There are two main strategies for a world view formation in a literary work: the first one is direct, when the writer focuses on the national reality itself recreating it as a self-sufficient phenomenon independent of «someone else’s view»; the second one is «reverse». Its main feature is that the world view is formed in the process of a constant comparison with another culture, exploring and evaluating their own culture through the eyes of a foreigner. In Western European literature, the direct strategy is extremely dominant, whereas in Latin American literature, the reverse strategy has acquired the significance it has never had in the European one. It is proved by two ways in which the reverse strategy manifests itself: the first one is «looking outside», that is, the assertion of the uniqueness of Latin American reality through its juxtaposition with the European one; the second one is «looking from outside», which offers the perception of Latin American reality by an «outsider». The question arises: what factors have determined the dominance of the reverse strategy in Latin American literature? One of the reasons is that the latter has evolved by absorbing and processing the European literary patterns: this path of evolution is defined as «the search for one’s own in someone else’s». But this is not the only factor. Since the 16th century, the era of the birth of Latin American culture, the mode of perception of America has been formed as the opposition of the New World to the Old World and contained the motive of amazement at the «miraculous» reality, which was preserved in the genetic memory of culture materializing in the 20th century as magic realism.

The diversity of Latin American hats is determined by the climatic and geographical characteristics of the area of residence of different nations, as well as socio-economic factors, however, inter-ethnic ties play a key role, as well as the historically accumulated cultural experience of the ethnic group, which is reflected in the national costume. The purpose of this study is to substantiate the thesis that the headdress, in addition to protective, informational, aesthetic and other functions, has a function of self-identification and, as a result, an educational function, which consists in transfering from generation to generation the knowledge about national culture and history, as well as in the formation in the subconscious of younger generations of ethnodifferentiating and ethno-consolidating signs. To achieve this goal, methods of description, comparison and observation, classic for cultural research, as well as a hypothetical-deductive method are used. Studying the history of the emergence and peculiarities of hat-wear in a number of countries in Latin America, as well as comparing them with each other, it is concluded that the Latin American hats concentratively reflects the worldview of the people. It is a kind of cultural metasymbol, through which the transfer of spiritual values takes place and the mechanism of ethnocultural self-identification of the people is preserved. Being an element of the national costume, one of the forms of public consciousness, it reflects reality, but in a special way, being a carrier of both national and personal, as well as class cultural values. Wearing a hat is not just a tradition for Ecuadorians, Bolivians, Mexicans, Colombians and other peoples of the region. The headdress represents a symbol of the commonality of the nation.

The article deals with the impact of the Russian immigration and the activities undertaken by the Russian Orthodox Church on the Argentine Republic. The aim of the article is to assess the contribution made by the Russian migrants to the formation and history of the Argentine nation. From 1881 to 1914, more than 4.2 million migrants moved to Argentina, with the Russians being the fourth largest group. By 1914, the migrants accounted for 30% of the population (3.9% were Russians); thus, Argentina was developing as a country of immigration. Today, by contrast, Argentina is becoming a country of emigration, as there is a worrying human capital outflow. Therefore, it is useful to recall and evaluate the positive potential of the Russian migration to Argentina. The methodological basis of the article comprises the induction, the logical intuitive method, the method of periodization, the historical interpretative method and the institutional approach. The article examines Argentina’s policy of attracting migrants, its reasons and the response to this policy in the form of six waves of migration from Russia to Argentina. It analyses the contribution of the representatives of the waves to the industrial and intellectual areas in Argentina, and the impact of the immigration flows on the country’s identity. It also considers the historical and contemporary influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Argentine religious field. It is concluded that the Russian migration contributed to the development of the Argentine rural and urban areas, culture and science, as well as reinforced Argentina’s identity as a multi-ethnic and multicultural, arrogant and self-critical country. The Russian Orthodox Church historically has been the centre of the Russian diaspora´s cultural life in Argentina, and at present it has undertaken numerous cultural and religious initiatives facilitating the intercultural dialogue.

Fado, sometimes called Portuguese urban romance, is a cultural phenomenon whose meaning goes far beyond this definition and generally beyond the framework of musical culture at all. It has become an important part of the traditional culture of Portugal, an iconic element of the image of the country, having gone through several phases of evolution in its relatively short (slightly less than two centuries) history. Having arisen and being at the initial stage an element of the folklore of the urban lower classes of Lisbon, fado later underwent cultural appropriation by the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, who saw in it the features of the national spirit and the expression of the mentality of the Portuguese. In particular, it was associated with such properties of the national character, which are generalised in the concept of «saudade» – melancholic or tragic longing for the distant, unattainable, often gone into the past. On the other hand, fado was condemned and stigmatised as a low genre associated with marginal strata, as well as with the backwardness and decline of the country. In the first half of the 20th century, the professionalisation and prestige of the fado is increasing, it penetrates the theatre scene, grows popular with the general public, becomes famous abroad. To a large extent, this is due to the innovations of a new generation of authors and performers, in particular, Alfredo Marceneiro, Hermínia Silva and Amália Rodrigues, sometimes defined as the «fado triangle». The significance of fado for Portuguese and world culture was marked by its inclusion in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2011.

Cuban Spanish, its colloquial variety included, is quite a peculiar, perhaps a unique phenomenon. Fruit of the unique history of the Cuban ethnic community, the Cuban colloquial speech has become an amalgam of imprints of many languages, as well as of a host of ethnic and religious traditions. Here, as nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere, with the exception, perhaps, of Brazil, the African heritage stayed very much alive and came afloat first in the language of the Afro-Cuban community as a whole, and then in Cuban Spanish as such. And yet other sources of colloquial Cuban should also be mentioned: first, the colloquial speech of native Spaniards, which were plenty on the Island before the Revolution of 1959 and contributed a lot to the patterns of word-formation in Cuban; and, finally, two more elements: the Portuguese one and the Gipsy one, as units thereof have found a prominent place among the most commonly used Cuban colloquialisms.

In accordance with the affirmation expressed by the British linguist David Crystal that «language is the primary index, or symbol, or register of identity», this article examines the meaning of the word chino in Mexico as «curly hair» which, unlike all Spanish-speaking countries, has a private and peculiar meaning to this nation, being the hallmark of its identity. Different sources, both lexicographical and theoretical, are analyzed regarding this meaning and it is concluded that this meaning has to do with the miscegenation that occurred in New Spain, particularly among Indian women with black men, who, according to different names of the castes, derived in the so-called «chino» due to the predominance of the black gene in the blood, which gave them the African physical characteristics, among which is, precisely, the curly hair, and, based on this distinctive feature, the meaning of «curly hair» became general and began to be used to name all people with curly hair without necessarily having African features, a designation that is still actively used among Mexicans.

The article focuses on several cases in the history of Russian-Spanish diplomatic relations during the Spanish War of Independence, especially during the first year of the Alliance treaty between the two powers. Basing on the Russian and Spanish archives, the author studies the interaction of Pavel Mohrenheim and Yuly Wallenstein, Russian diplomats in Spain, with Antonio Ugarte y Larrazábal, the Spanish bureaucrat, responsible for the property and archive of the Russian mission in Madrid in 1812 – 1813. The article tends to reveal the characteristics of Russian diplomatic activity in the extraordinary war situation and in the absence of a plenipotentiary representative of Russia in Spain. The initial period of Russian-Spanish relations in the Iberian Peninsula after the conclusion of the treatise in Velikiye Luki is still presented in historiography in the most general form; the biographies and activities of its participants have not been studied in details. The primary sources used in the article enable to reconstruct the historical context and the relationship between Russian and Spanish diplomats, their perception of allied cooperation, and the obstacles they had to overcome. Thanks to the orders of Pavel Mohrenheim, the Chargé d’Affaires of Russia, given before his compelled departure from Spain, the interests of Russian Empire were ensured by balancing the official activities of the Spanish representative and the activity of the Russian agent Wallenstein, whose diplomatic status was doubtful. Ugarte, a trustee of the Russian mission, was guided by the instructions of the Regency Council and sought to establish his monopoly on the affairs of the Russian mission, including informing the Government of the Russian empire about the situation in Spain. Despite the personal rivalry between the Russian and Spanish representatives, both sides managed to avoid conflict and created the basis for the development of allied relations between Spain and Russia.

During World War One the diplomats of neutral Spain carried out important mediation activities, supporting Russian citizens on enemy territory and trying to facilitate the return of the Russian citizens from the enemy countries. The Spanish assistance consisted, among other things, in the transfer of funds to the Russians. One of the episodes of that humanitarian mission was the rescue of a Russian journalist D.G. Yanchevetsky, a correspondent for the Novoye Vremya newspaper in Vienna, who was arrested by the Austrian authorities in July 1914 on charges of espionage and sentenced to death for «high treason». A similar case is found in the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador to Russia, Anibal Morillo y Pérez del Villar, Count de Cartagena, «Memories of my Embassy in Russia», without indicating the name of the person who was assisted. The Spanish ambassador, using the example of a so-called Ivanov, reports on the pan-Slavist propaganda of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the territory of Austria-Hungary. Based on the analysis of the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador and the correlation of that information with the facts from the Spanish and Russian sources, mainly the press, the article aims to figure out whether the Spanish ambassador described the same episode of the rescue of Yanchevetsky or he meant some other person. Discrepancy in some dates urges to express various assumptions on the issue under consideration and dwell in more detail on the role of Spanish diplomacy in the return of Yanchevetsky to Russia. The article attempts to characterize this fragment of the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador and tries to comprehend the goal set by Count de Cartagena in mentioning that case in his memoirs.

The main question that Humankind was confronted with at the beginning of the Age of Great Discoveries can be spelled out as follows: «Just how is the world shaped?» The subsequent Great Geographical Discoveries showed the true dimension and structure of the surface of the Planet, as well as the real range of diversity of the «World of Humans». And the new knowledge of the shape of the world, in turn, gave rise to the following dilemma: can we surmise any unity of this world, all the great diversity of human cultures notwithstanding, or is such a unity nothing but an illusion? The search for an answer to this question constituted one of the axes of the spiritual life of Humankind in subsequent centuries up to the present day. The crucial point in the search for an answer to the above said question was the Discovery of America. The Meeting of two Worlds brought about the most acute crisis of consciousness on both sides. In the course of ensuing attempts at overcoming the crisis, they discovered new dimensions of their own heritage and new prospects for future life. Two alternative ways of evolution of homo sapiens, essentially different and even opposed, took shape. On the one hand, it was globalization, and on the other hand, it was increased emphasis on the heterogeneity of specific human communities at different levels, being the regional civilizations the most conspicuous ones in this respect. The collision, interweaving and mutual influence of those processes predetermined the main trends of human history over the past five centuries. In Latin America, a special frontier civilizational type has developed, as different from the classical both Western and Oriental models. It embodies more patently the principle of dialogue, which is, according to M. Bakhtin, a distinctive feature of the evolution of homo sapiens in general. This type of civilisation acquires particular importance at the present stage of evolution of the human world, which, on the threshold of the XXI century has entered its new stage, that of uncertainty and instability, the frontier stage.

Book review: Astakhova E.V. Spain as a metaphor. Moscow: MGIMO-University/EKSMO, 2023. 287 p.

Book review: Alfonso X the Wise and and his collaborators. History of Spain,  compiled by the noblest king Don Alfonso, son of the noble king Don Fernando and queen Dona Beatriz. Edited by: Aurov Oleg Valentinovich. Saint Petersburg: Nauka, 2022. Т. 3. 727 p.