2014.1

This article is devoted to one of the aspects of Early Afghan Literature studies — functioning of poetic incorporation in the first extant prosaic literature work in Pashto — “Dastar-nama” or “Book of Turban” by Khushkhal-khan Khattak (1613–1689). The aim of the article is to define main characteristics and functions of poetic inserts in “Dastar-nama” and determine the means of interaction between prose and poetry in a single artistic space. Such problem definition is quite actual as prose-and-poetic works are widely spread in all classic literatures of the Middle East (Arabic, Persian, Turkish etc.). Still, the problem of poetic inserts’ roles and objectives is insufficiently explored. Thus, this article analyzing the material of Afghan Literature contributes to the creation of instrumental basis for further medieval prose-and-poetic pieces’ functioning analysis.

The paper centers on finding a “common ground” in the works of such authors working in the mainstream of postmodern and avant-garde trends as Vladimir Sorokin and Yu Hua. The analysis is conducted from the point of view of the general ontological foundations of their works, their aesthetic guidelines and the immediate implementation of afore-mentioned in the textual reality. Thus stable complexes with a clear predominance of artistic phenomena of the grotesque and the absurd are revealed.

The article proves, on the base of the comparative analysis of Elif Shafak’s two novels (“Pinkhan”, 1997 and “Love”, 2009), that post-modernist rizoma has been structured hardly by its own fundamental principles (discourse decentration, reality textualisation, images simulativity, denial of historism, etc.) and is realized in the writer’s texts through stereotype artistic devices (characters’ way-inicialization, recital “narrativization”, “déjà vu”, parallelism, hybrid “past-present-future” time and so on) which are intensively used by other Turkish post-modernist writers.

The type of bilingualism and multilingualism of the urban intellectual elites in India is absolutely different from the bilingualism of the intellectual elite formed by previous generations. In spite of the permanent increase in the number of people identifying themselves as “native speakers” of various Indian languages and in spite of the role of the official propaganda claiming to provide support to mother tongues and especially to Hindi, the role of mother tongues as tools of expressing intellectual demands of the speakers and of preserving cultural traditions of the society is rapidly decreasing. The symmetrical type of bilingualism of the “parents” is gradually substituted by the recessive bilingualism of the younger generation.

The paper covers political and legal aspects of the religious conflict in Ayodhya with a focus on 2010 verdict of the Allahabad High Court as well as the attitude of Indians to the conflict proper. The paper analyzes Bharatiya Janata Party’s electoral campaign on the eve of 2014 parliamentary elections and its potential impact on the conflict.

The paper analyses the dynamics of the transformation of Turkey’s party and political system from the 1980s to the early 2010s according to five variables: voter activity, electoral volatility, fragmentation of party system (effective number of parties), level of political competition, and proportionality of party representation in parliament. The growing stabilization of Turkey’s party and political system makes increasingly difficult for any new political party to find an electoral niche and facilitates the migration of electorate between old parties. Reformation of the party and political system and creation of a new matrix for political life forced the opposition to search both the new strategies of political struggle and new approaches towards electorate and to revise both party ideology and programs.

The article traces the history of the emergence and distribution Arab movies in the Soviet Union. It discloses the content of the melodramatic genre films and the reasons for their success with audiences. Also it reflects the radical changes and the current state of Russian film market, tells about the Arab feature films of recent years.