The author deals with the situation of exceeding strain that has developed in the world in result of Trump advent and due to escalation of several international conflicts. According to the author, situation is dangerous as it has never been. At the same time it is necessary always to understand that foreign policy is intimately connected with domestic policy. Ideological duality of the Russian power bears a great danger. So far there are forces in the Russian leadership that support hazardous initiatives aimed at extension of juvenile justice, development of trends that pose threat to traditional values. The future of the country depends on efficiency of patriotic forces resistance to these threats. The power has to revise its attitude to economic crimes, corruption, and dalliance with nonsystematic Orange opposition. Half-measures are of no use in these issues.

The German foreign policy discourse of the first half of the XIX century indicates an exaggerated attention of the German audience to Russia, and inadequate compared to actual impact of the latter on the domestic and foreign policy in the German lands during the revolutionary unrest in 1848 and on the eve of the Crimean War. The main reason for such an inconvenience is the fact that the image of Russia in the German political literature of that period had initially been constructed as a tool to manipulate of public opinion in the political rivalry in Germany. It was demanded not only by conservatives in power, but also by the liberal opposition for self-consolidation and reinforcement of own ideology and self-perception.

In 2015, the publishing house "Political Encyclopedia" released collective monograph "Patriotism and Nationalism as Factors of Russian History (the end of the 18th century – 1991)" edited by the winner of the State Prize of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V.Zhuravlev. Soon the book was awarded the National Prize "The Best Books and Publishing Houses of the Year – 2015". Reflection of the author of the article is aimed at the process of formation and evolution of the ideas of Russian patriotism and nationalism, analyzed in the monograph. He tries to trace how the idea of ​unraveling a complex coil of problems connected with the history and essence of the concepts "patriotism" and "nationalism" in Russian history, ideology and public consciousness is realized in the course of the research.

The name of M.V.Lomonosov holds a significant place in Russian symbolic space, plays an important role in forming national identity and self-consciousness. His image was partially formed under the influence of mass-media and official ideology. Not always the ideas promoted by the power and press fell on the fertilized soil. Historical memory is selective and variable. This article is the first attempt to show the transformation of M.V.Lomonosov’s image on the materials of press.

The author considers “Story of Dracula”, one of the most interesting monuments of old Russian literature and social thought of the 15th century. Usually researchers interpret this piece of work as an apology of the strong power and justification of repressions undertaken in the interest of state and the common good. It is assumed that appraisal of the “Story” protagonist, the prince of Walachian (Rumanian) state, hospodar Dracula is ambiguous. Dracula connects traits of a despot and sadistic cruelty with valiance, justice, and statesmanship. As the author argues, the appraisal of the protagonist is totally negative and his methods of rule are presented as not just sinful but as maleficent. Ideologically “Story of Dracula” fits in the old Russian tradition and has nothing common with social-political notions of such representatives of the formidable and cruel power as Ivan Peresvetov and czar Ivan the Fourth. The Story’s originality consists not in its author’s position but in means of its expression: the Story’s author prompts his readers to make an effort and understand why Dracula was a despot who served to the devil.

While the word ‘craft’ can be used today in a neutral way to denote any productive or creative activity, the concept behind the term often bears a negative connotation: this is connected with the evaluations of technological and scientific progress in industrial civilisation sometimes posited by the historiographical tradition. As a rule, ‘craft’ is attached to adjectives bearing negative associations, such as ‘routine’, ‘narrow’, ‘primitive’, or ‘illegal’. In this article, we attempt to understand what constitutes the work and products of craftsmen – can crafts be art? Are craft masters artists? While this may seem rather contradictory, we show that these terms are interchangeable and complementary. A craft can be art and a craftsman an artist: it depends on the interpreters, participants, and the context in which the activities in question occur.

People are capable to remain themselves (in the best as well in the worst manifestations) in any situation. The “interest rules the world” axiom remains to be hard and fast even if it is applied to revolutionary epochs. The range of such personal, private interest manifestations on the part of representatives of various social strata and political forces of the society should be recognized as all-pervading one. This range embraces a great variety of manifestations, from a requirement of spiritual self-realization which is a far cry from petty or even big selfish or other “earthly” calculation to a conscious set of assumptions aimed at a hope that the revolutionary wave can raise people who joined it to the other, higher level of social stratification, in accordance with “the last will be the first” principle. Analysis of private interests’ structure, private interests’ content, quality and hierarchy of private interests, their complex intertwining and conflict in a revolutionary period in comparison with periods of evolutionary development allows making more detailed and more correct judgments in respect of extent to which a revolution can be considered as a painful social process which finally brings salutary results and to what extent revolutions can be considered as stages of “mass insanity” of desperate masses as it is fashionable to declare nowadays.

The article deals with the conference held on Malta at the end of January - early February of 1945. At the conference British and American diplomats and military discussed their plans connected with the end of war and reorganization of the world. During the meeting leaders of the US and Great Britain Roosevelt and Churchill tried to accord the common line they wished to maintain in respect of principal issues of negotiation with Stalin who was the head of the USSR delegation at the “Big Three” Yalta conference in February, 1945.

We keep on publication one of those documents of the Great Russian revolution of 1917 that should close up a significant gap in our notions of how the Russian Social-Democrats tried to comprehend not considerable but their own historical experience in the years after the first Russian revolution, how they tried to define and enunciate particularity of Russia’s economic and political development, Russian social groups, their political culture and to explain inevitability of some Russian Social Democratic Labor Party’s programmatic ideas revision and refinement.