The establishment of a peaceful life in Belarus after its liberation from the Nazis in 1944 was associated with the solution of a host of complex problems in such basic spheres of social life as economy, state and public security, ideology, ineffective personnel policy. These problems were most critical in the western regions of the BSSR, where the situation was complicated by the forcing of Sovietization. The post-war normalization in the Republic was negatively influenced by the undercover struggle for the first secretary post of the Central Committee of the CP(b)B. The arbiter in it was Stalin, who constantly manipulated the nomenklatura groups.

In the late XIX – early XX centuries in Russia, several hundred stories of military units were published, the authors of which were professional military personnel. None of these books and pamphlets claim to be original and independent in their assessments of the historical events and persons described, which casts doubt on the legitimacy of considering them part of Russian historiography. At the same time, the analysis of these publications as a tool of commemoration looks promising. The article considers the use of the history of military units for the formation of ideas about the past as a means of forming an imperial identity.

The article analyzes the views of General A. I. Denikin, who headed the White movement in the South of Russia, on the peculiarities of psychology, economic and military activities, social mood, perception of a different identity, interfaith interaction, political interests, the search for allies and patrons, methods of communication with the conditions of a foreign cultural environment characteristic of the mountain peoples of the North Caucasus in years Civil War in 1917–1920. The commander's reflections reveal his understanding of the relationship between Russia and the North Caucasus, as interaction between the Center and the periphery in a single large society. This concept is confirmed by the practice of their difficult, but, nevertheless, effective joint development. In the conditions when the North Caucasus region is the sphere of interests of many states of the world, it continues to remain and develop within Russia.

The article is devoted to party building among the Crimean Tatars in 1917–1928, the goals of their party leaders, relations between them and the leadership of Crimea, political contacts of Crimean politicians with local Bolsheviks, with the Central Committee of the RCP(b). The attached materials, including archival materials, contain a variety of information about the party life of the Crimean Tatars, its features during these 10 years.

With Decemberist Peter Pestel action analysis the author brings attention to the situation in the Southern Society. Peter Pestel had both serious opponents with whom he could not agree and loyal friends. Head of the Kamensk council of the Southern Society Vasily Davydov was one of the closest to Pestel among the conspirators. However, despite his loyalty to Pestel personally and devotion to the ideas of the Decembrists, Davydov was not ready for revolutionary actions. His activities were limited to talking about the need for political reforms in Russia only.

The article focuses on emperor’s dual position towards the State Council. Up until the year 1906 monarch remained nominal head of the highest legislative authority of Russian Empire but his links with the Council weakened with time. So, in the second half of the 19th century his attempts to influence (to control) the outcome of the discussion of laws were qualified as unwarranted interference and violation of the rules of the law-making process. At the same time emperor’s involvement in bureaucratic process grew steadily so he finally became not only the final part of legislative process but necessary component of records management.

This article examines the functions of the name of the biblical first-killer Cain as a precedent for the depiction and naming of Svyatopolk the Accursed in the monuments of the Borisoglebsk cycle. The naming of Svyatopolk "okan'ny" (the Accursed) is based on the principle of paronymic attraction (rapprochement with the name Kain, to which the semantics of rejection and extreme sinfulness is ascribed, as it were). It is shown that the functioning of the lexeme okan'ny in these texts is different: in Nestor's "Reading about Boris and Gleb" it is used in relation to Svyatopolk mainly in the nominative, not in the attributive function and as if it becomes his name and at the same time turns into the occasional equivalent of the name Kain. The almost complete refusal of Nestor from using his own name Svyatop'lk / Svyatopolk, apparently, is associated with his sacred connotations (the root "holy"). It can be traced how in the later Old Russian literature the very name Svyatopolk / Svyatopolk becomes a precedent.

The article deals, based on the archival documents and published materials, with the contribution of the well-known folklorist and literary critic Yuri Matveyevich Sokolov (1889–1941) to the development and formation of the Library of the State Historical Museum in the post-revolutionary period, and his activities as head of the museum library in 1922–1929, as well, as the circumstances of his forced departure from the Historical Museum due to the conflict with the Museum's management. A number of published documents are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

This article examines the underlying causes of the emergence of the Kurdish conflict in Iraq. It analyzes the key ethnic, social, political, and economic causes that have led to growing tensions between Iraq's Kurdish population and the central government in Baghdad. The article explores the main stages of the formation of the Kurdish movement led by the Barzani clan, as well as the reasons for divergences between Barzani and Talabani. The conclusion is drawn that the Kurdish movement in Iraq was the result of growing internal contradictions at the root of Iraqi statehood.

The article examines the situation when the mass-circulation magazine Crocodile published a rather strange drawing depicting the “united opposition” as a dysfunctional part of the overall construction of socialism. Such a drawing, without political context, looks deliberately simplistic and unconvincing. A comparison of this drawing with the events of the October plenum of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) shows that such a depiction corresponded fully to the complex political game waged by the Stalinist group in the Central Committee of the VKP(b), interested not in publicly exposing theoretical differences with the opposition, but in demonstrating the simple and understandable logic of the masses – the opposition simply does not want to build socialism. All the theoretical postulates about the impossibility of building it in a single country, without a world revolution, must have looked like empty talk, and that is all.

The article examines the informal practices of relations between representatives of the state apparatus and of the business sphere. The study is based on a complex of letters of the Buldakov merchant family. Contents of letters from provincial officials to the chief director of the Russian-American company M.M. Buldakov to see how communication developed between business and government, also allowed to highlight the typical behavior of different categories of officials. The article examines examples of establishing trusting relationships and confrontation. The conclusion is drawn that bribes and monetary rewards for services could not always ensure the loyalty of officials. An important role in the system of informal relations was played by the development of patron-client ties.

In Russia, in the XIX – early XX centuries, salon dance practice reached its culmination in its development. Balls as a form of leisure have become an integral part of everyday life not only of the aristocracy, but also of other social strata of Russian society. Throughout the 19th century, the choreographic language of ballroom dance was still being updated in France, and then spread to other European countries, but at the end of the century there was a radical change of orientation, and European ballroom dance began to rapidly “americanize”.

St.Petersburg Kunstkamera stored besides other rarities presents of Russian monarchs. Following this tradition Alexander I handed over to the museum a unique clock, made by naval lieutenant E.S.Ovtsin during his leisure time. Its mechanism did not require winding up, had a rotating dial, sliding on a glass plate, and a fixed hand in the form of cupid. The fate of that extraordinary object in 20–21 st centuries remains a mystery.

This article is devoted to the reconstruction of the scientific discussion of 1955–1956, connected with the accusations of S. L. Utchenko, a Soviet antiquity researcher, by a group of young Czechoslovak historians in plagiarism. The authors of this article do not set the task of bringing in verdict a of Utchenko’s guilty. The purpose of this study is to get closer to understanding the mechanisms of (not)resolving such conflicts, and in addition to try to understand the specifics of personal and business communications between Soviet and Czechoslovak scientists, to give a look how contacts were established between them within the framework of the formation of the intellectual field of “socialist science”. This episode is not just a curious incident from the history of scientific ties. It is indicative in that it demonstrates examples of the existence of disputes, discussions and conflicts in the scientific environment, and also outlines the facets of scientific ethics.

This publication of the letters of G.V.Chicherin, the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs, to V.I.Lenin, the chair of the Council of People’s Commissars, sheds light on the mechanism according to which the early Soviet republic constructed its foreign policy. More generally, it also illuminates how the broader political system functioned in Soviet society during its formative period amid civil war and foreign intervention.

The published excerpts from the memoirs of F.A.Pisarkov (1917–1991), the author of the memoirs of the Great Patriotic War published in 2017, give an idea of the life of the population of Donbass in the rapidly changing economic and political situation in the country. The author's early childhood memories are connected with the famine of 1921 (then the family lived in the Orenburg province, since 1923 – in the Donbass). Then a description of life during the NEP period with an abundance of food and goods, which in the late 1920s ends with a general shortage and the introduction of bread cards. The situation stabilizes by the mid-1930s, when the cards were abolished, and the Sunday bazaars in the abundance of goods reminded the author of the bazaars of the mid-1920s. The memoirs contain many vivid sketches that characterize the life of the population and its attitude to state politics.

A fragment of the memoirs of O.V.Volobuev, Doctor of Historical Sciences (born in 1931), is dedicated to the events experienced by him and his family during the Great Patriotic War. The author verifies his own childhood impressions, referring to the memoirs and diaries of contemporaries who, like him, were in occupied Yalta at the end of 1941 – beginning of 1942. The following (until the summer of 1945) dramatic circumstances of life in the Ukrainian village of Novo-Ivanovka are also described. The war period is characterized by O.V.Volobuev as an important stage in personal development.

The article discusses key events in the development of the Kurdish movement during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. It analyzes the underlying reasons for the exacerbation of relations between Baghdad and the Kurdish population. With the complication of Iraq's geopolitical regional and international situation and the deterioration of the internal political situation in the country, the Kurdish question has naturally worsened again. The article also discusses the background of the creation of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR) and the implications for the Kurdish movement in Iraq.

The article examines the formation, development and essential characteristics of the mutual denial of royal intermarriage and morganatic marriages of the House of Romanov in the 19th – early 20th centuries. The phenomenon of the growing prevalence of morganatic marriages over dynastic marriages, their direct dependence on social processes in Russian society and their impact on the situation within the dynasty are assessed.

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of A. A. Bogdanov's novel “The Red Star” and P. P. Infantiev's story “On Another Planet” (“The Inhabitants of Mars”). By these works we can judge about the ideas of revolutionary writers of the early twentieth century about the structure of future society, which appears to the reader in the description of the Martian civilization, as well as how and in what directions people of that time saw the development of science and technology. Genre, plot, the image of the protagonist and the fate of the authors of these works are very similar. Despite the similarity, the descriptions of Mars in them differ in many ways, which is largely due to the difference in the personalities of the authors, their character and way of thinking.

We continue to publish excerpts from F. A. Pisarkov (1917–1991), the author of memoirs about the Great Patriotic War published in 2017. The proposed fragment is part of the biographical story “Parents”, which in many ways supplements the memories. The story is based on the stories of his mother, Pisarkova (Safonova) Elizaveta Ignatievna (1889–1958), about her life in the Ryazan village and her impressions of life in mining village of Donbass. The story contains many vivid everyday sketches and details that are of considerable interest for studying the way of life and ideas of people in the first quarter of the 20th century. Also, the proposed material will help to trace the dynamics of changes occurring during this period in the agricultural and industrial sectors.

This article is devoted to the political activities and ideas of Maxim Rayevsky (Lev Iosifovich Fishelev) – one of the theorists of Russian anarchism, publicists, most famous at the beginning of the XX century, but in our time forgotten even by researchers of anarchist thought. Raevsky was actually the first among Russian anarchists to formulate the concept of «free Soviets». Analyzing the events of the First Russian Revolution, he developed the concept of a «transition period» from a capitalist society to an anarcho-communist one, in which state power, in a decentralized version, was to pass into the hands of Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies. During the Great Russian Revolution of 1917–1922, this concept of a gradual transition to an anarchist system was adopted by many members of the anarchist movement.

This article covers the issues of formatting the borders of Taurida in 1774–1917. The author sees it necessary to trace the prerequisites, causes, dynamics and principles of transformations of the status and boundaries of Taurida in the period under study. As a result of long-term Russian-Turkish conflicts, in the 18th century the region came under control and became an integral part of the Russian state. It is emphasized that the process of changes in the political status and administrative-territorial transformations took place against the background of the changing international situation that influenced its course, and setting various tasks in the field of public administration.

The article examines the policy of Nazi Germany in the national and cultural sphere in the occupied territory of the Ukrainian SSR (in its southern and eastern regions). Namely, an attempt to sow discord between Ukrainians and Russians. Ukrainian nationalists were an active promoter of this policy. The reasons for their cooperation with the Germans, their goals, nature and methods of activity are analyzed. The effectiveness of the policy of the German Nazis and Ukrainian nationalists and the reasons for its failure are evaluated.

The article discusses the issue of what role can be played by stakeholder capitalism in Russia and in the world. After the 2020 World Economic Forum the word ‘stakeholder’ became very popular. Economists, financiers and investors say that stakeholder capitalism is future of the world economy. In spite of that, the analysis of various sources shows that certain conditions are required for the conversion of capitalism. One of them is the absence or low level of corruption. Small countries, which are easier to manage (Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Japan, etc.), have an advantage. However, in large countries (Russia, China, Brazil, USA, etc.), cases involving corruption and violation of labour and civil human rights are more common. This gives rise to a downward trend in real incomes, household debt increase, purchasing power declines, and world trade growth slows.

The article discusses key developments in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. military operation. It analyzes the main contradictions between ethnic and confessional groups in the country, as well as the role of the Kurdish population in the formation of the new Iraq. It examines the steps of Kurdish leaders and their position in the face of the occupation of Iraq, Washington's interaction with the Kurds and Turkey's role in Iraqi Kurdistan. The author concludes the further destabilization of the situation in Iraq, as well as the prospects of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR).

One of the priorities of the federal Center's policy in the first half of the 1990s was the search for effective ways to build relations with the Russian regions. This process was most difficult in Chechnya, where supporters of the republic's secession from the Russian Federation came to power in 1991. During 1992–1994, the parties tried to agree on mutual interests, but the negotiation process for various reasons often came to an impasse. In 1994, the federal Center set a course to curtail contacts with the Chechen authorities and support the anti-Dudayev opposition. The negotiation process, which resumed at the end of 1994, did not lead to positive results. It seems, however, that the possibilities for a peaceful settlement of the crisis were not fully exploited by both sides, which turned into a tragedy for the entire country.

By analyzing a diverse layer of domestic sources, the article attempts to trace the reaction of Russian society and the ruling circles of Russia to the growth of anti-Russian sentiments in Europe in the 1930s – 1940s of XIX century, as well as to identify the measures by which various government departments tried to influence public opinion in Germany, forming a positive image of their country.

The article analyzes the problem of the composition of the imperial Cabinet of Ministers from the point of view of the issue of the personal activities of its members. This aspect of the topic has not received significant coverage in historiography. The chronological framework of the study covers the period from 1734 to 1741, when the main development cycles of this institution were carried out. The material of the research is the clerical documentation of a state body, which made it possible to reveal the following facts of the independent work of ministers: their special orders and opinions, reports to the empress and announcements of the highest orders, as well as the signing of imperial decrees. The author made conclusions about the nature of the personal influence on the activity characteristics and forms of functioning of the institution of higher authority.

The article reviews the evolution of the Russian Orthodox Church’s rhetoric in the early postwar Soviet Union on the basis of papers of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. The main directions of the Russian Orthodox Church’s indoctrination are being analyzed. The article specifies the role of the church in the postwar glorification of J. Stalin in the framework of the cult of his personality. The author concludes that the Russian Orthodox Church generally followed J. Stalin’s line but shifted emphasis while dealing with some particular issues.

In this article the coverage of the status and formatting of the borders of Taurida was continued. The author sees it necessary to trace the prerequisites, causes, dynamics and principles of transformations of the status and boundaries of Taurida in the 1917–1921. It is emphasized that the process of changes in the political status and administrative-territorial transformations took place against the background of the changing international situation that influenced its course, and the setting by the state leadership of various internal political tasks. As a result of a long process of formatting, Taurida was divided between two Soviet states – the Ukrainian SSR and the RSFSR. Its borders are in this form in the 21st century.

The article examines the situation when the epicenter of Stalin's ideological campaign was the leader's joke that there were those “lacquered” among the Communists who did not want to criticize themselves, although “self-criticism” was a requirement of the Bolshevik Party after the defeat of the united opposition. The joke about the “lacquered” was the basis for satirical essays by journalist B. Samsonov, written for the magazine Crocodile. Samsonov came up with a whole gallery of those who could be called by Stalin's word “varnished”. However, the joke of the leader of the party prompted Samsonov to write not in a humorous manner, but in a satirical manner. And it did not come out as expected. The images of “lacquered” people were consonant with the “spirits of the Russian revolution”, about which the Russian philosopher N. A. Berdyaev wrote.

This article discusses the underlying reasons for the start of the U.S. military operation in Iraq in 2003. It analyzes the key ideological, energy, economic, and political aspects that led the Bush Jr. administration to decide to invade the Iraqi state. The authors examine the influence of neoconservative figures, the role of oil, and the official motives of the White House. The article concludes the discrepancy between the declared American reasons for overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime and the most likely drivers of the military operation.

The early 40s of the 19th century were marked by the growth of anti-Russian sentiments in Europe. It provoked a number of retaliatory measures from the Russian government. The article discusses one of the “projects” for the formation of a positive image of Russia in Germany, proposed by the poet, publicist and diplomat F. I. Tyutchev. We are talking about a note on the organization of pro-Russian propaganda in the German press, presented by Tyutchev to the head of the III Department A. H. Benckendorf in the autumn of 1843.

The article examines the causes, course and results of the Greek-Russian conflict that arose in the first half of the 1870s in the Athos St. Panteleimon Monastery. It is shown that the conflict was caused by the aggravation of a number of contradictions between different ethnic communities in the monastery itself, the general rise in the Greek environment of anti-Slavic and anti-Russian sentiments caused by Russia's position in the Greek-Bulgarian church issue, as well as the actions of British diplomacy which sought to weaken Russian influence in the Balkans and the Middle East. The article considers the emergence of the New Athos Simon-Cananite Monastery in the Caucasus, which became one of the results of the «Greek-Russian Panteleimon process».

The article deals with the analysis of the satirical images of Turkey in Russian satirical journals at the beginning of the XXth century, in the epoch when the Romanovs and Ottoman empires suffered of the acute social and political crises connected with the process of rapid state modernization. On the base of narrative and visual sources of the leading satirical magazines of that time the author discovers an interesting phenomenon: Russian satirical journalist’s criticism on the “Ottoman renewal” became a kind of mirror for the perception and estimation of the entire situation in Russian empire on the eve of the century of wars and revolutions. The “gender” images in the satirical interpretation of Turkey in this context demonstrate an “orientalist” specificity of the critical rhetorics in the address of the “Southern neighbor”.

The article is devoted to the history of relations between Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and the head of the Moscow municipality K.V.Rukavishnikov. They collaborated in the field of charity from 1893 to 1915. Elizabeth Fеdorovna and her husband Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich provided Rukavishnikov a patronage of the royal couple, which led to his cooperation with Empress Alexandra Fеdorovna in the charitable sphere. The closest contacts between Elizabeth Feodorovna and Rukavishnikov occurred in 1900–1905, when he headed two organizations of the Grand Duchess: the Elisabeth Charitable Society and the Commission for accommodation of wounded soldiers, evacuated from the Far East. After 1905, Elizabeth Fedorovna repeatedly turned to Rukavishnikov for help in developing the strategic programs of her new organizations. In fact, Rukavishnikov can be called the mentor of the Grand Duchess.

The presented fragment of memoirs describes the adolescent years spent by the author after the end of the war in the Zaporozhye region. This narrative includes living with relatives in Pologi, staying in an orphanage in Kamenka Dneprovskaya and studying at the Zaporozhye Technical School of Agricultural Engineering. The text contains a number of everyday sketches, as well as episodes from the life of the young man, reflecting the stages of his growing up.

The article examines the problems of the relationship between the party and state authorities and the Soviet cinematic intelligentsia. The research focuses on the processes of control and censorship, repressive and informational and ideological impact on the largest cultural figures and workers in the film industry. It is shown that the selected chronological segment has conditionally symbolic boundaries. Conclusions are made about the functioning of the following methods and forms of control: institutional diversity, social mobilization, politicization of everyday life and media space. Their system-wide and universal-longterm, metahistorical nature of their application is substantiated. Their intensity influenced the state of modern collective / social memory and the perception of films that had a high ideological and artistic value, but indirectly contributed to the idealization of the Stalinist era in scientific historiography and public consciousness.

The era of Ivan the Terrible, complex and contradictory, like the personality of the tsar himself, has always attracted the attention of historians. Over the past decades, specialists of various professions have been actively working in the historical field. Their interest in history is associated primarily with the topic of corruption which has emerged since the end of the 20th century an immutable fact of real life. The study of corruption has emerged as an independent research area – corruptionology. Unfortunately, work in this area is often based on questionable information gleaned from the Internet. A new history of Russia is being created, written without studying the sources and knowledge of the era, without taking into account the results of the work of many generations of historians. This also applies to the reign of Ivan the Terrible.

The article is devoted to the problem of the development of party culture. It analyzes various trends that affect the growth of non-partisanship and voter distrust. One of them is party ideology. In the context of accelerating globalization, borders are blurring between different party ideologies. In Europe, left-wing parties are uniting with populists, lowering their reputation to a minimum. They also promote immoral and utopian initiatives to the masses that undermine the foundations of the existence of society and interest in any ideology that unites people of different statuses. This process can lead to the degradation of party culture which will affect the trust of citizens.