Abstract: The subject of the study is the initial stage of the history of the School of Mathematical and Navigation Sciences as one of the first Russian secular technical educational institutions. Attention is focused on those aspects of the formation of the School that had not previously been the subject of special research by historians. Based on the complex of documents of the Armory Chamber identified and introduced into scientific circulation, it is analyzed which disciplinary and offenses the first students of the school committed and why. Analyzing the specific court proceedings conducted in the Armory Chamber on the fact of these violations, the authors show how extracurricular and educational work with students was organized. The role of Leonty Magnitsky, an outstanding Russian scientist, mathematician, author of the first fundamental work on arithmetic, in organizing educational work with navigation students, is being clarified.   The research was carried out using traditional methods for historical research, special attention was paid to the identification and introduction into scientific circulation of clerical sources on the chosen topic. As the study showed, the students of the School of Mathematical and Navigation Sciences came from various estates and regions of the Russian state. Once in Moscow, many of them found themselves in a social environment that was not familiar to them, faced temptations that were difficult for them to resist. In this regard, the teachers of the School, and first of all Leonty Magnitsky, paid great attention to educational work among students. An active group of schoolchildren was formed, who, on the instructions of teachers, monitored the behavior of their comrades. For the revealed violations, the perpetrators were severely punished in public. Extracurricular work contributed to the formation of a unified system of values, instilling interest in learning, instilling discipline, and eliminating vices among students. It has become an important factor in achieving the main goal for which the School was established: to train navigation specialists necessary to create a navy in Russia in the shortest possible time.

Keywords: Armory Chamber, Nikolay Durov, Peter's era, Moscow, history of education, history of science, Leonty Magnitsky, Navigation school, Peter I, Extracurricular activities

Abstract: The subject of the study is the federal election campaigns of the main competitors in the German Bundestag elections of 1998 - the CDU and the SPD. The object of the study is the evolution of German political culture related to the practice of conducting federal election campaigns. The purpose of this work is to analyze the election campaigns of the CDU and the SPD in 1998 to identify new elements of the professionalized, "Americanized", modernized campaign of the SPD, which, against the background of the traditional CDU campaign, contributed to the victory of the Social Democrats and the coming to power in Germany of the "red-green" coalition led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The scientific novelty of the article is that the effectiveness of election campaigns is considered as one of the significant factors influencing the outcome of the party-political struggle, and the 1998 elections are considered as one of the turning points in the evolution of German political culture in terms of party election campaigns. The successful SPD campaign, which abandoned many traditional elements and actively borrowed new electoral practices from the United States and Great Britain, had a significant impact on the modernization of the forms and methods of electoral struggle of the main parties in Germany in the next two decades.

Keywords: electoral technologies, election campaign, SPD, CDU, elections to the Bundestag, political culture, elections, history of Germany, Germany, Gerhard Schroeder

Abstract: The subject of this article is the work of three universities: Bashkir State University, Ufa State Aviation Technical University, and Ufa State Petroleum Technical University. Their work is being studied with the aim to identify their role in forming the personnel, technological,  scientific and theoretical foundations of the state energy policy of Russia in 1991 – 2000s. The research is focused on the implementation of the Russian state policy in the field of training highly qualified personnel for the Russian energy field by universities of the Republic of Bashkortostan at the turn of the 20th – 21st centuries. Particular attention is paid to the development of infrastructure and quality parameters of energy education in Bashkortostan. The research methodology was determined by the modernization concept of the historical process and the aim of objectively covering facts and phenomena based on a critical scientific analysis of historical sources. The novelty of this research lies in the arguments and conclusions of the study's authors, which complement the current scientific understanding of the historical experience of the Russian reforms of the 1990s and 2000s. The authors present the main conclusion that the universities of Bashkortostan made an important contribution to the implementation of the state energy policy, systematically improving the quality of scientific and educational work, notwithstanding the difficulties of that transition period. In the 2000s, the training of qualified personnel in the energy field had become the interest of universities and leading energy companies operating in the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Keywords: Bashkir State University, energy personnel, energy industry of Bashkortostan, energy of Russia, personnel policy, energy policy, history of higher education, history of Russian reforms, Ufa State Aviation Technical University, Ufa State Petroleum Technical University

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: By the time of the adoption of the University Charter of 1884, only two universities in the Russian Empire had a precise system for carrying out graduation examinations: these were the Derptsky and Kiev (Saint Vladimir) universities, where students took exams in two terms – after the second and after the fourth year. But the Ministry of Public Education went even further in reforming the system of graduation exams: it cancelled all examinations and students became obligated to pass exams on all studied subjects at the end of each year. This was a drastic change in the procedure of having final exams in the natural sciences departments of the physics-mathematics faculties of the Russian Empire's universities. The article examines the process of cementing new procedures, which turned out to be to the dislike of university teachers due to the growing control on the part of the Ministry of Public Education. The article's research is based, above all, on the use of the comparative-historical method and is founded on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The author comes to the conclusion that the total control of the Ministry of Public Education, the growing influence of which was related to the disorders in high schools, led to the discontent towards the new procedures. Despite the regulation of the process of graduation examinations by the Ministry, each university developed its own methods, while the professors sought to bring back the old procedures – of having their faculty's examination as it had been during the time of the Charter of 1863. The growing discontent and the unfolding of the revolutionary situation in the country led to the simplification of the process of graduation examinations and the transfer of power to the university faculties in 1906. However, already in 1911 the Ministry went back to fully regulating and unifying the process of graduation examinations.

Keywords: Russian Empire, natural science departments, physics-mathematics faculties, University Charter, Ministry of Public Education, diploma, subject system of education, education reforms, state regulation, graduation examinations

Abstract: The focus of this research is placed on the transformation process of graduation exams at natural sciences departments of physics-mathematics faculties of universities in the Russian Empire up to the beginning of the 1880s. It is shown how under the effect of three charters – 1804, 1835 and 1863 – changed the procedure of taking graduation exams and took hold the particular system of so-called faculty examinations, when the decision on which specific subjects and how thoroughly the student of the graduating course will take was decided independently by the faculties, without the participation of the Ministry of Public Education. The research is based, in the first place, on the use of the comparative-historical method and is founded on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The author comes to the conclusion that the beginning of the formation of the system of graduation exams at the universities in the Russian Empire was laid out with the adoption of the charter “Provisions for conferring scientific degrees” in 1819, which added to the already existing degree of candidate of sciences the grade of an enrolled student. All this led to students finishing universities having to pass a graduation exam in order to have advantages in service and the right to the rank of the IVth class in the Table of Ranks. The final development of the system of the graduation exam is linked to the activity of minister S. S. Uvarov, when the new university charter and the new “Provisions” were adopted, while the Charter of 1863 and the “Provisions” of 1864 preserved the usual system of final faculty examinations.

Keywords: physics-mathematics faculties, university charter, enrolled student, candidate, Ministry of Public Education, degree conferral, natural sciences departments, Russia Empire, universities, graduation examination

Abstract: The systematic study of Ancient and Medieval bronzes from archaeological monuments of the Russian Far East through a series of methods (emission spectrum analysis, metallography, examination of the isotopic composition of lead) has allowed to identify a series of traditions in the working of metal. The traditions developed during the course of the ethnocultural exchanges between the Far Eastern population and the foreign ethnic groups that appeared in the Far East beginning with the end of the second millennium B. C. E., and which reflected the cultural processes that occurred in the depth of the Asian steppe. Successively several traditions replace each other. The “Siberian” tradition is linked to the changes of a global nature and with the formation of the cultural similarities of the epoch of the late Bronze Age. The Manchu-Korean tradition is characterised by impulses from North-Eastern China and Korea during the first millennium B. C. E. The appearance of the “Turkish” tradition was caused by the Turkish expansion on the continent. This tradition manifested itself in unique forms of waist and harness linings. The “Amuric” tradition existed during the early Medieval period and is tied to the local tribes. The last tradition, the “Jurchen” tradition, existed during the Middle Ages and revealed itself through a simplification of technological schemes, a widening of the range of articles and a partial substitution of bronze with iron even for costume decorative elements.

Keywords: lead-isotope composition, Far East, North-Eastern China, ethnocultural contacts, metallography, Turkish expansion, Middle Ages, spectral analysis, alloys, bronze

Abstract: This article presents as a methodological experiment an analysis of the first German democracy – the Weimar republic – from the point of view of the theory of democratic transition (transitology). This is not a new theoretical approach for Western historiography, but it has only recently been taken up by Russian scholars and can be considered as a separate methodological direction, taking into account the criticism it has received during its development (from the beginning of the 1970s). The criteria for the transition from authoritarianism to democracy proposed by the two founders of the theory – Walt W. Rostow and Dankwart Rustow – have rarely been applied on the history of Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, although the November revolution was in fact one of the forms of democratic transition and brought about the formation of a democratic government. While the Weimar republic basically did not have a single of the necessary preconditions for the establishment of a democratic government proposed by transitology as a criteria of “transition”, nonetheless the accepted historiographical paradigm of the Weimar epoch accepts it as the first German democracy, though not as long-lasting and successful as the traditionally paralleled with it history of the second German democracy – the Federal Republic of Germany. The theory of democratic transition has its limitations and advantages, and gives a new look at Germany’s primary issue of the 20th century that of the glide between authoritarianism and democracy.

Keywords: theory of modernisation, transitology, democratic transition, first German democracy, Treaty of Versailles, Weimar republic, interwar period, First World War, Germany, population mobilisation

Abstract: the article reviews the spoken testament (“ryad”) of Yaroslav the Wise, found in the text of the chronicle of the 6562 (1054) in “The Tale of Bygone Years”. Based on the content analysis given, the author makes conclusions about geopolitical meaning of the urban centers separation (Kiev, Chernigov, Pereyaslavl, Smolensk, Vladimir-Volynskiy), ordered by Yaroslav the Wise; about the place of reign of Izyaslav Yaroslavovich until 1054 and territorial base of power of the Knyazh of Kiev compared with the division of 970, made by the Yaroslavs’ grandfather Svyatoslav. Based on the comparative analysis of this text with the similar textual chronicle texts of 1073, 1078, 1093 и 1097 the author finds elements that could influence it’s formation, which also allows to reconsider the Shakhmatov A.A. hypothesis in favor of the alternative hypotheses of Solovyev S.M. and Aleshkovskiy M.Kh and also reconstruct the original content of the text of 1054 by excluding later added elements. The article substantiates the point that the announcing of the priority of the elderly, that is attributed to Yaroslav the Wise since XIX century allows to discover political meaning of the division of 1054 under the concept of the brotherly co-ownership in the family of Rurik.

Keywords: history, chronicle, elders, Yaroslav the Wise, family of Yaroslav, Russia, Yaroslav’s testament, division, Shakhmatov A.A., Soloviev S.M.

Abstract: the articles expresses in the modern views of foreign historians on the development of different types of defensive weapons in the medieval East.

Keywords: history, the East, Persia, “Shah-Nameh”, armor, plate armor, scaly armor, chain armor

Abstract: the article is devoted to the work of the architect, Professor, Academician F.F. Richter, who entered the history of Russian culture as a prominent restorer, created a unique museum in Moscow – the Chamber of Romanovs’ boyars. Architectural drawings made by F.F. Richter influenced the development of Russian architectural thought and encouraged the opening up of Russian cultural heritage, the recognition of the Russian style in art. Analysis of F.F. Richter works allowed to show his contribution to the study and preservation of historical heritage of ancient Russia and its role in the interpretation of these traditionsin the XIX century.

Keywords: history, history of Moscow, architecture, restoration, conservation, Russian style, Old Culture, Imperial Kremlin Palace, the Chamber of Romanovs’ boyars, Richter.