The article  analyzes the  original  the  version  of the  myth  about Typhon, dating back to Homer and Hesiod, as well as its version, which was reflected in the Bibliotheca mythologica  (Mythological Library) and other works of the Late Antiquity.

The author argues that  new details  appeared  in the myth  in the 5th   – 4th centuries BC were connected with Greek attempts to strengthen their  power in Egypt. The version of the myth that  is preserved in the Pseudo-Apollodorus Mythological Library  is intended to substantiate the power of the Ptolemies in the country and perhaps to demonstrate their foreign policy aspirations and emphasize the imperial character of their power.

The  paper  presents  a study  of the  transformation of the  image of Marcus  Aurelius in the Christian literature of the 2nd  – 5th  centuries:  from the protector of Christians to their  persecutor. The apologists of the 2nd  – 3d centuries constructed the image of the emperor-philosopher with positive  attitude towards  Christianity. A significant  group  of apologies were addressed directly  to Mark  Aurelius,  what  can be considered as evidence  of a positive attitude towards  that  person. Tertullian tells the story of a miraculous  saving of the Legio XII Fulminata during  the campaign  of Marcus  Aurelius  against Marcomanns war thanks  to the Christian soldiers prayings.

Changing attitudes  towards   Marcus  Aurelius  among  the  early  church historians of the  4th–5th   centuries is associated  with  the  gradual  shift  away from the  Roman  and early Christian traditions and the  increasing  emphasis on the  history  of martyrdom. Eusebius  of Caesarea  in order  to combine  the positive  opinion  of Tertullian with  reports  about  the persecution of the Lyon and Vienna martyrs  (177)  transfers  the responsibility for the latter to Marcus Aurelius brother.  In later authors,  such as Paul orozii and Aurelius Augustine, Marcus Aurelius is already called the persecutor without any reservations.

The article is devoted  to the role of liturgy as an instrument of the political  propaganda in the Visigothic  Kingdom  of Toledo, which existed  from the middle of the 6th  to the beginning  of the 8th  centuries in the territory of the former Spanish  provinces  of the  Late  Roman  Empire,  as well as the  province of Narbonne  Gaule. The so-called “Gothic” or “Mozarabic” liturgical  tradition was basically formed in the period of Late Antiquity and was further  developed in the time of the Toledo kingdom. The main sources in the article  are the late (VII century) editions of a number of Spanish liturgical  texts – the service book (“Liber ordinum”), the Leon antiphonary and hymnal (“Hymnodia Gothica”). The author also drawn the information contained in the resolutions of the Toledo councils and the “History  of King Wamba”, written by an outstanding political and religious leader Julian of Toledo (circa 642–690). It is concluded  that  in the situation of utmost  instability of the political system of the Kingdom of Toledo during the great part of its history the role of political propaganda increased significantly. It became an important mean to support the royal power authority. The fundamental part of the Church in that  sphere was determined not only because of the political  theory  innovations elaborated by the most educated persons of the clergy, but by the significance of liturgy  as a mean to inculcate  some important political ideas in the minds of the broad masses of believers, representing the Christian society as a whole. The main consequence of that  Church activity  was the preservation of a positive image of royal power to a certain extent compensating for the weakness of the political system.

The  article  is devoted  to the  role of English  Minorities in the canonization processes of the 13th  – early 14th  centuries. Franciscan friars often were members of canonization commissions. They were to enquire into the life and miracles of the candidate and send the evidence of sanctity they collected to the pope. The analysis of canonization of St. Edmund,  Archbishop  of Canterbury, and St. Thomas de Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford  makes it possible to identify reasons for participation of friars in such church affairs, as well as their influence on the canonization processes.

This paper is focused on miracles that were selected by procurators for canonization  of Edmund of Abingdon  and Thomas  de Cantilupe. Those miracles were remarkably similar to “examples” of the  “Liber exemplorum”,  a manual for the use of preachers, and miracles of “Legenda S. Francisci” of Bonaventura. In  many  cases miraculous  healing  or salvation  happened with  children  and convicts. The author suggests that  an increase in the number  of such miracles in reports  of canonization commissions of the  13th   – early 14th   centuries was connected with intellectual and preaching  activities of mendicant orders.

This article  focuses on pogrom  of Prague  Jewry that  happened during  Easter  celebration in April  of 1389. Unlike  other  pogroms  in Czech kingdom,  Prague  pogrom  was at least  formally a blood libel and was perpetrated by local Czechs, thus  differentiating from other  similar incidents perpetrated by German  crusaders.  Traditionally, the  Prague  pogrom is regarded as the  bloodiest  in Czech Jewish history.  Despite  the  pogrom  mentioning in over twenty sources, this article  will study  its depictions in two diametrically opposed, emotionally charged sources – “Passions of the Jews of Prague”, and a liturgy  written by a Jewish eyewitness, Avigdor Karo. The goal of this article is to study the Prague pogrom of 1389 and its causes, which the author believes to be the worsening economical and financial situation in Czech Kingdom. The article  will focus on dissecting  “Passions of the Jews of Prague”  as a thorough description of the tragedy  , different from the rest of the references to the pogrom by the frank enjoyment  of the Jewish tragedy,  describing  it as a triumph of the righteous  Christians over enemies of Christ.  Liturgy  of Avigdor Karo is not only an eyewitness  account  of the event, but also a piece of literature that reflects the impression the pogrom left on its victims.

This article analyzes the picture  of the conflict between  York and Lancaster dynasties  drawn  by Thomas  More  in his “History  of Richard  III”. The commonplace  of modern English-speaking historiography is that  Thomas More’s text  is not  ‘history’ at all (it  can be described  as moralizing  or philosophical drama), and that  More was always inaccurate with details.

The author demonstrates that  More’s description of the Wars of the Roses is not inaccurate or careless, he putted history  upside down. More changed the starting point  of the conflict; reduced  fifteen battles  to four; removed  several historical  figures etc. The author supposes that  Thomas  More  had no intention  to describe  real paste. Quite  the opposite,  he used historical  material  to depict some ideal country where Parliament had power to replace kings; were women didn’t participate in politics; where a virtue  triumphs and a tyrant had no chance to rule peacefully.

The article is devoted  to the study of the personality and activity of a participant of the French  Wars of Religion, Henri I de Guise in the French historiography of the 19th  century.

The research  is based on different sources, mostly the works of the French historians on history of France and Wars of Religion of the 19th  century in general and on special works which authors  focused their  attention on Henri  de Guise biography.  The key objective  of this  work is to follow the development of the views of historians on the activity of that person and to identify such moments in his political career which cause the greatest controversy among historians.

An emphasis is placed on the fact that  the authors  of that  period put into circulation the main sources on the subject  and laid the base for studying the biography  of Henri I de Guise which later the most researchers  relied upon. For the first time in historical  studies  the author overviews the main literature on the theme and based on the comparative method makes an attempt to follow the creation  by the historians of the 19th  century of a certain image of Henri I, Duke of Guise, endowed with some features  of the romantic character. It was at that time that  the concept according to which the actions of the Duke were directed by the desire to imitate  his father and to take revenge on the perpetrators of his death was formed. But according to many researchers he didn’t manage to reach the level of his ancestors and become an independent political figure.

The article  considers  the  origins  of beliefs in German-speaking historiography of the 19th  – 20th  centuries about  the Interregnum of 1250 / 1254-1273 in the Holy Roman Empire as a period of the deepest crisis and time of Germans  national  tragedy.  The author shows the  role of F. Schiller  in the formation and distribution of the image of “a terrible time without an emperor”, and also explores  the  concepts  of historians who adopted  and developed  the ideas of an eminent  poet and historian.  The image of the epoch clouded by the political crisis significantly influenced the perception of national  history by the Germans themselves  and was / is one of the problem areas for German nationalism, and therefore  it turns  out to be the focus of the researcher  relatively infrequently.  German medieval studies of 19th – 20th centuries are considered in the article both through the prism of intellectual history  and in the context of the ideological struggle, in which medieval history  is used as a kind of weapon. The article  demonstrated the  strict  continuity of the  Interregnum concepts: new generations of historians refer to  their  predecessors  and  reproduce the same model as a whole. Just in the 21st century this line can be described  as ended, and it is for the most part  affected by political  and global processes in Europe and the world nowadays.

The article is an attempt to demonstrate a significance of Jewish salons in the context of acculturation processes of Prussian Jews at the turn  of 18th–19th centuries.

In the article, a notion “acculturation” is conceptualized and its manifestations are considered.  Author  considers  main directions of cultural and educational  activities by Moses Mendelsohn, the leader of Haskalah,  as a precursor for an emergence of first Jewish salons in Berlin.

On the basis of personal texts, author aims to present the most famous Jewish salons’ hostesses – Henriette Herz and Rahel Levin. In the present  article, the visitors’ circle of mentioned salons is defined. Author  traces opportunities in adoption of European cultural heritage given to Jewish women for European cultural heritage’s reception by means of their communications with Christians in the framework of the salons. The article deals with a question  of conversion of Jewish women to Christianity as a consequence  of Jewish-Cristian interaction within salons and outside of them.

A special attention is paid to the Jewish women’s literary  work as an important component of the acculturation. Based on instances  of women-writers Dorothea Schlegel  and Esther  Gad, author makes an attempt to figure out  a role of Jewish salons in their literary  activity’s genesis.

The article  draws attention to such an aspect  of the  history  of forced migration from Belarus as the long period of Belarusian  refugees’ stay in cities  and  villages of more  than  thirty provinces  of the  Russian  Empire. The article draws attention to the fact that  the very nature  of the relationship between  refugees and the local population was caused by measures of help to migrants,  creating  conditions for their  social adaptation, excluding  social tensions that  could arise due to the complex problems due to the fleeing itself as a mass extreme phenomenon. on the basis of archival materials, the materials  of the Russian periodicals of wartime, the author concludes that during the forced long stay outside the native places, which lasted for up to nine years, Belarusian refugees were in circumstances that  contribute to the aggravation of national traits,  in conditions that  stimulate awareness of their ethnic difference.

The article discusses the establishment and first stage of activity of the Commission  on foreign scientific trips as the part  of the People’s Commissariat  for Education of the  RSFSR  in 1921–1923.  The  article  also notes difficulties in the  organization of the  Commission  and analyzes  its activities and quantitative performance  indicators for the above period. For example, it gives the  total  number  of approved  and rejected  applications, as well as the distribution of applications to  foreign countries in the  period  under  review. Separately, the author highlights specifics in the Commission  work, which reflect the historical  era in when it operated.  Moreover,  the author also analyzes the  procedure of an assignment  for foreign scientific trip  and the  documents necessary for that.

The foreign and domestic policy was considered by M. Weber from the  national  point  of view. In 1916 he regarded  Russia  as the  main threat for Germany and sаw the way to peace in the agreement with England. The Russian February revolution changed  his position,  but only after April crisis he was inclined to conclude peace with Russia. At the same time, Weber sharply criticized the German submarine war, but did not support the pacifism of German students In 1916–1918 the scientist linked the issue of peace with the parliamentarization of German  government and the democratization in Germany.  He was sure that the government’s control  over the Kaiser could prevent  the catastrophe. Professor attributed the absence of a democratic political culture in Germany with the activities of Bismarck, who hampered  the development of parliamentarism. The scientist  was a member of German  delegation  at the  Paris  Conference.  Weber perceived the rejection  of the terms of the Versailles peace as a threat to the loss of Germany’s sovereignty, but did not consider the Treaty of Versailles as a “worthy peace”. Weber did not approve the project of this Treaty and perceived it as a prologue to the further disasters of Germany. In the summer of 1919 the scientist called for combination in “the ethics of responsibility” and “ethic of persuasion” in politics and considered those categories as complementary categories.

In  the  19th  – early  20th  centuries four the  most  famous Slav Congresses  took  place: in Prague  in 1848, in Moscow  and in St. Petersburg in 1867, a “secret” congress  in Prague  in 1868, Slavic Congress  in Prague  in 1908. The first three events were closely interrelated. All the Slavic congresses were focused on the ideology of the Slavic community and Pan-Slavism in its wide interpretation, fed on understanding of possibility to unite all Slavs on the basis of affinity of languages descended  from a common root.

Over discussions held in Russian media several issues were acknowledged which  should  have  become  part  of the  Delegates’  agenda  at  1987 Congress hosted in Moscow as well as Saint Petersburg. Those were the recurring questions  of Russian  language  as a tool  of cross-Slavic  dialog, of civilized  Slavic unity existence as well as its defining factors, and the significance of the Russian Empire  presence  in the vicinity  of the Slavic peoples. The Congress  organizers considered that  Russia in particular should become the cultural,  religious and indirectly political foundation for Slavic unity. The main uniting function was laid onto  the cross national  relations  language. The Austrian  Slavs were not able to solve that  issue for Danube  Empire during  the Slavic Congress  in Prague in 1848. In 1987 Russian intellectual elites promoted Russian language as the basis for the Slavic unity. Hence the ‘language’ question  turned into the main symbol of first Slavic congresses of 19th century.

The article  analyzes the  “Aktion  wider den undeutschen Geist” organized by the German Student Union, which began in April 1933 and ended on the 10th of May with the public book burnings  in Berlin and in many other German  cities as a commemorative ritual.  The author proceeds  from the fact that  such actions  pursued  on the  one hand  a practical  purpose  – the  subordination of the academic  community in the framework  of the policy of Gleichschaltung (unification), and on the other  – were clearly symbolic and were designed  to reinforce  the  legitimacy  of the  national  socialist  dictatorship, as well as to demonstrate a kind of continuity of actions aimed at “purification” of the German spirit. That  was confirmed in a reference to the Wartburg festival, organized  by German  students in 1817, and through it to the public burning of Martin Luther’s  papal  bull by Martin Luther  in 1520. Thus,  the  burning of books on May 10, 1933 was built  into  the  normative field of the  German historical  and cultural tradition. The action was considered as a ritual practice and was fixed as a symbol, with positive connotations, for the formation  of the necessary ideological collective ideas of a large part of the population.