No 1 (2023)

The article focuses on the latest findings of the study on the Caspian foreign policy direction of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great. The heuristic work in the federal and regional ar- chives of Russia helped to identify and introduce to academia over 300 original documents that allow to study the Russian policy in the south-western areas of the Caspian Sea in the first third of the 18th century, which became Russian territories after the Persian campaign. Detailed analysis of sources on the Persian campaign and stationing of Russian troops in the Caspian region, first in historiography, revealed the most unrenowned subjects and allowed to study those using new- ly discovered documented data with the application of new methodological approaches.

The author studies the administrative practice in the Russian Empire in the Caspian region in 1722–1735, showing the challenges of governing the region associated with the natural and geographical aspects, the remoteness of the region from the main part of the state and the ethno-political structure of the annexed territories. The Persian campaign of Peter the Great resulted in the emergence of a Russian-Turkish frontier in the eastern Transcaucasia, which separated the historically developed Caucasian and Persian communities disregarding their economic traditions and ethnocultural contacts, leading to a complex and volatile fron- tier situation in the region. The study of the behavioural actions of various actors in the fron- tier region allowed to determine their attitude to the emergence of the Russian and Ottoman empires in the Western Caspian region. The author analyses the specifics of the dual admin- istrative system established in Derbent after it was annexed to Russia in 1722, where both a representative of the local authority via the naib and the imperial commandant performed administrative functions. For the first time in Caucasian studies, the article reconstructs the image of Peter the Great in the historical memory of Dagestanis of the present and of the time of the campaign.

As a result of the project, two these and a collection of archive documents and materials have been published.

The article presents the results of a study devoted to the analysis of the interaction of ethnic studies (ethnology, or, rather, ethnography as it was called at the time) and Soviet nationality policy. The study of the role of domestic ethnography in the history of the country, reviewing the development of science in the context of the state strategy for the development of society is based on the analysis of a variety of subjects related to the ‘national question’. The project, supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Russian Historical Society as part of the competition ‘The Soviet Era: History and Legacy (to the 100th anniversary of the USSR)’, addresses a number of research questions, providing a basis for identifying the role of academic developments and the creative elite in the national policy. The work is largely of historiographical nature. The authors focus on the analysis of conceptual approaches, on the quests and achievements of Russian ethnography in the 20th century. The authors characterize the research tools and provide a comprehensive overview of scientific ethnographic trends that were developed in different parts of the country in the Soviet period from the perspective of national policy. The past allows one to speak of the importance of an individual, an expedition, an (arti) fact in the full range of issues under study. By reading the ‘bright and dark’ pages of the history of science, one can better understand the reality that underlies today’s ethnological research. Compared to the Soviet concept of nation-building, we may clearer see the potential of ethnology and the promise of its role in contemporary Russia for shaping Russian identity, developing mechanisms for migration policy, adapting children of migrants, etc.

The article summarizes the findings of the research on the role of the Ainu, the indigenous people of Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and Hokkaido, in the establishment and development of Japanese–Russian relations in the 18th–19th centuries. The authors substantiate the need to use a wide range of sources in Japanese to study this issue. Periodization of the Ainu history in the context of Japanese–Russian relations is suggested in the article. The first stage (early 18th – early 19th centuries) is marked by the active participation of the Ainu in the Japanese–Russian relations. A comparative review of the documents of the Russian and Japanese expeditions allowed to identify at least four functions of the Ainu in this process: guides, interpreters, informants, and trade intermediaries. The article provides details of each function, including the significant role of the Ainu in the mapping and naming of geographical objects in the Sea of Okhotsk region during the Russian and Japanese expeditions. At the second stage (mid-19th – early 20th centuries) the Ainu are transformed from the subject of Japanese–Russian relations into a passive entity, and their lands — a subject of negotiations and war trophies. The authors study the question of the Ainu status during the Japanese–Russian negotiations on territorial demarcation in 1853–1875. Attempts by the Russians to separate the issues of Ainu citizenship and belonging to certain territories nevertheless did not spare the Sakhalin and Kuril Ainu from being forcibly relocated by the Japanese authorities after the Treaty of St. Petersburg in 1875.

The article examines the main trends and results of the political, military and economic development of the DPRK in the first decade under the young leader Kim Jong-un. It shows that the state and party administration system has been gradually reshaped under the new leader, whose power has not diminished in comparison with his predecessors. Despite the lack of publicity, the reorganization of the North Korean administrative system has been progressing and was aimed at improving the quality of the state machinery and the party apparatus. The authors review the results of the country’s progress in the nuclear missile field. Given the development of the delivery systems, the nuclear missile potential of North Korea has gone past the minimum level of containing potential enemies and aims for reliability: chances of a successful retaliatory strike not only in the territory of allied America, but also in the continental territory of the USA have significantly increased. The paper highlights the main trends of strengthening the DPRK’s international positions in this period, as well as the remaining problems of the nuclear problem of North Korea. The authors analyse the main directions of Kim Jong-un’s economic policy and the key challenges to the country’s economic development. The attempt to modernize the economy and embark on the path of sustainable growth through the expansion of foreign economic relations was disrupted by international sanctions. The ‘quasi-market’ reforms that began in the early years of Kim Jong-un’s rule and were closely connected with foreign trade exchange became sluggish, and the state strengthened administrative control over their allocation amid the shortage of domestic resources.

It is concluded that the main goals of the DPRK’s main state sub-systems (military, politics, economy) are subject to the task of maintaining the stability of the current management system of the country, as this is seen by the leader as a guarantee of the physical survival of the state.

Authors of the research project developed an original interpretation of the term ‘demand for change’, used as a popular media meme since the early 2010s. It is proposed to define the term as a category in the theory of social change — an outward message from society as a whole or its significant part (documented, at least, by public opinion polls), addressed to the current government, informing it about the need to change the priorities of the country from ensuring stability to intensifying economic, social and political transformations.

The prerequisite to actualize the demand for change in the 2010–2020s was a growing number of ‘self-sufficient’ Russians, confident in their ability to ‘move forward’ independently, and the fact that many of them realize that they cannot isolate their private lives from the political decisions of the current government, which they do not support.

The monitoring surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences allowed to analyse the long-term dynamics of changes among the Russians who express support for change (actors of the demand for change) and their structure. Over the past five years, the ratio of those who desire change to those who favour stability has stabilized at about 50:50. In the early 2020s, the demand for change remains ideologically amorphous and focused mainly on the social & economic agenda.

The project’s goal was to cover as comprehensively as possible the reception of the Russian Soviet novelists in the countries, the national languages of which, being the means of international communication, helped spread the literary masterpieces created by Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Sholokhov worldwide. The translations of the novels And Quiet Flows the Don, Virgin Soil Upturned, Doctor Zhivago in the 1930s–1950s proved to be an important ideological and aesthetic factor influencing the global historical and ideological processes. For the first time, the authors studied journals and newspapers that published critical reviews of the works by the Nobel-winning authors. The introduction of Mikhail Sholokhov’s work to Western readers began as early as the 1930s, far ahead of the introduction of Boris Pasternak, whose name was practically unknown to foreign readers before the publication of his translated novel. The antagonism of Sholokhov to Pasternak, provoked by big politics, failed to muffle those voices, which emphasized the unity of the Russian novel tradition and the equality of Soviet nominees throughout its history.

The study’s theoretical basis was the concepts of the central role of the self-regulatory system in mental regulation of mental states. The mental regulatory system is a structure of relations between characteristics of consciousness: representation, reflection, experiences, semantic structures, mental (subjective) experience, whereas the self-system serves as an integrator in stipulating the regulation of one’s states by the structures of consciousness. The researchers used 24 techniques of diagnostics of mental structures and personality characteristics, as well as an originally developed questionnaires. In their study of mental states and their self-regulation efficiency the authors used as an example students’ various educational activity: classes, workshops, and exams.

The research revealed that a high level of self-esteem and self-assessment are connected with constructive coping strategies, which contributes to the overall efficiency of the students’ self-regulation of their states. The study revealed the specifics of how the components of the self-system interrelate with reflexive, meaningful structures affecting regulatory processes: students with high self-esteem achieve the maximum self-regulation efficiency if they combine a high level of meaningful-life orientations and retrospective reflection. The authors gained data that a person’s psychological qualities and the self-system are connected: the respondents with a high level of self-concept typically have such personality traits as sociability, emotional stability, expressiveness and effective self-control. The authors found that the correlation between the structures of consciousness, indicators of regulatory processes, and personality traits are different in different situations depending on the stress: in the everyday classroom situation, the indicators of the current mental state and self-regulation efficiency are mostly connected with the self-system components, while at exams the role of the personal self-actualization strengthens.