The article deals with the issue of financing festive ceremonies in ancient Athens in the middle of the 5^th – early 4^th centuries BC Epigraphic material is used as the main source – inscriptions dedicated to the leasing of sacred land plots (temenos). In ancient Greece, there were a large number of holidays that were held pompously. Judging by the information of ancient authors, data from archeology and epigraphy, a large expenditure of funds was spent on their conduct, which came from various sources. The analysis of the content of the inscriptions on the leasing of temenos suggests how festivals were financed in ancient Attica during the leasing of sacred lands. The analysis of the epigraphic data shows that, in accordance with the terms of the temenos lease agreements, landlords (demes, phratries and religious communities) ordered tenants to transfer funds to finance public celebrations (Panathenaea, Apaturia, Dionisii), as  well  as  for  local  holidays.  In  addition,  part  of  the  grown  crops  and  livestock  were  sent  to  the  solemn  sacrifices  that  accompanied  every  Greek  holiday.  The  receipt of those funds was monitored by officials of the Athens polis.

This article deals with an analysis of the Quebec issue in Modern Canada. Based on the necessary corpus of sources and the corresponding historiography, the  author  tries  to  answer the  question  whether the  Quebecissue is relevant for Canada in the present or it has remained in the past forever. In his article, the author not only summarizes and systematizes the history of the French-Canadian issue itself, but also analyzes the activities of the Parti Québécois and the Bloc Québécois, which have been fighting for Quebec sovereignty for many years. He emphasizes that it was with these two associations that the idea of Quebec sovereignty was connected, and focuses on the  activities  of  René Lévesque and  Jacques Parizeau,  who  prepared  two referendums on the sovereignty of Quebec. The study results in the conclusion that at the party-political level (due to the change in the party ideology of the Bloc Québécois and the failure of the Parti Québécois in the 2018 provincial elections), of course, the idea of sovereignty has become a thing of the past. While at the mental level (the memory of the historical trauma of the 60s in the 18^th century,  when new France  was conquered  by England), the  idea  of sovereignty meets the interests of part of the French-Canadian community.

The article presents an analysis in the transformation of models for state-confessional relations in the Belarusian provinces of the Russian Empire (early 20th century – 1917), in the BSSR (1919–1991), in the Republic of Belarus (1991–2002). The author noted that during the twentieth century there was a transition from the model of the religious state of the period of the Russian Empire to the model of the secular state in the form of hostile separation in the BSSR and the cooperative model in the Republic of Belarus. The process of forming state-confessional relations and their transformation was highly dependent on the socio-political and state situation of the Belarusian lands. That conditioned the determining importance of external factors (political crisis, revolutions of 1905 and 1917, transformation of political systems of the Russian Empire and the USSR) for the paradigm shift of state-confessional relations in Belarus at the beginning of the twentieth century – 1991. At the same time, the formation of a model of state-confessional relations in the Republic  of  Belarus was predominantly influenced  by internal  factors  – the dominance of traditional religious actors, a high degree of religiosity of the population and the intensification of religious activities, what contributed to the consolidation of the cooperative model, the most valid for the political-confessional sphere of Belarusian society.

Interdisciplinary capacities of  intellectual  history make it  possible, through studying the text in the context, to understand well what positions in relation to the war, the government, their people, and military opponents were occupied by the rulers of public opinion  – writers, scientists, artists and cultural figures  under the  influence  of  the  “August  experience”  characteristic of the initial period of the Great War. However, turning to collective initiatives  – manifestos, open letters, statements that were supported and signed by dozens and hundreds of people is associated with solving a complex set of issues.  They are those of  authorship,  motivation,  the  influence  of  individual political and ethical principles on group decisions, the definition of leaders and marginals, the comparison of rational attitudes to achieve a propaganda effect and unconscious emotions, etc. The article attempts to provide answers to the questions based on studying  the  appearance  circumstances and  significance of the so-called “Manifesto of the Ninety-Three to the Cultural World”  – an open letter signed by prominent German intellectuals refuting the propaganda claims of the Entente about German atrocities and the destruction of cultural values in Belgium. The authors tried to refute the accusations and emphasize the purely defensive nature of the actions of the German soldiers. However, the propaganda effect of the letter turned out to be the opposite of what was expected. For the public opinion of the Entente countries, it became a symbol of the ideological and propagandistic justification of German aggression and served as the basis for the exclusion of German intellectuals from the world academic community.

The article considers the projects of the introduction of martial law in the Grand Duchy of Finland after the end of the first Russian Revolution in 1907–1911 and the discussions in the ruling circles on that issue. It analyzes the reasons for the desire of the bureaucratic elite to introduce martial law in the Principality. Based on documents from the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Historical Archive funds and published sources, it is concluded that the introduction of martial law was associated with the need to fight the Russian revolutionary movement, whose participants actively used the Finland’s special status when hiding from the Russian police and gendarmerie. A  comparison is made of the positions of Nicholas  II, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, P.A. Stolypin, A.F. Zein,V. N.Kokovtsov regarding the possibility of martial law in Finland. Their views, as well as the position of representatives of the ministries, show that the imposition of martial law has always been considered by the Russian side as an extreme measure, an undesirable and ineffective way of governing the Grand Duchy. That is why, despite the difficult political circumstances, it was not introduced and official St. Petersburg sought to resolve issues through negotiations.

The article deals in an abolition of the positions of Zemstvo district chiefs in the Belarusian provinces during the February Revolution of 1917. Positions were introduced in the Russian Empire in 1889 in order to strengthen government control over the peasantry. As a rule, the positions of Zemstvo district chiefs were taken over by local and lords. Those officials were subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Along with administrative powers, they were given judicial functions in relation to peasants (previously it was under the jurisdiction of justices of the peace). It contradicted the principle of separating the judiciary from administrative authority and put the peasants in  an unequal legal position compared to  other estates. In  the  Belarusian provinces the positions of Zemstvo district chiefs existed until March 1917, when their activity was terminated  by the Provisional  Government. The  liquidation of  those positions  during  the  February  Revolution looked  like  a completely natural measure in the context of trend of renewal and democratization of public life. At the same time, in practice, then often led to vacuum of judicial power in rural areas and made it almost impossible for local authorities to maintain law and order.

In the article, based on documents from the collections of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), an attempt is made to analyze the process of understanding by representatives of the Red Army command the experience of  the  actions of  Armored  forces  during  local military conflicts  at  lake  Khasanand  Khalkhin Gol river in  1938–1939. The  conclusions  made by commander sat various levels, in general, accurately recorded the main shortcomings and errors in the use of tank units and formations, which completely repeated those during  the  Civil War in Spain.  It  is  concluded that  by the  time  the  conflicts began, that experience was unknown to tank and combined arms commanders. In addition, based on content analysis, the inability of specialists to assess the weak armoring  of  tanks is  revealed  as  the  main reason  for heavy losses.  Attention is drawn to the fact that while correctly recording the extremely low level of training  of  commanders and  personnel of  the  tank  forces,  the  final  conclusions of the reports to the higher command contained exceptionally high assessments of combat effectiveness and assurances of readiness to carry out any order. At the same time, the country’s top military-political leadership received a sufficient amount of truthful information from its representatives from the conflict zone, but preferred  to  broadcast to  the  public  a picture of  the  highest combat readiness of the armored forces, which was clearly and convincingly reflected in mass Soviet culture.

The article affects an issue of the place and role of high-performance sports in the socio-political life of the USSR of the 1920s – 1930s. Creating the concept of sports development in the country, the Soviet leadership focused primarily on the issues of physical culture, which did not imply the presence of a competitive element in it. However, the development of Soviet sports in the period under review was extremely heterogeneous, and therefore the role of sports competitions was changing. The author analyzes those trans-formations using documents published by organizations that managed Soviet sports in the 1920s – 1930s and materials of the periodical press. Special attention is paid to the regulations of 1933–1934, which finally established the high-performance sports  in  Soviet  society, their prerequisites,  causes  and  results. The author comes to the conclusion that a sharp turn towards the development of high-achievement sports in the USSR in 1933–1934 led to the legitimization of sport as a profession and was associated with the implementation of certain foreign policy strategies, in particular, with the need to develop international relations with both proletarian and bourgeois forces in Europe against the background of the Nazi threat.

The article considers an issue that is actively discussed in modern historical science. It is the story of the unsuccessful formation of a coalition government of officials and public figures at the height of the first Russian revolution. Despite important discoveries in the sphere, many aspects of the formation  of  a government of  public  trust remain  unknown. We present some of  them in this publication. Three attempts were made to form a government by the chairmen of the government: S.Yu. Witte, I.L. Goremykin and P.A.  Stolypin.  The closest they came to forming a government was the combination discussed in   June  1906.  For several reasons it did not take place.  Each side pursued  its own interests, often the group or selfish ones. Everyone blamed each other for the failure of the negotiations. Thus, an important opportunity to bring urban societies closer to the state was missed, what played a negative role in the future history of the country.

The article considers the confessional and social composition of schools and gymnasiums in Rostov-on-Don at the beginning of the twentieth century in  the  context of  the  outbreak  of  the World War. On the footing of statistical information by, the example of two educational institutions, the article evaluates dynamics of changes in the composition of students, religious groups, and social categories of the population. Conclusions are drawn about the  degree  of  the general processes  of social  dynamics reflected  in  society in the South of Russia during the war years. The author highlights the regions of migration to the South of Russia from other regions of the world, the peculiarities of the social and confessional composition of the Don Region as a zone of border  and transit  movement of  social  flows. A statistical calculation  of  the composition of the contingent of students was carried out and the features of the functioning of the educational system and its impact on the development of society during that period were analyzed. Attention is paid to the topic of the  representation of  the  Cossacks, commoners, and  nobility in  the secondary education system. The  conclusion  is made about the  peculiarities of  reflecting in the work of  educational institutions  the  restrictions  for Jews within  the framework of observance of the Jewish residency line before 1915.Statistically recorded violation of quota norms for Jews in 1915.

Among the numerous crimes of Nazi Germany and its accomplices during the Second Word War, they attempted the mass extermination of the Jewish people. Those events entered word history under the name Holocaust, in Hebrew  – “Shoa” (disaster, catastrophe). Even though the literature on various aspects of the life and death of Jews in Holocaust period in general and in the  extermination camps  in  particular is  quite extensive, there is  no particular analysis of  the spiritual  resistance of  prisoners. The  article  analyzes  the  reflection of Sondercommando members’ spiritual resistance in the Auschwitz death camp, which became an ominous symbol of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their collaborators, as presented in their testimonies, called “Scrolls from the Ashes”. The composition of Sondercommando members and their “position” were studied. The authorship issues of the “Scrolls” and the motives for their creation are considered. It gives surviving witnesses’ and descendants’ assessments are given to their activities. The analyzed sources indicate that despite the inhuman conditions and constant threat of immediate destruction, the members of the Sondercommando not only retained their moral spirit, but also demonstrated the will to resist. A striking example of which is the uprising that broke out on October 7th, 1944, near  the  ovens of  Auschwitz-Birkenau crematorium.