A poor fund of the surviving data on princely assemblies which had played an important role in political life in Russia since 11th century is well known and was scrupulously studied. The analysis of exact dates of their holding opens new possibilities in studying the Old Russian princely congresses. This approach is possible in the light of the practice widespread among the secular and clerical elite of Rus’ to combine the most important public ceremonies, including princely ones, with church celebrations of the weekly and annual cycle of services, and also to avoid them during certain periods and days of the church year. The sources of the pre­Mongolian time refer to 14 exact dates of princely gatherings in the second half of the 11th through the first third of the 13th century which allow us to reveal a connection of these events to the days of week, to the significant landmarks of the church calendar, and also to the name and funeral feasts of representatives of the ruling dynasty. The examination of the data, carried out in this article for the first time in historiography, allows us to speak of a stable tendency to appoint princely congresses on the eve and/or on the very day of one of the great feasts, an honoured church celebration on a smaller scale, a Sunday or one of the “princely” days listed above. In some cases, there is an overlap of these “calendar strategies”. This state of affairs suggests that an essential element of the ceremonial of the princely “snem” was the joint prayer of its participants during the solemn service, which not only spiritually consolidated the unity, but demonstrated it to the contemporaries. Perhaps it was during such a service that the mutual oath (the kissing of the cross) was taken if the princes reached any decisions, binding them to further joint action. The results of the study are interesting in terms of characterizing the ideological component of the princely culture of pre­Mongolian times and the temporal culture of Russia in the first centuries after its baptism.

The idea that church reforms of Peter the Great had antiecclesiastical character originated with the Slavophiles in the course of their philosophical pursuit: the decline of the Christian Church after the French Revolution resulted from the aberrations of Western Christianity, but Russia could avoid this decline by purifying Orthodoxy from alien Western ideas uncritically absorbed during the Petrine reforms. However, the thesis that the Russian Church should be freed from the power of the secular state only took its final shape in postreform political journalism as an argument that allowed to counterpose the Orthodox Church against the Romanov autocratic monarchy. In the prerevolutionary years, the journalistic thesis of the antiecclesiastical focus of the Petrine reforms became the basis for a series of politicized academic works intended to substantiate the calls of opposition figures for radical changes in churchstate relations. These works applied ideas of Max Weber, who viewed secularization as a process of cultural transformation in the transition to modernity, to the history of the Russian Church, and argued that the Church in the 17th-18th centuries underwent secularization and secularism. The writers of the Russian diaspora made the thesis of the secularization of the Orthodox Church after the Petrine reforms one of the corner stones of their concept of the history of Russian Orthodoxy. The works of Fr. G. Florovsky, G.P. Fedotov and their students became a classic for Western historiography of Orthodoxy, established in the postwar period. Through the writings of scholars from the TartusMoscow and Leningrad schools, Soviet historians became acquainted with the ideas of the authors of the Russian diaspora. The abandoning of secularization theory and the emergence of new concepts of European religious history led to the fact that from the 1980s scholars began questioning the longheld view of the Russian Empire's Orthodox Church as a “servant of the state”. However, even in the early 21st century the most common interpretation of the Petrine Church reforms is still the one which stems from the works of prerevolutionary authors.

After the restoration of diplomatic relations with Russia in 1731, Great Britain began to fight vigorously for the trading privileges lost under Peter the Great. The Russian government was interested in building a defensive alliance with the English during the RussoTurkish War (1735-1739). To achieve these aims, British and Russian diplomats engaged in a complex and lengthy negotiation process that culminated in a trade treaty in 1734 and a treaty of alliance in 1741. While the history of the trade treaty has been covered in considerable detail in historical literature, the treaty of alliance so far has been studied superficially. On the basis of the analysis of diplomatic correspondence of British Ambassador to Russia Edward Finch and Secretary of State Lord Harrington, the author for the first time examines the diplomatic “kitchen” of the preparation and conclusion of the treaty of alliance, as well as strategy and tactics of British diplomacy during the negotiations. The preparation to the conclusion of the treaty took place in the context of prolonged and bitter disputes between the parties. The Russian side showed equanimity, restraint and ability to manoeuvre in difficult situations, although individual statesmen (E.I. Biron) defended the interests of the British rather than their own country. British diplomacy went to considerable lengths to ensure that the treaty was concluded with maximum advantage to Great Britain. The long duration of the negotiations concerning the RussianBritish Defence Treaty ended in 1741, but its implementation was delayed by the coup d’état in Russia that brought Elizabeth Petrovna to power. Although the English king had ratified the treaty of alliance, Russia refused to do so, as Great Britain had failed to fulfill one of its main conditions: England did not send a squadron of ships into the Baltic when Russia entered into war with Sweden in 1742. Thus, the treaty, a stumbling block in the parties’ diplomatic duel, was not implemented in practice, but survived only on paper.

The article examines the evolution of the image of K. Kalinoŭski and other figures of the 1863-1864 uprising in Soviet historiography, the main problems discussed in the works of historians, and evaluations of January Uprising’s leaders. Philologist and historian Vacłaŭ Łastoŭski was the first who presented K. Kalinoŭski as a figure of the Belarusian national movement in his article in 1916. This tradition was adopted by Soviet historiography through Usevalad Ignatoŭski, who created a nationallyoriented conception of Belarusian history in the 1920s. the At the end of the 1920s, Samuil Agurski argued that the 1863 uprising was rather a manifestation of Polish chauvinism. During the postwar years, the focus of the study of the uprising of 1863-1864 changed: instead of emphasizing the antiPolish features of the Lithuanian “Reds”, the Soviet scholars emphasized the RussianPolish revolutionary alliance against the autocracy and common approaches of Polish insurgents and Russian revolutionary democrats. Changes in the interpretation of Kalinoŭski’s image are examined through the works of V.N. Pertsev. By the beginning of the 1960s, Kalinoŭski was assigned to the group of 1863 heroes. Finally, this pantheon was formed by the 1963 jubilee year in the works by V.A. D’yakov, A.F. Smirnov, I.S. Miller and others. As early as in 1954, this pantheon included Z. Sierakowski, K. Kalinoŭski, Z. Padlewski, J. Dąbrowski, A. Potebnia, W. Wróblewski and R. Traugutt in his work “Heroes of 1863”. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet historiography again loses interest in the study of the 1863 uprising, and the research on Kalinoŭski’s activity comes to the foreground within the strictly established ideological framework. However, the late 1980s laid the foundation for a new surge of interest in K. Kalinoŭski’s activity, which was caused by a change in the general political situation and the removal of a number of the clichés inherent in Soviet historiography.

According to the widespread opinion in historiography, the political initiatives and ideas of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) were imposed solely by the will of the Soviet leadership and the dogmas of MarxistLeninist theory. The objectives of the participation of the KPD leaders in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 are described as the “Sovietization” of Spain and the search for “Trotskyists” hostile to the USSR. In this connection, the contribution of the German Communists to the antifascist Resistance is seriously underestimated, which is reflected in the researchers’ analyses of the plans for the future arrangement of Germany. When considering projects for the reorganization of postwar Germany in 1944-1945, scholars only consider the scenario of the 1917 Soviet Russia as a model for the reflections of the Communist leaders. However, perusal of archival sources suggests that the involvement of German Communists in the Spanish Civil War had a significant influence on these projects. This gave rise to the forms of Resistance which became even more relevant and advanced during the Second World War (e.g. visits by delegations of writers and politicians to prisonerofwar camps). The war showed that the theoretical concepts of the Communists underwent transformations driven by realities. It was an indication that the ideas of the KPD were similar to those of their nonCommunist contemporaries. Practices established in the Spanish Republic, which the KPD leaders did not recognize as socialist, helped to clarify the concept of a “democratic republic”, as used in the KPD’s addresses to their compatriots. Ideas borrowed by the Communists from their Spanish experience and incorporated into the projects for the future arrangement of Germany made it possible to approach problems from a national perspective. However, the Communists’ involvement in the Spanish Civil War did not bring practical success. Technical problems prevented proper propaganda dissemination from Spain, while the progress of the Fascists was a testimony to the invincibility of Hitler’s troops. Finally, the KPD members themselves, who worked clandestinely in Germany and doubted the correctness of the proposed tactics, contributed to the failure of the leaders.

The problem of children’s summer vacations became particularly acute in the USSR at the beginning of the 1960s, due to a number of reasons. A large number of children in the cities, an increase in juvenile crime etc. are some of the them. The 21st Congress of the CPSU in 1959 set the task of involving schoolchildren in production activities and, at the same time, it was the starting point for increasing the number of children’s camps. In 1960 afterschool care groups were set up to supervise children in school. In the summer, supervision was provided by camps, however their number was not enough to satisfy demand. Pioneer camps were predominantly built and maintained at the expense of large factories and trade unions. The Komsomol organisations played an active role in the functioning of the camps. They were engaged in the training of counselors, development of methodical instructions for extracurricular work. Creation of new camps became an additional line of work for them. The Komsomol budget in the 1960s and 1970s was very modest, as its source was mainly membership fees. This led to close cooperation between the Komsomol and house management, collective farms and schools. The Komsomol organisations promoted the creation of such camps, the maintenance of which did not require large financial investments. The author, relying upon a wide range of sources (documents of the Secretariat, the Bureau and the school departments of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, preserved in the fonds of the RGASPI), highlights a number of problems in this area in the 1960s and 1970s. The reports of Komsomol committees clearly show that they attempted various forms of summer recreation for children while searching for financial resources. In particular, the Central Committee of the Komsomol recommended that children should be involved in economic activities during the summer holidays. Thus, a characteristic feature of labour and rest, school, industrial, sports camps and camps for Komsomol activists established in the 1960s and 1970s was their tendency to be selfsufficient.

The article is the first in the Russian-language literature to explore the influence of non-state actors of international relations, German think tanks, on the process of solving one of the EU fundamental problems — the migration crisis. A review of the activities of think tanks shows that it is one of the most important topics for them. The research has an interdisciplinary character: in addition to the study of source material, especially analytical reviews and statistical data, it applies Kingdon’s concept of multiple streams framework and a number of other political science methods. These tools are used to assess German think tanks’ recommendations for dealing with uncontrolled migrant streams in the wake of the Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East. The recommenda￾tions are assessed according to their impact on the decision-making process and the level of further implementation in German and EU actions. The authors concludes that although the proposals of the centres are of an advisory nature, they often serve the basis for changes in national policy and adoption of new documents. The authors trace a link between the “problem stream” and the “decision stream” (in Kingdon’s terminology). Thus, the ideas of the German think tanks became the basis for the new reform of the Common European Asylum System and the proposal to create transit centres in the EU and beyond. The EU–Turkey cooperation on combating irregular migration, which began in 2015, is also being developed with their active participation. Most think tanks recommended that the EU should not create new structures to regulate migration at the EU level, but rather act within the framework of existing mechanisms. The debate on the migration crisis is still ongoing in Europe, and German think tanks are actively involved in it.

The article reveals the main stages in the biography of the famous Belarusian historian, chronicler of the Belarusian State University (BSU), organizer of the historical science and one of the heads of the BSU at the beginning of the 21st century, professor Alieh Antonavič Janoŭski. He contributed greatly not only to the Belarusian historical research and university studies, but also to the extension of cooperation between the BSU and Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU). A.A. Janoŭski worked his way up from a laboratory assistant at the Department of the History of the USSR in the pre-Soviet period to the first BSU vice-rector. The article describes his activity as a Dean of the Faculty of History in a difficult time of changes in the educational process of the BSU. He contributed to the formation of Russian studies in Belarus, the elaboration of the educational concept of the study of Russian history in Belarusian universities, and the preparation of the teaching base. A.A. Janoŭski is one of the founders of the university studies in Belarusian universities, which is aimed at showing the multifaceted significance of universities in the life of modern society. The article shows his work on comprehension and substantiation of studying intellectual history and prosopography. This has led to launching the publication of the multivolume “Intellectual Elite of Belarus”. The article highlights the main directions of Janoŭski’s activity for realization of the joint programs of the BSU and the MSU. Additionally, it contains material on his family, hobbies and areas of his interest. The authors consider especially significant Janoŭski’s works on the BSU history, its first rector and other scholars, which record the glorious pages of the development of the BSU and the MSU. They believe that Janoŭski’s life path, his service to the motherland and science, will be of interest to the Russian reader.

Ranged combat weapons (bows and arrows, darts) of the Western Balts have been largely overlooked by European archaeologists. The article examines the rarest finds in Prussian archaeology, arrowheads of the Viking age. This variety of archaeological finds in historical Prussia is quite different from the situation in Lithuania. While in Lithuania arrowheads are found mainly in fortified settlements and point at the enemy’s onslaughts, in Amberland they were found exclusively in burial sites. This is largely the result of poorly studied Prussian settlements due to objective reasons. Arrowheads have been found only occasionally in most of the funerary complexes referred to in the article, and the most probable reason for their presence in the burials is the death of the buried person. That is why they had not been removed during his/her life. The finds of arrowheads with thorns at the graveyard of the Kaup mountain area allows us to draw analogies to the similar arrowheads at the Kaukai fortified settlement of the Jatvians. This burial ground, containing the remains of West-Baltic merchants, craftsmen and commoners, who lived here in the 9th through 13th centuries, is related to the commercial settlement of the Viking Age at the planigraphic level. This settlement was an important link in the chain of trade centres of Baltic coast inhabitants and occupied an important position on the Neman amber route in the 11th and 12th centuries. We may suppose that Prussian and Couronian merchants clashed with local natives of the Upper Neman region, who used such arrowheads, judging by the finds from the Kaukai fortified settlement. Navigating the river Nemen was not always safe for these merchants. Lancet-shaped arrowheads from Kaup may be evidence of conflicts between local inhabitants and Scandinavians, who were competitors of Prussian merchants on the Baltic trade routes.

The article examines R. Recht’s Le croire et le voir. L’art des cathé- drales (XIIe–XVe siècle) (1999), which has been recently translated into Russian. The author criticizes both the monograph and its translation and highlights the main weaknesses of Recht’s concept. He also discusses the controversy concerning this book in foreign historiography and raises some topical issues related to the latest research on Gothic art. Rastorguev considers dubious the idea of increasing visuality of the cathedral space, which is allegedly linked to the new rite of displaying the Host, because Recht ignores the late Romanesque architectural tradition. His “art of cathedrals” becomes a poorly credible artificial construct, in which scholarly fashion and somewhat hasty, superficial conclusions prevail over an actual analysis of architectural form. Perhaps that is why there are many mistakes in the specific description of the architectural monuments. This article draws on an extensive historiographical material, which confirms the dubiousness of Recht’s methods and conclusions. The reviewer’s special subject is the quality of the translation, which does not stand up to criticism with regard to terminology. While the architectural analysis requires impeccable accuracy of description (which the author himself lacks), the translator adds his own faults to the author’s errors. They can be checked against contemporary and older publications, as well as on the website mappinggothic.org containing invaluable visual resources. Furthermore, the illustrations in the Russian edition do not correspond to the original ones, and they are placed out of their proper position in the most important cases (for example, in the analysis of the cathedrals of Bourges and Chartres). To conclude, the question is raised as to what should be translated on Gothic architecture, if, of course, it is not translated in the way it is done in the book under review.