Whether the Cold War between two superpowers and their respective allies was begun more or less as a replay of the closing campaigns of the World War II because of a massive Soviet invasion in the most of Western Europe or its birth we could see even before the advent of atomic weapons so powerfully demonstrated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The author demonstrates his understanding of the links between science (particularly nuclear physics), war and politics displayed at the very beginning of the Second World War. Based on recently unknown files in the former Soviet Union and the United States the fascinating history discloses how and why the Cold War between two superpowers gave many signs to be born during their hostilities against the common enemy as a result of a deep conflict of mentalities and the U.S. belief in a secure world if no nation after the WWII (except the USA) possessed nuclear weapons.

The internal crisis in the German Democratic Republic was ripening for a long time, but the situation could not be defined as desperate. The Socialist United Party of Germany leadership and the government of the GDR had at their disposal rather powerful levers that allowed regulating the course of events. At the same time lack of a program of actions in the period upon resignation of Erich Honecker had disastrous consequences. Attempts to develop a new concept in a hurry and then to accommodate it with Moscow led to inadmissible waste of time. External and domestic forces that sought not to reform the GDR but to abolish it took advantage of that waste of time. Uncertainty of the middle-level party management in respect of their actions by the leaders of the Soviet perestroika had the additional destructive impact on the situation in the GDR. The toll for the GDR rang out at the moment when the confusion and lack of coordination in the highest echelons of power led to forced abolition of control over the line of demarcation between the capital of the GDR and West Berlin. It was precisely the moment when the countdown to the end of the GDR began.

The article, based on archival materials, is devoted to the role of military crimes in the criminalization of Russia during the First World War. The paper describes the main types of military crimes during the war, their scale and dynamics, the relationship with civil offenses and the revolutionary actions, analyzes the change of the composition of the Russian army, constantly expanding the former criminals, their role in the progressive criminalization of the army and the society until the October Revolution.

The article describes how the “Iron Curtain” broke the contact of A.V.Florovsky with Soviet colleagues. He was able to resume them only during the Khrushchev’s Thaw. In 1950-ies the historian met by correspondence with A.A.Novoselsky, B.B.Kafengauz and other Soviet scholars. One of the main themes of their communication becomes the preparation of “The Letters and papers of the Emperor Peter the Great”. This article analyzes the historiographic and source study suggestions of A.V.Florovsky regarding this publication.

By the beginning of December 1697 the participants of the Karlowitz congress had seemed exhausted well enough to come up with some semblance of compromise. But instead they faced a series of new problems to be resolved. Owing to Voznitzin's dexterity in the art of capitalizing on the severe disagreements between his opponents the diplomatic struggle reemerged with the renewed vigor. It resulted in a situation that could turn into reality any outcome hitherto unlikely to happen.

At the beginning of December 1991 the Committee of State Security (KGB) was reorganised and Vadim Bakatin was appointed the Chairman of the new security sistem. As “The Act of the Good Will” Bakatin presented the US Ambassador in Moscow secret documentation on the overhearing devices installed into the walls of the new building of the American Embassy. On 7–8 December the leaders of Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belorussia, Yeltsyn, Kravchuk and Shushkevich signed a Declaration on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the USSR declared his resignation. Consequences of this rapid transformation of the socialist economy into the free market capitalist economy are discussed. Rapid inflation, financial crisis and the decline of the living standards of population forced Boris Yeltsyn to change the rate of reforms. At the end of 1992 Victor Chernomyrdin was appointed as the new prime-minister and Victor Gerashchenko became the Chairman of the Central State Bank.

The Terror is one of the most mysterious and debatable subjects in the history of the French Revolution. For a long time it represented the main research focus for historians whose interpretations, however, were strongly influenced by contemporary ideological battles and political prejudice. The historiography of XIX and XX centuries traditionally offered two opposite hypothesis. On the one hand, the Jacobin dictatorship resulted probably from a whole complex of economic, social, and military difficulties in the country (“theory of circumstances”). On the other hand, the state violence perhaps put a logical end to philosophy of Enlightenment (conception of “historical fatalism”). The black-and-white picture was brightly coloured under a jubilee celebration (1989) by numerous alternative propositions.