Abstract: The subject of this research is the policy of the Russian Federation during the period of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict of 1992-1993. The decisions that were taken by the Russian government regarding the regulation of the military activities in Abkhazia in a certain manner influenced the interactions of Russia with Abkhazia and with Georgia. The author analyzes the characteristic features of the development of the Russian-Abkhazian, as well as Russian-Georgian relations during the indicated period. Particular attention is dedicated to the implementation mechanisms of Russia's moderating activities and its role as the initiator of negotiations directed at a speedy cease-fire in Abkhazia. The methodological basis of this research consists of the principle of historicism and the principle of systematism. In accordance with the principle of historicism, the author examines the process of interaction between the named countries within the framework of specific historical events. The application of this principle has allowed to determine the developmental mechanism of the Russian-Abkhazian relations during the period of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict of 1992-1993. Acting as an intermediary in the negotiations for a cease-fire in Abkhazia, Russia, as the successor of the USSR, had to keep in consideration such factors as:- adherence to international law;- the influence of the West on the development of the situation in the Caucasus;- stability and security in the Caucasus, the guarantor of which it was;- the centuries-old history of interaction with Abkhazia and Georgia, which in its own way influenced the further development of the relations between these countries.The principle of systematism has allowed the author to identify the issues and analyze the reasons which in their own way had an influence on Russia's policy in the period of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict as a result of the combination of these aspects.The main conclusion of the undertaken research are the following:- the outcome of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict for Abkhazia was the recognition of its de facto independence from Georgia, and for Georgia – the failure of the Georgian leadership in its attempts to subjugate Abkhazia and its people;- the status of Russia as a great power did not permit it to remain on the sidelines of this war. In an effort to reconcile the conflicting sides, Russia in its intermediary role directed all of its efforts to secure a speedy end to the bloodshed, holding meetings and consultations with the conflicting parties on the territories of Russia, Abkhazia and Georgia;- different approaches of the executive and legislative authorities concerning the adoption of various measures for the cessation of hostilities in Abkhazia, the geopolitical factor, the possibility of spreading fire outside the territorial limits of Abkhazia, all of this greatly influenced the policy pursued by the Russian leadership during the period of the war and affected the development of the Russian-Abkhazian relations during the period under examination.The novelty of this research is that it allows to reconsider the relations between Russia, Abkhazia and Georgia in the above-stated period of conflict and the causes that influenced the adoption of certain decisions on the passing of time and on the basis of a wide range of sources.In today's world, inter-ethnic conflicts are one of the key issues in international relations. The disintegration of such a powerful state as the USSR, the area of which occupied 1/6 of the Earth's inhabited land, to a significant degree was the cause of the appearance of the inter-ethnic conflicts on the territory of the former Union. Questions regarding how the 15 union republics withdrew from the Soviet Union and how their following development began to take shape will surely be subjected to historical analysis more than once in future studies. The disintegration of the Soviet Union led to the destruction of the political, economic, transportation, energy and other ties and the building of new relations between the newly reformed states and other countries of the world community.The conflict between the Abkhazians and Georgians, whose history dates back to more than a century, after the collapse of the Soviet Union grew into the bloody Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993. Subsequently, under the auspices of the United Nations, with the participation of observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and under the mediation of Russia, began the negotiation process in Geneva on the peaceful resolution of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, which continues to this day.The consequences of this war in many ways began to determine the state of affairs and the role of Russia in Southern Caucasus. Ensuring the national security of the Russian state at its borders is one of its priority tasks. Abkhazia is interested in good neighborly relations with Russia, while Georgia seeks to become part of the North Atlantic Alliance. NATO has already carried out three military exercises on the territory of Georgia and Georgian military cadres are undergoing military training in the United States. The current situation raises concerns in Russia and Abkhazia.Abkhazia is an important buffer zone for Russia, and Russia's policy and the development of Russian-Abkhazian relations during the period of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict greatly influenced the further development of the relations between the countries involved in the war.

Keywords: policy, Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, intermediary, territorial integrity, negotiations, cessation of military hostilities, international community, Georgia, Abkhazia, Russia

Abstract: The subject of this research is the article of Academician B. A. Rybakov dedicated to the problems in studying the culture of the Russian peasantry in the 19th century. The scholar outlined the key difficulties in studying folk culture - the ignorance of it by modern researchers. The academician draws attention to those informational layers that can be found in such sources as Russian language, folklore, craft artifacts and others. The aim of this article is to conduct an examination of the issue highlighted by B. A. Rybakov through the application of the historiographical approach. The historiographical approach allows the uncovering of the formation principles of certain knowledge on the history of the Russian peasantry. The undertaking of this research led to the solution of the problem. In the article, the author points to the existence in society for many decades of a negative position with regards to the history of the Russian peasantry which prevents the formation of knowledge about real historical phenomena and processes. For this reason, the author pays particular attention to the manifestations of a positive assessment of the peasant world. The article uses a creative approach to the disclosure of the stances expressed by B. A. Rybakov. In reviewing each specific question the author turns to the works of outstanding figures of science and art: S. A. Esenin, V. V. Selivanov, S. T. Konenkov, G. V. Sviridov. Thus, the study reveals the intersection of thoughts, ideas and views on the peasantry, expressed by different people. At the end of the article, the author concludes that only empirical filling of the issues will provide an opportunity to investigate the history of the peasantry and the real processes taking place in society, which undoubtedly points to the prospects of further examination of this topic.

Keywords: tradition, personal files, succession, source studies, discussions, spiritual experience, interdisciplinary approach, methodology, historiography, Russian peasant culture

Abstract: The subject of this article is the idealistic approach to history, that is, the theory and methodology of constructing an image of the past as part of the overall worldview of the world. In this article, the idealistic approach to history is considered in a comprehensive way: the history of this phenomenon is analyzed, the past is examined as part of the picture of the world, the subject and the features of the idealistic approach are shown. From the idealistic point of view, the past has no objective meaning since it is a product of the creativity of the human consciousness, but, as part of the picture of the modern world of man, it can exert a colossal influence on his perception of reality and on his actions. The research's work is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. These traditional approaches are supplemented by new methods, which were developed in recent decades on the basis of the principles of human cognition. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the formulation of the topic itself. The author offers his own vision of the idealistic approach, based on the understanding of history as an image of the past created by scholars, derived from their worldview and founded on the facts they consider relevant to the past, according to certain principles. In this respect, the idealistic approach consists of looking at the past from the standpoint of man-creator. History is presented as an open project, which does not have a precise goal lying beyond the human consciousness. History goal-setting is set by the human mind, proceeding from the prevailing worldview of the time. With a change in worldview, the goal of historical development and the trajectory of the movement towards the set goal are changed. Recognizing the temporality of modern history, the idealistic approach considers legitimate only the comprehension of relative historical truths within the framework of specific worldviews and conceptual systems. The main conclusion of the article is that the idealistic approach to history was created within the framework of the European Enlightenment tradition, which through that placed man and his consciousness at the center of history, was a new way of creating the past. 

Keywords: idealism in history, creation of the past, ideas on history mover, past, creating the past, worldview, picture of the world, future, present, idealism

Abstract: The subject of this study is the formalized classification of the surviving copies of the medieval Slavic text "Zakon Sudnyj Ljudem", which is the oldest transferred monument of Slavic law and one of the earliest texts in the Slavic language. To resolve the difficulty of textological classification, the authors propose a model based on natural assumptions regarding the process of copying texts and have developed a method using the idea of applying the fuzzy set theory. The advantage of the fuzzy approach is the building of a stemma of the existing copies with their given level of reliability, taking into account their possible contamination. The proposed method is based on a formalized analysis of the fuzzy relation preference matrix, formulated as a result of a pairwise textual comparison of copies. To quantify the contribution of every reading discrepancy, a typology of readings was created, as well as an indirect estimation method was developed. This article describes the first experiment of applying the fuzzy genealogical classification method to a large manuscript tradition (57 copies, about 6500 readings). The obtained results as a whole do not contradict the results of the traditional textological analysis or other formalized methods and allow us to specify the grouping of copies and their interrelations. The developed approach is universal and can be applied to the classification of other manuscript texts.

Keywords: textology, readings, fuzzy classification, contamination, fuzzy relation matrix, stemma, typology, fuzzy set theory, indirect expert method, weight coefficients

Abstract: The article describes the use of the automatic language-independent algorithm for the analysis of authorship on the basis of calculating the transition frequency statistics of two-letter combinations written in the Ancient Greek language by patristic authors from the 2nd to the 12th centuries. The authorship of an analyzed text is attributed based on the proximity of the given distance to the referenced texts of various authors. The distance is calculated on the basis of the transition frequency of one two-letter combination into others. The author discusses the dependence of the algorithm's precision on the magnitude of the analyzed text and referenced texts of each of the presumed authors. The testing is conducted through the method of repetitive cross-validation in k-blocks and separately on 35 selected texts of three authors. The article proposes a modification of the algorithm in some cases, which provides a better result on the tested data. The author comes to the conclusion of the relatively high precision of the described algorithm and the possibility of its use in solving real problems. As an example of this use, the article presents a description of the attribution of the author of the texts De creatione hominis sermo 1, 2 (CPG 3215, 3216) between St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Keywords: textual transmission, natural language processing, computational statistics, statistical analysis, Byzantine studies, patristics, historical informatics, authorship attribution, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great

Abstract: The research topic of this article is the relationship between secular literati and Buddhist monasteries in China, one of the forms of which was the recruitment of literati by the monasteries for the composition of monastery chronicles. This paper focuses on the activities on Liu Mingfang (Liu Nanlu), the author of "The Chronicle of Mt. Baohua," in the Jiangnan region in 1740-1750s. The importance of studying the circumstances of the compilation of this chronicle is justified by the fact that Mt. Baohua was the seat of the patriarchs of the Qianhua school, which claimed dominance within the Vinaya tradition of Chinese Buddhism in the late Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. The article examines what place the composition of this Buddhist mountain chronicle had in the activities of Liu Mingfang, who was a member of the secular literati. This research relies on several chronicles compiled by Liu Mingfang, as well as the texts of his contemporary associates. The main conclusions of this research are as follows: Liu Mingfang primarily associated himself with poetry and the Daoist culture. Lacking a stable income, Liu Mingfang compiled local chronicles under commission. Accordingly, on the one hand, "The Chronicle of Mt. Baohua" is not supposed to reflect any personal Buddhist ideas of Liu Mingfang, but on the other hand, it is very probable that the text of this chronicle reflects the wishes of its commissioner – Wenhai Fuju, the abbot of Mt. Baohua.

Keywords: Buddhism, monastic chronicles, literati, Vinaya, Baohua , Liu Mingfang, Liu Nanlu, Jiangnan, Qianlong, China

Abstract: The article is dedicated to the examination of the processes of forming the system of administration of public education and of the cultural-educational activities during the first years of the establishment of the Soviet government in the Tyumen (Tobolsk) governorate prior to its entry into the Ural Region in 1923. Based on the analysis of archive materials, the author identified and analyzed the features of the formation and of the human resources of Tyumen's provincial department of public education under the conditions of the civil war, as well as under the circumstances of the establishment of the system of soviets. The article gives an assessment of the role of the military-revolutionary committee of the Tyumen governorate and of the provincial political and educational committee in the organization of public education. The positivist approach serves as the methodological base of this study. The main method of research was the historical-systematic method, which is based of the principles of the systematic approach to the analysis of processes and events of the past as whole historical systems. The analysis and comparison of archival materials is based of the principles of objectivity and historicism. The scientific novelty of this work is substantiated by the introduction into the academic discourse of archive materials that allow to expand the perception of the content of state building processes in the field of public education, as well as political agitation in the territory of the Tyumen governorate. The author comes to the conclusion that the development of organizational structures and of the system of administration of public education in the studied region were under the influence of the conditions of the unfolding civil war and the continuous changes of political power.

Keywords: civil war, Education department, public education, People's Commissariat for Education (Narkompros), Central Political-Educational Committee of Narkompros, Tyumen governorate, military crisis, revolutionary committee, Provincial revolutionary committee, department of public education

Abstract: The research subject of this article is the analysis of the establishment process of the Polish Orthodox Church and the role of Renovationism in it. Using previously unpublished archival materials, the author creates a picture of the development of church relations in Poland in the context of the concurrent historical situation. From the point of view of the Polish government, to accept Renovationism meant to allow the influence of Soviet Russia, of communist ideas, and of the "export of revolution" in religious packaging. As a consequence, Renovationism was unacceptable to Poland in both the church-canonical and political aspects. In turn, this created a general ideological platform for Polish authorities and the Orthodox episcopate. This research is based on a series of scientific methods, among them – historical, institutional, systematic, and comparative methods of scientific analysis. The novelty of this research lies in the fact that the examined scientific-historical topic reveals a new understanding of the political circumstances in the establishment of the Polish Orthodox Church, under which Renovationism could not penetrate into Poland from Russia due to the territorial and cultural detachment of Poland, the existence of ties between the Orthodox episcopate and pre-Revolutionary church traditions, the unity of Polish authorities and higher clergy in understanding the necessity of building positive relations, and as a consequence when the Polish Orthodox Church received the autocephaly it thus completely closed off all possibilities of the Renovationism movement in Polish lands. The author's particular contribution to this topic is his conclusion, based on new and previously unknown to the scientific community documental testimonies, that the Renovationism schism was not of an ideological religious nature, but rather of a practical and political nature, because without the support of the government authorities its realization could not have been possible.

Keywords: Orthodoxy, Renovationism, Polish Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate, Patriarchate of Constantinople, Catholic Church, policy of revindication, Dionysius Valedinsky, national church, autocephaly

Abstract: The article is focused on the reforms of higher education in the USSR in the 1920s. The subject of research is the activity of the public student organization of proletarian students "Proletstud" during the initial period of its existence from 1923 to 1925. The object of research is the state policy in the field of higher education. The formation of Proletstud was tied to the necessity of the proletarization of the student body. The named organization was created by the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and its aim was to involve the masses of students into the party through the union cells of universities. The article's aim is to study the sources from the work of the First All-Union Conference of Proletarian Students (April 1925), where the main results of the Proletstud work during its first few years of existence were summed up. Well-known public figures gave speeches at this conference: A. V. Lunacharsky, M. N. Pokrovsky, S. A. Lozovsky, I. I. Khodorovsky, Y. P. Ryappo, as well as the chairman of the Central Bureau of the Proletstud G. V. Voskanyan. At the moment of holding this conference, the Proletstud organization already numbered 150 000 proletarian students in 60 department around the Union. In the article, the author applied the method of systematic analysis, and the research is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. It is worth noting that the activity of the Proletstud is almost unstudied. No monographs on this topic have been discovered. The article is written on the basis of materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (collection No. 5574 "Organizational Bureau of Student Sections of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions"). The scientific novelty of this research lies in its analysis of unpublished sources on one of the most important directions of state policy - the field of higher education, specifically, it shows the significant role of the Proletstud activity, which touched upon all aspects of students' lives - academic, educational, social and daily.

Keywords: trade unions, Proletstud, proletarian students, public organizations, ideological education, Central Administration of Professional Education, People's Commissariat for Education (Narkompros), universities, Soviet Intelligensia, higher education system

Abstract: The article is focused on the topic of revising Soviet history at the end of the 1980s. The subject of this research is the publications on historical topics in the newspaper " Moskovskiye Novosti" during the period of the Perestoika (1985-1991). During a short period of time (1987-1991), the newspaper's pages reflected a critical revision of the key stages of history: reformation of the 1920-1930s, pre-war and post-war policy of the USSR, the October Revolution, and foreign policy on the eve of the Second World War. Separate attention is paid to the particularities of covering the issue of political repressions, the so-called "Leniniana" and the new approaches to presenting the Great Patriotic War. The methodological base of this study is comprised of the quantitative and qualitative content-analysis of the publications on historical topics on the pages of the newspaper " Moskovskiye Novosti". The use of quantitative "mathematical" methods has allowed the author to discover additional, hidden information in these sources, to group the publications by main themes and to describe their quantitative dynamics. The scientific novelty of this research lies in the fact that for the first time the publications on historical topics of the newspaper " Moskovskiye Novosti" during the period of the Perestoika have been subjected to a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative content-analysis. For the first time a series of documents was introduced into scientific circulation, coming from the private archive of Egor Yakovlev, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper " Moskovskiye Novosti" during the years of the Perestroika. As a result of the conducted research, the author comes to the conclusion that the flow of publications on historical topics with new evaluations of the Soviet past had a double effect on the mentality of the Soviet people. The construction of a new reality of the Soviet past in the mass consciousness brought to the delusion of its proper history. The publications presented the results of sociological polls conducted at the end of the Perestroika, which reflect, for example, the abrupt change in the perception of the Soviet people of such important to the nation events as the Great Patriotic War. On the other hand, the authors of historic publications actively used previously inaccessible archival materials, for the first time introducing unique documents, thus formulating a completely different perception of the  Soviet historical heritage.

Keywords: content-analysis, Moskovskiye Novosti, Egor Yakovlev, Soviet past, quantitative method, Oktyabrina, repressions, Leniniana, cultural memory, Perestroika

Abstract: The subject of this article is the collection of seven okimono statuettes, which are artifacts of the applied arts made from ivory by Oriental masters. The collection is part of the funds of the municipal public institution of culture "the Yalta Historical and Literary Museum" that had arrived there from being previously at the Eastern Museum of Yalta upon the unification of the two institutions. Significant attention in this work is given to the description and attribution of the objects. An appendix is added at the end of the article with the illustration of the hallmarks found on the statuettes, as well as photographs of the artifacts themselves. An approximate chronological framework for the creation and existence of the presented objects of material culture was determined by using the analogy method. The difficulty in attributing these objects lies in the absence of specialized reference works and determinants, and requires the use of a wider range of scholars-Orientalists. The artifacts of the collection of okimonos are unique monuments of the decorative and applied arts of the 19th - beginning of 20th century. The materials presented in this article are published for the first time and are tied to the need of introducing this collection into the general scientific circulation as a historical source. It is important to note that this collection of ivory artifacts created by Eastern masters, preserved in the funds of the municipal public institution of culture "the Yalta History and Literary Museum", is currently one of the largest collections of its kind known on the territory of the Republic of Crimea, and it undoubtedly requires further more extensive examination.

Keywords: okimono, miniature sculpture, White period, collection, ivory, carving, Yalta Historical and Literary Museum, Oriental Museum, Japan, applied arts

Abstract: The topic of this article is the general police in Siberia. The research subject is the reorganization of the agencies of the general police in Siberia in the post-reform period during the second half of the 19th century. The history of the pre-Revolutionary Siberian general police has not yet been the focus of scholars' close attention – only some aspects of this topic have been underlined in studies of a more general nature. Returning to the forgotten traditions of the organization and activities of the police agencies, it is important to take into full account the historical experience that had been accumulated over the centuries. It is also necessary to take a new look at already known facts and events in light of today’s realities in order to overcome the old myths and misconceptions and also to prevent the appearance of new ones. The theoretical and methodological basis of this research is made up of such principles of historical knowledge as objectivity, historicism, determinism, alternativeness and the social approach, which require an unbiased approach to the analysis of the researched problems, as well as a critical treatment of the sources. The author comes to the conclusion that the powers of the police agencies in the region had their own specificities and were much broader than in the central provinces of the Russian Empire. The reorganization of the general police in Siberia during the second half of the 19th century changed the structure and method of staffing the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was not of a fundamental but rather of an external character. The police reform of 1867 in Siberia left almost unchanged the limits of power, the subjects of the department, the distribution of duties, the procedures, the responsibility and accountability of the general police, pending the transformation of the administrative and economic management and the judicial system. The police agencies were left with a fairly large circle of prerogatives. In addition, many policemen continued to work in the old-fashioned way, trying to ignore the changes in the current legislation. The legislator had failed, as local leaders and visiting auditors admitted, to place the uyezd's internal affairs agencies within the strict framework of the law.

Keywords: history of Siberia, power, local government, reform, administration, governor, police, authority, national policy, policeman

Abstract: The subject of this study is the efforts of industrial enterprises in using various methods for intensifying the work of their labor collectives, which acquires a qualitatively different nature with the beginning of the Kosygin economic reform in 1965. During this period a lot of attention was focused on improving the personnel policy directly in production. On the basis of archival materials from the Sergo Ordzhonikidze Moscow Machine Tool Building Plant, the article examines the measures undertaken on improving the personnel potential in one of the leading plants of the Soviet machine tool building industry in the 1960–1970s. The author analyzes the concrete forms of educating the production personnel, as well as the material incentives for stimulating labor, used at this enterprise. Additionally, the author also analyzes the reasons for the gradual decrease in attempts to perfect the professional training and retraining of labor workers at the end of the 1970s – beginning of the 1980s. The specific-historical approach found its reflection in the problem analysis of the personnel policy model, developed at the Sergo Ordzhonikidze Moscow Machine Tool Building Plant. The scientific novelty of this research consists of its concretization of the system of working with labor personnel at industrial sites during the period of the Kosygin economic reform on the example of the famous machine tool building plant in Moscow. The study of specific historical materials allows to evaluate the real possibilities of plant administrations to introduce progressive options for stimulating industrial workers in increasing production results. Of particular scholarly interest is the interrelation dynamics between the specific plant and the industry management structures from the point of view of the latter’s assessment of the practical experience and specific developments on the spot of perfecting the whole system of training and retraining labor personnel in the machine tool building industry.

Keywords: machine tool building, personnel, material incentives, labor productivity, industry training, plant administration, skilled workers, social funds, economic reform, social history