Vol 1, No 3 (2019)

The author made a briefly review of some aspects of the struggle for strengthening the spirit of the 1st Army of the Eastern Front in 1918 and revealed the dialectics of the persuasion and coercion measures taken to solve this problem.

The article is devoted to the working and living conditions of forestry workers on the example of forestry in Penza, Samara, Ulyanovsk provinces and the Tatar ASSR. The author examines the size of their wages, overabundance of paper reporting, the problem of annual vacation, and housing conditions. The analysis of the purchasing power of the forest guard salary in 1925 reveals significant deterioration in the situation of forestry workers compared to the pre-revolutionary period. Despite the dismissal from the service of significant number of forestry workers, the rest honestly performed their duty, saving and restoring the forests of the Volga region in the 1920s.

The author focuses on military and sports education as a part of military patriotic education of youth in Kuibyshev and Ulyanovsk region from the first days until the end of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. He stresses that during the war sports and mass events were regularly held, military and sports clubs and schools were opened, often with the help of such organizations as the Society for promotion of defense, aviation, and chemical industry (Osoaviakhim). Young people developed their sports and military skills in order to be ready to defend the homeland from fascist aggressors. Later, the Komsomol and the Pioneer organization were urged to deal with these problems; in order to improve teaching and educational work with pupils, the activity of the Pioneer organization was transferred to school.

The author discusses the history of awarding the Stalin prize to Mikhail Andreevich Shatelen for the book «Russian Electrical Engineering of the XIX century». Mikhail Andreevich Shatelen was an outstanding Russian and Soviet electrical engineer. He was the creator of system of electrotechnical education in Russia, participant of the elaboration of the GOELRO («State Commission for Electrification of Russia») plan, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, Hero of Socialist Labor. In his book, among other topics, Shatelen paid great attention to the history of science and technology. His work reflected his rich experience and erudition in the field of electrical engineering and energy. He had a wide historiographical background of the issues under scientific consideration. He was acquainted and, in some cases, worked with the greatest inventors and scientists-electricians, such as P.N. Yablochkov, A.N. Lodygin, N.D. Slavyanov, А.S. Popov and many others. M.A. Shatelen assessed the contribution of other scientists in the development of technology. Based on the documents of the Russian State Archive of Economics (RSAE), the author traces the whole process of receiving the Stalin prize by Shatelen (from the nomination at the meeting of the Council of the Electromechanical Faculty of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute on October 7, 1949 to the award given in 1950). Moreover, the author looks into the Soviet scientific academic world of the late 1940s and finds out the atmosphere prevailing there.

The article deals with the problem of the use of force in international relations on the example of the military operation of the NATO countries in Yugoslavia in 1999. The author comes to the conclusion that international law does not allow the state to use armed force even to remedy the situation of serious human rights violations in another state without the approval of the UN Security Council. From the standpoint of international law, the concept of «humanitarian intervention» is not justified. The actions of the NATO member states during the Yugoslavia crisis of 1999 can be qualified as armed aggression, a flagrant violation of the fundamental principles and norms of international law, as well as the norms of the Washington Treaty establishing NATO. The only international structure entitled to the legitimate use of force in order to preserve universal peace and security is the United Nations.

Modern environmental problems have deep historical roots, their origins are connected with the political, economic, and cultural activities of the state and society based on an utilitarian approach to nature as a whole and its definite components. A comprehensive study of the environmental history of Russia, including at the regional level, is one of the urgent tasks of modern science; its solution will allow to borrow useful historical experience in conditions of aggravation of relations between society and nature. The article deals with the funds of the regional archives of the Middle and Lower Volga region which contain the documents covering various aspects of the history of nature protection in the USSR. The author analyzes the corpus of archival sources and reveals their informational value for the study of national ecological history.

The article is devoted to presentation of unusual complexes of the stone products based on materials of reconnaissance excavation of the site Viyka I in Sverdlovsk region. The site was inhabited tree times in Mesolithic, Neolithic and Early Iron Age. The extraordinary complex of large nucleuses and plates is connected with Neolithic epoch. These products are made of uncommon for Middle Trans-Ural row material, white siliceous rock. The length of plates reaches 12.3 sm., and their width varies from 1,6 sm to 4,5 sm. In general, this complex of macroplates corresponds to the developed Neolithic of the Middle Trans-Ural, which is characterized by the plates 1,8-2,5 sm wide made of light grey siliceous rock. Unusual talk complex belongs to Early Iron Age and consists of 32 items. It contains 2 pebbles, 23 pieces, 2 tools for polishing, a piece with engraving and 4 chips of grinded products. The pebble complex of 576 items also looks unusual. While on most sites such complexes are presented with whole and split pebbles, this complex consists of 4 whole pebbles, 29 split pebbles, 2 anvils, 16 hammers, 267 pebble flakes and 258 microflakes. The analysis of materials shows that there was a workshop on bifaces made of quartz pebbles at that site.