The author traces the intricate role of the United States diplomacy and a contingent of US Army within the context of many cataclysmic event of the Bolshevik revolution across Siberic and the far Eastern provinces of Russia. President Wilson initial policy of nonintervention which he declared on the eve of Civil war transformed into the imperia list design of different military cliques (including Japan) further confused the question of American search for “Russian dilemma”.

Saxony-Poland was most strange Russia`s ally in the Great Northern War. Russo-Polish tensions deeply rooted in history made it hard to imagine the possibility of their cooperation against Sweden. Nevertheless by 1700 they found themselves united in anti-Swedish coalition. The authors of the article assert that the factors which contributed to the emergence of the alliance between Peter the Great and Augustus II were initially charged with destructive potential strong enough to undermine the Northern Alliance long before the Nystadt Congress of 1721.

The State Council was the highest legislative authority of Russian Empire. And originally it wasn’t designed to play a judicial role. But new administrative system created by Alexandre I required some adjustment already in their first years. So, the State Council (and, first and foremost, its Department of Civil and Religious Affairs) became the highest judicial body of the state. The article reveals features of work of the State Council as the highest court, attempt to relieve the Civil Department of functions that do not properly belong to it, the impact of the reform process, economic and social development of the latter half of the 19th century on the evolution of activities of the Civil Department.

Based on the analysis of little-known documents stored in domestic and foreign archival institutions and previously published materials, the article highlights the formation of the Russian-Ukrainian border on the Don in 1918. The author focuses on the features of lengthy and intense negotiations, sometimes accompanied by an escalation of interstate relations caused by the presence of mutual territorial claims. Following the talks, the states worked out a compromise option by concluding an agreement on the mutual recognition of sovereignty and the establishment of state borders of the Don and the Ukrainian State. However, implementation of the signed agreements was hindered by foreign policy events and the subsequent change in the domestic political situation in the context of the growing chaos of the Civil War. The end of the First World War and the subsequent withdrawal of the troops of the Central Powers brought down the pro-German government of P.Skoropadsky, and in the Don defeated military-political circles began to oriented toward the Entente countries.

The article is dedicated to the memory of the conquest of Central Asia in the 1860-1880s. The focus is on monuments erected in battlefields, as well as in politically important points in the region. Medals played a great role in symbolizing victories in this region. At the same time, it should be noted that the presentation of victories in Central Asia was frankly peripheral in nature: no monument appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg, no ship of the Navy was named after the victories in Turkestan.

The author analyzes the first stage of the formation of political organizations of Russian liberal centrists (between cadets and Octobrists) in January-April 1906, during the election campaign for the first State Duma. Conclusions of the article are based on materials from periodicals and archival sources. The author focuses not only on Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also on other regions of the country, where the mentioned parties, unions, clubs were formed (Partiya demokraticheskih reform, Klub nezavisimyh, Umerenno-progressivnaya partiya, Partiya «svobodomyslyashchih», Demokraticheskij soyuz konstitucionalistov-demokratov, Soyuz mirnogo obnovleniya). The article attempts to explain the phenomenon of liberal centrism.

In an interview, the author gives his answers to questions about the relations of China, Russia and the USA, the successes and failures of Russia and China in the post-war period, at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries and today. The author also sets out his own opinion on socialism with Chinese characteristics.