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 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 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 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 considers the relationship between the architectural forms of the small church of Intercession on the Nerl’, the most important and probably the most renowned monument of the mid-12th-century Vladimir- Suzdal’ architecture, and the enormous diocesan Modena cathedral, which was founded in 1099 and then built until the second half of the 20th century. According to the later, not fully verified tradition, the Church of Intercession was erected in 1165 by order of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky (1157–1174) as a church of a small monastery (this date can be considered relatively reliable). In the course of the study, it became evident that most of the forms of the Church of Intercession on the Nerl’ belong to the Italian version of the Romanesque style. Moreover, a significant part of these forms has direct analogues in the slightly earlier architecture of the cathedral in Modena, the most important and complex building of Romanesque architecture in the historical region of Emilia. Some forms of the Church of Intercession are lacking in the cathedral of Modena, and this fact evidently indicates to the “combined” structure of the Romanesque team that came to Russia to erect buildings commissioned by Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky: its core consisted of the masters associated with Modena cathedral, but there were also masters from other centers of Northern Italy or those who reproduced the architectural style of these cities. Nevertheless, Modena cathedral can be viewed as the principal source of the elements of the Church of Intercession and Prince Andrei’s earlier buildings — the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir (1158–1160) and the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin at neighbouring Bogolyubovo. One can indicate Modena as the “home address” of the team, who, though not blindly copying formal elements and following stylistic programme of Modena Cathedral in some cases developed or only modified it.

For the first time in the historical research in the Baltic, the author has created a set of images with the sacred trees of the Prussians and their northeastern neighbours, the Curonians. The sacralization of the oak and the perception of its connection with the god of thunder and lightning, characteristic of most Indo-European peoples at an early stage of the formation of their cultures, were pictorially fixed among the Prussians in the 5th century C.E. In subsequent eras, various forms of the depiction of the sacred tree indicated that it occupied an important place in the Prussian cult. This conclusion is confirmed by the written reports about the sanctuary of Romow, principal for many Baltic tribes and located in the Prussian land of Nadruvia. In the center of this sanctuary grew an evergreen sacred oak tree, while its crown concealed the images and symbols of the Prussian gods. Even after centuries of the Teutonic Order’s rule, Prussia retained the rudiments of the cult of the tree, which was the place of sacrifice for the Prussian peasants in the middle of the 17th century. Archaeological data from the Viking Age directly testify to the close ties of the Prussians and the Curonians, primarily in material culture. Whereas with the Prussians, images of the sacralized tree were already known in the Attila era, the Curonians saw them appear only in the post-Viking time. As a result, it can be assumed that the aforesaid pictorial tradition (or even the entire cult of the sacred tree) came to the area of the Curonians from their southwestern neighbours. To this very day, the old wooden buildings of Zelenogradsk (Cranz), a town located at the base of the Curonian Spit, have preserved decorative details of the pediments, showing stylized representations of a sacred tree with three branches/sprouts or a tree with a cross-shaped crown, guarded by two dragons. Considering the fact that the part of Sambia where the aforesaid city is now located, in the Viking era and thereafter received groups of the Curonians, which is evidenced in the archaeological material, it is possible to assume with a great degree of caution that the decor of the local residents’ houses showcase some Curonian visual motifs dating back to tradition of the sacred tree.

The Xiongnu Empire occupied a vast territory from the mountains of the Western Tien Shan in the west to the Liaohe River in the east, and from Transbaikalia in the north to northern China in the south (to the Great Wall). Ethnoculturally, the Xiongnu people played an important bridging role between the West and the East on the Eurasian continent. The article dwells on the topical problem — analysis and recapitulation of the historiography of Xiongnu animal style, penned by scholars from Russia, China, Mongolia, and South Korea. The author analyzes the works which discuss the topics about the art of the nomads who lived in this region in the 3d century B.C.E. — 2nd century C.E. and on this basis identifies the problematic issues and future challenges in the study of this issue. The animal style of nomads of the early Iron Age has been extensively studied as a form of art. However, it seems that the scholars did not pay enough attention to the decorative art of the Iron Age peoples of the Transbaikal region and to the Xiongnu people in particular. Xiongnu art is known mainly through the archaeological data, i.e. through artifacts decorated in a peculiar animal style, different from the previous famous Scytho-Siberian animal style. Over the past decades, none of the academic schools has conducted a generalizing study of the Xiongnu animal style. As a rule, this topic remained peripheral while cultural objects or artefacts were considered. This article identifies the main trends in studying the art of the nomads of this region at the turning of eras, which is necessary for future research on the evolution of the Xiongnu animal style, identification of its local characteristics, production of classification and clarification of dates. Also, the resulting methods can be applied to the study of art of other steppe peoples of Mongolia and Transbaikal region. Thus, a foundation for the comprehensive and systematic study of the Xiongnu animal style has been prepared and the study of this topic carries strong potential.

The paper analyzes the anti-crisis economic policy of the Russian government at the end of the Soviet Union and reveals its role in combating growing crisis in the economy. The decisive condition for the implementation of this policy in August–September 1991 was the dismantling of the Soviet Union governance institutions after the defeat of the State Emergency Committee (GKChP). In historiography, the activities of the Government of the RSFSR in this period have been insufficiently studied: the employment of previously unused sources, primarily office papers, allows to significantly expand our knowledge of its work and to offer more balanced assessment of the measures introduced by the I.S. Silaev’s government and its policies in general. In the anti-crisis policy of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR in August–September 1991, two principal trends can be distinguished: reducing food deficiency and developing market reforms. To avert hunger, the Russian government organized barter exchanges with the Soviet Union republics, established channels for directing resources from the defense industry sectors, involved the personnel and equipment of the Soviet army for harvesting, and sought ways to ensure imports of necessary goods. The main content of preparations for market reform was a structural transformation of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, launch of the process of transferring all-union property to republican jurisdiction and assessing its value, and the development of the government’s program of market reforms. The crucial problems and contradictions that influenced these preparations for the economic reform have been established on the basis of the study of structural transformations of the Council of Ministers and its administrative measures. The implementation of the anti-crisis policy of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR is considered in the context of the dynamics of inter-republic relations as one of the essential factors in the escalation of crisis. The results of the research have allowed reconsidering the role of I.S. Silaev’s government in the development of the Soviet Union and Russia after the events of August 1991.

The author focuses on the actions of Washington and Paris during the escalation of the Greek-Turkish conflict in Cyprus in 1967–1975. This conflict is regarded not as a local and regional one or as an object of the foreign policy of the United States and France, but as a clash of opposing ideologies of “Atlantic solidarity” and “Europeanism” representing the countries of Western Europe as an independent decision-making centre. The aim of the research is to evaluate the efficiency of the methods and means employed by Washington and Paris for implementing these guiding principles. In the Greek-Turkish conflict, European solidarity, promoted by France, was expressed through the boycott of the pro- American and Atlantic military dictatorship that came to power in Athens. France secretly supported Turkey within the context of its rapprochement with Muslim countries. The United States labored to prevent an aggravation of the conflict between Ankara and Athens and provided both countries with military and economic support, although with a tilt towards Greece. The escalation of the Cyprus conflict in summer of 1974 and attempts at its quick resolution in 1974–1975 entirely changed the situation: Athens became anti-American and anti-Atlantic after leaving NATO. France strived to tie Greece to itself, promising its own and pan-European support. However, Turkey unexpectedly did not turn to the pillar of the United States in the conflict. Such a shift in the US politics gave France a chance, after its failure to consolidate Europeans around Greece, to try to gain a foothold there. Instead, this attempt dispersed French forces and remained fruitless. Meanwhile, the US having the preponderance of force, political and economic resources did not allow Turkey and Greece to get out of the US control. Having revisited the struggle of France and the USA for the influence over these two Mediterranean countries during the Cyprus conflict, the author concludes that the Western Europe, led by Paris, was unable to offer an attractive and effective alternative to Atlantic solidarity in the period.

The article analyzes the German soldiers’ postcards of the 1914– 1918 World War I, epistolary practices of front-line soldiers, as well as the place and functions of postcards in the field mail of the German Empire. The war created a new situation in communication, transforming everyday verbal communication into written one. The field mail was the most important psychological resource for the soldier, asserting his identity and allowing him to withstand military trials. The German field mail service had an efficient branched structure, letters and postcards were quickly delivered free of charge. Control over the field mail was performed through two types of censorship — army and post office censorships. The use of quantitative methods has made it possible to determine such a feature of field mail correspondence as obvious predominance of postcards over letters sent from the front to the rear and circulated in the rear. A larger number of letters from the rear to the front was interpreted, inter alia, by the public requirement of giving active moral support to the soldiers. A frequent use of postcards by the soldiers themselves was due to the fact that the latter provided faster and more frequent communication than the letters, and made possible to maintain its rhythm. In addition, postcards were more practical in front-line life and required less moral, material and time costs for writing. At the same time, a soldier sometimes preferred a postcard to a letter due to the censorship requirements or the necessity to decrease pressure on postal services. Despite their widespread employment, postcards were regarded lower by the soldiers than letters that were considered more meaningful. Nevertheless, during the World War I, postcards in Germany formed the basis of the field mail. Primarily, they served as providers of the postal main function, namely, maintaining a continuous and intensive connection between the front and rear.