Crisis of the Modern civilization and the revolution in Weltanshaaung form the essence of the 20th century. The world was divided, secularized to a greater or lesser extent and nationalized. The author investigates the elites' impact on the surrounding world status, «the regal triad» («the elite — the club — the government») and the process of the world’s postmodernization. By 1970s ability of the elite to influence the course of events reached a new level or quality. From that time one may speak of the influence on processes of the global scale, i.e., about making of a new course of the history. A new and perspective subject of history is emerging: the postcolonial world. A «new class» is asserting itself in the society. This class is different from the elite of the past. The preliminary results of «the better future formation» process, i.e., outlines of a new global order are gradually getting visible. Russia deprived of the strategic planning system of its own as well as of conceptual intelligence finds itself to be a hostage to alien strategies, an object of the game played all over the global chess board.

The article deals with so called political technologies that are not just a component of the contemporary Russian politics but its vital component. Political technologies' significance cannot be overestimated for they ensure reproduction of the political, economic and social structure of post-Soviet Russia by far more effectively than traditional institutions of suppression. At the same time political technologies form a thriving business the gross and net turnover of which amounts to millions of dollars. Unfortunately, this business is subject to widespread criticism which seems to be unjust because critics are deeply involved in politics created and maintained by political technologists and often resort to political technologies and even to political technologists' services. The author identifies basic functions political technologists perform, describes these functions and appraises them. Finally, the author reveals the roots of ambivalent attitudes to political technologists and concludes that were the Russian public conscience consistent the political technologists would have been praised, awarded admired and adored. Instead of that political technologists are despised and even hated. Ironically, political technologists reap what they have sown for they contributed a lot to driving public conscience into the current schizophrenic condition.

The author deals with some aspects of the Rusins' national movement in the present day Ukraine. Proceeding from the ethnic peculiarity of the region, its historical, cultural and geographic characteristics the activists of the movement assert that the East Slavonic population of the Trans-Carpathian area and of some adjacent territories of Slovakia, Hungary and Poland is formed not of Ukrainians but with peculiar nation, i.e. Rusins. Being quite serious about this assumption the activists call for a status of ethnic minority for this nation within the contemporary Ukrainian state with all consequences such status will bring about. The Rusins' movement is not a phenomenon which emerged just in the past decade. It has a long history and passed through several phases common for other similar movements. Initially it set only cultural aims and later brought forward political aims up to demands to create an independent state of the Rusins in Carpathian region. It is interesting to note that there are certain intriguing parallels in the ideology, history, development and character of the Ukrainian and the Rusinian national movements. Now the Rusins' movement has the same meaning for contemporary Ukrain as the Ukrainian national movement used to have for Russia. The Rusins' movement provokes a nervous reaction of certain Ukrainian ruling circles as well as of the Ukrainian nationalists and constitutes a serious obstacle on the way to introduce and impose the ethnic concept of the Ukrainian nation’s making and development.

The Russian liberalism emerged throughout the 19th century. The Russian society or, rather, some segments of it assimilated the Western system of liberal values by fragments because the destiny of liberalism depended on the traditions of the Empire-building. It should be emphasized that the Russian liberalism developed in conflict with this tradition and, at the same time, in interaction with it. Attempts to exercise the European ideals of political and civil freedom in Russia brought about strengthening of authoritarianism which made up for immaturity of the society. In the autocracy (samoderzhvie) liberals found not only the suppressing might but also an ally able to reside over restructuring and reform of the society. It was a realistic perception of situation. The Peasant reform of 1861 was carried out precisely due to the might of the autocracy. In 1860s the society finally emerged as an active agent of the political life and by the end of the 19th century liberalism transformed from a program for autocracy into a program for society.

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.

Street hooligans is a phenomenon well known to lodgers both of large cities and small towns around the world nowadays and ages ago. But while now the police mostly punishes the hooligans by itself outside the courtroom, it was different in the mediaeval and early modern time when their cases were usually put on a trial and not the deeds of the hooligans but violation of honour was looked into. Using examples from the life of the town Bejetsk in 1760-s the article aims at showing that opposite to widely spread perceptions, an individual was defended in an archaic type of community organization even better than in modern society by the very fact of his inclusiveness in the community. The community considered violation of honour of one of its members to be an insult to the whole community. There also existed certain limits in which one’s behaviour could deviate. The violation of these limits was taken as a threat to community’s stability by destroying its collective reputation.

The article is a comment to the document which is being published for the first time. It is a record of a conversation which was held between Yu.V.Andropov, then a Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, and Pavlovski, the Ambassador of Czechoslovakia to Moscow, on October 24, 1964, and was related tо reasons of N. Kruschiov's deposition from position of the First Secretary of the CPSU CC and the Chairman of the USSR Council of ministers in October, 1964. The document witnesses that at that time the new leaders of the CPSU preserved the line which presumed the necessity to inform the Soviet allies about most significant actions of the USSR in its domestic and foreign policies. The letter contains certain information about the way in which the CPSU CC letter on Kruschiov’s resignation was discussed in the USSR and reactions the event caused in of the party organizations of various levels. The document also contains some information on the reaction caused by Kruschiov’s deposition in Czechoslovakia. In the introductory comment to the document the Soviet leader is presented as a politician who cannot be reduced to a simple one-dimensional interpretation. Though Kruschiov was spotted with all birthmarks of the system which had nurtured him he undertook efforts to improve the system. However, the reformer’s good intentions paved the way to his fall from the political Olympus. Demise of Kruschiov put the end to the period of so called «Kruschiov's thaw».

There are two types of perception of historical events: investigation and personal experience or perception by feeling. The political lyrics as opposed to rhymed rhetoric emerged on if an event is experienced by a poet, felt by a poet and is appropriated by a poet as a fact of his own spiritual life. Pushkin’s verses devoted to historical and political events are precisely the political lyrics. Therefore, political declarations proclaimed in these verses may be considered only in the context of their lyrical content. If we look at such Pushkin’s verses as «Stances» and «To the slanderers of Russia» from such standpoint we see that political opinions and appraisals proclaimed in these verses are, to a considerable extent, determined by politically neutral reasons. In a similar way, pamphlets and epigrams (on Vorontsov and Uvarov) can be explained not only by the poet’s unfriendly feelings to these persons or by his political position but, rather, by his concepts of art and poetry. The politics seen through the prism of poetry acquires another appearance and reveals aspects that might be irrelevant for contemporaries but have a great historical meaning and significance.