This article is devoted to the issue of the influence of the Peloponnesian war on the sacred lands (temenos) in Attica in the end of 5^th – 4^th centuries BC The Peloponnesian war, the conflict between the two largest Greek polises Athens and Sparta, certainly led to great difficulties related to the exploitation of agricultural land. Firstly, the military actions affected the land plots of Attica (Athens region). Since antiquity, however, historians and economists have debated the extent of the damage. This article draws attention to the situation of the sacred lands (temenos) after the Peloponnesian war. The status of those plots of land was different from all the others, as they were associated with a special worship of the gods and heroes of Ancient Greece.

The main source is epigraphic material, such as agreements on the leasing of sacred land in the 4^th century BC. On the basis of that material the author comes to some conclusions. Sacred lands were constantly under the control of the political authorities, due to their high status. Agricultural work on those lands was carried out constantly, what indicates a caring attitude towards them on the part of the polis and their effective use.

The article examines how the sense of legitimacy of the political system — referred to in the sources as πολιτεία or res publica — was maintained in the Eastern Roman Empire during the reign of Justinian I the Great (527565). The features and actions associated with Justinian I are well described in various written and non-written sources. According to those sources, persona of the Emperor was at the center of this representational policy. It became the symbol, personification and the guarantor of the existence of the πολιτεία or res publica for the Eastern Romans. The existence of such an agreement between the general public and the rulers of the early medieval Empire led to the legitimization of power. During the research process various sources were studied, beginning with the openly panegyric works that glorified the genius of the Emperor, such as the “De aedificiis” of Procopius of Caesarea or the speeches of Choricius, to pamphlets in the form of the “Secret history” of the same Procopius. Using comparative analysis and discourse analysis of written sources, the author identified the principal mechanisms that implemented the main goal of power representation, which ensured the effect of the presence of the political “center” embodied in the Emperor’s figure, his involvement in the internal affairs of the provinces, border territories and neighboring sociopolitical entities.

The main purpose of this article is reconstruction of 16^th century Londoner’s hierarchy of the ties of loyalty. The main source is the “New Chronicles of England and France” written by London merchant Robert Fabian in the beginning of the 16^th century. City chroniclers never spoke about their scale of values. In order to understand who was more important for 16^th century Londoner – his mayor, his lord or his king – the author of this article analyzes the context in which the words, denoting the break of social ties (“treason”, “betrayal”, “traitor”, “traitorous”), were used in Fabian’s “Chronicles”.

It seems that, according to the results of quantitative analysis, Londoners at the beginning of the 16th century first of all felt themselves to be loyal subjects – in about 65% of cases Fabian meant “treason” as “high treason”. But for the chronicler a king wasn’t a being above morals. Fabian believed that fratricidal strife for a throne was a kind of treason. Even more, he argued that the loyalty of the citizen should belong first of all to his town, and the loyalty of noblemen – to his lord. In fact narrow social identities always overwhelmed and limiter the loyalty to the king.

The article is devoted to the diplomatic conflicts associated with the Russian ambassadors in Paris. For relations between Russia and France the beginning of the 19^th century became extremely productive in terms of the concluded friendship alliances and for the “wars for justice”. For good reason the relationship between Alexander I and Napoleon more than once became an object of research, but many of the phenomena of that era remained outside the scope of research interests. The Russian Embassy and its expert-analytical activity is one of such subjects.

Russian ambassadors in Paris were the direct guides of the will of the Russian Emperor in the political arena of international relations, but being completely dependent on him they remained the “variables” in a diplomatic game of the two emperors. Despite their apparent independence, they could hardly claim apartness. The article shows the example of two Russian ambassadors, the count P.A. Tolstoy and prince A.B. Kurakin, opposite in their views, still they were pursuing a policy of rapprochement with France. Their ideas, however, did not affect the already running political game of Alexander I, who made them hostages of the situation.

The article examines the personalities, destinies and methodological approaches of historians from Poland and Czechoslovakia of the interwar period. Based on the analysis of biographies of scientists and methodological approaches in the historiographical works of Julian Marchlewski, Zdeněk Nejedlý and Jan Šverma the author traces the relationship of these approaches to the socio-political realities of the period under study.

In 1918, independent States of Poland and Czechoslovakia appeared on the world map. Their appearance coincided with a difficult period of the intense socio-political events of the period. The severe consequences of the First World War, a series of revolutions – all that had a huge impact on the mentality of the Europeans. They were looking for new guidelines, new meanings and in the newly formed independent, Republic of Poland and Czechoslovakia, among others, such guidelines were Communist ideas.

Socio-political events of 1910–1920s. caused a deep reflection, the need to rethink and search for new approaches to understanding the events of the past. The October revolution and the activities of the Comintern had a significant impact on the social, political and historical life in the Republic of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The author considers the perception of the internment process during the First World War in the ego-documents and literary works of the famous Soviet writer, First Secretary and then Chairman of the Union of Writers of the USSR K.A. Fedin. The author of article, based on an analysis of documents from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, shows that in his autobiography K.A. Fedin mentions his internment on the territory of the German Empire during the First World War. That fact of his biography was reflected in the novels “Cities and Years” and “I was an actor”. The author, comparing their contents with documentary materials, concludes that, in spite of the change of names and cities, the features of internment perception are shown, the most important features of the situation with internees in Germany are indicated and are associated with numerous restrictions of a legal, political and personal nature. From the point of view of the methodology of the history of emotions, the article considers the emotional aspects of the perception of internment. It shows the ambivalence of the perception of interned citizens of enemy states by the German population. The ambivalence of the perception of interned is shown as well as the ambiguity of Fedin’s reception later in the life of his position as an internee and of the state that interned him during the First World War.

Present article examines British politics in Palestine in the context of the Arab-Jewish confrontation. Great Britain supported the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, as well as the Arab uprising against Turkish rule during the First World War. By doing so it found itself bound by obligations with both conflicting parties after receiving a mandate to this territory. Being interested in reaching agreement between them, the United Kingdom made continuous efforts in that direction, which, however, not only were unsuccessful, but nourished anti-British feelings of both the Arab and Jewish communities. As an example one can be mention the failure of London conference in 1939, with participation of Arab and Jewish delegations, but both rejected British project of federal state in Palestine. Author of this study proposes arguments with the favor of idea, that British approach to resolving Palestinian situation was not successful due to the large number of actors interested in gaining control over Palestine: the Yishuv, rival factions of the Palestinian establishment, Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian ruling classes. The United Kingdom, having failed to find a universal solution, finally preferred to give way to annexation of Arabian part of Palestine by Transjordan but in spite of that still failed to maintain its positions in the Middle East thanks to the tragic for Palestinians consequences of the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

In this article, the author researches into the features of the process of institutionalization process of political technologies that are used by parties in federal and regional elections. The author paid special attention to limited electoral competition.

The originality of the article lies in the fact that it reveals negative trends in the development of the institutional framework both in the party and in the electoral systems that have developed in the Russian Federation. The author notes that the institutional basis for the application of certain political technologies during elections negatively affects the subjective party rights, as well as the capabilities of the participants of political parties themselves.

The article studies scientific diplomacy – a relatively new phenomenon which took shape only in 21^st century with the invention of the term itself and the foundation of the relevant department in Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However in fact, it already started with the development of the modern form of the institute of diplomatic service in France in the beginning of the 17^th century. That defined diplomacy as activity of sovereign subjects of international relations with the goal of fixating in an agreement of common duties between participants. Currently that historical experience is being reevaluated and new approaches to the role and place of science in the foreign affairs policies and diplomacy are being developed. The demand for science is most clearly manifested during periods of war and conflict, which in various forms do not end still today. That explains the topicality of the issue. At the same time, subjective activities of politicians and scientists coexists with objective selfdeveloping processes of political struggle what leads to complicated pairing of relationships between politics and science.

The article is devoted to the main stages of changes in the military doctrine of Ukraine in the context of the Euro-Atlantic vector of Kiev’s foreign policy in the post-Soviet period. The military doctrine of the neighboring state is one of the documents, changes in which not only reflect changes in the foreign policy, but also directly affect the geopolitical situation and the balance of power in the region. The fixation in the military doctrine of new goals and objectives of foreign policy reinforces the desire to transform the existing system of relations between states, and the definition in the doctrine of the opponents and threats emanating from them indicate an increase of the level of instability in the international relations.

Available sources bear evidence that for most of the period under review, Ukraine adhered to the concept of multi-vector approach, the attempts to abandon which towards Euro-Atlanticism, however, were made several times in 2002–2010. Euromaidan of 2014 brought to power the supporters of EuroAtlantic integration, as a result of which the new military doctrine of Ukraine fixed the final rejection of the non-aligned status of the country and the high level of tension in relations with the Russian Federation and became one of the obstacles to the creation of an effective system of regional security.

Among other players in the international arena China causes concerns over its ever-expanding presence in the world, its new geopolitical role and ambitions. Some countries are afraid of becoming economically dependent on China, while others, larger ones, see the strengthening of the PRC as a threat to the alignment of political forces in the world that has consolidated since the end of the Cold War.

The article attempts to analyze the causes and validity of the anxieties regarding the foreign policy of China in the United States and Russia as two global world powers.

Despite the fact that the term “yellow peril” was introduced into scientific circulation as early as the 19th century, it acquires greater relevance precisely with the increasing role of the PRC.

The author hypothesizes that endowing negative senses with China’s foreign policy can mirror the actions of its ruling elite, what necessarily can affect the state’s foreign policy.

The theoretical basis of the research is represented by the works of J. Alexander, G.H. Mead, M. Weber, T. Parsons, C. Cooley, Tu Weimin, S. Huntington.

The empirical base was the data of opinion polls, following which, the author made an attempt to assess the attitude towards China in the United States and Russia.

This article is a reflection on the history and modern issues of the international cooperation in space between the United States and Russia. There are several key historic moments when rather new and extremely volatile relationship have either strengthened or rapidly declined. After the fall of the Soviet Union, despite political differences, the US and Russia were able to find common ground, focus scientific and technological efforts together, and spur a new generation of cooperation in space by building the International Space Station. This unprecedented international project is a great example of the potential of mutual cooperation between two former political foes. However, with the current plan to decommission the ISS within the next five years, we are again at a pivotal time in history to either further build this cooperative effort or go our separate ways. The leading factors to determine the future of Russian-American cooperation in space are current opposing strategic military objectives from both countries and new commercial business opportunities from private capital funding, specifically within the space industry. The article analyzes the difficulty of cooperating in space when both American and Russian national military interests are postured directly against each other. Private space businesses are in full swing, especially in America, and new space-related companies are expanding and growing to the point where they are on track to not only influence, but actually lead the national efforts in future strategic space projects. Both of these factors strongly indicate that the platform on which the cooperation in space could grow is indeed vanishing. Nevertheless, diplomatic channels have been and will always be a way to come together on policy issues for the United States and Russia, and if properly executed, can help keep our countries off the path to war from space.