The article examines the implementation of Catherine II's provincial reform and aims to ascertain the extent to which the principle of approximate equality of population (from 300 to 400 thousand male souls) declared in the Statute for the Administration of Provinces of 1775 was implemented in determining the boundaries of the new provinces. The article also explores the influence of other factors on the formation of the new system of administrative-territorial division. The research is grounded in the analysis of a spatial model comprising two correlated electronic maps reflecting the administrative division on the eve of the reform and after its completion, based on a wide range of cartographic and statistical sources from that era. The model facilitates the identification of the territories belonging to each of the regions (provinces and guberniyas prior to the reform, namestnichestvos and regions post-reform) and enables a comprehensive reconstruction of the land redistribution process. The maps are studied in comparison with the final data of the IV revision of 1781–1783. The study encompasses the territories where the conventional guberniya, province and uyezd division prevailed prior to the 1775 reform, including Moscow, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Saint Petersburg, Smolensk, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Belgorod, Kazan, Orenburg and Astrakhan guberniyas. The territories comprising Vyborg, Livonia and Estland guberniyas, in conjunction with those regions of Siberia, the territories that were acquired by the initial partition of Poland, and analogous areas where such a division either was nonexistent or was founded on local traditions with notable peculiarities, fall outside the stipulated limits. The analysis indicates an absence of land exchange between the study areas and the outskirts, thereby corroborating the hypothesis that the delineation of these regions aligns with the objectives of the reform proponents. The analysis revealed that the decreed population norm was applied inconsistently when delineating the boundaries of the new namestnichestvos, with significant deviations observed both upwards and downwards from the stipulated norm. The causes of this inconsistency are attributed to the small population of the periphery, the nature of the reform, the abolition of a number of densely populated provinces, the population of which was distributed among neighboring namestnichestvos, and other factors.

The article examines the implementation of Catherine II's provincial reform and aims to ascertain the extent to which the principle of approximate equality of population (from 300 to 400 thousand male souls) declared in the Statute for the Administration of Provinces of 1775 was implemented in determining the boundaries of the new provinces. The article also explores the influence of other factors on the formation of the new system of administrative-territorial division. The research is grounded in the analysis of a spatial model comprising two correlated electronic maps reflecting the administrative division on the eve of the reform and after its completion, based on a wide range of cartographic and statistical sources from that era. The model facilitates the identification of the territories belonging to each of the regions (provinces and guberniyas prior to the reform, namestnichestvos and regions post-reform) and enables a comprehensive reconstruction of the land redistribution process. The maps are studied in comparison with the final data of the IV revision of 1781–1783. The study encompasses the territories where the conventional guberniya, province and uyezd division prevailed prior to the 1775 reform, including Moscow, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Saint Petersburg, Smolensk, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Belgorod, Kazan, Orenburg and Astrakhan guberniyas. The territories comprising Vyborg, Livonia and Estland guberniyas, in conjunction with those regions of Siberia, the territories that were acquired by the initial partition of Poland, and analogous areas where such a division either was nonexistent or was founded on local traditions with notable peculiarities, fall outside the stipulated limits. The analysis indicates an absence of land exchange between the study areas and the outskirts, thereby corroborating the hypothesis that the delineation of these regions aligns with the objectives of the reform proponents. The analysis revealed that the decreed population norm was applied inconsistently when delineating the boundaries of the new namestnichestvos, with significant deviations observed both upwards and downwards from the stipulated norm. The causes of this inconsistency are attributed to the small population of the periphery, the nature of the reform, the abolition of a number of densely populated provinces, the population of which was distributed among neighboring namestnichestvos, and other factors.

From the mid-1920s onward, A.V. Lunacharsky — who had married the young actress N.A. Rosenel, fond of a refined lifestyle — increasingly petitioned the highest party leadership for a range of nomenklatura privileges. He insisted that a service automobile be permanently assigned to him (a vehicle often used by his wife, at times provoking scandalous incidents), and he demanded free and comfortable rail travel for himself and his spouse on the railways of the USSR. In letters marked "secret", Lunacharsky asked the secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, A.S. Enukidze, and other addressees to grant him and his second family vacations at Soviet resorts, as well as a state-owned dacha for the summer season in one of the former noble estates outside Moscow. At the same time, despite his communist convictions, Lunacharsky refused to rest at the "large workers' resorts", where, in his words, "bickering, complaints, and all manner of disorder" prevailed. Considerable correspondence also concerned foreign official travel, on which Lunacharsky was accompanied by his young wife — justified either by her serious illness and need for treatment, or by physicians' advice that he not travel alone. For trips to Western Europe, the People's Commissar of Education requested travel allowances that enabled his family to live generously in capitalist countries. Lunacharsky's persistent appeals for material assistance and for the extension of various benefits to himself, his wife, and her relatives — appeals not always granted — point to his comparatively modest standing within the Soviet political elite in the second half of the 1920s and the early 1930s. These requests, and the time-consuming correspondence they generated, further undermined the authority of the head of Soviet education in the eyes of I.V. Stalin and his circle, and may have contributed to Lunacharsky's removal from the post of People's Commissar of Education in 1929.

The introductory part of the article analyzes contemporary Western historiography on the issue under consideration. In the books and articles of L. Bethell, W. LaFeber, K. Blasier, T. Halperin Donghi and some other authors, only the impact of the United States on the countries of Latin America is treated in a positive light, while the most important events of the postwar years are passed over in silence. More objective assessments of the influence exerted by the USSR on the states of the continent may be found in the works of Soviet Latin Americanists, who highlight the diplomatic consequences of the Victory and the growth in mass support and militancy of the communist and labor movements. The author offers a comprehensive examination of events in Latin America associated with the Great Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. These include the establishment of diplomatic relations with most countries of the region, the expansion of left-wing and communist movements, and the widespread dissemination of progressive national reformism, which drew on Soviet achievements in industrialization, import substitution, and social transformation. The article concludes that the impact of the Great Victory in Latin America was particularly palpable in 1945–1948. In Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and a number of other countries, leaders committed to democratic reforms came to power. Well-known politicians such as J.D. Perón (Argentina) and G. Vargas (Brazil) changed their political orientation and moved to progressive positions. It required considerable effort on the part of the United States to counter these trends and roll back the advances that had been made. A broad campaign of propaganda was launched against leftist and democratic forces. By exerting unprecedented pressure on Latin American leaders, the United States turned to its own advantage the international conferences held at Chapultepec (1945) and Rio de Janeiro (1947). At the Bogotá conference (1948), it did not shrink from the assassination of the prominent progressive figure J. Gaitán and mendaciously attributed both that act and the subsequent popular uprisings ("Bogotazo") to the "machinations of the Cominform". In the end, a course was set for the reorganization of the inter-American system and for "bloc diplomacy", which became a compliant instrument of the Cold War, as well as for the orchestration of coups d'état.

Over the course of more than seven decades, U.S.–Israeli relations have undergone significant transformations that have shaped the contemporary foreign policy course of the United States in the Middle Eastern region. At the outset, the United States did not envisage the use of its armed forces in the region and sought to maintain a balance in its relations with the Arab oil-supplying states. The Palestine question, and subsequently the creation of the State of Israel, gradually introduced important adjustments into Washington's Middle Eastern strategy. Israel increasingly became the United States' principal partner in the region, while Washington found itself ever more deeply involved in the complex Arab-Israeli conflict. The present article examines the development of this issue in the first postwar years, when a new U.S. foreign policy strategy was taking shape and the problem of Palestine came to occupy an important place in the policies of several states. The watershed of the 1940s — the end of the Second World War and the onset of the Cold War — ushered in a new global foreign policy landscape and triggered a series of geopolitical crises, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has not been brought to an end because the underlying Palestine question has not been definitively resolved. An analysis of congressional materials and public opinion makes it possible to identify the importance of the Palestine question for the United States both in terms of its geopolitical interests and in light of Washington's efforts to displace traditional actors from the region. The debates and resolutions considered in Congress reflect the complexity and significance of the issue, even though the final decisions regarding Palestine ultimately remained in the hands of the executive branch. At the same time, congressional materials constitute a complex source that requires a variety of methodological approaches. The author shows that the Palestine question intersected with several strategic directions of U.S. postwar foreign policy and underscores its importance and relevance for understanding broader global processes in the region. The study employs quantitative analysis, which makes it possible to trace the peaks and troughs of discussion surrounding Palestine in 1946–1947.

After the Second World War, the idea of European integration gained wide currency in most Western European countries, despite the diversity of their economic, political, national, and cultural traditions. In addressing the exceptionally complex problem of its implementation, not only specialists from various disciplines but also historians were enlisted. The latter were charged with developing one of the key mechanisms for shaping a European community: a unified school history textbook for Western European states. In 1953–1954, under the auspices of the Council of Europe, meetings of historians were convened specifically to identify the criteria and conceptual framework for such a textbook. Academician Anna Mikhailovna Pankratova (1897–1957) found it necessary to forward the materials of these conferences to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In her accompanying letter, she proposed adopting countermeasures and organizing a campaign to expose what she described as the revision of school history textbooks in a number of Western European countries, aimed at promoting the idea of a European community. Pankratova considered it necessary to inform the directors of historical institutes and the editors of historical journals in the German Democratic Republic and in the European countries of people's democracy about the outcomes of the conferences. In Moscow, she proposed convening a meeting at which representatives of the academies, higher and secondary schools of the USSR and the European countries of people's democracy, as well as progressive historians from European capitalist countries, could present papers denouncing — according to her assessment — the activities of proponents of the European idea, whom she accused of falsifying history. Following this meeting, Pankratova recommended issuing an address to historians in all European countries, emphasizing the patriotic role of historical scholarship. She also proposed including on the agenda of the Tenth World Congress of Historians (Rome, 1955) a report devoted to the national significance and patriotic tasks of historical science, acceding to the European Cultural Convention, and participating in the Third Conference of Historians organized by the European Council. However, these proposals were rejected by the Department of Science and Culture of the CPSU Central Committee.

The authors examine the stated topic from two perspectives — historical and socio-philosophical. In American filmography, works devoted to nuclear weapons and their use were produced in accordance with the needs of their time. This logic determined the chronological framework of the article. The starting point is the first U.S. feature film devoted to nuclear weapons, released in 1947. The end point — 1964 — marks certain shifts in Soviet-American relations. Thus, the study encompasses cinematic works produced during three presidential administrations: Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy–Johnson. Each film constructs its own social stereotypes, invariably featuring confrontation with the USSR as an essential element. In keeping with the spirit of their time, the orientation of the films changed. Under the Truman administration, films justified the atomic bombings of Japan and emphasized the need for similar actions in the future. During President Eisenhower's tenure, only one film dealing with nuclear war was produced, and it portrayed an apocalyptic scenario. Following the death of President Kennedy, three films addressing aspects of U.S. nuclear policy were released. Produced in three distinct genres — comedy, drama/thriller, and detective — they each, in different ways, depicted U.S. dominance over other nations while also underscoring the importance of negotiation. All three were released in 1964. The authors argue that U.S. films devoted to nuclear war constitute a specific trend in cinematography. This trend served as a tool for shaping the mass consciousness of American citizens, fostering a negative perception of the Soviet Union and reinforcing patriotic sentiment. In the films under consideration, military personnel consistently adhere to the principles of military duty even despite catastrophic consequences. The authors of the article conclude that filmography related to nuclear weapons holds significant potential for further research through the expansion of chronological parameters, geographic scope, and thematic focus. For example, the theoretical aspects of nuclear war reflected in cinematic works warrant dedicated study.

This article examines source-critical methods for the study of corpora of visual sources. It draws on the author's work in preparing and teaching the lecture course "Source Studies of Visual Sources," required of all students specializing in source studies in the Faculty of History (Lomonosov Moscow State University). The general framework for the source criticism of visual materials was proposed by Academician I.D. Koval'chenko. The specific form in which these sources encode information about historical reality necessitates their systematic decoding by the historian and, as a rule, the use of evidence from other types of sources. For the first time, this article sets out to demonstrate the particular problems involved in studying several groups of carriers of visual information created for different purposes and at different times. In the examples selected by the author, the image — as the defining characteristic of these sources — is analyzed in the context of additional data concerning the object of study provided by written materials. Works of Old Russian painting — miniatures in illuminated chronicle compilations — served as illustrations to specific textual passages; recourse to these texts is essential for grasping the visual image. In the Russian Empire from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, the Table of Ranks helps to identify persons on the portraits. A canvas on which an event has been recorded by the brush of an eyewitness painter preserves a visual testimony to the historical fact and at the same time reflects the author's own view of the subject depicted. Caricature, as a work of satirical graphic art, represents a prompt journalistic response to an event perceived as significant by contemporaries. A specific feature of this kind of source is the combination of drawing and text: the text may complement the image, explain it, clash with it, or come into resonance with it. The invention of photography, and later of cinema, made it possible to produce sources in which the image was recorded by a technical device. By directing the lens of the camera at the subject, the photographer defined the limits of the frame. A motion picture represents an event not only visibly and figuratively but also in motion close to that of real life.

The image of winged Athena appears relatively rarely in Archaic Greek art. Only a small number of monuments in various media attest this iconography. This corpus includes fragments of architectural temple decoration, works of vase painting, glyptic art, and painted terracotta sarcophagi. Their findspots and places of manufacture are geographically diverse: Asia Minor, Attica, and Etruria. Most of these objects are dated to the late sixth century BCE and coexist with numerous other representations of Athena without wings, following an established and readily recognizable iconography. Depictions of the chief Olympian gods (for example, Zeus) as winged are in general exceedingly rare and belong almost exclusively to the early Archaic period (with the exception of Artemis). Moreover, by the end of the sixth century BCE a fixed iconographic repertoire had formed for a specific group of gods and goddesses conventionally depicted with wings, among them Eos, Iris, Eris, Boreas, and others. Athena clearly did not belong to this group. There is no doubt that the artists who created images of winged Athena were fully aware of the canonical types for representing the goddess, and that there must have been compelling reasons to depart from the accepted norm. These unusual features were probably connected with regional nuances in the cult of Athena. The main difficulty of interpretation lies in the absence of textual sources that would shed light on the meaning of this image. Scholars have at their disposal only the monuments themselves. Yet they are in poor state of preservation and the winged Athena is often rendered as an isolated figure, without additional attributes or accompanying figures that might assist in understanding the image. Nevertheless, without claiming to offer an exhaustive interpretation, the authors advance a series of arguments that this unusual iconography of the deity was semantically linked to one of the central themes of ancient Greek culture — namely, the theme of heroic immortality.