SEMIOTICS OF MEDIEVAL CORE IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL AND ARTISTIC PRACTICES

Abstract

The article examines the semiotic dimension of the medieval core phenomenon, whose defining feature is the actualization and reinterpretation of elements of medieval culture. The methodological framework of the study is primarily based on a semiotic approach; in addition, historical-logical and systemic approaches, as well as methods of cultural comparativism and iconographic analysis, are employed. It is argued that in contemporary cultural and artistic practices, medieval core functions as a multilayered system of signs that integrates architectural, audiovisual, and corporeal-performative communicative codes. This phenomenon operates as a mechanism for the sacralization of space, the reinterpretation of historical memory, and the construction of an alternative symbolic reality. The semantic structure of medieval core is inherently ambivalent. On the one hand, the phenomenon may be interpreted as a simulacrum of the Middle Ages, generating a stylized image of the epoch that is represented independently of historical facts and functions as a self-sufficient aesthetic construct. On the other hand, medieval core acts as a mechanism of cultural interpretation in which the Middle Ages emerge as a semiotic resource for rethinking the crisis conditions of contemporary society and for shaping a distinctive cultural identity – namely, self-awareness and self-representation through traditional ideals of “knightly dignity,” “heroism,” and “sacredness,” which are often lacking in the stochastic reality of the modern world. In this context, the phenomenon performs compensatory and identificatory functions, forming a new model of cultural communication in which the past becomes an active element in the symbolic production of the present