The article analyzes the nature and essence of traditions and customs and their place and role in the modern everyday life of Kazakh people. Based on the outcomes of previous studies of Kazakh history, philosophy, and sociology and on the examination of the national cultural policy, especially the preservation of national culture and the revival of forgotten traditions and customs, it highlights main challenges related to the education in the field of progressive cultural traditions, reveals, reasons of why some of the cultural practices and norms stay alive when others disappearing. The study goal is to show the role of the traditions and customs of the Kazakh people in the revival process of the national culture during the period of social modernization. The article considers traditions and customs as an integral sociocultural dimension of human activity and communication, creating the basis for the entire diversity of cognitive experience. Based on the already published and widely known materials on nomadic and Turkic cultures, traditions, and customs, the author examines connections between historical traditions of the steppe life, their representation in the modern everyday life of the Khazakh people, and their future as a part of the national culture of independent Kazakhstan. For instance, hospitality is a foundational element of both the rites of the nomadic people of the Kazakh steppe and the cultural norms of the contemporary population of Kazakhstan. The article concludes by arguing that customs and traditions are a social mechanism that transfers social values from generation to generation and underlies the basis of national unity and cultural identity of the Kazakh people. Thus, the national culture, containing many traditions, customs, rituals, rituals, is the life-giving environment that can and should serve as a source of national revival for any state, and especially for Kazakhstan. Culture is able to accumulate knowledge and information about the world and pass it on from generation to generation. At the same time, it acts as the social and intellectual memory of a particular nation and humanity in general. Therefore, the purpose of the author during the period of modernization of society is to show the spiritual revival of the national culture of the Kazakh people as an integral part of the world cultural process.

The article addresses the problem of Old Believers’ reasoning for organizing religious life in the communities. It focuses on a unique attitude toward the texts, which had an almost sacred status. The author outlines a process of formation of the canon of the Old Believers’ sacred texts in the second half of the 17th century. This canon included fragments from authoritative manuscripts and printed editions that provided foundational arguments for the opponents of the church reform in any disputes, primarily related to the reformation of the rite and liturgical practice of the Russian Orthodox Church. The author also indicates a process in the first quarter of the 18th century associated with the Old Believers’ continued attempts to find citations to expand the canon of sacred texts. The article analyzes the analysis of miscellany compiled by the Vyg Old Believers in the first quarter of the 18th century. It contained fragments of texts that several generations of defenders of the Old Rite had selected. From their perspective, these texts testified to the justness of their views on controversial issues of religious life. The contents of this miscellany, given in the appendix to the article, show how citations of these texts used to be practical tools to resolve debatable issues related to theology, rites, and liturgy, as well as the organization of everyday religious life in the communities. The miscellany's compilers were keen to find texts that strengthened their positions and enabled their disciples to defend the Old Rite in debates with official church representatives and within the religious and social movement. The article concludes by arguing that the Old Believers’ canon of sacred texts was significantly expanded in the first quarter of the 17th century to include fragments of texts, which covered not only issues of theology, liturgy, and rituals but also the organization of the communities’ everyday life (for instance, performing occasional Christian services when no priest is around).

The article studies the professional training of soldiers’ sons and the formation of the social group of lower-ranking military men in the 1730s. The regulation of the occupations of military personnel’s sons and the creation of schools in the garrison regiments were carried out during the Petrine reforms of the 1710–1720s. Later, amendments were made to the legislative norms that clarified the tasks of the garrison schools. These innovations took place during the reign of Anna Ioannovna. Since then, school training has focused on replenishing the regiments with literate and professionally educated clerks, musicians, and artisans. The author of the article focuses on the school history that started in the early 1720s in the Ivangorodsky infantry regiment of the Vyborg garrison. Based on the data from sources on personnel, the article analyzes the general level of literacy among officers and privates of the mentioned military unit, the composition of their families, and the activities of male children. The author examines the results of the government policy on the training of literate lower-ranking military men, as well as the history of the formation of the social group of military men. It was revealed that the military command in Vyborg made efforts to ensure that the local regiments were replenished with people who originated from military families and were professionally trained in the local school. This was the embodiment of the strategy of the central authorities. By 1735, the personnel of the Ivangorod regiment had already been replenished with 23 literate employees who were born in the military families of Vyborg, Kexholm, and other towns of north-western Russia. The study of data on family ties within the community of the Vyborg garrison employees proved that the enrolment of soldiers’ sons in the garrison schools and future appointment of graduates to service in the garrison regiments was one of the ways the military estate was formed in Russia of the 1720s – 1730s.

For the first time in Russian historiography, the article analyzes the collection of documents from the State Archive of the Astrakhan Region and the Russian State Historical Archive related to the failed pilgrimage of the Kalmyk Buddhist clergy’s representatives to Tibet at the beginning of the 19th century. A significant amount of interdepartmental correspondence accompanied the whole preparation process for this pilgrimage, which was supposed to be part of the government policy on developing the Russian-Chinese diplomatic cooperation. The permission for Buddhist clergy to contact fellow believers in Tibet followed the organization of the Russian embassy to China in 1805, headed by Yu. A. Golovkin. The Russian government expected the successful completion of the embassy, one of the tasks of which was to get free access for Russian citizens to Tibet. Kalmyk pilgrims, escorted by government officials, should be the first Russians officially granted by China to visit Tibet in the second half of the 18th century. The unsuccessful completion of the embassy prevented the pilgrimage from realization but intensified the interaction of the Russian government with the Buddhist clergy of the Kalmyk steppe. The article provides information on compensation for the expenses of the Kalmyk clergy, the organization of the trip of lamas to St. Petersburg, and the permission to build a Buddhist temple in the Astrakhan province at the request of one of the participants of the never-realized pilgrimage. The article presents a transliteration and a modern (diachronic) translation of two letters written by the Kalmyk clergy in “todo bichig” (“Clear Script”) to representatives of the Russian government.

The charter of the Union of Welfare, the largest Decembrist organization, the “Statute of Laws”, also known as the “Green Book” has survived to this day. A significant amount of the document’s provisions focused on the internal structure, as well as the main activities of the secret society. One of the authors of the statute, S. P. Trubetskoy, in his investigative testimony and memoirs, presented several versions of the most important points of the “Statute of Laws”. This opens up an opportunity for the researcher to compare these descriptions with the original text of the charter to analyze the features of Trubetskoy’s memory and verify the accuracy and reliability of his testimony and memories. A comparative analysis of retrospective descriptions with the text of the charter document also makes it possible to identify the ideas, plans, and intentions of the organizers of the Union of Welfare, which were not reflected in the original statute of the Decembrist society and were preserved only in the memory of S. P. Trubetskoy. Until now, the historiography has not set the task of comparative analysis of the descriptions of the charter of the Union of Welfare belonging to one of the leaders of the Decembrist movement.

Historical memory is a necessary element of the nation-building process. It has various forms of realization, including visual ones. The article discusses one of the forms of visualization of historical memory through specific historical places – officially confirmed historical monuments. The author proves the thesis that the list of national historical monuments depended on the history politics implemented by the authorities and considers the evolution of this politics from 1826 (the first decree of Emperor Nicholas I on compiling in Russia a list of historical monuments, this was done by the Ministry of the Interior) until 1917. Initially, the authorities sought to recreate the picture of the historical past by fixing the surviving monuments. However historical politics was changing in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The purpose of the empire was to present Russian history as the apotheosis of the Romanov dynasty, especially its last representatives (Alexander II, Alexander III, Nicholas II). Therefore, according to their description of 1901–1903, most historical monuments were modern monuments to the last emperors and members of the imperial family. They were not historical monuments in the true sense of the term. It was an ideological, a propaganda campaign. The author draws attention to its inefficiency; these monuments could not improve the image of the Romanovs in the eyes of society. The author draws attention to the similarity of the principles of visualization of history through historical monuments in the Russian Empire and the USSR. In both cases, an ideological basis shaped the history politics, which was less about preserving historical memory and more about ideology and channeling specific ideas through selected monuments. Moreover, in both cases, it was a cause of inefficiency of history politics.

The article studies a historical source that previously was not in the focus of research - travel notes of the outstanding Russian merchant of the 19th century, gold miner, and discoverer of the Northern Sea Route Mikhail Konstantinovich Sidorov, which he wrote during a trip to the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia in August – September 1878. It aims to analyze the notes, characterize their content, and reveal the information potential for further study of the processes that took place among the forming Russian bourgeoisie in the post-reform period and testifying to the interest of Russian capital in the study and economic development of the outskirts of the empire. The research relies on the intellectual history approach, which involves the study of the mentality, the emergence and subsequent transformation of various ideas and cultural orientations inherent in a particular social stratum, in this case, the Russian merchant class. The travelogue provides valuable information characterizing the methods of work of its author, who already had extensive experience in the exploration and development of ore and oil fields in Siberia and the lower reaches of the Pechora, in collecting and recording primary information about minerals located in the region, local mining and manufacturing enterprises, his range of interests and, to some extent, ideological attitudes (in particular, adherence to the ideals of the Russian Orthodox Church). The surviving notes are, first of all, a brief fixation of what was seen, necessary for subsequent comprehension and generalization in the form of articles and reports, as well as formulations of practical recommendations on the prospects for further economic development of the territories that recently became part of the Russian Empire. In addition to information about the economic capacities of the region, M. K. Sidorov’s notes reflect the author’s impressions of visiting several local towns and villages, exploring natural and historical attractions, communicating with residents of different ethnicities. As a whole, the source under consideration expands the anthology of diaries and memoirs known to date that have arisen among the Russian peasantry, contains information about the economic and socio-cultural state of the Caucasus in the second half of the 19th century, emphasizes the interest and active participation of Russian business circles in the study and economic development of the region.

The article scrutinizes the reliability of harvest statistics of the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The author shows that a crop accounting reform conducted in 1893 led to a formal increase in crop yields in 50 provinces of European Russia by at least 19 %. In some chernozem and Volga provinces, the jump in productivity in 1893–1896 compared to 1887–1890 exceeded 40 %. In the Ekaterinoslav province, the jump was 42 %, in Kherson – 43 %, Kazan – 51 %, Ufa – 54 %, Vyatka – 55 %, Samara – 78 %. Climatic fluctuations cannot explain such a sharp increase in the average yield. Thus, the comparison of data on grain production in the 1880s with data from the beginning of the 20th century, carried out in the works of some historians, turns out to be incorrect. As is known, two trends in historiography assess the dynamics of the level of consumption in Russia in the late 19th – early 20th century in different ways. “Pessimists” talk about the growth of agrarian overpopulation and peasant shortage of land, which led to a decrease in per capita consumption and an increase in discontent among the masses. “Optimists” take the opposite position and argue that the production growth outpaced the population growth. Accounting for the proposed adjustment of 19 % leads to the opposite conclusion. Grain production per capita was declining, and the population’s standard of living was falling. From this perspective, the ideas about Russia’s economic development in the second half of the 19th century that existed until now require revision, considering new circumstances. In this case, the “pessimistic” point of view receives an additional argument.

The paper considers the process of church construction on the Kaidalovskaya branch of the Trans-Baikal Railway (one of the branches connecting the Chinese Eastern Railway with the Russian railway network). The history of how the branch was constructed and operated has been left beyond the scope of scholars’ interests, which explains the focus of the paper. The research relies on archive records data and aims at assessing the role of the state in the spread of Orthodoxy in Transbaikalia and the Far East through the main stages of the branch railway construction at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries. It also sheds light on how the Department of Railways of the Ministry of Railways and the Department of the Committee of the Trans-Baikal Railway solved the practical issues. The study spotlights a special agreement between the Trans-Baikal and Chinese Eastern Railways, which was concluded in order to boost efficiency of the CER railway section from the Chinese border to Manchuria station. It helps to evidence the specificity of church construction in the region under consideration: the trend towards constructing churches on the territory of large settlements near the railway and introducing mobile church cars. In such a way, the abbots of churches at the stations could travel hundreds of kilometers and meet the religious needs of workers and employees who lived along the railway line. The paper concludes that church construction has become a manifestation of Russian national policy aimed at strengthening its stance in the east of the country. The churches on the Kaydalovskaya branch, funded by philanthropists, local residents, and special purpose funds, still exist and should be seen as cultural heritage sites.

The article analyzes the phenomenon of scientific tourism in the USSR, both from the perspective of tourism issues and within the framework of the social history of science. However, modern research on scientific tourism has actually fallen out of the field of view of both scientific directions. For tourism issues, research design is limited, first of all, by different approaches to defining the sphere of scientific tourism in Soviet and post-Soviet historiography. Whereas within the social history of science framework, broad research prospects are opening up. The macro-analytical strategy makes it possible to identify the relationship of the “Intourist” with the party and state institutions toward scientific tourism, and the micro-analytical approach shows how interaction within tourist groups influenced non-political (including scientific) activity. Scientific tourism is considered as an external social factor influencing science, and at the same time as a form of scientific activity. Based on archival materials and documents of personal origin, the author concludes that the early history of scientific tourism fell in the second half of the 1920s and the completion of its formation in the 1960s. At the same time, the historical reconstruction allows us to see how certain areas of scientific tourism were formed – congress, industrial, expedition, exhibition, and specialized. The author explains the unstable dynamics of the development of Soviet scientific tourism, in addition to bureaucratic red tape and interdepartmental inconsistencies, primarily by attempts to combine two mutually exclusive attitudes – the expansion of scientific and technical cooperation and the achievement of ideological and political effect from trips.

The article analyzes B. F. Porshnev’s approach to the history of Early Christianity. Based on the study of the published and unpublished works of the Soviet scientist, the author establishes that B. F. Porshnev had a goal to add the history of Early Christianity into the general context of the class struggle, considering it the ideological basis of the anti-slavery revolution that shook the Roman Empire in the first centuries of CE. However, the attempt to present Christianity as a revolutionary force and its founder as a hero of a people’s movement contradicted the general Soviet approach to the history of this religion. In the 1960s, B. F. Porshnev questioned the version of the dating of the “Apocalypse” that dominated Soviet historiography and criticized the theory of the anti-slavery revolution. B. F. Porshnev heavily relied on R. Yu. Wipper and A. Robertson’s ideas, which other Soviet scientists criticized. For the above reasons, B. F. Porshnev’s articles on the history of Early Christianity were banned from publishing, and colleagues criticized his conclusions. After 1965, he lost interest in the history of Early Christianity due to the completion of his goal to build a theory of the development of the class struggle from antiquity to the present and add the history of Early Christianity to this grand scheme.

The article reviews the memoirs of historians written and published at the end of the 20th – the beginning of the 21st century. Among the large number (about a hundred) of texts, it selects about twenty that meet the following criteria: 1) written by specialists in the history of Russia, who continued their research work in the last third of the 20th century; 2) created and published after the early 1990s; 3) published as separate books. The research aims to analyze the current practice of publication, identify the main editorial, ethical and legal problems, and ways to solve them. Selected texts are divided into two groups: fifteen were published by the authors themselves and four – by other persons. Publications of the second group meet the requirements of edition archaeography to a greater extent, especially in the correct usage of the academic systems for referring to references. The first group does not always show a clear dependence between the nature of the publication and the qualifications of the publisher. The publications of both groups contain critical opinions about contemporaries and even mention specific names. Ethical and legal issues examined in this research include the publication of similar information, the chronological interval between the creation and publication of texts, and the admissibility of a text with omissions. The article discusses different opinions of well-known experts and their arguments in favor of various solutions. The article concludes by arguing that the publishers of other people's memoirs usually consider the copyright holder's opinion. At the same time, established practice and scientific discussions show that there are still unresolved issues. It emphasizes a need for considering these issues, complying with the norms of the law, and reasonably compromising.

The article reviews the historical sources from the collection of the National Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan related to the Supreme Chamber for Islamic Affairs of the Turkestan Governor-General’s Chancellery in the period 1867–1917. It studies the official documentation of the office of the Turkestan Governor-General, documents of the imperial departments, and documents from the personal collections of officers from the regional administration covering the Islamic policy of the Russian Empire in the region. For this region, Islam was not only a religion but also a way of life for the local population in general. The correspondence of the regional boards and regional administrations of the Turkestan Governor-General shows that the government policy implemented toward Islam by the Russian Empire required the training of specialists – Islamic scholars. The provincial administration desperately needed to establish a leading educational center for Islamic studies, which should include every stage, from elementary school maktab to higher level madrasahs, to increase the efficiency of the confessional policy in Turkestan. The Turkestan administration in 1884, 1898–1901, and 1908 made some steps to create a Spiritual Administration of Muslims within the Governor-General's administrative apparatus. Another critical issue that the Turkestan Governor-General’s administration faced was waqf property and related to this topic legislation. The article concludes that the improvement in the region's economic situation achieved by the tsarist authorities opened some opportunities for positive changes in the government policy towards Islam.