The categorical affiliation and semantic characteristics of propositions that do not have the status of assertions in the current utterance are considered. Such propositions are denoted by the term “pre-conservative”. It is shown that the preassertive status of propositions is determined by two main factors: the grammatical factor of precedence / following of explicit or implicit predication with respect to the moment of speech and the discourse factor of presentation in the proposition of the preassertive information reflecting religious mentality and religious ideology. The action of these factors gives rise to the phenomenon of asubjectivation. With asubjectivization, the semantic content of a linguistic expression is determined only by the properties of the described situation, and not by the locutionary activity of the subject of speech. It has been established that whole sentences, including those with non-propositional meanings, can receive the “pre-passive” status. It is shown that, in terms of some properties, the preassertive is comparable to a number of units of different articulations of the semantic-syntactic structure of an utterance, however, its specific manifestation in connection with asubjectivation proves that this is a special category in relation to explicit predication. The research was carried out on the basis of the material of the Russian Orthodox sermon. The novelty of the research consists in the characterization of the preassertive as a new syntactic relation on the axis “assertion — non-assertive component” of the utterance. Relevance is determined by the fact that the work develops a fundamentally new aspect of the study of subjectivity in language.

The article is devoted to the issues of reflection of the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment in popular science discourse, represented in the activities of encyclopedic educators. The relevance of the research topic is due to the study of the views of the scientist, which influenced the value coordinates of popular science knowledge of the society of that time. The research methodology is based on a narrative approach in a historiographic perspective, as well as a culture-anthropocentric method that reveals the biography of a scientist as a manifestation of the socio-cultural processes of the era. The use of these methods determined the novelty of the research as a vector of movement of research thought, modeling the phenomenon of professionalism, since it contributes to a deeper understanding of the specifics of the professional picture of the scientist’s world. The dynamics of the views of the French educator Louis de Jaucourt is revealed, the degree of his contribution to the formation of the French Encyclopedia (Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers) is determined. It is proved that moral satisfaction from participation in the creation of an encyclopedia, due to the creativity of his personality, has become significant for the scientist. The research material was the articles by L. de Jaucourt posted on the website of the first edition of the encyclopedia. Analysis of the articles shows that their pragmatics are aimed at trans-mitting information to an educated reader in popular science discourse.

The results of a comprehensive study of color names derived from the names of colored stones in the system of color names of the modern Russian language are presented in the article. The research was conducted in 2018-2020 in two stages using the methods of content analysis and an online psycholinguistic experiment. At the first stage, the state of the semantic group of names of colored stones, potential objects-referents of color names, was assessed by analyzing four different groups of sources: specialized dictionaries of colored stones, dictionaries of color, individual author's dictionaries of color names and explanatory dictionaries of the modern Russian language. At the second stage, the state of the color terms formed from the names of colored stones in the active vocabulary of modern Russian speakers was investigated on the basis of data from an online psycholinguistic experiment, in which 2,457 people aged 16 to 95 took part. The results of a comparative analysis of the lists of colored stones-prototypes of color names in the passive and active dictionaries of the speakers of the modern Russian language are presented. The scope of denotation and the function of color names derived from the names of colored stones are considered. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the derivative productivity of the names of referent objects of the studied class and the frequency of use of individual color names in the responses of Russian speakers with different socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, professional experience).

The method of analysis of speech impact in the parliamentary discourse is considered. The relevance and novelty of the research is seen in the fact that parliamentary discourse is viewed as a persuasive discourse. A methodology for analyzing the persuasiveness of this discourse is pro-posed. The category “persuasive complex” is introduced into scientific circulation, which is considered as a set of tools and methods for realizing persuasiveness, formed in a single discourse and united by a semantic unit — an image or a symbol. Using the material of the discussion of the First State Duma of the Russian Empire, the author dwells in detail on the analysis of the persuasive complex “BLOOD”. The procedure for analyzing this persuasive complex is described. The author comes to the conclusion that the persuasive complex is implemented at three levels: semantic, instrumental and operational. It is shown that representatives of all factions in the first Russian parliament actively used the “BLOOD” persuasive complex, but the options for its implementation in specific persons differed significantly. It is concluded that the persuasive complex is a unit of discourse analysis, which is aimed at identifying the semantic, formal and functional components of the addressee's impact on the recipient.

The features of verbalization of the object of drinking in the artistic world of Alexander Grin are considered. The material for the research was the famous novels of the author “Scarlet Sails”, “The Golden Chain”, “Running on the Waves” and some stories. The novelty of the research is seen in the analysis of the individual author’s refraction of the wine drinking situation. Significant, from the point of view of the writer, aspects of the representation of this situation are highlighted. It is noted that the main dominant of the interpretation of the situation of wine drinking in the romantic works of Green is aesthetic. Particular attention is paid to the location of the wine, its “framing” in Bacchic descriptive contexts, in which the following elements are also significant: the golden-scarlet combination of the vessel and the contents, sophistication presented in the descriptions of the smallest details. It was revealed that the linguistic embodiment of such descriptions are epithets (qualitative and relative adjectives), comparative phrases and metaphors. It is shown that the aesthetic component is made up of visual (color), olfactory, tactile assessments, which together represent a feast, a celebration of life. When analyzing the axiological component in the representation of wine, it is noted that its value is determined by its “age”, which may correspond to the milestones of a person’s life or several generations.

The review of existing approaches to the study of the problem of language planning is carried out. The features of the implementation of its main aspects are studied. The definitions of the term “language planning” in domestic and foreign sociolinguistics are compared. The activity of actors is studied at the macrolevel and microlevel of language planning. Attention is paid to the goals of language planning, which include not only work on changes in the areas of language use, but also counteraction to the speech shift, which can ultimately lead to the death of the language. Language planning is viewed as a combination of three main areas: status planning, corpus planning and planned language acquisition. The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of these components in relation to some of the title languages of the Russian Federation: Tuvan, Kalmyk and Karelian. It is argued that prestigious planning is the foundation for successful language fore-casting. The importance of considering both social and political components in language forecasting is emphasized. The relevance of the study is due to the need to create a base for the subsequent linguistic forecast, which is impossible without an analytical assessment of the existing linguistic situation.

A comprehensive linguistic study of the functional features of the linguistic and communicative-pragmatic organization of narrative in text materials posted on the Internet platform is presented. Particular attention is paid to how the interpenetration of the narrative and lyrical principles occurs within one work. The material for the research was the text of the hip-hop opera “Orpheus & Eurydice” posted on the re-source “Yandex.Music”. A complex technique of interpretation of narrative strategies based on the methods of functional-stylistic, communicative-pragmatic and lexical-semantic analysis was used. The question is raised about the peculiarities of the functioning of the lyric text within the narrative and about their relationship. The role played by the mythologization of the narrative text is shown in the article. The novelty of the research is seen in the fact that the author describes the relationship be-tween narrative and lyricism in the work. The question of establishing the determinants of hip-hop narrative is raised. The structure of a narrative text with elements of lyricism is considered. The results of the analysis of the peculiarities of the linguistic embodiment of the narrators and actants are presented. The author dwells on the communicative-functional structure of the studied text, describing the specific functions of the narrative with fragments of lyricism. A model for determining the leading type of cognitive modeling (narrative or lyrics) through the functional and linguopragmatic study of the hip-hop text is proposed.

The subject of analysis is addition as a phenomenon of language and speech, as well as the specificity of the text-forming function of addition in artistic and speech creativity. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that until now in the theory of syntax there is no generally accepted view of the essence of addition and how it is produced in speech, and it is also not considered that the text-forming function of addition is unique in different speech spheres, in particular in artistic speech creativity. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that addition is presented as a special syntactic form, characterized by its semantics and formally constructive organization and determining the assumptions and limitations of its speech implementation. The dual manifestation of the text-forming function of attachment in artistic and speech creativity is shown. The research material is based on the late stories of V. G. Lidin, included in the collection “Melting Snows” (1980): this writer, whose metapoetics is characterized by close attention to syntax, used addition with extraordinary skill.  When analyzing addition constructions in three stories, it was found that the addition is produced intentionally, counting on a textual perspective. It has been established that the text-forming function of addition is manifested in the organization of compositional-semantic communication on the one hand, and in the creation of an artistic detail on the other hand.

The article studies the English-language media discourses of the World War II period from a retrospective point of view. The aim is to identify the patterns of modeling the images of war and peace in British, American and Australian media discourses. The definition of military media discourse as an institutional form of communication is proposed, its essential characteristics are highlighted. The source of the material was the authoritative digitized archives of the UK, the USA and Australia. The material was extracted using corpus linguistics tools. The qualitative analysis was carried out within the framework of the cognitive-discourse methodology using the method of metaphorical modeling. The object of the research is the dominant metaphor used when representing the images of war and peace in the three discourses. The authors show common and specific features of the use of the religious metaphor, conditioned by cultural and extra-linguistic factors, and conclude that the religious metaphor places war and peace at different poles of the scale of values and actualizes the binary axiological opposition “good — evil”, “light — darkness”.

Syntactic means of forming the image of a politician in the headlines of English-language newspapers on the material of the websites of the corresponding publications are considered in the article. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that in 2020—2021 online media acquired particular importance: in the conditions of isolation associated with the pandemic, many readers, instead of the printed version of the newspaper, began to read the online version, the design of which allows you to read the headline and lead without seeing the main text of the titled material. The question is raised about the order of words and the position of the leader’s sur-name in the sentence as a means of positioning the figure of a political leader. The results of a comparative analysis of the headlines of “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post” for the period January 20, 2009 — February 20, 2009, Jan-uary 20, 2017 — February 20, 2017, January 20, 2021 — February 20, 2021 are presented. These periods correspond to the first month in office of US President Barack Obama (2009], Donald Trump (2017) and Joseph Biden (2021]. It has been proven that news-papers use manipulative technologies in headlines, relying on the communicative role of the subject and its place in the structure of the sentence. In particular, the president supported by this media is positioned as an active politician and the main character, while the unsupported president is positioned as a secondary and inactive one.

The article is devoted to the study of the epithets used by the modern German writer Siegfried Lenz to build a storyline and create images of his characters in the story “Der große Wildenberg”, which reveals social problems, disappointments, worries and fears of an ordinary person waiting for a meeting with a high-ranking person. The novelty of the research is seen in the fact that the epithets that serve as a means of realizing the artistic space, determining the place in it and forming ideas about the main character — as stated in the title “the great Wildenberg” is analyzed and de-scribed with special attention in this work. It is shown how, throughout the story, with the help of characterizing words, the authority, greatness and power of Wildenberg are generated, maintained and at the end unexpectedly collapsed, which deceives the reader’s expectations. Relevance is associated with the identification of functional and structural features of the epithets available in the work. The following types of qualifying lexemes were found: pictorial and emotional epithets; epithets with direct meaning and tropical; evaluative and psychological epithets; simple and extended epithets; free and included in phraseological units epithets; common language epithets.

The article considers the relevance of the interpretation and artistic embodiment of the legend “About two Great Sinners”, which is included in the chapter “A Feast for the whole World” of the poem by N. Nekrasov “Who lives well in Russia”. The authors emphasize that the Nekrasov episode, on the one hand, is based on a familiar folklore plot, on the other — it is interpreted by the poet differently than is traditionally accepted in folk texts. The analysis pointed out that, if in the folklore emphasis is placed on the image of the robber Kudeyar undergoing spiritual transformation, in the poem of Nekrasov focus redirected to the image of “the other robber”, pan Glukhovsky, who, in the view of the author of the poem, is the “most sinful of all”. The article pays special attention to the aspect of the displacement of moral components by social ones. It is demonstrated that Nekrasov approach to solving the core issue of the head, “Who in Russia most sinful of all?” biased and removed from under-standing the triad of “sin of the landowner, sin of the robber, sin of the peasant” pro-posed by the heroes of the Chapter “Feast...”, but makes a scene-meaning “substitute” all “sinners” episodes only responsible for the sinner recognizes the nobleman, only at the social level, opposed to the peasant.

The article is devoted to the study of genre features of the lyrical cycle of travel in modern poetry on the example of “Indian Cycle” (2008) by Vera Polozkova. The relevance of the study is due to the need to comprehend the lyrical cycle of travel as a synthetic genre form, in the structure of which various kinds of changes take place, first of all, genre features of the lyric cycle and travelogue are synthesized. The study of this genre form makes it possible not only to determine the originality of the author's creative manner and his place in the modern literary process, but also to trace the main trends in the development of the lyric cycle of travel in modern Russian poetry as a whole. The novelty of the research lies in the identification of genre, problem-thematic, compositional features of the “Indian Cycle”, which makes it possible to draw a conclusion about the expansion of the genre-typological features of the travel cycle due to additional lyrical motives (landscape, philosophical, love). It is established that the lyrical cycle of V. Polozkova’s travel is built along a real geographical route, the image of the country being visited becomes a plot-forming basis. In the course of the study, the peculiarities of the artistic perception of the geographical, cultural and historical space of the eastern country, national spirit and attributes are revealed. The features of the influence of the travel route on the inner world of the lyrical heroine are analyzed. Cultural codes and clichés associated with stereotypical perception of India are being rethought. The work proves that V. Polozkova's "Indian Cycle" clearly demonstrates the trend of genre synthesis emerging in contemporary poetry.

The cycle of essays by G. I. Uspensky “The Peasant and the Peasant Labor” in the aspect of the actual for Russian literature of the second half of the XIX — early XX centuries problems of relations between the people and the intellectuals are analyzed in the article. The crisis in the study of the “peasant” cycles of Uspensky, caused by the predominance of ideological interpretation, is stated. It is argued that Uspensky finds the key to understanding the peasantry not in the socio-economic conditions of his life, but in the field of aesthetics. The point of convergence, in which the peasant and the intellectual appear as equal subjects of communication, is, according to Uspensky, the aesthetic attitude to work. An implicit correspondence is established between peasant labor and the creative effort of the artist. Therefore, the intellectual turns out to be a necessary mediator in the process of the peasantry acquiring its own “voice”. It is proved that the aesthetic utopia in the cycle “Peasant and Peasant Labor” was crushed by the ethical maximalism of the writer. The peasant economy is represented by the Uspensky reasonably organized order, the anthroposphere, in which the working peasant was likened to the monarch and the Creator. In turn, the intellectual was declared an impostor, marked by the “antichrist” seal. In Uspensky’s creative consciousness, the aesthetic and ethical found themselves in a tragic and hopeless contradiction, and the prospect of “merging with the people” was illusory.

The urgency of the matter is associated with the need to clarify the features of Pushkin's pictorial ecphrasis. For the first time it is indicated that the originality of the ecphrasis in the poem “The Commander” is determined by its odic genre content, characterized by plasticity, kaleidoscopicity, and spatial dimensionality. The role of lexical and grammatical semantics, semantics of syntactic constructions in the visualization of the verbal image and the verbalization of the pictorial artifact was determined by comparing the drafts and the clean copy of the poem “The Commander”. Particular attention is paid to verbs with visual and mental meaning, creating the effect of presence, the effect of visual allusions, the effect of a revived picture, creating a psychological portrait of the hero. The role of adverbs and demonstrative pronouns with deictic semantics, contributing to the creation of the effect of presence and serving as a means of designating spatial coordinates, is indicated. The role of reception of movement and reception of contrast in creating the illusion of a visually perceived image is emphasized. Through an analytical analysis of the ecphrasis of the poem "The Commander", Pushkin's concept of the image of General M. B. Barclay de Tolly, who appears as a rejected and unappreciated heroic figure by the crowd. The hypothesis is put forward that by verbalizing the portrait of the work of J. Dow, Pushkin canonizes in the mind of the reader the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, poetically transforming his portrait into an icon.

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the subject of the article is the question of who was the real prototype of the Chekist Sutulov in Prishvin’s novel “Tsar’s road”, which has not yet been considered in the history of foreign affairs. It is shown that in Russian literature it is difficult to find master of the pen, whose work would be to the same extent conditioned by the influence of the ideological and political context. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time an attempt was made to show how, through the artistic image of the Chekist Sutulov, one of the main characters of the novel “Tsar’s Road”, Prishvin seeks to reflect the ideo-logical and political attitudes, characteristic features of behavior, style of thinking and speech of Stalin. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the 18-volume “Diary” of the writer, which was not previously published due to censorship restrictions, which became available to the reader only in the post-Soviet period. It is shown that, through the artistic image of Sutulov, Prishvin gives his personal assessment of Stalin’s role in the development of the state, striving to artistically faithfully and truthfully reflect the characteristic features of that atmosphere of economic, political and spiritual super-tension in which Soviet society lived in the 1930s on the eve of the Great Patriotic War.

The dynamics and structure of the revenue side of the state budget of the USSR in the period from 1950 to 1989 are considered on the basis of official statistical collections published by the Ministry of Finance of the USSR. It is stated that the dynamics of the revenues of the state budget of the USSR during the entire studied period was positive. There was a constant increase in income, which had an average annual value of about 6,5 % in relation to the previous year, which made it possible to increase the budget by more than one third in almost every five-year period. It is indicated that in just the period under study, the revenue side of the state budget in-creased by 11,6 times. The author comes to the conclusion that the historical dynamics of the distribution of incomes between the budgets of different levels testifies to the growing tendency towards the decentralization of the Soviet economy. It was revealed that this trend looks less unambiguous if we trace the change in the share of revenues of the republican and local budgets in the structure of the USSR state budget. It is shown that the most important deterrent to the decentralization of the Soviet economy was budget regulation, which allowed the state, on the one hand, to withdraw to the budget most of the profits of the socialist economy, and on the other, to keep the budgetary resources of local authorities under control.

The facts testifying to the intention of the Russian Empire in the middle of the 18th century to establish equal mutually beneficial relations with China is present-ed in the article. Fragments of archival documents (decrees, memoranda, instructions, reports, etc.) about the expedition of the courier V. F. Bratishchev are given. The main attention is paid to the analysis of documents, which provide descriptions of the long preparation of the diplomatic vis-it, negotiations of V. F. Bratishchev with Qing officials in China. The degree of informativeness of documentary sources is assessed. The documents demonstrate the serious intention of the Russian administration to resolve political and economic issues through negotiations that would allow the Russian Empire to strengthen its position in the Far East. The article notes the principles of functioning of the administrative system of the Russian Empire in the middle of the 18^th century. The author of this article considers the diplomatic visit of V. F. Bratishchev to be an example of the clash between the principles of Eurocentrism, which were actively gaining positions in the policy of the Russian ruling elite, and the ideas of the inhabitants of the Middle Empire about the superiority of their own civilization, surrounded by barbarians. Studying this historical event and taking into account the diplomatic mistakes made are relevant both for historical science and modern political interstate interaction.

The article is devoted to the formation of the synodal regime of government of the Russian Orthodox Church and related problems in the relationship between secular and spiritual authorities. Attention is paid to the new policy of the state represented by the Synod in relation to the local episcopate. The peculiarities of the organization of the diocesan administration are characterized on the materials of the Nizhny Novgorod region. A brief biography of the local Bishop Pitirim, one of the close associates of Peter I is presented. The results of the analysis of problems in relations between the state and the church in the political sphere are given. A classification of these problems is proposed on the basis of various aspects of interaction between secular and clergy. Special attention is paid to issues related to the status of the Synod and its real possibilities to represent the interests of the clergy. It is shown on regional material that the clergy, under synodal conditions, found themselves in a dependent position on the authorities, both central and local. The author especially dwells on the facts describing the arbitrariness of officials in relation to persons of clergy, interference in their competence on certain issues. It has been proved that the establishment of the Synod and the general bureaucratization during the reign of Peter I changed the nature of church-state relations and acted as prerequisites for the emergence of new difficulties.

The relevance of the study is due to the importance of digitalization of the country's fuel and energy complex. On the basis of archival data and a study of the assessments of leading experts, the author considers the problem of the decline in innovative activity in the fuel and energy complex (FEC) of the Russian Federation in the context of liberal reforms implemented in the 1990s. As a result of the analysis of documents, statistical data and other materials, it was proved that investment programs were cur-tailed, drilling in the oil and gas industry was reduced to a minimum, and social problems were growing. Particular attention is paid to identifying the reasons for the decline in innovative activity. The conclusion is made that the crisis situation in the fuel and energy complex, the lack of adequate funding has deprived scientists of the opportunity to develop at a level adequate to the requirements of the modern world energy market. The question is raised about the interaction of the heads of the fuel and energy complex with the central state bodies, which were increasingly complicated due to the increasing tax pressure. It is proved that in the conditions of a general crisis of non-payments, enterprises of the fuel and energy complex, having no free funds, practically stopped provisions to the fund for financing re-search and development work (R&D). The stake on the emergence of “effective managers”, attraction of foreign capital, and a system of unaddressed budgetary support for R&D has not justified itself. Import dependence grew, which has not yet been fully overcome.

Based on the materials of the National Archives of France, the activity of graduates-Slavists of the School of Oriental Languages (Paris) in 1918 in Russia is considered. The article focuses on philologists and dip-lomats: A. Mazon, H. Gauquié, J. Sichel-Dulong, P. Blay. Their activity in Soviet Russia and their view of the events taking place in the country are reconstructed on the basis of letters sent to the director of the School of Oriental Languages — P. Boyer. It is shown that many of the ideas declared by specialists in Russian studies are a reflection of the mentality prevailing in the French political elite: the idea of the imminent fall of the Bolshevik power, confidence in the German trace of the Russian revolution, the desire to view the political transformations of Soviet Russia through the prism of French historical and parliamentary experience. It is noted that H. Gauquié, took the most critical position in understanding the events in Russia, placing the needs of the Russian person at the center of his analytical work. The novelty of the research lies in the consideration of the role of France in the escalation of the Civil War in Russia, which for a long time was in the “blind spot” of research interest. The author of the article reconstructs the contacts of the School’s alumni with the anti-Bolshevik underground. The role and importance of scientists in supporting the intelligence activities of France in Soviet Russia are revealed.

The poorly studied initial period of the anti-colonial struggle of the Algerian people against the French occupation is considered. Until 1830, the Algerian Regency was a semi-autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire. It is proved that in the first years after the capture of France, spiritual ties with the former metropolis remained strong and determined the strategies of resistance of the former Turkish ruling elite in the country. The author notes that the last bey of Constantine’s Beylik, Ahmed, loyal to the ideas of Ottomanism, for seven years effectively resisted the attempts of the French to establish themselves in this Algerian province. The article shows that although the attributes of Constantine's independence in those years indicated its Arab character, Ahmed Bey retained the Turkish concept of the state. It is concluded that the legal power, as before, relied on the sanction of the Turkish Sultan, the spiritual and political leader of the Ottoman Empire. The author concludes that Ahmed Bey was defeated without the support of his suzerain. It is proved that he did not manage to enlist the help of Great Britain, which, although opposed to French expansionism, did not consider Algeria so important to enter into a conflict with France because of it.

The study is devoted to the study of the problem of the sanitary-technical and hygienic state of school buildings and premises during the period of intensive development of the network of educational institutions in the West Siberian region in the late 19^th — early 20^th centuries. The purpose of the work is to characterize the conditions for the functioning of rural educational institutions in a remote province, to show their influence on the implementation of the educational process in the designated period. The authors consider the measures taken by the authorities, medical representatives, teachers and community activists to improve the learning environment for students in educational institutions. Considering such characteristics of the functioning of educational institutions as the presence / absence of their own building, floor area for each student, air composition, the ratio of the area of windows as conductors of light to the floor area, water supply sources, heating, ventilation, location and number of latrines (toilets), the frequency and methods of cleaning school premises, the most com-mon diseases of schoolchildren.  The conclusion is made about positive shifts in the organization of medical and sanitary supervision of schools, manifested in the organization of periodic audits of schools (their compliance with the current spatial planning and sanitary requirements was checked), intensification of efforts to update school furniture and its repair, as well as sanitary and hygienic education of students.

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the representation of relations between the nobility and the peasantry in Russian liberal thought at the cusp of XIX—XX centuries. A review of the existing historiography on the problem is carried out, the main attention is paid to the emerging from the middle 1980s the traditions of studying the liberal intelligentsia in Russia and the peculiarities of the relationship between the “educated minority and the peasant world”, an analysis of the latest scientific literature is presented. Special attention is paid to the main research approaches to the study of the topic, microhistorical, positional and other approaches, the concept of “new local history” is highlighted and the need for their complex use is declared. The results of a comparative analysis of various groups of sources are presented: reminiscence and memoirs, periodicals, statistical materials, correspondence. The question is raised about the differences in the self-identification of the Russian nobility, as well as in the mutual representations of the two most important estates of post-reform Russia. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that, on the basis of new methodological approaches, several images of relations between the nobility and the peasantry have been identified at the cusp of XIX—XX centuries: the image of the “new entrepreneurial type”, “guardianship” and “preservation of traditions”, conventionally “lordly”, as well as the image of “free action”; their distinctive characteristics are given. The proposed classification is due to the main ideas of the Russian nobility about the peasants in the context of the institutionalization of liberal ideology.

The issue of the role of education and professional qualifications in the establishment of the highest bureaucratic elite in the Russian Empire in the 19^th — early 20^th centuries is considered in the article. Particular attention is paid to the availability of special (profile) education for ministers and department directors of the main civilian departments. The connection between the attempt to differentiate the requirements for the educational qualification of officials de-pending on the type of service at the beginning of the 19^th century, on the one hand, and projects to abolish civil ranks, on the other are analyzed. The results of a comparative analysis of information about education and service experience of representatives of the highest bureaucracy of various departments are presented. Special attention is paid to medical and “technical” departments, the leadership of which required special qualifications.  It is shown that legal education has come to be considered a profile qualification not only for the judicial, but also for the administrative service. The age characteristics of Russian ministers at the time of their occupation of ministerial posts are given. It has been proved that the problem of raising the educational level of the Russian bureaucracy was largely solved for the upper and middle level of the Russian bureaucracy by the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th centuries, but the problem of professional qualifications still existed, although significant steps were taken to resolve it.

The question of the causes and circumstances of overcoming hunger in Russia in the late 19^th — early 20^th centuries is considered in the article. Attention is paid to the analysis of historiographic material on the research topic. A review of food campaigns in Russia during the specified period is carried out. Particular attention is paid to the issue related to the circumstances of the 1891—1892 campaign, which demonstrated the inconsistency of the Food Regulations in effect in Russia since 1834. The author dwells on the issues of reforming the state food system. The main changes that took place in the state food system and associated with the approval of the food rules of 1900 are considered. The question is raised about the role of local governments in the state food policy of the period under study, as well as the perniciousness of the principle of “self-help”, which is the basis of the state food system. Attention is paid to the organization of charitable assistance to the population in the context of food campaigns. It is proved that the Russian village in the 90s of the XIX — early XX centuries was in a state of permanent food crisis due to the lack of a working model of the state food system.

A historical analysis of research conducted during 1988—1991 by employees of the USSR Academy of Sciences to identify the socio-economic and ethnocultural situation of the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North living in Yakutia is presented in the article. At the same time, the main attention is paid to those materials that most representatively reflect the changes that have occurred in the assessment by scientists of the consequences of the state policy carried out in the Soviet period in the national history of the state policy for indigenous ethnic groups. The sources for the preparation of the article were archival materials identified by the author, as well as published documents and scientific literature data. The work carried out made it possible to determine the main directions of the research, which focused mainly on understanding the impact of management decisions taken by the authorities, as well as changes in the state of the environment under the influence of intensive industrial development on the traditional culture and economy of indigenous peoples. The presented material testifies to the fact that at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, Yakutia actually found itself at the forefront of criticism of the state policy pursued towards the indigenous peoples of the North through-out most of the Soviet period. 

The projects for the creation and reform of the Orthodox anti-pagan missions of the Tobolsk North in the 19^th — early 20^th centuries are discussed in the article. It is noted that the secular and spiritual authorities considered the Christianization of the indigenous population of the region as a mechanism for integration into the space of Russian civilization in the socio-cultural, administrative and economic spheres. It is concluded that many proposals for improving the work of missions were of a complex nature and involved a series of different, in general, very effective measures, such as centralizing the management of missionary affairs, in-creasing the status of the head of the mission, organizing systematic training of Ob Ugric and Samoyed children in schools, expanding the scope of mission by organizing new camps, increasing funding, attracting the most prepared representatives of the black and white clergy to the preaching of the “word of God”, as well as the bourgeois, Cossacks, and Zyryans living in the north. However, it was not possible to bridge the distance between the understanding of the mechanisms for solving the tasks facing the missions and their practical implementation. The lack of systematicity in work, the great influence of the subjective factor associated with the position of individual diocesan bishops, the unresolved personnel issue, hindered the establishment of the activities of Orthodox missions.