The purpose of the article is a critical review of some scientific and cognitive practices of intensifying research on late Stalinism. It is noted that at the present historiographic stage, understanding the phenomenon of Stalinism is part of the central research task of Russian studies, namely, determining the degree of rationality and functionality of the Soviet socio-economic system. The author notes a number of key factors that complicate the research search. Emphasizing the paramount importance of the representativeness of the source base, the author focuses on the need to introduce into scientific circulation those archival materials, the reconstruction of which (by means of nomothetic research procedures) allows one to build and propose for consideration the mechanism of communication between society and the authorities. As the analyzed materials, the author draws on a collection of documents published in 2020 that reveals the social policy of the USSR in the years of “late Stalinism”. The fact is emphasized that the extensive database of previously unexplored documents in the RGASPI (RSASPH) funds signed by I.V. Stalin, L.M. Koganovich, A.I. Mikoyan which were rated as classified are the most interesting examples of the use of economic, administrative and socio-psychological methods of management by the party and government leadership of the country. The importance of the author’s analytical method of presenting social policy as an indicator for the economic strategy of late Stalinism is indicated.

The essay is focused on studying the concept of the State that emerges in the late nineteenth century in the writings by N.M. Korkunov. After a brief biographical introduction, where the life and works of the jurist are recalled, his thought on the State is shortly explained in the context with that of the contemporary German jurisprudence.

N.M. Korkunov excluded both the existence of a legal personality of the State and that of a single State will, considering them rather as mere legal fictions, since they were not phenomena proper to social life. Realist approach brought him to the understanding that the only phenomenon of reality that could not in any way constitute a fiction or an expedient of a legal nature would have been, if anything, the state domination, as the only element of the state concretely perceivable by man.

The provided conclusions confirm the originality of his thinking from a methodological point of view. His methodological approach could perhaps allow him to be considered one of the fathers of the Sociology of Law.

The article analyzes the historiographical situation in the field of the study of the Holy Land (Palestine) and the Russian cultural, religious and political presence in the region. It traces the dynamics of the study of the Holy Land in the context of Russian politics in the region is traced, from the experiences of self-determination in the middle – second half of the 19th century to the present. The specificity of the region is associated with the saturation of its religious, value and cultural meanings. Neither its remoteness nor other factors became an obstacle to the realization and historical understanding of the special Christian kinship of the Russian consciousness with the locos of the Holy Land. Its study got to be one of the significant directions of the national humanitarian thought in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The analysis of the key works, plot and thematic lines in historiography revealed three generations in the study of the Holy Land associated with certain epochs in the history of Russia and the history of international (church-diplomatic) relations. The imperial period was characterized by a powerful popularization vector, the first experiments in the field of Christian archeology of the region. The post-Soviet return to the study of the region was characterized by attention to the study of the structures and institutions of the Russian presence in the region (the Russian Spiritual Mission, the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society). The modern generation of researchers is characterized by an interest in studying the realities of modern history, the objectification of the church-diplomatic factor in international relations of the post-war world.

The author of this article considers the formation and development of the image of I.V. Stalin in biographical essays about V.I. Lenin and published in the period from 1924 to 1956. That is the time stages of this process and the tools used by the authors of the texts to construct the image of I.V. Stalin. The process of “Stalinization” and “de-Stalinization” of biographies can be divided into three stages. The late 1920s – early 1930s are characterized by a quantitative increase in the number of mentions of the leader in texts. The second half of the 1930s reflects a qualitative change in the image of I.V. Stalin, in which he turns from a simple comrade-in-arms of V.I. Lenin into a figure of global historical scale. The heir of V.I. Lenin begins to manifest himself as a separate historical figure who copies personal qualities from his teacher, performs tasks of a historical nature and creatively develops the ideas of Marxism-Leninism. The last biography of the period under consideration, published in 1955, in turn, testifies to the process of latent “de-Stalinization” of biographies of V.I. Lenin, in which I.V. Stalin, though having not yet become an object of criticism, he loses many of his personal qualities and once again acts as an ordinary comrade-in-arms of V.I. Lenin.

The article considers the database technology usage for the analysis of the social portrait and collective biography of women appointed to the highest diplomatic positions by the leadership of the newly independent states on the territory of the former USSR between 1991 and 2021. It gives a description of the structure of the prosopographic database developed by the authors, as well as substantiates the completeness and representativeness of its information. The article also analyzes basic features of the social portrait of women diplomats: the dynamics of their number, basic education, career timing, the ratio between career diplomats and political appointees, the geographical distribution of women ambassadors by accreditation states. Comparison of the results of the analysis of the database information with the socio-demographic characteristics of the female ambassadors of the US, Germany and the EU made it possible, on the one hand, to identify general trends (a constant increase in the proportion of career diplomats) and differences (in the localization of ambassadors by accreditation countries). In conclusion, information is summarized on the characteristics of the composition of women diplomats in each of the post-Soviet states: based on the dynamics of the number, socio-demographic and professional characteristics of women holding senior diplomatic positions, three groups of states with different models of gender representation in the diplomatic service are identified.

The article provides a comparative analysis of the processes of adapting of the disciplines formed in the USA (“ecological anthropology”, “environmental history”) to national ethnography and history, respectively. In the early 1980s V.I. Kozlov was the first to attempt institutionalizing a special science that is on the border of the subject fields of ecology and ethnography. As a result of his active actions, the name “ethnic ecology” was fixed for a vast field studying questions related to ecology and ethnography. The literal translation of “ecological anthropology” and “ethnoecology” (in the meaning in which the term is used in the West) in Russia is usually used only when describing a foreign tradition.

During the formation of the national ecological history, there was a direct transfer of the foreign tradition to the Russian soil, supported by the activity of foreign institutions. Therefore, the issue of constructing the name for a new discipline in Russia is more connected with the question of translating “environmental history”.

The analysis of two opposite ways of institutionalization of new scientific directions allows us to take a fresh look at the issues of national specifics of the general subject structure of social and humanitarian knowledge and the role of the subjective factor in the formation of scientific traditions.

The article analyzes the history of the influence of the European heraldic tradition on the titular heraldry of the Moscow Tsardom of the 16^th–17^th centuries. There are two stages of such influence with its own characteristic features for each. The first stage was associated with the formation of the first complex of titular coats of arms, which were presented on the Great Seal of Ivan IV, made in the late 1570s. Among the 24 titular coats of arms of the Great Seal, five coats of arms were borrowed from the heraldry of the Baltic States and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They meant those territories that were annexed during the Livonian War or claimed by Ivan IV. Seals and even coins of that time acted as sources of heraldic images. From them images were transferred to the Great Seal without any changes. In other words, it was a direct borrowing of European coats of arms into the heraldry of Russia. The second stage is connected with the creation in 1672 of the tsar’s “Titulyarnik” (Titular Book), the first Russian compilation of coats of arms. Of the 33 coats of arms of the “Titulyarnik”, nine were directly borrowed from European heraldry (mainly from the heraldry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). However, the methods of borrowing were more diverse. In addition to the direct transfer of the armorial figures, the coats of arms were changed, Christian symbols was strengthened in them. On the other hand, coats of arms could be borrowed on the principle of belonging to a certain category of territories. Finally, another way was to borrow either individual armorial figures or heraldic compositions. Such a variety of ways of borrowing clearly testifies to the increased heraldic culture of the Muscovy by the end of the 17^th century.

The study of the diplomatic art of Chinese leadership proceeds to attract more and more attention of Russian and foreign researchers. The paper analyzes the foreign policy strategies and concepts of the second leader of the People’s Republic of China Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s – 1990s. Undoubtedly, the first China’s leader Mao Zedong and then Deng Xiaoping both had a significant impact on the evolution of Chinese foreign relations strategy. It was these leaders who set their own models in the spirit of the era, effectively dividing the history of China’s foreign policy into two periods. The famous concept “Taking low profile and trying not to show yourself in any way” strategy proposed by Deng Xiaoping leads to the formulation and development by Jiang Zemin, the Chinese leaders of the third generation, the concept of “peaceful rise”, which then became “peaceful development”, Hu Jintao’s “soft power” and “harmonious world” and other modern concepts of foreign policy. The leading approach to the study of the issue is the historical and comparative method.

It appears that not all foreign policy strategies or theories of Deng Xiaoping have moved from simplistic generalizations, hypotheses to reliable analytical conclusions or solid concepts. Only Xi Jinping is beginning to shape holistic concepts in the full sense of the word. The main task of foreign policy concepts is to generalize and reveal the general patterns of international life and China’s foreign policy.

The middle of the 19th century became the starting point for the Russian Empire in terms of the conquest of the Kokand Khanate and the Bukhara Emirate, as well as its final positions consolidation in the region by creating the Turkestan Governor-General in the annexed territories in 1867. The defeat of the Russian Empire in the Crimean War forced the government to take more decisive measures to annex Kokand and Bukhara through a large-scale military campaign, however the need to solidify its hold on the region as soon as possible required the command to make some new strategic decisions and cooperate with representatives of the local elite, merchants and clergy. The article is intended to significantly fill the historiographical gap in the research of the cooperation between the Russian command and the Muslim institutions within the framework of the annexation of Central Asia by introducing and analyzing previously unpublished sources from the State Archive of the Orenburg Region. The article reviews examples of cooperation with representatives of the elite, merchants and clergy, their influence on the possible peaceful settlement of the conflict or its escalation, including the issue of collaboration and espionage in the Muslim environment, possible potential benefits and the need for cooperation with the Russian army. The conclusions of the article allow revising traditional views on the positions of Islamic leaders, as well as reevaluating the significance of a religious factor as one of the most important elements in the system of confrontation of Asian khanates with Russia.

On April 11, 2019, the army forced the resignation of President Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. The reason for that was the incessant many months of people’s uprisings. The resignation of al-Bashir did not satisfy the demonstrators and they began to demand the dismantling of the entire regime. In response, the army elite created the Transitional Military Council (TMC) to govern the country and tried to pacify the protesters by force. Under strong pressure from the international community and the Sudanese street, the army compromised with the civilian opposition. In Sudan, a transitional period to democratic rule was proclaimed and a civil-military Sovereign Council was established to replace the TMC. A transitional government headed by Abdullah Hamdok was soon formed. The country began to take measures for improving the economy and the socio-political system. However, the reforms of the Transitional Government threatened to undermine the economic and political position of the military in Sudan. On October 25, 2021, the head of the Sovereign Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, carried out a coup d’état, removing civilian politicians from power. The coup was condemned by leading Western countries, which froze their aid programs to Sudan. In Khartoum and other major cities of Sudan, a mass protest movement has again unfolded under the slogan “No to negotiations, compromise and partnership with the army”.

This article deals with an issue completely unknown in our historiography. This is the story of the shadow leadership of one of the major public figures of the Russian Empire – Anatoly Fedorovich Koni. Using his many connections and being outside of political parties, the member of the State Council promoted liberal ideas through parliament. Without entering into a confrontation with the monarchy and dealing with social issues (drunkenness, prostitution, education, judicial reform, etc.), the senator, however, never abandoned his principles and promoted them wherever possible. Anatoly Fedorovich supported the creation of a people’s university and the expansion of funding the fleet and the army, protested against the liquidation of Finnish autonomy and the abuse of Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws of the Empire. As a conservative liberal, he strove for a smooth evolution of the state towards the expansion of human rights and Europeanization while maintaining the autocratic system. At the same time, Koni understood that the ruling elite was leading the country to disaster. The rise of the famous lawyer’s political career began in 1916, when he got the opportunity to speak on the part of a group of united liberals and demand to take urgent measures to change the situation in the country.