56-497: Meduza (Russian: Медуза, named after the Greek goddess Medusa ) is a Russian- and English-language independent news website, headquartered in Riga , Latvia . It was founded in 2014 by a group of former employees of the then-independent Lenta.ru news website. Free mobile applications for iOS , Windows Phone , and Android became the basis of the media. A semi-official motto of the portal
112-514: A Creative Commons license. The articles can be reprinted in full ( CC BY 4.0 , does not apply to photos). Meduza aims to fill a market niche that exists due to "a long list of forbidden topics which Russian media do not raise for various reasons—due to direct and indirect censorship". The day after it was launched (in October 2014), Meduza was blocked in Kazakhstan , probably due to an article about
168-423: A beauty, the name in common usage "came to mean monster." The book Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne Devane notes that "When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it was always Medusa, the snaky-haired monster of myth, who came to mind ... In one interview after another we were told that Medusa is 'the most horrific woman in the world' ... [though] none of
224-503: A common theme in art in the nineteenth century, when her myth was retold in Thomas Bulfinch 's Mythology . Edward Burne-Jones ' Perseus Cycle of paintings and a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley gave way to the twentieth-century works of Paul Klee , John Singer Sargent , Pablo Picasso , Pierre et Gilles , and Auguste Rodin 's bronze sculpture The Gates of Hell . The head of Medusa is featured on some regional symbols. One example
280-415: A horrid monster predate Ovid. In classical Greek art, the depiction of Medusa shifted from hideous beast to an attractive young woman, both aggressor and victim, a tragic figure in her death. The earliest of those depictions comes courtesy of Polygnotus , who drew Medusa as a comely woman sleeping peacefully as Perseus beheads her. As the act of killing a beautiful maiden in her sleep is rather unheroic, it
336-560: A map to guide us through our terrors, through the depths of our anger into the sources of our power as women." In issue three, Fall 1986 for the magazine Woman of Power an article called Gorgons: A Face for Contemporary Women's Rage, appeared, written by Emily Erwin Culpepper, who wrote that "The Amazon Gorgon face is female fury personified. The Gorgon/Medusa image has been rapidly adopted by large numbers of feminists who recognize her as one face of our own rage." Griselda Pollock analyses
392-585: A public outcry, Golunov was released, and five police officers were fired and later arrested. On 23 April 2021, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated Meduza as a " foreign agent ". In response, the European Union rejected the decision, saying this restriction "goes against Russia's international obligations and human rights commitments". Russia's actions caused financial difficulties for Meduza , as they stopped many advertisers from Russia, which were
448-511: A story that seeks to place the male, Perseus, at its center, blameless and heroic. Author Sibylle Baumbach described Medusa as a "multimodal image of intoxication, petrifaction, and luring attractiveness", citing her seductive contemporary representation, as well as her dimensionality, as the reason for her longevity. Elizabeth Johnston's November 2016 Atlantic essay called Medusa the original 'Nasty Woman.' Johnston goes on to say that as Medusa has been repeatedly compared to Hillary Clinton during
504-506: A sword from Hephaestus and Hades 's helm of invisibility . Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her; he did so while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon . When Perseus beheaded her, Pegasus , a winged horse, and Chrysaor , a giant wielding a golden sword, sprang from her body. Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head
560-615: A trio of sisters was a secondary feature in the myth: The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general tendency... which makes of each woman goddess a trinity, which has given us the Horae , the Charites , the Semnai , and a host of other triple groups. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three but one + two. The two unslain sisters are mere appendages due to custom;
616-510: A weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield . In classical antiquity , the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion . According to Hesiod and Aeschylus , she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene . The 2nd-century BC novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya , where Herodotus had said
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#1732873419457672-449: Is "Make the Kremlin sad". In 2014, Galina Timchenko was fired from her job as chief editor at Lenta.ru by oligarch Alexander Mamut , a supporter of Vladimir Putin , after she had interviewed Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh . She launched the new webpage Meduza on 25 October 2014. Several former journalists of Lenta.ru joined the new online site. Timchenko told Forbes that
728-453: Is not clear whether those vases are meant to elicit sympathy for Medusa's fate, or to mock the traditional hero. In most versions of the story, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus , who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus's mother. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. He received a mirrored shield from Athena , sandals with gold wings from Hermes ,
784-631: Is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended... the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object , a ritual mask misunderstood." In the Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa: Lest for my daring Persephone the dread, From Hades should send up an awful monster's grisly head. Harrison's translation states that "the Gorgon
840-507: Is that of the flag and emblem of Sicily , together with the three-legged trinacria . The inclusion of Medusa in the center implies the protection of the goddess Athena , who wore the Gorgon's likeness on her aegis , as said above. Another example is the coat of arms of Dohalice village in the Czech Republic . Medusa is honored in the following scientific names : Greek: Roman: Greek: Roman: Medialogia From Misplaced Pages,
896-556: Is the Lie that makes him free. Animals alone are given the privilege of lifting the veil of Isis ; men dare not. The animal, awake, has no fictional escape from the Real because he has no imagination. Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie ." Medusa has been depicted in several works of art, including: Medusa remained
952-637: Is the only way to stop the crisis engulfing the website and minimize the damage to its reputation". He was reinstated as chief editor on March 11, 2019. In 2019, Meduza started the English podcast The Naked Pravda, which highlights how Meduza 's top reporting intersects with the wider research and expertise that exists about Russia. In May 2022, Helsingin Sanomat started publishing individual Meduza articles translated in Finnish. In February 2023, Timchenko's iPhone
1008-440: Is widely known as a monstrous creature with snakes in her hair whose gaze turns men to stone. Through the lens of theology, film, art, and feminist literature, my students and I map how her meaning has shifted over time and across cultures. In so doing, we unravel a familiar narrative thread: In Western culture, strong women have historically been imagined as threats requiring male conquest and control, and Medusa herself has long been
1064-517: The Amphisbaena (a horned dragon-like creature with a snake-headed tail). Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was being forced into marriage with the king, Polydectes, who was turned into stone by the head. Then Perseus gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the Aegis . Some classical references refer to three Gorgons; Harrison considered that the tripling of Medusa into
1120-665: The Berbers originated her myth as part of their religion . The three Gorgons —Medusa, Stheno , and Euryale —were described by Hesiod and Apollodorus as offspring of the sea-god Phorcys and his sister Ceto ; according to Hyginus , however, their parents were "Gorgon" and Ceto. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae , as in Aeschylus 's Prometheus Bound , which places both trios of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain": Near them their sisters three,
1176-540: The Gorgon , was one of the three Gorgons . Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her was turned to stone . Medusa and her Gorgon sisters Euryale and Stheno were usually described as daughters of Phorcys and Ceto ; of the three, only Medusa was mortal. Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus , who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as
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#17328734194571232-488: The Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022; due to its coverage of the invasion, the site was blocked on the territory of Russia by Roskomnadzor among other news websites due to the "systematic dissemination of fakes". Despite the actions of Roskomnadzor, Meduza managed to maintain most of its Russian readers, but the economic sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine also hit Meduza ' s finances, as
1288-517: The article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article . Search for " Medialogia " in existing articles. Look for pages within Misplaced Pages that link to this title . Other reasons this message may be displayed: If a page was recently created here, it may not be visible yet because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes or try the purge function . Titles on Misplaced Pages are case sensitive except for
1344-424: The 2016 presidential election, she proves her merit as an icon, finding relevance even in modern politics. "Medusa has since haunted Western imagination, materializing whenever male authority feels threatened by female agency," writes Johnston. Beyond that, Medusa's story is, Johnston argues, a rape narrative. A story of victim blaming , one that she says sounds all too familiar in a current American context. Medusa
1400-464: The Gorgons, winged With snakes for hair—hatred of mortal man While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BC began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC, Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa". In a late version of the Medusa myth, by
1456-553: The Mystery of the Gorgon , questioned Medusa's enduring status among the feminist movement. He believes that one reason for her longevity may be her role as a protector, fearsome and enraged. "Only the Gorgon has the savage, threatening appearance to serve as an immediately recognized symbol of rage and a protector of women's secrets," wrote Wilk. Even in contemporary pop culture, Medusa has become largely synonymous with feminine rage. Through many of her iterations, Medusa pushes back against
1512-623: The Roman poet Ovid , Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Neptune (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Poseidon ) mated with her in Minerva 's temple (Minerva being the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena ), Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes. Although no earlier versions mention this, ancient depictions of Medusa as a beautiful maiden instead of
1568-493: The Russian attack on Ukraine, Meduza said the attack would not happen. Out of the things that did come true, except two cases, all of the predictions appeared in other publications. Medusa In Greek mythology , Medusa ( / m ɪ ˈ dj uː z ə , - s ə / ; Ancient Greek : Μέδουσα , romanized : Médousa , lit. 'guardian, protectress'), also called Gorgo ( Ancient Greek : Γοργώ ) or
1624-436: The attack. Several employees of other independent Russian outlets, Current Time TV and Novaya Gazeta , received notifications from Apple that "state-sponsored attackers" may have attacked their phones as well. By 2014 Meduza had a team of around 20 journalists. No Latvian journalists contribute to the project. Since March 2015, Meduza has published a daily news called "Evening Meduza". In September 2022, it announced
1680-535: The city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk). By October 2016, access to the site has also been blocked in Uzbekistan . By 15 April 2016, Meduza reported installing technical measures to circumvent censorship with their mobile apps. In June 2019, Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested by Russian police for claimed drug offences. Colleagues and friends of Golunov said they believed the charges to be fabricated, motivated by his investigations into corruption. Following
1736-440: The conscious mind. In 1940, Sigmund Freud 's "Das Medusenhaupt ( Medusa's Head )" was published posthumously. In Freud's interpretation: "To decapitate = to castrate. The terror of Medusa is thus a terror of castration that is linked to the sight of something. Numerous analyses have made us familiar with the occasion for this: it occurs when a boy, who has hitherto been unwilling to believe the threat of castration, catches sight of
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1792-611: The creation of English email dispatch "The Beet", aiming to amplify "local perspectives" from Central/Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, "without centering Moscow". Its debut article was titled 'Suing Gorbachev' and explored Soviet violence in the Baltic states under Mikhail Gorbachev . Three months after opening, Meduza had 1.3 million monthly readers of its Internet publication. In 2017, Meduza had 7.5 million readers per month and 2 million followers on social media. In 2020, Meduza
1848-889: The decision to base Meduza in Latvia was made since "right now, establishing an independent Russian language publishing house in Latvia is possible, while in Russia it is not". Moreover, Timchenko stated: "We understood that in Russia, most likely, they would not let us work." Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and telecommunications magnate Boris Zimin had been considered as passive investors, but they parted ways "for strategic and operational reasons". Timchenko said Khodorkovsky had wanted 100 percent control of Meduza , which she considered unacceptable. For financial reasons, Timchenko and her partner at Amond & Smith Ltd, Sergey Nazarkin, based Meduza in Latvia. In February 2015,
1904-586: The false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing. Inscribe the breath of the whole woman." Cixous wants to destroy the phallogocentric system, and to empower women's bodies and language. "You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her," writes Cixous. "And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing." Medusa has sometimes appeared as representing notions of scientific determinism and nihilism , especially in contrast with romantic idealism . In this interpretation of Medusa, attempts to avoid looking into her eyes represent avoiding
1960-421: The female genitals, probably those of an adult, surrounded by hair, and essentially those of his mother." In this perspective the "ravishingly beautiful" Medusa (see above) is the mother remembered in innocence; before the mythic truth of castration dawns on the subject. Classic Medusa, in contrast, is an Oedipal/libidinous symptom. Looking at the forbidden mother (in her hair-covered genitals, so to speak) stiffens
2016-897: The 💕 Look for Medialogia on one of Misplaced Pages's sister projects : [REDACTED] Wiktionary (dictionary) [REDACTED] Wikibooks (textbooks) [REDACTED] Wikiquote (quotations) [REDACTED] Wikisource (library) [REDACTED] Wikiversity (learning resources) [REDACTED] Commons (media) [REDACTED] Wikivoyage (travel guide) [REDACTED] Wikinews (news source) [REDACTED] Wikidata (linked database) [REDACTED] Wikispecies (species directory) Misplaced Pages does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Medialogia in Misplaced Pages to check for alternative titles or spellings. You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use
2072-413: The go-to figure for those seeking to demonize female authority. The Medusa story has also been interpreted in contemporary art as a classic case of rape-victim blaming, by the goddess Athena. Inspired by the #metoo movement , contemporary figurative artist Judy Takács returns Medusa's beauty along with a hashtag stigmata in her portrait, #Me(dusa)too. Feminist theorist Hélène Cixous famously tackled
2128-433: The goddess' unresolved conflicts with her own father Zeus . In the 20th century, feminists reassessed Medusa's appearances in literature and in modern culture, including the use of Medusa as a logo by fashion company Versace . The name "Medusa" itself is often used in ways not directly connected to the mythological figure but to suggest the gorgon's abilities or to connote malevolence; despite her claimed origins as
2184-427: The latter being apotropaic faces worn to frighten away the profane. That is to say, there occurred in the early thirteenth century B.C. an actual historic rupture, a sort of sociological trauma, which has been registered in this myth, much as what Freud terms the latent content of a neurosis is registered in the manifest content of a dream: registered yet hidden, registered in the unconscious yet unknown or misconstrued by
2240-652: The myth in her essay "The Laugh of the Medusa." She argues that men's retelling of the narrative turned Medusa into a monster because they feared female desire. "The Laugh of the Medusa" is largely a call to arms, urging women to reclaim their identity through writing as she rejects the patriarchal society of Western culture. Cixous calls writing "an act which will not only 'realize' the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal." She claims "we must kill
2296-586: The ostensibly depressing reality that the universe is meaningless. Jack London uses Medusa in this way in his novel The Mutiny of the Elsinore : I cannot help remembering a remark of De Casseres . It was over the wine in Mouquin's. Said he: "The profoundest instinct in man is to war against the truth; that is, against the Real. He shuns facts from his infancy. His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and to-morrow keep him alive. He lives on fiction and myth. It
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2352-401: The outlet's annual celebration, Meduza chief editor and co-founder Ivan Kolpakov reportedly groped an employee's wife, saying, "You're the only one at this party I can harass and get away with it." Kolpakov was temporarily suspended until Meduza publicly censured and reinstated him. The incident triggered a social media backlash. On November 9 Kolpakov announced his resignation saying that "it
2408-448: The passage from horrorism to compassion in the figure of the Medusa through Adriana Cavarero 's philosophy and Bracha Ettinger 's art and Matrixial theory. Elana Dykewomon 's 1976 collection of lesbian stories and poems, They Will Know Me by My Teeth , features a drawing of a Gorgon on its cover. Its purpose was to act as a guardian for female power, keeping the book solely in the hands of women. Stephen Wilk, author of Medusa: Solving
2464-436: The portal's main source of income, from displaying their ads at Meduza ' s pages. This resulted in an international campaign to collect funds to ensure Meduza ' s survival through donations and buying subscriptions. Timchenko said the designation made it even harder to obtain sources that are willing to talk to the reporters – specifically without the protection of anonymity. Meduza published an editorial condemning
2520-498: The real Gorgon is Medusa. Several early classics scholars interpreted the myth of Medusa as a quasi-historical – "based on or reconstructed from an event, custom, style, etc., in the past", or "sublimated" memory of an actual invasion. According to Joseph Campbell : The legend of Perseus beheading Medusa means, specifically, that "the Hellenes overran the goddess's chief shrines" and "stripped her priestesses of their Gorgon masks",
2576-416: The sanctions made it nearly impossible to send donations from Russia and 30,000 members across the Russian border were suddenly unable to donate to the website. As a result, Meduza launched a campaign seeking donations from new supporters outside of Russia. On March 11, Reporters Without Borders announced a mirror site has been set up. Russian journalist Ilya Krasilshchik, the former publisher of Meduza ,
2632-561: The shore during his short stay in Ethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda , who was the most beautiful woman in the world at that time. Furthermore, the venomous vipers of the Sahara , in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.770 and Lucan's Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood. The blood of Medusa also spawned
2688-484: The start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine . After studying 150 articles published by Meduza journalist Andrey Pertsev since mid 2019 where at least 65 predictions were made, Proekt found out that only 10% of the predictions came true. Amongst the things that didn't come true were numerous predicted government resignations, a union between All-Russia People's Front and United Russia , nine predicted annexation dates of Ukrainian regions and Russia - also, five days before
2744-508: The subject in illicit desire and freezes him in terror of the Father's retribution. There are no recorded instances of Medusa turning a woman to stone. Archetypal literary criticism continues to find psychoanalysis useful. Beth Seelig chooses to interpret Medusa's punishment as resulting from rape rather than the common interpretation of having willingly consented in Athena's temple, as an outcome of
2800-460: The website also launched an English-language version. In January 2016, Timchenko handed over the role of chief editor to her deputy Ivan Kolpakov . In August 2017, Meduza started a partnership with the American news website BuzzFeed News . The partnership included publishing each other's materials, sharing experiences, and carrying out and publishing joint investigations. On October 20, 2018, at
2856-484: The women we interviewed could remember the details of the myth." Medusa's visage has since been adopted by many women as a symbol of female rage; one of the first publications to express this idea was a feminist journal called Women: A Journal of Liberation in their issue one, volume six for 1978. The cover featured the image of the Gorgon Medusa by Froggi Lupton, which the editors on the inside cover explained "can be
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#17328734194572912-409: The world, and some support from international organizations". Meduza has implemented a number of technical solutions to bypass Russian censorship, including reliance on mobile apps and the ability to save articles as PDF files. In December 2022, the independent outlet Proekt wrote that since 2019, Meduza increased the number of exclusive articles per month from two to up to eight, especially since
2968-486: Was charged under the "fake news" law for denouncing the war in Ukraine. On 26 January 2023, the Russian prosecutor-general ’s office designated Meduza as an " undesirable organization " in Russia. In March 2023, Timchenko said that while "Russian propaganda has enormous financial sources" and the government can spend billions to spread disinformation, Meduza has a "little crowdfunding campaign by people of good will around
3024-519: Was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon." According to Ovid , in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas , who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed Atlas into a stone when Atlas tried to attack him. In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside
3080-456: Was targeted with Pegasus spyware . The attack occurred a day before a conference of exiled independent Russian media that was held in Berlin and which Timchenko attended; her phone could have been used to eavesdrop on the journalists' conversations during the conference. This attack is the first confirmed instance of Pegasus being used against a Russian journalist. It is unclear which state carried out
3136-413: Was the leading Russian site in social media links, according to Medialogia [ ru ] , a company that monitors and analyzes exclusively Russian sites on media and social networks. By March 2022, Meduza ' s website had between 12 and 18 million monthly visitors. The majority of readers are younger than 45. Meduza grants open source access to all their coverage of the war in Ukraine under
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