This article is a stroke to the portrait of the contemporary Russian composer, educator and professor of Moscow Conservatory Y. B. Abdokov. Being a man of high spiritual culture and ethics, possessing a bright individual style, Yuri Borisovich continues to implement in his creativity the tradition of domestic music of the second half of the XX century – N. I. Pejko and B. A. Tchaikovsky. The artistic world of Y. B. Abdokov is deeply poetic. His scores are distinguished by the highest level of polyphonic mastery and timbre dramaturgy. In this article through the lens of creative attitudes Y. B. Abdokov attempts to reveal some facets of his compositional appearance, as well as to characterize the figurative-intonation world of one of the representative works of Yuri Abdokov – elegiac poem “Beautiful Are the Faces of the Sleeping” according to V. V. Kurnosenko from the cycle of the Four Poems for String Orchestra “Architecture of Sound”. 

This article examines the first known musical adaptation of James Joyce’s early poetry collection “Chamber Music” (1907) by his contemporary and fellow countryman, the Anglo-I rish composer Geoffrey Molyneux Palmer (1882–1957). Palmer’s legacy has only recently begun to be rediscovered in his homeland, while in Russia, his name remains largely absent from musicological research. Joyce regarded Palmer’s cycle as the most faithful to his artistic vision and, in his extensive correspondence with the composer over the years, singled out the pieces he considered most successful. The main stylistic reference point of “Chamber Music” is the German Romantic chamber vocal cycle (as many British composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries showed great interest in German musical culture). The dramaturgy, structure, and choice of expressive means are derived from Joyce’s vision: the composer sets almost the entire cycle to music (32 songs out of 36), while the naivety and immediacy of the imagery, associated with the theme of first love, define the simplicity and accessibility of the musical language. Palmer demonstrated great sensitivity in his interpretation of the poems – Joyce’s words take centre stage, while the music serves only to reveal the depth of the poetic text, subtly responding to even the slightest shifts in sentiment. This results in a constant variation of piano texture, an abundance of tone-painting techniques, and a diverse selection of forms, ranging from traditional vocal structures to unconventional principles of musical morphogenesis. The composer’s modal-harmonic techniques allow for parallels to be drawn with F. Schubert’s works. In the field of harmony, we can observe a tendency toward the pure colours of triads and their inversions, a coloristic interplay of major and minor, and an interest in lowered scale degrees (II, III, VI). Thus, Palmer’s cycle demonstrates an active interaction with Joyce’s lyrics: his personal communication with the author, the closeness of their aesthetic and stylistic principles at the beginning of the 20th century, and the use of Romantic compositional techniques all contributed to the distinct musical realization of Joyce’s poetry and enhanced the expressive completeness of the cycle’s imagery.

The paper is devoted to traditional Belarusian rituals and songs recorded in Tyukhtetsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai. It examines the historical background to the consolidation of Belarusian traditions in the region. Structural-typological analysis of archives and expedition records confirms that these rituals and songs belong to the Belarusian cultural tradition. The article presents a detailed analysis of the songs “Sirotochka” [Little Orphan] and “Bozha moy” [My God], revealing common features with similar examples of music folklore recorded in Belarus (at the level of poetic motifs, rhythmic structure, mode organization and melodic peculiarities). The results of the study demonstrate the importance of the folklore of the Belarusian immigrants from Tyukhtetsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai as an integral part of regional culture, which has preserved elements of authentic Belarusian tradition.

The subject of the article is the artistic activity of Guan Weixing – a prominent representative of contemporary Chinese watercolour art. His personality and creative output have not yet been the subject of scholarly attention in Russian art studies, which determines the relevance and novelty of the proposed topic. The author examines the artist’s professional formation and the stages of his creative evolution through the lens of the historical and cultural events of the second half of the 20th century. The paper identifies the artist’s ideological and artistic landmarks, genre and stylistic priorities, as well as the peculiarities of his personal worldview. Special attention is given to his creative method, which incorporates the achievements of traditional Chinese painting, the Soviet academic school, and Western watercolour techniques. The result of the research is a creative portrait of Guan Weixing, reconstructed on the basis of fragmentary information dispersed across Chinese and English-language sources. The conclusions emphasise that, thanks to his realisation of watercolour’s potential as a “major” genre, the artist has earned well-deserved international recognition within artistic circles and has exert packed a significant influence on the development of watercolour painting and pedagogy in China at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries.

The proposed article contains the most significant materials from a scientific discussion held on 7 November 2025, at the roundtable titled “Current Challenges of Cultural Sovereignty Formation in Russia”, as part of the 5th All-Russian Scientific and Practical Forum on Sustainable Development in the New Socio-Technological Order, “Human. Economy. Technologies. Society. HETS-2025”. The authors examine approaches to interpreting the concept of “cultural sovereignty”, outline the key problems and prospects for shaping Russia’s cultural sovereignty at the present stage – in the context of implementing strategic state objectives for national security. They also study trends in cultural policy during the Soviet period and in modern times, assess the effectiveness of sacralization mechanisms in responding to the challenges posed by destructive ideologies, and identify strategically important areas for applying cultural mechanisms aimed at fostering the unity of regional and civic identities.