The article is devoted to the study of language compression, presented in one lexical unit at two different levels: graphic and semantic. The relevance of the study is due to the need to understand the basic social and political processes presented in the texts of modern virtual communication in order to identify the most important events at the present stage of development of society through linguistic analysis. The novelty of the study is that the analysis of hashtags in the English language is carried out for the first time from the perspective of the contraction process, examples of such linguistic facts are presented. Particular attention is paid to the processes of deciphering hashtags in the English language and the explication of the reduced lexical unit in the target language. It is emphasized that the principle of saving speech effort is most common in the texts of modern virtual communication. The question of the translingual aspect of the functioning of English-speaking hashtags that are subject to the process of contraction in speech is considered. Using statistical analysis, two main ideas have been proved regarding the linguistic nature of these language units: the contraction process is formative when they are created; the use of contracted hashtags in political texts seems to be a common and natural phenomenon in virtual discourse.

This article is devoted to the problem of studying the texts used to inform the consumer in detail about the drug. The texts of instructions for the use of drugs manufactured in Russia and abroad are analyzed. The question of introducing new approaches to the development of these texts in the field of domestic pharmacy is raised. The relevance of the study is due to the need to develop special tools to ensure the successful perception and understanding of these texts by drug users. The results of the analysis of some language tools and the features of the construction (architectonics) of these texts from the standpoint of perception and understanding of their contents by an addressee who does not have special knowledge in the field of medicine and pharmacy are presented. Particular attention is paid to the consideration of tools that facilitate the reading of these texts by a non-specialist. The similarities and differences in the use of these drugs in the texts of medicinal instructions in Russian and English are shown. The conclusion is drawn about the relationship between the presence or absence in the texts of medical instructions of certain language means and structural features and the nature of perception and understanding of these texts by the addressee.

The new lexicographic project of the Ural semantic school, the Large Ideographic Dictionary of Synonymic-Antonymic Complexes, the concept of which is generally developed and is currently being implemented in the process of writing dictionary articles, is highlighted. It is noted that in Russian lexicography there are no comprehensive dictionaries based on the integrative consideration of synonyms and antonyms in their unity, which determines the relevance of creating new lexicographic sources. For the first time, a fundamentally new lexical set was chosen as the object of lexicographic description - a synonymic-antonymic complex, which has a unique structural-semantic organization based on the integration of units connected simultaneously by relations of opposites (antonyms) and identities (synonyms). The principal novelty of the project also lies in the fact that it provides an ideographic description of synonymic-antonymic complexes, which are distributed in the global structure of the dictionary, taking into account their general type semantics, by spheres, fields, classes, groups and subgroups. The author pays special attention to the problem of lexicographic interpretation of the integral type semantics of the entire synonymic-antonymic complex, as well as the type semantics of its main subgroups and the individual semantics of private antonymic oppositions. The solutions to this problem are given.

The article is devoted to the modern English-language written popular scientific discourse in the field of information technology. It is understood as a combination of texts in popular science and journalistic sources, the subject of consideration of which is information technology. This discourse is investigated in the aspect of its axiological loading and professional conditioning. A linguo-axiological, pragmacognitive and socioculturological analysis of texts from leading English-language magazines and newspapers is carried out, the materials of which include articles on information technology and aimed at a general reader. The question is raised about the relationship between the professional picture of the world, language and the value and antivalue concepts embodied with it. The discursive-pragmatic opposition of these entities is established. Attention is paid to the definition of language structures and means by which axiological concepts are verbalized, and the systematization of identified concepts is proposed. The relevance of the study is due to both the penetration of technology into all spheres of life and the features of modern communication caused by this, as well as the potential of a written popular scientific discourse to exert a speech effect on the recipients of texts. The novelty of the study is seen in filling the theoretical vacuum in the field of analysis of the most important focuses specific to a particular professional community, and ways of linguistic actualization of these focuses in texts on information technology.

The article is dedicated to the mediation of the possible independence of Scotland in social networks. A multimodal analysis of thematic Internet memes 2014-2016 is carried out as examples of online political discourse. Online political discourse is characterized as an object of linguistic and multimodal analysis. This type of discourse is considered as an uninstitutional kind of political discourse in general, characterized by informality, spontaneity, high speed of response to public challenges and polyphony. The ability of network political discourse to compress information and the estimated interpretation of reflected reality is noted. The concept of inter-discursiveness is considered as one of the genre-forming features of network political discourse in general and Internet memes in particular. The definition of multimodal text as involving the verbal and visual channels of perception, both of which contain key elements of information for decoding the meaning, is given. Various definitions of the Internet meme as a multimodal genre of Internet communication are considered. The analysis of four Internet memes about the independence of Scotland is given. Memes are analyzed for the relationship of verbal and visual component; stylistic characteristics of the text component; strong and weak position of the visual component; sources of precedent and interdiscursive nature of relations between components.

The article is devoted to a multi-aspect study of the composition of a special type of text - rhetorical text. Polyaspectivity is a consequence of the complex communicative nature of the studied textotype. Initial theoretical and methodological principles have been determined, indicating the need to study the composition of the text in line with the emerging communicative approach. Particular attention is paid to the idea of transformations of meaning during the absorption of one compositional unit by another, as well as to the principle of multi-compositionality. The article successively examines aspects of the compositional organization of a rhetorical text: structural-semantic, argumentative, and formal-pragmatic. The structural and semantic aspect is associated with the study of selection and combination of communicative speech registers - the basic compositional units that provide meaning. The argumentative aspect explains the mechanisms for creating the persuasiveness of the rhetorical text. The concept of the argumentation complex is introduced that is the union of register units that perform certain functions in the argumentation. The formal-pragmatic aspect demonstrates the formation of the superstructure of the text by incorporating argumentative complexes into the main part of the rhetorical text, as well as its communicative-pragmatic framework - introduction and conclusion. The material for the analysis was texts qualifying as rhetorical and relating to various discursive practices: presentation-aesthetic, religious-educational, political, journalistic. The result of the study is a multi-aspect methodology, treating the compositional organization of the text as a chain of transformations of compositional units of different levels in the direction from sense to text.

The reasons for the functioning of the quantifier “every” in the pivot noun phrases in English there-sentences are studied. The relevance of the study is seen in the incompleteness of the solution to the definiteness effect and its exceptions. The novelty of the study is due to the appeal to previously unexplored behavior of universal quantifiers in the desired construction. The sample included 626 examples of the breaking of the definiteness effect extracted from the British national corpus and the corpus of contemporary American English. It is stated that the quantifier “every” has specific conditions in this construction, subject to the principle of exhaustion of a set common to universal quantifiers. It is proposed to consider the emphatic meaning of the full involvement of the object, expressed as a noun in the main noun group, to be a characteristic feature. There are restrictions on the types of nouns that can occupy this position. The connection between the type of noun in the noun phrase and the connotation of the exhaustion of the set meaning is shown: the complete exhaustion of the species within the set, the complete involvement of the object as an indivisible unit, the complete exhaustion of the set consisting of separate countable elements. The role of actual and hyperbolized set boundaries is indicated. The conclusion about the normative nature of the certainty effect is drawn; cases of its breaking are considered as a variant of emphase.

The study of the language situation in the Irkutsk region (Ust-Orda Buryat district, Olkhonsky district, Odinsk village of the Angarsk region) is presented, where Russian and Buryat languages are closely interacting (Buryats are the second largest population after Russians in the designated territory). The linguistic situation of these districts of the Irkutsk region was first subjected to a comprehensive description (earlier in the Buryat linguistics the interaction of the Russian and Buryat languages was studied in other territories - the Republic of Buryatia, Aginsky Buryat District of the Chita Region). In the course of expeditionary research, we obtained information about in which functional areas the Buryats use their native language with the unconditional leadership of the Russian language. It was revealed that at present subordinate bilingualism is observed in this territory, leading to a gradual linguistic shift, which is observed at all levels of the Buryat language system. Among the indicators that contribute to the language shift, same as N. B. Vakhtin and E. V. Golovko, the authors distinguish the following: the number of speakers of the Buryat language, the language environment, type of economic activity, reproduction of the language, interethnic marriages, the state language policy, the prestige of the language, the presence or absence of writing. It is noted that each of these parameters shows a tendency towards the loss of the autochthonous language of the indigenous population.

The relevance and novelty of the study is based on the material of the “Linguistic Atlas of the Vepsian Language” (St. Petersburg, 2019), an etymological and linguo-geographical analysis of terms important from the point of view of spiritual culture that characterize the group of wedding vocabulary. The terms in question (designations of a wedding, bride and groom) fit both in the cultural background and in the language processes that were reflected in the formation of the dialectal areas of the Veps language. The results of a comparative analysis indicate the impact of the Russian language on a significant group of Veps dialects, which led to the supplantation and replacement of the main terms of the wedding ceremony with Russian lexemes ( wedding, bridegroom, bride ). The study emphasizes the peculiarity of the eastern (Belozersky) dialects (the periphery of the Veps language range), which retained their own terms for the names of the analyzed concepts. It is shown that these dialects are characterized by the conservation of archaic characters, the presence of rare (in this case, sai) and etymologically darkened (oluh) lexical items, which so far have not been able to detect etymons in related languages. The authors believe that this fact, coupled with other features of dialects, may indicate traces of the substrate, the origins of which have yet to be clarified.

The observations on the meaning and use of the words dobrovolets and volunteer in the Russian language in different historical periods in legal and non-legal contexts are presented in the article. It is shown that if in the language of documents these words act today as absolute synonyms, then in a non-terminological context they differ from each other by the components of lexical meanings, which must be determined to clarify the use of these lexical units in speech. The relevance of addressing the stated pair of words is due to a question that arises, for example, to reporters: in which case it is better to use the word dobrovolets , and in which - volunteer . To solve this problem, an attempt was made to highlight the history of the formation and development of the semantic structure of the words dobrovolets and volunteer, as well as to identify and describe the distinctive semantic features of the considered lexemes in modern Russian language. The study is carried out mainly on the basis of the Russian National Corpus. Using frequency diagrams of the use of words at different time intervals, on the thematic sections of the texts in which they are found, according to their compatibility with adjectives, the author describes the semantic differences of the lexical units of dobrovolets and volunteer .

The features of the functioning of the Russian language in four Finno-Ugric republics of the Russian Federation, peoples of which entered the Russian state in the XV-XVI centuries, are examined. The consequences of the violent Christianization of the Finno-Ugric peoples are commented. The demographic features of the republics, as well as the current ratio of the Russian and the titular population are characterized. Based on the data on the reduction of the titular population, the question is raised about the possibility of calling these republics Finno-Ugric. The current situation of the Russian and state Finno-Ugric languages in the most important areas of communication is examined in detail. Particular attention is paid to legal acts establishing the status of languages in these republics, namely, laws on languages. Conclusions are drawn about the influence of laws on the linguistic situation and the linguistic competence of the population of the republics. The characteristic types of bilingualism in these regions are determined. The dominant position of the Russian language is stated. It is argued that national languages cannot compete with Russian. A forecast is made on the further development of the situation, in particular, on the functioning of national titular languages and Russian as state language. The novelty of this study is in the combination of historical and modern data, allowing to give a complete picture of the influence of the Russian language on the situation in the republics, to study the reasons for its distribution and dominance in these republics.

The article is devoted to the axiological direction, which is practically not in demand in onomasiological studies, despite the attention to it of various humanities. Non-calendar personal names recorded in written sources relating to Karelian Pomerania and adjacent territories, which occasionally became the object of study, are involved in the analysis. Particular attention is paid to the structural and semantic features of non-calendar personal names. It is proved that the modified forms and motivational base of the studied anthroponymic units represented family values, among which the main place belongs to the child (especially the newborn, infant), his appearance and character traits. In addition to the transparent motive of individual nomination, there were hidden ones, called upon, same as nicknames, to promote successful family labor relations, as well as specific, different from secondary, nickname nominations, and designed to protect the child from unhappiness, illness, evil eye, thereby transforming a non-calendar personal name (mainly with an ethnocultural base) into a deceitful sign, again proving that the emergence and preservation of a new member of family society is extremely important for ancient Russian society.

The article discusses the structural and semantic features of a regional newspaper text on environmental topics. The material contains 30 texts from the socio-political newspaper “Rech” of the city of Cherepovets, Vologda Oblast, published during 2017 - the Year of Ecology in Russia. It is shown that the newspaper text on environmental topics has the structure of an inverted pyramid, when important information is presented at the beginning of the article, and detailing is presented in the second part; the photographs accompanying the texts have a different visual-grammatical structure and can be interpreted as one-part and two-part sentences. In the semantic aspect, it is revealed that a larger number of contextual synonymous pairs than sets are formed; gradual antonyms are used; lexical units are included that fix the anthropocentric model of the interaction of man and nature. It is identified that there is a two-way interaction between the environmental event and the text: the event is the basis for creating the text, and vice versa, a newspaper text covering an environmental problem may precede one event or another. It is indicated that the newspaper text on environmental topics is characterized by a homogeneous presentation of the material, anthropocentricity and polyphonicity; softening the presentation of problematic information is achieved through the use of literary synonyms, gradual antonyms and relevant illustrations.

The article is devoted to the problem of social constructionism of modern discourses, which is manifested in their ability to form the opinion of target groups and create algorithms of social actions. The existing approaches to the understanding of social constructionism, indicating the possibility of linguistic interpretation and modelling technologies for creating discursive models and their inclusion in the activities of social groups, one of which is the corporation, are considered. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that for the first time the concept of “discursive technology” is considered as an object of study in linguistics, characterizing social constructionism. A typology of discursive technologies of construction, including technologies of text construction, text development and its implementation in professional practices of corporates is proposed. The author uses the method of complex pragmastylistic analysis of texts in corporate discourse and reconstructs the discursive technologies of text construction and the formation of communicative skills of staff.

The article is devoted to the study of multicode intertextuality in modern advertising discourse. The relevance of the study is determined by the high interest of specialists in different areas of scientific knowledge to the problem of intertext interaction, the functioning of the intertextuality mechanism in advertising multicode discourse, as well as the fact that the advertising industry is dynamic and provides new extensive research material every day. From the author’s point of view the analysis of intertextual indices of various semiotic codes is of particular importance. This is due to the increasingly active use of not only verbal, but also iconic intertextuality in modern media discourse; high acting potential of visual and audio intertextuality; greater recognition of these codes by the recipients. The author defines creativity as a meaningful concept for advertising, suggests considering intertextuality as a category of creativity, notes the importance of using creative options for the synthesis of linguistic and visual sign systems. The article pays special attention to the pragmatic aspects of intertextuality in advertising, the functional load of verbal, visual and auditory intertextuality as a tool for producing a creative advertising. The material for the study was modern Russian advertising videos, which are based on an appeal to precedent texts. The method of intertextual analysis was used as the basic one, which consists in establishing relations of productivity between texts and analyzing the formal and semantic transformation of text units and the whole text.

Strategies of verbalization of epistemic responsibility in the Russian and American media discourse are considered. The material of the study were the texts published in the Internet versions of the Russian and American media, which covers the Ukrainian crisis. Discursive and content analysis methods are used. The relevance of the study is due to the modern features of functioning of Russian and foreign media systems, referred to as information war. The typology of strategies of epistemic responsibility verbalization is proposed, which includes two strategies, coupled with high epistemic responsibility (a statement of fact and implicit assertion), and three strategies for avoiding epistemic responsibility (personification of information / an expert speaks / from the horse’s mouth, darkening of information source, word of mouth). The statistical analysis of the implementation of the identified strategies in the fragments of the Russian and American media discourse is carried out. A general tendency to the predominance of the strategy of “statement of fact” is shown, the next being the strategy of “personification information / an expert speaks / from the horse’s mouth.” The conclusion is made about the possible dependence of the obtained results on the affiliation of the analyzed works of the media discourse to news journalism, which operates with facts, ready-made results of knowledge, in contrast to analytical journalism, designed to interpret, explain, discuss.

The article gives a holistic understanding of Lermontov’s poem “Dispute” (1841) in the dynamics of its birth from conception to publication in the journal of Slavophile orientation “Moskvityanin.” Creative history of the poem for the first time is fully reconstructed. The results of a comparative analysis of the draft and two finishing manuscripts of the poem having minor discrepancies between are presented. The reasons and mechanisms of Lermontov’s text corrections, which help to understand the movement of the author’s thought, are indicated. The conclusion is made about the peculiarities of artistic imagery of the poem. The process of Lermontov’s work on the text is associated with the saturation of specific images with symbolic sound. The artistic image created by the poet is the bearer of the pan-Slavic concept. The novelty of the study is associated with the clarification of the features of the birth and impact of poetic imagery of Lermontov’s poem significant for understanding his worldview. The urgency of the problem is associated with the need to clarify the features of Lermontov’s thinking; his work, being a reflection of the real pictures of his time, has a visionary potential. The question of Lermontov’s historiosophy is raised, his views on the role of Russia in the world historical process are clarified. Russia is portrayed by Lermontov as a great empire which power is likened to elemental force, exceeding capacity of once historically significant states.

The article is devoted to the transformation of the Yakut heroic epos. The relevance of the work is due to large changes in the epos creation of Yakut storytellers and insufficient study of this process in Yakut folklore. The novelty of the study is that for the first time the problem of olonkho transformation is specifically studied. Various changes in the epos in the genre, pragmatic, conceptual, ideological and other aspects are considered. Of particular note is the transition from the oral epos to the written form of being. It is established that the appearance of copyright works based on olonkho creates confusion in the definition of the genre, as a result of which various falsifications appear. The characteristic of the transformation of the concept of “olonkhosut” (narrator) is given. An author’s periodization of olonkho transformations is proposed, which consists of three stages: pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet (modern). It is noted that each period has its own characteristics. The author of the article reveals some features of stage productions when traditional images and motives of olonkho are distorted to suit modern viewers' requirements. Summing it up, the author concludes that the transformation of the epos creates a great danger that can destroy the olonkho genre in Yakut folklore and change the idea of it in modern people.

The modern existence of folklore among the Evens of Yakutia is discussed in the article. A review of the results of many years of collecting materials on Even folklore is carried out. Based on the field materials of the authors, the modern repertoire and the degree of preservation of the folklore genres among the Evens of Yakutia are analyzed. It is revealed that narratives, a round dance hede, and folklore are included in the system of folklore genres that currently function and are most active. In accordance with the characteristic properties of the early forms of the epic of the North Tungus peoples identified by one of the authors, samples of epic legends are classified in three regions of the Evens. It is emphasized that at present, there is a gradual fading away of such genres as archaic epos, tales, riddles, proverbs and sayings. Particular attention is paid to the ritual culture of the Evens, where the rituals of the children's cycle, feeding the fire and funeral rites are preserved. It is noted that, in general, the existence of folklore of Evens in Yakutia is comparable with the general Even folklore tradition, prevalent in the other five constituent entities of the Russian Federation, where Evens live. The specificity of life consists in certain ethnolocal features dictated by the natural and climatic conditions and cultural landscape, as well as the dialectic differences of Even dialects.

The necessity of expanding the corpus of sources is substantiated when analyzing the processes of forming entrepreneurship in the early 1990s among ethnic groups of the Adygei of the Republic of Adygea and the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus (Shapsugs). The study is based on archival materials (State treasury institution of the Republic of Adygea “National Archive of the Republic of Adygea”), acts of federal law, media publications (“Kommersant Power”), and interviews of representatives of the Shapsug community. The main attention was paid to identifying general trends and regional specifics of privatization of municipal and state property, and the creation of private enterprises. Based on the analysis of archival documents and determination of their informative capacity, it is shown that, in general, the privatization of municipal enterprises and agricultural facilities took place in accordance with Russian federal legislation. Based on a comparative analysis of all the involved sources, their informative capacity was determined, the specifics of privatization of large state enterprises (lack of decisions of federal departments) and agricultural enterprises on the Black Sea coast without land privatization were revealed. It is concluded that privatization, having laid the foundation for the formation of ethnic entrepreneurship and the layer of entrepreneurs, did not contribute to the achievement of other tasks in mono-and multi-ethnic enclaves: improving the efficiency of enterprises, social development of regions and social protection of the population.

An attempt is made to reveal the key elements of the discourse of ethnic diversity management in Russian pre-revolutionary social thought. Numerous texts published by representatives of various sociopolitical views (Westerners, Slavophiles, liberals, conservatives, populists and socialists) devoted to the description and assessment of the policy of the Russian government in relation to national regions in the period under review are analyzed. The study was conducted on the basis of the analysis of mainly English-language scientific literature. Poland was chosen as a model region, that is, the main attention in the article is focused on the Polish question. The choice of this national outskirts is due to the following: on the one hand, it compelled the most close attention of representatives of the Russian pre-revolutionary social movement, and on the other, this territory was the place of testing of various incorporation practices by the Russian government. The study showed that, despite different political views and ideological platforms, Russian intellectuals clearly defined the intentions of the authorities, which consisted in the gradual integration of the periphery into the common imperial space, first on the administrative-legal, and then the cultural field. It is shown that the undulating nature of this process was absolutely opportunistic.

Some problems of the tradition of studying the mining industry of Prikamye in the context of the economic policy of the state in the pre-revolutionary period of Russian historiography (the second half of the 18th - early 20th centuries) are considered. The relevance of the study is due, in particular, to the tercentenary of the publication on December 21 (10), December 1719 by Peter I of Berg-Privilege, which for the first time established the legal foundations of mining in Russia, as well as the need to describe the latest trends and results of the interaction of physical nature and the human community, which are of contradictory character. The main attention is paid to the analysis of those works of encyclopedic scientists, participants in academic expeditions, historians, geographers, economists, statisticians, mining engineers and representatives of other fields of knowledge that contain information at the regional level. It is concluded that the study of the mining industry and its impact on the natural and social environment began in parallel with the further development of resources in the second half of the 18th century, mainly Prikamye, the Urals and Siberia and, as a result, the emergence of new factory settlements. It is shown that the works of scientists were of an interdisciplinary nature, had a pronounced practical orientation and were largely determined by the need to ensure the fiscal interests of the empire. It is alleged that a complex of fundamental and applied problems was raised, which determined the content of research in the subsequent period.

The article presents an analysis of studies of various aspects of the history of the Russian cooperative movement in the late XIX - early XX centuries, performed by domestic historians in the 2000s. For this period, according to incomplete data, more than 500 works have been published that reveal at the national and regional levels the reasons for the emergence of various types of cooperative organizations, the stages of development and institutional formation of the cooperative movement, its role in the economic, socio-political and socio-cultural development of the country. Based on the study of scientific publications of various genres, which generally allow to determine the problematic thematic field of research, it makes conclusions about the key approaches and directions of modern work on the history of Russian cooperation, identifies the factors that determined the regional specifics of the cooperative movement in pre-revolutionary Russia that is economic, social, ethnic. A review of publications, including those made on regional documentary material, shows that the historiographic interpretation of the historical experience of Russian cooperation through the prism of its regional specificity allows not only to create a more complete picture of the development of cooperation during its highest rise, but also to identify promising research topics that are relevant for historical science and of practical significance for the stable development of modern Russia.

The article is devoted to the development of the periodization of world history in Soviet social science of the 1920s. Various options for periodization that existed in the educational literature on this discipline in the specified period are considered. It is noted that Soviet social scientists abandoned the traditional division of history into Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the New Time and introduced a new approach to the periodization of world history: primitive (including one or two formations in different versions), feudalism, commercial capitalism and industrial capitalism. The methodological basis of this approach associated with the works of K. Marx, E. Meyer and M.N. Pokrovsky is revealed. A hypothesis is proposed according to which such an approach to world history meant the recognition by the Soviet social scientists of the non-linear nature of the historical process and the endowment of historical time with meaningful, class, characteristics. The author of the article believes that these processes in Soviet social science corresponded to a “temporal turn” in European thought of the first third of the twentieth century, characterized by the consideration of time as a process that has semantic content and depends on the subject. It is noted that, despite the return of the terms Antiquity, Middle Ages, and New Time in the 1930s, this periodization already included an idea of the class nature of historical time, which remained in Soviet science until the end of the existence of the USSR.

The results of the personality analysis of the Swedish king Charles XII are presented. Sweden was led by a bright charismatic personality with his own concept of government and his military leadership style - King Charles XII. The questions of the influence of personality and the concept of the reign of Charles XII on the course and results of his state and military activities are examined. The author of the article claims that it was Charles XII’s personal qualities that “helped” Peter I to fully unleash the potential inherent in him by nature, upbringing and education. A connection is made between these historical figures: the more stubbornly and longer the king embodied his life concept into reality, put his paradigm of ideas into action, the more he made it possible for Tsar Peter I to express his genius as a statesman, commander and naval commander. It is proved that the fundamental personality traits of the Swedish king, his stubborn longstanding, accompanied by the highest degree of resource mobilization, the war with Peter I contributed to the formation of the corresponding counterweight - the Russian Empire. In the author’s opinion, if history had not given Peter I such a charismatic adversary, he would have every chance to make it into history as Tsar Peter I, but not as Emperor Peter the Great. It is emphasized that the stubbornness, uncompromisingness of Charles XII, paradoxically, created Great Russia.

The question of the impact of socio-economic and ethnic development of Transcarpathian region on relations between Ukraine and neighboring countries of the Visegrad group in the late XX - early XXI centuries is considered. The relevance of the study of this plot is due to the geographical and historical-cultural specifics of the Transcarpathian region. It is shown that its diverse ethnic and linguistic map was in the focus of attention of a number of states - Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, etc. in the period under review, both in the context of addressing the integration of the region into the economic and transport and logistics infrastructure of the large Carpathian macroregion, and periodically escalating relations between representatives of national minorities - supporters of Transcarpathian autonomy and adherents of the unitary model of Ukrainian statehood. The author pays special attention to the influence of these aspects on the eastern direction of the foreign policy of the Visegrad countries in relation to Ukraine, in particular, in connection with the implementation of the EU “Eastern Partnership” initiative. It is concluded that the most acute and negatively affecting the development of interstate cooperation between Ukraine and the neighboring countries of the Visegrad Four turned out to be the status and position of national minorities, especially the Hungarian one, which enjoys active support from Budapest. The policy of Kiev, aimed at strengthening the position of the Ukrainian language to the detriment of the languages of national minorities, caused an increase in tension in relations with Hungary, which was aggravated by the lack of an effective program of socio-economic development of the region based on interested external partners.

Based on archival materials and published sources, the article examines the activities of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich as one of the zealous patrons of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is indicated that the Grand Duke was the chairman of numerous societies, including the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, engaged in religious, educational and scientific activities in the Middle East, and sought to provide public support in the territory of the Russian Empire. Particular attention is paid to the development of the network of departments of the Orthodox Palestinian Society since 1894, after the opening of which in the territory of the Russian Empire, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich became their patron. It is reported that in the Vyatka province, the Vyatka department of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society was opened, also under the patronage of the Grand Duke. The authors described the degree of participation of the Grand Duke in the activities of the Vyatka Division of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society and the main interests of the patron in terms of the development of the department. Attention is paid to the activities of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich as the patron saint of another organization of the Vyatka eparchy - the Vyatka fraternity of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. It is concluded that the patronage of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, although it was largely nominal - edifying - in nature but played an important role in the development and strengthening of local organizations of the Vyatka eparchy.

The question of the place of phaleronyms (medals, crosses, orders, etc.) awarded to a person for the suffering he has experienced is considered in the system of official awards of the 20th - 21st centuries. For their designation, the author uses the term lapel pins for suffering . This group includes, first and foremost, wound lapel pins given during the period of hostilities (for military personnel and, what is much less common, civilians), as well as awards intended for former prisoners of war, prisoners of fascist camps and victims of terrorist acts. The relevance of the study is due to the establishment at the beginning of the XXI century of about 20 new “lapel pins for suffering” and the evolution of attitudes towards individual grief in society and the state, while emphasizing the possible connection of the second factor with the psychological heritage of the two world wars. The main source of research material is a historical review by M.V. Tsarenko. Turning to other sources is clarifying and complementary. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the classification of "lapel pins for suffering" and understanding of their special place in the award system. It is shown that the considered lapel pins are awarded to a person precisely for suffering, that is, they cannot be characterized as a specific form of reward for merit in the traditional sense.

The article presents a pioneering in historiography attempt of scientific understanding of the history of the Yakut Northern Complex Expedition during 1964-1965, organized by the Yakut branch of the Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR with the support of the leadership of Yakutia. Due to the low degree of introduction of the expedition results into scientific circulation the research is based mainly on the analysis of the complex identified by the author of archival material. The work carried out made it possible to establish the personal composition of the expedition, the methodology of research, their geography and main directions. At the same time, the analysis of the key provisions developed by the participants of the expedition was carried out. The archival material introduced into scientific circulation may be of interest as a source of objective information on the socio-economic situation of the population of the Arctic regions of Yakutia in the 1960s. It is noted that the Yakut Northern Complex Expedition to date remains the only academic initiative implemented on such a scale, in which, on the basis of studies of a wide range of scientific problems and the coverage of a large part of the Arctic regions of the Republic, an integrated approach to ensuring the socio-economic development of these largely unique territories was laid. In addition, it is shown that this research initiative was one of the important attempts initiated in the region to revise the parameters of the resource model for the development of the Northern spaces that prevailed in the Soviet Union.

The article is devoted to the discussion of the transition from the mass to the professional army, which was conducted in the domestic and world military literature both before the First World War and in the period between the World Wars. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that in our time, the transition to a professional army really takes place in many countries of the world, including Russia. A review is made of a number of military works, the authors of which upheld the idea of a professional army. The content of the concepts of the White Immigrant General Gerua and the German General Seeckt is analyzed in particular detail. It is concluded that the understanding of a professional army in the first half of the 20th century was fundamentally different from the modern one: its supporters believed that it should not be a replacement, but just a supplement to the mass conscript army, a kind of guard of the industrial era. Particular attention is paid to criticism of the concept of a professional army by Soviet military authors of the 1920s and 1930s, including the People’s Commissar for Defense Marshal Voroshilov, as well as some foreign military authors of that time. The article shows that this criticism was justified: the Second World War was conducted by draft armies.