Abstract: Pushing its military penetration in Turkey in 1916, the Russian army captured Trebizond and part of the Pontic region and organized its own system of administration there. In order to better control the regions and preserve the exposed cultural monuments in the newly occupied territories of Asia Minor, several scientific missions were sent for historical, topographical, archaeological purposes. And so, a historical-archaeological expedition was sent to Trebizond under the direction of the academician F. I. Uspensky. The article publishes the manuscripts of F. I. Uspensky’s “Thoughts and observations of an eyewitness on the Trebizond front during the summer of 1916”, written during the expedition and found in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the 2181 Fond of the history scholar I. N. Borozdin. Uspensky gives his thoughts about the significance of the Caucasian front in World War I and links the success of the Entente with the defeat of Turkey. The authors of the article, without undertaking comprehensive research, compare this point of view with those of modern scholars. The purpose of this article is to introduce in scientific studies this new text, which could serve as an addition to the chapter “The course of military actions” within the section on the “Eastern question” in F. I. Uspensky’s monograph “History of the Byzantine Empire” (5 volumes, 1913-1927). F. I. Uspensky retells the historic events, considering as the “major stake” in World War I the control of the Near East, economically and culturally, accenting above all the importance of cultural influence.

Keywords: history, Trebizond Expedition, World War I, F. I. Uspensky, I. N. Borozdin, Trebizond, Erzurum, Caucasus front, Eastern Question, Russian archaeological institute in Constatinople.

Abstract: The article addresses the system of indicators, which characterize the course of the Soviet government’s confessional policy in the period from 1920s to the 1960s in the Kuzbass. The set of considered indicators includes structural elements and practical ties of the Christian communities, among which: the system of governing, the social and ethnic stratification, the gender and age structure, the resettlement of the members of religious communities, as well as the confessional and ethnoreligious system of interaction, which was established between communities and subjected to change under the influence of the governmental policy and the political situation of the moment. The methodological basis for this article is the systematic approach that regards religious communities as functional, hierarchically subordinated systems, endowed with complex internal structures, and for which the policy of the state acted as an “external environmental factor”. A correlation analysis has been applied to estimate the representativeness of the data in the complete records of the religious communities in the Kuzbass. And the historical-comparative methodology, in a diachronic manner, has been adopted to determine the set of structural elements and the practical ties of the religious communities that act as indicators of the state’s confessional policy. The scientific novelty of this work lays in the introduction of mass sources, constituted by the complete records of the protestant religious communities in the Kuzbass from 1920 to the 1960s, as well as the presented system of indicators, which include a series of structural-functional elements of the religious communities, allowing for an assessment of the direction and effectiveness of the state’s confessional policy in this specific time period. This research shows that a series of socio-demographic determinants of the religious communities, designated in the article, belong to the set of the most r eliable indicators.

Keywords: government confessional policy, Evangelical Christians-Baptists, complete records of the religious communities members, policy assessment indicators, the Kuzbass Protestants, confessional interaction, ethnoreligious interaction, protestant community stratification, religious community demography, religious people in the Soviet period.

Abstract: The article addresses the named topic, which is much discussed in modern historical and political sciences. The aim is to review the formation and development of political regime typologies, exposing the factors that had a definitive influence on this process. The article contains a critical analysis of the existing classifications, showing their strong and weak points. Special attention is given to the inadequacy of the identification of the Soviet system within the framework of totalitarian and authoritarian paradigms, pointing out the factors that prevent its objective assessment. Comparing the changing interpretations and recognizing the limitations imposed by the discourse should contribute to the elaboration of more exact perceptions of history progressions and of political processes in the modern world. The historical approach is applied to the works of politologists: the topic is considered through its development in time, taking into account the changes in the objective historical settings and in the concepts of the researchers. It is noted that the systematic development of political regime typologies began after World War II and was based on the dichotomy “democracy – totalitarianism”. Thereafter significant effort has been devoted to the development of the concept of “authoritarianism”, to the adjustment of the definition of Soviet-type regimes and of liberal-democratic systems. Contemporary historiography retains the triad “totalitarianism – authoritarianism – democracy”, however, there exist some significant researches by scholars, who go beyond the dominant discourse. The acceptance of the democratic characteristics of the Soviet-like systems and describing them as “totalitarian democracy” will allow for the development of more adequate classifications, taking into account alternative variants in political modernization.

Keywords: political regime, classification of regimes, history, liberal democracy, totalitarianism, totalitarian democracy, authoritarian regime, democratization, political modernization, discourse.

Abstract: The article examines the possible sources for an analysis of the social portrait of the “Great Terror” victims (1937– 1938). For this purpose it becomes important to give an assessment of the information potential of the “Memorial Books of the Victims of Political Repressions”, which contain short biographical data of the repression victims. The “Memorial Books” are compared with the archival investigational dossiers, which were compiled by the law enforcement agencies on all those arrested during the “Great Terror”. The files recorded biographical data in standard forms, as well as in interrogation protocols and various certificates. This research applied the comparative method of analysis. Two sources are being compared: the passionary of the “Butovo firing range”, where data about those executed on the firing range in Butovo was recorded, and the investigation files of those repressed, stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). The divergences and errors in both these sources are of particular interest. The article comes to the conclusion that although the investigation files contain more complete biographical information, it is often contradictory and needs verification. The “Memorial Books” contains more reliable biographical information than the investigation files. Consequently, the data in the “Memorial Books” can be sufficient to create a basic social portrait of the victims of political repression.

Keywords: investigation files, Memorial Books, information potential, social portrait, repressions, Great Terror, source studies, XXth century history, Stalinism, Butovo firing range.

Abstract: The aim of this article is to draw a general picture of the repressions against the supporters of the Communist Information Bureau resolution of June 28, 1948 (adherents of the USSR) in the period of the Soviet-Yugoslavian conflict. A systematic coverage of this problem is altogether absent from Russian historiography and is significantly incomplete in the republics of former Yugoslavia, because the central archives of the Yugoslavian intelligence services are still closed to researchers. The chronological frame of this study covers the period from 1948 to 1953. The author did not address the decision-making process at the highest level of the Yugoslavian party officials on commencing repressions, nor the organizing of the public persecution of the supporters of Cominform. The work is based on an empirical level of research with the application of the methods of historico-critical analysis, systematization and typologization, because the current state of the subject’s development still requires investigation on the level of ascertainment of facts. As a result of a comparative study of the still fragmented repression statistics, for the first time there is support for an estimation of the number of repressed and registered adherents of the Communist Information Bureau in Yugoslavia. This is accompanied by a description of the legal basis for the repressions and an estimated distribution of the repressed by court sentences. The detention conditions of the prisoners, especially in the labor camp of the Goli Otok, are also described in this context.

Keywords: history, Yugoslavia, Information Bureau adherents, political repressions, statistics, Soviet-Yugoslavian conflict, Goli Otok Island, court sentences, historiography, intelligence agencies.

Abstract: The article examines the ideological struggle of the Polish political parties and groups aimed at winning over public opinion in the Kingdom of Poland at the beginning of World War I. The main sources for this research are Russian and Polish archives, including police reports, political agitation pamphlets and reports to the Governor General of Warsaw – some of the material is being used in scientific research for the first time. Particular attention is given to the memoirs of the leaders of the National-Democratic party, the most influential on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland. The document analysis showed the differing positions of the pro-Russian and pro-Austrian parties and the degree of their influence on the public opinion in the Privislinsky Krai. In particular, besides the obvious idea for the Polish National-Democrats of fully supporting Russia in the war, there were futile attempts to boycott the military mobilization on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland and unresponded calls to the population to support the Central powers – Germany and Austria-Hungary. Moreover, it is significant that after the beginning of the war most of the socialist-leaning Polish parties remained in their previous political positions, standing against supporting any of the sides of the conflict.

Keywords: National-Democratic party, press, political agitation, World War I, Privislinsky Krai, Kingdom (Tsardom) of Poland, history, Pilsudski, police, reports.

Abstract: Recently Russian historical science has devoted significant attention to the process of development, transformation and representation of the image and ideology by a political power. Monumental works of painting were the traditional sphere for the embodiment of the Moscovy Rus’ ideology during the XVI–XVIIth centuries, including the decoration of the Grand Duke’s, and later the Tsar’s, residence – the Kremlin Palace. The article focuses on the history of one of the lesser studied monuments of the Kremlin: the Russian tsarinas’ throne room – the Tsarina’s Golden Chamber in the Grand Kremlin Palace. The masterful execution of the paintings on the chamber’s walls are considered among the most outstanding works of Russian monumental painting of the first half of the XVIIth century, while their subject theme presents an attempt at creating a comprehensive image of the ideal Orthodox Tsarina, protectress of the faith and relics. The article reconstructs the main stages in the history of the creation, revelation and restoration of the mural paintings in the throne room, presents for the first time a detailed description of the subject content of the paintings, and exposes its historical-literary basis and ideological concept. This permits to include the Tsarina’s Chamber among the list of the most important monuments of Russian Medieval Art, and also to enrich the understanding of the political ideology in the XVI–XVIIth centuries and the particularities of its artistic embodiment.

Keywords: history, historiography, source study, palace complex, sovereign court, Tsarina’s Chamber, throne room, painting, restoration, conceptual purpose.

Abstract: The article is a study of the 1930s’ integration process into the Soviet system of the Schutzbund – combatants of the militarized Austrian Socio-Democratic organization, who in February 1934 rebelled against the “Austrofascist” regime of E. Dollfuss. On the basis of archive sources introduced for scientific use for the first time (Politburo guidelines, Communist International documents, investigation files of the victims of the “Great Terror”), the author demonstrates the efforts undertaken by various authorities in the USSR to use the Schutzbund manpower potential, which entered the country through mass immigration, for the benefit of propaganda and industry. Originally placed in a “golden birdcage”, they were deprived of seeing the realities of Soviet life. The subsequent integration process produced positive examples of Austrian workers becoming loyal Soviet citizens, but also instances of growing rejection by a significant number of Schutzbund of the rules of conduct and ideological stereotypes of the Stalin period. The article uses the method of comparative historic analysis, and also the methodology of everyday life history, which lays the foundation for the depiction of the collective portrait of a unique socio-national community within the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s. The Schutzbund joined the political pantheon of the 1930s’Soviet propaganda alongside record-setting aviators and polar explorers who wintered on ice. Before their arrival in the Soviet Union, the only European collective heroes were the communists, although it was no longer a secret that they were not up to the role of leading social progress. The “soldiers of the Vienna barricades” brought a new meaning to the thesis of the contemporary intensification of the class struggle, inserting in it the anti-Fascist component.

Keywords: Schutzbund, February Uprising, USSR foreign workers, Communist International, anti-Fascist struggle, Stalin regime, social integration of foreigners, Austro-Soviet relations, Popular Front, labour conflicts.

Abstract: The research subject of this article is the book by E. A. Vorontsova “Entrepreneurial organizations in Russia: historiography, sources, history” (Moscow, 2013). The authors consider the book in the context of the current historiography and they retrospectively analyze each chapter of the book (Historiography, Sources, Outline of the history of entrepreneurial organizations, Articles for encyclopedic entries, Appendix) identifying (from their point of view) important aspects and noting elements interesting for researchers of socio-economic history. The unified information from the authors, belonging to different schools and research centers, allows for a multi-sided review of the publication. The reviewing authors note the novelty of Vorontsova’s approach to the researched problems, and the educational and methodological potential of the book, which comprehensively presents the basic research procedure (from source study and historiography heuristics to source study and historiography analysis, to result presentation in different formats). The authors consider that the second edition of these scientific articles makes practical sense since they were dispersed among various publications, journals, monographs, etc.

Keywords: history, Russian history, interdisciplinary approach, history of entrepreneurship, historiography, historiographical fact, source study, information accumulation, entrepreneurial organizations, renarrativization.

Abstract: The article examines the alcohol sales prohibition, at the same time with the Imperial Decree of 16 July 1914 on military mobilization, and its prolongation (22 August 1914) until the end of the war, in the context of an on-going historiographical discussion on the population’s level of well-being in post-reform Russia. One of issues subject to controversy is the question of alcohol consumption by the population after 1861. The article demonstrates, based on both statistics and narrative sources, that the attempt to diminish alcohol expenditures per household and, more generally, the sense itself of alcohol consumption within the population is not seriously founded. In particular, after the introduction of the alcohol prohibition law the population’s deposits in government savings banks dramatically increased, various types of personal debts decreased, nutrition improved, as well as living and housing conditions, and purchases of agricultural machinery augmented, and so on. At the same time, diseases, fire accidents, poverty, unjustified workplace absenteeism, and more – decreased.

Keywords: World War I, Alcohol Prohibition, “hungry export”, drinking income, population well-being, alcohol consumption, consumption per capita, deposits and savings, Russian history, “semantic inflation”.