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In the early 1990s traditional literary-art journals in Russia, after the phenomenal surge of popularity in late perestroika years, were in deep crisis. The publication of the “returned literature”, which brought fame to so-called “thick magazines”, began to decline, and their place was taken by dissimilar materials not of the highest artistic level. The economic situation of journals, which were previously subsidized by the state, was also critical. It was particularly noticeable in the provinces, especially in Siberia and the Far East. Traditional Siberian magazines (“Sibirskie ogni”, “Ogni Kuzbassa”, “Altay”, “Yenisei”, “Sibir’”) were on the verge of extinction. The existence of Russian literature that had relied on the journal tradition for many years was under threat. New literary-art magazines - the journals of a “new wave” - saved the situation. They relied on the prevailing Soviet underground and samizdat culture, and were an alternative to the official publications. The journals of the «new wave» managed to unite on their pages all the best being accumulated in informal and semi-formal literature, and brought the modern generation of talented writers in the literary field. These journals had an independent source of funding and existed primarily due to the energy of their creators. Therefore, when by the late 1990s, the position of the “classical” literary journals had stabilized, many journals of the “new wave” ceased to exist, and their authors and editors entered the staff of renowned journals with a rich tradition such as “Sibirskie ogni”. Some of the most vivid (“Den’ i noch’”, “Posle 12”) took place on a par with traditional journals, the other (“Mangazeya”, “Proza Sibiri”) remained in the past as notable manifestations of book culture of their time. Literary landscape leveled off and became more homogeneous, but the journals of the «new wave» had played a key role in shaping the modern map of Russian literature.

The historians and demographers studying the population reproduction in the Russian Empire pay not enough attention to the peculiarities of this process in some remote eastern regions of the country. The paper objective is to consider changes in the late XIX - early XX centuries that took place in Asian Russia - West and East Siberia, the Steppe Region and the Far East. The changes in quantitative indicators imply qualitative alterations in the mode and type of the population reproduction. The author examines the dynamics of the natural movement of the population both diachronically, taking each region separately in its timeline, and synchronically, comparing the Asian region to the European Russia as the demographic center of the country. Quantitative calculations are based on the statistical data provided by the reports of the Medical Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire. For the first time in historiography the author calculates annual natality and mortality indices and the population natural increase for 1897-1914. The attained dynamic picture is presented in the summary table and three graphs. The linear trends reflected in graphs demonstrate the variable directivity of the population mortality, natality and natural increase dynamics in the studied regions. The main conclusions drawn based on the dynamic table analysis are the following: 1) The traditional type of the population reproduction dominated in all eastern regions of the country, as well as in its European center, though some signals of the initial phase of demographic modernization appeared; 2) Concerning the population natural movement dynamics, Siberia and the Steppe Region had similar indices, while the situation in the Far East differed significantly from both; 3) Trans-Ural regions as compared to the European Russia showed essential specificity in demographic tendencies. The author presents some further ideas and considerations of pioneering in historical demography and regional studies.

Estimating population size in Russia and its regions during World War II is among the most difficult problems of the Russian historical demography. Insufficient study of the subject is due to the ideological taboo over a long period, as well incredibly complex source-study aspect. Statistical data used by historians studying demographic effects of the war are inaccurate, contradictory and sometimes incomparable. Before World War II the most inaccurate source of information about the population in Russia was the All-Union Census of the Soviet Union of 1939. In order to determine the population size between the censuses one needs data on parameters of population migrations (arrivals and departures number), as well as natural movement of population (births and deaths numbers). However, there was no accurate data on birth, death or migration during the Great Patriotic War. This fact made it difficult to calculate the population abundance. Besides, during the Great Patriotic War, there was a failure in the data collection system. It was caused by movements of multimillion population (evacuation, military and mobilization) ; changing boundaries of territories with registered population due to occupation of Russia’s western regions; evacuation of statistical bodies responsible for registration of population to the eastern parts of the country. It required immense efforts from statisticians to streamline the work of bodies conducting registration of population. New sources specifying the population size also played an important role. During the war the village Soviets were used to control calculations in the countryside, while in the cities registration was conducted on the basis of ration cards. The article attempts to characterize the Soviet statistics activity during the war and critically examines statistical sources upon which it relied.

The article examines mortality evolution in West Siberia, the largest region of the Russian Federation. The region is considered within the boundaries of the same economic region at the time of the 1959 census. Statistical information for 1950-1970 was inaccessible to researchers for a long time by censorship restrictions and does not represent an integral array. In this regard, the author made a request directly to the statistical agencies of the regions of Western Siberia. Information was provided by all regions, except for the Altai Republic. The research sources are the official data of the State Statistics Territorial Authorities in the regions of West Siberia, as well as archival sources. The materials provided by statistical agencies are compiled according to the same set of indicators: population abundance (urban and rural), the absolute number of births and deaths, including children under the age of one year (urban and rural), population movement, including infant mortality, population mortality (urban and rural). The data are represented by continuous dynamic series for 1950-1970. The author summarized the data and calculated the indicators of natural population movement in the region as a whole according to the methodology of the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation. In this form, information was not published and introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The article objective is the population mortality reconstruction. The study resulted in recovering mortality time series and tracing evolutionary changes during the historical period under consideration. Population mortality in West Siberia constantly decreased until 1967. After that, its increase was noted. In general, the population dynamics in the region went the same way as in the whole country, but with 10-15 year lag.

The paper demonstrates the study results of the urban population mortality dynamics in the period between the Annual Censuses of 1959 and 1970. The article objective is to show peculiarities of demographic (epidemiological) transition in West Siberia in 1960s. Actuality of studying the population mortality in the considered period was determined by the average life decrease since the second half of 1960s after a long time increase. Such dynamics required detailed and circumstantial analysis of the conditions and factors affecting it. To a great extent it will facilitate explanation of both current and future reproduction dynamics. The demographic transition theory and its composite part - epidemiological transition - provided the methodological basis for the research. This essence of the demographic transition is that once society achieved a certain level of development, its structure of diseases and mortality causes undergoes a rapid (from a historical point of view) transformation. In the structure of “old” pathology infectious and parasitical diseases played an important role, while the structure of “new” pathology was formed by diseases and reasons of mortality caused primarily by endogenous factors related with human natural ageing, decreasing resistance to unfavorable external influence. The set of mathematical methods as well as special methods of historical perception are used in the research: historical-genetic and historical-comparative ones. The study led to conclusion that epidemiological transition in West Siberia had its own peculiarities determined by different factors. Mortality by cause of death had yet more incomplete structure if compared with the whole of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The average life expectancy of urban residents in West Siberia was lower than in the republic, and inter-sex differentiation in its level was higher. At the same time over the period of 11 years, the economic region was logging behind even more, the differences in life expectancy between men and women increased, interregional differentiation in the population mortality rate grew.

The weights allowing calculation of life expectancy for a whole population as a weighted average of group-specific life expectancies are proposed. They are characterized by a minimum distance from the actual population shares that are different from those assumed in life tables. It is demonstrated how they may be obtained by means of constrained regression, using popular statistical/econometric software. The problem of negative solutions is also addressed. The empirical examples include longevity inequality calculations under various weighting systems. The data come from the Human Mortality Database and from Russia’s regional statistics.

This paper presents the circumstances of the second trial against St. Maximus the Greek in 1531. The author focuses on the accusation of supposed heretical mistakes in his translation of the text “the Hagiography of the Mother of God” from Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastos. On the basis of the manuscript it is proposed that Maximus used a rare method of translation for the time, but an examination of the text also raises questions about the earlier hagiographic sources from the Eastern and Western early Christian traditions, such as the patristic and liturgical interpretations of the hagiographic material. Of particular interest here is the tradition of the Byzantine hymnography reflected in the works of St. Maximus the Greek, mainly in those that are defined as prayers, confessions and theological polemics that showed his attachment to the protection of the Mother of God. Obviously, an Athonite monk understood the Mother of Good as a part of the orthodox Holy Trinity, which he explained in his texts. He often supported his arguments for the holiness of the Mother of God with exegetic examples from the Holy Scripture. Indeed, the verses from the Byzantine hymnographical odes, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which flourished in the Holy Vatopedi monastery, as well as in the Athonite period of the monk Maximus, present the essence of the works and personal theology of Maximus the Greek. Therefore, this unique monastic worldview, which combined very different sources of Christian knowledge (the Holy Scripture, hymnography, liturgy, patristic, iconography, and hagiography), was also marked by the special consideration of the Mother of God in Orthodox theology, which together make the theological system of Saint Maximus the Greek so original.

The Siberian numismatics as a scholar discipline is in its developmental phase. Its late start as compared with the numismatic studies in Russia was caused by the specific features of Siberian coin material, specifically its small quantity. That new discipline still doesn’t have its own special scientific instruments, namely the certain research aims, correct concepts and adequate methods. For example, there is no correct definition of Siberian mint in the special literary. The purpose of this publication is to analyze historical sources of the XVIII-XIX centuries in order to reveal the most historically correct localization of the Siberian mint. The study led to some interesting findings. Firstly, in the historiography of the Siberian economy there is no generally acknowledged localization of minting in Siberia although this place is well known from the sources; scholars and other authors use three different definitions, quite often simultaneously: Kolyvan’ mint, Suzun (or Nizhne-Suzun) mint, and Barnaul one. Secondly, in the bureaucratic office records there was no brief and accurate definition of the site of Siberian mintage up to 1828, when the definition “Suzun mint” appeared in an Emperor’s decree, the term “mint” was not officially used with reference to the Siberian mintage during the reign of Catherine the Second. Thus, it’s evident that the supreme authority in Russia and all imperial administration avoided any definiteness in this problem. Therefore, modern researchers found themselves out of the clarity as well. From the historical sources we know that the most precise and complete definition for the site of the Siberian minting in 1763-1828 was the following: “manufacture of the copper Siberian coin at the Nizhne-Suzunsk factory (of Our Kolyvano-Voskresensk factories)”. It seems to be the most correct in the scholar use too.

Currently we observe the growth of interest to the family of Romanovs due to 100th anniversary of the revolutionary events in Russia. The paper considers main components of the information-bibliographic resources devoted to the Romanov dynasty and generated by the State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPSTL SB RAS). The article represents regional materials on Siberia and its role in the Romanovs’ fate, which are included in retrospective database (DB) “Union catalog of Siberian and Far Eastern books (XVIII century - 1930)” and currently replenished DB “Scientific Sibirika”. DBs were created based on materials selection from an obligatory copy of Russian literature, as well as foreign publications obtained by SPSTL SB RAS, information from secondary information sources, stocks of large libraries of Siberia and the Far East. DB “United catalog of the Siberian and Far Eastern books (XVIII century - 1930)” presents publications on the Romanov dynasty, published in the territory of Siberia and the Far East in the period from 1837 to 1922 (more than 170 titles). It comprises documents about the stay of the tsar’s family (trips, travel, exile) in the Siberian regions; activity of institutions named in honor of representatives of the House of Romanovs and/or under their protection; papers published for the anniversary of the Romanov dynasty; publications on the history of settlements named in honor of the most august persons in the Siberian region, impostors who appeared in a given territory. The table gives the list of the Romanov dynasty royal figures, the information about who is reflected in DB, indicating the number of publications devoted to individuals, years and topics of their publication. Modern publications about the Romanov dynasty (from 1990 to the present) are presented in DB “Scientific Sibirika”, where the section “History of Siberia and the Far East” is highlighted. It comprises a considerable number of documents devoted to the life tragic pages of the last Russian emperor from the Romanov dynasty connected with Siberia, which is known as “Tobolsk period of the Romanovs exile”. The documentary flow contains about 200 publications over a 25-year period. Its analysis is carried out, which shows the species structure of publications (monographs, articles in journals and collections) is shown, authors with high publication activity. Information resources of SPSTL SB RAS’ own generation are freely available in the web and could serve a useful source base for future research of scientists and specialists.

The article is devoted to the low-investigated problem of the judiciary formation in the first postwar years. Various aspects of the personnel work in Leningrad municipal court (Lengorsud) as well as its educational component have been studied based on archival data and normative sources. The research is based on comparative, structural, logical and quantitative methods, principles of historicism, consistency and scientific objectivity. In the early 1950s the judicial staff in Leningrad was incomplete, so the authorities sought to provide courts with competent and loyal employees as soon as possible. During the period under study, the issues of staffing and recruitment were assigned to the Ministry of Justice of the USSR. In the regions these issues were solved by the Ministry of Justice Directorates (MJD). In particular, MJD in Leningrad considered not only the number of people’s courts corresponding to the number of incoming cases, but also premises where the courts would be opened. Later, at the stages of the candidate’s approval, party bodies were involved (and in some cases Lengorsud, especially if it concerned its own staff), but these powers were formally assigned to the justice bodies. The article examines ways of filling judicial vacancies and problems that hampered the complete staffing of judicial institutions that were urgently needed under conditions of postwar growth of incoming cases (both civil and criminal). Having revealed the specific solutions to a problem of judicial staff in Leningrad, the author asserts that the main obstacle to the judiciary formation was the absence of a proper number of party citizens with a legal education and loyal to authorities. Other factors, such as repression and rotation in the judiciary community during the period under consideration were not of decisive importance for Leningrad.