The article is devoted to the study of the history of the customs institutions of the Crimean Peninsula, which operated during the 19th century. Since the entry of Crimea into the Russian Empire in 1783, the central authorities have paid special attention to the organization of the Crimean customs, which played a key role in Russia’s domestic and foreign policy in the Azov-Black Sea region and in the development of international trade. The archival documents from the Russian State Historical Archives and the State Archives of the Republic of Crimea on the establishment and the activities of the customs institutions during the period under review are involved; many of those records have been introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The considered document package is a unique source of information on the tasks performed by the customs service on the territory of the Crimean Peninsula; it allows for a study of the history of those institutions and helps to identify the features of their functioning and the specifics of their activities. The authors’ method of working with the sources that make it possible to disclose the staffing of the Crimean customs is presented. With the help of the archival materials, the article traces the indicators of the financial support for the employees of the regional customs institutions, the nomenclature of their positions, as well as the duration of their service in the customs department. It is shown that the compilation of an independent electronic resource – a prosopographic database of the officials of the Crimean customs institutions of the 19^th century – can partially resolve the problems of interpretation and formalization of archival data information.

The article is devoted to the history of the Old Believers-Wanderers consent in the Saratov Volga region in the late imperial period (the second half of the 19^th century – early 20^th century). The article provides a general description of this religious group, their teachings and history of existence, and analyzes the features of thematic historiography. The uniqueness of the wandering phenomenon in the religious landscape of the Russian Empire province is emphasized: the Wanderers preached radical eschatological ideas, but, at the same time, maintained a certain involvement in the social structures of the outside world. The publication focuses on the holistic history of the Old Believers-Wanderers in the Saratov Volga region, who penetrated this territory in the 1860s. The active preaching of the Wanderers caused an increase in the followers among the Saratov peasants, but the specific way of life of the Wanderers, inspired by the teaching about “escape from the antichrist”, inevitably attracted the attention of the local administration and the priests. An appeal to the previously unpublished archival materials of the State Archives of the Saratov region (GASO) shows that the wandering community was persecuted for vagrancy, illegal harboring of fellow believers, and secret burials of the dead, whose disappearance was of concern to the police. The article ends with formulating conclusions on ambiguity in the interpretation of the Wanderers’ social and religious practices: despite the results of the investigative processes, such cases gave rise to various negative rumors about the Old Believers.

The article, based on the documents from the Archives of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI), examines the institution of diplomatic agents in Manchuria. The post of an “official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the VI class, assigned to Manchuria” appeared in the nomenclature of the Foreign Ministry positions in 1899. The establishment of such an unusual institution was attributed to the specifics of the situation around Manchuria: the need to create Russian representative offices on its territory and the unwillingness of official St. Petersburg to use the traditional forms of consular institutions in diplomatic practice. The representative offices of the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were opened in the administrative centers of the Manchurian provinces – in Jilin, Mukden and Qiqihar, as well as in Harbin. The diplomatic agencies were subordinated both to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the regional chiefs of Khabarovsk and Port Arthur. As a rule, the positions of the heads of agencies were usually assigned to experienced diplomats who were well-versed in the specifics of the consular activities in China. The Russian representatives generally managed to cope with the task of protecting the rights and interests of the Russian citizens in the region, despite the political and organizational difficulties that accompanied the activities of the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – the lack of an internationally recognized status, involvement in interdepartmental rivalry with other bodies of the Russian representation. In the geopolitical realities associated with the end of the Russo-Japanese war, the diplomatic agencies were reorganized into the Russian consular offices.

The article discusses the issue of the surety system during the lease of the sacred lands (the temenos) in Attica (the Athens region) in the second half of the 4^th century BC. The main purpose is to present what types of guarantees existed in the process of the land transactions in the Athenian polis of the second half of the 4^th century BC. For the first time in historiography, based on the information contained in the epigraphic material, a comprehensive study of the guarantees that existed during the lease of the sacred lands in Attica is carried out. Through the analysis of the epigraphic material, various types of guarantees were identified that were used during the lease of the temenos in the Athenian polis of the second half of the fourth century BC, among them the pledge of a real estate, the personal participation of the citizens who acted as the guarantors of the fulfillment of the terms of the transaction. The prosopographical analysis of the names of the guarantors demonstrates that most of them had a high social status, which, apparently, indicates their attitude to the participation in the lease of the sacred lands as a special kind of obligation, a kind of liturgy. A comparison of the information obtained from the inscriptions on the lease of the temenos in Attica with the analogous information from other areas of the Greek world, in particular, from the territory of Delos and Thespia, makes it possible to conclude that the types of the guarantees in different areas of Ancient Greece are similar.

The article presents the results of an analysis based on archival materials of funds of personal origin of major leaders of industry, construction and transport, which are stored in the State Archive of the Novosibirsk region. The structure, composition and content of the personal archival funds of individual prominent business leaders are revealed. Their outstanding role in the development of the economy of the Novosibirsk region is determined, and their importance in preserving the cultural heritage of Siberia is shown. The personal archival funds of the Heroes of Socialist Labor, the heads of key defense industrial enterprises located in Novosibirsk, V.V. Kozlov and A.I. Brykin, are considered in more detail. Special attention is paid to their memories. The palette of documents related to various industrial and political events in which V.V. Kozlov took part is quite fully presented. It is noted that unique and previously unpublished official and family photographs occupy a significant place in his personal archive fund.

The texts of his speeches dedicated to the most important anniversaries of the country, region, city, and factory have been deposited in A.I. Brykin’s personal archive fund. The visual materials are represented by photographs of A.I. Brykin, his parents, colleagues, the participants of the major regional events, the delegates of the 25^th CPSU Congress. The valuable source is the album of photographs on the history of the factory.

Based on the analysis of the sales lists from the Archives of the State Book Printing Department (RGADA. F. 1182. Op. 1-3), this article examines the sales of the Gospels and Apostles at the Moscow Printing House Book Shop in the pivotal period of the mid-17^th century, marked by the Patriarch Nikon’s church reform and a growing economic crisis. It is established that those factors caused a significant decline in the sales of printed materials. The main consumers of the above mentioned publications were the booksellers, who, despite the general decline in demand, increased their purchases and reinforced their presence by the late 1650s; there were also the members of the clergy (predominantly, the black clergy), whose purchases of the “newly corrected” Gospels and Apostles declined sharply, reflecting their attitude towards the ongoing reform. A comparative analysis revealed the differences in the consumer practices across the different social groups. The Gospels were often bought in bulk for resale or “construction”, while the Apostles were purchased individually, presumably for the personal use. The geographic distribution of those publications was generally similar, with the residents of Moscow and of the most developed urban centers north of the capital playing a particular role. The results of the research confirm the previous observations regarding the stability of the geographic distribution patterns of the Moscow-printed books, they also reveal the new aspects of the reaction of different social groups to the church reform.

The article is devoted to the study of monarchical ideas in the poetic works of L.A. Kologrivova (1902–1914) in the context of historical events of the early twentieth century. Based on the author’s poems and through historical and literary analysis, a connection between her work and the ideology of the Black Hundreds movement is revealed. This ideology is characterized by its commitment to the principles of “autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality”. It has been established that the key motives of L.A. Kologrivova’s poetry, in accordance with the patriotic discourse of the era, are an apology for autocracy, anti-revolutionary rhetoric and representation of historical events (the revolution of 1905–1907) through the lens of Orthodox symbolism. Her poetry is dominated by historical themes that focus on the sacred connection between Orthodoxy and royal power, such as images of holy princes and the idea of the “God-chosen” monarch, etc. For the first time, the reasons for the marginalization of her work during the poetess’s lifetime are examined. That was caused, on the one hand, by the rejection of the author’s patriotic position by a part of the intellectual elite, and, on the other hand, by the confrontation between the traditionalist and decadent paradigms in the culture of the Silver Age. The work contributes to the study of “forgotten” female figures in Russian poetry. The results of the study expand the understanding of the role of literature in the formation of ideology and cultural memory of Russia.

This article examines the interaction of the Astrakhan Section of the RSFSR Union of Writers with the editorial boards of the two Astrakhan regional newspapers, the “Volga” and the “Komsomolets Kaspiya”, in 1963–1965. The article focuses on the “official” as well as the personal relationship between the writers and the staff of the two editorial boards. The archival documents show that during the transition from the “Khrushchev Thaw” to the “Brezhnev Frosts” in Astrakhan, there was an increase in mutual “misunderstanding” between the writers and the journalists. The main source of that “misunderstanding” lay in a disagreement over the publication of the writers’ literary works in the two newspapers. The editors expected the writers to supply vivid, interesting journalistic essays about the “communist construction” and the “people of labor”, which would serve to activate ideological work among the population. The journalists, as the “fighters of the ideological front”, believed that “ideology” was more important than “literature” on the pages of their newspapers. But the writers, for their part, insisted on publishing their poetry and prose in the newspapers, believing that fiction was no less important for “communist education” than journalism.

The article is devoted to the fate of the oldest Bolshevik, Moisey Ilyich Frumkin, who, as the Deputy Commissar of Finance of the USSR, in June 1928 was the first to oppose the accelerated collectivization, saying that all economic data revealed that such a turn was premature. In the speeches of the party leaders, he heard that the middle peasants displayed “exploitative traits”. In this way, the very idea of the new economic policy as a policy of an alliance with the middle peasant – and against the kulak – was annihilated: though that was Lenin’s position. Such deformation scared Frumkin by turning to the practice of war communism. He wrote two letters to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in which he contended that the Leninist policy in agriculture should not be abandoned. Despite the serious arguments supported by economic facts, he reversed his position, recognizing the fallacy of his previous views. The archival documents pertained to the party purge in the People’s Commissariat of Finance shed light on the nature of the birth of Stalinism as a phenomenon – not only economic, political, but also ethical and psychological. The article explores the mental crisis in the perception of one’s own opinion (albeit based on rational arguments) and the collective opinion of the party (which begins to be dominated by the religious motivation of loyalty).

The article focuses on the dedicated work of the Sheremetev family – the historians Sergei Dmitrievich and his son Pavel Sergeevich – in locating and identifying Russia’s estate archives to preserve them. The Sheremetev family traces its origins to the old Moscow nobility.

As the owner of major documentary collections in the villages of Mikhailovskoye, Ostafyevo, Kuskovo and Ostankino, which reflected the history and culture of Russia, Sergei Dmitrievich became a scholar of estate culture, describing these estates as “cultural nests of Russia.” The Sheremetevs also initiated the creation of the Repository of Private Archives, which was opened in 1919, after the death of Sergei Dmitrievich. Staff members of the Repository of Private Archives travelled across Russia, rescuing perishing private archives, primarily estate and family archives. Pavel Sergeevich became one of the heads of the Repository of Private Archives (together with A.M. Fokin). The article examines his activities in searching for, identifying, rescuing and preserving archives, as reflected in his undated memorandum “On Private Archives,” in which he effectively set out a programme for organising the collection of private, primarily estate, archives during the Civil War in Russia. The article also analyses P.S. Sheremetev’s work in the Moscow Regional Archival Administration (MOUAD) as an archivist of the 2^nd Moscow Division of the 4th Section (Public Education) of the Unified State Archival Fund.

The article presents one of the tragic pages in the history of archival work, related to the destruction of archival documents in the Bashkir Central Archives. Based on the documented sources, the article proves the deliberate destruction of the invaluable funds by the management of the Bashkir Central Archives in the mid-1920s. As a result of their criminal actions, more than 14 000 poods of the unique archival heritage were irretrievably lost, including the phenomenal collections on the history of the region from the 17^th to the 19^th centuries that were transported from the Karavansaray complex (Orenburg) to the Bashkir Central Archives (Ufa). Such a volume of the destroyed valuable documentary and historical-cultural heritage has never been recorded in any other region of the RSFSR. The crime was committed by the head of the Bashkir Central Archives, S.V. Andreev, and the archivist, G.I. Marzishevsky, who were not punished for their illegal actions. As a result of their incompetence in archival work and the haste of the “Scrap Paper” campaign, the Bashkir archives were irreparably damaged, and many pages of the regional history of Russia in the 17^th – 19^th centuries remained an unsolved mystery for society. The process of destroying the funds of the Bashkir Central Archives stopped only after the operational intervention of the Central Archives of the RSFSR. The study of the activities of the RSFSR Central Archives from the perspective of the Bashkir Central Archives shows a high role of the RSFSR Central Archives in preserving and preventing the mass “extermination” of the pre-revolutionary funds in Bashkiria.

The article examines the evolution of the approaches to the ways of working with machine-readable documents (MRDs) in Russian archival science. The author provides a comprehensive analysis of the studies dedicated to the appraisal, storage, accounting, and the use of MRDs, from the first scientific developments in the 1970s to the early 1990s.

The study focuses on the issue of the terminological diversity, characteristic of both the Soviet period and the modern times. The article analyzes the criteria for the MRDs’ appraisal developed by Soviet archivists. The author highlights the approaches that remain relevant today, such as the two-stage appraisal, the principle of primary information, and the methods for data extracting from databases.

The practical significance of the research lies in demonstrating how historical experience can be applied to the contemporary archival challenges. The author shows that many methodological solutions proposed in the 1980s (e.g., the concept of a unified archival format or the principles for ensuring preservation through a regular data migration) retain their relevance in the context of digital transformation.

The article is valuable both for the historians of archival science and for the practitioners involved in electronic records management. The material is based on a wide range of sources, including archival documents, regulatory acts, and the scholarly publications from different periods.

The paper is devoted to the content of historical and information approaches which will make it possible to carry out research on different aspects of archival work. The study proves that, in combination, the two approaches provide a possibility to discover and then to analyze important problems of history, theory and practice of archives administration and of the work of professional archivists. At the same time, concrete examples show that these approaches have specific features for forming the direction of the specialists’ creative activity and are also oriented to their own expert problems. Along with the presentation of the content of these methodological directions for the study of history, theory and practice of archival work, the article unfolds the most important historiographical sources in which these directions have become the objects of approbation.

As an example of the areas studied from a historical perspective, the current paper defines the processes and facts of the foundation and functioning of archival institutions and services in different periods, discusses the development of scientific thought in the sphere of archival science and also scrutinizes the methodological documents for archival work created before the emergence of the elements of a postindustrial society. Among the directions studied from the position of information approach, the article presents the establishment and development of archives as information systems; displays the practice of application of contemporary computer archival technologies in a standalone quality and compared to the traditional technologies; shows the origin of electronic documents and the development of ways to work with them.

The principle of provenance is the foundation of the classical archive theory. Its main advantage is the existence of the additional related information arising from the objectively formed historical context of every document that is a part of an archival fund. The archive collections, in which the connections between the documents are of the logical origin, lack this significant merit. The principle of provenance in its purified form can only be applied to archives. However, in a number of cases the historical connections may be observed between the books in the libraries and the objects in museums. In particular, there are historical connections between the books in private libraries that are either kept apart in the libraries and museums (such as, for instance, the Voltaire Library), or reconstructed at the description level (e.g., the Diderot Library). Objective connections also exist between the handwritten books in the territorial collections that result from the particular archaeographic expeditions. Similar relations can be found between the objects discovered by archaeographic and ethnographic expeditions, which are kept in museums, as well as, in some cases, between the objects in the memorial museums. In this way the principle of provenance is reflected in the library and museum. The information value of the library and museum funds is directly proportional to the presence of objective historical connections between the books or objects constituting them.