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Projective lexicon of the Russian language April 15, 2007
” has been published My book “ Amerossia. Selected Essays (M., Silver Threads, 2007, 504 pp.). Amerossia is American Russia and Russian America, i.e. it is about two cultures, their encounters and intersections. The book was published in the “Parallel Texts” series, and all the texts in it are given in two languages, Russian and English, page to page. The essays were translated in America into living modern English, so that students of this language may also find practical benefit from the book. The book includes sections: “Space and Time”, “People and Power”, “Poetry of Economics”, “Personal Life”, etc.
I congratulate our readers on the upcoming holiday - Intellectuals' Day, which is celebrated on April 21 (next Saturday),
between two totalitarian holidays:
- interdisciplinary discussions,
-collective improvisations,
-brainstorming sessions
-intellectual competitions,
-word creativity and thought creativity,
-problematization and possibilization (possibility) of all structures and discourses - linguistic, scientific, social,
- alternative activities in all areas of culture,
-the release of intelligence to the masses and the intellectualization of mass events.
For me, this holiday will be marked by a video bridge between Emory University in Atlanta (USA), where I teach, and the State University-Higher School of Economics in Moscow, which will take place on Thursday, April 19, 17.30 - 19.30 pm. I will speak in the HSE auditorium from a very large screen. Everyone is welcome to come and take part in the discussion.
Directions: To the station. metro station Elektrozavodskaya, minibus 145 to the State University Higher School of Economics building (terminal).
A good landmark is the GOSKOMSTAT tower with a ball on the roof (Izmailovskoye Highway, 44).
There is another significant date for “The Gift” this coming week. The first issue was published on April 17, 2000. The results of the seven years will be summed up in the next issue.
Topic of the week: Thought and thinkers
There are no compound words preserved in the Russian language with the second component stem “mysl”. Meanwhile, this root stands out not only in the prefix words “meaning”, “industry”, but also in the complex, two-basic ancient names Bolemysl, Gostomysl (the Novgorod prince, who, according to legend, called the Varangians to reign), as well as in the words “idle mind” (given by Dahl) and “romanysl” (the term of the poet and visionary Daniil Andreev). The language has the words “god-thinking”, “sanity”, “idle-thinking”, “profound-thinking”, from which the names of persons can regularly be derived: bogomysl ’, idle-thinking , etc. I would like to emphasize that all the words in this issue are of a bookish, partly archaic nature, which is not prevents their use in the widest expressive and evaluative range: from sublimely solemn to mockingly sarcastic.
painful Thought - painful thought and thinking pain, painful participation of the thinker in the thinkable.
fightThinking - thinking as a fight.
powerThought - thought as power over minds, over society; political dimension of thought.
gostomthought - foreign thought as a factor in the development of domestic thought.
sanity - one who thinks sensibly, soberly, judiciously, taking into account the entirety of the circumstances.
Dashing Thought - dashing, cool, eccentric, extreme thinking, radical in conclusions, but of little evidence, devoid of strong logic.
wit - sharp, problematic, controversial, provocative thinking.
wittyIsl, wittythinker - one who thinks sharply, sharpens the problem, provokes an argument.
overthinking - changeability of thoughts and worldview.
peremysl, peremyshlennik - a hesitant thinker, one who often changes worldviews, moves from one position to another.
empty Thought - empty thinking, poor in content and meaning.
emptyThought - one who thinks in vain, meaninglessly.
genusThinking - thinking on behalf of a whole kind of people: tribal, national, class.
compassionate Thought (cf. compassionate) - a thought of the heart, the mind of the heart, the ability to think with the heart.
quietness, quietness - a meek, cautious, reserving manner of thinking that does not claim public attention or influence.
quiet Thought, quiet mind - a private thinker who does not claim great generalizations, does not count on a wide circle of readers, writes for himself or a narrow circle of “his own”, lives and thinks in silence.
ardent Thought - a furious, angry, vengeful, accusatory thought aimed at overthrowing the existing system, violently changing reality.
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Projective lexicon of the Russian language April 15, 2007
” has been published My book “ Amerossia. Selected Essays (M., Silver Threads, 2007, 504 pp.). Amerossia is American Russia and Russian America, i.e. it is about two cultures, their encounters and intersections. The book was published in the “Parallel Texts” series, and all the texts in it are given in two languages, Russian and English, page to page. The essays were translated in America into living modern English, so that students of this language may also find practical benefit from the book. The book includes sections: “Space and Time”, “People and Power”, “Poetry of Economics”, “Personal Life”, etc.
The book is on sale at the Book Shop of the Literary Institute, in the center of Moscow. Address: 123104, Moscow, Tverskoy Boulevard, 25. Entrance is only open from the street. Bolshaya Bronnaya, walk 3 minutes from Pushkinskaya metro station, on the left side, to the sign: Lit. Institute, to the left through the entrance. Opening hours from 11 to 19 on weekdays, from 12 to 17 on Saturday, without lunch. Tel. 202-8608.
The shop is rich in modern humanitarian and intellectual literature, as well as fiction. My other books are also available for sale there:
Space sign, On the future of the humanities. M., UFO, 2004.
Postmodernism in Russian literature. M., Higher School, 2005.
Word and silence. Metaphysics of Russian literature. M., Higher School, 2006
Great Owl. Samara, Bakhrakh-M, 2006.
Philosophy of the body. St. Petersburg, Aletheia, 2006.
I congratulate our readers on the upcoming holiday - Intellectuals' Day, which is celebrated on April 21 (next Saturday),
between two totalitarian holidays:
April 20 - Hitler's BirthdayThe holiday of alternative consciousness is celebrated
April 21 - Intellectual's Day
(Alternative Consciousness Day)
April 22 - Lenin's birthday
- interdisciplinary discussions,
-collective improvisations,
-brainstorming sessions
-intellectual competitions,
-word creativity and thought creativity,
-problematization and possibilization (possibility) of all structures and discourses - linguistic, scientific, social,
- alternative activities in all areas of culture,
-the release of intelligence to the masses and the intellectualization of mass events.
April 21st has been celebrated since 1998. On this day, the Encyclopedia of Alternative Ideas was opened on the Internet , and the first alternative planetary system (in the constellation Centaur) was opened in the Universe. On the same day, the Alternative New Music Festival is held annually in Moscow.
The motto of the holiday: Be brilliant! A little. By chance . Not like the geniuses of all times and peoples. Practice random genius!
I remind you of this date in advance so that you have time to prepare for it. I believe that most readers of "The Gift" will rightfully consider this holiday theirs. How to celebrate it? At the end of this issue I present an article from Novaya Gazeta , as well as materials from Nezavisimaya Gazeta and the So-obschenie magazine related to the birth and strengthening of this new tradition.
For me, this holiday will be marked by a video bridge between Emory University in Atlanta (USA), where I teach, and the State University-Higher School of Economics in Moscow, which will take place on Thursday, April 19, 17.30 - 19.30 pm. I will speak in the HSE auditorium from a very large screen. Everyone is welcome to come and take part in the discussion.
Themes:Video bridge location: room. 422 in the building of the State University Higher School of Economics on the street. Kirpichnaya, 33/5 (directions on the website www.hse.ru, /faculties and departments / faculty of psychology).
Intellectual and intellectual - what is the difference?
Intelligence and social mentality.
The intellectual as the bearer of universal consciousness. What does “universal” and “all-human” mean after the critique of these categories from the perspective of multiculturalism?
The emergence and fate of intellectual communities.
Intellectuals: masters of thought or service personnel?
Directions: To the station. metro station Elektrozavodskaya, minibus 145 to the State University Higher School of Economics building (terminal).
A good landmark is the GOSKOMSTAT tower with a ball on the roof (Izmailovskoye Highway, 44).
Request to teleconference participants who do not have HSE passes no later than April 17
send your full name to office@sociolog.net and confirm receipt by phone 152-0231.
There is another significant date for “The Gift” this coming week. The first issue was published on April 17, 2000. The results of the seven years will be summed up in the next issue.
Topic of the week: Thought and thinkers
This issue is dedicated to the Day of Intellectuals and contains words on the topic of “thinking”.
Let's start with a word that is already quite common (1000 cases according to Yandex), but is not included in any dictionaries.
SomIsle - jointness of thought, participation in the thinking process.
Consciousness is a dialogical interaction of different consciousnesses.
Your sympathy alone is not enough for me, I also need conscience
Unlike like-mindedness, co-thought does not presuppose a community of ideas, but a community
issue.
think about smb. - follow someone's thoughts, participate in someone's thinking.
In many of his works, Rozanov is inspired by Dostoevsky, but at the same time
aestheticizes the thought of his teacher.
somyshlennik , somyshlennik - the one who thinks.
He was happy to find in her not only a friend, but also a fellow believer .
I don't need your practical help, I'm counting on you as a
fellow conspirator .
consonant - consonant in thought.
I am now writing one little thing, comprehended by your philosophy.
There are no compound words preserved in the Russian language with the second component stem “mysl”. Meanwhile, this root stands out not only in the prefix words “meaning”, “industry”, but also in the complex, two-basic ancient names Bolemysl, Gostomysl (the Novgorod prince, who, according to legend, called the Varangians to reign), as well as in the words “idle mind” (given by Dahl) and “romanysl” (the term of the poet and visionary Daniil Andreev). The language has the words “god-thinking”, “sanity”, “idle-thinking”, “profound-thinking”, from which the names of persons can regularly be derived: bogomysl ’, idle-thinking , etc. I would like to emphasize that all the words in this issue are of a bookish, partly archaic nature, which is not prevents their use in the widest expressive and evaluative range: from sublimely solemn to mockingly sarcastic.
Some of these names can be in two versions, with the secondary principle - thought or - thinker. The first option is more sublime, archaic, so it easily takes on a humorous or ironic meaning. The second option, less easy to pronounce, is estimated to be more neutral. We present a number of these difficult words in alphabetical order.
God-thought is free, dogmatically unfettered (different from theology) thinking about God and faith.
bogomysl - one who thinks about God, about faith; religious philosopher.
Unlike a theologian (theologian), who follows revelation and church tradition, the divine thinker is not bound by any dogma or canon; he enters into free relations with the objects of his thought.
Thought on God is not forbidden to anyone, but it should not be passed off as theology.
Vladimir Solovyov cannot be called a theologian; he was a free thinker of God , a seeker of the wisdom of God.
painful Thought - painful thought and thinking pain, painful participation of the thinker in the thinkable.
sickTHOUGH - one who is sick with a thought or thinks with pain.
Note that in the ancient name Bolemysl the first part means “more” and not “pain”.
Painful thinking permeates the entire tradition of Russian thought, from Chaadaev to Solzhenitsyn.Writers such as Astafiev, Belov, Rasputin were considered the philanderers of the Russian village in Soviet times.
fightThinking - thinking as a fight.
borimIsl is a thinker-fighter, one who raises his thoughts to fight.
Herzen and Tolstoy are great borimysls , similar to each other in almost nothing except their aristocratic love for the peasant world.
powerThought - thought as power over minds, over society; political dimension of thought.
VladimIsl is the ruler of minds, the acquirer of mental power and strength.
Marochkin was amazed that N. Mailer in his youth wanted to become like K. Marx, because he himself wanted to become like Mailer. Vladimysl , a broad-spectrum intellectual, international minister without portfolio. However, in those years, the 1960s, J.-P. Sartre was an even more enviable example of mastery of thought .
gostomthought - foreign thought as a factor in the development of domestic thought.
GostomYsl is a foreign thinker who has become “his own” in Russian culture.
Hegel, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Marx - all these state thoughts were extinguished for a long time in Russian culture and were kept in it not too ceremoniously, and through the fault of the owners, who constantly said: “be at home with us.”
Is it by chance that the Novgorod governor who called the Varangian princes to reign was called Gostomysl? It seems that this name was providential or characteristic, i.e. knowingly or as a result of the actions of this person. “ Gostomysl ” means shifting the responsibility of ownership, management, and thinking to others; it is the calling of foreigners as princes, specialists, and rulers of thoughts. Gostomyslye is one of the most interesting features of Russian culture.
sanity - one who thinks sensibly, soberly, judiciously, taking into account the entirety of the circumstances.
Sanity is a character in Fonvizin’s essay “A Conversation with Princess Khaldina.”
We had many extreme figures who put the fate of an entire country, and indeed the world, on the map of one idea. But common sense . there was very little
Dashing Thought - dashing, cool, eccentric, extreme thinking, radical in conclusions, but of little evidence, devoid of strong logic.
dashingIsl - one who thinks dashingly, willfully, regardless of logic, with the rules of thinking.
A reckless mind drives thought along the shortest straight line to the desired conclusion or produces the broadest generalizations from small evidence, tiny grains of experience.After the general public became acquainted with Nietzsche, recklessness became fashionable; everyone began to construct grandiose metaphysical systems with extraordinary ease, with two or three “aphorisms.”
Dashing is a fireworks display of few connected ideas, it is Khlestakovism of thought.
wit - sharp, problematic, controversial, provocative thinking.
wittyIsl, wittythinker - one who thinks sharply, sharpens the problem, provokes an argument.
Wit is a rare ability of the mind. You can be convincing, thorough, right in everything - and at the same time flat, like the Central Russian plain.
Wit and wit are two different things. A wit jokes and amuses, a wit disturbs, angers and torments.
overthinking - changeability of thoughts and worldview.
peremysl, peremyshlennik - a hesitant thinker, one who often changes worldviews, moves from one position to another.
Rethinkers are divided into two categories: enthusiasts , quickly carried away by a new system of ideas (for example, Belinsky); paradoxists who want to cover the entire field of possible ideas (for example, Rozanov). The first burn everything they previously worshiped; the latter worship different and mutually exclusive ideas, enjoy their rapid change or secret affiliation with all opposing countries.
A rethinker - a defector between different camps of thought - does not deserve
nothing but contempt as a traitor.
Yes, I'm a changemaker . If you don’t change your mind, then why bother thinking?
empty Thought - empty thinking, poor in content and meaning.
emptyThought - one who thinks in vain, meaninglessly.
Like many empty-headed people , L. undertook to talk on any topic. But even his most virtuosic improvisation was still idle thinking , the slipping of the thinking machine in those places that are unsuitable for movement, where thought rotates in itself, does not adhere to the soil, the object.
He is not only an empty talker in life, but also an empty talker in his works - literally, not a single thought.
genusThinking - thinking on behalf of a whole kind of people: tribal, national, class.
RodomYsl - an exponent of the thoughts and aspirations of a certain social or ethnic community - clan, homeland; one who assumes the right and responsibility to speak on behalf of the people or other large human community.
Rodomysl strives to speak and think not on his own behalf, but on behalf of the entire community, be it the church, the peasantry, the working class, the Russian people, the intelligentsia, advanced humanity...
The word “ rodimysl ” was introduced by the poet and mystic Daniil Andreev in the book “The Rose of the World. Metaphilosophy of History” (1950 - 1958), where the following definition is given: “Historical figures who have had a powerful and beneficial influence on the destinies of a people or state and are guided in their activities by an inspiring the influence of the ruling hierarchies." In this sense, the genealogists of Russia were the princes. Vladimir and Peter 1.
Do you even understand who you are speaking on behalf of? - Have mercy, I am not a thinker , but just a private thinker, God forbid me from any kind of thought .
compassionate Thought (cf. compassionate) - a thought of the heart, the mind of the heart, the ability to think with the heart.
heartfelt, heartfelt - a person who thinks heartily.
He has a mind, but he doesn’t know how to think with his heart. Meanwhile, what a mentor of young people needs most of all is compassion.In his portrayal of L. Tolstoy, Kutuzov has one advantage over Napoleon: compassion , the ability to perceive and express “the thought of the people” with the heart.
Hearties are a special breed of people who are easy to recognize, but difficult to define. Chaadaev succeeded best of all: “There are people who create a heart for themselves with their minds, others create a mind for themselves with their hearts; the latter succeed more than the former, because there is much more reason in feeling than in the mind of feelings” (“Passages and Aphorisms”). These latter ones, who create a mind for themselves with their hearts, are the hearty ones.
Kindness , or “bringing the mind into the heart” is an old practice of Orthodox hesychasts, but now all art needs such kindness - having filled the chamber of the mind, inhabit it heartily. Or as Grigory Skovoroda put it, “a deep heart, cognizable only to God, is nothing other than the unlimited abyss of our thoughts...” (quoted from the book by V. Ern “G. S. Skovoroda”, M., 1912 , p. 217).
quietness, quietness - a meek, cautious, reserving manner of thinking that does not claim public attention or influence.
quiet Thought, quiet mind - a private thinker who does not claim great generalizations, does not count on a wide circle of readers, writes for himself or a narrow circle of “his own”, lives and thinks in silence.
Yakov Druskin never claimed anyone's attention, not only society, but even a small circle - he was a quiet thinker by vocation.It is necessary to distinguish between slow-wittedness - inertia, inertia of thought - and quiet -mindedness, unhurriedness, leisurelyness, self-absorption. In times of rapid and loud social change, quiet people are considered slow-witted.
ardent Thought - a furious, angry, vengeful, accusatory thought aimed at overthrowing the existing system, violently changing reality.
YaromYsl - a thinker of a furious, flagellating, warlike direction.
Lenin, Trotsky and other ardent thinkers tried to use strong-willed methods and revolutionary violence to reverse the objective trends in the economic development of Russia from feudalism to capitalism.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Our ardent publicists will not utter a word so as not to spray poisonous saliva.
April 21 - Day of Alternatives (Novaya Gazeta)
The day of April 21 did not mark anything special and has not tarnished itself in history. But it stands in the interval between two other memorable dates, which were solemnly celebrated by the most powerful and ferocious regimes of the 20th century. April 20 is Hitler's birthday, April 22 is Lenin's. Accordingly, April 21 marks the thin line between two totalitarian abysses along which humanity, like a narrow bridge, crossed into the 21st century.April 20 - Hitler's BirthdayIt is proposed to celebrate April 21 as an alternative to the totalitarian holidays of the twentieth century, which are still celebrated by admirers of Hitler and Lenin, heirs of their ideas. In post-Soviet times, extremism increasingly unites left and right flanks, bringing together neo-Bolsheviks and Nazis, reds and browns, Leninists and Nazis. Therefore, it is so important to place the breaking point exactly at the point where they meet. Hence the symbolic meaning of this date. April 21 is the day of alternative consciousness, a holiday of challenge to all forms of totalitarianism, all systems of autocracy and like-mindedness, unanimity and like-mindedness.April 21 - Intellectual's Day (Day of Alternative Consciousness)
April 22 - Lenin's birthday
Lenin and Hitler are political and, in a sense, popular leaders, but deeply anti-intellectual. Therefore, April 21 is a holiday of consciousness, which is freed from its ideological chimeras and populist temptations. One of the themes of this holiday is the fight against anti-intellectual sentiments rooted in the authoritarian and totalitarian traditions of Russian history.
Among the many holidays - patriotic, religious, revolutionary, women's, men's, miners', maritime, sports, etc. - there is not a single intellectual of its own (unless you count Teacher’s Day as such). April 21st could become such a holiday. I don’t imagine public processions and festivities on this day, but I imagine a public discussion, an intellectual (not political) dialogue between representatives of different professions and disciplines, schools and trends - in literature, art, philosophy, humanities and natural sciences. Yes, and in politics, but not about politics. (It would be interesting to listen, for example, to the debate between Gryzlov and Zyuganov about Tsvetaeva’s poetry or Nabokov’s prose, or the debate between Doctors of Philosophy Zhirinovsky and Rogozin about Hegel and Husserl - this could add a carnival vibe to the holiday). On this day, intellectuals would come out of their professional cells - not into the streets and squares, but towards each other, into the space of interdisciplinary communication. Competitions would be held - not only for scholars who ran diagonally through all the encyclopedias, but also literary tournaments and competitions of thinkers. It would be possible to revive the traditions of public academic debates and open competitions, such as those held in the 18th and 19th centuries. European academies of sciences (Jean Jacques Rousseau and Arthur Schopenhauer won victories).
April 21 is the day of alternatives, no matter in what intellectual or professional field they appear: alternative pedagogy, aesthetics, poetry, philosophy. This is the day of dissent, dissent, dissent, dissent, all types of dissent, since they form a crack in the monoliths of unanimity, unanimity and unanimity. The very concept of "intelligence" is etymologically related to "inter", "between", and literally means "to read between, to choose between." These “interfaces,” the gaps between public spheres and professions, are filled with alternative thinking, an “intermind” approach. Unlike April 1, April Fools' Day, April 21 is a holiday of thinking people, a day of creative initiatives and smart fun.
The spirit of alternativeness, multivariate creative consciousness could be embodied in so-called collective improvisations. Several people, representatives of different intellectual and creative professions, gather at home or in a club, and everyone proposes a topic for improvisation - or the topics are set by the public. One of several topics is selected by lot or by vote. Then an hour is given - during this time essays, poems, small treatises, musical compositions are written on the chosen topic, acting performances are prepared - in general, any genres can be used. Typically, such a stressful state - time pressure and the unpredictability of the topic - leads to unexpected creative breakthroughs that could not take place in the conditions of measured desk work. What is also important here is the intersection of the coordinates of communication and creativity, the very process of co-thinking, dialogical interaction of different consciousnesses. Everything created during this hour is read out, acted out, shown, discussed. If improvisation takes place in public, winners may be identified and awards may be awarded, but this is a secondary and optional point. The result of collective improvisation is precisely a collection of all different genre incarnations of a given theme, a kind of “final work”, a synthesis of arts, sciences, different ways of writing and self-expression. Another result is an impulse for further, more focused work, prompted by the insights of the improvisational hour. Such collective improvisations were carried out by the Essayists Club in Moscow in the 1980s, and invariably the situation of an open topic and brainstorming generated a surge of inspiration and unexpected results, which could then be developed independently by each participant in accordance with his professional interests. In general, April 21 favors all spontaneous types of creativity, which again makes this holiday an alternative to totalitarianism with its cult of plan and discipline.
We are talking about the revival, or more precisely, the birth in Russia of traditions of intellectual public life, not confined to academic workshops. It is about ensuring that intellect enjoys social prestige, so that not only rock and movie stars rise to the horizon. By the way, America needs this no less than Russia, and there are few places in the modern world where intellectuals have their own holiday. The holiday on April 21 could attract the attention of Russian society to the fate of the intellect, pressed on all sides by both the feudal mentality of strength-honor-service, and the capitalist mentality of profit-use-success
Despite all the shortcomings of the Russian public, one cannot deny its love for the holidays, sometimes excessively. But there are areas that are not covered by holidays at all. In particular, the Internet is a rapidly growing community, which, like any social organism, must have its own rhythms: its own excesses and austerities, feasts and fasts, times of shouting and silence, etc. The most stable and super-temporal of all communities is the church: what a rich orchestration of holidays, fasts, sacraments, what a complexly organized rhythmic calendar! And any properly organized society, from the state to the family, from a trade union unit to a couple in love, has its own rhythm, calendar, ecstasies, labors and pauses... Its own weekdays, holidays and fasts are black , red and white dates.
Intellectual tournaments and collective improvisations on Intellectual's Day can become red dates in the online calendar, like great battles and peace treaties in the civil calendar. And the birthdays of the leader and the Fuhrer will be white dates - verbal fasting, abstinence, commemoration of their victims... So far, the entire Internet calendar is black, everyday, work, ant... We propose to add colored clearings to it, draw red and white on this black board. The life of an Internet community requires a structure of events that gives meaning and articulation to its monotonous buzz.
So, April 21:
- Day of Intellectuals, Day of Alternative Consciousness and Creative Imagination
- Day of challenge to any totalitarian consciousness - fascist, communist, national socialist, religious fundamentalist
- Day of dissent, in whatever area it manifests itself: political, economic, ideological, philosophical, artistic...
This is the festive opportunity of this alternative day.
http://2004.NovayaGazeta.Ru/nomer/2004/27n/n27n-s36.shtml
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Another holiday. Industry of Delight (magazine " Communication ")
The meaning of national holidays cannot be reduced to leisure or entertainment,
it has a much greater relation to the metaphysical side of being, to
what is commonly called the national spirit. Today we,
We are probably on the verge of reform in the system of our holidays, and
Means?..
We asked Mikhail Epstein, a professor of cultural theory and Russian literature at Emory University (USA), to comment on proposals to replace Russian holidays put forward by the State Duma.
---With joy, Russia has the largest deficit. Therefore, the joy industry is not only possible, but deserves the largest investment! Joy must be distinguished from pleasure, which can be instantaneous, and from happiness, the duration of which is life or a significant part of it. Joy is in the middle; It seems to me that this is the most social of all positive emotions. I want to share my joy with others. “Joy, an unearthly flame, / A heavenly spirit that has flown to us, / Intoxicated by you, / We entered your bright temple. / You bring together without effort / All those separated by enmity, / Where you spread your wings, / People are brothers among themselves . / CHORUS: Embrace, millions! / Unite in one joy!” (From F. Schiller’s ode “To Joy”). This is the meaning of the holiday: such joy that you want to hug millions.
As for delight... What confuses me about this concept is precisely the altered state of consciousness, beneficial to all regimes of power. Delight, jubilation, ecstasy - these are already excessive, emotionally overwhelming, drunken feelings, so it is better to experience them alone or in a very close circle, it is not known where they will take you. They have the beginnings of orgy and totalitarianism - in North Korea, everyone does nothing but rejoice. Totalitarianism - Hitlerite, Stalinist, Maoist, Kimirsen-type - perhaps this is a version of the delight industry as an emotional and political opium. Therefore, I would prefer to talk not about delight, but about joy, which can be quiet, calm, understanding, sober.
A holiday is not only intoxication, but also, on the contrary, sobering up from the stultifying, numbing course of everyday life. Joy can both intoxicate and sober, which is why it forms the emotional basis of the holiday. In joy I remain myself, preserved as a person, while delight erupts, takes me away from myself. Enthusiasm easily turns into aggressiveness; these are two sides of an altered state of consciousness, when the feeling of both one’s own and others’ pain is dulled. This is how you see Stalin’s bacchantes and bacchantes rushing across the wide fields and forests of their homeland, tormenting everyone who is a little stranger along the way. If the antonym of joy is grief or suffering, then the antonym of delight is sobriety, self-control. And Russia just needs to strategically combine joy and sobriety, which historically were separated in it: joy turned into official jubilation and orgiastic delight, sweeping away everything in its path, while only suffering and grief sobered up.
In the modern West, especially the United States, the holiday also carries the features of consumer delight, like a commercial event of ecstasy-excess, when more is spent and bought than on ordinary days. Russia cannot avoid this, but since it is just feeling out its system of holidays, it should take a more sober attitude towards this fateful choice.
The joy industry is not only possible, but deserves the biggest investment!
Holidays are a system of metaphysical milestones and orientations of a nation, something in which it finds the meaning of its existence in history. Tell me what you celebrate and I will tell you what you live for. A holiday is something that a nation considers necessary to immortalize in its life and with which to immortalize itself, with which it is ready to appear to God. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to the dates of not only military battles, but also scientific discoveries, artistic achievements, and the dates of birth of the spiritual leaders of the nation - Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Vl. Solovyov, Mendeleev, A. Sakharov, A. Solzhenitsyn, Y. Lotman, S. Averintsev... As the nation matures and becomes more deeply integrated into humanity, the role of spiritual, so to speak, noospheric holidays will increase.
The holiday is a way out of the linear progression of time, and therefore hope for overcoming it, preparation for immortality. A holiday ideally is an experience of immortality here and now. My favorite holiday here in America is Thanksgiving. If we were to borrow any holidays from America, it would be this one, and not Halloween, which is gaining popularity in Russia. /.../
The amendments to the holiday system proposed by the Russian Duma are partially justified. This applies, first of all, to the extension of New Year to 5 days, when the very change of times, the renewal of the world is celebrated, that is, the archetypal essence of the holiday as eternal in time emerges most clearly. You can shorten May Day to one day, a small loss. But the cancellation of the celebration of Constitution Day is a heavy blow to the legal consciousness of a nation that is in the embryonic period of its constitutional development. Honoring the fundamental law of the country is a celebration of the Law as such, its supremacy in the life of the country. If Constitution Day ceases to be celebrated as a holiday, this means that overt or secret preparations for its revision begin, which threatens the country with a new era of lawlessness. Russian Independence Day (June 12) cannot in any way replace Constitution Day (which justifies the abolition of the latter). The very concept of independence in this context needs explanation: from whom/what did Russia free itself on that day? In addition, independence, as a rule, is achieved through a liberation struggle or revolution, while the Constitution has the opposite meaning, establishing a firm order for the life of a liberated nation. Freedom and law are two historically complementary, but not identical concepts.
Particularly surprising is the cancellation of the October holiday, or more precisely, its transfer to November 4 as the day of the liberation of Russia from the Polish conquerors. The question arises, why then not from the Tatar-Mongol yoke, or from the Napoleonic invasion, or from the German invaders during the time of Alexander Nevsky? This is precisely the set of closely related historical events that could be celebrated together on Russian Independence Day. But the memory of the October Revolution, which split the people and destroyed almost half of them, and far from the worst, - there is nothing to replace this memory, it still bleeds in Russian history and makes it so tragic and grandiose in the consciousness of all mankind. It would be criminal to cross out this memory from the calendar. Another thing is that the name “Day of National Reconciliation and Accord” sounds somehow monstrously politically correct, or rather, mockingly, Orwellian in relation to October. It would be worthwhile, keeping this holiday on November 7, to rethink it as the Day of National Repentance or as the Day of Historical Self-Awareness of Russia in order to sharpen the catastrophic meaning of October and the civil war that followed it (which continued into the 1930s in the form of “collectivization”). The holiday of November 7 is a catharsis of a historical catastrophe, overcoming the will to suicide, cleansing the nation from the destructive consequences of internal strife - class or ethnic.
Holidays are a system of metaphysical milestones and orientations of a nation, something in which it finds the meaning of its existence in history
At the same time, the reform of the holiday system should also affect its other aspects. It seems necessary to establish two new spheres or types of festive self-awareness of the nation.
Firstly, it is a holiday of private property, a holiday of boundaries that separate private plots and at the same time unite their owners with a sense of good neighborliness. One of the most important holidays of the Roman Empire was the Day of Terminalia, when the boundaries between private possessions were consecrated, when neighbors made sacrifices of honey and milk to Terminus - the deities of borders, boundary pillars and stones that divided the boundaries of possessions. Terminalia Day fell on February 23, when the USSR and its successor Russian Federation celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day. The origin of this holiday on February 23, 1918 is shrouded in the darkness of historical distortions and substitutions, but it is possible that it arose in indirect connection with the Roman original. It would be worth returning February 23 to its original, broader meaning, corresponding to the current stage of the formation of Russia as a federal state, where not only the imperial borders are sanctified and protected, but also the borders of the provinces, regions, and private estates that make up the empire, and the inviolability of private property as such .
Finally, another holiday that we and all of humanity are sorely lacking in the age of accelerated development of information technology, the noosphere and the entire mental and creative component of civilization is Intellectual's Day.
We have Days of miners, police, aviation, and so on, but the intellectual factor of almost all the achievements of modernity, entering the era of artificial intelligence, remains unrecognized. In Russia, where historically there are strong traditions of anti-intellectualism, distrust of reason and rationality, it would be strategically important to affirm the importance of reason in the historical achievements and prospects of the country. The best calendar date for celebrating Intellectuals' Day appears to be April 21 - the date between the birthdays of Hitler (4/20) and Lenin (4/22), two totalitarian leaders and champions of hatred of intellectuals and intellectualism.
The Day of the Intellectual can become the Day of opposition to any forms of totalitarianism: left and right, communist and fascist, because it is reason, as Pascal said, that is most characterized by self-distrust.
" Message. Technological magazine for humanists ." http://www.soob.ru/n/2004/12/s/4
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Another material on the topic of April 21: Alexander Voznesensky. Holiday offer. Intellectual's Day. " Independent newspaper ".