2022

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — S. A. Nikonov. THE ABILITY TO SURVIVE: METHODS OF ADAPTATION AND MORTALITY OF RUSSIAN HUNTERS IN SVALBARD AND NOVAYA ZEMLYA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 18TH — EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The article deals with the problem of the influence of extreme factors on the wintering of Russian industrialists on Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard in the second half of the 18th — early 19th century. Wintering, assumed a one-year stay of artels in the polar archipelagos, which could provide significant income from hunting sea animals, but posed threats to human health and life. The risks included the climatic conditions of the Arctic (polar night, cold) and diseases caused by vitamin deficiency (scurvy). For wintering, fishing huts (camps) were built, the building material for which was regularly brought from the mainland. Prevention of scurvy was carried out in various ways, both developed over the centuries (the use of plants, honey, etc.), and by means of medicine of the 18th–19th centuries. However, the ways of adaptation could not completely avoid the death of industrialists. The causes of death of industrialists were various factors — diseases, accidents at sea and during hunting for sea animals, death during blizzards. There are cases of criminal deaths caused by clashes between Russian industrialists and European whalers. A significant danger was represented by scurvy disease, the victim of which was not only individual industrialists, but also entire artels. Analysis of the materials of the Belomorskaya Company of 1804–1808 shows that up to a third of the artels became victims of wintering by industrialists. The significant mortality of industrialists, the inability to calculate the risks of wintering in the polar archipelagos, can be considered as a factor contributing to the reduction of fisheries on Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard. By the second half of the 19th century, the hunting of sea animals on Svalbard by Russian industrialists was curtailed.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — D. A. Barinov. STUDENT FRATERNITIES OF THE IMPERIAL AND SOVIET UNIVERSITY

The historiography of higher education is often characterized by a watershed presented by the events of 1917. The change in social and political structures opened a new era in the history of Russian higher education. However, with such an approach, it is often forgotten that the changes of the first decades of Soviet power were experienced by people formed in the old, pre-revolutionary tradition. This situation is typical as well for higher education, where the inertia of its existence under the old regime was preserved throughout the 1920s. First of all, this inertia can be traced in the forms of organization of student self-government. The main and senior body of mutual economic assistance among the students was the fraternities. Initially, from the first half of the 19th century, they provided active material support to the out-of-town students. In this article, using the example of St. Petersburg / Petrograd / Leningrad University we will trace the history of fraternities, define the features of their legislative status, connections with political movements. The analysis allowed the author to come to the conclusion that both in the Tsarist and in the Soviet period, the fraternities in many aspects faced similar problems. Being organs of grassroots initiative, they were weakly amenable to control, bureaucratization, their activities did not coincide much with the existing legislative provisions. And most importantly, they were considered to be bodies of possible protest. Therefore, in the Soviet period, during the tightening of political control, such organizations were doomed to be closed, as they seemed to be a place of concentration of non-party people, i. e. a potentially hostile studentship.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — M. D. Novikov. RATIONALIZATION PROPOSALS OF CITIZENS ON SOVIET MASS BONDS 1946–1957 AND PROJECTS OF “PEACE LOTTERIES” AS AN ATTEMPT OF SOCIETAL INFLUENCE ON THE STATE FINANCIAL POLICY

The article examines the letters of Soviet citizens to the state authorities on the subject of changing the practice of state compulsory bonds. These letters had a specific nature of content, so their addressees designated them as “rationalization proposals”. Among the documents considered there were both letters from ordinary employees of financial bodies (mainly savings banks and financial departments of districts and regions) and letters from people in no way connected with financial structures. All of these letters were aimed at solving the problems that were of concern to citizens in connection with the implementation of Soviet internal mass bonds. They included both organizational and operational nuances, as well as the issue of bonds and the payment of winnings. Among the documents studied were proposals for additional bonds or for reformatting the existing procedure for selling and circulating government bonds. Citizens did not propose any options to stop these campaigns because they had already become part of the usual order of things, but attempts to propose any changes to the current financial policy were also unsuccessful. Writing rationalization proposals provided citizens with an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the government. They could try to pay attention to the actual problems of the Soviet people and try to solve them not with emotional statements, but with some concrete actions. People were able to enter into a dialogue with the state, but it did not develop further. The only thing that changed during the 12 years of massive loan campaigns was the ratio and amount of winnings, but despite the existence of such proposals, their influence on the decisions taken was not decisive. The materials studied in this paper allow us to take a broader look at the practice of mass bonds and the attitude of the population of the Soviet Union to these campaigns.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — A. N. Chistikov. THE LENINGRAD REGIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPSU IN THE 1960S AND 1980S: ELECTIONS AND RESULTS

Based on published and unpublished documents, the paper analyses the process and results of elections to the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU in the first half of 1960s and second half of 1970s. Relying on formal criteria proposed by Central Committee of VKP(b) in first post-war years, the author concludes about significant influence of formal approach in formation of governing party body of regional level. A degree of pre-determination increased from the first half of the 1960s to the turn of the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, a policy of quotas based on gender, job, professional, or social characteristics was put in place. At the same time, the authorities have had to respond to the demands of the times, which is reflected in particular in the clarification of educational and vocational criteria. The individual case leads to the general question: were some elements of such a policy specific to Soviet society or to the bureaucratic system of governance as a whole?

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — N. A. Vlasov. “RUSSIA IS THE ONLY POWER WHICH COULD DISTURB THE PEACE”: “RUSSIAN THREAT” IN OTTO VON BISMARCK’S THOUGHT DURING THE 1880S

1879 became a major turning point in German foreign policy: the defensive alliance treaty was signed with Austria-Hungary against Russia. German chancellor Otto von Bismarck justified this step among other things by the supposed “Russian threat”. He also often spoke on this matter during the subsequent decade. But did Bismarck really believe the existence of such a threat or just used it as a cover-up? To answer this question, we need to examine the overall image of Russia in Bismarck’s worldview. The author of this article analyzed the whole set of published works of Otto von Bismarck using primarily the Grounded Theory methodology. Main outcome of this research was a complex reconstruction of Bismarck’s views and opinions about Russia. Since early 1860s the “Iron Chancellor” had growing concerns about inner development of Russian empire. He did not only regard Russian officials incompetent and corrupt but also believed the existence of a large and powerful liberal and nationalist opposition in Russian elite. Bismarck found the strength of this opposition steadily growing, making it dangerous for the Russian emperor and forming a sort of “parallel government”. The existence of this “muscovite” elite grouping led not only to destabilization inside of Russia but also heavily impacted the Russian foreign policy making it inconsistent and aggressive. Bismarck’s notions of Russian domestic and foreign policy, reflected in hundreds of texts stretched over decades, constitute a coherent unity. The main finding is that during the 1880s the “Iron Chancellor” really believed that Russia posed a threat to Germany.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — Ju. Moshnik. “THE HEROIC TALE OF THE RUSSIAN ENGELBREKT”. FILM IMAGE OF ALEXANDER NEVSKY IN THE PRE-WAR FINNISH PRESS

“Alexander Nevsky” was the only motion picture of S. M. Eisenstein and the last Soviet film that was released to the public in Finland before the start of the Soviet-Finnish (Winter) War of 1939–1940. Even before the premiere in Helsinki on August 20, 1939, the Finnish press published articles about Eisenstein’s creative work and the success of “Alexander Nevsky” at the Soviet box office. After the premiere screening, critical reviews of the film were placed on their pages by all the central newspapers of the country. The interest of Finnish film critics in Eisenstein’s new picture was due not only to the outstanding artistic merits of the film, brilliant camera work and acting, but, above all, the relevance of the issues raised in the film for the modern political agenda.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — V. G. Vovina-Lebedeva. PEASANTS OF UST’-IZHORA AND THEIR CHURCH

The village of Ust-Izhora on the bank of the Neva is known in connection with the battle at Neva in 1240. Already in the time of Peter the Great, the first wooden church in the name of St. Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky was built. Materials TsGIA SPb allow to restore some stages of the life of the church and its parish in the 19th — early 20th century. The industrial development of the country affected the life of the suburban villages. Ust’-Izhora Church of St. Alexander Nevsky became the center of spiritual life for a wide district, which included not only local peasants, but also numerous working people. The reconstruction of the stone temple and its decoration were carried out at the expense of the peasants of Ust’-Izhora, some of whom were wealthy brick manufacturers and timber merchants. Even after the revolution of 1917, the church of St. Alexander Nevsky in the village Ust’-Izhora was not plundered thanks to the intercession of local peasants, to whom this property passed. They managed to preserve the values of the temple even during the period of mass confiscation of church property, so the church of St. Alexander Nevsky was closed only in 1934.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — K. Kościelniak. ALEXANDER NEVSKY IN POLISH HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 19TH–21ST CENTURIES

The article aims to show how the works of Polish historians viewed the activities of Alexander Nevski. Whether it was complete biographical information or only cursory, selected facts that have been repeated many times in numerous publications, bringing nothing to the knowledge of this extraordinary figure. It is important that the biography of Alexander Nevsky has not been published in Poland, and all information about him is scattered around publications on various topics.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — I. A. Karpenko. A NEW IMAGE OF AN OLD HERO. PREPARING FOR THE FILMING OF MOVIE “ALEXANDER NEVSKY” IN 1952–1953 IN LENINGRAD

In the article the influence of state ideology on film production, on the example of preparing the script for the new movie “Alexander Nevsky” in 1952–1953, is examined. The article based on the complex of materials from Central State Archive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg. These documents make it possible to trace how state ideological guidelines regulated the content of a work of art and ordered its authors to put ideology and clichés into the script and dialogues. The project proposed to Lenfilm by the USSR Minkino was supposed to work towards creating a correct view of both historical and contemporary events. One of the most interesting components of the documental complex is the recommendations of bureaucrats on how to understand and interpret the history of the 13th century in a historical perspective. On this basis, the filmmakers had to create a new image of the national hero.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — E. F. Sinelnikova. SPEECH OF THE RUSSIAN NATURE AMATEURS SOCIETY SECRETARY ON THE SIMPLIFICATION OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES REPORTING FORMS, 1926

The article discusses the speech of the Russian Nature Amateurs Society secretary V. A. Kazitsyn, discovered in the Central State Archives of St. Petersburg in the fund of the Leningrad Branch of the Main Directorate of Scientific Institutions of the Academic Center of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment of the RSFSR (F. 2555). It raised the question of simplifying the reporting of scientific societies to administrative bodies, scientific administrative and financial control institutions. V. A. Kazitsyn’s speech focused on the difficulties that are caused by redundant reporting and control over the activities of scientific societies. This problem was one of the most important in the relationship between the authorities and scientific societies in the mid‑1920s. The published document is dated 1926. The report was intended for a meeting of directors of scientific institutions subordinate to Glavnauka, which took place in Leningrad on April 1, 1926. Undoubtedly, V. A. Kazitsyn was the spokesman not only for the opinion of the council of the Russian Nature Amateurs Society, but also for other scientific societies. The ways of solving problems in relations between the authorities and scientific societies, proposed in the speech, testify to the fact that scientists were striving to democratize these relations. However, the proposed adjustments to the system of state regulation of the activities of scientific institutions and organizations in the conditions of the formation of a totalitarian system in the country could not be implemented. We believe that the published document is an interesting source on the social history of Russian science in the 1920s.