The article delves into the life and endeavors of Gennady Mikhailovich Shimanov (1937–2014), a relatively unknown to the wide audience yet a profoundly intriguing thinker, Orthodox publicist and dissident of the Soviet and post‑Soviet eras. It provides an overview of his biography and creative journey, highlighting his atypical position within the dissident and human rights movement, which predominantly leaned towards liberalism. In general, Shimanov’s beliefs revolved around practicing Orthodoxy during the Soviet era, Christian socialism, and Russian nationalism. The article focuses on Shimanov’s historiosophical prediction in the 1970s, suggesting the transformation of the Soviet state into an Orthodox theocracy, and the subsequent debates within the dissident literature of that time. Unusual for that period was Shimanov’s conviction in the necessity of maintaining loyalty to the Soviet state even on the part of dissidents. The article also touches upon Shimanov’s post‑Soviet creative works and their character, notably after the collapse of the USSR when his expectations starkly failed to fulfill, or fulfilled in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, other successful ideas and predictions by Shimanov are acknowledged. For example, those regarding the detrimental consequences that the country and society would experience if the liberal approach was chosen as the way out of the historical impasse of the Soviet era. The article also notes weaknesses in Shimanov’s ideologies, particularly evident in the post‑Soviet years: painful antisemitism, excessive social interpretation in understanding of Christianity, and ideological engagement. Simultaneously, the article acknowledges positive aspects of his ideas, namely his focus on national and family issues that heavily impacted the future of the Russian people.

The paper attempts to review the mindset and ideological foundations of the works by the Soviet writer and publicist Vladimir Chivilikhin, whose novel‑essay “Memory” was not only a phenomenon in the Russian Soviet literary process of the second half of the 20th century, but also served as an occasion for a broad public discussion, which allows us to consider it as the significant event of public life and the basis for analyzing the intellectual discourse of the late Soviet era. At the same time, the research is based not only on the author’s fiction and journalistic works, but also on personal materials (diaries, letters, memoirs) and is conducted in the context of social and ideological problems of the last decades of the Soviet period.

The article takes the process of changing attitudes to the creative heritage of Alexander Pushkin in the Soviet state as the subject of research. The goal of the research is to reveal the role played by the heritage of Alexander Pushkin in the policy of the so‑called “cultural revolution” and to what extent it contributed to the revolution’s success. Within the framework of this goal, the following tasks were set: to identify which political circumstances influenced the process under review, how strong was the overestimation of the significance of Pushkin’s creative heritage, what role it played against the background of ideological education. The task was also to consider specific events and, first of all, the 100th anniversary of the poet’s death as the moment of the final consolidation of Pushkin’s top position in the pantheon of Russian classics. The novelty of the research consists in considering changes in the attitude towards Pushkin and his creative heritage in conjunction with changes in theoretical objectives that determined the cultural development of the country. In the course of the research, the following conclusions were successfully reached. Despite the paramount importance of the theory of “two cultures” and the ideological attitudes of the Soviet government in its early years, in terms of which Pushkin as a representative of the exploiter class had to be criticized, there was no complete denial of his creative work even among the representatives of the Proletkult (the Proletarian Culture movement). At the time the cultural uniformity was established through the use of the only possible artistic method — socialist realism with highly valued ideologic content, simplicity and concreteness — models for inspiration were actively looked for. Eventually, the simplicity and national spirit of Pushkin’s characters managed to satisfy the demands in the best way possible. Despite the fact that the preparation and celebration of the Pushkin jubilee in 1937 were held according to the rules set by ideological campaigns, it had a tremendous positive effect and introduced Pushkin’s works to the broad masses of people. Pushkin’s creativity captivated millions of people. From there, we can say that the cultural development of the Soviet Union cannot be perceived one‑sidedly.

This article is dedicated to the phenomenon of the Russian movement in the second half of the 20th century — the successors of the political programs of pre‑revolutionary conservatives and post‑revolutionary emigrant conservative thinkers that emerged in the 1960s in the USSR. In this sense, the Russian movement, mainly consisting of dissidents and having an anti‑communist orientation, is contrasted with the so‑called legal Russian party, which attempted to connect the values of pre‑revolutionary Russia with the Soviet period and see it as an organic continuation and embodiment of the former. The history and activities of the All‑Russian Society of Cultural and Historical Heritage and its members I. V. Ogurtsov, V. N. Osipov, and their self‑published journal “Veche”, as well as A.I. Solzhenitsyn and I. R. Shafarevich, are examined. The ideology of the All‑Russian Society of Cultural and Historical Heritage is analyzed, including its attitude towards revolution, economic positions, critique of Marxism‑Leninism, foundations of the desired Christian‑social corporative system, and program of Christianizing society. The key milestones in the history of the journal “Veche” and the almanac “Moscow Collection” are presented. The role of priest Dmitry Dudko in the development of the Russian movement is reviewed. Special attention in the article is given to A.I. Solzhenitsyn, whom the author considers the most influential and key figure in the Russian conservative movement of the second half of the 20th century. The ideological content of the collection “From Under the Rubble” is examined, with Solzhenitsyn and Shafarevich being the central authors. The author concludes that the organizational destruction of the Russian movement in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and early 1980s predetermined the course of Russian history, paving the way for liberal‑Western forces preparing for the restructuring and radical reforms of the 1990s. As a result, during the critical period for the country from 1987 to 1993, the Russian movement did not produce any universally recognized leaders who could offer an alternative to the liberal course of the country. Nevertheless, the intellectual developments of the Russian movement in subsequent decades have been in demand within the conservative political camp and continue to be so to this day.

The relevance of the topic of the article is largely determined by stereotypical judgments about the philosophic nature of the Russian literary tradition, the inclusion of the issues raised in the problems of constantly renewed disputes about the loss of this quality in the era of socialist realism, discussions about the historical and literary status of the “Bronze Age”, when the leaders of the literary process, contrary to the already established ideas about the “thaw era”, the traditionalist writers have become the same. The author focuses on the plays of the outstanding Russian playwright Alexander Vampilov. The analytical approach is based on the topical analysis of the literary text. Topos is considered as a “structural and semantic model” (P. E. Bukharkin, I. V. Annenkova, etc.), which in the case of Vampilov has several levels of textual embodiment: the “genetic roof” of the character’s name, during the creation of which the artist restored the ancient Russian Orthodox tradition of naming; the memory motif, fixinga multi‑stage process of loss and restoration of memories; foreign genre inclusions, in particular, in the text of the play “Last Summer in Chulimsk”, the playwright used the genre of legend as a form of existence of national memory. The main conclusion: the most complex literary topos of memory, the variability of which does not prevent us from presenting the national mentality as a kind of integrity formed under the influence of the Orthodox tradition, is presented in the creative heritage of A. V. Vampilov as a special type of moral imperative, the semantic structure of which is determined by the national (historical, cultural) and personal memory, which illuminated the life of a Russian person at all times, even in the Soviet era, which is considered to be indiscriminately atheistic.

The article is dedicated to the creative works of the renowned Russian and Soviet artist Pavel Dmitrievich Korin. The author of the article aims to show that the central concept of the artist — his “Farewell to Rus” — never saw the light of day, but still culturally endured, defining our metaphysical coordinates in post‑revolutionary Russia. Korin’s works focused on timeless meanings, the very soul of the people, rather than on localized historical episodes or related heroes. At his extreme, Korin was oriented towards the “everlasting Russia” — those fundamental foundations of our consciousness that remain unaffected by the vicissitudes of history. Drawing parallels between the ideological and aesthetic similarities between Mikhail Nesterov’s “The Soul of the People” and Pavel Korin’s “Farewell to Rus”, the author conducts their detailed analytical comparison. The author concludes that unlike Nesterov, Korin painted the tragic moment of losing the essence in its totality. In the author’s opinion, the comprehensive symbolism is equally characteristic of Korin’s well‑known triptychs and mosaic panels adorning the Moscow subway stations. By analyzing specific images, the author demonstrates how Korin, through painterly means, expressed the philosophy of victory.