The article studies the Artemis worship on the Bosporus, including goddess’ common and local characteristics. Various religious beliefs related to Artemis had been present in Panticapaeum since its foundation in the 7^th century BC due to first Milesian colonists, including apparently Artemis Delphinia and Chitone cults. More recently Artemis of Ephesus and Artemis Piphia cults appeared. Generally Artemis cult contains some archaic elements, among them the Great Goddess (especially in Artemis Tauropolos cult) and the Mistress of Animals features. Those elements were popular in the Bosporan religion, as reflected in unique monuments from the region, such as the statue of goddess with bull skull sitting on the acanthus plant. Hecate cult allegedly entered Panticapaeum from Miletus in Asia Minor version. Gradually in the Hellenistic period there is emerged Artemis-Hecate-Ditagoia cult as a result of several factors, among which were local and Attic influences. Artemis-Hecate as a savior had a strong connection with afterlife and magic rituals. The next flourishing of Artemis cult occurs in the Mithridates period due to the ruler’s support of Greek religion. Nevertheless, the continuity of religious traditions took place. A sanctuary devoted allegedly to ArtemisHecate was built in the Panticapaeum acropolis, close to the Cybele temple. At this time sacral reliefs with Cybele, Hermes and Hecate became popular throughout the state of Bosporus. The monuments reflected a scene of the journey into the underworld, and Hecate perhaps acted as a deity of borders and gatekeeper.

The article studies the religiosity of Russian population in the 17th century in order to find out the type of this state of public mind. Special attention is drawn to the acuteness of eschatological expectations in society, which intensified during periods of crises. After the Time of Troubles (Smuta), the Church, trying to bring society out of the spiritual crisis, had been exploiting the “end of the world” topic through publishing relevant texts. This trend was especially noticeable during the time of Patriarch Joseph. The decision of the Moscow Printing House (Pechatnyi Dvor) to extend the amount of eschatological publications was determined not only by the direction of church policy, but also by the request in society, the desire of the population to get a more complete picture of the Christian teaching about the ultimate destinies of the world and man, since the spiritual crisis had presupposed an increase of apocalyptic moods. This desire indicates that the population was characterized by the religiosity of the medieval type. The article scrutinizes in particular the 2^nd half of the 17^th century, which modern researchers rightly designate as the early Modern era. In a society with such a keen perception of the time, the church reform, initiated in the middle of the century by Patriarch Nikon, was naturally not supported by a part of the population. In the interpretation of the defenders of the Old Belief, the actions of the reformers turned into clear signs of the advent of the kingdom of Antichrist, as it was prophesied in Christian teaching. It was not some peculiarity of the worldview of the opponents of church reform, their behavior adjusted the religiosity of the epoch. To justify this thoughts the position of Patriarch Nikon could be mentioned. Nikon found himself in a situation of disapproval and, arguing to be wrongfully convicted and misunderstood, he also used the eschatological doctrine. Based on the analysis of such facts, the article concludes that the 2^nd half of the 17^th century was characterized by religiosity of the medieval type.

This article considers palace coups as one of the key phenomena of Russian political culture, which intertwined traditions and innovations, accidents and patterns, personal and corporate interests, prudence and adventurism. It analyzes methods and mechanisms by which the Russian autocrats of the late 17^th – 18^th centuries ascended to the throne. The ways of ascension to the throne were different, but they had one thing in common – compliance with clear rules of succession was very far from ideal, which was significantly different from most European monarchies. In monarchies where inheritance was legally fixed by the principle of primogeniture, it was much more difficult to carry out palace coups. There was no such mandatory legal norm for the Romanov dynasty. Palace coups in Russia did not lead to changes in the social and economic sphere or in the mechanisms of functioning of the state, with the exception of the political careers of individual dignitaries. The last palace revolution in the history of Russia took place in 1801 and symbolically completed the 18th century for it. Most of the changes on the Russian throne during the 18th century took place in the form of a “palace coup” with the participation of representatives of the dynasty and, as a rule, the highest dignitaries. Such methods of changing rulers reflected a certain instability of the supreme power, disputes about the ways of modernizing the country, the consequences of Peter the Great’s reforms and, in fact, intra-dynastic contradictions.

The article indicates the factors influencing the representations of the rural population in the reports of the Siberian governors-general; demonstrates historiographic results of the analyses of these reports; substantiates the possible out- comes of using the discourse analysis for identifying their authors’ ideas on the subject matter. The reports were compiled by local-level imperial experts – functionaries and officers, who participated in gathering and handling of primary data; governors, who accumulated and relayed these data to governor-generals; governor-generals, at least, the ones, who actively participated in reports writing; the Emperor, leaving his notes on the reports; representatives of involved ministries and governmental offices, preparing answers to the “highest reprimands”. It is important that among the experts there were members of various public organizations, primarily, local departments of the Russian Geographical Society. It was found that representations of the rural population were quite conservative (traditional) and changed little over time. The peasantry was described in a paternalistic manner as an object of care and custody. Representations of the peasantry were influenced by central authorities’ stance towards both the region as a whole and specific groups of rural population; the perception of the peasantry by a governor-general and his surroundings; the standpoint of the we-groups, expressing public opinion, who were seen as influential by a governor-generals.

Based on the published memoirs of the employees of the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the article reconstructs the communicative space of the Russian bureaucracy, which was responsible for organizing population migrations to the eastern outskirts of the empire in the late 19^th – early 20^th centuries. The research identifies the actors, conditions and channels of communicative actions of managers, who belong to the formed in the post-reform period generation and performed their duties under the influence of socio-cultural transformations of the second half of the 19^th century. It has been proved that the main features of the identity of the new type of imperial bureaucracy were: breadth of views and a democratic style of behavior within a professional group, a sense of responsibility towards society and the state, a categorical rejection of radical political ideas and ways of their manifestation. The research demonstrates that the cultural and historical background of organizing the communicative space of resettlement officials was a qualitative rethinking of the tasks of the “resettlement case”, which became an important element of the colonial policy in the eastern parts of the country. The concernes of the authorities on the agrarian issue gave the resettlement movement a priority status in the domestic policy of Russia. In this aspect, the significance of the bureaucracy that was involved in solving problems related to the organization and regulation of the resettlement process has also changed. The article establishes that, in contrast to the bulk of Russian officials, the employees of the resettlement department were characterized by greater mobility and intensity of contacts with various class categories of the empire’s population, primarily with the peasantry. It was the communication with the peasantry that named the considered category of officials “resettelers”, which eventually determined their identity as specific, different from the identity of other groups of the Russian bureaucracy. Thus, within the space of official and informal interaction of resettlement officials, the principles of paternalism and partnership underlied the communicative action, which contributed to the “soft” professional adaptation of young employees of the department, the collective adoption of conventions of mutual understanding, cooperation and maintenance of comfortable conditions for activity. All this, taken together, increased the efficiency of the work of the empire's representatives on the colonized territories, and raised the prestige of the Russian state in the Trans-Ural regions.

The article examines the merits and demerits of the policy of Soviet government in the field of regional electric power industry, in particular the energy projects in the Far East region. It aims to analyze the conditions and features of the implementation of the public policy of the USSR intended to develop the electric power industry of the Far East in the 1950s – mid-1960s; to identify the main trends and contradictions in interaction between central and local authorities dedicated to regional electrification. The research is based on the traditional historical methods, as well as on the state-centered and regional approaches. It is shown that the electric power industry in the Far East has been developing in conditions of limited resources and lack of mutual understanding between the center and the region in solving towards the problems of the industry. The public policy for the development of the Far Eastern electric power industry was based on the idea of a quick and cheaper construction of thermal power plants. The author comes to the conclusion that this policy led to various consequences, including technical lag in the electric power industry and the pace of electrification, an increase in the shortage of electricity and, in general, a slowdown in the socio-economic development of the region.

The article reviews the options for using the definition of “socio-cultural practices” in the Russian scientific literature. For the first time, it is intended to identify relevant historical content for research, communication, and commemorative practices currently implemented in the Siberian region. For a representative analysis of the historiography and empirical source, there is a socio-cultural approach and mnemosine – the science of public memory. The article presents the outcomes of study and public broadcasting of socio-cultural practices related to the incorporation of new territories of North Asia into the Russian state in the late 18^th - 19^th century, the growth of civil society in the early 20^th century, the development of scientific, historical and cultural heritage in the 2^nd half of the 20^th - early 21^st century. It highlights modern communication practices, which are based on information technologies (electronic archives), designed for the development of scientific heritage, historical information available to the general population. Special attention is drawn to the analysis of multi-level commemorative practices, the historical content of which is associated with the Great Patriotic War (World War II) and presented through Internet resources and publications, in particular, the magazine “Historical Courier”. From a civil-patriotic point of view the article shows the contribution of Siberian scientists toward the victory and post-war development of the country. It also considers the communicative and educational and leisure practices of local history museums (the Museum “Zaeltsovka”, the Museum of Science and Technology of the SB RAS) related to military-historical topics. The authors come to the conclusion that to response to the great challenges of our time, it is necessary to develop a system of socio-cultural practices based on the historical content and shape an active civil position of the population of Russia, and, in particular, the inhabitants of the Siberian region. Further study of the entire range of socio-cultural practices is relevant and promising for developing a model of commemoration, structuring and adaptation of historical past for effective use in working with the population and educating young people.

The article is devoted to three eminent scientists of the beginning of the 20^th century, who studied the English parliament of pre-revolutionary England. The first is the American lawyer Charles McIlvaine, created the theory of the transformation of parliament from a court dependent on the crown to a “sovereign legislative body of the kingdom”. The second is Wallace Notestein that claimed the parliament should become an independent object of historical studies and called for archival research and the publication of parliamentary sources. The third is Konstantin A. Kuznetzov, published in Russia a book “The Tudor and Stuart English House of Commons”, where he partially began to implement the program formulated by W. Notstein a year later. Konstantin Kuznetsov comes to the conclusion that under the early Stuarts the House of Commons was more and more willing to get the commoners’ election out of control of the royal officers and the Lords of the Privy Council, and tried to make it more democratic. To that end, the House used its right to verify the election. The author examines various electoral cases and petitions on electoral grievances to demonstrate that the House of Commons interpreted the old rules and proceedings aiming to guarantee voters more independence. A special committee of the House of Commons often examined requests from towns to restore the right of sending their presenters, which the towns lost in the Middle Ages. The towns sought to broaden their representation. At the same time, the commoners remained adherents and supporters of the tradition. They had no intention to change the electoral system by a parliamentary statute. The House of Commons was trying to make elections freer by the interpretation of the rules established in ancient time. On the basis of a comparative analysis of the works of three researchers, the author shows K. A. Kuznetzov’s book was the best work on parliamentary history in the world at the beginning of the 20^th century.

The article is dedicated to commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the 1921 West Siberian rebellion. It cut off Siberia, which was the main source of supplying food to Western Russia, from the European part of the country for almost three weeks. As a result, in late February – early March 1921, Soviet authorities found themselves on the brink of an abyss. In the Soviet period, this event was characterized as a major counter-revolutionary peasant rebellion, led by the underground Siberian Peasant Union, established by the Social Revolutionaries. This interpretation of the uprising contributed to its one-sided and, therefore, rather rapid oblivion and disappearance from public consciousness. The article highlights the names of the scholars who played a major role in debunking the Soviet myths about the West Siberian rebellion. Modern researchers have proved that the West Siberian uprising was predominantly spontaneous and was triggered by a combination of reasons caused by politics and the activities of the Soviet authorities. It was anticommunist in nature and its main demand was the restoration of true Soviet power but without the communists. At the same time, nowadays a partial shift in terminology, as well as in public consciousness, related to the awareness of the nature and essence of the uprising, becomes more noticeable. The article traces the first signs of recognition of the importance that has been given not only to the tragic end of the West Siberian rebellion but also to its heroic beginning. This was evidenced by the appearance in several settlements of new memorials of the uprising.

One of the difficult subjects in the history of the Renovationist schism in the Russian Orthodox Church is considered – the irreconcilable conflict between the leaders of the schismatic Supreme Church Administration in the first months of its work. It resulted in scandalous forms of public non-recognition of each other in the course of joint church services and ordinations of new renovationist bishops. For the first time, the article introduces the study outcomes and publishes the original text of the report of the abbess, clergy and senior nuns of the Moscow Passionate Monastery to Patriarch Tikhon on the church service of the Renovationist Metropolitan Antonin (Granovsky) and other schismatic leaders in the monastery cathedral in September 1922. The handwritten original of the report is kept in the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg, in the collection of the office of Patriarch Tikhon and the Holy Synod. It is suggested, which requires further confirmation, that its text was written by the hand of the monastery archpriest Theodore Aleksinsky, the holy new martyr of the Russian Orthodox Church. The article concludes that the published source reflects the most acute phase of the conflict between the Renovationist Metropolitan Antonin and the priest V. D. Krasnitsky, which led to a split in Renovationism and the emergence of new schismatic groups. It highlights the most significant milestones in the life of the main person mentioned in the report of the Renovationist Metropolitan Antonin (Granovsky). It also observes the attempts to introduce and publish this historical source that have taken place in historiography before. This article publishes the report taking into account the modern scientific norms of archeography.