The article discusses the little-known and long forgotten novel Tvorchestvo (Creativity, 1952) by the Soviet writer A. Barten. It is not an attempt at literary interpretation of the text, but rather the art historian’s analysis of a literary work dedicated to the fine arts and artists. The novel Tvorchestvo chronicles the art life in the era of socialist realism in the 1930s as the novel takes place in 1935, and reflects the spirit of the time when it was written - the period of ideological campaigns in 1946-1953. The artistically weak work did not attract the attention of literary critics, since it is a typical product of that time, direct and “poster-like” embodiment of the nature of totalitarian culture. The article examines collisions of art in the 1930s-1950s revealed in the novel: the fight against “formalism” and “naturalism”, against “bezydeynost” (idealessness) and “apolitichnost” (apoliticality). It analyses the characters of artists and complexity of their relationships (an “advanced” artist, an art bureaucrat, the genius of socialist realism Vedenin, “not that” realist artist Simakhin, incompetent copyist and artisan Nikodim Nikodimovich, artist “from the machine tool” Semyon, “impressionist-cosmopolitan” Rakitin and, finally, “formalist, who comes to the consciousness of his absolute creative impotence”, Veksler), problems of creativity (“delight to be in ranks” or creative freedom) and craving for producing a “masterpiece” in the conditions of “socialist building”. A. Barten displays his inability to talk about visual means of art and lards the characters’ speech with newspaper words, clichéd phrases and propaganda clichés that migrate from magazines and newspapers to fiction. The novel by A. Barten, an agitational and administrative work rather than a fictional one, in combination with a critical article by T. Golovanova and Yu. Neprintsev “Without knowledge of life” is an obvious piece of ideological demagogy, far from the real problems of literature and art; it is a typical example of manipulating readers, implanting perverted artistic tastes.

The author focuses on the art of the Wanderers (Peredvizhniki) and the history of the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions (TPKhV), which need nowadays certain reconsideration. The Wanderers movement is the main phenomenon of the 19th-century Russian culture, associated with the development of realistic traditions in the spirit of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky’s writings. The best works of the Wanderers made up the national art school and contributed to the formation of national identity. During the first three decades of the society its artists were trendsetters of style and fashion and the popularity of their exhibitions grew steadily in the capitals and provinces. These exhibitions changed the Russian art life and significantly influenced the development of the art market. They forced society to reconsider the attitude towards contemporary art and collecting. They raised the status of artists, but their dreams to not only educate the public, but also to earn money (as stated in the TPKhV Charter) through exhibitions never came true. The heyday of Wanderers movement was naturally replaced by a period of decline, while its oldest members displayed their conservatism. Nevertheless, the Wanderers stand at the origins of the fundamental processes that determined the path of the further development of Russian art, i. e. impressionism, symbolism, modernism. For a long time, the Wanderers movement was one of the principal subjects of study of Soviet art history. In the last third of the 20th century, many critics and specialists were immersed in the study of the art of the subsequent decades, i. e. the Silver Age and avant-garde, while the Wanderers’ art was neglected as part of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics. The contemporary art inclining towards the concept and posing questions of being reveals the most unexpected analogies within the Wanderers’ art, despite the gap between the classical and ultramodern views. The popularity of the Wanderers’ paintings was also exploited in the 20thcentury mass culture. This interest is explained by the fact that more than one generation of our compatriots was brought up on them and many of them are part of the cultural code of the Russian nation.

Very few written sources have survived about the fortification of medieval Smolensk, and excavations of fortifications were carried out only a few times in the past. The materials of test pitting and observations of construction work are not a first-class source for solving the problems of establishing chronology and the reconstruction of the appearance and engineering of such structures. Both the data of written sources and the materials of archaeological research were considered in the past through the prism of an outdated concept, which viewed the ramparts as purposefully built mounds, on top of which palisades or hollow log cabins were placed. At the present stage, a different vision of ancient fortification has been developed: the ramparts are the ruins of earth-and-timber walls, which were chains of oak log cabins filled with soil. Only after the destruction of the wooden sheathing and the pouring out of the soil were earthen ridges-ramparts with the remnants of wooden log walls inside them formed. Within this framework, a new examination of the materials from the excavations of previous years in Smolensk shows that the structures discovered here fully correspond to this theory. The value of Smolensk artefacts also lies in the fact that the study covered the remains of the walls erected in the 16th century, which have not been an object of archaeological excavations in any other Russian city. However, that time, due to the spread of firearms, was the period of a rapid transition from medieval traditions of construction to new techniques aimed at countering cannon fire. Investigation by archaeological methods has established that the late medieval wall of Smolensk was created according to the norms of ancient Russian defense architecture, but written sources testify to the presence in these wooden walls of the “lower battle”, chambers for installing canons. Smolensk was the first case in Russia where the central part of the gateway in the wall of the 16th century was explored. The gateway was placed at the bottom of a natural hollow and equipped with drainage. The article also considers the issue of dating the construction of this wall with the involvement of the entire complex of written and archaeological sources, which allowed us to propose two versions of such a date: around the 1530s and mid-1580s.

The article analyzes the direction in the development of historical science at the turn of the twentieth-twenty-first centuries, associated with the socalled “memorial boom”, which determined the appearance, in the 1980-1990s, of a special area of “memory research”, memory studies, in the subject field of history in general and the history of Russia in particular. The evolution of this area of historical knowledge was undoubtedly influenced by the emergence of new electronic means of storing and transferring information, as well as the forms of representation of the past and digitalization of sources of different types and species. The result of these processes was the formation of the category of “sources of historical memory”, whose development requires solving a number of important theoretical and methodological problems. The methodological and source critical aspects of the study of historical memory are of the greatest interest to the historical community. So, in order to select from various bodies of sources of different types and species those that can be included in the structure of sources for studying historical memory, one should apply the criterion of their informative potential, which permits to “see” the past, enrich historical knowledge with emotional and psychological perception of the image of the past. An important thesis of methodological nature is the recognition that the work of the historian also involves the function of imagination, not being limited to reconstructing events, but supplementing them with “seeing” and “presenting a vision” derived from memory sources. In this regard, the source researcher gives considerable significance to the problems of interaction between the forms of representation of the past and the informative potential of the source in the context of modern practices of memory studies, the hierarchy of sources of historical memory (written-text, audiovisual, monumental) based on the criterion of the importance of certain types, kinds and sets of sources for studying the rich spectrum of problems in memory research, as well as for a general assessment of the cognitive potential, limits and possibilities of this category of sources. The article shows the dangers posed by the manipulation with the images of history and falsification of sources related to the study of historical memory, the significance of the scientific-historical approach, which helps to save our past from oblivion, without distorting or “renovating” the memory of the past in its diverse representations.

The article covers the history of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in South China. Today it is the most rapidly developing and densely populated region of the country, one of the key points of the global project “The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road”. The article provides a step-by-step history of the settlement of the Greater Bay Area, as well as identifies various factors that have led to the active development of the urban cluster in the Zhujiang River Delta. The author focuses on the political, socio-cultural, economic and geographic features of the Greater Bay Area, which has evolved into one of the world-class urban clusters. Provides the main stages of the existence of trade relations in the region, including the epoch when Lingnan culture flourished, the “Canton era”, as well as the periods before and after the formation of the People's Republic of China. The characteristic features of the region, its isolation and structural reforms over the centuries have formed a specific context that has become not only the basis for the development of Guangdong province and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, but also the “engine” of a significant sector of the Chinese economy. In addition, a brief analysis of the current Greater Bay Are concept evolution has been attempted. Research papers by Chinese authors and government reports are used as the main sources of information. Due to the growing interest in this large-scale project and the achievement of the first planned results the Chinese academic community has recently published the data that was previously unavailable to the general readership. The use of these materials allows us to see the process of the Greater Bay Area formation through the eyes of Chinese authors who are immersed in cultural and historical realities, as well as to fill gaps in the Russian-language studies on this topic, to add individual facts into an overall picture and present a more structured view of the entire South China region history.

The article attempts to assess one of the remarkable episodes in the history of international relations in the interwar period, the rapprochement between Italy and France in the first months of 1935, which found its most striking embodiment in the Laval-Mussolini agreement of January 7, 1935. One of the cornerstones of Mussolini’s foreign policy was a concept of a “new Roman Empire”. Ethiopia and the Eastern Mediterranean were openly named the initial targets of expansion in official documents. By this period, Italy had more than restored its military and economic might, which was yet insufficient to achieve these ends. Italy chose France as its ally for undermining the status quo in Europe. During the first half of 1935, the countries came a long way in diplomatic rapprochement that reached the climax in the aforementioned Mussolini-Laval treaty and negotiations between the military headquarters of the two countries (winter-spring 1935). Italy proposed to resolve the bilateral colonial contradictions, in particular, the question of Italian citizens in Tunisia and local problems in East and North-East Africa. Despite the improvement in relations, France was not inclined to conclude a more binding agreement with Italy, following the early 20th-century example of the Entente. The relations between two countries were also influenced by the gradually aggravated German question. Nevertheless, the January agreements were taken by Mussolini as carte blanche in the Ethiopian area and later led to the outbreak of the Italo-Ethiopian war. However, due to the evasive position of France which did not much regard Italy as an ally against Germany, Mussolini curtailed attempts rapprochement with the Third Republic. The final event was the conference in Stresa, upon which Italy finally left the camp of the countries that guaranteed the Versailles-Washington system of international relations.

This study focuses on some features of the scientific outlook of M.M. Khvostov (1872-1920), who made a serious contribution to the formation of a new profile of historical science, as well as to the study of various aspects of the history of the Ancient world. The authors attempt at finding the correlation between a number of Khvostov's theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of history and the ones employed by his three main teachers, professors of Moscow University P.G. Vinogradov, V.I. Guerrier, and V.O. Klyuchevsky. For the first time, the study is based on a comparative analysis of the main works by Khvostov and his teachers. It is noted that he resorted to (though not imitated) Vinogradov's positivist gnoseology and research paradigm. Khvostov's creative heritage reveals reception of Guerrier's views and ideas on the organic nature of the historical process, the inadmissibility of under- and overestimation of the role of the individual in history, and peculiarities of constructing the image of history. Following in general Klyuchevsky's historical and sociological discourse, Khvostov demonstrated his own ideas about the social development, developed the concepts of his teacher concerning the driving forces of historical evolution. He searched for evidence of the recurrence of economic cycles in the history of the peoples of antiquity, sought to understand the principles of historical determinism. Following Klyuchevsky, Khvostov recognized the decisive role of the economic factor in the historical process and correlated with it all the other changes in the social life. As a result of the research, the authors prove that the affiliation of Kvostov's teachers to different schools of Russian historical thought could not but affect his approaches to solving the core issues of philosophy and gnoseology of history. The eclecticism and contradictions become apparent by comparing individual ideas presented in his works of different years. Nevertheless, Khvostov had his own academic priorities, and as an independent original scholar sought to respond adequately to the intellectual challenges of the boundary epoch of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and make adjustments to his theoretical approaches.

The subject of this study is the guarantee composition, which was a separate aspect of business relations of the foreigners, members of the Moscow guild merchant society in the mid-18th - mid-19th centuries. Guarantors were some of the local merchants, guaranteeing economic solvency (including timely annual payment of interest on capital), as well as the absence of “fines and suspicions” regarding those entering the merchant guild. This problem is being considered for the first time in the national historiography. The author introduces into scholarly discourse an entire complex of archival materials, which consists of the cases of entering the Moscow merchant status by persons of foreign ethnic origin. This study is based on the analysis of ca. 800 petitions and reports on ranking among the Moscow merchants. The objective of the study is to identify the prevailing trends in relations on the basis of nationality between the persons of foreign ethnic origin who had been classified as merchants, and this could be revealed in the choice of the guarantor either among their ethno-religious community or among local merchants of “Great Russian” origin. These trends are considered separately for each national group, represented in the Moscow merchant society, and compared with each other. For example, the French, Armenian-Gregorian and Muslim (Tatars, Bukharians and Persians) communities had very high percentage of guarantees, involving their compatriots, while Germans and Greeks demonstrated a weaker tendency in this regard. Accordingly, the latter’ preference for choosing guarantors from the local merchants was more noticeable than among the former. The study of guarantees revealed that merchants of Italian, Swiss, British, and Gypsy origin had compatriot ties. On the basis of these data, the author analyzes business relationship between different national and confessional groups represented in the Moscow merchant society. This relationship was often explained by the fact that they traded the homogeneous goods. The author also suggests a four-group typology of guarantee composition according to national characteristics.

In the first quarter of the 18th century, on the initiative of Peter I, a system of military hospital institutions was created and their organization by private individuals was encouraged. This appeal received endorsement from the bureaucratic nobility and was embodied in the testaments of the famous Petrine diplomat, Prince B.I. Kurakin (1727), and the first Russian State Chancellor, Count G.I. Golovkin (1729). In the detailed regulations attached to his last will, B.I. Kurakin not only delineated the structure of the staff of the hospital, which, along with the church, was to be built in Moscow, the composition of meals and clothing given to the patients and staff, but also outlined their way of life. Besides, the will designated the amount of money required for the construction and maintenance of the Moscow almshouse-hospital, and the source of its acquisition, including interest on capital placed in foreign banks. G.I. Golovkin’s testament also mainly describes how to maintain the hospital church and the hospital in Vysotsky monastery in Serpukhov, where his parents’ remains rested and where he bequeathed to bury himself. The unprecedented comparison of the texts of the two wills with regard to charitable activities has highlighted both the common features of Old Russian piety inherent in these representatives of the political elite of Peter’s time, and the differences in the manifestation of the Europeanism they had adopted. The mentalities of both State Chancellor Golovkin, who never left Russia, and Prince Kurakin, much more Europeanized in accordance with the nature of his service, were still determined by their religious worldview. The latter manifested itself in the concern for memorial services and church building. In addition, Kurakin’s will transferred the vow taken upon himself in front of the icon of Nicholas the Wonderworker to his heir, under the threat of curses and punishment on the day of the Last Judgment if the deceased’s will had not been fulfilled. In both testaments, church benevolence and ancient Christian love for the poor, characteristic of Old Russian piety, were combined with the forms and goals of the charity of the modern period. Its embodiment were the prudently equipped hospitals-almshouses, initiated by the example of the supreme power.

The article explores the possibilities of using the Books of Ranks (razriad) to identify the “honor” of precedence of city voivodeship appointments. In the context of the constant active warfare conducted by Russia in the 16th century, city voivoda appointments could give an important advantage in the precedence disputes and provided significant voivodeship experience. It can be assumed that in connection with changes in the tactical and strategic situation, the “informal” status, “honor status” of city voivodeship appointments also changed. The analysis of the documents of the Razriad Department in a number of cases makes it possible to reveal the dynamics of the “honor status” of voivodeship appointments to specific cities in different periods. An appointment to the same city for the same voivodeship position at different times and in different conditions can be interpreted as career advancement or as a form of disgrace. The author chose the example of the city of Velikiye Luki: its importance changed from the late 15th to the early 17th century and the voivodas appointed there received different (within very wide limits) status in the voivodeship hierarchy. The work defines the circle of voivodas who were appointed to Velikie Luki during this period and characterizes their status in the frames of mestnichestvo system and their position in the voivodeship hierarchy. It also identifies the periods of greatest activity when governors of the city were appointed. Conclusion is made about the correlation between the frequency of voivodeship appointments to the city and the situation on the Russian-Lithuanian border. The author indicates the growth of “status” and the demand for governors appointed to the city during periods of exacerbation of diplomatic relations and the conduct of active hostilities. Suggestions are also made about the influence of other reasons on the dynamics of the “honor status” of the city. The author analyzes the influence of city appointments in Velikiye Luki on the careers of a number of representatives of the Russian military-political elite. The article also emphasizes the need to take into account the “informal” status of the city at a particular moment when doing biographical studies of representatives of the Russian military-political elite of the late fifteenth - early seventeenth centuries.