Vol 16, No 3 (2017)

In the Russian historiography, the views of the publicists of the early 20th century of the Russian colonists’ life in Central Asia aren’t duly highlighted. The novelty and aim of the research consist in revealing the general and particular in the Russian periodicals’ percep-tion of the colonization of Turkestan, in determining their ideological bent. The authors have discovered that all the reviewed periodicals were adherents of Central Asia colonization. They supported the imperial policy of the government with minor reserva-tions. Most publicists noted that the settling of colonists depended on the actions of the central government, which insuffi ciently took into account the local conditions. However, publicists differed in the choice of the main direction and in the assessments of the value of colonists’ adaptation activity; they proposed various ways of developing the intercultural dialogue.The authors come to the conclusions that liberal periodicals paid special attention to the economic activities of Russian immigrants, assessing the degree of their adaptation by the level of well-being achieved. The Narodnik periodicals considered migrants as a part of the peasant world of Russia. They were concerned, above all, about the colonists’ commu-nity, which they considered an effective means of adaptation, preserving the culture and moral qualities of the Russians. Probably, they considered it a pledge of building fair relations with the local population. Conservative and offi cial publicists viewed Russian immigrants primarily as support of the Russian government in Central Asia. That is why they paid special attention to the preservation of assimilation qualities of the Russians, the loss of which could become, in their view, an obstacle to the strengthening of the empire positions in the region.

The problem of adequate and reliable evaluation of the economic and social potential of re-gions plays a key role in the successful actions of state authorities on their economic development. The historical retrospective shows that incorrect evaluation of economic potential and erroneous shaping of perspective branches may hinder the economic and social development of the region.The works on Crimea by Vasilii Zuyev and Carl Hablitz are well-known in historiogra-phy. However, researchers are usually interested in the “illustrative” materials of theses works, which concerned the “natural history” of the peninsula; fl ora, fauna, geographic and geological peculiarities. The author analyses the works by Zuyev and Hablits from the point of view of their practical use and profi t for the regional economy at the initial stage of the region integra-tion into all-Russia economic space. The author has found that the data on Crimea collected by Zuyev and Hablitz were rather superfi cial, with incorrect evaluations of the region’s economic potential and its natural re-sources, with overestimation of its benefi ts in comparison with risks and objective diffi culties of economic transformations. In spite of their obvious shortcomings, these works were published and widely spread among the literate audience, thus shaping a fair public opinion regarding the economic perspectives of the region among the potential colonists of Crimea: Russian land-owners, offi cials, retired military men, and others.The author comes to the conclusion that these researches often contained factual errors, thus giving readers and potential colonists incorrect ideas of the economic and natural wealth of this region.

The article gives examples of obtaining new information about martyrs in the 20th century, namely the clergymen and parishioners of the Vysokopetrovsky Monastery in Moscow, including its abbot Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov). The new data are obtained by researching the newly discovered documents in private and foreign archives, a more thorough critical and comparative analysis of the already well-known sources, and interviewing individuals who personally knew those people, who were repressed and lived up to the second half of the twentieth century. The sources introduced into the scientifi c activities come from the private archive of his-torian Sergey Belyaev, as well as from the archives of the General Curia of the Assumptionist Congregation in Rome (the letters from Bishop Pie Eugene Neveu, apostolic administrator in Moscow in 1926-1936) and the Historic archives of the Secretariat of State. There are subjected to critical examination the investigative materials against Archbishop Bar-tholomew (Remov) and the members of the community, who in the investigation case were named members of the “Catholic group of the counter-revolutionary organization under the illegal “Petrovsky monastery”. The author refutes the conclusions made earlier by the researchers on the existence of a Catholic group in the Vysokopetrovsky Monastery, as well as casts doubt on the hypothesis on the adherence of the monastery abbot Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov) to Catholicism.

This article examines the development of trade relations between Russia and Spain during the reign of two Spanish kings: Charles IV and Ferdinand VII. The author’s attention is focused on the agency of diplomats, who made a big advance in the formation of trading relations between the two countries. The author concentrates on Ivan Muravyov-Apostol, the Russian ambassador to Spain (1802-1805), his Spanish partner Gaspar Maria de la Nava y Álvarez de Noroña (1802-1807), and on the consuls of Spain Antoni de Colombí (St. Petersburg) and Francisco de Baguer y Ribas (Odessa). Based on their reports, which are located in both Rus-sian and Spanish archives, it is possible to trace the dependence of commercial relations from the political situation in the world, established in Europe in the era of Napoleonic wars. Their information also allows revealing the main stages of development in trading during these years and the future, observe the merchantry on the Baltic Sea and in the area of the Black Sea. Ana-lyzing these materials, conclusions about the cause of diminishing of the commercial activity between Russia and Spain during the reign of Ferdinand VII can be made. The attention of the author is also paid to the conditions, which were established for the trade of Spain´s main export product to Russia - wine, and trading of grain through the area of the Black and Mediterranean Seas, which received special progress in the beginning of the 19th century.

In diplomacy, the interests of an individual nation largely determine the form of relations it maintains with other states. This gives credence to the notion that there is neither a permanent friend nor permanent enemy in international relations; rather, it is interests of a country which is permanent. In the pursuance of their national interests, diplomatic relations between Lagos and Moscow were formally established on November 25, 1960 soon after Nigeria’s gaining in-dependence. The embassy of the Soviet Union was established in Lagos in 1961, while Nigeria established its embassy in Moscow in 1962. On December 26, 1991 the Soviet upper chamber under the chairmanship of A. Alim-shanov (Declaration № 142-H) decided to discontinue the Soviet Union existence as a state. This was in line with the outcome of the meeting of December 8, 1991 between Boris Yeltsin (Russia), Leonid Kravchuk (Ukraine) and Stalinislav Shushkevich (Belarus) that later came to be known as the Belovezha Accords of 1991. Russia, a prominent union republic of the for-mer Soviet Union, gained international recognition as the successor to the Soviet Union which thereafter took up both the assets and liabilities of the former Soviet Union. Nigeria-Russia Bilateral Relations (NRBR) had been developing over the years and cul-minated in the visit of Nigeria’s President, Olusegun Obasanjo to Russia in 2001 and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s visit to Nigeria in 2009. Undoubtedly, the NRBR has had both good and diffi cult experience. This paper is an assessment of NRBR and it provides answers to the questions of the desirability and necessity of strong Nigeria-Russia diplomatic ties. Besides, it makes recommendations on how the two countries can elevate their bilateral relations to a more functional cooperation in the key and strategic sectors.