The article is devoted to the new geopolitical reality which to the full extent defines now the situation all over the post-Soviet expanse. The author considers the new role Turkey and other neighbors of Russia in the configuration that presents the latest threat and can change traditional roles these states perform in the East. The author addresses also the painful and hot theme of relations between Turkey and Armenia and between Turkey and Azerbaijan and appraises the challenges tossed to Russia in the present-day diplomatic and military-political context.

A decade and a half ago author has already addressed problems of the Imperial Russia’s first State Duma historical fate. The social acuteness of these problems under conditions of that time directly correlated with processes of elaboration of the land reform in the Russian Federation principles that stirred the society as a whole, with adoption of the RF Land code (2001) and of the Law “On agricultural lands turnover” (2002). The time which elapsed since the early 2000s did not lower the researchers’ interest and social-practical interest to the profound investigation of the first in the Russian history representative institution emergence. The Duma had legislative functions and boldly claimed its rights to the primacy and independence of the monarch’s willfulness and of the dictate of the executive power subdued to the monarch. Why did the first try fail? Why that attempt did not inaugurate the beginning of the serious dialogue between the power and the society on a wide range of issues including the most urgent problem, the land problem? The land problem is still urgent. Moreover, it is still hot, burning issue. For the time is incapable to annul the indisputable, absolute justice of the thesis set forward by P.A.Stolypin: “The land is the precondition and guarantee of our future power, the land is Russia”.

The article explores Swedish king Oscar II’s political views and their influence on Swedish policy. The author concludes that for a variety of reasons the king’s views had significant pro-German nature. In fact, exactly he turned out to be a proxy for German influence in Sweden at the turn of the 19th century. However, inside the country the king planted successfully German political, economical and cultural patterns, and in foreign policy he strived for rapprochement with Germany which might even include a military alliance. Therethrough Oscar II has laid the groundwork for an important line in Sweden’s political development existed up to the end of the First World War.

The third part of the article focuses on the content of Russo-Turkish negotiations at Karlowitz officially started on November 9th 1698. They constantly stumbled at the Porte`s intransigence fueled by the double-standard position of the Austrian, English and Dutch delegates. The discussions centered around the interpretation of the uti possidetis as a basic principle of the Karlowitz congress. While scrutinizing the arguments of each actor the author blames the Turks and their Western supporters for the lack of progress in peace talks.

The State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) was not created by “hard-liners” as an attempt of the “coup d’etat”. to take power. It actually tried to save the USSR and its Constitution and to prevent its dessolution and replacement by the new Union of Sovereign States. The defeat of the GKChP, which consisted by the main members of the USSR government and headed by the vice-president, resulted by the transfer of power to Boris Yeltsyn and the government of the Russian Federation which was unable to control the main branches of the economy, foreign trade and the financial system. Because Michail Gorbachev restored as the USSR President was unable to rule by decree or create the new government, the power was transferred by the Supreme Soviets to “The State Council”, which consisted of leaders of ten Union Republics with Gorbachev as its chairman. In September of 1991 The State Council proclaimed the independence of the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

As a hostage of his own selfishness the individual is not acceptable in the ideal state. His only possibility is a self-regeneration in refusing his personal interests and liberty in favor of common wealth. As a representative of pure Virtue he is owned by Revolution. Out of private emotions, evaluations and profit he escapes vengeance and gets an omnipotence in defiance for somebody else’s ends. During the revolution hero’s archetype (as an originator of a new life, a victor of enemies and obstacles) creates in political culture a kind of «civil religion» abounding in «cathedrals» (Panthéon), iconography and cults (public holidays and ceremony).

The article presents “the portrait against the background of the epoch”: A.S.Posnikov was a major authority in economics, publicist, organizer of higher education and pedagogue, public figure and politician, one of the leaders of the centrist (between the Constitutional Democrats and the Octobrists) current in the Russian Liberalism of the early 20th century. The particular attention is paid to contribution of Posnikov and his followers to elaboration of the “new Liberalism” ideas, of the “mixed economy” model for Russia, of innovative approach to problems of party building. For the first time Posnikov’s activities during his tenure as the Main Land Committee chairman under the Provisional government are characterized on the basis of archive sources and publicist writings and additional information on Posnikov’s life after the October revolution is adduced.

The documentary essay explores the less-known circumstances surrounding the famous Fulton speech by W.Churchill. It is based on the British archival sources, first of all – reports from the British Embassy in Washington on Churchill’s visit to the United States and on American public reaction to the Fulton speech. It demonstrates that the initial response was very mixed which pushed Churchill to change emphasis in his subsequent speeches in the U.S. But ultimately, as concluded by the author, the “iron curtain” speech contributed to the shift of American public to the cold war mode.