The article is devoted to John Reed’s book “The War in Eastern Europe. Travels through the Balkans in 1915” (1916) that was translated into the Russian language under the title “Along the Front”(1928). The author emphasizes the discrepancy between the American and Soviet editions and analyzes the specific features of John Reed’s book as a historical primary source. This article focuses on Reed’s description of the situation in the Balkan countries - Serbia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the First World War (April - October, 1915). The author also examines John Reed’s attitude towards war, his representations of public mood and sentiments as well as the foreign policy concepts of the Balkan countries. Two of them had already entered the First World War. The others - considering ethnic and territorial advantages - were deliberating whether they should take the side of the Entente or the Triple Alliance.

The article considers the study of the Entente relations with countries of Latin America during the First World War (1914-1918). The author analyses principal activities of the allies in Latin America: the economic cooperation, blockade policy, drawing of the countries of the region into the war on the Entente side. He identifies the main stages in the development of relations between the powers of the “Entente Cordiale” and states in Latin America. In conclusion the article stresses the significance of the region’s contribution to the allied victory.

This article focuses on the set of methods and tools which are useful for the comparative analysis of the state’s role in the economic and integration processes within the EU and the ASEAN. The prospects of modern research methods are examined along with the employment of traditional ones (such as an institutional approach and a historical-genetic method). Besides, the author considers using modern methods of research and analysis for Political Studies - method of analysis of large amounts of data (Big Data), as well as the comparative method with creating the framework and conducting factor analysis. The efficiency of such a combination of a set of methods is considered.

The article analyzes a set of methods for the historical study of the Western and Central and Eastern European countries’ energy policy within the European Union. The author actualizes the value of the traditional historical methods, on the one hand, and the political science and legal methods, on the other. In his opinion, only such combination of the research practices makes it possible to study energy policy as a complicated and multifunctional object.

The article considers situation with the Indian Diaspora in Germany and problems of its members’ integration in the socio-economic and cultural life of the country. It is noted that this Diaspora is growing mainly due to students and scholars, as well as advanced IT-specialists and engineers, who are exciting the interest of German entrepreneurs. The author’s main idea is that the Indians living in Germany face no serious socio-economic and cultural problems and are easily integrated into the German society.

The article analyzes carnival history in the Soviet Union. In the Bolsheviks’ eyes the carnival had the function of a political feast. Dates and motives for celebrating varied in the course of time. The new power used the carnival as a legitimating mechanism in the first post-revolutionary years. After the period of relatively free artistic development the carnival culture turned into a mechanism for the representation of those communicative concepts that were connected with the future life in the Soviet Union. In post-Second World War era the carnival lost its outstanding position within the festal canon. The carnival tradition reached its apotheosis in 1957 during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students.

The article defines the political management concept and its influence on political decision-making as well as on the social policy of a state. The author admits the existence of the political management conception per se, though it does not find completely confirmation in documents and normative acts.

The article considers the main aspects of the subject-object links between the language and the power in present-day China in terms of the corpus and status language planning models. The paper reveals the theoretical foundations of this issue from the angle of sociolinguistics, and provides authentic examples of the government’s influence on the language in China.

The article is devoted to the present-day crisis in the South-East of Ukraine, the stance of Russia, EU, and the USA as the key actors, and the perspectives for the peaceful settlement. The possible scenarios of the decision making is presented by the authors.

The article reviews the current status and key directions of the cooperation among the Eurasian Economic Union members, investigates the complications occurring in the way of an integration process, and the prospects to overcome them.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the military-political cooperation between Armenia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The author examines the history of Armenia’s participation in the development of this military organization, which turns out to be the only one to operate in the post-Soviet space, and also touches upon its role in the national security and foreign policy of Armenia.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the U.S. current foreign policy towards Cuba. Special attention is devoted to the influence of the US think tanks on making a decision for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Moreover, the author examines the role of Cuban-American lobby in the U.S.-Cuban relations for recent years as well as its influence on the “reset” process.

The article deals with the analysis of the role of human rights in the relations between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the United States of America. It is argued that despite a certain progress of Vietnam in this sphere, the human rights issue remains the major irritant in the bilateral relations. The question at issue is the differences in the approaches of the two countries to the problem concerned:Hanoi interprets the necessity to respect human rights mostly as an insured citizens’ ability to exercise their social and economic rights while Washington emphasizes such aspects as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the rights of sexual minorities. The USA regularly criticizes the Vietnamese government’s practice to institute criminal proceedings against the so called “political activists”. Hanoi is apprehensive of the United States’ attempts to influence the above spheres more actively as it is afraid of the interference in its internal affairs under the slogan of protecting human rights.