The article considers the complex of religious and philosophical ideas of N.F. Fedorov, a Russian thinker, who affirmed the ideal of man’s cooperation with God in the transformation of the world, who put forward the idea of history as a “work of salvation”. It is shown that Fedorov’s philosophy of resurrection and regulation is based on the principle of matching goals and means and relies on a subject-subject approach to the world and man, puts Christ’s commandment about love as the basis of social interaction and in that sense is related to the ethics of nonviolence, appealing to the highest principle in man. In the context of comparing the ethics of the common cause and the ethics of nonviolence, as well as the dispute between N.F. Fedorov and L.N. Tolstoy is considered. It is revealed that the philosopher, arguing with the writer, seeks to put the principle of nonviolence in a strong position, combining it with an ideal of active Christianity, overcoming division and fratricide through the return of life to all victims of history. It is also revealed that the main divide between the ethics of the common cause and the ethics of nonviolence runs along the line of faith/disbelief in the possibility of overcoming evil and death altogether. Fedorov’s approach, which opens up the prospect for moving from non-resistance to evil by violence toward overcoming death and discord as inevitable causes and equally inevitable consequences of violence, frees the ideal of nonviolence from internal contradictions and inevitable compromise with distorted social reality. In the light of the ideal of the universal cause, nonviolence becomes the “minimum program” that should lead to the “maximum program”, where the commandment “Thou shalt not kill!” will expand into Christ’s “Raise the dead!”.

The First World War caused a lot of discussion among the Russian intellectuals. Some of which took place as part of the meetings at the Religious and Philosophical Society in St. Petersburg. One of the important stages of the discussion was the report of Zinaida Gippius “History in Christianity”, which she read at the meeting on November 5^th 1914. Zinaida Gippius offered an original interpretation of the issue, demonstrating the difficult way of accepting and overcoming war as a social and metaphysical phenomenon. War, in her opinion, is an unconditional regression, a return to long-outdated ideas and ways of interaction. War is extremely archaic, it is impossible to ascribe any elevated meanings to it. Even if they are declared, the nature of the war does not change. On the contrary, the war, in turn, begins to change everyone who takes part in it. War is a kind of “thing in itself”, a holistic and rigid phenomenon. Nevertheless, according to Zinaida Gippius, the Russian intellectuals should accept the war, even if they have to leave their comfortable intellectual space. After all, it was exactly the intellectuals who failed to prevent the war, and therefore, according to Gippius, bear their part of the responsibility for the fact that the war again became a reality for millions of people.

The article is about the anthropological visibility of Rene Girard, according to which the sacred is inextricably taken together. The issue of violence is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy because it affects not only the individual but is fundamental to all social institutions. There is no unified interpretation for the phenomenon of violence in the humanities, and such discrepancy is manifested in the fact that some researchers still believe that aggression is part of the genetic structure, while others write off violence as a consequence of social factors.
Religion also appears to be a complex phenomenon not entirely understood, despite attempts at synthesized analysis by anthropologists. A natural question arises: is the relationship between religion and violence possible, and if so, how? How can two phenomena so dissimilar at first glance be compared? Meanwhile, the concept of Rene Girard offers such a universal scheme that explains the social purpose of the sacred in connection with the phenomenon of violence.
The article considers how violence affects society and the mechanisms by which society tries to protect itself from violence, such as sacrifice and the subsequent sacralization of the victim.
Also considered are aspects of Girard’s concept such as the role of revenge and judgment, profanity, the contagion of violence, and the language of the sacred.

The article is about the reflection on the book “Powerlessness” by Elena Kosilova a Russian philosopher, who set herself a difficult task: to analyse the phenomenon of the powerlessness from a philosophical point of view. Attention is drawn to the non-triviality of the very statement of the issue. The author postulates powerlessness not as a lack of power, but as a supreme value, contrasting it with Nietzschean “will to power”. She also considers such aspects such as the existential attitude to powerlessness; the relation between powerlessness and consciousness, understanding and thinking; finally, powerlessness and asceticism and powerlessness and human subjectivity. The paper is describing the states that allow the subject to exist in the world under the condition of an attitude of powerlessness: escapism, values, passivity, understood as being before and open to the Other, and finally, the ability to say “no”. The paradox of the powerlessness attitude is emphasised. The powerlessness requires great strength and will on the part of the subject, even if those will and strength are invisible to the observer.

The paper reveals theoretical approaches to the development of the ideas of the social contract in the works by Paul Holbach and their significance for nowadays. The author of the article draws attention to such relevant provisions of Holbach’s works for today’s realities as criticism of absolutism, ideological control, social evils of power, the need to develop and support the middle class, etc. It is shown that Holbach understands mutually beneficial, voluntary interaction between a citizen and the state based on mutual rights and obligations as the basis of a social contract. Proceeding from the ideas of P. Holbach, the author of the article considers the possibilities of voluntary subordination of the country’s citizens to the social contract through such indicators as: solidarity with the policy of state power, trust in the authorities, political and social institutions, and persons personifying them, satisfaction with life and the state of affairs in the country, a sense that the state acts in the interests of all citizens.

The article deals in the key aspects of the concept of the social contract by J.J. Rousseau. According to which, a social contract is an unspoken agreement between individuals based on their voluntary choice, acceptance of a certain social order. The fairness of the social contract is ensured by the principle of equality of all before the law, which allows creating equal conditions for all, which in turn is a real common good, beneficial to everyone. As a result of the conclusion of a social contract, the people become the sovereign, the only legitimate bearer of supreme power in the state. People’s sovereignty is realized through the implementation of the general will, which reflects what is common in various individual interests, and is oriented towards the common good. The people as a sovereign can revise the forms of government and change them.
An important condition for compliance with the social contract and its effective functioning is reliance on the opinion and unanimous will of the majority and the requirement of obedience to it, even if it contradicts the individual will. Serving society and its interests should be the primary concern of citizens, who are required to have an active civic position, readiness and actual participation in the life of society, in lawmaking.

The article considers the theory of the social contract by T. Hobbes, based on the ideas of achieving and maintaining social order through, in fact, the absolute power of the state in the person of the sovereign. Hobbes’ ideas have regained relevance in conditions of extreme uncertainty of the further development of mankind, in conditions of declining popularity of the liberal model of governance, democratic institutions of power, the diminished efficiency of which is clearly demonstrated in emergency situations. Social order arises from the situation of appointing the sovereign as an arbitrator, not only for the balance of private interests, but also because citizens should perceive him as an instance of truth. In addition, Hobbes’ idea of achieving and ensuring security through the state becomes extremely suitable for the implementation of modern concepts of state security related to the possibility of total citizen control, with the degree of tolerance for the interference in the lives of citizens.

The paper provides an evidence-based substantiation for the existence of the ideas of a social contract in the works by Alexis de Tocqueville. The author analyzes the conditions of a prosperous state in the context of a democratic regime idealized by Tocqueville: equality of conditions for the existence of people, freedom, functioning institutions of civil society, patriotic spirit, religious independence, the principle of democracy. He also formulated specific indicators of social consent according to A. de Tocqueville, among which he considers the level of education and the equalization of people’s living conditions to be the fundamental ones. Based on the ideas of A. de Tocqueville, the author of the article considers the vices of a democratic society that provoke negative consequences and thus hinder the development of social harmony: selfishness, isolation, one’s own independence and concern for personal well-being. The final block presents the predictions of the great thinker, which are relevant in the modern world.

The article considers the special military operation (SVO) as one of the deepest and most acute military crises in the social history of Russia. Based on qualitative and quantitative empirical data at the all-Russian level, the complexity of the social situation of Russians in the combat zone and on the territory of municipalities is revealed and justified. Features of the behavior of various subjects showing solidarity and social responsibility for large-scale opposition to the Nazis and Western anti-Russian aggression are presented.

The historical-genetic connection between the narrative structures of fairy tales and initiation rites was defined by V.Ya. Propp in “Historical Roots of the Magic Fairy Tale” (1946) and became a milestone in the development of both humanitarian knowledge in general and the science of cinema in particular. The scholar’s idea that the composition of a magic fairy tale goes back to the initiation rite and the myths accompanying it as a source of vital information, and in the cultural and historical context of the ritual practices of primitive societies and life itself, is no less significant than the discovery of the linear order of the syntagmatic deployment of the functions of the actors constituting the invariant set of motifs of a magic fairy tale, made by him in “Morphology of the Fairy Tale” (1928). The article uses the example of Frank Perry’s film “The Swimmer” (1968) to prove the usefulness of both Propp’s books for the development of film analysis as an analysis of cinematic identity.

Russian emigration in China saw only mass entertainment cinema, but its clichéd plots were used as a facade for the deployment of sorrowful, tragic or tragicomic stories that required an ironic look at the usual visualizations of everyday life. The very historical situation of the Russian emigration demanded that the banal be turned into the starting point of a tragic experience. As the examination of subject-thematic complexes in the literature of Russian China, primarily through the work of Alexandra Parkau, shows, cinema was thought of as a mediator between the experience of the shadows of the past and the perception of contemporary émigré life as unreliable. Parkau reconstructs the image of Russian Christmas with its masquerades, but also creates an image of the sudden changes in the lives of Russians in China. The techniques of Hollywood cinema, both narrative and visual, prove to be the principle that binds together these two imaginative orders, which cannot be reconciled through a conventional narrative.

K. Nolan’s Oppenheimer subdues the biographical film to the poetics of the graphic novel: the rhetorical construction of the frame composition and the acceleration of the action are combined with the conventional roles of the characters. The film is framed by a double consequence: black-and-white shots of the official process include a public dispute (agora) and construct a simple protagonist, while imitating old film color shots of a biased conversation between professionals reconstruct him as a complex one and block cross-examination. Such ambiguity is also supported by the graphic novel-inspired unambiguity of the roles of his older colleagues: the brooding Einstein and the extroverted Niels Bohr. The erotic economy of the Los Alamos desert development allows us to organize most of the film’s scenes theatrically, in a stage box, thus postponing the resolution of the question of the fate of the Oppenheimer dossier. In doing so, often archaic mediums of information, subordinate to the medium of the railroad, prove key to understanding the protagonist’s actions. These mediums transform the rhetoric of the deed into the poetics of the deed.

Internet memes are an integral part of online communication, reflecting the mood of a part of society through the combination of image, text and implied context of use. Memes based on pictorial works make it possible to fit the paintings of old masters into the context of contemporary social discussions. Memes reinterpreting the legacy of Hieronymus Bosch have a distinctive place in the system of such knowledge of art, which is supported by the fact that the artist belonged to two epochs at a time, the Middle Ages and early Modern Times, which allows the Web user to recode meanings more actively. Based on the concept of the Internet meme as a creolized text, the semantic productivity of referring to Bosch’s legacy is discovered. It is demonstrated that the perception of Bosch is not reduced to an emphasis on the strangeness or ambiguity of his images. On the contrary, the users of the Web penetrate beyond the surface of individual images and uncover the reflection in them of the crisis epoch, in particular, of the aesthetic and ethical breakdown. Bosch’s images allow for the interpretation of an unpredictable world and new ethical imperatives of social life.