«Justice», «law», «liberty» are the key categories of political theory of John of Salisbury (1115/1120-1180), famous English intellectual, outstanding diplomat and philosopher. Analyzing these categories, the researcher represented a sufficiently complete doctrine of power formulated in the treatise «Policraticus, or On the frivolities of courtiers and the footprints of philosophers» («Policraticus, sive de nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum»). John of Salisbury, after studying liberal arts («artes liberales») and philosophy at schools of Paris and Chartres, became a secretary and counselor of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, and later - of Thomas Becket. Also John was an official representative of the archiepiscopal curia at the papal court and «curia Regis». «Magister from Old Sarum», an influential defender of the church’s liberties and papal authority and one of the most prominent figures of Renaissance of the twelfth century’ European cultural space, supported his friend and patron, the head of the English church, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, in political and ecclesiastical conflict with Henry II Plantagenet. After Becket’s murder John was elected bishop of Chartres, where he remained until his death in 1180. As he belonged to the 12^th century culture, John, as well as most of his intellectual contemporaries, aimed to gloss of classical law categories in complicated sense uniting antique traditions, represented by Aristotle and Cicero, and patristic (St. Augustine, etc.). Synthesis of pagan and Christian discourses allowed John of Salisbury to create in his «Policraticus», completed in 1159, dedicated to chancellor Thomas Becket (who became an archbishop in 1162) and reflected the author’ philosophical and political views. Also, he introduced to the reader his reaction on the different intellectual, political and ecclesiastical problems of the twelfth century - a theory, where, in the researchers’ opinion, there is no self-contradictions. Distinguishing a «divine» justice, which is equated with equality and «earthly» justice in the patristic tradition, the scholastic noticed that any secular state is guided by the latter, while the former, as the ideal justice, is the highest destiny. The aim of having a sacral power sovereign who yields to priesthood in dignity is reaching a «divine justice», which is impossible without law (i. e. «God’s law») domination and liberty (in its Christian sense, i.e. «free will», that means the right of choice between good and evil).

This paper considers the impact of the US education reforms in the last decade of the twentieth century on the quality of primary and secondary education and adult literacy that they were meant to increase at the beginning of the new millennium. The author has revealed the part that the issue of literacy played in two education acts passed within the studied period: 1) «America 2000. An Education Strategy» (1991) and 2) «Goals 2000: Educate America Act» (1994). In this legislation, the country’s education goals were set anew: America was to become the leader in the world economy through developing skills and enhancing the competitiveness of its workforce. To verify the difference that the two acts made and to evaluate the efficiency of the US concept of education in the 1990s, the author has compared the results of international and American literacy assessment tests for students and adults for the period of 1992 to 2003: TIMSS 1995, PISA 2000 and 2003, and the 1992 and 2003 National Assessments of Adult Literacy. This analysis has shown that although progress in improving the literacy of the US population was made, the expected considerable change in education indicators was not demonstrated. However, the reforms allowed modernizing the school system and solving several problems: legislation was passed that empowered citizens to establish new schools different from the traditional state school; parents were granted the right to choose a school for their children; pre-school preparation and school safety were improved. The author concludes that there are three primary reasons for the failure of the education reforms in the 1990s in the US. First, the approach to solving education issues was excessively multidirectional. Second, education performance indicators (to lead in Mathematics and Science in the world at the school level, to meet the advanced level of skills in all basic subjects by all schoolchildren, for instance) were too ambitious. Third, the reform did not result in overhauling the structure of the institutions that influence the quality of school education. This proved that the crisis in the US education in the 1990s was not overblown. Realizing why the reforms were unsuccessful was key to planning further changes in the US education that proceeded in the 2000s, when the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 came into force.

The article is based on the conducted discourse analysis of one of the first motherland studies textbook in Russian Empire written by the resident of Irkutsk M. V. Zagoskin in 1870. The historical, ideological and biographical context of its creation is revealed, the image of the author is characterized. It is found that the textbook was composed on the basis of the textbooks written in the second half of 19th century, epistolary and journalistic heritage of the regionalists, and diverse texts of Zagoskin. The writing was a logical continuation of his pedagogical, research, literary (including journalistic) work and it was aimed at the formation of regional patriotism. The textbook was innovative and ahead of time in many aspects. First of all, in contrast to draft textbook by Potanin and most of the other educational texts on the motherland studies in the second half of 19th century, it was addressed primarily to schoolchildren rather that teachers; it was written in a simple and understandable language. As a practicing teacher who was aware of the age features of his readers, Zagoskin sought to take them into account, while considerable part of the authors of similar textbooks perceived children to be small adults with narrower outlook. Secondly, this work can be called a schoolbook in the sense of educational literature genre typical for the period under study in general but untypical for motherland textbooks of the time. Textbook by M. V. Zagoskin was the first textbook of regional studies in Siberia, and one of the first in the Russian Empire. It is a didactic and ideological project, the aim of which was not only to introduce students to the basics of geography, biology, history, ethnography, statistics and demography of the native city, village and province, but also to form an active respect for the native place, desire to make it a prosperous part of the world; and in the furtherance of this goal, the author combined the plots of the past, present and future of the “small homeland” in the text.

The article deals with the emergence and evolvement of vocational education in the pre-revolutionary period in the Perm province. The reasons for its underdevelopment in the region are explored in which secondary educational institutions for women were functioning successfully. A comprehensive analysis of the data of the Ural archives and modern researchers’ works in this field has shown that the vast majority of special educational institutions for women in the Perm province were opened at the initiative of private individuals and local self-government bodies, which was typical for the whole country. As a rule, private initiatives in education were provided with charitable purposes and were represented (except for one medical school) by handcraft schools, and most of them were shelters or charity-schools for girls. Progressive people of the region realized the need for development of vocational education. The future of education depended on local needs defined by local governments. District councils were appointed to provide general education in the province, and they put major focus on opening of secondary schools. There, teachers were educated; and graduating in these schools was more prestigious than this in handcraft schools for women. Social standing of handcraft schools had declined by the end of the period under review because handwork had been integrated into educational programs of all female schools. Local governments of Perm and Yekaterinburg provinces supported medical education for women as well. At the same time, agricultural education was not widespread in the province in comparison with other regions of the country where it was actively developing. However, music education was quite advanced in the region, and a commercial college was opened there, where girls and boys studied together. The state of vocational education in region had not changed much for the beginning of the 20th century, even when the government was focused more on this segment of education: most women schools were preparing girls for the profession of a teacher because it was a better-off job and it was paid more than other jobs. In this way, female vocational education in the Perm province was developing rather poorly, and it was represented by a small number of educational institutions. An exception to this was various pedagogical institutions that trained teachers for primary schools. These institutions practically solved the problem of the shortage of personnel in this field.

In the article, the organizational structure, number and features of completing with the staff of the 2nd Separate Steppe Siberian Corps are considered, which operated at the Semirechensky front in 1919 as a part of admiral A. V. Kolchak’s armed forces. The source base of the research is materials of the White Guard funds of the Russian State Military Archive. The spatial boundaries of the research include the Semipalatinsk and Semirechensk regions of the former Russian Empire, where the studied battlefield took place. It is concluded that the Corps had a complex organizational structure, which was determined by the fact that the Corps was acting at an independent front, being separated from the main force of Admiral Kolchak’s Russian army. The latter was operating at the main - Eastern - front of the Civil War. The headquarters of the Supreme Commander in Omsk considered the Semirechye Front to be of secondary importance, and therefore neglected it. The High Command considered the 2nd Separate Steppe Siberian Corps to be primarily a source of reinforcement of the troops operating in the Urals. The Command of the Corps did not take proper efforts in respect of enhancing their own troops. At the same time, Ataman Annenkov, Chief of the Corps of partisan divisions, was actively creating improvised military formations which were approved by his superiors only post factum. Such practices went beyond the general principles of force generation of Admiral Kolchak’s armed forces, but ultimately contributed to the combat power building of the Corps and ensure the dispatching of its missions. The main task facing the Corps troops - to capture Verny - was not solved. The peak of the fighting capacity of the Corps and its maximum progress at the Semirechie front synchronized with the general collapse of Kolchak’s troops operating against Soviet troops at the Eastern front. As a result, highly favorable opportunities for the further advance deep into Semirechye in October-November 1919 became strategically irrelevant and were not entered into life.

The article is devoted to the Estonian period of life and activity of the prominent jurist and public figure David Davidovich Grimm (1864-1941). He was an active participant in the political life of pre-revolutionary Russia. Grimm was a member of the State Council of the Russian Empire, being the elected representative from the universities and the Academy of Sciences. The professor supported the February revolution. He collaborated with the Provisional Government. From March to July 1917 he was Deputy Minister of Education. D. D. Grimm emigrated from Soviet Russia in 1919. In early 1927, he received an offer to take up the Chair in the University of Tartu, and in September of the same year he moved with his family to Estonia. D. D. Grimm took an active part in the life of the Russian diaspora in Estonia. He was a member of the parish council of the Tartu Assumption Cathedral, the chairman of the local department of the Russian National Union. His apartment often served as a meeting place for Russian intelligentsia. In 1935, Grimm was invited as an expert to work on the new Civil Code (Constitution) of the Republic of Estonia. In February 1937, D. D. Grimm was appointed a member of the State Council (Riiginõukogu), the upper house of the newly created National Assembly (Rahvuskogu), as a representative of the Russian minority. In the Estonian period D.D. Grimm wrote memoirs on his participation in the State Council of the Russian Empire from 1907 to 1917, which are a valuable historical source, and which have only recently been introduced into scientific circulation. Very little is known about the last years of the scientist's life. The available sources do not yet allow us to say how he experienced the fateful 1939-1941: the beginning of the Second World War, the Sovietization of the Baltic States, together with the repression that developed there, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War and the seizure of Riga by the Germans. It is known for certain that Professor D. D. Grimm died on July 29, 1941 in Riga, shortly after its capture by German troops, and was buried in the Pokrovsky Cemetery.

The purpose of the article is to expose relevant organizational and medical areas in formation, functioning and re-evacuation of the system of emergency hospitals in the time of Great Patriotic war (1941-1945) through the example of Krasnoyarsk territory and Krasnoyarsk city, where V. F. Voyno-Yasenetsky arranged a powerful system of military health care. The article considers Soviet legislative framework of evacuation of hospitals deep rearward, of establishment of organizational structure (committees, departments), which were to support evacuated hospitals and related local authorities. The article also describes the crucial role of Russian and Soviet Professor-surgeon V. F. Voyno-Yasenetsky in Krasnoyarsk hospitals activity. The inextricable link of his medical practice with the activity of evacuation hospitals of Krasnoyarsk and the region is found out, and this link is considered to allow identifying Professor’s surgical talent. The latter is regarded to be the main component of success in treatment of purulent infections and also in saving the soldiers and officers’ body parts in the hospitals deep in the rear in 1941-1943. The currentness of appealing to the issue of the deployment of the emergency hospitals in the city of Krasnoyarsk and the Krasnoyarsk region and of their activity is connected with two facts. Firstly, the issue of war and health in the region have not still received a comprehensive, all-round coverage in historical works (they are mostly represented by small articles in anthologies, magazines and newspapers), which objectively reduces the idea of hard medical work in hospitals deep in the rear. Secondly, it is needed to include immense surgical, scientific, consulting and teaching activities of Professor V. F. Voino-Yasenetsky (St. Luka) in a bulky system of the Krasnoyarsk evacuation hospitals. V. F. Voino-Yasenetsky was working as a leading surgeon and consultant in hospitals at the Krasnoyarsk territory in hard war years (1941-1943). Owing to the Professor, a quantity of gravely ill soldiers and officers had been made alive and returned to the front, and the surgeons of the hospitals in the Krasnoyarsk region had developed new methods of carrying complex operations out.

The purpose of the article is to analyze concrete historical conditions and results of the practical implementation by the museum institutions of the state strategy of revival of the mass local lore movement in the “thaw period” at the regional level. The authors set the following tasks: to identify state approaches to regional studies and management mechanisms in the sphere of culture, and to show specific features of their appliance in the region. The article is based on methodological principles of new local history and on established practice of modern regional historical research. The source base of the paper comprises unpublished materials of accounting and control documentation and reports of museum institutions. Spatial boundaries of the study include Altai territory and the Gorno-Altaisk Autonomous Region, constituting a single administrative space during this period. The chronological frames cover the second half of the 1950s - the first half of the 1960s, which is determined by changes in museum policy in the USSR being a result of reforms initiated by N. S. Khruschev. The problematic field of the work is associated with transformation of local history practice under the influence of changes in internal political course and ideological bent in the country. As a result of the study, it was found that Altai heritage preservation and popularization appeared to be possible in the studied period due to the efforts of museum staff-enthusiasts and to the methods of organizing local history work among local residents. In view of this, it became popular to collect antiquities, documents and photographs of the history of schools, villages and districts and, based on them, creation of museums on a voluntary basis. Local history in the post-Stalin era was considered by Soviet authorities to be a means of constructing the «necessary» past and of control over social memory. In the socio-cultural landscape of Altai, the main obstacles in the practical activities of the museums in studying local history and popularizing local knowledge were weak material and technical resources, underfunding and personnel problem. The persistent political dictatorship of the center made museum workers display historical and cultural heritage objects in the context of communist ideology.

The publication of tsars’ instructions to Siberian voivodes of 17th century is still relevant to the contemporary level of development of the historical science. Up to day only a small amount of these documents have been published - instructions to voivodes of cities and forts Verkhoturye, Ilimsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kuznetsk, Narym, Nerchinsk, Mangazeya, Pelym, Surgut, Tara, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Tyumen and Yakutsk. Consequently, this gap has to be bridged. In the article, the authors have chosen the instruction to the 5th voivode of Eniseisk, a Muscovite nobleman Kondyrev. The instruction is dated of January 31st, 1631. Kondyrev was voivode of Yeniseisk from 1632 to 1633. It is the earliest document of extant instructions to Yeniseisk voivodes. The instruction was drafted in Kazansky Dvorets (Kazan Palace) office in 1631. It covers a wide range of issues dedicated to administration of Yeniseiskii uezd (Yeniseisk district) (i. e. collection of fur taxes, custom tariffs, organization of the ploughing land, collection of natural grain taxes, the natural grain salaries of servicemen replaced by land grants according to the “reform” (“code”) of Yu. Ya. Suleshev, issues of subordination of the governor to the governor of Tomsk and his relations with Moscow). This document reflects the governmental views to the colonization of Siberia in the 1st half of the 17th century. The government aimed to get the largest possible amount of expensive furs from the region. The document selected for publication is preserved in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Manuscripts (RGADA, Moscow) in the fund № 214 (Siberian office). The manuscript of this document was preserved in Yeniseisk in the 17th century. Only a copy in the collection of Kazan Palace has been survived to this day.