The article deals with the situation of intercultural interaction, which is defined through the need of world development to gather into a single humanity not by joining in one cultural tradition, but in recognition of the unity of different traditions, which, as it turns out, need each other on the principle of complementarity. This is how two great writers, Victor Hugo with his novel Les Misérables and the great Russian writer F.M. Dostoyevsky, who liked the novel that expressed the national spirit of France, but touched Dostoyevsky with the theme of the "restoration" of human dignity – not only in the strictly legal (formal) plane, but also through the realization that any formal law always needs also justice of moral order.

The article deals with the relationship between playwright A.N.Afinogenov and his second wife, American ballerina Jenny Marling. During the publication of Afinogenov's diaries and letters (1960, 1977) these relations were kept silent: those fragments that demonstrated the complexity of the situation in the family were removed from the published documents. These difficulties began during the foreign tour of Afinogenov and Marling in Europe, and as a consequence, they became the ground for the playwright's thoughtful attitude to family problems in general and to the psychology of people's behavior in marriage, in particular. The article studies the phenomenon of “personal life” in the life of Stalin's playwright - how this mood was reflected in the writing of the play “Lies”. It was rejected by Stalin personally, yet the basic idea of the play seemed “rich” to him. Psychology and ideology in Afinogenov's life turned out to be incompatible moduses of the biography of “Stalin's playwright”.

The article deals with the relationship between playwright A.N.Afinogenov and his second wife, American ballerina Jenny Marling. During the publication of Afinogenov's diaries and letters (1960, 1977) these relations were kept silent: those fragments that demonstrated the complexity of the situation in the family were removed from the published documents. These difficulties began during the foreign tour of Afinogenov and Marling in Europe, and as a consequence, they became the ground for the playwright's thoughtful attitude to family problems in general and to the psychology of people's behavior in marriage, in particular. The article studies the phenomenon of “personal life” in the life of Stalin's playwright - how this mood was reflected in the writing of the play “Lies”. It was rejected by Stalin personally, yet the basic idea of the play seemed “rich” to him. Psychology and ideology in Afinogenov's life turned out to be incompatible moduses of the biography of “Stalin's playwright”.

This article examines Stalin's ideological campaign to establish “criticism and self-criticism” as the basis for the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Soviet society. In practice, it became a campaign to tighten the disciplinary regime of the emerging totalitarian system with one-party rule. For the first time, Stalin used special methods of intimidation on a large scale in this campaign through ideological manipulation, driving the public consciousness into an irrational fear of any criticism of authority. For the first time the satirical magazine “Crocodile”, published in large circulation, is used as a historical source to study the transformation of the Soviet society of the New Economic Policy into the Soviet society of the Stalinism epoch.

This article examines Stalin's ideological campaign to establish “criticism and self-criticism” as the basis for the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Soviet society. In practice, it became a campaign to tighten the disciplinary regime of the emerging totalitarian system with one-party rule. For the first time, Stalin used special methods of intimidation on a large scale in this campaign through ideological manipulation, driving the public consciousness into an irrational fear of any criticism of authority. Official satire was required (with caution and fear of a possible mistake) to express what was said by the leader of the party as if “between the lines”. The Crocodile magazine not only illustrated the “self-criticism” campaign, but also tried to adapt it in its own way to the perception of the mass audience.

This article examines one of Stalin's most important ideological campaigns, which allowed him to gain full power in the Bolshevik Party and to build a cult of personality in the country. In this struggle could not do without propaganda. The magazine “Crocodile” actively participated in the restructuring of Soviet society, accustomed to live under the conditions of the NEP, for the transition to a new state – a state of civil war in the construction of socialism in one country. “Opportunism” as a purely partisan concept expands to define the situation in a different way: anyone who resists the building of socialism, even passively, – by his human shortcomings – is an opportunist, any citizen and nonparty including. This semantic expansion of the notion of “opportunism” created the conditions for the formation of the terrorist power, it was the “ground” for the soon to come Big Terror.

The article examines the situation when the mass-circulation magazine Crocodile published a rather strange drawing depicting the “united opposition” as a dysfunctional part of the overall construction of socialism. Such a drawing, without political context, looks deliberately simplistic and unconvincing. A comparison of this drawing with the events of the October plenum of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) shows that such a depiction corresponded fully to the complex political game waged by the Stalinist group in the Central Committee of the VKP(b), interested not in publicly exposing theoretical differences with the opposition, but in demonstrating the simple and understandable logic of the masses – the opposition simply does not want to build socialism. All the theoretical postulates about the impossibility of building it in a single country, without a world revolution, must have looked like empty talk, and that is all.

The article examines the situation when the epicenter of Stalin's ideological campaign was the leader's joke that there were those “lacquered” among the Communists who did not want to criticize themselves, although “self-criticism” was a requirement of the Bolshevik Party after the defeat of the united opposition. The joke about the “lacquered” was the basis for satirical essays by journalist B. Samsonov, written for the magazine Crocodile. Samsonov came up with a whole gallery of those who could be called by Stalin's word “varnished”. However, the joke of the leader of the party prompted Samsonov to write not in a humorous manner, but in a satirical manner. And it did not come out as expected. The images of “lacquered” people were consonant with the “spirits of the Russian revolution”, about which the Russian philosopher N. A. Berdyaev wrote.

The article explores two models of explaining “Leninism” in the mid-20s. According to Lev Trotsky, Leninism is first of all an experience of revolutionary action, which is determined by the momentary political context and therefore is not limited to any postulates of theory, any ethical concepts, any moral prohibitions or stereotypes of public consciousness. The Leninism of the Stalinist majority in the Party is the theoretical integrity of the entire period of the Party's existence, the inviolability of Lenin's covenants, his glorification as a revolutionary strategist - above all - who has never made a mistake in tactics and has walked with the Party in step. Trotsky brings vividness and contradictions to Lenin's image in order to prove the vitality of Lenin's revolutionary teachings. Stalin's majority in the Party affirmed the canonical image of the leader, explaining his infallibility, creating a situation of worship of the cult of the leader of the world proletariat and the Bolshevik Party created by him. Trotsky lost the historic battle, because his “Leninism” was no longer needed by anyone - neither the Party bureaucracy nor the young generation of Communists.

The article examines the situation when the satirical magazine Krokodil, which was published in mass circulation, was obliged to respond by “translating” the political meaning of the disagreements between the united opposition and the Central Committee of the VKP(b) into the language of satirical illustrations to show the potential and real incompatibility of any faction in the party with the opinion of the Central Committee majority to a wide range of readers. The drawing in Crocodile, depicting the opposition in the form of a compartment of a train following its “line”, was the first such experience of the magazine. The masses had to learn that everyone could be approached by a “controller” and asked for “travel documents” for the socialism under construction.

The author examines the basic premise of the modernism’s religious and philosophical conception. This conception was formed as the personalistic ideology that maintained personal rights in the metaphysical sense. Good and evil are not alienated from a person; they are derived from a person that looks for his/her place in theomachy. Modernists considered the absolute freedom as the highest, supreme manifestation of a new religion. However, this absolute freedom of a person inevitably brought about dualism which created the situation of a permanent choice between two celestial images, the good and the evil, because the “midst” was considered to be the genuine evil; the “midst” did not represented or manifested the pure quality neither of the good nor the evil. The evil rests in the collective principle, in the mob, and it is precisely the principle that oppresses a human creature and makes him/her restricted and not free. The “new religion” dramatic effect consisted in the fact that while modernists sought for the One Whole, for the God they put the absolute freedom of a person above all else. But this freedom did not allow substantiating the religious monism.

The article deals with the jubilee article by St.Krivtsov, published in the journal "Under the banner of Marxism" and dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Stalin (1929). It reveals the complicity of the jubilee writer himself in the arrangement of accents in his own biography of the party leader and the head of state, which makes the article by Krivtsov at the same time and a hidden autobiography. Stalin keeps silent about the painful facts of his political failures and looks ahead to the future, in which he sees himself as the main theorist of the country, although in the journal "Under the banner of Marxism" no one writes about him so yet. Stalin's main argument is the turn to the construction of socialism in one single country and the need to assess the "practice" of new construction higher than dogmatic Marxism. It is not theory that determines the future, but the "practice" of socialism that is the criterion for the theoretical front in the USSR.

Love novels by Mark Krinitski (1874–1952), a bright representative of the Russian Modernism, in the Soviet times were designated as dime fiction that were deprived of any sense but entertainment. The post-Soviet literary historians inherited such characterizations uncritically. Meanwhile these books had no trashy content from the start. For Krinitski narrated not only about love, not about conjugal fidelity or infidelity, not about preservation of family and household pillars but about lack of individual freedom in man-female relationships, about love in which the patrimonial elements that stifle the love. These novels put philosophical issues of the ultimate freedom and therefore all love stories in one or another way relate not only the high feelings but the violence over these feelings. The strong man cult was a peculiar Modernist cult. However, this speculative cult was just a project of the family and society transformation and their conversion to new societal grounds. The strong man cult made a call for the man who had become the initiator of love liberation from the oppression of custom and patrimonial mode of life.

There were many people who had no time to determine their side (because the process of division had just begun) in the first professional organization of journalists that was created in 1918 immediately upon the revolution. The organization was the Noah’s ark of the Soviet culture. The author considers the disputes that began among various representatives of the Soviet culture and revealed impossibility of their unity and solidarity. The Soviet journalists’ Union was doomed because the society in its post-revolutionary condition turned out to be absolutely fragmented. The Noah’s ark of the Soviet culture in the ocean of revolution found “the land” where it was decided to stop, to step out and gain the expanse under feet: for proletarian writers and journalists the expanse became the proletarian domain, for S.Yesenin and his comrades it turned out to be the imagistic land, for representatives of the Left front it became the Left front domain and for those who thought the culture as separated from the proletarian dictatorship still considered the culture as the modernist culture. So conditions for the harshest competition of new culture’s directions fighting with each other were gradually created. Each of these directions held to become the principal, mainstream and the only direction in culture and society.

The article deals with the Russian modernism’s fate in connection with WWI that disturbed the Russian people’s habitual life. Paradoxically, principal figures of the modernist culture did not consider this disturbance of habitual peaceful life as an exclusively negative event. The war was not its own reason and cause, it was just a consequence of problems the humankind had accumulated. The war is the crisis, internal, spiritual crisis that requires resolving. At the same time the war provided an opportunity to transform a person’s inner world. That was the first step to later transformation of the outer world in its relation to a person. Literary and philosophical experience of the modernism fulfilled itself out and demonstrated that the crisis was present not only in the humankind but within the modernist current itself. The modernists debated the issue of whether the modernism would retain the Individual personal perspective of the Individual’s self-assertion as its constituent basis or the pristine Slavophilist myth of the Orthodox state interests of which were supreme in conditions of war and the crisis of modernism consisted precisely in this issue.

The split of modernism lied in divergence of opinions in respect of the state appeared within modernism during WWI. Some modernists began to profess the highest value, the Orthodox State, while other modernists maintained (as they had maintained earlier) that the highest value was any individuality that was the beginning of everything and constituted reality. Two forces encountered in one movement but the outcome of this collision was determined not by adversaries’ arguments but by the harsh reality of defeat in the war. The Russian people did not endure hardships and that was the outcome of the internal conflict that tore the modernism down. Neither Orthodox State nor the national identity rose above itself in an attempt to transform the world upon new, just grounds. Destruction of the empire became the destruction of the Russian modernism that had acquired its form and essence during the First Russian revolution of 1905–1907. Yet a seed that fell in the earth will, without fail, spring into the new life because the spirit of individuality, the immortal spirit that seeks for the metaphysical beginning of and justification of life in despite of melancholy and pessimism cannot die.

The author considers biography of A.K.Voronski, one of the principal figures of the literary process in the 1920s. In 1922 the Bolshevist Party entrusted him not only with censorship but also with guidance of writers whom L.D.Trotsky called “fellow-travellers”. Particularity of the situation consisted in the fact that in the mid-1920s the party admitted the proletarian culture’s inadequacy. The proletarian culture required cooperation with the old prerevolutionary culture in order to acquire the experience accumulated by the old culture. Voronski helped “fellow-travellers” to survive and at the same time tried to instruct representatives of the young proletarian culture in literary mastery skills. This activity caused bitter criticism of the Proletkult representatives who saw in Voronski’s activity the enginery of the class enemy. Co-existence of various literary groupings was possible because the idea of class war within the country still did not gained ascendancy in the party.

In the final part of the article A.K.Voronskii’s political persecution is discussed, as well as investigative cases, that reveal harassment mechanism employed during the Stalinist era. The published archival excerpt from investigation file opened in 1937, contains a detailed description by Voronsky of the party and literary figures whom the authorities considered part of the Trotskyist opposition. Despite the origins of the document, its data does not contradict our information from alternative sources. Just the assessments are radically different. What was the legal factional activity in the second half of the 1920s, in 1937 already was treated as a grave crime against the Bolshevik Party. The new document, which is introduced into scientific circulation, will help researchers understand the intricacies of political and literary nature relating to the “Pereval” journal, where Voronsky was one of the founders.

The author deals with the debate that unfolded in the early 20th century between the Modernists and the Positivists about notions of philistinism, platitude, and cynicism. It seems that these notions are uncontroversial: everybody is sure that the meaning of the terms is clear and definite. However this certainty is just an illusion. So a great discussion about understanding of these notions evolved in the early 20th century. And this debate demonstrated that the Russian society was deeply divided into two worlds: ideas of Individuality’s rights, ideas of Renaissance through supra-personal foundations of culture were proclaimed and affirmed in one world while another world adored the Humankind and worshiped it. What is higher, a Person or the Humankind? The future of Russia, to a considerable extent, depended on a decision of the question. The future of the 20th century, terrible and bloody, can be seen in these controversies.

Responses and comments to Gorki’s letter with the demand to knock already prepared stage play on F.M.Dostoevski's novel «Demons» off the Moscow Art Theater’s repertoire expressed the modernist attitude to infringement of personal freedom in the space of culture. Virtually everybody who responded to the situation censured Gorki for violence against freedom of creativity. However, the revolutionary young people who acted in the open discussions of Gorki’s letter, rather supported than condemned the writer. In his answer to critics Gorki himself did not admit any fault and accused his opponents of «philistinism», «cynicism» and «platitude». The article deals with the deep-seated foundations of differences in explanations of these concepts. The differences resulted from the polar perceptions of Russia’s progress and Russia’s future.

The authors consider the most recent experience that is acquired due to study of peculiarities of a new social-psychological and creative space formation in the Soviet literature and public life of the 1920s exemplified by materials of the Soviet men of letters' private archives and their legal cases and court investigations. The authors analyze mechanisms of creative personalities' adaptation to conditions and requirements of the emerging totalitarian culture.

The author deals with study of ancient Russia miniature pictures contained in the Facial chronicle code of Ivan the Terrible. This is the unique memorial of the Russian Middle Ages. In 2004 «Acteon» publishers made the first facsimile publication of the Facial code. Dozens volumes and 16 thousand miniature pictures that illustrate the world and the Russian history were presented and became available in many Russian and foreign libraries. Now access to the first (and subsequent) volumes of the Facial Chronicle Code (in e-version) is possible only by virtue of Internet. It should seem that the publication guaranties knowledge. But it is not so: the sign nature of miniatures is to be in reconstructed for understanding their content. The issue concerns the experience reconstruction of the unknown language specific to the Russian culture. This language has determined the way of text and artistic image «reading». One of the main problems of the article is the study of an ancient Russian artist’s horizon of freedom. Whether this artist was not free in his creative work or he was a creator of his own artistic world?

The article is devoted to events that occurred immediately upon death of Stalin. The apparatus of suppression functioned in non-stop regime for a while and the will was required to stop it. But was it the will indeed? Perhaps, it would be more precise to speak of the paralysis of will as a symptom that was also generated by working machine of suppression. New documents found in archives illuminate this puzzle of the Stalinist repression mechanism’s halt.

While Stalin was alive only he could be equal to the truth and only he could know the truth. Upon his death an ideological corporation emerged and this corporation took it upon itself to exercise control over the truth. Yet every functionary authorized to trace congruence of «practice» and «theory» knew that his functions of control were limited. The ideological apparatus of the Party inherited monopoly rights to the truth as a corporate heir. It was precisely the corporation which started to claim to the knowledge belonged to the caste. This knowledge released «the elected few» of unnecessary formalities. Answers to citizens concocted at the «Kommunist» journal were not different from answers produced under Stalin. However discussions within the editorial board (minutes started to be composed since January, 1954) are characterized by an important distinction: name of Stalin was nearly absent in these discussions. N.S.Khruschev in his report to the CPSU 20th Congress uncovered the terrible truth about the cult of Stalin’s personality to the communists yet still clung to the deep-seated double standards: his report was a «secret» one and its content was meant for «our crowd».

Words about inadmissibility of «personality cult» for the first time were pronounced on the second day after burial of I.V.Stalin. These words were pronounced by G.M.Malenkov. Yet these words were not directly referred to Stalin. If one proceeds from the primary intention of the CC of CPSU secretary P.N.Pospelov's memorandum where the CC of CPSU Presidium meeting held on March 10, 1953, was mentioned then it is obvious that this meeting was in no way connected with Stalin’s name. The key idea of the speech G.M.Malenkov delivered to journalists was simple. To none of three top leaders of the Soviet Union, members of the CC of CPSU Presidium G.M.Malenkov, L.P.Beria, and V.M.Molotov, should not be given any preponderance. The leadership should be collective. However even after the July Plenum of the CC of CPSU Presidium (at this forum G.M.Malenkov for the first time made the direct statement that there had been «the cult of Stalin’s personality») no public exposure of Stalin’s activities followed. Such campaign was impossible due to the only reason: criticism of Stalin expressed at the CC Plenum was allowed only to the top Party officials and only at the closed Party events. For all the rest and for the Soviet society as a whole the topical campaign of «the harmful cult of personality» exposure was reserved. This campaign of veneration of the great personality despite the fact that the true creator of history is the people ran on until N.S.Khruschev's secret report to the 20th Congress of the CPSU.

The article analyzes the monograph ‘The Russian Paradigm' by Professor Dula Svak. The authors examine the originality of his research and the peculiarities of the Russian studies undertaken by Dula Svak within the broad theoretical and methodological framework of the search for formulae of Russian history in contemporary foreign historiography of the Russian history.

Prospects and problems of the historical science are in the center of attention in the interview given by Professor Yurganov. According to him, the historical science has every chance to become a fundamental science. Such science is not subject to any fluctuation of political moods. It is a tool of their study and not a substantiation of specific values. In this capacity history has no inherent prior beliefs. However it is a key to understanding of any value and cultural continuum while an applied science used for ideological purposes exists and will exist forever. It is necessary only to define limits and do that with understanding for what purposes a study is performed and for what ends it is intended.

The author investigates the situation in the Russian historical science after Stalin’s death. The critical attitude toward the historical science was most vividly demonstrated at the supreme level conference held at the Presidium of the USSR Academy of science on March 20, 1953. The main topic expounded in speech of A.L.Sidorov, the deputy Director of the Institute of history was recognition of genius of Stalin’s work and the total failure of the historical science. The greatest blow was directed not against some particular person or even a group of persons. It was directed against Leningrad department of the Institute of history. Critics were going to liquidate Leningrad department due to its uselessness. The ideological machine could not stop immediately. However the disclosing hue was changing with the course of time. The official circles settled down to a course of the historical science gradual de-Stalinization. An example of this trend was preparation of materials for the summarizing article of A.M.Pankratova, one of the principal ideologists of the time. Many ideological exigencies were gradually smoothed over at the various stages of this preparation.

The author examines Stalin’s attitude to tsar Ivan the Terrible as it was revealed and evolved in debate with film-maker Serge Eisenstein. Traditionally it is presumed that the point of view expressed by the leader of the Bolshevist party was unique Stalin as the creator of the Great Terror simply liked tsar Ivan and his cruelties. The author argues that this interpretation is wrong. Stalin did not express any unique point of view. He just repeated what Soviet historians wrote not just in their general works but also in textbooks. Traditionally it is accepted that Sergey Eisenstein, the creator of ‘Ivan the Terrible' movie expressed the view which was quite typical for his time. However the author argues that the film-maker's position differed from the conventional scientific explanation of Ivan the Terrible reign. Stalin refused to add any psychological motives to Ivan’s image and deeds and presented him as the embodiment of the objective process of the Russian national state formation. Stalin was quite satisfied conventional positions of historians as well as content of textbooks that formed the stable stereotype of Ivan the Terrible epoch perception. Stalin did not abandon dialectics. Therefore he did not disclaim the tsar’s cruelty or atrocities. According to Stalin, any super-task is more important than instruments and ways of its attainment and efficiency expiates ‘subjective' errors. While Eisenstein emphasized contradictions inherent to the tsar Stalin was strong in stating the facts that were obvious for the contemporary historical sciences. As a big artist Eisenstein could not please the power to the full, he was more sympathetic to pre-revolutionary historians. Beneath collisions of Ivan the Terrible Eisenstein guessed a Shakespearian psychological drama. So ideology and creative work ran against each other.

The article deals with the study of culture sources which is a new and logically necessary trend in the present day historical science. The author defines boundaries of the method which has been substantiated recently (A.V.Karavashkin, A.L.Yurganov. Essay in historical phenomenology: Difficult path to the evident truth. Moscow, 2003). Principles of study of culture’s sources are compared with methodological propositions and assumptions of the French «Annales» school of historical studies and of the Russian positivism. The author argues that none of these schools could surmount the deficiencies of the modern hermeneutics. The modern hermeneutics has been focused on the problem of the unconsciousness, it has investigated the collective psychology but it has been indifferent to understanding of sources. An author’s presence in the text, the reality of an author’s consciousness and experience of direct statements become the matter of study of culture’s sources. For the first time investigation of the evident consciousness, immediate reflection of the subjects of historical process are acquiring their peculiar method.

The final part of the article deals with axiomatic grounds of the new no-assumption hermeneutics of historical sources. Peculiarities of the suggested method become to be understandable as its axomatics is compared with theoretical assumption of F. Shleyermacher, V. Dilthey, A. S. Lappo-Danilevski, G.-G. Gadamer etc. Initial assumption of the sources' original meaning reconstruction can be only of general methodological nature. However the reconstruction itself must not contain answers and must not aticipate results of a specific study. Encounter with other people conscience is always unanticipated. Besides that, the study of culture’s sources is based on the principle of subsidiarity and does not exclude a creative interaction with other methods and does not cast doubts on the very possibility of interdisciplinary synthesis.

The article deals with techniques and fundamental philosophical assumptions of the contemporary studies of literature and cultural-historical concepts. Claiming the solution of the humanitarian knowledge’s principal issues representatives of subjectivist directions make ideological arguments their main weapon and thereby overcome, in their own fashion, positivist assumptions. However the humanitarian knowledge oriented towards ideology inadvertently turns out to be an ally of the post-modernist epistemology. Scholar’s «egoism» and consumerists super-tasks set against the collective experience of science are conquering the unoccupied intellectual space. And now personal opinion or personal faith of a scientist, freedom of his/her conscience means by far more than the source-aware conscience’s reality. Two polar approaches to the history of culture, the conservative and liberal-atheistic approaches are compared to each other. In both cases representatives of the respective concepts refer to their own positions as to an important fact of science and a theoretical model. Strangely enough, polarities complement each other: studies of literature that make the absolute of the immutable and studies of culture that assume the making without the subject of the process generate equally destructive and disorganizing effect on the modern humanitarian science. These extremities need not so much reconciliation as a dialectical and creative overcoming, a renewing synthesis.