The author deals with the Russian here and now and with the current political process. Our time may be characterized as the time of turbulence and ambiguity. Russia and the outer world are captured by ambiguity: the power is ambiguous but the opposition is ambiguous too. And the drama of disagreement with the glamour violence of the upper strata, the drama the people is experiencing right now is also ambiguous. Yet we have to provide an honest answer to the question: what is the price we have to pay for the current political instability? It is possible to appraise the current situation only from the position of ideals based on the genuine patriotism. And such patriotism is incompatible with the playing into the hands of forces that are interested in the political and military weakening of Russia.

Twenty years ago the USSR which used to be a genuine great power (an not only in military respect) found itself at the crossroad. Premonitions of fundamental changes prevailed in the society. The Soviet diplomats were not the exclusion. The party and government leadership headed by Gorbachev exhausted the limit of the people’s trust. The authority pf the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and its President Boris Eltsyn was gaining momentum rapidly. In addition, an image of a democrat and a protector of the weak was skillfully and successfully modeled for Eltsyn. Among the ordinary citizens and diplomats there was a growing expectation that it was precisely the Russian politicians who would ensure a fresh start of the nation being and attain a more equitable organization of the society. Everybody would like to believe that in the prospect there was not the state’s disintegration but the renewal of the state’s image. Domestic concerns and anxieties somehow brought an oblivion of the necessity to care about friends in the countries of the Socialist community that in good order and consolidated manner went over to the camp of new «winners». The «jaunty» 1990s that brought Russia on the verge of collapse were about to start.

The rapid growth of economy and population has made the issue of sustained water supply extremely urgent for India. Three main regional water routes — the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Ganges — originate on the Tibetan Plateau controlled by China. The advantageous geographic position in the riverhead enables China not to reckon with India’s strategic interests and build a system of hydro-electric power stations on the Brahmaputra and divert a part of the river’s flow to its inland. China’s selfish water policy and its efforts to use water scarcity issue as a political leverage has seriously strained relations with India. Currently the frictions between the two regional powers have evolved into a full-scale rivalry for strategic water resources, making all basin states split into two competing camps.

By convention Spain is treated in our country as a multinational state where the largest people (Spaniards) whom we mean an ethnos, dominates historically over the national minorities, such as Basques, Catalans and Galicians. An author, on the ground of his data, asserts that such a pattern doesn’t coincide with reality. In Spain itself, in contrast with our country, cultural, historical and linguistic manifold of its population is traditionally comprehended not in ethnic but in local and hierarchical categories.

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.

In this article it is shown the interaction between the Famine High Commissioner F. Nansen with the soviet official circles and the world powers regarding the aid for the starving Russia in 1921−1922. There are also revealed strategies of combating scourge, various positions that existed among the world community, including those being in exile and the decision making officials of the Bolshevik society regard the famine, conditions, forms and methods of aid for the Soviet state.

The author elicits the diversity of the Russian émigré positions in respect of the Jewish question, considers factors that defined these positions and finds out what place this question occupied in the social and political life of the Russian community abroad. The dynamics of emigrants' opinions and attitudes is tracked in connection with the international climate and changes that were occurring in the USSR. Interactions of the German Nazis and the Russian extreme conservatives are characterized. The analysis is based on results of the recent studies and correspondence and political writings of F.I.Dan, B.I.Nikolaevski, M.V.Vishnyak, N.V.Volski (Valentinov) and other emigrants who touched this range of questions and, in particular, the attitude towards anti-Semitism, to the Bund’s fate and to the Zionist idea.

The Russian-Jewish relationships in the early modern times are considered as poorly studied. The evidence of the fact is an extensive body of devoted to the history the Jews in Russia. Nevertheless, archive documents allow making a series of important conclusions in respect of the initial period of the first Jewish communities' adaptation in the territory of the Russian Empire. The author examines record keeping documents related to appearance of the first Jewish communities in Smolensk region in the first half of the 18th century. These documents highlight the circumstances under which the famous «affair» of Boroch Leibov was formed.

Interview given by S.E.Kurginyan is devoted to the difficult and ambiguous situation that emerged in Russia on the eve and during elections (December 2011 — March 2012). The complexity of the situation is determined by instability of the national political life and presence of antagonistic trends. Kurginyan is dissatisfied with the liberal course announced by the non-systemic opposition as well as with the authorities' strategy that is doomed to ambiguity. Kurginyan is the mouthpiece of the social request of not just stability of the old line but of a strategic project or paradigm for new Russia, Russia of the counter-modern and counter-elite. In such new paradigm interests of the big state would correspond to interests of the private sector and individuals.

The establishment of young republics in Versailles system of international relations was accompanied by the formation of national armies under the leadership of the French general staff'. In the eastern policy of Pilsudsky the anti-soviet military forces could be allies. After their internment they were placed in Polish camp. Amnestied refugees were under the tutelage of soviet and emigrant structures

The paper is devoted to the eastern dimension of Poland’s foreign policy. The theoretical basis of Poland’s foreign policy is the issue of main concern. Polish role in the expansion of Euro-Atlantic institutions is revised when the author examines the historical and theoretical roots of current Polish geopolitical doctrine. The different forms of Jagellonian paradigm in Polish geopolitical thought are studied to explain their manifestation in Poland eastern policy after the 1989. Their origins, theoretical explications and forms of manifestation are described and analyzed. The article reveals their influence on the development of Atlanticist geopolitical vector in modern Poland, describes and explains its eastern policy.

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 authors runs back the process of political parties genesis in the Russian empire, defines the chronological limits of the process and its stages. The author shows that Russia had a rich experience of political struggle rooted in the very ancient times and supposes that it is inaccurate to maintain that the genesis of Russian parties considerably lagged behind the similar process in the West. The thesis that parties emerged first in the national periphery of the empire is also incorrect. On the contrary, it was the national center (and the imperial capital) that gave examples of party building. Socialist organizations that at the early stages of genesis outraced conservative and liberal formations by pace of development, yet finally completed their emergence later than liberal and conservative parties. That corresponds with the world practice. Having selected formed parties according the characteristics stipulated in the article the author obtains data on parties' memberships that are more modest than data usually mentioned in the historic literature. The selected parties are classified according to territorial-national and doctrinal criteria.

The issues concerning sources of information about events in the Far East and the attitude of peasantry towards these events are discussed in the article. The war affected peasantry by way of conscription of reservists and recruits. It was not the war that was the initial cause of hardships of the rural population, but it did aggravate socio-economic problems. Information about Russia-Japan war basically reached peasants through popular prints and verbal communications. The latter were of two kinds — pro-Government (disseminated through clergy) and anti-Government (spread by «intelligent people»). Peasants displayed certain interest towards war events, but this interest was of negative nature. They criticized and refuted existent rules, called upon reservists and recruits not to go for a war and appealed to their fellow villagers to avoid any war donations, to refuse paying duties and taxes. Part of them collaborated with revolutionary propagandists and agitators. The revolution, that ensued, sent the unsuccessful war into shadows, and peace agreement did not help to pacify the people.

It is the first publication of the full text of the letter sent by former Czar general K.L.Ghil'chevski to M.I.Kalinin. The reasons for writing the letter were cares about the pension. However the letter content is not confined to these cares. Ghil’chevski expounds his own biography emphasizing the fact that during the revolution of 1905 he refused to take part in punitive operations and during the Civil war he did not go to serve under A.I.Denikin. The ex-general analyzes the Soviet system uncompromisingly, sometimes on the verge of anti-Soviet appreciations. Ghil’chevski also emphasizes his commitment to patriotism. The letter caused a response and Ghil’chevski’s manuscript that summarized his battle experience during the World War I was published in the USSR as a single volume.

The author deals with the problems of the world organization and potential perspectives of the economically leading countries' development. One of the world organization model, project Modern, has approached the point of no return. This project is exhausted and depleted. It is quitting to be a perspective one precisely where it did emerged. The USA already is unable to develop within this project’s limits and this fact is confirmed by many economic data. China and India develop within confines of the Modern project but precisely for this reason both countries present a threat to the US hegemony. The big game is just commenced. Russia and India have to pay a greater attention to this game, to examine its thin structure, its logic be all means avoiding the temptation to ‘demonize' any participant of the game. The world and the humankind are to find positive exits from the dead end that seems to be ultimate.

The present article is devoted to a current state of relations between Russia and the Baltic States. The author considers various aspects of these relations — political, economic, strategic and humanitarian. The goal of the author is to analyze the basic ‘problem knots' of these relations, to make recommendations concerning the need of a ‘reset' of these relations. The main problem of the Russian-Baltic relations, according to the author, lays in different perceptions of the common history, as well as in attempts of the Baltic political elite to shape their Russian policy according to a certain ideological schema. Only having destroyed this ideological approach, it is possible to open a new page in the bilateral relations.

According to the thesis of ‘Ethnicization' of Stalinism, the regime considered ‘enemy' ethnic groups as its main enemies in the 1930−1940s. The study of ‘German operation' 1937−1938 in Western Siberia allows to put the certainty of this interpretation to doubt. The comparison of ‘ethnic' cleansings and NKVD campaign under the order № 447 (‘kulak operation') gives the key to understanding the peculiarities of the former. The criteria of the social past life was determinative in choosing a person as a victim of ‘ethnic' cleansing.

The article deals with results and consequences of the first solving fight of the Great Patriotic War — to the battle for Moscow, tragic and heroic pages of one of the key moments of our history. The material demonstrates the plans of the German command and emergency measures of the Soviet leadership to increase of fighting capacity of Red army at the beginning of 1942. On the basis of the known and recently opened documents the potential of warring sides, world situation of the USSR, an assessment of its possibilities from allies are considered. The attention is given to a morale of the Soviet armed forces on the eve of new titanic fights with Wehrmacht.

In XX century «memory» became a point of special reflection and investigation. This article examines the concept of memory and its implications in culture of early XX century. It reviews the use of this term in the most important modernist texts and questions the functions of memory both in discourse and practices. The 1st World War gave rise to the modernist doubt in utopian ideals of Enlightenment Project and indicated the break with rationalism. This turn was closely engaged with new cultural understandings of memory. War gave rise to doubt in validity of memory (idea on which there were based main norms and realizations of truth and verification in different situation, in everyday life and theoretical framework, in both bureaucratic and private practices). Many authors came to one paradoxical conclusion: «memory» is oblivion, memory not recalls but deforms past, it substitutes for reality, memory deprives people of time and free will. The concept of «memory» was converged in XX century with the problem of temporality and people identity. This article analyzes how «memory» was entangled with new cultural practices.

The author deals with peculiarities of the Russian emigrants; forms and means of the cultural memory preservation and creation of the ideal past models. The Russian communities abroad were transformed by a new social experience that had impact also on the culture of memory. The very expulsion brought about creation of a new, often idealized image of Russia, its people and culture and re-thinking of their own historical experience. Every educated person in emigration sought to create a new image of Russia that would satisfy him or her. The Russian exiles looked for ‘points of memory' around that the emigrant identity could jell. At the same time the recollections of the past served as the stage for ideological and political clashes.

The article is devoted to a little-known page of A.V.Tyrkova-Williams' biography (1869−1962). A.V.Tyrkova-Williams was a public and political figure of pre-revolutionary Russia and the Russian emigration and died 50 years ago in Washington. The peculiar position this lady held in the Central Committee of the CD party as well as the analysis of her publications in ‘The Russian Buzz' (Saint-Petersburg, December 1912 — August, 1913) (Tyrkova-Williams was the unofficial editor-in-chief of the newspaper) allows the author to characterize her as a major figure of the centrist current in the Russian liberalism (tentatively speaking, between members of the CD party and members of the ‘Union of 17 October' party) that jelled in events of the Russian Troublous Time of the early 20th century).

In January of 1722 Czar Peter I affixed his signature on so called «Table of ranks». This original state act established three parallel ladders of ranks for civil, military, and court services in Russia. Components of the built vertical of ranks were united around the principle of permanent ascendancy of pretenders to certain peaks of bureaucratic career in accordance with length of personal service. Abrogation of this one of the most fundamental acts of autocracy was a natural sequence of revolutionary events of 1917. However the hidden impact of the ancient Czar’s decree, a reminder of the governing role of transformation its logic introduced in the society and armed forces was in different degrees felt for a long time. Most likely, in new Russia specialists of various profiles will express the attention to the ancient text in order to draw relevant conclusions required for understanding of the past problems and issues of current practice of state government.

Adverse forces are colliding in the field of the current Russian reality meaning. The elite cannot be considered as the united and single force. A segment of elite has saddled up the power of protest that in any moment may turn into the power of the country’s self-destruction and bring about the loss of identity, to disaster of ‘the big nation' and loss of independence, economic, energetic as well as, in the final resort, political independence. This assertion applies to meanings carried by different vectors. To put it exactly, it applies to acquisition of the single summarizing, general meaning that is not found as yet. Nowadays it is precisely the lack pf this meaning affects the foreign and domestic policy and is exemplified in shortsighted decisions on WTO and provokes activation of the counter-elite in the current political space of Russia.

Edvard Beneš (1884−1948) was the second President of Czech Republic, politician, diplomat and scientist. In 1942 Beneš published book «Democracy Today and Tomorrow» which was translated into many languages already during the World War 2. In this book Beneš characterized democratic regimes that existed un Western Europe in the period between two world wars, disclosed their shortcomings, fundamental causes of their weakness and retreat in the face of totalitarian regimes (Fascism, Nazism) what ultimately brought about the World War 2. Beneš set forth hisunderstanding of directions and ways of the liberal democracy restructuring (improvement) and its conversion into the «modern», «humane» democracy. Beneš deals with party building and political «leadership» issues as well as issues of the new human person’s upbringing, bureaucracy, corruption, attitude toward religion etc. Many ideas of Beneš and his recommendations seem to be topical for the current phase of the Russian society’s development. The article is a summary of the book by Beneš.

This paper pursues a study devoted to «memory», its representations and cultural function in inter- and past-war periods. At that time the phenomenological program enjoyed wide popularity among a new generation of intellectuals started the «linguistic turn». One important consequence of this intellectual movement was the powerful criticism of the linguistic nature of memory. In the center of criticism were the linguistic mechanisms that deform the representations of current events, pack the «reality» in cultural accepted patterns and clichés, bended to social pressure. The intellectual tradition returned to lost since antiquity discussion of social nature of «memory» and social function of reminiscences. There was one main idea: social experience kept in a language transforms individual experience, alienates and appropriates individual impressions, disciplines and subdues to general social rules, sets to see imagined objects lacking in reality and to be oblivious of the present. This representation of «memory» became very popular. The criticism of social conformity became entangled in culture with antiwar protest and resistance movement. A new generation of intellectuals set the task to disclose memory-occupier and to show utopian «new world» — world in which memory would lose its social function.

This article deals with comparative analysis of dynastic policy of Austria, Prussia and Russia in XVIII century. Author attempts to answer the question which role does it play in political, economic and cultural life of Central, East and North Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. In this article effectiveness of dynastic strategies for achievement of foreign-policy goals of European countries is studied, typology of dynastic matrimony is given, and so on.

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.

The article deals with a little-known episode of Soviet-American relations in the end of World War II. It analyses a diplomatic struggle over adherence to Yalta agreements on Far East with an emphasis on Kurile islands. Using new documents from American military and diplomatic archives the author traces the origins of President Truman’s request for basing rights on Kuriles expressed in his August 18 message to Stalin. It is demonstrated that far from being an isolated improvisation it was a culmination of a long process of U.S. attempts to penetrate strategically important Kuriles.

The article is devoted to events that occurred immediately upon death of Stalin. The apparatus of suppression functioned in non-stop regime for a while and the will was required to stop it. But was it the will indeed? Perhaps, it would be more precise to speak of the paralysis of will as a symptom that was also generated by working machine of suppression. New documents found in archives illuminate this puzzle of the Stalinist repression mechanism’s halt.

The article deals with the problem of juvenile justice. Pro-Western human rights activists are trying to introduce in Russia for along time. Ideology of juvenile justice comes into acute conflict with Russian traditional values and approaches to protection of families and children. Recently advocates of juvenile justice try to conceal their intentions under slogans of children’s rights protection from cruel treatment. The authors vividly demonstrate what is hidden behind this signage and make offer to the public to rally for protection of downtrodden children’s rights. Such protection means not a propaganda of permissiveness and license but, on the contrary, protection of a child’s right to life and upbringing in his/her own family, protection of psychic, mental health of children and parents who will be very strongly injured by forced separation if a child is taken away from a family.

The upsurge of political activism that occurred in December of 2011 after the election to the Russian State Duma and continued in the subsequent months up to June of 2012 is an enigmatic phenomenon in many respects. Causes of discontent as aired by the opposition leaders had been present for a very long time prior to the upsurge and roused no massive dissatisfaction. There is every reason to suspect that the genuine if hidden cause of mass demonstrations, meetings and riots is the authorities' desire to defuse a frightening potential of mass discontent well in advance of decisive imminent confrontation related with consequence of Russia’s joining WTO. In fact, the authorities tried to burnout the mass discontent potential and found support of opposition in this undertaking.

The author deals with the extremely difficult situation that has emerged in the contemporary Russian domestic policy. Nonfeasance of authorities and intelligentsia, growth of protest moods and spirits, religious extremism that lifts its head up, revitalization of inland subversive forces — all that create pre-conditions for collapse of the Russian Federation. The danger is quite real. In this moment one has to understand what forces it is necessary to rely on in order to save the country that is sliding to the social and economic abyss. The role of the national intelligentsia is as great as it had never been earlier because intelligentsia has to turn the protest in a positive direction and to prevent the ultimate disaster.

The article deals with strategies of the Russian education. The focus is made on these strategies adequacy to the real challenges Russia confronts now. The inevitable multiple and relative character of crises in education in the environment of the present day dynamics of social history is emphasized. The author concludes that prevailing in Russia nowadays strategies of education development are haphazard, non-systemic and that ideas and practices of the 1990s radical Liberalism dominate in these strategies due to the inertia. The issue of necessity to correct strategies of the Russian Federation education development, with real peculiarities of the current stage of the Russian civilization transformation including acute demand to formation of the Russian national identity taken into due account.

Based on rich material the article is the first comprehensive history of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) written by the Russian historian. It is a telling case study of the TVA creation in 1933 and its organizational evolution from the New Deal years to the final stage of the World War II. The author traces the central issue of the New Deal’s most dramatic project aimed to expand the governmental control over the economy and natural resources through public power, regional planning and new intellectual ideas for the transformation the New South area. President Roosevelt and the leading personalities in the board of directors of TVA (and among them David E. Lilienthal) had four principal goals. The first was to provide cheap electricity to homes and farms. The second was to provide jobs for unemployed. The third was to save from devastation the large territory of the depressed region in the South. And there was a fourth more ephemeral goal: that through public power, governmental ownership of some other services and publicly-owned distributorship could be created a model for a new and more prosperous form of society. Some contemporaries deeply believed that TVA was a big step to American sort of socialism.

The article is devoted to study of social and political views common to members of the Russian officers corpus. Officers' attitude toward the Emperor and peasants is investigated on the basis of the Fatherland and the Fatherland’s son notions semantics analysis. Change of these views in the post-war period (1814−1825) is traced. It is demonstrated that under the impact of wars waged in 1812−1814 this postulate transformed: the Emperor quitted to be associated with a son of the Fatherland while, on the contrary, officers started to perceive peasants as sons of the Fatherland. It is this transformation where origins of the Decembrist ideology are discovered.

There are many testimonies that allow us to speak of emotional and deep perception of the French revolution events by several generations of Russian people. Values, system of images and symbols begot by the French revolution served as a «guide» of a kind to the future that dazzled and at the same time scared. Having put a clear-cut line between conservatives and radicals discussions on the optimal way of the West European norms adoption brought about formation of the «Russian idea» and contention that Russia needed a peculiar civilization. One line expressed itself in the Orthodox and monarchic ideal where the Enlightenment principles were connected with motives of national identity (formula «Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood» was replaced with triad «Orthodoxy, Autocracy, national authenticity»). The other line was an alloy of the European Socialism and ideals of communality that were focused on the ancient communal way of life. The intelligentsia associated the way to the bright future with results of its own activity. The Russian people just had to accept the results of choice made by the intelligentsia.

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.

While Stalin was alive only he could be equal to the truth and only he could know the truth. Upon his death an ideological corporation emerged and this corporation took it upon itself to exercise control over the truth. Yet every functionary authorized to trace congruence of «practice» and «theory» knew that his functions of control were limited. The ideological apparatus of the Party inherited monopoly rights to the truth as a corporate heir. It was precisely the corporation which started to claim to the knowledge belonged to the caste. This knowledge released «the elected few» of unnecessary formalities. Answers to citizens concocted at the «Kommunist» journal were not different from answers produced under Stalin. However discussions within the editorial board (minutes started to be composed since January, 1954) are characterized by an important distinction: name of Stalin was nearly absent in these discussions. N.S.Khruschev in his report to the CPSU 20th Congress uncovered the terrible truth about the cult of Stalin’s personality to the communists yet still clung to the deep-seated double standards: his report was a «secret» one and its content was meant for «our crowd».

The article deals with the current political situation in Russia, with the current elites' struggle, with problems of the current situation analysis, and with the growing confrontment of political groupings within Russia that inevitably affects the spiritual condition of the Russian society as well as the RF foreign policy, the RF relations with its close neighbors. Overcoming the chaos under conditions of atomized society is the task that should be solved by people who are engaged in politics and in accordance with grand purposes and values that are aimed at preservation of the country, its people, its culture and the future of Russia.

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.

The author notes an interrelation between scientific views of A.A.Kornilov and M.M.Kovalevski and their political stance as centrist liberals. The peculiar trait of the centrist concept of Russia reorganization is the substantiation of necessity to retain the historical continuity in the process of transformation. Ideologues of liberal centrism shared the understanding of danger that was result of their general approach to history and their refusal to put up with falsification of history. The article reflects position taken by Kornilov and Kovalevski on a range of issues that moved in the focus of public attention due to celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812. These issues included appraisal of Alexander I personality and policies, appraisal of M.M.Speranski's activities, the Continental Blockade’s consequences for Russia, impact of events occurred between the Treaties of Tilsit and Napoleon’s army invasion into Russia on results of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the impact of this war on public thought development, preparation to abolition of the serfdom and its actual abolition.

The author analyzes preconditions of the Soviet collectivization as a process of the Western style modernization along the lines of American agrarian-industrial enterprises that emerged in the1920s. Application of the most advanced machines (not just field engines but also combined harvesters invented at that times) lied at the bottom of these enterprises. The Soviet leaders perceived harvesters as a fundamental innovation that would prove advantages of collective farms and permit to send some 15 million redundant people from countryside to construction sites.

The article is focused on the evolution of the traditional concepts of Russian public consciousness («Moscow the third Rome», Slavic brotherhood, liberating mission of Russia etc.) in the years of the First World War. Public reaction to the key events of the war is investigated, such as the Russian occupation of Galicia and the decision of the Entente powers to hand over Constantinople to Russia after the war. The elements of eschatology and messianism which were characteristic of the Russian consciousness, clashed with the ecclesiastical and political realities of Europe and Near East.

The author examines samples of female auto documental materials (diaries, letters, recollections, autobiographies) written in the 18th and 19th centuries by women of different estates and social standings, family statuses and educational backgrounds. These narratives carried an enormous social and psychological load because they were not just a form of extreme self-expression and revelation of female inner world. They were, in fact, thinking twins of women who wrote them, twins that were intended to accomplish self-representation of those women’s gender (female) identity.

The M. Pevsner's school of nutritionists and gastroenterologists is reviewed as a classic model of scientific clinical school of 20-th century. For the first time reliable scientific biographie of one of the pioneers of the USSR gastroenterology professor M.I.Pevsner is presented, and his disciples are named. The influence of the socio-political factors on the fate of the scientists and related scientific areas is shown.