Throughout the week, students from SFedU, Tomsk and Pskov Universities, the Republican Institute of Higher Education (Minsk) studied the concept of "Moscow — the Third Rome" in various humanitarian fields.

Project manager Andrey Korenevsky, head of the SFedU Department of National History of the Middle Ages and Modern Times, Candidate of Historical Sciences, associate professor, conceived the school together with the abbess of the monastery Mother Mary (Korh) last year. The idea of the educational project organized by the Southern Federal University was to involve novice researchers belonging to various humanitarian "workshops" in a dialogue with leading scientists studying various aspects of Russian medieval intellectual culture and its reception in Modern and modern times, ready to share their vision of the place of the idea of the Third Rome in history and modernity. As Andrey Vitalievich noted on the first day of school, the schedule was quite intensive, so that in a short period of time there was a rapid growth in skills.

So, the participants attended two lectures and two seminars of their choice every day, the remaining hours were spent working with the project and excursions. Usually the students left after midnight or early in the morning.

The lecturers of the school were leading researchers of the history of the Russian Middle Ages, theory and history of literature, practicing restorers and architects. Among the invited teachers, the speeches of the Head of the Department of History of Slavic and Balkan Countries of St. Petersburg State University, Professor Alexander Filyushkin, Professor of the Department of History of Southern and Western Slavs of Moscow State University and researcher of the Scientific and Educational Laboratory of Medieval Studies of the HSE Mikhail Dmitriev were of particular importance for the implementation of the educational objectives of the school; Professor of the Department of Philology, Communications and Russian as a Foreign Language of Pskov State University Valentina Okhotnikova; Deputy Director of the Research and Production Center for the Protection of Monuments, full member of the National Committee of the International Council for the Preservation of Monuments and Places of Interest Maria Lisenkova, etc. The topics of the lectures of the teachers of the school were revealed in a series of seminars and were reflected in the project initiatives of the students.

In total, the school had three areas of project activity: architecture, history and media. Each group had its own mentor who supervised the guys at all stages. Under the guidance of Grigory Shapiro, Associate Professor of the Department of History of Architecture, Art and Architectural Restoration of the Academy of Architecture and Arts of the Southern Federal University, head of the Scientific Restoration Project Center, students of the Academy of Architecture and Arts of the Southern Federal University have developed two restoration projects and one project related to the landscaping of the monastery. The uniqueness of the project was that the guys were provided with real historical premises for work.

"Such restorations take place once in a hundred years. I have the opportunity to watch it, and in two generations someone will touch this story, so the knowledge gained here is very valuable," said Alexandra Grivko, a third-year student of the Academy of Architecture and Arts of the Southern Federal University.

The historical team, made up of delegations from the Southern Federal, Pskov and Belarusian Universities, was supervised by Natalia Nikolaeva, senior lecturer at the Department of National History of the Middle Ages and Modern Times, Candidate of Historical Sciences. Her project team had to create a prototype of the site and fill it with historical material.

"Here I realized what responsible students we have. I was worried that we would not succeed, because there would be no systematic work. But the guys took the task seriously, so we created such a great product," Natalia Dmitrievna shared.

The media group was supervised by two teachers: Anna Dmitrova, Acting Director of the Institute of Philology, Journalism and Intercultural Communication, Candidate of Philological Sciences, and Svetlana Kalashnikova, Associate Professor of the Department of Theory and History of World Literature, Candidate of Philological Sciences. For protection, the students developed a brandbook of the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery, as well as a map of the area with all the sights in Eleazarovo. The peculiarity of this team was that not only journalists and PR specialists, but also philologists worked on the project.

"For me, as a philologist, working in the field of marketing was new. Despite the fact that I am not familiar with this field much, my professional skills have proved useful. I wrote texts, edited them. Not only the meaning of the text depends on the choice of words and their order in the sentence, but also how and what influence it has on the reader, which is important when developing a brandbook. During my time at school, I realized that a philologist can do branding if he wants," said Elizaveta Skrypnik, a first—year student of the master's degree in Digital Philology.

Despite being very busy during their studies, the students and lecturers were still able to find time to relax. Ilya Nikolaev, senior lecturer at the Department of Foreign History and International Relations, shared that not only lectures, but also evening gatherings with students in the kitchen and buns with jam during the break will remain a vivid memory from the school.

At the end of the week, the projects were defended. According to its results, the first place was taken by the team of the Academy of Architecture and Arts of the Southern Federal University, the second place was given to the media group, and the bronze went to the historical project. Also, each student received a certificate of graduation. Everyone left with a great desire to return here again next summer.

The summer school would not have taken place without the close cooperation of three departments of our university: the Institute of History and International Relations, the Institute of Philology, Journalism and Intercultural Communication and the Academy of Architecture and Art. The school was co-organized by Pskov State University, which hosted the participants of the event on the third day of the school, as well as the Union of Restorers of Russia, which accompanied the work of the architectural track throughout the week. We express our gratitude to our colleagues for fruitful cooperation!

Special words of gratitude to the Spaso-Eleazar Monastery, which hospitably received the participants of the summer school, and also provided an opportunity to get acquainted with the space and unique documents related to the history of the cult object and the concept of "Moscow – the Third Rome".

Following in the footsteps of the summer school "In search of the Third Rome": the reflection of MSU Professor M.V. Dmitriev

From July 31 to August 6, 2023, at the site of the Spaso-Eleazar Monastery in the Pskov region, on the initiative of the Southern Federal University, a summer humanitarian school "In Search of the Third Rome: Five Centuries of Russian Metaphysics of Power" was held. According to the results of the school, the students not only expanded their knowledge about the concept of Elder Philotheus, but also prepared project initiatives in the scientific, educational, media and restoration direction. The students and teachers highly appreciated the academic environment of the summer school. We present to your attention the reflection of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Mikhail Vladimirovich Dmitriev, Professor of the Department of History of Southern and Western Slavs, Head of the Center for Ukrainian Studies and Belarusian Studies of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, Chief Researcher of the Scientific and Educational Laboratory of Medieval Studies of the Faculty of Humanities of the Higher School of Economics.

***

Conceived by Andrey Vitalievich Korenevsky and conducted by him, as the head of this project, and colleagues from Rostov-on-Don, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Pskov, the Summer Humanitarian School "In Search of the Third Rome" is a welcome and important phenomenon in our university life, firstly, because education is never enough, and the school gave students a great chance to practice their professional activities (historical, philological, cultural analysis and architectural activities), and expand the horizons of knowledge.

Secondly, in the center of all classes was the cultural and religious tradition from which the high culture of Russia grew - the tradition of Byzantine Christianity. And it's not just the continuity between Russia, Russia and Byzantium, but the fact that it was about the connections of Russian historical experience with the experience of "greater Europe" (Europe from the Urals to the Atlantic, from the Caucasus to the Khibiny). But something also made Russia a different world compared to the West. The idea of the Russian state as the Third Rome, of Moscow as the capital of the new Byzantium is just one of the lines that led Russia along a special path, so that it became both its own and not its own for the West. At the same time, this is the line that causes a lot of difficulties in building our own historical memory, and the participants of the School in very lively discussions dealt with the false and true in understanding identity, that is, understanding the uniqueness of Russia. This was served by seminars and lectures on the "shadows" of the Third Rome in Russian literature, in the ideological battles of the XIX - XX centuries, in the modern media sphere and the Network striving to enslave us – everything through which we could understand what medieval Russia was "really" - in the guise and experience of the wonderful Pskov an urban republic similar to Venice, Dubrovnik, the cities of the German Hanseatic League and the commune cities of Northern Italy…