The purpose of the presented study is to inform the readers with a rare and unique document that was related to the history of preparing the abolition of serfdom in Russia. The letter from the Bryansk nobility of landowners, dated back to the end of January1858, was discovered among the private papers of Pavel Nikitich Tikhanov, the editorial staff member of the «Pravitel’stvennyi Vestnik» («Government Bulletin»), and until the moment it has remained unknown to historians and has not been introduced into scientific use. The problem of understanding the forthcoming reform and its consequences was reflected in the projects submitted by separate landowners, as well as in the more recent documents of the gubernial (provincial) nobility committees, but the reaction to the first tsarist rescripts, especially addressed to the St. Petersburg Military Governor–General, was only reflected in the general assessments of sentiments mentioned in the gubernial administrative reports sent to St. Petersburg.

The analysis of the interaction between the government structures and the landed gentry is possible when implementing microhistory methodology, and the document under discussion can be of great use here. The value of such materials results from their ability to verify and supplement the assessments contained in the study of the process of preparing the main reform of the 19th century in Russia, in revealing the prevailing social sentiments among the provincial nobility and its willingness to follow government decisions

The article presents some interesting facts about the history of the Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate in the United States of America. Much attention is given to the trial connected with the possession and use of St Nicholas Cathedral, which lasted for more than 10 years. The author discusses the positions taken in this law suit by the Russian Orthodox Church and the religious figures, the Soviet authorities and the Russian emigration, the American officials and the civil society, the judges and lawyers, etc. It is noted that the trial has remained the focus of world public and media for many years. The author pays special attention to the materials of the legal dispute not previously published and, first of all, to the materials from the Fund of the Council for Religious Affairs (F – P6991) of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, as well as to the materials from the US Reference Fund (F – 129) of the Archives of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation. The paper also presents a detailed analysis of the American interpretation of the laws defining the relations between the religious organizations and the civil authorities of the United States of America.

The article presents the first publication of Walter Ulbricht’s letter to L.I. Brezhnev, dated November 17, 1966 from the Federal Archives of Germany, with the status “strictly confidentially”. The 56 page letter introduces Brezhnev to important topical problems, and mainly to the relations of the GDR with imperialist countries. Ulbricht pays great attention to the international relations that, as the author considers, are fraught at that historical moment with the danger of a new war of imperialism against the socialist countries. The letter reflects Ulbricht ‘s real fear of losing the GDR as a state, and he deliberately brings Brezhnev to the only conclusion –the military strengthening of the socialist bloc and the Warsaw Pact countries, with him at the head. The economy of the capitalist countries is thought by Ulbricht to prevail historically over the socialist sector economy and he calls for not competing with them so as not to waste time. According to Ulbricht, the social and ideological foundations of the socialist countries dominate over the capitalist ones due to the working people support. Much attention is also paid in the letter to the possibility of uniting the GDR and the FRG, which can happen exclusively on the basis of the victory of socialist ideas in the FRG, which, he notes, is not possible at the moment.

The article describes the main stages of the 100 –year history of historical education at the oldest and most authoritative university of the Republic of Crimea – the former Tauride University, formed in 1918 at the height of the Civil War, and a year later, in 1919, recognized by the government of General A.I. Denikin as the “Twelfth Russian University”, now – the Crimean Federal University named after V.I. Vernadsky. The paper contains information about the fate of the archives of theTaurideUniversity– the university, in which, in 1918–1920, many prominent Russian scholars, including historians G.V. Vernadsky, B.D. Grekov, I.A. Linnichenko, Ars. I. Markevich, carried out their creative activity. Published inCrimeaduring the Civil War, the works of these scholars (they remain hardly known and do not appear in printed bibliographic directories) have been identified by the author of the article, they have been listed and there is a reference to the contemporary edition on the pages of which these works have been republished. The article presents information about the main stages in the history of historical education at the Crimean higher educational institution in the Soviet period, it also describes the cardinal changes in the system of historical education at the Crimean university after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the paper explicates the vigorous attempts undertaken in 1992–2013 to Ukrainize the university and depicts, as a consequence of these attempts, the difficult fate of the Department of Russian History.

This article analyzes the images of Antiquity used by Bernard Andre (1450–1522) in his “History of the Life and Accomplishments of Henry VII”. Bernard Andre was an extremely interesting person – he was blind but managed to make a successful career at the court of Henry VII Tudor. Andre received three enviable positions – of a court poet, a royal historiographer and the teacher of the Crown Prince. We can argue that Bernard Andre’s “History” is a perfect example of Renaissance thought – antique motives and metaphors were the basis, the connecting thread of this narrative. Bernard Andre used limited range of Greco-Roman images, but used them artfully. Images of Antiquity made his “History” sound proud and grand. Greco-Roman motives and quotation from ancient texts gave Andre opportunity to fill in information gaps. Finally, the extremely flattering image of Henry VII was created primarily by comparing the king with famous, familiar to the English audience, heroes of Roman and Greek history.

The author tries to analyze the formation and development of religious education of different denominations at the turning-point of the 19th and 20th centuries. Being multi–ethnic and varied in religious beliefs Crimean society needs special approach to the problem of education. The author gives a brief description of historical sources dedicated to religious education in Crimea. The most significant and influential organizations dealing with spiritual education were the Crimean diocese, the Karaite community and Muslim religious associations, in particular the Crimean Tatar ones. Despite the fact that in the first years of Soviet power, many archival documents were lost or destroyed, the funds of the State archive of the Republic of Crimea (GARK) allow to get an idea of various aspects of the functioning of religious educational institutions of different communities including their goals and objectives reflected in the сharter; methods of financing and management; personnel policy; peculiarities of organization and content of the educational process. Studying and adopting historical evidence, described in archives of religious educational bodies enables the researchers to understand the peculiarities of mentality of different ethnic groups and thus to cease the tension among them. This in turn contributes to the national security of the Russian Federation.

This article deals with the implicit or explicit factors in the historiography that led in the 20th century either to the success or failure of a National Archives model implementation in some of the former colonies and provinces of the European empires (Morocco, Senegal, Vietnam, Lebanon, Poland, Estonia, Finland, Bulgaria) whose archival theory and methodological principles were developed with different degrees.

Using the material of some books and articles on the history of National Archives, having scrutinized the national laws and decrees on archives and taking into account institutional reports, we have found several criteria that should be taken into account so as to ensure success when creating efficient national archives. The author considers that the effectiveness of a national archives is set in the existence of the network of subordinated local institutions, in the presence of the establishments that prepare and implement the methods and the national policy of archives, and also in the regular and representative acquisition of the most important documents in national history and in their wide communication.

The most important criteria are the previous existence in the country of central or ministerial archives, the transfer of methodology, essential elements of theory and organizational skills from the metropolis to the local authorities, and the creation (when acquiring independence) or the previous existence (during the colonial period) of local skilled bodies of archivists.

An attempt has been made to find out if the international archival cooperation or the information, regulation, methodological and normative document exchanges have proved to be useful and effective in the creation of a national archives and what is the best frame to organize the latter.

The article deals with the problem of the essence of the digital document as a social phenomenon. The paper analyses the standard established identification characteristics of the digital document, as well as the ideas about its essential characteristics in Russian and foreign science. The author expresses her opinion on the problem and presents the proof, founded on the study of a digital document on the basis of philosophical, social, and activity-oriented approaches and on the theory of social self-organization, which forms the scientific novelty of the article. The author comes to the conclusion that a digital document appeared as a result of the new technological information revolution, just like written and typewritten (man-made) documents appeared as a result of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Therefore, the essence and the social role of a digital document remain unchanged. The identification feature of a digital document, as well as of a document in analogue format, is its form (structure), including the content and the metadata. Regardless of the form of representation, in analogue format or digital, the document retains its essential properties of an evidentiary and legal force, and the essential functions – information and instrumental, which allow a digital document to serve as an information resource and a social tool. In understanding the essence of a digital document, it is important to take into account not only its relationship with the information system in which its entire life cycle takes place, but also its social role as an instrument of socially and legally significant action and social selforganization.

In the context of the contemporary study of the history of the Russian Civil War and the White Movement, as part of a biographical research, this article analyzes N.S. Larkov’s monograph “Siberian White General” (Tomsk, 2017) devoted to Anatoly Nikolayevich Pepelyaev. The starting point of the analysis is the tradition of a biographical research in the history of the White Movement already established in the Russian historiography. The author of the article notes the significant advantages of the monograph. First of all, it draws on a wide source base, including the office records of anti-Bolshevik and Soviet institutions and military units, periodicals, and personal documents. The following features should be emphasized: the logic of the narrative, the detailed analysis of A.N. Pepelyaev’s activities during the Civil War, the reasoning and persuasiveness of many of the author’s conclusions in the monograph. As N.S. Larkov reasonably points out, General A.N. Pepelyaev, being a provincial person and a military commander, was poorly versed in politics, and was often naive when entering the sphere of political activity. In fact, he was a stranger to the dictatorial regime of Admiral A.V. Kolchak, as well as to the SocialistRevolutionary-Menshevik camp. Traditionally, like many officers, he adhered to the idea of a strong statehood, and was distinguished by religiosity. Thanks to his positive qualities of an officer and a commander, A.N. Pepelyaev enjoyed great authority among his subordinates. On the other hand, as the present paper emphasizes, N.S. Larkov’s monograph was written in the framework of the traditional approach: the author did not use theoretical developments from other humanities, which would have allowed for a more qualitative and fruitful research in the field of biography studies.

The article analyzes the scientific heritage of the scholar and thinker, Professor Emeritus of the RussianStateUniversityfor the Humanities, Olga Mikhailovna Medushevskaya. The collection of her works was published in four volumes in 2017. This edition proved to be a significant event not only in Russian but also in the world science, since the works of O. M. Medushevskaya, characterized by an interdisciplinary approach, represent a model of systemic thinking, novelty in the formulation of problems and the impeccable rationale in resolving them. The humanitarian-anthropological vector of her research in the context of contemporary Human Being Studies has determined her contribution to world science. In the centre of Medushevskaya’s research is a valuable historical source as a phenomenon of human existence in an endless space-time continuum. Medushevskaya’s views on the regularities of Genesis, development and evolution of source studies and noospheric “measurement” of the information complex of sources are being discussed in the article. It is noted that Medushevskaya’s works reflect the formation and evolution of the theory and methodology of cognitive history. Another vector in the system of her views is represented by the phenomenological concept of history, which has finally been embodied in the work “History as a Rigorous Science”. With regard to the historical and documentary heritage, the phenomenological approach can be applied to the study of the manifestations of the objective and the subjective sides of archives’ activities, in which archival funds, being organically integral “clumps”, are included in the area of centralized identification, acquisition and storage of documents, as well as of their use and management.

O.M. Medushevskaya has made a unique contribution to the formation of the humanitarian integrity of science as the basis of self-awareness of mankind. That is why the innovative ideas of O.M. Medushevskaya, her scientific heritage and her Personality attract more and more researchers in the world.

[P. Peykov]