Considering conflict of the state authority and NTV the author exposes the general trend of political process in Russia. Contrary to what some people suspect, the content of the game around of NTV is not the nationalization but the transition of this comprador yet national TV company to the international domain. In fact, the TV heritage is being divided among international entities that are going to control the population. Self-conscious and active part of the national community cannot perform within the environment created in the country. All fragments connected to the elite reproduction structure act as parasites that get their nourishment from the remnants of the Soviet heritage. The coercive shutdown of NTV nudges these parts of society to establish direct connections with the West since if the country is a part of the megasystem then it is apparently much better to serve the megasystem directly, with no intermediary. NTV connected to the West and quasi civic society are getting to be very dangerous. Of all liberal theories the one chosen in Russia is the theory which implies and encourages atomization, i.e., the utter fragmentation of the society into a sum of separate individuals. However the society can exist only if it elite is not atomized but consolidated. If the elite as well as the society is permeated with the gangsters' spirit, if secret services people who are deprived of the idea of service but still possess the super professional skills become arrant bandits then the state is transforming itself into an analog of medieval pirates' states. And if at the same time the image of the state which somehow rules the gangsters' nation is being created then other states are prompted to raise calls for genocide of gangsters' nation. Thus, the principal task for today is to demonstrate a different way and type of life.

The crisis of 1990s attracted the attention of many Russian economists to the problems of economic security. Now we have a vast body of literature on this topic. However, there remain important problems of a conceptual nature: alternative definitions of the economic security are often contradictory, analytical instruments are quite vague, whereas the range of phenomena considered as belonging to the sphere of economic security tends to expand ad infinitum (from the questions of the planetary scope to the personnel management practices at the enterprise level). In the recent article, we survey competing approaches to the economic security based on its understanding in terms of national or public interest, economic stability, and economic independence. It is argued that the definition in terms of stability of national and international economic systems allows one to evade various conceptual difficulties peculiar to the alternative definitions, at the same time providing an opportunity to analyze important practical issues. We interpret threats to the national economic security as endogenous and exogenous shocks of economic and political origin leading to the destabilization of the national economy, and use this approach to describe major problems facing the economy of post-communist Russia.

After the manifesto on the gentry’s liberties was issued in 1762 the Russian society was vigorously developing notions of «freedom» and «liberty». The official state ideology offered a quite limited understanding of these notions as the «negative freedom», i.e., «freedom from…», emancipation from responsibilities to the society and the authorities. The notion of liberty as the unbridled debauch, absolute license and behavior offensive to the dominant public morals and manners gained popularity among the metropolitan gentry, officials and officers. After accession of Paul I (who reigned from 1796 to 1801) reforms aimed at restriction of the gentry’s liberties understood as the «freedom of morals» were launched in the Russian empire. Paul made an attempt to carry out «preventive counterrevolution» of a sort. Paul assumed that the gentry’s liberties uncontrolled by the state would inevitably bring about revolutionary convulsions. Thus he was going to destroy the system of privileges which emerged under Catherine II and which he considered to be the principal source of the «liberal threat». The gentry reacted to Paul’s innovations with protest which found manifestations in semiotic forms and later with the overt rebellion which came to the end with assassination of the emperor and repudiation of his policies.

The author deals with the phenomenon of the 19th century Russian raznochinetz intelligentsia, i. e., intellectuals who did not belong to the gentry. The author examines the very term «intelligentsia», analyses the emergence of this peculiar social and spiritual community and emphasizes the stubborn unwillingness to accept the realities of the Russian life as the peculiar and rigid propensity of the intelligentsia. According to the author, permanent «apostasy», alienation of the intelligentsia from the Russian reality was the principal cause for its confrontation with the authorities. The author focuses on the most vivid manifestation of this confrontation in the 19th century: the revolutionary narodniks' uncompromising struggle which led to assassination of Alexander II. The author considers a possible alternative (so called «small deeds») and concludes that peaceful positive activities were incompatible with mentality of the intelligentsia which was doomed to «the eternal fight».

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.

In the commemoration tribute to Irakli G. Tsereteli who was born 120 years ago the author points out that Tsereteli, the Social Democrat, a prominent public activist and statesman of Russia, a founding father and a leader of the first independent Democratic Republic of Georgia, is one of those figures whose deeds and achievements are still judged in terms of the previous epoch official historiography stereotypes and myths. Because of the current political needs not insignificant part of the present day political scientists and historians prefer rather to rely upon these stereotypes and myths than to repudiate them. Tsereteli’s fate is amazing. He was adamant in his belief that all «alive forces of the nation» might consolidate at the moment of a social revolution and made this belief the guiding principle of his activities from the time when he formulated his position as the leader of the Social-Democrats fraction in the Second State Duma to his consistent attempts to implement the politics of consolidation after the February revolution, 1917. Tsereteli appealed to reason even at moments when passions were reigning supreme around him. Though everything Tsereteli strove to build proved to be a «a construction based on sands» his own experience of revolutionary activities let him as early as in 1946 proclaim «the protection of personal rights and the free development of personality» as the principal value of Socialism.