No 3 (2011)

In the article the author analyses the problem of improving technical equipment of the Russian agriculture at the outset of the Stolypin agrarian reforms. The author shows contradictions between different governmental bodies of the Russian empire over the issue of the sources of supply of agricultural machinery for the Russian rural population (import or domestic production). It becomes clear, that after 1907 the Russian government took no special measures to restrict import of foreign agricultural machinery to Russia. Instead a new policy of direct support of the Russian agricultural machine-building industry was accepted (extension of credit from the Bank of Russia, awarding a bonus for the agricultural machines manufactured in Russia etc.). The article poses a problem of import substitution tendencies in the above-mentioned industry.

The article analyzes the problem of refusals of military service for religious reasons on the eve of and in the years of the First World War, attempts and the reason of failure of the Russian authorities to solve this problem by legislative, administrative and repressive measures. The problem is presented against a background of the anti-war movement in the army and the efforts of the authorities and military clergy on religious-ideological maintenance of the world war.

The article is devoted to the history of formation, development and functioning of military counterintelligence in the Murmansk region during 1917-1920. On the basis of concrete historical material the author shows the main principles of local counterespionage bodies staffing and their employees' financial position.

The paper presents the reconstruction of methods of great Arab-Islamic scholar al-Mas'udi in his work «The Meadows of Gold…». The comparative analysis of the material on the naval raids of the Rus' in al-Mas'udi's text and the works of other Arab geographers leads the author to the hypothesis that the story of «Russian naval raid» on al-Andalus is nothing more than al-Mas'udi's speculative deduction based on the cartographical image of Europe typical of the Arab science of that period.

The author considers the process of introduction of the notion «historical source» in the conceptual-terminological system of the historical science in the 18th century. In the first half of the 18th century the word «source» meant the beginning of something. Therefore it wasn't used by historians to designate historical materials, on which their works were based. In 1750 G.F. Muller laid the foundation of the semantic transformation of this notion: «source» is something to draw information from. At the beginning of the 19th century A.L. Schlozer finally assigned the function of information carrier to the notion «source» - everything from which one can get historical information.