The syrinx (ἡ σῦριγξ) or panpipe is one of the oldest woodwind musical instruments. Many studies have shown that this multi-pipe flute was an important part of the pastoral culture in ancient Greece. Here, it is described what the traditional syrinx looked like. An overview is given of the most common materials used in syrinx production. The study has a special focus on the σῦριγξ μονοκάλαμος, which is thought to be the simplest fipple flute, and explores the question of whether it can be termed as the syrinx monokalomos when referring to the musical culture of the polis period. The results obtained during the analysis of ancient written (epic and lyric poetry, as well as works of tragedians of the archaic and classical periods) and pictorial (vase painting of the 6th–4th centuries B.C.) sources reveal how the syrinx was used in ancient Greece apart from the pastoral music: it was played, often in combination with other musical instruments, during ritual rites, such as weddings (in hymeneal songs), funerals, and paean performances, or for pleasure (during leisure activities).

This article considers how the draft to the Athenian hoplite army was organized in the 5th–4th centuries B.C. The available historical sources do not describe the conscription system for hoplites until the 5th century B.C., so its functioning in the archaic period remains unknown. Interestingly, the conscription of hoplites was generally determined by the structure of the civilian part of Athenian society. It could have appeared with the introduction of the phalanx in Athens under Solon and finally took shape after the reforms of Cleisthenes. Over time, this original conscription system underwent major changes: at first, it was based on the conscription lists compiled by each phyle, i.e., the lists of citizens who were to be drafted for a particular campaign; later, the conscription was held by the eponyms, i.e., only citizens of certain age groups were drafted for service. The results obtained show that the new system must have been introduced between 386 and 366 B.C. The conclusion is made that the old conscription system was changed to improve the military structure of the polis.

This article considers the social structure of Laodicea ad Mare between the second half of the 1st century A.D. and the 4th century A.D., i.e., from the beginning of the Roman rule in Syria to the time before the Islamic conquest of the region. The study relies primarily on data from epigraphic writings (such as tomb inscriptions, dedicatory texts, and signatures), as well as on narrative materials and the corpus of Roman law, which are used as additional sources. The evolution of the family institution and the property relations within Laodicean families is analyzed. A portrait of the free citizens of Laodicea who were engaged in handicrafts, especially in the textile industry, is compiled. The life of the city’s rabble is traced. The status, structure, and financial capabilities of the propertied aristocracy are described. Its impact on public life is discussed. Information is provided about the residence of Roman citizens in Laodicea and their activities and influence on the civic community of the city. The results obtained show that the social processes in Laodicea correspond to the basic trends of urban development in Late Antiquity and that this was the period when the social conflict within the Laodicean community intensified. The findings may be useful for students of history faculties and for researchers interested in the history of the Roman Empire and the Near East in Antiquity.

This article describes the events of the 560s, when the queen-nun Radegund acquired the relic of the True Cross for her convent in Poitiers. Her request for the major Christian shrine to the Byzantine Emperor Justin II and his wife Sophia was untimely: the foreign policy situation at that moment was very difficult – the Kingdom of the Franks was divided among the sons of King Chlothar I. Sigebert, the ruler of Austrasia, sought to strengthen his power and influence among the Franks and in the international scene. The conquests of the Lombards forced the Byzantines and the Franks to seek peace with each other. The obtained results show that both states took advantage of the situation with the relic to conclude a peace treaty without openly declaring their intentions. The roles of each participant in the organization of the embassy to the court of Justin II in 568 are considered. The ulterior motives of the poetic messages sent by Radegund to her relatives in Constantinople are analyzed. These events are a good example of how Sigebert, one of the Frankish kings, solved the foreign and domestic political tasks of that time. The casus with the relic of the True Cross reveals the “inside” of the political and diplomatic mechanics in Byzantium and the Frankish kingdoms.

This article is devoted to the foreign policy of England during the reign of Mary Tudor. Based on the views of modern British historians, it considers in particular the relations that established between England and the Habsburg Empire. The results obtained show that England’s foreign policy during that period was obviously defined by the marriage of the queen to Philip of Habsburg, the heir to the Spanish Empire. Traditionally, most historians, regardless of the direction of British historiography to which they belong, have assessed this marriage negatively, as it worsened the relations with France and tightened the domestic religious policy. In recent decades, however, many British historians representing different schools have argued that the union between Mary Tudor and Philip was beneficial to England. They agree that the alliance with the most powerful and richest country in Europe at that time was the only way out for England, which had fallen into a difficult economic situation. The war with France was a good way to divert attention from the religious strife in the country. Since different historical trends and approaches coexist in modern British historiography, many issues related to the study of the foreign policy pursued by Mary Tudor are still debatable and await further research and substantiation.

This article considers the clothing hygiene of the nomads who lived in the Eurasian steppes during the 13th to 16th centuries. The analysis is based on the written sources from various epochs describing the life of the nomads in the Great Steppe, as well as on the data from archaeological surveys, ethnographic materials, and certain areas of medicine. The objective and subjective factors that determined the hygienic practices of the nomads in caring for their clothes are identified. The nomadic costume was designed to meet the needs of the nomadic life: it was practical and comfortable. Most garments were made of natural materials of animal origin and were therefore difficult to wash. For this and some other reasons, the nomads wore their clothes until they were completely worn out and cleaned them using drying, airing, shaking out, and freezing. The clothing hygiene of the noble nomads differed from that of the ordinary ones, mainly in how often they changed garments. Spiritual and ideological factors (prohibitions, superstitions, and omens) also played a certain role, but this needs to be explored in more detail. Since little is known about personal hygiene habits of the nomads, some of the conclusions made here may be controversial, which in turn will fuel further research on the traditional culture of life support among the nomads of the Eurasian steppes.

This article evaluates the reliability of the data on the number of serf households in the “registers” of scriveners on the occasion of the equestrian review of military servicemen in the Moscow ranks that took place in June 1653. The analysis draws on the following official documents: the inventory of peasant and cottar households in the estates and votchinas of scriveners complied in mid-July 1653 in the Pomestny Prikaz and based on the perepisnye, otkaznye, and otdelnye books; the “registers” of military servicemen. The documents studied were deposited in the collection of the Razryadny Prikaz of the Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents (RSAAD). The results obtained show that the numbers of serf households in the “registers” of scriveners are quite credible. However, there are some discrepancies in the number of serf households between the “registers” and the inventory, which is due to the specific way they were recorded in the documentation of the Pomestny Prikaz. If the data of the Pomestny Prikaz differed from those of the handwritten “register”, the serviceman gave explanations “at the reference” – an oral “register”. Thus, in the considered historical sources, the “registers” refer both to the actual handwritten “registers” and the explanations given by scriveners “at the reference” in the Pomestny Prikaz. The findings may be useful for specialists in the history of the Sovereign’s Court, social history, history of public administration, and source studies of clerical documents.

In the ethnographic introduction of the Primary Chronicle, the Slavic tribes living around the Polans are compared to forest animals, which is often regarded by researchers as a vivid example of the construction of a “foe” image and a clear evidence of the blatant ethnocentrism of the Kievan author. This is in stark contrast to the author’s general Slavic patriotism. According to the traditional interpretation of the Book of Hosea in Old Rus’, however, the Jews of the Old Testament were in league with animals as the prophecy that the pagan peoples would be baptized. The overlaps in the texts of the Primary Chronicle and other written sources following the above tradition suggest that the long-established idea, supported by many historiographers, about the unambiguously negative and pejorative juxtaposition of the Slavic tribes with the Polans should be revised. The fragment about the customs of different peoples found in the Primary Chronicle only emphasizes the special role played by the ancestors of the Kievans in the spread of Christianity in the surrounding territories. Furthermore, it was believed that the tribes that would adopt the new faith were not only savage pagans, but also those chosen for salvation.

This article analyzes the references to Antiquity in “The Petition of the Senators to Tsar Peter I for the Adoption of the Title of Peter the Great, the Father of His Homeland and the Emperor of All Russians” (on October 21/22, 1721) and in “The Speech Written and Delivered by Peter I at the Old Trinity Cathedral of St. Petersburg after He Had Read Out the Peace Treaty with Sweden” (on October 22, 1721), when he adopted the above titles). The Latin spellings of these titles in the texts of the 1720s were examined (based on the published version of A.F. Sigismundi’s speech on signing the Treaty of Nystad). The retrospective look of the contemporaries of the studied events at the history of Antiquity was discussed: particular attention was paid to the historical ideas about the ancient Roman state expressed by P.N. Kriokshin, an associate of Peter I, along with his views on the Slavic–Russian history. The commitment to the values of ancient societies (heroic service to the Homeland, patriotism, valor, and courage) along with the political focus on the image of the Roman state strengthened the socioideological background of the Russian statehood. In was concluded that the great figures who shaped the Russian empire in the 18th century were concerned, consciously and purposefully, with providing additional stability to the whole system and thus relied on the past experience of Antiquity. 

This article summarizes the experience in the broadcasting and promoting among the general population the views expressed by the Russian conservative thought during the early 20th century on acute social problems, including the worker and peasant questions. As one of the most striking examples, N.D. Obleukhov’s article “Tsarist autocracy as a bulwark of public freedom and equality”, which was published in December 1915 in three issues of the right-wing daily newspaper “Russkoe Znamya” (‘Russian Banner’), is analyzed. The obtained results reveal that the beliefs of the rightwing Russian monarchists were based to a certain degree on democratic ideas, such as the demand for extensive public self-government to control the establishment and development of new internal class organizations, particularly those for workers and peasants, as well as for the abolition of the privileges of the ruling class. According to this system, the “tsarist autocracy” appears to be the only force capable of truly protecting the interests of the working people, while the proponents of the constitution, including social democrats, directly or indirectly promote the interests of the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, N.D. Obleukhov proposed some tactics to preserve and further advance monarchical ideas among workers and peasants – they were limited to “permissible and quite legitimate ways” without armed struggle. N.D. Obleukhov’s article thus shows that the Russian monarchists held a controversial position on the eve of the revolution: on the one hand, they opposed the administrative authorities and the ruling elite of that time, but, on the other hand, they grew distant from the common people because of their radical revolutionary ideology. 

This article discusses the teaching methods that shaped the Russian school in the 19th century. The image of an “ideal teacher” is analyzed based on the recollections of historians of that period. The dynamics of its features is explored on a historical time scale. The factors that forced its transformation and evolution are considered. The sources used include memoirs written between the 1860s and 1870s, as well as those published at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. The first group of memoirs is characterized by the juxtaposition of the “old” and “new” history teachers who differed in their preferred “teaching methods”, moral beliefs, and attitudes to teaching. In the second group of memoirs, the trend to a negative view of the “old” teachers and the effectiveness of their methods is rejected, while the “young” teachers are criticized. The obtained results show that an “ideal history teacher” was endowed by the memoirists of the 1840s and 1850s with such new personal and professional qualities as: humanity, morality, “expertise” (a high level of scientific knowledge), as well as a sincere desire to awake students’ interest in what they are being taught and to help them become self-reliant in their reasoning.

This article deals with the memoirs of A.V. Zhivago (1860–1940), a famous Moscow doctor, about the years he spent at the Third Moscow Men’s Gymnasium. He came from the highly cultured RyazanMoscow merchant family and was related to the Alekseev family (Zhivago was a lifelong friend of K.S. Stanislavsky). Zhivago’s younger sister was married to A.P. Chekhov’s attending physician in Germany. His great uncle was the first Russian business partner of Heinrich Schliemann, the future archaeologist. In 1873–1877 and 1878–1879, N.I. Kareev (1850–1931), a distinguished historian, taught history to Zhivago at the gymnasium. Kareev’s methodical attitude and the charm of his personality instilled in Zhivago a deep respect for the historical past and a desire to understand the material sources: his pedagogical method assumed the involvement of older students in scientific activities, as well as the use of illustrative materials and additional literature; he also argued that political and cultural history is inseparable from the history of art. Zhivago’s solid education in the field of historical and museum disciplines is thus to Kareev’s credit. This background enabled him to work as a lecturer at the Department of Coptology and Ancient Egypt of the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts) from 1919 to 1937.

This article summarizes the results of a study on the daily life of students at the Kazan Imperial Theological Academy in 1914–1917 when the life of civilians was severely affected by the First World War. Through the analysis of archival materials and literary sources, a close look is taken at such major constituents of everyday activities as space and time, material means, as well as clothing and dietary habits. During that period, most students resided in boarding houses, which also determined their living conditions: state-paid students received food, sleeping and working space, clothes, treatment, etc. The life of all students of the Academy revolved around the main building on the Arsk Field of Kazan. They spent most of their time there but were occasionally allowed to make short-term trips into the city. When the First World War broke out, the students started visiting more places. They went to the infirmaries and hospitals to take part in religious sermons and entertainment events. Many of them fell into a poor financial situation because the annual basic scholarship was only enough to pay for staying at the boarding house. The canteen no longer served sufficient meals, especially during the fast, so the students were malnourished and forced to seek out other sources of food. They were offered nutritious food only on holidays. The statutory clothes (raincoats, uniforms, jackets, trousers, and shoes) supplied by the Academy were of little use to keep warm in the cold seasons. In 1917, the biggest changes occurred. The premises of the Academy were gradually militarized. By the end of the year, due to the social upheavals and the economic crisis, only 142 out of 300 students continued their education. They were mainly accommodated in government apartments, and the classes were held either in the assembly hall or in the rector’s apartment.

This article honors M. Gorky, the renowned proletarian writer, and considers his correspondence with Kazan schoolchildren and students of the Kazan Technical Plant in the 1920s and 1930s. So far, these letters have received little attention from researchers, but their value for raising young Soviet citizens in line with the new trends of Soviet education and state ideology is undeniable. Here, M. Gorky’s epistolary heritage and journalistic statements are analyzed, and 12 letters written to him by Kazan children are studied. The letters are available in the A.M. Gorky Archive of the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (AG IWL RAS) and introduced for the first time into the scholarly discourse. The analysis shows that M. Gorky was always considerate and thoughtful towards his young addressees so that he became a mentor to the younger Soviet generation. The survey reveals that the children’s letters have a rich informational and source potential. They provide a better insight into the psychological and social image of the Soviet people in the 1920s and 1930s. The results obtained are relevant to future studies on the epistolary and journalistic heritage of M. Gorky and add considerably to our understanding of the historical and literary process of that epoch. The epistolary materials involved in the study should be of interest to anyone curious about the Soviet period.

This article examines the changes in the higher education system of Russia during the 1930s when the long-established educational system was transformed to meet the state’s demands. The Soviet state faced the problem of training and fostering highly qualified specialists to solve the problems of the country’s industrialization. For this reason, an extensive campaign was launched to create technical universities in the country. The Middle Volga region, where several technical universities were opened in a short time, played an important role in this process. Based on archival documents, the steps taken to build a new higher school are analyzed. Due to the state demand for the economy industrialization, new forms of work organization were introduced into the professional activities of professors and lecturers, in some cases either against their actual will or under pressure from the authorities. A close connection between science and production contributed to the emergence of new work formats that did not always “fit” into the academic environment. By the end of the 1930s, however, the Soviet state, which had set a clear course for the development of industrialization, defined technical specialization as a priority direction in the system of higher education.

This article traces the life of Faddey Vladislavovich Gregorovich, a prominent professor of the Department of Criminal Law and Procedure at the Imperial Kazan University who has almost faded from the memory of most scholars today. The documents from the State Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Kalvaryja Cemetery in Minsk are analyzed. New documents that give a picture of F.V. Gregorovich’s family circle, which influenced his choice of profession, and solve the dispute on the exact date of his death are introduced and discussed for the first time. These new documents not only fill in some gaps in F.V. Gregorovich’s biography but also reveal how the scholar developed a strong passion for the theory of criminal law throughout his life. The myth about a conflict between F.V. Gregorovich and A.A. Piontkovsky is proven to be groundless. The cause of F.V. Gregorovich’s early retirement is identified: he was diagnosed with a nervous disease, and it led to his negative image in historiography. Since F.V. Gregorovich took part in the V International Prison Congress of 1895, it means that the academic community of the period under study recognized the establishment of prison studies as a special branch of jurisprudence at the Kazan University.

This article discusses the development of the culture of dissertation research in archaeology in the Kazan Governorate and the TASSR between the 1910s and 1940s. The central role in this process was played by A.P. Smirnov and N.F. Kalinin, two prominent archaeologists, as well as by V.F. Smolin and M.G. Khudyakov, their predecessors. A.P. Smirnov developed a research passion for studying the archaeology and history of the Volga Bulgaria in the early 1930s, and N.F. Kalinin became interested in exploring the primitive era during the second half of the 1940s. The large-scale excavations of the Suvar and Bolghar (since 1938) settlements offered a solid methodological background for A.P. Smirnov’s doctoral dissertation. In his work, he introduced a new approach to addressing a number of controversial issues, such as the dating of the emergence of the Bolghar settlement, by using archeological data. The outbreak of the war forced A.P. Smirnov to change his plans: he defended his dissertation in Moscow as early as 1944. N.F. Kalinin’s dissertation was based on the archaeological collections of the Neolithic, Bronze, and Early Iron Ages stored at the Kazan Museum; these were the well-known materials with a historiographical tradition. The problems of academic communication during the period before these two dissertations had been defended are addressed. The early stages of institutionalization of this process are analyzed. 

This article explores the life and work of B.F. Sultanbekov, a prominent Tatar historian, archivist, and publicist, using the documents from the State Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan, as well as his published writings, personal materials, and memoirs. The landmarks of B.F. Sultanbekov’s biography and his development as a historian are traced. The factors that influenced his personality are considered. The people who shaped his views are discussed. Particularly emphasized is the important role played by B.F. Sultanbekov in managing the archives and records of the Republic of Tatarstan. He also contributed immensely to the restoration of the historical truth about the Stalinist repressions and helped many repressed figures get their good names back. The research interests of B.F. Sultanbekov are analyzed, and the reasons why he focused on certain problems and historical events of Russia and Tatarstan during the 20th century are disclosed. His approaches to analysis and work with the sources are summarized: he paid great attention to personal testimonies and studied historical events through the fates of the people who witnessed them.

This article focuses on how Italian higher education was organized and managed in the early years of fascism. The main reasons why the fascist government of Italy initiated a national educational reform in 1923 are considered. The objective problems in education that Italian society faced during this period are analyzed. Special attention is given to the ideological goals that Giovanni Gentile, the Minister of Education, pursued with this reform. The reform led to fundamental changes in the traditional educational system of the Kingdom of Italy. Some radical innovations were also spurred in its higher education, such as the division of universities into different types (depending on state funding), the enhancement of the role of the rector in university life, the valorization of humanities education over that in technical and natural sciences, etc. The Gentile reform was received with mixed feelings by Italian society, including part of the leadership of the fascist party. The contradictions inherent in the reform ideology affected its results. The attempt to improve the quality of university education by standardizing academic requirements and introducing a system of uniform state examinations, contrary to the idealistic goals declared by G. Gentile himself, was the first step toward greater interference by the fascist regime in university activities, reflecting the general trend to the establishment of full state control over society.

In this article, the adoption of a legitimate language by the Mongolian People’s Republic following the language reform of the 1930s, which involved the switch to the Latin script, is considered. The language policy pursued by the MPR in the early 20th century is investigated from the perspective of the legitimate language theory. By that period, the traditional Mongolian script had become outdated and needed to be reformed. Furthermore, the illiteracy rate among Mongolian people was very high, and the old Mongolian script was difficult to study. Another reason is that the language turned into the main tool for promoting the new cultural and ideological values of the USSR. Thus, the shift of Mongolia to the writing system based on the Latin alphabet was a political phenomenon and played a key role in broadcasting the cultural policy of the new state. In the early years of the MPR, the Latin-based writing solved several problems at once: it promoted literacy among Mongolian people, gave greater publicity to the policy of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and the new culture, and became a platform to bring together Mongolia and the USSR. To substantiate the importance of the Latin graphics as the official state script, Pierre Bourdieu’s “Language and Symbolic Power” is analyzed, in which the author discusses the origin of the legitimate language and script, as well as their role in the process of nation building. Here, the documents in both Russian and Mongolian are also examined. The obtained results demonstrate that, despite various difficulties, the Latin script was adopted for a quite short period of time as legitimate in the MPR, which had a great influence on the development of the socialist culture and the Mongolian national identity.

Abstract

This article reviews P.S. Kabytov and N.A. Fedorova’s monograph on the life and work of Professor I.M. Ionenko. Both authors were supervised by I.M. Ionenko as students and postgraduate students. They share what they know about his life experience, his development as a historian and lecturer, and his involvement in public activities. The personality of I.M. Ionenko, the esteemed teacher and true mentor who encouraged his students to take a professional approach to discover the historical truth, is considered in the context of the times in which he lived and worked. He believed that the success of teaching the younger generation of historians depends not only on how they learn to use certain tools in their research but also on how strong the bond is between the students and their teacher. The authors managed to vividly describe the natural charm of I.M. Ionenko as a person. He taught them to extract information correctly, to fit it into the system of moral coordinates, as well as to avoid attributing every historical problem to ideology and politics. I.O. Ionenko adhered to the following two principles: “a historian must first of all have a conscience” and “without the truth of history there is no truth of life.” The monograph is primarily helpful for young people who want to become professional historians.