Abstract: The article publishes the paper read by the author on May 15th 2014 at Lomonosov Moscow State University’s jubilee assembly dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the restoration of historical studies in Russia and the same anniversary of Lomonosov Moscow State University’s Faculty of History. The paper demonstrates the main periods in the development of history as a science and education discipline at Moscow State University from its foundation to our days, it discusses the role of the 1934 stature “On the teaching of civil history in USSR schools”, and presents a detailed description of the contemporary state of activity of the university’s Faculty of History. Currently, the historians of MSU are dealing with the transition to a new system of education, which poses the problems of developing new standards of education, of writing new textbooks, including a general schoolbook of history, of creating education internet resources, and of replacing the whole system of education by establishing far-reaching interactive communications between teachers and students. The article further names the research priorities of the Faculty of History, the new areas of scientific activity of the university’s scholars-historians, and those achievements, which represent the fundamental and long-term base, the creative approach and preservation of the foremost traditions of the university’s scientific school. One of the main contemporary aims of this institution is the creation of breakthrough studies, the transition from individual efforts to expert centers, from collective generalization to collective studies.

Keywords: history, historical science, history education, reinstatement, Moscow State University, Faculty of History, scientific schools, research objectives, education standards, traditions and innovations.

Abstract: One of the many aspects in the comprehensive scientific-historical study of the Moscow Kremlin is the history of its establishment and functioning as the Russian government’s residence. The article examines the several lines of study of the Kremlin residence in the XIX–XXth centuries. Many documental sources and historical descriptions of the Kremlin from previous centuries were published and became available to researchers during the XIXth century and created a base for the systematic research of the Kremlin history. The most significant contributions in the XIXth century to the study of the Kremlin and to the publication of its sources was made by those researchers, who by their professional positions had access to the Kremlin archives as, for example, the historian I. E. Zabelin. The Soviet period in the study of the Moscow Kremlin had its own specific particularities, most significantly, the closure to scholars of practically all archives, which is consequently reflected in the quality of the period’s scientific studies dedicated to various aspects of the history of the Moscow Kremlin. Up to today many documents of the Kremlin’s Soviet period not only are not described, but are not even registered in the archival repositories. In the conditions of the extremely difficult process of source elicitation, even incomplete and fragmentary memoir materials become the object of historiographical research. At the turn of the XXth century the process of introducing new documents on the history of the Moscow Kremlin began, which thus placed the study of the Kremlin residence on a new level.

Keywords: the Moscow Kremlin, state power, residence, historiography, documental sources, archives, censure, V. I. Lenin, N. I. Sedova-Trotsky, memoirs of the soviet period.

Abstract: The article analyzes the formation of nationalism in Germany during the Early Modern Period, in one of the most difficult periods of German history – the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which changed the fundamental base of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. In the search for new foundations in the “reversed world” (as contemporaries wrote), German publicists turned to the idea of nation, considering that only national unity can return to the German duchies their “ancestral glory”. The multifaceted images of the Thirty Years’ War, which appeared in the publications of the epoch, had a significant impact on the development of the Germans’ perceptions of the German nation. Distinctive images became the symbols of the era. These symbols awakened in contemporaries, living for decades in wartime chaos, the sense of pride for their people, reminded them of their “glorious past” and helped them come to terms with their difficult reality, thus validating claims of power and political leadership. The article utilizes the imagological scientific approach to analyze and understand the images that appeared during the period of the Thirty Years’ War in German daily publicism. The article also presents a body of little studied sources: German illustrated leaflets of the Thirty Years’ War epoch. Despite the vast popularity of illustrated leaflets among contemporaries and their extensive use in foreign modern historiography, they remain a little known historical source among the Russian scholarly community.

Keywords: nations, Early Modern Period, Germany, the Thirty Years’ War, illustrated leaflets, imagology, symbols, allegories, images, stereotype.

Abstract: In an autocratic state where the right to make important decisions belongs exclusively to the monarch, the factor of influence of the milieu on the person of the emperor is of great importance. In Russia at the beginning of the XIXth century. this factor is made all the more significant when through a coup d’eʹtat the throne came to be occupied by a young emperor, who did not have much experience in handling government affairs. Several court dignitaries gained the opportunity to have influence on Alexander I, including at the beginning of his reign conspirators, who were part of the Indispensable (State) Council of the emperor. However, the most important role in the milieu of this emperor was played by the Private Committee members – by four “young friends” of the emperor and his mentor F.-C. Laharpe. Laharpe was not only the mentor of Alexander I, but was also one of the major political figures of the Helvetic Republic, which took their relationship beyond the traditional scheme of “mentor–pupil” and gave it a particular character. It is interesting to consider both the external and the internal sides of the personal relationships and collective work of Laharpe, above all, with his colleagues in the Private Committee – with the “young friends” of Alexander I. The sources for this article are the letters of correspondence between Alexander I and Laharpe from the latter’s archive, published in Switzerland in 1978, as well as the published and archival material from the Stroganov collection. The correspondence between Alexander I and Laharpe until recently did not attract the attention of Russian scholars. The simultaneous consideration of the correspondence of Laharpe with the emperor and of the notes of P. A. Stroganov on the activities of the Private Committee allows to recreate the nature of the relationship and of the mechanisms of decision-making in the entourage of Alexander I.

Keywords: government constitutionalism, constitution, the peasant question, administrative reforms, F.-C. Laharpe, the Private Committee, Alexander I, history of Russia, P.A. Stoganov, public education.

Abstract: The article considers the preparation at the end of the 1850s – beginning of the 1860s of the Russian educational system reform (1864). This topic permits to address the wider question of the relationship between state authorities and society. The creation of new legislature on comprehensive schooling occurred in the context of a general social rise. In the preparative work of this reform many renowned Russian pedagogues were called upon, with many projects, for the first time in Russian lawmaking, being published in open press and publicly discussed. The author points to several opinion changes of government representatives on the role of public participation in popular education and in their relationship towards the activity of the liberal opposition. As the government dealt with the wave of public agitation, caused by the promulgation of the Peasant Emancipation Manifesto of 19th February 1861, its loyalty to public opinion diminished. This was reflected in the development process of the final version of the Provisions on primary schools and secondary educational institutions, and gave the reform the sense of a compromise.

Keywords: culture of the post-reform period, system of education, government education policy, comprehensive school, reform, socio-pedagogical thought, education community, liberal opposition, power and society, history.

Abstract: On the basis of the classical Marxist-Lenininst works, the article examines the problems in the establishment of a new socialist-type labor in Russia in the post-Revolution period (1918–1928). The author names the main characteristics of the labor that the Bolsheviks tried to create according to the Marxists directives: universality, freedom from exploitation, planning, creative sense, social orientation, new principles of labor discipline, etc. Particular attention is paid to the main stages of the government’s policy in the sphere of labor, and also to the circumstances that influenced the formation process of the new type of labor in the period between 1918 and 1928. The article gives an objective analysis of the successes and failures of the Soviet power in the creation of “the socialist labor”. The author comes to the conclusion that the Marxist principles pertaining to the creation (formation) of a new type of labor in Russia (USSR) could not be achieved in the given period. The policy of the Soviet power towards labor was inconsistent and contradictory. The practical situation did not permit the creation of the new “free” type of labor, which required a long period for its establishment. The economic situation of the country and social factors were natural hindrances in the realization of the theoretical directives of the Socialist Revolution’s leaders.

Keywords: socialist labor, K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, revolution, labor discipline, NEP, workers, civil war, material position, ideology.

Abstract: The article analyzes the foreign policy of the Supreme Ruler of Russia admiral A. V. Kolchak, attested in a series of documents prepared for the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920. The author focuses on the directive line of the “White Movement’s” foreign policy platform , which aimed to preserve a “united and undivided” Russia and thus assumed the restoration of the territories of the Russian Empire to their previous frontiers. At the same time, it is noted that the Supreme Ruler’s declared idea could not be accepted by the governments of the Entente, as their interest in the “White Movement” was limited to its fight against the Bolshevik rule. One of the main sources for this study is the program of action of the Russian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, written by the Omsk administration of A. V. Kolchak. On the basis of this document and on other archival material the author analyzes the political outlook of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, which gives an idea on the character of the envisioned future “method of ruling” the Russian state. The leading idea of A. V. Kolchak’s foreign policy was the idea of ensuing the strategic security and integrity of Russia, which clearly prevailed over safeguarding the internal stability of the multi-national state. On the example of the Ukrainian, Polish and Finnish questions, the authors of the program touched upon the problem of a nation’s right to self-determination and on the principle of border-establishment between Russia and new-founded countries.

Keywords: history, Russia, the “White Movement”, A. V. Kolchak, foreign policy, Paris Peace Conference, allies, Entente, Germany, “united and undivided”.

Abstract: The article focuses of the history of the Medical-Sanitary Department of the Kremlin (1919–1953) – the special branch of government’s medical system that addressed the problems of: 1) medical care of the highest echelon of the Soviet government’s administration; 2) sanitary control of the Moscow Kremlin and of other important government locations and places outside Moscow visited on trips and holiday locations. The author examines the degree of research done on the given topic, which despite its multidimensional aspects is still little studied, and the possibilities of future research. The Medical- Sanitary Department of the Kremlin was studied primarily in a narrow professional aspect. The historiography on the health and medicine of the highest Soviet administration is primarily concentrated on individual figures as, for example, on V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin, and others. The study of the history of the Kremlin Medical-Sanitary Department should be considered in the wider historiographical problem of “medicine and power”. Today a great body of material is available, which permits the research of the diverse aspects of the history of the Soviet power’s system of medical care and vacationing. The article points to only several possible research topics, while the study of this question in general allows to uncover many new sides of the political history and daily life of the Soviet administration.

Keywords: Kremlin Medical-sanitary Department, Moscow Kremlin, the Medical Commission of the Central Committee, soviet leadership, sanatoria, vacation centers, medical treatment, sanitation, medicine, power.

Abstract: The article examines the history of one of the most esteemed and renowned military distinctions of Prussia and the German – the order “Pour le Meʹrite”. It describes the establishment of the order by king Fredrick II, notes its connection with the order of “de la Geʹneʹrositeʹ”, which was created in the XVIIth century, and underlines the importance of the order “Pour le Meʹrite” as an exclusively prestigious distinction destined to serve as a symbol of Prussia’s strengthening and expansion. The author gives a description of the order’s symbols, for military valor and for civil honor, and separately mentions the various “bonuses” to the distinction (“oak leaves” and diamond figures), as well as the special class of the order “Pour le Meʹrite” – the Big Cross. Special attention is given to the practice of awarding the distinction “Pour le Meʹrite” and to some of the most illustrious knights of the order, among which were statesmen and military generals. A milestone in the history of this award was the establishment by king Frederick William IV in 1842 of a civil class of the order, which was bestowed upon famous scholars and artists. The awarding of the civil distinction of the order “Pour le Meʹrite” has survived to today, thereby connecting the historical and the contemporary German distinction systems. The article is accompanied by illustrations.

Keywords: Pour le Meʹrite, history, Prussia, Germany, decoration system, oak leaves, diamond figures, merit, military, scientific.

Abstract: The review presents the results of a round-table discussion held the 16th of December 2013 at Lomonosov Moscow State University, dedicated to the question of the future development of the university’s Department of Ethnology at the Faculty of History. Directors of various leading anthropological institutes of Moscow, the professorial staff of the department, and foreign colleagues were invited to partake in this discussion. The group successfully addressed and put forward a number of measures to optimize the resolution of the problems of developing the scientific and educational constituents of the department's activities. Members of the round table, according to the academic background of their own scientific formation, discussed the experiences of historical, ethnological, physico-anthropological studies, and the socio-anthropological and educational paradigm overall. The article’s material reflects the country’s multifaceted approaches to understanding and developing the discipline of “Ethnology” and will be of use not only to the faculty members and students of the MSU Department of Ethnology, but will certainly arise the interest of the general reader, interested in the state of Russian humanities.

Keywords: ethnology, socio-cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, academic anthropology journals, contemporary problems of anthropology, university anthropology education, the fundamentals of education, expedition studies, ethnographic student practice, foreign experience.