No 5 (2024)

The article presents a synthesis of the author’s findings on the antiquarian and erudite texts from  England,  France, and  Germany that were produced during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  It is demonstrated, for the first time, that  European intellectuals’ sustained interest in the construction of individual “fragments” of social reality predetermined the consistent development of certain descriptive schemes for the realisation of this project, initially focusing on the example of various categories of nobility, and subsequently on other social groups.  The author places particular emphasis on the accessibility of comprehensive techniques in conjunction with narrative schemes, which are employed in the portrayal and classification of the nobility.  Indeed, the author’s argument hinges on the assertion that such techniques facilitated this so-called antiquarian/erudite episteme, which in turn permitted the evaluation of perspectives for the construction and depiction of the “social” during this period.  Whereas a new episteme completely transfigured all foregoing workings in understanding of intra- and extra-group communications, what is meant here is an epistemological turn occurred in the  Early  Modern intellectual discourse.  Using various tools of discourse analysis, the author demonstrate, for the first time, that the kernel of the epistemological turn lies in a reinterpreting of a descriptive efficacy of the medieval corporate theory, which viewed all individual and collective agencies as collective or fictitious bodies devoid of personal identity.  The new narrative scheme introduced in antiquarian and erudite texts diversified the functional model of social relations relevant to medieval epistemology.

The process of specification of the social and, in particular, the process of demarcation between the social and the legal spheres in Early Modern European intellectual discourse exhibited both general regularities and elements contingent on the regional specificity of intellectual traditions and institutional practices. In the article, the author examines the Scottish version of this process, with the lexicography of the Scottish civil lawyer Sir John Skene (1549–1617) “De Verborum Significatione” serving as a case in point. The analysis of the social concepts included in the lexicography demonstrates that the heterogeneity of the genesis of strata and groups within the Scottish nobility, as observed by contemporaries, precluded the establishment of a hierarchy of noble titles and dignities within the Scottish kingdom. Consequently, reflection on the nobility as a social phenomenon was also prevented. Conversely, the ascendancy of civil law, with its rigorously delineated subject matter and enduring lexical apparatus, fostered the elaboration of the legal domain. However, this process also impeded the differentiation between the legal and the social. The author demonstrates that numerous concepts that would subsequently be imbued with particular social connotations within the Scottish intellectual tradition during the seventeenth century were nevertheless still regarded as an intrinsic component of the legal framework within the community of the kingdom. When referenced in the Scottish laws and parliamentary acts examined by Skene, these concepts were closely associated with legal privileges, judicial procedure, or the distinctive characteristics of property relations.

The Declaration of Armed Neutrality, proclaimed by Empress Catherine II on 10 March (O.S. 28 February) 1780, constituted one of the most significant Russian international legal acts of the eighteenth century. During the US War of Independence (1775–1783), which resulted in a war between Great Britain and a coalition of states, the primary objective of the principles set forth in the declaration was to safeguard the rights of maritime neutrality. This allowed ships of neutral countries to continue trade with the belligerent powers without impediment. As a result of the endeavours of Russian diplomacy, the First League of Armed Neutrality (1780–1783) was established. The Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was among the inaugural members. Historically, the Republic’s accession to the League of Armed Neutrality has not been a subject of extensive examination. Consequently, this article represents an initial contribution to the field of research on this matter. The study draws on the documents of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, more specifically the reports of Dmitry Golitsyn, Envoy Extraordinary of the Russian Empire to the States General of the Republic. The envoy’s reports are written in French and have been translated by the author of the article. The study focuses on documents from the period between 1778 and 1781, providing a detailed account of the foreign and domestic political life of the Republic. The author addresses several key issues, including the perception of the Russian Declaration of Armed Neutrality in the United Provinces, the rationale behind the States General’s decision to join the League of Armed Neutrality, and the operational dynamics of the Republic’s political decision-making process. The author presents a compelling argument that the accession of the United Provinces to the First League of Armed Neutrality was a strategic move that aligned with the Republic’s long-standing policy of maintaining neutrality towards foreign countries, a stance it had adopted since the mid-1750s. Additionally, the author highlights the Republic’s interest in strengthening its ties with Russia, which was a significant factor in its decision to join the League. Nevertheless, the opposition of England and the subsequent outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War prevented the United Provinces from becoming an active participant in the League of Armed Neutrality.

In the article, the author analyses the discussions that took place in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid between 1 and 4 March 1848 regarding a bill that would transfer extraordinary powers to the government of General Narváez. He situates them within the broader context of the events that transpired in Spain during the spring of 1848, subsequently analysing the principal arguments advanced by the various parties. Those of the progressive persuasion who assailed the bill called for action in strict accordance with the law, but in essence sought to deny the government the right to resist what it regarded as the revolutionary threat. The Moderados, who represented the party in power, defended the government’s right, among other things, to take preventive measures to protect against the revolution. The author underscores that in Spain, there were merely two remaining parties, with varying specifics but similar overarching tenets. Both the Moderados and the progressives represented a central position within the political spectrum, aligning with the principles of liberalism. Some of them were of the opinion that large-scale reforms were necessary, while others preferred a gradual approach to innovation. However, neither of these perspectives envisioned Spain without a constitutional monarchy, particularly without the monarchy established by Isabella II. Radicals on both sides, both right and left, were expelled from the country with the assistance of French and British military forces. Consequently, the author characterises Spain under Isabella II as a state with limited sovereignty.

In the article, the author presents a review of reports on the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee (1887) in the leading newspapers and magazines of the Russian Empire, including The Government Gazette and Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti. Additionally, the following periodicals were consulted: “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, “Novoe Vremya”, “Novorossiyskiy Telegraph”, “Vestnik Evropy” and “Vsemirnaya Illyustratsiya”, among others. Given the plethora of literature on the period of Queen Victoria’s reign and the growing interest in jubilee practices amongst British scholars, this topic has yet to be considered from that particular perspective. The article is divided into several thematic sections, including an examination of the characteristics of Russian periodicals, a comprehensive account of the jubilee celebrations themselves, an analysis of the participation of members of the Russian imperial family in the festivities, a discussion of Britain’s role as a colonial power, and more. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, periodicals constituted the principal source of information, and thus were in high demand. On the one hand, the press facilitated the formation of public opinion, thereby serving as an effective conduit for disseminating significant domestic and foreign policy developments. On the other hand, as the number of newspapers proliferated, publishers were compelled to increasingly prioritise the interests of their readership. At that time, telegraph agencies played a pivotal role in the circulation of international news, to some extent standardising the dissemination of information. Concurrently, there were publications that could claim to have their own correspondents on the ground, thereby facilitating the acquisition of a range of exclusive information. The capital’s newspapers and magazines set the tone for the provincial press, which was often constrained to lengthy reprints. Consequently, the Russian public could access news from places as distant as Great Britain.

Western democracies have endowed NATO with the functions of “containment” of Russia and influential non-Western powers in general. This process is accompanied by a spasmodic growth of the Alliance’s military capabilities and changes in its internal structure. The principal responsibility for the implementation of the aforementioned measures falls upon the European member states, particularly those which have been members of the Alliance for a considerable length of time. Of these, Germany has demonstrated the most considerable commitment. Although some studies have examined the evolution of the Alliance’s military structures, there is a dearth of literature on Germany’s role in the Alliance within the field of Russian historiography. Nevertheless, an analysis of this topic is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of Berlin’s strategic intentions. The objective of this article is to examine the role of the FRG in relation to the functioning of permanent NATO troops. In order to achieve this, the author employs two distinct theoretical frameworks, namely those of alliance theory and military capability building, in combination with a comparative analysis approach. The author illustrates the distinctive features of the evolution of permanent NATO force groups and elucidates the challenges, including a shortage of military personnel, and opportunities, including limited activity by other NATO member states, that have influenced the utilisation of the Bundeswehr in the functioning of the groups. In light of the aforementioned conceptual and operational documents, which serve as the foundation for Germany’s foreign policy, the article posits that the Federal Republic of Germany is prepared to assume a leading role within the European NATO member state contingent with regard to the operationalisation of multilateral troop groupings.

In this article, the author examines the concept of “cultural conquest” in the context of the Russian Empire’s policy towards the Caspian provinces of Iran, both prior to and during the Great War. In the period preceding the outbreak of hostilities, Russian peasant colonists began to settle in the Astarabad province, while concurrently, significant Russian land ownership emerged in the southern Caspian region. These developments were subjected to rigorous scrutiny by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Resettlement Department, and other pertinent authorities. The phenomenon is not adequately represented in historiography, despite its significance in the context of New Imperial History. One of the pivotal concepts employed in analysing and comprehending the processes of Russian expansion into the region was the notion of “cultural conquest”. This category was actively employed by both state and non-state actors to conceptualise the ongoing economic, political, and cultural interactions in a crucial frontier region. The analysis of a wide range of materials, including archival and published sources such as diplomatic correspondence, concession projects, and publications by officials from the Resettlement Department, has been conducted with the aim of investigating the contexts of the use of the category “cultural conquest” (and related terms) as well as proposed options for optimal policy in the region. The author indicates that this concept was of a framework nature and comprised three principal components: political, economic, and civilisational. He demonstrates that despite significant similarities in the interpretations of the concept by different actors, there were differences in understanding the methods and optimal ways of “cultural conquest” of the Caspian provinces.

In the article, the author examines the supply of arms from the Soviet republics to Turkey between 1920 and 1922. He primarily draws on documents from the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA) to elucidate the scope and dynamics of the arms supplies, which were instrumental in enabling Turkey to defend its independence and territorial integrity in the challenging struggle with the Entente states. The available evidence indicates that, with the exception of a brief period in late 1920, Russia consistently supplied arms to the best of its capabilities, even during the cooling of relations in early March 1921. While Soviet-made weapons played a pivotal role in the Turkish Army’s operations against Armenia, they were particularly instrumental in its victory at Sakarya. As the Greco-Turkish War drew to a close, the Soviet contribution to the conflict diminished as French weapons began to arrive. However, Soviet gold also became a means of financing this military aid. By comparing the data from the RGVA documents with the estimates previously published in Russia that referenced Turkish sources, the author concludes that the materials preserved in the Russian archive provide a more accurate assessment of the scale, quality, and dynamics of the supplies provided. The quality of weapons provided was sufficiently high to enable effective resistance to the Greek invasion of Anatolia.

In the article, the author examines Leningrad scientists’ business trips to Germany in the 1920s as one of the directions of technology transfer mechanism implementation. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the example of Leningrad shows the substance of this line of transfer, as well as a general assessment of its effectiveness. Thus, the historical memory of a unique experience is restored, which may be of interest at the present stage of Russia’s development. The study focuses on the problems of scientific and technical international cooperation with local scientific communities. This fills a gap in historical scholarship, as the specifics of such cooperation are considered mainly either at a community level or at the level of an individual organisation or individual. The main goal of the study is to determine the extent to which the contacts between Leningrad scientists and German specialists, established in the 1920s, influenced the modernisation of the Leningrad industrial complex. Research objectives are: to analyse the main cooperation directions between Leningrad scientists and German institutes, scientific centres, and laboratories in the period under consideration; to classify business trips, to identify general patterns, and to analyse the specific features of different types of business trips and their results. The article draws on a broad source base that includes previously unpublished archive documentation of the Russian State Academy of Economics, Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, and the Central State Academy of Technical Sciences of St. Petersburg. In the course of the study, drawing on specific cases, it was demonstrated that the active involvement of scientific personnel in Petrograd/Leningrad contributed to the accelerated development of a number of Soviet industries, such as diesel engineering, turbo and hydraulic turbine engineering, chemical processing of peat and shale, etc., made it possible to form the necessary technical base, as well as develop the human resources of scientific institutions and enterprises of the city.

In the article, the author examines the function of ambiguity and contradiction in the Soviet official political language of the Thaw period in the context of internal and external political transformations. The two-volume publication, entitled “Mission of Friendship: N.A. Bulganin and N.S. Khrushchev’s Visit to India, Burma, Afghanistan”, published in 1956 and dedicated to the journey undertaken a year prior, serves as the principal source. Recent historiography has devoted significant attention to the internal contradictions and inconsistency of Soviet policy, particularly the clash between domestic and foreign policy objectives in the context of decolonisation processes from the 1950s to the 1970s. This shift in focus has marked a notable departure from the dominant theoretical perspective of totalitarianism. In examining the case of Bulganin and Khrushchev’s visit to Burma, the author seeks to discern the underlying contradictions, their degree of explicitness in the official Soviet text, and their impact on foreign and domestic policy. The analysis reveals that the ambivalence evident in the official narrative was, in large part, a strategic maneuver, though in many instances, it was the product of ad hoc improvisation aimed at harmonizing disparate political objectives. The existence of contradictions and ambivalences enabled the emergence of disparate political discourses, which undermined the rigidity of the official Soviet rhetoric while simultaneously rendering it more adaptable and malleable.

The author analyses the evolution of a new historical narrative in Latvia during the era of Perestroika, a period marked by the emergence of numerous public initiatives springing from political and social movements. One of the key initiatives was the restoration of the memory of ‘forgotten pages of history’, namely events and individuals who had been erased from the historical record in the Soviet Union for ideological reasons. Given that the restoration of state sovereignty was a central objective of this period, the “revival” of commemorative dates related to the history of the Republic of Latvia’s first independence (1918–1940) was a logical consequence of the search for one’s roots. A number of historical events were not only integrated into the collective memory but also referenced in political documents designed to reinstate national sovereignty. One of the primary objectives of this process was to construct a new historical narrative that would assert continuity and legal identity between the Republic of Latvia of the interwar period and the one that emerged in the late Soviet era, seeking to secede from the USSR and regain its lost independence. The formulation of the doctrine of national continuity entailed, on the one hand, the pursuit of reference points that would serve as the basis for a new state and national identity, and, on the other hand, encompassed a public discourse on the “black pages” of history, reflecting the aspiration to overcome the challenging historical legacy associated with the loss of independence in 1940 and to establish a framework for legitimate international relations.