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Confrontations between the powerless and the powerful are laden with deception--the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, labourers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, the author, a social scientist, offers a discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage--what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, the author examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. The author describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups--their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater--their use of anonymity and ambiguity. He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally he identifies--with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign--the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power

Confrontations between the powerless and the powerful are laden with deception--the powerless feign deference and the powerful subtly assert their mastery. Peasants, serfs, untouchables, slaves, labourers, and prisoners are not free to speak their minds in the presence of power. These subordinate groups instead create a secret discourse that represents a critique of power spoken behind the backs of the dominant. At the same time, the powerful also develop a private dialogue about practices and goals of their rule that cannot be openly avowed. In this book, the author, a social scientist, offers a discussion both of the public roles played by the powerful and powerless and the mocking, vengeful tone they display off stage--what he terms their public and hidden transcripts. Using examples from the literature, history, and politics of cultures around the world, the author examines the many guises this interaction has taken throughout history and the tensions and contradictions it reflects. The author describes the ideological resistance of subordinate groups--their gossip, folktales, songs, jokes, and theater--their use of anonymity and ambiguity. He also analyzes how ruling elites attempt to convey an impression of hegemony through such devices as parades, state ceremony, and rituals of subordination and apology. Finally he identifies--with quotations that range from the recollections of American slaves to those of Russian citizens during the beginnings of Gorbachev's glasnost campaign--the political electricity generated among oppressed groups when, for the first time, the hidden transcript is spoken directly and publicly in the face of power.

The article addresses the question of why, despite the seemingly long-standing accumulation of economic and technical conditions sufficient for building, if not communism, then socialism, the left-wing forces are unable to take advantage of this, and yield the initiative to the right-wing, conservative, and even reactionary forces. The author explains this situation by the rationale that the mindset of the left is still dominated by a flat liberal progressivism characterized by cliché ideas about the progressive and the reactionary, but it lacks tools to adequately assess the reasons for the "reactionary" sympathies of the broad masses and to admit that these masses have "grounds for concern" at the very least. As a theoretical basis, the article uses the concept of human prehistory of the classics of Marxism. The author demonstrates that the underlying dichotomy of the alienated and authentic, human and inhuman does not coincide with the dichotomy of "reactionary" and "progressive". The Modern Age is examined as both an epoch of reaction (in the literal sense of the word, net of ideological connotations) and that of progress. In order to resolve these issues, the author introduces the concept of retropractice, which is supposed to help adequately describe these seemingly "reactionary" and "conservative" sides of Modernity. Retropractices, in contrast to "reaction", possess an emancipatory and alienation-reducing potential. The flaw of the left is that they fail to comprehensively conceptualize the meaning of retropractices because they view them only as "reaction" and "conservatism" in the usual sense. However, socialism, if realized, will largely turn out to be precisely a set of retropractices.

The United States of America is living through today one of the most acute socio-political crises in its history. The United States is in a state of deep social, political and economic fracture, which affects political and economic efficiency, leads to significant social dysfunctions and delegitimization of the political system. The author argues that current crisis differs from other crises that the United States had faced in its history. There is a layering of several crises that accumulated over time and eventually merged into a single stream. Describing current crisis in the USA, the author proposes to use the concept of a polycrisis - a relatively rare phenomenon in the socio-political development of any country, implying a simultaneous violation of stability, a breakdown in several key areas for the state and the society. In the American case, the polycrisis consists of four main elements that affect the political and socio-economic spheres of the society: ideological polarization of the American society, multiple splits within the Democratic and Republican political parties, declining incomes of the middle class, and the constant increase in socio-economic inequality. The author comes to the conclusion that the current polycrisis will inevitably transform both the political system and the society. The only question is what direction this transformation takes. In a favorable scenario, new egalitarian forces will prevail, smoothing out the sharp edges of increased inequality, as well as restoring the centrist orientation of American politics. In a negative scenario, the United States will slide into ever greater chaos, which is fraught with social explosions and the undermining of American democracy.

In the context of ageing, the problem of health among older adults needs special attention. The article attempts to analyze key health indicators among older people, their perception and acceptance of their own age, as well as the perception of them by others. The article also analyzes processes of inclusion of older people in the economic, social, and cultural life. Trying to determine the age boundaries of an old age, the author comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to identify a single correct classification, due to the heterogeneity of the "elderly" group, the discrepancy between their views on life, the difference in health status and their perceptions of illnesses. The analysis factors influencing this heterogeneity will help to understand the main problems of life expectancy and will make it possible to develop more effective programs to prolong a healthy lifestyle and active aging. The author analyzes such health indicators as: life expectancy, healthy life expectancy, self-assessment of health, social and medical literacy of the elderly population. The author does not ignore the COVID-19 pandemic, which had an impact on physical and mental health of older people, as they were the main risk group during the pandemic.The article is based on the results of the most significant and recent Russian and foreign works in the fields of sociology of ageing and sociology of health. The methodological basis of the work is a secondary analysis of research data from the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), etc.

Issues concerning the emergence and decline of the epic poem are fairly well researched in Russian literary criticism. Irinarkh Ivanovich Zavalishin was the second author who successfully completed works of this genre following in the footsteps of M. M. Kheraskov. Yet, this author's poems are often considered superficially as having had no serious influence on the literary process or the consciousness of contemporaries. This article looks at the unique aspect of his poem, Suvoroida, its extensive metatextual and paratextual structure, its relation to the core text and impact on the further development of the genre. The article demonstrates how in his commentary on the poem, the author expresses a new approach to the genre itself, i.e. a decisive rejection of classical fantastic elements of the traditional epic poem of the eighteenth century, postulating the value of historical accuracy and personal attitude to historical events. The article considers the immediate features of historical commentary, noting that, first of all, the author seeks to convey accurate historical information about the obstacles overcome by Suvorov and the losses of the enemy, which serves to formalize the image of the invincible hero. Finally, attention is drawn to the conceptual tension between the text of the poem and the author's commentary on it, manifesting an active authorial presence in the text. From this tension comes the complexity in the interpretation of Suvorov's image. As a character of the poetic text, he appears in the image of a classicist hero, sublime, magnificent, formidable, and gracious. The Suvorov of the metatext is down-to-earth, surrounded by everyday details and realities, and easy to deal with.

The article is devoted to the problem of memory functioning as a symbolic resource for adaptation to a crisis as a situation of high uncertainty. The author analyzes public practices of articulating memory about the early period of the post-Soviet transformation when discussing social and economic problems associated with the special military operation in Ukraine, that was declared by president Vladimir Putin on 24 February, 2022, and subsequent unprecedented extension of international sanctions. The study is based on Iwona Irwin-Zarecka's theory of frames of remembrance. By revealing typical ways of framing the experience of the 1990s in media discourse during the first six months after 24 February, 2022, the author attempts to identify how this experience was tied to the current problems and thus determine the role of memory as a resource for adaptation to the new crisis. The analysis is based on publications in printed and online media that target different audiences. In order to reveal ways of framing statements about the 1990s, the author utilized the method of qualitative content analysis using the MAXQDA application. The results of the study confirm that in a situation of uncertainty caused by the forced restructuring of economic relations, social expectations and political goal-setting, the memory of a collective traumatic experience acts as an adaptation resource, which is associated with a partial transformation of its semantic framework. At the same time, the ideological splits tied to the memory of the 1990s persist and continue to determine the structure of the public discourse about the past.

This research paper explicates the basic doctrines of the State and law of classical conservatism, as well as the peculiarities of understanding and existence of the idea of the State, which follows from the conservative definition of the State. The characteristic components of this political institution are the categories of law, legal consciousness, political integrity, etc. The perception of understanding the conservative theory of the origin of the state, based on the social contract theory, as a logical continuation of the organic association of people to maintain social order and political stability, is crystallising. The latter principles are also the fundamental axiological determinants of the conservative ideological and political doctrine, whose manifestor and defender is the state. The author characterises the concepts of law and law, the conceptual basis of which is reduced to the moral sphere of existence. The main objective of the existence of laws is to protect rights and freedoms, as well as their institutional representation. At the same time, the author defines the peculiarities of understanding legal consciousness and political consciousness as fundamental elements of state-building processes. In turn, their fundamental features are historical and geographical locality, identity and conceptual authenticity, which are the basis for the constitution of heterogeneous forms of political systems. The tasks and structural elements of the theory of state in the ideological and political doctrine of conservatism are analysed. The author also identifies the institutional elements of social limitation of state power in the context of conservative doctrine, which include the church and civil society.

PurposeIn the early 1930s, Nicholas Kaldor could be classified as an Austrian economist. The author reconstructs the intertwined paths of Kaldor and Friedrich A. Hayek to disequilibrium economics through the theoretical deficiencies exposed by the Austrian theory of capital and its consequences on equilibrium analysis.Design/methodology/approachThe author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.FindingsThe integration of capital theory into a business cycle theory by the Austrians and its shortcomings – e.g. criticized by Piero Sraffa and Gunnar Myrdal – called attention to the limitation of the theoretical apparatus of equilibrium analysis in dynamic contexts. This was a central element to Kaldor's emancipation in 1934 and his subsequent conversion to John Maynard Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). In addition, it was pivotal to Hayek's reformulation of equilibrium as a social coordination problem in "Economics and Knowledge" (1937). It also had implications for Kaldor's mature developments, such as the construction of the post-Keynesian models of growth and distribution, the Cambridge capital controversy, and his critique of neoclassical equilibrium economics.Originality/valueThe close encounter between Kaldor and Hayek in the early 1930s, the developments during that decade and its mature consequences are unexplored in the secondary literature. The author attempts to construct a coherent historical narrative that integrates many intertwined elements and personas (e.g. the reception of Knut Wicksell in the English-speaking world; Piero Sraffa's critique of Hayek; Gunnar Myrdal's critique of Wicksell, Hayek, and Keynes; the Hayek-Knight-Kaldor debate; the Kaldor-Hayek debate, etc.) that were not connected until now by previous commentators.

The article is dedicated to the first chapter of the Book of Genesis in the Targum Onkelos, the most important Jewish translation of the Pentateuch into Aramaic. The paper deals with terms related to the structure of space, time and eternity. In the Targum of Onkelos, the influence of Ptolemaic cosmology and geography, as well as the worldview of the era of the formation of the Mishna, are observed. The creator of the translation uses the term kadmin (originality, eternity), which al­lows us to interpret that Onkelos in a sense allows the existence of the world for an indefinitely long time in the past. In the theological aspect, the author of the Targum uses the Tetragrammaton, which is translated into Russian as the word "Lord", instead of the Hebrew elohim (plural form). The author of the article inter­prets this unconditionally monotheistic term as a struggle against Gnosticism and Manichaeism, which was relevant in the 2nd century AD. The Aramaic term rekiya, which Onkelos translates into Hebrew rakia, means not so much "firma­ment" as extension, and this article discusses its possible translation as "space". If a number of concepts "signs", "holidays", "days" and "years" are used in the He­brew Torah as synonymous, then in the Aramaic text "signs" and "times" are sepa­rately distinguished, and it is separately indicated that the luminaries are needed to count days and years. This shows the influence of Late Antique astrology, popu­lar among the Jews too. The author of this Targum not only created an interpreta­tion of the biblical text, but also created his own aspects of Jewish cosmology, which were used by Jewish interpreters to build their medieval cosmology.

The article analyzes the features of the era of L. I. Brezhnev and its perceptions. The author presents his views on the political portrait of the Soviet leader. The article considers distinctive characteristics and stereotypical features of the image of the long-term leader of the Soviet state formed in the national and foreign historiography. The article indicates the key events and phenomena related to the foreign and domestic policy of the USSR under Brezhnev and describes the specific aspects of his managerial style. The author focuses on the details of the conspiracy to remove N. S. Khrushchev from power, and specifically point out that it was L. I. Brezhnev who headed this conspiracy, and not M. A. Suslov and A. N. Shelepin, as it is indicated in some research papers on the problem. The article also specifically examines the achievements of the foreign policy of the era of "détente", the role of L. I. Brezhnev in the successes of the policy of those years, the model of his behavior in relations with foreign leaders, such as R. Nixon, J. Ford, V. Brandt, and others. The research is based on the testimonies of people who worked closely with L. I. Brezhnev and those who were in his inner circle. According to the author, L. I. Brezhnev was ready to retire at the end of the 1970s, but members of the Politburo insisted that he should keep his post. Brezhnev did not manage to survive as a politician; his death remained practically unnoticed by the Soviet people.

Based on the documentary resources introduced by the author into scientific circulation, the article analyzes the features of the national policy in the Urals in the 1920s in relation to the Bashkir and Tatar population. Tatars and Bashkirs made up 4% of the region's population, but they were the largest ethnic minority in the region after Russians, and their number in some areas exceeded 95%. The article considers the activities to involve the activists in the communist and Komsomol movements, anti-religious policy and opposition to Islam, as well as the support of the culture of secular holidays, such as Sabantui (wild celebration). The office records of the central and regional archives, introduced by the author into scientific circulation, became the main source. The document analysis showed that in the first years of Soviet rule the policy of involving opinion makers and youth in the communist movement was not successful and did not arouse any interest in the local population. The process was hampered by the activities of Muslim religious leaders. They, unlike Orthodox ministers, had the freedom of missionary work and even the support of the Narkompros (national education) in the training of priests. Later, their activities were suppressed as contradicted to the communist ideology, and the authorities began to develop a culture of secular holidays and public life. As a result, the foundations for the modern secular national culture of the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia were laid. The author is sure that the success of the implementation of such a policy makes it possible to redefine the approaches to assessing its efficiency.

The article examines the problem of reconstruction of the party composition of the regional authorities of the RSFSR in March — July 1918. The source base of the work is statistical data collected by Soviet researchers, periodical press materials, as well as documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The author studies the party composition of the Soviet authorities at two institutional levels: regional and provincial. The territorial scope of the article is limited to the regions of the European part of Russia (including most of the Urals), where the Soviet power existed in the first half of 1918. This article makes quantitative calculations of delegates of regional congresses of councils and members of executive committees. Based on the analysis of data on the party membership of congresses of Soviets and executive committees, the author comes to the conclusion about the formation of the dual party system in regional and provincial authorities by the time of the convocation of the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets. This process was characterized by a significant reduction in the representation of socialist parties other than the Bolsheviks and their temporary allies from the party of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. The author of the article analyzes the dynamics of the representation of political parties at the provincial institutional levels of the Soviet state in the first half of 1918. Changes in the party composition of regional Soviet authorities consisted in increasing the share of the Left socialist revolutionaries in provincial executive committees and reducing the representation of the Bolshevik party.

The article analyzes the content and the main ideas of the monograph by I. V. Potkina "On the eve of a catastrophe. The state and the economy of Russia in 1914–1917", which was brought out by the publishing house "Nestor-Istoriia" in 2022. The presented topic is not among those fully and comprehensively researched by the Russian historiography. Quite a large number of issues related to the transition of the Russian economic system from a peaceful to a military state and the formation of a mobilization model of the economy require additional research. Individual aspects of the formation and development of the military economy have been studied by Russian scholars quite well, but before the publication of this monograph, this problem had not been considered comprehensively. The author of the monograph set a goal to analyze the complex of legislative and administrative documents of the central executive authorities in the field of socio-economic policy and, on this basis, to determine the priority directions by year. The reviewed documents made it possible to show the changes taking place in the sectoral structure of the country's economy and the management system. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite mistakes and miscalculations, the Imperial government, unlike the Provisional Government, generally managed to cope with the difficulties that arose. This is evidenced by the legislative acts of the government, statistical data of state institutions and public organizations provided by the author. The definition of the main features of the mobilization economic model is innovative.

This article is a discussion of the career path of N. I. Pokrovskii. The author attempts to uncover the key points of his biography and research career. Both of his defense procedures that took place in 1938–1939 are examples of the revival of the pre-revolutionary dissertation culture implemented through the practicing of the legal framework of its Soviet counterpart. The article focuses on the procedure and progress of the defense of the historian's doctorate dissertation. The availability of the transcript enables the author to reveal the principles, style, atmosphere, and ideological components of this academic event typical of the early Soviet dissertation culture. The author highlights the specifics of the selection of opponents, the defense procedure and academic audit organization as well as the ensuing discussion. The opponents included well-known researchers from St Petersburg, I. Yu. Krachkovskii, an Arabist scholar acting as the candidate's promoter, and B. D. Grekov and S. N. Valk, Doctors of history who were not authorities on the problems covered in the dissertation and treated the candidate with caution. I. P. Petrushevskii, an Orientalist historian, played a special role: he was an opponent during Pokrovskii's candidate thesis defense and an unofficial expert during his doctoral defense debate. The debate in question involved the members of the Board of the Historical Faculty and the 'public' and demonstrated ambivalent attitudes towards the candidate's position. The article attempts to understand the critical perception of Pokrovskii's concepts and the impact of the political and ideological atmosphere in the pre-war USSR on the defense procedure and the historian's life.