The forest-steppe area of the Don-Volga interfluve is a special category of the eurasian space. The active movements of groups of population, who have left mounds with burials of chieftains and charioteers, are along river routes in this region at the turn of the Middle and the Late Bronze Age. Dynamic development of the local vector of cultural genesis is assumed in the context of the integration of many cultural components (Abashevo, Voronezh, Volsk, catacomb, Pokrovsk, lbischensky, Potapovka). Objectively, these processes should lead to the formation of the forest-steppe localversion of the timber-grave (srubnaya) culture.
The paper presents results of charcoal and macrofossil analysis of the cremation burial grounds of the Imenkovo culture that occupied the Middle Volga region in 400—650 CE. We analyzed assemblages from four necropolises: Bogorodski, Maklasheevka 4, Komarovka and a burial ground from Zhigulevsk 2 site. Charred remains were recorded at the bottom of burials, among cremated bones or in the in-fill of graves and mortuary vessels. The assemblages contained charcoal, caryopses and stems of millet and cereals, seeds and stems of grasses and weeds, and shoots of thorny shrubs. The size of the charcoal pieces did not exceed 3 cm, being much smaller in most burials. The species composition of charcoal from cremations indicates that all locally-available woody taxa were used for the funeral pyre, instead of choosing certain types of trees for ritual purposes. Thus, the composition of the cremation fuel reflected the vegetation composition of the encasing landscape. Dominant charred taxa in the Imenkovo cremations were Tilia and Betula (linden and birch), the typical components of the "slash-and-burn landscape" of the Middle Volga region during this period. Despite the fact that all the burial grounds were located at the higher grounds in the landscape, the presence of riverine taxa — Alnus, Salix, and Ulmus (willow, alder and elm) and abundance of charred herbaceous remains in the charcoal spectra points at floodplains or mouths of gullies as a probable location of cremation platforms. An important detail of the funeral rite, revealed by the research, is placing unhulled millet, soaked and germinated before cremation, into the funeral pyre.
"This book investigates the policy of Russia on the Caspian and in the nearby territories from old times to the beginning of the present millennium, thus, spanning several centuries. The book also discusses the motivations of the rulers of Rus', Moscow State, Russian Empire, the USSR and later on, Russia that pursued active foreign policy targeted to extension of the geopolitical influence and strengthening of the economic presence in the near-Caspian territories and on the Caspian Sea proper. The main stages of formation of the Russian foreign policy are studied. The causes underlying the rivalry of Russia with Persia and Turkey, Central Asian Khanates and European states for the leading positions on the Caspian are analyzed. The authors describe the mechanisms used by Russia in its foreign policy with regard to the established political and economic conditions. Much attention is focused on the analysis of Russia's foreign policy in the Caspian region after disintegration of the USSR when the situation on the Caspian had changed drastically. Formerly there were two Caspian statesaUSSR and Iran, but now three new independent states appeared, i.e. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, which immediately became the focus of interest of non-regional states and leading oil and gas companies. This book describes how the policy of Russia has been changing in the face of a new geopolitical situation in the Caspian region. The approaches of Russia to addressing the regional problems, first of all, the international legal status of the Caspian Sea, hydrocarbon production and transportation, militarization and ecology, etc. are analyzed. All these factors urged Russia to develop new approaches towards the Caspian region. The book investigates the effect of the foreign policy of new Caspian states, the USA, EU and China on the Caspian policy of Russia. The complicated geopolitical situation on the Caspian and unceasing attention to its hydrocarbon resources force Russia to keep a close watch on the Caspian region that remains the main vector of the Russian foreign policy."--Preface
Рецензируемая монография являет собой попытку представить новые методологические траектории в исследовании сложной правовой реальности Российской империи второй половины XIX в. Автор монографии уделяет особое внимание проблемам правовых изменений в условиях культурного разнообразия, избирая объектом своего исследования пореформенные Крым и Поволжье. В рецензии основной акцент сделан на ключевой концептуальной установке книги – использовании содержания понятия правового плюрализма для описания сложности правового взаимодействия общества и государства. Кроме этого, подчеркиваются трудности использования материалов судебных ведомств в рамках историко-антропологического подхода. Методология автора универсальна, а потому может быть с успехом использована историками в рамках региональных и сравнительных исследований других регионов империи. The monograph under review makes an attempt to present new methodological trajectories in the study of the complex legal reality in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century. The author of the monograph pays special attention to the problems of legal change in the conditions of cultural diversity, choosing the post-reform Crimea and Volga Region as the object of his research. The review focuses on the key conceptual principle of the book, namely the use of the content of legal pluralism to describe the complexity of the legal interaction between society and the state. In addition to this, the difficulties of using the materials of the judicial departments within the framework of the historical anthropological approach are emphasized. The author's methodology is universal, and therefore it can be further successfully used by historians in the framework of regional and comparative studies of other regions of the empire.
The sheer size of the Russian foreign debt in 1917 has profoundly affected our view of the influence of foreign capital on tsarist diplomacy. It has been argued by both Western and Soviet historians that Russian foreign relations were in good part influenced by, or even determined by, Russia's debtor status to France and—to a lesser degree—to Great Britain. Thus a Western historian argued recently that in the last years of tsarist rule "foreign credit became a tool of power politics and a limitation on Russian sovereignty in general. … Between 1887 and 1917 Russian policy was tied to French policy, inasmuch as French investments were controlled, to a large extent, by the French Government." Recently published Soviet works, while revising Stalin's judgment that Russia was economically a semicolony of Western capital, continue to assert that the "financial-economic dependence on the capital, continue to assert that the "financial-economic dependence on the Entente countries pushed tsarist Russia into a military alliance with them."
During the Great Patriotic War, the Middle Volga Region became one of the centers for military-industrial complex enterprises evacuation from the western regions of the country. The city of Kuybyshev (now Samara) accepted 40 largest enterprises. The factories of the People's Commissariat of the Aviation Industry functioned as their basis. This decision was associated with the ongoing construction of three aircraft factories in the city. By the beginning of the war, the construction had not been completed and the completion degree of the plants buildings varied. The decision to evacuate aviation production to the city was also influenced by the presence of the metalworking industry, energy capacities and labor concentrated in one of the largest camps of the GULAG system – Bezymyanlag. The equipment of the evacuated enterprises was arriving at the Bezymyanka station of the Kuibyshev railway where aviation factories were being constructed. Unloading and placing the equipment caused considerable difficulties. The machines were installed in unfinished facilities or even simply on the ground. A large industrial center developed near the city where the enterprises of the aviation complex were located. A closed production cycle was created for the first time in the country here; it produced the Ilyushin IL-2 and the Ilyushin IL-10 Shturmoviks. The Ilyushin IL-2 attack aircraft was recognized as the best one in World War II. The production establishment faced great difficulties: placement on unsuitable production manufacturing sites, extremely tight timeline for manufacturing production, and the need for its constant modernization. The personnel issue was especially urgent. It was decided to mobilize women, youth and adolescents to work for manufacturing enterprises. However, their low qualifications caused production problems. It was self-sacrifice and labor heroism that helped to tackle these tasks. The work of the Bezymyanka aviation complex supplied the country's armed forces with combat aircraft. The presence of a large aviation complex predetermined the development of the industrial cluster of the Samara Region.
The article explores the period of reviving the art of calligraphy and handwritten book art in the Tatar culture, which falls on the end of the XIX century and is associated with the names of A. Makhmudov and Sh. Tagirov. The authors of the article presented the genesis and revealed the stages of calligraphy and hand-written book art formation in the culture of the Tatars. The article provides an art criticism analysis of the manuscript book art works included in the creative heritage of A. Makhmudov and Sh. Tagirov. A contrastive-comparative analysis led to a conclusion that the traditions of Iranian, Turkish and Dagestanian handwritten book art which were processed by Kazan calligraphers. That allowed them to develop local traditions of handwritten art. The study is based on the analysis of collections of manuscript monuments, including paperwork (khan labels) and books (of religious, scientific, literary and artistic content) from the collections of the Department of Manuscript and Rare Books of Kazan Federal University's N.I. Lobachevsky Scientific Library, the Center for Written and Musical Heritage of G. Ibragimov Institute of the Language, Literature and Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Republic of Tatarstan National Library, the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, the National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Graphics Department of the Republic of Tatarstan State Museum of Fine Arts. The article is based on a comprehensive study of the material; to conduct the analysis, analytical methods of research have been applied. The priority is given to the classical comparative-historical method which includes synchronous and diachronous analysis. In addition, general scientific art and cultural studies methods and approaches were implemented: the genetic one, for instance, allows making a diachronous section and tracing the process of book art formation.
