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This article shows how the presumed historical importance of 'unification' with Crimea ensured Russian public support for its annexation. Based on the analysis of patriotic discourse in Russia, I show how within its frame the terms 'People', 'Russia' and 'Motherland' correspond to sacred non-human beings. The ontological gap between them and humans is mediated by means of national history: created by human subjects, history ultimately belongs to the Russian nation. In this context, loving Russia means ensuring the greatness of Russian history. The historical significance of the annexation made it patriotic, and hence, a desirable course of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The protests against election fraud in Russia in winter 2011–2012 were the first in the post-Soviet period that were attended by a united opposition, and attracted hundreds of thousands of previously apolitical citizens. This article seeks to explain mass participation in the protests by focusing on uses of the history of revolution and dissent in Russian protest art. The article investigates whether a common historical consciousness, which could have made it possible to unify previously fragmented opposition and mobilize previously apolitical citizens, was manifested in protest artworks created by artists with differing political ideologies. The conclusion is that the official historical narrative promoted by the state – of a spiritual unity between a strong state and the people – was challenged and undermined by protest artists, who have characterized Russian history as a continuous struggle between an oppressive state and civil society. This finding indicates that a common historical consciousness was manifested in protest artworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is dedicated to the study of the social structure of the population of early Ekaterinburg. The main objective was to investigate individual social groups of the population, as well as the specifics of their formation in a situation of a rapidly growing and developing industrial and administrative center. The research was based on documentary sources of official record-keeping, the most significant of which were the data from local (factory) censuses of residents of the fortress factory in the 1720s — 1740s. Using quantitative analysis methods and social history approaches, the main social groups of the population were identified and characterized. Their numbers were determined, and the history of their formation and employment specifics in the mining industry were analyzed. The conclusions were drawn about the existence of a special social policy by the mining plant administration. It was found that it was aimed not only at maintaining optimal working capacity but also at progressively expanding the group of factory personnel by including representatives of new social groups such as soldiers, recruits, schoolchildren, exiles, and convicts in labor processes. It was shown that by the mid-18th century, Ekaterinburg, founded in 1723, was not inferior to both old and new urban centers in terms of infrastructure development, administrative, industrial, and social institutions, and population composition.

This article discusses the challenges faced by historians researching queer subcultures in Soviet Latvia. The author argues that queer memory is not widely acknowledged or discussed in Latvia, even though more than thirty years have passed since the decriminalization of male homosexuality. The article emphasizes the importance of researching the history of queer people to minimize marginalization and strengthen social identity. It also highlights the need for studies on the interaction between queer people and the Soviet state. The research presented in this issue focuses on the Baltic states and provides valuable insights into the queer history of the Soviet period. [Extracted from the article]

In mid‐2020, Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev) consecrated a new church known as the Main Cathedral of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The cathedral was dedicated to the Soviet Union's "Great Victory" over Nazi Germany, and its interior was covered with grandiose mosaics depicting Soviet glory on the battlefields of World War II. In this version of the past, however, Soviet soldiers were shown to have supernatural help from Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. This merging of Orthodoxy and Communism shocked many observers, who viewed the two ideologies as bitter enemies, dating back the Russian Civil War. Yet on the walls of the new military shrine, the lions and the lambs had laid down together. Angels shielded Orthodox Whites and atheist Reds alike, and the Virgin gazed down on both tsars and commissars. Two implacable foes, on different sides of the greatest rupture in Russian history, had been sutured together into a single and uncontradictory version of the past. But where had this sacred synthesis come from? Who was responsible for the politics of memory preached on the walls of the Main Cathedral? And what role did these sacred memory politics later play in the Russian invasion of Ukraine? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine on historical research, particularly regarding the late Imperial, revolutionary, and early Soviet periods. The conflict has made research increasingly difficult, with limited access to archives and libraries in Russia and Belarus, and physical and material damage to Ukrainian archives. Despite these challenges, the article emphasizes the importance of informed and nuanced historical analysis to challenge Putin's manipulation of history and the distortions surrounding the conflict. The contributions from various historians in the article highlight the practical difficulties of conducting research in the region but also demonstrate that meaningful research is still possible. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the author's thoughts and concerns about conducting research on Russian history in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. The author reflects on the importance of historical research and the challenges faced by scholars in accessing archives and conducting fieldwork. They explore alternative research strategies, such as utilizing regional archives outside of Russia and utilizing online resources and digitized materials. The author concludes by expressing optimism about the potential of historical research to foster mutual understanding and contribute to peace. [Extracted from the article]

This article is a personal reflection on the author's experiences with Everett Mendelsohn, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University. Mendelsohn was known for his unique teaching style and mentorship of students. The author discusses Mendelsohn's impact on their own academic and professional journey, as well as the broader changes in the field of history of science during the post-World War II era. The author expresses gratitude for Mendelsohn's guidance and highlights the importance of his contributions to the field. [Extracted from the article]

The article examines Esenin’s poem “Us” in the context of the poet’s works of 1914– 1917, first of all relating to the national history (“The Song of Yevpaty Kolovrat” and “Martha the Mayoress”). Special attention is paid to the historical sources of the “Us” poem in view of the wide range of Esenin’s readings in the mid-1910s and his classes in 1913–1915 at the History and Philology Department of the A.L. Shanyavsky Moscow State University. Esenin was able to familiarize himself with popular textbooks, songs of the Razin cycle as well as with historical works which pay considerable attention to Stepan T. Razin. At the same time Vasily R. Us was a rare and minor character in works devoted to Razin. One of the first addressed to the image of Us was Kamensky in his novel “Stenka Razin,” published in 1916. But if in Kamensky’s Us is an associate of Razin, in Esenin’s work he is an independent character, and the second central character is Us’ mother.

In Sie kam aus Mariupol (2017), Natascha Wodin reconstructs her Ukrainian family history with special focus on her mother's experience as a forced labourer in Nazi Germany and the debilitating effects of continued discrimination in postwar Germany. Wodin's powerful narrative draws attention to a traumatized woman whose short life coincided with violent upheavals in twentieth-century Ukrainian, Russian, and German history. Based on approaches in memory studies and the archival turn, this article argues that several archives play a central role in this autofictional text: an urban archive of Mariupol that both documents and counteracts the repeated destruction of the city over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, a collection of familial documents from Ukraine and Russia located primarily through online searches, and an archive that details the role of forced labour in Germany during the Second World War. The archive on forced labour challenges us to contemplate the kind of forgetting that has accompanied the public commemoration of the victims of Nazi Germany. Overall, Sie kam aus Mariupol exemplifies the role of literature, in particular autofictional texts of the postgeneration, in intervening in discourses on collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history that follows will show that the limits of (in)humanity are malleable and readily shifted. Whirled in the chaos of life, ordinary people may suddenly be transformed into monsters, and later, may return calmly to their former nature. It remains unclear why these limits prove so diffuse. Dr. Hans Beutelspacher, whose life story took us ten years to reconstruct, traced this path in both directions, and thus came to embody yet another mystery of the human mind. The possessor of an educated and inventive intelligence, he toyed with monstrous behaviour during World War II, before returning just as effortlessly to his «human» and even benevolent state, later developing a prominent career in the field of soil biochemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: to consider the importance of studying the influence of ideas and ideology on economic development. Based on the concept of three fundamental conditions and two prerequisites necessary for the modern innovative development of the economy, the ideas are proposed that may be in demand for their implementation.Methods: the article uses historical and qualitative methods to analyze and hypothetically reconstruct the influence of ideas on economic development. The approaches of narrative economics are applied to the study of the economic policy justification.Results: it is shown that, under modern conditions, narratives widely spread in society are significant for promoting ideas regarding economic reform. Narratives are an evolutionarily established way of packaging ideas and broadcasting them in the society. To promote effective narratives, they must be consistent with historical experience, as well as associated with significant historical figures. The paper considers the seemingly paradoxical hypothesis that in modern conditions Lenin’s legacy can serve as a basis for the promotion of progressive ideas. Such ideas are primarily related to the modernization of the economy and social relations based on technological innovations, the development of entrepreneurship and market mechanisms, as well as the development of education and science.Scientific novelty: it consists in the application of the synthesis of institutional and narrative economics methodology to the study of the dissemination of ideas and related narratives and their impact on economic development.Practical significance: the provisions and conclusions of the article can be used for further analysis of the influence of ideas and ideology on the implementation of economic policy and institutional changes aimed at economy modernization.

Russia's aggression against Ukraine is perceived by many as simply an adventuristic endeavor of Vladimir Putin and the result of his desire to maintain his personal power in Russia itself and extend his influence beyond its borders. Proponents of such views try to explain Vladimir Putin's appeal to Russian chauvinism and its ideologues as purely situational and populist, and present the current regime in Russia as opportunistic and lacking a clear ideology and ideological goals. This paper however argues that Vladimir Putin's policy towards Ukraine, including the war unleashed against it, stems from his doctrinal views, which have been unequivocally outlined by him over the years in various speeches and articles, but ignored by the world due to a flippant attitude towards them. These views have not only a historical dimension, but also an ethnological one, as they are based on a certain and very specific understanding of Russian and Ukrainian ethnicities, which is an arbitrary combination of primordialist and constructivist arguments. Along with the presentation of these views themselves, the article demonstrates the discrepancy between the propaganda myths resulting from them and the actual facts about Russian and Ukrainian political and ethnic history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many in the West do not understand why Putin decided to attack Ukraine. Russian propagandists have thrown up a smokescreen, placing the blame on the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe, slandering the Ukrainian government as a 'Nazi' regime, suggesting that ethnic Russians needed protection, or even insinuating a conspiracy by the West to destroy the Russian state and Russian culture. This article shows that there are deep underlying reasons for the invasion which are linked to how Ukraine and its history are perceived by Russian nationalists and imperialists. This article examines some of the historical justifications put forward by Putin and his views on Ukraine, Russia, and their history. The article gives an overview of some key moments of Ukrainian and Russian history and discusses the long shadow of the events of the 20th century, from initial Ukrainian attempts at state building to Putin's rejection of ideas of Ukrainian state- and nationhood. The article also analyses the impact the conflict has had on monuments and heritage sites, including the deliberate destruction of monuments and the capture and removal of artefacts and relics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the current state of Russian historiography of the development of Menshevism in Russia. Particular attention is paid to A.L. Litvin and I.Kh. Urilov’s monograph “Julius Martov. A History of Life and Work. 1873–1923” published in 2021. This is a historical and biographical study of Julius Osipovich Martov (Tsederbaum), one of the most prominent figures in the socio-political life of Russia during the late 19th–the first quarter of the 20th centuries. Using a broad range of historical sources, including personal ones (such as the Ju.O. Martov Collection at the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, Ju.O. Martov’s memoirs (“Notes of a Social Democrat” (1924)), as well as the memoirs of his relatives, friends, colleagues, and political opponents), we managed to comprehensively cover all aspects of the life and work of Ju.O. Martov as an extraordinary person and politician, one of the strongest leaders of social democracy in Russia, and the closest associate of V.I. Lenin and G.V. Plekhanov. The approaches to studying the origins and evolution of Ju.O. Martov’s views on the role played by the social democratic party in the history of Russia, his political and moral assessment of the essence and prospects of the Bolshevist regime, its influence on the struggle for a democratic future of the country were discussed. The place occupied by the monograph under consideration in modern Russian historiography of the problem was identified.

This article attempts to investigate ancient personal names through ­digital methods. The article focuses on names attested in the census book of Vodskaja pjatina, one of the five administrative areas of late 15th century Novgorod. The research data is compiled digitally. Regional differences in naming conventions are studied through two hierarchical clustering procedures: one based Jaccard index with the average linkage and other based on Euclidean distance metric with the ward linkage. Overall, 35,726 names are collected, whereas the number of ­individual name variants is 2748. Almost all of the most common names are of Christian origin. Names containing Finnic features are a minority, approx. 2% of all. Distance measures and clustering results turned out to be useful to study ancient naming conventions particularly at the fine-grained level. At larger scale, the outcomes of both procedures are mostly in line with previous treatises of the study areaâs past: by the end of the 15th century, the southern region had already become Slavicized whereas the northern parts still had a significant Finnic population.

"The Use of History in Putin's Russia" by James Pearce explores the complex relationship between history and politics in contemporary Russia. The book examines how the Putin regime has constructed a narrative of Russian history that supports its policies and justifies its actions. It delves into topics such as the selection of certain historical events over others, the role of history in shaping Russian identity, the use of history in education and public celebrations, and the connection between history and nationalistic policies. The author argues that history is used to legitimize the regime, unify the country, and frame the future trajectory of Russia. The book also discusses the challenges of creating a positive definition of Russia and being Russian, addressing the Stalinist past, and promoting patriotism without alienating the diverse population. While the book provides thought-provoking insights, it could have included more diverse sources and better proofreading. [Extracted from the article]

Elizabeth Dore, a lifelong friend, colleague, and activist-scholar, succumbed to cancer at her home in London on May 5. Latin America's shifting cartography of revolutionary activity beckoned, however, and Liz and John soon set out for Nicaragua. Eventually, Liz and John, with their toddler twins in tow, decided to move back to the United States, where John took a position in the Economics Department of American University. [Extracted from the article]

The article is devoted to an overview of the latest trends in the study of the written heritage of the merchants of Russia. The author examines the principles and approaches to the study and publication of merchant autobiographical and epistolary texts set forth in the works of the last two decades. Special emphasis in the article is made on the study and publication of the written heritage of merchants from different regions in the context of the complex ethno-cultural structure of Russian society in the modern era. The main trends in the study of memoirs and epistolary complexes of the Russian merchants of the 17th - early 20th century are highlighted, and their main publications are characterized. The observations and remarks make it possible not only to characterize the current state of the study of the written heritage, cultural level, mentality and self-consciousness of the merchant class, but also to outline the prospects for such research area. The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to conduct complex interdisciplinary research, including historians, literary scholars, linguists, and carried out through the use of modern technical methods of working with handwritten texts.

The article is devoted to the problem of the arrest of suspects in Russia in 1725—1741. As a result of the analysis of historiography and historical sources, the author came to the conclusion that the history of the court in Russia in the early modern period is inextricably linked with the history of places of detention, since Russian prisons of the 18th century were intended primarily to hold defendants, and not to punish criminals. The study of normative legal acts of the middle of the 17th century — 1741 showed that the arrest as a measure necessary for the timely presentation of litigants to the court was officially stipulated for the first time in the decree “On the form of the court” of November 5, 1723. A comparison of the norms of laws and the actual practice of legal proceedings of central and regional institutions revealed that the institution of arrest of suspects and defendants was not properly regulated. It was a “blind spot” in legislation that led to prison overcrowding. The rule on the arrest of suspects was aggravated by the introduction in the reign of Peter the Great of a revision-decisive procedure for approving sentences and reviewing court cases, which concerned serious crimes, and a significant extent of the territory of Russia.

The research is devoted to one of the many creative ideas of Gogol in 1834. The textual analysis shows the unity of the two historical works of the writer, which were previously published as separate works. These manuscripts testify that Gogol's “Bibliography of the Middle Ages” and the course of medieval history written at the same time (of ten lectures) represent a special edition that was being prepared for publication (which remained unpublished for unknown reasons). For the first time, the reader got acquainted with the “Bibliography of the Middle Ages” and Gogol’s ten university lectures in 1896, but until that moment these materials, published separately, have not been comprehended as a single whole prepared for publication. The publication of the book, which did not take place in 1834, is put in connection with Gogol's then cooperation with the Minister of Public Education S.S. Uvarov. During this period, thanks to the minister, Gogol entered the department of general history of St. Petersburg University and published four articles in the ministerial journal. The article analyzes the content of Gogol's lecture course and its relation to his other works. The author of the article proposes a possible title for the untitled book, based on the surviving Gogol lecture program.

The present article analyzes the recent fatwa production by two of Russia's major muftiates, the traditionalist Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Tatarstan (DUMRT) in Kazan and the modernist Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Russian Federation (DUMRF) in Moscow. The author investigates the methodologies that Russia's muftis follow when elaborating fatwas, and the global links that surface from their source bases. DUMRT's taqlīd , or imitation, of elements of the Ḥanafī school of Islamic law is contrasted with DUMRF's program of ijtihād. DUMRF's claims to ijtihād, wasaṭiyya and minority fiqh are tested by the analysis of controversial fatwas about marriage, conversion, and divorce in Russia. This paper introduces the term "signature fatwa" to denote fatwas that are meant to demonstrate the particular identity of a given muftiate, and that serve as a tool for its political positioning vis-à-vis the Kremlin, other fatwa-producers, and the Muslim communities. The present contribution addresses scholars of Islam in Eastern Europe as well as students of Islamic law in Muslim minority situations, including in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Russian history is examined in general, there is a strong tendency about the priority of the state and it becomes possible to talk about a clear political attitude about the sanctity of the state. It is seen that this tendency and attitude has been preserved and tried to be maintained from the Knez to the Tsarist Period, from the Soviet Union to the present. When we look at the Vladimir Putin Era, we encounter the reality that the political stance of "Russia belongs to the Russians" was added to this understanding of the importance of the state by harmonizing it. In his power that started in the early 2000s, Putin tried to make this addition by considering different dimensions and to build his own understanding of the state. Putin, who started a new era in the Russian Federation in many respects, went far beyond being an ordinary politician with his style of politics that protects the state and considers the security of the state as a top priority. Because, Putin, who has been in power for nearly a quarter of a century, has determined some ideals and principles that sanctify the state, together with a handful of elites who think like him, making it almost difficult for anyone who does not adopt these ideals and principles to live in the Russian Federation. In line with his historical background, Putin also tried to be a statesman who made the ideal of being a "Great State" a state policy. In Russia, which entered into a rapid economic recovery after 2000, when it took over the power, social-scale problems were postponed, albeit partially. Problems that were postponed in the relatively prosperous environment created by the economic recovery have re-emerged in a more ingrained and enlarged state. Violations and illegal practices that have started to emerge regarding democracy, freedom and human rights have been criticized by a significant part of the society. In this study, the question of how the "state" phenomenon took place in the historical process of Russia, how it was perceived and what the origin of the sacred view developed about the state is. Then, the main subject of the study is the meaning and importance of the "state" in the Russian Federation, and the arguments related to what can be sidelined against it are examined in the light of the literature and the theoretical framework is tried to be formed in the context of these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to show the formation of the image of the history of Ukraine in Russian school textbooks during the presidency of V. Putin (until 2021). The research methodology is based on the methods of historiographical analysis and synthesis. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time the question of the factors forming the image of the history of Ukraine in the modern Russian school narrative has been systematically covered, and the transformation of its content in recent years (he period of the Russian-Ukrainian war in its hybrid phase) has been analyzed. It is substantiated that the decisive factor in Russian textbook creation in the "Ukrainian question" was and remains the trajectory of the Kremlin's political course and the corresponding anti-Ukrainian historical policy. The main results of the study. Consideration of "Ukrainian" topics in Russian textbooks is subordinated to the logic of the state-imperial narrative of Russian history. Accordingly, firstly, by the 15th century Ukrainians and a separate Ukrainian history for the authors of school textbooks did not exist. Secondly, on the pages of school texts, students are convinced that significant segments of Russian history took place on the territory of modern Ukraine, thus forcing them to believe that modern Russia has a historical right to them Thirdly, although Ukrainians are recognized as a separate ethnic group in school texts published until 2021, their presence on the map of the past is fragmentary and largely distorted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the state of religious freedoms in Putin's Russia, with a special emhasis on the Kremlin's intensifying efforts at establishing Orthodox monopoly. It is an in-depth case analysis that uses policy and discourse analysis to examine the state of religious freedoms in Russia. It suggests that anti-extremism law has become an instrument of state control over a wide array of speech or activity. Through statesupported legislation, the authorities censor religious life to prevent the rise of anti-government sentiments. The groups most affected by the government's anti-religious policy are "non-traditional" religious groups, facing hardships in exercising their rights and freedoms. Their activities are increasingly banned on the grounds of "extremism" and "terrorism". Russia's tightening of legislation on extremism has been combined with its withdrawal from the Council of Europe, which poses additional threats for religious communities by eliminating any international scrutiny over the government's actions. This paper concludes that while Russian history has been traditionally characterized by religious intolerance towards small denominations, the intensifying crackdown on religious freedoms is part of the Kremlin's policy of ensuring a monopoly across the country for the Russian Orthodox Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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