The Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus possesses a century-old repository of archaeological artefacts obtained during planned and rescue excavations. Iron items are a true gem of this collection. Until recently, stabilization, conservation, and restoration of iron artefacts remained a relevant problem, a lot of items being lost to corrosion. The experimental laboratory for stabilization and conservation of archaeological iron, which appeared in 2019, stabilizes iron artefacts by treating them with thin alkaline sulfite solution under ultrasound. This method is extremely effective against active corrosion. More than 200 iron objects have already undergone a full cycle of conservation. Half of them is deposited in the repositories of the Institute of History, and the other half is exhibited at its archaeological scientific museum. Restoration preserves metal objects for research, increases their interpretability, and introduces them into scientific circulation. Their appearance being restored, iron artefacts can be exhibited both at stationary and traveling exhibitions, thus popularizing the domestic archaeology and encouraging cooperation with Russian historians. 

Along with ordinary utilitarian things, Seymа-Turbinо casters made technically advanced products devoid of pragmatic functions. Miniature copies of full-size prestigious products were found in graves and shrines. Probably, communities of metalworkers treated these miniature tools as material symbols of their group identification. Numerous finds made in Petrovka, Sintashta, and Seymа-Turbino archeological sites mean that these metal miniatures were in high demand. Low-rank metal workers might have been buried with miniature samples of less technologically advanced tools. Full-size sophisticated tools, as well as their miniature copies in children's graves, could symbolize individual status. Miniature artistic castings that served as pommels on massive curved knives marked the prestigious status of this type of weapon and symbolically equated it with the Tools of the Creation. The figurines that adorned the Seyma-Turbino weapon not only emphasized its impressive size, but also gave the owners of these perfect products a higher social status. The miniature sculpture, which adorned only some of the Seyma-Turbino metal products, individualized serial samples. Thus, the microtechnics reflected not only the new possibilities of Seyma-Turbino metalworking, but also the regulatory requirements for the design of prestigious metal products. The renewal of the material ambiance was caused by the spread of serial products, the so-called quick things. It reflected the need to strengthen the connection between the owner and the possession, which was inherent to individual single-piece production 

The article features the elemental composition of copper and bronze sickle-shaped tools of the Tagar culture. The structure and composition of metal sickles have been the focus of chemical and spectral quantitative analyses since the 1950s. The paper introduces new data obtained by X-ray fluorescence, energy dispersive, and atomic emission spectral methods. The chemical and chemical-metallurgical features of the alloys add to the external descriptions of the Tagar metal tools. The research objective was to identify the features of Tagar copper-bronze sickles based on the chemical-metallurgical profile of the alloys. The authors also analyzed the effect of the alloy formulations on the morphological and metric characteristics of the tools, compared the bronze formulations with surface patterns, and established the copper ore sources. The study revealed no relationships between the bronze formulations and the morphological and metric indicators. An attempt to search for correlations showed two types of sickle-shaped tools. By measuring the length of the base and the height of the blade, the authors restored the actual sickles and reaping knives. The second type tools came from the Mariinsk-Achinsk foreststeppe. An analysis of the geochemical impurities in high-concentration copper indicated that the ore used in the Tagar tools was similar to that mined in the Glafirinsk and Kharadzhul-Butrakhty mines in the eastern foothills of the Kuznetsk Alatau. The sickle-shaped tools might also have been used to harvest fodder for livestock. 

The article features the staff, manpower, occupation, and subordination issues in the military corps of the Kuznetsk district in the fi st half of the XVIII century. Th frontier exploration into the southern border regions of Western Siberia caused administrative transformations in the region. The research relied on management and accounting documentation from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. Th author reviewed the structure of the service activities of the irregular military corps, which included both ordinary assignments to the border area for riverside patrol and extraordinary assignments for the construction of new fortifications. The Kuznetsk authorities did their best to reduce the administrative burden. The archival documents prove that the actual number of the military people in the district reduced as a result of the changes in the military, political, and management situation. By the mid 1740s, the local civil authorities had completely lost administrative control over the military staff, which passed into the hands of military departmental structures.

The present research featured the social structure of the Pskov Province in the 1760s. The cities of Pskov and Velikiye Luki were the two most densely populated areas in the region, but this study also covered the less populated Gdov urban area. The author relied on church records, e.g. confession lists and metric books, from the State Archive of the Pskov Province. The research also included original and scientifically processed audit descriptions. They proved to be a novel and extensive source of data that made it possible to describe the demographic and social structure of pre-revolutionary provincial Russia. The analysis revealed the quantitative, gender, income, and religious characteristics of the local population in the 1780s. The population of the Pskov Province was mainly represented by Russians peasants, especially in the area of Velikiye Luki. Velikiye Luki and Pskov had an exceptionally large number of peasant city-dwellers, which was untypical for the provincial society of that time. In general, the 1760s saw a considerable growth of taxable population in the Pskov Province.

The article presents the history of planning, discussion, and approval of the Tomsk provincial budgets by the central departments in the early XX century. The analysis included documents on preparation and adoption of three-year estimates and revealed a high degree of interest in agrarian transformations, both on the part of the local population and the provincial administration. The appropriations approved and implemented in practice included the allocation of funds for dairy experts and experimental farms. However, the budgets drafted by the provincial administration faced significant restrictions from the central departments as a result of the poor legislative grounds. While planning the draft budget for 1915–1917, the Tomsk provincial agronomist put forward a large-scale project for agricultural development, which included a big experimental station. The proposals were discussed by the local committees and received a mixed assessment, e.g., the Biysk committee supported the plan, but the Zmeinogorsk committee was very skeptical about it. Despite the considerable preparatory work, the central department reduced the final version of the provincial budget by 53%.

This article features the contemporary politicy of memory in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), as well as the role of historical politics in the development of national memory and identity. Methodologically, the research relied on the principles of the memorial turn and memory policy within the paradigm of intellectual history and the history of ideas. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of common and unique features of historical politics as a politics of memory in Yakutia because non-European cultures still remain underrepresented in historiography. The author also analyzed the role of state strategies and media actors in the development of collective historical memory, as well as the role of state events in the local memorial policy, e.g., the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Sakha. The author believes that historical politics contributes to the development of national identity via the culture of memory and the memorial canon. The results of the study suggest that elites became the main actor of historical policy because they shape the local memorial culture in an attempt to legitimize their own status with the help of various memory tools, including narrative practices and their visualization. 

This article reviews domestic approaches to the issue of the revolutionary committees in Siberia during the Civil War, e.g., their genesis, development, status, structure, forms, methods, activities, social and party composition, interaction with each other and the Russian Communist Party, the transfer of power to the Soviets and Executive Committee, etc. Soviet historians were unanimous in their positive assessment of the revolutionary committees as the organs of proletariat dictatorship that waged a relentless struggle against class enemies and defended the revolutionary progress. However, this approach resulted from the rigid ideological guidelines of the Soviet period. The collapse of the communist ideology liberated the domestic historical science from the comprehensive control of the Party and state organs. Post-Soviet historians expanded the range of methodological approaches and principles, which allowed them to take a new perspective of the Siberian revolutionary committees. They were able to clarify the motives behind the revolutionary committees, determine their place in the system of Bolshevik power, identify their relationship with higher Party and Soviet structures, reveal the level of education and qualifications of their leaders and members, etc. The topic of the Siberian revolutionary committees has received enough scientific attention. However, some gaps still remain, e.g., staff structure, the exact mechanism of their interaction with the Party, their influence on the political, social, economic, and cultural development of Siberia, etc.

During the Civil war, A. V. Kolchak's government had no time to resolve numerous practical issues. That is why his government restored the former public authority and self-government institutions. The local population was concerned about the land issue, but the government provided no answer. Instead, they restored land committees as per the legislation of the Provisional government. Their main task was to elaborate on the land reform. However, the status of the institutions was uncertain, and they were not easily restored in the region after the Soviet rule. Following the necessity to regulate land relations on the spot, the authorities had to reform the restored committees. The Decree of the Provisional government dated April 21, 1917, attributed these structures with both elements of public authority and local self-government. Kolchak's government tried to apply the experience of the Perm province in Siberia, so the local committees were transferred completely to the local self-government system as departments of the regional "zemstvos", or municipalities. Lacking respective powers, the local self-government failed to solve the land issue within the short period of Kolchak’s rule. In the wake of military losses, Kolchak's government set up the Land Council in May 1919. However, the Perm region was re-occupied by the bolshevists in June-July 1919, and all the institutions were replaced by the Soviet ones. Unfortunately, A. V. Kolchak’s agrarian policy received almost no scientific attention. This article features the activities of the land authorities in the Perm province during the regime of Kolchak’s government. Its scientific novelty lies in a comprehensive systematic study of the restoration of land committees in the Perm province and their further transformation. Archival data made it possible to define the place of land authorities in the system of state and public structures under the brief rule of A. V. Kolchak.

This paper attempts to identify and systematize the main approaches to the theater of absurd and absurdist drama in Western and Russian literary studies. The term theater of the absurd was originally introduced by Martin Esslin. This concept has become a common denominator and refers to the dramatic work of such famous authors as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Harold Pinter, Arthur Adamov, and Jean Genet. Martin Esslin and his followers brought in several important features into the absurdist drama, i.e., alogism, disjointed communication, wordplay (Patrice Pavis), etc. They attempted to conceptualize the theater of the absurd as a part of a broader typological unit, e.g., Michael Bennett’s theater of parabola. Russian scholars and critics have developed a range of important concepts as well. They see absurd as a violation of basic rules of communication (Olga Revzina, Isaac Revzin). The Union of Real Art (Mikhail Yampolskiy, Dmitry Tokarev) focuses on the principle of serialized eventfulness. Others concentrate on the meta-descriptive nature of absurd (Evgenyi Kluev) and develop the concept of absurdity as a picture of the world (Olga Burenina-Petrova). Both in Western and Russian studies, the conceptualization of the theater of the absurd follows two opposite poles: absurd can be interpreted as either a linguistic phenomenon (deconstruction of communication), or as a certain way of human existence. During the 1980–2000s, post-structuralist philosophy played a major role in the re-thinking of the absurd, while the interaction of philosophical and literary approaches determined the principles of historical aesthetics. As suggested by contemporary researchers, the discourse of the absurdist drama has the following features: deconstruction of cultural codes; actualization of the archaic basis of theater; parodying literal and theatrical conventions; problematization of the semiotic linkage (sign and its referent); depiction of mosaic consciousness and unstable cosmos.

: The Old English poem Seasons for Fasting was written in the X century and consists of 230 lines. This article describes it through the prism of fasting in the Old English tradition. Like any other Old English Christian sermon, Seasons for Fasting focused on the moral rules of Christian life. It represented the first procedures for seasonal fasts. The author translated the poem and performed an interdisciplinary study of the phenomenon of fasting against the background of the indisputable position of faith in the Anglo-Saxon culture. The Old and New Testaments, as well as the Indo-European myths, showed the deep cultural interconnection of archaic traditions. A detailed idea of divinely revealed truth was reflected already in the earliest Christian texts where references to commandments from the Old Testament intertwined with the moral principles of the New Testament. The goal of the study was to determine the complex nature of the traditional methods used for philological analysis  of texts and the semiotic approach to texts. The view of food as sacred and profane was manifested already at the early stages of the religious consciousness development. Traditionally, fasting issues were considered as part of prayer appeals. Seasons for Fasting stressed the New Testament idea that sinners could not enter the Kingdom of God without repentance and awareness of their unrighteous life. The paper highlights the symbolism of fire, mountains, cosmos, sacrifice, submersion, burial, and the Kingdom of Heaven. The article also provides a list of variant addresses to God used in the poem: the Old English period saw a well-developed Christian tradition, which had no direct naming for the devil.

This article discusses the strategies of visual representation and the status of visual images in Mariam Petrosyan's novel The Gray House, originally published in Russian as The House in Which... The novel is an excellent example of magical realism in contemporary literature. Dispersed throughout the text, visual images have an important role in understanding the fictional world. The characters of the novel sketch animals or fantastic creatures, which become their signatures. The pattern is similar to that of a magical ritual. These drawings and graffiti help the characters to communicate with the mystical House, where they all live. The drawings represent someone or something, while being themselves the subject of representation, which complicates the structure of the novel and requires readers’ reflection. The allegorical nature of the drawings creates the semantic continuity of the House because the characters share the same way of self-expression. The images created by Smoker are special because this character belongs to the House only partially. Smoker’s drawings clearly demonstrate his alienness in the world of the House, but they provide a metaphorical understanding of the House and offer its artistic interpretation. They serve as an alternative key to deciphering the mystical nature of the space. Smoker’s drawings reveal the concept of time distorted by the House

This article features two versions of A Chapter from the History of Charles V written by Louis Xavier Auguet de Saint- Sylvain, Baron de los Valles. The original French version was published in 1835, while the Spanish translation appeared 1837. The text describes the background and the start of the First Carlist War in Spain in 1833–1835. The author was a confidant of Don Carlos, and so his book reflected the Carlist perspective. The author believes that the Spanish translation included certain semantic modifications and additions made due to fit the changing political situation. These almost imperceptible modifications were able to change the perception of some military and political figures of the era, e.g., former Minister F. T. Calomarde, Carlist general V. Gonzalez Moreno, Christino general and future Regent B. Espartero, etc. The research objective was to show how Baron de los Valles interpreted the events related to the capture of Villafranca by the Carlists in 1834. This historical episode, later popularized by numerous memoirs and fiction, appeared only in the Spanish version of the book. The account made by the Baron de los Valles differed from the versions of other memoirists, as well as from the official press reports. A Chapter from the History of Charles V by Baron de los Valles has a low value as a historical source, but presents a considerable interest as an example of Carlist propaganda during the war of 1833–1840.