The article is devoted to the study of the allied-partner relations of the USA and the countries of Western Europe during the Caribbean (in the terminology of representatives of a number of historical schools - the Cuban) crisis. The involvement of new sources made it possible to prove that since the summer of 1962 the West German secret services were aware of the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba and warned the government of the Federal Republic of Germany about the impending aggravation of relations between the superpowers. In addition, the author analyzed the features of support for the Americans from the UK and France. The research novelty of the article is also due to the material, which examines the struggle of Switzerland for the minimum possible support for Washington.

The article reviews the European Union members’ positions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution in 2020-2021. The EU’s commitment to the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan under the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group is considered as a cornerstone of the European policy in the region. The factors foreclosing an opportunity to develop a common European approach towards the conflict are analyzed. It is concluded that the consensus can not be achieved due to the fact that pro-Armenian and pro-Azerbaijani lobby groups resort to such leverages as diaspora activities or drawing attention to the bilateral dialogue with one of the Caucasian republics. The significance of the Turkish factor for the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is emphasized. Despite the fact that today the EU treats the question as marginal, the author notes that the European involvement in the post-conflict regulation on the South Caucasus may be viewed as an opportunity to maintain the EU’s political influence in the region.

The article examines the views of V. P. Vorontsov (1847–1918) on the situation of handicraft industry and the discussion that developed around this issue between narodniks and Marxists. The subject of the dispute was the degree of development of domestic capitalism, the prospects for preserving the small-scale way of life and its use in creating an alternative model of the economy.

The article is devoted to the views and emigrant activities of one of the North Caucasian leaders of the first third of the 20th century A. Tsalikov, a socialist, theorist and leader of the All-Russian Muslim Council (1917–1918), the Muslim Socialist Party, and his emigrant activities.

This article examines Stalin's ideological campaign to establish “criticism and self-criticism” as the basis for the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Soviet society. In practice, it became a campaign to tighten the disciplinary regime of the emerging totalitarian system with one-party rule. For the first time, Stalin used special methods of intimidation on a large scale in this campaign through ideological manipulation, driving the public consciousness into an irrational fear of any criticism of authority. Official satire was required (with caution and fear of a possible mistake) to express what was said by the leader of the party as if “between the lines”. The Crocodile magazine not only illustrated the “self-criticism” campaign, but also tried to adapt it in its own way to the perception of the mass audience.

Using the example of the 383rd Rifle ("miner") division, the article examines the socio-psychological aspects of such phenomena as mass heroism and mass desertion demonstrated during the defense of Donbass in the autumn of 1941. The problem is analyzed in the context of the socio-economic and political state of the USSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Donetsk region in the pre-war years and in the first months of the war, in-cluding the evacuation.

Another fragment of memoirs is devoted to the difficult post-war period, when the author studied at the Yalta Agricultural College. The text contains a number of everyday details, conveys the spirit and mood of those years in the perception of a young man, describes an industrial practice in one of the collective farms in the Sudak region. Much attention is paid to the people who influenced the formation of the author's personality. Some storylines are devoted to his friends and the difficult fate of his father. The author holds the idea that common intellectual interests contribute to both personal friendship and creative development in adolescence.

This publication of documents on awarding Russian émigrés with the highest Soviet government awards in 1965 and an introductory article considers the question of the influence of domestic and international contexts on this decision of the party leadership. The unique documents of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History reflect both the interest of the Soviet intelligentsia in this action and of the state security agencies. As a result of the awarding, Russian emigrants, members of the European Resistance, were included in the Soviet pantheon of heroes and became a part of the official policy of memory of the Great Patriotic War. At the same time at the international level "award diplomacy" created an effective informational occasion for propaganda among anti-Soviet emigration.