FATE OF THE ART FOLLOWING THE EMPIRE’S DOWNFALL

It is interesting to trace the development of various national artistic communities in post-Soviet space. The situational analysis reveals the unevenness of that development, the similarities and differences between the existing stereotypes and prejudices, the changes in mythologies, artistic institutions, educational programs and critical refl ections, the reorientation of ethnical attitudes, the contribution to international projects and the presence in the international context, the participation in the process of globalization (fi rst of all in search for semiotic universality of expressive means), the strategies of cultural identity, the outbursts of religious infl uence upon art and the powerful attacks of the mass-culture, and numerous phenomena infl uencing the formation of the new “small” artistic communities.