Although the ideological foundation of mutual aid within ancient Egyptian small social groups (family, neighbors, etc.) is mostly clear, very few written sources reveal such customs and practices of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. This gap is to some extent filled by Letters to the Dead – written requests for help addressed to deceased relatives, often mentioning mutual obligations of the living “sender” and the deceased “recipient”. Most “senders” of such letters require the “addressees” to follow the principle of reciprocity, a kind of do ut des: since the living contribute to the well-being of the dead by performing cult actions, the latter must now help the living. The rule of mutual assistance was so strict and pervasive that it transcended the boundary of life and death. The Letters to the Dead imply that deceased relatives remained firmly embedded in social networks of mutual aid. However, the most valued was not  a strictly fixed “return” of the once received assistance, but the confidence that the person who received support will not fail to come to the aid of his “benefactor” if trouble happens to the latter. At the same time, the Letters to the Dead show that Egyptians considered it not too petty to refer to their former merits in desperate times: for example, to mention an offering of a bull leg and seven quails in a letter to the deceased parents.

Most rock sanctuaries founded in the mountains of Taurus in the 1^st – 3^rd century AD had a votive character. These sanctuaries belonged to different deities. In southern Pisidia, three traditional rock sanctuaries of Apollo are known: in Perminus, near the city of Pednelissos, and near the ancient city, whose ruins are located near Kocaaliler. The iconography of Apollo in these sanctuaries differs from the image of a naked god familiar to the Greeks. On the votive stelae from Perminus, Apollo is represented as a rider-god, and in two other sanctuaries the image of the god reproduces the basic principles of the idea of the local god of the Pamphylian city of Side, the so-called Apollo Sidetes. But in the 2^nd half of the 2^nd century AD, a resident of the city of Adada named Leontianos founded near the road in Yazılı kanyon his “author’s” sanctuary. Based on the traditional votive principle, Leontianos carved on the rock his own verses containing hortations in Stoic philosophy and presented his walking stick as a gift to Apollo. This walking stick symbolized the rejection of reliance on everything material and the achievement of inner freedom, which was taught by Epictetus. The author provides a comparative description of these sanctuaries and points out how the idea of erecting an “author’s” sanctuary arose from the tradition of founding votive sanctuaries and how this new sanctuary differed from the traditional ones. 

The article aims to reveal the changes in studies of Russian literature in Russia and the United Kingdom in the last three decades. The authors use the concept of the Russian literary canon to highlight the differences in the content and focus of the study of Russian literature. The empirical base of the research is Russian official documents, school textbooks, syllabi of university courses in Russian literature, and the collections of university libraries in the UK. Russian literary canon has changed to bridge the ideological break in Russian literature of the twentieth century. In Russia, the main channel for transmitting the canon is school education. The study of literature is supposed to ensure the formation of national identity, patriotism, humanistic values, and understanding of the exclusivity of Russian literature. The national canon understood as “compulsory reading”, performs socializing, educational, and stabilizing functions. The study of Russian literature in the UK began in the late 19^th century at universities, where course content reflected the changing political context. Library collections and university curricula demonstrate the wide range of authors and research topics studied. The study of Russian literature in the UK could not be defined through the Russian literature canon as there is no mandatory reading, and it is studied mainly in translation. Thus, there is no connection between language and literature. The stable interest in the UK towards Russian literature of the 19^th and 20^th centuries confirms that it belongs to the world’s cultural heritage beyond national borders.

This article focuses on the evolution of functionality of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty Peter the Great during his reign. Based on an analysis of materials from the collection of documents of the Cabinet stored in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts it indicates the scope of competence of the Cabinet Secretary A. V. Makarov (1674–1740) and the Cabinet of Peter the Great. The Cabinet of Peter the Great was engaged in financial support of administrative projects, building activities all-around Russia, military companies, diplomatic missions and many other things. In fact, it replaced and duplicated the functions of other institutions of central or local governments, more effectively solving the tasks since its head, Cabinet Secretary A. V. Makarov, had direct access to the monarch and had stable business ties with all state institutions without exception. The author also investigates how the role of this institution in the administrative system changed over time. The study shows the evolution from one clerk position, intended to be a personal royal secretariat, to an independent state institution with a broad scope of competence. The article concludes by arguing that the political significance of the Cabinet of Peter the Great directly depended on the place of A. V. Makarov in the system of public administration. Around the turn of the 1710s and 1720s, A. V. Makarov completely monopolized the intermediary function, through which the ruler was connected with other figures and institutions.

The article uses the materials of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire to study the mission of Hegumen Gerasim Foca, who in 1722 came to ask Emperor Peter the Great for help to the Orthodox of Venice. For the first time, the Greek community appealed to the head of the Russian state, delegating a cleric of St. George’s Church to do so. Correspondence between the College of Foreign Affairs and the Holy Synod provides details of the case and the project of assistance to the Orthodox of Venice. From the case files, we also learn about the decision of the Russian government to open a diplomatic mission in the republic. The documents contain information about the personality of Gerasim Foca, as well as about the circumstances of his life in Russia. At the same time, the project, aimed at helping the faithful of Italy and strengthening Russia's influence in the Apennines and the Balkans, remained unrealized.

However, during the 18^th century, the cooperation of the Russian government with the Greeks was successful, which led not only to the opening of the consulate and the restitution of the orthodox church but later to the establishment  of the regular embassy and the Russian chapel. The Russian consulate, which Greeks invariably leaded, co-existed  in parallel with the Russian embassy and continued its activities after the abolition of the Venetian Republic.

The article studies the relationship between the secular and spiritual authorities in the first decades of Samara province (from the 1850s until the 1880s). The study utilizes various sources, both newly discovered and previously published, to shed light on this topic. It employs methods such as “local history”, “history of everyday life”, and interdisciplinary practices. Many works related to different aspects of state-church relations indicate the significance and social relevance of studying this topic. In the 19^th century, the diocesan authorities at the local level had goals consistent with the intentions of the imperial administration. Due to modernization, elements of civic society were also involved in cooperating with these authorities. Even though the provincial secular and spiritual supervisors were rigidly subordinated vertically to the higher authorities at the imperial level, they were practically independent. Still, they interacted and “collaborated” in solving common problems in the fields such as education, upbringing, culture, charity, economics, and law. These authorities were united in their opposition to anything that would undermine social stability and in their desire to achieve positive cultural and social changes within the existing state orders.

In the mid-19^th century, the Russian government started pushing forward the implementation of a policy to move its population eastward. This was done to strengthen the country’s position in the East and required coordination with China to establish state borders. The legal formalization of the boundaries resulted in the development of new mechanisms of border diplomacy for further interaction between both countries. However, there has been relatively little study of the approaches and tools used in Russian-Chinese diplomacy during this time. This article summarizes the history of establishing border commissariats on the Russian-Chinese border in the 2^nd half of the 19^th – early 20^th century. The study is carried out using the narrative, structural, and functional method, the method of variance, and normative comparison. As a result, it finds out that in the 2^nd half of the 19^th century, diplomatic functions were shared between the Governor-General, border commissars, and diplomatic officials reporting to the Governor-General. The border commissar was a civil position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was represented by a civilian with the rank of state adviser. The Commissioner’s powers were subordinated to and supervised by the Far East region's Governor-General (military position), who overlooked diplomatic relations. Four border commissariats were set up in the Transbaikal, Amour, South Ussuri and Uryankhay regions. The author concludes that there was no unified system of border commissariats. Although the commissars shared professional duties, they acted independently and dealt with foreign policy issues specific to their region. Overall, the commissars' activities helped maintain socio-political stability in the Eastern border regions of the Russian Empire. 

The history of the military medical service in Turkestan during the imperial period has yet to be thoroughly studied. This article aims to analyze the formation of the military healthcare system in Central Asia during the 1860s based on various approaches and methods and a wide range of archival materials, regulatory legal acts, historical sources, and scientific literature. The research delves into the state of traditional medicine in the region before the Russian conquest, examines the issues of adapting Russian troops to local climate conditions during the Turkestan campaigns, and analyzes the activities of military medical ranks, and the process of establishing military medical institutions in the Turkestan region, and later, in the Turkestan General-Governorship (Turkestan Military District). The study concludes that by the end of the 1860s, the military medicine system was established in the Turkestan Region, which includes regulations, military medical institutions such as hospitals, semi-hospitals (polu-gospitals), infirmaries (lazarets), and personnel to assist not only the servicemen of the Russian army but also the local population. 

Based on the records of the central and local government of the Russian Empire, stored in the Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Russian State Historical Archive, the article analyzes the aspects and practices of interaction between the authorities and Muslim communities of the Steppe Region in the 2^nd half of the 19^th – early 20^th century. Unlike the Orthodox population living in this administrative-territorial division, whose spiritual life was controlled by the officials assigned by the Holy Synod, Muslims were in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Hence, the regional administration and several central ministries were directly involved in solving the problems of the spiritual life of Muslims of the Steppes. The competence of these authorities included establishing new parish organizations and constructing the worship places, founding confessional schools and religious and charitable societies, and organizing the believers’ pilgrimage to holy places. The legislation regulating the decision-making process for such tasks required submitting a petition to the local authorities, followed by their step-by-step consideration and then resolution. The central aspect of communication between the governing bodies and the Muslim communities was the establishment of the Spiritual Board in the Steppe region. The Kazakh population filed countless petitions to the central government during the first Russian Revolution of 1905–1907. As a result of the petition campaign, the practice of holding special and private meetings with the participation of representatives from authorities and Muslim communities of the region emerged. As sources evidence, when making decisions concerning the Muslims of the Steppe Region, local administrations relied on the trends in ethno-confessional policy implemented by the central government. Therefore, quite often, outcomes did not benefit the local Muslim population. However, in other aspects, the communication between the authorities and the Muslim communities can be characterized as constructive.

Based on materials from publications dedicated to the celebration of the 300^th anniversary of the Russian expansion into Siberia, the article reconsiders the content of the discourse of celebrations that happened on October 26, 1881,  in the capital centers of the Russian Empire, as a promising model for the consolidation of the authorities and society in solving critical issues facing by the government in the eastern outskirts of the empire. The historiographical review reveals that researchers show solidarity in choosing the timing of the anniversary events. The scholars conducted  a thorough analysis of the discussions surrounding the determination of the time of celebration in the discourse of authorities and society. They concluded that the debates about the precise dates and years of the “Siberian conquest” were peripheral in nature and not of significant concern in the professional community or public opinion. The study identifies the main “platforms” of the jubilee discourse, as well as the ceremonial and storytelling aspects of the commemoration, dominated during the celebration of the Russian Expansion into Siberia, in the context of formulating and translating the current imperial scenarios to incorporate Asian Russia into the general imperial space. It has been established that the ceremonial components of the jubilee discourse outlined the priorities of the imperial center in making decisions of a colonization nature. The narrative part of the discourse showcased the willingness and ability of the authorities to engage with the social forces. This was particularly evident in the discussion and formulation of the programmatic narrative, which focused on the inclusion of Asian territories in the empire. The discourse emphasized the paramount importance of connecting the European and Asian parts of Russia by rail and introduced flexible algorithms for resolving foreign issues. Furthermore, the discourse aimed to reduce the share of exile as a tool of colonization and promote government-level involvement in the resettlement process.

The article analyzes the historical conditions, identifies channels, agents and features of the distribution of innovative products in the Russian Far East during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, using electrification as an example. It determines the role of electro-technical innovations in the modernization process of the region, highlighting the favorable historical conditions that developed for the diffusion of innovations in the Far East. The government policy, which aimed at opening up the Far Eastern economy and attracting foreign entrepreneurs, as well as the high susceptibility of the Far Eastern population to innovations, accelerated diffusion processes. The primary agents and translators of innovations were foreign nationals, particularly entrepreneurs from Germany. The study concludes that the diffusion processes of electrical innovations became the most crucial element of the modernization of the region, playing a critical role in forming the Far Eastern industry, developing urban amenities, changing everyday culture and improving the population's quality of life. The historical experience of electrification of the Far East at the turn of the 19^th – 20^th centuries shows that the diffusion of innovations occurs as Russia moves along the path of modernization, its readiness for openness and strengthening contacts with foreign countries.

The article explores the ideas of the Siberian peasantry regarding Soviet authorities during the Russian Civil War and the Period of Implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP). The importance of this issue lies in the fact that the population’s perception of the governing bodies plays a significant role in the life of any society since it influences  the political sentiments and the behavior of different social groups. However, this topic has not been extensively studied by Russian or international historiography. The research is based on a wide range of official documents, including newly discovered ones, produced by various Communist Party (Bolsheviks) bodies, the Joint State Political Directorate, and letters from ordinary people to authorities. The authors of the article analyze how different categories of Siberian peasants imagined the Soviet power vertical, what factors and how influenced formation and transformation of ideas about authorities during the Russian Civil War and NEP period. The article concludes by arguing that different social groups of the Siberian peasantry had different perceptions of Soviet authorities, which did not remain unchanged but varied over time. From the end of 1917 until the end of 1919, ideas about the Soviet authorities arose mainly independently, without significant external influence. The situation changed after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The government’s policies and practices of implementation were the determining factors that shaped the image of the Soviet authorities throughout the 1920s