The author deals with one of the most acute and debatable issues of the contemporary political philosophy: whether the notion of development a basis for consensus of various political forces or the notion is unacceptable for different rival ideological systems? May people who hold different outlook positions and value assumptions rally around the idea of development? As the practice demonstrates, there is no unequivocal answer to these questions. Representatives of conservative circles development associate with evolutionism and predetermination of progress, with building of the Earthly City of God, with a dangerous social Utopia. Is the idea of development really alien to Christianity? And can a present-day intellectual or a simple Christian bless the logic of retroversion, bear with archaization, with the blind alley of social hell and the ruthless machine of dehumanization? The author focuses on debate over possibility of reconciliation of the theory of systems with concept of development.

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 author focuses on study of the book by the known German political philosopher Hannah Arendt «Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil». Arendt proves that Eichmann became one of the most terrible criminals in the history of humankind precisely «due to his irreflection», stupidity which is «capable to bring more evil to the world than all evil instincts dormant in any person». Process of the world cognition for Arendt has not just social and political but also ethical meaning. Free of banalities, the book on the banality of evil is filled with original ideas and approaches to issues that seem to be clear and solved in the historical literature long ago.

On October 14, 1943, prisoners of the Jews extermination at Sobibor rose in rebellion. They killed all SS watchmen. The majority of prisoners wrested out of the camp. It was the only case in the whole history of WWII when revolt in a death camp succeeded.

This paper is a publication of documents on peasants' riots in Ukrainian village Germanovka in the mid-1820s. The documents reveal that in summer pf 1825 peasants were pacified by a troop team of the Chernigovski infantry regiment which a few months later took part in the Decembrist revolt. The publication is prefaced with the article analyzing Decembrists' attitude to the people at large and to the public disturbances in particular.

The author examines publicist works and prose of the Russian and international movement’s prominent personality, diplomat, political writer and prose writer A.M.Kollontai (nee Domontovich). For the first time she came out as a political writer in «Obrazovanie» magazine (1898). In a series of her works Kollontai set collectivism of the proletarian morality against philosophy of individualism which, according to her, was represented by F.Nitsche. Kollontai devoted a particular attention to problems of women’s equality, of woman’s position within family and at work, of maternity protection. Kollontai linked change of women’s life with the necessity of drastic transformation of the social system. She devoted some of her fiction pieces to the topic of women’s social emancipation and assertion of women’s right to the free choice in love (these works were gathered in «Work bees' love». From a series of «Revolution of feelings and revolution of morals» stories' collection). At the present time Kollontai’s heritage increasingly attracts attention of researchers: historians, specialists in literary studies, sociologists including specialists in the gender issues.

A scholar has to be cautious with words much in the same manner as a physicist is to be careful with radioactive materials. But the opposite turns out. It is precisely historians, sociologists and art historians bury us in words with elusive meanings, with dozen of different meanings (that are in no way specified) or with no meaning at all. The science is not a heap of facts but a system of knowledge. And if we want to respect social sciences they are to be reduced to a system and be expounded in a way which presupposes distinct and clear, if possible unequivocal terminology. Yu.I.Semenov, specialist in primordial society economy, professor of Moscow physics and technological institute is engaged in this work for many years. In his new book Yu.I.Semenov approaches the subsequent history of Homo sapiens from the same position. The article is a review of Semenov’s new book.

The author refers to the theory of catastrophes. The task for the present day Russia is to understand what is going on in order to remain a real active entity of the world policy and to avoid the role of the big play victim. To that it is necessary to assess risks, to grasp the real arrangement of forces. Nowadays the quality of analytical studies is to be absolutely different from what it used to be. An irresponsible approach of the elite to preconditions of the evolving crisis may bring about the most fatal consequences. In this respect Russia is the least protected country. Willingness to conceal the real logic of catastrophe is bringing about the irreversible slipping down, to the Perestroika-2. Analysis and comprehensive examination of all factors of the regress mechanism comprise the principal content of the article. But the author pays the particular attention to the factor he describes as the lack of the entity’s properties which is characterized by inadequacy of actions taken under circumstances of emergencies. Such inadequacy is related to decay of ability to define objectives and targets and break-down of the conceptual core. The elite involved in the condition of identity collapse may take the whole country away with it. Reconstruction of the entity’s properties is the paramount and urgent task which the power is to solve in the immediate future.

The early 1980s were among the most volatile years in Soviet — US relations. They might be equated with the early 1960s, the era of the Berlin and Cuban missile crises. The international tensions were greatly intensifying, and once again the world could have come on the brink of war. This occurred not because war was desired and prepared for by the leaders of both superpowers, but because, not knowing and understanding one another, they suspected the worst of each other’s intentions. The author who was at that years the director of the Middle East department in the USSR Foreign Ministry and the Head of the Soviet delegation on the Stockholm Conference on European Disarmament thereupon, undertakes a systematic and holistic analysis of that situation.

The Russian Catholicism emerged in the first half of the 19th century as a result of Jesuit missionaries’ activities, predominantly French, among the Russian aristocrats who were convinced in importance of changes and Russia’s necessity to join the European cultural tradition based on the Catholicism. Preaching in Russia was a component of the policy Holy See pursued in the 19th century. In the mid 19th century the religious discussion intensified against background of the confrontation between Russia and France over future of Poland and influence in the Balkans. During the Crimean war propaganda of the both opponents had the religious tinge. Catholic and Orthodox writers accused each other in the schism of the Church and were unwilling to take steps aimed at rapprochement, even though they admitted the necessity of reconciliation.

The article reproduces a series of the little known literary and epigraphic sources. On the basis of these the author reconstructs peculiarities of the earliest stage of the Russian Church organization. Taking Lucas Jeedyata’s activities and writings as an example the author analyzes the set of actions aimed at establishment in Ancient Russia of the church organization independent of Byzantine Empire’s church. Lucas is considered to be a fellow-champion of Metropolitan Ilarion. Together they provided the substantiation for the sovereign ideology of independent state authority and the Church independent of Greeks. The author comes to the conclusion that there were certain contradictory tendencies in relations between the Priesthood and the Temporal Power that resulted in abrupt vacillations of Yaroslav the Wise that ended up with the autocephaly closing down.

The author examines the revolutionary activities of Kondrati Ryleev, one of the Decembrists’ movement leaders and finds out that in the process of anti-government coup preparation Ryleev took advantage of his duty position of the senior manager of the Russian-American Company, the biggest Russian joint stock company of the time. For the first time in historiography the author specifies the Decemberists’ plans to bring the Czar’s family out of Russia and demonstrates that these plans were connected with a maritime expedition to Russian America which was scheduled for August, 1826, and was organized at the Russian-American Company’s expense.

The article is a rejoinder to the contemporary demands of the Right radicals that receive certain support of the Russian Orthodox Church. These forces demand a new repentance of the Russian nation under the circumstances of the global crisis. The Right radicals pedal the theme of the tsar’s family shooting and in this connection a new round of de-Bolshevization of the Russian society. It would seem where to and for what this preaching is performed? But the White Truth zealots do not quiet down. Sure, the Russian Orthodox Church as one of the state frameworks of the here-and-now enjoys the right to have its point of view. Finally, the spiritual assessment of the past belongs to people striving to restore the historical justice. However the repentance has two aspects. And what is moral from a preacher’s point of view may by utterly immoral from a politician’s point of view. That happens not because politics is the dirty business a fortiori but because politics has its own logic different from logic of preaching. A new round of repentance is a move which is politically detrimental and dangerous. In the short run it poses a threat to Russia’s political independence. The blockade circle is contracting. In these circumstances manipulation with symbols and values is fraught with new disaster for the Russian people. Is there any use in such preaching?

The present world economic crisis and its diverse influence on the U.S. economic, social and political life make every observer to look after the experience before 1929 when America was a society in which a small number of very rich people controlled a large share of the nation’s wealth and the next wretched years of the Great Depression and bewildering changes brought by Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. Some economists think the New Deal imposed norms of relative equality in pay that persisted for more than 30 years, creating a broadly middleclass society. Those norms have not survived being replaced by an ethos of the superrich, the genuine core of the reaganism. Princeton economist Paul Krugman showed that the country’s economic disparities are as stark today as they were in the 1920's and that the effort devoted to maintaining that inequality leads directly to a deep poverty, underconsumption and in the end to the second edition of the Great Depression. He concludes his forecast with a grim warning: either democracy must be renewed or wealth and its political fellow-champions are likely to cement a new and less democratic regime. The Obama’s phenomen is considered by the author in the corresponding context.

The article provides an analysis of Japan’s image that Tokyo was projecting in the countries of the West in the Meiji era (1868−1912), mainly on the eve and during the Russo-Japanese war. The negative character of Japan’s image in the West («yellow peril») was recognised as one of the major security threats for the country, especially in war conditions, and an energetic public relations campaign was launched to improve it. The article explores the core elements of this «constructed image» and image-making techniques. Finally, it considers the implication of the ambition to create this «desired» image for Japanese foreign policy.

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

The 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.

This year, it will be exactly 20 years since the opening of the border between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany that took place on 9 November 1989. The world saw in this event mainly the «fall» of the Berlin Wall that for 28 years had divided East Berlin, the capital of GDR, from West Berlin that maintained the nature of a territory occupied by the victorious powers of World War II. The legal status of the border between the sectors in Berlin, theoretically considered to be within quadrilateral responsibility, was not equal to the status of the «Germano-German» border, which, from the outset, had been the border between the autonomous zones of occupation, that in 1949 became (with a number of caveats) independent states. The inclusion of the Berlin sector border in the decision taken by the GDR authorities in November 1989 to liberalise the regime of the crossing of the border with FRG by East Germans was an unforgivable international-law mistake that resulted in serious domestic political problems. By midnight 9 November, the situation at the Berlin Wall border-crossing points became explosive: crowds of GDR citizens demanded to be allowed to cross to West Berlin, while the border guards had not yet received any clarifications of the new border regime. Those dramatic events that nearly degenerated into armed violence are described in the journal notes of the then Minister-Counsellor of the USSR Embassy in Berlin that are complemented by the memoirs of other participants and eye-witnesses of this turning point in post-war history of Europe.

According to the author, vital political philosophy is developed along the paths of overcoming of the gap between names and reality. There is a connection between the external positioning of the power and a state of affairs which may either contradict or correspond the positioning. Now experience of Confucian philosophy may be more instructive for the present-day Russia than the Western experience. Russia is at crossroads. A deep rift has teethed between shibboleths and ‘slogans' the highest ranks use and the deplorable condition of horizontal social ties. And every day this rift is widening and getting deeper. Only change of macro- and micro strategies the political elite pursues may overcome the gap. The elite must acknowledge and recognize how dramatic was the path passed through by Russia in the recent decades. The vital popular political philosophy is a philosophy of action and of meaningful deed.

The situation with the European security is one of the most acute problems in world politics today. Мany European leaders declare about constructing the new Europe that is based on juridically obligatory agreements. This reminds in many ways the 20-years old statements, when an attempt was made to build such a Europe in Paris 1989. The base of that Europe had to be the CFE Treaty, the European Security Treaty and a new agreement on CSBM’s. The author who participated in those negotiations undertakes a systematic and holistic analysis on how this base was build at that time. The readers of the article can themselves make conclusions on the result of the Paris summit.

Training of the population for acceptance of a ‘new world order' presupposes a leveling of human conscience by way of creation of a global and comprehensive religion. Nowadays ‘New Age', an occult and spiritual movement makes a claim for the role of such religion. The distinctive characteristics of ‘New Age' movement are syncretism, pluralistic universalism, and global thinking. Spread of this movement in the Western society is carried on under disguise of various new religious movement and sects activities. In Europe these activities have acquired a threatening scale. In conditions of the European liberal moral tolerance domination occult sects employ flexible and mobile methods of penetration. In fact, the sects are penetrating with all spheres of the social, political and economic life and create a parallel network society. Heading for, first of all, education, science, culture, public health, and informatics the sects also actively integrate in the entrepreneurship and develop close contacts with the business world, the more so because the present-day multinational corporations are increasingly acquiring features of quasi-religious entities. Commonness of basic assumptions chiefs of sects and corporation business elite use in appraising a human personality and their own ultimate goals makes sects reliable economic partners of multinational corporations. Actually, sects borrow from multinational corporations their methods of management and control of individual conscience.

In the Russian historiography studies in the field of technological history are traditionally ‘equidistant' from investigation of its impact on social, economic, and cultural development of a society while foreign historians have investigate interaction between technology and socio-cultural environment which is contemporary to a particular technology. Russia has accepted innovations that came from the West in waves selectively. It should be noted that a series of national development peculiarities proved to act as brakes to introduction of some technological innovations. The countryside turned out to be the least adapted for acceptance of Western technologies. Peasants and landlords were not ready for transition and latter-day methods of agronomics and cattle breeding. A feeling of lagging behind the West engendered a peculiar cultural phenomenon which the author takes liberty to designate as ‘Levshism'. The designation is derived from the name of N. S. Leskov’s short novel hero Levsha, a craftsman from Tula who hacked the English flea.

The author reproduces and comments a set of little known book and epigraphic sources that are used as the basis for a detailed reconstruction of the most ancient phase of the Russian Church organization history. A set of measures aimed at assertion of the church organization autonomous from Byzantium is analyzed by the example of activities and creative works of Lukas Jidyata. The author appraises Lukas as the ally of Ilarion, the autocephalous Metropolitan. Lukas and Ilarion jointly substantiated the sovereign ideology of independent state power and of the Church independent of Greeks. The author concludes that there were contradictory tendencies in interrelationships of the Body of Priesthood and the Temporal Power that resulted in acute fluctuations of Prince Yaroslav the Wise that ended with the autocephaly winding down.

In the first part of the article the author considers reactions of the Czech-Slovak emigration and the Czech public in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to the negotiations Great Britain, France and the USSR held in summer, 1939, to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939, and the drastic twist of the Soviet foreign policy as well as to resulting changes in strategy and tactics of the Communist International. The article is based on archive materials, published documents, memoirs, and on results of the author’s studies of the problem.

Pressing issues of defense policies pursued by Russia and the USA are discussed. Contingency of a fundamentally new approach to nuclear security problems have emerged in the moment when START-1 run of validity is expiring. Any discussion is useful if the both parties have equal interest in it. Dialogue of Russia and the US is not only possible but it is urgent. Particularly in the context when these powers continue to present each other as potential enemies. The new strategy of mutual security which has been recently proclaimed as an innovation project is to be greeted. Thereat Russia cannot reduce its nuclear capability down to a dangerous minimum. This edge must not be transgressed. One has to make advances to the partner’s initiatives with open eyes and clear understanding that under no circumstances any detriment to Russia’s own security and strategic interests cannot be made. Now, after the US initiatives related to ABM defense deployment in the West one should remember about internal contradictions that affect behavior of the «old Europe» elites and those of Eastern Europe. The issue of strategic expansion of NATO and prospects of this alliance remains to be of current concern. What does NATO want to be?

Responses of Czechoslovak emigration, the civil wing of the Czech anti-Fascist Resistance and of the Slovak society to «the Western march» of the Red Army, to annexation of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia by the USSR (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) and the Soviet-Finnish war. The study is based mainly on archive materials, published documents, memoirs and on results of the author’s own examination of the issue.

In the history of Russia the military factor was exceptionally important virtually in all branches: in economics, in domestic and foreign policies, in social organization as well as in Russians' self-perception. During last three centuries Russia had to sustain a difficult race in the sphere of military technologies in order to retain its great power status and the opportunity to follow its own way. The author analyzes the domestic socio-cultural realities' impact on the process.

New documentary material introduced in scientific turn in recent 20 years, recovery of the theoretic legacy of the Russian Social-Democrars' leaders, expansion of the range of research problems and directions, transformation of key definitions that characterize ideological development of Menshevism for the first time allowed revealing to the full extent the essence of the strong criticism P.B.Akselrod, A.N.Potresov, I.G.Zereteli et al. raised against position the RSDP new leadership under by Yu.O.Matrov occupied toward Bolshevism after October, 1917. According to N.V.Volsky, only after loss of the party the Russian Social-Democrats repudiated what Dan and his followers tried to present as the so called «Martov's line» and retained «some positive profession of the higher human values and brought them into foundation of their programmatic notions».

The article deals with analysis of ideological and religious aspects of Metropolitan Ilarion’s «The Word on the Law and Grace». It is demonstrated that the work’s core meaning were historical philosophical contemplations of the thinker. His attention is focused on the progress of the universal history while the Russian history is considered as an integral part of the world history which is rich in its own achievements. According to Ilarion, the Russian people passes through two phases of development much as all other peoples do: the pre-Christian phase (infantile period of imperfection) and the Christian phase (which is Grace-filled and opens the way to salvation). The Russian Metropolitan expresses his profound patriotic idea of the young Russian people’s predestination for its junction opens prospects for performance of great exploits. From standpoint of equality in faith Ilarion condemns old Christian peoples' claims to superiority. At the same time Ilarion does not deprived of pride for glorious pre-Christian past of Rus. The baptized Rus became the true inheritor of this glory. Against this background Ilarions condemns claims to national and religious uniqueness. Overall Ilarion’s doctrine is appraised as the doctrine of state independence and of historical optimism.

The cult of Michael the Archangel is one the central elements of Medieval Russian religiosity. The first of archangels played an important role both in strictly orthodox ecclesiastical teaching and syncretic popular beliefs / magical practices. He was regarded as a vanquisher of the Devil in the first days of Creation, the Satan’s most powerful enemy in this world, principal protector of humans against the ruses and attacks of demons, demon-slayer and angel-exorcist. Common to the Christian East and West, this set of beliefs and corresponding practices wasn’t, however, uniform in various parts of the Christian world and depended on the cultural context of every region. The present article proposes to trace the history of Michael the Archangel as demon-slayer and protector against the Devil in Medieval Russian culture. It will also analyze the rapports between the cult of Michael and the cults of other saints — demon fighters and the possible ties between the syncretic demonology of so called «zmeeviki» and the demonological motifs in hagiography.

The author analyzes certain theoretical conceptions that were advanced by Herbert Wells and are included in his three-volume autobiography recently published in Russia. The particular attention is devoted to Wells' opinions on the future of humankind and to his forecasts that came true or failed. Wells' ‘sketch of the future' is seen through the present day prism. The concluding section of the article is devoted to Wells' thoughts about Russia and his portrait sketches of Lenin, Stalin, Gorky.

The article is a publication of the methodological introduction to S. Kurguinjan's new book entitled ‘Esau and Isaac'. The central problem of the book is consideration of development’s destiny in Russia and the world at large. The author repudiates two methods that prevail nowadays: the academic method which he defines as the retro-method and the postmodernist method. The author offers ‘the third method' which requires various syntheses (of actual political studies and political philosophy, of religious metaphysics and the secular philosophy and so on.)

The latest year of the USSR existence began with the crises not only in the domestic and economic policies but in the foreign policy also. Two critical situations were before Moscow: The reaction to growing unrest in Lithuania and other Baltic states which threatened the existence of the Soviet Union, and the reaction to the American invasion in Iraq which betokened loses of Soviet supports in the Middle East region. Making a systematic and holistic analysis the author shows well-founded that the Soviet leadership didn’t have distinct strategic goals and tactic what to do in this situation.

The article is devoted to analysis of the Russian Orthodox Church present day position and attitude to the Soviet period of Russia’s history. In connection with that the author refers to the prehistory of the question and considers evidence provided by representatives of those cultural and proper church Russian traditions from which the higher clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate has recently taken an increasing distance. A particular attention is paid to the Moscow Patriarchate hierarchs’ opinions of causes and character of the Great Patriotic war that were aired in the course of the outgoing year. In the concluding part of the article the author examines possible general meanings of these new trends as well as of reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate and of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

The author examines the version according to which Nicholas II was not a conservative, he was a moderate liberal, adherent of constitution and of the popular representation. Presumably from the very outset of his reign Nicholas consistently implemented a project of monarchy renewal and acted irrespective of opposition or revolutionary movements. This version presents a special case of Nicholas II idealization connected with the present-day ideological conditions but unconfirmed by sources. The negative attitude of the emperor to the State Duma was determined by his traditionalist outlook, the idea of continuity without changes and of stability as the tranquility. In the early 20th century the autocracy was the real form of government as well as the mythology a part of which was the autocrat’s faith in the mythical people. The official concept of the autocracy started to contradict the logic of modernization process. The fate pf Stolypin’s reforms revealed that the reformist potential of the autocracy had been exhausted. The gap between the authorities and the changing reality coupled with widely spread religious indifferentism brought about the situation when the regime proved to be absolutely insulated at the critical moment.

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.

The article deals with revelation of ‘The new Middle Ages' notion which attracted the general attention upon publication of N.A.Berdyaev's book ‘The new Middle Ages' (Berlin, 1924). Florenski used the term somewhat earlier in texts that have been published recently. Florenski argued that there were rhythms in history and this rhythm was the rhythm of replacement of the Medieval culture with the Renaissance culture. After the Renaissance epoch and after the culture of the Modern times which developed the Renaissance culture the epoch of the ‘new Middle Ages' follows. Florenski guessed the characteristics of the ‘new Middle Ages' in the reality which surrounded him. All Florenski’s sympathies were in favor of the Middle Ages outlook. He thought that his own outlook was correspondent to the Russian Middle Ages style of the 14th and 14th centuries. Florenski supposed that the Renaissance culture crisis began in the late 19th century and the twilight epoch of transition to the ‘new Middle Ages', transition from the darkness to the light started. Florenski saw the specific omen of the ‘new Middle Ages' in growth of apocalyptical moods: his coevals already spoke of destruction of nature and crisis of culture, of depletion of the Earth’s bowels, of revolt of elements, of contamination of the air and the waters, of terrible earthquakes. Florenski sought a deeper return to the Middle Ages. It is interesting to think the contemporary life in Florenski’s terms: the Middle Ages, Renaissance, the Modern time, the new Middle Ages.