Abstract: The research subject of this article is the ideological, theoretical and methodological views of S. I. Arkhangelsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, during the early period of his scientific work (the beginning of the 20th century to the middle of the 1920s.). In order to obtain objective results from the research, the author founded the study on the materials from the scholar's personal archival funds (the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Central Archive of the Nizhnegorskaya Oblast, the Conservation Center of Documents up to 1917 and the Science Museum of Nizhni Novgorod State University). The author identified the main topics that interested the scholar in the early period of his work, including the genesis of capitalism and social history. The article's leading research method is the biographical method. The indicated research topic is considered through the prism of the scientific biography of S. I. Arkhangelsky. For the first time in historiography, Arkhangelsky's plan for a monograph on the history of the development of capitalism is introduced into scientific circulation. The author establishes that the origin of the scholar’s interest in social history should be associated with his professional formation under the conditions of the general transition from the study of the state to the study of social history, which began in the middle of the 19th century. These trends joined the aims and objectives of local history studies in the 1920s. The author attests S. I. Arkhangelsky's understanding of the continuity and unity of development between academic science and historical local history. From the general trends of recreating the social history of mankind, which received a new impetus for development under the influence of the revolutionary transformations at the beginning of the 20th century, S. I. Arkhangelsky began to study the social history of the Nizhny Novgorod region (the history of the peasantry, the history of the industrial proletariat) and the social history of England.

Keywords: Stepan Vasilievich Eshevsky, commercial capital, genesis of capitalism, intellectual biography, Diocletian's Edict, historiography, social history, Sergey Ivanovich Arhangelsky, capitalism, local method

Abstract: The research object of this study is the military settlement created at the Nalchik Fortress in 1839 - 1851. The aim of this article is to identify the insufficiently studied aspects in the daily life of military settlements in the North Caucasus, which played a key role in the economic, social and cultural development of this region in the 19th century. The main focus is placed on such issues as the specifics of economic activity, the social and family life of the inhabitants of the settlement, and their relationship with neighboring peoples, which reveals important features of their daily life. The research is based on the analysis of original documents, published and stored in archives. Some of these documents are used for the first time in historiography. The daily life of the Nalchik military settlement is studied in comparison with military settlements in other regions, as well as the stanitsas and villages of the North Caucasus. The conducted research revealed the main aspects of daily life in the Nalchik military settlement. One of these was its militarization, which in the Caucasus was aggravated by the dangers of wartime. The second aspect is associated with the first and it is the strict regulation of all aspects of life and the complete dependence on the orders of the military command, whom all villagers obeyed. Another aspect was the close, despite the ongoing Caucasian War, ties with the peoples of the Caucasus, especially with the Kabardians.

Keywords: gardening, cattle breeding, agriculture, Center of the Caucasian line, North Caucasus, Nalchik fortress, military settlement, family, Kabardians, dwelling

Abstract: The research subject of this article is the process of forming a community of Russian post-revolutionary emigration in the United States and the role of this migration flow in the local public life, as well as the structural evolution of the Russian diaspora in the 1920s – 1940s. The author focuses attention on the reasons behind the emigration of the representatives of the “first wave” Russian émigrés to the American continent, the attitudes towards American politics and culture among various sociopolitical and demographic groups of the Russian diaspora, the particularities of the Russian refugees' adaptation process in the United States and the degree of their involvement in the world abroad. The article's study is founded on the principles of scientific objectivity and systematics, using the subject-historical, problem-chronological, comparative and other special methods of historical research. The novelty of this work lies in the identification and description of the information contained in archival sources and rare periodical publication concerning the socio-mental and ideological motivations of migration from the centers of the Russian diaspora in Europe, China and other regions of the world to the United States and the aspects of the Russian émigrés' adaptation in America. The conducted study shows that the decision to move to the United States was made by socially active emigrants, who sought to start a new life abroad. This attitude was often perceived by some members of the Russian émigré communities in Europe as a rejection of the historic mission of the Russian emigration - of the hope of returning to the homeland. Epistolary and journalistic sources attest the rejection of American culture and lifestyle by many immigrants from Russia. At the same time, the democratic émigré press actively promoted the image of the United States as a great free country.

Keywords: American culture, immigration, international migrations, Russian America, adaptation, refugee, emigration, Russian diaspora, American lifestyle, Russian foreign press

Abstract: By centering the deesis row and locating it above the Royal Gates, the image of the Savior in Power (Pantocrator) - a Russian version of the image of the Savior in Glory accompanied by the four living Beings - became the semantic and compositional dominant of the Russian high iconostasis and, thus, its main icon. The examination of the meaning and sources of this image is fundamental in solving the issue of the origin and design of the entire high iconostasis as a whole, which, in turn, is one of the key icons in the history and theory of Christian art. It is believed that the earliest icons of the Savior in Power are in the iconostasis of the Annunciation Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, in the row of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir and in the iconostasis of the Trinity Cathedral of the St. Sergius Lavra. Another image of the Savior in Power, considered early, is depicted in a miniature of the "Pereyaslavsky Gospel"; some scholars believe that it is the oldest preserved image of this icon and that it lies at the origins of this iconography. The miniature contains rudiments of more ancient compositions that supposedly are its source. If this is so, then this miniature should be considered one of the most important monuments of Old Russian visual art and deserves our closest attention. This article is focused on this monument and on the analysis of the evidence that supports the claim of it antiquity: the author describes the features of the miniature codex and identifies previously unknown or erroneously interpreted particularities of the miniature's composition of the Savior; additionally, the author introduces new material that is important for solving a number of attribution problems and theoretical issues. The author concludes that the features of the Pereyaslavsky miniature are the result of its later alterations.

Keywords: Majestas Domini, overpainting, manuscript miniatures, correction of miniatures, mandorla, the winged wheels, iconography, Saviour in Powers, Russian icon painting, Pereslavl Gospel

Abstract: The research subject of this study is the documentary sources covering the process of integrating Crimean Tatar women into the socio-political, cultural and educational life of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1920 and 1930s, preserved in the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea (SARC). The aim of this study is to draw an overview of the documentary and statistical sources located by the author in the SARC that contain information concerning the history of the integration of Crimean Tatar women in the socio-political and cultural-educational life of Crimea in the 1920s and 1930s. The author applies analysis, the descriptive method and synthesis in order to describe the given circle of documentary sources. The issue of integrating Crimean Muslims into the new Soviet society has remained little-studied. We do not know of any comprehensive studies examining the role of Crimean Tatar women in the socio-political, cultural and educational life of the peninsula, which is why the analysis of documents stored in the State Archive of the Republic of Crimea is so important. In the course of this research, the author was able to determine that this topic is well represented in unpublished documents preserved in this archive.

Keywords: Crimean ASSR, social and political life, cultural and educational life, Crimean tatar women, document, archival fund, State archive of the RC, SARC, archive, women

Abstract: The research subject of this article is Russian religious education as a moderate direction in the broad ideological course of the Age of Enlightenment. The research object is the church sermons of the historian and bibliographer, member of one and a half dozen universities and academic scientific societies, Metropolitan Bishop of Kiev and Galicia Evgeny (Bolkhovitinov) (1767–1837) as a source for studying his enlightenment views. The aim of this article is to identify the most significant educational ideas and concepts that have been implemented in church sermons by a prominent representative of learned monasticism at the end of the 18th – first third of the 19th centuries. The study is based on the principles of historicism in their neoclassical interpretation. The author applied the method of source study analysis in combination with the historical and biographical method, which has revealed the ideological potential of this little-studied historical source - church sermons. The novelty of this research lies in its study of the whole body of church sermons by Metropolitan Evgeny (Bolkhovitinov). The author has classified 174 sermons on a thematic basis; based on archival information, which is introduced for the first time into scientific circulation, their dating has been partially established. Focusing on an enlightened listener, Metropolitan Evgeny addressed in his sermons the events and ideas relevant to his contemporaries. The author reveals the most characteristic methods of interpreting the Metropolitan Evgeny's educational concepts of rationalism, deism, natural religion, the theory of social contract, public good, equality. The author comes to the conclusion that Metropolitan Evgeny (Bolkhovitinov), as an activist for Russian religious enlightenment, promoted through his church sermons the dissemination of ideas and cultural models of the Enlightenment in the most appropriate moral interpretation for his listeners.

Keywords: historical source, Eugene Bolkhovitinov, the scholarly monasticism, church sermon, the Russian religious enlightenment, The Age of Enlightenment, rationalism, deism, natural religion, equality

Abstract: The article is focused on the creation and work of pro-Soviet Russian student organizations outside of the USSR in the 1920s. The research subject of this study is the activities of pro-Soviet public organizations of students in the first half of the 1920s. The research object of this study is the Russian students abroad.The aim of this article, based on an examination of the statutory documentation and correspondence of foreign pro-Soviet student unions and associations in the first half of the 1920s, is to study the nature of their work and their relationship with the Soviet public student organization Proletstud. The methodological basis of this study is the principles of historicism and objectivity; in this work, the historical-genetic and the historical-comparative methods are applied. The study's novelty lies in the analysis of unpublished (archival) and published (periodical) sources pertaining to the activities of pro-Soviet unions, which was carried out for the first time in historiography. The article is written on the basis of documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (collection no. 5574), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (collection no. 17, op. 60), and information from periodical publications of emigrant and Soviet student press. The topic of the life of Russian students abroad has previously attracted the attention of scholars [1, 12-16, 19, 22-24, 27-29], but they focused solely on anti-Bolshevik youth organizations. The article concludes that in the early 1920s, along with student emigrant organizations in European countries, student unions were created, which adhered to pro-Soviet positions. These unions were oriented towards active cooperation with Soviet organizations and students from the USSR represented by the Proletstud. The initiative to establish relations with the Proletstud came from foreign unions, but the contacts were unofficial and unstable for a number of reasons, and negatively affected the work of the unions.

Keywords: Proletstud, proletarian students, public organizations, foreign connections, universities, student unions, emigration, Intelligentsia, higher education, trade unions

Abstract: The research subject of this study is the policy of the United States Agency for International Development, acting in the interests of the US Department of State (and financed by it) in Yugoslavia, and later in Serbia, towards supporting local protests and opposition movements against the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic, including the main protest movement "Resistance". The involvement of the USAID was carried out as part of a project to democratize the country and prepare it for Euro-Atlantic integration. The article's study is based on information obtained from reports of the USAID organization for Yugoslavia / Serbia. As research methods, the author chose the analysis of documents and USAID reports on Serbia related to the period under review, including documents that became publicly available through leaks. Additionally, the author also analyzes the work and reports of American foundations involved in sponsoring protest movements in Serbia. This topic has remained practically unstudied by the modern scientific community, although its relevance is easily comprehensible in light of the widespread use of democratization methods by the United States of America in other countries of the world. As a result of the conducted analysis, it was possible to trace the direct financial support of USAID to the "Otpor" protest movement involved in the overthrow of President Milosevic. Subsequently, USAID took an active part in introducing political processes within Serbia with the aim of directing it towards Euro-Atlantic integration.

Keywords: Euro-Atlantic Integration, Protest support, NGO, Revolution, Democratisation, Milosevic, USAID, Yugoslavia, United States State Department, Geopolitics

Abstract: The article focuses particular attention on the analysis of the diary of B. V. Nikolsky (1870-1919), writer, poet, legal scholar, and politician, from the aspect of reconstructing the author’s perception of the revolutionary shocks of 1917, which today seems particularly relevant in light of the “linguistic turn” and “memorial boom” of modern historiography. The value of B. V. Nikolsky’s diary lies in the fact that the ego-sources of the leaders of the right-wing monarchist direction practically did not survive: many prominent extreme right-wing politicians were shot (Nikolsky himself was shot in 1919), went missing, and the smaller part was able to emigrate, which led to the loss of personal materials. Thus, the evidence of the revolutionary events of 1917 through the prism of the perception of the far-right conservative, a confirmed monarchist, is valuable in the light of their uniqueness and relevance to the study of history through personality. The reconstruction of the personal perception of the events of 1917 was based on a textual analysis of the diary of B. V. Nikolsky, and the principle of historicism was applied in the study of the historical context of creating an ego source and a biography of the author. The examination of the diary led to the following conclusions: B. V. Nikolsky was an extraordinary person, full of contradictions: a comprehensively educated and versatile person, but at the same time with an extremely difficult character and excessive conceit; a convinced monarchist, but at the same time “thirsty” for the fall of the ruling dynasty; legal scholar, lawyer, conservative, band yet  “accepting” that the power of the Bolsheviks is much more positive than the power of the liberal Provisional Government. Diaries of B. V. Nikolsky are a unique ego-source, reflecting how deeply and contradictory he experienced the changes in 1917.

Keywords: personal history, New Biographical History, the Bolsheviks, the Provisional Government, the October Revolution, the February Revolution, Boris Vladimirovich Nikolsky, autobiography, ego sources, diaries

Abstract: This article presents an analysis of the housing sector of the Tatneft production association in the 1950s to the 1980s. Based on archival and published data, the author analyzes the state of one of the most important elements in the social structure of the named association. The author examines such aspects of this topic as the structure of capital investments in the non-production sphere in general, and in housing construction in particular, the state of the process of putting residential spaces into operation, and the issue of "barrack housing". The research subject of this article is the evolution of Tatneft's housing sector. The methodological base of this study is constituted by the principles of historicism, systematicity, and objectivity. The author uses general historical methods (historical-comparative method) and quantitative methods (statistical analysis). This research is of practical significance due to the possibility of using the study's results to supplement the factual knowledge of the experience of housing development in Soviet industrial enterprises. The novelty of this study comes from both it providing new knowledge regarding one of the most important social spheres in the Tatneft production association and in introducing new archival sources into scientific circulation. The author concludes with the contradictory nature of Tatneft's housing policy: despite a number of successful measures, many quite serious issues remained.

Keywords: non-production sphere of enterprises, Tatar ASSR, municipal infrastructure, housing sector, oil industry, economic history, social history, Tatneft, housing problem, statistical sources

Abstract: The article examines the little-studied in Russian historiography topic of the role of U.S. President T. Roosevelt in resolving the first Moroccan crisis. The author seeks to determine the content, forms, and methods of his influence on the position of the leadership of Germany and France, and to examine the routes of the resolution of the regional conflict from spring 1905 to April 1906. Particular attention is paid to the secrecy of Roosevelt's mediation mission, which excluded information leakage. Through the use of not only generally accepted means, but also methods of threats and blackmail, the president managed to convince the conflicting parties to sit at the negotiation table in the Spanish town of Algeciras, to shift their position from a dead point and to achieve a mutually beneficial compromise concerning the key issues on the agenda. The main method for analyzing the Moroccan crisis and the ways it was solved is the systematic approach, which consists of a comprehensive analysis of the regional conflict's anatomy in order to comprehensively identify the relationship and interactions of the entire body of participants with an emphasis, above all, on the actions of the American side. No less fruitful is the use of historical comparative studies in determining both Roosevelt’s mediation motives and the methods he used to solve the Moroccan crisis, including in comparison with the tools used in the Russo-Japanese war. In Russian historiography, Roosevelt's mediation mission in resolving the Moroccan crisis has not been the subject of focused studies, but only briefly mentioned as one of the episodes in his foreign policy activities. The article is written based on original sources from the epistolary heritage of the president, for the first time introduced into scientific circulation.

Keywords: Entente Cordiale, mediation, diplomacy, emperor Wilhelm, president Theodore Roosevelt, Morocco, regional conflicts, international rivalry, Triple Alliance, Algeciras conference

Abstract: The author analyzes archival documents that have only been made accessible to researchers in the last years. The research subject of this study is the policy of the Soviet state in relation to the Muslims of the country in 1944-1965. The object of this research is the work of the bodies of state power and government of the USSR to restrain the development of Islamic education in Russia in 1945–1965. The aim of this work is to identify insufficiently-studied features of the policy of the Soviet state with regards to Islamic education in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The study uses the retrospective method. Reliance on this method has made it possible to demonstrate the causal-consequence ties and patterns of development in the state-Muslim relations in 1944–1965 in the USSR by successively deepening into the past, which has made it possible to identify the causes of significant facts in the examined relations that were previously unknown to scholars. The retrospective method allows the analysis of the logic behind the activities of the USSR leadership in containing the development of Islamic education in Russia and to shows its attempts to eliminate Islam from the lives of its citizens. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the fact that a significant part of the analyzed documents regarding the problem of Islamic education has been declassified in recent years and has now become available to the general scientific community. The analysis of these materials shows that the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims, which in 1948 was renamed the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the European part of the USSR and Siberia, showed special perseverance of the two spiritual administrations operating in Russia. The article describes the author’s position to disrupt the attempts of the Russian muftis to create an Islamic education system in the RSFSR on a legal basis in 1945–1965.

Keywords: history of Islam, mufti, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Islamic education, madrasas, Mir-Arab, Barakhan, Koran

Abstract: The subject of this research is the socio-economic and political-legal situation of the steppe regions of Western Siberia (the steppe region) at the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries that determined the conditions for the adoption of the Empire's law code concerning the indigenous peoples in the national outskirts. The author draws attention to the presence of Russia's other geopolitical tasks in the Central Asian region (reaching “natural borders”) which became an additional element in the development of the steppe spaces. The content of the administrative-legal reform of the 1820s - 1830s attests to the implementation of comprehensive regulation in the relations of this nomadic society, taking into account the experience of managing other national outskirts, and also considering the peculiarities of the administrative and socio-economic structure of the steppe. The aim of this article is to identify the various prerequisites for the administrative and legal reform in the steppe region at the beginning of the 19th century. The result of this study is the conclusion that the autocracy came to achieve its single goal - the nomads' transition to a settled state through a complex of economic, political and social mechanisms for the implementation of the border policy. The article's research methodology is based on the application of the theory of political modernization, which allows to identify the patterns of socio-economic and political-legal development of the steppe region at the beginning of the 19th century. The author's main contribution to the study of the conditions for administrative and legal reform in the steppe region is the introduction into the scientific circulation of a new body of archival sources from both Russian archives, as well as from regional archives. The article's novelty is its identification of a set of prerequisites and patterns in the development of the domestic and foreign policy situation in the steppe regions of Western Siberia.

Keywords: The Council of biys, кazakh society, adat, Speransky, Boundary commission, administrative and legal policy, steppes, the raids, Charter, natural boundary

Abstract: In the Soviet Union during the late 1920s - early 1940s, significant transformations of the lumber industry took place, which makes it a current research topic for historical analysis in line with economic history. How did the industry develop in this pivotal era? Did the investments and the technical and economic conditions of this complex correspond to its real production capabilities? With the aim of understanding these issues, the author undertakes for the first time in historiography an analysis of the technical and economic indicators of the wood industry at the final stage of implementing the first five-year plan and the transition to the second five-year plan (1932-1934), which was accompanied by an adjustment in the state economic policy. The analysis is based on sources from the series of statistical collections the “Socialist Construction”. In addition to identifying the general dynamics in the development of the lumber industry complex and its individual sectors, indicators are calculated for one enterprise and one worker based on technical and economic parameters. The author carries out a comparative analysis of the results obtained in the lumber industry and in the Soviet industry in general. Data on the technical and economic conditions of the lumber industry complex are compared with the results of its production activities. The analysis revealed a number of significant problems and imbalances in the development of the industry: the better equipment of the paper industry, the direction of the main investments in the sphere of woodworking, and the lagging in the sphere of harvesting forest resources. The author draws conclusions regarding the industry's decline in 1932-1933 and the disparity of its technical, economic and production potentials. It consisted in solving the problems of economic development by party-state and economic bodies, primarily by increasing the number of labor resources. Investment of financial resources in the construction of enterprises and the acquisition of equipment in 1932-1934 did not provide the planned increase in labor efficiency of workers.

Keywords: power of engines, business assets, forest industry, the first five-years periods, industrialization, Soviet Union, economic history, gross output, number of workers, production efficiency