Vol 5, No 3 (2023)

The purpose of the study. The article examines the situation in modern historical science in the context of epistemological variability inherent in key methodological paradigms (positivist, neo-Kantian, postmodern, post-postmodern).

Conclusions. The existence of various paradigms in the cognitive space represents both an advantage for researchers (freedom of choice of methodological tools), determines the existence of various discursive practices, and complicates the process of creating consensual historical knowledge, which could become a fundamental ideological basis for modern Russian society.

The article is devoted to identifying the difficulties that researchers face when studying the history of the preservation of the industrial heritage in the USSR. The difficulties are mainly due to the lack of clearly defined concepts of «industrial heritage» and «monument of industrial heritage» at that time. The purpose of the study is to find out under which categories of monuments objects related to industrial heritage fell, and how they were called in various fields of scientific and applied knowledge. The relevance of the topic is due to the discrepancies still existing in the formulation of terminology in relation to industrial heritage monuments. For the study, mainly published materials were used: legal documents, scientific research from different eras. The scientific novelty is determined by the absence at the moment of works analyzing analogues of the concept of «monument of industrial heritage», which were used to study and preserve these objects in the USSR. The author comes to the conclusion that the concept of «monument of industrial heritage» was clearly formulated only in the 2000s.

The aim of the study. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that the analysis of the formation and functioning of the institute of factory inspectorate in the field of supervision of compliance with the established norms and rules of labour protection of minors and women, regulation of labor relations between employees and manufacturers will allow rethinking the history of the development of factory legislation in the Russian Empire and analyze the possibilities and disadvantages of state regulation of relations between workers and entrepreneurs.

Conclusions. As a result of the study of the practical activities of the factory inspectorate on the territory of the Voronezh and Kursk provinces, where mainly small factory enterprises with agricultural specialization were located, there was a general tendency to use the labour of minors and women in industrial enterprises, as a consequence of the cheapness of their labour and non-resistance. The author concludes that the activities of the factory inspectorate had an important impact on the implementation and practical useof the adopted legislative norms regulating the work of women and minors. Firstly, the number of violations of the rules on the work of minors and women recorded by the factory inspectorate decreased. Secondly, extensive statistical material was collected on industry and working conditions of workers, their gender and age composition, the number of women and children, their share in various industries, which was not unimportant for the further development of factory legislation in Russia in the second half of the XIX century.

The article contains an analysis of several dozen declassified resolutions and orders of the State Defense Committee, dedicated to the city of Sverdlovsk and the enterprises and organizations located on its territory. On the basis of the materials introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the decisions of the State Defense Committee on the placement of the evacuated population, as well as enterprises, organizations and institutions in the city, are shown, the restructuring of the work of industry for the production of military products is shown. The paper shows that on the basis of the decisions made by the State Defense Committee, intensive industrial and housing construction was going on in the city, new enterprises were created and transport logistics improved. The decisions of the State Defense Committee on changing the range of military products manufactured at the largest enterprises of the city, providing them with labor force, and organizing mass housing construction of a simplified type for its workers are characterized.

The article is devoted to the little-studied topic of continuity in the field of private banking in pre-revolutionary Russia. In the history of Russian banking, several dynasties of private bankers can be distinguished, such as the Wavelbergs, the Volkovs, the Gunzburgs, the Stieglitzes, and the Junkers. For two or three generations they owned large banking houses in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw and Paris. The family chronicles of the bankers Stieglitz, Feleizen and Wavelberg are taken as an example. The small number of banking dynasties is associated with the late emergence of private banking in Russia. The first banking offices appeared very late compared to Western Europe — at the end of the 18th — beginning of the 19th centuries. and lasted until 1917, approximately 120 years. Unfortunately, there is no data on how many banking houses there were in Russia during this time, presumably about a thousand. Some banking firms were inherited from father to son. However, few banking institutions were inherited in the third or fourth generations. Most banking houses, for various reasons, ceased their activities after the death of the founder or even during his lifetime. To conduct financial affairs, the necessary knowledge was required, and most importantly, abilities that the heirs did not always possess. Some of them preferred the life of a rentier or more prestigious and quiet official careers.

The purpose of the publication. Based on the currently declassified archival documents, to investigate the actual problem associated with the development and implementation of measures for the development of computer technology in the first half of the 1960s, to analyze the assessments of leading specialists of that time and their recommendations.

The conclusion is formulated that the studied documents indicate the desire of the scientific elite, diplomats, representatives of industry and the defense complex to draw the attention of the country's leadership to the need to prioritize the development of computer technology, which has become a trigger for modernization, structural adjustment of the economy in leading countries. For greater persuasiveness, reports and letters often cited as an argument reports on the achievements of the main competitor — the United States, which had a significant impact on decision-making. A lot was achieved during the study period, but the pace was too slow, coordination could not be achieved, management miscalculations, disinterest of enterprises in innovations, predominance of departmental interests, weak connection between science and production, lack of interaction between the defense and civil sectors also affected.

The author studies the legal provisions on nurseries in the bill «on the protection of motherhood, infancy and childhood», published in 1916. The document was developed by doctors. They understood the importance of nurseries in the fight against high infant mortality– an acute social problem in Russia in the end of the 19th century and in the beginning of 20th century. In the text of the document, for the first time, a definition of a children's institution is given, a mechanism for subsidizing nurseries by the state is developed, measures of state control over children's nurseries and the participation of physicians in these events are outlined. The nursery was to be attended only by infants, and these institutions were to function all year round, not just in the summer. The legitimation of nurseries in domestic law has become an important milestone in the development of social law in Russia.

The article is devoted to the study of the role of local print media as an important means of forming public opinion of Soviet citizens in the mid-1920s. The author traces the coverage in local newspapers of events related to the preparation of the Rhenish Guarantee Pact, the Locarno Conference and the ratification of the signed agreements. The subject of the study is the materials of local press publications of different regions of the USSR. They present various aspects of the stated topic. The author concludes that the regional newspapers of 1925 can be considered sufficiently informed and clearly stated the views of the country's leadership on the turn in international relations, which took place in the European political arena during the period in question. Local periodicals actively contributed to the formation of Soviet citizens by all possible means, both verbal and visual, ideas about the duplicity of the policy of Western countries on the preservation of peace and prevention of war.

The Asia-Pacific region plays a significant role in the modern world. With the coming to the government of Barack Obama and his policy of «pivot to the East», the waters of the South China Sea became one of the central points of the conflict between Washington and Beijing. The purpose of the article is to consider by the author the escalation of the Sino-American confrontation in the South China Sea through the prism of the March incident between the American warship «Impeccable» and the Chinese ships. On March 9, 2009, a serious conflict broke out between the two countries in the water area of South China Sea. Opinions differ in both countries about what has led to the current situation in the South China Sea. Beijing considered the United States warship as a spy ship, while Washington insisted it was a research ship. Based on various sources in Chinese and English, the author analyzes the positions of the United States and China on the above problem. It is widely believed in China that it was America's strategy to reassert influence in the Asia-Pacific region and its direct intervention that escalated tensions and made the problem worse. U.S. accuses China of non-compliance with international law. It also should be noted that in Russian historiography the emergence of the confrontation between the United States and China in the waters of the South China Sea is very poorly covered. Studying the views of researchers and representatives of the diplomatic corps of the two countries, the author comes to the conclusion that the territorial dispute between Beijing and Washington occurred due to different interpretations of international law.

Based on the author's original historical and scientific approach to ranking energy production cycles and analyzing technological shifts in one of the basic branches of the Ural — the gold industry, the history, prospects and possible vectors of the industry development are investigated, taking into account new natural science concepts and modern worldview. The time lags of the technical and technological inertia of the Ural gold industry and its progress are studied in comparison with the evolution of the industry in Russia and in the World. It is shown that the classification of energy production cycles, created mainly in the second half of the twentieth century, is now not correct for the analysis of such a highly specialized industry as the gold industry even. It is not correct for the mining industry or metallurgy in general. In framework of the modern worldview noted, that not so much ore reserves as new technologies are beginning to play an increasingly important role in the industry, in which ideas about raw materials are changing. This significantly changes the status, as well as the historical perspective of mining territories, their potential in comparison with other territories for new industrialization.

In 2023 marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Soviet historian Mikhail Jakovlevich Sjuzjumov (1893–1982). The anniversary of the largest Russian Byzantinist of the twentieth century coincides with the 85th anniversary of the birth of his student, Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladimir Vasilievich Kuchma (1938–2011). Close attention has been paid to the scientific biography of M.Ja. Sjuzjumov in recent years. However, the question of his scientific interaction with students who left Sverdlovsk, but continued their research on Roman (Byzantine) history, is little studied. The article examines the scientific contacts of Professor Sjuzjumov with V.V. Kuchma after defending his candidate thesis and moving to Volgograd. The article for the first time publishes documents from the State Archive of the Sverdlovsk region and the Archive of the Ural Federal University, the most valuable of which are the letters of the Volgograd historian to his supervisor. The analysis of archival materials shows that V.V. Kuchma, who was engaged in the study of Roman (Byzantine) military affairs, relied on the M.Ja. Sjuzjumov’ theory of dialectical continuity. This was expressed in V.V. Kuchma’s doctoral thesis, as well as in his publication of Byzantine military treatises.

The article shows how the view of English-speaking scholars on the reasons for the influx of British investments into the Russian economy in the late 19th — early 20th centuries changed. It is concluded that the attitude to this issue has undergone a significant evolution. If in the first half of the 20th centuryhistorians and economists considered the influx of foreign capital to be the result of the conscious efforts of the central government and especially the finance ministers I. A. Vyshnegradsky and S. Y. Witte, then from the 1960s in connection with the growing popularity of the theory of modernization in the West, the understanding of the problem has become more complicated. Modern English-speaking scholars believe that in addition to the measures taken by the Russian government, there was a whole range of other internal and external factors that influenced the dynamics of foreign investment. Scientists point out that the model of British investment did not correspond to the economic development cycle of Russia. The influx of British capital was based on previous experience of exporting British products to the Russian market. British capital was «pushed out» of Britain by low domestic incomes and enticed abroad by the promise of high profits in less developed countries. The British government was interested in the economic development of the new resource-rich regions of the Caucasus, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. Within the framework of the discussion on the role of British capital in Russian industry, the dispute between economists that erupted in the 1970s stands out. The dispute revolved around the impact of the introduction of the gold standard in Russia on the inflow of foreign investment.

The review analyzes a collection of articles devoted to Eastern European collections from the collections of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg). In it the museum's staff reviewed the history of collecting, exhibiting and studying materials on the Russian North, central regions of Russia, the Volga region and Belarus, presenting to the readers interested in the study of traditional culture of the peoples of Eastern Europe the rich ethnographic heritage of the museum, mainly related to the 19th — early 21st centuries.

The review gives a description of the interesting and well-founded work of the famous researcher of Moscow and the history of science, Professor S.S. Ilizarov, dedicated to the study and disclosure of the role of one of the largest Russian historians and founders of archiving in our country, Academician Miller. The author of this well-made book not only describes well-known and little-known facts from Miller's life as a scientist, but conducts a detailed scientific analysis of his activities and draws a number of non-trivial conclusions about his contribution to historical science and those innovations that changed its face in Russia at that time.