The  history  of  the  movement  for  a  national  Polish  school  in 1905–1907 was for a long time a part of research on the history of the first Russian revolution; the “school strike” in the Kingdom of Poland was studied separately, but the position of the top Russian bureaucracy on that issue was not considered in detail. The article considers an evolution in the positions of the top Russian bureaucracy on the issue of teaching in Polish in the schools of  the  Kingdom  of  Poland  during  the  first  Russian  revolution.  For  the  first time,  the  differences  between  the  positions  of  official  Petersburg  and  the provincial administration of the Kingdom of Poland are shown. The provincial administration was more interested in achieving stability in the province by liberal  methods  and  was  ready  to  make  concessions  when  the  members  of the Council of Ministers and Nicholas II initially held an ambiguous stance. Based on the analysis of the interdepartmental correspondence, part of which is  introduced  in  the  scientific  circulation  for  the  first  time,  it  is  concluded that hesitation of the tsarist government in resolving the issue of the national Polish  school  did  not  contribute  to  the  stabilization  of  the  situation  in  the region during the revolution, and the winning liberal course did not have the anticipated effect.

Issues in the sphere of education are the pressing ones not only today. For historical reasons, any social upheaval in the country has an impact on the public education. The century-old events are not an exception. The  system  of  agrarian  education  in  Soviet  Russia  encountered  great difficulties  at  the  time  of  the  dismantlement  of  NEP  and  during  the  village modernization. In connection with the new tasks facing agriculture, the small network  of  educational  establishments,  their  disparity,  low  student  take-in capacity, poor financial position and low professional level of graduates could not meet the needs of the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture. Absence of necessary assistance and control from the superior authorities over  many  educational  establishments,  particularly  over  many  mid-ranking and low-ranking institutions, adversely affected their activity. The State paid special  attention to  young  peasants  and  tried  to  increase  the  proportion  of that  social  group  among  the  applicants.  But  the  peasants’  financial  hardship, shortage of time for studies, weak education proficiency, lack of the scholarship allowances and of accommodation in many educational institutions hampered the implementation of the task.To overcome the situation, it was required to restructure – in cooperation with all those involved – the existing system of agrarian staff training.

The article focuses on the social sphere development of the Kirov region in the years of the second five-year plan (1933–1937). It substantiates a direct link between the dynamic development of the industrial sector of the regional economy and the changes in the social sphere. The authors trace the changes in the incomes and purchasing power of the population of the region. They give the ratio of average wages in different industries and the prices for basic consumer goods along with the abolition of the rationing distribution system in the Soviet Union. In addition, the article provides the data pertaining to the regional budget expenditures on the education, health care and social support for the vulnerable groups of the population; the paper also traces the positive growth trend in the number of schools, hospitals, and cultural institutions. The authors state the special role and managing methods of the regional party bodies in resolving the social development tasks for the region and in protecting the interests of ordinary industrial and agricultural workers. Аt the same time, noting the positive trend in the development of the social sphere in the designated geographical framework, the authors draw attention to  the  whole  range  of  its  systemic  issues.  They  classify  as  such  the  housing shortage, growing over the entire period, the disparity in the development of big cities and rural areas, the insufficient level of medical care provided to the population,  and  the  serious  shortcomings  in  the  education  of  young  people. However the authors come to the conclusion that the Kirov region during the years of the second five-year plan was a dynamically developing territory with good prospects.

Historical  sources  and  evidence  of  the  eyewitnesses  of  the 4 th crusade  in  many  respects  reflect  the  complexity  and  sharpness  of  the contradictions between the Western and Eastern Christendom at the turn of the 12 th– 13 Th centuries. The evidence and narrations proceed from the most direct participants in the military events, broke out on the shore of the Bosporus in  1203–1204.  The  authors  of  those  materials  belonged  to  the  two  opposing camps,  and  therefore  the  analysis  of  those  sources  represents  a  sufficiently complete and detailed picture of the occurred tragedy. A thorough analysis of the sources makes it possible to at least partially see and comprehend the causes of  the  military  confrontation  between  the  Western  and  Eastern  Christians, who represented – just a while ago, in the first half of the 11 th century – the united Ecumenical Church. The sources vividly reflect the mood that prevailed in the crusaders’ encampment in April, 1204, hesitation and doubt of the bulk of  the  Cross  Warriors  who  were  not  sure  of  the  rightness  of  their  actions  in the  preparation  for  the  assault  of  Constantinople.  Many  of  them  understood that  they  would  have  to  raise  the  sword  against  their  fellow  believers –  the Christians of the East. But the most tragic outcome of the 1202–1204 Crusade was  the  crushing  defeat  of  Constantinople  by  the  Cross  Warriors.  For  the Romans  (Byzantines)  that  became  the  reason  for  the  disintegration  of  the Roman Empire. For all Eastern Christians it indicated the demise of the capital of the Orthodox Christendom.

The present work is based on the analysis of the schoolchildren competitive  research  papers  submitted  at  the  All-Russian  Youth  Vernadsky Conference in the period of time between 2005 and 2020; the article considers the ideas about the 1941–1945 Great Patriotic War of the generation coming into  life  in  the  21st  century.  The  content  specificity  of  the  schoolchildren research  works  devoted  to  the  Great  Patriotic  War  is  defined  by  the  fact that the young authors in search of truth seek to objectively comprehend the realities of the past and to ascertain the veracity of the fact. It is worth noting that the heroes of the schoolchildren papers are ordinary people, often without formal recognition, and that is the reason why their documents have not been taken into the archives yet. At the opening of the exhibition “Man and War”, the Chairman of the Russian Historical Society Sergei Naryshkin stressed that the history of the Soviet people’s heroism is transmitted through the frontline letters, photographs, family reminiscences, personal belongings. It is on these sources  that  young  researchers  learn  the  history  of  the  Great  Patriotic  War of 1941–1945.The author of the article concludes that the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War is preserved in the people’s consciousness, and that it is possible to use the youth research as the sources of personal origin to study the issue of historical memory.

The  article  describes  the  documents  on  the  architectural  and artistic  design  of  the  buildings  of  the  Martha  and  Mary  Convent  of  Mercy and Labor during the rule as prioress of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova. The search for sources on the creation history of the creation of the architectural complex of the Abode is significantly difficult due to the fact that the Abode fund did not survive as a whole collection in the archives. As part of the work on the reconstruction of the historical and documentary heritage of the Martha and Mary Convent, the author makes an attempt to systematize documents  reflecting  the  history  of  the  construction  and  arrangement  of  the Abode on the basis of a historiographic analysis of works devoted to the history of the Abode, published and unpublished sources. The author notes that in recent years, research interest in the history of the Martha and Mary Convent, and, in particular, its architectural ensemble, has noticeably increased, which was caused by the solemn events in honor of the centenary of the Convent’s foundation celebrated in 2009. However, Russian historiography  mainly  focuses  on  the  study  of  the  architectural  and  artistic design  of  the  Church  of  the  Intercession  of  the  Most  Holy  Theotokos –  an outstanding  creation  of  the  Russian  architect  A.V.  Shchusev.  The  presented review  of  archival  documents  supplements  the  already  known  information about the entire complex of buildings of the Martha and Mary Convent and gives an idea of  the information potential of the Moscow archives on the topic presented.

The article is devoted to the life, work and documentary legacy of the well-known abroad, but little-known in Russia historian and archivist Boris Moiseevich Sapir. B.M. Sapir lived a long life (1902–1989), full of various events. Born in 1902 in the city of Lodz in the Kingdom of Poland (that then belonged to  Russia)  into  a  Jewish  Russian-speaking  family,  B.M.  Sapir  did  not  always voluntarily find himself in the center of major political events and even wars of the first half of the 20 th century. Already in 1914, he and his parents came to Moscow. There, Sapir became interested in the social democratic movement and joined the Menshevik Party. However, not being an enemy of the Soviet state, he joined the Red Army in 1919 at the age of 17, being demobilized only in 1921. Soon, however, B.M. Sapir was arrested, imprisoned and deported until 1926. In 1926, he managed to escape to Germany (then the Weimar Republic). There, he became an activist of the International Youth Social Democratic Movement. However, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, Sapir’s long ordeal began in different countries. It was the Netherlands, where he began to actively study the history of Russian Populism and Menshevism (that topic became the main issue in his scientific work). Later his fate led him to Cuba, where he started researching the history of the local Jewish community, then – to the United States. It was only after the Second World War, and even then not immediately, that Sapir managed to come to the Netherlands, where he finally began to study the history of the revolutionary movement in pre-Soviet Russia. There he found not only his favorite occupation, but also his family happiness. B.M. Sapir did not survive his rehabilitation. He died in 1989, and was officially rehabilitated in the USSR only in 1991. Boris Moiseevich’s relatives received the relevant documents only in 1992. The most significant part of B.M. Sapir’s documents is kept in the United States, in one of the Russian archives – the Bakhmetyev archives (at Harward University). A copy of the scientific reference apparatus for  the  collection  (Fund)  of  B.M.  Sapir  was  digitized  and  made  available  to Internet users. However, a detailed study of B.M. Sapir’s documents is a matter for the future.

The article considers what the Tver Provincial Archive Bureau (gubarkhbyuro) did in 1919–1923 to identify and organize the documents of the military units and military organizations evacuated to Tver in 1914–1917 in  connection  with  the  military  operations  on  the  territory  of  the  Russian Empire. The revolutionary events of 1917 prevented the timely transportation of  the  document  complex  to  Petrograd;  so  the  documents  remained  in  Tver, Bezhetsk and Rzhev in an unsystematic form and undescribed form, without being provided with the satisfactory storage conditions. The article describes the actions of the Tver gubarkhbyuro to search for the documents and organize their acceptance for state storage. In the research process, the composition of the  existing  document  complex  was  analyzed:  in  addition  to  the  documents of  the  military  organizations  from  the  territories  left  by  the  Russian  army, the  documents  of  the  Russian  Empire  civil  organizations  that  operated  on the  territory  of  modern  Belarus,  Lithuania  and  Poland  were  evacuated.  The documents  were  provisionally  combined  into  a  complex  on  the  territorial principle  as  the  documents  of  the  organizations  operating  in  the  Kovno  and Vilna provinces. The  article  also  attempts  to  trace  the  fate  of  the  documents  received  for state storage. In 1921, part of the funds of the institutions of the former Russian Empire  operating  on  the  territory  of  the  Kovno  Province  was  transferred  to the  Lithuanian  Government.  That  complex  consisted  of  the  documents  of civil  organizations,  whereas  the  documents  of  military  units  and  military organizations remained in the archives of Tver until 1926.

The  article  reflects  K.P.  Pobedonostsev’s  understanding  of the events of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–1878. He noticed the spiritual division of the society in the face of wartime challenges. It was based on the Christian conscience of the individual, or its spiritual passivity. The war of 1877–1878 divided the Russian society into sincere figures who were ready to sacrifice their lives, property, time, and formal reputation for the sake of faith, the Tsar, the Fatherland, the suffering neighbors, and into those who preferred to put on self-interest and skepticism, and hide behind indifference and instructions. The more formalized an official’s activities are, the more harmful and less effective they are. Favoritism and theft were not harmed by this order. The less work you do for your conscience, for the sake of loving your neighbor and fulfilling your duty to God, the greater the need for fear of punishment. On the other hand, the more formalized an official’s activities are, the greater the fear of responsibility when taking the initiative. In the social activities of wartime, the thinker also saw a division into modest ascetics and noisy demonstrative personalities, who, acting for show, were more harmful to the cause. On the other hand, according to K.P. Pobedonostsev, the war had awakened many forces that were sleeping in the people’s environment.

The first and still the only film about Andranik Ozanian (1865–1927)  was  shot  during  the  summer  of  1928  in  Bulgaria.  Who  financed  and created the movie, why did the director Archavir Chakhatouny (1882–1957) choose Bulgaria for the scenes in the open, why wasn’t the film shown in Soviet Armenia and how did it get to Yerevan – those are part of the questions the paper will try to answer. To that end the author searched for the archival documents in  the  archives  and  museums  of  Armenia  and  Bulgaria.  The  richest  source  is the  personal  fund  of  the  Armenian  emigrant  in  Paris  Arshavir  Shakhatuni (1882–1957). After his death, the documents were transferred to the Yeghishe Charents Museum of Literature and Arts in Yerevan. Among them, a special place is occupied by biographical documents, documents about theatrical roles and roles in cinema, which he performed, materials about early cinema and the history of the creation of the film “Andranik”. The National Archives of Armenia keeps the documents which detail the participation of Chakhatouny in the First World War and in the government of  the  First  Armenian  Republic  (1918–1920)  as  the  commandant  and  chief of  police  of  Yerevan.  The  most  valuable  source  is  the  film  “Andranik”  which was received by the State Archives of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) in 1972. During the period, the name of Andranik was banned until the end of the 80s of the 20th century. There was censorship and contradicting assessments of Andranik by Armenians and Azerbaijanis (“hero” or “enemy”) were “concealed”. For this reason, the film might have got into Armenia through the Armenian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, founded by the resolution of the Communist Party of the ASSR. The official activity of the Society was related to the cultural events abroad but in fact it was used to gather information about the political emigrants. In the Bulgarian archives one may find the archive “traces” of Chakhatouny’s performances  on  the  Bulgarian  theatrical  scenes  and  also  his  correspondence with  the  actor  Georgi  Stamatov  (1893–1965),  that  documents  contain  the valuable data on the history of the film creation. Thanks to the archives, the film ‘Andranik’ can be seen and the story of its creation and distribution in the past century can be reproduced.

The work introduces into scientific circulation the documents (autobiography  and  memoirs)  from  the  personal  file  of  L.A.  Butkov,  the Soviet  Union  Hero;  his  dossier  being  deposited  inside  the  collection  of Soviet Union Heroes (the Central State Archives of Moscow, F. P-8682). If the autobiography is an extremely formalized text, the memoirs mentioning the author’s hatred towards the Nazi invaders are written in easy language, reflecting  the  impressions  of  those  ordinary  fighters  who,  to  a  large  extent, won the Great Patriotic War. The title of the Soviet Union Hero was awarded to the company commander of the 164^th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 55^th Guards Rifle Division of the 56^th Guards Army senior lieutenant L.A. Butkov on May 16, 1944, for his distinction in the Kerch-Eltigen military operation. The company was the first to land on the shore occupied by the enemy and managed to hold the bridgehead, ensuring the  successful  landing  of  the  entire  division.  During  the  battle,  the  company commander  personally  destroyed  the  machine  gun  with  the  gunners  and 11 more enemy soldiers. The documentary collection, which holds L.A. Butkov’s file, was collected after the war by the Institute of Party History of the MC and MGK VKP(b), headed by the director of the Institute G.D. Kostomarov.