To avoid post-neurosurgical language deficits, intraoperative mapping of the language function in the brain can be complemented with preoperative mapping with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The validity of an fMRI “language localizer” paradigm crucially depends on the choice of an optimal language task and baseline condition. This study presents a new fMRI “language localizer” in Russian using overt sentence completion, a task that comprehensively engages the language function by involving both production and comprehension at the word and sentence level. The paradigm was validated in 18 neurologically healthy volunteers who participated in two scanning sessions, for estimating test–retest reliability. For the first time, two baseline conditions for the sentence completion task were compared. At the group level, the paradigm significantly activated both anterior and posterior language-related regions. Individual-level analysis showed that activation was elicited most consistently in the inferior frontal regions, followed by posterior temporal regions and the angular gyrus. Test–retest reliability of activation location, as measured by Dice coefficients, was moderate and thus comparable to previous studies. Test–retest reliability was higher in the frontal than temporo-parietal region and with the most liberal statistical thresholding compared to two more conservative thresholding methods. Lateralization indices were expectedly left-hemispheric, with greater lateralization in the frontal than temporo-parietal region, and showed moderate test-retest reliability. Finally, the pseudoword baseline elicited more extensive and more reliable activation, although the syllable baseline appears more feasible for future clinical use. Overall, the study demonstrated the validity and reliability of the sentence completion task for mapping the language function in the brain. The paradigm needs further validation in a clinical sample of neurosurgical patients. Additionally, the study contributes to general evidence on test–retest reliability of fMRI.
Geopolitical interventions since the end of the 1980s—such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, a decline in the activities of state-owned coal companies, and governmental initiatives to increase tourism activities—have affected the community viability of two main settlements on Svalbard: Barentsburg and Longyearbyen. This paper explores how the residents of these settlements (with different cultural backgrounds) perceive the effects of socioeconomic transitions on community viability. The analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of Barentsburg (n = 62) and Longyearbyen (n = 36) reveals the residents’ perceptions of the pace of the transition and the changing community composition. New types of commercial activities, such as tourism, contribute to local value creation and socioeconomic development but come with concerns grounded in community fluctuation, environmental protection, economic prioritisation, and power relationships. Compared to Longyearbyen, Barentsburg has undergone relatively minor demographic and social changes and remains stable in terms of culture, language, and management practices. We conclude that the viability of Longyearbyen and Barentsburg during the transition was affected by community dynamics and fluctuations, social relationships within and between communities, and local institutional practices.
Ample evidence suggests that monolingual adults can successfully generate lexical and morphosyntactic predictions in reading and that correct predictions facilitate sentence comprehension. In this eye-tracking corpus reading study, we investigate whether the same is true for reading in heritage language. Specifically, we ask whether heritage speakers (HSs) of Russian are able to anticipate lexical and/or morphosyntactic information of the upcoming words in the sentence and whether they differ in the predictions from monolingual children and L2 learners. We are also interested in whether the literacy level (i.e., Russian literacy experience or reading fluency in English) influences lexical and morphosyntactic prediction. Our results indicate that HSs as well as other groups were able to anticipate the specific lexical item, and the ability was contingent on the Russian literacy experience and reading fluency in dominant English as evident in some of the early and late eye-tracking measures. Similar to children and L2 learners, the word class and the verb number predictability affected reading times in HSs, but HSs were the only group to anticipate the number of the upcoming noun. We discuss findings in respect to the utility account of the bilingual prediction and divergent attainment trajectory of the heritage language development.
The article is devoted to one of the most painful problems encountered by any absolute monarchy – the problem of the transfer of power. Taking the example offered by 18th-century Russian history, the author explores the contradiction between the need to frame a law that would strictly regulate the rules of succession to the throne, and the desire of the reigning emperor to identify the law with his own personal will and his exclusive prerogative of appointing a successor. This contradiction was most clearly expressed in the draft papers of Catherine II, who, while having a clear understanding of the full force of the “fundamental” rules that work to stabilise society, simultaneously did not regard her son as a worthy successor of her policy. The Empress’s views are investigated on the basis of archival sources, several of which are introduced into academic circulation here for the first time, and are evaluated in the historical perspective of their relationship to the 1722 Charter on succession to the throne in previous reigns, a period that has come to be known in historiography as the “era of palace coups”. The question of the extent of the power of the ruling monarch is examined as part of the broader problem of the essence of autocracy.
The study presents the first systematic comparison of the global reading processes via scanpath analysis in Russian-speaking children with and without reading difficulties. First, we compared basic eye-movement characteristics in reading sentences in two groups of children in grades 1 to 5 (N = 72 in high risk of developmental dyslexia group and N = 72 in the control group). Next, using the scanpath method, we investigated which global reading processes these children adopt to read the entire sentence and how these processes differ between the groups. Finally, we were interested in the timeframe of the change in the global reading processes from the 1st to the 5th grades for both groups. We found that the main difference in word-level measures between groups was the reading speed reflected in fixation durations. However, the examination of the five identified global reading processes revealed qualitative similarities in reading patterns between groups. Children in the control group progressed quickly and by the 4th grade engaged in an adult-like fluent reading process. The high-risk group started with the beginner reading process, then similar to first graders in the control group, engaged mostly in the intermediate and upper-intermediate reading processes in 2nd to 4th grades. They reach the advanced process in the 5th grade, the same pattern preferred by the control group second graders. Overall, the scanpath analysis reveals that although there are quantitative differences in the word-level eye-tracking measures between groups, qualitatively children in the high-risk group read on par with typically developing peers but with a 3-year reading delay.
The article analyses representations of territories of Russian Empire in the funeral ceremonies of Alexander I. The emperor died at the end of 1825 in a small town far from the imperial capital where he was to be buried. The journey of the funeral cortege to St. Petersburg took several months. The cortege passed through several provinces of southern and central Russia and a number of large cities. A month after Alexander I was finally buried in St. Petersburg, Warsaw, the capital of the Kingdom of Poland as part of the Russian Empire since 1815, saw a special event - the symbolic funeral of the monarch.
Memorial events in provincial Russia, its capital, and in the recently acceded Kingdom of Poland, which still preserved its peculiar political character, was part of a single process. At the same time, similar events, such as funeral processions commemorating Alexander I had something special about them. Those on solemn processions carried banners with their provincial arms and the royal crowns of the Russian empire. They walked in a specific order which superimposed the political imagery of a territory onto the symbolism of local and imperial social hierarchy. By following the emperor’s coffin, the locals set up a narrative of themselves and their place in the empire.
I argues that numerous surviving accounts of these ceremonies allow us to see several interpretations of the hierarchy of Russian lands. It gives us as possibility to compare the standpoints of the central and regional authorities, and to see when and how much they were similar or different.
The chapter is devoted to a concept of (visual) image in Juri Lotman's semiotic theory, especially in his works on visuality and cinema studies.
The purpose of the present research was to comprehensively assess the language abilities of Russian primary-school-aged children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), varying in non-verbal IQ, at all linguistic levels (phonology, lexicon, morphosyntax, and discourse) in production and comprehension. Yet, the influence of such non-language factors as chil-dren's age, the severity of autistic traits, and non-verbal IQ on language functioning was studied. Our results indicate a high variability of language skills in children with ASD (from normal to impaired) which is in line with the previous studies. Interestingly, the number of children with normal language abilities was related to the linguistic levels: according to more complex morphosyntax and discourse tests, fewer children with ASD were within the normal range unlike the results in simpler phonological and lexical tests. Importantly, we found that language abilities were best predicted by non-verbal IQ but were independent from age and the severity of autistic traits. The findings support the claim that formal language assessment of children with ASD needs to include all linguistic levels, from phonology to discourse, for helping speech-language therapists to choose an appropriate therapy target.
Unlike stroke, neurosurgical removal of left-hemisphere gliomas acts upon a reorganized language network and involves brain areas rarely damaged by stroke. We addressed whether this causes the profiles of neurosurgeryand stroke-induced language impairments to be distinct. K-means clustering of language assessment data (neurosurgery cohort: N = 88, stroke cohort: N = 95) identified similar profiles in both cohorts. But critically, a cluster of individuals with specific phonological deficits was only evident in the stroke but not in the neurosurgery cohort. Thus, phonological deficits are less clearly distinguished from other language deficits after glioma surgery compared to stroke. Furthermore, the correlations between language production and comprehension scores at different linguistic levels were more extensive in the neurosurgery than in the stroke cohort. Our findings suggest that neurosurgery-induced language impairments do not correspond to those caused by stroke, but rather manifest as a ‘moderate global aphasia’ – a generalized decline of language processing abilities.
The Image of an American Woman in Russian Poetry of the 20th Century
The article is devoted to the poetics of Alexey Parshchikov in the light of information theory and its cultural implications.
It is widely accepted in academic literature that, due to the marriages of Peter the Great and his brother Ivan V, each of their respective fathers-in-law received the same new name of Feodor. he present work offers a different perspective on this onomastic event — it is considered in a broader context of the evolution of the naming system in Russia, both in dynastic and non- dynastic practice of the 1бth–17th centuries, with a particular focus on the anthroponymic strategies of Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič, who became one of the subverters of the tradition of medi- eval multinominality.
Commented and translated correspondence of Venedikt Erofeev
Collective monograph about Venedikt Erofeev
Enforced balance between the stances of an official Soviet writer and an inner emigrant generates a special poetics of compromise (ambiguity) common to many V. P. Aksyonov’s works of the Era of Stagnation. The focus of this article is the question how this poetics was implemented in the inherently ambivalent genre of travelogue, based on two case studies, his American essays Around the Clock Non-Stop (1976) and his novel In Search of a Genre (1978).
The article examines N. Gumilyov’s attitude towards T. Gautier and P. Verlaine and traces the origin of the opposition between these French poets. The author refutes the thesis that Gumilyov’s opinion of Verlaine softened over time, and proves that it remained unchanged, albeit contradictory.
This book introduces to the readers private letters addressed by mid-nineteenth century “public women” to the famous Russian literary critics and publicists N.A. Dobrolyubov, N.G. Chernyshevsky, and others. The ajority of these documents, preserved in the archives of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tartu and written in Russian, German, and French, belong to the pen of two women with whom Dobrolyubov had a relationship — Teresa Karlovna Grünwald, a St. Petersburg "public woman", and Émilie Tellier, a Parisian. The volume also contains a handful of letters from other St. Petersburg and Parisian women who earned their bread by prostitution. The documents are published both in their original languages and in Russian translation and accompanied by an extensive commentary, as well as an introduction that offers an overview of the lives and fates of T.K. Grünwald and E. Tellier, their relationship with N.A. Dobrolyubov, and everyday life.
The book is intended both for scholars in the fields of historical and cultural studies, as well as the general audience.
First publication of Alexey Kruchenykh's album ‘zzZudo’ (1921 – 1927, 1962 – 1964). The publication is accompanied by a scholar commentary and an introductory article. The introductory article explores the constructive principles of the futuristic album, the correlation of the temporal and semantic levels of the text, the etymology of the title and the linguistic experiments of Alexey Kruchenykh.