I don’t support the latest amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation that allow Vladimir Putin to remain President until his death. I don’t hope the official results of the ‘unique nation-wide voting’ will be relevant, current regulations for that voting provide the electoral boards with unprecedented opportunities for falsifications. But at least I still can express my position publicly. It’s time for Putin to retire. And it has been time to for many years 😉
Author: Michael
Vector Map of Númenor
While working at the maps for my friend’s book, I’ve also made a ‘canonical’ vector map of Númenor. Here it is, on the chance that it’s useful for someone else as well.
The map is in SVG format, multilayered, geographical names in Russian and in English are in different layers. I used Inkscape 0.92 to draw the map, Century Schoolbook L font is used for the names. The map is based on the original map by Tolkien from Unfinished Tales rotated so that the North is strictly at the top, and on the map by Karen Wynn Fonstad. The aesthetics of the map is similar to the map of the Westlands by Chris Taylor.
Particularities of Study of Arda as an Invented World: Theory and Methodology
Mints M. (Amdir), ‘Osobennosti izucheniia Ardy kak vymyshlennogo mira: voprosy teorii i metodologii’, Palantir, no. 80 (2020): 25–42.
The article (in Russian) deals with main questions of theory and methodology of Tolkien studies, including the object of research, the nature of (sub)creative legacy of J. R. R. Tolkien, world of Arda as a separate imaginative work, texts and pictures by Tolkien as primary sources, ‘external’ and ‘internal’ history of Arda, Tolkien studies as a field of interdisciplinary research etc. The text is revised and extended according to the results of its discussion at VesCon-2019 (Moscow annual Tolkien festival) and to the suggestions of the editorial board of Palantir. I’m grateful to everyone who took part in the discussion for their additional useful ideas, as well as to Arthoron who finally made me finish this (nine-years old!) work 😉
Archive of the journal (at the website of the Tolkien Society of Saint-Petersburg)
This work is important for me for personal reasons as well. While being a post-graduate, and for the first years after the end of my term, I had a terrible stage fright, and it was at Major Tolkien Seminar in Saint-Petersburg in 2010 where I made my first report on theory and methodology that I was surprised to feel the fright had disappeared 🙂
Geography of the South and East of Middle-Earth
Godkin D. (Arthoron), Mints M. (Amdir), ‘Geografiia Iuga i Vostoka Sredizem’ia’, Palantir, no. 74 (2017): 21–33.
The article (in Russian) is a revised version of a report Arthoron and I made at the Minor Tolkien Seminar in Saint-Petersburg in 2016. We tried, using the small pieces of information from numerous sources, to reconstruct the map of the world of Middle-earth as a whole, to represent the Westlands on it in proper place and scale, as well as (as far as possible) other geographical objects ‘outside the map’ of the Westlands ever mentioned in original texts and maps by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Text of the article (PDF, 2.5 Mb)
Archive of the journal (at the website of the Tolkien Society of Saint-Petersburg)
An article in “Vedomosti”
Published an article (in Russian) in Vedomosti newspaper about the decision of the Russian State Duma deputies to move the official anniversary of the end of World War II from 2 to 3 September:
When Did the Second World War Finish?
The text of my article (in Russian) about the decision of the Russian State Duma deputies to move an official anniversary of the end of World War II from 2 to 3 September. The article was published in Vedomosti newspaper: https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2020/04/22/828742-zakonchilas-vtoraya.
An Improved Vector Map of Middle-Earth
Finally uploaded into Wikipedia an improved version of a vector map of Middle-earth, here you can take it as well:
Download file (SVG, without geographic names, 2.2 Mb).
The initial map is not mine; as I can understand, its author is Chris Taylor who, for his part, had vectorized manually (!) the original map by Christopher Tolkien. Hope he won’t be angry 😉 My revision is minimal: I just removed a ‘bare area’ in Mirkwood (which is absent in the original map), added cays in the Sea of Rhûn and the lower reaches of the river Harnen. Will be glad if this map is useful for anybody 🙂
New Literature on Tolkien Studies
Finally I’ve updated my bibliography on Tolkien. You can download its full text here.
GOST R 7.0.100-2018, “Bibliographic entry”
Published an official text of the new Russian bibliographical standard, GOST R_7.0.100-2018, “Bibliographic entry”, issued in late 2018, in force since 1 July. It replaced an older standard, GOST 7.1-2003. Both standards are developed mostly for library catalogues, so in academic publications in Russian, one should still follow GOST R 7.0.5-2008, “Bibliographic citation”, designed as an addition to GOST 7.1-2003. It will probably be replaced with a new standard later.
See also Russian Bibliography Standards.
Goodbye, Kubinka?
The Tank Museum in Kubinka, Moscow Oblast, doesn’t exist any more. Officially it’s called now ‘museum space no. 2 of the Patriot Park’, and almost all the most interesting exhibits have been transferred somewhere to the central part of the park itself (kilometres away), including almost entire collection of German World War II tanks and self-propelled guns (although several exhibits still remain on their places, the collection is therefore divided into parts), almost all the Soviet Second World War tanks, at least part of Western World War II tanks and even the English tank of the First World War. What still remains are mostly the Soviet Cold War tanks, self-propelled guns and armoured personnel carriers, including a lot of experimental ones, and also a collection of English and American Cold War tanks. It’s interesting, too, but mostly for area specialists.
They have just plundered the museum. Someone may think it’s patriotism, but for me it seems much more like the Nazy invasion. Kubinka used to be the biggest, and probably the best, tank museum in the world. Now I have to write about it in the past tense…