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Conspiracy theories have always existed, and (some) people have always believed in them. However, due to the expansion of contemporary media and information technologies, as well as social networks becoming primary platforms of information, the issue of how conspiracy beliefs affect daily lives has become popular again. Current societal, political and health crises have sparked global research interest in the topic. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become obvious how significant these beliefs are in determining health behavior and adhering to preventive anti-epidemic measures. Therefore, it is of immense importance, both theoretical and practical, to approach the characteristics of this phenomenon scientifically. This article analyzes psychological and social factors of conspiracy beliefs. Through the prism of epistemic, existential and social needs, the article tries to explain what pushes individuals toward the conspiracy theories. It also discusses individual and personality differences as the underpinning basis for susceptibility to conspiracy beliefs. A special focus is put on universal principles of cognitive functioning that boost conspiracy beliefs (confirmation bias, saving cognitive resources, cognitive closure, effect of illusory truth, etc.) Considering their exceptional societal importance, the author puts a special focus on the effects of conspiracy theories on health relevant behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the lack of a clear theoretical framework in this recently emerging research field, the author reflects on existing and potential prevention and intervention tools belonging to social-psychological, health and communication strategies. The importance of the media and information literacy as a means to improve resilience to misinformation is also discussed.

With the emergence of a "cultural turn" in western translation researches since the 1970s, translators' subjectivity has been highlighted, and some researchers have also been aware of the existence of intersubjectivity in translation activities; however, the views on the connotation and origin of intersubjectivity in translation are still controversial. This paper attempts to probe into the root causes for the existence of "intersubjectivity in translation" from a cognitive perspective, based on the fundamental "reality-cognition-language" principle in the Embodied Philosophy and cognitive linguistics. According to this principle, "cognition" mediates between "reality" and "language". Language is formed on the basis of bodily experience and through the processing of human cognitive mechanism. Language is not a self-contained system, but closely related to the external world and human cognition. Furthermore, the author analyzes in depth Prof. Wang Yin's viewpoint of "weakening phenomena" on "reality-cognition-language", which sheds light on the study of intersubjectivity in translation. Qualitative research methods (including interviews and translation tests, etc.) have been adopted to collect relevant research data from carefully chosen respondents with different cultural backgrounds and bilingual competence, showing the manifestations of intersubjectivity in translation and the rationality of the kernel "reality-cognition language" principle in cognitive linguistics. In conclusion, fundamentally, it is the "commonness" and "differences" of individual subjects involved in translation activities (including the original author, the translator, the reader of the target text, and the translation initiator, etc.) together with the complicated interrelations among "reality", "cognition" and "language" that cause intersubjectivity in translation. Intersubjectivity and subjectivity are interdependent, coexisting in the holistic field of translation.

PurposeManagerial practices are essential in the success of information technology (IT) projects of digital transformation (DT). However, the literature has not yet specified all these managerial practices. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the influence of change management on the success of IT projects of DT. Additionally, the author examines the consequences on SMEs in the economic context of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on a research model that elucidates aspects of the resource-based view (RBV) framework, notably the transformation of human resources based on change management. This model demonstrates the relationship between change management, DT and IT project success, which facilitates the performance and resilience of SMEs. To empirically validate and test the developed research model, we gathered 299 responses from SME managers in the DRC through cross-sectional data collection using a structured questionnaire. The author performed statistical analyses using variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the help of SmartPLS 3.0.FindingsThis paper reveals how SME managers can succeed in DT projects with the change management of human resources. Furthermore, it establishes that the success of IT projects of DT is an essential for enhancing the performance and resilience of SMEs in the DRC.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the information systems (IS) literature on developing countries by highlighting the DRC context. Little research deals with the success factors of DT projects and their organizational impact on SMEs in developing countries. This study thus enriches the IS literature by filling this void.

The article examines the results of December EU-Western Balkans Summit and the EU strategy concerning EU – Western Balkans integration. It notes that the summit became a new step in realization of the EU integration strategy in relation to the Western Balkans states. At this stage the strategy is focused on strengthening its political and economic influence in the region and on alignment of the Western Balkans states with the priorities of the EU common security and defense policy, including on the questions of the Ukrainian conflict and related sanctions. At the same time the EU integration strategy creates incentives aimed at realization of necessary reforms in the region with the purpose of strengthening internal stability in the region and prevention of potential conflicts inside of the Western Balkans states as well as among them and first of all between Serbia and Kosovo. The author analyzes the main conflicts in the region which negatively affect stability and security in the Western Balkans and the integration process in general. Special attention is devoted to the escalation of conflict between Serbia and Kosovo which could create serious threat to stability in the region and jeopardize the integration process itself as well as the EU mediation efforts aimed at normalization of relationships between Serbia and Kosovo. The author considers that further EU strategy would be developed on two parallel tracks – acceleration of integration process with the Western Balkans states and increasing effectiveness of the EU mediation mission aimed at achieving comprehensive agreement on normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

The modern school with its nurturing function has to deal with numerous factors that negatively affect interpersonal relations between young people. Therefore that appears to be of great importance and timely to reinforce the Education Standards (ES) of the Russian Federation with a provision that declares the need to teach schoolchildren "to accept themselves and others without judgement". However, while analysing the publishing statistics of the Russian Internet library elibrary.ru, the author reveals that realisation of this provision is far from being sufficiently supported with research and methodological literature. On the other hand, foreign countries (with the example of the USA) have long been thoroughly researching and designing practical programmes for social and emotional learning (SEL). This work is largely close to the process of fostering the ability to accept oneself and others without judgement, since such programmes include the development of empathy, understanding and managing emotions, as well as teaching conflict resolution. The article highlights the great potential of the SEL programmes and suitability of applying them in the Russian system of education. Besides, based on the behaviouristic approach, the author proposes original techniques of emotional drill centred around anchor images, which could be used for putting into practice the analysed provision of the Russian ES. The article is exploratory and disputable with the results able to be used in further research of ways to increase the nurturing potential of schools, ways to foster emotional intelligence and empathy, to develop spiritual and morale traits of schoolchildren and the culture of conflict-free interaction.

The article discusses the Chinese loanwords that appear in the novel Blue Lard by Vladimir Sorokin. The novel contains an allegory of the Russian language of the future. Most of the neologisms created by Sorokin in Blue Lard come from foreign words, including an abundance of Chinese loanwords. The author of the article analyzes the Chinese loanwords from the point of view of phonetics and semantics, points out the mistakes in pronunciation in the novel, when Sorokin uses Chinese words or expressions. The analysis also focuses on the aesthetics of the word "Mei guo", which by pronunciation in Chinese refers to the United States, and the word "Hei long jiang"– as one of the provinces in China, or the Amur River, flowing through the territory of three countries. Sorokin purposely changes their interpretation at the end of the novel to "beautiful country" and "Black Dragon River" in order to create the normal atmosphere of a dystopian society devoid of geopolitical boundaries. Sorokin introduces the word "dan huang", which in the novel refers to the pro-China Russians and resembles the Chinese slangs "banana-man" and "egg-man" from the position of transcultural distribution. Moreover, in the course of the research, the author provides a comparison of Chinese loanwords with other foreign-language words used in the novel. By using Chinese loanwords as swear words, Sorokin literally commits linguistic violence. The final conclusion is that Chinese loanwords can be seen as a product of the overlap of cultures, which appear in the Russian-language fiction text. In addition, the Chinese loanwords with other Chinese elements give the novel a mystical oriental flavor and an absurd tone.

The article reviews importance of seeking new formats and modalities (political-military, social, economic, and ideological) to achieve a long-term solution to the Syrian conflict. Until now, Russia remaining a major ally of official Damascus has not fully used its potential to create favorable conditions for the post-conflict recovery of Syria. By the Syrian case, the author puts forward a hypothesis about genesis of the "security matrix" which is embodied by regiments of the Russian military police deployed across the country. In addition to routine security functions, those people – often at risk to their lives – have been performing peacekeeping, humanitarian, economic, and diplomatic tasks. Such activities including facilitation of local reconciliations create new post-conflict realities of social life. Absence of a notion of the "security matrix" in political economy and diplomacy explains the novelty of the present research. The article also contains an attempt to present both a schematic image and description of the "security matrix" as a pattern of behavior whereas multiple functions carried out by the Russian military contribute to launching national mini-dialogues, strengthening public order and security as well as to improving the humanitarian and economic situation. A SWOT-analysis serves as the optimal proof of the mentioned hypothesis. In conclusion, the author outlines continued dependency of the "security matrix" on internal and external factors. At the same time, he speaks about perspective use of the Syrian experience in formulating Russian peace-building strategies to resolve other conflicts. This in turn might contribute to strengthening Russia's role in international relations.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the impact of the SCO and the Belt and Road Initiative on the stability and economic development of Afghanistan. The author substantiates the possibility that the SCO and the Belt and Road Initiative can complement each other for peace and development in Afghanistan. The SCO provides a safe sphere for the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative in Afghanistan, and the Belt and Road Initiative helps that the economy of Afghanistan will become part of the regional economy. The complexity of this problem is noted due to the fact that the positions of the SCO member states with regard to Afghanistan differ significantly, the Organization makes decisions solely by consensus, and the situation in Afghanistan is unstable. The author points out that these difficulties can be overcome, since the SCO member states are obliged to resolve disputes among themselves only peacefully, the projects developed by the SCO could potentially be planned by groups of interested participants on the principle of multilateralism a la carte, as Russian experts have already suggested, and increasing the interest of the SCO countries bordering Afghanistan in implementing economic projects related to This country will contribute to strengthening stability in Afghanistan and in the region as a whole. The integration of the SCO's activities with the Belt and Road initiative will require minimizing threats that may emanate from the territory of Afghanistan to neighboring countries, ensuring the security of infrastructure and other facilities created on the territory of Afghanistan with external participation, as well as creative development of organizational and legal mechanisms of the SCO's activities.

The article is devoted to the analysis of modern Russian historiography of slavery in the Caucasus. The author comes to conclusion that the works describing Caucasian slavery in general are rather few, and they began to appear relatively recently (although there are many on private and local subjects of Caucasian slavery). Therefore, there is no unified picture of slavery in the Caucasus, and even assessments of its cruelty can differ dramatically. The second part of the article concerns social practices and periodization of Caucasian slavery. The article reveals that the spread of slavery and slave trade, perceived as a moral norm, formed new social practices, such as upbringing of beautiful girls as slaves, formation of a special institution of intermediaries in the exchange or ransom of captives, etc. Today such practices may seem noble or monstrous, but in reality, they have always been socio-economically justified. As for the periodization of the Caucasian slavery, the author clarified the concept of A. A. Cherkasov, V. G. Ivantsov, M. Shmigel and S. N. Bratanovskii, in accordance with which three periods of development of slavery in the Caucasus are distinguished: "insignificant development" (4th–15th centuries), "flourishing" (16th–18th centuries) and "fading" (19th century). This concept stands out for its objectivity and lack of politicization, but lacks clear criteria for identifying periods. The article shows that Caucasian slaves were a majority in some significant markets (Trebizond, Genoa) already in the 15th century, and prerequisites for the extinction of slavery in the Caucasus in its previous forms began to take shape from the 18th century.

The article deals with an important aspect of the history of constructing and reconstructing imperial palace com-plexes in Crimea. Using materials from the Ministry of the Imperial Court's archives at the Russian State Historical Archive, the author analyzes the financing of architect N. P. Krasnov's major project – the construction of the Grand Livadia Palace and several service buildings attached to it. The article notes the exceptional organizational, adminis-trative, and financial status of these works from the beginning. The architect personally managed the work and inter-acted with contractors, forwarding payment invoices to V.N. Kachalov, the manager of the Livadsko-Massandrsky appanage administration. Kachalov then requested appropriations from the Main Directorate of Appanages, which, in turn, sought allocations from the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty. The multi-stage financing system often caused delays in processing requests from the Crimea and insufficient funds to pay the bills of contractors and suppliers re-ceived from Krasnov. Additionally, the duality of administration hampered the issue of the source of funds to pay for single purchases, and failures in communication between responsible persons led to conflicts in using amounts received from the sale of used materials. The author emphasizes that the established financing scheme allowed the ar-chitect to exceed the preliminary estimate several times when constructing the new palace for the emperor in Livadia. Officials in St. Petersburg did not pay attention to cost overruns for a long time, becoming concerned only at the pro-jec's final stages, when completing the construction became the only option, despite significant unplanned expenses.

The article examines the legal mechanism and electronic document management in business, transport and logistics activities in the light of the tasks set by the Transport Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2030 with a forecast for the period up to 2035, including: overcoming the low level of digitalization, intensification of integration processes, designing an ecosystem of digital transport corridors in the EAEU and their interface with international transport corridors. The legal conditions favorable for the implementation and protection of the rights and interests of participants in transport and logistics operations cover the use of legally significant electronic transportation documents. The creation of a legal model of digital interaction of counterparties (electronic document management) and its consolidation in regulatory legal acts meets the criteria for digital of the transport industry. The author, analyzing the legal basis, as well as the legal features of the exchange of electronic transportation documents and information between the participants of information interaction and sending such documents and information to the state information system of electronic transportation documents, comes to the conclusion about the formation of a digital environment of trust in the field of electronic document management of transportation documents, ensuring the protection of the interests of all its participants. The introduction of platform technologies and smart contracts that allow improving legal interaction between participants in the transportation process in export shipping requires application in the Russian Federation of a paperless (electronic) bill of lading based on a distributed registry in Russia. In this regard, the author considers the legal structure of an electronic transferable record as a promising model of a paperless bill of lading.

The article presents an analysis of the key issues considered within the fra­mework of such a relative new trend in foreign philosophy as the philosophy of augmented reality. Augmented reality (AR) technology, which allows integrat­ing images of virtual objects into the surrounding physical environment, is be­coming increasingly popular today for solving a wide range of tasks related to the implementation of everyday digital communications. Nevertheless, rela­tively little attention is paid in modern philosophy to its conceptual understand­ing, since a significant proportion of philosophical research is still focused on the study of virtual reality technology, as well as on the analysis of various fantastic scenarios for the development of computer simulations. At the same time, many developers and media theorists claim that augmented reality will become the key technology on the basis of which most of our future digital practices will de­velop. For this reason, the author has attempted to analyze the main problems that foreign researchers pay attention to when analyzing this technology. These are, first of all, problems related to the conceptual explanation of the term "aug­mented reality" and the study of the metaphysical status of virtual objects gener­ated by the corresponding AR devices. In addition, the article briefly outlines the issues of epistemology and ethics of augmented reality. The author concludes that it is important to further develop philosophical studies of augmented reality, since, unlike virtual reality, the technology in question has long been actively implemented in almost all areas of our socio-cultural interactions and, as a result, has a significant impact on our daily lives.

Attempts to penetrate and consolidate in new territories made by supporters of the terrorist organization "Islamic State"* led to the creation of a "branch" of this international extremist network, acting under the banner of "global jihad", in Afghanistan. The proclamation of the so-called "Khorasan province" was engendered by the confrontation of this militant group not only with the Western coalition, led by the US and the pro-American Afghan government that existed until August 15, 2021, but also with the Islamist Taliban movement. Moreover, the confrontation between IS-Khorasan Province (ISKP) and the Taliban* continued even after the latter returned to power. The supporters of the self-proclaimed "caliphate" managed to regain their strength after the withdrawal of foreign troops from the Afghan soil and now pose a quite tangible threat, carrying out bloody terrorist acts against the Taliban, representatives of ethnic and confessional minorities, and even against foreign objects. The article analyzes the features of the emergence of the "Khorasan project" of ISIS*, as well as the reasons for the enmity of this group towards the Taliban. The author also examines the prospects for the destructive activities of ISKP and its impact on the security situation both in Afghanistan itself and in the neighboring countries. The author concludes that ISKP does not have any sufficient potential to overthrow the Taliban* regime and come to power in Afghanistan. However, the activities of the terrorist group pose a great danger not only to this country, but to the entire region. *the organization is banned on the territory of the Russian Federation

The intention of the present work is to demonstrate how an author can rescale himself in the local space thanks to literary agents (publishing houses, festivals, translations etc.), which have the role of emphasizing the value of his work that is willing to (re)win a literary bet precisely in the source culture, relying on a case study around the prose of Tatiana Țibuleac. The novelist gains symbolic capital abroad, on the one hand, because she gravitates between two peripheral spaces, Romania, respectively the Republic of Moldova, the second being subordinated to the first which has become a launching pad to the West, and, on the other hand, through the lens of its actual naturalization in France. What popularizes Tatiana Țîbuleac is not the reception of her novels in Romania, but the post-translation success justified by the attention later paid to the author by the Romanian press, considering the large volume of interviews mapped, most likely, in the wake of her journalistic career. The predilection for a writing of memory doubled by a hypersensitive dimension of an atrophied self or by the toxic frameworks of the relationship with a dysfunctional family – emergencies resolved only under the sign of the pathological, the case of the first novel. At the same time, the ideological panorama of a marginal culture, such as the Republic of Moldova, constrained between Soviet inflections, never completely purified, and the definition of an identity (not only national), as in the Glass Garden, but all of these are also possible causes of Tatiana Tîbuleac's enrollment among international writers.

The article examines the use of book speech constructions in the Notes of Sailor Veresh-chagin, a handwritten text of the 19th century, which was found in one of the handwritten collections of the National Library of the Czech Republic and introduced into scientific circulation by M.V.Melikhov. Thenotes of a hardly literate peasant-sailor, which have an objective folk-colloquial basis, are interesting in terms of book speech structures used in them. From a sample text (or several texts), the author borrowed words and constructions typical of book texts and appropriate to the genre chosen by him, including words and structures characteristic of business speech. In many cases, the reproduced words and combinations were not clear for the author, so he transformed them. The functional purpose of such constructions was most like-ly dictated by the author's desire to write the text according to certain rules corresponding to the chosen gen-re and presented in the sample text (texts) known to him. The analysis of book elements in the sailor's notes reveals thefunctioning of certain lexemes in a particular period in the history of the Russian language, totrace their dynamics. Research into the linguistic features of works of folk literature, to which the sailor's notes belong, is certainly significant since such works reflect the Russian speech of a certain period. Thestudy of the Notes makes it possible to trace the history of individual words and the functioning ofspeech elements of different styles, and contributes to the reconstruction of a true portrait of both the time and the heroes of that time.