Abstract: This article provides an overview of the current state and prospects for the development of information support of historical science, that is, an activity for search, collection, processing, accumulation and preservation, distribution and use of representative and reliable information necessary to solve research problems in the field of history, as well as providing users with the structured and systematic information, including thematic scientific and educational resources. The development of information support of historical science assumes a sufficient level of scientific communication and cooperation between curators, producers and consumers of scientific information, the targeted actualization of information capabilities of historical sources (including collections of archives, museums, libraries). The level of the professional culture of the historian in the modern era is directly related to information support of historical science. The analysis of information support of historical science through information technology, the study of how the professional community assesses the level of satisfaction of their information needs, can be one of the most effective tools to improve the quality of information resources and services that will help the professional community to develop effective strategies for improving the repositories of information, finding aids, intelligent information retrieval systems, means of representation and transmission of historical knowledge.

Keywords: history, historiography, source study, historical information science, cognitive approach, self-reflection, information support, information approach, information resources, information technology.

Abstract: The Russian translation of “A Brief Sketch of the Ancient and Modern Boundaries and History of India,” by Rammohun Roy, is presented. This sketch is interpreted by the author of the article-preface for the translation as a textsymbol of the initial development of historical consciousness in Modern India and the birth of the idea of Indian History. Written by “Father of Modern India,” philosopher and reformer, founder of the Bengal Renaissance (XIX–early XX century) Rammohun Roy, “A Brief Sketch” shows that its author was thinking about India as a whole and its history and all- India problems. That is why this text is part of the “Discovery of India” (J. Nehru) phenomenon, creating an image of the native country for Indians and the rest of the world as well as integration of this image in the Modern World. Rammohun Roy had discovered India as sociocultural space, with ancient spiritual and cultural image, and as subcontinent, which has united different “countries” and “districts,” as a large society having its own history.

Keywords: history, India, Rammohun Roy, England, colonialism, development, time, society, institutes, progress.

Abstract: This article is a study of an attempt to create a so-called uniform socialist government during the period of the Great Russian Revolution of 1917. It evaluates the activity of a real socialistic coalition of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) between the end of November 1917 and July 1918. It attempts to provide answers to controversial questions: Would it be possible to create a broad socialist coalition on the eve of and immediately after the October coup (the efforts of Vikzhel)? Was a union under the authority of the Left SRs and Bolsheviks doomed to collapse? How should this union be evaluated—did it bring good or bad? What circumstances and reasons—natural or artificial (the rebellion of 6 July, the murder of von Mirbach, and so on)—brought on the collapse of this union? Who is guiltier for the collapse of the union—the Bolsheviks or the Left SRs? And other questions. The work practices of the “Soviet coalition” in the center (the government) and outlying areas are shown on a broad documentary basis.

Keywords: history, October Revolution, Soviet authority, Bolsheviks, socialist parties, coalition, socialist government, uniform government, politics, conflicts.

Abstract: Based on the materials in Russian and German archives, memoirs, and biographic interviews, this article examines the transnational space of Soviet universities and career paths of graduates from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as one aspect of socialist integration during the Cold War. The author analyzes the community of graduates as a social network. It examines official and unofficial mechanisms of support, public space of representation, and use of network resources as social capital, as well as the principles of operation and communication of scientific and professional communities in the USSR and GDR. Analysis is preceded by a critical review of the modern state of methodological concepts of “transnational history” and “social networks,” and their prospects for use in the study of interactions of ordinary actors within the framework of the socialist camp. The author concludes that, in spite of an ambivalent experience in teaching and conflict situations, communication of the scientific and expert community within the so-called Eastern Block bore a lively and productive character. At the conclusion of the article, the transformation of a career network into a social one and the fate of scientific and personal contacts after the collapse of the socialist camp and unification of Germany are traced.

Keywords: transnational history, cultural history, history of the USSR, history of the GDR, socialist integration, academic mobility, social network, expert community, scientific communication, transnational space.

Abstract: This article examines the little-studied problem of the history of Stolypin’s agrarian reform—the role of subjectivity in its realization. The author tries to clarify how much success or lack of success of the transformations depended on the qualitative composition of the land management institutions and their perception of reform on the whole. He shows that the personal qualities of the members of the Land Management Commissions were an important factor for determining the course of the reform in individual provinces and districts and, consequently, the numerical indices of land management. This factor could both contribute to the development of land management and hinder it. The agrarian Stolypin’s Reform was in essence an economic reform. However, it turned out to be in the epicenter of the political struggle and practically cut the educated class of the country in two. Political sympathies and antipathies of a multitude of people, obliged ex officio to participate in the work of the land management agencies, were undoubtedly reflected in their integrity regarding the conduct of transformation. Nevertheless, in spite of all the complexity, the reform developed positively.

Keywords: history, land management, agrarian reform of Stolypin, land management commission, land management, subjective factor, A. A. Kofod, indispensable member, factors of land management, opposition to reform.

Abstract: This article maintains that a model of presentation of rational knowledge from the moment of its appearance in man inevitably took on a religious character. However, this mere fact attests to active scientific search for resolving this fundamentally important (perhaps most important) intellectual problem. How does scientific knowledge that permits transformation of surrounding reality emerge? At present only the search directions for this over-complicated structure are identified. On the whole the brain perceives itself for the purpose of awareness and transformation through technologies of surrounding reality. And as a result it undergoes changes, perfecting itself in a certain way. This most complex enclosed intellectual and social process, whose disclosure is repelled from psycho-physiological factors, since ancient times has been reflected in the construction of a model of the world. The elements of the model of the ancient Mayan world differ by significant elaboration of scientific knowledge (especially mathematics and astronomy, which belongs to constant, general cosmic, influence on the anthroposystem). Therefore they coincide with similar knowledge of the Old World. This knowledge has both an applied, a necessary for survival, character (cyclical reproduction, social organization, agricultural and hunting calendar), and an abstract character, pointing to the current state of developing society. Complex structures of social construction and abstract knowledge are superimposed on a complex of perceptive-empirical ideas reflecting the development of man’s thinking and his intellectual abilities (though externally this statement also looks like a set of “myths,” “mythological images,” and illogicality of the space-time continuum).

Keywords: history, methodology, interdisciplinary, scientific knowledge, history of technology, anthroposystems, model of the universe, ancient Maya, Mesoamerica, ancient world.

Abstract: This article is basically the first introduced into scholarly circulation that deals with archival intelligence materials of the RGVA (Russian State Military Archive), RGASPI (Russian State Archive of Sociopolitical History), TsAMO RF (Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation), RGIA DV (Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East), and the Archive of the UFSB (Office of Federal Security Service) of Russia in the Omsk District. It studies the problem of the organization of the secret service by Soviet authority in the Amur Region—a topic on which practically no light has been shed in the scholarly historical literature. The process examines the creation of intelligence services and their organizational and staff conversion in 1920 from Sovietization of the region to its becoming part of the Far Eastern Republic. In addition, the article identifies features of transformation in the functional tasks that stood before the indicated institutions. The essence and scale of organization of intelligence activities in the territory of the Russian Far East and northern China during the indicated period have been revealed. As a result, the author concludes that the process of creating agencies of military secret service in the Amur Region in 1920 differed substantially. The tasks of conducting reconnaissance were dispersed among several regional authoritative organizations, which in addition were also solving tasks of characteristic counter-intelligence. The functions of these organizations duplicated each other and thus often led to unhealthy competition. The activities of the intelligence organizations consumed no small financial and material-technical means. Accordingly, the results of implementation of the intelligence tasks, revealed by the preserved archival documents, appear to be insufficient. Only at the end of 1920 were the functions of management of the military secret service concentrated in the registration department of the 2nd Amur Army. This permitted imposing a certain order on this question and establishing bases of effective organization in the collection of intelligence about threats to the security of the Far Eastern Republic.

Keywords: history, Far Eastern Republic, Peoples Revolutionary Army, Amur Front, 2nd Amur Army, military intelligence, military intelligence division, M. I. Arkhipov, Ya. M. Bodesko-Mikhali, I. Ya. Markov.

Abstract: This article analyzes one of the most vivid documents of personal origin, revealing the inner world, creative search, system of rules for living, and relations in the society of a gifted Soviet youth who lived in a Government House on the Bersenevskaya waterfront. The personality of Lev Fedotov long attracted the attention of writers, journalists, and cinematographers for the undisclosed mystery of his main object of interest and activities. In this article, on the basis of linguistic and logical methods of analysis of the text, a large research project is reconstructed that was performed alone by a Moscow school boy over several years; it represents the original processing of the concepts of cosmist N. F. Fedorov from the perspective of scientific, social, and ideological priorities in the 1930s. The grand scale of concepts and remarkable analytical, prognostic capabilities of the school boy—confirmed by his brilliant futurological elaboration of the Second World War—create exclusive status for the diary in a series of analogous chronicles of a private life.

Keywords: philosophy of a common affair, biocosmic projects, prognostication of events, biological evolution, psychological regulation, informational matrix of personality, preservation of information trail, reconstruction of personality, moral transformation of humanity, attainment of immortality.

Abstract: This article analyzes the evolution of exchange rate in securities by the largest oil firm in pre-revolutionary Russia—the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Production Company—at the beginning of the 20th century. The company had huge significance for the petroleum branch; its history represents its independent interest and is indicative of the petroleum sector on the whole. The purpose of the article is to investigate the influence of fundamental economic factors and political events (such as the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and the First Russian Revolution of 1905–1907) on stock market behavior (through the example of petroleum values). It gives brief characterization of the activities of the company in the context of processes that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century in the petroleum branch. Through the use of data on the dynamics of stock prices, profits of the business, and dynamics of the index of industrial production, regression models are constructed that have different explanatory power. Statistical analysis confirmed the connection of the dynamics of the company’s shares prices with exogenous factors (especially profit).

Keywords: history, Nobel Brothers Company, statistical methods, balances, regression analysis, dynamics of stock shares, securities prices, economic factors, St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, petroleum industry, Nobel Brothers Company.

Abstract: This article examines several investigations of recent years that were ahead of their time for understanding the question and a scholarly methodology and vector for further development of certain directions in the history of science: Kramarovskii, M. G. Man of the Medieval Street. The Golden Horde. Byzantine, Italy. St. Petersburg, 2012; From the Onon to the Thames. Chingizids and Their Western Neighbors. On the 70th Year of Mark Grigorevich Kramarovskii. Moscow, 2013; Ponomarev, A. L. Evolution of the Monetary Systems of the Black Sea Region and the Balkans in the 13th– 15th Centuries. Moscow, 2011. In these works we deal with scholarly discoveries at the crossroads of several disciplines.

Keywords: history, medieval studies, historiography, methodology, contact zone, multiculturalism, Golden Horde, M. G. Kramarovskii, quantitative numismatics, A. L. Ponomarev.