The ancient Egyptian false-door stela of Neferiu from the Denderite nome has several unusual features: on the right jambs he boasts that “nourished (even) the great in the year of famine” and claims that the god Iqer awarded him prosperous longevity; on the left he is depicted as a portly old man; etc. How can these peculiarities be explained? During the First Intermediate Period in the Denderite nome false-door stelae were a luxury appropriate only for top officials and their nearest relatives. However, the false door of Neferiu is an exception to this rule. He is not said to have held any office, and although his ranking titles seem relatively high, we know that at that period such titles were often appropriated by provincials devoid of top positions. Thus, on account of his low “official status” (if any at all), Neferiu needed to inventively justify his moral right to his prestigious false door, and this is the purport of his inscription on its right jambs. The reference to “nourishing (even) the great” implies that in the year of famine Neferiu, owing to his wealth and generosity, turned out to be a more useful person for his town than even its top officials. His claims that he “was aggrandized beyond great men and officials” and praised by “the entire town” also put him on a par with local magnates. His prosperous longevity, “documented” by his “elderly” representation on the left, is said to have been granted by the god Iqer (in gratitude for the salvation of his townspeople, the god’s flock and providers). Meanwhile, it was mostly nomarchs and overseers of priests who attributed their good fortune to the favor of a local god. So, since Neferiu was a man useful for his town no less than its top officials, was he not - just like them - also worthy of a false-door?

The article focuses on the need to consider classical medieval texts not only as sources of historical information, but also as author's works subject to a certain methodology and using a variety of historiographical technologies and ideological schemes. The specific subject of the study is the two main sources on the history of the Eastern and Western Khitans (“Khitan Guo Chi” / “History of the Khitan state” and “Liao Shi” / “History of the [dynasty] Liao”), who created the largest state structures in the pre-Mongol period. “Khian Guo Zhi” is more of a history of the Khitan ethnos, whereas “Liao Shi” is a history of the dynasty, i.e., of the state construction. As a result, we have the maximum possible penetration in those days into the two most important topics-the people as a geopolitical actor and the state as a civilizational-state structure. Their authors carried out impressive synthetic work to prove certain postulates. These are, strictly speaking, not scientific approaches, but ideological, existing, moreover, often in the form of Philistine fabrications. These sources raise a particularly significant problem of the origin of the Khitan, their dynasty, civilizational affiliation of the Khitan, the Khitan determination of the place in a nomadic world, the specifics of socio-economic and social system of the state of Liao, Khitan influence on the social development of the far East and East Asian regions. In them, the Chinese civilizational paradigm was applied to the fullest extent possible, the essential worldview settings of classical Chinese historiography are traced: Sino-centrism, sedentary centrism, Han-fan dichotomies and culture - nature. As a result, these works had a significant impact on the development of the two most common approaches to studying the history of Khitan, which are considered as classical barbarians who constantly attacked China and for this purpose created their own quasi-state, but under the influence of Chinese civilization “grew” to the level of the traditional dynasty.

The author analyzes how the emerging political identity of the early modern English nation expressed itself in literary texts of the 17^th century. The revitalization of English nationalism in Britain actualizes the analysis of the early stages in the history of the formation and development of English identity. The author of the article believes that intellectual history, as a form of knowledge of the past, is, on the one hand, among those methodological approaches we can use for analysis of English identity. The author uses constructivist methods of Nationalism Studies, believing that the nation is the result of political and social modernizations, inspired by intellectuals as representatives of “high culture”. Analyzing the problems of the imagination and invention of a political nation in 17^th century English identity, the author believes that several factors determined the main vectors and trajectories of developments and transformations of the self-consciousness of English intellectuals. It is assumed, that religion was one of those factors that influenced political identity significantly. Intellectuals were the main inspirers of the emerging English political identity. The intellectuals who represented the “high culture” initiated the processes of nationalization of politics, that expressed in the radical project of the Republic, which in fact became the historical predecessor of the modern nation-state. The author believes that the political imagination in 17^th century England justified and legitimized political changes, stimulated the development of national identity and inspired the processes of transformation of Englishmen from traditional groups with unstable estate identities into an early modern nation with an emerging political identity.

In the 1990s the end of the Cold War and the US’s efforts to build a “new world order” actualized in scientific discourse the problem of understanding the principle of state sovereignty. Moreover, due to the WTO accession, the discussion among United States’ scholars intensified about the preservation of sovereignty of their own state. As a result, both the US authorities and most experts advocate the inviolability of the sovereignty of their country, noting, however, that it might be temporarily limited by different international obligations, first of all by economic agreements, but this does not affect it radically and the possibility of withdrawing from various kinds of contracts remains. At the same time, the last superpower’s foreign policy actions at the end of the 20^th century (interference in the internal affairs of Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Yugoslavia, etc.) clearly illustrate the disregard for the sovereignty of other states. In an attempt to explain this policy, they argued that sovereignty, while remaining a significant principle in general, can be lost, which opens up the legitimate path to the internationalization of a conflict. All in all, despite the fact that such an understanding of sovereignty as a conditional principle, is not new in itself, the United States took some steps to extend this understanding to the whole world, granting itself the right to single-handedly determine cases where and why sovereign rights are lost.

The Volga cities played an important role during the Time of Troubles, but the history of Samara has not been studied enough. There is practically no information about the voivodes and the garrison of Samara from 1602 to 1614. Newly discovered sources allow to correct this gap in historiography. It is known that there were 300 gunmen in Samara and 205 gunmen came to Samara from the destroyed Saratov. Despite the frequent change of power in Moscow, Samara remained loyal to the central authorities, particularly to Tsar Mikhail Romanov elected in 1613. False Dmitry II and his son Ivan (“Vorionok”) from Marina Mnishek, who failed to gain recognition in Moscow, did not receive support in Samara. The consistent identification of the Samara garrison and its commanders with the supreme authority served as a defense against internal unrest. In the face of an external threat, this factor saved Samara from the fate of Saratov and Tsaritsyn that disappeared during the Time of Troubles. Also the courage of the defenders of Samara was supported by the prophecy of Alexy, Metropolitan of Moscow, stated that the enemy would never capture this city. The article shows that in the Time of Troubles, the Samara fortress continued to be a reliable outpost on the southeastern border of Russia. The fortress had to play an important role, first of all, in the fight against internal enemies. After the liberation of Moscow from the invaders and the election of Mikhail Romanov as the Tsar ataman Zarutsky made the last serious attempt to struggle against the new dynasty in the Volga region. Before the government army went on the offensive in 1614, the rebel movement was restrained by the Samara garrison and by its voivode D. P. Pozharsky-Lopata. They also contributed to ensuring ties with the countries of the East, to the restoration of the Volga route, and eventually to the revival of national statehood. After 1614 the Samara authorities returned to “routine” duties to protect trade routes from robbers instead of fighting against the dangerous anti-government movement.

The problems of tax collection by voivodes offices in the 18^th century at the heyday of absolute monarchy seem to be little studied at the regional level. The author organizes data on the playing card tax based on the study of income books, extracts, arrears, and other financial documents of the above mentioned period. This article presents a number of previously unknown sources. Based on them, the author concludes that there is a twofold situation: on the one hand, the state introduced prohibitive measures toward playing cards, and on the other hand, it pursued its financial interests and did not remove the records on playing card tax from account books. In the second half of the 17^th century the government received income from playing card tax and did not want give up the opportunity to get this money. A complete ban on gambling was issued in 1733, which eventually led to a shortage of card collection. The author analyzes the percentage of the tax on the playing-cards among other incomes of the voivodship office and reveales a bunch of imperfections of the tax legislation and the problems of its use by local authorities. It is notable that the voivodes office did not try to actively recover the playing card tax, realizing the absence of legislative support.

The article studies the formation and development of the fuel and energy resource base in the Far East of the USSR on the eve of and during the Great Patriotic War. Research objectives: to determine the features of the formation in the Far East of an industrial complex for the extraction, processing and distribution of energy resources; to analyze the production activities of coal mining, electric power and oil industries; to identify the main challenges of the development of the fuel and energy resource base and show the ways of their solution by the Soviet party and economic bodies in the period under review. The methodological basis of the study is traditional historical methods, as well as the method of system analysis. The study reveals that the development of the fuel and energy resource base of the region was due to its isolation from the industrially developed regions of the country, the specifics of economic development of the region, the location of fuel-producing regions and large industrial consumers of energy resources, the complexity of the geological structure of coal deposits, and the limited financial, material and labor resources, incomplete construction and reconstruction of energy facilities. The author concludes that the central and local party and economic bodies made a lot of organizational efforts to develop the fuel and energy resource base of the Far East and to solve complex issues of material and technical support for enterprises, especially during the Great Patriotic War.

The article considers the issues of use of prison labour in the “Southern Kuzbass Corrective Labor Camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs”. The chronological framework of the study is set between 1947 and 1950. The camp was located in the south of the Kemerovo region in the Gornaya Shoria district. The Southern Kuzbass Corrective Labor Camp was established according to the resolution no. 409 of the Council of Ministers from March 1, 1947. The main activity of the camp was logging. However the penal labor was used not only in the logging industry, but also in the timber processing, construction, and agricultural sectors. Based on archival documents, this article shows the features of the organization of labor activity of prisoners, working conditions, methods of stimulation and encouragement. The author explains challenges that were faced in the process of implementation of measures aimed to improve the working and living conditions of prisoners, their general physical condition and their work motivation. Among them there were difficulties in carrying out measures for labor protection, calculation of wages for prisoners, determination of their employment category, use of mechanized equipment in production activities, ensuring satisfactory sanitary and living conditions. Despite this, the analysis of indicators of labor productivity for individual logging phases in the camp demonstrates a positive trend.

Modern studies consider the memorial activity in the context of formation and development of civil society as an important factor of shaping public memory and building national, regional and local identity. The analyzes educational and commemorative practices of the departments of the All-Russian Society of Protection of Historical and Cultural Heritage, the All-Union Geographical Society and the Society “Knowledge” in Altai in 1965-1991. The study bases on application of cross-disciplinary approaches of the intellectual and modern local history. The authors conclude that activities of public associations for identification, studying, registration and popularization of historical landscape objects promoted ideas about the importance of preserving the historical and architectural space of region for collective memory and identity of regional community. Ruling elites supported mainly those social initiatives for protection of monuments which were aimed to promote the values and ideals of Soviet socialism. As a result the indifferent attitude of party and state institutions to protection of archaeological objects and heritage of the pre-revolutionary era, the lack of effective tools of influence on economic organizations and administrative structures by public organizations and the formalism in the work of the Society of Protection of Heritage did not allow to develop practical measures to preserve the archaeological sites and to stop the destruction of the original historical and architectural environment of cities and villages of the region.

The article focuses on the critical analysis of sources of the late 16^th century - “shert’” letters, that were discovered by the author in the Russian archive of ancient acts. The author discusses the origins of these documents and the circumstances of their discovery in the Archive’s funds. The first discovered source is the shert’ of Khan Kuchum given to Tsar Ivan the Terrible in 1571/72. Although this document was known in the first half of the 17^th century, its original was considered lost. This paper presents a transcription of this shert’ letter, preserved in the collection of diplomatic correspondence. The second discovered source is “shert’ of Yermak” 1580 (1582). Different versions of this document are contained in the Esipov Chronicle, in the Pogodin Chronicle, as well as in a copy of the turn of the 18^th - 19^th century, as part of documents collected by A. F. Malinovsky. The last-mentioned version was published by V. I. Sergeev in 1976. This publication, however, has several inaccuracies. Comparison of publications and archival versions of sources showed, that over the years, researchers used defective editions, that had a bunch of incorrectness. In light of the fact, the need for further archival research aimed to discover the earlier existence of these valuable sources becomes apparent. The text of the documents is published in this article according to the simplified rules for publishing historical sources.

One of the plots in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the time of Patriarch Tikhon is considered, when in 1924 the renewal group “Living Church” headed by priest V. D. Krasnitsky had a try to join the supporters of the patriarch. It was established that this plot was repeatedly considered in literature, but its comprehensive study became possible only after the publication of materials from the Anti-Religious Commission under the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the investigative case of Patriarch Tikhon. Based on the analysis of these historical sources the article concludes that the initiators of the annexation of the “Living Church” to the patriarch were the Anti-Religious Commission and the OGPU. Their goal was to exacerbate the struggle between different parts of the Russian Orthodox Church and thereby discredit it in the eyes of ordinary believers. This paper introduces into scientific circulation and publishes a leaflet with a “Memo for Churchmen”, prepared for publication in 1924 by the renovation Altai diocesan administration. It was identified in a single copy in the State Archive of the Novosibirsk Region. The author takes into account the small circulation of 150 copies and the purpose of the church document and assumes that it was preserved only in this archive. Apparently this leaflet was a response of the Altai Renovationists to the messages in May 1924 in the central Soviet newspapers about the joining to the Patriarch Tikhon of the schismatic group “Living Church”, which was not included in a single renovation Church. This historical source testifies that not only the metropolitan, but also the Siberian dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church took part in the new round of struggle of the renovationist schismatics and supporters of Patriarch Tikhon inspired by the OGPU.