This article examines the organization of military training of school students of Khanty-Mansi National Okrug (Ugra) in 1941–1945. The author believes that using this example, it is possible not only to identify the real capacity of schools in the Soviet province to train Red Army soldiers in extreme wartime conditions, but also to assess the results of the development of national education in the region. The work draws on the materials of local archives, as well as the memories of former students of the region during the Great Patriotic War. Using historical, genetic, and statistical methods, the author identifies the origins and results of military training in schools of the USSR. It is claimed that it was practised starting with the Law on Military Service in the Soviet Union in 1925, but with the beginning of World War II, it was finally formalized in the form of a new Law on Military Service in 1939, in the resolution of the State Defence Committee of September 17, 1941, on the universal compulsory military training of citizens of the USSR. As a result, military training was introduced as a compulsory subject in the schools of Khanty-Mansi National Okrug. According to plan, students would master drill, tactical, fire, chemical warfare training, skills of a single fighter of the Red Army, as well as group combat operations. However, in practice, the research materials indicate that in the schools of the Soviet province, there were considerable difficulties with the availability of training weapons, gas masks, shovels, sports equipment and even geographical maps and globes! There were also considerable problems with military education instructors, their low qualification, which is why military training classes were not always held at a high level. The organization of military training for students at Ugra schools in 1941–1945 showed a low level of their material and personnel base and sidelined the tasks of developing national education in the region, which was not particularly important in the preparation of reserves for the Red Army.

This article examines the reasons and mechanics behind the mothballing of industrial construction in the USSR during the industrialization era referring to the materials on the construction of the Bakal Metallurgical Combine in Chelyabinsk. The main reason is said to have been the discrepancy between the economic interests of the top party leadership of the USSR, which wanted to meet the planned indicators for ferrous metallurgy production that had increased in 1930 by creating a large metallurgical plant in the Urals, and the Main Directorate of the Metallurgical Industry of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR (since 1932 — the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR), which was aware of the isolation of the gigantic construction from the real growth potential of the branch. It is concluded that the branch administration treated the directives of the political centre formally, striving to make the results of the construction of the plant reversible and thus avoid wasting scarce resources. This was what could be called political economy of failure — a strategy of reducing costs while being unable to influence investment decisions, which allowed for the sacrifice of formally started construction projects immediately after the start of work in order to redistribute resources in favour of projects closest to completion. Since the possibilities of forcing economic agents to implement construction projects were limited, it should be noted that, in fact, the central directives regarding the construction of the Bakal Combine were advisory in nature. However, even the suspended construction had tangible material consequences in the form of a large barrack settlement, access roads, and other communications. Emotional investments were also important, forcing the Bakal project to be recalled in the public sphere, despite the absence of real work on its construction site. The combination of these consequences created the opportunity to complete the project in the early 1940s, when the priority of the project changed dramatically under the conditions of the Great Patriotic War.

This article analyses the distinctive characteristics of literary portrayals of ethnocultural individuals residing in the eastern frontier regions during the period of Russian exploration in the Far East during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Referring to the travel prose of S. V. Maksimov, N. M. Przhevalsky, A. V. Eliseev, and D. I. Schreider, the author provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the artistic representation of “foreigners” from the generalised description of ethnocultural communities coexisting on the territory of the cross-cultural space of the eastern frontier to the appearance of personalised images of ethnocultural characters in the frontier narrative. The objective of the study is to examine the specifics of the representation of “foreigners” in literature about the Far East from the perspective of frontier poetics. The author employs the comparative-historical method, which provides a comparison of similar elements in literature, folklore, and mythology, as well as the structural-semiotic method, which makes it possible to identify the constant elements of the artistic whole. The author suggests that the narratives of the eastern frontier are represented by two types of ethnocultural characters, which became constant for the subsequent literary tradition: 1) those acting in natural locations; 2) those appearing in a multiethnic urban space. The article highlights the differential features of each type of characters in terms of genre and stylistic dominants and analyses the methods of their artistic personalisation. As a result, the author concludes that the appearance in the literature of the eastern frontier of the image of ethnocultural characters in the space of “taiga” is associated with the ecosophical concept. This resulted in a shift in perspective within Russian literature, where the frontier opposition between “wildness” and “civilization” was reinterpreted as a contrast between “nature” and “civilization.” The generalised symbolic mythologisation of the characters of the “taiga space” as the embodiment of the ideal of harmony between man and nature determined the constancy of this type in 20th-century literature (V. K. Arseniev, N. A. Baikov, M. M. Prishvin, O. M. Kuvaev, V. P. Sysoev), while the type of ethnocultural characters in the “urban” space is characterised by a high degree of social and historical conditioning. The shift in the vector of depicting “foreigners” towards artistic personalisation is due to the development of ethnic tolerance in the conditions of the multicultural eastern frontier.

This paper analyses mythopoetic strategies in Tatyana Tolstaya’s artistic world with reference to four collections (Light Worlds (2014), Invisible Maiden (2015), Girl in Bloom (2015), Felt Age (2015)), which make up the tetralogy of the writer’s new prose. The author reveals the features and main mythopoetic strategies in the artistic world of T. Tolstaya. More particularly, the article analyses the appeal to mythological structures, the play with different types of myths, the use of mythologems and various kinds of mythological images, the inclusion of mythological plots, and the creation of a mythologically coloured chronotope. It is shown that not only the author but also many characters of the works of the collections are endowed with the ability to create myths. Frequently, the author’s position diverges from the position of the hero in understanding the myth, and one sees the transition of mythologisation into demythologisation at the level of the author or the character, sometimes in re-mythologisation, when the author “recreates”, revives a cancelled or crossed out myth. In the tetralogy of new prose, T. Tolstaya often exposes the mechanisms of myth-making (referring to the cinema, literature, painting, or history). As a result of the analysis, conclusions are drawn about the reasons and purposes of the writer’s appeal to the structure of myth and the use of mythopoetic techniques. With the help of myth, Tolstaya does not only develop her own recognisable style but also analyses modern reality in an axiological way: sometimes it is irony or satirical comprehension of reality, playing up cultural myths introduced into the modern world, and sometimes myth helps give a clear assessment of the events taking place, to reveal eternal values for man and art.

This article studies the perceptual metaphors introduced as an allusion in V. Nabokov’s autobiographies Drugie Berega (1954) and Speak, Memory (1966). The authors refer to scholarly works devoted to the peculiarities of the representation of sensual feelings in Nabokov’s works in Russian and English. For the first time, they establish that the reader’s associations are evaluated as a natural element of perception. The representation of the reader’s experience depends on the choice of language. In Drugie Berega, perceptual metaphors form reminiscent layers (Pushkin, Tolstoy, Blok) associated with the narrator’s specific childhood and youth memories. In Speak, Memory, perceptual metaphors functioning as allusions are presented explicitly: they are attributed, and they organise entire plots (for example, the plot about “Le Chemin du Pendu”). Communicating with the American reader, Nabokov highlights that the worlds of Russian classical literature are the key part of his language consciousness. The connections between language, literature, and sensorial perception are conveyed through transliterations in the English text. In comparison with the Russian autobiography, in Speak, Memory the allusive meaning of some metaphors is neutralised: the sensorial feelings are shown as a unique physiological experience. The authors prove that perceptual metaphors are used by Nabokov to comprehend the boundaries of cultural memory. Reader associations underscore the connections between different people with a common reading experience and mechanism of perception. Therefore, the perceptual metaphors functioning as allusions allow Nabokov to convey a special type of synesthesia: sensory feelings and the reader’s experience are mixed in the process of the perception.

This review considers a popular scholarly book by V. V. Tikhonov, a leading specialist in the history of Russian historical studies of the twentieth century, devoted to the description of the complex relationship between historical studies and political-ideological structures during the Stalin era. The author covers questions about the influence of Stalin’s views on the production of scientific knowledge, the making of historical films, the course and outcome of individual discussions in academia, the formation of the cult of historical heroes, the peculiarities of ideological campaigns and the role of ‘little people’ in them, and the significance of anniversaries for the formation of the ideological narrative. This book may prove useful not only for a general audience, but also for specialists, as in addition to presenting facts on the history of science, the author also formulates problems that need to be solved.

This paper considers the process of institutionalisation of the first academic establishments in Perm, i. e. the Department of Polymer Physics, the Department of Microorganism Breeding and Genetics of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology and the Laboratory of Complex Economic Research of the Institute of Economics, which began their activities in 1971 in the system of the Ural Scientific Centre of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The research methodology is based on the concepts of “center — periphery: the diffusion of innovations” and “economy of approvals / bargaining”, the effectiveness of which in studying scientific and technical policy and academic “construction” in the eastern regions of the country is demonstrated in the papers of E. G. Vodichev and Yu. I. Uzbekova. The study draws upon administrative documents of the supreme party and Soviet bodies (decisions of the CPSU congresses, resolutions of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers); office documents of the Perm Regional Committee of the CPSU, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Ural Scientific Centre, divisions of the Perm group of scientific institutions (resolutions, business correspondence, project and reporting documentation); periodicals (Vestnik AN SSSR, Nauka Urala); ego-documents (memories of the first heads of Perm academic institutions, autobiographical and diary entries of M. N. Stepanov). The author examines the grounds for formulating the Perm academic project (the general trend in Soviet scientific and technical policy; the factor of Perm being the “capital city” of the Western Urals; the achievements of Perm scientists and the scientific schools that were being formed). Additionally, the article demonstrates the complex process of coordinating the statuses and names of specific institutions, giving a classification of the types of main actors in accordance with their roles in the project (customer, developer, “sponsor”, “lobbyist”).

This article is devoted to a linguocultural study of urbanonyms of Ekaterinburg in the context of representation of industrial culture. Factories have played a pivotal role in the development of the sociocultural environment of the Ural city and in the exploration of its physical space. As proper names of topographic objects are closely related to the particularities of the spiritual and material culture of a society, the urbanonyms of Ekaterinburg can be regarded as a transmitter of value-based perceptions connected to the dynamics of the city’s industrial life. The article describes semantic variants of objectification of the “industrial” nomination theme in urban toponyms of Ekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) and attempts to reveal the topicality of industrial culture for the modern urbanonymic nomination. The language material of the research involves urbanonyms from several types of proper names (horonyms, hodonyms, agoronyms, monumentonyms, and partially oikodomonyms) collected from written sources — formal, scholarly, and journalistic texts. The main method of interpreting the empiric material is the onomasiological analysis of the inner form of toponyms followed by linguocultural comments on the motivational meanings. The chosen research technique makes it possible to determine the implementation of a wide range of nomination variants in the framework of the large “industrial” theme. Urbanonyms emphasize the spatial proximity of the named topographic items to factories and plants, express respect for the working people in general and representatives of different professions in particular, verbalize the relation with manufacturing processes and production, posit the semantic reference to industrial towns and settlements. The analysis carried out proves that the toponymic implementation of the “industrial” theme dating back to the eighteenth century is still going on at present, albeit moving to new spheres of designation (art-clusters), yet maintaining its role in preserving the Ural identity.

This article outlines the formation of ecological ideas in the late USSR, both in the union centre and in the Siberian periphery. The author focuses on the emergence of nature protection legislation and the activities of special academic commissions on this topic in the Union republics in the late 1950s and early1960s. Relying on the verbatim report of the Third Meeting on Nature Protection in Novosibirsk in 1961, the author reconstructs the agenda of this activity, the organisational measures which the introduction of nature protection in the USSR was associated with and the possible connection of this turn with Khrushchev’s decentralisation reforms in economic management. Since the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences attached a special role to nature protection in its activities, the work of the relevant academic commission of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences is traced in the 1960s, when nature protection gradually ceased to be a priority topic of state policy, and the appeal to it provoked interdepartmental conflicts (the largest one being the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill discussion). It is likely that due to these circumstances, the Academic Commission as an integrating institution disappeared by the early 1970s, and the topic of nature protection remained the interest of either the Presidium of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences or individual enthusiasts. The efforts of the Presidium were embodied in the “Siberia” socio-economic programme, and enthusiasts managed to introduce nature conservation into the curricula of faculties of biology and geography at universities. Additionally, the author considers the activities I. P. Laptev, a Tomsk ichthyologist, who brought up several generations of ecologically sensitive specialists at TSU. The reproduction of such an environment in Soviet universities led to the emergence of a professional movement of nature conservation groups. At the next stage and in the changed political environment of the 1980s–1990s, their members managed to fill the staff and administrative niche of state bodies and numerous non-profit organisations.

This article analyses the content of The New Review (Novy Zhurnal, «Новый журнал») during the war years and its editorial policy. It identifies the main themes in the portrayal of war and various approaches to characterizing Russia across military, political, cultural, and other dimensions. Founded in 1942 by Russian emigrants fleeing the war to the United States, the magazine focuses in its first issues on the problems of the war both historically, defining its preconditions and causes, and prognostically, suggesting various ways of organising the post-war world. The predominant model for constructing attitudes toward the Soviet Union becomes the unconditional support of the émigré community for the Russian people as well as for the political and territorial independence of the country. Simultaneously, the possibilities émigré journalism offered allowed for more critical expressions, the overwhelming majority of which focused on the political structure of the USSR and its leaders. A trend is observed toward a decrease in negative commentary as the course of military actions begins to favour the Red Army. American participation in the hostilities necessitated support from allies, including at the informational level, leading to a normalisation of the image of the USSR for propaganda purposes. The editorial notes of M. A. Aldanov, M. M. Karpovich, and M. O. Tsetlin illustrate a commitment to a balanced and equitable position. Correspondence materials from the editors of The New Review, discovered in the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University, indicate that the editorial team was compelled to temper authorial radicalism and to moderate both excessively critical and overly apologetic statements.