The article analyzes the history of the using the regalia images of regalia in the titular heraldry of the Moscow Kingdom of the 16th – 17^th centuries. Titular heraldry is a complex of coats of arms for the territories of which the names were part of the object title of the Russian sovereigns. The total number of titular coats of arms of the Moscow Kingdom is more than thirty. They were first recorded on the Great Seal of Ivan the Terrible in the late 1570s. On this seal, out of 24 titular coats of arms (emblems, “seals”), four had the images of certain regal objects. In two cases, these were the conditional crowns cresting the armorial figures and testifying to the royal status of the designated administrative territories (the Kazan and Astrakhan kingdoms). In two cases, the images of a “place” were used, which meant a seat for the ruler (or an authorized officer). On the Novgorod seal, that place had the steps, which was, apparently, a more archaic version of such a seat on the Tver seal, the “place” looked like a throne. The pastoral staff in the Novgorod “place” and the princely cap in the Tver “place” testified to the local specifics of the management of these most important titular objects in the general context of the power system of Muscovy. Subsequently, the Astrakhan coat of arms had underwent a radical change, and the appearance of the crown began to resemble a royal crown of the Western European type. The same crown instead of a princely hat appeared on the Tver emblem by the end of the 17th century. In the “Titulyarnik” (title reference book) of 1672, two more coats of arms with the images of regalia appeared. In the Siberian coat of arms, the crown again symbolized the royal status of the titular object. In the Vladimir coat of arms, the crown cresting the lion apparently signified the special status of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir among the lands of northern and north-eastern Rus’. In general, the images of the regal objects in the titular coats of arms followed clear patterns, corresponded to the status of the analogous objects, as well as to their historical significance.

The article deals with the reconstruction for the distribution geography of the distribution of the four editions of the printed Moscow Gospel in the 1630s. The corpus of the sales records of the Receipt Books of the Book Printing Department served as the main source for the study; the records are now kept in the Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts (F.1182). Over the course of ten years, the representatives of all estates had made more than a thousand purchases of the Gospels, most of which remained in the capital. However, a significant number of the Gospels were dispersed around the country. The source study analysis using the quantitative method made it possible to reveal the wide information potential of the sales records and to form a holistic picture of the distribution of a printed book in 8 historical and geographical regions. Most of the customers were recorded from the Zamoskovny and Zaotsky regions, which suffered more than other areas during the Time of Troubles and then developed most actively. The research made it possible to confirm the leading role of the ancient cultural and economic centers in the dissemination of the printed Scripture, the buyers of which were mainly urban representatives. It turned out that significant purchases were often made by those cities which, during the Time of Troubles, were subjected to the most severe devastation and in subsequent years made great progress.

The article considers the mechanism of opening the Orthodox churches in the Moscow region during the Great Patriotic War. The main source of the research is the quarterly reports of A.A. Trushin, the commissioner of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow and the Moscow region, to G.G. Karpov, the Council Chairman, on the state of affairs and the activities of the Church in the Moscow region. Those reports contain statistical information on the number of working and closed churches, as well as on the petitions sent to the Council by believers with the requests to resume the parish life. The analyzed documents indicate that the process of returning the churches to believers started even before the formation of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, and in the period between 1941 and 1943, 44 churches were opened in the Moscow region. Later, that process continued, and by the end of 1945, the services had been resumed in 45 more churches. Thus, of the 169 churches operating in the Moscow Region in 1946, more than half were opened during the war. The material of the article is based on the archival documents of the Central State Archives of the Moscow region, largely introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

The article considers the features of the chronicle by Gian Giacomo Caroldo and its place in the historiography of Venice. Caroldo was a Venetian politician, diplomat and historian who lived in the 16th century. His work covers the historical period from 421 to 1382. Caroldo’s chronicle reflects the diversity and complexity of the political life of Venice.

In Venice, according to J. C. Hocquet, there were two directions of historical thought since the 14th century onwards. The first group expressed support for the active military policy of the Republic. The second proposed the development of trade advancement instead of a military-political expansion.

The influence of the above trends on the work of Caroldo has not been raised in historiography. For that reason, there is a research task (goal) to determine the place of Caroldo’s chronicle in the historiography of Venice. In order to achieve it, a number of intermediate tasks were solved.

It was demonstrated how the social, political and cultural features of the Venice history in the late 15th and early 16th centuries influenced the views of the author. The manuscript tradition of the Caroldo chronicle and its widespread distribution in the Veneto region was also investigated. The article considers specifics of Caroldo’s views on history as an educational tool in the formation of the competencies of statesmen. The analysis of the previous traditions of historical thought (the chronicles of Andrea Dandolo, Caresini, Enrico Dandolo, Morosini, Lorenzo de Monacis and Sabellico), on which the chronicler could rely in his work, was conducted.

The author comes to the conclusion that Caroldo, like his famous contemporaries Machiavelli and Guicciardini, made a significant step in the formation of scientific principles of historical knowledge. Caroldo’s rationalism, consistency and rigour in the selection of facts contributed to the creation of many copies of his chronicle.

The article is the first research work on the biography of Khairi Gimadi, who was a bright representative of the Soviet school of historians, whose activities took place at the time of tighter ideological pressure on the Tatar intelligentsia. Kh. Gimadi’s works on the history of the Tatar ASSR were created in the context of the ongoing campaigns against “bourgeois objectivism” and “cosmopolitanism”, linguistic and political economic discussions. Being a loyal communist, he often had to sacrifice his scientific principles, and it ultimately led to the disillusionment with the current system and the tragic death of the historian.

The article uses the method of oral history (in-depth interview), which played an important role in building a holistic picture of the life of Kh. Gimadi. For the first time, the personal file of the historian is introduced into a scientific circulation, the documents from which allow us to trace the pedagogical, scientific, and socio-political activities of the scholar. The most valuable are the memoirs and letters of Kh. Gimadi. These records are kept in his children’s personal archives and reflect the childhood and adolescence of the future historian: they describe in detail the years of mass famine in the Volga region, children homelessness, the work of the Children’s commissions and orphanages. The materials of the article may be useful for the researchers studying the development of the Humanities during the period of late Stalinism, the daily life of the Soviet children of the 1920s and the intelligentsia of the 1940s and 1950s.

The article discusses the development of Records Management. The author draws attention to the significant influence of the interdisciplinary approach on the formation of the object and subject in Records Management. Such a trend in the development of Records Management was laid down by its founder, K.G. Mityaev, and was supported in the works of Russian scholars. Records Management develops in particularly close connection with Archival Studies, Source Studies and other disciplines of the historical cycle, where a record (document) is the object of study. The most significant issue in interdisciplinary research in the range of those disciplines is the classification of documents. A broad approach to the document as an object of research, in the conditions of interdisciplinarity, led to the attempts of expanding the field of research in Records Management by including a book in it and creating a “general theory of the document”. Such attempts, made in the 1960s and at the beginning of the 21^st century, were unsuccessful. However, the further development of Records Management in the context of interdisciplinarity may pose a threat of blurring the subject field of this scientific discipline. Therefore, at the present stage, Records Management needs to deepen its own specialization.

The article deals with the main issues of archival studies and archival affairs, which became most relevant at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century.

At the end of the 1980-s a new stage in the development of archival science began, characterized not only by the development and strengthening of its theoretical connection with the source studies and the history of state institutions, development of interdisciplinary scientific approaches.

This period is associated with the name of V.N. Autocratov and his first application of the anthropological approach to the studying of the history of the archival affairs, as well as his appeal to the origins of the development of the theory for archival studies through disclosure of the life and activities of specific people and specialists of the late 19th – early 20th century, along with a rethinking of the previous scientific results achieved.

Due to the new trends in the life of the state and the formation of a new historical consciousness of the society, the national archival studies faced new tasks that require scientific and methodological solutions. Archivists managed to ensure methodically the adaptation of the national archival business to the new conditions. The legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of archival affairs was adopted and the preservation of the Archival Fund of the country was ensured. The Archival Fund was enriched by the documents of the Communist Party of the USSR and part of the documents of the former KGB and their organic inclusion in the system of state archives of Russia.

At the beginning of the 21st century, after the adoption of Federal Law no. 125 of October 22, 2004 “On Archival Affairs in the Russian Federation”, the need for the development of a new scientific and methodological base for national archival work was scientifically substantiated. A lot of work was done to create new rules for the work of state and municipal archives that preserved the traditional principles of archives justified by life. Methodological manuals and recommendations on the main activities of archival institutions were prepared. That period is characterized by actively developing new technologies and intensive work with electronic documents at all stages of their existence.

The paper considers the history and current state of the process of digitization of analog documents in the Russian Federation. A comparative analysis of the current issues of digitization of analog documents in foreign countries and in Russia is carried out. The basis for the research is composed by the articles of Russian and foreign experts, which highlight the experience of archives in digitizing analog documents.

The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to conduct a largescale discussion by the archivists of federal state archives and the archives of the subjects of the Russian Federation of the current issues connected with the process of digitization of analog documents. The accumulated experience of digitizing analog documents in Russia shows that the most important issues for activating the process of high-quality digitization of analog documents, directly related to the possibility of their subsequent use, are the issues related to the creation of a unified state digitization program, among the tasks of which there can be: the need to summarize the work done in that direction in the regions; the identification of the “pain points” (in particular, the need to create a unified regulatory and methodological framework); the consideration of financing issues that will allow the archives to be provided with qualified IT specialists and the necessary equipment; the possibility of concluding contracts with the third-party organizations that might be responsible for the digitization entrusted to them; etc.

Archives for the most part have not yet faced the issues of accepting initially digital documents for state storage. It is necessary to use the existing situation to resolve the accumulated difficulties with digitization that require the discussion at the all-Russia level. After all, until now, an average of about 5% of documents in need of digitization have only been digitized in the archives.

Thus, if one proceeds from the number of digitized analog documents indicated by the regional archives, the challenges of digitization have not lost their relevance.

Although professional standards are increasingly introduced into the practice of organizations, their significance is not completely clear to everyone. It is largely due to a misunderstanding of the purpose of their creation and their relationship with educational standards. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the essence of distinction between the functions of the universities that provide the training according to educational standards, and the councils for professional qualifications that develop professional standards which serve as the basis for the assessment of staff’s qualification. At the present stage, these are interrelated processes aimed at assessing the qualifications of the personnel of organizations (which include university graduates), their knowledge, skills and abilities. Professional standards, being neither an alternative nor a competitor to educational standards, play a crucial role in the labor market and in the education process. Due to the fact that the practice of implementing professional standards is based on state regulation and acquires the features of the mandatory in its application, universities will not be able to ignore them in their education process. The history of professional standards creation, regulatory support, specifics of their use and other issues are discussed in the article with an emphasis on their relationship with the educational standards of the Russian Federation. The paper presents the variability of the joint use of the above-mentioned standards and the role of the education community in this process.