The article, based on the documents from the personal fund of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, examines the major milestones in the biography of Glafira Ivanovna Okulova (Teodorovich).

She graduated from the Teacher Training Courses at the Society of Pupils and Teachers in Moscow. From the age of eighteen, she took an active part in the Russian revolutionary movement, she was repeatedly arrested and exiled. She has been a member of the Communist party since 1899, an agent of the illegal newspaper Iskra. She conducted campaigning and party work in Kiev, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Samara, St. Petersburg, and Moscow.

In 1903–1922 she was married I.A. Teodorovich, a revolutionary and party leader; she gave birth to two children.

After October 1917, he was a member of the VTSIK and its Presidium. She took part in the creation of the school of agitators and instructors of the AllRussian Central Executive Committee.

During the Civil War, he was the head of the Рolitical department of the Eastern front and a member of the RVS of the 1st, 8th and Reserve armies. Since 1921, he had been doing party and scientific-pedagogical work.

During the Great Patriotic War, she was the head of a boarding school for children evacuated to the Urals. After the war, she worked as a senior researcher at the Museum of the Revolution of the USSR. In 1956, she was awarded the order of Lenin.

Based on the documents of the State Archives of the Astrakhan region, the article discusses the deployment of hospitals in Astrakhan and the Astrakhan region during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. During the war, the Astrakhan region was the capital of hospitals in the South of Russia. According to the Astrakhan military Commissariat, more than 80 hospitals were founded in Astrakhan and the region. But the number of evacuation hospitals in the Astrakhan area was not constant and depended on the specific situation at the front. The authors try to consider and analyze the role of the local party and state bodies in the solution of material and consumer services, in the catering for the wounded and the sick, and in the supply of medicines to medical institutions. Under wartime conditions, the most important task of the medical institutions was to prevent the emergence and spread of epidemics and infections among the population. In hospitals, special attention was paid to the implementation of sanitary and anti-epidemic measures and compliance with the sanitary and hygienic regime. Considerable attention is paid to the new methods of treatment of the wounded and the exchange of experience of medical services in evacuation hospitals. The article highlights the huge role of medical personnel and examines the work of the Astrakhan region blood transfusion station.

This article describes the features of such historical documents as the records/transcripts of direct wire communications. The article begins with the focus on the following: the researchers of the history of the Great Patriotic War have so far paid insufficient attention to the historiographic analysis of such documents. This phenomenon resulted in the fact that historians continued using paperwork documents mainly (battle logs, directives, etc.) for their research. And it did not allow them to move beyond the classical political (military) history. The article also contains the analysis of the main characteristics of the conversation transcripts and provides justification that they mediate between paperwork documents and the sources of private origin. The similarity with the former ones is determined by the fact that the transcripts of direct line telephone talks were created to serve the bureaucratic system. From the sources of personal origin, communication records inherited a direct dialogue form between the speakers. However, beyond certain common features, there are significant differences between transcripts and paperwork documents the latter represent the type of a oneway and formal communication. The key difference from the sources of private origin is that the direct wire talks have been recorded by the third party. The last part of the present article comments on what information a researcher can get by analyzing in detail the contents of this historical source. The findings of the research are supported by numerous examples of Stalin’s activity as the Commander-in-Chief of the state’s Armed Forces during the war. Stalin’s tactical and operational proposals sent to the front command are also assessed. Besides, the article outlines the range of the issues that were in the Supreme Commander’s primary focus and close attention. The author comes to the conclusion that the true scientific evaluation of these transcripts will only become possible after having compared them with other sources on the history of the Great Patriotic War

The article considers the archival materials and printed sources related to the major milestones of the professional biography of I.G. Lezhnev, the writer and editor of the “Russia” magazine. Ideological work of I.G. Lezhnev in the first part of the 1920s connected with the issuing of «Russia» – the magazine which belonged to «SmenaVekh» ideological project can be understood through his publications in this magazine, his letters to N.V. Ustryalov published by

M.S. Agurskii, as well as through the resources in the Russian archives. The sequence of events that ended up in the closure of the “Russia” magazine and in deporting its editor, I.G. Lezhnev, “beyond the boundaries of the USSR” are revealed in the documents stored in the funds of the Russian State Archives of the Social and Political History and the Central Archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. Having researched the information found in the documents of the I.G. Lezhnev’s fund in the Russian State Archives of Literature and Art, the author of the present article reviews the professional duties of I.G. Lezhnev – the staff member of the Trade Mission of the USSR in Berlin.

The article reviews the sources describing I.G. Lezhnev’s return from Germany to the USSR, the essential role of his ‘extended membership application’ for joining the Party, his autobiographical and repenting “Notes of a Contemporary” which in many ways have become life-defining for their author; much attention is also drawn to his work in the ‘Pravda’ newspaper and other milestones of his life. The present paper has, for the first time, scrutinized the documents from the private collections, connected with the publication of Lezhnev’s “Notes of a Contemporary” in the USSR.

In a historical context, the article carries out research on the actual, but poorly studied, problems of the institution of locally venerated saints’ canonization as a specific part of the general canonization procedure performed by the Russian Orthodox Church in accordance with the unified canonization criteria. Analyzing the process of the Eparchial Sobors of Saints formation that began in the Soviet period, the author shows that throughout its existence the Russian Orthodox Church had a clear canonical and legal mechanism of the canonization of saints for both Church-wide and local veneration, but in its history until the middle of the 20th century such an institutional formation as the “Eparchial Sobors of Saints” did not exist. The article traces the transformation of the Eparchial Sobors into a semi-legal channel, which essentially cancels the basic church definitions concerning the center of church life – the sphere of saints. Considering the establishment of a new, for the Russian Church, institution as a tribute to the revolutionary era, the author deals with the anthropological and genetic problems, characterizing the origins and essence of religious materialism and of the deep foundations that determine a person’s qualities and aspirations as depending on the image ideal. The article provides sufficient evidentiary foundation to show that the substitution of a saint image opens the way to pharisaism, as a holistic worldview system, which is seen convincing and attractive from the outside, and destructive – from the inside.

The archives of the Russian diaspora, which were established abroad mainly between the two World wars and during the Cold War, reflect the most tragic periods of Russian and World history – the First and the Second World Wars, the Revolution and the Civil war in Russia. Created as a result of wars and revolutions, the archives of the Russian diaspora have become now the source for research of the history of these huge and ambiguously interpreted events. The archives of the Russian diaspora became part of a single archival heritage, organically incorporated into the global information space. At the present stage of development not only of historical research, but also of international relations, it has become necessary to eliminate the still remaining information gaps. This can be done only by the study of the archival documents: the memoirs of the participants of those events, preserved official records, the correspondence of individuals and institutions and organizations of various levels – governmental, diplomatic, international, public. Therefore, it is especially important for researchers under these circumstances to try to maintain the objectivity of research during the process of study of archival documents, which themselves were often created as a result of a hot political struggle and, some time, reflect diametrically opposed opinions of various political groups.

The article analyses the legal, regulatory and methodological basis of archives management in the 1930-1940s. During this period of time, archivists, keeping in mind the main theoretical problems of the archival science formulated in the 1920s, continued developing the basis for records evaluation procedures, description, registration and usage. The response benefited from the basic regulatory and methodological (new rules and instructions) directives administering archives’ activities. During this time, there was a discussion about the possible principles of archival documents arrangement; this discussion facilitated the advancement of the theory of funding, the techniques of sorting out the documents, describing them and registering. In the pre-war period, there was the debate concerning the choice of the best ways to create the finding aids to the GAF records. It was during this time that the key formats of records which are pertinent nowadays were introduced; the first registration guidelines were prepared. Much attention was paid to the proper use of the documents kept in state archives, to their publication, and to the working out of the archival finding aids.

The article discusses the issues connected with the development and adoption in 1941 of the Statute on the GAF of the USSR. During the war time, archivists continued working on the first in the history of archives administration normative instrument that regulated document assembling – the 1943 Schedule of Records Retention. It turned out to be the first official paper pertaining to records evaluation, their selection and acquisition by state archives of the GAF records. After the adoption of the Schedule of Records Retention, archivists expected the development of the normative instrument regulating documentation processes and improving the performance of documents in People’s Comissariats, offices and organizations.

The article explores the history of archival work in Belarus starting with September 17, 1939, when the Red Army units crossed the SovietPolish border and entered Western Belarus, until the end of World War II. Three time periods are set: September 17, 1939 – June 22, 1941; June 22, 1941 – Autumn of 1943; Autumn of 1943 – Autumn of 1945, each of which has its own characteristics regarding the state of archival work in the republic. The author notes the positive influence of the reunification of the State Archival Funds (SAF) of Belarus and the completion of the formation of the archival institutions’ network system through the inclusion into it of the state archives, created in five new regions of Western Belarus. At the same time, the author brings on display the facts of the destruction of the Second Rzeczpospolita former administrative institutions’ archives, their removal from the places of origin. The article emphasizes the important role of the specialists with archival education from Russia in streamlining and organizing the work of archives on the territory of Western Belarus. After June 22, 1941, the Belarusian archives found themselves in a difficult situation: about one percent of the total volume of the State Archival Funds of the republic was evacuated to the East. The only fully evacuated and therefore surviving archives was the Communist Party Archives under the Central Committee of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party of Belarus, which was not part of the SAF of the BSSR. It was moved to Ufa and re-evacuated to Mogilev in the fall of 1944, its integrity allows us to fill up the documentary gaps formed in the State Archival Funds of the republic. With the beginning of the liberation of Belarus in the Autumn of 1943, the network of the republic’s archival institutions was restored, and the work was under way to identify and return to the republic the archival funds taken out by the invaders. The archives started collecting the documents and materials created by the partisan brigades and underground resistance organizations which were operating on the temporarily occupied territory of Belarus. Thanks to the dedicated work of the Belarusian archivists, it became possible to at least partially restore the archival funds of the republic, significantly damaged during the war.

The article examines the correspondence of American journalist Stanley Washburn, a war correspondent for the British newspaper The Times during the First World War, with the managers of the newspaper. Documents held in the archives of The Times newspaper in London reveal details of how the correspondent sought admission to the frontline. In particular, the author considers what assistance the permanent representative of The Times newspaper in Petrograd, Robert Wilton, gave in obtaining permission for Washburn to go to the front on his first trip, as well as what assistance the Russian Ambassador to the UK Count Benckendorf gave, during the period when restrictions were imposed on foreign correspondents. The study reports on Washburn’s trips to the front and his negotiations with high-ranking officials and the highest authorities of the Russian Empire. The article reflects the difficulties of using personal transport in order to collect material for the newspaper. In addition to the primary work of the correspondent to provide the newspaper with news reports, his work on strengthening the propaganda of the allied countries and his attempts to mitigate the negative impact of enemy propaganda became crucially important. Owing to Washburn’s active and competent work, he was able to establish close relations with the authorities of the Russian Empire.

The work is a detailed review pertaining to the 2019 RSUH publication of the book by V. P. Kozlov, the RSUH Professor Emeritus. The work is devoted to the history of the Russian village, and especially the Russian peasantry, in Central Russia at the end of the ХVIth-beginning of the 20th century. The review examines the source base of Kozlov’s research, the method of data analysis used by him, and the structure of the work. The present article focuses on the method pioneered by V. P. Kozlov; this method of expert estimations according to 10 indicators reveals the position of the peasantry in different periods of its history; the author points out positive and controversial aspects of this method in determining the progress and the regress in the history of the Russian countryside. The present review particularly emphasizes the importance of the statistical materials involved in Kozlov’s research, which allow us to trace the dynamics of the peasant population, peasant households, the number of peasants in them, the amount of the livestock and the inanimate objects of different groups of the peasantry, the processes of stratification and abandonment in the peasant environment of the Epifan County over the three centuries. It is emphasized that Kozlov’s work is not only an important historical, local history and genealogical study, but also a major contribution to the research of the Russian village in general.