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Purpose: to assess the possibility of using thioctic acid and indomethacin tin eyedrops for the therapy of early stages of retinal neurodegeneration.Material and methods. The study was performed on 20 Chinchilla rabbits, including 16 rabbits in whom the neurodegenerative process in the retina was produced by intravitreal installation of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), 0.25 mg per eye, and 4 rabbits (8 eyes) served as control. Thioctic acid 0.5% and Indocollir 0.1% were instilled separately and in combination 5 times daily for 7 days after the injection of 6-OHDA. Pupillary light reaction was estimated and eye fundus condition analyzed. Alpha2-macroglobuline ( 2-MG) and SOD activity, dopamine and protein concentrations were measured in retinal homogenates.Results. Instillations of thioctic acid reduced the retinal damage area almost by half as compared to the untreated group (p d 0.005). Indomethacin was less effective, but the combination of the two drugs brought about a maximal reduction of the damage area (p d 0.05 against the untreated group). Both preparations normalized the disturbed pupillary light reaction. The injection of 6-OHDA caused a decrease of dopamine concentration in the retina (0.050 ± 0.009 pg/mg as against 0.095 ± 0.031 pg/mg in healthy controls, р d 0,05). After instillations of indomethacin and thioctic acid, the concentration tended to increase, and it increased significantly after treatment with their combination (0.141 ± 0.037 pg/mg, p d 0.01 as against untreated animals). The activity of 2-MG in retina decreased after a 6-OHDA injection (2.93 ± 0.42 pg/mg as against 5.5 ± 1.2 pg/mg in healthy controls, р < 0 005) just as they increased the decreased SOD (13.30 ± 5.68 U/mg in healthy controls, 5.41 ± 1.50 U/mg in untreated animals, р < 0.05). Both preparations applied separately or in combination caused a significant increase of 2-MG activity (thioctic acid — 4.19 ± 0.91 pg/mg, indomethacin — 6.95 ± 1.09 pg/mg, combination — 7.25 ± 0.63 pg/mg, р < 0.05 as against the untreated animals) and SOD activity (thioctic acid — 8.25 ± 1.27 U/mg, indomethacin — 29.84 ± 6.63 U/mg, combination — 23.99 ± 3.78 U/mg, р < 0.01 as against the untreated animals).Conclusion. The combination of indomethacin and thioctic acid in eyedrops is the most effective for the prevention of eye damage caused by 6-OHDA, which makes this method promising for the treatment of eye diseases accompanied by neurodegeneration.

Purpose: to analyze morphometric, clinical and functional manifestations of glaucomatous optical neuropathy in congenital childhood glaucoma (CG).Material and methods. We examined 103 children (163 eyes) with (CG), including 54 children (86 eyes) with primary congenital glaucoma (PCG) aged 1 month to 17 years. In addition to the regular ophthalmological examination, we performed optical coherence tomography of the optic nerve head (ONH), flash visual evoked potentials, total and rhythmic electroretinogram, oscillatory potentials (OP), echobiometry of the eye axial length.Results. The thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer peripapillary (pRNFL) ranged from 32 to 120 μm, averaging 71.67 ± 18.2 μm. The thinning was detected in 83.0% of cases, primarily in the temporal sectors (90.6%). As the condition progressed, a tendency to progressive thinning of the RNFL was detected. The minimum rim width (BMO-MRW) ranged from 87 to 336 μm and was reduced in most children (14 out of 16, 87.5%). A strong inverse correlation of the neuroretinal rim with the depth (r = -0.69) and the width (r = -0.93) of the excavation was detected. Also, a strong direct correlation was established between the minimum neuroretinal rim width reduction and the thickness of the BMO-MRW and pRNFL (r = 0.79), as well as the upper and lower temporal sectors (r = 0.81 and r = 0.88, respectively). The thickness of the ganglion cell (GC) layer varied from 8 to 23 μm and averaged 14.64 ± 4.89 μm, with a reduction recorded in most cases (64.7%). All patients showed a decrease in oscillatory potentials (OP) by 40% or more (6.31 ± 2.33) as compared to the control group (20.24 ± 6.28). Thinning of the RNFL was registered in these eyes in 90.6% of cases averagely (p < 0.05) and in the upper and the lower temporal sectors (p < 0.05).Conclusion. RNFL thickness, the minimal width of the BMO-MRW and the OP are the most sensitive criteria to assess the degree of glaucomatous optic neuropathy in children with PСG. The study of the GC layer thickness can serve as an additional diagnostic criterion of assessing the state of the ONH.

Preliminary data show that the incidence of eye damage in COVID-19 reaches 32%, with a diverse range of clinical manifestations. Both the anterior segment of the eye (conjunctivitis, keratoconjunctivitis) and the posterior segment (retinal vascular thrombosis, neuritis, neuroretinitis) can be affected. The infection in children is diagnosed much less frequently than in adults, so ophthalmic manifestations have hardly ever been studied.Purpose: to present cases of congenital eye lesions in children born to mothers who had COVID-19 during pregnancy.Material. We present 4 clinical cases of ocular manifestations in newborns born to such mothers.Results. 4 variants of congenital ocular manifestations are reported. Clinical manifestations are listed, and treatment tactics for such patients is proposed.Conclusion. In order to timely diagnose, and choose the optimal treatment tactics of such conditions, thorough collection of case history and the ophthalmologists’ awareness of ocular symptoms of COVID-19 manifestations is essential.

Purpose: to determine the role of the systemic angiotensin II (AT-II) in the pathogenesis of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and assess its prognostic value.Material and methods. 34 premature infants at risk of developing ROP were examined according to the ophthalmological ROP screening protocol adopted in the Russian Federation. Retrospectively, the infants were divided into 2 groups: those without ROP (n = 15) and those with developed ROP (n = 19). The average gestational age of those without ROP was 28.12 ± 0.64 weeks, their average body weight at birth was 1164 ± 118.6 g. The respective values for the group with ROP were 27.8 ± 0.6 weeks and 1142.6 ± 108.4 g. The two groups had similar extent of general somatic burden. At 32–35 weeks and 36–39 weeks of post-conceptual age (PCA), the infants of both groups were tested for the concentration of AT-II in blood serum using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Results: on the 32–35 week of PCA, the average level of AT-II in blood serum of premature infants of the ROP group was significantly increased as compared to that of the non-ROP group (p = 0.03), while on the 36–39 week of PCA no statistically significant difference between the AT-II levels in the examined groups was found (p = 0.73).Conclusion. We established that the systemic AT-II level has a trigger role in the development of ROP. A high level of this parameter found at the onset of ROP can be considered as an early prognostic criterion for the risk of ROP development.

Purpose: to evaluate the results of a new combined method for the treatment of corneal and graft ulcers in preschool children, including local ultraviolet crosslinking (UVA CL) of corneal collagen and amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT).Methods. 1 patient 4 years old with a corneal ulcer and transplant disease after penetrating subtotal keratoplasty and 1 child 6 years old with a corneal ulcer of herpetic etiology was under observation for 1 year. The treatment included 3–5 consecutive procedures of local UVA CL of the cornea lasting 5 min. and amniotic membrane transplantation (AMT) after the first CL procedure. Biomicroscopy with fluorescein test and optical coherence tomography (OCT Spectralis, Heidelberg Engineering, Germany) were used to dynamically monitor the clinical course of corneal and graft ulcers. Local CL was performed using a new Keratolink device (OA Elatomsky Instrument Plant, Russia). Immediately after the 1st CL procedure, a TAM operation was performed under operating conditions under anesthesia, after which 2–4 more local CL procedures were performed sequentially every 3 days.Results. During treatment with each subsequent CL procedure, the clinical condition of the eyes improved: inflammation was relieved, photophobia, lacrimation, blepharospasm disappeared, a gradual increase in the epithelium from the periphery of the cornea with the formation of a gentle translucent opacification was noted, vascular activity decreased, and visual acuity significantly increased. After 2–10 months, in both cases there are no active complaints, the eyes are calm, infiltrates were not determined, in their place a gentle cloud-like translucent opacity formed, including in a child after keratoplasty. Vessels are empty.Conclusion. Combined treatment of corneal and graft ulcers in children (local UVA CL together with TAM) demonstrated high therapeutic efficacy, ensured stable corneal epithelialization in a short time and improved visual functions at the end of the inflammatory process. This method can significantly expand the possibilities of treating ulcerative lesions of the cornea and graft in preschool children.

Ulcerative lesions of the cornea and graft in children are a serious problem in pediatric ophthalmology, leading to serious consequences, up to the anatomical death of the eye. The problem of effective treatment of this pathology and corneal tissue regeneration in children remains relevant, despite the large arsenal of drugs. Recently, ultraviolet (UVA) corneal collagen crosslinking has been proposed as an alternative treatment for corneal ulcers in adults. RASK-CXL is the official name used exclusively for crosslinking in cornea inflammatory diseases. In children, corneal collagen crosslinking is still used only for the treatment of keratoconus. We were the first to use this method to treat corneal ulcers and graft ulcers in children.Purpose: to analyze the results of treatment of ulcerative corneal lesions and graft in children using a new device for local UVA crosslinking.Material and methods. For dynamic observation of patients, biomicroscopy with a fluorescein test, photo registration and optical coherence tomography of the eye anterior part were used. The procedure of local UVA crosslinking for the treatment cornea ulcerative lesions was carried out using a new device on the basis of the permission of the Ethics Committee of the National Medical Reseach Center of eye deseases named after Helmholtz of the Ministry of Health of Russia (protocol No. 56 of 21.10.2021).Results. The use of 3–5 procedures of local UVA exposure (against the background of instillations of 0.1 % riboflavin solution) lasting 5–7 minutes with an interval of 1-3 days ensured epithelization of the cornea and the graft and increased visual acuity in children.Conclusion. The first treatment results of corneal ulcers and graft in children using a new portable device for local UVA crosslinking have shown its high therapeutic efficiency and prospects for further use in clinical practice.

Purpose: to analyze clinical and functional manifestations and the course of different stages of primary congenital glaucoma (CG) at different times of the disease onset, using the data of admissions to the Department of Eye Pathology in Children of the Helmholtz Research Center of Eye Diseases.Material and methods. 191 patients (320 eyes) with CG, of which 113 were children (191) eyes with primary congenital glaucoma (PCG) aged 1 month to 16 years, underwent standard ophthalmological examination (autorefractometry, visometry, biomicroscopy, ophthalmoscopy), electrophysiological examination (flash VEP, ganzfeld and flicker ERG) and echobiometry (axial eye length measurement).Results. A detailed clinical and functional characteristic of PCG, including structural and functional changes occurring at different stages. Most children with PСG showed advanced stages of the glaucomatous process: in cases where PСG was detected by 1 month of life, the advanced stages claimed 71.1 %, whilst the children diagnosed with PCG between 1 and 12 months of age, the advanced stages were found in 91.2 %. clinical manifestations were found to have variability, not always corresponding to the stages of the disease. In particular, we detected a correlation between disease progression and decreased VEP amplitude (p < 0.05), while no such correlation was found with respet to ERG parameters and VEP latency.Conclusion. Despite the fact that PCG is detected comparative early, the destructive glaucomatous eye damage leads to severe and often irreversible consequences. The timing of CG manifestation is determined by the degree of congenital abnormalities in the eye drainage system that, together with secondary structural changes of eyes (cornea, axial length, retina and ONH) entail a more severe prognosis of PCG in case of an early disease onset. New objective criteria are needed to assess the severity and prognosis of PCG, which is important for the preservation of visual functions, prevention of low vision and blindness.

The multifactorial nature of the retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) pathogenesis, makes the thorough study of the mechanism of pathological retinal neovascularization actual. However recently the attention of scientists has been attracted by the participation of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) in the development of retinal vasoproliferative diseases. Purpose: to study the role of AT-II in the pathogenesis of experimental ROP (EROP) in the original model of the disease. Material and methods. To reproduce EROP Wistar rats (n = 15) were exposed to the oxygen concentration varying from 60 to 15% every 12 hours for 14 days from the first day after birth followed by room air for 7 days. Throughout the experiment, the room maintained a constant temperature (+26 °C) and light regime (12 hours a day, 12 hours a night) modes. Control rats (n = 12) were born and kept under normal oxygen content (21 %). Batches of EROP (n = 5) and control (n = 4) rats were sacrificed on 7, 14 and 21 days. All rats underwent binocular enucleation, after which every eyeball was opened on the limb, the cornea and lens were removed with the remains of a persistent vascular bag and a hyaloid artery. Retinas were isolated, homogenized and stored at -20 °C. Angiotensin-II (AT-II) in homogenates was measured using the IFA kit. Results. On the 7th day of the experiment, the level of AT-II in the retina of the experimental group rats was 0.19 ± 0.02 pg/mg protein that was significantly higher than in controls (0.12 ± 0.01 pg/mg protein). On the 14th and 21st days concentrations of AT-II in EROP and control groups had no significant difference. Conclusion. On the 7th day of the experiment, i.e. at the period corresponding to the existence of avascular retinal zones in both groups concentration of AT-II in the retinas of rats with EROP was significantly higher than in controls. This fact indicate the role of this proangiogenic factor in the induction of pathological neovascularization in ROP. Possible prognostic function of this parameter during the period before ROP manifestation has undoubted practical significance.

Purpose: to determine the incidence and clinical course of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in modern developmental care conditions as based by the data of a level III perinatal center.Material and methods. A retrospective study of 920 premature infants of the ROP at-risk cohort managed by the Neonatology department of Moscow Regional Perinatal Center over the 2-year period of 2017–2018 was performed. Retinopathy was graded and treated following the respective Federal clinical guidelines.Results. Of the 920 infants who met the screening criteria, ROP was detected in 193 (28.5 %) infants; 49 infants (7.2 %) required treatment. Of all general somatic factors, the duration of artificial ventilation of lungs showed the strongest correlation with the frequency of development and severity of ROP. In infants with birth weight > 1000 g, the incidence of severe forms of ROP correlated with the presence of necrotizing enterocolitis and intraventricular hemorrhages, while in children with a lower body weight at birth no such correlation was detected. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia was not found to affect the development of ROP. In groups of infants with birth weight of 1000–1499 g and 500–999 g, the frequency of transfusions of washed red blood cells with depleted leukocyte and thrombocyte levels was generally higher in children with ROP, both with spontaneous and induced regression, but showed no difference between the two subgroups.Conclusion. Severe somatic pathology does not always accompany the progression of ROP to the threshold stage. So, in order to optimize ROP screening, it is necessary to search for new more accurate criteria for ROP development and progression risk.

Purpose: to assess the level of catecholamines norepinephrine and dopamine in rat retina with experimental retinopathy of prematurity (EROP) at a time corresponding to the peak of neovascularization. Material and methods. The study was performed on 41 infant Wistar rats (82 eyes). The rats were divided into 2 groups: the experimental group (with EROP, n = 21) and the control group (n = 20). In order to reproduce the EROP, the newborn rats were placed for 14 days in the incubator together with their mother. Every 12 hours, the oxygen concentration in the incubator ranged from 60 to 15 %. The control group consisted of pups who were held in conditions with a normal oxygen content (21 %) from the moment of birth. The pups were withdrawn from the experiment on the 10th, 14th, 23rd and 28th day, whereupon they were subjected to binocular enucleation followed by histological examination, in addition, the content of noradrenaline and one of the metabolites of dopamine (L-DOPA) was determined in retinal samples of the eyeballs obtained on the 23rd day by highly effective liquid chromatography technique with electrochemical detection.Results. Histological examination showed that in our EROP model the neovascularization peak occurs on the 23rd day of the experiment. At this time rat pups with EROP showed a significantly lower retinal L-DOPA level as compared to the control values (13.99 ng/g and 30.5 ng/g, respectively), and the norepinephrine level significantly exceeded such values (63.7 ng/g and 7.69 ng/g, respectively).Conclusion. A relative deficiency of dopamine and a relative excess of norepinephrine of the rat pups with EROP is noted at the time of the highest vascular activity of the retina. The obtained data confirm anti-angiogenic properties of dopamine and pro-angiogenic properties of noradrenaline in the second phase of EROP development.

During his travel to the Soviet Union (November 4, 1927 — January 13, 1928) and on his return to the USA Theodore Dreiser was keeping in touch and dealing with Soviet literary institutions, periodicals and his Russian acquaints — publishers, editors, critics, etc. Ruth Epperson Kennell (1889 –1977) played an important role in making and maintaining these contacts in late 1920s-early 1930s. Ruth Kennell, who spent almost ten years in the Soviet Union, was a reference librarian (1925 –1927) in the Comintern Library in Moscow. On November 4, 1927 she got acquainted with Dreiser and was hired by him to serve as his secretary and guide as he toured the Soviet Union. Her role as a “Russian secretary”, personal assistant and friend is depicted in Dreiser’s Russian Diary and Kennell’s memoir Theodore Dreiser and the Soviet Union (1969) as well as in their correspondence that lasted till Dreiser’s death. Kennell continued to take part in Dreiser’s life and creative work in the USA, especially during the years that immediately followed their return from the USSR. The paper dwells at some length on Kennell’s biography, her role in publishing Dreiser’s work in the Soviet Union and USA, her work as an editor, critic and reviewer. Kennel had a long and varied writing career, and Dreiser helped her to start write and publish fiction. Their correspondence portrays Dreiser as a patron taking care of a young author and promoting her work. Kennell’s letters to Dreiser (1928 –1929) stored in the Manusсript Division of A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature are published in the addendum together with the Russian translation of several Dreiser’s letters to Kennell included in Theodore Dreiser: Letters to Women. New Letters (2009).

Soviet leaders and Comintern stressed the importance of the “Negro problem” in the struggle against American imperialism; African American literature was considered a part of the “battlefield” as well, so an ideologically bound image of “American Negro literature” was on the agenda. First translations of African American literature appear in the early 1920s together with its first reviews and essays (some of them by reputed critics like Ivan Kashkin, Segrei Dinamov, Nikolay Efros). The key figures of the decade were W.E.B. DuBois, Walter White, Jessie R. Fauset, and Claude McKay. McKay’s reputation in the USSR underwent a considerable change during the 1920s: introduced as a revolutionary writer and a “friend of the Soviet Union”, in the late 1902s he was stigmatized as a “petty bourgeois Black nationalist”. Soviet critics analyzed the phenomenon of “Harlem school”, and “the whites writing up the Black” (Carl Van Vechten, Howard W. Odum, Michael Gold, Albert Halper, etc.). The paper traces changes in the vision of African American literature, that lead to new demands set forth in the 1930s and is based on publications of American and Soviet press of the 1920s and archived documents.

The paper dwells on Ralph Ellison’s biography and his works, especially on his masterpiece Invisible Man (1952), its topical issues, poetics, the phenomenon of its exceptional success and the way it influenced over to Ellison’s status as one of the biggest XXth century classics and a reputed contributor to the African American and American literary canon. The essay traces the publication history of Ellison’s works, including posthumously released editions of his unpublished texts in 1990s-2010s, that became a result of an extensive research made by Ellison’s literary executor, literary historian, editor, textual critic John F. Callahan. The survey of American and European Ellison studies characterizes the basic corpus of books, academic papers, critical essays, collections, etc., both of the earlier (before mid-nineties) an contemporary period; the most outstanding scholars in the field are mentioned. Finally the essay gives a brief outlook of the scanty Soviet / Russian Ellisoniana – translations and editions, critical response and studies, and stresses an obvious discrepancy between the situation in the West and in Russia, where the Invisible Man still remains untranslated and the amount of scholarly papers, devoted to Ellison, scarcely reaches a dozen.

The paper makes a survey of the life and works by Phillis Wheatley (1753?- 1784), the first African American female poet, analyses critical reception of her poetry during her lifetime and up to nowadays, shows the way her literary reputation has been changing (sometimes drastically) as a result of the changing bias and attitudes in the course of the development of African American literary studies since 1960s till 2010s.The paper also attempts to assess Phillis Wheatley’s role in American literary and cultural history.

In 1938–1941 Richard Wright kept nourishing the idea to visit the Soviet Union,In 1938–1941 Richard Wright kept nourishing the idea to visit the Soviet Union,live and work there for some time; however, these plans never became real. The articleand the materials from the Russian State Archive of Art and Literature (RichardWright’s and Walt Carmon’s correspondence with the editors of “International Literature”,Foreign Commission of the Union of Soviet Writers, and the State PublishingHouse “Goslitizdat”) help to reconstruct Wright’s contacts with the Soviet institutionsand some aspects of his relations with the Communist Party of the USA, to specifyand provide some additional information that could complement to the recent studiesof Wright’s life and work.

The article explores Pearl S. Buck’s contacts with the Soviet Union and her literary reputation there. Since 1934 and up to the war (1943) her works have been regularly published and actively discussed by literary critics (S. Tretyakov, A. Elistratova, G. Mublit, M. Levidov and others) in the USSR. In their essays a set of ideologically bound clichés quickly was formed which determined Buck’s literary reputation up to the end of the Soviet period. She was treated as a strong realist, though her great talent was supposed to be limited by her religious “prejudices” (“a missionary’s daughter”) and her class affiliation (“a bourgeois writer”, “a spokesman for the American imperialists and colonialists”). Hence her manner of narration is understood as closely bound up with her attitudes: epic, “biblical” impersonal style, lack of bias, up-to-date social context, and ideologically “correct” evaluations. After the World War II Pearl Buck’s works are not published in the USSR; the attitude to Buck expressed in several critical essays of the 1950–1960-ies varies depending on the vacillating rhythm of SovietChinese relations. Publishing of Buck’s books in the 1990-ies after several decades of silence, has nothing to do with the Soviet traditions and follow the demands of the arising literary market in post-Soviet Russia. The article is supplied with publication of archived documents: Pearl Buck’s correspondence with Soviet literary institutions about the publishing of her works and her royalties, a shorthand report of mid-1930-ies (a core group of readers from the factory “Paris Commune” discusses Pearl S. Buck’s works with the literary critic E.D. Troshchenko), and a re-publication of Pearl S. Buck’s interview to Walt Carmon, American communist, editor, journalist, for Literaturnaya Gazeta (1937).

The first Soviet History of American Literature (1947) made by A.A. Startsev, A.A. Elistratova, T.I. Silman — scholars of Gorky Institute of World Literature, Soviet Academy of Sciences) was a part of a global academic project “world literary history” undertaken by V.M. Zhirmunsky together with his colleagues, specialists in Western literature at the Insitute of Literature (Leningrad) and by I.K. Luppol at Gorky Institute of World Literature (Moscow). The first volume was started in 1941; when the war began, the Gorky Institute was evacuated to Tashkent, and the work continued there. In 1945 the first volume was approved at Gorky Institute; the second volume was in work. However by the moment when the first volume was published (May 1947) the political situation in the USSR changed drastically. USA-USSR alliance gave way to the cold war. On Sept 21, 1947 A.M. Leites’ devastating critique of the History of American Literature was published in Kultura i Zhizn’ (#26), an organ of Agitation and Propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; after that the book was criticized at Gorky Institute and condemned as incompatible with the principles of the Soviet science. The second volume wasn’t published, the first one disappeared from the professional field. The debacle of the “American volume” marked the freezing of the world literary history project started in mid-thirties (it was re-started much later, in early 1960-ies), as well as all Western literary studies in the Soviet Academy up to the late 1950-ies. The research is based on the materials from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAN).

The first Soviet History of American Literature (1947) made by A.I. Startsev, A.A. Elistratova, T.I. Silman – scholars of Gorky Institute of World Literature, Soviet Academy of Sciences) was a part of the global academic project “world literary history” undertaken by V.M. Zhirmunsky together with his colleagues, specialists in Western literature at the Insitute of Literature (Leningrad) and by I.K. Luppol at Gorky Institute of World Literature (Moscow) in late 1930–ies. The first volume was started in 1941; when the war began, the Gorky Institute was evacuated to Tashkent, and the work continued there. In 1945 the first volume of the History of American Literature was approved at Gorky Institute; the second volume was in work. However by the moment when the first volume was published (May 1947) the political situation in the USSR changed drastically. USA-USSR alliance gave way to the cold war. On Sept 21, 1947 A.M. Leites’ devastating critique of the History of American Literature was published in Kultura i Zhizn’ (№ 26), an organ of Agitation and Propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; after that the book was criticized at Gorky Institute and condemned as incompatible with the principles of the Soviet science. The second volume wasn’t published, the first one disappeared from the professional field. The debacle of the “American volume” marked the freezing of the world literary history project started in mid-thirties (it was re-started at Gorky Insitute much later, in early 1960-ies), as well as all Western literary studies in the Soviet Academy up to the late 1950-ies. The research is based on the materials from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAN).

William Carlos Williams' works and ideas are viewed as a part of the epoch and are juxtaposed to the attitudes of his contemporaries - both his allies and adversaries. His views of American past and future, his utopic vision of the New world civilization contributed a lot in the American modernist sensibility and cultural nationalism.

The paper examines early Soviet reception of Ernest Hemingway's works. The research is based on the readers’ letters to Goslitizdat (State Publishing House) from the funds of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts (RGALI). A small collection of letters (1935–1936) shows readers’ reaction to the first Hemingway’s Soviet book editions: a short story collection Death in the Afternoon (1934) and Fiesta (1935). The readers unanimously condemn Hemingway for his “decadent” prose and Goslitizdat for publishing such “absurd” and “harmful” books. The only exception is a short positive review of the novel A Farewell to Arms (1936) sent to Goslitizdat in 1937. To uncover the reasons for the negative readers’ reception one should turn to the literary criticism of the 1934–1935, especially the essays by Ivan Kashkin who introduced the new author to the Soviet reading audience. A comparative analysis of readers’ feedback and critical discourse shows that the ambivalent and even contradictory image of the writer created by the critics made the readers think of Hemingway’s works as “decadent”, “bourgeois” and alien to Soviet people. Another reason was the innovative nature of Hemingway’s modernist prose which seemed obscure, confusing and unintelligible; the Soviet reader obviously preferred “clarity” and “simplicity” of Erskine Caldwell’s or Theodore Dreiser’s realistic writings. The situation changed by the 1937, when Hemingway was praised by both Soviet critics and readers as an anti-fascist writer, a heroic defender of the Spanish Republic.

Theodorе Dreiser was invited to the USSR to take part in the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. His visit to the Soviet Union that lasted over two months (November 4, 1926 — January 13, 1928) has been documented and studied quite well: Dreiser's Russian diary that he kept during his travel was published almost 30 years ago, and four years ago its Russian translation appeared. Another source is Ruth Epperson Kennell’s book Theodore Dreiser and the USSR. A First- Hand Chronicle (1969). A number of studies and scholarly publications are devoted to Dreiser’s trip; however, new materials and documents that contribute to more detailed reconstruction of Dreiser’s Russian journey still are being found in the archives. New documents from the funds of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS) that highlight Dreiser’s stay in Leningrad (November 26 — December 2, 1927) are published in the Addendum to the article: a report submitted to VOKS by Sergei Trivas, officer for Anglo-American countries, who accompanied Dreiser as a guide and interpreter, and a letter of gratitude from Dreiser to Nikolai Derzhavin, VOKS representative in Leningrad.

The monograph by Russian-American researcher, translator and critic Galina Lapina Americans in Moscow: 1930–1940 is dedicated to pre-war Soviet-American theatrical, educational, cinematic, diplomatic, literary contacts. Among the heroes of the book are American Ambassador Joseph E. Davis and his chauffeur Charles Ciliberti, writers Langston Hughes and Dorothy West, playwright Sophie Treadwell, actress Blanche Yurka and other writers, artists, diplomats, journalists who came to the USSR in the 1930s and early 1940s. The book consists of five chapters; each of them is devoted to a certain episode of Soviet-American connections: the failed film project Black and White; The Promised Land, Sophie Treadwell's play about Soviet life; Moscow theater festivals of 1933–1937; history of the Anglo-American Institute (1933–1935), Moscow summer school for American students; a comparison of two books about the USSR — Joseph E. Davis’ Mission to Moscow (1943) and Charles Siliberti’s Backstage Mission to Moscow (1946), that show Soviet reality from the opposing points of view. The book that is, in fact, a collection of articles, is however marked by unity and integrity; it reconstructs the general context of the period in question on the basis of the extensive material. Memoirs, correspondence, archival documents, Soviet and American press form a vivid picture of Soviet-American relations in the pre-war decade. Many sources revealing American attitudes towards the USSR used by the author, have not yet been translated or published in Russia. Galina Lapina’s book encourages further research and publishing projects.

Erskine Caldwell became known in the USSR in the mid-1930s through the magazine publications of his short stories and the Russian edition of the novel Tobacco Road (1938). In his correspondence with the representatives of Soviet literary institutions — Sergei Dynamov, Timofei Rokotov, Mikhail Apletin — Caldwell often discussed his plans to visit the Soviet Union. Caldwell and the famous photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White, who became his wife in 1939, arrived in the Soviet Union after their trip to China in May 1941, and thus started their acquaintance with the Soviet Union in Alma-Ata. From Kazakhstan the American guests went to Moscow, had time to visit Ukraine, Tbilisi, Sochi, and on June 22 learned about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. They stayed in the warring country until late September 1941. As eyewitnesses to historic events, Caldwell and Burke-White worked as war correspondents: they reported from the USSR for Life magazine and the newspaper PM. Caldwell's reports and Burke-White's photographs were also published in the Soviet press. Since July 1941, Caldwell conducted daily CBS live radio broadcasts from wartime Moscow. M. Burke-White held a photo session with Stalin, captured the historic visit to Moscow of Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s personal advisor. The article, based on the American and Soviet press and archival materials, reconstructs the history of the American couple's stay and work in the USSR and evaluates their activities as writers and war correspondents in the historical, literary and political context of the first months of the Great Patriotic War. Caldwell’s interview with the American Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt for Life magazine, which didn’t pass the Soviet military censorship is published in the Addendum.

The corpus of archival materials documenting Erskine Caldwell's Soviet contacts in 1935–1943, including his stay in the USSR (May–September 1941) comprises documents from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art and the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation. It is Caldwell's correspondence with the representatives of Soviet literary institutions — Sergei Dinamov, Timofei Rokotov, Mikhail Apletin, Boris Suchkov, Aleksandr Fadeev, as well as official correspondence of Soviet ministries and organizations (Union of Soviet Writers, People’s Comissariat for Foreign Affairs, Customs Department of the People’s Comissariat for Internal Affaris), Soviet officials (Solomon Lozovsky, Konstantin Umansky, etc.) and their correspondence with the American media (NANA, CBS, The Life, PM). The epistolary corpus helps to reconstruct Erskine Caldwell’s and Margaret Burke White’s stay in the USSR, provides details of their work there as war correspondents. The corpus of documents opens with the 1935 letter by Sergei Dinamov, editor-in-chief of International Literature magazine, who started contacts with Caldwell (since 1937 the correspondence was continued by Timofei Rokotov, who replaced Dinamov in International Literature) and ends with the telegram congratulating Caldwell on his fortieth birthday (Dec 16, 1943), signed by the representatives of the Union of Soviet Writers Aleksandr Fadeev, Mikhail Apletin and Boris Suchkov, the last editor-in-chief of International Literature. This telegram sent at the end of 1943, the year of the closure of International Literature and the year of the turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War (Caldwell was a witness to its beginning) draws a line under this period in Erskine Caldwell's Soviet contacts.

On December 8, 2022, an international academic conference dedicated to the year 1922 as an important milestone in the history of American and European Modernism was held at the Russian State University of Humanities (Moscow). The conference aimed at the cultural reconstruction of 1922 and was organized by the Department of Comparative-Historical Literary Studies, Russian State University for the Humanities, and A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. American literary history occupied a prominent place in the program of the conference. The plenary session was devoted to T.S. Eliot, whose poem The Waste Land was published in 1922. Olga Polovinkina (Russian State University for the Humanities, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences) spoke about the importance of the aesthetics of the music hall for the strcture The Waste Land. Igor Shaitanov (Russian State University of Humanities, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration) drew a parallel between The Waste Land and Evegny Zamyatin's Alatyr’. Vassily Tolmatchoff (Lomonosov Moscow State University) suggested a new interpretation of the “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. A.A. Astvatsaturov (St. Petersburg State University) considered T.S. Eliot’s modernist work in comparison with the creative attitudes and self-fashioning of Henry Miller. Alexandra Zinovieva (Lomonosov Moscow State University) spoke about Countess Marie Louise Elisabeth Larisсh von Moennich, the heroine of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, and her participation in German and Austrian cinematographic projects of the late 1910s — early 1920s. Olga Panova (A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lomonosov Moscow State University) reconstructed the year 1922 in the history of the Harlem Renaissance. Irina Morozova (Russian State University of Humanities) presented the year 1922 as an important period in the history of American pharaohmania. Olga Antsyferova (St. Petersburg State University) analysed the book 1922: Literature, Culture, Politics (ed. by Jean-Michel Rabaté; Cambridge University Press, 2015) showing how the methodology of historical simultaneity works on the material of culture studies.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly (1852) being the most powerful statement on the racial issue in the 19th century American literature, succeeded to incorporate and rethink everything that the national tradition had in stock on the problem of slavery and race relations. The Black racial / cultural identity model that was taking shape in the 18th century Anglo-American literature, later was being enriched and transformed throughout American (and African-American) literary history. Uncle Tom's Cabin became another crucial text (the next one after Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia) that provided the emerging Black cultural / racial identity model with a new quality: it became universal, nationally recognized — and at the same time a point of controversy provoking endless debates and open for dynamic change and transformations, as was the case with anti-Tom literature and the ambivalent reception of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in African American literary tradition. The analysis of The Planter’s Northern Bride (1854) by Caroline Lee Hentz, a typical example of anti-Tom novels, gives an idea of the pro-slavery response to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The final part of the paper is a survey of the main stages in African American response since the 1853 argument between Martin Delany and Frederick Douglass that became a matrix for the further polemic, and up to Henry Louis Gates’s subversive “double-voiced” interpretation of the novel which is in full agreement with the tendency to revise the role of white Abolitionists in the antislavery movement and African American history, typical for African American studies in the 1990s–2000s.

The role of Christianity as a factor that exerted a decisive influence over African American social and cultural history, is being debated time and again in the course of African American studies. The ambivalent attitude of the 18th –19th century Christian preachers and missionaries to slavery, egalitarian tendencies that combined with the idea of humility and resignation, led to contradictions and controversy in the evaluation of the role Christianity played in Afroamerica. The case of Jupiter Hammon (1711 –1806?), a preacher and the first Black Christian poet in America, illustrates the emergence of the basic topoi in the pre-war Blackamerican literary tradition: conversion to Christianity and literacy (enculturation) as two essential conditions for the acknowledgement of Black humanity and ability to integrate into the New World civilization. Jupiter Hammon refused to struggle against slavery; paradoxically, however, his work is an inherent part of both African American religious and cultural history and the New England Christian thought, that engendered Abolitionism and its most famous book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life among the Lowly (1852), based on the concept of the “religious genius” of the African and the “Black redemption” of the greatest American vice, slavery.

Kenneth Burke’s performance at the First American Writers’ Congress in 1935 has been already considered by American scholars; for this reason the paper aims to complement the existing research with some facts and details that have to do with the Soviet reception of Kenneth Burke’s speech “Revolutionary Symbolism in America” presented on April 27 1935 (the second day of the Congress). The paper is based on the archival material stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) – a manuscript of the American Writers’ Congress proceedings, translated into Russian, edited and fully prepared for the press that nevertheless remained unpublished. The volume was based on the American record of the Congress edited by Henry Hart (International Publishers, 1935), but two papers were removed – Moissaye J. Olgin’s report about the Soviet Writers’ Congress and Kenneth Burke’s speech. The preface to the Russian edition written by the editor Sergei Dinamov throws light on the reasons for excluding Burke’s paper. In his introduction Dinamov dwelt at some length on Burke’s text and criticized his “errors”. Dinamov’s criticism makes it clear that the main problem was the fact that the American “fellow traveler” used the concepts “people” (narod) and “national spirit” (narodnost’) which at the moment were on the agenda in the USSR due to the Popular Front policy. Kenneth Burke’s speech “Revolutionary Symbolism in America” at the First American Writers’ Congress, translated into Russian by Tatiana A. Pirusskaia, is published herewith as an addendum to the essay.

The paper concentrates on Claude McKay’s Soviet contacts, editions and his image in the Soviet literary criticism of the 1920s. Claude McKay arrived in Petrograd in 1922 as a delegate to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International and spent about 6 months in the USSR. His visit aroused interest in his poetry; two of his books – a collection of short stories Trial by Lynching (1924) and Negroes in America (1923) – were published for the first time in the USSR in Russian, their American editions haven’t appeared before 1970s. Claude McKay had vast contacts with Soviet leaders, writers, poets, artists, theater managers. His poems, essays and memoirs about his “Russian pilgrimage” help to understand both his interest in communism and his disappointment in the leftist movement and stalinism. McKay’s literary reputation in the Soviet Union underwent a change during the 1920s due to his evolution as a writer and his contacts with Leon Trotsky and Max Eastman. First he was introduced as a revolutionary American Negro author writing about Black proletariat, and a “friend of the Soviet Union”; however in late 1920s when his novels Home to Harlem and Banjo were published in Russia, critics stigmatized McKay as a “Bohemian lumpen-intellectual” and a petty bourgeois Black nationalist. McKay failed to become a symbol of the oppressed American Black proletariat; in the 1930s his poems are published very rarely, his name practically disappears off the Soviet literary criticism. The paper uses publications of American and Soviet press of the 1920s and archived documents.

The article provides research results and comparative analysis of humic acids in sod-podzolic soil of the Experimental Forest of the Russian State Agrarian University (protected area) and urban soils located in the Timiryazev district of Moscow. Humic acids of the zonal sod-podzolic soil of the Experimental Forest include four fractions with varying molecular weight: the 1st fraction – ≥ 23 440 unified atomic mass units (amu), the 2nd one – 13 340 amu, the 3rd one – 5 500 amu and the 4th one – 2 460 amu. The fraction with a molecular weight of 5 500 amu and a relative content of 38 % dominates among them, while the share of low-molecular fractions (< 20 000 amu) accounts for 70 % of the total mass of humic acids. When weight-average molecular mass of humic acids is 17 530 amu, the average molecular mass of the low-molecular fractions is 9 960 amu. Humic acids of urbanozems differ in molecular weight composition from humic acids of sod-podzolic soil. In most cases it consists of 5–6, less commonly of 3, fractions with molecular weight from 1 780 to ≥ 23 440 amu. The share of medium- and high-molecular fractions fluctuates from 31–37 % to 47–50 % of the total mass of humic acids. The characteristic feature of humic acids of urbanozems is the presence in their composition of low-molecular fractions with such molecular weights, which are not found in humic acids of sod-podzolic soil. Thus, humic acids of urbanozems are characterized by higher weight-average molecular mass ranging from 17 680 to 19 980 amu, as well as by higher weigh-average molecular mass of the low-molecular fractions which vary from 10 680 to 13 650 amu.

Аrticle is devoted to comprehensive consideration and the characteristic of the purposes and tasks of the multi-level internal control exercised inBank of Russia, to a procedure and creations of internal control, in article the interrelation of the purposes and components of internal control is traced, the control environment as one of the main a component of internal control is analyzed, powers of subjects of internal control are in detail stated. The attention is paid to control consideration as management functions, the developed list of the principles of creation of internal control and its types – preliminary, current and subsequent is provided.

The paper gives a survey of the main stages in African American interpretation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or Life Among the Lowly (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. After the publication of the novel, African American periodicals in the USA and Canada were publishing a wide range of reviews, essays, poems, and sketches reacting to Stowe’s book. Frederick Douglass was praising the book in his newspaper; there appeared, however, some aggressively critical responses, such as three letters by Martin Delany, a Black radial activist, written to the Frederick Douglass’ Newspaper in 1853. The argument of Delany and Douglass became a matrix for the further polemic based on the opposition of integrationist and afrocentrist approaches to the novel. This binary opposition remains practically unchanged until the Harlem renaissance, when African American writers and scholars (J. Weldon Johnson, W. S. Braithwaite, W. Thurman) become more critical, describing the novel as full of humiliating stereotypes, and its author as totally unable to properly understand and depict the Black race. The turning point in the assessment of the novel in the 20th century was Richard Wright’s collection of short stories Uncle Tom’s Children (1938) and James A. Baldwin’s essay Everybody’s Protest Novel (1949) – a criticism of “protest fiction” from Beecher Stowe to Richard Wright. Baldwin’s essay heralded the shift towards the Sixties hostile crusade against “uncle Tomism”, when Stowe’s protagonist was referred to as a symbol of servility and race betrayal, which was a complete inversion of the cultural myth of a Black Messiah that underlies the character. The final part of the paper analyzes the situation in current African American studies and in particular H. L. Gates’s subversive “double-voiced” interpretation of the novel which is in full agreement with the tendency to revise the role of white Abolitionists in the antislavery movement and in the African American history in the 1990–2000s.

Шейка матки имеет свои клинические и морфофункциональные особенности в различные возрастные периоды жизни женщины. Состояние шейки матки определяется, одной стороны, тем, что она является гормонозависимым органом, а с другой – выполняет роль пограничного барьера между верхним отделом генитального тракта и внешней средой, представляя собой единую функциональную систему с влагалищем. Поэтому, рассматривая возрастные аспекты нормы и патологии шейки матки, следует сделать акцент на особенностях ее реакции на возрастные гормональные колебания, приобретенные нарушения иммунного и эндокринного статуса, а также на воздействие внешних повреждающих факторов и системы регуляции процессов клеточной пролиферации и апоптоза.

Проблема бесплодия – проблема репродуктивного периода. Под бесплодием понимают отсутствие беременности при регулярной половой жизни в течение 12 мес. В настоящее время около 15% супружеских пар страдают бесплодием, в структуре бесплодного брака 50–60% составляет женское бесплодие Одной их ведущих причин бесплодного брака являются воспалительные заболевания половых органов, которые составляют основную генитальную патологию у женщин (38,2%) и мужчин (43,3%) с бесплодием и в 2/3 случаев диагностируются у обоих супругов (В.П.Сметник и соавт., 1995). своевременное и адекватное лечение вагинитов, цервицитов и эктопии, применение комплексной консервативной терапии при развитии восходящих ВЗМП, а при наличии показаний – органосохраняющих методов хирургического лечения, позволяет профилактировать возникновение бесплодия при инфекционной патологии нижнего отдела половых путей женщины.