In the 18th century, a number of Western European political treatises were translated in Russia, significantly influencing the formation of political language. Translators often used direct calques and borrowed terminology from European languages. However, in the second half of the century, linguistic purism and related eff orts to create indigenous political terminology became increasingly prevalent. Another trend was the existence of diglossia: translators often used Church Slavonic expressions alongside modern Russian in the same translations. At the beginning of the 19th century, linguistic purism became an argument for supporters of conservative political policies. Simultaneously, the ongoing borrowing of European political ideas indicates a strong liberal element in Russia’s socio-political life. This article presents the results of a study on the Russian translation of the French bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet’s treatise Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture by Ivan Ivanovich Bedrinskiy, a priest of the Epiphany Naval Cathedral, in 1802, in the context of the political trends of that time. The publication of the treatise in the Imperial printing house shows that this translation aimed for a special place in the intellectual space of the Russian state. The author of the article identifies the main political concepts of Bossuet’s treatise, reflected in Bedrinskiy’s translation: the concept of authority, the contractual theory of the origin of the state, and the idea of the common good. The omission of several themes from the original in the Russian edition can also be explained, particularly those related to the monarch’s special status in the Russian Empire. This includes Bossuet’s discussions on topics such as tyranny, succession, the education of the sovereign, and resistance to the sovereign. The significance of the translation can be understood by examining the political context in which it emerged, the distinctive public climate among the Russian educated nobility, and the personal motivations of the translator. These motivations are reflected in Bedrinskiy’s petition to have his translation included in the educational curriculum of public schools.

The Russian Empire’s relations with Buddhist populations have a complex and lengthy history. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the main regions where Buddhism spread — Eastern Siberia and the Pacific — were viewed from Saint Petersburg as distant peripheries, attracting little attention. However, this began to change when Russia sought to bolster its influence in the Far East and manage its relations with Asian countries, particularly the Qing Empire, which was experiencing internal social strife and facing Western colonial pressure. Unwilling to let European powers take the initiative in Asia, Russia aimed to leverage its significant Buddhist population to advance its interests in the region. Despite Buddhism’s legalization within the empire in the 18th century, some figures saw Russia’s rapprochement with this Eastern religion as misguided. They believed that granting extensive rights to non-Christians and relying on them for political gain undermined the state’s ethno-cultural unity. This stance was countered by the “Orientalist” movement, led by notable figures such as Prince E.E. Ukhtomsky, an orientalist and publicist. The influence of the “Orientalists” in government circles strengthened religious tolerance in policies toward Buddhists and encouraged the strategic use of religion in diplomatic relations with Asian nations such as Mongolia, Tibet, and Siam. The most successful policy was toward Mongolia, which gained broad autonomy aft er the 1911 Xinhai Revolution in China, thanks to Russian support. The debate between the “Orientalists” and their opponents, who held opposing views on the role of the Buddhist community, reflected the intricate political and religious dynamics occurring in Russia on the eve of the revolutions. These dynamics offer valuable insights into the evolving relationship between the Russian state and religious organizations, a subject of ongoing scholarly interest today.

The Siege of Leningrad, which began in September 1941, drastically restricted the city’s food supply, forcing Soviet leadership to implement extraordinary measures to prevent mass starvation. The introduction of rationed food distribution partially shift ed people’s reliance toward the public catering system, which, in the early months of the blockade, offered certain advantages by distributing food without strictly following the established norms. Over time, these dining halls became the cornerstone of therapeutic nutrition. By the spring of 1942, a new form of support was introduced in the Lenglavrestoran establishments for the working population: three mandatory daily hot meals, known as compulsory or rationed nutrition. This article examines the functioning of these rationed dining halls, focusing on their prevalence, available products, and service quality. Despite the importance of food supply in understanding the Leningrad blockade, this topic has been largely overlooked in historiography. Drawing on a collection of archival materials and newly published documents from city party and economic structures, this study offers the first systematic analysis of the transformation of the public catering system. This system was designed to ensure sufficient and equitable food distribution to sustain the population’s health and productivity through a network of dining halls. The article pays special attention to the interactions between various departments responsible for food supply in public catering establishments. It also identifies the objective challenges that hampered eff orts to improve service quality, enhance food standards, and diversify menus. Proposals to modernize rationed nutrition, such as introducing a combined food card that could be used in both dining halls and stores, are explored as well. Ultimately, the growing responsibilities of the public catering system led city leaders to propose the establishment of a dedicated Public Catering Department within the Leningrad City Executive Committee at the national level. In this way, rationed nutrition became a foundational element in the creation of a distinct sector within the city’s economy.

This article explores an underrepresented aspect in historiography: the logistics of the 1944 Crimean offensive operation. Key logistical challenges included the coordination of rear services at the front and army levels, the timely allocation and maneuvering of reserves and resources to support the advancing troops, and the synchronization of supply systems with industrial enterprises. These responsibilities fell under the command of General A.V. Khrulev, who had led the Red Army’s logistics operations since 1 August 1941. The peninsula’s complex natural and geographic conditions significantly influenced the course of the operation. Transportation and road maintenance were major logistical hurdles, requiring the logistics command to prioritize shipments and rely on local resources where possible. During the preparatory phase of the operation, the participating units refined their assault tactics by practicing behind a rolling barrage on specially constructed training grounds that replicated German fortifications. Harsh weather conditions forced logistical teams to find unconventional solutions. A distinctive feature of this operation, and at the same time an indicator of its problems, was the use of combat units for logistical purposes — for example, a cavalry division attached to the 4th Ukrainian Front and the Azov Military Flotilla, which supported the Separate Coastal Army. For the first time in the Black Sea Fleet and in the USSR Navy, General M.F. Kumanin, head of logistics for the Black Sea Fleet of the USSR Navy, pioneered the creation of motorized transport battalions. This innovation enabled the formation of mobile logistical groups, which provided material, technical, and medical support to advancing forces. This approach, first implemented in Crimea, was later adapted for other operations during the Great Patriotic War and the war with Japan.

This article examines the scientific and educational life of the Department of USSR History in the Feudal Period (now the Department of Russian History up to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century), one of the oldest departments at the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University, from the 1960s through the 1980s. It is based on the department’s archive, which contains meeting minutes and other materials, which were systematized and studied by the department’s staff in preparation for the 90th anniversary of the Faculty of History. During these years, the department consisted of a large and active team of about 20 employees, delivering numerous courses, conducting active methodological work, regularly presenting scientific reports at meetings, and discussing dissertations of graduate students and PhD candidates. The department’s activities were marked by extensive collaboration with various scientific institutions, archives, and museums, as well as having wide international connections, including a significant number of foreign visiting scholars from socialist countries, Western Europe and America. As one of the key graduating departments of the faculty, the Department of Feudalism paid great attention to working with undergraduate and graduate students. Many prominent modern scholars, now working in leading scientific institutions, emerged from its ranks. Professors of the department during these years — M.T. Belyavskiy, N.B. Golikova, A.D. Gorskiy, L.V. Milov, G.A. Novitskiy, and A.M. Sakharov — created large scientific schools, which continue to play an essential role in the development of historical science today. The article also characterizes the department’s eff orts to optimize the educational process and addresses how personnel issues were resolved. It highlights that the department led a vibrant, dynamic, and full-blooded life, with its meetings marked by a democratic and constructive atmosphere. The creative educational and scientific activity fostered professional growth and integration of young teachers and graduate students into university environment.

The global challenge of ensuring citizens’ guaranteed access to information and knowledge lacks a unified understanding of the processes of societal informatization in contemporary scientific discourse. To establish meaningful theoretical foundations, it is essential to consider methodological approaches to studying the information society in historical retrospect, as this deepens our understanding of the phenomenon. Despite the variety of current approaches, they all share the view that the growing role of information and knowledge, as well as the production and widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICT) across key sectors of life, are crucial conditions for the development of the information society in the modern era. The hallmark of an information society is its high level of ICT development and usage (the level of societal informatization). ICT is the driving force behind socio-economic progress, and by studying the factors and patterns of its development in the context of Moscow’s society, we can identify trends that broadly influence the development of the information society. Analyzing its formation based on historical evidence and specific processes in Moscow allows us to propose a multidimensional factor model, incorporating generalized factors (dimensions) characterized by interconnected aspects (indicators). The data clearly point to six types of dimensions, each defined by its own set of indicators. A detailed examination of these generalized factors reveals regional disparities in the development of the information society across Russia. Notably, for several years, the groups of leading and lagging regions have remained relatively stable. This underscores the hypothesis that Russia’s progression toward an information society is not only shaped by specific historical factors but also largely depends on the involvement of citizens, businesses, government agencies, and local communities, as well as their level of engagement and readiness to adopt advanced technologies.

The article analyzes new interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the relationship and mutual influence of media and conflict in the context of preserving historical memory in the modern media environment. The article examines theoretical, historical, socio-cultural and communicative aspects of the interaction and mutual influence of media and conflict in the context of the current transformation of media space and society. The authors draw conclusions about the role of media in preserving cultural and historical heritage and historical memory in the context of digitalization. They analyze the prospects for further research into the risks, challenges and conflicts arising from the volatility and uncertainty of the contemporary media environment and outline possible outcomes of work in this area. The article identifies significant changes in the way conflict is reflected in different media, and the impact of these changes on individuals and communities affected by them. It identifies the need to consider the new purposes of media texts, using the traditional functions of journalism and involving a representative segment of media consumers in the process of learning about conflict. The authors emphasize the need to analyze the multi-subject digital media environment in order to correlate two types of conflict situations (those generated by the media and those arising for other reasons), to design technologies and ways of managing the processes of media representation of conflict, and to create the necessary tools for this purpose. It is reasonable to predict that interdisciplinary analyses of the mutual influence of the phenomena of conflict and the media will broaden the current understanding of what conflict is in the situation of a new media reality that emerges as a result of the interaction of different media and their target audiences. As a possible prospect for research in this direction, the authors point out the search for ways to improve the effectiveness of media communications in order to reduce the risks of conflict and the formation of measures that are designed to harmonize the techniques of public communication. They draw attention to the importance of such developments to fill the gap in the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of media representation in the context of current problems of contemporary Russian society, including the risks of conflicts of different nature.

This article explores the transformation of the iconography of the eight heavenly commanders — each representing a distinct class of mythological beings — originating from Sanskrit sources, and how it was adapted in the Far East, culminating in the 734 CE sculpture ensemble at the Kofukuji Temple in Nara. The “Eight Legions” is a collection of individual statues that are thematically, iconographically, and stylistically interconnected. The composition of these figures draws upon sutra texts that were widely studied in temples and monasteries. In similar sculptural groups common in medieval Japanese Buddhist art, the even number of fi gures typically serves a protective function, standing before, accompanying, or symbolically guarding a central fi gure or teaching. In the case of the “Eight Legions”, the heavenly commanders turn to protect and uphold the Buddha’s teachings. This ensemble represents one of the earliest instances of a multi-figure group in Japanese Buddhist sculpture, a tradition that was prominent in the art of the Far East. The article traces the evolution of the eight heavenly commanders in both Chinese and Japanese contexts, highlighting how their names became more individualized over time. While the sculptures at Kofukuji maintain a unified stylistic approach, there is also an emphasis on creating distinct individual figures. Th ese statues differ in characteristics such as age, the presence or absence of facial hair, hairstyle, features and shape of the face. Each sculpture is equipped with recognizable iconographic attributes, applied in a consistent manner. Notably, zoomorphic and chimeric elements are concentrated on the heads and shoulders of the figures, in contrast to the original ancient Indian mythological depictions. Additionally, the depiction of animal mascarons suggests an influence from the aesthetics of Gigaku, the masked, theatrical Buddhist performances. In summary, the “Eight Legions” group represents an outstanding artistic phenomenon, where a complex canon — rooted in Buddhist textual sources and enriched with motifs from indigenous Far Eastern religions and folk traditions — was brought to life through diverse and inventive interpretations.