It is difficult to find someone who is not familiar with the hooligan creativity of this guy. By the way, he is not a crazy artist or a rock star with a dark sense of humor. He is a scientist.
Our hero studies the Middle Ages and is literally in love with this era. This does not prevent him from being aware of all fashion trends. The daring youth wished that historical facts would become available to his peers and roam the modern world with him. Strange, but he succeeded.
Biography
Sergey is a native of Saratov. He was born in November 1990. At school, all the boys imagine themselves as noble knights, but not for many history becomes a future specialty. After school, Zotov entered the Saratov State University. Chernyshevsky. He chose German studies as his specialty. In 2013, the guy graduated. Our hero did not plan to stop there. He went to Moscow and entered the Russian State University for the Humanities to obtain a master's degree in Historical Culturology.
Sergey Zotov was awarded a diploma in 2015. The young specialist improved his qualifications abroad. He studied at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and in 2017 became a junior research assistant at the German Library of the Duke of Augustus. In 2018, the young man completed his postgraduate studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities, which has already become his own. Today he is a bachelor and is in no hurry to divulge the details of his personal life, the name of his future wife and the date scheduled for creating a family.
Circle of interests
Passion for the history of the Middle Ages led Zotov to search for facts about this era in paintings and book miniatures. Of course, Christian legends were the main subjects of the works of the masters of antiquity. A number of symbols and traditional concepts migrated to other spheres of people's life and knowledge.
In addition to studying everyday life, customs and laws of the past, Sergei began to delve into the details of the elite disciplines of medieval Europe. He became interested in the esoteric cults that existed in the past, and alchemy, which combined natural science and mysticism. Our hero is interested in how the religiosity of society influenced the style of presenting information about the supernatural and the interpretation of very real phenomena. The scientist is especially fond of looking for images that came from iconography on the pages of mysterious treatises.
If someone already has an opinion that Zotov is fixated on the Middle Ages, then this is a wrong judgment. Sergey is a member of the Platonic Philosophical Society, which operates on the basis of the Philosophy Faculty of St. Petersburg State University. The historian is studying the work of the ancient philosopher and its adaptations in later centuries.
Hooligan creativity
Symbols and styles of medieval painting that are unusual for the eyes of a modern person, according to Zotov, should not have remained available exclusively to the scientific community. The opinion that the Middle Ages is a sad time was formed due to the lack of information about this period. So that the people could appreciate the beauty of the era, the historian offered the public a selection of illustrations, which he called "The Suffering Middle Ages."
The original way of presenting information about the visual arts of the Middle Ages gained popularity. Those who, until recently, were not at all interested in the distant past, began to look for funny images in famous paintings and come up with non-standard signatures for them. Zotov, on the other hand, offered to the public's attention little-known masterpieces, equipped not only with a witty joke, but also with an explanation of what the artist really wanted to say when drawing this joke. Today everyone can buy the book "The Suffering Middle Ages".
Enlightenment activist
In addition to inventing a new way of drawing attention to the topic of his research, this pundit does not disdain the classical forms of enlightenment of his contemporaries. He is a frequent lecturer and a volunteer at the Laboratory of Historical, Social and Cultural Anthropology. In 2018, his contribution to the dissemination of scientific knowledge was recognized with the Enlightener Prize in the Humanities category.
On the Internet, you can find videos of Sergei Zotov's lectures. They will especially appeal to those who are interested in the fine arts. The orator analyzes each image into fragments that can be attributed to one or another tradition, looking for exceptional Christian symbols characteristic of the Middle Ages. Sergei Zotov mainly chooses German book miniatures as illustrative material. The lecturer does not ignore the political context of the drawings.
Performance evaluation
Despite the obvious outrageousness of the "Suffering Middle Ages" project, the ideas of our hero met not so much criticism. Sergey's activity in popularizing knowledge about the past clearly indicates that this guy is working for the good of society, and is not trying to quickly and simply make a career and a name. Nevertheless, it is possible to ask the question: how appropriate is humor in education.
Humor is a must if you want the material to captivate the widest possible audience. Shocking images from ancient manuscripts, having acquired a modern interpretation from an amateur, receive a correct explanation. A person sees the difference between his perception and the philosophy of the past. Finding a clear gap in their knowledge, everyone will want to know more.
