RUDN Journal of Russian History

The author in their article examines the role of physical culture festivals and parades in the USSR in the 1920-1930s as an instrument of forming a “new man” and a new socialist society. The article is based on archival materials, including previously unpublished sources - scenarios and plans for musical arrangements, descriptions of parades stored in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in the personal collections of: Yu. K. Olesha (F. 358), V. E. Meyerhold (F. 998), S. S. Prokofiev (F. 1929), I. V. Zhilkin (F. 200), as well as in the editorial fund of the “Narodnoye Tvorchestvo” (“Folk Art”) magazine (F. 673). There are also involved materials from Soviet periodicals - the magazines “Ogonyok” (“Spark”), “Izvestia fizicheskoi kulturi” (“Physical Culture News”), and other publications. The article shows that mass sporting events, including physical culture and parades on national holidays, were transformed into ideological performances that combined sport, art, and politics. Through synchronous movements, paramilitary elements, and the promotion of a healthy body, the state constructed the image of an ideal athlete: strong, disciplined, devoted to socialist ideals and values, and ready to defend the motherland. Particular attention is paid to the preparation and holding of large-scale parades on Red Square, where thousands of participants demonstrated national unity and achievements of Soviet sport and Soviet system as a whole. The author analyzes the ideological objectives and social functions of these events: from fostering collectivism and inculcating the idea of the unity of labor and sport to preparing the country’s defense. The author also examines visual images of Soviet athletes created by the leading Soviet artists and filmmakers as the most convincing means of propaganda. They come to the conclusion about the importance of physical culture and sports in the social construction of the new Soviet society, and note the significant influence of: paintings, monumental and landscape art, sculptures, posters, and films on the popularization of Soviet sports in the USSR in the 1920-1930s.

The authors examine a little-studied scientific problem: the connection between the collective image of the future and sporting identity, which is based on the achievements of talented Armenian athletes such as Tigran Petrosyan (chess), Yuri Vardanyan (weightlifting), and Eduard Azaryan (gymnastics). It is shown that their successes, as well as those of the Ararat football club enhanced the Armenians’ national pride. The authors conclude that in the late 1980s, sport became a communicative mechanism for expressing national sentiment. In the context of Soviet reality, the achievements of Armenian athletes aroused a sense of pride among citizens and contributed to the increasing of national self-awareness, shaping a positive image of Armenia both within the USSR and internationally. The success stories of outstanding Armenian athletes, their performances on the international stage and at world championships, have become part of the nation’s cultural heritage. In the second half of the 20th century, high-performance sports in the Armenian SSR, serving as a means of social consolidation and a symbol of national pride for the Armenian people, influenced social processes in the multinational USSR, fostering a sense of local identity.

The author examines the activities of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire in 1848 (including the opinions of the Minister of Justice, Count V.N. Panin) regarding changes to the staffing schedule of courts of conscience. The introduction of previously unpublished materials from the collections of the Russian State Historical Archive has made it possible to uncover the reasons (official and unofficial) and mechanisms behind the changes to the staffing schedule of courts of conscience. The study concluded that judges of conscience were the most financially vulnerable servants of Themis in the pre-reform period, despite being located at the provincial level in the Russian justice system. Among the innovations in the temporary staffing schedule of courts of conscience in 1848, a significant one was the proposal by the Minister of Justice, V.N. Panin, to completely abolish state salaries for judges of conscience. This was officially explained by the fact that these positions were primarily filled by wealthy noblemen with financial security. In fact, the state salary played a significant role for conscientious judges, which is why they feared its abolition. The real reason for the complete abolition of the salary of judges of the courts of conscience was the preparation for their gradual closure and abolition. The courts of conscience were established in 1775, and by the very essence of their activities, contradicted the bureaucratic system of the era of Nicholas I as legal positivism was increasingly expanding its influence on domestic legal proceedings.

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of defectors from the Soviet Union in the first years after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The author focuses on the attitude of the old Russian Social Democrats, who were in exile in the United States, toward the defectors. The article draws on documents from the Hoover Institution’s War, Revolution, and Peace Archives (Stanford, USA), the Bakhmetev Archives of Russian and East European Culture at Columbia University (New York, USA), the Archives of the Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen (Germany), and others. The author shows that a group of Soviet defectors who were in Displaced Persons camps in Germany came into contact with representatives of the Menshevik émigré center in the late 1940s. On the basis of this group, the German Department of the League of Struggle for People’s Freedom was created, which claimed to act as a key Russian émigré organization with a democratic orientation. The article shows that the defectors received funding from the USA, various foundations and non-governmental organizations through the mediation of the old Mensheviks. The result of this action was the exposure of the leader of the group of defectors Major Vasily Denisov as an agent of the Soviet secret services. The article proves that this case was not an isolated phenomenon: a number of defectors broke with anti-communist émigré organizations and decided to return to the Soviet Union. The author comes to the conclusion that the reason for this was the disappointment of many defectors in the values of Western democracy, their critical attitude to the spiritual atmosphere within Western societies and the political elite of the USA.

The author examines the history of the formation and activities of a children’s orphanage in Skobelev, Fergana Region, and analyzes the problems that arise in the work of the Fergana Board of Trustees for Children’s Orphanages. The purpose of the article is to study the implementation of Russia’s imperial policy on the issue of orphans in the territory of the Turkestan Governorate-General, which was part of the imperial authorities’ efforts to modernize the national frontier. The source base is based on administrative materials extracted from the Russian State Historical Archive. The author describes the conditions under which a children’s orphanage was established in the Fergana region, which was one of the last such institutions in the Turkestan Governorate-General. In addition, the author reveals the activities of the Board of Trustees of Children’s Homes, founded by the wife of Alexander II to manage such institutions, and then established in the Fergana Regio in particular to oversee the activities of the orphanage and maintain contact with the Department of Institutions of the Empress Maria. The author concludes that the organization of the orphanage’s activities was no different from similar institutions in the central regions of the Russian Empire, which can serve as evidence of the Russian administration’s desire to elevate the national frontier its own level. As the study shows, the existence of such institutions in the Turkestan Governorate-General is a testament to the Russian administration’s concern for its subjects who found themselves in challenging circumstances in a foreign land.

The author substantiates the necessity of transitioning from the evolutionist-modernization paradigm to the civilizational approach in representing the course in Russian history, while correlating this shift with the state and societal demand for strengthening sovereignty and a unified identity. The methodological framework of the study is revealed through the comparison of the core content of the current course in history with the fundamental principles of civilizational theory and their logical projections onto Russian historical material. The author traces the formation of the civilizational discourse in contemporary Russia at the state level and its reflection in educational processes. The author also proposes a set of methodological recommendations related to the transition to examining Russian history through the prism of characterizing Russia as a civilization-state. Recommendations are provided for introducing corresponding adjustments in: the representation of state genesis, the identification of the driving forces of Russian history, historical periodization, assessment of reforms, the determination of the nature of social crises, explanation of external conflicts, and the role of ideology and identity systems. The practical result of the research lies in outlining guidelines for updating school and university courses in Russian history within the unified framework of a civilizational approach.

The article reveals the role of the Polish Crown Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski in the election of Prince Vladislav to the Moscow throne, the conclusion of the Treaty of August 17 (27), 1610, and the administration of the Moscow state during his stay in the Kremlin in the autumn of 1610. The article analyzes both published sources (memoirs and letters by Stanisław Żółkiewski and contemporaries of the Russo-Polish War of 1609-1618), as well as an unpublished letter from the hetman to Polish King Sigismund III dated October 8, 1610, during his stay in the Kremlin. This letter was discovered in the archives of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in the Rossika collection assembled by Academician Nikolai Likhachev, and has been translated into Russian. The combination of all the collected sources allows us to conclude that Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski concluded an agreement with the Moscow boyars to elect Władysław exclusively on Moscow terms. The entry of Polish troops into Moscow was carefully coordinated with members of the Boyar Duma, and Żółkiewski himself did not play any role in the government.

The author identifies the specifics of archive volunteerism in the Russian Federation. They reveal and explain including the existing problems in relations between archives and volunteers have been caused by both the lack of a regulatory framework for archive volunteerism and the specifics of the work of archive institutions; the article outlines possible ways to solve them. The author analyzes the current state of archive volunteerism in the Russian Federation based on the results of a survey of federal and state archives of the Russian Federation subjects, municipal archives, as well as the regulatory legal framework for this area of volunteerism. They give an analysis of the attitude of archives at three levels to the use of volunteer labor in the work of archival institutions. They identified the main areas of activity of archival institutions, which already involve volunteers, and the number of volunteers that archives need to work offline and then online using crowdsourcing IT platforms. The author explains why these particular areas of activity require the involvement of volunteers. There are considered reasons hindering the development of archive volunteerism and they outlined the ways to solve a number of identified problems and possible prospects for interaction between archives and volunteers. The author comes to the conclusion that the implementation of interrelated activities within the framework of a single concept for maintaining archive volunteerism will help bring this area of volunteerism to a level where it can provide real assistance to archives and become attractive to volunteers.

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