Art has always played a significant role in representing power. In France, the establishment of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648) was a landmark event, not only for artists wishing to distinguish themselves from the craft community but also for the rise of absolutism. Through the Academy’s masters, the monarchy acquired individuals capable of conveying key ideas for the state, as well as projecting the image of the king himself. The Academy, in turn, gained a monopoly on royal commissions. This ensured both the quality and ideological accuracy of the artworks. The relationships between royal power and the selected circle of artists became the focus of this study. The article explores the following questions. How was the process of obtaining, executing, and delivering royal commissions organized throughout the eighteenth century? How was responsibility for their successful completion distributed? What were the official genre and stylistic preferences of the Crown? How were the masters selected to join the Academy? What role did working for a royal patron play in a painter’s career? When and why were such commissions attractive and beneficial for artists? Although each of these questions has been addressed separately in French-language literature, their comprehensive analysis from a modern scholarly perspective has not yet been undertaken. In addition to related scholarly works, the author analyzed the following informative sources: inventory lists of paintings commissioned by directors of royal buildings for the monarch, minutes of the Royal Academy’s meetings, and key theoretical works by the Academy’s members. The study allowed for the reconstruction of the life and creative circumstances of artists commissioned to create official art, as well as an examination of their social standing. This facilitates a more nuanced understanding of the artistic milieu of eighteenth-century France, with particular focus on the social and creative interactions that characterized the artistic community of the era.

The article examines how the programmes of population censuses conducted in Russia between 1897 and 1937 reflected the dynamics of perceptions of major ethnocultural identities. Among the various forms of cultural identity in Russia, the most significant were linguistic, religious, and ethnic. However, the relative importance of these categories shift ed across different periods, as state priorities in promoting one or several of them evolved. The censuses of 1897, 1920, 1926, and 1937 vividly reveal transformations in this hierarchy of identities. Special attention is devoted to the incorporation of the category of national (ethnic) identity into census practices. In the Russian Empire of the modern era, an elite discourse emerged that proposed diverse interpretations of the nature of the ethnic (national): defining Russianness through its attributes — Orthodoxy and loyalty to the throne; defining Russianness through culture; and defining Russianness through notions of “race”, “stock”, or “blood”. For the broader Russian population, however, a presumption operated: Russian meant Orthodox and loyal to the throne (with the tacit implication of the Russian language). The study demonstrates that, in Soviet Russia, the significance of ethnic identity increased, facilitated both by the principle of national self-determination adopted by the new regime and by the administrative divisions, which were closely tied to nationality. It is therefore no coincidence that the 1920 census included, for the first time, a question on ethnic affiliation, framed as “narodnost” (“ethnic group”), which in the 1926 census was replaced with the term “nationality”. The analysis of the censuses conducted between 1897 and 1937 shows that the fundamental factors of ethnic identity in Russia — although not officially recognized in every period — were language and religion. The connection between language and ethnicity appears almost self-evident. The link between ethnicity and religion is less straightforward, yet despite the repression of religion it persisted, albeit muted; over time, however, in the structuring of identities (primary/derivative), religion and ethnicity exchanged their positions .

This article focuses on the nature of the historical process within the broad geopolitical context of the so-called Greater Eurasia. The starting point of the research is the category of “silence” as a key phenomenon in Russian and Asian history, examined in its cultural, political, and psychological dimensions. Silence manifests in various forms, starting from the hesychia in the Orthodox tradition and extending to various forms of deceptive communication, bragging, jesting, the show-off culture, and others. This concept is explored in the context of two global cognitive approaches: one based on the principle of the identity of things to themselves, and the other based on the principle of their inequality to themselves, the self-difference of all being, a deviation from oneself, where reality is seen as becoming, the transition of things into something other, and consequently, the limit of existence. The first principle formed the foundation of Western intellectual tradition, while the second dominated the spiritual traditions of Asia. The principle of self-difference implies relations of free companionship, synergy, the dynamic centration of global forces, and affirms universal similarity, the mutual penetration of opposites, where things embrace and contain each other, such that all being and the entire world seem to be preserved within themselves, becoming their own secret. Here, the singular merges with the individual, and the centripetal movement, or involution, the return to the origin of existence, turns out to be the condition for inexhaustible diversity and the hidden, perpetual continuity of life. This cognitive approach ensures great creative potential and spiritual discipline in personal and social life, through which moments of life experience are transmuted into a repertoire of typified and stylized forms of cultural practice. In this way, the timeless body of tradition is created, and the restoration of the fullness of being for all things (apocatastasis) becomes possible. Historically, the uncertainty of the structural foundations of tradition and the oblivion of the symbolic dimension of experience led to their gradual replacement by the logic of the sameness of things, characteristic of the Modern era. However, the principle of self-difference has resurfaced in the contemporary “postmodern” situation, characterized by the erosion of ideology, with history becoming a process of revealing within the depths of individual experience the perspective of a global humanity in the limitless diversity of its manifestations.

Colonialism, as a phenomenon, has long been studied within the context of European research. In recent decades, African authors have also engaged in its study, focusing particularly on the transformation of identity, which is directly linked to the legacy of colonial history. This article examines colonial mentality or “colomentality” (as coined by the renowned Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938–1987)), who emphasized that, sooner or later, it may take on an anti-colonial character. Colonial mentality is a product of a relatively short historical period and, in the historical and cultural context of Nigeria, it can be considered an integral part of both national and individual identity. Essentially, it became a “response” to the “challenge” posed by colonial powers, a result of their civilizing mission, which aimed to enlighten the “savage” black populations. The flip side of this process was the destruction of the previous Afrocentric epistemology and mentality, along with the Afrocentric worldview. Alongside the embrace of European values, there was the imposition and acceptance of double standards, the development of a tendency toward parasitic existence, and the institutionalization of segregation and violence. As a result, within the bounds of colonial mentality, two vectors of development emerged — both positive and negative. In post-colonial Nigeria, these vectors were refl ected in the revitalization of the creative energy of the local population, which manifested, on the one hand, in the dynamic development of literature, journalism, science, and entrepreneurship, and on the other, in the evolution of protest movements, which took the form of schemes and fraud. Since the mid-1970s, these movements underwent signifi cant evolution, revealing a resemblance to traditional carnival culture, acting, and play. By the turn of the 21st century, Nigeria had gained a notorious reputation as one of the most criminally corrupt countries in the world, and “Nigerian fraud” — as both a colonial and national mentality — became one of the country’s peculiar “brands” — or rather, an anti-brand.

One of the objectives of the project to develop a youth museum under the auspices of the MSU Museum of Earth Science is the popularization of scientifi c research and the creation of mechanisms for scientific and educational engagement among groups of early-career researchers. Within this framework, the annual Science Festival held at Moscow University assumes particular importance. Since 2016 the Museum of Earth Science has collaborated with the scientific and educational expedition Flotilla of Floating Universities, which ope rates in the Volga, Don, and Caspian regions. Presenting the youth museum as a mobile and network-based project at the Science Festival has proven most eff ective when combining three mechanisms: the exhibition format — temporary display of natural specimens and artifacts collected by young naturalists during expeditions; the presentational format — demonstration of popular-science books, films, and scholarly works produced with the participation of young colleagues; and the interactive format — the organization of specially designed engagement platforms. This approach was tested at the All-Russian Science Festival held on the MSU campus in 2023–2024. The exhibition featured finds from the Flotilla of Floating Universities (including prize-winning entries from the first All-Russian competition Youth and Museum) in the Volga region, and was displayed in the pavilions of the Museum of Earth Science and the MSU University Gymnasium. Key products created in collaboration with the youth museum project included the book Vernadism in the Contemporary University and the popular-science film The Brotherhood of Scientific Creativity: Vladimir Vernadsky’s Floating University, continuously screened throughout the event. Specially designed interactive platforms were also presented, including Virtual Reality in Museum Space: VR-Travel into the Geological Past of the East European Plain (developed by winners of the Youth and Museum competition), which enabled visitors to experience participation in an actual Flotilla of Floating Universities scientific expedition through VR technologies and curated video content, and S.N. Vinogradsky’s Column: A Living Demonstration of Ecosystem Evolution in Real Time. In addition, an expeditionarylaboratory practicum, Cosmic Traces on Earth, was conducted by students of the MSU University Gymnasium.

The focal point of this study is the analysis of textbooks and educational materials dedicated to the events of World War II and the Great Patriotic War. The research draws on books published in eight post-Soviet states: the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus, Ukraine, the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Republic of Tajikistan. The authors aim to assess the extent to which the historical truth regarding these two major wars of the twentieth century is preserved in these countries, or whether the causes, events, and outcomes of these wars are misrepresented. This study aligns with recent legislative measures in the Russian Federation, including amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the Presidential Decree No. 400 “On the Strategy of National Security of the Russian Federation” (2 July 2021), and the Presidential Decree No. 611 “On Approving the Concept of Humanitarian Policy of the Russian Federation Abroad” (5 September 2022). These documents emphasize the careful and impartial study of the history of Russian statehood at all stages of its development. A key milestone in this context is the Great Patriotic War, which, in some countries that were once part of the USSR, has been reassessed from perspectives that foster the “detachment” of both younger generations — schoolchildren and students — and older generations from the heroic past of their countries. This state-driven approach is intertwined with the shaping of public opinion aimed at distorting the image of true heroes and creating myths about how many opponents of Soviet power were supposedly representatives of the national interests of the majority of the populations in certain national republics of the USSR. As evidenced by the case of Ukraine, this trajectory — specifically, the establishment of a state-sanctioned nationalist ideology — leads not only to societal division but also to civil unrest.

The history of Soviet journalism during the Great Patriotic War has been fairly well researched. Studies on the history of journalism typically analyze how military events were covered in the media and the picture of the war that journalists created. However, the experience of Soviet war correspondents during the war has been scarcely studied. Th is article proposes a different approach to the analysis of the accumulated historical material, specifically: it examines the emotional and psychological state of journalists at war, the peculiarities of their work and daily life. The empirical basis of the research includes both the wartime diaries and the memoirs of Soviet journalists written in the postwar period. A broad array of material has been analyzed, allowing the structure of the study to focus on the war correspondent themselves. The study identifies a range of issues faced by war correspondents during the Great Patriotic War, such as professional problems of selecting information for publication, specific methods of gathering material, as well as ethical dilemmas, and the emotional overloads experienced by journalists. The most informative source for this research was the memoirs of the chief editor of the central military newspaper Red Star, D.I. Ortenberg. His focus was on the working conditions, impressions, and difficulties faced by journalists when selecting topics for publication and interpreting the events they encountered. To a certain extent, the portrayal of their own work in wartime is reflected in the correspondents’ publications, although during military actions, many facts could not be written about due to censorship or ideological restrictions. This study also addresses the topic of “truthfulness” — the truth about the war, as understood by journalists, participants, and witnesses of the events. The research is relevant for analyzing the work of contemporary Russian war correspondents, despite historical differences. It highlights a range of professional, ethical, and psychological issues faced by journalists who carry out their duties in wartime conditions or conflict situations.

Considerable scholarly and public interest has been drawn to political emotions as a crucial component of mass consciousness. To understand the period of Russian history preceding the revolutionary crisis of 1917 and continuing after the fall of tsarism, it is important to analyze the genesis and dynamics of political emotions that encompassed all strata of society and, to a significant extent, shaped political behavior. This problem is explored in V.B. Aksenov’s recent book The War of Patriotisms. Propaganda and Mass Sentiments in Russia during the Collapse of Empire (2023). Among the most salient emotions of this transformative time was patriotism, which manifested itself in diverse and often sharply contrasting forms. These various “patriotisms” reflected both affective bonds of friendship, love, and solidarity within groups, and emotions directed outward — anger and rejection of the “other”. Propaganda, exerting strong influence on the psycho-emotional condition of society, played a key role in shaping the dynamics of the affective components of mass consciousness during the empire’s collapse, generating different versions not only of patriotic awareness but also of political behavior. The centrality of emotions and affects in the formation of collective identities intensified propagandistic appeals to such concepts as “fatherland,” “people,” and “national community”. In late-imperial Russia, multiple versions of patriotism coexisted and frequently overlapped, including loyalist, conservative, statist, paternalist, military, civic, and revolutionary forms, each with its own ideological coloring. Yet an “ideology of patriotism”, were such a thing to exist, would necessarily be constructed around the search for markers — whether in the past, present, or imagined future — of an idealized, better country as the object of patriotic feeling. The history of Russia, as elsewhere, shows that patriotism, as a predominantly affective sentiment, is not identical with a rationally articulated and conceptually coherent system of ideas, that is, an ideology. Equally important is the problem of the historical genesis of patriotism: it emerges when essentially medieval loyalty to a suzerain gives way to loyalty to the fatherland and to fellow citizens.

Several 18th century missionary projects to christianize the Indians of New England clearly show the desire of Puritan missionaries to achieve the Anglicization of the Indians, that is, their assimilation into the English-speaking environment, which implied the rejection of traditional Indian culture and way of life, the imposition of English culture and value system, and the inclusion of North American Indians in the orbit of British colonial interests.. The crowning achievement of these efforts was the establishment of Dartmouth College in 1769. In the minds of the New England colonists, the image of the Indian — a treacherous pagan barbarian leading an unworthy life — was undoubtedly dominant. In discussing the difficulty of converting Indians to Christianity, especially Protestantism, researchers point out the enormous cultural differences: conversion to Christianity, in addition to changing faith, required Indians to adopt a whole range of new cultural practices, from restrictive sexual rules and patriarchal gender roles to a market lifestyle and European styles of dress and behavior. Condemning the traditional culture of the Indians, Puritan missionaries John Sargent, Eleazar Wheelock and others sought to impose on them a completely different way of life. They believed that the economic structure based on hunting and seasonal movement from one place of residence to another was the main obstacle to the christianization and civilization of the Indians. Even when attending Protestant religious services and being baptized, most Indians did not break with traditional Indian culture and maintained their commitment to their traditional lifestyle. The attitude that Christian Indians encountered in Puritan communities was hardly reminiscent of equality. The Indians complained about prejudice against them, and were constantly forced to repent of the sin of drunkenness. As a result, many converted Indians preferred to form their own congregations. Narragansett Samuel Niles, Mohegan Samuel Ashpo created Christian communities for Indians that were not controlled by white missionaries. They combined Protestantism with elements of traditional Indian culture, which shocked observers. Even the seemingly exemplary Christianized Indian — Samson Occom — retained a “dual” identity and talked about the vices of white society and the unfair treatment of the indigenous population of America

The author addresses the question of the reliability of the acts of the Synod of Split (925), which remains open to doubt, given that these documents survive only in the so-called Historia Salonitana maior, the earliest manuscript of which dates to the early sixteenth century. Convened in the metropolitan province of Salon (Split) under the jurisdiction of the Roman Church, the synod is of particular significance for its provisions concerning the Slavic (Croatian) population along the Adriatic coast. The article presents a methodology for assessing the congruence of the Split material with the ecclesio-political and legal context of the age, conventionally designated as the Carolingian period, through the close examination of a single canon. The focus of this study is on Canon 14, which draws upon Gospel texts that held a prominent place in European ecclesiastical practice of the period. Its opening clause prohibits divorce, permitting it only in cases of adultery, and, in such instances, forbids the husband to remarry. The canon’s second clause is understood to have urged the Slavs to instruct their children and household slaves in literacy, with the aim of identifying suitable candidates for the priesthood — men best fitted to carry out pastoral duties within their own communities. By comparing this provision with a range of sources, including Frankish royal and imperial capitularies, legal compilations such as the Collectio Dionysiana, and episcopal capitularies like Regino of Prüm’s collection, which systematized Carolingian material, the author demonstrates its full consonance with contemporary European practice, while advancing new interpretations, particularly the inference that children placed in training were intended for ordination. The author observes that this comparative method is equally applicable to other synodal acts; nonetheless, the constraints of space make it impossible to address the full range of matters discussed at the Synod within the scope of this article.