The author specifies the interpretation of the media phenomenon. Medium phenomenon and communication are described as the background and the supportive framework for social and political processes. Medium precedes communication. For understanding media phenomena constitutive role of the medium is more meaningful than its transmission functioning in social life. The constitutive potential of the medium determines the very essential sense of the famous thesis “The Medium is the Message”. It is even more clear following the cross-cultural interpretations of this thesis in English and Russian languages.

Constitutive understanding of the medium phenomena influences the treatments of the political processes. The medium messes, mixes the certain place of reality and as if it lights up social spaces. According to this metaphor, the phenomenon of policy also forms the ontological locus where through the processing of informational uncertainty one can establish commonly shared values and norms for social consolidation and activities. The author characterizes the policy medium patterns proceeding from the unstable (E. Laclau, C. Mouffe) and object-oriented (G. Harman) ontology.

The article is devoted to the study of the political consequences of exercising the presidential form of government by the materials of a number of some post-Soviet States.

The hypothesis of the well-known political scientist Juan Linz about the shortcomings of the presidential system of government is confirmed in post-Soviet politics. Here, states with strong presidents demonstrate tendencies toward establishing personalist regimes. Concentration of power in the hands of the president tends to make the opposition weaker. Electoral processes are often imitative by nature, while competition in politics remains at an extremely low level.

An empirical analysis of post-Soviet politics demonstrated that political crises in presidential regimes sometimes lead to “color revolutions”, society is subject to deep splits, and regimes are deprived of time flexibility. The fact that it is impossible to quickly replace the president who lost legitimacy leads to a loss of stability of the entire system. Political stability in such systems of government can only be achieved by rejecting political competition.Linz’s assertion about the possibility of conflict between the president and parliament as a consequence of double democratic legitimacy, as well as the president’s striving for inefficient spending, is confirmed. An empirical analysis of political processes in the post-Soviet space proves the validity of theLinzhypothesis.

The article attempts to comprehensively review of the development of the tourism and hospitality industry in theRepublicofGeorgiaafter 1995.

After the collapse of theUSSR, theRepublicofGeorgiabegan to develop new directions in the economy, so that the tourism and hospitality industry quickly came to the fore. Maximizing the natural resources ofGeorgiaallowed that industry to progress rapidly under conditions of the republic post-Soviet life, adjusting the new infrastructure, both regional and national, to the needs of the economy development in new direction.

Already by the second half of the 1990s. tourism was defined by the Georgian authorities as a leading industry, what resulted in a complete revision of the subsequent reforms in the areas of medical care, road construction, etc. Moreover, by the beginning of Mikhail Saakashvili presidential term, after the increase in volume and establishing a stable flow of tourists fromRussiaand post-Soviet states,Georgiabegan to consider tourism as a way to improve the country’s image and promote the political goals of the government.

This article will examine the key laws that allowedGeorgiato build trusting relationships with European and post-Soviet states, and the context for the adoption of these laws. This article will also focus on the shortcomings of each of these laws and the reasons for their subsequent corrections.

The author considers a situation in the modern Russian humanities, that is in gender studies through the relationship of scientific and public discourses. The author focuses on politics and political discourse as exerting great influence on the development of women’s and gender history in Russia due to a substantial initial politicization of both areas of historiography.

The author makes an attempt to study the process developing the native gender studies by establishing its link with political changes of liberalization in the second half of the 90s. She also focuses on the influence exerted on both – the academic community and the inhabitants of the Soviet Union in relation to women’s issues.

The article highlights first of all the perception of gender theory as an ideology. It attempts to search the way out of this situation by means of analyzing scientific and non-scientific discourses.

The article attempts to study commemoration practices of 200th anniversary of the Patriotic War 1812. The celebration of that anniversary became a large-scale event in the social and political life of post-SovietRussiaand was substantially supported by the state.

Employing information from mass media the author considers the process of collective memory formation: its participants (state and society) and the way two types of commemoration (state and social) correspond to each other.

The focal point of our article is a set of commemoration practices the state used during the celebration and the society’s reaction to it manifested in the activities of non-governmental organization, independent mass media. Their analysis can help understand the process and mechanism of formation of the collective memory, the interrelation between state and society as participants of commemoration.

Memorial studies including applicable to anniversaries of the Patriotic War of 1812, are widely prevalent in modern Russian historiography. Anniversaries of the Patriotic war of 1812 become a prevalent theme of historical researches. However, historians almost do not focus their attention on the society’s reaction to the unofficial commemorative practices. Such studies would allow to understand how society independently tries to form its commemorative practices, its memory places, etc. (and whether it forms).

The author tries to consider the interaction of two narratives of historical memory, what will allow getting a more coherent, multilateral picture of commemorative practices in connection with the anniversaries of the Patriotic War of 1812, and also to avoid the somewhat distorted view that society only passively adopts what the state offers.

As a subject of analysis, the article proposes a research model for the study of the modern barbarity. The Greek-Latin narrative tradition of barbarians is presented as the antique matrix of barbarity, which creates an image of the barbarian in action, dynamics, quality and integrative characteristics.

The attention is drawn to the possibility of using the antique matrix of perception and understanding of barbarity in the study of the modern “new barbarity”. In this regard, the author highlights issues of the prerequisites and peculiarities of the manifestation of “new barbarity” manifestation in the dynamics of modern civilizational processes. She also considers the forms of “new barbarity” (intellectual, aesthetic, barbarization of worldview), that emerged in the Postmodern era.

For the first time the latent barbarity is accentuated as an independent historical phenomenon, which is defined as the special form of existence of barbarity within civilization. The scientific novelty is the first formulated historical and terminological characteristics of the nature of the latent barbarity (hidden and being hidden) as a way of social barbarism.

In the course of analysis, the author denotes the birth conditions forms of manifestation and spheres of influence of latent barbarity inside civilization. She is the first to demonstrate its danger place in social history.

This article deals with ambegna bos, lexical unit, which occurs in Varro’s work De lingua Latina (7.31) as a sample of the augurs’ professional language. As Varro explained it, its usage means the participation of the augurs in public ritual of animal sacrifice, which was controlled by the pontifices. The augurs participated in the event as they watched the animals’ behavior and interpreted it selecting those which were to be sacrificed. Their actions guaranteed the favorable acceptance of the victim by the gods. Thus one can argue that the augurs took part in the preparation to public ritual of animal sacrifice according to their primordial duty to interpret the omens coming from the gods, i.e. they performed auguries. The intersection of the pontifices’ and the augurs’ duties in that reflects the strive of the Roman aristocracy not to admit any concentration of power (including the religious one) in the same hands in the course of establishing the new political regime (res publica), which replaced the previous regime of royal power (the regnum). Thus, information preserved by Varro dates back to the most ancient layer of the Roman sacral tradition.

The article analyzes information about the absence of a belt for praying Muslims, recorded in the Tale of Bygone Years. The author considers this information in the context of the Christian symbolism of belt, reflected in the Byzantine and ancient Russian monuments. In the course of her analysis the author reveals evidence of the ancient Russian practice of constantly wearing a belt, which acted as a mandatory prescription for both monks and laity. This rule was directly related to interpreting the belt as a significant Christian symbol. The article discusses the range of Byzantine and ancient exegetical sources, in which the belt got a theological justification. The discovered features of the belt perception allowed us to reveal the key ideas of its semantics derived from the texts of Holy Scripture. Thus, girdling was a symbol of concrete virtues, and the refusal to wear a belt, apparently, indicated their absence. In conclusion, the author confirms that point, revealing the true meaning what was mentioned in the chronicle about Muslims by comparing it with a similar testimony found in the Interpretation on the Gospel of Matthew of St. Theophylactus the Bulgarian.

The author of the article makes an attempt to elicit reasons for the Easternism formation in the ideas of famous Russian intellectual Esper Esperovich Ukhtomskii at the turn of 19th – 20th centuries.

on the basis of some published and archival materials the article demonstrates in what way Ukhtomskii s ideas might be included into the context of modern time. He also elicits different aspects that could influence the philosopher’s work.

The specific feature of the research is not so much to represent the concept of Ukhtomskii that concerns political and cultural necessity of the Russia’s turn to the Far East but rather to demonstrate different aspects of political, social, psychological, cultural and other properties which prompted the creation of the Easternism. The article does not represent the concept itself but the intellectual sphere that includes this idea, referring to some aspects of intellectual history that was spread in Russian and foreign historiography in recent years.

The author concludes arguing that the idea of the Easternism was formulated by Esper Esperovich Ukhtomskii under the influence of personal factors and common intellectual tradition at the turn of 19th – 20th centuries.

In the history of Russian politics in the Grand Duchy of Finland, the activities of the Russian administration on Finnish territory during the first Russian revolution are of considerable interest. In 1905–1906 the tsarist government passed to the policy of concessions in Finland. That policy was implemented by the Finnish Governor-General N.N. Gerard, who held the office in 1905–1908. Appointing Finns to administrative posts in the Grand Duchy was a special part of N.N. Gerard practice.

The article considers the circumstances of Gerard’s appointment to the post of Governor-General. Providing her research with L. Mechelin’ letters, the author shows that Gerard had close contacts with Finnish politicians before his appointment as Governor-General. His decisions on the replacement of governors and other officials in Finland Gerard, agreed with the Constitutionalists’ party representatives. The author also presents Gerard’s estimations of the situation in the Duchy. Though as Governor-General he had no opportunity to participate fully in the Senate meetings (as since 1906 they were held in Russian only since 1906) Gerard did not consider that to be a limit his powers. Gerard’s policy of concessions to the requirements of the Constitutionalist party inFinlandwas criticized by the conservative Russian press. The tsarist government supported that policy until 1907. The reason for Gerard’s resignation in 1908 was change of Russian politics towardsFinland.

After the october Revolution of1917, asolution of the so-called “women’s issue” acquired a special importance in the newly built Soviet state. In accordance with Marxist ideas, the role of women in a socialist society was to be formed in line with the principle of equal relations between a man and a woman. Gender equality was to be built on the basis of the socialization of the traditional female roles of “mistress” and “mother”, which in the system of new social relations should be replaced by the role of “toiler” and “social activist”, allowing women to become full participants in the social and working life. But the implementation of that social program faced a number of serious obstacles. The article discusses the process of formation of the Soviet women social roles of Soviet women in the mid-1920s. in the framework of the discourse between the magazines “Rabotnitsa” and “Krestjanka”, which became the main print organs that communicated the party authorities with the female public. on the basis of the discourse analysis of women’s periodicals, the author considers ideological tasks that were set before the female population in the mid-1920s and attempts of their practical realization by female workers and peasant women.

The article attempts to consider the latest academic studies in the context of preparations for the 100th anniversary of the Great Russian Revolution. By the materials of the texts of three famous professional historians Yu.A. Petrov, V.V. Shelokhaev and V.A. Nikonov the author makes the historical and scientific analysis and design of the of research study logic, in the form in which it manifested itself in her discourse. In order to identify and comprehend innovative approaches formulated in those texts the author of the article tends to immerse into the intellectual context of attracted historiography sources. The article is mainly dedicated to the analysis of the construction in the Great Russian revolution constructed in the contemporary historical knowledge of the new version for the Great Russian revolution of 1917 alternative to the image of the revolution in the Soviet historiography .The author of the article reveals distinctive features of the model proposed by historians for the 1917 revolution; therefore, the main attention is focused on the selection criteria of historical and historiography sources that constitute a representative basis for constructing a new image of the Great Russian Revolution of 1917.