The growth of the popularity of a saint is often influenced by the “external factor” — the cult is provided support from outside, both from the local authorities and the rulers of neighbouring regions. This article focuses on the life and martyrdom of two holy virgins, presented in the vita of Saint Beuno, whose cult in medieval Wales was the second most popular after Saint David’s of Wales. The main events of their lives coincide in many ways: both girls came from noble families, both had been decapitated, both were raised from the dead and turned toward monastic life by Saint Beuno. However, the traditions of their veneration subsequently evolved in different ways. The relics of one of them, Saint Gwenffrewi, in the 12th century were moved from the resting place of the saint, a small parish of Gwytherin in northern Wales, to Shrewsbury Abbey, and churches consecrated in her honour could be found even in the bordering English counties, while the other, St. Tegiwc, in fact, remained unknown even in the “native” country. The aim of this study is to elucidate the role of “external forces” that are not related to the local monastic community in the development of very local Welsh cults. The similarity of the “initial data” in the stories of both saints allows us to leave them outside the scope of the comparative analysis, focusing on the factors affecting the cult from the outside. In the first case, the interest shown by the English clergy in the little-known Welsh saint contributed to the spread of her popularity far beyond the place where the original cult appeared. In the second case, it was precisely the lack of support from the secular authorities that prevented Saint Tegiwc from becoming known outside the parish. It is relatively recently that the topics concerning the organization of the church on the territory of the Welsh kingdoms, the cults of the Welsh saints, as well as the texts linked with them have been addressed in the historiography. The future clarification of these issues will add new values to the portrait of the national identity of the modern Welsh.

The article discusses the religious polemic of the “New Lights” and “Old Lights” of the First Great Awakening era and the foundation of the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton). The First Great Awakening swept all the British colonies in North America in the 1730–1750s and evolved concurrently with the Enlightenment movement. It had a significant impact on all the aspects of the life of the colonies — religion, politics, ideology, education. For the first time, the inhabitants of the colonies, who held various religious views, experienced general spiritual uplift, the strongest emotional shock. The colonies had not yet seen anything like the Great Awakening in the scale and degree of its influence on the society. It became the first movement in American history that had a truly intercolonial character and contributed to the formation of a single religious and ideological space in British America. The first American colleges were established exclusively as institutions for the preparation of priests, and therefore it is no coincidence that the theological debates between the “Old” and “New Lights” affected teachers and students at Harvard and Yale colleges. The sermons of the “New Lights” received a special response from the colonial youth. It is not surprising that many Harvard and Yale students were active participants in mass gatherings of thousands of the believers in the open. The spirit of rivalry, religious diversity and tolerance generated by the Great Awakening led to the establishment of a new type of colleges. Unlike Harvard and Yale, supported by the secular and ecclesiastical authorities of the colonies, none of the new colleges under the new conditions of religious pluralism received financial support from the colonial government. Secular principles in teaching intensified towards the end of the colonial period, while the link of colleges with any particular denomination weakened. Complete religious uniformity gave way to a more liberal spiritual policy, even at Harvard and Yale. Established in 1746, the College of New Jersey was a compromise between the supporters and opponents of the Great Awakening, various denominations, and ideas of religious and secular education.

The subject of the research is a worldview of a 6–11-year-old child from a Polish noble family, as it is represented in the memoirs by Jan Bułhak. The aim of the study is to characterize child-rearing in the second half of the 19th century. The memories of the typical representative of the Polish nobility about his childhood are used for the first time in academic research. It allows us to see national peculiarities in the upbringing of the noble young generation and to reveal the features of the educational process in noble families, as well as in Polish families in general. The article characterizes various aspects of the family life of the Polish noblemen in the second half of the 19th century. Taking into consideration demographic factors, the analysis indicates the transition to the family of a different type with decreasing mortality and fertility. This contributed to higher attention to the problems of raising children and preparing them for the life outside the family that usually started during adolescence. Basic character traits were formed in childhood. The system of children upbringing and education in the families of Polish gentry was basically little different from the one in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. It is marked by certain disconnectedness from same-age peers, perception of one’s own position in the society as unique that was stimulated by parents and teachers, and a kind of unsystematic home education and even its occasional complete failure due to the employment of unprofessional people. The Polish noblemen were destined to participate in the life of the gentry, being part of the pan-European society. Therefore, learning French at an early stage was even more important than learning their native language. At the same time, political factors had a considerable impact upon the process of upbringing Polish children and inner-family relations. For example, they were expressed in the rejection of the Russian language, enveloping participants of Polish uprisings with an aura of heroism, etc.

The article characterizes the address calendars of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Poland as one of the most important annually published reference books on the history of the nineteenth – early twentiethcentury Empire and Kingdom. The authors attempt at demonstrating that this kind of historical sources has higher potential for use and contains extensive and versatile information that is little used by Russian scholars. While analyzing the address calendars, the authors identify important trends in governmental policy regarding the Kingdom of Poland and in perception of this policy in Russian and Polish societies. Having acquired a large part of the Principality of Warsaw by the decision of the Vienna Congress, initially the Russian authorities did not directly intervene in the administration of these territories since there were no administrative and financial resources available to them. However, after the uprisings of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864 almost all spheres of the Kingdom’s life were involved into the process of incorporation. Petersburg employed a variety of methods, among which certain significance was given to festive dates that celebrated simultaneously state and religious events. In addition, the holidays make it possible to trace not only the process of political and confessional integration of the Kingdom of Poland into the Russian Empire, but also its specific nature. Thus, the “Catalogue of the Lord’s Holidays and State Celebratory Days”, an integral part of the address calendars, along with the New Year, birthdays, days of accession and coronation, and name days of representatives of the imperial house, included Catholic and Jewish holidays. The official recognition of holidays by the supreme authority allows us to conclude that the tight political and social integration of the Kingdom of Poland went along with the policy of tolerance regarding various nationalities within the Empire. At the same time, the lists of the holidays show the intention of St. Petersburg to cultivate loyalty in various social strata of the Russian society. It was especially important, taking into consideration the tsarist government’s need to suppress the Polish liberation movement. In this context, the authors’ observations about the estate policy of Russia regarding the Polish nobility, as well as Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the Kingdom of Poland are very important.

The article concerns the Russian policy in the Balkans on the eve of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–1878 and focuses on the activity of the Russian ambassador to Constantinople, Count N.P. Ignatiev, and his associate, General R.A. Fadeev, that was carried out outside the scope of the official policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A few years before the armed conflict, they proposed a plan for the destruction of Turkey in the result of a combined attack from the south (by the forces of the khedive of Egypt, Isma’il Pasha), from the Balkan Peninsula (by the uprising of Slavic peoples instigated by Russia) and, finally, by direct military operations of the Russian army from the Caucasus. It was assumed that such an attack would lead to Egypt’s independence, restoring the Slavic states in the Balkans, and establishing Russian control over the Black Sea straits and Constantinople. This adventurous project was not entirely viable, since it neglected the international context. However, some its elements were implemented during the uprising in the Balkans that started in 1875, when Russia helped the Bulgarians and Serbs, and, finally, certain ideas of the Ignatiev–Fadeev plan were reflected in the content of the preliminary San Stefano Peace Treaty. But the most important was that Saint Petersburg simultaneously followed two different directions in its policy – the Ignatiev–Fadeev plan, worked out to resolve the Balkan problems between Russia and Turkey, “one on one”, and the official policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed by Prince A.M. Gorchakov, who relied on the decisions of the “concert of powers”. This ambivalence was evident at various levels, including Alexander II’s decisions. It predetermined the considerable differences between the terms of the San Stefano Peace Treaty and the 1878 Berlin Congress. Such a split of Saint Petersburg’s foreign policy resulted in a decline in the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the global stage. This decline further evolved and affected the situation in the 1880–1890s.

The conclusion of the Locarno Accords in 1925 that defused to some extent the tense situation in Europe contributed to the appearance of other draft regional pacts — the Balkan, Baltic and East Locarnos. One of these draft treaties covered the Mediterranean region where there was no effective security system after WWI. The article discusses Barthou’s diplomatic measures for concluding a Mediterranean agreement. This idea dates back to the turn of the 1920s. Since this subject has not been adequately dealt with in the literature, the author, on the basis of various sources including little-known material from the archive of the French diplomat R. Massigli, analyzes the attitude of the French foreign minister to the agreement, specific measures that were taken for its implementation, and its significance among other French regional initiatives. The agreement covering the Mediterranean countries was to become one of the elements of the security system that the French minister was working on, although it did not play a primary role in his foreign policy since the French diplomacy regarded as the main threat Germany. Being the foreign minister, Barthou repeatedly evoked the idea of the pact, while modifying the list of its members due to the international situation. The simultaneous participation of Italy and Yugoslavia was fundamental. Their support was necessary in building the French minister’s security system. Nevertheless, he himself did not intend to initiate the conclusion of such an agreement, attempting to present it as a regional project. In the case of implementing the Mediterranean pact, Barthou thought to achieve rapprochement with Italy and to strengthen the influence of France in the Balkan region. However, this agreement did not meet the interests of other Mediterranean countries, and therefore, the French Minister’s attempts to include the draft pact in the international agenda were unsuccessful.

The influence of the medieval literary tradition, having survived through centuries, is manifested in diverse areas in present-day life of Iceland. The article identifies main sources of knowledge about the medieval literary tradition available to Icelanders today through, for example, education. Interviews, place names, museum exhibitions, academic and local journalistic publications show the presence of “Sagas of Icelanders” and skaldic poetry in the country’s cultural, social, political and economic life. The names of rivers, lakes, bays, mountains, and particular areas remain unchanged from the time of the settlement of Iceland, just as they are reflected in medieval literature. Many streets of the towns and villages bear names associated with the names of the main characters of sagas. Significant events mentioned in the medieval literary tradition are reflected in local and national holidays. The people of the country get acquainted with the “Sagas of Icelanders” already in kindergartens. They study them at schools, universities and secondary special educational institutions. Many museums, architectural and cultural complexes located throughout the country are devoted to “Sagas of Icelanders”. Fundamental knowledge in the field of “Sagas of Icelanders” is also spread among priests, who mention them communicating with their parishioners. Ancient texts are still used as evidence in litigations regarding land ownership rights. The author demonstrates the importance of the Icelandic literary heritage at all levels, from villages and families to the Althing and government. The study results are presented in the context of the historiography of the world epic heritage and the Icelandic medieval literary tradition. Its most scholars have seen this tradition in the historical, cultural and literary contexts of the relevant period of history. The works on the impact of this tradition on certain aspects of the country’s life in the 21st century have recently begun to appear. However, comprehensive research on this subject is still to be done.

The article deals with the images of horses and “horse-like” animals on items from the archaeological sites of the Tagar culture, as well as from the sites of the same period from neighbouring regions (Tuva and Tomsk region), represented in this work as fully as possible. A historiographic review of the research topic has revealed the lack of stylistic analysis of the image of a horse in Tagar art that would take into account all the up-to-date data. This study purpose is to fill the gap. It involves the images published in literature, as well as the objects studied and sketched by the author directly in the funds of the State Historical Museum and the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These images are not numerous, but quite stylistically diverse and made on a wide variety of items. It should be noted that most of the samples belong to the category of random finds, and the “horse-like” images noticeably prevail over the ones of horses. The article is an attempt at systematization and stylistic analysis of the images that were divided into two large categories (fullfigure and reduced representations) with further identification of groups and types within each category. The analysis allows new interpretations of already known images, previously correlated with the horse representation. It also allows revealing the dynamics of the development of the horse image in Tagar art. The two chronological stylistic groups of images, very shortly overlapping, have been distinguished. The early group is performed in the “Minusinsk style” (related to the Karasuk pictorial tradition), and the later one is represented by the “Altai style” images. Their analysis allows to conclude that stylistic changes in Tagar art were linked with the penetration of new ethnic groups into the Minusinsk hollow. In general, the influence of horse-breeding culture on the life of the settled Tagar population is quite noticeable..

The article deals with metal items discovered at the beginning of the 20th century near the village Nikol’skoye in the Nurimanovsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan, in the eroded bank of the Ufa River. Scholars have repeatedly turned to the material of the collection, but there has been so far no consensus regarding its origin. According to A.V. Shmidt, these artifacts point to the existence of a necropolis in this area, which, along with the Novikovsky, Bakhmutino and Birsk burial grounds, can be attributed to the late sites of the Bakhmutino culture identified by Shmidt. A.P. Smirnov defined the discovered items as a hoard belonging to representatives of the clan nobility of the “late Bakhmutino or post-Bakhmutino period”. The author of the present article analyzes the finds in terms of morphology, typology, chronology, functional purpose, and genesis. In regard of functionality, these objects can be divided into the following groups: 1) head and headgear ornaments (temporal pendant); 2) neck and chest decorations (fragments of torques, beads, sulgam fibulae, plaques, pendants); 3) arm jewelry (bracelet); 4) belt fitting (buckles, false buckles, pad). These types are represented both by items of local origin and objects produced in other places in different cultural settings that evidence the variety of the Bakhmutino tribes’ contacts with neighbouring population. The author accepts A.V. Shmidt’s hypothesis of the existence of an unfound burial ground in the Ufa–Belaya interfluve area, whose separate burials could have been destroyed by water flows of the Ufa River. Judging by the discovered artifacts, the Nikol’skoye burial ground could be used in the III–VII centuries. The complexes of the Bakhmutino burial ground can be fitted into the same chronological framework, and, in comparison with the burials of the Birsk burial ground, they were less susceptible to foreign cultural influence. These conclusions remain hypothetical. The relevant archaeological surveys have to be conducted to clarify whether the Nikol’skoye burial ground really existed.

The progress of the fine art of the Italian Renaissance is a complex evolutionary process, whose key milestones are represented by outstanding oeuvres of easel and monumental painting. Many of them, especially frescos for large scale mural cycles, were acclaimed during the lifetime of their creators and patrons. For centuries to come, these works of art drew attention of many generations of scholars belonging to various historical schools of thought and representing different trends. The depth of the artist’s creative vision, innovation and a high level of execution — these are the reasons why many of the “key” monuments of the Italian Renaissance have still retained their relevance in modern art history. This article presents the history of the study and perception of one of these historiographic phenomena. The analysis of almost any aspect of the art and culture of the Renaissance Ferrara involves discussing the mural decoration of the Hall of the Months of the Palazzo Schifanoia (1469–1470). This monument of the Ferrara school of painting was the starting point for a number of trends in history and art history studies. At the same time, the perception of the ensemble of the Hall of the Months changed over the centuries depending on various factors – the political situation, the change in the stages of development of academic thought and the evolution of the methodology of art history. The analysis of the attribution process of frescoes permits one not only to reconstruct the development of art history in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries, but also to comprehend the life of the Ferrarese scholarly community at that time. In the 20th century, the murals of the Palazzo Schifanoia were decisively proclaimed paramount works of the Early Renaissance art. Continuous attempts to interpret the astrological motifs of the decoration of the Hall of the Months entailed the birth of iconology, a new trend in modern art history. Studying the modern historiography devoted to the decoration of the Hall of the Months delineates current trends in the study of the art of Ferrara. The article also provides archival data that shed light on the dramatic history of the palace itself, which is associated with the names of many prominent representatives of the d’Este dynasty.