The article examines the idea of continuity of different periods of revolutionary movement as discussed in the memoirs of revolutionary populists written after 1917. The author draws upon published and unpublished sources, such as old revolutionaries’ memoirs and letters, as well as the transcripts of the meeting of the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles (1930), titled “The Continuity of Revolutionary Generations with the Decembrists”. In the first part the author analyses the attitude of the memoir writers to the idea of narodniks as precursors to the Bolsheviks or the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The second part deals with the discussion of the Decembrists both in the memoirs and special articles by O.K. Bulanova-Trubnikova and V.N. Figner. The third part considers the opinions about the connection between the Decembrists and narodniks, given by historians and narodniks themselves at the meeting of the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles. The author concludes that the narodniks’ memoirs usually avoided the idea of continuity, although it was popular among contemporary historians. Nevertheless, they felt a moral connection to the Decembrists whom they discussed at length in their works. This should be viewed in the context of the close attention to the ethical dimension of populism which was characteristic to narodniks’ memoirs of the 1920-1930s.

The needs of industrialization have set the Soviet government had posed a task of attracting all available resources to realize the goal of the earliest transformation of Soviet industry. Household reorganization of the Soviet city in the conditions of accelerated industrialization was supposed to contribute to the maximum exemption of women from domestic work with the possibility of its involvement in production. Proletarian women, the workers’ wives, and social activists were to play a crucial role in this process, creating the necessary conditions for the mass involvement of women in production. Involving women in household transformation projects was important for the era of the development of civil women’s initiative, which was already begins to be suppressed in the mid-1930s., giving way to centralized state planning. The article discusses the process of household reorganization of the Soviet city in the conditions of forced industrialization in the first half of the 1930s. Attention is paid to those projects in which women have been involved and on which they exerted a particular influence, fulfilling, on the one hand, the order of the state, and on the other, changing their own conditions of everyday life.

It is well known that each generation writes its own history. for history researchers, the question always arises of how and on the basis of which history their predecessors wrote history. The author attempts to identify the circumstances in which the question of evaluating, interpreting and rethinking the historiographical tradition becomes the most urgent. Having considered the most significant works of N.M. Karamzin, S.M. Solovyov, V.O., Klyuchevsky, P.N. Milyukova and N.L. Rubinstein and the circumstances in which they were written and received public recognition, the author attempts to identify a key feature in which one historical work replaces another. According to the researcher, the reason why the question of reflection or rethinking becomes the most urgent is crises or so-called fractures. To identify the content and contradictions of the Russian historiographic process, the author attempted to determine which approaches to the assessment of the historiographical works of predecessors exist. The author identifies three approaches to such an assessment. From the historiographic heritage, you can refuse and try to rethink the historical events, rather than the works of predecessors. On the other hand, one can take into account the historiographic experience of predecessors, but try to find inaccuracies and errors in their research. A wasteful approach can be considered an attempt to combine the experience of their predecessors with their own observations.

The purpose of the article is to study the diachronic and synchronic intellectual context of writing one of the last monographs of the historian, sociologist, methodology of science Nikolai Ivanovich Kareev (1850-1931) “The General methodology of the Humanities”. The work was written in the late 1910s-early 1920s and was not published due to censorship restrictions. Its text is held in the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library. The book summarizes the methodological research of Nikolay Kareev. The course fits well into the new practice of teaching humanities in reformed universities (faculties of social sciences) and in the field of methodological research of the “old professors” in 1920s. The article aims to study the diachronic and synchronic intellectual context of this book. The authors turn to the tradition of teaching the methodology of history, designated in the works as the predecessors of Nikolay Kareev (A.S. Lappo-Danilevsky, K.N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, V.I. Lamansky, etc.), and his contemporaries (P.A. Sorokin, L.P. Karsavin, S.L. Frank). They conclude that despite the “General Methodology” being an original course. Text solved different problems of the humanities from the point of view of positivism and corresponded to the methodology of XIX century, rather than theoretical and methodological search of the period of the crisis of positivism.

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the religious factor in the national security policy of Russia and Belarus. The legal framework and institutional bases of the national security policy of the two states are analyzed in order to identify and conceptualize the religious component. The similarity and differences in the objects of national security policy and threats to national security in aspects where the presence of a religious factor is revealed are shown. It is concluded that in Russia the list of threats related to the religious factor of national security has been expanded in comparison with Belarus. The concept of religious security as an integral part of the national security policy is analyzed. The conclusion is made about the possibilities of using this concept in the formation of the goals and objectives of the religious policy of Russia and Belarus. Similar threats to national security – religious extremism; proselytism of non-traditional for Russian and Belarusian society religious associations; degradation of traditional spiritual and moral values and loss of religious identity-are identified and analyzed. The General and special in conceptualization of the specified threats is shown. The conclusion is made about the specifics of the manifestation of the religious factor in the interpretation of threats to national security in Russia and Belarus.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the balance of interests of different-sized actors in the process of implementing in the territory of Primorsky Krai as a project for the development of the Far East and Russia’s integration into the Asia-Pacific Region (hereinafter the APR). For the past 10 years Russian leadership has been especially actively trying to consolidate national efforts to advance in the APR. Concentration on large-scale tasks simultaneously led to abstraction from the permanently transmitted competitive interests of the local community (Primorye is a vivid example), and, as a consequence, revealed the weakness of the management potential of Russia’s Far Eastern strategy. As a result, the inconsistent policy of managing the local level of government exacerbated the socio-political situation, primarily in those municipalities of the region, which occupy a significant place in the development plans of the Russian Far East. The article draws attention to the fact that any activity on the territory is “refracted through the prism” of local conditions and is opposed to the natural and socio-political environment. Ignoring this circumstance threatens to increase costs and efforts to move towards the desired goal.

The article examines the transformation of the political elite in the Russian Federation at the turn of the century. The author studies the internal political situation and its influence on the processes of political power, as well as the change of political elite in connection with the resignation of the President of Russia Boris N. Yeltsin. It is hypothesized that the political changes in Russia had an impact not only on the internal development of the country, but also on its position in the international arena, and the political course chosen by the administration of V. Putin aimed to protect the sovereignty of the country and the realization of its national interests. At the end of the article the author concludes that the modern political elite is the result of the evolution of the Soviet nomenclature and its synthesis with the close environment of the first persons of the state, who have worked in the structures of state security, and its main objectives were the unity of the country, bloodless transfer of power, inviolability of private property, as well as socio-economic and political stability. In addition, the author suggests that Russia will develop within the framework of the course laid by the current President of Russia in the long term, regardless of who will replace him in office in the foreseeable future.

Modern European society today is often presented as homogenous and united by highly valued law and tolerance. These values are often contrasted in mainstream media with conservatism, religiosity, xenophobia, and marginalization, which are common in the societies of the Middle East, Africa, and even in the Post-Soviet space. Nevertheless, an appeal to the analysis of regional European social and political practices demonstrates pronounced specifics of the development of individual states-members of the European Union. This article focuses on the situation in the Republic of Poland after it joined the EU in 2004. It is significant that, having initially joined the integration process on conditions common to the European Union, over time and under the influence of economic and migration crises, Poland, in recent years, is steadily moves away from the tolerant European tradition. This is firstly reflected in political rhetoric which boils down to populist thesis, such as statements about the inadmissibility of accepting migrants, Christianity as the basis of social relations, saving traditional Europe, etc. At the same time, political populism in Poland is not groundless. It is rooted in powerful social support, which, in turn, is based on the forms of historical memory of the Poles associated with the history of their state in the XX century and in an earlier historical period. Many political and military crises of Polish history have created a powerful potential for intolerance towards various national and ethnic groups, including Jews, Roma, Ukrainians, Russians, Germans, etc. It is these forms of historican xenophobia that begin to resonate within the Polish national consciousness, contrasting traditional Polish society with the ideas of tolerance and dialogue in the face of modern problems of European integration.

An attempt was made to analyze the competitive advantages of Kazakhstan within the in the EEU, discussed Kazakhstan’s initiative to establish an International Financial Center in Astana, which is especially important in connection introduction of economic and financial sanctions against the Russian Federation; the initiatives of the project “Great silk Road” and the implementation of blockchain technology in the framework of the EAEU and the results that accrue to the Republic of Kazakhstan from the project. The issues related to the development of the international arbitration system, the need for the introduction of a single electronic currency within the EAEU on the rules agreed by the participants.

The article is devoted to consider today’s cooperation between Germany and Sri Lanka. Economics as well as scientific and technical areas have become one of the priorities of policy between Germany and Sri Lanka. From 1983 to 2013, the island was involved in the civil war, that brought not only numerous human sufferings, but also had a negative impact on the country’s social and economic development. In the 2000s Sri Lanka has been building long-term political and economic relations not only with its South-Asian neighbors and China, but also with Germany and the EU. The German government and German business are actively investing in small and medium-sized enterprises in Sri Lanka as well as developing bilateral economic, scientific and technical projects.

The article analyzes the characteristics of the culture of behavior and the mentality of modern Persians in the context of the historical features of the formation of their identity. The article contains a brief history of the formation of the Persian ethnocultural identity, which has several important components: Iranian (Indo-European, pre-Islamic), Arab-Islamic and Turkic. Under the Safavids a Shiite version of Islam was established in Iran, and under the Pahlavi dynasty an attempt was made to abandon Arab-Islamic elements in all spheres of life, which was one of the reasons for discontent of a large part of the people and the 1979 Islamic revolution. Currently, a large number of Iranians are becoming increasingly disappointed in the Islamic regime and wish the country to develop culturally according to a western pattern. The article analyzes the features of the Persian culture of behavior based on the observations of the authors of R. Lewis theory. The Persian culture of behavior belongs to the multi-active – reactive type, since multi-active (disorganization, lack of coordination, the habit of doing several things at once, a very large role of live communication) and reactive (listening skills, humility and respect for the interlocutor) features are mixed in the Persian national character. In this sense, it is very similar to the culture of behavior of the Turks. Currently the process of secularization takes place in Iran; however, the majority of the population remains loyal to the traditional pattern of behavior. A noticeable part of Persian atheists is experiencing a crisis of traditional culture.

The article analyzes the development of Sino-Swiss relations from the moment of the first contacts between the states to the present stage. The historical background of Sino-Swiss relations, which is characterized by the absence of periods of confrontation and conflicts between them, has become a favorable basis for the development of cooperation between the two countries at the present stage. Switzerland is a unique partner for China, due to official Bern is less influenced by the European Union in the spheres of trade, economic and investment cooperation. Switzerland can provide China an access to new European markets by lobbying the interests of Chinese companies in relations with Brussels. On the other hand, Switzerland is interested in increasing Chinese investment in its economy and promoting its products in the Chinese market.

Review: Janda К. The emperor and the peasant: Two men at the start of the Great War and the end of the Habsburg Empire Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2018. х + 277 p.