The article is devoted to the first steps in office of People’s Commissar for Railways of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) Lieutenant General I. V. Kovalev, appointed to this position on 20 December 1944. The purpose of the research is to analyze the work of the People’s Commissariat for Railways and its new head I. V. Kovalev in person on organizing a way out of the railway transport crisis at the end of 1944, and measures taken to provide transport facilities for the strategic offensive operations of the Red Army at the final stage of World War II. The source base is the documents of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History (RGASPI), the Russian State Archive of Economics (RGAE), as well as scientific works of domestic historians and memoirs of immediate participants in the events. The chronological framework of the study covers the period from December 1944 to May 1945. At the beginning of the article, the author reveals a fall in the railway transport efficiency in the autumn of 1944 and implementation of the first urgent measures by new People’s Commissar I. V. Kovalev to get out of that difficult situation. This was related to activities of the central office of the People’s Commissariat for Railways (NKPS), and work organization of subordinate entities as well as heads of various levels of front-line and rear railways. In those current conditions, People’s Commissar I. V. Kovalev utilized internal reserves – improving management arrangements, searching for internal opportunities in the field, organizing socialist competition and properly using the patriotic upsurge of the three-million labor army of railway workers. The conclusion is made that new People’s Commissar of the NKPS Lieutenant General I. V. Kovalev managed to rectify the crisis in railway transport within two months and established efficient transport provision for the victorious offensive of the Red Army at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War.
The article is devoted to the study of creating the Fakel Youth Scientific-Production Association (NPO) at the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), one of the first innovation organizations in the country under the conditions of the economic reform in the second half of the 1960s. Main factors and conditions for the Fakel NPO establishment are considered. The purpose and prime tasks of this organization are shown – implementation of research and development, and rapid use of the outcomes in the field of material production. The article describes the organizational structure and principles of this entity. The main structural element of the Fakel NPO was a branch, which in its turn included thematic groups. The Fakel NPO was a fully self-financing organization. All operations were carried out by temporary teams based on economic agreements with customers. The article points out high efficiency of scientific and technical activities of the organization, and reveals its contribution to the social-cultural sphere development in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok. Also, the article depicts problems of the Fakel NPO functioning in the centralized and rather tightly regulated economic management system. The Fakel NPO is shown not to have had the status and rights of a legal entity and to have carried out its activities as an internal division of the Komsomol District Committee, which at that time was beyond the existed legislation in the field of remuneration, in-house double job-holding, as well as accounting and spending of funds. The author considers the main attempts to solve that problem made by the Presidium of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences and by the Fakel NPO management. A special role is noted of academicians M. A. Lavrentiev and G. I. Marchuk, heads of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
The analysis of linguistic units associated with spatial nominations requires further elaboration. In particular, the issue of correctness of their correlations in the Russian and German linguistic worldviews remains open. This article proposes a comparative study (using the Russian and German languages as examples) of national stereotypes in selecting linguistic units for the thematic group of urban space names. The research methodology draws on the postulates of communicative and comparative linguistics, as well as translation theory. The study aims at analyzing translation peculiarities of urban space lexemes within the context of national paradigms of representatives of the Russian and German linguistic worldviews. The key findings include identification of “urban space naming language” concept boundaries and designation of urban space specifics from the perspective of its so-called substrate elements and from the point of view of a comparative analysis of dictionary entries and urban map data. In examining specific interpretations of urban language in Russian and German, the author focuses on the semantic lacunae (gaps) between these languages, which include the presence of non-equivalent nominations in these languages; the presence of lexically divergent names in these languages; and the differentiations in the linguistic representations of the world of the Russians and the Germans. The paper concludes with a discussion of significant differences between the Russian and German linguistic models of the world, arising from discrepancies in the semantic content of certain urban spatial lexemes. The findings of the study are applicable in specialized courses on linguoculturology, and comparative and cognitive linguistics, as well as in teaching Russian to foreign students.
This article examines Russia's early experience of entering into systemic relations with European countries at the Congress of Vienna, which determined the fate of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, as a full-fledged European power, as well as consequences of active involvement in European affairs for the Russian Empire. Russia's foreign-policy and military success during the reigns of Catherine II and, especially, Alexander I resulted in a mixed response in European countries, as the “balance of power” in Western politics was clearly shifting dramatically. This, in turn, led to anti-Russian course formation in European capitals, which saw Russia as a geopolitical threat. The English, in particular, who had great plans for the Crimean War, believed that dismemberment of the Russian Empire as a result of the war could remove the Russian threat. In the years between the Congress of Vienna and the Crimean War, the civilization rift between Russia and Europe was taking its final form, becoming ideologically shaped in both Russian and European intellectual circles. Even at that time, Europeans viewed Russia as an alien element, neither possible nor necessary to be included in the European civilization. However, the Russian society had no clear position, as evidenced by the debate between Westernists and Slavophils at that time. Along with geopolitical and civilizational contradictions between Russia and Europe, the late 18th and early 19th centuries also saw the emergence of social-formation ones. While bourgeois mono-ethnic states were rapidly forming in Europe, Russia remained a multinational empire. The current state of affairs between Russia and Europe does not seem to have changed much over the past centuries, which indicates the depth of contradictions developed in the early 19th century.
