No 5 (2025)

The study of the cult of Asclepius has been the subject of significant research; however, its medical component still remains one of the most debated topics in contemporary classical studies. This article investigates the use and relationship between rational and sacred medicine in Asclepiadaea. Based on an analysis of the works of famous ancient healers—Hippocrates and Galen, the speeches of the Roman orator Aelius Aristides, as well as archaeological and epigraphic data, the author examines various aspects of this scientific problem. Special attention is given to contentious questions regarding the attitudes of physicians towards the cult of Asclepius and the god of healing himself, as well as the possibility of physicians being present in the Asclepiad and directly influencing the healing process. Furthermore, the author conducts a comparative analysis of various treatment methods typical of sacred and rational ancient medicine. In addition to general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, the article widely employs comparative-historical, historical-genetic, and typological methods. Methods of terminological and lexical analysis of Greek and Latin sources are also actively used. A key conclusion of the article is the indication of the following fact: despite the clear distinction in the minds of visitors to the Asclepiad between temple servants and physicians, who were not identified with one another, it seems erroneous to speak of an antagonistic relationship between sacred and rational medicine. The sacred medicine of the Asclepiadaea, to some extent, contributed to the development and establishment of rational medicine by suggesting treatment methods to physicians who lacked the experience and knowledge accumulated at the Asclepiad over several centuries. Similarly, sacred medicine borrowed elements from rational medicine—what was considered best and most effective for healing. The conclusions of researchers regarding the level of medical knowledge of temple servants have also been corrected: according to the author, they must have possessed medical knowledge deep enough to interpret "sacred dreams" in a way conducive to healing.

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the accumulated historiographical data on the emergence of Lower Don Meotian settlements in the delta of the Don River at the turn of eras, focusing on their construction characteristics in particular. The composition of this group of monuments is clarified, and questions about the reasons for their appearance related to political, economic, and natural-geographical factors are discussed, as well as their relationship with the Bosporan Kingdom, which influenced the features of their material culture. The main attention is paid to the history of the study of residential construction in these settlements, identified at various stages of their archaeological investigation, as well as the systematization and generalization of the information accumulated over two centuries of research. The goal of the work is to highlight and define the main features of the stages of forming ideas about housing construction among the Lower Don Meots. The research methodology is based on the analysis of archaeological data regarding the nature of construction in Lower Don Meotian settlements and the comparison of construction practices recorded at different monuments. The author distinguishes three stages in the study of these monuments. The first encompasses the 19th to early 20th centuries—a time of theoretical assumptions about the character of the material culture of the Lower Don Meots with almost complete absence of archaeological data. The second stage falls into the interwar period and includes extensive exploration work at a significant number of monuments, laying the groundwork for their systematic study in the future. The third stage began after World War II and continues to this day. It is associated with the accumulation of detailed data on residential architecture and construction techniques as a result of predominantly rescue excavations. The article describes the types of open residential structures (stone and adobe), their planning, the building materials and construction methods used, as well as details of the internal arrangement, such as floors, partitions, bedding areas, and hearths. The author emphasizes the existing gaps in the study of residential architecture of Lower Don Meotian settlements and the need to expand both archaeological and theoretical research to address them.

The subject of the research is the behavior strategies and relationships of the scientific intelligentsia of Czechoslovakia with state power after the "Prague Spring." The object of the research is the political and social life of Czechoslovakia in the period after 1968 (the era of "normalization"). The article is dedicated to analyzing the complex and multifaceted relationships between the authorities and the scientific intelligentsia of Czechoslovakia after the suppression of the "Prague Spring" in 1968. The main focus is on the transformation of the scientific community from loyal or apolitical to opposition against the pro-Soviet regime of Gustav Husak during the process of "normalization." The author identifies and examines in detail three main behavioral strategies used by the intelligentsia to adapt to the new political realities: Organized resistance and dissidence, emigration, and internal emigration ("silence"). The methodology of the article represents a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach that combines methods from historical science (genetic, comparative, biographical) with sociological approaches (analysis of social groups and survival strategies) and political science (studying the interaction between society and power). The empirical basis for applying these methods was a wide range of primary sources and scientific literature. The scientific novelty of this work lies in the systematization, comprehensive analysis, and emphasis on specific aspects of the relationship between power and the scientific intelligentsia after the Prague Spring. A comprehensive analysis of behavioral strategies. The author does not merely state the fact of repression but offers a clear and structured typology of the reactions of the scientific intelligentsia (resistance, emigration, "silence"). Specification of the subject of research through the "human dimension." The novelty lies in the focus on the fates of specific scholars (Hajek, Simecka, Janouch, Slik, Kolman, Groh, etc.). Through their biographies, motivations, and ideological evolution, general processes are revealed. Emphasis on ideological transformation. The author shows in detail how disillusionment with "socialism with a human face" led to a complex rethinking of the fundamentals of Marxism and socialist theory. This demonstrates the intellectual depth of the opposition movement. The author argues that the relationship between power and scientific intelligentsia during the period of "normalization" was a tragic confrontation. Unable to completely eradicate the dissent of the intelligentsia, the regime only prepared the ground for its future defeat, while the scientific community, having gone through trials, preserved itself for the future revival of Czechoslovak science and democracy.

The article is dedicated to personal relationship in the highest leadership of the CPSU, presented by the Politbyuro and the Secretariate. The leaders of the CPSU are considered as having both common traits due to their participation on the top of the political system and specialities brought by their career trajectories in the party. The relationship inside the highest leadership are analyzed together with the sociocultural characteristics, career trajectories, ideological positions, personal sympathies and antipathies of the leaders of the CPSU. The evolutionary proccess of the change of relationships between the leaders of the CPSU and its coinfluence with the political reforms of "perestroika" are considered together. The personnel rotation brought by both objective and subjective reasons is referenced as a side of that proccess. M. S. Gorbachev's person and personnel policy have the utmost attention. The article is written with a wide source material, including both documents of the party and personal documents. The relationship between the leaders of the CPSU and its influence on the political proccess of the CPSU is reconstructed on the basis of comparison of the authentic sources and memoirs. The attempt to analyze the leadership of the CPSU as a subject of political proccess and thus to define the role of the subjective factor in the reforms of "perestroika" is a core of the articles novelty. As a result of the research it is concluded that personal relationship in the leadership of the CPSU defined the state of the party during the end of "perestroika" in the USSR. It is revealed that the leaders of the party was inclined to assemble a team of reformists who would provide adecquate policy. Yet the personnel policy of the leaders of the CPSU were not free from subjective biases: the recruitment of newest leaders often was based on personal sympathies rather than professional characteristic. Even so the development of the crisis in the USSR brought on the avant-scene the discordance in the Politbyuro and the Secretariate. As a result, these factors led to the dissociation of the general secretary and his allies. The deisre to form a team of supportive reformists was not realized.

The article examines the French perspective on Romania's position in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). Both countries became something of "dissidents" within their blocks in the first half of the 1960s. France closely monitored the formation of Romanian foreign policy. The author notes that for a long time, Romania, whose industrial production grew fivefold during the first decade of Comecon's existence, had no significant disagreements with the Soviet Union. The first contradictions emerged in the late 1950s and were related to initiatives from the USSR and some other countries regarding the further development of economic integration within Comecon. By 1963, Bucharest's "special position" had already become public. The article is based on materials from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives, most of which had not previously been introduced into scholarly circulation. It primarily concerns reports and analytical notes prepared by French embassies in countries of people's democracy. Romania opposed the specialization of production within Comecon, fearing it would hinder the country's industrial development and revert it to an agrarian path. Bucharest supported the development of East European cooperation along existing lines but categorically denied the possibility of deepening it. Ultimately, Bucharest's position became one of the main reasons for the failure of attempts at large-scale reform of Comecon in 1962-1963. The tone of French assessments of the Romanian position changed in accordance with the evolution of the French view on the development of integration in Western Europe. During the period of skepticism in Paris toward the EEC in the first half of the 1960s and the rejection of supranational trends, Romania's refusal to specialize production within Comecon and its blocking of organizational reform in 1962-1963 were interpreted in Paris as Bucharest's desire to pursue an independent policy and develop its own industry. Subsequently, as France became one of the driving forces behind European integration, the prevailing opinion in French diplomatic circles would be that Bucharest was, in fact, blocking the development of integration in Eastern Europe without offering any concrete solutions.

This article examines the formalization of the concept of using Soviet industrial cooperation enterprises for military-industrial production and highlights some practical steps taken by the Soviet party and government leadership in this direction. By incorporating previously neglected records of the Military Department, the All-Russian Union of Industrial Cooperation, and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR from the collections of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Economics, and the Russian State Military Archive into scholarly research, an attempt is made to characterize the main trends in the process of integrating the cooperative industry into the USSR military-industrial complex. The purpose of studying the process of engaging industrial cooperation in national defense is achieved by identifying the main forms of military production, as well as identifying the specifics of this production in the case of kustokpromkooperativnykh artels. The study is based on a historical and descriptive method; during the study, the author applied GIS mapping using the QGIS software package to visualize the information found in the documents. The author's analysis suggests that Soviet industrial cooperation was comparable to state industry in terms of the legal and regulatory framework governing military-industrial production, including labor reservations at enterprises, food supplies for workers in industrial cooperative workshops producing military goods, and the easing of taxes on government goods and services. However, documents indicate that already in the late 1920s and early 1930s, industrial cooperation faced the problem of a lack of raw materials and semi-finished products for high-quality and timely production for the army and navy. While the state formally promised to expedite the delivery of these raw materials, it failed to do so, which negatively impacted military production.

The article examines the methods and sources used to study the history of scientific dynasties in Russia. Using the family of Academician and statistician Petr I. Köppen (1793–1864) as a case study, it explores approaches that make it possible to reconstruct the formation and transmission of scientific values, professional norms, and research practices within a family context. The author draws on the concepts of Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Merton, and Bruno Latour, applying them to the analysis of scientific dynasties. These methodological frameworks open new perspectives for studying various types of sources related to the Köppen family — autobiographical writings, correspondence, memoirs, and materials from personal archival collections. The study focuses on the research potential of combining theoretical and source-based approaches to the history of scientific families. The research employs historical, biographical, and sociocultural methods in conjunction with source analysis. The author concludes that the study of scientific dynasties requires the integration of theoretical and historiographical approaches. This synthesis makes it possible to view the scientific family not merely as a set of individual biographies but as a social institution in which professional norms, research skills, and academic values are formed and transmitted. The case of the Köppen family demonstrates how science became part of everyday life and how education and family interaction contributed to the preservation and development of research traditions. This approach broadens our understanding of Russian science in the nineteenth century by emphasizing the human dimension of academic life — the continuity of generations, domestic conditions, and emotional contexts in which scientific interests took shape.

The author of the presented article analyzes the features and directions of development of historical politics as wars of memory in modern conflict societies of the Middle East in the Yemeni contexts. It is assumed that the conflict in Yemen is stimulated not only by social, political and economic reasons, but also by contradictions based on mutually exclusive ideas about the past. The author shows that wars of memory are characteristic of both relations between countries of the region and individual societies. The aim of the article is to analyze how the collective historical memory of Yemen develops in a conflict society. Methodologically, the article is based on the interdisciplinary historiography of historical memory and historical politics. The novelty of the study lies in the comparative study of wars of memory as a factor in the development of historical politics and memorial cultures in modern politically unstable and unstable societies of North Africa and the Middle East. The article shows that 1) different visions and versions of Yemeni history and past stimulate political conflicts, 2) Yemeni political elites are involved in the process of history manipulation, which stimulates the instrumentalization of the past, turning it into a political resource, 3) memory wars in Yemen stimulate the nationalization of history. It is assumed that the processes of building a nation-state in Yemen are not complete, which forces the ruling political elites to use the symbolic potential of history as a mobilization resource. It is shown that history has become a symbolic battlefield, and memory wars have become a universal form of development of memorial cultures. The author believes that 1) the elites actively use the symbolic resources of history and will continue this policy in the near chronological perspective, 2) hypothetically military-political conflicts can be resolved, which will turn history into a battlefield, since contradictions cannot be completely overcome, 3) memory wars can become a universal form of internal and external communication of conflicting societies.

The article analyzes the evolution of the "soft power" tools of the United States in the South Caucasus from 2010 to 2024, focusing on the transition from humanitarian grant programs by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to institutionalized lobbying. Based on an extensive empirical foundation – 412 OSF and NED grants, 57 FARA contracts, 124 congressional hearing transcripts, and 38 semi-structured interviews–the study identifies the factors that determined the three-phase dynamics of soft power. The novelty of the work is reflected in the comparative analysis of the effectiveness of grant and lobbying mechanisms, measured by the "lobby-induced risk" (LIR) index, as well as in the mapping of networks of influence using social network analysis. The practical significance relates to the development of indicators for preventing escalations and recommendations for the national security strategies of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Methodologically, the study compares qualitative data on cultural exchange programs with statistics on lobbying disclosures under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Source triangulation is employed, where quantitative indicators (the volume of allocated grants, the number of mentions of the South Caucasus in congressional hearing transcripts) are correlated with narrative analysis of foreign policy papers. A quasi-causal procedure QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) is used. The novelty of the work is demonstrated by the comparative analysis of the effectiveness of grant and lobbying mechanisms, measured by the "lobby-induced risk" (LIR) index, as well as the mapping of influence networks through social network analysis. The practical significance relates to the development of indicators to prevent escalations and recommendations for national security strategies of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The main conclusions indicate that the evolution of American soft power in the South Caucasus is progressive: from humanitarian grants to institutionalized lobbying with a strong defense content. The identified LIR index shows a statistically significant correlation between the volumes of lobbying expenditures and the likelihood of armed incidents. The practical contribution of the work consists of proposals to reduce lobby-induced risks, primarily through enhancing transparency and developing multilateral security formats (OSCE, EU Global Gateway). Further research could compare the American model of soft power with the Chinese and Turkish models for a comprehensive understanding of influence in the region.

This study examines the contribution of the Grozny oil industry to the defeat of the Nazi aggressors. During the Great Patriotic War, the heroic labor of oil workers in Checheno-Ingushetia ensured the uninterrupted supply of essential petroleum products to the fighting Red Army. This strategically important task was made possible by the successful work of virtually every element of the region's oil industry. By June 1941, the Grozny Oil Combine trusts had already significantly fulfilled their oil, gas, and diesel fuel production plans. New types of petroleum products were rapidly developed, and competition for increased productivity was launched, exceeding planned targets for average daily production of aviation gasoline and average daily oil production. At the same time, Grozny oil workers participated in the construction of defensive fortifications and enlisted in the people's militia battalions. The primary methods we employed to study the topic under consideration were historical-systematic, statistical, and problem-chronological, which enabled us to conduct a scientific analysis of the republic's oil industry during the war years. The scientific novelty of the study lies in its attempt to analyze the role of the Grozny oil industry, in particular its oil producing and refining enterprises, in fulfilling state assignments during the war. Based on the results of the study, the author has drawn the following conclusions: firstly, despite the extensive destruction caused to the Grozny oil industry by German aviation and the two-fold evacuation of plant equipment to the eastern regions of the country, the city's oil workers made a significant contribution to providing the Red Army and the rear with petroleum products, which played a major role in achieving victory over the enemy; secondly, during the war, prompt evacuations and restoration work in the oil industry in the shortest possible time became possible, primarily due to the heroic efforts of oil industry workers in both the region under consideration and other parts of the country; Thirdly, it should be noted that the large-scale work of Grozny oil workers to restore industry facilities during military operations not only made it possible to successfully resolve the issue of supplying petroleum products, but also to create the necessary foundation for the further development of the oil industry in the Grozny region in the first post-war years.

This article is devoted to the study of the NKVD fighter battalions of the Armenian SSR in the first year of the Great Patriotic War. The activities of the NKVD extermination units of the USSR served to protect internal order in the territory of Soviet Armenia. The object of the study are the extermination battalions and detachments of the NKVD of the USSR. The subject of the study is the functioning of the NKVD fighter battalions of the Armenian SSR in the first year of the Great Patriotic War (from July 1941 to July 1942). The research methodology is based on general scientific research methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, content analysis), as well as on special historical research methods (historical-typological, historical-genetic, narrative). The scientific novelty of the work consists in attracting archival materials from the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and introducing them into scientific circulation for the first time. A special contribution of the authors to the study of the topic is a detailed description of the functioning of the NKVD fighter battalions of the Armenian SSR, as well as data on the deployment of battalions and individual detachments, the number of personnel and available weapons of the fighter battalions in the period from July 1941 to July 1942. Separately, the authors provide data on the process of combat training of personnel of the NKVD ASSR fighter battalions. In conclusion, the authors note that the extermination battalions and detachments of the NKVD of the Armenian SSR have been actively involved in the fight against banditry and the elimination of groups of armed deserters since the first days of the Second World War. However, the functioning of the fighter battalions was complicated by a number of problems.

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the state of the hunting and fishing industry in the Yakut ASSR in 1971, which marked the initial stage of the ninth five-year plan. Systemic structural and economic imbalances are identified, expressed in significant differentiation in the efficiency of various departmental systems. The dominant role of state farms under the Ministry of Agriculture contrasts with the low productivity of the consumer cooperative system and new state hunting enterprises. Special attention is given to the analysis of the territorial organization of hunting, demographic problems in the sector, the state of resource bases, and infrastructural limitations. Critical conditions of moose populations and a deep depression in the resources of forest and waterfowl are identified, as well as the increasing number of wolves that cause significant economic damage to livestock farming. The incompleteness of the process of institutional consolidation of hunting grounds and geographic differentiation in the effectiveness of protective oversight activities are noted. The materials of the article serve as a valuable source for studying the economy of natural resource use in the extreme natural-climatic conditions of the North during the period of developed socialism. The methodological basis of the research is built on the principles of historicism, systematicity, and scientific objectivity. A combination of general scientific and specialized historical methods was applied to address the tasks set. The main conclusions of the conducted research indicate that the territorial organization of the hunting industry reflected the extensive nature of the development of northern territories. Furthermore, socio-demographic indicators showed a deep personnel crisis: the failure to meet the plan for attracting hunters and the catastrophic situation with the training of young successors indicated a progressing aging of the hunting community and the risk of losing traditional hunting skills. Environmental monitoring also recorded the critical state of moose populations and a deep depression in the resources of forest and waterfowl, alongside relative stability in the populations of sable, elk, and reindeer. The increase in the wolf population caused significant damage to livestock, amounting to 493 thousand rubles annually. Additional damage was inflicted by infrastructural limitations, manifested in the transport inaccessibility of hunting grounds and the absence of primary processing points, leading to significant losses in production. Thus, by the 1970s, the hunting and fishing activities in Yakutia retained an extensive character with a pronounced dependence on natural cycles, necessitating a transition to intensification through strengthening the material and technical base, developing infrastructure, and addressing personnel issues.