Abstract: The object of the research is an alternative periodical on socio-political subjects, published in the Siberian region at the beginning of the 21st century. By alternative printing, the author means non-governmental, independent, non-commercial publications that oppose the official mass media. The subject of the research is the development trends and ideological and thematic content of the alternative political press in Siberia in the new millennium. The purpose of the work is to characterize the ideological orientation of independent periodicals published in the Siberian region in the first decades of the 21st century, to study its interaction with the socio–political situation in post-Soviet Russia and the public sentiments of Russians. The objectives of the research include the analysis of the factors that influenced the dynamics of the development of alternative publishing, the identification and analysis of the features of the political and ideological orientation of the regional alternative press, the study of the transformation of the independent periodical press.      The methodological basis of the research is the historical method, which makes it possible to study the process of publishing alternative periodicals in development and interrelation with specific historical conditions. The study used a typological method that helps systematize the characteristics of alternative periodicals, and a comparative method used to identify changes in typological characteristics. Analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction were also used. The study showed that the development of an independent political press in Siberia in the post-Soviet period was closely related to the socio-political situation. It has been established that in the new millennium, compared with the 1990s, the scale of the production of alternative political periodicals in Siberia has decreased. However, during the first decade of the 21st century. She continued to occupy a leading position in the total volume of the Siberian independent press. The diverse ideological spectrum of the alternative periodical press during this period testifies to the ongoing crisis of the all-Russian identity and the continued search for new ideological orientations. In the second decade of the 21st century, the number of opposition press decreased, due to the ousting of a number of opposition groups from the public political scene and a decrease in the political activity of Russians. Alternative political periodicals have disappeared into the general flow of independent print media and new media.

Keywords: multiparty press, beginning of the 21st century, publishing activity, alternative media, Siberia, socio-political publication, opposition publications, unofficial press, independent periodicals, alternative press

Abstract: The issues of family and marriage relations have traditionally been of concern to historians and politicians since ancient times. In this regard, the unusual circumstances of the marriage of the sole heir of the Seleucid empire, Antiochus, and his stepmother Stratonica could not remain without the attention of ancient authors who tried to rationally explain this event. The purpose of this work is to study one incident from the life of the Seleucid queen Stratonica, compare different versions in the sources and clarify the factors that influenced the historical and literary tradition about her. The identification of two aspects within which the plot of the marriage of Antiochus and Stratonica should be considered will allow changing modern ideas about the exclusively political nature of this decision of Seleucus Nicator. The researсh used traditional methods for ancient history: comparative historical, comparative genetic, retrospective. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the authors examined the legend not only from the point of view of its content, but also the form of presentation of the material in the context of politics and religion of the early Seleucids. This approach allowed us to assert that during their reign, the historical myth of Seleucus and his family began to form, into which the incident with the queen's second marriage organically fit. As a result of the study, the authors conclude that the legend of Antiochus's infatuation with Stratonica was artificially created at the royal court, it strengthened the political image of the dynasty with the help of religious symbols and external similarities with the policy of "merging peoples" of Alexander the Great. At the same time, it was the interrelationship of the political and religious aspects that influenced the form and content of this legend.

Keywords: religion, politics, queens, Seleucids, Syrian Kingdom, Stratonics, Antiochus, Seleucus Nicator, Hellenism, mythology

Abstract: This work is devoted to the migration processes that took place in the XVII-XVIII centuries among the Ingush tribes, which eventually led to the foundation of the first permanent Ingush settlement in the area of the modern city of Nazran. The analysis of information from historical sources on this issue, as well as the main versions that exist today, is carried out. At the republican scientific and practical conference "historical determination of the date of formation of Nazran", held on July 15, 2000, it was decided to consider the date of foundation of Nazran as 1781. However, some researchers still express the opinion that Ingush settlements in the Nazran valley began to arise only at the beginning of the XIX century. The purpose of the article is to confirm the validity of the officially established date of the founding of Nazran on the basis of data from historical sources.   And also to show that the development of the territory of the Nazran valley by Ingush tribes began in the XVII century. To achieve the purpose of the article, the author drew on a significant amount of scientific literature and archival data, comparing them with information from Ingush folklore. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that the issue of the foundation of Nazran is considered in the context of migration processes that took place among the Ingush tribes in the XVII-XIX centuries. Historical works on the history of the development of the territory of the Nazran Valley are summarized, comparing them with information from Ingush folklore. In the course of the research, the author comes to the following key conclusions: information from various sources related to this issue are consistent and complement each other; Ingush tribes began to develop the territory of the Nazran Valley in the XVII century, and the first permanent settlement in this territory appeared in 1780-1781. This happened after they concluded an agreement with the Kabardian and Kumyk princes.

Keywords: shamkhal, princes, karabulaks, Ingush people, Atagai, Mudarov, Nazran Valley, Ortskha Kartskhal, Chechens, the royal administration

Abstract: The subject of the research of the scientific article is the peculiarities of the process of training firefighters on the basis of the Irkutsk Fire Technical School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR during the period of activity of this educational institution from 1968 to 1993 on the territory of the Irkutsk region. In this publication, on the basis of previously unpublished and not introduced into scientific circulation archival materials, historical data on quantitative changes in the recruitment and training of cadets of the Irkutsk Fire Technical School during the period of their educational activities are investigated. The author considers the issues of organizing entry examinations for incoming applicants, notes significant events in the educational activities of cadets, and summarizes data on the number of specialists who have completed training. The article identifies the features of the educational process on the basis of the school, which allowed the formation of a professional staff of firefighters in the regions of Siberia and the Far East.  The research methodology includes a concrete historical approach (M.V. Astakhov, I.D. Kovalchenko, V.F. Kolomiytsev, A.P. Pronstein, etc.), as well as generalization, comparison, synthesis, classification, concretization; analysis of archival documents, legislation and scientific literature; retrospective analysis; method of historical analogies. The novelty of this scientific article lies in the fact that during the scientific research, historical and pedagogical sources, archival data describing in detail the history of the formation and development of the cadet recruitment structure of the school, as well as a detailed report on the quantitative and qualitative indicators of graduates of the fire school by year of graduation were identified and summarized. The conducted research is of interest to a wide range of readers, since the study of the educational activities of the school, structural and organizational measures for the recruitment and graduation of firefighters is a very important component in the study of the formation and development of departmental education of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in the territory of the Baikal region in the XX century. The list of heads of these structural divisions at the stage of formation and development of the Irkutsk Fire Technical School of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR is considered.

Keywords: the training system, fire education, graduation of specialists, extinguishing fires, fire fighting school, fire fighting, cadets are firefighters, professional training, the history of the Baikal region, training of specialists

Abstract: Despite the increased scientific interest in the problem of famine and food security in the Russian Empire in recent years, the topic remains poorly studied on the materials of the Penza province. The subject of the study is the main activities of the authorities and the public in the fight against famine and its consequences in the Penza province in the 1860s and 1890s. The purpose of the work is to identify the effectiveness of a system of local measures aimed at overcoming the consequences of crop failures and helping the hungry. The principles of historicism and objectivity, methods of grouping and generalizing statistical information, system, functional and comparative analysis were used as a methodological basis. According to the provisions of the socio-natural theory of E. S. Kulpin-Gubaidullin, the genesis of the crises of society is considered in the relationship and interdependence with the crises of nature. The author's special contribution to the research of the topic is that new information about the causes of crop failures and famine, as well as specific measures taken by the authorities and society to provide assistance to the affected population, has been introduced and analyzed. Based on the analysis of archival and literary sources, the state and public forms of assistance to victims of famine are systematized, the joint contribution of government agencies and zemstvo self-government bodies to overcoming the consequences of crop failures is determined. The main conclusion of the study is that the local security system had limited damage compensation capabilities and needed extraordinary government support. It can be argued that the implementation of local measures together with general imperial ones turned out to be generally effective: mass starvation deaths in the Penza province were not recorded in any of the lean years.

Keywords: Penza province, public canteens, community service, grain spare stores, supply fund, zemstvo institutions, state food policy, famine in Russia, crop failure, post-reform period

Abstract: The object of the study is the speeches of the President of the USSR M.S.Gorbachev and the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin to the supreme military leadership of the USSR after the signing of the Belovezhskaya Agreements on December 8, 1991 on the dissolution of the USSR and the creation of the CIS. The author analyzes articles of the periodical press of December 1991, memoirs of military and political figures of the RSFSR and the USSR, as well as documents of the office of the President of the RSFSR on the preparation of Boris Yeltsin's speech to the leadership of the Armed Forces of the USSR. The author pays special attention to the methods of the two Presidents in dealing with the highest military leadership, identifies the reasons for the defeat of Mikhail Gorbachev in this struggle for the support of the military and the victory of Boris Yeltsin in it.  The author uses a comparative method when comparing the speeches of M.S. Gorbachev and B.N. Yeltsin, as well as the principles of historicism and objectivity. The author concludes that the President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, had a much better chance of success in attracting the sympathy of the military as the constitutional head of state and Supreme Commander-in-Chief, however, due to ignoring the interests of the army and navy, poor preparation of the speech and an erroneous strategy of requests for rescue, he was perceived negatively by them. The President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin and his staff conducted a deep and thorough preparation of the speech, answers to topical issues of the Armed Forces were prepared, in addition, B.N. Yeltsin found time to listen to the military and give concrete answers and promises, which allowed him to enlist the support of the leadership of the Armed Forces of the USSR in an unfavorable starting situation, which helped him upon ratification of the Belovezhskaya Agreements in the Supreme Council of the RSFSR on December 12, 1991. The novelty of the research lies in referring to such a little-studied event in the history of perestroika as the meetings of the Presidents of the USSR and the RSFSR with the military leadership of the USSR after the signing of the Belovezhsky Agreement in December 1991, as well as in the author's use of unpublished archival materials of the office of the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin.

Keywords: Perestroika, The Belovezhskaya Agreements, Ministry of Defense of the USSR, Army, The Armed Forces of the USSR, President of the RSFSR, Boris Yeltsin, President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, The collapse of the USSR

Abstract: Among the characterizing features of populism, which has become an integral part of the party-political systems of Western countries, anti-intellectualism is often listed. It is understood as distrust of intellectuals, expert knowledge and the scientific community. Italy, the “political laboratory of Europe,” provides rich material for studying the connection between anti-intellectualism and populism. This article attempts to analyze the role and evolution of anti-intellectualism in populist discourse using the example of the Italian Five Star Movement (M5S). Five Stars, founded by comedian Beppe Grillo and IT entrepreneur Gianroberto Casaleggio, has become one of the main parties in the country, while expressing controversial views from the point of view of the scientific community. Using qualitative text and discourse analysis, the party's official blogs, M5S bills, articles from Italian and foreign media are analyzed. As a result, this work offers a balanced view of the gradual development of anti-intellectual sentiments within the Movement in the context of the overall process of institutionalization of the party into the mainstream of Italian politics during the period of 2005–2022. The subject of this article remains completely unexplored in Russian scientific literature and little studied in foreign science. Analysis of this subject shows that in the process of institutionalization, the long stay of the anti-establishment party in government, populist rhetoric, including anti-intellectual rhetoric, is emasculated and approaches the “mainstream”.

Keywords: Gianroberto Casaleggio, Beppe Grillo, Five Star Movement, Italy, vaccination, COVID-19, freemasons, conspiracy theories, anti-intellectualism, populism

Abstract: The article is devoted to the changes in Soviet-French relations after the constitutional coup in France on July 10, 1940. This coup, which took place under the influence of the defeat of the French Republic in the war with Nazi Germany, led to the formation in non-occupied France of an authoritarian puppet state with its capital in Vichy and a sharp turn in her foreign policy. At the same time, the withdrawal of the French state from the anti-Hitler alliance and the declaration of neutrality in World War II created the conditions for a certain improvement in the country's relations with the Soviet Union, which at the initial stage of the war also adhered to a neutral position. Based on published and archival materials, the article examines the dynamics of relations between Vichy and Moscow after July 1940, analyzes the factors influencing it, shows the evolution of the foreign policy of the French state, characterizes the perception of the Vichy regime and its international policy by the Soviet side. Describing the spheres and specific features of the Soviet-French interaction, the author shows the limited opportunities for its development in the international context of 1940-1941. Ultimately, relations between the Vichy regime, whose pro-German orientation was becoming increasingly pronounced, and Moscow were severed after the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR in June 1941.

Keywords: Nikolay Ivanov, Philippe Pétain, collaborationism, Vichy regime, Soviet-French relations, constitutional coup, France, USSR, Second World War, François Charles-Roux

Abstract: The paper explores the activities of the party «Citizens» with a focus on its role in the development of the protracted crisis of executive power in Spain. For four years, the country has faced the problem of forming a government: during that period, early national elections were held four times, Spain lived without a government twice. The author studies the peculiarities of ideological image, social support and organizational principles; examines their evolution in connection with the development of crisis phenomena in the social and political life of Spain. Special emphasis is given to analysis of the maneuvers of the «Citizens» at the national and regional levels. It is concluded that the «Citizens» sought to realize their political potential: the party largely determined the process of forming government coalitions. Until 2019, «Citizens» successfully collaborated with two leading forces – socialists and conservatives. The lack of a clear self-identification of «Citizens» contributed to the maneuvering of the party and attracting the attention of the electorate with different political views. The partnership of «Citizens» with opposing forces led to a serious internal party crisis, as a result of which the party lost its political weight at the national level. In the period of the crisis the «Citizens» managed to become an integral part of the political system and determine the general direction of the transformation of the spanish bipartism towards confrontation between the conditionally left and right coalition.

Keywords: Albert Rivera, coalition tactics, crisis of the political system, parliamentary elections, party system, bipartism, goverment crisis, «Citizens», Spain, catalan separatism

Abstract: The Terek Streltsy were a major part of the garrison and a major part of the town's residents. They influenced the development of political events both in the Caucasus and beyond its borders. But until now the Terek Streltsy have not been the object of a special scientific study. Special attention in the article is paid to such issues of the history of Streltsy units as their number and composition, participation in hostilities and other services: escorting ambassadors to Georgia, conveying Georgian or Persian ambassadors, as well as representatives of the peoples of the Northern Caucasus to Moscow, delivering letters to Georgia, Persia, Moscow, to Caucasian rulers, and collecting materials about the Caucasus and the neighboring states and peoples. The main conclusions of the author are that Terek Streltsy units, despite their small number, took part in important historical events. The 1614 march of Terek Streltsy units to Astrakhan and their defeat of Ivan Zarutsky strengthened the rule of the new dynasty and restored the unity of the country after the Time of Troubles Events. Military actions of Streltsy units also strengthened the Tsarist power in the Caucasus. Streltsy units of Terek provided diplomatic relations with Georgia by guarding the ambassadors. Streltsy soldiers also enabled communication between Moscow and the Terek city with the peoples of the Caucasus and collected information about these peoples. Thus, not only in military, but also in peaceful, diplomatic and political relations in the region, Terek Streltsy played an important role.

Keywords: Kumyk dukes, Kabarda, shamkhal, Georgia, Tarki city, Astrakhan, streltsy, the city of Terki, Caucasus, Interpreter

Abstract: Object of the study is the image of the May 4th Movement of 1919 in the official interpretation of history of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in PRC. The goal is to trace changes in the interpretation of the Movement in speeches of Chinese Communist Party's leaders on the occasion of its anniversary. To do this, author conducts qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the relevant speeches of 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009 and 2019. There are five main conceptual blocks present in every speech: attitude towards tradition, assessment of past mistakes of CCP and role of Mao Zedong, "spirit of May 4th Movement", development goals and youth policy. In the course of analysis, changes in content of these blocks are traced. Thus, ideological transformation of PRC is viewed in the context of changes in official interpretation of a significant historical event. Memory of this event in China is filled with various meanings, including themes of democracy and youth rebellion, inconvenient for the ruling Communist Party. Author comes to the conclusion that at least since late 1990s CCP has begun to rely on nationalism as a new source of legitimization of its power. In the analyzed speeches it can be seen how, with a greater emphasis on the patriotic component of the "Movement", other meanings associated with it, primarily democracy and science, have fallen by the wayside. At the same time, there has been a transition from rejection of traditional culture to its acceptance.

Keywords: Attitude towards tradition, Science and Democracy, Zhao Ziyang, Nationalism, Transformation of CCP's Ideology, CCP's Historiography, Xi Jinping, Interpretation of CCP's History, New Culture Movement, May Fourth Movement

Abstract: This article discusses the domestic policy of Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian (1034 – 1041), aimed at maintaining the power of the Paphlagonian dynasty. The subject of the article is the activities of the Paphlagonian dynasty in 1034 – 1041, aimed at maintaining power and integrating into the Byzantine elite. The object of the study is the information of Byzantine contemporaries - Michael Psellos, John Skylitsa, Kekavmen and Michael Attaliates. The methodological basis of the work, first of all, was the source analysis and historical and systemic approaches, which made it possible to comprehensively consider the internal policy of Michael IV the Paphlagonian (1034 – 1041) and his supporters in the context of the internal political struggle in the empire. The application of the prosopogarphic method made it possible to identify the characteristic features and motivation of a group of supporters of Michael IV – representatives of the Paphlagonian clan. In addition, qualitative and quantitative content analyzes played an important role in the analysis of sources. The main conclusion of the study is the assumption that despite numerous attempts, the Paphlagonian dynasty failed to create a solid foundation for maintaining power and integrate into the Byzantine elite. Representatives of the Byzantine elite during the reign of Michael IV the Paphlagonian (1034 – 1041) viewed the rule of the Paphlagonians as a situational and temporary rule that was acceptable only in the short term.

Keywords: power, Paphlagonian, Michael IV, John the Orfanatrophos, Paphlagonians, Paphlagonian dynasty, Byzantium, Byzantine elite, dynasty, reign

Abstract: The sudden death on December 3, 1845 of the famous public figure, historian and writer Alexander Ivanovich Turgenev caused a lot of sympathetic responses. Many «mournful» letters were received by an old friend of the deceased, the poet V. A. Zhukovsky. This article attempts to prove for the first time that the author of one anonymous letter sent to Zhukovsky was Turgenev's close friend Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Sverbeeva. This assumption is justified by comparing «the letter of an unknown person about the death of A. I. Turgenev» with other letters of A. I. Turgenev's friends and acquaintances (both published and introduced into scientific circulation for the first time). The first part of the article describes the relationship of A. I. Turgenev with the Sverbeev family; the second part compares «the letter of an unknown person» with the letters of N. A. Melgunov to V. A. Zhukovsky; the third part compares «the letter of an unknown person» and one of the messages of E. A. Sverbeeva to A. N. Popov. As a result of the conducted research, it can be stated with full confidence that the author of «the letter of an unknown person» was E. A. Sverbeeva. Firstly, it is clear from the usage of words in the compared letters that the addressee was in close friendly relations with A. I. Turgenev (the case of E. A. Sverbeeva); secondly, «the letter of an unknown person», the letters of N. A. Melgunov and E. A. Sverbeeva have several similar plots and textual coincidences. The materials used in the article may be useful in the further development of the topic of A. I. Turgenev's relations with the Sverbeev family, as well as expand and detail the idea of the intellectual atmosphere in Moscow of the Nicholas time. The article also touches upon the general problems of the methodology of source studies: questions about possible ways to find the author of the document and the limits of using the comparative method in the analysis of epistolary sources.

Keywords: Ekaterina Sverbeeva, Alexander Turgenev, Alexander Popov, Nikolay Melgunov, Vasily Zhukovsky, correspondence, comparative method, friendly letter, attribution of authorship, Nikolay Turgenev

Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of the problem of perception by Russian officers and officials of the participants of the Polish uprising of 1863-1864 in the Kingdom of Poland and the Western Region. Russian-Polish Uprising of 1863-1864 is the most important milestone in the history of Russian-Polish relations and the formation of the image of the Pole in Russian society. In the inner provinces, most people received information about the uprising mainly from the periodical press, thanks to which the image of a tough enemy was superimposed on the already existing idea of the Poles. But there were also those among the Russians who were in the thick of things during the uprising. These were the military and officials sent to the Kingdom of Poland and the Western Region. Thanks to the personal experience of the participants of the events, a much more multifaceted image was formed. The topic of mutual perception of Poles and Russians has been of scientific interest to Russian and Polish researchers for many years. There is a large body of scientific works in historiography devoted to the study of images and mutual stereotypes of Poles and Russians. The relevance of the article lies in the absence of comprehensive studies in which the subject of study would be the personal perception of Russian officers and officials of the participants of the uprising. In the course of the study, the memories of direct participants in the events who took part in the suppression of the uprising and the reform of the administration of the Western Region were studied. The article attempts to show the Polish rebels as they were seen by the Russian military and officials. In addition, their perception of such aspects of the uprising as the degree of its preparedness, the reasons for the victories and defeats of the rebels is also of interest. The result of the study was the construction of the image of the rebel, as well as the identification of factors that influenced the formation of this image.

Keywords: perception, the image of the rebel, memories, the image of the enemy, the image of a pole, Western Region, poles, Kingdom of Poland, Polish uprising, suppression of the uprising

Abstract: The article examines the story of the "Tale of Bygone Years" about the single combat of Prince Mstislav and Rededya as an evidence of ancient Russian military culture of single combats. The evidence is correlated with other written and archaeological sources to establish its connection with the actual political history. For comparative study, the evidence is correlated with other Old Russian written sources about single combats and contemporary narrations about single combats in the monuments of Byzantine historiography. During the comprehensive study of the text of Mstislav's prayer, the evidence of the military veneration of the Mother of God in Byzantium and in Russia, including references to prayers to the Mother of God, is considered. The conducted research allows us to conclude about the influence of the Byzantine military tradition and religious culture on the military culture of Russia. The relationship is most clearly traced in the religious appearance of the single combat, while the chronicle narration in question is attributed to the earliest evidence of the military veneration of the Mother of God in Russia. There are similar ideas about single combats as events that deserve to be preserved in historiography. It is not easy to determine the relationship between the organization and conduct of single combats, due to the scarcity of chronicle data. The Byzantine influence, presumably, was expressed both in the rethinking of ideas about single combats, and in the veneration of the Mother of God as an assistant or intercessor in the event of war.

Keywords: kasogs, Byzantium, Leo the Deacon, pre-Mongolian period, single combat, military culture, The Tale of Bygone Years, Medieval Russia, Ancient Rus, Tmutarakan

Abstract: The article deals with issues related to the financing of the construction of the Trans–Siberian railway in the late XIX - early XX centuries. In the course of the study, the total cost of construction was determined, as well as the reasons for the differences in the amounts spent for individual sections of this railway were identified. The comparison of planned and actual expenses, both total and for individual items, was carried out, as well as the reasons for overspending the originally planned amounts and the circumstances that made it possible to reduce costs for certain types (stages) of work were identified. The structure of expenses is determined, the share of various items in the total amount of construction costs is estimated. A comparison of the cost structure of different parts of the Trans-Siberian Railway is carried out. The basis of the source base of this study is the materials of reports on the construction of individual lines of this railway. In the structure of expenses for all sections of the road, the most significant items are allocated, which take over the bulk of the allocated funds. At the same time, the existing differences can be explained, first of all, by the conditions of construction work, the need to construct various infrastructure facilities, bridges, tunnels. Despite the presence of miscalculations at the planning stage during the construction of the West Siberian, Tomsk branch of the Middle Siberian, both sections of the Ussuri Railway, the cost amounts did not exceed the initial estimates.

Keywords: transport policy, railway construction, Trans-Siberian Railway, Siberia, Chinese Eastern Railway, West Siberian Railway, Circum-Baikal Railway, Russian empire, Russian history, Ussuriysk Railway

Abstract: The article examines the activitiy of the «Project for a New American Century» (PNAC), one of the main think tanks that formed the foreign policy of US President George W. Bush. The "Project" was formed by publicists - W. Kristol and R. Kagan in 1997 and became the mouthpiece of the American neo-conservative elite. An analysis of the documents of the PNAC which are in the public domain, is carried out in order to identify the positions of the analytical center on the main issues of US foreign policy during the presidency of B. Clinton and George W. Bush. It is concluded that within the framework of the "Project" were comprehended and formulated most of the foreign policy initiatives implemented by Washington in the first half of the 2000s of the 21st century.

Keywords: American exceptionalism, Afghanistan, ABM Treaty, Iraq, George W Bush, Neoconservatism, NATO, Hegemony, think tank, USA

Abstract: The interest in the Seleucid empire and the problems of organizing the political space in the Hellenistic East has recently been due to a methodological turn in the historiography of the Hellenistic era. These changes actualized the study of the role of Babylonia in the empire of the first Seleucids according to narrative and epigraphic sources. The satrapy appears in them as the region where the political career of Diadochus and the founder of the Seleucus dynasty began after the death of Alexander the Great. It was here that his power was most entrenched, apparently supported by local priestly elites. Although the question of the political center of the Seleucid state has been considered in historiography, however, it has not received systematic study. The scientific novelty lies in the study of the early Seleucid state and the peculiarities of the eastern policy of the first Seleucids in the imperial context. The methodological basis is the methods used to study imperial and multicultural spaces, as well as general scientific philosophical and historical methods. The study of the legendary information about Seleucus revealed frequent references to Babylonia in predictions of his future power, which should be perceived as a vaticinium ex eventu. This indicates the ideological and "mythological" significance of the image of Babylonia for the Seleucids, which can be explained both by the strategic and economic role of the region and its significance in Alexander's policy, which can be interpreted as a manifestation of "imitatio Alexandri".

Keywords: eastern politics, imperial practices, mythology, diadochi, Babylonia, Antiochus I, Seleucus I, Seleucids, Hellenism, Alexander the Great

Abstract: This article is devoted to the study of the perception of the phenomenon of nihilism by the well-known socio-political figure and conservative journalist M. N. Katkov, whose ideas became quite widespread among the students of the second half of the XIX century. The article analyzes the material of the most famous socio-political journalistic publications of M. N. Katkov – the newspaper "Moskovskie Vedomosti" and the magazine "Russian Bulletin". The anti-nihilistic views of M. N. Katkov are the subject of this study. Russian students' nihilism according to M. N. Katkov is the task of this article to reconstruct the concept of nihilism of Russian students according to M. N. Katkov, by identifying the main factors called by the latter as the reason for the spread of nihilism among Russian students of that time, as well as highlighting the main methods of combating this phenomenon proposed by M. N. Katkov. Within the framework of this study, the key features of M. N. Katkov's anti-nihilistic concept are highlighted by analyzing his articles published in the journal "Russian Bulletin" and the newspaper "Moskovskie Vedomosti" from the late 50s to the mid-80s of the XIX century. The main causes of radicalization of the consciousness of students in the Russian Empire of the second half of the XIX century according to M. N. Katkov are determined, as well as the main countermeasures proposed by Katkov to combat the above process. The novelty of this study lies in the detailed analysis of each of the above-mentioned factors and the study of Katkov's perception of the role of each of these factors in the process of radicalization of young people.

Keywords: Fathers and children, liberal intelligentsia, gymnasium reform, young students, conservatism, radicalization, nihilism, Russkiy vestnik, Moskovkiye vedomosty, Katkov

Abstract: The subject of the study is the internal processes in the USPD (Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany), as well as external factors from the spring of 1921 to the summer of 1922, which led to a change in the party's strategy and, ultimately, to its unification with the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany). Special attention is paid to discussions on the party's strategy in the conditions of crisis for the Weimar Republic, namely, left-radical and right-radical threats, the difficult foreign policy situation and instability of the party-political system. The research methodology is based on the tools of historical and political sciences. In particular, it is important to use a psychological approach in party science, which implies the study of the NSDPG based on the subjective vision of political and socio-economic processes by individuals, a group of individuals or the whole collective, which allows us to analyze the motivation of the actions of independents. The study demonstrates that in the conditions of the extremely unstable situation in the Weimar Republic and competition with other left-wing parties, the NSDPG's action program became unviable, as a result of which the party became closer to the SPD on many key issues. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that, unlike the Social Democrats and Communists in Germany, the history of the NSDPG has been studied to a much lesser extent. Of course, there is a fairly extensive historiography, however, the authors paid close attention to the reasons for the separation of the party in 1917 and the issues of its split due to the issue of joining the Third International in 1920, while the process of rapprochement between the NSDPG and the SPD was considered superficially.

Keywords: Ideology, Social-democracy, Communism, Socialism, SPD, USPD, Weimar Republic, Party, Labour movement, Democracy

Abstract: The city of Terki was founded in 1588 at the mouth of the Terek River, near the Caspian Sea. Most of its inhabitants were military-service people, who were in army service and received a royal salary. The article examines the number, composition, military service and trades of the military-service people of the city of Terki in comparison with other Russian cities. This allows to identify both the common features and peculiarities of the position of military people. The chronological framework of the research is 1620-1640, when there were no major military conflicts in the North Caucasus, but the town of Terki was gradually increasing its influence on the peoples of the region. One of the important tasks of the research is to study the participation of the military-service people in these processes. The article is based on archival documents, some of which are first introduced into scientific circulation. As a result of the study some peculiarities of the social structure of the city of Terki are revealed. Military-service people constituted the majority of the city inhabitants, and there were few other populations. Another feature was the presence among the warriors of representatives of the peoples of the North Caucasus - the Okochan, Kabardian princes and uzdens, and "Novokreschens". They served alongside streltsys, Cossacks and "deti boyarskie". The duties of the military-service people were not limited to military campaigns. They played a major role in ensuring diplomatic relations with neighboring countries, and in the political relations of the peoples of the region. Such features are explained in many respects by the geographical location of the town of Terki. It also influenced the trades of Terek military-service people - the development of fishing or participation in trade with foreign countries.

Keywords: uzdens, novokreshcheny, Kabardinians, Okoks, deti boyarskie, streltsy, cossacks, military-service people, the city of Terki, North Caucasus

Abstract: The proposed article analyzes the position of the French political elite on the issue of the possible withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union (Brexit), which was discussed by Europeans even before the British national referendum on June 23, 2016. The authors use historical sources that were not introduced into scientific circulation earlier – transcripts of meetings of the French Senate and analytical reports prepared on behalf of Senate committees. This set of sources allowed us to study not only the discussions of parliamentarians, but also to see how French senators treated the possible withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union. The chronological framework of the study is 2015 and the first half of 2016. The article examines the following subjects: the history of Britain's membership in the EU, the events preceding the British Brexit referendum, the materials of the French Senate related to Brexit are examined, the process of negotiations between Europeans and the Cameron government is analyzed. The conducted research showed that French senators as part of the political elite of the Fifth Republic in 2015 - the first half of 2016, that is, before the British referendum, could not recognize the danger and, in fact, did not consider the possibility of a Eurosceptic referendum scenario, that is, the victory of supporters of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, which happened in June 2016.

Keywords: French Senate, EU integration, Franco-British relations of the XXI century, France and Great Britain, UK exit from the European Union and France, European Union, EU disintegration, France and Brexit, UK integration into the EU, Brexit

Abstract: The subject of this article is the activity of the political party "Ittifaq-el-Muslimin" - a Muslim liberal party, the majority of whose members consisted of representatives of the Tatar population of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Tatar liberalism, in whose ideology the question of religion occupied one of their main places, was formed in 1905 - 1906. Its formation is connected with the holding of illegal All-Russian Muslim congresses. Sadri Maksudi, Yusuf Akchura, Gayah Ishaki and M. Bigi were at the origins of this congress. The Ittifaq-el-Muslimin party was formed at the III illegal All-Russian Muslim Congress on the basis of the previously formed All-Russian Muslim Union. This article is devoted to the activities of the Muslim Liberal Party and the consideration of the role of state-confessional relation. The main contribution of the author to the study lies in the revealing of the history and the role of the religio in the ideology and activities of national-religious liberal political parties in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century on the example of the Ittifaq-el-Muslimin party. In addition, the activity of the party is considered in the context of the all-Russian party system of 1905 - 1917. As a result of the research, the author came to the following conclusions. Despite the official legal consolidation of the concept of freedom of conscience, the Orthodox Church continued to maintain its dominant position. At the same time, representatives of other faiths (in particular, Old Believers and Muslims) were granted the right to freely preach their own religious beliefs, create public associations, freely carry out educational activities, and take part in the political life of Russia. The transformation of state-confessional relations is considered on the example of the formation of the Muslim liberal Party and its activities in the system of political relations of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Keywords: The State Duma, Tatars, Ittifaq-al-muslimeen, Political party, State-confessional relations, Islam, The Russian Empire, Orthodoxy, Liberalism, Right

Abstract: King James I of England was a supporter of the peacemaking policy, which he decided to implement with the help of matrimonial ties. The king planned to marry his son Charles to the Spanish Infanta Maria. This marriage did not take place, but the very turn of the King of England to pro-Spanish politics was incomprehensible to many of his contemporaries and caused heated discussions in parliament, a reaction in pamphlet literature and drama. During this period, the theater became a tool for shaping public opinion and a center for promoting political ideas. One of the most successful playwrights of the time of James I was Thomas Middleton, whose play "The Game of Chess" became the subject of this study. The purpose of the article is to analyze the playwright's views on the Anglo-Spanish relations of the 1620s, which he expressed through satirical allegory. The play "A Game at Chess" is important for analyzing the role of the public theater in shaping public opinion on the political strategy of King James I at the beginning of the XVII century. Turning to the play as a source makes it possible to analyze the ideas of English intellectuals of that time about Spain and relations with it, and to identify the features of the reign of James I, expressed in an unusual form. In the course of studying this topic, it became clear that Prince Charles's personal trip to Madrid and rapprochement with Spain were justified in the eyes of the English people precisely through the public display of the play, and the King of England himself was presented as the main peacemaker, whom the power-hungry Spaniards tried to deceive. Middleton's ideas hostile to Spain were widely spread among the British, which speaks of the play not only as a way of forming the opinion of society, but also its reflection.

Keywords: A Game at Chess, Thomas Middleton, Travel to Madrid, Count Gondomar, Prince Charles, James I, Peacekeeping policy, The beginning of the XVII century, Spain, England

Abstract: The object of this research is the history of tourism development in Russia. The subject of this research is the factors and peculiarities of the development of Russian tourism in the Soviet period (1918-1991). Based on documentary and literary sources, the author characterizes the peculiarity of the phenomenon of Soviet tourism following its key stages. Special attention is given to the integration of tourism, cultural heritage, government policy, ideology, and economy during the Soviet period. Tourism is viewed in the context of socioeconomic and political transformations of the Soviet society, cultural development, and attitude towards prerevolutionary cultural heritage in the Soviet society. The article traces the formation of a new socialist cultural heritage as a factor of tourism development, effective method of ideological education, and enlightenment of the population in the context of socialist ideas. The following conclusions were made: the groundwork on tourism laid in the prerevolutionary period have subsequently been transformed; the peculiarities of Soviet tourism formed with a clear ideological component and specific types. The author indicated impeccable success achieved in the tourism sector during this period; however, it took its own peculiar path. If the foreign countries were focused on improving comfort and infrastructure, commercialization and competitiveness of services between the travel agencies, then in Soviet Russia, tourism was controlled by the government and developed in the context of the objectives of party-state building. The author’s special contribution consists in carrying out periodization of the development of Russian tourism during the Soviet time; detailed characteristic of each period; determination of specificity of using prerevolutionary cultural heritage along with new cultural objects and traditions of the Soviet time in tourism. The novelty consists in revealing the key peculiarities and stages of tourism development in Soviet Russia. Tourism is viewed in relation to the development and new perception of the cultural heritage of Russia, as well as the development of peculiar unique approaches towards the dominant sites for tourist visits.

Keywords: local history, periodization, monumental propaganda, proletarian tourism, ideology, cultural heritage, soviet period, history of tourism, tourist resources, tourism development

Abstract: This article examines the establishment of private periodical press of the Taurida Governorate in the late XIX century. The object of this research is the first private newspaper – “Crimean Leaflet”. The author explores the socioeconomic processes and censorship conditions, which affected the emergence of the Crimean private periodicals. An overview is given to the historiography and sources used in this work. The first part of the article studies the sociopolitical and cultural-historical prerequisites for the emergence of mass media in the governorate. The second part examines the process of opening and operation of the newspaper, its outline, biography of the publisher, as well as composition of the editorial board. The third part reveals the subject matter of the published materials and the peculiarities of interaction of the newspaper with the provincial administration and censorship authorities. The author also analyzes the reasons why the newspaper was shut down. In conclusion, the author reviews the role of the newspaper in formation of private provincial press, and its impact upon public relations in the Taurida Governorate. The scientific novelty consists in introduction into the scientific discourse of previously unstudied archival materials, as the historiography virtually had no records on the newspaper and the personality of the publisher. This work contributes to studying the development of private press in the Taurida Governorate, as well as reveals certain details of state policy with regards to provincial press in the late XIX century.

Keywords: Mikhno, Simferopol, censorship, Crimean leaf, newspaper, Taurida province, Periodical press, editor, press, development

Abstract: This article examines the projects of railway construction of the southern railroad, which was intended to connect the central European governorates with the Black Sea ports. After the Crimean War, the government faced a pressing need for modernizing the country; and the primary role in this process was assigned to railway construction. Inconsistency in implementation of the plan for the construction of railway network, frequent adjustments in directions, changes in construction schedule were due to the shortage of financing and well-established strategy for organization of railway construction process in Russia. The Russian media paid close attention to the construction of railways in the south, stirring up interest in the problem. The article employs a wide array of archival material that allows following the steps taken by the government in implementation of the railway construction plan. Critical analysis of the publicistic articles demonstrated the public response to the changes in the direction of the southern railroad or its priority section. The novelty of this research consists in application of comprehensive approach towards examination of railway construction in Crimea. Changes in financing policy of railway construction, as well as the attraction of Russian banking and private capital, influenced the construction pace and the choice of priority section of the railway. Competition in the bureaucratic circles for receiving concessions and participation in profitable financial activities impeded the implementation of the construction plan in Crimea. Moreover, the disunity of administration along with the absence systematic policy of granting concession led to postponement of construction of the connecting section with the Sevastopol port for almost a decade.

Keywords: bureaucracy, Russian Empire, Feodosia, Sevastopol, Crimea, concessions, building, railways, autocracy, Pavel Petrovich Melnikov

Abstract: The subject of the research in the article is the development of the political doctrine of the Egyptian organization "Muslim Brotherhood" in the period from 1928 to 1936. The author examines in detail the historical context in which the Brotherhood arose and developed at the initial stage of its existence. The political situation that developed in Egypt by the end of the 1920s - early 1930s, as well as the peculiarities of the socio—economic development of the country in the interwar period (1919-1939) are analyzed. The author examines in detail the evolution of the views and rhetoric of the founder of the organization Hassan al-Banna. Special attention is paid in the article to the formation of the structure of society, its apparatus, as well as the political doctrine and the question of the positioning of the "Brotherhood".   The main conclusions of the study are the existence of a visible connection between the nature of al-Banna's statements and the political situation prevailing in Egypt at a particular time, as well as the conscious desire of the founder of the organization to isolate himself from participating in the struggle for power for the sake of further strengthening the Muslim Brotherhood. A special contribution of the author is the deconstruction of the events of 1936, which led to a sharp politicization of the Brotherhood, reflected in the demand to create an "Islamic party". The novelty of the research lies in the involvement of a large array of materials in Arabic, as well as in an attempt to compare the development of nationalist and Islamist movements in Egypt.

Keywords: islamic party, multiparty system, political doctrine, true islam, Wafd, Hassan al-Banna, The Brotherhood, Muslim Brothers, islamic state, murshid

Abstract: This article examines evolution of the mechanism of state regulation of Soviet foreign policy propaganda in print media in the period from 1917 to 1963. The goal consists in studying the process of key structural and normative legal changes within the mechanism of state regulation of Soviet foreign policy propaganda in print media, as well as in highlighting the characteristic features of main stages in evolution of the mechanism of state regulation. The subject of this research is the analysis of party and government documents that regulate the activity of propaganda agencies and foreign policy agenda in print media, based on which an attempt is made to determine the primary trends in regulation of foreign policy propaganda in press. The object of this research is the structural changes in public administration with regards to foreign policy propaganda. Special attention is given to the administrative aspect and normative legal base, which are the framework for functionality of the apparatus of Soviet propaganda. The author determines the key stages in formation of foreign policy propaganda in print media, and concludes that the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union marks the establishment of holistic structure of foreign policy propaganda, as well as the emergence of new party and government branches of cultural-ideological impact on the Western countries. The scientific novelty lies in an attempt of comprehensive examination of the process of amending the basic normative legal documents that regulate the activity of public administration authorities in the area of foreign policy propaganda in print media over the period from 1917 to 1963. Based on these structural and normative legal changes, the author characterizes the stages of evolution of the mechanism of state regulation of this sphere.

Keywords: Agitprop, print media, Soviet press, legal regulation of mass media, history of propaganda, foreign policy propaganda, Khrushchev, TASS, Sovinformburo, Press Agency News

Abstract: This article reviews the emergence and content of textbook system for “Mother School”, written by the court poet and educator Karion Istomin for Grand Duke Alexei Petrovich of Russia. The concept belonged to grandmother of Alexei Petrovich – Grand Duchess Natalia Kirillovna, who enrolled her son Peter to “Mother School” at the age of 3 instead of usual 5. The idea of preschool education was advanced by the prominent pedagogue John Amos Comenius based on his concept of developmental psychology. The very thought that a child is not a small adult and his perception transforms with age  was innovative for the Age of Scientific Revolution. In the countries of Central and Western Europe, where John Amos Comenius pursued his activity, promotion of this thought encountered difficulties. Although in Russia, where the works of Comenius enjoyed wide popularity, was created a solid foundation for assimilation of this thought. All children of the Romanov family (there is no records on education of their predecessors) received multiple educational toys and visual materials, which were purchased at first, and later illustrated in books. By combining the  Russian tradition with the ideas of Comenius, Karion Istomin the entire series of books, in which upbringing and education was in the form of pictures and poems to them. The most famous book, which retains its relevance today, is the unique Russian Alphabet Book (Bukvar). The author is first to examine the entire system of these textbooks, which mark gradual transformation from visual learning to logical.

Keywords: mother school, Bukvar printed, Bukvar handwritten, Tsarevich Aleksey Petrovich, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, Jan Amos Komensky, Karion Istomin, Eden, Ecclesia, City of Heaven

Abstract: The article is focused on examining the views of the communist opposition ("the Bolshevik-Leninists"), headed by L. D. Trotsky, regarding the question of agricultural collectivization in the USSR in the late 1920s - early 1930s. On the basis of a body of sources, including recently discovered manuscripts of prisoners in the Verkhneuralsk political isolator, the author demonstrates that although the opposition was a supporter of production cooperations among the peasantry and, starting from the mid-20s, demanded an increase in its state support, the turn of the party leadership in 1929 towards a policy of "continuous collectivization" and "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" was met with sharp criticism from the Bolshevik-Leninists. The article discusses the content of this criticism, reconstructs the opposition’s ideas about the causes and driving forces of Stalin's collectivization, and examines the opposition’s analysis of its socio-economic and political consequences. The author describes the alternative to the policy of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in villages that the opposition put forward and demonstrates that, contrary to the widespread notions in historiography, they were not opposed to the NEP and in the late 1920s and early 1930s spoke in favor for his restoration. The positions of the Bolshevik-Leninists on collectivization are linked in this article to their rejection of the concept of "socialism in one country", which served as the ideological justification of the Stalinist "great turning point" in the village.

Keywords: Bolsheviks-Leninists, Communist opposition, collective farm, peasantry, Communist party, Socialism, all-out collectivization, agriculture, Trotsky, Stalin

Abstract: The article is focused on the study of the left opposition, above all on the Bolshevik-Leninists, after 1927. The established point of view in historiography is that the disappearance of the left opposition after the defeat in 1927 and the expulsion of Leo Trotsky are tied together. However, archival documents and texts found in 2018 demonstrate that even after the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU (B), there was still a significant number of politically active representatives of the left opposition in the country. The research subject of this article are several documents from the Notebooks of the Upper Ural Political Isolator. The article's research method is the new political history, which not only considers real political events but also seeks to reconstruct the symbolic nature of politics. For the first time in historical sciences, the authors conduct an analysis of the Bolshevik-Leninist documents created in the Urals in the 1930s.The representatives of the left opposition in the Urals tried to wage a political war with the Stalinist regime and, even while incarcerated, worked on a program for transforming the USSR. They believed that collectivization and forced industrialization were distorting Leninist ideas on a socialist state and were in fact aimed at strengthening the position of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

Keywords: collectivization, political struggle, political isolator, Trotskyists, Bolshevik-Leninists, left opposition, industrialization, Urals, Stalin, USSR

Abstract: The article is focused on the creation and work of pro-Soviet Russian student organizations outside of the USSR in the 1920s. The research subject of this study is the activities of pro-Soviet public organizations of students in the first half of the 1920s. The research object of this study is the Russian students abroad.The aim of this article, based on an examination of the statutory documentation and correspondence of foreign pro-Soviet student unions and associations in the first half of the 1920s, is to study the nature of their work and their relationship with the Soviet public student organization Proletstud. The methodological basis of this study is the principles of historicism and objectivity; in this work, the historical-genetic and the historical-comparative methods are applied. The study's novelty lies in the analysis of unpublished (archival) and published (periodical) sources pertaining to the activities of pro-Soviet unions, which was carried out for the first time in historiography. The article is written on the basis of documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (collection no. 5574), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (collection no. 17, op. 60), and information from periodical publications of emigrant and Soviet student press. The topic of the life of Russian students abroad has previously attracted the attention of scholars [1, 12-16, 19, 22-24, 27-29], but they focused solely on anti-Bolshevik youth organizations. The article concludes that in the early 1920s, along with student emigrant organizations in European countries, student unions were created, which adhered to pro-Soviet positions. These unions were oriented towards active cooperation with Soviet organizations and students from the USSR represented by the Proletstud. The initiative to establish relations with the Proletstud came from foreign unions, but the contacts were unofficial and unstable for a number of reasons, and negatively affected the work of the unions.

Keywords: Proletstud, proletarian students, public organizations, foreign connections, universities, student unions, emigration, Intelligentsia, higher education, trade unions

Abstract: The subject of this article is the influence of the ideas of E. Bellamy on the ideology of the populist party in the United States of America at the end of the 19th century. In this work, the author analyzes the influence of E. Bellamy’s ideas on the leaders of the populist party, identifies the scale of their prevalence among ordinary members of the populist movement, undertakes a comparative analysis of the ideological views of E. Bellamy and populist thinkers, and identifies the reasons for the popularity of E. Bellamy’s works among the party's leaders and ordinary members. Within the framework of this study, in order to assess the prevalence of E. Bellamy's ideas among populists, the author applies the methodology of the intellectual history approach, which involves analyzing the number of references to E. Bellamy in the speeches of populist leaders and in the populist party press, and locating the existence of his works in personal and public libraries, where the populist party was very popular. The author widely applies the comparative approach to compare the ideological views of populists and E. Bellamy. This work is the first study in Russian historiography that demonstrates the widespread prevalence and the degree of influence that E. Bellamy’s ideas had on members of the populist party, based on archival and published sources. The author concludes the article stating that the ideas of E. Bellamy were very popular among populists. There are many similarities in the views of E. Bellamy and in those of various populists. The populist leaders and E. Bellamy both considered the contemporary socio-economic and political system of the United State of America as unjust and only serving the interests of the rich strata of the population.

Keywords: producerism, utopia, nationalisation, The Nationalist Movement, Bellamy, The U.S. Populist Party, republicanism, Donnelly, monopolies, antimonopolism

Abstract: The subject of this research is the Soviet Union's negotiations on the purchase of Italian planes from the company "Fiat" in the early 1930s, as well as the testing of captured Italian CR.32 planes in the USSR. The article's aim is to investigate this aspect of the relations between the Soviet Union and Italy in the field of aviation, which has not been sufficiently studied in modern Russian historiography. The author focuses a lot of attention on the history of the Soviet-Italian negotiations with the company "Fiat Aviazione" and on the analysis of documents regarding the testing of the Italian fighter CR.32 by the Soviet state. The methodological basis of this study is comprised of the principles of historicism, objectivity and systematics. The main principle is the principle of historicism, which presupposes the point of view of history as a process in its sequential development. According to the principle of historicism, the development of Soviet-Italian relations in the field of aviation during the interwar period is described in the article while taking into account the context of this historical era. This work proposes significant scientific novelty, due primarily to the used source base. The author draws on new archival documents from the Russian State Military Archives, as well as the memoirs of Soviet pilots who took part in the Spanish Civil War. The author presents the conclusion that the Soviet Union sought to maintain intensive relations with the company "Fiat" in order to acquire its newest aircrafts. The second conclusion is that the flight characteristics of the Italian CR.32 planes tested in the Soviet Union were rated quite low, but nonetheless some construction solutions and weaponry systems were later applied by Soviet mechanicians.

Keywords: aviation of Italy, Spanish Civil War, Fiat planes, Italian planes, Italy, USSR, history of aviation, captured Italian aircrafts, Kazansky Evgeniy Sergeevich, Soviet-Italian relations

Abstract: The subject of this article is the role of a populist party in changing the two-party system in the state of Kansas, USA at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. The author examines the process of transforming the state party system and the attempts by populists to create a multi-party system in Kansas, where for several decades had dominated the Republican Party, which competed with the Democrats and defeated them in all local and national elections. This is the reason why the local populist party set before itself the main task of breaking the Republican domination and of luring to its side the electorate of the two main parties. As part of this study, the author applied the interdisciplinary approach, which allowed the author to more objectively evaluate all the factual material using the methodology of various social sciences and the Humanities. The author also widely used quantitative methods to count the electorate of various parties. This work is the first study in Russian historiography which demonstrates, on the basis of archival and published sources, the causes and consequences of the party struggle in 1888 - 1896 in Kansas. In the article's conclusion, the author concludes that the populist party was able to change the state party system only for a while, being unable to maintain its position in the long term.

Keywords: the Republican Party, Kansas, the crisis of the two-party system, William Peffer, the Populist Party, populism, the Farmer’s movement, the Democratic Party, fusion, the presidential elections

Abstract: The research subject of this article is the USSR's youth policy as a set of government measures aimed at creating the conditions for the successful self-realization of young people and the effective use of their potential as a promising part of society. The article's research object is the main directions of the youth policy, which were carried out by the Soviet state during the Great Patriotic War. To a large extent, the content of this policy was dictated by the military situation and the necessity to mobilize all of the state's forces to defeat its enemy. At the same time, this policy should not be considered only through the mobilization measures of the Soviet state. Even under wartime conditions, the government focused attention on the school system and vocational education, material support for students, employment issues for young people, and solving the problem of child neglect. The methodological basis of this work is the principle of historicism, general scientific methods, as well as special scientific methods: historical-genetic and historical-systemic, which allow the author to analyze the pre-war prerequisites of the youth policy of the Soviet government, as well as to examine it as a complex of multi-directional measures during the war. The author comes to the conclusion that the active participation of the Soviet youth in the battle to liberate their Homeland, was the result of a focused youth policy, which was carried out by the government, both in the period before the war and during the time of war. In addition to the mobilization measures in the youth policy of this period, the author reveals a number of social and even cultural aspects of this policy. On the whole, these measures, despite the difficulties and hardships that fell upon young people in wartime, these measures made it possible not to “lose” the younger generation but to lay the social foundation for their future life in the post-war era.

Keywords: military and patriotic education, mobilization, Communist Party, State Defense Committee, The Great Patriotic War, youth policy, communist youth, General military training, educational policy, homelessness

Abstract: The subject of this study is the liquidation process of special camps of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, which operated in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany during the period of 1945 - 1950. Based on a wide range of sources, above all sources from the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GA RF) and the Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVP RF), the author analyzes the complex of reasons (pertaining to both foreign and domestic policies) that prompted I. V. Stalin to make the decision to gradually release the detainees from the special camps (consisting, for the most part, of interned German citizens). The author gives particular attention to the examination of the features behind the operation of special camps in the period under review. The methodological basis of this study is constituted by the principles of historicism, analysis and synthesis, as well as the historical-genetic method, which allowed the author to consistently analyze the stages of the camp network closure within the context of the Soviet policy towards Germany. The article demonstrates how the need for the dissolution of special camps, due to their inefficiency and the high costs of their operation, gradually saturated at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, as well as presents an analysis of this process' ties with Stalin's policies in East Germany. The article substantiates the idea that the easing of the repressive policies in East Germany was directly linked to the creation of the German Democratic Republic and Stalin’s desire to consolidate as wide a range of citizens as possible around the ruling party (SED - Socialist Unity Party of Germany) to further Sovietize the country.

Keywords: Soviet-German relations, USSR, Ivan Serov, Stalin’s repressions, internment, SMAG, special camps in Germany, Gulag, soviet foreign policy, Stalin

Abstract: The subject of this study is an episode from the social and political life of the 1860s: the funeral of the famous critic and journalist Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev (1840-1868), held on July 29, 1868 at the Volkovo Cemetery (St. Petersburg). The author reconstructs in detail, for the first time in historiography, the events of that day and introduces many new sources into scientific circulation, in particular, the speeches of the funeral attendees F. F. Pavlenkov and P. A. Gaideburov. The episode itself is presented in the context of the tradition of “funeral” demonstrations, which originated in Russia on the wave of a social upheaval in the post-reform era. At the base of the author's work lies the historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-systemic and problem-analytical methods of historical research. The quarrel at the grave of Pisarev is interpreted by the author as a sign of a crisis in the practice of funeral public protest - a crisis caused by the increased participation, the weak self-organization of the revolutionary movement, as well as the ambiguity of Pisarev's figure. This crisis was overcome by the middle of the next decade, when the funerals of the populists P. F. Chernyshev (1876), A. A. Padlevsky (1878), and the poet N. A. Nekrasov (1877) turned into real political demonstrations.

Keywords: history of Russian journalism, nihilists, political demonstration, funeral, social movement, revolutionary movement, Pisarev, Pavlenkov, Blagosvetlov, Volkovo Cemetery

Abstract: The article is focused on analyzing the phenomenon of “proletarian tourism” as the embodiment of a new revolutionary approach to the organization of tourist traffic in the period of the active development of the Soviet way of life in the 1930s in the USSR. The article's research subject is the features of the development of proletarian tourism in the context of the socio-economic development of the Soviet state and in conjunction with the formation of new and the reinterpretation of the existing cultural heritage sites of the country. On the basis of documentary sources, guidebooks and other pre-revolutionary publications, the author describes the conditions and factors in the development of proletarian tourism, its ideological foundations and primary objects of tourist visits. The author pays particular attention to the new types of tourism of that period: industrial, agrarian, exploratory, and anti-pilgrimages. The study is based on historical-genetic, historical-geographical, problem-analytical and retrospective research methods, as well as the method of system-structural analysis. The novelty of this research is that for the first time in historiography the phenomenon of proletarian tourism in the years 1930-1936 is presented in such a systematic and historical manner. The author demonstrates the difference of this phenomenon from the pre-revolutionary traditions of excursional, educational, and tourist activities, as well as the differences from the “golden decade” in the development of guided excursions and local history studies of 1918-1929. The article reveals the ideological attitudes of proletarian tourism and examines the process of its implementation. The author also underlines the changes in the primary cultural heritage sites of tourist destinations. A significant decrease in the level of tourist information support was found, reflected in the decrease in the number of published guidebooks and view cards as compared to the pre-revolutionary period, as well as in a decrease in their quality.

Keywords: publishing and propaganda activities, monumental propaganda, objects of tourism, cultural heritage, agritourism, industrial tourism, ideology of tourism, proletarian tourism, tourist routes, guidebooks

Abstract: The present article is devoted to the issue of Constantine the Great's practice of wearing a diadem during his reign (306-337). This emperor is a key figure in Roman history with which scholars associate the final transition from the Principate to autarchy (the Dominate), a new socio-political structure of the Roman state that also changed the role of the emperor: from "the first among equals" he gragually transitioned into an absolutist monarch. The figure of the emperor is now surrounded by unprecedented veneration and his imperial vestiments had also changed, notably with the appearance of the diadem. Written sources, supported by imperial iconography, ascribed the practice of wearing a diadem to Constantine the Great, but modern researchers link the appearance of this insignia with the absolutization of imperial power at the turn of the 3rd - 4th centuries, leaving aside the specific circumstance (conditions and date) of its adoption by Constatntine. Meanwhile, the clarification of these points, defined as the subject of this study, could not only help to better understand the very ideology of the imperial power of Constantine and, more broadly, the Dominant, but also to trace it in its dynamics by taking into account the external factors that had an influence on it. In his study, the author analyzes the narrative and visual sources, as well as the data of the iconography on coins, comparing them with the chronology of the life and reign of emperor Constantine. Thus, at the heart of working with sources is the complex principle of their analysis. The author in general relies on the historical-genetic method, aiming to examine a specific phenomenon (the adoption of the diadem) in its dynamics in order to determine its causes, to reveal the properties and functions of this insignia and to link them with the specific political and ideological needs of Constantine the Great. The scientific relevance of this article lies in that the author makes an attempt to examine the adoption of the diadem not as the factor that ascertains the absolutization of the imperial power, but in the broader context of the specific political and ideological aims of Constantine the Great. Researchers have paid little attention to the adoption of the diadem by Constantine, for the most part limiting themselves to the simple constatation of the fact of its existence or even attributing the initiative of introducing the diadem to the predecessor of Constantine, emperor Diocletian (284-305), whose figure is associated with the beginning of the transition to the Dominant. According to the results of this research, the author comes to the conclusion that the real adoption of the diadem by Constantine, based on the information from narrative tradition, should be dated somewhat later than the appearance of the diadem on imperial images (from 324) and should be synchronized with the founding of the new capital, the city of Constantinople (330). According to the results of the presented research, Constantine can rightly be considered the creator of the vestment standard of the Roman emperors worn in the age of the Dominate and which had a strong influence on the later traditions of monastic vestments.

Keywords: Constantine the Great, Diocletian, John Malalas, Eusebius of Caesarea, Roman Empire, Tetrarchy, Dominate, iconography of Roman emperors, regalia of Roman emperors, narrative tradition

Abstract: This article focuses on the issue of the formation of ski training and the development of mobility skills during the winter period in the divisions of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Far East in the 1930s-1940s. The authors analyze the development stages of ski training in the internal affairs agencies during the pre-war and war periods. The threat of Japanese invasion in 1941-1942 into the territory of the Soviet Far East contributed to the intensification of professional training among members of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. The article is dedicated to a detailed analysis of the formation and special preparation of fighter squads of skiers aimed at combatting paratroopers of German-Fascist invaders and their allies in the years of the Great Patriotic War in 1941-1945. The methodology and main research methods are the fundamental principles and methods of scientific research, specifically: objectivity, comprehensiveness, and historicism. The principle of historicism gave the possibility of examining ski training at the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs as a significant part of the professional training of members of the agencies of internal affairs. The study's main conclusions are the inference that the results of the Soviet-Finnish campaigns and military clashes with German-Fascist troops led to the activation of ski preparation training among members of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. The particular contribution of the authors to the study of this topic is the introduction into scientific circulation of previously unknown to the scientific community documents, which are preserved in the archive of the Informational Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Khabarovsk krai. The study's novelty lies in that the authors demonstrate the positive dynamics of ski preparation and the development of mobility skills during the winter period of the members of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs during the pre-war and war periods.

Keywords: People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, Far East, fighter battalions, staff competition, Great Patriotic War, composition of cadre, winter period, skills development, professional training, ski training

Abstract: The research topic of this article is the relationship between secular literati and Buddhist monasteries in China, one of the forms of which was the recruitment of literati by the monasteries for the composition of monastery chronicles. This paper focuses on the activities on Liu Mingfang (Liu Nanlu), the author of "The Chronicle of Mt. Baohua," in the Jiangnan region in 1740-1750s. The importance of studying the circumstances of the compilation of this chronicle is justified by the fact that Mt. Baohua was the seat of the patriarchs of the Qianhua school, which claimed dominance within the Vinaya tradition of Chinese Buddhism in the late Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. The article examines what place the composition of this Buddhist mountain chronicle had in the activities of Liu Mingfang, who was a member of the secular literati. This research relies on several chronicles compiled by Liu Mingfang, as well as the texts of his contemporary associates. The main conclusions of this research are as follows: Liu Mingfang primarily associated himself with poetry and the Daoist culture. Lacking a stable income, Liu Mingfang compiled local chronicles under commission. Accordingly, on the one hand, "The Chronicle of Mt. Baohua" is not supposed to reflect any personal Buddhist ideas of Liu Mingfang, but on the other hand, it is very probable that the text of this chronicle reflects the wishes of its commissioner – Wenhai Fuju, the abbot of Mt. Baohua.

Keywords: Buddhism, monastic chronicles, literati, Vinaya, Baohua , Liu Mingfang, Liu Nanlu, Jiangnan, Qianlong, China

Abstract: The subject of this research is the interpretation of the issue of lobbying that was developed in the United States of America in the 1950s. Lobbyism is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that has been a part of the field of politics for a long time. The regulation of lobbying activities under the President Dwight Eisenhower is a little-studied topic in both Russian and foreign historiographies. According to the author, the American experience of regulating lobbyism through the formation of a competitive political environment and the transparency of the procedure of government decision-making can be relevant for Russian lawmaking today. The complex analysis of the central issues in the socio-political life in the 1950s demonstrates that in the liberal political circles of that time began to ripen plans for strengthening government regulation of lobbying, changing the "landscape" of lobbying groups and creating under government patronage new conditions for the establishment of lobbyists of public interest which are capable of maintaing a course directed at social reforms. The author comes to the conclusion that the given initiatives of the liberals were a response to the growing corruption links between businesses and the government and a means of mobilizing forces in order to sustain a liberal ideology. The article cites previously unused in Russian historiography documents from the United States Congressional Special Committee regarding the activities of the oil and gas lobby (1956).

Keywords: US Supreme Court, Dwight Eisenhower, liberalism, conservatism, oil and gas industry, business, government, society, corruption, lobbying

Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of the interactions between the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in local soviets (councils) in the spring and summer of 1918. The subject of the article is the conflicts and clashes of the representatives of the two parties in the executive committees of Soviets at various levels. The investigation of these events is important for understanding the specifics of the Soviet state-political system in the first half of 1918, when the predominance of representatives of the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs in the Soviets and their influence allow us to speak of an unfolding two-party system in a number of provinces in Central Russia. In the article, on the basis of an analysis of a variety of archival documents and published material, the conflicts and their consequences on the existence of the two-party system within the executive committees of provincial and district Soviets are examined. The study of the interactions of the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries implies the application of the basic methods and principles of historical research: historical-genetic, historical-typological methods, as well as the principles of historicism and objectivity. The novelty of the study consists of examining the practices of joint state activity of the Bolsheviks and Left SRs, as well as in defining the types of their conflicts. The author comes to the conclusion that the conflicts between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were an important feature of the two-party system, since they allowed representatives of both parties to openly express their positions on internal political issues and make compromise decisions, all of which led to a certain balance of interests between the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs at the regional level. Ultimately, however, the increase in the number of conflicts between the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs contributed to the collapse of the Soviet two-party system.

Keywords: revolution, two-party system, Soviets (councils), coalition, elections, food policy, political system, Soviet state, Bolsheviks, Left SRs

Abstract: The article is focused on the ceremonial practices at the French Renaissance court during the 16th century, which included festive and ordinary activities, involving and often organized by the Queen of France and her court. The ceremonies and the etiquette of the Queen's court, which found expression in specific and obligatory daily activities of the royal persona and the members of her court, remains a little-studied field of study and hence does not allow to make conclusions regarding the real functional role of the noble ladies court. The research is based on the evidence of contemporaries – direct participants in the court life during the epoch of the last Valois – Marguerite de Valois and Pierre de Brantôme, as well as the analysis of a manuscript source (from the collection of the National Library of Russia in Saint-Petersburg) - the royal Regulations of the 1560-1580s, which established the organization and functioning of the court, but also regulated the rules of conduct and the ceremonial duties of the courtiers towards the reigning monarchs, in particular, the Queen of France. Using these sources the author demonstrates the independent organizational and political role of the Queen's household, which steadily increased with time. Considering the particularities of the French monarchy – such as the use of the Salic Law that barred women from succession to the throne, it nonetheless becomes apparent that the ceremonial of the Queen's court was a compensating beginning that became a means of political representation and public administration, highlighting the sacred status of the junior monarch and providing her with the grounds to actually intervene in the affairs of the state and to take over the management of the kingdom when necessary. The growing professionalization of the service to the Queen's household led to the complication and perfection of the ceremonial norms, as evidenced by a comparison of the Regulations from different years of publication and which received final legal consolidation in 1585, becoming the basis for further ceremonial and, consequently, political influence for the courts the French Queens during the following centuries.

Keywords: history of France, 15th-16th centuries, Valois dynasty, court ceremonial, Queen of France, Salic Law, Royal Regulations, court duties, daily ceremonies, noble ladies court

Abstract: The object of this research is the history of the Swedish populist parties during the second half of the 20th – beginning of the 21st centuries. The article examines the question of the origin of modern Swedish political populism, its place and role in the history of Sweden in the studied period. The author places the main focus of the issue of the genesis of the "Swedish Democrats" party as the leading populist political force in Sweden during the country's whole modern history, as well as the evolution of its ideology from the point of view of the influence it had on the popularity of the party. In the article the author uses the narrative (descriptive-narrative), as well as historical-genetic methods. Additionally, while conducting the research the author relies on the theory of "reputational shields" of E. Ivarsflaten. The author comes to the conclusion that in the history of Sweden populist parties for a long time did not play a noticeable role, because they positioned themselves as radical and outside-of-the-system political forces. The scientific novelty of the article lies in its revelation of a direct correlation between the rise in popularity of populist parties in Sweden and having at their disposal "reputational shields". Thus, the author proves that with Mikael Jansson at the head of the "Swedish Democrats" party, the consecutive course in the management of this party was an image and ideological modernization, begun in 1995-1996, which laid the foundation for the establishment of the party's "reputational shield" that became in the future one of the determining factors in the rise in popularity of this political force.

Keywords: National Socialism, political populism, populist parties, Swedish Progress Party, New Democracy, Sweden Democrats, Mikael Jansson, Jimmie Åkesson, National Democrats, History of Sweden

Abstract: The subject of this article is the jubilee of the History Department of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The chronological framework of this work is the beginning of the 21st century, that is, the jubilees of the 70th, 75th and 80th anniversaries of the History Department. The aim of this article is to examine how the study of these jubilees can aid the inquiry into the history of this department and of Moscow State University in general. The work’s methodology is constructed on the combination of three principles: historicism, scientific objectivity and systematism. The application of the principle of historicism allows to implant the analysis of the subject into its historical context. The principle of objectivity ensures the application to this study of a wide range of sources and the critical assessment of the facts contained within these sources. The principle of systematism offers the possibility of constructing the history of the department in all of its complete parameters of evaluation, which stem from the analysis of the jubilees. The article’s scientific novelty lies in the very formulation of the problem, as well as in that the acquired results allow to identify new aspects for studying the history of the department and university, trace their interrelation, determine the unobvious mutual influence of these aspects and factors on the history of the country as a whole. The article’s conclusion have not only scientific, but also a practical significance – they can be used in the process of teaching and in creating complexes for the memorialization of the department and university life. They also contain in themselves indications of other possible direction for the study of jubilees, including the indication of possible ways of searching and systematizing new sources on the history of the department and university.

Keywords: extracurricular activity, memoirs, studenthood, professorship, classic university textbook, Vestnik of Moscow University, historical education, jubilee, history department, Moscow University

Abstract: The article focuses on the specialists from Germany that came to work in Soviet coal industry enterprises and who later became participants in one of the most well-known show trials in the Urals – the Kizel show trial of 1937. On the basis of original sources, the author reconstructs the organization and operation of the show trial from the arrest to sentencing. The author also reconstructs the scenarios and methods of influence during the course of the investigations, methods of “preparing” the accused for their appearance before the court, as well as the consequent fate of the German nationals after their repatriation. The author based his research on general scientific and specific-historical methods, among which the analysis of historical sources takes a predominant place. The scientific novelty of the article consists of, in the first place, the introduction of new unpublished sources of the archival-investigation cases from the Perm State Archive of Modern History and Politechnic Archive of Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Secondly, the article’s scientific novelty lies in its contribution of elucidating through the example of the Kizel show trial the mechanisms of preparing and conducting regional show trials. As a result of this examination the author comes to the conclusion that the show trials not only aimed to show society the existence of factual enemies, but also gave an opportunity to the initiators and organizers of such trials to quickly rise up the career ladder.

Keywords: mass operations, national operations, show trials, Stalinism, Great Purge, “German” operation, Prikamye, political repressions, Ural, repatriation

Abstract: The article analyses the position of Russia’s creative community during the first years of Soviet rule and the events concerning the strike of the Moscow professorate which was headed in 1921 by A. D. Arkhangelsky, V. S. Gulevich, V. A. Kostitsyn, A. P. Pavlov, D. D. Pletnev, V. V. Stratonov, and supported by M. Gorky. The author studies the unfolding of the strike, the participants’ demands, and the reaction of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Council of the People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Ministry of Education. The author further examines the consequences of the strike that led to the creation of the Soviet model of the relationship between the intelligentsia and the government. This relationship was founded on the one hand on the cultural, judicial, socio-economic (fiscal, housing, staffing, rewarding and repressing) policy of the Bolsheviks, and on the other hand was based on the conformist position of the country’s main body of the creative community. The article analyses the activity of the Central Committee in improving the living conditions of scientists and of the attitude of the All-Union Professional Union of Workers in the Arts towards the intelligentsia, reviewing its members, qualifications, value for the Soviet government, selecting privileged groups of "specialists-communists", "heroes of labour", "honoured workers of science, technology and art". The article ends with the conclusion that despite the suppression of the creative community’s external resistance, the relationship constructed with them by the Soviet government did not withstand the test of time as it denied the main condition of its existence – intellectual freedom, which was pushed into counterculture and which eventually undermined the Soviet regime.

Keywords: higher school, strike, politics, legislation, intelligentsia, cultural revolution, conformism, Soviet Russia, culture, history

Abstract: The subject of this article is the targeted art missions of Soviet artists in 1922–1932, which are of great interest to historians of Russian art of the 20th century. As the focus of this study the author chose the mission of the Association of Artists of the Revolution in the Kolomna factory during the summer of 1931. The aim of the article is to reconstruct and describe the above-mentioned targeted art mission, to draw its organisational and artistic conclusions, as well as to determine the place of this mission among other targeted art missions in 1922–1932. During the course of this study, the author used both general historical methods (e.g. the comparative-historical method, which is crucial in identifying the particular features of the studied phenomenon) and specific art history methods – the iconographic and stylistic analysis of the works created in the course of the 1931 mission. This article for the first time attempts to analyse the mission of the brigade of the Association of Artists of the Revolution in the Kolomna factory during the summer of 1931 and to assess its significance in the formation of the practice of targeted art missions. The author's unique contribution to the study of this subject is the introduction into scientific use of previously unused archival materials, as well as paintings and graphics.

Keywords: C. A. Ushenin, V. V. Zavyalov, B. A. Zenkevich, A. V. Moravov, I. N. Pavlov, P. A. Radimov, V. N. Perelman, E. A. Katzmann, Soviet visual art, targeted art missions

Abstract: A visit to Italy was part of the program of the Grand embassy. The prospects of a political and military-technical cooperation with the Italian government, in the first place with Venice and Rome, were evident and primary causes for Peter I. Within the context of the previous and, especially, the last contacts between Russia and the Venetian Republic a planned visit there should be considered very significant. The official historiography, however, does not present us with information regarding this trip, not leaving space for it after the sovereign received the news of the uprise of the Streltsy. Although Peter formally, being forced to urgently return to Moscow, cancelled the voyage, there is indirect evidence indicating that he unofficially made a “lightning-visit” for a day or two to Venice. The author goes back to this seemingly closed topic in view of the publications of S. O. Androsov, who suggested that this visit could have taken place. The study of the published documents, in the first place the reports of diplomats and secret agents, led the author to certain conclusions. The author decided to once again address this question, using supplementary sources not cited by S. O. Androsov. The result was the revelation of additional arguments in favour of the hypothesis of the Saint-Petersburg scholar and art historian.

Keywords: Petr I, Aleksandr Menshikov, Karlo Rudzini, Fedosei Sklyaev, Venetsiya, vizit, inkognito, kavalery

Abstract: The jubilee of the 300-year reign of the House of Romanov was the occasion for charity events all over the Russian Empire, initiated by the emperor Nicholas II. The assembly as an institute of local government in the Kalmyk steppe during the 19th–20th centuries was introduced on the legislative level by the Highest Decree of Nicholas I on the 23th of April 1847. The Ulus and Aimag assemblies discussed ways of perpetuating the jubilee date. The operative part of the resolutions recorded the decisions of these societies, which devoted particular attention to the social sphere. The article’s aim is to review the activity of the institute of local government in the Kalmyk steppe within the context of the commemoration of the 300-year rule of the House of Romanov. On the basis of an analysis of the unpublished sources in the funds of the National Archive of the Kalmyk Republic the author comes to the conclusion that the jubilee date served as a pretext for the initiation of socially-orientated construction projects, such as schools, hospitals, as well as the establishment of stipends for students in various educational institutions. The issue of the local government’s activities in the Kalmyk steppe during the 19th – early 20th century has not been addressed as a separate topic. This is why its analysis in this article allows to clarify the currently existing perceptions regarding the specifics of social policy implementation in the national peripheries of the Russian Empire.

Keywords: governor, elected official, Khoton elder, resolution, assembly, Kalmyk steppe, local self-government, Romanov dynasty, social policy, starshina

Abstract: This article is devoted to the research of the little-studied aspects of the formationand evolution of Rasputin’s media myth, which at the beginning of the 20thcentury became one of the most important factors in the general political crisis onthe eve of the February Revolution of 1917. The authors analyse in detail theprocess of the publicist diversification regarding the topic of Rasputin on the pagesof Russian newspapers that lead to the appearance of three main journalisticapproaches to this topic: impartial-analytical, liberal-oppositional, and “yellow”(tabloid). Each of these approaches is subjected to a comprehensive review,including a comparative analysis with other types of approaches. The article notesthe role socio-political, as well as journalists’ commercial motivation in presentingthe Rasputin question. The author identifies the different aims that journalists andthe media pursued, which developed each of the three approaches respectively. Theanalytical direction was characterised by its interest in Rasputin as a separatefigure, as well as a professional approach to facts, which were published withreferences to their sources and were strictly separated from personal commentaries.The aim of oppositional publications, devoted to “the elder”, was his ultimatediscretisation and, through him, of the whole ruling regime. The “yellow”approach sought only to “escalate passions” and was deprived of an analyticalcomponent, placing its main emphasis on rumours of erotic nature about Rasputin

Keywords: liberal opposition, exclusive material, “yellow press”, newspapers, journalism, “elder”, Rasputin, cadets, far right, Khlysts

Abstract: The aim of this research is to examine the activities of the “Weimar democrats ‘of the first hour’” at the formative stage of the Weimar republic. The analysis is carried out from a critical viewpoint towards the widespread opinion that the Weimar republic was a “democracy without democrats”. The author differentially considers the composition of the ruling political elite of Weimar Germany, singling out the representatives of the Social-Democratic party of Germany, the Centre party, and the Civic-Democratic party which held government positions in the first cabinet. The founders of the first German republic aimed to create a model democracy starting with meetings in Weimar, the European spiritual centre, and adopting the “most democratic constitution in Europe”. However, the given experiment was complicated in the first place by the defeat of Germany in the First World War and by the overthrow of the monarchy. In addition, the “Weimar democrats ‘of the first hour’”, caught between the political past comprehensible to the masses and the democratic present comprehensible only to a handful of leaders, were subjected to attacks from the right- and left-radical forces. The perfectionism of Weimar democrats was met with serious resistance from the electorate, army, officials, and justice system. The German society was not ready to function on the democratic principles proposed by the “Weimar democrats ‘of the first hour’”, and even less ready to accept democracy as a value.

Keywords: “democrats ‘of the first hour’”, Reichsminister, Reichskanzler, Treaty of Versailles, Weimar constitution, first German democracy, Weimar republic, political elite, law, tradition

Abstract: This article focuses on the little studied in Russian historiography political group of Germany – the “June club”, formed in 1919. Its creation was related to the efforts of the conservative elite living in Berlin to develop a new position under the conditions of the monarchy’s overthrow and the proclamation of a democratic republic. The opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, concluded in June 1919, was extrapolated on the entire Weimar system. The “June club” presented a centre for the new conservative direction, known in German historiography as “Conservative revolutionary movement”. This club considered its main aim to be the creation of a new conservative, antidemocratic elite which is associated with a national renaissance of the German state outside of the liberal-democratic system, the formation of the new “third Reich”. The “June club” chose as its political and theoretic leader Moeller van den Bruck, one of the main theorists of the “conservative revolution”. The article analyses the background of the named political organisation, the rather variegated political composition of the club, its main participants, and publication activity. Particular attention is given to the description of the “Political boards on national-political education and training”, created with the aim of politically educating the German youth into the spirit of revolutionary-conservative values.

Keywords: anti-Bolshevism, nationalist, conservatism, fall of monarchy, First World War, Weimar republic, Germany, conservative revolution, conservative clubs, Treaty of Versailles

Abstract: This article proposes a description of the establishment of the Smolensk diocese in 1136 and presents an analysis of the historiography dealing with this question which up to today has not provided a definite answer. The author describes the political situation in Rus during the first half – middle of the 1130s after the death of Mstislav Vladimirovich and the conflicts that arose inside the Monomakh clan, as well as between the Monomakhs and the Olgovichi. It was precisely these conflicts that allowed Rostislav to pose the question of forming a local diocese in 1134, while the alliance of Yaropolk and the Mstislaviches in the winter of 1136 provided the opportunity to establish in Smolensk an episcopal see. The article also examines the question of the Rostov-Suzdal tribute, which does not have a clear assessment in historiography as well, and gives a valuation of a series of scholars’ viewpoints on this question. The appearance of this tribute was a result of the treaty between Yaropolk Vladimirovich and Yuri Dolgorukiy and which had fixed conditions as it was a compensation to Rostislav for the gift of Novgorod in 1133. The refusal of Yuri Dolgorukiy to pay the money did not cancel the tribute since it was granted by the Kievan prince, which is why the Suzdal tribute was added to the charter of Rostislav Mstislavich.

Keywords: Smolensk diocese, Kievan Rus, Monomakh, Mstislav Vladimirovich, Pereyaslavl, Olgovichi, Rostislav Mstislavich, Smolensk, Suzdal tribute, Yaropolk Vladimirovich

Abstract: The end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries was an important stage in the pre-Revolutionary history of Moscow. The increase in population within the context of Russia’s general urbanisation, economic growth, active building of city outskirts, and development of city municipality all contributed to the appearance of new problems in city life, one of which was the problem of public transportation. The article examines the history of the origins, becoming and development of city public transportation in Moscow at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries parallel to the evolution of the city officials’ position towards the given question. If in the second half of the 19th century the city railroad was considered by the municipal authorities as a temporary attraction confined to the Polytechnic exhibition, then by the beginning of the 20th century the city council and board directed all their efforts to the advance redemption of the Moscow electric tramway network for the city’s ownership. The author evaluates the role and position of the city system of electric tramways among the other branches of municipal service. The Moscow tramway on an electric traction became the object of extreme interest for city authorities. The tramway network expanded, while its revenues assuredly rose, which made the electric tramway very profitable for the city treasury. Separate attention is also given to the operation of the tramway system in the years of the First World War.

Keywords: history of Moscow, city municipality, city transport, Moscow tramway, horse tramway, Moscow council, Moscow board, municipal services, city development, urbanism

Abstract: The article examines the history of the Young German movement in Poland during the 1920–1930s. Its focal topics are the reasons and the historical conditions in which the National-socialist Young German party developed, led by Rudolf Wiesner. The article describes the political program of the movement, its relations with other German political forces in Poland, including the role of the Young Germans in the debate between “the elders” and “the young” in 1933–1939. It also defines the relations between the Young German party and the rehabilitation regime of the Second republic. The author gives light to the reasons of the party’s loyalty to the Polish government. Separate attention is dedicated to the influence of Nazi Germany on the political life of the Germans in Poland. The foreign policy structures of Nazi Germany led a similar line of policy towards other Volksdeutsche in the countries of Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe. The policy’s main goal was to establish control over the local ethnic German groups in these countries, in the first place – over their political organizations. This was while Berlin officially sought to avoid conflicts with the authorities of countries, where citizens of German nationality resided and who were seen as potential allies. Thus the absence of a due support by the radical National-socialists groups in Poland is explained.

Keywords: Germans in Poland, Young German party in Poland, National-socialism, Polish history, Second Polish Republic, German history, Volksdeutsche, Rudolf Wiesner, Cieszyn Silesia, “fifth column”.

Abstract: The article analyzes the particularities of the period in the history of Bessarabia and Prednistrovie after the events of the Russo-Turkish war of 1806–1812 and until the beginning of the XXth century, and assesses the importance of the Treaty of Bucharest, in accordance with which Bessarabia was joined to the Russian empire based on the outcome of the military confrontations. The terms of the Treaty of Bucharest were important for the population of the region, because had Bessarabia in 1812 remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, then at the end of the XIXth century it would have become, along with the rest of historic Moldavia, part of the Romanian state. The modest autonomous beginnings and especially the privileges, which were accorded to Bessarabia by Russia in 1812––1818 and prescribed in the Statute of 1813 and in the Articles of 1818, had a positive effect on the economic development of the region, on its population settlement. The analysis of the socio-economic and ethnic processes in the Dniestr basin, on the basis of published sources and periodicals, clearly indicates a positive influence from the unification of Bessarabia to Russia, to the formation of a historic region with its own patterns of political, social and economic development, and to a dialogue of traditions and cultures between different ethnic groups. The joining of Bessarabia to Russia had an extremely important meaning for the region, which in this period had experienced political, socio-economic, demographic and cultural transformations, differently interpreted by historians. The author comes to the conclusion that the development of the region did not cause contestation, including on the ethnic ground.

Keywords: Ottoman empire, Pridnestrovie, Moldavia, Bessarabia, Russian empire, Russia, ethnicity, identity, moldavophilism, roumanism.

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 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 analyzes and evaluates the cycle of governance in 20th century Russia, beginning with the Revolution of 1905. Drawing on a close study of a number of new organizations created by the Soviet regime, such as VSNKh or Sovnarkom, the author considers which state structures and institutionalized behaviors crossed the revolutionary divide, helping the new political elite to regain political capacity and authority, and producing long-lasting and significant consequences. The author pays particular attention to the origins and evolution of economic planning in Soviet Russia, using the institutional approach in his examination of the main structures of state governance of the Soviet economy, and also the comparative methodology for the study of the cycles of governance in the pre-Revolutionary and Soviet periods of Russian/ USSR history. The analysis and comparison of the creations of the new regime and state bodies of Imperial Russia led to the conclusion that the new rules of the game were essentially extensions of the patterns already in train, just as their reliance on the restored, increasingly powerful, increasingly autonomous centralized state apparatus. The author, however, does not assert that the new regime assumed the old imperial calculus of power without modifications.

Keywords: history, Russian state, state-economy, national economy, state organizations, system of governance, Bolshevik policy, neo-institutional theory, Sovnarkom, VSNKh.

Abstract: The situation in the aviation industry of the USSR in 1930 is analyzed. The author reviews the documents from the various departments and discovers the numerous cases of corruption in this area at the time. Still barely developed in the national historiography, this subject reveal the appearance of the”vertical” connections and “horizontal” connections based on the clan principle in the rigid centralized command-and-control systems.

Keywords: history, aviation, industry, designer, engineer, corruption, clan, nepotism, the NKVD, the People’s Commissariat.

Abstract: The article examines the issues of creation and organization and personnel-based reforms of Public Political Security of Far-Eastern Republic in the central (Verhneudinsk, Chita), Pribaylakskiy, Zabaikalskiy, Amurskiy, Priamurskiy, Primorskiy regions. Moreover, the article explores the issues of organization and intelligence practices of the Public Political Security’s branches in China, Mongolia, and Primorskiy region in 1920–1922.

Keywords: history, Far Eastern Republic, Public Political Security, military control organs, authoritative representative of Cheka (Russian Emergency Commission) in Siberia, foreign intelligence, foreign intelligence residency, Innokentiy Angarskiy, Matvei Berman, Ivan Pavlunovxkiy, Konstantin Pshenitsin, Yevgeniy Fortunatov

Abstract: the article studies the political elite of Spain during the General F. Franco regime. The author scrutinizes the political views and career outlooks of the men at the top of the Francist regime. Analyzing the bibliographical material, the author researches the social characteristics (age, education, background) of various groups of Spanish elite of 1960s. The author concludes that, despite the changes in public administration and political course during the Francist regime, traditional traits of the Spanish elite were never lost.

Keywords: history, history of Spain, F. Franco, traditionalism, political elite, social characteristics, military elite, ministers, functionaries, representatives.

Abstract: the article researches the problem of organization and implementation of the interaction of Soviet foreign and military intelligence services, agencies of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, its offices in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as diplomatic, consular and other representatives of the USSR in foreign countries of the Far East in the process of intelligence work in the years 1922-1941.

Keywords: history, Far Eastern Territory of the USSR, China, OGPU, OKDVA, military intelligence, external intelligence, residency, the Comintern, the diplomatic and consular missions of the Soviet Union.

Abstract: this article discusses the state of fiscal governance in Russia at the end of the XIX century, gives reasons that prompted the government to establish an institute of assessor inspectors, analyzes the interactions of assessor inspection with other local bodies of the government and the importance of the inspection assessors in meeting the challenges of tax reforms in the late XIX – early XX century.

Keywords: history, assessor, tax, Bunge N. Kh., inspection, police, reform, tax, tax, fiscal.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the lives of the cavalry officers of the Russian army after the fall of the Russian statehood in 1917. The author views the history of the revival of the cavalry regiments in the White Armies during the Civil War, lives of the cavalry officers at the time of emigration, organizational and publishing activity of the foreign regiments of cavalry sabres. The article includes an attempt to evaluate the number of cavalry officers, who died at the time of the Civil War, as well as of the emigrant officers and the officers who stayed in Russia.

Keywords: history, cavalry, officers, the Civil War, emigration, revolution, regiment unions, hussars, dragoons, uhlans

Abstract: the article investigates the problems of creation of the military intelligence of the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Far Easter Republic, their organizational and stuff changes and the organization of residency of military intelligence in China, Mongolia and Primorye region in 1920–1922.

Keywords: history, Far Eastern Republic, People’s Revolutionary Army, military intelligence, Political Inspection department, Intelligence Agency, residency of military intelligence, Kalnin-Ezeretis K., Misker Ya., Pshenitsin K.

Abstract: the article covers the problem of foundation of the Bolshevik “party” intelligence after the May 1921 takeover in Vladivostok, its role in the struggle against the bourgeois governments of the Primorskaya province and interaction with the military intelligence agencies with the People’s Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic.

Keywords: history, civil war and foreign intervention in the Far East, Primorskaya province, Primorsky Regional Committee of the RCP (b), Regional Revolutionary Committee, “party” secret service, intelligence subdivision, military intelligence, military intelligence residency, Burlakov L.Ya., Salnyn Kh.I..

Abstract: The article reveals the condition of the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht in the pre-war period of 1939–1941. The strengths and weaknesses of the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht, as well as the composition of the opposing factions and the plans of both parties on the eve of the war are shown in this article.

Keywords: history, war history, Red Army, Wermacht, Second Word War, Stalin, Hitler, pact, Barbarossa, first strike.

Abstract: The article focuses on the fate of officers of the Russian Guards army after1917. Author analyzes their participation in the Civil War, and in the organization of regimental unions in exile and the activities of these associations.

Keywords: history, officers, guards, immigration, infantry, cavalry, artillery, Russia, war, union