During periods of world order’s changes there is traditionally a reduction in the threshold for the use of force in international relations.The article traces this trend using the example of the administration of the 47th US President, namely the military-political crises that the USA have initiated in 2025 against Iran, terrorist groups in Nigeria and Venezuela. Recognizing the objective movement of the world order towards a state of multipolarity, Donald Trump’s administration has been largely unprepared to accept this process and seeks to suspend it. The White House is trying to ensure that the international system is US-centric, rather than Western-centric, and has weakened and partially nullified its commitments within partnerships and alliances, seeking maximum flexibility in foreign policy.The West is reducing its collectivism due to the ideological and value division between liberal and traditionalist elites. The last ones, especially Trump’s administration, declares its focus on combating non-classical security threats.Mainly in the context of the fight against them, the White House initiated military-political crises in 2025, in practice seeking to strengthen and reconfigure its strategic presence in the Global South. The article compares the development of the crises based on more than ten criteria. Special attention is paid to the steps which were aimed to ensure tactical surprise. The White House is trying to position itself as a fighter against international terrorism and is seeking to change the political systems in Iran and Venezuela as states in the Global South that do not accept the US-centricity of the world.At the same time, the Trump’s administration tried to take into account the past failures of the United States, using “scalpel tactics”. The scientific paper concludes about the new type of military-political crises and the increase of the factor of force in the US strategic actions, which they have been currently positioning as “deliberate”.
The article discusses the evolution of Russian policy in the field of education of the Kazakh population and the formation of the national education system in the steppe regions in the pre-revolutionary period. An attempt is being made to examine the origins of educational policy through the prism of a regional approach. It is concluded that there were serious differences in the issue of attracting Tatars to the education of the Kazakh population in the Orenburg and West Siberian departments before the adoption of the Provisional Regulations of 1868 and a significant unification of education policy since the creation of the steppe regions. In the article the serious attention paid to the introduction of primary and secondary education in Russian, Kazakh and Tatar languages, the successful experience of creating Russian-Kazakh schools, their role and impact on society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among other things, it is concluded that Jadidism has a limited impact on the development of education and the political situation in Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Ural and Turgai regions.
The article is devoted to scientific creativity of Miss Mary Bateson (1865—1906) — talented scholar of F. W. Maitland; she dealt with the research of municipal history of medieval England as well as with history of customary law and medieval monasticism. She’s revealed as an outstanding representative of Maitland’s historical and law school (school of critical trend of the 19th — the first half of the 20th centuries), which had greatly influenced on the history of formation of national historiographies of the period. One of the key questions, mentioned in the article, is a problem of specific approaches of the 19th — the first half of the 20th centuries historians to the ways of publishing of archive materials as well as the scopes of these published sources in the historical researches of nowadays.
This article examines how the Soviet Union’s role in the Second World War (WWII) is presented in the post-apartheid Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for Social Sciences, Grades 7–9, and in a selected CAPS-approved Grade 9 Social Science textbook. It argues that, instead of apartheid-era hostile erasure, curriculum–textbook interaction now produces selective remembering: a systematic marginalisation as detrimental for learning as explicit exclusion. Drawing on collective-memory approaches to historical consciousness and decolonial critiques of curriculum knowledge, this paper adopts a qualitative documentary design to combine critical discourse and visual semiotic analysis of the two data sets. The findings show that CAPS omits the Eastern Front, Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Siege of Leningrad. The textbook closely follows these omissions: the Soviet Union’s entire European military role is confined to a single, 110-word, unlabelled paragraph with no sources, visuals, or learner activities. By contrast, the rise of Nazi Germany receives 9 pages and 7 structured activities, and the Pacific War receives 4 pages, including a reproduced presidential address. The article identifies six related discursive patterns that render Soviet military agency passive, reactive, and marginal. It contends that this reflects epistemic indifference, the post-apartheid parallel to apartheid-era hostile erasure, which weakens South African learners’ historical consciousness and denies them a multi-perspectival understanding of WWII. The article ends by outlining implications for revising CAPS, improving textbook approval and evaluation, and strengthening initial and ongoing professional development for history teachers.
The article touches upon the role of the religious factor in the integration of the new territories obtained by Prussia by the decision of the Congress of Vienna of 1814—1815. The author emphasizes the inner heterogeneity and regionalism as the peculiarity of the Prussian political culture in the early nineteenth century. The circumstances under which Prussia obtained new provinces in 1815 are very carefully examined, special attention being paid to the parts of Saxony, Westphalia, West Prussia, the Great Duchy of the Lower Rhine and Swedish Pomerania. The role of the clergy is demonstrated on the sermons delivered on the occasion of the swearing of the oath by the estates of the new territories to the Prussian King. It is pointed out that the reunion with Prussia was interpreted by the clergy as God’s will. God was thus directly interfering with the earthly politics by establishing the borders of countries and nations. National rhetoric was used by the clergy as well, especially by the preachers of those territories which had been under the French rule prior to 1813. The pastors did their best to create a favourable image of Prussia, presenting it to theirs listeners and readers as a highly advanced, enlightened, and powerful country capable of protecting its citizens against foreign enemies. In order to strengthen the emotional connection with Prussia, the whole Prussian nation was imagined as a big family with a Father-King at the head. The personality of Frederick William III also served as a unifying factor. In the sermons the Prussian monarch was represented in many ways: as a kind and caring father, as a brave and courageous soldier, as a noble and native German ruler, or as a pious Christian. The pastors painted an appealing picture of a happy future awaiting their provinces as part of Prussia. At the same time they reminded their flock of the obligations towards their new Fatherland, taking up arms for it, if necessary, being the principal one. Devotion to the King and willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of the Prussian Fatherland were considered by the priests as higher Christian values. Thus, in the early nineteenth century, religion served as an important stabilizing and integrative factor conducive to the smooth integration of the new territories into the Prussian kingdom.
The article introduces the autobiography of Ismail Gasprinsky, written in 1886 for the Dictionary of Russian Writers by S. A.Vengerov. This edition remained unfinished and the material about Gasprinsky was not printed. It was preserved in the Institute of Russian Literature Manuscript Department in the archive of S. A. Vengerov. The autobiography puts an end to some controversial points in the biography of I. Gasprinsky (about the enlightener’s birthplace, his studies at the Sorbonne, acquaintance with I. S. Turgenev, etc.). In addition, the article publishes a letter from I. Gasprinsky to S. Vengerov in 1888, in which he gives a list of Muslim contemporaries– literary and journalistic figures.
The terminology of patrilineal kinship is insufficient to study a power distribution and gender history of Muscovite Russia, to which historians, philologists, and anthropologists pay increasing attention. Having outlined a comparative perspective and developed a language of interpretation, the author examines cases from the 16th and 17th centuries that highlight kinship and matrimonial ties and discuss inter-kin alliances: the marriage of Princess Marfa Shuiskaya to Prince Ivan Belski, the correspondence of the nun Olga Godunova, the life of Ulyana Osoryina, and the struggle within the Sheremetev family. Interpreting these cases, the article outlines the shift from the terminology of clans in favor of the concepts of political unions and social networks, which are more in line with the specifics of Russian political culture.
Armand Hammer was a unique figure in the history of Soviet-American relations. As a witness to various historical eras, from the New Economic Policy to Perestroika, he made a significant contribution to the development of bilateral economic and later cultural ties over several decades. This article explores Hammer's role in the economic cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the last two decades of the Cold War. In the 1970s, an important component of détente was the development of trade, economic, scientific and technical ties between the two countries, which provided the conditions for Hammer to launch several projects in the Soviet Union at once. The main focus of the article is on two of them — the most successful and large-scale (a compensation deal for the construction of a complex of facilities for the production, storage and transportation of mineral fertilizers with subsequent mutual supplies of chemical products) and a large-scale but unsuccessful (plans for the development of oil and gas fields offshore Sakhalin and Yakutia). Based on the analysis of documents from the Russian archives (RGAE, RGANI, GARF), sources of personal origin, documents from the U. S. Department of State, the American and Soviet press, the development of these projects and the reasons for their success or failure are shown. The author concludes that despite the uniqueness of Hammer's biography and the unique style of his work, using the example of a businessman in the USSR, one can identify a number of stable characteristics of Soviet-American economic cooperation characteristic of the entire period as a whole: the pragmatism of the parties, the dependence of the development of economic contacts on political conditions, the complexity of the “docking” of different economic systems, the unconditional priority of short-term commercial benefits in the activities of American businessmen over the possibilities of deep scientific and technical cooperation between the parties.
The article is based on the results of 8 field studies conducted by the author from 2011 to 2023 in the United Republic of Tanzania, in Dar es Salaam city. The majority of city residents are engaged in the informal sector of economy (street vendors, porters, hairdressers, etc.). Most of them are recent migrants from villages, so for them various practices of mutual assistance are important and relevant as an insurance against the background of the absence of formal work, social services and state support. In Tanzania, such practices have special names: kufa na kuzikana (sw. “death and funeral”), mchezo (sw. “game”) / upatu (sw. “circle”), vicoba (sw. “pocket”). Such groups are well-known practices of mutual assistance, which were initially formed at the grassroots level and were based on trust, but over the time wealthier citizens also got involved in such practices and even began to register such groups officially. Vicoba was different from all the other associations from the very beginning because this initiative was started by the Tanzanian government with the aim of developing small and medium-sized businesses, especially run by women. In 2018, the “Microfinance Act” was released, saying that the Bank of Tanzania has the ability to formally regulate all microfinance institutions, including vicoba groups. The article examines the evolution of mutual help groups in modern Tanzania: from informal associations based on trust to officially registered groups with government support.
One of the earliest notable mentions of Prince D. M. Pozharsky in documents is connected with a precedence (mestnichestvo) dispute with stolnik Prince B. M. Lykov in 1602, concerning the service of their mothers as “verkhovye boyaryni” (senior court ladies-in-waiting) to Tsarina Maria Grigoryevna Godunova and Tsarevna Ksenia Borisovna. An analysis of this case, which was re-examined (but never resolved) following the petition of boyar Prince B. M. Lykov in 1609, reveals the significance of familial ties and the influence of the female segment of the courts of tsarinas and tsarevnas on the careers of their male relatives serving in the Sovereign’s court. The article will elucidate the connections between the Pozharsky family and Prince Andrei Ivanovich Gundorov, the dvoretsky (court steward) of Tsarina Maria Grigoryevna, which enabled Princess M. F. Pozharskaya to secure a position at court and allowed her son to enter service at the tsar’s court. The patronage of his mother helped Prince D. M. Pozharsky embark on a long path toward the “restoration” of his family’s status within the ruling elite at the turn of the 16th — 17th centuries.
The article is devoted to the study of the first part of Christine de Pizan’s Book of the Peace (Livre de la paix) and explores author’s strategies for instructing the young Dauphin Louis of Guienne in the “art of statecraft” and also to warn him about “bad advisors”. Christine not only presents her own (albeit original and sometimes traditional) ethical system in a consistent and convincing manner, denouncing sycophants and flatterers and establishing a hierarchy of virtues that collectively define the ideal monarch, but also engages in “political warning”. Drawing on the rich literary tradition of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as her personal experience (it should be noted that Christine was already in her mid-fifties when she wrote this treatise), her knowledge of history, social thought, and her understanding of the “laws and cycles” of court life, party politics, and intellectual trends, de Pizan was able to create a form of “speculum regis” that was both concise and accessible to an educated reader. In fact, she was addressing the future monarch, whom she saw or wanted to see as the heir and successor to the “great cause” of Charles V. As a scholar who defied the rules of the cruel “male world”, she made a name for herself with her Book of the Peace — a complex and profound ethical and political treatise.
This article examines the formation and development of Jadid education in Tatar maktabs and madrasas of the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It outlines the prerequisites for the Jadid reforms, the role of Tatar entrepreneurship, and the influence of enlightenment ideas as well as various laws and regulatory acts. The interaction between the state and society in the development of this educational system, the role of Russian-language classes and Russian-Tatar schools, and the integrative potential of Jadid madrasas are emphasized. The authors highlight the significance of Jadid education as a tool for integrating students of such schools into the sociocultural sphere of the Russian Empire.
The author examines the dynamics of Muslim education among the Adyghe people of the Kuban region in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the context of Russia's confessional policy. The author analyzes the coexistence of two main educational models: state educational institutions created by the Russian government, aimed at forming a loyal elite, and traditional madrassas at mosques, where teaching methods remained unchanged. The author analyzes how, against the backdrop of stagnation of traditional madrassas, Jadidism became a driving force for the modernization of Muslim education. It was thanks to the educational ideas of Jadidism that the Adyghe intelligentsia initiated the creation of new-method schools offering a wider range of disciplines and innovative approaches to education, which contributed to the development of national identity. The fact that these schools were founded by Adyghe repatriates from the Ottoman Empire gives this process a local peculiarity. The article pays particular attention to the reaction of the Russian Empire to pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic influence, expressed in the work of the Special Conference chaired by P. A. Stolypin in 1910, which resulted in the closure of new-method schools.
This article explores the influence of the Ottoman Empire on the development of the Jadid movement in Central Asia, particularly in Bukhara. The author examines this impact through the lens of local perceptions of events occurring in Turkey. The study raises questions about how the population perceived the situation in the Ottoman Empire and their interactions with Ottoman public figures. It investigates historical processes that shaped these perceptions among locals, as well as the role of education and media in shaping the intellectual landscape of the Jadids. Key figures such as Sadriddin Aini, Münevver Kari, Abdurrauf Fitrat, and others are mentioned for their contributions to the movement. Periodical publications played an important role in informing Turkestanis about developments in the Ottoman Empire. Education initiatives, including new-method schools opened in Bukhara and sending students to study in Istanbul, significantly influenced the transformation of traditional mindsets among young people in Turkestan. The Young Turkish Revolution had a profound effect on the political stance of the Jadids, leading to demands for constitutional reforms in Bukhara. This event notably impacted changes in political views and the structure of the Jadid movement, resulting in its politicization and increased activity among Turkestani intellectuals.
The article accompanies the publication (transcription and translation into Russian) of two letters — King of Scotland James V Stuart (1512—1542), and his first wife — Madeleine of France (1520—1537), written, respectively, June 7 and 8 1537 at Edinburgh Castle, and sent to King Francis I of France through Ambassador to Scotland, Bishop of Limoges. Both letters were preserved as part of the collection of Western manuscripts and autographs of Peter Dubrovsky, a Russian diplomat in France (1754—1816), in the National Library of Russia. The letter of Madeleine de Valois is of exceptional importance, since her epistolary heritage is calculated by a few units of documents, and the letter from St. Petersburg, despite the fact that they knew about it already in the 17th century, disappeared from the field of view of researchers and is still considered lost. It contains a request for help to his father, — to send an experienced physician to Scotland who observed the young queen in France. Unfortunately, this request came too late, Madeleine passed away at the age of 16, going down in history as the “summer Queen of Scotland”.
This article analyzes spiritual kinship between Catholic aristocrats and the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I in England in the second half of the 16th century. A prosopographic study, which identified Elizabeth’s Catholic godchildren, demonstrated that the Catholic aristocracy was not excluded from the Protestant queen's court clientele. Spiritual kinship was the crowning achievement of a courtier's career, a sign of their belonging to the Queen's inner circle. A condition was that the child's mother belong to the “house” of the Queen, which implied either kinship or service as a lady-in-waiting or lady of the bedchamber. This emphasizes the important role women played in integrating the aristocracy into court society. Catholic women at court were required to accompany Elizabeth I to church and to receive communion according to the Protestant rite. For some women and their families, this became an obstacle, forcing them to keep a distance between themselves and the court; for others, prepared for religious compromises, women's service at court and spiritual kinship with the queen provided protection from persecution and opened up unlimited career prospects, as the case of the Somerset family, examined in the article, amply demonstrates.
The unification of Germany is not an ordinary event, and over the years, hundreds of significant scientific works, countless comments, assessments, and speeches have been published by both experts and amateurs who are unfamiliar with the German issue. This article examines and analyzes various sources, interpretations by publicists, bloggers, and historians who have contributed to the coverage of the process of German unification. It also includes documentary materials about meetings and negotiations, as well as the recollections of prominent politicians, diplomats, and participants in those events, both from Russia and abroad.
The paper is devoted to the history of the alcohol issue in the Russian Empire on the eve and after the adoption of the “prohibition law” of 1914. The author set out to highlight the problems of mass drunkenness as well as the process of combating it through the prism of pre-revolutionary Old Believer publications. The focus of attention was on materials from the “thick” journals “Zlatostruy” and “Old Believer Thought” of 1910—1916. On the one hand, the paper examines the problems of alcoholization of various social strata, child drunkenness and examines the failures of the sober movement in the context of the state-owned alckohol monopoly. On the other hand, the consequences of the unprecedented social experience of forced sobering up during the First World War are shown as they were seen by educated representatives of the Old Believer world. The paper concludes that, being representatives of the sober tradition in Russian culture, the Old Believers’ authors did not cover the implementation of the “prohibition law” fully and objectively. At the same time their publications provide valuable material for thinking about why this law was introduced, what achievements it had and how great was the potential of pre-revolutionary Russia in the struggle for mass sobriety.
In the 18th century the Russian authorities began to send young people to Europe to master maritime affairs. At the same time, the number of foreigners arriving in Russia for various purposes increased. In addition to merchants and diplomats, these were seekers of earnings in a foreign land. They entered the army, got nannies in wealthy noble families, became governers. Opportunities for young people to meet were expanded. Marriage to a foreigner (German, French, Greek, British) was a rare phenomenon, associated with dissatisfaction of relatives, worried about marriage with a foreigner. The article examines the sociocultural aspects of the consequences of marriage between Russians and British.
This article characterizes Muslim reformism in Dagestan in the first third of the 20th century as a form of Jadidism in the Muslim outskirts of Russia. Based on an analysis of press materials, manuscripts, correspondence of Dagestani scholars, and other literature, it is revealed that Dagestani reformers developed a concept for a new perception and development of Islam to facilitate the peaceful adaptation of Dagestani Muslims within Russia during the late imperial and early Soviet periods. Dagestani Muslim reformism was educational in nature: a comprehensive reconstruction and analysis of Islamic education reform was conducted, the theological and legal aspects of Muslim enlightenment were established, the practice of women’s emancipation was summarized, and the Dagestani reformer’s; policy regarding outdated adats was defined. Dagestani reformers prioritized social progress in science, culture, and the study of national history, languages, and literatures.
