Essay for “Russian Culture and Civilization” course (Prof. Smorodinskaya)

Первые пятнадцать минут этого фильма мне понравились больше всего! Очень красивые съемки гор, лесов, и рек. Какая красивейшая страна Грузия! Смотря этот фильм я только и думал о том как я хотел бы жить там, где снимался этот фильм! Летать между величезными горами, каминистыме обрывами и по-над реками, это моя мечта!

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Essay for “Russian Culture and Civilization” course (Prof. Smorodinskaya)

Этот фильм имеет много общего с другими фильмами, что мы смотрели. Он очень реальный, довольно печальный, и очень серьезный. Мне понравилось то, что в начале, простая съемка зимы, снега, леса, старых бедных домов втягивает в фильм, и хотя с одной стороны, можно сказать, все кажется тихим, спокойным, и красивым, с другой стороны, это создает серьезную, тяжелую, суровую атмосферу, которая отлично совпадает и дополняет те суровые события, которые произойдут с главными героями фильма чуть позже.

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Essay for “Versions of Foreign” writing seminar (Prof.  Oxfeld).

In this class we have spent few months studying the concept of foreignness and portrayals of the foreign in various samples of world literature. Being foreign always means being foreign to something that is different from your own, thus studying the concept of partitioning or grouping would be deemed as prior to studying the foreign. But obviously, at first, we did not have enough factual material, so it’s quite reasonable at the end trying to define what originates foreignness.

By nature, we, homo-sapiens, are very social and cooperative animals: we tend to work together to enable our survival and to make it a more pleasant experience. If we could, we would cooperate as a whole species across the globe, but so far we did not manage to create a global approach to success and it’s more natural for us to separate ourselves into groups that are determined by geography and economics, by common ancestry and history, and, of course, by culture-a cumulative concept encompassing before mentioned factors.

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Essay for “Versions of Foreign” writing seminar (Prof.  Oxfeld).

Imperialism, as many significant parts of history (old and contemporary) of civilization is a multifaceted phenomenon. Many view it as the noble enterprise, a “white man’s burden” that brings culture and civilization to savages. Others regard it as a divine devoir of spreading the “right” religion and moral to otherwise would be perishing in the ignorance populace. The view exists, that imperialism is just the primordial biological principal of expansion augmented into the social life of human beings. Yet others, consider it as the cruel conquest of powerless people  by nations who are stronger and more advanced, referring to it as a phenomenon inherent to greedy capitalism. Accordingly, the vast variety of images of imperialism, reflecting those and other views can be found in literature on imperial history.

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