The article highlights some of the elements of Cossacks’ everyday life in the South of Russia, which had changed significantly in conditions of collectivized village of 1930s. Cossack villages could survive through “food difficulties” in the first half of the first decade in question with great difficulties. The Cossacks were forced to be fully self-sufficient and dependent on growing food for themselves. With the deployment of the campaign “for the Soviet Cossacks” in the second half of 1930s their attitude to the previously unpopular Cossacks national costume and its public demonstration dramatically changed. Traditional clothing started to emphasize the new Soviet status of the southern Russian Cossacks.

The article is dedicated to Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov), a prior of the Vysoko-Petrovsky monastery in Moscow, and his significant contribution to the protection of the Moscow Theological Academy, after the regime banned such activities and the Academy itself was officially closed in 1919. Archbishop Bartholomew continued his perilous efforts till 1935, when he was put into prison and eventually executed. The question of the existence of the Academy in those years (1919-1935) is still open, no matter there are the documents confirming its activities. The article also touches upon Archbishop Bartholomew’s personality, because the whole picture is not clear enough and proper documents and evidences still require further research.

The article analyzes the material and technical resources of health care institutions of Siberian cities during the Great Patriotic war. The author studies the dynamics of financing medical institutions in the period of war, their provision with medicaments, medical equipment, items of medical care, food, vehicles and fuel, shows the way it affected their work. The study is based on the analysis of the documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and regional archives of Siberian cities. Using the archival sources the author comes to the conclusion that throughout the war the material security of health care institutions was insufficient, which significantly hampered the provision of qualified medical assistance to the population of Siberia.

This article investigates the process of organizing special rest houses at the front for the military personnel of the field army during the Great Patriotic War. These institutions were intended for a short-term stay of soldiers and junior officers with the aim for them to recover and relax after the combat operations. This subject has not yet been touched upon in domestic or foreign historical writing. The research of the matter allows a more detailed understanding of front-line way of life and everyday life in the Red Army. It opens little-known pages of the history of the Great Patriotic War.

The article deals with the way the problem of Krivichs’ ethnic identification was reflected in national historiography. The chronological framework of historiographical review is defined by the second half of the XXth century and the beginning of the XXIst century. Within the period mentioned a lot of works were devoted to the investigation of Krivichs. Therefore, the generalization of the research results is relevant. Author determines the basic problems and approaches to the theme existing in the national historiography.

The article is devoted to the specific features of the way Russian historiographers highlight the negotiations held by Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union in 1939. The author comes to the conclusion that these negotiations were considered by the Soviet historiographers as a missed possibility to organize a joint front defending peace and preventing the Second World War. They find faults with the English-French participants of the negotiations imposing the responsibility for their failure on these countries. Besides, they believe that at that time the USSR was the only country which struggled for peace. Contemporary authors assess the results of the negotiations differently. Some scientists accuse the English and French diplomats of not reaching the agreement. Other historians find faults with the USSR too and point out that the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact betrayed the interests of Great Britain and France.

Steady expansion of the research space of historical science occurs under the influence of active integration of various disciplines. However, noncritical methodology adoption results in the loss of understanding of the studied subject specificity. Unlike the traditional historiographic analysis, the American historian H. White to resorted to literary criticism while researching the historical texts of the XIXth century and came to the conclusion that historical cognition has an artistic nature. The article examines H. White’s views on the basis of which the concepts of historical development cannot have a scientific status. They acquire “objective value” only in accordance with ideological discourses. The retrospective analysis of the views given shows them as a result of nonconstructive criticism of the historiographic practice in the period of renovating of the theoretical and methodological base of historical science in second half of the XXth century.

The scientific novelty of the article consists in the attempt to state for the first time the motives for correspondence selection for I.V. Stalin, and the attempt to find out the reasons for choosing some of the letters out of many others and why they were considered to be of great interest by the staff of the Special Sector of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The author analyses 46 letters dating back to 1947 which were taken from the F. 558 of the State Archive of the History of Social and Political Sciences. The full texts of these letters were included into the summary of the correspondence meant for I. Stalin personally. The author classified the groups of letters and detected the motives in accordance with the classification. It is obvious that the reconstruction of the motives cannot but has some element of a hypothetical character, so the author considers this article as an attempt to work out one of the aspects of the methodology of analyzing epistolary sources. In the appendix to the article there is a summary table of correspondence where the author gives brief information about the authors and the content of the correspondence.

The article is devoted to the problem of the genesis and development of the ideology of nationalism in Indonesia. The author examines the two main vectors of this phenomenon: secular and religious. This article analyzes the official colonial policy of the Netherlands, the so-called “ethical course”, as one of the catalysts for the Indonesian nationalism formation. The author identifies the causes of radicalization of the new intelligentsia’s stand. Close attention is paid to the study of Raden Cartini’s views, to the ideology of the national liberation movement organizations: “The idealistic purpose” and “Muslim Union.” The author focuses on the socio-economic transformation of Indonesia, which played an important role in the formation of Indonesian self-identity.

In this article an attempt is made to analyze the features of modern immigration into Australia compared with the migration inflow to the country in the era of bipolar world. The author reveals the way the Australian Union successfully has been attracting immigrants for many decades in the interests of its socio-economic and demographic development. When writing this message the author relied mainly on the materials of the Australian Bureau of Statistics dating back to 1990s-2011, and on the results of the Russian scientists’ latest publications.

The article deals with the role of the UN in the settlement of the conflict in Kosovo and sheds light on the events connected with the attempts to approve the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement (the Ahtisaari plan) by the UN Security Council. The author points out the illegitimacy of this document, in view of the fact that it did not acquire the status of a resolution of the UN Security Council. On the basis of the analysis of the Ahtisaari plan, the author points out its inner contradictions and its discrepancy with the principles of international law.

In this work the author examines the main features of the relations between Germany and SAARC at the turn of the 20th-21st. centuries. Germany and SAARC along with the state organizations and NGOs try to stabilize the political, economic and social situation in South Asia and integrate this region into the international system. “Soft power” together with Germany and SAARC states is a significant aspect in the development of South Asia, especially in the sphere of defending the civil liberties, spreading of democratic values and social-economic programs.

The paper describes the construction of tentroofed churches in Moscow region in the period of renovation of architectural techniques of church building in the16th-17th centuries. Moscow period of church building is considered to be the stage of creating the best of Russian tent-roofed temple architecture of the period, the reforms of Orthodox Christianity. The author offers the analysis of the architectural solution of architecture on the example of the tent-roofed churches in Kolomenskoye, Ostrov, Besedy and Putinki. The constructive and decorative solution of the tent-roofed churches is considered as a strict composition of the architectural design and rich decoration of external decoration. The author also draws attention to the complexity of the exact dating of the construction of the 16th-17th centuries’ tent-shaped churches architecture.

The article analyzes the data from books of Evliya Chelebi and Adam Oleary, the XVIIth century travelers, about the North-East Caucasus and its ruling feudal elite, its administrative procedures and customs. The paper presents a vast factual material, includes quotation of the sources, and offers a detailed comparative analysis of the data. The authors of the article attract the readers’ attention to differences in the travelers’ estimations of what they had seen and investigate the reasons of such differences in interpretations. They consider that the travelers were under influence of the events of their contemporary life. Besides, the religious ideas had a great impact on their outlook and perception of people of other faith.

The article considers the possibility of using manipulative political technologies by modern politicians the way it is shown in a Levinson’s movie “Wag the dog” (1997) (in Russian cinematography known as “Dodgery”). This article highlights the technology of distraction or attention switch aimed at the decrease of the critical perception of the information by the audience. In the case shown in the film people’s attention was distracted from the sexual scandal the participant of which was the US President just before the regular presidential elections. Taking into account the events that followed (a scandal caused by the sexual relations between the US President Bill Clinton and M. Lewinski - a trainee in the White house) we can’t say for sure if the film was or was not an attempt to hush up the forthcoming scandal.

In article the humanitarian component of safety concept is investigated. “Internal” human safety assumes an active role of the individual both as an object and a subject of the system. Thus, work with the population is one of the main aspects of national system of human safety functioning. There is an equilibrium safety structure where the state plays the main part in ensuring the safety of a person. While the population put in the conditions of comfortable existence provide legitimacy and stability of the state.