The article discusses the development of a multicultural environment as a factor of improving the well-being context and competitiveness of the higher education system. The authors believe that the scale of what is happening today in the world at different levels leads to a substantial change in national structure of Russia. An extensive review of the Russian and international literature on multiculturalism is presented in the article. The concepts of interculturalism, polyculturalism and multiculturalism were reviewed. The authors also argue that the formation of the elite and the content of the state national policy are interrelated. We believe that it is the level of higher education institutions, the results of their research and technology development activities, determines not only their place in the international rankings, but also the dynamics of economic and innovative development of individual territories and entire countries. In the process of forming new paradigm to develop the role of higher education system, there are many factors which effect on this process especially in some countries like Russia and Belarus.  Keywords: intercultural environment, higher education system, international relations, institutionalization, human capital, polyculturalism, national policy

The authors refer the issue of definition of contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality basing on the research results of a well-known theorist Boris Groys. Analyzing the progress of his ideas, the authors conclude, that the philosopher’s considerable contribution to the science is composed of the next phase of the development of the thesis about the art language as the base of contemporaneity construction and of the “natural selection” of contemporary art structures. The latter is not simply reduced to the postmodern “polylogue” variant, but implies a kind of contemporaneity patterns niche and “stabilization”. The patterns naturally tend to become complementary due to simple juxtaposition/ overlay in general time context. According to the authors, this circumstance does not prevent them from being turned by different political forces into locally dominating contemporaneity patterns (as in the case of Gesamkunstwerk Stalin). Contemporary art provides simple experience, that helps to retain the illusion of single and seemingly total contemporaneity. B. Groys leads us to the thought that art provides conditions for generating a significant reflective distance in relation to different social and historical situations. The distance gives an artist the opportunity to consider the reality comprehensively, given the autonomy, through the art language. However, we believe, that the most important philosopher’s achievement is not only drawing parallels between cultural and social and historical processes, based on the concept of art strategies influencing the social dynamics. He also managed to approach one of the most significant issues in culture theory and history – the opportunity to define contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality. According to his modernity theory, the origin of contemporaneity is hidden in the avant-garde art manifestation. He interprets the utopic by its nature modernist discourse, applied in art practice, through Nietzscheian will to power as redefining the new age philosophy. This article aims to analyze the progress of the issue of contemporaneity in the works of B. Groys and to explicate the complexity of considering contemporaneity as cultural and historical totality. The authors believe that the thorough study of the phenomenon of total artwork (Gesamtkunstwerk) as a soviet Stalin project and critics’ opinion analysis helps to create arguments limiting the opportunity of considering contemporaneity as totality.

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Авторы статьи обращаются к проблематике содержания понятия «современность» и делают попытку разобраться в проблеме формирования представлений о современности как идеи в общефилософском контексте и области современного искусства, исходя из предположения, что варианты истолкования можно объединить рамками двух подходов: общефилософского и историко-культурного. Для анализа использован ряд важных интуиций философии искусства Бориса Гройса. Авторы предлагают тезис (а также его критику) о том, что искусство из позиции своей автономии дает возможность использовать уникальный цельный язык описания / конструирования современности как времени и находящей себя в его актуальной неопределенности экзистенциальной субъективности.