The author deals with the current situation in the Russian political life. The main content of the current processes are the struggle of elites, alignment and correlation of forces, problem of principal messages formation (messages that the supreme authority sends to elites and the society at large). The crisis of the current domestic policy in Russia arises from the ambiguity of the general situation: elites have not defined their predilections and the vector of further development. Where will move the country? Will we go to East? Or to West? Will we retain our identity and uniqueness or not? How will we fight rodent corruption? It is impossible to provide answers to these questions without renewal of political life, without displacement of elite with some fresh forces and without broad public initiative.

The public generally thought of military procurement and supply system as of the sphere that attracted people of low moral standards. In fact, corruption and embezzlement of state property in the military department of the Russian Empire were complex socio-cultural phenomena that reflected realities of the political system, of social life pattern, of legal conscience and administration technologies. The organized embezzlement of the state property in form of money or inventory items is the inescapable result of loose control over the bureaucratic machine where activities of all audit structures are effectively neutralized with techniques developed in the process of practical use of normative acts and by-laws that were presumably aimed at preservation of every public penny.

The author examines contribution of early 20th century Russian scientists and publicists who belonged to the Liberal-Centrists to making of the business social responsibility conception and characterizes main sources that prompted these people to accept the public mission of entrepreneurs. The author also analyzes these people’s notions of distribution of roles in the sphere of social responsibility within participants of «triangle» consisting of the power, business and society. The author’s attention is focused on persons who formed the circle that emerged around the «Vestnik Evropy» magazine and the «Russkie Vedomosti» newspaper and some other periodicals. The particular attention is devoted to views of V.G.Yarotsky and A.M.Rykachev whose names are emerging from the historical oblivion nowadays. Original and innovative character and relevance of the Russian Liberal-Centrists' opinions on importance of businessmen in Russia’s development is emphasized.

The purpose of the article is generalization of the basic results of research of the author over the last 5 years. The article defines historically developed motives of charity in Russia, allocates problems of development of charity connected mainly with standard-legal regulation of this activity, for assistance of development of corporate charity some recommendations are offered. The analysis of charity practice in Russia shows that charity starts to be used more and more as an element of the corporate strategy aimed to increase capitalization of companies. The merciful nature of charity keeps the value, but key features in modern charity are connected with «responsibility» and «efficiency».

The article is devoted to one of the least investigated aspects of the Russian-Jewish mutual relations, i.e. to participation of Christian Jews in the Orthodox church life in the early Modern times Russian Empire. The author focuses on one figure, Vassily Krizhanovsky, a Jew who was baptized in 1716 and got name Vladimir Kalligraf as a monk. His biography is a unique source for study of such key issues as adaptation to and integration of neophytes of Jewish origin in the Russian socio-cultural environment, the Orthodox intellectuals' and representatives of the state power perception of such neophytes.

The issue describes the problems of the Sixth anti-Napoleonic coalition, Russian-British and British-Austrian relations during campaign of 1813. The article disproves an opinion that Britain had always supported Austria since as early as 1813. Austria was viewed with deеp distrust in England and Castlereagh did not intend to follow the main waterway of Austrian policy in 1813. It was Russia that has been seen by Castlereagh as a main and most important ally. When Castlereagh emerged in the Foreign Office in 1812, an opportunity to get closer and overcome the mutual distrust occurred for both Russia and Britain. But Russian-British alliance (proposed by Castlereagh in the beginning of 1813) did not work in 1813 and Castlereagh found support with Metternich instead of Russian Emperor. The article describes the personal relationships between the ambassadors which, as the experience of the talks in 1813 specifically illustrated, and as it will be shown below, were very important and sometimes decisive for Europe.

The article sketches the consequences of the German defeat in Stalingrad inside the Third Reich. The German population, inadequately informed by state controlled media until the very last phase of the battle, went into a state of shock. While political opponents of Hitler’s dictatorship drew hope from its loss of popularity, the regime tried to overcome the critical situation by means of propagating «total war», which meant first of all radicalizing its criminal methods of suppression and enslavement.

The article is based on the US Office of War Information (OWI) brochure «Toward new horizons» (1942). The OWI was central governmental agency that promoted information on Franklin D. Roosevelt diplomacy and US war efforts during the World War II. The translated into Russian brochure consists of the chief US politicians and is designated to show the US aims at WWII to the general American reader. The main ideas of it are as follows: resistance to the Evil (Nazis and Japan militarists), that will be finished by victory of Good (United Nations) that will provide wellness all over the world.

Moshe Lewin is one of the major foreign explorers of Soviet Russia’s social and political history. His works «Lenin's Last Struggle» and «Russian Peasants and Soviet Power» (both books were published in 1968) occupy as of right the place among those fundamental writings that, according to prominent Steven Cohen’s words, «superceded single-mindedness and axioms of Soviet studies with scientific pluralism and broad vision». As it turned out, the only book by Lewin translated into Russian is his last book, «Soviet Age». Publisher Gleb Pavlovski in his foreword to the book titled «Textbook of caution for heroes» has justly remarked: «…It is the book on the Soviet school of politics, on the Soviet type of domination that emerged spontaneously (as result of acceptance of responsibility for the sinking country) and succeeded in entrenching itself in history though at a heavy cost». The keen and impartial vision and of Lewin’s expressions are in many ways determined by Lewin’s own life experience. In particular, these experiences are reflected in Lewin’s Attachments (that are published for the first time) and narrate about years of the Great Patriotic War Lewin spent in the USSR: about Sovietization of Lithuania, Jewish youth organization Gashomer Gozeir, work in a collective farm and in shops of Serov steelworks, about service in construction units and training in Podolsk military school.