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The purpose of this article is not only to describe the events associated with armed clashes between the Russian troops and the highlanders near the village of Endirey, but also to reveal the causes of this negative event in the history of Russian-Dagestan relations based on the available archival documents. In addition, attention is paid to the relationships of Russia with several Kumyk feudal rulers. In July 1722 the Emperor Peter the Great and his army entered the territory of Dagestan. However, the beginning of the company was not easy. The Russian army began to suffer losses long before the first clash with the enemy: 150 soldiers died from diseases in Astrakhan, while 40 soldiers escaped. The cavalry crossing the North Caucasian steppe was behind the original schedule. As envisioned by the tsar, the dragoons would arrive in the Agrakhan Gulf sooner than the infantry traveling by sea in order to ensure the landing operation with the construction of piers and to provide cover against possible enemy attacks. All such orders were given by Peter to Brigadier Andrey Veterani on July, 7. The cavalry, however, could not meet the deadline. G.S. Kropotov with his regiments made a forced crossing of the Volga river near the town of Selitrennoye only on July, 5 but in the next three weeks he still could not reach the Terek. On July, 30 he reported that he was encamped at “Kizlyar Lake” and could not move faster: “Dragoon horses are rather thin due to long marching across the great steppes, poor quality of forage and most of all due to heat and salt water”. The corps of Veterani moving from Tsaritsyn crossed the Terek on July, 16-17 and had to wait until gunpowder and lead were delivered from the Terskiy town. Thus, Veterani as a commander notified the tzar that he would be able to move on only in the night of July, 21. In the same report the Brigadier informed of other bad news: Ukrainian Cossack colonel Apostle while following after him found himself in the middle of the “burnt steppe”, facing the loss of horses and lack of forage. Veterani was to take Andreevskaya village (village of Endirey) and to ensure the landing operation in the Agrakhan Gulf. He was joined by the prince of Greater Kabarda Elmurza Cherkassky (the lieutenant in the Russian service, the younger brother of the deceased in Khiva A. Cherkassky) and the prince of Minor Kabarda Aslambek Kommetov. Endirey rulers Aydemir and Chopan-Shamhal tried to resist and attacked the regiments marching near the village. After a fierce battle on the 23th of July, the dragoons broke through to Endirey and destroyed it, having lost 89 people dead and 115 wounded. In conclusion the authors identify the causes that led to the battle between the Russian army and highlanders near the village Endirey.

The paper is aimed at describing the military service of Generals Skalon, father and son who served in Russia in 1735-1812. This subject has not been scrutinized by scholars. Analysis of the new archival sources and use of a historical-biographical research method allowed to deepen understanding of the military and administrative activities of the first generations of the Scalons in Russia; to show their participation in the military campaigns of the XVIII century, their service in the Siberian fortified lines, their fight against Napoleon’s invasion and other important events. A.A. Skalon was born in 1767 in the Biisk fortress into a family of the military, former French emigrants. In recognition of his father’s services at the age of eight he was enlisted as a private in a squadron of the Life-Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment. Formation of personality and leadership potential of the future general was shaped by the faithful service of his close relatives, the tough conditions of the Siberian frontier as well as his study in the “model team” in St. Petersburg. As a chief of the Irkutsk Regiment A. Skalon proved himself a caring and demanding military leader while being different from other commanders in that he was unselfish and struggled against all sorts of abuses. The Siberian regiments were successfully relocated to the western borders of Russia owing to his authority and organizational abilities. The Dragoon Brigade under Skalon’s command opposed the Napoleon’s aggression from the first days of the war. While fulfilling an assigned task during the defense of Smolensk Skalon was fatally wounded and buried upon the order of Napoleon.

The objective of the paper is to present the research techniques and to summarize the key findings of the study of the traditional demographic calendar that existed in Belarus during the late imperial period. The author considers demographic calendar as a stereotypic way of arranging demographic behavior of various human communities on a chronological basis within a calendar year. Relying upon the official Russian imperial statistics the author has calculated the annual nuptiality, fertility and mortality cycles in the daily life of the people in several Belarusian provinces - Grodno, Minsk and Mogilyov. The material is represented both in tabular and graphic forms. The author compares urban and rural variants, as well as matrimonial aspects of the Orthodox Christian, Catholic and Judaic calendars. Calendar parameters are explained taking into account the complex influence of many climatic, social, economic and cultural factors. It has been discovered, that at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries monthly and seasonal cycles of demographic events in Belarus followed certain established patterns. Rural and urban calendars were very similar especially when the universal natural (climatic and biological) factors prevailed. Such similarity was also due to the cultural continuity and integration processes. In the time of early urbanization and massive migrations urban culture basically had many typological characteristics of rural culture and vice versa. The urban demographic calendar with its more even monthly distribution of all demographic events contrasted vividly with the rural calendar. Such difference was due to the fact that natural and agrarian economic cycles less affected the life of urban dwellers while the religious traditions were also weaker among urban population. In general, ethnic and religious variants of regional demographic calendars that had both clear similarities and differences deserve further investigation.

In the article the object of research is the history of creation and activities of the Tomsk “Society for Assistance to Gold Mine Workers and Employees”. This society played an important role in social support for the population in the mining regions of Western Siberia. It was the first such organization not only in the gold mining sector, but also in other industries of Siberia. The materials of Society (first of all, the official annual reports) allow to investigate the social-economic status of workers and employees of the Siberian gold mining (social origin, marital status, financial status, etc.), and that is one of the reasons to comprehensively study it and to explain why it has not been subject of the Russian historians’ scrutiny. Based on the analysis of the materials related to the society’s activities the author concluded that peasants and citizens prevailed among the workers of gold mining enterprises in Siberia at the turn of XIX-XX centuries. That was characteristic of the early period of gold mining development in Siberia. The author also comes to conclusion about professionalization of the main categories of gold mine workers in Western Siberia as many of them had a long record of service in gold production. This fact was also indicative of creation of a pool of competent local expertise with many decades of work experience in gold industry. The other conclusion is that the financial status of gold mine workers and employees in Siberia was very low, as was the level of their social welfare. Therefore many of them applied to the Society for personal pensions or for sickness, invalidity or survivors benefits. Due to the limited funds of the Society and a large amount of people wishing to become its pensioners the board granted small pensions (3-5 rubles per month) that could not fully supply the needs of the pensioners.

The article analyzes the problem of rotation of senior officers in the Russian army during World War I. The object of research are military leaders appointed to the command positions of the Commander-in-Chief, Chief of Staff of the General Headquarters, commanders of the fronts and the commanders of armies during the World War I - 80 people in total. Based on the pace and criteria of the senior officers’ rotation the author defines two periods. The first period is conventionally designated as “imperial” (August, 1914 - March, 1917), the second period is called “revolutionary” (April - October, 1917). Comparison of rotations during these periods lasting for 2,5 years and 6 months respectively shows that after the February revolution of 1917 there was almost a five times increase in the rate of vertical mobility of general officers. During the “imperial” period rotation occurred mostly due to military expediency, i.e. the objective necessity to promote to higher positions the most talented military leaders with good reputation gained on the battlefield. Essentially, by the start of 1917 the Russian army had the best generalship for the entire period of World War I. The “revolutionary” period was marked by a political practicability, when military leaders were required to demonstrate not only their professionalism, but also an ability to adapt to complex revolutionary reality. As a result, some senior positions were held by those generals who, unlike previously, had not been in the service long enough or lacked the relevant experience. However, due to their personal qualities and their ability to find common language with the country’s new political leaders and with the soldiery they were promoted to higher positions.

The epoch of revolution and civil war in Russia in 1917-1922 attracted to the political life huge numbers of people whose cultural background in its essential part was shaped by religious forms; the “sacralization of politics” took place. No wonder that in studying the political realia of revolution and civil war, researchers often use theological concepts. One of them is a concept of “political hagiography” that involves the life stories of “great men” - objects of certain “political cults”. These life stories performed functions of indoctrination and promoted this cult within and beyond the “political community” using the specific set of symbols. Hagiography is generally a genre that exhibits stability in the canon. The characteristic feature of hagiographic canon is the stable inner structure of a text. Manifestations of hagiographic canon can provide unique data about a “political ideal” communicated to the “political fold”, and about ideological structure of a given “political cult”. To prove this hypothesis the author used the published materials - brochures and leaflets with biographies of A.V. Kolchak, the leader of the Anti-Bolshevik movement in Eastern Russia. The study revealed considerable similarities between these biographies and the lives of saints in terms of their inner structure. Text structure followed hagiographic canon and had relevant functions. Previously, these effects were registered only in the materials of communist propaganda literature and practice. The political history of Russia of both revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods cannot be understood without the reconstruction of complicated and multidirectional interactions between the elite and mass perceptions, interrelationship between the “secular” and “sacred” meanings, the religious and political cultures of the Russian society. Histories of “political cults” in Russia are yet to be written.

Based on the archival and published sources, the article considers issues of social mobility of rural entrepreneurs in Western Siberia during the period of revolution and Civil War (1917-1920). The study is carried out within the methodological framework of social mobility theory of P.A.Sorokin who introduced basic categories and concepts that enable researchers to study this phenomenon. In the wake of the revolutionary events of 1917 and “construction of a new society”, rural entrepreneurs as representatives of the “wealthy and privileged” social classes and groups of the prerevolutionary Russian society hoppered out to be thrown out of their usual socio-cultural and professional environment. They lost not only their material wealth and property but also their previous social status and position under new conditions. These “shatters of the accursed past” turned out to be artificially merged by the authorities into the categories with such symbolic names as “hostile classes”, “formers”, “exploiters”, “socially alien and dangerous elements”. The policy towards the “former ruling classes” was of a clear discriminatory character. Under the guise of “class justice” and tasks of “class struggle” the local authorities confiscated for “the benefit of revolution” not only the lands of rural entrepreneurs but also their personal property such as clothes, furniture, dishware, luxury articles etc. The former owners and their families were evicted from their estates and actually left destitute. Besides, the period under study was marked by a considerable decline in social status of the former owners of entrepreneurial households and their close relatives. As a result, rural entrepreneurs were left outside the socio-cultural norms and traditions artificially formed by the political authorities. They were not only restricted to their social positions but also could not realize their economic potential.

Attempting to obtain foreign currency to pay for numerous purchases of the industrial equipment, representatives of the Soviet regime sold out tsars’ jewels via their trade agents abroad. One of them was the son of an American communist A. Hammer, who arranged large-scale sales in Berlin, Vienna, London and New York. A legitimate ground for sale was the decree on nationalization of the Romanovs’ property, issued three days before the death of the last Tsar and his family, as well as a special decree of the Council for Labor and Defense “On the use of values for the trade turnover”, issued in October 1919, and a number of specific decisions adopted in the 1930s. The author concludes that the proceeds of the sale of tsars’ jewels could not provide the ever-growing demand of industrialization for gold and currency resources. Each major enterprise required not less than a ton of gold for its construction, while large plants needed tens of tons to pay for their projects and imported equipment. According to official estimates during the first five years plan almost 5 billion dollars were spent for this purpose. It was covered mainly by a sharp increase in gold production in the USSR. Nevertheless, huge gold and foreign exchange resources that were required for the so called Stalin’s modernization were obtained to a certain extent due to the export of the tsars’ jewels. Thus, the Romanovs made a posthumous “contribution” to the formation of a new Russian identity. This contributed to the advancement of Russia at the level of world industrial civilization, while it also led to a loss of its considerable historical and cultural heritage of the three centuries of the Romanov dynasty’s rule. It also resulted in deaths and sufferings of many people. The mysterious and tragic fate of the tsar’s treasures left a lot of mysteries that disappeared forever with the participants of these events of the bygone days. It is important, yet difficult to implement the task of finding and identifying pieces of jewelry that previously belonged to the Romanov dynasty and currently are scattered in private collections of the Western world.

The article addresses the practice of providing accommodation for migrant agricultural workers in the second half of the 1940s-1980s. The research of this aspect touches upon a broader problem of adaptation of migrants arriving in the course of planned migration, which is both scientifically and practically relevant. The significant role in this process belonged to the state initiatives, called “measures of migration incentives” or “benefits” having the dual functional significance. On the one hand, they increased migration flows in accordance with the required vector; on the other hand, they ensured the new settlers’ survival. It is evident that the key measure was provision of accommodation for the newly arrived families. This paper identifies the state’s role in financing the construction of resettlement houses. The terms and conditions of such budgeting depended on the territorial belonging of those households that accepted the new comers. The author applied a problem-chronological method which allowed tracing the evolution of government policy in this area during a period of more than 40 years. On the basis of a wide range of sources the author determines the volume of housing construction and, equally important, its correlation with the number of accepted families. It is established that plans of resettlement construction adopted by the authorities were carried out in two ways - using its own resources (which implied creation of teams at the expense of internal resources of farms and contractors) and by a contractor which was characterized by involvement of specialized construction (building) companies. According to archival records, the first way was less costly and, therefore, more widespread. In conclusion the author highlights the importance of the state funding of the resettlement construction and the key role played by the relevant governmental agencies.

On the materials of Western Siberia the article analyzes the causes, course and results of agricultural crisis of the early 1980s as well as the state bodies’ efforts to overcome its consequences. The economic slowdown in the second half of the 1970s and the crisis in the agricultural sector in the early 1980s were due to the out-of date agrarian policy of the Soviet state. Its implementation led to the economic imbalance and strengthened administrative methods of economic management. The actual bankruptcy of the majority of regional state and collective farms, growing price disparity between agricultural and industrial products, controversial procurement policy of state agencies were complemented by the growing alienation of agricultural workers from the results of their labour. The severe drought in the south of Western Siberia served as a catalyst for the agrarian crisis. The decline in food production led to the aggravation of the food situation in the country and in the region. Food Program adopted at the May Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union in 1982 was aimed at solving the aggravated food problem. It provided implementation of complex measures to promote the farmers’ well-being, housing construction and social services development, to improve health and domestic services in rural areas. The government restructured the agricultural enterprises’ debt as well as raised purchasing prices for agricultural products. After the start of the measures implementation provided by the Food Programme, the situation in the agricultural sector stabilized. In Western Siberia the second half of the 11 ^th Five-year plan was marked by dynamic agricultural development.