Review: The subject of this research is the origin of the Terek Cossacks living in the Prokhladnensky and Maysky districts of Kabardino-Balkaria. It was precisely in these areas that the Cossack gene pool was studied a few years ago, making it now possible to compare the geneticists' findings with the results of the author's analysis of historical sources. The appearance of Cossacks in these areas began relatively late: in the second half of the 18th century. These Cossacks included Volga and “Little Russian” Cossacks who moved to the Caucasus, retired soldiers, freeholders, and Russian and Ukrainian peasants. In this study, the author applied the historical approach, and consequently, the composition of the Cossacks population in each village is studied dynamically. The article's main research methods are the analysis of information contained in the sources, their systematization and synthesis. The comparison of the results derived from genetic and historical studies on the origin of the Terek Cossacks was conducted for the first time in historiography. The findings within the framework of population genetics of the Cossacks' assimilation of the areas belonging to the autochthonous population of the Caucasus are not supported by historical sources, where no such information is available. The revealed discrepancy and the discussions stemming from it will contribute to a further investigation of this topic, which thus highlights the relevance of this work.

Keywords: nations of the Caucasus, retired soldiers, state peasants, Volga Cossacks, Cossack villages, Kabardino-Balkaria, assimilation, gene pool, population genetics, the Origins of the Terek Cossacks

Review: The relevance of this study is derived from the fact that the commercial activity of the above-named river company in the eastern outskirts of the Russian state is poorly reflected in modern historical literature, which therefore does not fully depict the process of Russian society's industrialization. This article's subject is the transportation of cargo and passengers along the rivers of Western Siberia and the analysis of their quantitative and qualitative characteristics, which makes it possible to identify the main features of the organization behind the most profitable direction of the enterprises of river companies. The study's aim is to identify the structure and transport mechanism of the “Partnership of the West Siberian Shipping Company and Trade” on the rivers of the Ob-Irtysh basin. The research methods used by the author in this article are the statistical and problem-chronological methods, as well as the principles of scientific objectivity and historicism. The study's results are the following: the author's examination illustrates the development process of cargo transportation of Western Siberia's largest shipping company with the features of a capitalist enterprise, which can be used to study the formative process of capitalist elements in Siberia. The author's conclusions are: the dynamics of increasing or decreasing profits from transportation of the entrepreneurial company in the Ob-Irtysh basin highlights the signs of a capitalist organization in the “Partnership of West Siberian Shipping Company and Trade”: the main source of profits was freight transportation, the creation of a transportation structure for each route, the abandonment of low-income river routes, and the allocation of various types of vessels. For a successful economic development it was necessary to change not only the rules of transportation, but also the mechanism of the relations with partners and clients. The development process of river transportation demonstrates that a capitalist company is not only an economic enterprise but also a participant in the relationship between clients, customers, the state, partners and competitors.

Keywords: routes, shipping company, Business Company, contractual transportation, passengers, cargo, river transportation, water basin, industrial society, cargo transportation

Review: The article is focused on an examination of the epidemiological situation of typhus during the Russian Civil War on the example of the Vyatka governorate. On the basis of previously unknown documents from the State Archives of the Kirov region, the authors analyze the work of local authorities in eliminating the epidemic and present statistical data on the course of the epidemic's unfolding. The authors identify the main problems faced by the authorities of the governorate in the fight against typhus and describe in details the measures which made it possible to reduce the percentage of typhus infections in the region. In solving posed research problems, the historical-systemic method was used as the main research approach, while as auxiliary methods, the authors used the statistical and comparative-historical methods. The novelty of the presented research lies in the fact that the authors introduce previously unknown archival materials into scientific circulation. One of the study's main conclusions is that only with the help of the Extraordinary Commission for the Control of Typhus it became possible to partially resolve the health crisis. By the end of 1920, the epidemic of typhus in the governorate began to decline.

Keywords: Soviet health education, doctors, Soviet medicine, emergency authorities, typhus, Civil war, epidemics, Vyatka province, everyday life, the establishment of Soviet power

Review: The circumstances surrounding the birth and naming of the Grand Duke Mikhail of Tver are one of the most controversial and little-studied topics of Russian history of the end of the 13th century. Identifying the exact date of birth of Mikhail Yaroslavich is complicated by the extreme scarcity of historical sources, the compositional nature of those chronicles that have survived and the chroniclers' use of three different calendar systems (March, September and Ultramarch), which assumed different interpretations in contemporary chronology of the translation of the year 6779 from the creation of the world - indicated in some chronicles as the year of the prince’s birth. In order to identify more accurately the future saint's date of birth, the author clarifies the circumstances of the trip to the Golden Horde undertaken by his father, Yaroslav Yaroslavich, who died on his return trip on September 16, 1271. There is reason to believe that the youngest son of Yaroslav of Tver was born after his death on November 1, 1271. The choice of a name for the newborn baby was tied to the church calendar and was the result of the dynastic situation in the principality of Tver. The child received the name of his deceased brother Michael, which was quite a rare name in this princely environment, thus symbolically indicating the highest spirituality of its carrier.

Keywords: Mikhail of Tver, Tver princedom, solar eclipse, naming, saint, Horde, biography, dating, annals, Old Russia

Review: The subject of this article is the paradigms of scientific research that emerged in the 1920s in Russian historical scholarship, which found their most prominent expression in historiographic works. Scholars of the “old school”, whose achievements were later taken into account by young Marxist historians, had a particular role in the formation of the scientific paradigms of this period. The semantic specifics of these paradigmatic structures, introduced by their directions into Russian scholarship, were largely determined by the whole of the contemporary model of historical research. The struggle of representatives of these areas in Russian historical sciences did not destroy the unity of the scientific community. The main research methods applied in this article are the historical-systemic, historical-typological, historical-genetic and historical-comparative methods, as well as special historical methods of historiographical analysis. For the first time in historiography, the role of research paradigms in Russian historical scholarship of the 1920s is analyzed on the basis of an examination of the evolutionary process of Russian historiography, which as a result allowed the author to conclude that the standards of setting and solving research problems in the scientific community had a particular role in the preservation of the community's unity, despite the existence of serious ideological contradictions.

Keywords: scientific schools, historicism, science of the 1920s, academic science, researcher's personality, Marxist historians, paradigm of historical research, techniques of historical research, historical methodology, historiographic assessments

Review: The subject of this research is the transformation of the traditional way of life of the Old Believers population in Buryatia at the beginning of the 20th century on the example of its younger generation. The article's research object is the youth Old Believers in Buryatia. The authors consider such aspects of this topic as: the objective state of the social climate in the “family” village at the beginning of the 20th century; cultural, political and ideological transformations of the Soviet government, directed primarily towards young people; and the reaction to them from different generations of Old Believers.
The authors applied the historical-genetic method, which involves the study of changes of phenomena over time, as it was necessary to characterize the lifestyle of "family" young people in the pre-revolutionary period and in the 1920s. The historical-comparative method, which provides a comparison of the sides of various phenomena and which reveals their general and specific features, was also used, in particular, to compare the education of young people in the rural communities and the Soviet government. The authors come to the conclusion that the involvement of the Soviet government as allies of the “family” youth became one of the main goals in the matter of assimilating this closed religious group of the population into the actively building single Soviet society. And as for the youth itself, these years were a period of opportunities to change their lives, to increase their literacy, to independently choose their occupation, and to move to urban spaces. The novelty of this research lies in that for the first time in historiography new archival materials are introduced into the scientific circulation that contain stories of previous "family" villages about the pre-revolutionary lifestyle of young people. This allows to present a clearer picture of the dramatic changes that occurred in the future of this social group of the Old Believers in Buryatia.

Keywords: closed community, youth, Soviet authority, traditional society, Old Believers, settlements, National history, communist ideology, religion, lifestyle

Review: The article examines the works of porcelain sculptures, made at manufactories in Meissen, Doccia, Sevres, Chelsea and Derby. The creators of these compositions were the leading masters of this artform in the 18th century: Permozer, Kendler, Kirchner, Soldani, Willems. These artists are united by their common use of Christian themes and iconography, which are rarely seen in the secular decorative and applied art of this era. At the same time, on the example of the works of various artists and manufactories, certain general patterns characteristic of this genre of porcelain sculptures can be traced. On the basis of a comparative formal stylistic analysis, the author of this article aims to identify the main figurative features of the examined artifacts, as well as the specific features and characteristics inherent to various manufactories and craftsmen. As a result of a formal analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that all these works clearly show Baroque style features, demonstrated through the expression and external exaltation of the figure, the desire of the masters to accurately convey the complex emotional state of the depicted characters, the artists' metaphorical thinking, and the combination of the mystical and the real.

Keywords: Doccia, Meissen, expression, Christian themes, sculpture, barocco, porcelain, Sevres, Chelsea, Derby

Review: The subject of this research is the study of humanitarian technologies, the formation of personal photo collections by Soviet scientists and their interpretation in a modern context. The practical application of visual research methods in sociology and anthropology, for the study in ethnic and social terms of the culture and everyday life of the indigenous populations of the North, was dictated by the need for their multidimensional examination. The systematic analysis of expeditionary drawings and photographs as a visual heritage of the Soviet era makes it possible to examine ethnographic “cultural texts” from the standpoint of new anthropological contexts within the framework of compiling memorials of events. The object of this research is the visual heritage of the Soviet scholar-ethnographer I. S. Gurvich. In studying the scientist's use of visual research methods for capturing practical observations in the course of a comprehensive study of the ethnocultural heritage and the historical and cultural dialogue of the few indigenous peoples of the North in the second half of the 20th century, the authors followed the current direction of modern visual anthropological research. In the course of the undertaken research, the authors tested the hypothesis of I. S. Gurvich's introduction of the method of visually fixating practical observations in his field studies for the Northern Expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences. This method developed into its final form in the 1970s in the scholar's visual program of everyday history studies. The assessment of the research paradigms on the gathering of visual collections by the named intellectual and scholar of the Soviet school of Russian ethnography, allowed the authors to interpret the method of fixating the "everyday" life activities of the above-named research object with the help of photography, as an independent language of cultural self-description. A large-scale photo project on the peoples of the North, carried out by the scientist, is presented as an ethnographic “text of culture”.

Keywords: intellectual traditions, humanitarian technologies, Soviet ethnographic project, anthropological discourse, cultural heritage, culture text, visual studies, Author's intention, expedition photography, visual anthropology

Review: The article is focused on the difficulties of studying the works of the outstanding Moscow icon painter of the early 15th century Andrei Rublev and the masters of his circle. In this article, the author considers above all the icon of the Trinity by the hand of Andrey Rublev, the icon of Deesis, known as the Zvenigorod Tier, as well as the murals of the Uspensky Cathedral in Vladimir and the ensembles of iconostases of the first quarter of the 15th century. The author examines the modern views on the attribution of these monuments as reflected in the concept of the exhibition “Andrey Rublev. The Feat of Icon Painting” (State Tretyakov Gallery, 2010–2011) and its accompanying catalog. The article presents a critical analysis of the structure and organization of the exhibition and draws historical parallels with the fundamental exhibition of 1960, which marked the beginning of the modern stage in the study of the works of Andrey Rublev. The presented article is based on the results of recent studies of the Zvenigorod Tier, the icon of the “Holy Trinity” by Andrey Rublev and other works conducted in the State Tretyakov Gallery. The author used information from Medieval written sources and the methods of formal and stylistic analysis of Medieval artworks. The article confirms the dating of the icon of the Holy Trinity to about 1425, when the iconostasis of the Trinity Cathedral at the Troitsa-Sergieva Lavra was made, gives a characteristic of the style of the artwork within the framework of Byzantine painting of the Late Palaeologian period and Moscow works from the first quarter of the 15th century. The author comes to the conclusion that the artistic style of the icons of the Zvenigorod Tier is significantly different from Rublev's Trinity, but he suggests that the master's handwriting could have changed over time.

Keywords: tier of Zvenigorod, Trinity of Andrey Rublev, icon painter Daniel, Andrey Rublev, Moscow icon-painting, icon, painting, Palaeologan period, ancient Russian art, attribution issues

Review: The subject of this research is the historical experience of organizing small-scale credit institutions in pre-Revolutionary Yakutia. On the basis of documentary archival sources, the author undertook an analysis of the activity of the loan office of the Yakuts, created in 1881 under the Yakutsk regional administration. The author examines the conditions and legal framework for the work of the loan offices, the forms of their structure, the origins of creating public capital, and the size and conditions for issuing loans. Particular attention is paid to the evolutionary changes in the organizational structure of loan offices, reflected in the size of loans, the terms of lending, and the expansion of services provided by loan offices. The general scientific methods form the methodological basis of this study, the main methods of which are historicism and objectivity in the assessments and conclusions of the author. The main conclusions of the study are the following:
- at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, the Yakutsk regional government directed its efforts to create a unified and centralized management system of credit institutions;- the system of small credit institutions, established by the administration, increased the availability of loans for the population and accelerated the development of goods-money relations in the Yakutsk region.

Keywords: commodity-money relations, loan office of the Yakuts, economy of Yakutia, history of Yakutia, small loan, savings and loan fund, rural auxiliary box office, loan office, usury, credit policy

Keywords: Society Znanie, cultural activity, agitation and propagand, public lectures, lectures for organizations, urban population, rural population, lectors, Krasnoyarsk intelligentsia, educational organization