1,852 research outputs found
Zoya in the mirror: Leo Arnshtam's influence on Andrei Tarkovsky
No full textThe article establishes the previously undetected influence of Leo Arnshtam's war film Zoya on Andrei Tarkovsky's masterpiece; the influence's significance in the light of Tarkovsky's latent Socialist Realist tendencies is discusse
Rozhovor Britských listů 438. Jak se vyučují ruská studia daleko za polárním kruhem [Britské listy Interview 438. How Russian Studies are taught far beyond the Polar Circle]
No full textOn the occasion of Europe switching from summer time to winter time and plunging into a period of darkness, Jan Čulík talks to Professor Andrei Rogatchevsky, formerly of the University of Glasgow, who now teaches Russian Studies at the University of Tromsø, Norway, far beyond the Polar Circle and quite near the Russian border, about what it is like to live in total darkness for many months of the year. Dr. Rogatchevsky says that winter darkness in Tromsø does not bother him so much as does permanent daylight in the summer because you cannot sleep. In the interview, he explains various aspects of teaching Russian Studies at the University of Tromsø, comparing it to Russian Studies in Glasgow, and discusses the work of the Russian author Limonov. The interview was broadcast by the Czech cable TV station Regionaklnitelevize.cz from 2nd November 2021. The interview is conducted in English, it has Czech subtitles
Tradition and novelty in Stepan Pisakhov`s tales
No full textThe topic of the present thesis is “Tradition and Novelty in Stepan Pisakhov`s Tales”. It is aimed at examining various literary features, typical to the style of mentioned above author. The readers are acquainted with the writer and artist Stepan Pisakhov (1879 -1960) from Arkhangelsk, Russia and his tales. Special attention is given to examining of traditional elements in Pisakhov`s writing style, originated from Northern folk tales and Pomor tales. The research is focused on correlation between traditional features and innovative aspects. The author of the thesis used theory of translation by Chukovsly, Gadamer and Lomheim as basis for translation of Pisakhov`s tales. Vladimir Propp`s study “Morphology of a fairy tales” was applied to examine to what extent Pisakhov used traditional elements of the tale in his creative writing. Special attention was devoted to dialectal features of Arkhangelsk region in Pisakhov`s language. Recent translations of Blackwell Boyce were discussed in relation to translation theory. Regional Scientific Library named after Dobrolubov in Arkhangelsk provided many usefyl materials about Stepan Pisakhov
Rozhovor Britských listů 424. O Rusku před zářijovými parlamentními volbami [Britské listy Interview 424. About Russia before the September 2021 parliamentary election]
No full textOn the eve of the parliamentary election in Russia, Jan Čulík talks about the political situation there with Professor Andrei Rogatchevsky, a Russian specialist at the University of Tromsø, Norway, formerly from Glasgow University. This interview was broadcast by the Czech cable TV station Regionalnitelevize.cz from Tuesday 14th September 2021. It is in English with Czech subtitles
Review: The Russian Revolutions of 1917: The Northern Impact and Beyond
No full textErik Kulavig reviews The Russian Revolutions of 1917: The Northern Impact and Beyond edited by Kari Aga Myklebost, Jens Petter Nielsen and Andrei Rogatchevski
Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning using Centralized Critics in Collaborative Environments
No full textAgents trained through single-agent reinforcement learning methods such as self-play can provide a good level of performance in multi-agent settings and even in fully cooperative environments. However, most of the time, training multiple agents together using single-agent self-play yields poor results as each agent tries to learn how to perform their task while their teammates are also learning. Thus, training models to reach an optimal behaviour in such situations becomes a challenging, if not impossible issue to overcome. One possible solution to deal with this problem is to facilitate a centralized training process in which the policies of all agents are evaluated by a centralized critic that has access to the observations and actions of all the agents in the environment. By using this approach, the environment becomes stationary and the agents learn in a similar way to using a single-agent algorithm in settings where only one agent needs to be trained. In this paper, we test whether by using a multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithm with centralized critics, as opposed to single-agent ones, we would obtain an agent that generalizes better to new partners in a collaborative environment such as Overcooked, where coordination is critical for good performance. The results display a similar performance between the two algorithms when evaluated through self-play and slightly better or worse results when paired with the human model, representing a mediocre agent, depending on the map. Thus, the multi-agent, centralized critics algorithm used in this study did not train agents that generalize better to new partners. However, the training metrics clearly indicate that the centralized critics method makes the agents learn and converge twice as fast as its single-agent version.https://github.com/andrei-07/rp-overcooked-centralized-critics Link to GitHub repositoryCSE3000 Research ProjectComputer Science and Engineerin
Interpreting for Soviet Leaders: The Memoirs of Semi-visible Men
No full textTop interpreters are rarely able to discuss publicly negotiations between their bosses-cum-clients. Yet the downfall of Nazi Germany and the USSR allowed some interpreters to speak, in interviews and memoirs, without fear of retribution. In the end, only a few told their story, and some did not always tell it correctly, either because of memory lapses or because of a desire to appear more informed or to distance themselves from the people for whom they had worked. Still, these publications contain material to investigate to what degree, in the service of an all-powerful client, interpreters remained “invisible” or exercised a “special interactional power, […] as a result of his or her bilingual and bicultural expertise” (Mason and Ren 2012: 238). This article presents a case study of Soviet interpreters for Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev and their associates, with memoirs by the interpreters for Hitler and British PMs consulted for cross-correlation
Svalbard on the (Post-) Soviet Screen
No full textA selection of Soviet/Russian and Norwegian documentary and feature films about Svalbard is analysed to account for the recurrent issues raised in cinematic representations of the archipelago. Such issues primarily include Svalbard’s ownership and demilitarization, as well as the role that women – and Russia – play in the region. The subject of these representations’ verisimilitude is also discussed. The article concludes that both film groups show a mutually observed parallel reality
Andrei Tarkovsky:
No full textThe author studies the originality of the film language of Andrei Tarkovsky, one of the great filmmakers of the twentieth century. For this purpose he considers the symbolic, poetic, technical and mystical elements of Tarkovsky’s seven films. Beyond the standard critics, he builds an unitary language for the interpretation of a work reputedly tight.El autor estudia la originalidad del lenguaje cinematográfico de Andrei Tarkovsky, uno de los grandes directores de cine del siglo XX. Para este propósito considera los aspectos simbólicos, poéticos, técnicos y místicos de sus siete películas. Desecha el formato de ficha crítica y construye un lenguaje unitario para la interpretación de una obra reputada como hermética
'Loyalty by Obfuscation: Aleksandr Sokurov's Dni zatmeniia vs the Strugatskii Brothers' A Billion Years before the End of the World'
No full textThis article seeks to rectify two misconceptions that have been following Aleksandr
Sokurov’s award-winning sf film Days of Eclipse (Dni zatmeniia; USSR 1988) almost since
its release. The first is reflected in the claim that the film – with its odd mix of enigmatic
fictional scenes and documentary footage that would not look out of place on a visual
anthropology course – is not only difficult to fathom but downright ‘anti-explicatif’ (Ostria
59).2
The second has been expressed in a statement that Days of Eclipse ‘has altered
everything but the names of the principal characters’ (Moskvina 45) in the Strugatskii
brothers’ story it has adapted, A Billion Years Before the End of the World (Za milliard let do
kontsa sveta, 1976-77; see Strugatskie 1988: 3-148).3
Even Boris Strugatskii himself said of
the film that, ‘significant, powerful and sui generis exceptional’ as it may be, it is ‘far
removed from both the original book and the last version of the authors’ script’ (Strugatskie
2001: 648). I will argue that there is enough left of the source material in the film to help the
viewer make sense of it – especially if the viewer has a prior knowledge of the source
material. I will also try to explain why Sokurov has opted for obscuring the Strugatskiis’
message as his book adaptation strategy. Finally, I will attempt to categorise Sokurov’s
approach to film adaptation in the context of some of his other films, as well as some
Strugatskii-related films by other directors
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