The article examines the mutual relations of zemstvo, local administration and government in the context of the decision of the food problem by Smolensk zemstvo during a crop failure in the late 1860s and early 1870s. The author analyzes a complex and resource-intensive food problem in the period of crop failure and famine in one of the non-chernozem provinces of Russia in the initial period of the zemstvo history, when the zemstvo reform of 1864 was not yet completed. She examines the general model of relations between the government and the zemstvo in overcoming famine, the state of food capital, specific zemstvo practices, the importance of large-scale public works, actions of local administrations, etc. The author concludes that historiographical idea about the oppression of zemstvo by the government immediately after its creation is not quite correct. Thus, in the fight against the famine of 1867–1872 in Smolensk province the government relied on the zemstvo, rather than on the administration, and protected zemstvo from the claims of local administrators. It is possible to speak about the trust on the part of the government in zemstvo bodies and their joint efforts to provide the population with food in the crisis conditions of the post-reform modernization of agriculture. Depending on objective factors, local zemstvo and government used food and cash loans and public works as basic practices to combat famine. The need to repay the state food capital received by peasants was a heavy burden for them. The lessons learned from the Smolensk famine were the impetus for consideration of the problem of money shortage in the agricultural sector. The misfortune of peasantry in some provinces of Russia 1867–1872 which was in the focus of attention of government stimulated the study and discussion of general situation in agriculture and influenced the attitude of central and local authorities to the zemstvo, food and taxation issues

Jewish immigrants, who began to move into the New England colonies in the eighteenth century, attracted considerable interest from the Puritan population, the descendants of the founders of the colonies. They identified themselves with the ancient Jews and saw themselves as a new God chosen people who came to America with a special mission. The messianic spirit of the early settlers was accompanied by extreme intolerance towards those who did not share the Puritan doctrine, including the Jews. With the sweeping changes in British American colonial administrative system at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and consequent changes in the spiritual and intellectual climate of the New England colonies, there was a significant transformation in the worldview of the New England Puritans, particularly in questions of religious tolerance, interaction with other Protestant denominations, forms and methods of “conversion to the true faith”. It led leading Puritan clergymen to search for a way to restore their parishioners’ interest in religion. Millenarianism, the belief in the imminent advent of the millennial kingdom, was chosen for this purpose. One of the main Puritan theologians of his time, Cotton Mather, tried to put the ideas of Millenarianism into practice. He presented Millenarianism as an ecumenical project capable of uniting representatives of different denominations. The vision of the Puritan colonists as God’s chosen people shaped the special attitude towards the Jews. The article pays special attention to the theological works by Cotton Mather on the Jews of New England, in which his Millenarian views are vividly presented. Although his works, as well as his missionary activity among the Jews, did not bring the expected results, they enabled contacts between the Protestant clergy of America, Great Britain and continental Europe. The Puritan clergy in New England needed other ways to push for religious renewal and conversion, which would soon be actively pursued during the First “Great Awakening” of the second third of the eighteenth century.

The article examines the origin of non-trivial images of the Evangelists’ symbols in the form of half-figures of anthropomorphic three-faced cherubim, which are known in Russian illuminated Gospels from 1560s through 1590s, on the silver covers of a small group of the early seventeenth-century Holy Table Gospels and in some iconographic works. The author finds the source of these images in a Slavonic translation of Anastasius of Sinai’s Against the Arian, which is included in the Izbornik of Svyatoslav, dated to 1073, the second-oldest surviving old Russian manuscript. In this work, Anastasius of Sinai echoes the opinion of Irenaeus of Lyon, who explained the fourfold number of the Gospels by linking it to the four faces of the cherubim, i.e., the faces of the four animals described in the Book of Ezekiel. These animals came to be perceived later as symbols of the Gospels and the Evangelists. In the old Slavonic translation, the cherub was called three-faced instead of four-faced due to an erroneous confusion of numerical values of the Glagolitic letters in the original of the Izbornik and Cyrillic characters in the 1073 manuscript. In Glagolitic the letter “Glagol” has the numerical value “four”, while in Cyrillic it is “three”. This error was not always corrected in the manuscript copies up to the 18th century, and it generated a limited iconographic tradition in Vologda and other regions of the Russian North as far as one can judge from the surviving works. This article deals with the full-page miniatures of three Russian Tetragospels from the State Historical Museum and the Russian National Library, three silver emblazoned Gospels from the Moscow Kremlin Museums, the Perm State Art Gallery and the Arkhangelsk Regional Museum. The text of Anastasius of Sinai’s Against the Arians is examined in fifteen copies from the 11th through the 18th century

The article examines the sources, religious context and artistic features of the iconography of the “Welcoming Descent of Buddha Amida” in Japanese sculpture from the Heian (794–1185) and early Kamakura (1185–1333) periods. An attempt is made to understand from which elements of textual and visual cultures the iconography of the “Welcoming Descent of Buddha Amida” is formed in sculpture. This question has not been specifically studied. The formation of the iconography in both painting and sculpture was influenced by the doctrinal texts of the sutras not per se, but rather in the interpretation of Chinese and Japanese teachers, especially Genshin. Apart from the textual sources, the visual experience was also important. The expressiveness of the cloud on which Buddha and bodhisattvas fly in painting seems to have led sculptors to try to embody it in wood as well. Apparently, the authority of the pre-existing iconography of Buddha Amida of the Tendai school somewhat inhibited changes in the main figure. Perhaps the need to attach a rope to the hands or arms of the statue contributed to the appearance of a specific welcoming gesture (the index finger and thumb are linked “in a ring”). Both in painting and sculpture bodhisattvas next to Buddha Amida acquired expressive poses and attributes, that invite a viewer to experience the miraculous appearance of higher powers. The next (after Genshin) most important preacher of the belief in Buddha Amida, Honen, emphasized that Buddha should be depicted standing, which signifies his readiness to help. It was the most widespread type in the 13th century. The significant role was played by sculptor Kaikei, whose first Amida triad was based on Chinese scroll. Later he created a number of free-standing figures of Amida and triads that became classic and were reproduced for many generations.

The article examines Kazakhstan’s active participation in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative in the context of geopolitical and geoeconomic objectives and prospects of this project. It analyzes advantages, challenges and future opportunities for the Republic of Kazakhstan as one of the most active Central Asian participants of the Chinese initiative. The author deals with opportunities, successes and challenges of linking Kazakhstan’s Nurly Zhol national economic development programme to it. Kazakhstan’s Nurly Zhol economic programme, also called the “Path to the Future”, or literally the “Bright Road”) was launched in 2014. It has much in common with the Belt and Road concept. This programme includes priority strategies and goals, such as improving transport and logistics infrastructure, the reconstruction of industrial infrastructure, strengthening communications, etc. All this undoubtedly reinforces the interest of Kazakhstan and China in mutual cooperation. The Belt and Road Initiative is regarded as an area of collective cooperation, which has an increasing impact not only on Kazakhstan’s economy, but also on the economic trends of all Central Asian countries. For Kazakhstan, there are several priority areas. The Chinese initiative contributes to the implementation of initiatives to strengthen and expand the transport and infrastructure potential of the country; Kazakhstan gets an opportunity to develop the most important East-West economic corridor through its own territory, which in the future will become an important source of investments, as well as a condition for the transfer of the latest technologies. The author concludes that the set of perspectives is related to the possibility for Kazakhstan to overcome its perception as a supplier of raw materials and a transit corridor. The tool to achieve this goal could be a technological strategy for Kazakhstan, allowing the involvement of investments from China, Russia, the United States, the EU, including the practice of creating joint research centres, high-tech clusters that will strengthen Kazakhstan’s position as an economic and technological leader in Central Asia

In recent years there has been a vigorous debate in American political and public life on issues related to education, primarily K-12 schools’ programs. The teaching of the Critical Race theory (CRT) in schools, which has caused a great deal of outrage among conservative Americans, has attracted particular attention and continues to do so to this day. In practice, the elements of educational programmes that have been most actively debated have little to do with the CRT per se, but in popular discourse the term has taken on a meaning that has little or nothing to do with the academic context. The result of this debate was a wave of bills proposed to the legislatures of virtually every state by conservative Republican politicians. Although not all of these bills were eventually passed, in many states the new “CTR bans” are already in place. Apart from the practical aspects of educational organization, it was the perception of history in the discussion of the CTR that became the key ideological watershed between supporters and opponents of the new legislation. The debate began in the context of a discussion of US history in general. the starting point was the reaction of President Trump’s administration to the New York Times’ publication of Project 1619, a collection of essays on the history of “black” America. From the point of view of Trump and his administration, it was an attempt of falsification of history and revisionism, and a number of measures were taken at the federal level against it. Although these measures were reversed aft er President Biden took office, the contradictions in the perception of history between conservative Republicans and Democrats have reappeared, this time at the state level in the form of attempts to legislate the prohibition of the CTR. This article examines the formation of these new laws, their common features, and the relationship of the fight against the CTR to the historical memory and memory politics in the US in general and, in particular, the development of “grassroots” conservative activism.

This article deals with the 75-year period of writing textbooks on the history of Southern and Western Slavs in the Department of History at Lomonosov Moscow State University. The first textbook was conceived in 1947 and published in 1957. It resulted from the fruitful researching and teaching of the members of the Department and the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Theoretically, it testified to the victory of the Marxist-Leninist concept in the University Slavic Studies. The preparation of the second textbook took place against the backdrop of a heated debate on the replacement of the former discipline with the history of the countries building socialism. For the first time the article introduces the archival materials relating to the preparation, course and decisions of the interuniversity conference of historians in the area of Slavic Studies (February 1962). This allowed us to reveal the attitude of the entire Slavistic community of the USSR to the concept of the second edition. The completely new textbook came out in 1969. However, a signifi cant part of its print run was destroyed for purely political reasons. This fact is little known even to the scholarly community. Another textbook in the form of a course of lectures on the history of Southern and Western Slavs appeared only ten years later, in 1979. Its 13 000 copies were distributed by the Department to 58 universities of the USSR. 20 more years were necessary to prepare a new textbook. In 1998 it appeared in two volumes and was reprinted in 2001 and 2008. A current view of the Slavic history from antiquity to 2019 is presented in the just published standard textbook in three volumes (September 2022). The emergence of this particular version was predetermined by the very logic of the history of the Slavic peoples, as well as the necessity for application of its authors’ educational and methodological approaches and a fresh look at the discipline.

The article examines the period preceding the creation of the discipline of Russian studies on the basis of Slavic studies in the post-war USA. The transition from descriptive Slavic studies, which focused on philology, to rigorous scholarship of regional studies evolved in the difficult circumstances of the World War, the search for a new configuration of the world order, and the transition from the allied relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States to their acute confrontation. Against this background, the initial plans for cooperation with the USSR in the emerging discipline of Russian studies were revised, which, however, did not affect its content as much as might have been expected. This was facilitated by the fact that at the outbreak of the World War II Slavic studies were a very advanced academic discipline with clear principles, which included, alongside objectivity and impartiality, a love of the country under study and not involving politics. An important factor was the activity of Russian émigrés in the United States. The Russian Review, which they established in 1941, actively promoted mutual understanding and created a positive (“real”) image of Russia, while paying attention to an objective and scientific (as opposed to propagandistic) representation of its history. The analysis of publications on Russian history between 1941 and 1947 demonstrates that American discourse on Russia had a sufficient number of formulas and images aimed at bringing the two countries closer together. The Soviet Union also had some potential in this regard, but the transition to sharp confrontation with the West occurred very quickly in a context of increased internal repression. In the US, despite the Cold War, Russian studies steadily developed towards professionalization.

The scale and structure of the losses of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War undoubtedly constitute a relevant academic problem. A separate aspect of this problem is the national structure of the losses of the Red Army. So far, in the works covering this issue, researchers have made attempts to establish the national structure of the irretrievable losses of the Red Army using calculation method, based on the erroneous assumption that losses were proportional to the representation of each Soviet ethnic group in the Red Army. This study is based on the albums of the payroll of the Red Army personnel. They were prepared by the General Staff twice a year (ahead of 1 January and 1 July) for the top leaders of the country and the armed forces, and were made even prior to the war. These unique statistical sources that have become available in recent years and are stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation make it possible to partly solve the problem in relation to the establishment of the national structure of the sanitary losses suffered by the Red Army in 1943–1945 (registration of irretrievable losses by nationality was not conducted). The statistical analysis of these sources has showed that the level and structure of sanitary losses among different ethnic groups varied in a fairly wide range and depended on a large number of factors, the major one being the percentage of the ethnic group in the rank and file of the infantry. Being a member of the rank and file almost always, for all nationalities, meant an increased risk of being killed or wounded. This risk, as the study showed, was also amplified if an ordinary soldier belonged to the rifle troops. Although the obtained data cannot be mechanically extrapolated to all the losses of the Red Army as a whole, they nevertheless give an idea of the patterns in the number of losses of different nationalities, at least in the second and third periods of the war (1943–1945), and open prospects for further scholarly debate.

The construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, the most largescale infrastructure project of the Russian Empire, was accompanied by the solution of a number of problems for the normal operation of this railway. One of them was to supply it with water, suitable for both industrial and domestic purposes. In conditions of time deficit, limited financing and taking into consideration natural and geographical peculiarities of the territory, it was necessary to look for ways of water supply organization which demanded new technical solutions. The various aspects of this problem have not received sufficient coverage in scientific publications, but they are certainly of interest to researchers. The construction of railway water mains was usually preceded by hydrological investigations to determine the most convenient water sources for each station, its properties, and the routes of communications. Additional difficulties often arose because no definitive conclusion about water availability and sources had yet been reached when locating the stations along the main line, and the surveying of the area was still ongoing. As a result, some of the stations were not well located for constant water supply, which required additional funding and engineering effort. Rivers were considered as priority sources of water to be supplied to Trans-Siberian stations and junctions, they were followed by streams, lakes, springs, groundwater and marshes, artesian wells. When selecting a source of water supply, the average daily volume of water consumption of a particular station was necessarily taken into account. At the same time, to ensure an uninterrupted water supply, the selected source had to have a minimum daily flow rate that was twice as high as the maximum daily consumption, which also made it difficult to solve the problems of the construction of railway water pipelines. Despite all the difficulties, the result of the large-scale works was the construction of new variants of water supply and purifying systems on the most part of the Trans-Siberian railway that functioned also in permafrost conditions.