In the article an attempt is made to study the formation of S.B. Nikritin as an artist and art theorist, whose life shows both the enthusiasm and tragedy of the epoch since Revolution 1917. The research is based on the materials from Manuscripts Department of the Tretyakov Gallery Archive and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts. Nikritin was a left-wing artist,at least as he was a socialist theory supporter. However, Nikritin could not but resist dogmatism, that gradually fettered artistic life since the early 1920s. All his professional life was focused on the idea of a new art special way. His childhood was connected with the traditional culture of Jewish shtetls, in which socialistic ideas actively penetrated. Being a student of such masters as A. Ekster, as well as his acquaintance with M. Gorky and A. Lunacharsky brought Nikritin to VHUTEMAS - the higher art school, where professors were innovators. However, S.B. Nikritin was not ready to settle upon the theories proposed there, since his generation of artists believed they had a mission - to develop art for a new society.

The article analyzes the practice of publishing the works of non-Bolshevik authors in the publishing house of the Society of Pre-revolutionary Political Convicts in the 1920s - early 1930s with editors’ prefaces and footnotes.The author classifies those prefaces and footnotes and analyzes their aims, contents evolution, and connection with the issues in the history of the revolutionary movement, relevant to that period. The author concludes that firstly the editor’s prefaces aimed at criticizing erroneous non-Marxist opinions of memoirists. “Incorrect”interpretations were presented as characteristic for a certain epoch or milieu and giving value to the published material as a historical source. At the second stage(the early 1930s) the volume of editors’ interventions increases, and their character changes. The article shows, that these changes were not so much due to the growth of ideological control, but to the activity of the editor-in-chief of the publishing house I.A. Teodorovich. He used the idea of increasing the role of Bolshevik editors to promulgate his concept of populism history. The author considers this issue in the context of political and literary activity of I.A. Teodorovich.

The article considers the make of a system for Parks of Culture and Leisure in the process of “Cultural revolution” in the Soviet Union in 1928-1942. It is based on the material from Federal and Moscow archives as well as on the published sources and documents preserved at the parks themselves. There is a study of their wide spread and popularity with the citizens and Soviet government. Methods of propaganda and ideological affecting and their manifestation in the activity of the Parks of Culture are considered, some main examples of sports activities and entertainment are given The article attempts to analyze the Parks of Culture not only as cultural institutions of a “new”type, but also as an active mechanism for promoting the “cultural revolution”in the masses and the public’s response to State policy in the sphere of leisure.The author also tries to show contradictions between the government policy in Parks of Culture and Leisure and wishes of parks visitors. Such confrontation influences the formation of a cultural and entertainment program of Parks,which in the final analysis is a compromise.

On the basis of archival documents the article analyzes circumstances of the removal from power of Lenin’s closest associates - L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev and L.B. Kamenev. The purpose of the article is to elucidate the main reasons for Stalin’s victory in an acute competitive political struggle for power after the death of Lenin. The author, using historical-comparative, historical-genetic and historical-psychological methods, believes that it was Kamenev who in the first and second echelons of the party leadership looked the most powerful political figure, taking into account the experience of the revolutionary struggle, party membership experience, authority in the party. The meetings of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee were entrusted exactly to him in the first months of 1924. Trotsky, who had the experience and authority of the second man in the party after Lenin, was second in the list, but was considered,and not without reason, a Menshevik who had only a few years of party experience. The chances of success for Zinoviev, in comparison with the other two contenders for the party leader, were initially minimal, but it was he who from the second half of 1924 was instructed to conduct meetings of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and it was he who received formal status in the party circles as a probable heir to Lenin. Such a balance is primarily advantageous to Stalin, who with Kamenev and Zinoviev unites his efforts in the struggle against Trotsky. The article concludes that V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin should be regarded as a teacher and his faithful disciple, a follower and faithful continuer of the formation of the party nomenclature. Both of them, each in his own way, taught it obedience, nurtured, filtered, relied on its significant political and administrative capabilities, but at the same time feared its unity, not excluding that one day its representatives would use for their own purposes the norms of inner-party democracy provided by them, they would make a bid for a more suitable candidate from their own melieu. The novelty of the author’s conclusions is that after Lenin’s death, in 1924-1925, the party nomenclature relied on Zinoviev as a more acceptable for them political figure. Stalin, on his part, relied on the party nomenclature, without announcing his decision. The surroundings of the leaders,no matter how carefully it was being weeded out, no matter how the external obedience and loyalty to the leader was demonstrated, appeared as a multifaceted, hardly recognizable, serious opponent. It was the party nomenclature that Stalin regarded as the main enemy, and not the associates of Lenin, whom he easily destroyed with its help.

The article is an attempt to analyze an interaction of the military and political leadership of the USSR and the Red Army command with the British company Vickers Armstrong in the 1930s. Based on documents from Russian archives, published materials and the works of Russian and foreign researchers, the author tries to focus on a comprehensive study of that process. The tasks are to determine reasons for the Soviets attempts to acquire samples of the latest tank armaments produced by a British firm, and to reveal the dynamics of that process, its nature and results. The tank armament purchase from Vickers Armstrong is analyzed in the broad context of the Soviet armed forces modernization, which began in the late 1920s. The author draws attention to the fact that the impetus for the Red Army’s conversion to tank warfare was the threat of war with England in 1927, from which later numerous samples of the newest weapons were aсquired. The explanation of this paradox, according to the author, is in the leading position of British firms in the production of tank weapons as well as in the situation of the economic crisis that forced the British government to reduce military expenditures, and private companies to enter the world arms market. The article focuses on the change in the dynamics and nature of purchases of British weapons by the Red Army in process of its modernization. Soon after the first tanks were bought, the priority was given to the acquisition of technology and the borrowing of design practice.

The article examines the issue of social adaptation of the orphanages for Spanish kids graduates. Based on the documentary materials, an attempt is made to review the policy of the People’s Commissariat for Education (Narkompros) regarding the Spanish youth, to consider the features of social adaptation among the Spanish youth in labor collectives and educational institutions and also to analyze how the pursuit of preserving their national identity influenced the socialization of the graduates of Spanish orphanages in Soviet society. The author seeks to trace the main stages and organization of the processes of adaptation of the Spaniards by the Soviet authorities. In the framework of this study he tries to reconstruct the everyday life of Spanish boys and girls in this period,their household and housing conditions. Special attention is paid to the issue of material assistance to Spanish graduates. It is concluded that the process of adaptation to individual life was extremely difficult for the Spanish youth, and the assistance provided by the authorities was clearly inadequate.

The article analyzes an issue of military and state secrets protection in 1943, year of radical change in the Great Patriotic War, in its interrelation with the course of fighting and the beginning of liberation of the occupied territories. The purpose and tasks of the article are identification and description of the measures taken for information security during that period, as well as of how the fighting impacted upon structure, contents and character of the classified information. The author mentions facts and describes measures taken by the Soviet state and refers to interaction of the supreme bodies of party, executive power and Glavlit on protection of military and state secrets in 1943. Also he presented a wide range of the classified information which protection became relevant in the course of fighting. Amount of the state and military information kept from disclosure leads to a conclusion that the arrangements in information security and existence of censorship were a necessary condition for a victory in the war. The Soviet state managed to prevent disclosure of a considerable part of the classified information of military and state value. The relevance and novelty of subject of the article are clear from the fact that it has not yet got the open press coverage. The article is entirely based on documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation.

The article considers issues of diving development at the Pacific Fleet during the Great Patriotic War and combat actions against Japan. It is emphasized that work of the diver requires special preparation and all-round development. Special attention is paid to the numeral strength and deep-divers training, their new specialties mastering. The author discusses an interrelation between divers’ training system and their efficiency when performing in actual operations. He uses the documents from the Branch of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (Navy Archive, Gatchina),its archival department at the Pacific Fleet (Vladivostok) and the Russian State Navy Archive (Saint-Petersburg). The majority of the documents is introduced into scientific use for the first time. The organization of diving in the Pacific Fleet in 1941-1945 is summarized with regard to the analysis of scientific literature, archival materials and published sources.A conclusion is made about special needs of divers during the Great Patriotic War and World War II in the Pacific Fleet, because it was than that specialists in the marine rescue branch in addition to traditional activities had to carry out some specific ones - related to combat operations and the elimination of their consequences.

The article analyzes the image of Stalin in Swiss press from the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to the end of World War II in Europe.The research is based on daily German written newspapers (“Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, “Tages-Anzeiger”, “Vaterland”) representing different categories of Swiss society. The author discovers three phases of the development of Stalin’s image during this period and events influenced on its changing. The main phases: from signing Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to the invasion of Germany into the territory of USSR, from the beginning of The Great Patriotic War to the refusal of the USSR to rebuild diplomatic relationship with Switzerland, the refusal of the USSR tore build diplomatic relationship with Switzerland to the end of War in Europe. It is also emphasized that main factors that influenced the image change were success and failures of Red Army and the foreign policy of the USSR. Author determined the main clichés about Stalin in Swiss press (red king, Bolshevistic dictator, chess player, head of Bolshevistic threat). The differences were found out in image in liberal, social-democratic and catholic-conservative press.

The treatise by O.A. Shashkova “ ‘…It Makes the Mute Artefacts Speak’: Essays on the History of Archaeography of the 15th- the Beginning of the 20th Centuries”, published in 2017, is analyzed in the context of history of the scientific research school of Archaeography at the Institute for History and Archives. The treatise reconstructs the unique pages of the history studies. Besides, the monographic work presents the evolutionary development of archaeographic thought and the scientific praxis of domestic and foreign historians’ publication procedures. The author of the treatise has traced the milestones in the history of the publication activities in Western Europe (since the15th c.) and in Russia (since the 18th c.). It is found out that the evolution of archaeographic praxis abroad and in Russia was characterized by close tendencies, identified by the author in the gradual establishment of dynamic links of history-writing / historiography with publishing, as well as the general development of book publishing business. It is shown in the article that the author of the treatise does not only feature “corresponding” historical issues which were reflected in the publications of Russian and foreign historians, but she also analyses the relationship of those issues to the general historical events, to the buildup of national statehood and to the formation of the science management systems, to historiography. The author of the monographic work does not fix archaeography on methodological issues, but presents it in as a “barometer”indicative of the state of historic community in general. The article reveals an important achievement of the author of the treatise - a thorough description of the development of the scientific research school of Archaeography at the Institute for History and Archives, the school which has accumulated the best traditions of the national historical science.

The article examines formation of the Holocaust as an issue in American historiography during the first period of its studying. Taking intoaccount social and political context of the USA, the author analyzes problems,which the first generation of the Holocaust researchers faced. It includes inadequate understanding of the Holocaust nature in the American public consciousness in this period. on the basis of both authentic publications and contemporary historiographic studies, approaches to the study and understandingthe Holocaust in the first post-war scientific research and documentary heritage collection projects are examined. The author makes a conclusion about thespecific influence of the American public opinion and political context on thework of the first Holocaust historians in the United States, as well as the main scientific results obtained in the historiography of this period in understanding of the tragedy of European Jews. Despite the absence of the state prohibition ofstudying the Final Solution, there were some other circumstances opposed to afull understanding of the nature of the Holocaust then. At the same time due toa number of academic researches and projects a significant contribution to thestudy and documentation of the Holocaust was made.

For the first time in Russian historiography the article analyzes the popular scientific biographical works about General M.V. Alekseev, which were published in Russia in the 1990s-2010s. The article discusses the biographical study of General M.V. Alekseev participation in the Volunteer Army formation and creation of the anti-Bolshevik statehood in the South of Russia in a period from November 1917 to September 1918. The article pays main attention to General M.V. Alekseev views on the struggle against the Bolshevik power strategy. The article considers a study of economic, political and military aspects of General M.V. Alekseev’s strategic views and plans by Russian historians. There is a comparative analysis of nowaday approaches to studying his look upon the sruggle against Bolshevik power. For comparative analysis the author of the article chose historians S.V. Karpenko’s and V.J. Tsvetkov’s popular scientific works, because in those works General M.V. Alekseev’s participation in the White movement in South Russia is examined in details best of all. As a result of the study it was concluded that S.V. Karpenko gave priority to economic aspects of M.V. Alekseev’s strategic plans, whereas V.Zh. Tsvetkov, on the contrary, pays primary attention to the political aspects of M.V. Alekseev’s strategy.

The article analyzes the use of literary memoirs of former Soviet paratrooper Boris V. Shmelev “Prague Autumn” as a historical source. Those memoirs describe the Soviet Union airborne troops involvement in “Danube” operation. During the “Danube” operation the Warsaw Pact forces entered Czechoslovakia to suppress the “Prague Spring”. Boris Shmelev’s memories, as well as interviews with him were used in the Czech historical and journalistic project “Invasion 1968. Russian View”. The authors of the project wanted to influence the historical memory of the Czech people, to help the Czech people look at the tragic events of 1968 broader, to evaluate those events more objectively. Their main goal was to overcome bad relations between the Czechs and the Russians, which were a result of the tragic events of 1968. In the collection of memoirs and journalistic works published in the Czech Republic and Russia, as well as in the television movie the authors of the project have modified the fragments in Boris Shmelev’s memories, as well as fragments of interview with him. Consequently they gave the readers and viewers their own interpretation of his personality and his participation in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The article concludes that the obvious advantages of the “Prague Autumn” as a historical source and as a literary work were used to achieve the objectives of the project insufficiently.