction of the problems of space and time, based on the entire body of Tosaka’s works is presented. The conclusion is substantiated that by introducing a number of concepts (everyday space, historical time, character, configuration, relevance, etc.) and rejecting traditional Marxist ideas about the linearity of time and the value approach to history, the Japanese philosopher rethought the Marxist philosophy of history from the position of his theory of everyday life and common sense, creating an original model of unequal cycles formed from within the historical whole and possessing internal completeness, and, thus, presented history as a non-linear and uneven process that has not only a temporal but also a spatial dimension.

The article is devoted to the analysis of Chinese philosophers’ scientific positions on globalization and cultural globalization. With the ongoing debate on globalization, its current state and long-term consequences, it is of relevance to consider the non-Western perspective on the topic. The purpose of the study is to systematize the ideas of Chinese philosophers on globalization and cultural globalization. To achieve this goal, several tasks need to be solved: 1) to define the scope of ideas relevant to the research into the specificities of Chinese philosophical approaches to globalization; 2) to identify the specificities of Chinese philosophy as a science; 3) to consider key interpretations of globalization; 4) to clarify the different interpretations of cultural globalization and the globalization of culture and the grounds for distinguishing between them. The research materials are the works of Chinese philosophers, many of which are being introduced into scientific circulation outside China for the first time. The research methodology is based on the phenomenological approach and the systemic method, which allows the author to describe the development of the ways of conceptualizing the phenomenon of globalization in the works of Chinese philosophers as a holistic research process. The procedures of discourse analysis and the method of participant observation were also used. As a result, a systemic reconstruction of the process of conceptualization of globalization and cultural globalization in modern philosophy of China was obtained. The work notes that this process is still incomplete and identifies a group of authors working on it. It is established that the one specificity of the scientific nature of modern Chinese philosophy presupposes reliance on the ideas of Marxism and ideological guidelines formulated by the party leadership of the PRC, primarily Chairman Xi Jinping. Another is the focus on comparing significant ideas of foreign philosophers with Chinese traditional views and values. This allows adapting and incorporating the idea of globalization to the Chinese system of values and its plans for the strategic development as a leader in modern social processes. The analysis of interpretations of globalization in the works of Wang Zhengyi, Cai Tuo, Zhang Yihao and Chen Liuqing, Zheng Yiming and Zhang Chaoying allowed the author to trace the dialectical connection of economic and political ideas, which helps to substantiate the place of the Chinese economy in the context of globalization. Clarification of the features of the identification of cultural globalization by Wen Jun, Liu Huanming, Feng Jianjun and Li Deng allowed for the grounds for identifying China as a leader in building a harmonious world based on cultural diversity to be determined. Cultural globalization is interpreted as a supranational process of diversity in unity and unity in diversity, where China's role consists in harmonizing interaction. In turn, cultural globalization is understood as a consequence of the influence of globalization processes on the culture of China itself, which requires significant efforts to change the value content of borrowed ideas and concepts.

This research aims to test the assumption, long-established in Oriental studies, that Confucian philosophy and, therefore, historiography, focused primarily on the specific and rational tasks of social management and government, which tend to ignore the issues of cosmogony, instead replacing it with cosmology. However, in recent times, claims about the paramount rationality of Confucian chronicles have been questioned. These doubts are of relevance in relation to the Korean official Confucian chronicle the Samguk sagi (Historical Records of the Three Kingdoms). Juxtaposing its text with other Korean sources, this article identifies three layers in which cosmogonic motifs and elements of cosmogonic myths can be found. These elements are observed in the stories about the founders of states as cultural heroes, in the approach of the historiographer Kim Busik to the presentation of the history of dynastic cycles (the emergence–bloom–decline–fall of the state), and in the biographies of various historical characters, which are included in a special biographical section of the chronicle. The composition of these biographies partially reproduces the cosmogonic model of the cycle of the hero’s transformations developed by Joseph Campbell. In the annalistic narrative, cosmogonic motifs are closely intertwined with cosmological motifs, forming a kind of a binary yin-yang monad. Kim Busik's Confucian historiographical rationalization does not reject myth entirely, integrating into the historical-political moralizing narrative those elements that correspond to the canon of historiography and their significance for the history of the country and the people. The very process of such integration requires serious efforts from the historiographer, since myths sometimes resist such reappropriation. As a result, many mythological stories are discarded, leaving in the historical narrative either the strongest, most significant elements, that in a sense overpower the canon, or those that resonate with the mythological basis of the canon itself.

Religious terrorism currently poses a major threat in many regions. Studying the problems associated with religious terrorism not only adds to theoretical development of the issue, but also addresses how to combat this threat. This article approaches religious terrorism through the concept of sacred violence as exemplified by the actions of proscribed terrorist organizations in the Central Asia, which have been on the rise since the late 20th century. The purpose of the study is to define the specific interpretation of sacred violence by terrorist groups using the example of the Central Asian region. To achieve this goal the authors aim 1) to systematize existing ideas about those aspects of culture on which terrorist organizations parasitize; 2) to highlight the reasons for the adherents of these organizations to turn to the concept of sacred violence; 3) using the example of the Central Asian region to establish the specifics of its interpretation in the context of Islamic terrorism; 4) to compare the neutral context of the interpretation of the concept of sacred violence with specific interpretations in Islamic religious terrorism. Since the article examines the ideological justification of Islamism and the use of religion to destabilize the political situation and legitimize violence against political opponents, the research materials were drawn from two types of sources: direct statements by the leaders of the movements under study, which are pseudo-theological constructs, and analytical materials, which are studies of such statements. The methodological basis of the study was the theory of social constructivism and approaches of comparative religious studies; the hermeneutic method and content analysis were used. The methods and approaches used helped clarify the specifics of successive political, institutional and regional changes in Central Asia that contributed to the spread of radical Islamist ideologies and their temporary popularity among some parts of the population. As a result, the study identified regional features of the interpretation of sacred violence that may contribute to its use as an integrator of group solidarity by the leaders of terrorist religious organizations. The paper shows that external influence from transnational terrorist organizations, infiltrating into the domestic political conflict, incited or directly provoked by ethno-religious terrorists, uses the ideological construction of sacred violence to attract followers, which seriously distorts traditional ideas of Islam. At the same time, it is the specific interpretation of the sacred by terrorist ideologists that can be used as a marker for distinguishing between terrorist organizations and other religious associations. The results obtained can contribute to further study of religious terrorism as a scientific problem and can also be used by competent authorities to optimize and develop appropriate anti-terrorist measures.

Stemming from the theory of paradiplomacy, the study investigates the topic of external contacts of quasi-states of the Hanseatic League as a special type of cultural and diplomatic activity. The relevance of this study is associated with the need for a more comprehensive description of the behavioral dynamics of such structures both today and in retrospect. The study attempts to identify the roots of the modern cultural phenomenon of paradiplomacy. To reach this goal it was necessary, firstly, to systematize modern theoretical approaches to paradiplomacy; secondly, to apply a theoretical framework to studying paradiplomacy on the example of the Hanseatic League; and thirdly, to find the correspondences and inconsistencies between this framework and the economic, political and legal practices of the Hanseatic League. The research materials are both theoretical works on paradiplomacy and historical documents concerning the activities of the Hanseatic League. It has been revealed that even though paradiplomacy is traditionally dated back to the globalization of the 1970s, some elements of paradiplomacy can be observed as early as in the Middle Ages. As a result of the study, it has been shown that external contacts of quasi-state formations of the Hanseatic League may be considered as prototypical paradiplomacy: the cities of the Hanseatic League were guided by the common Lübeck Law, which regulated, in particular, the external relations of the Hansa members and outlined the framework of proto-diplomatic cooperation; common economic interests pushed the Hanseatic cities to cooperate with the urban entities of Norway, England and Rus'. Based on the theory of the Canadian political scientist A. Lecourt, the authors conclude that all three levels of paradiplomatic activity were present in the Hansa. To substantiate the conclusion, it was proved that the first (economic) level is represented by actual economic interaction that underlay the existence of the Hanseatic League, as shown by the example of the connections between German cities and Novgorod. The second (cultural) level of paradiplomacy with cultural interaction as a strategy to increase the influence of city-states is represented by the so-called Hanseatic fairs. 
The third (political) level includes the provision by Lübeck of a fleet for the transport of the army of the Teutonic Order, land and sea military campaigns and the conclusion of the Stralsund Peace Treaty. The authors analyze the Hanseatic League office system in the context of the antennas theory of paradiplomatic interaction by J. Ciesielska-Kilkowska and T. Kamiński. At the same time, it demonstrates the limitations of the theoretical approaches used in relation to medieval city-states.

The study of the process of lexicalization of concepts is relevant in connection with the need to systematize knowledge about the development of language, taking into account the transformation and renewal of culturally specific concepts. This article aims to clarify the available data on the semantic field of the concept popularity in the given context. Achieving this goal requires, firstly, to establish a range of concepts that form the basis of the semantic field of popularity; secondly, turning to the history of the formation of the semantic certainty of this range of concepts; thirdly, analyzing the lexical meanings of these concepts using quantitative and qualitative methods, including the methods of corpus linguistics; fourthly, establishing the semantic relationships between these concepts, as well as the specifics of their ability to reflect the changes in the world of culture. The semantic specificity of concepts related to popularity in the prism of personal success is examined using specific examples related to the development of the Russian language. The materials of this study were original and translated works containing the lexical units in question. The authors (writers, scientists and philosophers) were selected due to their influence on the development of the concept of popularity in Russian culture. Special attention is given to the data from the National Corpus of the Russian Language. Using the methods of comparative analysis and contextual definition, as well as the analysis of dictionary definitions and contexts of their use. Concepts such as praise, admiration, reputation, fame, glory, celebrity and popularity were all considered. From the linguacultural point of view, a connection between such concepts as popularity and fame is established. A deeper linguistic analysis of the group of concepts under study reveals their characteristic semantic relations. In particular, vector semantic models confirm the close connections between the lemmas success, demand and recognition. In most cases, quasi-synonyms for popularity are fame and success. It is shown how the commercial aspects of these concepts are actualized in the journalistic field (using the example of the news corpus). As a result, it is suggested that the concept of popularity be considered as a complex name of this semantic field. This term names the cultural phenomenon of interest of a wide group of the population to an individual, who is in demand in a specific historical period. The authors conclude that in the information society, this phenomenon acquires features of manipulativeness, which opens up new facets of the concept of popularity.

The relevance of this study is due to the fact that modern democratic values, entrenched in Western countries, including at the legislative level, are widely discussed in Russian society today: how much the freedoms and restrictions introduced in the 21st century correspond to the needs of the average citizen, that is, in this case, the average European. The material for studying this issue was the works of the world-famous Swedish writer Frederik Backman — the novels A Man Called Ove (2012) and Things My Son Needs to Know About the World (2012), as well as the film adaptations of the first novel (Swedish in 2015 and American in 2022). The aim of the study is to determine the ideological attitudes conveyed by the artistic worlds of the works under study. To achieve this goal, the theoretical and methodological frameworks were analyzed, opening up the possibility of studying values through the prism of cultural research of fiction and cinematography. Other tasks included: identifying the key features of the literary and film versions of the novel A Man Called Ove, to establish the specifics of their value framework, and describing the key moments of the novel Things My Son Needs to Know About the World so as to determine the values conveyed by this work. Based on the axiological and anthropological prisms within the framework of the cultural studies approach, intertextual, intermedial and narrative analysis of the texts of each of the books and the two film adaptations of A Man Called Ove is applied. The biographical method and the method of reconstructing the views of the hero of the work of art were also used. As a result of the undertaken reconstruction, a cultural model of analysis of European values of the common man was created thanks to their reflection in literature and cinema. The possibilities and limits of using the cultural method in the analysis of complex and multi-level artistic material were determined. The contradictions that permeate various versions of the film adaptation of the novel A Man Called Ove were highlighted and the characteristic discrepancies between the two novels by F. Backman are described. If the first describes the path of gaining tolerance for everything new by a person of the old school, then the second develops the theme of the absurdity of the modern world, its lack of rootedness in traditions, and discusses the helplessness and defenselessness of man in new realities, such as when, alongside the maximum of democratic freedoms, there arises a paradoxical maximum of unfreedom for the individual. It is also indicative in the axiological context that the directors were only interested in the first book, which was more convenient not only in terms of the script, but also in terms of the ideology, as a locomotive of loyalty to representatives of minorities, and therefore offering more chances to receive international awards.

The article provides a review of the monograph Poetry in the digital age. In the artistic world of Valery Dudarev by M. A. Dudareva, D. A. Aripova and V. V. Nikitina (Moscow; St. Petersburg: Centre of Humanitarian Initiatives, 2024. – 116 p.). The researchers analyzed V. Dudarev’s poetics in cultural and philological aspects with an emphasis on the apophatic (transcendental, thanatological) properties of the organization of poetic texts. The book consists of an introduction, three collectively authored chapters, Natural Philosophy of Valery Dudarev, Dialogues with the Other, and Reverse Perspective, and a conclusion. Together they present an existing and eye-opening read on Russian poetry, with some poems analyzed through various lenses in several chapters of the book.  The ontological and hermeneutic approach provided a deep insight into the worldview, and particularly the poetics of V. Dudarev. To answer the questions stated in the introduction, the authors developed a system of terms interdisciplinary in nature in order to describe the poetics both from rational and intuitive perspectives. Valery Dudarev is a great Russian poet, and his works reflect and preserve the Russian cultural code. One of the major topics and sources of inspiration for the poet was Russian countryside, represented through villages, gardens, country roads, wells, chapels, etc. In the first chapter, the authors of the monograph show their readers the semantic reserves of V. Dudarev’s natural philosophy, manifested in the inseparability of the natural and the sacred. Concepts such as earth, sky, water, fire, air, wood, and Motherland are the basis of Dudarev’s poems. Through the presence in the natural world, V. Dudarev’s lyrical hero establishes semantic connections at deep level and forms new types of interdependence between the phenomenal (contemplative) and the noumenal (cognizable). The second chapter reveals that the features of Valery Dudarev’s dialogical self are determined through an existential reading of plot and figurative-linguistic connections with Pushkin, Lermontov, Mandelstam, Samoilov and many other poets. As a result, the apophatic reserve of Russian poetry was shown on significant empirical material. In the third chapter, the apophatic reserve of the analog poetry of the pre-digital era was presented using the example of vast empirical material. The authors of the monograph draw attention to the risks associated with digital poetry, in which a metaphysical view of the world is lost. On reading Poetry in the Digital Age, one not only gets to know Valery Dudarev as a poet and thinker, but also develops curiosity to learn more about his works and Russian poetry in general.

The issue of how national cultures are perceived by representatives of other cultures is particularly relevant today considering some communities’ attempts at cancellation against former partners that, until recently, were enthusiastically interested in. Written in 1905 by a prominent Russian and Soviet writer M. Gorky, Barbarians is one example of a work which used to attract attention in the West as a cultural portrait of a country but is now almost forgotten. The article aims to study the semantic dominants of the production, as staged in the theater of Bad Godesberg, Germany, in 1993, by examining it as a representation of Russian culture for German audience. To enable the analysis the following tasks were addressed: 1) to systematize information about the connections of M. Gorky's creative work with German culture; 2) to clarify the place of the play Barbarians in M. Gorky's work in light of its theatrical destiny; 3) to describe the key concepts that form the basis of its poetics; 4) to identify the socio-cultural issues that were represented in the studied German theater production of 1993; 5) to establish the cultural boundaries of perception of Russian culture by the German public of the early 1990s – 2024 in terms of the studied phenomenon. The materials for the study were the original text of the play, its theatrical production in the Kammerspiele Bad Godesberg theater, and publications in German media selected by random sampling. Based on the axiological and hermeneutic approaches, as well as imagology, the author uses the biographical method, and case study method, along with content and literary analyses. As a result, data was obtained on the specifics of the perception of the image of Russian culture in Germany in the early 1990s within the framework of the formation of a theatrical image and its search for little-known details of knowledge of the Russian soul. It is shown that in Germany they tried to associate this image with the important, yet at the same time very ambiguous, concept of barbarism for German culture, showing for the German audience, above all, the vitality of the culture. The author concludes that the German public perceived Maxin Gorky as one of the key representatives of Russian culture. Gorky’s play Barbarians, little known in Russia, was a popular theatrical production in Germany in 1990s due to its conceptual characteristics: in which the mysterious Russian soul is presented through the positive connotations of vitality and hopefulness. This ecology of culture formed the essence of the poetics of Jaroslav Chundela, who realized the creative impulse of M. Gorky in a relevant production that caused wide resonance in German society. The socio-cultural issues of ‘ecology’, in the broad sense, laid the foundation for the expansion of the cultural boundaries of the perception of Russian culture by the German public in the early 1990s, which by 2024 allows us to speak about the limitations of attempts to cancel Russian culture, which remain of universal human value regardless of political situation.