Changing Societies & Personalities, 2020
Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 133–135

http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.093

EDITORIAL

Editor’s Note

The current issue of Changing Societies & Personalities aims to investigate value 
transformations in various spheres of social life, such as the image of religion 
in the memorial places and its impact on national identity; the concept of time 
maintaining full openness to the future and remembering the past, as well as 
messianism in the works of prominent contemporary French philosophers; the 
balance between openness to global influences and national identity in education; 
the role of professional organizations in civil society; and review of the research 
on ethical and psychological reasons in reproductive donation. 

Tomáš Bubík in his article A Graveyard as a Home to Ghosts or a Subject of 
Scholarly Research? The Czech National Cemetery at Vyšehrad questions the 
generally accepted claim that the contemporary Czech society is one of the least 
religious nations in Europe and stresses the importance of focusing not so much 
on general claims but rather on specific segments of culture intertwining religious 
and non-religious elements. Bubík’s research is focused on the Vyšehrad 
cemetery in Prague as a vivid example of close links between the religious 
and the secular. He shares the assumption about a close relationship between 
personal religiosity and its funerary expression, being convinced that the study 
of Vyšehrad gravestones in a historical perspective can contribute to elucidating 
the transformations concerning the attitude of Czech society towards life and 
death, the country and its religion. Bubík observes the history of the Vyšehrad 
national cemetery and its contribution to the formation of national identity in the 
light of the traditional “mortuary ideology” widespread in the country, concluding 
that “religion is an important element of the grave architecture of the national 
cemetery from its founding up until the present, despite the fact that it does not 
clearly predominate at present”. 

In the article “Messianicity Without Messianism”: On the Place of Religion 
in the Philosophy of Jacques Derrida, Roman Soloviy explores the interpretation 
of messianicity by the prominent French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the light 
of ideas expressed by key Jewish thinkers of the beginning of the 20th century. 
Soloviy stresses that Derrida turned to the analysis of religious issues at different 
stages of his intellectual career, thus calling into question the traditional view 
on Derrida’s deconstruction as generally being not favourable to religion. At the 

Received 25 June 2020 © 2020 Elena A. Stepanova 
Published online 9 July 2020 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com 

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134 Elena A. Stepanova 

same time, Soloviy proves that Derrida’s understanding of religion goes far beyond 
the terms of traditional denominational beliefs and practices. In addition, Derrida 
denies the traditional concept of time as a sequence of modalized presents: that is 
why, Soloviy believes, “the future cannot be regarded as a projected continuation of 
the present. It is not a descriptive empirical future, but a messianic eschatological 
future, an expectation of the arrival of an unpredictable other, in which our ‘come’ is 
turned to the point that we cannot determine, predict, or calculate in advance who or 
what is coming”. Derrida’s messianisity, concludes Soloviy, remains fully secular and 
separate from any particular socio-cultural context. 

Fairuza S. Ismagilova, Aleksey V. Maltsev and Erkinbai N. Sattarov in their 
article The Uzbek National Tradition in the Pedagogical Practices of Adult Education 
search “for the right balance between openness to global influences, on the one 
hand, and the desire to preserve the country’s national identity, on the other”, namely, 
the centuries-old cultural and historical traditions of Uzbek people in the sphere of 
professional education. Following the results of a focus group analysis, the authors 
formulated four research hypotheses concerning teaching strategies and methods 
in the Uzbek education system: (1) Professors tend to choose interactive methods 
by following one of the four strategies in relation to the national context and national 
identity; (2) Experts will consider such methods as buddying, discussion, role-playing 
and metaphorical role-play as having limited applicability in the Uzbek national 
context; (3) Experts will consider the methods of case study, in-basket technique 
and shadowing as holding more potential for training the civil service talent pool in 
Uzbekistan; (4) Experts will consider mentoring, coaching and workshops as the 
most effective teaching methods. In the conclusion, the authors present the results 
of the conducted empirical study, which are partly confirmed and partly refuted. 

Identification of the main objective and subjective reasons that determine 
nurses’ membership/non-membership in professional associations is the focus of 
Natalia A. Akimova and Elena N. Medvedeva article Factors Influencing Nurses’ 
Decision to Join a Professional Association in Russia. Following a comprehensive 
literature review, the authors analyse the role of nurse professional organizations 
as an important element of civil society, describe their history and present status 
in various countries, including Russia. The authors’ intention is to address the 
existing research gap in studying professional nurse associations in Russia. In-depth 
interviews with nurses from different Russian regions were conducted to clarify their 
motivation for membership/non-membership; nurses’ awareness of the activities of 
medical associations; the role of professional associations in nurses’ daily practices, 
etc. The authors conclude that “factors contributing to the popularity of professional 
nurse associations can be quite diverse: starting from formal obligations… and ending 
with personal interest and commitment to the organization’s goals and mission”.

Elvira E. Symaniuk, Irina G. Polyakova and Elena V. Kvashnina present the 
article Review of International Research on Ethical and Psychological Barriers to 
Reproductive Donation, which covers most recent studies on reproductive donation 
written in English. The analysis includes about 70 publications devoted to the ethical 
and psychological motivation of donors to participate in reproductive donation. The 



Changing Societies & Personalities, 2020, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 133–135 135

authors believe that the review can be beneficial for professional Artificial Reproductive 
Technologies (ART) organizations, “in particular those engaged in recruitment of 
new donors. The results of this review are meant to provide useful information for 
medical and legal professionals as well as policy makers on reproductive health”. 
The conclusion is drawn that reproductive donation is underpinned by a variety of 
motivations and faces multiple obstacles; therefore, research into psychological and 
ethical aspects of reproductive donation should be continued. 

The section OPENING THE DEBATE introduces Dmitriy A. Davydov’s article The 
Crisis of Humanism and Emerging Post-Anthropocentric Epoch: A Personalistic View. 
In a quite provocative way, the author poses the problem of “increasing unpredictability” 
[…] and “danger of manmade interventions in human nature”, stressing the importance 
of approaching reality through a personalistic path. The latter is considered to be 
not a specific philosophical school, but rather “an attitude, a way of thinking that can 
be present in certain people, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be 
personalist philosophers or not”. Davydov analyses the concept of “humanism” in the 
modern socio-cultural context: he insists that the “humanistic civilization” has entered 
its “sunset period” and sets up a variety of arguments to prove this assumption. He 
believes that humanism as a historical phenomenon of European culture experiences 
a deep crisis, which “provides the impulse towards mechanisms of technological 
changes in the biological nature of individuals”. Turning to the prospects of changing 
human nature by technologies, Davydov warns about their possible dangers, namely, 
the “destruction of the universal human ‘lifeworld’”. In particular, Davydov’s article may 
be seen as the invitation to discuss perspectives of transhumanism and its impact over 
human body and mind. 

In the BOOK REVIEW section, one can find Elena Trubina’s review of Germaine 
R. Halegoua (2019), The Digital City: Media and the Social Production of Place (New-
York University Press). Trubina stresses that the focus of the book is “first, how citizens 
daily engage in the digital placemaking practices; second, the diversity of ways in 
which various populations employ navigation technologies and media platforms”. 

Discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the 
subsequent issues of our journal. In planning to introduce new interesting themes, we 
welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, 
debate sections or book reviews.

For more information, please visit our Journal’s website: https://changing-sp.com/ 

Elena A. Stepanova
Editor-in-Chief

Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the RAS, 
Yekaterinburg, Russia

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