Abstract: The article examines the phenomenon of amateur photography at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century based on the example of N. M. Shchapov (1881–1960) and his work. The author puts forward the idea that amateur photography showcases very clearly the interrelations between the author of a photograph, the image made and the audience for which it was intended. The situation of “close vicinity” of the three named components provides grounds for the study of the phenomenon of amateur photography as a special practice that helped shape and support social connections within and outside a family group, and also constructed “collective family imagination” pertaining to the past. A photograph illustrates how the “personal chronology” of family members was formed and how the periodisation of family history was composed. The studied example of Shchapov’s work permits as well to demonstrate the details of how amateur photography transformed into photography with a familial status. As the study methodology the author applied the microhistorical approach. This approach allows to narrow the study scope and to examine a specific unique occurrence that reflects the more global social processes. Microhistorical studies assume minuteness and attention to details. Having analysed the details, the researcher can assess how one or another individual related himself to his wider community and how he interpreted his ties with it (the familial circle is the first of such communities). The novelty of this research consists in using for the first time the study of an individual’s amateur photography practice as the basis for the elucidation of temporal conceptions and social structures, unseen from the outside but which defined the relationship between the individual and his surroundings. The phenomenon of “family history” is analysed as the personal experience of the author of the amateur familial-genealogical reconstruction.

Keywords: temporal ideas, identity, microhistory, amateur photography, family photograph, social practices, retrospective imagination, memory, family history, archive

Abstract: The Perestroika, the collapse of the Soviet ideology and of the USSR can be associated with a series of causes and factors that in sum permit to understand the completely unpredictable fall of the Soviet Union. One of these factors was the CSCE experiment. Already immediately after the signing of the Final act in 1975, the Helsinki process, in spite of the optimism of the Soviet leaders, began to affect the political system of the country in a destructive manner. The code of conduct for governments in a state of peace with each other and in relation to their citizens was developed on a global European level and had a far-reaching echo in Western society, as well as in the Soviet one – despite the criticism and doubt of the Western community at the beginning of the 1970s. If before the coming to power of Gorbachev the proclamation of new principles and the demand for their implementation remained an issue only for the dissident movement, which was subjected to repression, while the Helsinki process acted rather like a forum for the political and propagandistic confrontation between the East and the West, then with the beginning of the Perestroika the international obligations began to have widespread voicing and activity in the Union with the CSCE becoming one of the priority directions of the Soviet foreign policy. The liberalisation of social life in the USSR (amnesty of political prisoners, cessation of dissident persecutions, informational and emigrational policies) and the addition of humanitarian aspects to the concept of homeland security had their roots in the Helsinki process and legitimatised the ensuing results in its framework of liabilities. At the same time the Viennese encounter of the CSCE was of great historical significance with the Kremlin put forward the initiative to assemble a conference on human rights in Moscow which, along with other accepted new obligations, was used by society and the new leaders for the further democratisation of the country. Because of the CSCE the USSR solved a number of humanitarian questions and passed a series of laws aimed towards becoming a constitutional state. Under the influence of the Helsinki process the democratic Western-liberal principles penetrated the Soviet political and ideological life which, in turn, led to an ideological crisis and in conjunction with other factors – to the fall of the USSR. The global historical significance of the Helsinki process consisted in its overcoming ideological marks, the de-ideologisation of international relations and the recognition of the universality of human rights, as well as the legitimacy of these rights’ international protection. It was precisely as a result of the Helsinki process that human rights became a constituent part of diplomatic relations. Ultimately this all served as the precondition for the end of the Cold War.

Keywords: Moscow Helsinki group, human rights movement, human rights, Soviet Union, Helsinki process, CSCE Final act, CSCE, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Perestroika, Openness

Abstract: The second Five-Year Plan for the development of the USSR national economy was directed at accelerating the country’s industrialisation, stipulating among else the wide-scale construction of transport highways of regional significance and the installation of the highest quality roads – highways. Under the conditions of severe scarcity of all kinds of resources – financial, material-technical, workforce – the country’s leaders made the resolution to utilise GULAG prisoners in the construction of roads. The order of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs No. 0012 from 10 January 1936 “About the replacement of the civilian labour engaged in highway construction with prisoners” added this branch of the national economy to the People’s Commissariat’s scope of activity. The GULAG delivered prisoners to work sites and the General directorate of highway roads was established to provide engineer and technical work assistance to the People’s Commissariat – the first directorate to only have production activities. On 5 February 1936 began the installation of the first Soviet highways Moscow–Minks and Moscow–Kiev, for which the Vyazem and Kaluga correctional labour camps of the People’s Commissariat were organised. From the several road projects submitted for Stalin’s review, the one which corresponded to the government’s resources and needs was chosen. It was projected that the highway’s roadbed would be built from scratch in 1936 and in 1937 the asphalt pavement would be laid. The Vyazem camp for these works engaged 12,000 prisoners in April, 44,000 in July, and 56,000 in October. Moreover, thousands of collective farmers worked on the road construction site, organised in a public work order – “the population’s labour participation”. The creation of these roads was perceived abroad as the strengthening of Soviet Union’s expansionist policy.

Keywords: Gulag, Stalinism, Vyazem camp, highway, Moscow–Minsk highway, correctional labour camps, People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs’ Genera, prisoners, road construction, forced labour

Abstract: The article was developed within the framework of the momentous scientific project “the Virtual reconstruction of the Moscow Strastnoy monastery (mid-17th – beginning 20th centuries): analysis of the spatial infrastructure’s evolution on the basis of 3-D modelling methods”, conducted through the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University (2014-2015). The elucidation of materials pertaining to the monastery (including archival), the use of the already derived results of modelling and spatial reconstruction require that this significant socio-cultural object be studied in the wide history-cultural context of Russia in the 17th–19th centuries. The article aims to set and review in a general outline the most important processes associated with the functioning of this monastery complex that was part not only of the Moscow life, but also in the life of the whole of Russia. The role of the Strastnoy monastery is connected with such significant general historical and cultural problems as church history and ecclesiastical institutions; the activities of urban monasteries before and during the Synodal period; the history of public charity and care (the monastery as an institute for charity in the context of the development of civil society); the economic activity of monasteries in view of religious and social obligations, in the context of the social and economic development of the country; the specifics of nunneries in the context of Russian gender history; the history of the daily life of Moscow monasteries; and the role of monasteries in the daily life of the Russian capital city during its various stages.

Keywords: mother superior, nobility, gender history, daily life, Romanov dynasty, history of Moscow, charity, nunnery, ethical codes, Strastnoy boulevard

Abstract: The article, based on the examples of two wars from the beginning of the 20th century, reviews the role of icons in wars, the relationship of the clergy and the military towards them, as well as that of their enemies. Additionally, the article sheds light on the history of two specific miracle-working icons – the Port Arthur and the Augustów icons of the Theotokos. Special attention is given to the activity of the Extraordinary inquiry commission for investigating the violations of laws and war usage by the Austro-Hungarian and German troops and for the disclosure of instances of icon defilement and destruction. Based on the research of various source groups, the author reveals the designation of icons in wars, analyses the traditional rituals of carrying-out icons and the propagandistic endeavours where an icon was featured in a key role. The issue of the reasons for the change in attitude towards icons is also addressed, including change not only on the part of the soldiers and officers, but also on the part of the clergy itself, of the protopresbyter and military and naval clergy. Moreover, the article discusses the most venerated icons in these wartimes, traces the fate of individual icons connected with the history of the named wars, their ruin and salvation, their defilement and deliberate destruction by enemies. The author addresses the topic of the recognition of two icons as miracle-working, analyses the question of iconography and its assessment by the Synod, the problems of reproduction and preservation of the lists of these icons, as well as the circumstances of their loss and acquisition. The article furthermore studies the reasons for the failure of religious propaganda in the years of the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War.

Keywords: military icon, military clergy, First World War, Russo-Japanese War, Nicholas II, miracle-working icon, Theotokos, Orthodox iconography of the Theotokos, protopresbyter, icon defilement

Abstract: The blossoming of Symbolism coincided with the formative period of mass culture in Russia. This article examines a series of instances when the elitist cultural movement and mass culture mutually influenced each other. The reaction of the Symbolists to mass modernism and to the market’s penetration into literature was severely negative, because for the poets it was obvious that their ideas were thus subjected to depreciation, while the public within Symbolism was interested only in the top stratum. Moreover, one of the periods of particularly dynamic development of mass entertainment culture came at the time of the 1905–1907 revolution and the subsequent response to it. In the Symbolist disapproval of the infiltration of the principle of “monetary barbarism” (an expression of D. S. Merezhkovsky) into the cultural sphere, in the opinion of the article’s author, can be traced the Symbolists inheritance of Vl. S. Soloviev’s idea. Despite the conceptual rejection of the market and the Symbolists’ attempts to overcome through the creative process the grip of material factors over human life, in practice the Symbolists, firstly, were interested in some demonstrations of mass entertainment culture, and, secondly, had worked on themes appealing to the urban public and hence gained its popularity. The artistic production of Russian Symbolism generated cultural products of a new kind – models of creative behaviour, – the success of which allows to conclude that Symbolism in practice experienced a significant influence from the cultural industry with which it had actively fought in theory.

Keywords: V. Bryusov, A. A. Blok, Andrei Bely, creative process, cultural industry, mass culture, Russian Symbolism, Vyach. I. Ivanov, D. S. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius

Abstract: After the defeat of China in the war with Japan in 1895, the Great Powers initiated their Far Eastern policy. The events and processes happening in the region heightened the public’s interest in it. The press reacted to this interest, in part forming, in part expressing the existing opinions on the subject. The article, based on the material from the capital’s “big” liberal press, examines the general viewpoints of Russian society’s educated circles towards key Western actors in the Chinese crisis, their policy and the nature of their relationship with Russia. The analysis of the publications from newspapers and journals allows the author to come to the conclusion that despite the disparity of the represented outlooks, broad tendencies existed: a positive or neutral presentation of France’s policy, a complicated relation towards rivals (Germany and America), and an overall negative perception of Britain. Often the degree of danger of one or another rival was assessed depending on the closeness of their relationship with England. At the same time, the primary interests put forward were peace and pan-European solidarity, for the sake of which all powers should strive for agreement.

Keywords: “Russkie Vedomosti”, public opinion, liberal press, China, Far East policy, Germany, “Vestnik Evropy”, England, France, USA