The article is an attempt to define one of the most significant cultic objects in the Oxus Temple at Takhti-Sangin (Northern Bactria, modern southern Tajikistan) in the period of Hellenism. The fire altars of the temple were considered its most sacred objects by its discoverers, B. Litvinskiy and I. Pichikyan. M. Boyce and C. Rapin disagreed with their opinion but didn’t give any detailed substantiation. A detailed analysis of the architecture, sculpture and stratigraphy of the temple makes us agree with M. Boyce’s opinion, according to which the main objects of worship in the temple were cult statues, while the role of the fire cult was secondary.

This article covers the main historical tendencies of the establishment of social work in France at the turn of the centuries. The transformation of all kinds of assistance and support is shown in the period of the industrial revolution. The forms and methods of work with the socially vulnerable groups of people, feministic and religious organizations and societies of mutual aid are determined. The article pays much attention to the formation of social legislation in that period and states that it formed the foundations of the French model of a social state, the final formation of which was finished after World War II.

The article states that at the early 90s of the XIXth century there were plans to invade Belgium in case of war between Germany and France. The author discloses the Belgium military leadership’s response to the possible threats from Germany and France.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the constitutional-legal status of the First Republic of Austria in the 20s of the XXth century, as well as to its structure and competence. The analysis is based on the research of the Constitutional Law of 1920 and the amendments of 1929. The article notes that the National Council was the lower house of Austrian Parliament as it was the organ of nationwide representation; the Federal Council was an upper house of Austrian Parliament as it represented the Lands. It’s stressed that both the National Council and the Federal Council didn’t enjoy equal rights: the National Council was the leading one, whereas the Federal Council could only take part in the legislation activities. Austrian Parliament represented by the National Council and the Federal Council, realizing the legislative branch of power and controlling the Government, didn’t possess leadership in all spheres of the state life. The author considers the parliament to function within the policy of checks and balances. One of the most important constitutional institutions of the present Second Republic of Austria was and still is the parliament, which absorbed and is still absorbing the best experience of the 20s of the XXth century.

The article depicts some aspects of the forcible joining of Austria to the fascist Germany in March-April of 1938 (Anschluss), first of all, about the main internal events in Austria, connected with the Anschluss. On the basis of the research of those events the author concludes that for the major part of the Austrians the Anschluss with Germany was unfortunately a desirable event. It’s stated that the internal political and economic circumstances resulted in the death of Austrian state.

The article describes the Munich Agreement of 1938 through the context of both Germany’s foreign policy course and British and French “policy of Germany appeasement”. The article covers a number of aspects related to the preparation of this diplomatic act, among which are: readiness of Germany and Czechoslovakia to the expected armed conflict, German ruling groups’ contradictions associated with the armed conflict, the question of Czechoslovakia allies’(France and the USSR) readiness to supply the necessary military help according to the agreements of 1935, the role of Great Britain’s and the Soviet Union’s stands in the international situation. On the basis of these aspects the author comes to the conclusion that the states, taking part in the peacemaking process acted unreasonably in the Sudeten crisis (in terms of European safety keeping). It is stated that the Munich Agreement had a key role in the realization of Germany’s expansive aspirations.

This article is devoted to one of the most important problems of interrelations between the society and the Church in Russia: to teaching the religious subjects in state schools. The author presents both the past and the present of the problem, gives names of the most active opponents of Church in the discussion. The results of some public opinion polls are used as an illustration of society members’ attitude. The article concludes that there’s insufficient level of confidence to the Church in Russian society.

The article analyses the problems of realization of the Russian Federation’s national policy in tourism. The author considers understanding tourism only through consumer society ideology to be the main problem, i.e. to treat tourism as a source of providing with services of delight, on the one hand, and consuming them, on the other hand. This makes tourism to be affordable mainly for the wealthy and foreigners. The author states that such understanding of tourism should be changed by the state through introducing patriotic and educational tourism to a greater extent. The article presents some recommendations on correcting the Russian Federation’s national policy in tourism in the direction indicated by the author.

The article presents the analysis of the American historiography of the Soviet-American trade and economic relations. The author describes the questions of the formation of the economic cooperation between the USSR and the USA, singles out the problems and the barriers which obstructed the development of those mutual relations. Besides, the policy of the Soviet government favoring to gradual strengthening of the interrelations between the two countries is given. The author singles out the basic problems and approaches to depicting the given theme being characteristic for different stages of the American historiography development.

The article presents the analysis of memoirs, war diaries and letters as a historical source for studying the Soviet soldiers’ way of life at the front during the Great Patriotic War. The comparative analysis and their general characteristics are given. The author considers their priority in the research of soldiers’ everyday life at war. The article raises the questions of their information value, reliability and accuracy. The features and difficulties of working with personal sources are also considered. Numerous memoirs and war diary literature form the basis of the research. Being guided by the examples, the author comes to the conclusion that the types of sources specified in the article are very important, and the research of such question as the way of life at the front is impossible without their use.

The article describes the features of the non-state form of trade in the Lower Volga region during the Great Patriotic war. On the basis of the archival materials the author notes the role of the Soviet and party authorities in the trade development in the region. The importance of trade for supplying the population with food in the Lower Volga region is considered. The author explores the problems and difficulties facing the local authorities in monitoring the work of the regional markets. Moreover, the author notes the shortcomings in the regional markets functioning and shows the ways of their elimination.

This article is devoted to the issue of perception, interpretation, and evaluation of the First Chechen Campaign of 1994-1996 by American and British war correspondents, who witnessed the events. The sources used, memoirs and war diaries, are not known to the broad circle of researchers in Russia. These sources were analyzed and the article presents the most typical tendencies of war events evaluation by their authors. Particular attention is paid to the politics and mistakes made by B. Yeltsin and D. Dudayev, as their role in defining the lines of development of relationship between Federal Forces and Chechnya was decisive. The article also gives an account of the most important events, such as: the first military assault of Grozny, the hostage-taking in Budyonovsk, the death of D. Dudayev. The descriptions give notion of the correspondents’ sympathies and points of view, thus supplementing the existing understanding and perception of the issue in general.

The article is devoted to the process of the Orthodox Art formation during the historical changes in tradition development and innovation in contemporary church fresco. On the example of Moscow churches the author studies the history of the Canon comprehension, through the way the artist A.V. Artemiev and his contemporaries (followers of the Old Russian school of painting - before Peter I period, European easel portrait painting) made it the basis of the rules of the monumental oil painting. The article describes the combination of innovative theories with the canonical tradition of monumental ecclesiastical painting which is important for the author’s style development within the canonical rules and formulations. The author states such combination is necessary for depicting the events described in the Gospel.

The article examines a very important and topical problem in the Soviet period history of the Russian society: the problem of relations between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church; as well as the way it was reflected in the public consciousness and the assessments that gave the clergy and ordinary citizens. The research is focused on the society’s moral judgments of the government policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church in 1920’s. The article considers the content of both the clergy’s letters and the letters of secular people to various bodies of state authority, as well as the attitude of the whole society to the fight against the church and to the anti-religious propaganda.

On the basis of the archive documents the author examines the governmental campaign of 1929 to change radically the style and methods of work of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. The article describes the main areas of this campaign, such as: «state machinery purge» that meant the replacement of both the people in charge of the People’s Commissariat of Education and the local authorities of the public education with the experienced Communist Party and Soviet functionaries. The introduction of the new methods was based on the idea of inculcating more representatives of the working class into the leading body and structures of the state of the proletariat dictatorship (‘orabochivanie’). That idea was represented in a so called «Lenin’s will»; all-Russian «cultural campaign» - mass movement for liquidation of illiterateness.

The article deals with the problems caused by mass migration of village dwellers to Moscow after World War II and the problems of migrants’ adaptation to the urban way of living. The article also depicts the barracks-like collectivism of hostels and the life-style in communal flats in post-war Moscow. The author mentions the difficulties of solving the housing problems, the influence of the qualitative characteristics of dwellings on the asocial behavior of the Muscovites. The article studies the complaints caused by the housing despondency, social and cultural contradictions between the Muscovites and the migrants.

This article studies the peculiarities of the Soviet public opinion during the most dangerous period of the Sino-Soviet conflict. Despite the widespread opinion that the USSR social society was indivisible the author proves that the attitude to the conflict was various. To prove it the author used various sources, especially archival materials, some of which have been declassified and used in the scientific work for the first time. This article analyses the factors which had influence on the Soviet public opinion, such as: official party information, media materials, statements and notes of the Soviet government. The analysis performed by the author proves that the Soviet public opinion often followed the official position and states that the common people’s views often changed together with the change of the government’s stand, their statements often contained expressions from newspaper reports. Such attitudes were most widely spread; the dissatisfaction with the Soviet foreign policy was expressed only by the minority of citizens.

The article deals with the problems of scientific provision of prospecting of diamonds in our country in the late 1940-s, as well as with the establishment and development of scientific school of Russian diamond geology. The author states that this scientific school is able to ensure modern geologists with new ideas, leap-ahead technologies and methodological developments in providing high efficiency in prospecting of diamond deposits. Our own scientific school had formed by the beginning of this millennium and the geologists of diamond industry have prepared and published quite a number of monographs, textbooks and manuals, in which all principal stages of diamond forecasting, prospecting and exploration were classified for the first time.

Russian external economic relations are considered through the modern problems of geo-economy. The article exposes the results of Russian governmental attempts to develop external economic contacts in the north-western (Western European), the south-western (across the Azov and the Black Seas) and the south-eastern directions (the Middle East, Central Asia, China). It’s found out that throughout the whole century the Western European direction developed at priority growth rates. This was determined by the growing needs of the economy and market of Western Europe. External economic relations developed in the south-western and south-eastern directions slower because of considerable difficulties in their infrastructure and logistics progress, as well as due to the geopolitical problems.

The article analyzes the evolution of the relationship of the provincial structures: the Russian Orthodox Church and local government bodies of Zemstvo - in the field of public education forming. The period described begins with the initial period of its formation and ends in 1884 when parochial schools were separated from secular schools. The article also describe the way these relations influenced the effectiveness of the educational process. The Russian historiography still has not clarified the problem of dependence dynamics of the results of public education on the level and nature of the interaction of Zemstvo institutions and religious authorities in the educational area of Russian provinces.

The article considers the main trends and forms of social charity, which were carried out by the orthodox brotherhoods in respect of the poor pupils of the religious schools of the Moscow diocese in the period mentioned. Particular attention is paid to the arrangement and the personnel of the brotherhoods. The number of people who used the brotherhoods’ material backing is denoted. The everyday needs of the religious schools pupils from the poorest families of the clergy are noted. Key words: Moscow diocese, church brotherhood, theological academy, theological seminary, religious school.

The article deals with the process of modernization of the Adyghe culture at the end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th centuries. The modern type of culture unlike the traditional one is in a continuous process of changes. The changing cultural reality causes new parameters of the new generation’s life. Education and training are becoming institutionalized. The author shows the way the Adyghe culture is being modernized and is acquiring a new status in the result of cultural development. The author notes the interrelation of both the material culture and the spiritual one.

The publication is devoted to the problem which is acute for modern Russia. At the beginning of the XXth century the contention among the society and the power, the political parties and the unions accepted confrontational character. The authors state the problems of the activity of the extremely right political forces, which received the generalized name “The Black-Hundred” (“chernaya sotnya”). The article gives characteristics of the political life of monarchists-the Black-Hundred at the beginning of the previous century. The authors’ material, their conclusions and generalizations can be used for the further development of the history of political parties and movements.

In the given research the author defines the main factors which influenced the development of German school education. The article presents an estimation of the social and economic conditions of the education development in the province. The author describes the German society role and place in the economy of the province and shows its contribution to the education system. The article presents the analysis of interaction between the Board of Education institutions and the society in the sphere of school education. The influence of the society members’ electiveness in the local self-government institutions on the education development is shown. The results of education in different fields of activity are displayed. The author used the archival materials of the Kazan educational district.

The article reveals the problems of economic factors influence on the development of the Russian policy in relation to Germany on the threshold of World War I. Special attention is given to the dynamics of trade development and economic relations of Russia and German empire within the mentioned period. The author considers strategically important branches of industry in Russian and Germany, and the results of the Russian-German trading contracts signed in 1894 and 1904. The analysis of sources allowed to reveal the advantages and disadvantages of the economic systems of Russia and Germany.

The article presents the analysis of the role of a family in the process of forming liberal views – V.I.Vernadsky, an outstanding scientist and public figure, is taken as an example. The main source is Vernadsky’s papers found in his epistolary heritage, especially in the letters to his wife. The article considers a number of important factors, such as: family legends, role of his parents and closest relatives. The article presents the results of studying previous generations’ history and experience, as well as their significance for the process of forming V. I.Vernadsky’s liberal consciousness.