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.