The article, based on the results of research of is RAS and VTSIOM, shows the evolution of ideological and political preferences of Russians over the past quarter century. The transition from the Soviet type of mass consciousness to the Western one to the moderate-state one to the "zero" is traced. The author reveals the prospects of further dynamics on the basis of the vector of mass public demand. This section of the article deals with the events and processes that developed from the beginning of the "zero" years, to the beginning of the "tenth", to the "third term" of V.Putin and the conflict with Ukraine.

The author argues that authorities couldn’t rely on social forces, so strong statist tendencies continued in post-reform Russia and bureaucracy remained the engine of the reform process. There were many lawyers among statesman in the higher levels of administration, and this contributed to manifestation of legal consciousness in the legislative sphere, increased attention to issues of law and order. Sometimes this happened at the expense of narrowing of other functions of the state. In particular, social security issues were often neglected when they contravened the principle of legality. The return of attention to them by the bureaucracy occurs only under the threat of social upheaval.

The article covers the issues of the initial stage of the formation of the Russian-Ukrainian border in the 1917–1919s. It is based on the study of the archive documents, contemporary publications of leading experts. The prevailing in the border areas with mixed population structure complicated the borders along ethnic lines. The territorial dispute was suspended in 1919 with Ukraine signing the Treaty on Borders with the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic, where the parties confirmed the expediency of the pre-revolutionary provincial administrative-territorial differentiation.

This article analyzes theoretical and methodological approaches of the Commissions on the History of Professional Movement in Russia (Istprofs) which functioned within the structure of the Soviet trade unions in the 1920s. The guiding idea of Istprofs’ work was radical inductivism, i.e. the notion that research process must be strictly divided into two stages: 1) accumulation of factual material and 2) analysis of that material and finding of the patterns of historical development. Even though they never openly challenged Party, Istprofs’ research project was an alternative to the Bolsheviks’ dogmatic reading of the Marxist epistemology.

The article attempts to briefly characterize and objectively assess the role of the prominent figure in the international revolutionary movement, H.G.Rakovsky, in the development of social processes in Ukraine during the Civil War and the time of the head of the Soviet government of the republic on the basis of an analysis of historical facts and documents. In the last decades, this page of his life receives controversial lighting.

The author considers one of differences between “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” and the Kievan annalistic story; “the Lay” presents Khan Konchak as Igor’s main opponent while the Chronicle presents Khan Gzak in the same role (and obviously in reality it was Khan Gzak) was Igor’s opponent and this fact is recorded in the Chronicle). The author demonstrates that the substitution is connected with the “Lay”s author strove to transform Igor’s failure into symbolic victory. If in the part of “The Lay”that is devoted to events preceeding Igor’s defeat and captivity the code of the herois code is used, then in the subsequent part that relates event upon that the code of fairy tale is used, as if Igor was killed in the battle and if he resurrected from the deads’ domain thus putting Konchack who captured Igor to shame while Vladimir, son to Igor, walks Konchack’ daughter from her father. In contrast to the annalistic story that recorded historical facts “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” redefines the facts pursuant to principles of mythopoetics. Irrespective of the fact whether “The Lay of Igor’s Campaign” originally was a monument of oral literature or it was created in the written form, it is the author’s text, and the author has given the new meaning to the folklore traditions.

The article is devoted to the reasons for the fall of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which existed in 1918–1920, to the analysis of the goals of its leaders, to the relations between Baku and Moscow, and to diplomatic contacts. Special attention is paid to the informal contacts of one of the leaders of this parliamentary republic, M.-E.Rasulzade, a socialist, theorist and leader of the ruling party “Musavat” (“Equality”) in this republic, with the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b).

In 1831, the first cholera epidemic broke out in St. Petersburg, which was remembered by Cholera rebellion on Sennaya Square from June 22–23. The closest to the townspeople at this time were doctors, who acted as representatives of the authorities. After the townspeople staged a hunt for doctors accused of killing patients, measures were taken to form a positive image of a doctor. To overcome the negative image was used a wide range of measures: from publications in newspapers to sermons in churches. This was an important step at this stage in the formation of the Russian medical corporation.