RUDN Journal of World History

In the study the authors examine the evolution of ideas about Muslim unity among traditional intellectuals of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The works and statements of Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), Salih al-Sharif al-Tunisi (1869-1920) and Shibli Nomani (1857-1914) are used as examples. The weakening of the Ottoman State and the triumph of the colonial powers of Europe confronted Arab and Indian Muslim theologians with the need to rethink the call for unity inherent in the Islamic tradition. The new understanding of this problem by Muslim politicians has raised a wide range of discussions of both a political and cultural-civilizational nature. As a result, the gradual emergence of a trend towards country patriotism in the Islamic world exposed the risks of splitting Muslim societies and gave the colonial powers new opportunities to undermine the Ottoman statehood. Correlations have been revealed between the views of intellectuals of the Islamic world on the acceptability of modernizing everyday life, culture and the worldview of the population and their ideas about the possibility of preserving the Ottoman leadership system. The authors evaluate the effectiveness of the practical work of both reformers and traditionalists in supporting the achievements of the centuries-old Islamic political culture in the educational and propaganda spheres. The conducted research shows the diversity of reactions of country and regional elites to political challenges from European colonization, the Young Turk revolution of 1908-1909 and the subsequent collapse of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

The study analyzes the social hygiene movement in the United States during the Progressive Era in its relationship with the women's question. The study demonstrates how, in the context of large-scale social reforms and the transformation of Victorian ideals of femininity, a new approach to regulating public health and morality emerged. The movement, which united religious reformers, feminists, and medical experts, simultaneously challenged established moral norms in American society through a critique of double standards and became an instrument of repressive biopolitics aimed at controlling female sexuality. Based on an analysis of the movement's ideological tenets and actual practices, this article demonstrates how prostitution was redefined from a moral issue to a public health threat, justifying forced examinations and the isolation of women accused of spreading dangerous diseases. Thus, despite its progressive goals, the social hygiene movement reproduced patriarchal models of control over women.

The authors devoted their study to a topic that has remained relevant over the past several decades: piracy and its role in the military and political confrontation in the Roman Mediterranean in the first century BC. Firstly, at this time the last state formations of the Hellenistic world, such as the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms, finally disappeared from the political map of the region, being absorbed by the world Roman Empire. Secondly, in Rome itself, the senatorial republic was replaced by autocracy in the form of the principate regime during the bloody civil wars, and what is commonly called the Roman Empire arose. And in these significant changes of a military-political nature, the "third force" - numerous pirate squadrons - played a significant role. The authors analyze the causes and consequences of the rise of Mediterranean piracy in the 1st century BC, as well as how the Roman authorities responded to this phenomenon: at first, they tried to ignore it, then they began to fight it - until 67 BC with varying success, and later they sometimes even attracted pirates to their side, using this "third force" in the political struggle. Here the authors turn to the historical realities of Roman Asia Minor, where during the specified period there were cases of seizure of power in individual cities and even regions by successful adventurers, among whom were found not only pirates, such as Zeniketus, Tarcondimotus, Antipater and Cleon, but also representatives of quite peaceful professions, such as, for example, the Epicurean philosopher Lysias. All these episodes were evidence of the political instability that accompanied the dramatic and painful transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.

The relevance of the topic is driven by the heightened attention that developed countries are paying to Sub-Saharan Africa. In conditions of geopolitical and economic uncertainty, global leaders seek to build relationships with Africa that are advantageous to themselves, actively incorporating this vector into their foreign-policy strategies. One of the major players in this new "scramble for Africa" is the European Union (EU), which, from the beginning of the formation of this economic and political association, has paid attention to the development problems of African regions. However, this issue has received insufficient attention in Russian historiography. Accordingly, the aim of the study is to determine the place and role of Africa in the EU's foreign-policy strategy. The study employs the principle of historicism, systems analysis, and analysis of the texts of foreign-policy doctrinal documents and official publications of the EU in order to identify the contradictory path of relationship formation between the parties and the key prerequisites for incorporating Africa into the EU's foreign policy. The article also proposes to analyze the role of the European Union in the development of the new "scramble for Africa" and attempts at neocolonialism. The study concludes by identifying the reasons that prompted the EU to join the "scramble for Africa" and the efforts the Union has made to address the stated problems.

The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that after the establishment of the Nanjing government in 1927, due to the turbulent situation, it has long faced the contradiction between the urgent need for national defense and the low capacity of industrial production. The purpose of this study is to examine a series of measures taken by the Chinese government to develop the defense industry and armed forces during this period by comparing and analyzing the available archival materials. Based on the method of literature analysis, the author summarizes the following measures taken by the Chinese government during this period: the determination of national armament and equipment standards, the new formation of divisions, and the relocation and construction of factories. But due to factors such as time constraints and lack of production capacity, the relevant work was not fully implemented until the outbreak of military conflict with Japan in 1931, these efforts yielded very limited results. However, these approaches did serve as a basis for further defense construction during the subsequent war with Japan.

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