The changing methodology in historical research and in the humanities makes relevant the study of the patterns of merchant trading in the context of personal relations. Moreover, special attention should be paid to the development of social ties. In this sense the most representative source is the personal correspondence of the merchants, which was practically the only way of communication between the people who were even at a slight distance from each other. The large extant correspondence collection of the Veliky Ustyug merchant family of the Buldakovs covers the period of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. However, the study of social relations only through private correspondence makes it incomplete due to the inevitable omission of important biographical information about the persons mentioned in the letters by the people who knew the subject of conversation. These gaps can be filled by involving clerical materials from various departments. The study leads to the understanding of the significant role of family relations in the life of merchants. Family partnership was the most convenient and stable form of trading organization due to the fact that every partner was confident in the experience and integrity of his companion. In addition, young merchants took their first independent steps in commerce among their relatives, being “at their service”. They obtained the necessary knowledge, established business contacts and learned by the experience of their leaders. Thus, they acquired mental capital for their own trading activities. The merchants relied on the relatives when trusting relationships were needed (in case of lending money or attorney services). Their confidence in the good faith of contractors was determined by the belief that their behavior was regulated by a narrow circle to which they belonged. Moreover, there was no difference between those who were bound by blood ties, and those who were integrated through affinal relationships.

One of the achievements of the Era of the Great Reforms was the rapid progress of female education manifested in the emergence of new types of educational institutions, an increase in their number and the expansion of the movement for women’s higher education. All this was an important factor in social transformation and led to the expansion of the sphere of women’s social activities. Te adherents of the conservative camp, who generally advocated the dissemination of education, were mainly concerned with maintaining the sociopolitical stability of the all existing establishments. Alexander III’s government responded to the democratic changes in education in the Era of the Great Reforms with narrowing the curriculum by reducing the range of subjects taught, enhancing religious education and attempting to revert to the estate principle of student recruitment. Te Commission for considering some issues of women’s education began work in 1884. It included ofcials from the Departments for the Administration of the Institutions of Empress Maria, the Ministry of Public Instruction and the Department of Religious Afairs. Te establishment of the Commission was instigated by the note submitted by baroness E.F. Raden, an assistant to Empress Maria Feodorovna in the administration of the Mariinsky educational institutions. Raden’s position was fully supported in the Mariinsky department and in the Ministry of Public Instruction. Te discussion of reforms of women’s education mainly developed along the lines formulated in the baroness’s note. She believed that, taking into consideration a lack of primary and vocational schools, the excessive increase in the number of gymnasiums and granting the right to teach in educational institutions to those who did not have special pedagogical education were erroneous. Raden also considered a rash decision to open uncontrolled higher education courses and advocated strengthening moral education in schools and strict supervision over students. Te Commission, which operated from 1884 to 1890, prepared projects and proposals for reforming women’s education. Tey were mostly impractical: some of them contradicted to the Russian laws, the others - to the real practices of social life at that time. Te results of the Commission’s activity revealed the irreversibility of the trends its members opposed.

Alexander III was not the frst Russian Emperor whose death was accompanied by a special “regime of secrecy”. An overview and analysis of the information background of those events can contribute much to understanding how the supreme power and mechanisms of its “transit” functioned in that period. In the beginning of the fall of 1894, Emperor Alexander III’s health began to deteriorate sharply. In the end of September, the imperial family moved to their Crimean residence at Livadia, where Alexander died a month later. Troughout all this time, air was flled with rumors of the tsar’s disease, its possible course and outcome. Meanwhile, ofcial information about his illness was poorly disseminated. Bulletins on this matter started to be published only two weeks before his death; moreover, they were elusive and it was rather difcult to understand what was really going on with Alexander. Some readers looked in them for hidden hints, mostly farfetched, and reconstructed their own “clinical picture” on this basis. In addition, the bulletins appeared in the ofcial Pravitel’stvennyy Vestnik with a one-day delay. They were more quickly posted up in public places, and everybody had to come there to fnd out the latest news about the tsar’s health. But even there, the bulletins were not updated at a certain time interval, but as they arrived from Livadia. This irregularity, even in the imperial capital, exacerbated the uncertainty and anxiety of the society. Te clash of opposing opinions in the immediate environment of the tsar regarding how and how much information about his illness should be broadcast outside the Crimean residence provided fertile ground for all sorts of speculations and assumptions. Not only the general public, but also representatives of the highest bureaucracy, as well as those who, due to their position, usually possessed exclusive information, felt uncomfortable in the information vacuum. Tis “unhealthy” atmosphere contributed to the appearance of implausible rumors about the relations within the imperial family and scenarios of succession. All these versions were subsequently used to discredit the autocracy.

The history of Japanese prisoners of war held in NKVD (MVD) camps in the territory of the USSR and particularly in Khabarovsk Krai is complex and ambiguously interpreted. This article introduces into scholarly use the materials deposited in the archive of the regional office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Khabarovsk Krai and analyzes the progress of implementation of the camps for prisoners of war and internees in the region in the fall and winter of 1945. The documents provide information on the structure of the camp network and its staffing. Inspection materials and disciplinary sanction orders allows us to study the living and working conditions of prisoners of war, their food supply, provision of basic necessities, medical care, etc. The NKVD’s archival materials help reconstruct in detail the history of the formation of the camp network for Japanese prisoners of war in Khabarovsk Krai, taking into account the peculiarities of the NKVD’s activities in the region, and reveal the vision of the problems of the regional NKVD’s administration and the actions taken to solve them. While accommodating prisoners of war, the regional NKVD’s authorities faced a set of problems related to the lack of qualified personnel, necessary material and technical resources, as well as tight deadlines before the cold weather came on and an unexpectedly large number of prisoners. This led to an unfavorable situation in the places of detention of prisoners of war, an increase in morbidity, the damage of frostbite, and large number of escapes. Among the personnel of the camps, there were violations of discipline and delicts: incompliance with the security policy, drunkenness, illegal seizure of Japanese prisoners’ items. Nevertheless, the documents under examination show that the plight of Japanese prisoners was not due to the repressive and malicious actions of the NKVD; its authorities made maximum efforts to ensure proper conditions of the prisoners’ detention, normal food supply and medical care, as well as to stop illegal actions by the camp personnel.

The research subject is the political and socioeconomic systems of the present-day Cuban society. The article studies their evolution in the light of institutional changes enshrined in the Constitution that was adopted in 2019. A brief historical digression introduces the issue and provides an overview of the difficult socioeconomic situation in Cuba after the disintegration of the USSR. By comparing the new Constitution of Cuba with its previous version of 1976, the author further examines the key transformations in the social and political spheres and underlines an attempt to implement separation of powers, establishment of the posts of President, governors and mayors, deideologization of the society and shifting from the Marxism-Leninism ideas to the intellectual legacy of José Martí and Fidel Castro. For the first time in historiography, it is hypothesized that the Cubans strived to modify ideology to partially adaptit to the concept of the diversity (diversidad) of left forces. The study emphasizes that the Communist party remains a cornerstone of the country’s life and it is proclaimed the one and only party in Cuba in the new Constitution. The article also focuses on the changes in political leadership, the persona of the new President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his road to power and his vision of Cuban transformations. The author shows that the generation change and recruiting young politicians for the government are a progressive process under the control of the “historic generation” of the 1953-1959 revolutionaries. She also sheds light on the impact of the Armed Forces on the government and their links with state enterprises. The final part analyzes the foreign policy factor, the dynamics of Cuba’s relations with such key players in the international arena as China and Russia, and the problems in relations with the US, as well as Cuba’s position in Latin America in the context of current regional socio-economic and political processes.

The article deals with one of the leading types of funeral ceramic vessels in the Prussian archaeological culture, biconical “temporary” urns. Fragments of calcified bones were brought in these vessels from the funeral pyre and emptied in the grave. In the sixth and seventh centuries, the “temporary” urns were thrown in the grave after the bones and probably deliberately smashed. The typological analysis, a standard typology method in the archeology of the Prussians, helps establish the seriation of biconical vessels. They were dated, first relatively and then absolutely, when juxtaposed to the seriation of crossbow-shaped brooches from the archeological complexes with specific vessels. The shapes of these brooches give indications for such dating. Thus, the forms and parameters of brooches, as well as the forms of vessels are chronological indicators. The author has come to the following conclusions. First, the use of biconical vessels by a group of the Western Balts during funeral ceremonies dates back to the era of Roman influence. Second, from the early fifth century, when the archaeological culture of the Old Prussians had been molded, the inhabitants of Sambia switched from urn cremation to the cremation of subtypes 1.2 and 2.1 (bones, not placed in the urn or scattered in the remains of a funeral pyre). These rituals, like some earlier urn cremations, suggest the use of “temporary” urns, i. e. biconical vessels, to bring bones from a pyre to a grave. Third, biconical vessels lose their ornamentation, their height increased and the neck narrowed during the sixth and seventh centuries. These changes were of ceremonial significance that still remains unclear. Fourth, biconical vessels on the funeral sites of the Prussian archaeological culture date to not later than the early seventh century. The Prussians employed bronze dishes as “temporary” urns at the final stage of the Viking era and until the thirteenth century as has been evidenced by the excavations of the burial ground “Kl. Kaup”.

This study of ceramics involves the ethnographic materials. In 1959-1962, A.A. Bobrinskiy, one of the leading domestic experts in ancient pottery, conducted a questionnaire survey of the population to identify the working pottery-production centers in the European part of the RSFSR, partly in the Ukraine and Belarus. In total, more than 6 thousand letters were sent with the attached questionnaire containing questions regarding the most important details of pottery production. The survey materials are the letters (handwritten, less often typewritten, sometimes accompanied by drawings) from local authorities, teachers, employees of local history museums, potters who answered the questionnaire with varying degrees of detail. Ca. 1000 (mainly rural) centers of pottery production were identified and characterized. These documents are stored in the Scientific Industry-Specific Archive of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (A.A. Bobrinskiy’s personal archive) and only partially introduced into the scholarly discourse. They contain specific information on all stages of pottery production: selection, mining, preparation of raw materials and compositions of molding masses, constructing utensils and surface treatment, baking; as well as tools (including pottery wheel designs), heat engineering devices (furnaces and kilns), categories of pottery, vocabulary of potters, their customs and beliefs, trade relations within microregions and wider territories, etc. This valuable source characterizes the development of pottery production in the first half of the 20th century and contains specific ethnographic data, which are also important for the study of technology employed for the production of archaeological pottery finds. These unique documents can excite the interest not only of archaeologists and ethnographers, but also linguists and folklorists. “Potters’ Letters” can also be regarded as a source for studying the conditions of the rural population in the USSR in this period.

On the base of the author’s field research pursued in Georgia (USA) the article considers the social work of the churches and faith-based organizations among refugees. The goal of the article is to analyze the missionary component of the social service of Christian organizations and to determine if (or when) the missionary activities turn into proselytism. The balance of missionary and proselytism in the social work of the specific US religious organizations among refugees and the exposure of the factors helping to protect vulnerable groups from proselytism have not been investigated before. The article studies the connotations of the terms “missionary” and “proselytism” in the documents of the interfaith dialogue and the academic discourse, the views of the churches and the researches on the limits between these terms. In the documents of the interfaith dialogue the main criteria distinguishing missionary and proselytism are the methods of bringing the Gospel as well as the respect/non-respect of the free will and dignity of the mission’s addressees. The academic historiography accepts these criteria but also stresses that proselytism is connected to the deliberate attempt of changing a person’s identity and belonging. The article analyzes the social work of the churches and faith-based organizations in the context of the model of church-state relations in the USA. It demonstrates how the balance of the two main principles of this model: free exercise of religion and separation of church and state, makes the cooperation of the state with faith-based organizations not only possible but also fruitful. Such cooperation is not violation of the principle of the separation of church and state unless it involves proper religious matters, while the social service of churches and faith-based organizations is protected by the free exercise clause. The state appreciates high motivation, emotional involvement and responsibility of the faith-based organizations, doing the social work among refugees, but simultaneously it guarantees inadmissibility of proselytism towards vulnerable groups of people. There is a missionary component in the social service of the US Christian organizations among refugees, but typically various factors prevent its turning into proselytism.

Reverence for nature and sacralization of the landscape occupy an important place in the traditional Tuvan culture. Water stands out among natural objects, and its cult dominates all the others due to the perception of water as a source of life. A whole set of prohibitions and prescriptions was forged that involved attitude toward water and water resources - creeks, large and small rivers, healing springs-arzhaans, their sources, lakes. The belief in their spirits - sug eesi- reveals a special reverence of the Tuvans for nature and the world around them. The authors analyze the essence and functions of the water cult in terms of the early beliefs of the Tuvans: shamanism, tengrianism and Buddhism. The article examines the concept of sacred water in the sociological dimension. The research material has been provided by Tuvan and religious studies, especially focused on early religious practices, sacralization of nature, shamanism and Buddhism, as well as the field studies after the expeditions and investigations in 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018. The authors conclude that traditional cult practices, including the water cult, still persist and interact with other cultural phenomena. Moreover, some shifts and new practices to reproduce traditional values and patterns have been observed. The study shows that nature is the source and symbol of life, the link between the macrocosm and the microcosm in the traditional Tuvan culture. The water cult for the Tuvans is not a relic of the past, but up to now one of the most important elements of the traditional worldview and culture. This vision is embodied in the customs and rituals related to the consecration of the sources of rivers and springs, arzhaans.

The article covers the connection of the artistic heritage of Novgorod with the ancient culture of Kiev and preservation of old Kievan traditions and brought artifacts. We assume that the two large 11th-century paired icons, “Saviour in a Golden Riza” (from the 16th century in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin) and “Peter and Paul the Apostles” (Novgorod Museum) go back to the Kievan tradition. The Ostromir Gospel, the aprakos in the cathedral of Saint Sophia in Novgorod, was also composed in Kiev in 1056-1057. We believe that many miniatures of the Simon Psalter (State Historical Museum, Moscow, Khlud. 3), produced in Novgorod in the second quarter of the 14th century, go back to illustrations of the lost 11th-century Kievan manuscript. The illustrations of the Psalter to biblical songs reproduce ancient Byzantine samples of the 9th-11th centuries copied by miniaturists in Kiev. Other miniatures are replicas of lost Kievan compositions that glorified Christianity and revealed the foundations of the Christian religion. The cycles of Novgorod miniatures indicate a close relationship between the cultures of Kiev and Novgorod throughout the pre-Mongol period. The ancient Psalter in the cathedral of Saint Sophia in Novgorod, which later served as a model for manuscripts in other significant churches and monasteries, was probably long ago copied from a Kievan original. When copying, the miniaturists preserved the plot features of the compositions that epitomized the preaching of the Christian faith, and yet stylistically simplified the images. The article examines written sources and preserved artifacts by using iconographic and stylistic analysis. The identification of original cultural features plays leading role in the study of the artistic heritage of Novgorod. This work focuses on the preservation of old Kievan traditions in the art of Novgorod in the 14th century and continuity in the evolution of Russian artistic culture. No less important is the possibility to expose some phenomena in the culture of ancient Kiev.