Journal articles on the topic 'Epiphanius the Wise'

This article presents a problem of delimiting parts of the Extensive Edition of the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh, begun by Epiphanius the Wise and completed, as well as in places edited, by Pachomius Logofet. One of the methods of distinguishing the parts is to compare the principles of citing Biblical texts. The identification of allusions, quotations, toposes and biblicalisms makes it possible to oppose Epiphanian and Pachomian “scriptures” more clearly. This research reveals 7 new quotes in the preface to the Extensive Edition of the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh in addition to 25 previously commented quotes. The preface to the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh, to the life of Stephen of Perm, the author of which is Epiphanius the Wise, the preface to the Lifes of Nikon of Radonezh and Kirill Belozersky, written by Pachomius Logofet, were considered from the position of citation richness.

Addresses “The Life of St. Sergius, the Wonderworker of Radonezh” as a unique piece of ancient Russian literature, which narrates the heroic deeds of the great Patron Saint and Intercessor for the Russian land. It was created by Epiphanius the Wise who was a disciple of the St. Sergius and Pakhomius the logothete (the Serb) who came to Rus’. The comparison of ideas, imageries and stylistic patterns of Epiphanius’ literary works and Pachomius’ writings shows that Epiphanius and Pakhomius differently evaluated the significance and meaning of St. Sergius’ ascetic life.

&nbsp; <strong><em>The article aims</em></strong><em> to raise the issue of a musical subtext presence in the hagiographies created by Epiphanius the&nbsp;Wise in &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo;. Hermeneutic and comparative <strong>methods</strong> of research are used. The examined works&rsquo; musicality is closely related to the&nbsp;phenomenon of a literary amplification and the method specific for Epiphanius the Wise to borrow many excerpts from hymnographic texts, re-sing them and expand with numerous amplifications. Liturgical works consist of two parts &ndash; textual and musical, &ndash; and therefore, when quoting them, the hagiographer should consider appealing not only to a textual aspect of a used literary source, but also to a musical one. <strong>The article&rsquo;s novelty</strong> manifests in examining for the first time a musical aspect of borrowed texts on the&nbsp;example of a&nbsp;hagiography. The thesis about a hagiographer&rsquo;s awareness of a musical aspect of quotations is confirmed by analyzing those mosaic quotation compilations that Epiphanius created. Thus, the scribe does not address any random hymnographic texts, but rather gradually quotes irmoses from a third song of a canon and notes their belonging to one or another tone. A&nbsp;musical subtext is also seen in Epiphanius&rsquo; use of antiphons and prokeimenons as a literary source. The method of hymnographic borrowings in itself suggests appealing to a musical aspect of liturgical texts, as it relies on a recipient&rsquo;s long-term memory that preserves liturgical texts together with their musical component, because it is music that facilitates memorization and ensures easy recognition of a liturgical quotation in a hagiographic text. <strong>The conclusion</strong> contains the statement about Old Rus scribe&rsquo;s conscious use of musical features of liturgical texts when quoting them in hagiographic works.</em>

This article is devoted to the study of the originality of the hagiographic genre in the work of the outstanding writer of the 14th–15th centuries, the Reverend Epiphanius the Wise. The specifics and structure of hagiographic texts are studied, their classification is presented, the connection of the original Old Russian works with the Byzantine hagiographic canon is emphasized. According to the author of the article, the hagiographic genre reaches its peak in its development in the era of the formation of a centralized Russian state. Epiphanius the Wise, a recognized master of his times, creating hagiobiographies of St. Stephen of Perm (the saintly type of life) and Sergius, abbot of Radonezh (the reverend type of life), relies on early Byzantine and medieval Russian traditions and creates a new stylistic principle, which was called “weaving of words”: synonymous series of epithets, lexical repetitions, anaphors, techniques homeotelevton, homeoptoton, text rhythmization, etc. It is thanks to the new manner of narration that, for the first time in Russian literature, the possibility of fixing the inner life of Orthodox ascetics and studying their spiritual experience opens up. The author of the article, analyzing the “Life of Stephen of Perm” and “Life of Sergius of Radonezh”, created by Epiphany the Wise, actualizes their significance in the formation of the phenomenon of holiness and comes to the conclusion that these hagiographic works are closely related to the main line of Russian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, associated with attention to the inner world of man, his spiritual quest and spiritual experiences. The author suggests including the texts of Epiphanius the Wise in the list of additional literature for schoolchildren, justifying this by the fact that familiarity with the works of the outstanding scribe will prepare students for thoughtful reading and deeper understanding of the novels of Russian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The paper studies the image of Saint Sergius of Radonezh as depicted in the saints’ lives (written by Epiphanius the Wise, Pachomius Logothetes, and Archbishop Nikon Rozhdestvensky) and in 20th century literature (Boris Zaytsev’s essay ‘The Life of Saint Sergius’ and Ivan Shmelev’s short story ‘Kulikovo Field’). The main difference between the depictions of Sergius in the saints’ lives as opposed to the modern accounts lies in the authors’ historical perspective. The main goal of Epiphanius the Wise is to paint a detailed picture of the spiritual countenance of Sergius, his teacher and contemporary, while Archbishop Nikon focuses on the saint’s historical context. In contrast, Zaytsev takes a particular interest in Sergius’ personality and its ‘human’ manifestations; in parallels with his own life and time; and in moral lessons taught to us by Sergius’ life. In Shmelev’s short story, Sergius’ miraculous appearance in 1925 serves as an inspiring symbol of the inner unity of history and eternity. With peace and light he brings, Sergius counteracts the darkness and madness of life after the Revolution. For Zaytsev and Shmelev, Saint Sergius of Radonezh was a beacon that illuminated the difficult worldly life of contemporary man and directed him towards his main goal, salvation.

This study addresses the usage of biblical and patristic references in the 14-15th century Lives of local Muscovite saints. It aims to provide an overview of Muscovite hagiography, from the earliest anonymous texts to the works of Pachomius the Serb. The Lives were transformed over time, in numerous redactions intended for different use. They were introduced into liturgical practice, private devotion, or chronicle writing. I will focus on three cases, the first anonymous redaction of the Life of the Holy Metropolitan Peter, the second redaction of the Life of Peter, written by the metropolitan Cyprian, and the Life of Saint Sergii of Radonezh written by Epiphanius the Wise in order to discuss the cultural milieu which influenced each author’s choice of references.

Статья посвящена проблеме взаимоотношения ранних Пахомиевских редакций Жития прп. Сергия Радонежского с точки зрения порядка их возникновения и близости к несохранившемуся тексту прп. Епифания Премудрого. В результате проведения сравнительного анализа трёх ранних редакций Жития из двух версий предшествующих исследователей - свящ. В. Яблонского и Б. М. Клосса - версия первого находит больше подтверждений и является более убедительной. The article is devoted to the problem of the relationship between the early Pachomian editions of the St. Sergius of Radonezh Life concerning the order of their origin and their proximity to the unrecorded protograph of St. Epiphanius the Wise. As a result of a comparative analysis of three early editions of the Life from two versions of the previous researchers - the priest Yablonsky and B. M. Kloss - the version of the first finds more confirmation and is more convincing.

Статья посвящена проблеме взаимоотношения ранних Пахомиевских редакций Жития прп. Сергия Радонежского с точки зрения порядка их возникновения и близости к несохранившемуся тексту прп. Епифания Премудрого. В результате проведения сравнительного анализа трёх ранних редакций Жития из двух версий предшествующих исследователей - свящ. В. Яблонского и Б. М. Клосса - версия первого находит больше подтверждений и является более убедительной. The article is devoted to the problem of the relationship between the early Pachomian editions of the St. Sergius of Radonezh Life concerning the order of their origin and their proximity to the unrecorded protograph of St. Epiphanius the Wise. As a result of a comparative analysis of three early editions of the Life from two versions of the previous researchers - the priest Yablonsky and B. M. Kloss - the version of the first finds more confirmation and is more convincing.

Cлужба преподобному Сергию оказала огромное влияние на русскую гимнографию. В современных Минеях она представлена в двух вариантах: на 5 июля и на 25 сентября старого стиля. Исследователями высказывались разные идеи относительно авторства, в частности об участии преподобного Епифания Премудрого в составлении одной из служб. В статье рассматривается эта гипотеза и делается вывод о преимущественном участии иеромонаха Пахомия Серба в подготовке обеих служб. The service to St. Sergius had a huge impact on Russian hymnography. In modern Minea, it is presented in two versions: on July 5 and on September 24 of the old style. Researchers have expressed various ideas about authorship, in particular about the participation of St. Epiphanius the Wise in the compilation of one of the services. The article examines this hypothesis and concludes that hieromonk Pakhomiy the Serb was primarily involved in the preparation of both services.

The article analyzes the literary sources for the early East Slavic hagiographical works devoted to St. Antonius the Roman (†1147). The task of the study is to establish the relationships between the Life of Antonius the Roman, known in editions A and B, and the Panegyric of Antonius the Roman, also in two editions, in order to define the time of their creation. As a result of the study, it was found that the following works have the common sources: the preface to the Life in the edition A and the Panegyric in the edition A (the Panegyric of Sergius of Radonezh by Epiphanius the Wise), the Life in the edition A and the Life in the edition B (the Spiritual testament of Antonius the Roman), the Life in the edition A and the Panegyric in the edition B (the Panegyric of Philippus the Apostle), the Life in the edition B and the Panegyric in the edition B (the Life of Zosimas and Sabbatius of Solovki). On the basis of common sources of different works of the cycle and dating of the Panegyric in edition A to 1581–1582 and the Panegyric in edition B to 1582–1584, it is concluded that both the editions of the Life belong to the same author of the XVIth century,whose name is unknown for us.

“Like a young woman in a loose-fitting dress”: The epiphany of Andreas Embiricos as fusion of memory and photography This paper attempts to shed light on the significance and role of the four “epiphanies of the past recaptured”, which are an integral part of the “analysis” of the poem “8th January 1942” by Andreas Embiricos and derive from the verbal image of the verse “Like a young woman in a loose-fitting dress”. In these epiphanies, time becomes fluctuant and the memory of the past (specifically the memory of four exceptional women-muses of important surrealist creators) is fused with the present experience of the poet. The fourth of them, which embodies Embiricos’ first wife, enlivens the memory of a past event and a photograph. Those two turn into a present reality, in a complete osmosis of the epiphanic object’s unconscious, revealed through the photograph, with the epiphanic subject’s unconscious that perceives it. In effect, spatial time blends with psychological time, as in communicating vessels, revealing the “convulsive beauty” of surreality.

В статье на примере главы «О хотящем святого повинути на митрополию» раскрывается проблема взаимоотношения двух ранних редакций жития прп. Сергия Радонежского, принадлежащих иером. Пахомию Логофету. Для полноценного анализа привлекаются также тексты других редакций жития, приводятся исторические данные, связанные с его написанием, а также уделяется внимание особенностям идиостиля прп. Епифания Премудрого (как автора оригинального агиографического повествования) и иером. Пахомия. В результате проведенной работы сделан вывод: следует признать верной точку зрения прот. В. Яблонского о хронологии создания ранних редакций жития, что позволяет увидеть образ прп. Сергия более ярким и живым, а также сделать несколько богословских наблюдений относительно личности игумена земли Русской. The article, using the example of the chapter «On the one who wanted to force the Saint to the metropolis» reveals the problem of the relationship between the two early editions of the life of Sergius of Radonezh, owned by Pachomius Logothete. For a full-fledged analysis, the texts of other editions of the life are also involved, historical data related to its writing are given, and attention is also paid to the idiosyncrasies of Epiphanius the Wise (as the author of the original hagiographic narrative) and Pachomius. As a result of the work carried out, a conclusion was made: it is necessary to recognize the correct point of view of the archipriest V. Yablonsky on the chronology of the creation of early editions of the life, which allows you to see the image of the St. Sergius is more vivid and lively, as well as to make several theological observations about the personality of the abbot of the Russian land.

The “hesychast disputes” that unfolded in Byzantium and influenced other Orthodox countries came to be the critical event of the 14th century for the Christian world. The doctrine of synergy, the theory of the “deification” (“theosis”) of a person and the metaphysics of light, developed by the hesychast Gregory Palamas, were creatively reworked in the consciousness of Muscovite Rus’ in the 14th–15th centuries. As a result, the original Old Russian Hesychasm emerged, transforming the doctrine of synergy into the veneration of the Holy Trinity. For the young Orthodox state, which was in the process of establishing its statehood, the Holy Trinity became the personification of national unity and breaking dependence on the conquerors. The doctrine of St. Sergius of Radonezh about the Trinity, the Trinity concept of Epiphanius the Wise, the growing popularity of the Trinity theme in icon painting, the special celebration of the Trinity Day, the construction of Trinity temples act as evidence of the strong consolidation of the cult of the Holy Trinity in Moscow culture. Another important theme for the Old Russian culture of the 14th–15th centuries was the concept of “deification” of a person as the highest form of his creativity. It found its theoretical form in the teachings of Gregory Palamas, while its visible expression became the iconography of Andrei Rublev and Dionysius. Old Russian icon painters were able to convey the moral ideal of hesychasm — the ideal of the transformed man who achieves a new ontological status of existence through deification. The doctrine of deification was intimately connected with the hesychast metaphysics of Tabor light, reflected in the Old Russian aesthetics of light and color.

<strong>The paper&rsquo;s objective</strong> is poetical and source study research of &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo; writings that were common in the&nbsp;Orthodox East literature of XII&ndash;XV cent., while also historical review of amplification as one of this style major literary devices. The work&rsquo;s <strong>relevancy</strong> is in limited coverage of literary sources for many medieval writings, and lack of researches on hymnography as a&nbsp;basic literary source for &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo;. <strong>The methods</strong> used are: comparison while surveying historical development of a literary trope; juxtaposition in source study analysis of the&nbsp;selected writings; calculation and linguistic analysis while examining syntactic features of amplification periods in the&nbsp;writings; partial hermeneutic analysis of sermons and saints&rsquo; lives. <strong>Conclusions.</strong> Amplification is a major literary trope of &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo;, whereas antithesis, repetition, anaphora, epiphora and homeoteleuton are just components of amplification. The source for this important trope is medieval hymnography naturally related to amplification that aims to prolong liturgy and concentrate believers&rsquo; thoughts on evangelical stories as long as possible. In this capacity, amplification serves a&nbsp;primary ascetic task of liturgy; listening to it becomes a&nbsp;peculiar exercise of self-perfection, attention and continuous praying. This trope is most fully disclosed in the genre of akathist that dictates specific syntactic constructions to amplification periods of saints&rsquo; lives literature. These constructions features, their number, &ldquo;light&rdquo; and other symbolism types are studied on the&nbsp;example of various late medieval Orthodox East preachers&rsquo; and hagiographers&rsquo; writings.

Статья посвящена исследованию современной детской агиографической литературы, которая рассматривается на соответствие её жанровому агиографическому канону. Образ святого является ключевой фигурой текста жития, поэтому особое внимание отводится анализу художественных приёмов изображения праведника. Для житийных текстов, посвящённых святому Сергию Радонежскому, каноном может выступать древнерусское житие «Житие и чудеса преподобного Сергия игумена Радонежского» Епифания Премудрого. В статье анализируется образ преподобного Сергия Радонежского в житийной драме для детей Р. В. Кошурниковой «Дивен Бог во святых Своих. Сцены из жития преподобного Сергия Радонежского». Были рассмотрены речевая характеристика, внешний портрет и внутренний облик святого в пьесе, перечислены основные житийные топосы, выделены вымышленные эпизоды, исследованы принципы психологизма в пьесе Кошурниковой. С помощью сравнительно-сопоставительного анализа древнерусского жития Епифания Премудрого и житийной драмы Р. В. Кошурниковой была выявлена степень соответствия канону в изображении преподобного Сергия в пьесе. Вариативность в описании Сергия Радонежского, допущенная по отношению к средневековому житийному канону, во многом обусловлена фактором адресата - современного ребенка. The article is devoted to a review of the actual problem of children’s reading and modern children’s hagiographic literature based on canonicity and variability, the factors for which are goal-setting, the nature of the addressee, topics, etc. In the article, we analyze the image of Sergius of Radonezh from the point of view of his canonicity and variability in a very new, for the modern reader, genre of clerical drama R. V. Koshurnikova «God is wonderful in His saints. Scenes from the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh», using a comparative analysis of the canonical life of Epiphanius the Wise and the modern hagiographic drama of Rima Koshurnikova, we identified the variability of the image of a saint in a modern hagiographic work, which is due to the addressee factor - the child. The speech, external and internal portraits of the saint were considered, fictional episodes were highlighted, the motivation of the saint to commit this or that act was explained, which speaks of the psychologism of the protagonist.

В данной статье исследуется вопрос о местоположении двух источников прп. Сергия: род­ника, чудесно изведённого по его молитве у подножия холма Маковец, и природного род­ника, изначально существовавшего в некотором удалении от отшельнической кельи свято­го в Троицкой обители. До нашего времени сохранился лишь природный родник, известный как «Колодец преподобного Сергия Радонежского с Пятницкой часовней». В работе отмеча­ется, что этот колодец можно считать первоначальным источником питьевой воды у холма Маковец. Также рассматриваются несколько версий расположения чудесно изведённого источника. Исследование основано на исторических свидетельствах «Жития» преподоб­ного игумена, составленного святым Епифанием Премудрым, и труда профессора Москов­ской духовной академии Е. Е. Голубинского «Преподобный Сергий Радонежский и создан­ная им Троицкая Лавра». Сопоставив палеорельеф территории холма Маковец с фактами из истории формирования архитектурного ансамбля Троице-Сергиева монастыря в XIV– XVII вв. и с его функциональной планировочной структурой, сложившейся к середине XVII в., автор обосновал свою версию о местоположении утраченного святого источника. This article examines the location of two springs of St. Sergius: a spring miracu­lously produced by his prayer at the foot of Makovets Hill, and a natural spring that originally existed at some distance from the saint’s hermit cell in the Trinity Monastery. Only the natu­ral spring, known as the «The Saint Sergius of Radonezh Well with the Pyatnitskaya Chapel», has survived to this day. The work notes that this well can be considered the original source of drinking water near Makovets Hill. Several versions of the location of the miraculously pro­duced spring are also considered. The study is based on historical evidence from the «Life» of the Reverend Hegumen, compiled by St. Epiphanius the Wise, and the work of Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy E. E. Golubinsky «St. Sergius of Radonezh and the Trinity Lavra founded by him». By comparing the paleorelief of the Makovets hill area with facts from the history of the formation of the architectural ensemble of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in the 14th–17th centuries and with its functional planning structure that had developed by the middle of the 17th century, the author substantiated his version of the location of the lost holy spring.

Abstract This article argues that the depictions of Gnostic sects performing horrendous rites in Epiphanius of Cyprus’ work Panarion worked as rhetorical devices to shift focus away from his own position vis-à-vis marriage, sex, and consumptions of good food and wine, a position that was considered liberal in the context of fourth century ecclesiastical debates. It here is shown how Epiphanius’ description of Gnostic sects follows clear patterns of the archetypical “other”, going back to Roman slander of Christians. By drawing attention to this fact and by contextualizing Epiphanius’ theological positions and the ecclesiastical struggles he was engaged in during the fourth century, this article cast new light on the work Panarion and the techniques Epiphanius employed in order to impact his theological climate. By retorting to conventional polemical methods of preceding centuries, where the enemy is attached to norm-breaking behavior, Epiphanius managed to make his own positions seem more reasonable and moderate.

В статье отмечено, что в православном исповедании Трех Лиц Единого Бога книжники и государственные деятели Древней Руси опирались на догматику, а также аскетическую практику и теоретические открытия исихазма как высшие духовные достижения Православной Церкви Византии. При этом Православная Русь внесла свой вклад в развитие прославления и исповедания Святой Троицы. Например, начиная со святой равноапостольной княгини Ольги, на Руси появилась традиция строительства Троицких церквей, которой не было в Византии. По-новому праздновался и осмысливался на Русской земле День Святой Троицы как божественного источника Жизни. В статье показан вклад преподобных Сергия Радонежского, Епифания Премудрого, Андрея Рублева, старца Филофея, а также древнерусского книжника, проповедника и богослова XVI века Ермолая-Еразма в богословское осмысление Троического единства в любви. Оно стало идеалом и главным ориентиром в религиозном, культурном, историческом призвании и направлении развития Руси-России, формирующим принципом всех сторон ее общественной, хозяйственной, бытовой жизни и ее державного строительства. В центре внимания русских религиозных философов и классиков литературы, как показано в статье, находится цельность и внутреннее единство бытия и человеческой души как главная ценность и цель, которая восходит к Триединству христианского Бога. Тернарный принцип представления о целостности стал основой методологии выдающихся отечественных филологов. Архетип триединства признан современными отечественными учеными универсалией, с помощью которой преодолевается дуальность восприятия мира. Все это позволяет сделать вывод, что принцип троичности на протяжении многих веков существует и активно проявляет себя и свое основополагающее значение в исторической судьбе и культурном коде России. The article notes that in the Orthodox confession of Three Persons of One God, the scribes and statesmen of Ancient Rus’ relied on dogmatics, as well as on ascetic practice and theoretical discoveries of hesychasm as the highest spiritual achievements of the Orthodox Church of Byzantium. At the same time, Orthodox Rus’ made its contribution to the development of the glorification and confession of the Holy Trinity. For example, starting with saint equal-to-the-apostles princess Olga, a tradition of building Trinity churches appeared in Rus’, which did not exist in Byzantium. The Day of the Holy Trinity as the divine source of Life was celebrated and understood in a new way on the Russian land. The article shows the contribution of venerable Sergius of Radonezh, Epiphanius the Wise, Andrei Rublev, the elder Philotheus, as well as the ancient Russian scribe, preacher and theologian of the 16th century Hermolaus-Erasmus to the theological understanding of the Trinity in love. It became the ideal and the main reference point in the religious, cultural, historical calling and direction of development of Rus’-Russia, the forming principle of all aspects of its social, economic, everyday life and its state building. The focus of Russian religious philosophers and classics of literature, as shown in the article, is the integrity and internal unity of being and human soul as the main value and goal, which goes back to the Trinity of the Christian God. The ternary principle of the idea of integrity became the basis of the methodology of outstanding Russian philologists. The archetype of the Trinity is recognized by modern Russian scientists as universal, with the help of which the duality of world perception is overcome. All this allows us to conclude that the principle of trinity has existed for many centuries and actively manifests itself and its fundamental significance in the historical destiny and cultural code of Russia.

Early Christian thinkers organized books and readers in order to address a wide range of historical, theological, and ecclesial questions. As part of this late ancient habit of »bibliographic thinking,« texts from varied genres advance arguments about the sequence in which gospel books were written, the nature of the authorship involved, and the literary structures of a gospel corpus. This article analyzes how theories of gospel order functioned as loci of heresiological argument and authorial definition in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, late ancient »anti-Marcionite« gospel prefaces, and the Acts of Timothy.

AbstractThe return of Hephaistos to Olympos, as a myth, concerns the establishment of a balance of power among the Olympian gods. Many visual representations of the myth in Archaic and Classical Greek art give visible form to the same theme, but they do so in a manner entirely distinct from the manner in which it is expressed in literary narratives of the tale. In this paper, I argue that vase-painters incorporated elements of Dionysiac processional ritual into representations of the return of Hephaistos in order to articulate visually the principal theme of the myth. The vase-painters structured the myth along the lines of epiphanic processions in which Dionysos was escorted into the city of Athens. Like Dionysiac epiphanic processions, the procession of Hephaistos, Dionysos and the wine-god's followers is distinguished visually by drunkenness, ostentatious display of the phallus and obscene or insulting behaviour. To judge from the aetiological myths associated with them, the epiphanic processions symbolized the triumph of Dionysos over, and his belated acceptance by, those who denied his status as a god. By structuring the visual representations of the return of Hephaistos along the lines of such Dionysiac processions, artists conveyed visually the idea that the myth also concerned the triumph of a god over those who rejected him, and his acceptance among the Olympians. It is not necessary to assume that the vase-painters relied on a detailed poetic account of the myth to create their representations of it, because they employed elements of religious spectacle, an inherently visual phenomenon, to convey the essence of the story.

The intention of the Book of Daniel in its historical setting is to exhort and console the faithful Jews in the face of persecution. The content of the exhortation is complete fidelity to God, even at the risk of death. The context of fidelity, however, is different in the two parts of the Book of Daniel. In the tales (Dan 1-6), the context is the service of the Gentile kings. Fidelity to God is shown by the observance o f the peculiar Jewish laws: Daniel 's refusal to eat the king's food (Dan 1), the three Jewish youths do not worship the golden statue (Dan 3), Daniel prays to God three times a day (Dan 6). In the visions (Dan 7-12), the context is confrontation with pagan power. The faithful Jews are persecuted by Antiochus Epiphanes. The maśkilim, "the wise", are to lay down their lives. The death of the martyrs, however, is not in vain. They are the ones who are purified. In Dn 10-12 the specific hope is offered which involves the resurrection ofthe dead. The salvation of the faithful Jews involves their resurrection and exaltation in an afterlife. The risen maśkilim, "the wise", are associated with the angels. The faithful community will share the power of the heavenly holy ones and the wise teachers shine with them in eternal life.

While it has been omitted by numerous critics in their otherwise comprehensive readings of Yeats’s oeuvre, “Beautiful Lofty Things” has been placed among the mythical poems, partly in accordance with Yeats’s own intention; in a letter to his wife, he suggested that “Lapis Lazuli, the poem called ‘To D. W.’ ‘Beautiful Lofty Things,’ ‘Imitated from the Japanese’ &amp; ‘Gyres’ . . . would go well together in a bunch.” The poem has been inscribed in the Yeats canon as registering a series of fleeting epiphanies of the mythical in the mundane. However, “Beautiful Lofty Things,” evocative of a characteristically Yeatsian employment of myth though it certainly is, seems at the same time to fuse Yeats’s quite earthly preoccupations. It is here argued that the poem is organized around a tightly woven matrix of figures that comprise Yeats’s idea of the Irish nation as a “poetical culture.” Thus the position of the lyric in the poet’s oeuvre deserves to be shifted from periphery towards an inner part of his cultural and political ideas of the time. Indeed, the poem can be viewed as one of Yeats’s central late comments on the state of the nation and, significantly, one in which he is able to proffer a humanist strategy for developing a culturally modern state rather than miring his argument in occasionally over-reckless display of abhorrence of modernity.

The article represents the first attempt to investigate the sources of the apocryphal story “Pilate and the Holy Virgin” from Father Theodore Popovych Tukhliansky’s manuscript of the 18th century. It is proved that the logic of Virgin Mary’s divine miracle is a key narrative technique that progresses the plot. Even though the idea that Pilate and his wife were converted to Christianity after the conversation with the Virgin Mary accompanied by the miracle star on her shoulder is absent in Ukrainian handwritten collections of apocrypha, the analyzed story – as the part of compilation – hypothetically could not be of purely local origin.The system of correlations between the Holy Scripture and the apocrypha about the Virgin Mary and Pontius Pilate is considered through the prism of Genette’s theory of hypertextual transformations. The apocryphon is defined as a text in the second degree, the invariant core of which can be described as a set of intertextual relations which a text has with the Bible. The motif-index of the apocrypha about Pontius Pilate is compiled by using the tools of structural analysis, and namely theoretical frameworks proposed by folklorists Badalanova, Belova, Zovchak, and Kmet.Although the question of a particular protograph of the story “Pilate and the Holy Virgin” has not be solved in this research paper yet, the list of genetic-contact relations between the analyzed apocryphal narration and several medieval and early modern monuments were revealed. Some textual coincidence was found 1) with the corpus of apocryphal apologies of Pilate dedicated to his conversion to Christianity with his wife and two children and martyrdom (“The Tale of How Martha accused Pilate before Caesar Augustus”, “Pilate and St. Stephen”); 2) with the folk tradition of Marian iconographic art; 3) creative adaptations of the Christmas plot in apocrypha from Ukrainian manuscript books of the 16th–18th centuries; 4) and stories of the Entrance of the Theotokos to the Temple Presentation, derived from the Life of the Virgin Mary by Epiphanius the Monk. Special attention is given to apologetic and psychological aims pursued by authors, scribes, and translators of Christian apocryphal texts.

AbstractThis article deals with the enigmatic prediction and explanation in Dan 7:8, 20 and 24 concerning the three out of ten horns of the fourth beast that were "uprooted" in front of the eleventh, little horn widely identified with Antiochus IV. Analysing the verses from a historical point of view like the text's first exegete Porphyry in the late third c. C.E. and modifying his thesis as it has been proposed by E. Bickermann the author presents and discusses the evidence for the rule of a Ptolemaic triad at the time of Antiochus' IV reign, still questioned by some scholars, which should be seen as the model for Daniel's visionary report. This identification set on firmer ground allows to critically question the wide range of other interpretations and to confirm the strong parallel in processing certain historical facts in Dan 7 and 11 in yet another special aspect. The relationship between Seleucids and Ptolemies in its final stage witnessed by the author of Daniel, the 6th Syrian War, characterizes Antiochus' total victory over the hated enemy "of the South" as the climax of the Seleucid's foreign success—and glory.

As teachers we feel the need to do more than merely teach basic facts and concepts. We want to make the subject matter more relevant; we would like to help integrate the various threads of the students' education and life experiences; and, finally, we wish to increase the students' interest and involvement in the learning process. There is the temptation, however, when thinking along these lines, to consider the use of time-consuming, complex methods of approach. These might involve slide presentations, videos, special lectures, special assignments, student, reports, etc: The very complexity of these approaches often reduces their effectiveness. Moreover, the time and effort required often keeps us from attempting them more than once or twice. Are simpler and more effective approaches to enrichment possible? Reflecting on our own education, many of us may recall the disproportionate impact of some revealing aside thrown by a teacher unexpectedly into an otherwise mundane lecture or discussion: perhaps a short, penetrating observation providing an unexpected perspective on what was being discussed, a bolt of lightening that briefly illuminated the dim landscape of the classroom. This we may remember when much from the course has been totally forgotten. These jewels of thought--epiphanies--can be shared by teachers to enrich, enlighten, and refresh their students and each other. The jewels we speak of need not be precious or rare. Indeed, the metaphors "a bolt of lightening" and "jewels" may mislead by their intensity and drama. Is it not in the often unexamined, simple, and humble all around us that wisdom can be found? The following is an example.

The position of the images of the four «animals» which are the symbols of the Evangelists in Russian icons of the Savior in Power, in comparison with Byzantine and Western European counterparts, is very stable. They are necessarily located in an «oblique cross», in the rays of a four-pointed star-shaped object: a man and an eagle are at the top: a man to the left (from the viewer), an eagle to the right. A lion and a taurus are below and they can change places, exceptions are extremely rare. The way they are related to the Evangelists also turns out to be very stable. There are a number of these ways; four have received the greatest distribution and fame in the literature: according to St. Irenaeus of Lyon, according to St. Hippolytus of Rome (the same according to Blessed Augustine), St. Epiphanius of Salamys (the same according to Blessed Jerome) and according to Pseudo-Athanasius. But in the Russian icons of the Savior in the Powers, only two dominate: the scheme of St. Irenaeus and the scheme of St. Epiphany. There are exceptions, but they are quite rare and, in the author’s opinion, for the most part they are the icon painter’s mistake, as they find no basis in patristic texts and other sources, while being mostly late and originating from areas where the tradition of the studied iconography and the tradition associated with it faded away. The author is inclined to associate the appearance and distribution of the iconography of the Savior in Power and other variants of the images of the Savior in Glory with the symbols of the evangelists in Russian icon painting of the 15th century with the wide distribution of texts containing the interpretation of the quaternary «animals» and connecting them with the Evangelists, which began in the second half of the 14th century. And if these phenomena are interconnected, the interpretation of St. Irenaeus must be this interpretation must be primary for the studied iconography as all the texts containing the interpretation of the «animals» which had become widespread, contain exactly interpretation of Irenaeus.

The Falling Asleep of the Mother of God There is only one instance in the New Testament giving rise to speculations about the death of the Mother of God. In Luke II, 35 it is said that a sword will stab Maryʼs soul. The absence of reliable information caused Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis († 403) to state: „Actually nobody knows what has been her end.” This was no reason, however, to stop visualizing the life of Mary after the Ascension of Jesus Christ in the Early-Christian period. The results are to be found in a large number of apocryphal stories, written in a wide geographical area. The doubt about the authenticity and the reliability of these writings made it necessary to study their truthfulness and to clear them from falsifications, wittingly or unwittingly introduced by copyists. In this way the very important sermon of John of Thessaloniki was written. In this article attention is given to the history and the literature related to the question of the Death of the Mother of God in the Early-Christian and Byzantine world of the East. This makes it clear that in the Early-Christian world, despite the great number of related texts, no positive and authentic tradition existed about the Death and the Assumption of the Mother of God, going back as far as the apostolic period. Many writers felt the necessity to clear the apocryphal texts endlessly from falsifications introduced by overzealous copyists. Also the history of the Feast of Maryʼs Death and Assumption is studied. Of great importance for the development of the theology and the liturgy of this Feast was the Ephese Councilʼs definition of Maryʼs Motherhood in 431. With the information so required many wallpaintings created up to the twelfth century are described. The study of many paintings unknown in the time of the extensive study of Wratislaw-Mitrovich/Okunev, La Dormition de la Sainte Vierge dans la peinture médiévale orthodoxe, has made possible another theory. It is possible that about the end of the period of the Iconoclasm a prescribed „severe” iconography existed, excluding all doubtful apocryphal information. Later this „severe” iconography was loosened, leading to the very richly detailed paintings from the 13th century onwards.

The position of the images of the four «animals» which are the symbols of the Evangelists in Russian icons of the Savior in Power, in comparison with Byzantine and Western European counterparts, is very stable. They are necessarily located in an «oblique cross», in the rays of a four-pointed star-shaped object: a man and an eagle are at the top: a man to the left (from the viewer), an eagle to the right. A lion and a taurus are below and they can change places, exceptions are extremely rare. The way they are related to the Evangelists also turns out to be very stable. There are a number of these ways; four have received the greatest distribution and fame in the literature: according to St. Irenaeus of Lyon, according to St. Hippolytus of Rome (the same according to Blessed Augustine), St. Epiphanius of Salamys (the same according to Blessed Jerome) and according to Pseudo-Athanasius. But in the Russian icons of the Savior in the Powers, only two dominate: the scheme of St. Irenaeus and the scheme of St. Epiphany. There are exceptions, but they are quite rare and, in the author’s opinion, for the most part they are the icon painter’s mistake, as they find no basis in patristic texts and other sources, while being mostly late and originating from areas where the tradition of the studied iconography and the tradition associated with it faded away. The author is inclined to associate the appearance and distribution of the iconography of the Savior in Power and other variants of the images of the Savior in Glory with the symbols of the evangelists in Russian icon painting of the 15th century with the wide distribution of texts containing the interpretation of the quaternary «animals» and connecting them with the Evangelists, which began in the second half of the 14th century. And if these phenomena are interconnected, the interpretation of St. Irenaeus must be this interpretation must be primary for the studied iconography as all the texts containing the interpretation of the «animals» which had become widespread, contain exactly interpretation of Irenaeus.

Purpose Situated within the conversation of the global push for teacher quality and for professional learning that positively shapes teaching practice in order to improve student learning, the purpose of this paper is concerned with transformational learning that actively shifts cognition, emotion, and capacity (Drago-Severson, 2009). Design/methodology/approach This paper is set against the backdrop of one independent, well-resourced Australian school during its professional learning intervention. It draws together findings from a narrative study that examined the lived experiences of 14 educators. The educators interviewed for this study included the researcher (also an educator at the school), two teachers, and 11 school leaders at middle and executive levels. Findings While the study set out to explore how educators’ experiences of professional learning (trans)form their senses of professional identity, it found that it is not just professional learning, but epiphanic life experiences that shape professional selves and practices. Learning is highly individualized, not one-size-fits-all. It is that which taps into who educators see and feel they are that has the most impact on beliefs, thoughts, behaviors, and practices. Originality/value This study suggests that transformational professional learning can occur in a wide range of life arenas. It recommends that the definition of professional learning be broadened, that teachers and schools think more expansively and flexibly about what it is that transforms educators, and about who drives and chooses this learning. Schools and systems can work from their own contexts to design and slowly iterate models of professional learning, from the bottom up and the middle out.

This article applies MLG theory to the study of engagement of local and regional authorities from South East Europe with the EU. It identifies the EU policies that impact the local and regional authorities from the region. This is a reliable predictor of the areas in which they are likely to engage with the EU. The article also identifies the various epiphanies of this engagement. Local and regional authorities from South East Europe engage with the EU through their own national associations but also through the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe (NALAS). This is a region-wide organisation of which all the national associations of local and regional authorities from South East Europe are members. Lobbying with EU institutions does not play a big role for the local and regional authorities from South East Europe. These authorities, however, both those from EU and those from non-EU countries, attempt to influence EU policy through the national governments and, where the interests of the national government are not aligned with those of sub-national authorities, through the regional network NALAS or other channels, such as European networks of local and regional authorities, the Committee of the Regions, and Brussels- based representation offices. These offices are limited in number and size due to their high cost and the limited benefits they generate, e.g., in terms of impact on policy. The study evidences a different approach to engagement with the EU in EU and non-EU countries from South East Europe. Whilst NALAS creates momentum around the interests of local and regional authorities from South East Europe, its existence also reveals the relative weakness of these sub-national authorities that, due to their limited powers and resources, are unable to engage with the EU directly and must do so through NALAS, European networks, the CoR or, where viable, the national governments.

В статье рассматриваются варианты происхождения имен ключевой фигуры гностической мифологии Софии-Ахамоф - «Барбело» и «Пруник». Наивный этимологизм современных (начиная с 18 века и до наших дней) интерпретаторов надежных результатов здесь не приносит - главным образом, из-за однобокости подхода, не соответствующего синкретическому характеру предмета исследования. Исправить положение может привлечение широкого спектра разноязыких (греческих, коптских, семитских) и разнородных (лексикографических, литературных, эпиграфических) свидетельств. Но и в этом случае достижение однозначного толкования, свободного от домыслов и фантазий, представляется едва ли возможным, и по той же самой причине - в силу многослойности и многоуровневости интересующих нас языковых фактов и скрытых за ними жизненных и понятийных реальностей. По крайней мере, можно отследить отдельные нити этого синкретического переплетения и таким образом «снизу», исходя из данностей словотворчества и словоупотребления, попытаться поддержать и наполнить содержанием встречное движение - наметившееся в последние десятилетия концептуальное и пока что достаточно абстрактное сближение гнозиса сифианского толка с платонизмом. В качестве приложения публикуется радикально переработанный, дополненный и снабженный комментариями перевод важных фрагментов из «Панариона» Епифания Кипрского ( 1.2.25-26) с параллельным текстом на греческом по изданию Карла Холла (1915). The paper considers the names and , and their possible origins, referring to the key figure of Gnostic mythology Sophia-Achamoth. The naiveetymologism of modern (starting from 18th century and up to the present day) interpreters does not yield reliable solutions, mostly because of its one-sided approach unsuitable for the syncretic nature of the object(s) under investigation. Drawing on a wide spectrum of multilingual (Greek, Coptic, Semitic) and heterogeneous (lexicographical, literary, epigraphic) testimonies may somewhat mend the situation. Though even in that case the attainment of an unequivocal interpretation free of conjectural and fanciful errancies seems hardly to be possible, and for the same reason - because of the multilayered, multistage character both of the linguistic facts under consideration and of historical and conceptual realities behind them. At least one can extricate individual threads in this syncretic tangle and so attempt as if from below, from the philological groundwork of word coinage and usage, to support and supply with content a counter-trend, which has been taking shape in the last decades, of a conceptual and still rather abstract rapprochement between Sethian Gnosticism and Platonism. As an appendix, a radically reworked, supplemented and commented Russian translation of the relevant passages from Epiphanius of Salamis’ ( 1.2.25-26) is provided, with the underlying Greek text according to Karl Holl (1915).

<em>The East Slavs did not know the term &ldquo;hesychasm&rdquo;, but easily accepted this doctrine in the late Middle Ages, as evidenced by the fiction of these times. <strong>The article&rsquo;s objective </strong>is to examine the peculiarities of this perception. <strong>The methods</strong> of hermeneutic, stylistic, ideological and artistic, contextual analysis are used. The corpus of literary texts, translated into Rus language of the considered period, contains works by prominent teachers of continuous prayer and deification. However, lack of hesychastic theological treatises in East Slavic translations causes the features of &ldquo;Rus&rdquo; hesychasm that distinguish it from Byzantine one, actually from palamism. The fiction of XIV &ndash; XV cent. helps to explain these features, study the worldview of our ancestors who were hesychasm followers, clarify the ways of this doctrine penetration into our lands and the peculiarities of its reception. Current research is based on the works of Epiphanius the Wise &ndash; the disciple of Sergius of Radonezh and Metropolitan Cyprian, who implemented hesychastic ideals. Epiphanius never mentions the term &ldquo;hesychasm&rdquo; in the life stories he wrote, but his texts consistently reflect a hesychast&rsquo;s worldview: their style that he named &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo;, their rhythm, composition, attention to subtle psychological moments, use of keywords associated with hesychastic practice, and many lyrical digressions revealing the author&rsquo;s intense prayerful mood. <strong>The article&rsquo;s novelty</strong> is in the first attempt to state distinctiveness of the Rus perception of hesychastic ideas that is reflected in the late Middle Ages fiction. Epiphanius&rsquo; works are first analyzed as prayer texts associated with hesychasm ascetic practice. The prayer intonations of &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo; literature are caused not only by it, but also by immersion in liturgical works and temple ceremonies.</em>

<strong><em>The article aims</em></strong><em> to observe expression to the&nbsp;principle of assimilation in Old Rus musical culture and hagiography, examine the&nbsp;theological basis for this principle and analyse examples of its representation in saints&rsquo; lives. <strong>This&nbsp;paper&rsquo;s novelty</strong> is in the&nbsp;first attempt to draw a&nbsp;parallel between musical assimilations and so called &ldquo;agiological samples&rdquo; as well as to&nbsp;view hagiographic toposes and these samples in terms of their deliberate, semantic introduction to text. The&nbsp;principle of assimilation is examined in diachrony: from biblical books to Byzantine hymnography and Slavic saints&rsquo; lives. Studying liturgical hymns allows accentuating a&nbsp;writer&rsquo;s especial technique &ndash; using prosomoias &ndash; that is a&nbsp;direct manifestation of mentioned principle in theological texts. Hagiographic writings analysis concentrates on &ldquo;Life of Sergius of Radonezh&rdquo; written by Epiphanius the&nbsp;Wise. The&nbsp;article conclusion states the&nbsp;principle of assimilation, that features prominently in a medieval human&rsquo;s philosophical outlook, is present in Old Rus&nbsp;musical and literary heritage, determining similarity in composition and stylistics of then musicians&rsquo; and hagiographers&rsquo; works. This&nbsp;is strongly reflected in saints&rsquo; lives of &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo; that contain numerous quotations, reminiscences and thus extracts from lives of other saints or allusions to them. This also links lives of &ldquo;flowery style&rdquo; with hymnography and&nbsp;results in syncretism of the arts that is one of major attributes for a&nbsp;medieval Slavic artistic endeavour.</em>

The material for the study is a well-known text created in the style of “word weaving” at the end of the 14th century by the Russian hagiographer Epiphanius the Wise. The object of the study is text series consisting of verbal formulas with key semantically similar words; the subject is intra-row semantic relations between key words, as well as formulas as components of series. The use of the term “verbal series” is substantiated. A structural and semantic analysis of verbal series with key words characterising pagan deities from a Christian point of view is carried out. Lexical-semantic, grammatical, word-formation features of component relations within verbal series are described. A conclusion is made about the gradation “genus” — “kind” as the basic principle of constructing the considered verbal series. Formal and substantive methods of concretisation of the actual semantic feature are revealed.

Житие Стефана Пермского имеет богатую рукописную и старопечатную традиции, развивавшиеся на протяжении XV–XIX вв. В их основе лежит «Слово» о Стефане, написанное Епифанием Премудрым, вероятно, в начале XV в. Исторический материал Епифаниевской редакции в кратких редакциях предстает в сокращении и может подвергаться изменению. В его отборе и правке каждая редакция индивидуальна, и здесь можно проследить как особенности творческой манеры отдельных книжников, так и некоторые тенденции эволюции агиографического жанра. Первая проложная редакция, созданная Пахомием Сербом в начале 70-х гг. XV в., отличается крайне малой информативностью, описывая жизнь святого традиционно. Рукописная традиция Жития в XVI в. показывает изменение представлений книжников об исторической составляющей краткого житийного текста. Появляется Вторая Проложная редакция с гораздо большим объемом исторического материала, касающегося личности Стефана. Обращение к русской истории обнаруживается в Особой редакции, где основным историческим персонажем оказывается великий князь Дмитрий Иванович, значимость которого в жизни Стефана подчеркивается даже в ущерб исторической правде. В XVII в. внимание к историческому материалу демонстрирует старопечатная традиция: при подготовке текста Второй Проложной редакции для ее издания в составе Пролога справщики специально редактировали исторические сведения, что находилось в русле общих тенденций правки текстов при подготовке Пролога к печати. Элементы критического подхода к историческому материалу, характерного уже для Нового времени, проявились в творчестве Димитрия Ростовского, который в своей минейной редакции Жития подвергает сомнению некоторые исторические сведения источников и позволяет себе не только исправлять их, но и добавлять новые данные в соответствии со своими знаниями и представлениями. The Life of Stephan of Perm has been part of long manuscript and old-printing traditions, which developed in 15th--19th centuries. The Word about Stephan, possibly written by Epiphanius the Wise at the beginning of the 15th century, works as a basis for further editions. The historical material presented by Epiphanius is shortened and undergo alterations within later brief editions. Each further edition is unique: sorting and editing styles mark specifics of each bibliognost, as well as tendencies for further evolution of the hagiographic genre. The first prologue edition that was created by Pachomius the Serb in early 70-s of the 15th century distinguishes itself with a low information capacity, the text narrates about the life of the Saint in a traditional way. The manuscript hagiographic tradition of the 15th century shows changes in positioning of the historical component by bibliognosts in shorter hagiographic texts. The second prologue edition appears -- it is more informative, consisting of a larger volume of historical material regarding Saint Stephan’s personality. An appeal to the Russian history is being discovered in the Special edition, in which the main historical character is Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, whose significancy in Stephan’s life is being specified even at the expense of historical truth. In the 17th century the early printing tradition demonstrates special attention to the historical component: during preparation of the text of the Second Prologue’s Redaction for its further publication as part of the Prologue, proofreaders have been intentionally editing historical facts, acting in line with general editing tradition of the time. Elements of critical approach to the historical material could be seen in the New Modern era, in Dmitry Rostovsky’s texts. In his menaion edition of the Hagiography some of the historical facts are questioned and edited, new ones added in adherence to his knowledge and concepts.

As minorities, people of diverse sexual orientations and genders often feel that they do not belong within higher education. To combat this, connection is important, but that can be difficult in the uncertain, predominantly online world of universities. The Ally Program is a university-wide, extra-curricular online training program aimed at creating connection for LGBTIQ+ students and staff. This paper presents a critically reflective autoethnographic study of my 12 years of experience in developing the Ally Program through the writing and analysis of four creative narratives. These narratives centre on the epiphanies I had as a trainer that led to significant refinements of the training. Using borderlands discourse as my theoretical framework, I demonstrate how my own sense of belonging developed and how that enabled me to create a safe space for participants in the program to feel a sense of belonging and share this with the wider university community. I further explain the teaching model I have created, drawing on Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development as a pedagogical framework to promote meaningful, engaged learning in the borderlands. I show how these frameworks intertwine to enable participants to embrace uncertainty, allowing for learning to evolve over time and space, and ultimately fostering a sense of belonging for all LGBTIQ+ students and staff. This model of teaching for belonging is useful across many different learning environments to embrace diversity and encourage belonging.

IntroductionThe death of Chris Cornell in the spring of 2017 shook me. As the lead singer of Soundgarden and a pioneer of early 1990s grunge music, his voice revealed an unbridled pain and joy backed up by the raw, guitar-driven rock emanating from the Seattle, Washington music scene. I remember thinking, there’s only one left, referring to Eddie Vedder, lead singer for Pearl Jam, and lone survivor of the four seminal grunge bands that rose to fame in the early 1990s whose lead singers passed away much too soon. Alice in Chains singer Layne Staley died in 2002 at the age of 35, and Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 had resonated around the globe. I thought about when Cornell and Staley said goodbye to their friend Andy Wood, lead singer of Mother Love Bone, after he overdosed on heroine in 1990. Wood’s untimely death at the age of 24, only days before his band’s debut album release, shook the close-knit Seattle music scene and remained a source of angst and inspiration for a genre of music that shaped youth culture of the 1990s.When grunge first exploded on the pop culture scene, I was a college student flailing around in pursuit of an English degree I had less passion for than I did for music. I grew up listening to The Beatles and Prince; Led Zeppelin and Miles Davis; David Bowie and Willie Nelson, along with a litany of other artists and musicians crafting the kind of meaningful music I responded to. I didn’t just listen to music, I devoured stories about the musicians, their often hedonistic lifestyles; their processes and epiphanies. The music spoke to my being in the world more than the promise of any college degree. I ran with friends who shared this love of music, often turning me on to new bands or suggesting some obscure song from the past to track down. I picked up my first guitar when John Lennon died on the eve of my eleventh birthday and have played for the past 37 years. I rely on music to relocate my sense of self. Rhythm and melody play out like characters in my life, colluding to make me feel something apart from the mundane, moving me from within. So, when I took notice of grunge music in the fall of 1991, it was love at first listen. As a pop cultural phenomenon, grunge ruptured the music and fashion industries caught off guard by its sudden commercial appeal while the media struggled to galvanize its relevance. As a subculture, grunge rallied around a set of attitudes and values that set the movement apart from mainstream (Latysheva). The grunge sound drew from the nihilism of punk and the head banging gospel of heavy metal, tinged with the swagger of 1970s FM rock running counter to the sleek production of pop radio and hair metal bands. Grunge artists wrote emotionally-laden songs that spoke to a particular generation of youth who identified with lyrics about isolation, anger, and death. Grunge set off new fashion trends in favor of dressing down and sporting the latest in second-hand, thrift store apparel, ripping away the Reagan-era starched white-collared working-class aesthetic of the 1980’s corporate culture. Like their punk forbearers who railed against the status quo and the trappings of success incurred through the mass appeal of their art, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, and the rest of the grunge cohort often wrestled with the momentum of their success. Fortunes rained down and the media ordained them rock stars.This auto-ethnography revisits some of the cultural impacts of grunge during its rise to cultural relevance and includes my own reflexive interpretation positioned as a fan of grunge music. I use a particular auto-ethnographic orientation called “interpretive-humanistic autoethnography” (Manning and Adams 192) where, along with archival research (i.e. media articles and journal articles), I will use my own reflexive voice to interpret and describe my personal experiences as a fan of grunge music during its peak of popularity from 1991 up to the death of Cobain in 1994. It is a methodology that works to bridge the personal and popular where “the individual story leaves traces of at least one path through a shifting, transforming, and disappearing cultural landscape” (Neumann 183). Grunge RootsThere are many conflicting stories as to when the word “grunge” was first used to describe the sound of a particular style of alternative music seeping from the dank basements and shoddy rehearsal spaces in towns like Olympia, Aberdeen, and Seattle. Lester Bangs, the preeminent cultural writer and critic of all things punk, pop, and rock in the 1970s was said to have used the word at one time (Yarm), and several musicians lay claim to their use of the word in the 1980s. But it was a small Seattle record label founded in 1988 called Sub Pop Records that first included grunge in their marketing materials to describe “the grittiness of the music and the energy” (Yarm 195).This particular sound grew out of the Pacific Northwest blue-collar environment of logging towns, coastal fisheries, and airplane manufacturing. Seattle’s alternative music scene unfolded as a community of musicians responding to the tucked away isolation of their musty surroundings, apart from the outside world, free to submerge themselves in their own cultural milieu of rock music, rain, and youthful rebellion.Where Seattle stood as a major metropolitan city soaked in rainclouds for much of the year, I was soaking up the desert sun in a rural college town when grunge first leapt into the mainstream. Cattle ranches and cotton fields spread across the open plains of West Texas, painted with pickup trucks, starched Wrangler Jeans, and cowboy hats. This was not my world. I’d arrived the year prior from Houston, Texas, an urban sprawl of four million people, but I found the wide-open landscape a welcome change from the concrete jungle of the big city. Along with cowboy boots and western shirts came country music, and lots of it. Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, George Straight; some of the voices that captured the lifestyle of my small rural town, twangy guitars and fiddles blaring on local radio. While popular country artists recorded for behemoth record labels like Warner Brothers and Sony, the tiny Sub Pop Records championed the grunge sound coming out of the Seattle music scene. Sub Pop became a playground for those who cared about their music and little else. The label cultivated an early following through their Sub Pop Singles Club, mailing seven-inch records to subscribers on a monthly basis promoting new releases from up-and-coming bands. Sub Pop’s stark, black and white logo showed up on records sleeves, posters, and t-shirts, reflecting a no-nonsense DIY-attitude rooted in in the production of loud guitars and heavy drums.Like the bands it represented, Sub Pop did not take itself too seriously when one of their best-selling t-shirts simply read “Loser” embracing the slacker mood of newly minted Generation X’ers born between 1961 and 1981. A July 1990 Time Magazine article described this twenty-something demographic as having “few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own” suggesting they “possess only a hazy sense of their own identity” (Gross &amp; Scott). As a member of this generation, I purchased and wore my “Loser” t-shirt with pride, especially in ironic response to the local cowboy way of life. I didn’t hold anything personal against the Wrangler wearing Garth Brooks fan but as a twenty-one-year-old reluctant college student, I wanted to rage with contempt for the status quo of my environment with an ambivalent snarl.Grunge in the MainstreamIn 1991, the Seattle sound exploded onto the international music scene with the release of four seminal grunge-era albums over a six-month period. The first arrived in April, Temple of the Dog, a tribute album of sorts to the late Andy Wood, led by his close friend, Soundgarden singer/songwriter, Chris Cornell. In August, Pearl Jam released their debut album, Ten, with its “surprising and refreshing, melodic restraint” (Fricke). The following month, Nirvana’s Nevermind landed in stores. Now on a major record label, DGC Records, the band had arrived “at the crossroads—scrappy garageland warriors setting their sights on a land of giants” (Robbins). October saw the release of Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger as “a runaway train ride of stammering guitar and psycho-jungle telegraph rhythms” (Fricke). These four albums sent grunge culture into the ether with a wall of sound that would upend the music charts and galvanize a depressed concert ticket market.In fall of 1991, grunge landed like a hammer when I witnessed Nirvana’s video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on MTV for the first time. Sonically, the song rang like an anthem for the Gen Xers with its jangly four-chord opening guitar riff signaling the arrival of a youth-oriented call to arms, “here we are now, entertain us” (Nirvana). It was the visual power of seeing a skinny white kid with stringy hair wearing baggy jeans, a striped T-shirt and tennis shoes belting out choruses with a ferociousness typically reserved for black-clad heavy metal headbangers. Cobain’s sound and look didn’t match up. I felt discombobulated, turned sideways, as if vertigo had taken hold and I couldn’t right myself. Stopped in the middle of my tracks on that day, frozen in front of the TV, the subculture of grunge music slammed into my world while I was on my way to the fridge.Suddenly, grunge was everywhere, As Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam albums and performances infiltrated radio, television, and concert halls, there was no shortage of media coverage. From 1992 through 1994, grunge bands were mentioned or featured on the cover of Rolling Stone 33 times (Hillburn). That same year, The New York Times ran the article “Grunge: A Success Story” featuring a short history of the Seattle sound, along with a “lexicon of grunge speak” (Marin), a joke perpetrated by a former 25-year-old Sub Pop employee, Megan Jasper, who never imagined her list of made-up vocabulary given to a New York Times reporter would grace the front page of the style section (Yarm). In their rush to keep up with pervasiveness of grunge culture, even The New York Times fell prey to Gen Xer’s comical cynicism.The circle of friends I ran with were split down the middle between Nirvana and Pearl Jam, a preference for one over the other, as the two bands and their respective front men garnered much of the media attention. Nirvana seemed to appeal to people’s sense of authenticity, perhaps more relatable in their aloofness to mainstream popularity, backed up with Cobain’s simple-yet-brilliant song arrangements and revealing lyrics. Lawrence Grossberg suggests that music fans recognise the difference between authentic and homogenised rock, interpreting and aligning these differences with rock and roll’s association with “resistance, refusal, alienation, marginality, and so on” (62). I tended to gravitate toward Nirvana’s sound, mostly for technical reasons. Nevermind sparkled with aggressive guitar tones while capturing the power and fragility of Cobain’s voice. For many critics, the brilliance of Pearl Jam’s first album suffered from too much echo and reverb muddling the overall production value, but twenty years later they would remix and re-release Ten, correcting these production issues.Grunge FashionAs the music carved out a huge section of the charts, the grunge look was appropriated on fashion runways. When Cobain appeared on MTV wearing a ragged olive green cardigan he’d created a style simply by rummaging through his closet. Vedder and Cornell sported army boots, cargo shorts, and flannel shirts, suitable attire for the overcast climate of the Pacific Northwest, but their everyday garb turned into a fashion trend for Gen Xers that was then milked by designers. In 1992, the editor of Details magazine, James Truman, called grunge “un fashion” (Marin) as stepping out in second-hand clothes ran “counter to the shellacked, flashy aesthetic of 1980s” (Nnadi) for those who preferred “the waif-like look of put-on poverty” (Brady). But it was MTV’s relentless airing of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden videos that sent Gen Xers flocking to malls and thrift-stores in search grunge-like apparel. I purchased a pair of giant, heavyweight Red Wing boots that looked like small cars on my feet, making it difficult to walk, but at least I was prepared for any terrain in all types of weather. The flannel came next; I still wear flannos. Despite its association with dark, murky musical themes, grunge kept me warm and dry.Much of grunge’s appeal to the masses was that it was not gender-specific; men and women dressed to appear unimpressed, sharing a taste for shapeless garments and muted colors without reference to stereotypical masculine or feminine styles. Cobain “allowed his own sexuality to be called into question by often wearing dresses and/or makeup on stage, in film clips, and on photo shoots, and wrote explicitly feminist songs, such as ‘Sappy’ or ‘Been a Son’” (Strong 403). I remember watching Pearl Jam’s 1992 performance on MTV Unplugged, seeing Eddie Vedder scrawl the words “Pro Choice” in black marker on his arm in support of women’s rights while his lyrics in songs like “Daughter”, “Better Man”, and “Why Go” reflected an equitable, humanistic if somewhat tragic perspective. Females and males moshed alongside one another, sharing the same spaces while experiencing and voicing their own response to grunge’s aggressive sound. Unlike the hypersexualised hair-metal bands of the 1980s whose aesthetic motifs often portrayed women as conquests or as powerless décor, the message of grunge rock avoided gender exploitation. As the ‘90s unfolded, underground feminist punk bands of the riot grrrl movement like Bikini Kill, L7, and Babes in Toyland expressed female empowerment with raging vocals and buzz-saw guitars that paved the way for Hole, Sleater-Kinney and other successful female-fronted grunge-era bands. The Decline of GrungeIn 1994, Kurt Cobain appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine in memoriam after committing suicide in the greenhouse of his Seattle home. Mass media quickly spread the news of his passing internationally. Two days after his death, 7,000 fans gathered at Seattle Center to listen to a taped recording of Courtney Love, Cobain’s wife, a rock star in her own right, reading the suicide note he left behind.A few days after Cobain’s suicide, I found myself rolling down the highway with a carload of friends, one of my favorite Nirvana tunes, “Come As You Are” fighting through static. I fiddled with the radio to clear up the signal. The conversation turned to Cobain as we cobbled together the details of his death. I remember the chatter quieting down, Cobain’s voice fading as we gazed out the window at the empty terrain passing. In that reflective moment, I felt like I had experienced an intense, emotional relationship that came to an abrupt end. This “illusion of intimacy” (Horton and Wohl 217) between myself and Cobain elevated the loss I felt with his passing even though I had no intimate, personal ties to him. I counted this person as a friend (Giles 284) because I so closely identified with his words and music. I could not help but feel sad, even angry that he’d decided to end his life.Fueled by depression and a heroin addiction, Cobain’s death signaled an end to grunge’s collective appeal while shining a spotlight on one of the more dangerous aspects of its ethos. A 1992 Rolling Stone article mentioned that several of Seattle’s now-famous international musicians used heroin and “The feeling around town is, the drug is a disaster waiting to happen” (Azzerad). In 2002, eight years to the day of Cobain’s death, Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice In Chains, another seminal grunge outfit, was found dead of a suspected heroin overdose (Wiederhorn). When Cornell took his own life in 2017 after a long battle with depression, The Washington Post said, “The story of grunge is also one of death” (Andrews). The article included a Tweet from a grieving fan that read “The voices I grew up with: Andy Wood, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain…only Eddie Vedder is left. Let that sink in” (@ThatEricAlper).ConclusionThe grunge movement of the early 1990s emerged out of musical friendships content to be on their own, on the outside, reflecting a sense of isolation and alienation in the music they made. As Cornell said, “We’ve always been fairly reclusive and damaged” (Foege). I felt much the same way in those days, sequestered in the desert, planting my grunge flag in the middle of country music territory, doing what I could to resist the status quo. Cobain, Cornell, Staley, and Vedder wrote about their own anxieties in a way that felt intimate and relatable, forging a bond with their fan base. Christopher Perricone suggests, “the relationship of an artist and audience is a collaborative one, a love relationship in the sense, a friendship” (200). In this way, grunge would become a shared memory among friends who rode the wave of this cultural phenomenon all the way through to its tragic consequences. But the music has survived. Along with my flannel shirts and Red Wing boots.References@ThatEricAlper (Eric Alper). “The voices I grew up with: Andy Wood, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain…only Eddie Vedder is left. Let that sink in.” Twitter, 18 May 2017, 02:41. 15 Sep. 2018 &lt;https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper/status/865140400704675840?ref_src&gt;.Andrews, Travis M. “After Chris Cornell’s Death: ‘Only Eddie Vedder Is Left. Let That Sink In.’” The Washington Post, 19 May 2017. 29 Aug. 2018 &lt;https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsmorning-mix/wp/2017/05/19/after-chris-cornells-death-only-eddie-vedder-is-left-let-that-sink-in&gt;.Azzerad, Michael. “Grunge City: The Seattle Scene.” Rolling Stone, 16 Apr. 1992. 20 Aug. 2018 &lt;https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grunge-city-the-seattle-scene-250071/&gt;.Brady, Diane. “Kids, Clothes and Conformity: Teens Fashion and Their Back-to-School Looks.” Maclean’s, 6 Sep. 1993. Brodeur, Nicole. “Chris Cornell: Soundgarden’s Dark Knight of the Grunge-Music Scene.” Seattle Times, 18 May 2017. 20 Aug. 2018 &lt;https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/chris-cornell-soundgardens-dark-knight-of-the-grunge-music-scene/&gt;.Ellis, Carolyn, and Arthur P. Bochner. “Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject.” Handbook of Qualitative Research. 2nd ed. Eds. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000. 733-768.Foege, Alec. “Chris Cornell: The Rolling Stone Interview.” Rolling Stone, 28 Dec. 1994. 12 Sep. 2018 &lt;https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/chris-cornell-the-rolling-stone-interview-79108/&gt;.Fricke, David. “Ten.” Rolling Stone, 12 Dec. 1991. 18 Sep. 2018 &lt;https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/ten-251421/&gt;.Giles, David. “Parasocial Interactions: A Review of the Literature and a Model for Future Research.” Media Psychology 4 (2002): 279-305.Giles, Jeff. “The Poet of Alientation.” Newsweek, 17 Apr. 1994, 4 Sep. 2018 &lt;https://www.newsweek.com/poet-alienation-187124&gt;.Gross, D.M., and S. Scott. Proceding with Caution. Time, 16 July 1990. 3 Sep. 2018 &lt;http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,155010,00.html&gt;.Grossberg, Lawrence. “Is There a Fan in the House? The Affective Sensibility of Fandom. The Adoring Audience” Fan Culture and Popular Media. Ed. Lisa A. Lewis. New York, NY: Routledge, 1992. 50-65.Hillburn, Robert. “The Rise and Fall of Grunge.” Los Angeles Times, 21 May 1998. 20 Aug. 2018 &lt;http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/31/entertainment/ca-54992&gt;.Horton, Donald, and R. Richard Wohl. “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interactions: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance.” Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Process 19 (1956): 215-229.Latysheva, T.V. “The Essential Nature and Types of the Youth Subculture Phenomenon.” Russian Education and Society 53 (2011): 73–88.Manning, Jimmie, and Tony Adams. “Popular Culture Studies and Autoethnography: An Essay on Method.” The Popular Culture Studies Journal 3.1-2 (2015): 187-222.Marin, Rick. “Grunge: A Success Story.” New York Times, 15 Nov. 1992. 12 Sep. 2018 &lt;https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/15/style/grunge-a-success-story.html&gt;.Neumann, Mark. “Collecting Ourselves at the End of the Century.” Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing. Eds. Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner. London: Alta Mira Press, 1996. 172-198.Nirvana. "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Nevermind, Geffen, 1991.Nnadi, Chioma. “Why Kurt Cobain Was One of the Most Influential Style Icons of Our Times.” Vogue, 8 Apr. 2014. 15 Aug. 2018 &lt;https://www.vogue.com/article/kurt-cobain-legacy-of-grunge-in-fashion&gt;.Perricone, Christopher. “Artist and Audience.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 24 (2012). 12 Sep. 2018 &lt;https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00149433.pdf&gt;.Robbins, Ira. “Ten.” Rolling Stone, 12 Dec. 1991. 15 Aug. 2018 &lt;https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/ten-25142&gt;.Strong, Catherine. “Grunge, Riott Grrl and the Forgetting of Women in Popular Culture.” The Journal of Popular Culture 44.2 (2011): 398-416. Wiederhorn, Jon. “Remembering Layne Staley: The Other Great Seattle Musician to Die on April 5.” MTV, 4 June 2004. 23 Sep. 2018 &lt;http://www.mtv.com/news/1486206/remembering-layne-staley-the-other-great-seattle-musician-to-die-on-april-5/&gt;.Yarm, Mark. Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge. Three Rivers Press, 2011.