Vol 6, No 1 (2024)

Here is the first issue of this year of the magazine History and Modern Worldview. So, in the spring mood, let's get to know what awaits us in this issue of our magazine.

The purpose of this work is to clarify the reality or mythology of the position about the active participation of Old Believers in the anti-government movement in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. An analysis of sources showed that the Old Believers never took an anti-state position, showing only their loyalty to state power. During the period under review they rejected the revolutionaries' claims to cooperation. Only during the Civil War did the Old Believers side with one of the warring parties, which, in the absence of a single supreme power, cannot be assessed as anti-state activity. Soon after the Bolshevik victory, the Old Believers took an unambiguously favorable position towards the Soviet regime, despite the previous brutal repressions. At the same time, the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia during the second half of the 19th century retained illusions regarding the Old Believers and unsuccessfully tried to attract them to the fight against the samoderzhaviye. The democratic revolutionaries of the 60s turned to the clergy of the Old Believers, and the populist revolutionaries of the 70s also tried to work with the broad Old Believer masses, primarily peasants, to no avail.

Purpose of the study. The article, using materials from archival sources and scientific literature, examines one of the most important components of the development of industrial business in Russia at the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th centuries, insurance.

Conclusion. The purpose of the study is to identify insurance practices of industrial enterprises in the Middle Volga region within the specified chronological framework. As a result of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that under the conditions of accelerating the processes of early industrial modernization, the functioning of industrial business was associated with the need to fulfill a number of formal requirements. One of them was insurance of industrial enterprises, which was associated not only with increasing risks, but also with the need to implement financial and production projects for business development. In particular, the possibility of obtaining bank loans and participating in government contracts was associated with the need to insure industrial enterprises. Using the example of the Simbirsk province, we see that the practice of insurance is quite firmly integrated into the business organization system, allowing it to be financially stabilized and made more stable in terms of countering risks and threats.

Based on the materials of two major federal archives — the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) and the Russian State Archive of Economics (RGAE), as well as one regional archive, the dynamics of production of the main types of livestock products in the Orenburg region during the reign of N.S. Khrushchev (1954–1964) is studied. The analysis of meat, milk, wool production is carried out and eggs, both in terms of gross livestock production in the region, and separately by state farms, collective farms, farms of collective farmers, workers and employees in kind and monetary terms. The authors concluded that the ambiguous dynamics of livestock production had its reasons, one of which was the testing of nuclear weapons at the Totsky test site in September 1954, and the other was the contradictory actions of the authorities in the late 1950s — early 1960s. It is shown that throughout the studied period, the individual sector in animal husbandry demonstrated stable negative dynamics for all major types of livestock products with the exception of wool. This process was the result, first of all, of the strengthening of collective farm and state farm production, as well as state policy aimed at the full infringement of citizens' farms. It is concluded that in the period under study, the livestock industry of the Orenburg region made a noticeable step forward in its development.

The purpose of the research. The purpose of the research work was to study the history of optics as one of the high-tech industries of production and science in the context of the transition to late industrial modernization. The topic is actualized by the modern conditions of the formation of the post-industrial economy and the need for import substitution in the face of sanctions pressure.

Results. In the second half of the 1940s — mid-1960s, having carried out re-evacuation and reconversion, the optical and mechanical industry of the USSR expanded its production and scientific base, mastered new types of optical products, and improved optical glass production technologies. The scientific and technological revolution has led to the emergence of new high-tech industries in need of high-tech optical devices (space industry, electronics, photo-film industry). In the second half of the 1940s — mid-1960s. The Soviet industrial modernization in optics was entering its final stage, and the fourth technological order was taking shape, within the framework of which there was a proliferation of conveyor production, laser technology, alignment equipment, and programmable machine tools. By the mid-1960s, the country was well-off in competition with the West in optical technologies, the USSR produced high-precision optical devices for export. The successes of the optical and mechanical industry and science created the prerequisites for the transition of the Soviet Union to a post-industrial economy.

This article examines the mechanisms of the formation and functioning of the post-war reparations system in the last period of the Great Patriotic War. Based on recently declassified GKO documents, a description of the forms and methods of work of the military bodies of our country in this direction is given. Quite debatable conclusions are being made that reparations in the short term after the war gave significant increases in industrial production, however, after some time, they became, to some extent, a technical and technological brake on the further development of Soviet industry.

The article studies the presentation of the Urals space in Guidebooks published in the end 19th — early 20th centuries. The publication of the guidebooks is recognized by the author as an important milestone not only in the development of tourism, but also in the formation of the cultural geography of the region. They allow us to present the process of producing knowledge about the Urals from a special point of view and clarify the changing approaches to describing the territory of the region. An analysis of guidebooks to the Urals showed the absence in their texts of clear principles for dividing the Ural macro-region, and the region itself was presented discretely and incompletely in them. The increase in the number and species diversity of tourist attractions in guidebooks compensated for this deficiency. It was they who made it possible to form an impressive and multifaceted geocultural image of the Urals.

In the article. Using the example of the leading university in the country and region, the Ural Federal University, issues related to the relationship between the corporate culture of the university and the promotion of the achievements of scientific schools that existed and exist at the university, their impact on the educational and scientific process in the higher education system are considered and analyzed. Both general and specific processes characteristic of the higher education system are presented. Inputs are made about the need for systemic assistance and support for scientific schools, without which neither the educational nor the scientific process in the higher education system, the renewal of personnel for the economy and science of the country are possible.

The article analyzes the content specifics of the concepts of «Earning a living» and «Enjoying life» from the standpoint of Marxist anthropology, indicates the need to move from the concept of «Earning a living» to the concept of «Enjoying life», discusses the practical path to the general well-being of Chinese villages. The source of the article is based on the materials of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and particularly the report of the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping.

The article analyzes the current state of the problem of the creation and distribution of gunpowder weapons. A brief review of publications over the past twenty is given in the article. The evolution of gunpowder in China was traced in these works. The process of taking this weapon by the Mongols was explained, and its characters were indicated. Evidence of Mongol use of gunpowder in their western campaigns was analyzed. The proliferation of gunpowder weapons in the Middle East has been traced in more detail. In particular, it was shown that the concept of «naft» began to apply mainly to powder mixtures from the 12th century. This made it possible to evaluate information about the use of «naft» by the Mongols and about the sending of shooters with «naft» from Egypt to the Golden Horde. The opinion that the Golden Horde warriors used gunpowder was firmly substantiated.

The article presents the results of many years of excavations of the citadel, urban quarters and necropolis of the Bronze and Iron Age (second half of the 4th — first half of the 1st mil BC) archaeological site of Metsamor, located in the Ararat Valley of Armenia. The artifacts of this multi-layer monument are of certain importance for comprehensive reconstructions of the military-political, socio-economic and ethno-cultural processes that took place in the territory of Asia Minor, the Levant, the Iranian Plateau and the Armenian Highlands, especially in the middle and end of the 2nd mil BC, and make it possible to talk about a well-organized transit trade in strategic raw materials (tin, gold, copper, iron) and everyday goods throughout the Ancient Near East during this period.

The article deals with the results and achievements of Ural scientists in studying the nuclear industry history. Public interest in detailed, scientifically based coverage of the construction, development and operation of enterprises in the nuclear weapons complex has always existed, but the development of this initiative was hampered by the special secrecy of archival materials on the activities of all enterprises and organizations related to the development and serial production of nuclear charges and ammunition. Only the socio-ideological changes caused by perestroika led to the declassification of archival funds, making them available for research. This situation has led to an increase in the number of publications on the nuclear project topic, including publications of Ural scientists.

The paper attempts to identify and analyze the main stages of studying the history of university education in the Urals. The peculiarities of studying the issue under study determined the specifics of the author's approach — the inclusion of works that explore the higher school of the USSR. The author divided the extensive body of discovered historical literature into 2 periods: Soviet and post-Soviet. During the Soviet period, the formation of the study of higher education problems in the USSR, including university education, took place. Monographs, collective works, and papers are actively appearing, which are written in a wide chronological and territorial framework, based on a large statistical array of data. In the post-Soviet period, research on higher education continues. There are papers, the authors of which analyzed the formation and development of regional higher education systems, identified their main stages. Certain aspects of university education in the Urals (specific universities — Perm State University named after A.M. Gorky and Ural State University named after A.M. Gorky). A body of memoir literature dedicated to these higher educational institutions has been identified. The author has not revealed any generalizing works on the history of university education, which stimulates him to further scientific research on this issue.

The book is based on extensive archival and collection material. There was studied in detail the work of the Expedition for the Procurement of State Papers (EZGB) and the Goznak factories for the production of state paper banknotes in 1914–1922. There are the political events, as well as technical and economic difficulties that became the reasons for both the organization of several regional printing factories, and for the simultaneous production and release of several types of paper banknotes. The author paid much attention to the technical and technological support for the production of paper money at that time. This book is dedicated to the centennial anniversary of the publication of the first specialized scientific publication «Soviet Bonist» in 1923.