The article is devoted to the problems of forest exploitation and protection at the North of Russia in the 18th century. During this period the region got the reputation of the greatest exporter and employer of forests, hard to be held under the control of central power. Though the research based on statistics data and proving that conclusions like that are a mistake, is more than 50 years old, the questions why this stereotype was formed stays without an answer. The materials used for this article provide us with the opportunity to say that the attention to the problems of local forests during the 18th century was constantly drawn by reports and complaints of local people, who used the rhetoric of official forest-protecting official documents, to gain own aims.

The issue is about Russian foreign policy during post-Napoleonic period in Europe. Russia keenly protested against Austrian policy of interference with German home affairs. Russia did not champion the reactionary Carlsbad Decrees and restrained from recommending it to German sires. Alexander patronized sovereignty and constitutions of the German princes against the Habsburg court. From 1815 to 1821 Russia recommended and supported public representation bodies established in Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, Hessen-Darmstadt with three Saxon duchies of Sachsen-Weimar, Sachsen-Koburg and Sachsen-Meiningen. Russia was going to help France return to the Great Power system and replace the Quadruple Alliance with a «grand alliance» of all European countries which signed the Vienna treatises. Russia acknowledged the revolutionary government of Spain despite adoption of the constitution through revolution and the predominantly radical character of the constitution. After the Italian Revolution (1820) and on the eve of the Congress of Troppau, Russia did its best to prevent Austrian interference with Italian affairs and use the Congress to settle the Naples Revolution problem peacefully. The St. Petersburg Cabinet planned to reiterate the European Union and European Constitution issues.

The unique practice of the New Economic Policy that forced to transfer asearch of the oretical and practical solutions in the capitalist plane in the processes of the Socialist society building was accompanied by the Russian Soviet economic science take-off. Complex researches of theoretical and applied nature undertaken by the brilliant constellation of the Soviet economists of the 1920s could in perspective amount the foundation of the mixed economy of the transitory period in the backward in industrial terms peasant country. Less than in 30 years a number of studies will be acknowledged as outstanding achievements of the global economic thought. Involvement of new archive documents in the scientific turnover and understanding of materials that had been published earlier allowed reconstruction of history of the conflict that occurred between scientist and statesman E.A.Preobrazhensky and the authorities. Significance of the theme suggested consists in problem of confrontation between conceptual priorities of innovative economic models and conceptual priorities aimed at maintaining of political regime and retention of political power. And this problem has not lost its topicality even now.

The article is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Slovakian national uprising (August 29 — October 28, 1944) and of the Carpathian- Doukla operation of the Red Army (September 8 — October 28, 1944) that was carried out due to political reasons in order to assist the uprising. The operation was prepared in the shortest terms and was carried out in the most difficult conditions. The operation led to enormous losses. The 1st Czechoslovakian army corps formed on the USSR took part in the operation together with the Red Army. On October 6 the Soviet and Czechoslovakian troops conquered the Doukla pass in the Carpathian ridge and reached the prewar Czechoslovakian border. The author demonstrates variety of the operation’s assessments in the recent Czech and Slovakian historiography. The article is based on archive and published documents, memoirs of the generals and literature available to the author.

Assessments of the World War I as the war of an entirely new type are adduced in the article. Opinions of philosophers (Fr. Jünger, V.V.Rozanov, F.A.Stepun, politician L.D.Trotsky, psychiatrist I.A.Sikorsky, writer Pierre Drieu La Rochelle are presented. E.N.Trubetskoi and P.B.Struve demonstrated in their articles how the war aggravated national problems and engendered the «Ukrainian question». The conservative position expressed by Antony Khrapovistky, L.A.Tikhomirov and M.O.Men'shikov. L.B.Voitylovski and V.V.Korsak characterize the war as the direct participants of fighting.

One of the biggest operation of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War was operation Bagration held in 1944. We knew about that operation practically everything. But some documents found recently in Russian military archives open new interesting pages in history of operations Bagration and Overlord.

The article deals with practices of survival in the blockaded city in the most difficult time, from autumn of 1941 through spring of 1942. It is demonstrated that despite the collapse of ethical norms and weakening of ties among different social groups provision of help to family members and to the most vulnerable social groups, i.e. elderly people, women and children, remained the ethical values inhabitants of Leningrad kept to profess even during the greatest social disaster of 20th century. A particular attention is paid to the practice of gratitude for help. It is noted that respondent presents to people who had provided support were scanty and poor but nevertheless were a tradition emerged in the besieged city. The author demonstrates that the moral values inherent to people could express themselves even on the period of enormous suffering though not to the full extent in interpersonal relations.