Novaâ i novejšaâ istoriâ

In the article, the authors explore media narratives of the tribunal held in December 1949 in Khabarovsk over Japanese doctors recognized as war criminals involved in the development and use of bacteriological weapons, as well as conducting medical experiments on humans that are incompatible with the norms of morality and ethics of medicine. The purpose of the article is to explore the Khabarovsk process in the broad context of the social history of science using domestic archival materials, published memoirs of eyewitnesses and participants in the process, as well as periodic publications (mainly regional) as the main historical sources. A comprehensive study of this plot made it possible, through the analysis of media narratives, to supplement historiography with materials from the Far Eastern region, which allowed us to select not only the historical context, but also to restore little-studied aspects of informing Soviet society about the Khabarovsk process, to identify international resonance for this event.

In this article the author explores the formation of the Russian academic printing industry. In accordance with the plans of Peter the Great, a printing house was established in St. Petersburg under the auspices of the newly founded Academy of Sciences, which is the direct predecessor of the modern Publishing House “Nauka”. In the first decades of its existence, the Academic Printing House became not only one of the most advanced enterprises of the time, but also an important educational centre. Its printers were eventually employed by other printing houses both in the capitals and throughout Russia. The Printing House was a subdivision of the Academy of Sciences and, fulfilling its immediate duties, was also involved in the educational process. Due to the lack of centralised art education in Russia at that time, the Printing House and its workshops became an educational institution in this field as well. Working in direct contact with it were the Chambers of Fine Arts, which brought together engravers, draughtsmen, and masters of typography. Prior to the establishment of the Academy of Arts in 1757, the Printing House and the associated Chamber of Drawing and School of Drawing were the most important centres of art education in Russia. The books and periodicals published in the Printing House in the first half of the eighteenth century, when it was the only centre of academic and popular scholarly printing in the Russian Empire, also played an outstanding educational role. The author traces the stages of formation of the Printing House’s traditions and presents its first projects. The author concludes that it was in the Academic Printing House and in those endeavours of the Academy of Sciences, in which the Printing House took an active part, that the foundations of the Russian system of secular education were laid.

The second president of Czechoslovakia Edvard Beneš was one of the most prominent but ambiguous politicians of the first half of the twentieth century. His name is associated with the Sudeten Crisis and the Munich Agreement of 1938, the struggle for Czechoslovak independence during the Second World War, alliance with Moscow and the communist’s takeover in 1948. The purpose of the article is to look at Beneš in a new way, the perception of him by American diplomats in the last years of his life, during the period of acute internal political struggle in Czechoslovakia and the emerging geopolitical confrontation between Moscow and Washington. The study is based on diplomatic correspondence and papers of the American ambassador to Prague Laurence Steinhardt, which reveal some new aspects of Beneš’ personality, the history of Czechoslovakia, and US foreign policy in 1945-1948. It is concluded that there was a close and frank relationship between the American diplomats and Beneš. The Czechoslovak president had a reputation as a experienced politician, pragmatist, supporter of Western orientation and an opponent of communism. However, his vision of political issues and forecasts of further development often turned out to be erroneous. His support of closer relations with the USSR and radical reforms caused discontent from the US diplomacy. Nevertheless, Beneš was associated with democratic traditions and the desire to maintain good relations with the United States. The embassy hoped that his authority and popularity would help to prevent the Communists from seizing power in Czechoslovakia. The crisis that broke out in February 1948 and the indecisive actions of Beneš came as a surprise to the State Department. They caused misunderstanding and dissatisfaction of Ambassador Steinhardt. American diplomats considered Beneš’ actions to be explained by his poor health and enormous pressure from the communist Prime Minister Klement Gottwald.

The author examines the ideas of African socialism in East Africa – in Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania – and the attitude towards them in the USSR in the 1960s. The original publications of the program documents of the East African countries, including in the Swahili language, are analyzed. When analyzing the reaction of the USSR to these documents, archival sources are used, including recently opened to researchers, as well as recent publications of former senior officials of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet Committee of Solidarity with Asian and African Countries, who were directly involved in decision-making on the African policy of the USSR. The closest to Marxist socialism was the course in Zanzibar, but it was corrected by the unification with Tanganyika in 1964, and then the removal from the political arena and even the murder of the leaders of the revolution. In Kenya, Moscow’s hopes for the left-wing opposition of Oginga Odinga collapsed with its defeat. Nyerere’s “Ujamaa” was too pro-Chinese for Moscow. Obote’s “Common man’s Charter” in Uganda had no clear class characteristics. It was only in the 1970s that official Moscow began to really assess the abilities of African countries in implementing socialist ideas.

On May 30, 1967 the southeastern provinces of Nigeria attempted to secede as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. This caused the Nigerian civil war which lasted from July 6, 1967 to January 15, 1970. Biafran army was defeated and capitulated. The international response to the Nigerian crisis revealed an array of positions which were non-bloc, unique, and atypical of the Cold War era. The Soviet Union found out itself in a motley crew of Federal Government’s supporters – Great Britain, Eastern European socialist countries, Arab states. The United States declared neutrality. France, Portugal, the Republic of South Africa, the People’s Republic of China, and Israel were on Biafra’s side, both explicitly and implicitly. Document № 1 shows that the balance of geopolitical interests of the great powers was projected onto Africa. Most of African nations, mainly former British colonies, supported Nigeria’s territorial unity. Some countries sought an equidistant position. Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Zambia, and Tanzania officially recognized Biafra’s independence. Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon retained close ties with France and in their foreign policy followed the former metropolia. The leaders of Zambia and Tanzania have recognized Biafra under the influence of China, which has established itself as one of the key actors in Africa. Documents № 2 and № 3 contain information from the staff of the Soviet Embassy in Ethiopia on the OAU’s attempts to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Nigerian crisis. The OAU succeeded in securing the support of the overwhelming majority of African states for the retaining of Nigeria’s territorial integrity. The OAU’s mediation efforts failed to achieve peace. The Biafra leadership refused to capitulate as long as there were opportunities to resist and the federals was not going to bargain with separatists. The peace talks were used by both sides primarily for propaganda purposes.

The article is devoted to the study of the concept of caliphate in Arab-Muslim political and intellectual history in the context of the theory of state-civilization. Within the framework of the article, this problem is studied through a symbiotic political-historical approach. The political science part of the study is theoretical in nature. It discusses the content, strengths and weaknesses of the theory of state-civilization, criteria for identifying state-civilizations, the links between this concept and the concepts of nation-state and empire. This part is based mainly theoretical works by Zhang Weiwei, Martin Jacques, James Dorsey, Dominic Lieven, Enrique D Dussel. The second, historical, part of the study examines the evolution of the caliphate as an idea and as a form of political organization with a focus on the Middle Ages and Modern history. In the third part we analyze the concept of caliphate at the beginning of the twentieth century and the problem of the future of the Islamic world, discussed at all-Muslim congresses. This part is based on Soviet diplomatic sources, including those related to the participation of Soviet representatives at the All-Muslim Congress in Mecca. The final part of the article shows how this idea of caliphate is perceived today, noting that it can be considered as a “dream-memory” of an Islamic state-civilization, opposed to the idea of a nation-state.

This publication presents the first translation into Russian of a number of documents which portray the religious policy of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, supported by Charles I Stuart, towards foreign Reformed churches in the Province of Canterbury. The documents include royal orders given in various forms, notarial instruments, petitions from Calvinist congregations to both the King and the Archbishop, and excerpts from correspondence between representatives of said congregations. They demonstrate the role of liturgy as an instrument of confessional identification and, consequently, of politico-religious loyalty in seventeenth-century Reformation England. The authors also note the correlation of Laud’s ideas with the transformation of the corporate foundations of English society and the formation of an “individualist” type of relationship between the Crown and its subjects, based on archaic feudal law and the precedents of the classical Middle Ages, the essence of which consisted of personal ties of allegiance between the monarch (his “body natural”) and the subject, rather than between the subject and the “body politic” of the monarch (i.e., the “country”).

The author presents the results of a study of the structure of the professional community of Russian historians conducted jointly by the Scientific Electronic Library eLibrary and the Center for Institutional Analysis of Science and Education of the European University in St. Petersburg. In the course of its implementation, unique data on the social and intellectual landscape of Russian history, political science, sociology, economics and jurisprudence were collected, worthy of introduction into the academic circuit. Data were collected through a survey of researchers who publish the results of their studies (N-4009, where N is the number of cases), the survey was conducted in November 2022. In this article, the social structure of the Russian historical discipline appears in several senses. On the one hand, its aim is the simplest statistical description of the Russian historical community, namely sociodemographic structure, distribution by thematic areas, etc. On the other hand, the author explores correlations between all these elements, namely how different characteristics of individuals relate to each other. Historians are divided by specialisation in countries and periods (primarily by the division into those researching Russian and World History), as well as by modernist vs postmodernist views on the nature of historical knowledge. Postmodernist views are more widely represented among historians in academic centres (capital cities, leading universities); the opposite is true for the academic periphery. Support for modernism is also declining among younger generations.