Russia-West relations, including Germany as one the country’s closest counterparties, are of great scientific interest. The article focuses on the evolution of Russia’s perception in German doctrinal documents and in A. Merkel’s speeches. Germany-Russia ties are unstable, encompassing both positive and negative connotations. The task to assess Russia’s image in German official sources is relevant. The methodology includes quantitative and qualitative methods. Content-analysis and mediametric analysis were used to assess Germany’s “aggressiveness index” towards Russia. Comparison method was chosen to compare the 2006 and 2016 German White Papers, as well as to trace the evolution of the Chancellor’s speeches. In the conclusion the outcomes on the dependence of Russia’s image in the official strategies of Germany and its leader’s speeches on the situation on the global arena are presented.

It is complicated to evaluate the role of foreign specialists in Russian modernisation and the transfer of European knowledge and technologies into the country’s metallurgical and armament industries. For almost three centuries, these industries were marked by a symbiosis of state protectionism, private initiative, foreign entrepreneurship, and the interaction of heavy and light production. To understand the economic and acculturational processes involved, it is essential to compare the experience of industrial regions in Russia and Western Europe. Small independent craft workshops developed as alternatives and supplements to mass factory production. Analysing the interrelation of Russian and European experiences can clarify the role of foreign entrepreneurs and specialists in Russian heavy industry while also demonstrating the positive or negative role of the state.

The article deals with the main themes, subjects and images, that formed over the decades the problematics of the Balkan question in the interpretation of Russian pre-revolutionary journal satire. The traditions and novations in Russian satirical drawings that created the images of Turkey, it’s repressive politics in the Balkans and the images of Balkan peoples in their struggle for national liberation are analyzed on the historic material of two acute Balkan crises (1875–1878 and 1912–1913).

The article analyzes textbooks on World and Russian history written by Lev Mikhailovich Sukhotin (1879–1947) for children of Russian emigrants in Yugoslavia. Author developed traditions of educational literature, laid down by V.O.Klyuchevsky and P.G.Vinogradov. His textbooks were aimed at preserving cultural identity in the younger generation and at adapting them to conditions of emigration.

The important question of land ownership and economic activity of noblewomen in the Russian Empire in the post-reform period is considered for investigation of the economic aspects of the women’s history. The decades of the 1860s – 1890s were selected for study, because according to research by academician N.M.Druzhinin’s, this epoch was the time of “ the victory and strengthening of capitalism with simultaneous conservation of numerous feudal remnants”. The article considers several aspects of female noble land ownership in the Nizhnii Novgorod province such as the size of land property, the marital status of female landowners, the line of inheritance, the entrepreneurial activity of noblewomen. The research focuses on the comparison of decades of the 1860s and 1890s as periods, mostly provided with primary archival data.

The centenary of education and the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the USSR actualize the search for the causes of what happened. In recent years, a number of monographs and collections of documents have been published (listed in the list for publication by L.N.Lazareva –1, 3, 4, 6), in which the economic theme occupies an important place. The idea of the round table, held on April 22, 2022 at the Center for Socio-Political History (to which the participants of the event express their sincere gratitude), was for the authors of these publications to present their vision of the connection of economic processes at all stages of the history of the Soviet Union with the collapse of the state. The initiative of the round table belongs to the State Public Historical Library, the Department of Modern History of Russia of Moscow State Regional Pedagogical University, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art. The texts are published in the author's edition. Responsible for the publication D.V.Maslov, L.N.Lazareva.

The article examines the views of a prominent right-wing monarchist figure, Comrade Chairman of the Russian People's Union named after Mikhail Archangel N.D.Obleukhov about the current state and ideal of the state structure of Russia, set out in the program article «Tsarist Autocracy as a bulwark of people's freedom and equality», published by him under the pseudonym P.Ukhtubuzhsky in three issues of the daily right-wing monarchical newspaper «Russian Banner» in December 1915. As a key feature of N.D.Obleukhov's article is determined its target audience – the broad strata of the population, to whom the author seeks to convey the ideals of the monarchical state system. It is noted that the ideal way of government in Russia N.D.Obleukhov characterizes as «a widely and harmoniously developed people's self-government with an autocratic Tsar at its head». As a specific feature of N.D.Oblekhov's views stands out his use of the concepts of «people's monarchy» and «monarchist populists», which clearly demonstrate the desire among some Russian monarchists in the pre-revolutionary period for broad popular self-government, combined with unlimited sole power.

The article is devoted to the return of an eminent smenovekhovets Nikolai Ustryalov from Harbin to his homeland, to the conditions of his life in Moscow and its cooperation with the Soviet press. It mainly focuses on the articles of N.V.Ustryalov, written on request of the editorial offices “Pravda” and “Izvestia” – about the constitution, Pushkin and Herzen. The author analyzes the subject matter of the publications, he reveals its’ problems and connection with the era being experienced, and he also notes Ustryalov’s desire to convey to the authorities and compatriots the ideas and values that he considered relevant. The conclusion is formulated about the importance of the last articles of N.V.Ustryalov as journalistic documents reflecting the lines of the era and the personality of the author.