Gothic Taste and Russian Culture of the 18th Century

This project was an experiment in widening the traditional borders of study in the field and looking at the phenomenon of Gothic taste in many genres and kinds of art. The Gothic taste was a major element in the cultural image of the Enlightenment both in western Europe and in Russia. It was an essential component in the world outlook of an educated person and without studying this phenomenon it is impossible to fully understand the thinking of artistic professionals, amateurs and users in Russian society in the 18th century. Mr. Khatchatourov first analysed the reasons for the importance of Gothic taste in the culture of the European Enlightenment and then studied its linguistic and lexicographic evolution in 18th century Russian culture. He sought to determine the semantic context which actively formed the human mind set in the Enlightenment, including potential users and producers of articles in the Gothic taste. He then looked at the process of absorption of this concept by those forms of art which express it most strongly, in particular architecture and the theatre. His study was based on a comprehensive historical and culturological study using a wide range of sources, a formal stylistic method approach considering the interaction of non-classical styles of the Enlightenment with the dominant classicism, and an iconographic approach which revealed the essential aspects in a new image synthesis of the culture of the Enlightenment.

The Culture of the Deaf Community in the Czech Republic

Romana Mazerova. The Culture of the Deaf Community in the Czech Republic Mazerova set out to discover if the deaf community in the Czech Republic can be said to have its own culture and if so what this is. She began with a comprehensive survey of the history of the deaf from 1786 to the present day, identifying a major turning point in the exclusion of sign language from the education of the deaf around 1930, a move then reinforced in the communist period to the extent that teachers of the deaf had to sign a commitment not to use sign language in their lessons. She also noted the difference between so-called signed Czech, which is an exact translation of the spoken language, and Czech sign language, which has its own structure and even dialects. Following the historical research, Mazerova studied a range of Czech and foreign materials relating to the culture of the deaf, interviewed deaf people about their experiences in school, their participation in the activities of associations for the deaf, and their experiences as a deaf person in a hearing society (these interviews are recorded on video), and visited various associations, clubs and schools for the deaf throughout the country. She concluded that while deaf people share certain behaviours which are quite distinct from those of hearing Czechs, there is little sense of a community as such. The vast majority of deaf people were not born into the deaf community and while feel that they belong together, they do not identify themselves as part of a deaf community and do not work together as a community to achieve their goals.

Latin Sources of Inspiration for 15th and 16th Century Orthodox Prints

The project studied the history of Orthodox graphic art in the context of artistic links between the Eastern and Western worlds, tracing the routes by which iconographic models from western Europe penetrated into eastern Europe and underscoring the role of central European countries in the shaping of the culture of the modern Orthodox church. One important element was the identification of graphic prototypes and export routes for woodcutting blocks which travelled from Germany via Prague, Cracow and Vilnius to Moscow and Kiev, revealing the artistic ties between followers of different religions. Another major element was a study of the appearance of copper engraving in the second half of the 17th century.

The Monumental Barrows of the Period 700-1100 AD at the Russian North-West

Nicholas Petrov. The Monumental Barrows of the Period 700-11 AD in the Russian North-West The research deals with the monumental barrows erected in the Russian north-west in the period of 700-1100 AD, which Russian archaeological literature has traditionally named sopka-barrows. These sopka-barrows were analysed as original sacral and funeral structures and considered in the context of cultural processes under way in that region at the time. The position occupied by the sopka-barrows in the culture of the people who erected them was reconstructed on the basis of a synthesis of various kinds of sources - archaeological, written, folklore. The high barrows are not in fact a determining type of the sites of the so-called "culture of the sopka-barrows" in modern literature, which focuses rather on settlements near to which sopka-barrows are absent. Recent excavations have revealed the presence of "surface" burial places (cremation located on the top of the barrow repeatedly rather than only once) in the majority of the sopka-barrows. The materials only provide evidence about the sacrificial nature of the graves in the "body" of the sopka-barrows. They thus offer an embodiment of one element of the widespread views about the dead man's path to the world of the dead (mountain) which is traced in folklore texts. Special attention was paid to the question of the disappearance of the tradition of erecting sopka-barrows and to the nature of their role in the culture of the region during the period 1000-1200 AD. The functioning of the sopka-barrows as funeral monuments in the second millennium AD is also traced on the inlet inhumatios found in them.

Towards a Variety of Family Models: Economic Contributions of Spouses and Family Power

In Western societies the increase in female employment (especially among married women) is seen as having brought about the crisis of the traditional model of the family, reinforcing the position of the "modern" model - the egalitarian family with two working spouses and a "dual-career" family. In contrast, the transitional situation in the post-communist countries during the 1990s is producing a crisis of the family with two working spouses (the basic type of the communist period) and leading to new power relations within the family. While the growth of dual-earner households in this century has implied modification of family models towards greater symmetry of responsibility for breadwinning and homemaking, there is considerable evidence that women's increased employment does not necessarily lead to a more egalitarian approach to gender roles within the family. The group set out to investigate the economic situation of families and economic power within the fame as a crucial factor in the transformation of families with two working spouses in order to reveal the specific patterns of gender contracts and power relations within the family that are emerging in response to the current political and economic transformation. They opted for a comparative approach, selecting the Czech Republic as a country where the very similar tendencies of a few years ago (almost 100% of women employed and the family as a realm of considerable private freedom where both women's and men's gender identities and the traditional distribution of family responsibilities were largely preserved) are combined with a very different experience in terms of economic inequalities during the 1990s to that of Russia. In the first stage of the study they surveyed 300 married couples (150 in each country) on the question of breadwinning. They then carried out in-depth interviews with 10 couples from each country (selected from among the educated layers of the population), focusing on the process of the social construction of gender, using breadwinning and homemaking as gender boundaries which distinguish men from women. By analysing changes in social position and the type of interpersonal interaction of spouses they distinguished two main types of family contracts: the neo-traditional "communal sharing" (with male breadwinner, traditional distribution of family chores and negotiated family power) and the modern one based on negotiated agreement. The most important pre-conditions of husband-wife agreement about breadwinning seemed to imply their overall gender ideology rather than the economic and/or family circumstances. In general, wives were more likely to express egalitarian views, supporting the blurring or even elimination of many gender boundaries. Husbands, on the other hand, more often gave responses calling for the continued maintenance of gender boundaries. The analysis showed that breadwinning is still an important gender boundary in these cultures, one that is assumed unless it is explicitly questioned and that is seen as part of what makes a man a "real man". The majority of respondents seemed to be committed to egalitarian ideology on gender roles and the distribution of family tasks, including decision making, but this is contradicted by the persistent idea of the husband as the breadwinner. This contradiction is more characteristic of the Russian situation than of the Czech. The quantitative study showed a difference in prevailing family models between the two countries, with a clearer shift towards the traditional family contract in the Russian case. The Czechs were more likely to consider their partnerships as based on negotiated agreement, while the Russians saw theirs as based on egalitarian contract, in both cases seeing this as the norm. The majority of couples said they felt satisfied with their marriage, although in both countries wives seemed to be less satisfied. There was however a difference in the issues that aroused dissatisfaction, with Czech women being more sensitive to issues such as self-realisation, personal independence, understanding and recognition in the family, and Russians to issues of love, understanding and recognition. The most disputed area for the majority of families was chores in the home, presumably because in many families both husband and wife were working hard outside the home and because a number of partners had differing views as to the ideal distribution of chores within the family. The distribution of power in the family seems to be linked to the level of well being. The analysis showed that in the dominant democratic model there is still an inverse connection between family leadership and well being: the more prominent the wife's position as head of the family is, the lower the level of family income. This may reflect both the husband's refusal to play the leading role in the family and even his rejection of any involvement in family issues in such a family. The qualitative research revealed that both men and women see the breadwinning role to be an essential part of masculine identity, a role which the female partner would take on temporarily to assist the male but not permanently since this would threaten the gender boundaries and the man's identity. At the same time, few breadwinners expressed a sense of job satisfaction and all considered their choice as imposed on them by the circumstances (i.e. having a family in difficult times). The group feel that family orientation and some loss of personal involvement in their profession is partly reflected in the fact that many of the men felt more comfortable and self-confident at home than at work. Women's work, on the other hand, was largely seen as a source of personal and self-realisation and social life. Eight out of ten of the Russian women interviewed were employed, although only two on a full-time basis, but none saw their jobs as adding substantially to the family budget. Both partners see the most important factor as the wife's wish to work or stay at home, and do not think it wise for the wife to work at the expense of her part of the "family contract", although husbands from the "egalitarian" relationships expressed more willingness to compromise. The analysis showed clearly that wives and husbands did not construct gender boundaries in isolation, with the interviews providing clear evidence of negotiation. At the same time, husbands' interpretations of their wives' employment were less susceptible to the influence of negotiation than were their gender attitudes and norms about breadwinning. One of the most interesting aspects of the spouses' negotiations was the extent to which they disagreed about what they seemed to have agreed upon. Most disagreements about the breadwinning boundaries, however, were over norms and were settled by changes in norms rather than in behavioural interpretation. Changes in norms were often a form of peace offering or were in response in changes in circumstances. The study did show, however, that many of the efforts at cooperation and compensation were more symbolic than real and the group found the plasticity of expressed gender ideology to be one of the most striking findings of their work. They conclude that the shift towards more traditional gednder distributions of incomes and domestic chores does not automatically mean the reestablishment of a patriarchal model of family power. On the contrary, it seems to be a compromise formation, relatively unstable, temporary and containing self-defeating forces as the split between the personal and professional value of work and its social value expressed in a money equivalent cannot be maintained for generations.