In November 2025, the World Anthropological Union Congress was held in the city of Antigua, Guatemala. The author of these travel notes took part in this scholarly event. Planning the trip required a considerable amount of time, since, in addition to its academic purpose, there was also an educational and cultural dimension: becoming acquainted with the culture, history, and peoples of three Central American countries — Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. None of the members of our group had previously visited these countries. The itinerary was planned in advance, and the most suitable option was selected. What follows is my travel diary, published with commentary prepared at the request of the editorial board.

In order to overcome regional stability challenges stemming from limited power resources, Latin American states have developed a legalistic foreign policy tradition. The authors highlight an original combination of incentives and constraints shaped by the external environment and analyze the historical, political, and civilizational origins of the foreign policy tradition embodied in a series of influential politico-legal doctrines of regional stability, such as the Drago, Calvo, Tobar, Estrada, Larreta, Saavedra Lamas, and Brum doctrines. They also trace the legalistic approach to historical and political factors, including limited resources for developing a symmetrical response capacity to external challenges, as well as the historical context in which independence was gained prior to the universalization of international legal norms related to decolonization and self-determination of peoples. The authors conceptualize the Iberian intellectual heritage as a civilizational source, emphasizing the role which was played by the School of Salamanca and Enlightenment ideas in shaping the tradition. While the evolution of Latin American foreign policy behavior demonstrates the dominance of the legalistic or Bolivarian tradition, it also reveals an antagonistic Santanderian approach: the former rests on the rule of law whereas the latter is grounded in the principle that might makes right. The authors also conceptualize the situational choice between doctrinal and counter-doctrinal approaches to addressing regional stability challenges as a core dichotomy within Latin American foreign policy. At the core of the methodology applied in the article is a comparative-historical method employed for identifying specific features of the Latin American tradition, alongside methods of historical reconstruction (process tracing) and the systemic approach developed by M.A. Khrustalev.

Quantum physics can be understood as an epistemological rupture that transforms the foundations of modern scientific rationality. In contrast to the Newtonian mechanistic worldview that underpinned universalist notions of progress, objectivity, and control, quantum mechanics introduces uncertainty, contextuality, non-locality, and the constitutive role of observation into scientific knowledge. These features destabilize the image of reality as a unified, hierarchically structured, and fully transparent domain, thereby challenging the epistemic premises of Western universalism. At the cultural level, this rupture finds expression in forms of scientific magical realism, where the quantum world appears as strange, paradoxical, elusive and fundamentally ungraspable. Such representations allow the quantum revolution to be interpreted not only as a theoretical breakthrough in physics but as an internal epistemological transformation of modern rationality itself. The issue is not the abandonment of rationality, but the reconfiguration of its foundations: the acknowledgment of uncertainty, contextuality, and the participatory role of the observer as structural features of knowledge. This shift is comparable to the epistemological tensions identified by postcolonial theory in situations where hegemonic discourses encounter forms of knowledge that cannot be reduced to their universalist logic. In this sense, quantum physics emerges as a form of internal epistemological alterity within Western science: while remaining part of its canon, it simultaneously rearticulates its ontological assumptions and limits its claim to constitute the sole normative regime of rationality. Extending quantum logic into social theory enables a shift from mechanistic social ontology toward a quantum social ontology, in which relationality, co-constitution, and process take precedence over fixed entities and linear causality. This transformation unfolds as a form of passive revolution, in the Gramscian sense: a profound ontological reorientation achieved not through the destruction of disciplinary institutions, but through their gradual conceptual reconfiguration. The epistemological outcome of this shift is the pluralization of knowledge and the emergence of a pluriversal onto-epistemological horizon, where scientific rationality becomes compatible with multiple cosmologies and situated ways of knowing. In this sense, the quantum turn opens a pathway toward the decolonization of knowledge and the rethinking of global order beyond universalist epistemic hierarchies.

This article analyzes Soviet travelogues on Latin America from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s as a distinctive type of historical source reflecting the mechanisms through which «self» and «other» were represented within the cultural dimension of the Cold War. The author adopts an interdisciplinary approach combining comparative historical analysis, imagology, and postcolonial theory, while examining travel narratives as an instrument of the USSR’s «representational machinery». The study draws primarily on texts written by international affairs journalists (Vasily Chichkov, Oleg Ignatiev, Alexei Adzhubei), the writer Sergei Smirnov, the geographer Stanislav Kalesnik, and the Communist Party official Nikolai Rodionov. Moving beyond bookish exoticism, Soviet travelers constructed new images of the region, sharing vivid impressions of nature and encounters with representatives of various professions and social groups. Typical travelogue narratives included descriptions of stark social inequality, the suffering of the popular masses, and the loss of Latin American nations’ sovereignty over natural resources in favor of the United States. For Latin Americans, the Soviet person also appeared as an «exotic» figure: perceptions ranged from naive curiosity and admiration to suspicion fueled by anti-Soviet propaganda. These writings vividly reflect the evolution of Soviet foreign-policy attitudes toward Latin America: from cautious hopes pinned on nationalist reformism, to enthusiasm surrounding the victory of the Cuban Revolution, and later to a recognition of the region’s limited revolutionary potential and the search for partners among «progressive» military regimes. In this sense, travelogues served as a means of constructing an «imaginary empire», a sphere of enduring Soviet influence shaped through cultural diplomacy and reinforced by concrete representations of Latin American realities that complemented ideological clichés.

This article examines, from a historiographical perspective, how Brazilian travelers (doctors, trade unionists, journalists, engineers, and writers) perceived Soviet urbanism when visiting the Soviet Union between the 1920s and 1960s. More than simple trips, these journeys were intellectual, cultural, and political experiences. As we shall see, for many Brazilian observers, visiting the USSR meant encountering a project aimed at building a new type of society, one that was profoundly different from the realities familiar to South American contexts. The main object of their attention was socialist urbanism. Authors of travel accounts and reports – both laudatory and critical – focused on collective housing, territorial planning, sanitary infrastructure, and cultural facilities as material evidence of a distinct social order. The study thus dialogues with the historiography of transnational circulations and cultural transfers, treating the testimonies of these trips not as transparent descriptions, but as interpretations situated in specific contexts that must be taken into account when interpreted today. Upon returning to Brazil, these travelers wrote for an audience immersed in a modernization marked by profound urban inequalities, typical of Latin American modernity. The documentation analyzed (such as chronicles, letters, technical reports and memoirs) reveals that Soviet urbanism was understood as an integrated system, in which housing, health, education, and leisure were linked by a common social logic. These readings, however, were not homogeneous. Doctors emphasized the relationship between urban planning and disease prevention; trade unionists highlighted expanded access to urban services; writers oscillated between enthusiasm and bewilderment in the face of spatial standardization. The article argues, therefore, that these testimonies helped to construct, in Brazilian public debate, an image of the Soviet city as a possible horizon of social modernity, a world that was simultaneously admired, reinterpreted, and still politically disputed today.

Since the publication of Mario Vargas Llosa’s final novel in 2023, literary studies have increasingly recognized the need for a comprehensive reassessment of the Peruvian writer’s poetics and for identifying the structural constants in his work. This study explores the role and symbolic significance of the road in Vargas Llosa’s biography and early novels. The beginning of his literary career coincided with the Latin American «Boom» of the 1960s, a period marked by intense travelling and transatlantic intellectual exchange. Working in Europe and writing about his native country, Vargas Llosa became an ideal example of cultural extraterritoriality – a characteristic shared by many Latin American intellectuals of the time. During this period, he drew inspiration from J. Martorell’s chivalric novel «Tirant lo Blanc». Vargas Llosa rethinks the structure of the chivalric romance, creating his own total novel in which the topos of the road assumes a key role. Vargas Llosa’s early works are inhabited by characters who constantly shift locations: the cadets in «The Time of Heroe», the wandering «anti-knights» in «The Green House,» and the heroes of «Conversation in the Cathedral» and «Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,» whose events are set against the writer’s native Peruvian backdrop. This contrasts with his later works, in which Vargas Llosa actively shifts locations. Symbolically, his final novel, «I Dedicate My Silence to You,» returns to Peru, and the writer himself passed away in Lima in 2025. The topos of the road thus reflects both a biographical trajectory and a broader paradigm of Latin American extraterritoriality. Methodologically, the article combines the biographical method, the phenomenological approach and the approaches of B. Castany Prado and P. Sanchez.

This article examines the image of Russia in Spain in the mid-19th century, a pivotal moment when regular diplomatic relations between the two countries were restored after a long interruption. A significant role in shaping and popularizing Russia’s image was played by the Spanish diplomat Juan Valera, whose detailed letters sent to Madrid during his sixmonth stay in Russia not only attracted wide readership but also secured him a reputation of a writer. The study seeks to reconstruct an axiological portrait of the Russian state reflected in Juan Valera’s letters of 1856–1857, with particular attention paid to analyzing the written accounts of his predecessors, envoys of the 18th-century who left extensive reports on their experiences in Russia. The analysis shows that Juan Valera, as well as other Spanish diplomats, tended to interpret Russian reality through a distinctly European lens and tended to exaggerate negative aspects, such as «universal» corruption and «cruelty» at «all levels» of authority, thereby echoing the Western European stereotype of «Russian barbarism». The research draws upon the published letters of Juan Valera and the diary of the Duke of Liria, as well as archival manuscripts of diplomatic reports by the Marquis de Almodóvar, Miguel José de Azanza and Antonio de Colombi, previously only partially introduced into scholarly circulation. The study is carried out within the framework of historical and linguistic imagology and employs discursive, retrospective, and historical-comparative methods of analysis. Ultimately, the findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how enduring images of the Other are constructed, stabilized and transmitted within European diplomatic and cultural discourse.

The Alhambra and the Alcázar are two outstanding ensembles of royal residences in southern Spain that have virtually no equivalents in European culture. Their uniqueness lies in a distinctive artistic language that cannot be reduced either to Western European or to Eastern architectural traditions. The Alhambra in Granada represents a brilliant example of Hispano-Muslim art of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, whereas the Alcázar of Seville is one of the earliest examples of a Christian royal residence built in the same period in the Mudéjar style, an original artistic current that emerged during the flourishing of medieval Spain. The article examines the transformation of palace architecture in the transition from one cultural tradition another and identifies the criteria underlying the synthesis of architectural forms and decorative arts. It demonstrates that such processes led to the emergence of new tendencies in the architectural language of the Spanish Mediterranean. The aim of the study is to analyze the specificity of spatial organization and ornamental decoration in the Moorish palaces of Mexuar, Comares, and the Palace of the Lions, in comparison with the Christian palace of Pedro I the Cruel in the Alcázar of Seville. Using a comparative method, the study establishes a typology of spatial organization in individual architectural elements of these complexes and reveals the mechanisms behind the formation of a new artistic language. Particular attention is given to architectural decoration — stucco carving, ceramic revetments, and ceiling structures — where the principal expressive repertoire of national form is concentrated and where the criteria of intercultural artistic syncretism become most evident.

In the context of contemporary socio-cultural transformations, product design increasingly functions as a key mediator between global artistic trends and local cultural identity. Within this framework, the creative experience of Brazilian designers Humberto and Fernando Campana is examined as a representative case of articulating national cultural codes through the language of contemporary design. The article analyzes the core strategies underlying the Campana brothers’ method, including the deconstruction of traditional materials (such as rattan and recycled objects), the reinterpretation of folk ornaments and craft techniques, as well as the integration of elements of everyday Brazilian culture into the international design context. Particular attention is given to the collaborations with international brands, which are considered for the first time as a systemic component of their creative method aimed at transmitting Brazilian cultural identity on a global scale. The findings demonstrate that the Campana brothers’ creative method generates an original visual language, capable of transcending entrenched cultural clichés and constructing a multilayered image of Brazilian identity within the context of glocalization. An art-historical analysis of specific projects reveals how national traditions are not merely reproduced but are transformed through the lens of contemporary design. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying specific mechanisms of cultural transmission through product design, characteristic of the era of glocalization. The results have theoretical potential for research in the field of visual anthropology, design criticism and cultural studies and may also serve as a methodological framework for promoting national heritage through creative industries. The article contributes to the contemporary discussion on design as a tool of “soft power” in a globalizing world.

One of the key problems in the study of Latin American civilization is the analysis of the specific ways in which culture determines the social, political, and economic processes unfolding in the region. This specificity is shaped by particular relationship among the principal subsystems of the civilizational system: by the especially significant role of the pattern maintenance subsystem and by the constant tension between the impulses emanating from it — that is, from the axiological and meaning-giving foundation of sociality — and those arising from other spheres, above all the economy and, to a lesser extent, politics. Granés’s book, devoted chiefly to the interrelation between politics and spiritual culture, covers a vast body of material and, at first glance, appears to address precisely this specificity. Yet its scholarly value is sharply diminished by the abundance of rigid and highly politicized judgments, which reveal the author’s deeply negative attitude toward all Latin American revolutions and revolutionary movements of the twentieth century, whether nationalist or socialist, as well as toward all attempts by Latin Americans to achieve what Granés deems an unattainable ideal: the creation, on the basis of their own traditions, of social, political, and ideological models corresponding to their civilizational identity rather than to the ideal «pure» forms of social organization, in practice, Western ones. Adherence to such «pure» forms is a vivid expression of the dominant Western type of ratio — formal rationality — in which, according to Max Weber’s well-known formulation, the «spirit of capitalism» found its expression. At the same time, the content of Granés’s book is not reducible to this logic or to the corresponding one-sided politicized assessments, which in fact lie beyond the boundaries of scholarly discourse. In his recognition of diversity as the defining feature of Latin American reality, of mestizaje as the civilizational strategy that has predominated in practice, and of Latin Americans’ ability to creatively rework foreign experience as the principal precondition for forging an original culture qualitatively different from the European models first received, Granés — despite his explicit Westernism — emerges as a typical representative of Latin American civilization. These features are by no means manifestations of formal rationality. Rather, they point to another type of ratio, one that, as the article demonstrates, differs from it in qualitative terms. Granés’s entire book is permeated by the tension between these fundamentally different types of rationality. In our view, the work bears witness not to «madness», but to the dramatic process by which Latin American thought seeks forms of expression adequate to its own civilizational identity.

This anthology, edited by Russian scholars of Portuguese studies Maria Maznyak and Varvara Kuznetsova, brings together short fiction by Portuguese-language writers from Africa and Asia − most of whom remain little known to Russian readers. The volume is timely for several reasons, including the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe, which gained independence from Portugal fifty years ago. The anthology’s publication is also significant in the context of the steadily growing influence of Afro-Asian countries on the international stage. The choice of short fiction is deliberate: in a fast-paced contemporary world, this genre is especially in demand. The selection of authors has been carefully curated. It includes both literary figures recognized in their home countries — and sometimes internationally − and «pioneers» representing, for example, East Timor, where until recently literature existed primarily in oral form. Taken together, the contributors reveal the thematic and stylistic diversity of this Lusophone segment of world literature. Readers who do not know the original language can nevertheless appreciate the texts thanks to the high quality of the translations. Importantly, this is a critical anthology: it contains not only a corpus of literary works, but also biographical notes, research-based afterwords that introduce and contextualize each author, and substantial prefaces to each national section − features that encourage deeper reflection on what is read. The anthology compiled by Maznyak and Kuznetsova is the result of extensive and meticulous work, and its publication will undoubtedly stimulate further development of Russian Portuguese studies as a scholarly field.