The article analyses the history of the Tokyo Orthodox seminary, established in 1875 at the Russian Orthodox Mission in Japan (the Russian Spiritual Mission to Japan). The study was inspired by the most interesting document that was found by one of the authors of the article in the State Archivesof the Russian Federation while examining the archival fund of the well-known church figure Archpriest P.I. Bulgakov (GA RF, F. Р597, Inv. 1, D. 135). The document is entitled “The School of the Imperial Russian Orthodox (Tikhon) Church for Educating Japanese Spies” and signed with a penname of “Ivan Goremyka” (Luckless Ivan).

It considers from a completely new perspective the activities of the Tokyo Seminary, which in Russian historiography has always been positioned as one of the highest achievements of the “soft power” exercised to promote the Russian influence on the Japanese archipelago. Such an approach necessitated a thorough analysis of all the aspects of the functioning of the described educational institution, to which most of the proposed article is addressed.

Special attention is given to the activities of seminarians after seminary graduation and the extent to which mission leaders are held accountable for the charges. A special attention is given to the seminarian activities after the graduation from the Seminary as well as to the degree of responsibility of the Mission leaders for the accusations brought against them.

It should be mentioned that the noninvolvement (except for some naivety) of Saint Nicholai of Japan, the Primate of Eastern Orthodoxy in Japan, glorified as Equal-to-the-Apostles (secular name Ivan Dmitrovich Kasatkin) was questioned neither by the “whistle-blower” himself nor by any other representative of the Russian colony in Tokyo.

However, his successor as the ruling bishop of the Japanese Orthodox mission Sergii (secular name Georgiy Alexeyevich Tikhomirov) aroused certain suspicions, so that “Ivan Goremyka” merely accused him of aiding the Japanese intelligence agencies.

Finally the authors came to the conclusion that despite being too negative and categorical, “Ivan Goremyka’s” arguments are not far from the truth: indeed, the Japanese authorities somehow managed to even use the Russian Orthodox seminary in their anti-Russian actions.

The article considers separately the fate of the Russian seminarians, the father of the Russian Sambo martial art V.S. Oshchepkov among them, who helped the Russian counterintelligence in its attempts to mitigate the negative aspects in the activity of the Seminary.

The article carries out research on the individual stories reflecting the interdepartmental contradictions between the NKID (represented by its head G.V. Chicherin) and the Central Archives (headed by M.N. Pokrovsky) on the issue of using the archival documents of the imperial diplomatic institutions. Based on the previously unpublished Central Archives materials of the years 1926–1927 stored in the special depository of the Russian Civil Aviation, Chicherin’s general position on the use of the documentary heritage of the Imperial Foreign Ministry is revealed; the paper also describes the essence of the contradictions concerning the procedure for the collecting, systematizing and using the documents. There is a detailed study of Chicherin’s attempts to build business relations with the representatives of the Soviet archival department and of Pokrovsky’s opposition to that.

The arguments of both sides in defense of their own position are discussed separately. Particular attention is paid to the “revolutionary” ideological component of Chicherin’s argumentation, to the assumption that the archives are a tool for Soviet Russia to realize its own global historic mission. A conclusion is drawn about the nature of the established cultural practices of the new bureaucracy.

The study of the emerging access mechanisms of various government departments to the process of extracting historical facts broadens our understanding of the Soviet experience of the political-ideological “conveyor” and leads the authors to the conclusion that the resource approach to archival, documentary heritage is a typical element of the political culture of the Soviet period, and it has effectively migrated to the modern era.

This article deals with the history of the preparation and approval, within the framework of the CMEA bodies, of the project for the development of the virgin lands in the northern part of the Gobi zone in the Mongolian People’s Republic. That set of measures was put forward by the Mongolian side as part of the CMEA Long-Term Target Program for Cooperation in the Field of Agriculture and the Food Industry. As a result, the discussion of the measures took place in a multilateral format, within the framework of a temporary expert group that was accountable to the CMEA Committee for Cooperation in the Field of Planning Activities. Over the course of a series of meetings, the initial positions of the Mongolian side on the content of the project underwent significant changes, primarily reducing the estimated cost of implementing that package of measures. In turn, the general agreement on the project under consideration, concluded on March 12, 1980, took on a shape of a framework agreement, which only stipulated the general obligations of the parties for the construction of the four new state-owned fodder farms along with the corresponding irrigation systems. However, it does not detract from the fact that the project was one of the few Mongolian cooperation initiatives within the CMEA structure that resulted in the signing of a multilateral agreement.

Over the past three decades, the works by Russian émigré Prince S.M. Volkonsky, the grandson of the Decembrist, one of the outstanding figures of Russian culture and an heir to European cultural traditions, has become well known in his homeland. The book “My Memoirs,” written by Volkonsky in Soviet Russia but published in emigration, is rightfully considered to be the pinnacle of Russian memoirs. A rich panorama of life over half a century is presented in his work, among other things, through the prince’s numerous encounters with a variety of people – both from his circle and those completely alien to him. The author of the article identifies from Volkonsky’s narrative the characters that were associated with one of the largest cities on the Volga River – Saratov. Traces of those people over the century have not been lost in archival and museum documents, bearing witness to the very existence of the particular Saratov residents. The milestones of their destinies – as the wanderers in time and space (and that was the way Volkonsky liked to portray them) – continue to be confirmed in the works of present-day researchers. The governor of Saratov, a talented musician-ascetic, a conservative teacher-translator and a Bolshevik, a “herald of the new world” – the images of those people appear on the pages of Volkonsky’s memoirs only once, occasionally. But they are remembered thanks to the memory of the one who passed them down for us.

The article considers the short staying of stay of the commander of the “Saint Ianuarius” ship, captain Ivan Borisov, on the Greek island of Samos in 1771. during the Russian-Turkish War of 1769–1774. The Russian naval forces were on the island for only about a month. But, thanks to the report of the ship commander preserved in the Russian State Naval Archives, we have the opportunity to analyze the social relations of the local villages among each other, as well as evaluate their attitude towards the Russian naval forces. The cited document shows that with apparent sympathy for Russia, there was no uniform opinion as regards whether to accept the patronage of the Russian Empire and whether to enter into open confrontation with Istanbul, in whose power they were. One part of the island’s population, including the clergy, had a conservative position and did not want to disrupt the more or less stable relations established with the Ottoman Empire. The other part was strongly opposed to such a position and persistently asked Borisov, as a representative of the Russian government, to take them as [Russian] subjects despite the threat of the punitive measures from Turkey in the future. That micro-narrative could be partially applied to the Greek people on the whole. Within that picture, the nature of such contradictory things becomes more clearly visible: on the one hand, it was the readiness of the Greeks to participate in the war on the Russian side, on the other – the failed uprising in the Peloponnese and the Russian ruling elite’s lack of understanding of the reasons of that failure.

The purpose of the work is studying the foundation documents of prof. A.A. Kuzin, doctor in Engineering; the records that are kept in the funds of the Science and Education Centre of the Human Studies Archives of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Those documents are viewed as the source on the history of forming the scientific and educational direction within the context of the professional biography of a scholar and an educator.

The article considers history of the transfer and the description of the archive documents. The author analyzes the main facts of the biography of A.A. Kuzin (1911–1993), the features of his personality and intellect, which helped him to combine the ability to precise engineering thinking and a broad humanitarian vision of processes and phenomena.

The characteristic and archival parameters of the fund documents are presented in terms of their thematic focus, type-species and functional properties. A conditional “thesaurus” is proposed, containing the subjectthematic headings to systematize the documents of the fund. A review of the documents reflecting the main stages of A.A. Kuzin’s life and work is provided: the formation of an intellectual creative personality in early youth, the development of engineering knowledge, getting an education in history and archives, the beginning of scientific-research and pedagogical activities at the IAI (History and Archives Institute), the research work on the history of science and technology, the development of the priority areas of that research, the creation of the Department of Scientific and Technical Archives at the MGIAI (Moscow State History and Archives Institute), the advancement of a new area of archival knowledge – archiving of scientific, technical and filmphoto-phono documents.

Conclusions are drawn that the documental fund of A.A. Kuzin is a fund of personal origin of a multidisciplinary thematic orientation; the materials of the fund make it possible to study the stages of the development of academic knowledge in the history of science and technology and its integration into the content of archival education. A.A. Kuzin is an innovator of historical, technical and archival knowledge of the second half of the 20th century; the documents of his fund in the Science and Education Centre of the Human Studies Archives of the Russian State University for the Humanities have a significant source-studying potential for the history of science and education, the history of scientific and educational organizations (IHST RAS [Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences] and IAI RSUH).

The article considers the possibilities of applying the general and specific theories of archive studies, created by V.N. Avtokratov, for analyzing the causes and ways of resolving the crisis in the archive studies in France. It shows the similarity of the crisis phenomena observations in the French archive studies made independently by V.N. Avtokratov and Ch. Kecskemeti, and substantiates the scientific significance of analyzing the causes of this crisis, which allows for the development of V.N. Avtokratov’s theoretical approach. The document boom of the second half of the 20th century posed a challenge to the entire archival science, but each archival school was to overcome it in a different way. A crisis that occurred in the French archive studies was caused by the departure from the principle of unity of the fund and manifested itself in the changes in the use of archival documents in France. The analysis of that crisis from the theoretical positions formulated by V.N. Avtokratov helped to demonstrate how a weak development of certain theoretical issues (the concept of a creator of a fond, the issues of intra-fund systematization, the notions of value and utility) affected the professional training of archivists and the archival activities in France in terms of acquisition and use, particularly in the field of fund management and the policy of creating archival finding aids. The strong and weak aspects of the French archival theory and practice are shown in the article, and recommendations for the professional training of archivists in Russia are formulated.

The article considers the principles and method of classifying and funding the historical documents as a contribution to the general theory of archival science, focusing upon its reconstructing. There were a lot of issues concerning the principles of classification that were raised during the discussion at the Institute for History and Archives as part of the Source Study Course taught there. As a result of discussions, a scientific classification of historical sources according to their types was adopted, rejecting the prevailing in the 1970s ideological approach to a thematic classification with arbitrary division of sources according to their degree of importance.

The author is of the opinion that such principles of classification of historical sources create a general framework for understanding the totality of the available documentation as a single information fund, they also founded the system of the main categories and now guide the practical work in the archival sphere.

Rapidly developing technologies lead to the creation of the new types of records, mainly digital, which are functioning in a changing information space. Hence, archives need to resolve the issues of accepting for keeping and further use of the electronic documents created in various forms (digital photographic materials, videos, etc.), which will require clarification of some of the provisions related to the acquisition, depositing and use of those records.

Nevertheless, despite the apparent change in the structure of documentary circulation (and primarily, in the specific forms of the records that go beyond the traditional definitions), such delineating principles of archiving as the principles of information consistency, of the non-splitting of the fund (also in the case of a new type of the fund), of the connection of the fond document with the fund creator, of the identification of the structural and genetic links between the records ascertained by the information exchange organization, by the hierarchy of the management and by the functions of the corresponding information carriers – all those principles are still relevant today.

The article describes 16 open letters of the Lübeck City Council, kept in the Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents, and issued to the Hanseatic merchants travelling to Russia, and confirming the Hanseatic origin of the goods transported across the border. The contents of the open letters are analyzed to identify the main features of the Russian-Hanseatic trade after the end of the Livonian War and before the signing of the Trade Peace Agreement of 1603, which established the rules of the Hanseatic-Russian commodity exchange and the list of the German merchants’ privileges in the Russian markets. Much attention is paid directly to the merchants who were given the open letters to determine their connection with the Corporation of Lübeck’s “Novgorod guests” (Nowgorodfahrer), a Lübeck burghers’ large commercial association that occupied an important place in the Russian–Hanseatic trade of the late Middle Ages and the early Modern Times. The subject of research in that respect were manuscript materials from the Archives of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck have become the subject of the research work. Moreover, the 1594 open letters of the Lübeck Magistrate from the Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents are compared with the similar documents of the period under review from the Tallinn City Archives. The original text of one of the open letters is appended to the article, as well as the drawings of the possessory signs of the Hanseatic merchants depicted in the studied handwritten sources.

The monograph by L.N. Mazur and O.V. Gorbachev addresses an issue of the possibility of introducing such an unconventional source as the cinema in the capacity of the primary source of a historical inquiry. The reviewer proceeded from the thesis that the cinema is a “parallel reality” and it in no way reflects the real life. As the reviewer continued reading the book, he got the impression that the authors managed to quite convincingly put their thesis into practice and prove it. The reviewer analyzes in detail the content of the monograph, its successful plots and themes. Much attention is paid to the identification of the theoretical aspects of the issue, that are important not only for specialists, but for all historians. In some cases, the path from the appearance of an object in life to its appearance in the cinema is traced literally year by year. The main advantage of the monograph is the demonstration of the potential of the cinema as a historical source. The reviewer agrees with the opinion of the authors of the refereed paper that the cinema about the village shows us much more than the authors and customers of those films would like to show. It’s particularly evident in historical dynamics, when a historian considers all the films on the village theme “with one eye.” A conclusion is drawn about the theoretical, methodological and source study contribution of the authors to the investigation of audiovisual sources.