The idea that Moscow is the Third Rome, the heir to spiritual culture and the modern embodiment of the Roman and Roman powers, is so established that we consider the translation of the imperium to be undeniable, embodied in the borrowing of the wedding ritual of Russian autocrats from the basileus of Constantinople from the end of the 15th century. Having studied the sources, we were convinced that Ivan III and Metropolitan Macarius, who established the

wedding ceremony of the great princes and kings, did not think about the Roman and Constantinople heritage. It developed from the second half of the 16th century, and in fact, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich turned to the Roman coronation scenarios in 1676. He established the rite of the wedding of kings, which demonstrated the continuity of their power from the Orthodox autocrats of the Second Rome.

The article examines the anniversary historical narrative about the Decembrist revolt, presented on the pages of the scientific journals of the 1920s. An analysis of the topics of research and the nature of scientific discussions made it possible to see that historians turned to many unstudied subjects, but were unable to contrast the pre-revolutionary “legends” with a new coherent concept of Decembrism. The formation of the historical narrative was influenced by the coexistence of different generations of scientists. Marxist historians supported the ideologically correct theory of Pokrovsky, studied the Southern Society, the Society of the United Slavs and Chernigov Regiment revolt, and “bourgeois” researchers, who did not move away from “liberal concepts”, continued to focus on studying the Northern Society and the revolt on December 14th.

The image of Grand Duke Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky (1221–1263) was formed and approved in modern society by literature and, in part, by art. Scientific data allow us to judge that this image differs from historical reality in many aspects, and first of all it concerns the prince's confrontation with the West. But do comprehensive scientific studies make it possible to present the true pages of the prince's life and the features of his personality as vividly as it is done in literature and art? The article positively answers this question by recreating the key scenes of Alexander's struggle with the Crusaders in the light of modern scientific knowledge.

The publication of a documentary publication devoted to the cultural policy of late Stalinism will summarize the long-term research work led by Professor V.V.Zhuravlev, Doctor of Historical Sciences, on the publication of documents, characterizing the set of key features of the “Stalinist” catching-up modernization. In the collection, “Stalin's economic Legacy: plans and discussions. 1947–1953” The compilers included sources characterizing the search for a theoretical basis for a long-term development strategy of the country. At the next stage – in the collection “Social policy in the USSR in the postwar years. 1947–1953” – the “Stalinist" model was considered in the context of the post-war reconstruction of the country. The task of the new stage was to identify the features of post-war cultural policy through the prism of its conceptual foundations and practical implementation mechanisms.

The article analyzes the perception of the Decembrists in Russia in the 2000s: in media publications, speeches of politicians and public figures. It describes the events and celebrations associated with the Decembrists that took place during this period. It is noted which politicians and public figures associated themselves with the Decembrists and in connection with what such associations were made. It is concluded that by the early 2010s the preconditions for the formation of a new ideology had already appeared, according to which the notion of “Decembrist” acquires a negative coloring.

A virtuoso of medical diagnostics and therapeutic skill, Vovsi was one of the most popular doctors in Moscow, he was also considered the best lecturer in internal medicine. Votchal was an internationally recognized naturalist, as well as an inventor and leading specialist in medical technology, the founder of pulmonology and clinical pharmacology in the USSR. They were brought together by the Great Patriotic War: Major General Vovsi created the military therapeutic service of the Red ( Soviet) Army, Colonel Votchal, as the chief therapist of the Volkhov Front, was one of his assistants. From 1944 Vovsi headed the Department of Clinical and Military Field Therapy of the CIU of Physicians; Votchal was the deputy head of the department. The authors of the article consistently demonstrate the common features and differences between Vovsi and Votchal on the winding path of life and reveal the reasons for the breakup of their long-term relationship.

Anti-communist public activity in Hungary, fueled by the Jewish problem and escalated in the fall of 1956 into a massive uprising marked by bloody events, not only extremely aggravated the situation in this country, but also posed a serious threat to global geopolitical stability. However, this catastrophic and fraught with a global nuclear cataclysm scenario, fortunately, was not realized, and thanks to both the decisive measures taken by the leadership of the USSR and the proactive actions of individual responsible persons, including the Soviet ambassador in Budapest Yuri Andropov.

The article is devoted to the socio-political activities of Ilya Moiseevich Geitsman (1879–1938), a revolutionary, leader of the anarchist movement in Russia, and a soviet diplomat. Geitsman was one of the organizers of the anarcho-communist movement “khlebovoltsev” on the territory of Belarus and Lithuania in 1905–1907. In 1914–1918, he became the leader of the anarchist movement in Siberia. At the same time, he becomes one of the influential figures of the Centrоsibir’, had an impact on the formation of its political course. In 1921–1923, he became one of the ideologists of the “anarcho-Bolsheviks”, pursued a course for the integration of the anarchist movements of Russia and Europe into the orbit of the influence of the RCP(b).

The article examines the factors that contributed to the transformation of V.I.Ulyanov (Lenin) into a revolutionary. It is shown that even well-known sources (first of all, the memories of the leader's relatives) are fraught with certain riddles and omissions. Modern historiography has freed itself from the cliches of the Soviet era with its rather straightforward interpretation of Lenin's path to revolution, but sometimes suffers from arbitrary treatment of facts. The use of methods of psychological analysis, comparison of sources, identification of the political position of their authors, the time in which memories were created, and other methods are aimed at clarifying the conditions and circumstances associated with Vladimir Ulyanov's departure into the revolution.

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 life, works and, thoughts of great people are mythologized, not only in the mass consciousness, but also in scientific literature. This applies to Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov in full measure. The commander can be considered a model of both ridiculous attacks and slander, and delusions into which his sincere well-wishers and diligent researchers introduce the reader. This is especially true of the motives of his activity, formed by moral attitudes, life experience and reflections. Using the example of Suvorov's short but fruitful stay in Finland in 1791‒1792, we will acquaint the reader with the course of understanding the works and ideas of the commander, which are very different from the mythology about him. The article analyzes the military ideas of Suvorov, formulated by him during a year and a half of service as a builder, then commander of troops in Finland.

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.

Mobilizing society for the implementation of the project of “building communism”, the leadership of the USSR, headed by Khrushchev, sharply intensified the fight against the underground production of scarce consumer goods, as well as illegal buying and reselling of foreign currency, jewelry, antiques, imported clothes and shoes. The fate of the arrested organizers and participants in such a business, as well as the officials who “covered” it, was decided at trials that took place in the early 1960s. in Moscow and other cities. Since there were many Jews among the main defendants who were sentenced to death, there was a certainty in the West that these trials were anti-Semitic. However, this version contradicts the real facts, which is proved in this рaреr.

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 is devoted to the return of an eminent smenovekhovets Nikolai Ustryalov from Harbin to his homeland, to the conditions of his life in Moscow and its cooperation with the Soviet press. It mainly focuses on the articles of N.V.Ustryalov, written on request of the editorial offices “Pravda” and “Izvestia” – about the constitution, Pushkin and Herzen. The author analyzes the subject matter of the publications, he reveals its’ problems and connection with the era being experienced, and he also notes Ustryalov’s desire to convey to the authorities and compatriots the ideas and values that he considered relevant. The conclusion is formulated about the importance of the last articles of N.V.Ustryalov as journalistic documents reflecting the lines of the era and the personality of the author.

The establishment of a peaceful life in Belarus after its liberation from the Nazis in 1944 was associated with the solution of a host of complex problems in such basic spheres of social life as economy, state and public security, ideology, ineffective personnel policy. These problems were most critical in the western regions of the BSSR, where the situation was complicated by the forcing of Sovietization. The post-war normalization in the Republic was negatively influenced by the undercover struggle for the first secretary post of the Central Committee of the CP(b)B. The arbiter in it was Stalin, who constantly manipulated the nomenklatura groups.

In the late XIX – early XX centuries in Russia, several hundred stories of military units were published, the authors of which were professional military personnel. None of these books and pamphlets claim to be original and independent in their assessments of the historical events and persons described, which casts doubt on the legitimacy of considering them part of Russian historiography. At the same time, the analysis of these publications as a tool of commemoration looks promising. The article considers the use of the history of military units for the formation of ideas about the past as a means of forming an imperial identity.

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 examines the problems of the relationship between the party and state authorities and the Soviet cinematic intelligentsia. The research focuses on the processes of control and censorship, repressive and informational and ideological impact on the largest cultural figures and workers in the film industry. It is shown that the selected chronological segment has conditionally symbolic boundaries. Conclusions are made about the functioning of the following methods and forms of control: institutional diversity, social mobilization, politicization of everyday life and media space. Their system-wide and universal-longterm, metahistorical nature of their application is substantiated. Their intensity influenced the state of modern collective / social memory and the perception of films that had a high ideological and artistic value, but indirectly contributed to the idealization of the Stalinist era in scientific historiography and public consciousness.

The article is dedicated to the memory of the conquest of Central Asia in the 1860-1880s. The focus is on monuments erected in battlefields, as well as in politically important points in the region. Medals played a great role in symbolizing victories in this region. At the same time, it should be noted that the presentation of victories in Central Asia was frankly peripheral in nature: no monument appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg, no ship of the Navy was named after the victories in Turkestan.

The article is devoted to the main characters in the process of accession of Central Asia to the Russian Empire, generals M.Skobelev, M.Cherniaev, K.Kaufman, G.Kolpakovsky. The most famous in Russia were Generals Skobelev, Cherniaev, which was due to their charisma. The main reason for their popularity is the support from nationalist circles, who made from Skobelev and Cherniaev original icons of the heroes of the fighters for the freedom of the Slavs. To determine the degree of popularity of the generals - builders of the empire, a list of books devoted to these military leaders was studied. The first place was taken by Skobelev, since he is one of the central figures of the Russian historical myth.

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 represents a comparative analysis of two waves of European cultural transfer to the United States in the first half of the 20th century on the example of the study of German-Jewish and Russian emigration of cinematographers. Russian and German filmmakers, who left in the 20s – 30s, are considered primarily as carriers of two national cultural traditions: the culture of the Silver Age and the Weimar culture.

The article represents a comparative analysis of two waves of European cultural transfer to the United States in the 30-40s. XX century on the example of the study of German-Jewish and Russian emigration of cinematographers, in particular, their adaptation in Hollywood to new living conditions and creative activities, as well as their contribution to the development of American cinema.

The article analyzes the ideas about state symbols in the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19–20 centuries, visualization, methods of broadcasting. The transformation of perception of power symbols and their visual images in connection with the events of 1905 in St. Petersburg and Moscow is traced. The study of their functioning in the Moscow space during the period of the First Russian Revolution allows us to focus on the moment of inclusion of alternative (revolutionary) symbols in the phase of active political struggle. As a result, the traditional idea of Pervoprestol’naya (Moscow) as the spiritual, sacred center of the Russian Empire is being destroyed. The revolutionary political culture is further developed.

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 article attempts to briefly characterize and objectively assess the role of the prominent figure in the international revolutionary movement, H.G.Rakovsky, in the development of social processes in Ukraine during the Civil War and the time of the head of the Soviet government of the republic on the basis of an analysis of historical facts and documents. In the last decades, this page of his life receives controversial lighting.

On the basis of the analysis of private and journalistic written sources of character, an attempt is made to trace the transformation of the image of Russia in the national-patriotic discourse of Germany during the anti-Napoleonic wars, based on the changes in the attitude to the Russian empire among the most prominent representatives of Prussia’s military, political and intellectual elite who had a great influence on formation of public opinion in the German lands.

This work deals with contemporary historiographic rethinking (both in Russia and abroad) of the cultural context of war-revolutionary crises in Russia, 1917–1922. This problematic field helps to shape the answer to the main question of the topic: why did the “red project” turned out to be more successful, than the “white” one, and what was the role of cultural factors, demands and collisions in this process. The crush of traditional values system; formation of Bolshevik’s new sacrality; reality and utopia of democratic alternative in Russian revolution; the causes of weakness of the liberal politics; conspirology and mythology of Bolshevik’s upheaval; the discussion on the cultural essence of Bolshevism; mutual responsibility of society towards culture and culture towards society in the turning moment of Russian history – these are the main topics of the world’s historical science of this problematic sphere.

Proposed publication covers activities of the Soviet Ukraine Government Chairman H.G.Rakovsky at final stage of Civil War and in the first two and a half years of peaceful socialist construction, assesses his position and role in the unification movement for USSR creation.

The study is based on comparative analysis of the programmatic work of the German physicist Georg Friedrich Parrot “A Look at the Present and the Near Future”, as a conservative manifesto that marked the beginning of the formation of the new Russian messianism doctrine and the first attempts to broadcast it to the peoples of Europe on the eve of the foreign campaign of the Russian army 1813–1814.

In conditions of the modern information wars the patterns of origin and functioning of various images and symbols are of great interest for the researches. The article deals with the Soviet caricatures devoted to subjects of the foreign policy of late 1940s – early 1960s, which were inspired by common citizens of the USSR. Their content is disclosed in the context of general trends of development of imagery and symbolism of the visual satire of the Cold war times. The paper elicits the specific of perception of international agenda depicted by amateur satirists and evaluates their contribution to the creation of enemy image.

This article analyzes some aspects of the cultural policy of the USSR in the second half of the 1940’s – early 1950’s. One of the leading ideological campaigns is being investigated – against «formalism» in Soviet music, which is seen as a representative illustration of the enhanced use of control-repressive and administrative-regulatory technologies of «late Stalinism». The course of the campaign is traced based on the reproduction of information-political, hardware training, internal periodization and correlation with other similar actions of that time are carried out. The instrumentally localized character of the campaign, organized to achieve an instant disciplinary and intimidating traumatic effect, directed against the musical intelligentsia and its creative freedom, is shown. The author comes to the conclusion that there is a need for a delicate and balanced assessment of the «case of music-formalists». This is due to the ambivalence of this historical situation – a combination of ideological addiction and the presence of elements of objective criticism of the limits of musical and aesthetic experimentation.

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.

This article examines the famous annalistic legend of calling of the Varangian princes. The author challenges the conclusion of some researchers that Chronicles the tale is based on a legal act (treaty). Arguments are given in favor of the provision on the exclusively folklore origin of the legend.

The author considers various interpretations of the Chronicle’s legend of calling of the Varangians, in particular, the concept suggested by E.A.Mel’nikova and V.Ya.Petrukhin who argue the legend retained information on a treaty Rurik concluded with peoples who summoned him. The author also analyzes critics of the “contractual” hypothesis by various researchers. It is demonstrated that this hypothesis relies on a number of cogent arguments but has some vulnerabilities. Due to the lack of necessary evidence it is difficult either to recognize the treaty indisputable or reject the very existence of the treaty.

As it might be judged by the title, the article deals with archaic and rather hazy subject, i.e. how the ancient Greek and Roman writers perceived barbarian world around them. But this is not the only thing the article is about. The author makes an attempt to find the roots of what might be named a paradox. The question is: why the people of the civilized Empires, with their highly arrogant and fastidious attitude towards the surrounding "savages", could not resist the temptation to deliriously imitate their ways and mores, turning this primitive stuff into a part of every-day life?

The article deals with N.S.Leskov’s "The left-hander" short story. It is demonstrated that the Leskov’ story has in many respects the ambivalent semantics and that the author’s appraisal of the protagonist and Russia can be recognized neither as unconditionally positive nor as absolutely negative one. Peculiarity of Leskov’s perception of the Russians and the British adversarial relationship motive and Russia-England opposition is explained by Leskov’s polemics with the Russian national mythology. It is argued that the official theory of national character and Slavophilism served as ideological underlying messages and Leskov’s attitude to these messages were colored with irony. "The left-hander" was written as a warning against national complacency and arrogance that may find fertile soil in such ideological constructions.

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.

Based on analysis of German conservative literature about Russia, as part of the political discussions in Germany in the second quarter of the 19th century, the paper discusses these polemic works as an example of a conservative "thinking style" that shaped the worldview of its bearers and attitudes towards Russia.

In the first quarter of the 19th century for the first time for all history of interaction between Russia and Europe, Russia’s positive perception began to acquire a mass character in Germany regardless of political preferences of most of Germans. On the basis of the analysis of German artistic and philosophical writings on Russia, an attempt is made to trace how during a period of the sharpest political crisis the process of transformation of the image of Russia in German public opinion from the «Russian threat» complex to the «last hope of Europe» began, laying down trends that were still relevant in subsequent years.

The author considers “Story of Dracula”, one of the most interesting monuments of old Russian literature and social thought of the 15th century. Usually researchers interpret this piece of work as an apology of the strong power and justification of repressions undertaken in the interest of state and the common good. It is assumed that appraisal of the “Story” protagonist, the prince of Walachian (Rumanian) state, hospodar Dracula is ambiguous. Dracula connects traits of a despot and sadistic cruelty with valiance, justice, and statesmanship. As the author argues, the appraisal of the protagonist is totally negative and his methods of rule are presented as not just sinful but as maleficent. Ideologically “Story of Dracula” fits in the old Russian tradition and has nothing common with social-political notions of such representatives of the formidable and cruel power as Ivan Peresvetov and czar Ivan the Fourth. The Story’s originality consists not in its author’s position but in means of its expression: the Story’s author prompts his readers to make an effort and understand why Dracula was a despot who served to the devil.

The author considers “Story of Dracula”, one of the most interesting monuments of old Russian literature and social thought of the 15th century. Usually researchers interpret this piece of work as an apology of the strong power and justification of repressions undertaken in the interest of state and the common good. It is assumed that appraisal of the “Story” protagonist, the prince of Walachian (Rumanian) state, hospodar Dracula is ambiguous. Dracula connects traits of a despot and sadistic cruelty with valiance, justice, and statesmanship. As the author argues, the appraisal of the protagonist is totally negative and his methods of rule are presented as not just sinful but as maleficent. Ideologically “Story of Dracula” fits in the old Russian tradition and has nothing common with social-political notions of such representatives of the formidable and cruel power as Ivan Peresvetov and czar Ivan the Fourth. The Story’s originality consists not in its author’s position but in means of its expression: the Story’s author prompts his readers to make an effort and understand why Dracula was a despot who served to the devil.

The article describes the problem of budgeting the newspaper “Pravda” after it’s republish in march 1917. Incoming and expenditure parts of Pravda’s budget in march–may 1917 are analysed. Financial resources of buying by the Bolsheviks their own printing works in publishing house “Trud” are in the article.

Analyzing German literature of the thirties–forties of the 19th century, the author examines the process of formation of "Petersburg" narrative in the context of conservative discourse on Russia as an ambivalent construct based on personal impressions of eyewitnesses, on the one hand, and on political myths and ideologies on the other.

The author considers issues connected with exposure of the «perestroika» design in the USSR in 1985–1991 as the design is reflected in sources and historiography. Importance of these issues for study of the current history of Russia is demonstrated. Principal approaches to the problem under investigation are designated and arguments of respective approaches followers are presented. The author comes to the conclusion that poignancy of discussion does not abate while approaches of scientists and participants of perestroika events remain to be extremely contradictive. The main nerve of discussion is connected with the issue whether there was a conception of perestroika or not and what was the content and intention of the conception. In the latter case researchers are in disagreement on the point whether the conception was aimed at the destruction of the Soviet formation or such destruction was a result of objective processes. Suggestions on methodology of the problem investigation including methods of historical sources critique are made in the article.

The article gives a brief general description of the CPSU Twentieth Congress, with the main emphasis on the N.S. Khrushchev’s "secret" report concerning Stalin’s “personality cult” and its consequences, on importance of the Congress decisions for the country and the world at large and their impact on the state and development of the world communist movement. It is shown how the problem was presented in the Russian historiography during the last quarter of a century. The perception of the CPSU Twentieth Congress decisions by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which was then at the helm of the country and society, is explored. The article traces evolution of the views of the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1956, on how to implement the decisions of the CPSU Twentieth Congress on the cult of Stalin's personality, so as not to shake the foundations of the existing socialist system in Czechoslovakia based on the Soviet model. The article pinpoints internal and external factors that by the end of 1956 brought the Czechoslovak authorities back to the help of "strong hand" policy.

A decade and a half ago author has already addressed problems of the Imperial Russia’s first State Duma historical fate. The social acuteness of these problems under conditions of that time directly correlated with processes of elaboration of the land reform in the Russian Federation principles that stirred the society as a whole, with adoption of the RF Land code (2001) and of the Law “On agricultural lands turnover” (2002). The time which elapsed since the early 2000s did not lower the researchers’ interest and social-practical interest to the profound investigation of the first in the Russian history representative institution emergence. The Duma had legislative functions and boldly claimed its rights to the primacy and independence of the monarch’s willfulness and of the dictate of the executive power subdued to the monarch. Why did the first try fail? Why that attempt did not inaugurate the beginning of the serious dialogue between the power and the society on a wide range of issues including the most urgent problem, the land problem? The land problem is still urgent. Moreover, it is still hot, burning issue. For the time is incapable to annul the indisputable, absolute justice of the thesis set forward by P.A.Stolypin: “The land is the precondition and guarantee of our future power, the land is Russia”.

The first in the series this article, dedicated to Russian historian A.V.Florovsky, describes the attempts of the academic to establish contacts with Soviet colleagues in the postwar years. The interest to the study of the epoch of Peter the Great was his motive. This article describes the communications of A.V.Florovsky with A.I.Andreyev and his research group, which was engaged in the publication of “Letters and papers of the Emperor Peter the Great”. This work shows how politics intervenes in the research plans, as well as the fate of the peoples. In the USSR erupted ideological campaigns. Colleagues of A.V.Florovsky were under fire.

The paper is dedicated to post-soviet subject and its memory. It is based on diaries of Svetlana Volskaya. She was a pro-soviet participant in October 1993 revolt in Moscow. But in late-Soviet period Svetlana was a part of soviet artist life, soft “frondeur”. Moreover, she was pro-Yeltsin protester during the putsch attempt in 1991. In the paper I study her ideological and political evolution using the approach to social memory of Maurice Halbwachs and philosophy of Event of Allain Badiou. My thesis is Svetlana defined herself and her actual political position in 1993–1996 by redefining soviet history and her own soviet memories. I suppose the process of that redefining of the history replaces for post-soviet subject actual political and social reflection.

The article describes how the “Iron Curtain” broke the contact of A.V.Florovsky with Soviet colleagues. He was able to resume them only during the Khrushchev’s Thaw. In 1950-ies the historian met by correspondence with A.A.Novoselsky, B.B.Kafengauz and other Soviet scholars. One of the main themes of their communication becomes the preparation of “The Letters and papers of the Emperor Peter the Great”. This article analyzes the historiographic and source study suggestions of A.V.Florovsky regarding this publication.

Gustave Flaubert asserted: “Do not touch idols… their gilding will remain on your fingers”. But the principal heroine of this article, the beloved woman of Mayakovsky Lilya Brik did not follow Flaubert’s warning. To save Mayakovsky’s original heritage Lilya Brik in 1935 requested assistance from Stalin, the living Soviet god who at that time announced Mayakovsky “the best and the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch”. However Lilya Brik did not bask in fame of this propaganda myth. As early as from the mid-1950s Lilya Brik became the target of permanent propaganda attacks organized from above: as a lady of cosmopolitan Weltanschauung and sexually liberated in her personal life and, furthermore, a Jewess Brik obviously did not fit the official image of faithful and ideologically consistent girl friend of the proletarian poet. This article narrates how the CPSU officials and specialists in literary studies engaged by the party officials tried to rewrite in retrospect the love history of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Lilya Brik making her the femme fatale guilty of the poet’s death.

In the final article in this series the development of scientific contacts of A.V.Florovsky with Soviet historians in the late 1950s – 1960s was described. Particular attention was paid to his communication with E.P.Podyapolskaya, who took over the editing of “The Letters and papers of the Emperor Peter the Great”. The visit of A.V.Florovsky in the USSR in 1967 was characterized. The article presents the arguments according to which closure of Soviet science was one of the reasons that hindered the study of Peter the Great’s theme. In conclusion, the specificity of scientific contacts of A.V.Florovsky conceptualized.

During the soviet era it was allowed to include historical figures in the research related to Decembrists. The cultural momentum maintains the use of the «acceptance» in the modern world. Such an inclusion by modern researchers of the D.A.Stolypin, the granduncle of the M.Yu.Lermontov to friends and associates of the P.I.Pestel is very noticeable. On the one hand, this «fact» is gain access to the authoritative biographical reference books; on the other hand, it is based on very dubious sources. In the process of «translation» the original «message» has acquired additional figurative details.

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 article deals with the problem of religious practices adaptation to conditions of the Soviet imprisonment and prison camp detention in the 1920s — the 1940s. Christian religious practices are taken as example. Actions, items, spaces, texts of religious life mutated under impact of interdictory conditions: religious procedures and rites were simplified and reduced down to substitution of action with narrative about action; items of religious attributes were made of make-shift materials and divided into parts; each part began to symbolize the whole or these parts were excluded altogether; lack of special spaces for religious rites and actions led to their conduct virtually in any point of space accessible to prisoners.

Destruction of monuments is one of the most vivid characteristics of revolutionary events. Raging crowds enthusiastically overturn bronze figures of hateful rulers and their servants and destroy other visible hostile symbols. During radical political transformations not only the power is seized in the center of a state and all over a country and not just control over armed forces and important facilities is established. A victory in symbolic dimension has an enormous significance because such victory exerts tremendous impact on people’s minds and hearts, mobilizes masses. A city belongs to a person whose monument stands at the central square of a city.

The author is well aware that by trying to immerse the reader into the murky ages of the Caucasus history he embarks upon a risky travel. The overwhelming part of academic knowledge on that subject-matter is doomed to remain either plausible hypothesis or dubious theories. To verify them with absolute correctness seems next to impossible. Nevertheless we are not going to give up hope to have the picture of the past more vivid and trustworthy. Our cautious optimism is based on the belief that historical sources, for all its impressive quantity, have not yet parted with many of its secrets.

The author considers employment of memory about Decembrists in the CPRF propaganda, correction of Lenin’s concept of «three generations» in accordance with challenges of the time, i.e. «quest for ethnic roots», «struggle against terrorism».

This article analyzes the 1920s methodological guidelines to conduct tours of Petrograd-Leningrad. Key themes for the formation of the city’s image and the recommendations for sightseeing for the local and visiting tourists are identified. Author concludes that there were four main ideas of the excursion literature for Petrograd-Leningrad in the early Soviet period. Firstly, the City as the center of the revolutionary movement; secondly, historical significance of the former capital was also quite important; thirdly, the city was seen as a center of culture; and finally, Petrograd-Leningrad was presented in textbooks as the economic center of the country, and the large industrial city.

Making use of archive documents that previously were classified the author seeks to understand the background of complex conflict emerged in the second half of the 1950s between leaders of the USSR and the Soviet writers' union on one hand and Howard Fast, the prominent American writer, on the other hand. Trying to comprehend why Fast was the most published and the most highly paid foreign writer in the most cruel years of Stalin’s rule and why he, as if suddenly decided to put the end to his relations with the Communism and the USSR (and did that in the scandalous way) in the earlier years of Khrushchev’s liberalization the author presents his own documented version of this contradictory situation that does not lend itself to an univalent assessment.

The author investigates motives related to making of the state and state power as these motives were presented in the Slavic folklore legends and oral narratives. In the popular narrative tradition these motives are inseparably connected with the motive of faith choice. This motive is present in folklore legends of different chronological periods. Reflecting the plot borrowed form medieval literature sources the popular narratives emphasize the inseparable connection between choice of «right» faith with accession of the «right» potentate to power and consolidation of his power. In greater part of these cases such texts are results of literature sources adaptation for folklore, of textbooks, popular books and local studies retelling. Nevertheless such adaptations become assets of a local «oral history» and are transferred to «local legends» codes.

The article is devoted to one of the least investigated aspects of the Russian-Jewish mutual relations, i.e. to participation of Christian Jews in the Orthodox church life in the early Modern times Russian Empire. The author focuses on one figure, Vassily Krizhanovsky, a Jew who was baptized in 1716 and got name Vladimir Kalligraf as a monk. His biography is a unique source for study of such key issues as adaptation to and integration of neophytes of Jewish origin in the Russian socio-cultural environment, the Orthodox intellectuals' and representatives of the state power perception of such neophytes.

Gennady Kostyrchenko, a prominent historian, challenges the authenticity of the official biography of Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov who was in charge of the KGB for many years and by the end of his life became a head of the USSR and the CPSU for a short period. Having scrupulously examined numerous historical evidence and documents, including documents from the state archive collections the author demonstrates in detail how this prominent political leader «corrected» his own personal data for the sake of a successful career and concealed his true social background that could be dangerous at those times. Andropov carried out this first special operation on creation of his own legend so neatly and fundamentally that it is still impossible to reveal his real past to the very end. It remains just to speculate about his real parents, his ethnic origin, and place of his birth.

The article revisits the image of Sheikh-Mansour one of the most enigmatic figures of the Chechen history, who by the close of the 18-th century, to quote John Baddeley, «dropped, as it were, from the clouds full grown, a warrior, preacher and prophet» to lead the resistance movement against Russia. The mere fact that Mansour gave an armed response to the advent of the Russians serves for many scholars an irresistible temptation to cast him both as a precursor of the 19-th century Caucasus War and a typological predecessor of the renowned Imam Shamyl. The author of this essay argues against what seems to him a far-fetched comparison between the two mountaineers' leaders belonging to different epochs and having different kinds of perception of their political, ideological, and military missions.

The authors deal with the history of V.S.Grossman's novel «Life and destiny» publication considered in relation with the history of novel «For the right cause» edition. Relations of Grossman with I.V.Stalin, K.M.Simonov, A.A.Fedeev, A.T.Tvardovski, V.M.Kozhevnikov, A.Yu.Krivitski, S.I.Lipkin and with other coevals. The authors demonstrate that judgments of memoirists on the causes of «Life and destiny» sequestration are not confirmed with documents.

The article revisits the image of Sheikh-Mansour one of the most enigmatic figures of the Chechen history, who by the close of the 18-th century, to quote John Baddeley, «dropped, as it were, from the clouds full grown, a warrior, preacher and prophet» to lead the resistance movement against Russia. The mere fact that Mansour gave an armed response to the advent of the Russians serves for many scholars an irresistible temptation to cast him both as a precursor of the 19-th century Caucasus War and a typological predecessor of the renowned Imam Shamyl. The author of this essay argues against what seems to him a far-fetched comparison between the two mountaineers' leaders belonging to different epochs and having different kinds of perception of their political, ideological, and military missions.

The Pushkin-Decembrist myth of the Soviet times, according to which the national poet did not find his way into the conspirator ranks solely due conspirators' careful attitude to Pushkin’s literary genius, is being subject to a comprehensive revision nowadays. The higher power and Orthodox monarchists who enjoy the power’s support are creating an image of a consistent and coherent admirer of the empire and the loyal son of the Church. Such person could have only short-term and superficial relations with Freemasonic Decembrists. The intelligentsia is also creating a new design of the myth, and this design provides no place to revolutionary moods. Liberal Pushkin does not share his more resolute friends' opinions about a coup d’etat and even more so their ideas about a regicidal dagger. Though Pushkin’s opinions diverged from opinions of his friends he had friendly feelings to them and called upon harsh but just Czar Nicholas to demonstrate mercy to them. In this interpretation interrelation of the Soviet myth characters is being changed. Pushkin is no longer a younger friend and a like-minded man of revolutionary Decembrists. Vice versa, now Decembrists are considered as an element of Pushkin’s environment. Indifference to self-giving Decembrists (as they were presented by A.I.Herzen and since his times had been seen as the archetype of the Russian intelligentsia) is an evidence of rapid estrangement of the current ‘creative class' from the tradition of a selfless life for the sake of the people’s enlightenment. Properly speaking, intelligentsia as a social group which unites people who are ready to sacrifice their time, money, freedom and even their lives for the sake of social interests and common good does not exist any longer. Heroic loners are unable to influence a demoralized majority of ‘very special people' (as A.I.Herzen defined them) of creative professions who are absorbed, along with ‘the trash' they despise so much, in the values of comfort.

The article revisits the image of Sheikh-Mansour one of the most enigmatic figures of the Chechen history, who by the close of the 18-th century, to quote John Baddeley, «dropped, as it were, from the clouds full grown, a warrior, preacher and prophet» to lead the resistance movement against Russia. The mere fact that Mansour gave an armed response to the advent of the Russians serves for many scholars an irresistible temptation to cast him both as a precursor of the 19-th century Caucasus War and a typological predecessor of the renowned Imam Shamyl. The author of this essay argues against what seems to him a far-fetched comparison between the two mountaineers' leaders belonging to different epochs and having different kinds of perception of their political, ideological, and military missions.

The article is devoted to one of the most original thinkers of the 17th century, d’yak (clerk) Ivan Timofeev (Semenov), the author of the «Chronicle», the book that had to provide an answer to the challenging question concerning the causes of the Time of troubles in the Russian state. The plan of the work came to Ivan Timofeev’s mind in Novgorod. This city lived through a long Swedish occupation and all vicissitudes of the state crisis that brought Russian on the brink of national disaster. It was precisely the time when the Metropolitan of Novgorod blessed Timofeev to write the Time of troubles chronicle which had to prevent oblivion of the Russian history tragic period when usurpers, «slave czars» and «Hellenes» of alien faith contributed to the supreme authority renown’s fall. Yet Timofeev produces not a dry chronicle of events but an excited lyrical monologue, confused, irregular in contexture, and does that by extremely difficult language and style. Timofeev failed to write a well-structured historical work. But he was the first of the Russian medieval authors who employed the traditional hagiographic general judgments and techniques of time and space organization for description of the civil history events. Also he was the first who began to consider a historian’s method.

The Crimean War (1853−1856) was a contradictory event in the eyes of its participants, contemporaries and eyewitnesses. However, in the Russian cultural memory the events of this war became the national Myths, the heroic triumph, the holy war for the faith. Sevastopol became the element of the national pride and glory, the symbol of the sanctity. The fallen soldiers and officers became the saints, the men of the God. This article shows the influence of the Christianity images on the heroic discourse of the Crimean war and Sevastopol siege. Author focuses attention on the evangelical stories and Easter subjects, and images of a soldier, a seaman, a mother, a commander.

The author considers such multi-valued notion as «intelligentsia» and the corresponding phenomenon of intelligentsia as a specific phenomenon in the social, political and cultural history of the old Russia, the USSR and present-day Russia. The author demonstrates that ambiguity and vagueness, non-terminological character of this notion reflect the real historical situation in which intelligentsia has emerged not so much as an objective entity as an entity that is defined, in the first place, through self-awareness, self-identification and through idea of a special mission. The author considers reasons that determined erosion of intelligentsia in the meaning indicated in the post-Soviet Russia.

The medieval Devil is not only the father of lies but also the father of illusions and expert in transformations assuming multiple masks (from insects and wild beasts to humans and angels) lengthy described in the Byzantine and Old Russian hagiography. The article explores the role of the illusionist transformations in the Old Russian demonological imagery and compares their functions in Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic contexts. It focuses also on the methods the medieval artists used for visualizing the illusions described in the lives of saints and explores the inevitable gap between the textual and visual narrative strategies.

In the second part of the article the authors continue to explore the functions the concept of devilish illusions played in the Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic religious imagaries. They analyze the methods the Medieval artists used to visualise the demonic transformations and explore the inevitable gap between the textual and visual narrative strategies.

The author deals with ‘Moscow as the Third Rome' theory and with its perception in the culture of the Modern time, first of all in the Peter the Great epoch. The author demonstrates inconsistence of opinion set forth by Yu. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspensky who suggested that theory of Philophei, a scribe from Pskov, influenced ideology of Peter I and, in particular, formation of Saint-Petersburg concept as the new Rome. The author adduces new arguments in favor of ‘Moscow as the Third Rome' theory interpretation in purely religious concept that belonged to philosophy of history and not to political or ideological dimensions.

Formation of historical images is a complex process of information contained in sources of various kinds smelting in a peculiar ‘historiographic' smelter. Regime of this furnace functioning depends on changing political, scientific and cultural realities of a respective epoch. The historical portrait of Admiral Nakhimov we have was created by efforts of several generations of historians, publicists and politicians. Nakhimov’s life and activities have become a part of the Russian national historic myth where real events, their adequate and inadequate appraisals as well as political constructs topical for different epochs are interwoven. The author demonstrates how very different circumstances of different kinds have contributed to Nakhimov’s ascension to the very top of the national pantheon, how socio-cultural realities of the 2nd half of the 19th century and the early 21st centuries allowed this undoubtedly meritorious man to become a symbol of the Russian naval glory.

Analysis of historical sources demonstrates that in the Decembrists' time the square where they staged their uprising was called in three different ways: it was referred to as the Senate square, St. Isaac’s square and Petrovskaya square. Name ‘the Senate square' has never been the official name. However the historical facts are irrelevant for those who live with and by a myth of historical memory. The struggle for historical memory is a way of the struggle for power. The recent renaming of Decembrists' square in Saint-Petersburg is a vivid episode of this struggle. «Restoration» of historical name is a terminological special operation aimed at discrediting of the Decembrists' metaphor of uprising which the intransigent opposition tries on itself. The Confucian «correction of names» has brought about only emphasizing of the rebellious symbolism ingrained in the memorial place around the Copper Horseman. For a long time the Senate square is not just an urban place-name. It is one of the most important cross-points of national historical time and space. The time is stopped there. The Senate square mentioning within any context revitalizes the glorious day of 14 December 1825, in the Russian people’s memory.

The author examines two great epics of the Ancient world: the Epic of Gilgamesh and Iliad. Though both compositions were created on the mythological basis they differ from each other substantially by their pathos. Iliad is a hymn to war. Its battle scenes are replete with pictures of atrocities, mutilated corpses, streams of blood. The epic praises deeds of valor performed by kings whose meaning of the life was reduced to looting and protection of spoils of war. On the contrary the Epic of the Person, Who has seen everything, places friendship and cooperation on the high pedestal because friendship and cooperation are the guarantee of the humankind’s triumph over hostile elements. Sumerians' outlook and religious beliefs were in many ways alien to individualism. Hence a great difference between Sumerians' mentality and that of the Western civilization people. The Sumerians' world was wide and embraced natural being. It places nature and its vastness above the kindred, self-centered interest. That world balances the material and spiritual and raises the sensual above the rational which is usually brought in by act of an empowered individual’s will or by his striving but such persons are self-interested.

The article deals with official performance of Prince Trubetskoy, a prominent figure in the secret societies of the 1820s. Analyzed is his trip to England in 1819, his service as aid-de-camp in the General Staff of the Russian army, as well as execution of military-police duties in his capacity of on-duty staff officer of the 4th Infantry Corps quartered in Kiev (1825). The conclusion is reached that his official activities were often associated with performance of special missions for the government. The experience gained in the service, Trubetskoy used to organize an anti-government plot, as well as to neutralize the enemies of this conspiracy.

The political rhetoric in Russia relies on two ‘principal' myths, myth of power and myth of opposition. In the myth of power the first person of the state is presented as an embodiment of Saint George crushing the serpent of the external enemies and their internal agents. In the opposition myth fighters against the establishment are presented as knights-Decembrists who took the unequal fight against the dragon of autocracy. When the myth of power is attached to the Decembrist rebels it transmutes into the counter-myth. The criticism is carried on from two standpoints that are hardly compatible. The first standpoint is the standpoint of pragmatists in power. Technologists of power understand that transfer of the Decembrists to the ranks of «bad» heroes of the black-and white historical memory is tantamount to elimination of extremely important symbolic foothold of all dissidents. So they, with no excessive enthusiasm, are engaged in re-writing of history within limits set out in the office circular. Political writers clustering around the various Orthodox organizations of national-patriotic orientation act in a quite different way. The Orthodox monarchists are disinterested romanticists of the isolationist authoritarian regime. They believe that the Russian people will begin in accordance with notions of Orthodoxy, autocracy and national spirit if the Decembrists are erased from the historical memory.

In polemics with J. Sherrer I.V.Kondakov notes that Sherrer has offered a prejudiced interpretation of the present day Russia’s cultural development. The picture of scientific and social life in Russia painted by Sherrer is far away of the reality. The Russian culturology is not a single flow phenomenon and the Russian academic community is split in their outlook and in conceptual terms.

The author follows the critical line of Jutta Sherrer’s argument on the current textbooks on culturology. According to the author, the principal deficiency of these textbooks is the absolute break with the historic realities that are substituted with various contrived abstract concepts. Eventually that brings about disturbance of natural relationships among the real, the imaginable and the symbolic in the young generation’s eyes. The author demonstrates on the specific examples how poor is knowledge of the present day specialists in cultural studies (many of them were specialists in ‘historical materialism' and ‘scientific communism') of the historic realities, to what extent are unfounded their claims to generalizations of all kinds. The author thinks that, by and large, the current textbooks on cultural studies can play a role no less harmful tan the bygone courses of scientific communism.

The author considers Jutta Scherrer’s article and responses to it produced by V. Bouldakov and I.Kondakov. Jutta Scherrer’s opinion that the present day culturology is a ‘servant-girl' and an ideological tool of the current Russian authorities is challenged. The idea that the present day culturology is creating a myth of the ‘Silver Age' (and, in the first place' of N.A.Ber-dyaev' philosophy) and these efforts are manifestations of the fundamentalist national self-identification is perceived rather critically. The author emphasizes the complex and totally non-fudamentalist origins of the Russian culturology (it developed under strong influence of the Tartu-Moscow school etc.) which contains trends that are very distant from totalitarianism and fundamentalism.

The article is devoted to M.A.Suslov, one of the leading politicians of the USSR. The author undertakes the first attempt to offer an answer to the question why this man war so attractive for the first leaders of the party and the state and why I.V.Stalin, N.S.Kruschev and L.I.Brezhnev who regarded such Suslov’s purely human traits as excessive formality of communication and the absolute lack of predisposition to backslapping and to foul language perhaps critically and even disdainfully nevertheless appreciated Suslov’s extensive and retentive memory, ability to grasp complicated international and ideological issues, diligence and efficiency, lack of exorbitant ambitions that brought to ruin carriers of many other colleagues in the top Soviet leadership. The article also deals with the issue to what extent the fame that Suslov was the embodiment of the mean aspects of the regime which fostered Suslov who tried his best in serving to the regime with no fear or reproach (this fame was ascribed to Suslov by the efforts of the liberal intellectuals) corresponds to the reality.

The author deals with problems of the present-day cultural studies. This discipline contributes to creation of the new, post-Communist man and «man of culture». The civilizational approach to history develops in close connection with cultural studies. The author focuses on problems of the Silver age discovered by representatives of the civilizational school of the Russian humane studies. For the authors of textbooks on cultural studies the Silver age is connected primarily with the Russian religious thought. Culture as religion is the old idea of Symbolists re-discovered by the present-day specialists on cultural studies. This trend of humanitarian and philosophical reflection and theory considers the end of the 19th and the early 20th centuries as an age of spiritual upsurge though attained at the expense of failure to investigate specific historical facts, in isolation from the actual economic, political and ideological context. The Silver age is becoming a Utopia in the present-day Russia and this Utopia is offered as an effective model which pretends to be a role model. The article is a discussion reflection on approbation of the past which is being performed for ideological purposes.

The confessional dimension of the ‘my own / alien' opposition is one of the principal factors of self-identification. This peculiarity is most vividly manifested in multiethnic and multiconfessional areas where the tradition of Christian Slav population’s neighborhood with representatives of other religions persisted for centuries. Regions where the field studies were carried out (from Bukovina to Grodno region) are exemplary in this respect because Orthodox Christians, Catholics, adherents of Eastern rite Roman Catholicism, and Jews resided in close neighborhood in such regions for a long time (up to World War II). Experience of direct neighborhood could not but leave traces in the popular perceptions of ethnic neighbors' faith and religious rites. Image of a minister in the popular world picture acquires folklore and mythological features.

The author examines the peculiar nature of veneration in the popular tradition on the basis of sources published earlier (in the 19th and 20th centuries) as well as the most recent unpublished folklore records made by the author and his colleagues and kept in the folklore archives of various scientific establishments. On the basis of the popular myths, beliefs, calendar signs, recitations of the book saints' lives and similar texts the author demonstrates components of a saint’s image formation in the popular culture and what attributes, characteristics and deeds of a saint are relevant for the folklore culture and what are irrelevant. Among such features the author points out the appearance and social status of a saint, his deeds and speech behavior, saint’s name and its interpretation etc.

Conflict situations that occurred in Moscow University in the late 19th century and were caused by insistent urge of medical department students to assert their rights to the full-fledged higher education and to get instruction from worthy and respected teachers. These situations are investigated on the grounds of archive materials, first of all, on the basis of Moscow law protection department’s files. The article describes how the most famous Moscow therapeutist, distinguished ordinary Professor G.A.Zakhar'in had to resign in result of students' boycott.

Un 1960s Western Europe and USA were convulsed with youth riots. A fanciful mix of rock-n-roll, pacifism, anarchism, Maoism and exotic mystics slopped over streets. So called Paris spring became the peak of the movement. Flat 40 years passed since that time. Jubilee publications are written in romantic and nostalgic tones. Que faire? Picturesque and naïve «flower children» could not survive in stone ju7nggles. Their idealism proved to be incompatible with harsh expedient laws of economics and politics. Some iconoclasts died, others «sold themselves to the bourgeoisie» and sit in European parliament. From the author’s point of view, many pillars of the contemporary global world order are realized slogans of the Paris spring. One would think what can the Russian Federation Ministry of education officials have in common with Paris students who marched out under slogans «Professors are out of date!» and «Two times two doesn’t equal four any more!» Meanwhile the orientation to «emancipation» of young people from «superfluous knowledge» lies at the basis of the contemporary so called ‘reform of education'. We confront a paradox: progressive (even too progressive) movement has turned into obscurantist reaction, while long-haired fighters for «total emancipation' didn’t not lose at all and didn’t sell themselves. The social order which asserts itself nowadays in place of capitalism owes a lot to rioters of 1968. If one takes a look form this point of view one will see that finally they conquered hated bourgeois. However by God it would be better if they hadn’t done that…

Attempts undertaken by researchers of Ukraine and Russia to eliminate the gap that emerged between historiography schools of Russia and Ukraine after disintegration of the Soviet statehood not just failed. On the contrary, the gap is getting to increase. The principal reason for that is hidden in the Ukrainian historiography basic ‘paradigm' aimed at ever increasing ideological and mythological components of the Ukrainian history as well as at forgery of the most contradictory facts. Emergence, political nature, and activities of the Central Rada as a political institution from the contemporary Ukrainian statehood takes its ideal origin is one of the most mythologized moments of the 20th century Ukraine history moments. Myths about the Central Rada invented by Ukrainian historians have not a historical but obviously political character and are targeted to forgery of the common historical past, unsubstantiated accusations of the Russian government, and victimization of the Ukrainian party. Such myth invention is easily disclosed by virtue of genuine scientific and objective approach to study of history. Unfortunately, however, until creation of myths, not scientific examination of historical facts will dominate in the Ukrainian historiography the dialogue between historians of Russia and Ukraine will be exceptionally hampered.

In the second part of his article the author analyses social, cultural and ideological prerequisites of the Russian philosophy of mythology emergence. This discipline emerged and developed in the second half of the 18th century and in the early 19th century in the works of the first Russian historians and myth creators. It was aimed at search and elaboration of basic methodological and worldview orientations for concrete scientific cognition of the Slavic mythology. Period of empirical and theoretical prerequisites accumulation of the philosophy of mythology in Russia grew up into process of its immediate emergence and went on until appearance of the «mythological school» in the Russian folklore studies (the 1840s and 1850s). This school developed well beyond limits of specific theoretical generalizations related exclusively to the Slavic mythology and achieved the level of conceptual abstracts of the general theory of myth. Results and achievements of the Russian philosophy of mythology have not lost their significance down to recent times.

The author studies medieval Russian concepts that concern the world of angels and demons — nature, origin, abilities of the immaterial spirits and their influence upon the world of men. The relevant notions of medieval authors are researched in their evolution from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Time. The author reconstructs significant ideas of ancient Russian literature in the context of works of early-Christian authors that were popular in Russia and traces the evolution of those ideas in the «transitional» XVII century. Can a demon kill, create or alter material things? What are the limits of demonic power in the earthy world? Can an angel err, sin or not obey the will of God? What are the limits of his freedom? Medieval scribes and authors of the XVII century found different answers to the questions that were of principal importance for the culture. Modifications that penetrated in traditional concepts in the XVII century appear to be very interesting and often unforeseen. The study of these themes helps deeper understanding of the originality of the epoch that lies between the Middle Ages and the Modern Time.

In the final part of his article the author seeks for studying the evolution of canonical Christian ideas, common for medieval Russian literature, in some famous sources of the 17th century. Two autobiographical Lives of the first ideologists of the Old Belief schism, archpriest Avvakum and coenobite Epiphany, written in Pustozersk earthen prison, prove to present two different models of relations between man and God. While Avvakum followed the traditional hagiographical patterns in descriptions of miracles that had happened to him, Epiphany created a story, filled with bright ideas that appear to be both typical and new for the Old Russian literature. The phenomenon originally reflects the process of evolution that kept altering medieval Russian culture throughout the «transitional» century.

Using oral versions of the Armenian folk epic ‘David of Sassoun' the author explores the first part of the epic which contains the narrative on birth from the rock of two ancestors of the Sassoun tribe heroes. Details given in these oral versions allow diving deep into mythological sources of this episode. These sources can be traced back to the most ancient periods of the Armenian nation formation and, at same time, have much in common with mythology of neighboring peoples and even of ancient Slavs. The author demonstrates that legends that emerged around the Armenian St. Grigor Narekats’i, are not just permeated with these mythological images but, in their turn, brought to bear mutual influence on the further development of the epic itself.

The article is written within the framework of «Slavic mythology: results and prospects of inter-disciplinary studies» research project. The project’s aim is to detect archaic elements of the popular culture that survived in languages, historical and archeological sources, in folklore, rites and beliefs of Slavs and in a varying degree reflect complex of mythological notions specific to pre-Slavic epoch and to construe them from the viewpoint of the most recent discoveries achieved in Slavic studies. The «mythological» themes that reflect peculiarities of perception of history by bearers of traditional culture are of particular significance within the limits of this study. It is exactly because of this fact material contained in popular legends that to varying extent reflect the historical past of Rus and Russia has become so attractive for the authors. In the article authors consider plots connected with notions of Slavic deities, christening of Rus and selection of religion, foundation of Kiev and reflection of confessional polemics. Material from literary and oral sources demonstrates that this circle of themes is subject to «mythological» treatment in the sphere of Medieval book-learning as well as in folklore.

The author undertakes an attempt to examine models of the tyrannical power that emerged in the Russian literary culture of the 11th to 17th century. The author identifies and analyzes the predominant ways of description of the conflict between the victim and the ruler-tormentor. Original ideological constant of the martyrdom for the sake of the faith was augmented by a new prototype plot based on typological story of Cain and Abel. The first Russian saints were beatified by the Church precisely as the innocent martyrs. Other victims followed their suit and also humbled themselves before their murderers and persecutors. However, as early as in pre-Mongolian period a new conventional model of a proud and unjust coreligionist was being developed. Since authority of a ruler must not extend to his subjects' souls the resistance had to be furnished to such prince. Gradually this notion acquired an eschatological tinge and the early Christian mythologeme of a martyr opposing the ungodly authority asserted itself with a new vigor. Eschatological expectations and prophetic protest became obvious and audible in the epoch of Schism. The semantic dominant tenet of the Russian medieval doctrine of power was the power’s establishment by the God and that tenet influenced the discursive practices.

Visions of the other world played a very important role in the Medieval Europe’s culture. They let a person to penetrate the next life’s mysteries, were visual illustrations of the ecclesiastical eschatology, established links between the world of the living and that of the dead and performed many other functions as well. Historians for a long time and fruitfully have used texts of visions as the sources for investigation of the Medieval culture, religious life and psychology of a Medieval person. However it is for from easy to work with these texts. They speak a very complicated language of the visual images that have deep roots in the Christian symbolics and are not clear and plain to a present day researcher. Too often we do not know how these texts were read in the Medieval time and who constituted the audience for such texts. How attitude to them changed over the time? How these texts had to be understood, in the literal or allegorical sense? What was the perception of the other world visions in the popular and scholarly cultures? The author attempts to give answers to these questions.

The philosophy of mythology subject encompasses the foundations of myth-making and regularities of myths’ historical evolution. Designing of the non-construed specific sensual imagery by the conscience constitutes the basis of myth-making. This ability of the conscience does not disappear with the decay of the primordial society. Rather, it tens to be transferred from lower, earlier types of spirituality to higher, more culturally sophisticated ones. The historical fates of the philosophy of mythology are saturated with high-stakes drama and characterized by alternation of the heady blossom periods with periods of decline and oblivion. The Russian philosophy of mythology took its shape at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and was aimed at development of general philosophical understanding and methodological prerequisites of the peculiar scientific understanding of the Slavic mythology. The period of accumulation of empirical and theoretical prerequisites for the philosophy of mythology in Russia evolved into the process of the discipline’s immediate making which started with «The brief review of the Russian Slavs’ mythology» work written by P.M.Stroev in 1815 and went on up to the emergence of the «mythological school» in the Russian folklore studies in 1840s and 1850s.

The authors deal with one of the «folklore and history» problem’s aspects, specifically with reflection of knowledge about historical figures in the popular stories and legends. There is no doubt that popular legendary stories do not contain a «biographical» portrait of any historical personality. Moreover, due to the impact of the folklore narrative laws historical figures acquire fantastic qualities and by virtues of these fit the whole folklore mythological image of the world quite smoothly. How historical images are transformed in popular texts, what are the laws that govern incorporation of historical facts into the folklore imaginative system, to what archetype images historical characters are related — these are just a few issues the authors of the article address to. Some folklore «portraits» of historical personalities that placed themselves in the memory of the people and in the «oral history» (princes of the Ancient Rus, Peter I, Katherine the Great and Napoleon) are presented in the article. The article is based on the materials derived, first and foremost, from archive and field sources.

А.I.Solzhenitsyn has marred his long and glorious pilgrimage in the literature and public life by massive (about one thousand pages) two volume pseudo-historical treatise «Two hundred years together». The book deals with the common living of Russians and Jews in single Russian state. People of wit immediately invented another title to the book: «Two hundred years apart». This ironic title in the best possible way passes the spirit and content of the Nobel prize winner’s swan song. Solzhenitsyn has exceptionally vividly expressed the old, inherited from the Black Hundred idea that Jews are not just a foreign body in Russia but that they, by every their action, have promoted collapse of the Russian statehood, spirituality and culture. Even participation of Jews in the Great Patriotic War Solzhenitsyn contrived to present in such way that, according to him, Jews preferred to hole up in the rear and if by a chance got to the frontline then, most often, found positions in some safe and comfortable places and services and did their best to avoid real fighting. Even if both volumes of «Two hundred years together» are full of lies and falsified from first to last «During the war with Germany» chapter stinks of anti-Semitism for, as it proved to be, Solzhenitsyn is impregnated to the marrow of his bones.

No single book has brought so much of sorrow and blood to Jews as «The Protocols of the learned elders of Zion» has. During the Civil war in Russia the book used to be the principal ideological substantiation for Jewish pogroms and persecution of Jews. The book played the same role in Nazi Germany. In the first half of the 20th century «The Protocols» broke all records in respect of print runs. However when checked the book of the century, to the utmost snafu, proved to be the forgery of the century. It was concocted by agents of the Tsarist Secret Service (Okhranka) and it was published for the first time in December, 1905, in Tsarskoye Selo where Emperor Nicolas II held his residence. And only in early 1920s, when the world was already flooded with «The Protocols», it was discovered that the book was a mere turned pamphlet «Dialogues in hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu» written by a French pamphleteer Maurice Joly in 1864 and pointed against Napoleon III.

The author investigates the dramatic period of Russian history, the deep cultural crisis that took place at the beginning of the 17-th century and was called by its contemporaries «the Time of Troubles». The historian tries to explore self-consciousness of contemporaries of the time, to reconstruct ideas and notions settled in their minds. Running a historical-phenomenology investigation, he tries to reconstruct the myths of the culture, myths as the way of understanding life and happenings. What ideas will come to light as a result? How did the contemporaries comprehend and evaluate miseries and dramatic events of the time? Trying to reveal the roots of such cultural phenomenon as Time of Troubles, the author offers to investigate the «mythreality» of people of the 17-th century. Could the knowledge, attained here, alter our idea of the past? An effort to answer these questions the author makes in the article, dedicated to the first tsar of the dramatic period, the famous boyar on the throne — Boris Godunov.

Despite the existing tradition to make use of any ancient text which explains results of archeological research a «new archeology» which negates use of Biblical texts for interpretation of archeological data has appeared within chairs of Israeli universities. Real archeological findings have convinced even those scientists who had been sceptical about the Israeli historical tradition in authenticity of the Biblical text. The «new archeologists» cast doubt on the Biblical narrative about forefathers of the Biblical nation, about exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Eretz Israel. Typically scepticism of this kind is demonstrated by the researchers who, for the sake of their political aims, argue that the Scripture has been used by Zionists for justification of expulsion of Arabs from their land.

If D. Hazoni's articles deals with methodological principles of the «new archeology» D. Kontorer exposes the political underlying reasons of the «new archeology». The present day Israelis have demonstrated vulnerability to the powerful psychological pressure which has always exercised on the Jews and begot many renegades who assimilated the image of Jewry the anti-Semites instilled. The author concludes that when there is a social demand for ideas of certain kind these ideas find a place in any science. The Israeli scientists cultivate the intellectual soil for the forthcoming genocide of Jews.

The article deals with the time reference point from which onwards ideological, cultural and civilizational confrontation of Russia and the West began. This confrontation found its expression in the propaganda myth about «Moskovia as the threat for the Christendom» which was invented in Renaissance Europe. The author connects emergence of the myth with the Livonian was (1558−1583) which was the first in the succession of wars Russia fought against a coalition of European states. «The Russian theme» for the first time became a subject of vigorous attempts of the Western intellectuals and politicians of Renaissance Europe to understand the phenomenon of Russia. In the process Russia was attributed with historical phobias generated due to internal European problems as well as by experience of Western communication with the East during the Crusades. In result the image of Russia established in the European propaganda literature poorly corresponded to the reality but it embraced many political and cultural phobias of Europeans. The image of Russia was invented in accordance with principle of «anti-world» modeling. Creators of this image tried to embody all «non-European» traits, that is everything barbarian, non-Christian, infernal. Many of phobias generated in Renaissance epoch are still effective assumptions of the policies of the West toward Russia. It should be emphasized that Europe needs such «anti-mirror»: it places its own sins in this «anti-mirror» without long thoughts whether the resulting picture corresponds to the reality or not. One of historical roles Russia performs in «West-East» system of civilizations is brought to the role of the «anti-world» without which Europe will not feel itself the supreme top of the global community.

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.

American views of post-Soviet Russia have swung from one extreme to another over the last decade: from enthusiasm about an overnight transformation to pessimism about an unchangeable country; from libera democratic universalism to stigmatization of a unique, non-Western culture; from optimism about international cooperation to demonization of Russian opposition to U.S. policies and then back to near-euphoria about an alliance against terrorism. To move beyond such pendular swings and stabilize American-Russian relations, Americans need to abandon teleological assumptions about Russia’s future and Russia should avoid steps that reinforce negative American stereotypes.

The author deals with problems of the state ideology development in the 17th century, the last century of the Muscovite Tsardom’s existence. A succession of violent events started with the Troubled times, presented a series of complicated issues to the state and the people. Decisions of these issues had to determine the further course of Russia’s historical development. Like many other powers the Russian kingdom had to reconsider and reappraise the system of relationships between the Tsar and the people and to make a definite decision on the desirable character of the authority, whether it should have been an elective or hereditary one, limited or absolute. Relationships of the State and the Church acquired a peculiar acuteness. Later on these problems transformed into «Moscow is the Third Rome» and «Moscow is the New Jerusalem» theories. The problem of attitude toward possibility of reformation and innovations was one of the crucial issues the Russian society confronted with. Uneasy, fraught and connected with the social upheavals and conflicts solution of all these issues made the 17th century «the century of choice» in the Russian history.

Notions of one’s «own» nation and «alien» nations reflected in the popular ethiological legends clearly demonstrate the most universal motives inherent in the folklore image of «alien» ethnic entities. Notions of the «alien» groups include beliefs in the «primacy» of one’s own ethnic group, the original «goodness» or «correctness» of this group, as well as beliefs in «inhuman» nature of the aliens, the «beast» nature or the aliens' connections to the other world. As such notions take place the idea of ethnocentrism is the fundamental one and reigns supreme. Within this idea the positive attitude towards people belonging to one’s own ethnic group and negative treatment of the «aliens» are often presented in mythological thought’s terms. The distinct peculiarity of the folklore narratives in the ethnic identification theme is not just their amazing stability (the article is based on materials from various times, from the 19th century to the present day) but the organic ties of these narratives with the «world history» in its folklore interpretation which unites the genesis, events related in the Old and New Testaments and historical facts kept in collective memory in mythological form.

The author attempts to reconstruct the basic elements if the death mythology which existed in the Muskovite state of the 15th-17th centuries and provides answers to a series of questions that normally are left out of this historians' view. What was the death in the medieval Russian culture? How did people explained the reasons of death and terms of its arrival? How did an ancient Russian imagine his/her transition to the other world and posthumous existence of the soul? How did he/she prepare for leaving the vale of tears? In the medieval time the world of the dead and the world of the alive were not tightly separated from each other. The dead' souls could appear to the alive to pray the alive for protection while the alive did not lose the hope to help their dead and believed in their ability to affect their lot beyond the grave. The Church taught the whole life of a human being, from the cradle to the gray hairs had to be subordinated to the thought about forthcoming death and devoted to the spiritual preparation for the end. However to deserve the salvation it was not enough to pass the life through righteously. On the very verge of death a person who could never known whether he had confessed in all sins and washed them away with repentance or not had to perform a series of «the transition rites»: to make a her confession, to take the last communion, to ask for pardon from his relatives and to bless them or monk fraternity which gathered at his/her death-bed. It was precisely why a sudden death (or an accidental death far from the people) was considered to be the true sign of the God’s wrath against the deceased and of the eternal torment that waited for the deceased beyond the grave. The author analyzes notions of death and the other world within the framework of an ancient Russian’s ideas of the Universe, the human nature and the Providence as the driving force of history.

In Part 2 of his article the author develops his investigation of the medieval Russian eschatology further and makes an attempt to provide answers to several interrelated questions. How did a medieval Russian imagine the arrangement and geography of the world beyond the grave? How did these ideas transform in the 12th-17th centuries? Since the earliest centuries of Christianity the Church writers put a tough question and tried to find answer to it. The question was where souls of the deceased abode from the moment of their separation from the bodies and until the Day of Judgment which would have to follow at the end of times. To answer the question a doctrine of the «private» judgment beyond the grave was elaborated. According to the doctrine, souls of the deceased were divided at this judgment and left in waiting for the final retribution between the Heaven and the hell. In result of this doctrine not one but two judgments appeared in minds of believers and too often it was difficult to separate functions and meaning of these two judgments. Over the greater part of the Russian Middle Ages the fear of death and of the afterlife judgment was suppressed in consciousness of believers by the intense anticipation of the end of times, of advent of Antichrist and the Doomsday. In the second half of the 17th century a gradual change of eschatological paradigm occurred. The image of death was getting to be increasingly appalling. By the beginning of the 18th century the Russian Church gradually accepted the belief that the Day of Judgment which was promised in the Gospel and the Apocalypse would happen not soon and a human was able neither to calculate nor know the time of its advent. In order to acquire the salvation a pious Christian had to be always prepared for his/her death, to think of it and to feel the constant fear of it. The death became a substitute for the Day of Judgment. As the Middle Ages passed to the New time an individualization of the religious experience occurred and this process may testify the profound transformations in the depths of the whole Russian culture and public consciousness.

The author deals with a set of problems related to formation of empires as super-ethnic entities. The author accepts cultural and linguistic diversity and co-existence of religions as indispensable properties of empires. However the crucial property of an empire is the single ideology and strictly regulated state cult. In all epochs an empire as a fact of the world history presupposes the domination of a single idea, one universal mythology. The author points out that with no answer to the question what was the specific essence of the Mongolian empire and the ulus system which emerged all over the Central Asian space it is impossible to understand the subsequent development of separate states that existed with the Mongolian sphere. To answer the question one has to reconstruct the very mythology of the Mongolian empire. Religious toleration and ability to integrate more and more tribes and nations within the sphere of the Mongolian empie’s influence were determined by enormous impact Tengrianism had as the state religion and a complex cult. Mongols of the Middle Ages perceived the earthly and celestial worlds as the indivisible unity which could not be decomposed.

The Order of Malta is a state enjoining the status of exterritoriality. Nowadays it is located in Italy. It is over nine centuries old and its history is intertwined with the past and present of Europe and Russia. The Order was founded in Jerusalem and repeatedly changed its locations. In the process it was called either the Order of the knights of Cyprus or Rhodes and, since 1530, it bears the name of the Order of Malta. In fact, it always remained to be the Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. In the 16th and 17th centuries it became a mighty military state which put an end to the Turkish dominance over the Mediterranean. The greatest activity in relations of the Order of Malta and Russia was due to the period of Paul I, the Emperor of Russia, reign. In 1797 Paul I concluded the Convention with the Order and at the request of its leaders became its Protector. When Ferdinand Gompesh, the Grand Master of the Order, after a short resistance surrendered Malta to Napoleon no Catholic ruler of Western Europe did offer a help to the Order. However, it was the Orthodox Russian emperor who gave the help. In the subsequent 200 years history of the Order there were periods when its activity was suspended, periods of collaboration with governments of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Several times the Order experienced interference of Vatican, its powerful patron. More than once the problem of sovereignty emerged in the most acute forms. During the past 100 years the Order is engaged in charity and humanitarian activities and tries its best to return to Malta.

G. Aleksinski’s life seen against the background of events Aleksinski was involved in allows a better understanding of peculiarities of Bolshevism as a phenomenon not just political but also social and cultural, genetically connected to the popular conscience’s peculiar mental features and to perception of the world by the intelligentsia in Russia. Aleksinski, the flamboyant denouncer of the Bolshevists who had been a supporter of Lenin earlier, was an odious figure among the post-October emigrants and retained a reputation of a Bolshevist of a kind. Those who described Aleksinski in this way meant not his views (these were not distinguished by their stability) but a specific style of behavior, psychological sketch of his personality. Aleksinski, the perpetual denouncer remained a lone politician even in his star hour, when the sensational declaration on the Bolshevist leaders' ties with Germany was published. In the revolutionary conditions the patriotic moods the initiators of the action and Aleksinski aimed at did not display any stability and did not prevent Bolshevists from coming to power. However one of the advantages the Bolshevists had in comparison to their competitors was precisely the open rupture with the tradition of moral restraints in politics. What was at that time estimated as the moral deficiency at the individual level was converted in the instrument of the revolutionary mobilization of the people and of power retaining

Between 1885 and 1905 the traditional American view of Russia as a friendly Christian empire gave way to a missionary crusade to reform the backward autocracy and emancipate the oppressed Russian people. This historic shift in American attitudes did not arise solely from increasing realism about tsarist repression or anger at Russian expansion in the Far East, as previous studies asserted. To fully understand the fundamental reorientation, historians must also examine how Americans came to channel their evangelical fervor toward Russia and how they reconsidered the racial status of the Russian people. In that light, the crusade for a «free Russia» can be understood as part of the global extension of an American civilizing mission, which had the gratifying effect of reinforcing confidence in the special virtues of the United States. Thus, we can see in the 1885−1905 period the early origins of both a century-long drive to remake Russia and a long-term tendency to treat Russia as a «dark double» or «imaginary twin» of the U.S.

In works of Russian writers of the 19th century the governor was the most typical representative of the top Russian bureaucracy world. Literary sources reflected differences in various estates and social groups' attitudes to the governor and the exaggerated hopes that the public opinion too often conferred upon the chief of gubernia. At the same time, as one may see in literary works the governor’s own broad notions of his mission were combined with the aspiration to be not so much the «master» and the chief of gubernia but rather the intermediary and arbitrator as well as the center of the local good society.

The author presents the political portrait of Otto von Bismark, one of the most influential and famous European statesmen of the 19th century. She makes an attempt to look at Bismark through the prism of his youth when the basic professional qualities as a politician and diplomat and his character were taking their peculiar shape. The author refutes, step by step, some stable stereotypes including myths produced by the Soviet historical science, unravels intricacy and contradictory nature of Bismark's personality and policies. As the author points out, as the unification of Germany was completed Bismark set forth, as the target of his foreign policy, preservation of the peace in Europe, not initiation of the war. However Bismark succeeded in prevention of the all-European war at the expense of growth of militarism and enhancement of animosity among the European states. That finally brought about the World War I. Bismark led the empire successfully but when he departed from the scene he left the nation deprived of the political education and the political will. Having achieved the unification of Germany Bismark made a genuine historical breakthrough but later he had to leave the political scene because of his futile attempts to construct obstacles on the way of the powerful tide of novelties.

The author considers the Russians' attitudes to the notorious myth about the world conspiracy made by Jews and masons. The myth emerged at the end of the 19th century within the stream of the Russian conservatism evolution and proved to be the result of the deliberate myth-making. Prior to the revolution of February, 1917, the rightist monarchist organizations tried to use the myth as an instrument which helped them to enhance their influence on the ruling groups. Later the myth acquired the anti-Communist trend and became an explanation of the old regime collapse. In the USSR the myth’s revival occurred in the years when Stalinism reached its climax. However, nowadays the myth is disseminated by and finds its adherents among those who returned to the initial, pseudo patriotic version of the myth. Tracing back peculiarities of each phase of the myth existence and considering the environment in which the myth was perceived the author relates and collates mythologems to the real history of the Russian masonry, the significance and role of which in the events of the early 20th century are obviously exaggerated.

The author investigates the version about the «preventive» nature of German attack on the USSR in 1941. Recently the version has gained a considerable popularity in historical literature and in mass media. On the basis of numerous facts and documents the author demonstrates that the Kremlin had no intention to attack Germany and in the case of war the combat capabilities of the Red Army did not allow to achieve a success in a massive strategic offensive against the Wehrmacht which was the world’s strongest army at the time. The author argues that the Soviet failures at the beginning of the war were due to the inadequate appraisal of the international situation by the Soviet political leaders, miscalculations of the Red Army high commanders, their misjudgments about the nature of the forthcoming war and the foe’s strength. Underdevelopment of the USSR which just recently had taken the path of industrialization and still lagged behind the developed capitalist states also had its negative impact on the preparation of the USSR.

On the basis of the German documents the author examines the special operation of the Hitlerite secret services aimed at misinformation of the USSR political leadership and military high command in regard of Germany’s military and political intentions on 1941 and possible terms of the German attack against the USSR. The author investigates various options of misinformation and methods of misleading and offers an answer to the question why did the Soviet leaders were so slow with giving the order to the along the border military districts' troops to get ready for combat.

The author deals with a questionable direction in the contemporary historical science, i.e., theory of the lost alternatives and virtual role-games. The author investigates epistemologic problems (problems of the humanitarian disciplines' method) as well as the specific content of the alternative studies. The attention is focused on the problem of the modern historical science’s ethos (its moral standards). What is the social responsibility of a historian, how far are we to go in our search of the truth, what is the ethics of an interpretator who reconstructs a non-existent historical reality — the author offers his answers to these and other questions.

The article deals with the creation and activities of the «Holy retinue» which was the secret organization of the court Russian aristocracy. According to the conventional story, its aim was to defend the Emperor’s family and to fight «revolutionary false doctrines». However, the analysis of this body’s activities and prospects set forth by the body’s members demonstrates that in fact the body was set up to carry out the political control over the secret services. The author points out the similarity of the «Holy retinue» and the ideological counterintelligence inside the KGB of the USSR. The author thinks that the issues he raised in respect of the «Holy retinue» history, relationships between the KGB and the Soviet Communist Party’s elite cannot but be a subject of interest for the contemporary Russian politicians.

The article deals with analysis of the state government ways that were peculiar for V. I. Lenin. The author also considers Lenin’s ideas of the state apparatus’ efficiency. The analysis is based on the correspondence Lenin carried on as the leader of the Soviet government. The analysis demonstrates that Lenin completely disregarded all formal characteristics of the state such as its organization model, functional specialty or level of competence. Lenin understood the state apparatus as a combination of persons distinguished not by their posts or positions within the structure but by their individual abilities. For Lenin, the statesmanship consisted in free manipulation with individuals which was combined with imposing the absolute responsibility for everything on the appointed commissioners extraordinary. At the end of the article the author compares Lenin’s methods of government with the methods peculiar to the present day Russian government.

The problem of historical sources’ interpretation is coming out in the spotlight of the contemporary humanitarian sciences. This is caused by the onward development of theoretical sources’ study which nowadays defines the search for the most correct and unbiased ways of texts interpretation as its principal task. As this is done, the object of historical study is no more the likely past «reality» but an opinion of an author who created the source. So peculiar subject-subjective relationship between a scholar and the «other person’s» conscience fragments of which are embodied in monuments of the past are established. In this case the very historical text comes out in capacity of the singular likely reality which is the most important integral part of the cognitive process. However this position cannot be accepted as a whole with no accompanying reservations. The article is devoted to the theoretical disputes in the contemporary humanitarian sciences.