Multi-volume Work Research Articles

Nicolas Pesquès and the Ecology of Life-Writing: Human and Non-Human Relations in La Face nord de Juliau

Abstract: Nicolas Pesquès’s multi-volume work of poetic life-writing, La Face nord de Juliau (1988–), is examined here from an ecological perspective attuned to the weave of relations between the writing subject, the text, and the environment. In a discussion framed by Jacques Derrida’s remarks on the ‘autobiographical animal’, the article explores Pesquès’s treatment of language, subjectivity, the experience of exteriority, and human/non-human relations. The network of relations in play is examined from a range of anthropological angles, culminating in an extended and reworked sense, once again indebted to Derrida, of what anthropologists such as Alfred Gell describe as ‘distributed personhood’.

Рецепція «Історії України-Руси» Михайла Грушевського в сучасній українській історіографії

The purpose of the study is to reconstruct the process of understanding M. Hrushevskyi's "History of Ukraine-Rus" in modern Ukrainian historiography. The research methodology involves the use of the principles of objectivity, historicism, and systematicity, as well as general scientific and special-historical methods typical for historiographical research. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the study of the little-known problem of the reception of M. Hrushevskyi's "History of Ukraine-Rus" in the historiography of the late 20th - early 21st centuries. Conclusions. The article has concluded that the research of M. Hrushevskyi's main work has acquired unprecedented intensity during the last three decades. This was facilitated by wider-scale publishing work - the mass reprinting of the original and English-language versions of "History of Ukraine-Rus" made it available to a wide range of readers and researchers. As a result, numerous different-format studies of individual problems and nuances of the grand narrative (historiosophical, methodological, problem-thematic, etc.) as well as attempts to understand it holistically in the context of the progress of Ukrainian studies at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 21st centuries appeared. These studies convincingly showed "History of Ukraine-Rus" as the most significant historical work for Ukrainian historiography, which metaphorically established the title of "historical passport of the Ukrainian people". At the same time, the mentioned intensity of research reflection makes it possible to outline further historiographical perspectives. Thus, the work on the contextualization of the historiographical ideas and problems of the multivolume work is far from finished. For example, a special elucidation of the specifics of the establishment of the Sobornist ideology on its pages seems to be promising. However, the most important task seems to be the need to synthesize current studies on individual parts of the "History of Ukraine-Rus" and prepare a general work on this monument, which should appear as a collective interdisciplinary project.

The Qurʾān and Knowledge of God in West Africa: The Sufi Tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

Abstract Qurʾān exegesis (tafsīr) in African Muslim societies represented the pinnacle of scholarly achievement, and public explanation of the Qurʾān was the event that marked the emergence of one of Africa’s most successful Sufi revivals, the “Community of the Flood” of the Senegalese Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse (d. 1975). Niasse’s network of knowledge transmission, foregrounding the direct experiential knowledge of God (maʿrifa bi-Llāh), continued to emphasize Qurʾān learning, but Niasse’s own recorded Arabic tafsīr demonstrated a shift away from traditional West African sources in this field. Prior understandings of the West African tafsīr discipline locate the fifteenth-century Egyptian Tafsīr al-Jalālayn as the primary influence on West African understandings. But Niasse’s tafsīr exhibits a clear preference for an early eighteenth-century Ottoman multivolume work, Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī’s “Spirit of Explanation” (Rūh al-bayān), one of the most comprehensive summaries of Sufi understandings of the Qurʾān. This paper not only demonstrates the globally-connected nature of Islamic knowledge production in West Africa but also argues that Niasse’s emphasis on gnosis built on the Rūḥ al-bayān to ultimately occasion a noteworthy addition to the existing literary corpus of Qurʾān exegesis.

Kaiser, Christ, and Canaan: The Religion of Israel in Protestant Germany, 1871–1918. By Paul Michael Kurtz

Whoever seeks to place Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) in the German Kaiserzeit may want to look at the magisterial volume on the Christian religion in a multi-volume work Die Kultur der Gegenwart. Ihre Entwicklung und Ziele, edited by Paul Hinneberg. The volume in question, published in 1906, comes under the title Die christliche Religion. Mit Einschluss der israelitisch-jüdischen Religion, and comprises two parts: ‘I. Geschichte der christlichen Religion’, and ‘II. Systematische christliche Theologie’. Part I starts with an introduction, ‘Die israelitisch-jüdische Religion’, by Wellhausen (pp. 1–40); Part II, with an introduction, ‘Wesen der Religion und der Religionswissenschaft’, by Ernst Troeltsch (pp. 461–91). More than a quarter of a century after his study of the historical sequence of the several collections of ritual laws in the Torah (published in 1878), Wellhausen is eager to emphasize that the religion of Israel in antiquity belongs in the category of religions which have, in fact, undergone a development in historical time. His Kaiserzeit audience would have been interested in an outline of such a religious development in ancient Israel as well as in an explanation of how Christianity in turn developed from its early foundation in ancient Judaism. One may assume that such an orientation has characterized religious, and more particularly biblical, studies ever since the end of a purely allegorical and typological reading of the Hebrew Bible, but it is not amiss to claim that German scholarship in the Kaiserzeit had a strong interest in constructing historical knowledge about the past, including the remote past. Whether there was anything ‘German’ about this may be discussed, especially since in the case of Wellhausen the ‘Dutch’ scholar Abraham Kuenen (1828–91) or the ‘Scottish’ scholar William Robertson Smith (1846–94), for example, were among colleagues with whom Wellhausen exchanged a considerable number of letters. The correspondence has become fully available in an edition of 2013, and Kurtz refers extensively, though not consistently, to this material.

Jesuit Art by Mia M. Mochizuki

Reviewed by: Jesuit Art by Mia M. Mochizuki Thomas Worcester S.J. Jesuit Art. By Mia M. Mochizuki. (Leiden: Brill. 2022. Pp. 219. $168.00. ISBN 9789004462519). A volume in the series Brill Research Perspectives in Jesuit Studies, edited by Robert Maryks, this book offers a review and overview of recent work on the history of Jesuit art and to some extent more broadly on Jesuit topics, especially Jesuit culture, from papal approval of the Society of Jesus in 1540 to its suppression in 1773. The author does a good job of showing how even if scholars continue to associate Jesuit art with the Baroque period, they also agree more and more that there is no single Jesuit style: in artistic production as in many other areas, Jesuits responded to varied circumstances and needs. There was no typical kind of Jesuit art. Jesuit art did appeal very frequently to the emotions and to the five senses. Jesuit-produced and/or Jesuit-commissioned works were intended to instruct viewers or hearers in the Catholic faith, and to move them to repent for sin and to embrace a life of virtue, a life nourished by the Church’s sacraments, and by heart-felt imitation of Jesus and the saints. Already in the first decades of the Society of Jesus, Jesuits were spreading out across the globe, and Mochizuki devotes much of her fine discussion and extensive [End Page 201] bibliographies to the global reach of Jesuit art, how it brought European art to the rest of the world, and how Jesuits engaged with and collaborated with the art of other continents though hybridization. If they returned to Europe, Jesuits often brought non-European art back with them, thus fertilizing and broadening the European artistic imagination. A book like this is enhanced by judicious use of images, reproduced clearly and when appropriate and possible in color. The author and the publisher merit praise for a large number of high-quality images. A stunning color photograph of the Church of the Gesù, in Rome (p. 41), is but one example. Another is a detailed photograph (p. 137) of a seventeenth-century Portuguese reliquary that includes a copy of the anonymous Salus Populi Romani, a painting of the Madonna and child, much appreciated by St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, a painting long housed in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore basilica. Though painting, and to a lesser extent architecture, dominate this book, prints and images in printed books do also share in the author’s attention. Many scholars have studied Jerónimo Nadal’s Evangeliae historiae imagines, published in 1593 in Antwerp, a work focused on the life Jesus, and intended as an aid for Jesuits and others in doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. With 153 folio images, the multi-volume work connected biblical texts with images in a way designed to help a kind of prayer in which imagination (“composition”) of place was central, indeed foundational (pp. 78–99). The one disappointment in this book is that it offers almost nothing beyond the late eighteenth century, except for a 2013 image of Pope Francis (p. 14) in prayer before the Salus Populi Romani. Pius VII had restored the Jesuits in 1814, and since the 2014 bicentennial of that seminal event, significant numbers of scholars of Jesuit history have been turning more and more to the period 1814 to the present. What about art history? Mochizuki states that in recent times art historians have moved beyond a singular focus on masterpieces of elite art to a more inclusive study of material and visual cultures (p. 29). Does not such an approach deal with the modern era of the Society of Jesus? If not, why not? Thomas Worcester S.J. Fordham University Copyright © 2023 The Catholic University of America Press ...

The First PhD Theses on Ancient History at the Leningrad State University (1938—1941): on the Formation of Soviet Dissertation Culture

The dissertation files of the postgraduate students in classics of the Leningrad State University and State Academy of the History of Material Culture who had defended their PhD theses in 1938—1941 were taken. These were the files of V. P. Kallistov, E. A. Millior, S. L. Utchenko, G. A. Stratanovsky, K. P. Lampsakov. The author concludes that the patronage of the professor — supervisor, which was based on the assessment of the candidate’s research abilities and knowledge of ancient languages, was the most important for admission to graduate school. Social origin and unseemly facts of biography were not of decisive importance. Scientific supervisors were mainly scientists of the old school — S. A. Zhebelev, S. Ya. Lurie, who independently determined the structure of graduate students’ training, focusing on the historical and philological approach, the use of different types of sources and appropriate critical analysis of the achievements of pre-revolutionary and foreign historiography. The topics of theses shows the desire to include Soviet science in the world, and the high demands — to produce a high-level scientists for teaching ancient history and ancient languages (at the time there was a severe shortage of specialists in these fields of knowledge), as well as to prepare summarizing multi-volume works on history.

Spre un manual al confesorului în Biserica Română Unită? Historie evanghelicească de Teodor Pop și semnificațiile sale

The article deals with a case study on a Romanian manuscript presenting a history of the Gospels, written by Professor Teodor Pop, one of the most erudite and prolific representatives of the teaching community in the first decades of the nineteenth century. In addition to succinct and accessible presentation of the content of the Gospels, the manuscript also contains instructions on questions asked by priests to confessing believers related to the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue), the Church’s commandments, the capital sins, and questions concerning various social and professional categories of believers. In order to verify the hypothesis that this course, with its practical emphasis, was intended for “moralist” theologians (those who were taking a short theological course), the author draws a comparison with the works of Samuil Micu, Theologhiia moralicească (Moral Theology, 1796) and Theologhie dogmatică și moralicească despre Taina Pocăianiei (Dogmatic and Moral Theology about the Mystery of Penance, 1801), but also on a possible foreign model, Historia utriusque Testamenti, a multi-volume work published in Rome in 1774, mentioned in the catalogue of the library of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity. The analytical findings are important for understanding how the relationship between translation and adaptation functioned in the case of certain subjects of the middle school education process.

Growth Does not Always Mean Growth Summary Considerations on the Growth of Enterprises and the National Economy Between Profitability, Financial Balance, Sustainability, Enforcement of Human and Economic Rights of Workers

The growth of companies, non-production companies and nations is often linked to quantitative evaluations that, in reality, do not show real growth in the global sense of the entity on which attention is focused. This is why the title of this article is that growth does not always mean growth. Growth requires evaluating a series of quantitative and qualitative elements in the absence of which growth is not, in reality, real growth in the global sense. The issue, posed in these terms, could have been the subject of a multivolume work covering all the various facets of the concept of corporate and state growth. This is not our objective. For this reason, in this article, we will address issues that simultaneously concern both enterprises and non-production companies, private and public, and nations. Only the simultaneous observance of all these principles, which will be analysed in the following pages, can be said to be a first step towards real growth, even if, as we have already pointed out, the global concept of growth would require an in-depth analysis of topics that are not the subject of this work.

Thomas Traherne on Punctuation

Abstract Though Thomas Traherne’s punctuation has been harshly criticized for its idiosyncrasy, scholars have also frequently admired the stylistic effects that it creates. His punctuation is linked to baroque art and music, the use of periods to highlighting subordinate ideas, capitalization to its inability to foster figurative language, and parentheses to his writing and editing process. This essay draws attention to a related, but different, issue that has remained unaddressed: what does Traherne himself have to say about punctuation? An examination of Traherne’s works shows that Traherne’s understanding of punctuation falls into two broad categories: the complex-metaphoric and the politico-religious. His metaphoric understanding, which belongs to a long tradition, can be gleaned from his references to the oracle of Delphi’s capital letters inscription; Ficino’s translation of Plato; and Ben Jonson’s borrowing from a fourteenth-century translation of Julius Scaliger’s grammar. Traherne’s politico-religious understanding of punctuation emerges most clearly in his Roman Forgeries (1673) in which he critiques a long list of ecclesiastical sources—epistles, church canons, multi-volume works of the councils—to argue that Catholic scribes and editors used punctuation for ideological purposes: to obfuscate, hide, and forge religious doctrines. Traherne’s comments reveal that early modern readers were likely to skip over text within parenthesis and marginal annotations and to be impressed by the use of all capital letters. Traherne’s textual criticism through the lens of punctuation helps us to understand early modern reading habits as well as the history of textual editing and textual transmission.

Al-Balādhurī’s Prophet’s Biography: Narrative in Service of Politics

Abstract The monumental multi-volume work Ansāb al-ashrāf, authored by Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī, represents an intellectual edifice recognized by many scholars. However, this paper endeavors to discuss in depth the first volume of it, which al-Balādhurī dedicated to the life of the Prophet Muḥammad, and attempts to show that the underlying reasons for writing another biography of the Prophet—in an age where the Sīrah of the Prophet was well established—were mainly political and personal, linked in particular to the rule of the ʿAbbāsids. It aimed to legitimize ʿAbbāsid rule by systematically and subtly enhancing the role of ʿAbbāsid symbols and ancestry in the formation of early Islam, mainly by linking the eponym of the ʿAbbasid dynasty, al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, to a positive image of the Prophet.

University: Steps of Growth

The origins of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University trace back to the Pedagogical Institute established in 1941 in Stanislav, which was the regional centre at that time. During the eighty years of its existence, the educational institution developed gradually: first it functioned as the Pedagogical Institute and its long-term existence was marked by numerous significant events, then it became a classical university, and, finally, it received the title and status of a national university. In recent years, the university has undergone radical changes in all areas of its life and work. There has come to the forefront the need of focusing on the experience of European universities while preserving national and state positions. Cooperation with leading European universities has made it possible to provide students with an opportunity to obtain a diploma not only from Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, but also from one of the Polish ones. On the part of the staff the ongoing process of supporting the Ukrainian language as the state language goes hand in hand with general and persistent efforts teachers and students to master the English language.
 There have taken place significant changes in the organization of the educational process, introduction of new curricula, as well as modern teaching methods. Information technologies and the Internet have become an integral part of the educational process, while a powerful information center has been established to provide technical support for the training session organization and the online access to scientific sources. New ways of teaching presupposes the activation of the factor of students’ individual work, which accounts for independent acquisition of a significant part of the necessary information. The scientific library now has better possibilities to make scientific and educational literature essential for the training of highly qualified specialists available through the university website.
 The scientific activity of teachers has risen to a new level; new scientific centers have been created, new laboratories have been equipped; there is an ongoing international project aimed at restoration of the observatory on Mount Pip Ivan in the Carpathians. There has been a significant rise in scientific output measured by the Scopus scientific metric base; in recent years the number of doctors of science has increased by a third, and new promising scientific schools have been opened. Several multivolume fundamental scientific works have seen the world. Student self-government has also intensified, cultural life is booming, there are significant achievements in sports. In the future, the university seeks to enter the top 100 best universities in the world.

ШЕРНИЯЗ ЖАРЫЛҒАСҰЛЫ ШЫҒАРМАЛАРЫНЫҢ ТЕКСТОЛОГИЯСЫ

The article discusses the principles of collecting, preserving and publishing the works of the famous poet and orator Sherniyaz Zharylgasuly, who lived in the West Kazakhstan region in the 19th century, as well as the artistic side of the poet's poems, textual studies and methods of determining the author of texts. For the study, materials were used that were published since 1924 in the magazines "Saule" I. Dzhansugurov, "Kyzyl Kazakhstan" H. Dosmukhameduly, and in the newspaper "Lenin Tuy" O. Akhmetov, as well as works included in the 3rd volume under the title "Sherniyaz" of the multivolume works of poets and writers of Atyrau "Kazyna", published in 2001 by the publishing house "Arys". Due to the wide distribution of Sherniyaz's poems in the Kazakh steppe, some artistic techniques, individual phrases and texts were later reflected in the works of such poets as Suyunbai, Zhanak, Kulmambet and others. In particular, the conditions set by the khan during the visit of akyn Suyunbay Tezek tore and the answer given to him by Suyunbay resemble the actions and words of Sherniyaz during his visit of Sultan Baimagambet. And then the question arises: “Why are the texts of dedication to the sultans of these two poets practically the same, because one of them lived in Western Kazakhstan, and the other in Semirechye, and what does the similarity of the conditions set by the khans mean, as if they had agreed in advance? Who owns this original text? " Therefore, we compared versions of poems in previously published collections and manuscripts stored in the manuscript collections of the Central Scientific Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Institute of Literature and Art named after M.O. Auezov, a textual analysis was made in an attempt to determine and establish the authorship of the poems by Sherniyaz Zharylgasuly.

Труды Манаша Козыбаева в контексте современной исторической науки

The life and works of the organizer of historical science of Kazakhstan, scientist-encyclopedist, historian-researcher, Prof. Manash K. Kozybaev are considered. Academician Manash Kozybaev is the author of 800 scientific, scientific-journalistic works, including multi-volume works. The suc-cessful promotion on the hierarchical ladder of the Soviet scientific and educational system allowed Manash Kozybaev to realize not only his organizational abilities, but also to expand the format of research both in the purely academic and journalistic genre. The last twenty years of the existence of the USSR were characterized by the spirit of ethnic revival in the Union republics. The non-orthodox thinking national intelligentsia began to declare the ideas not of amorphous Soviet patriotism, but of moderate and enlightened nationalism. The publications of Manash Kozybaev of that period are aimed at popularizing real historical knowledge about the Kazakh people. Here the interests of intellectuals coincided with the aspirations of a new generation of Kazakhstan political and business elite.

Violating the Convention: M. Ja. Sjuzjumov’s Participation in the Preparation of the History of Byzantium

This article examines the history behind the writing of the three-volume History of Byzantium (1967). In the 1950s and 1960s, the writing of “meta-narratives” meant covering the history of different states from the standpoint of the Marxist interpretation of the historical process and using the methods of historical materialism. In addition, collective work on them demonstrated the scholarly convention of Marxist historians. These principles were also implemented during the preparation of the History of Byzantium. A member of the editorial board and one of the main authors of the multi-volume work was Mikhail Jakovlevich Sjuzjumov (1893–1982), a Sverdlovsk scholar. Some letters kept in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the State Archive of Sverdlovsk Region reflect his participation in the preparation of the History of Byzantium, the difficulties his texts underwent during the publication process, and his assessment of the results of the collective work. The article considers the scholar’s concept which he adhered to when writing the chapters, analyses critical remarks about his texts, and emphasises the discrepancy between his interpretations and the assessment of the history of Byzantium established in Russian historiography. The chapters prepared by Sjuzjumov and devoted to sources on early Byzantine history, the history of the church, and the historical role of Byzantium were criticised especially harshly. Sjuzjumov’s assessment of the Byzantine opposition and denial of the progressiveness of their views, his interpretation of Byzantine feudalism and the place of the Empire in world history contradicted the spirit and concept of the collective work. As a result, his two chapters were not included in the final version of the History of Byzantium. To achieve an academic convention, it was necessary to sacrifice the original interpretations proposed by the Sverdlovsk scholar. Nevertheless, Mikhail Sjuzjumov highly appreciated the publication of the History of Byzantium, although he noted its obvious shortcomings and weak points.

Kritiese ekologiese kuns en Hegel se raaiselagtige uitspraak dat kuns moet sterf

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), een van die belangrikste figure in die ontwikkeling van Duitse idealisme, se filosofie staan as "absolute idealisme" bekend, aangesien hy die idee, of gees (verstand) as die eintlike werklikheid beskou - in teenstelling met 'n materialistiese denker soos Karl Marx, wat materie (stof) as primêre werklikheid aanwys. Hegel was die eerste Westerse denker wat die geskiedenis ernstig opgeneem het; volgens hom is alles, spesifiek menslike kulturele aktiwiteite, onderworpe aan historiese ontwikkeling, en beskryf hy hierdie ontwikkeling op verskeie vlakke, insluitende dié wat hy "absolute gees" noem. Op hierdie vlak word wêreldgeskiedenis aan die hand van 'n "dialektiese" ontwikkeling vanaf "subjektiewe" gees (individuele menslike passies en bedoelinge) via "objektiewe" gees (staatstrukture en wette) tot "absolute gees" voorgestel. In hierdie artikel word daar aandag gegee aan wat volgens Hegel op laasgenoemde vlak gebeur, spesifiek met betrekking tot sy raaiselagtige stelling, dat die kuns as "hoogste uitdrukking" van die gees "moet sterf", om plek te maak vir religie en filosofie as manifestasies daarvan op meer gevorderde vlakke. 'n Mens kan tereg wonder wat Hegel daarmee bedoel het in die lig van die voortdurende beoefening van kuns tot vandag toe. Die antwoord is geleë in die frase, "hoogste uitdrukking", wat daarop dui dat hy aan kuns in historiese ontwikkelingsterme dink - met ander woorde, kuns is die draer van die absolute gees tot op 'n bepaalde tydstip, waarna dit plek moet maak vir ander sodanige uitdrukkingsvorme, te wete godsdiens en filosofie. Bowendien is kuns self ook onderworpe aan interne ontwikkeling; vir Hegel is die vroegste kuns simbolies van aard, (met Egiptiese kuns as voorbeeld), gevolg deur klassieke kuns (onder die antieke Grieke) en laastens romantiese kuns (in sy eie tyd). Die verskille tussen hierdie drie kunsvorms word bepaal deur die verhouding tussen idee en materie; in simboliese kuns domineer materie oor die idee in kunswerke, sodat die betekenis daarvan slegs vaagweg gepeil kan word (dink maar aan die Sfinks, as die "simbool van die simboliese"), terwyl daar 'n volmaakte balans tussen idee en materie bestaan in klassieke Griekse kuns, sodat geeneen van die twee dominant is nie (soos in die geval van beeldhouwerke wat die god Apollo voorstel). In romantiese kuns (byvoorbeeld die romantiese skilderkuns van Gericault) vind 'n mens die teenoorgestelde van simboliese kuns, met die idee wat dermate oor die materie heers dat dit byna daarin slaag om in denkbeeldige vorm daarvan los te breek. Hierdie is volgens Hegel die "hoogste" ontwikkelingspunt wat kuns as draer van die gees kan bereik, voordat dit plek maak vir religie as "beelddenke" en uiteindelik filosofie, waar die gees as idee suiwer, sonder enige stoflike oorblyfsel, tot uitdrukking kom. Hier voltooi die absolute gees die ontwikkelingstrajek daarvan, wat by die objektiewe vergestalting daarvan begin en via subjektiewe beliggaming uiteindelik in absolute "selfkennis" kulmineer. Vir die doeleindes van hierdie artikel is dit egter tematies betekenisvol dat Hegel ook melding maak van die voortbestaan van kuns ná die punt waar dit afstand doen van die titel van "hoogste" manifestasie van die gees of idee, naamlik in die gewaad van "kritiese", polemiese kuns, wat vry geword het van spesifieke wêreldbeskouings. 'n Mens kan in die moderne kunsbewegings van die vroeë 20ste eeu - insluitende kubisme, abstrakte ekspressionisme, konseptualisme en futurisme - die beliggaming van hierdie verwagting by Hegel bespeur, waar hierdie soort kuns telkens die ontologiese aanspraak maak dat dit die ware werklikheid blootlê. As besonder treffende tydgenootlike uitdrukking van sodanige (radikale) kritiese kuns word Andy Goldsworthy se ekologiese kuns ten slotte onder die loep geplaas.

Virtual Herbarium ALTB: collection of vascular plants of the Altai Mountain Country.

BackgroundThe herbarium of the South-Siberian Botanical Garden of Altai State University (ALTB) houses the largest collection of plants from the Altai Mountain Country (AMC), an area that extends across Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. The collection of ALTB includes more than 450,00 specimens, making it the seventh largest in Russia and the fourth largest amongst Russian university herbaria. Altai State University (ASU), the home of ALTB, is one of the most important centres of academic education and research in Siberia and the Russian Far East. It is a sociocultural centre that provides a distinguished learning environment for undergraduate and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields, meeting the needs of today's knowledge-based post-industrial society and contributing to regional development. It actively promotes international cooperation and strategic collaboration amongst countries of the AMC in the fields of science, education and culture. In particular, the activities of the South-Siberian Botanical Garden include: development of measures to protect rare and endangered plant species, research on the flora and vegetation of the AMC, preparation and publication of a multi-volume work "Flora Altaica", monographic study of individual plant groups, conducting laboratory classes, summer practicals and special courses. The main purpose of this article is to attract the attention of the scientific community to the botanical research of transboundary territory of the Altai Mountain Country (Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia) and to the future development of digital plant collections in partnership with Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).New informationThe Virtual Herbarium ALTB (Russian interface - altb.asu.ru) is the largest digital collection of plants from the transboundary territory of the Altai Mountain Country and the main source of primary material for the "Flora Altaica" project (http://altaiflora.asu.ru/en/). Since 2017, when Altai State University became a GBIF data publisher, data from the Virtual Herbarium ALTB has been exported to the dataset "Virtual Herbarium ALTB (South-Siberian Botanical Garden)" in GBIF. Currently, it includes images and data from 22,466 vascular plants, of which 67% have geographic coordinates (accessed on 30.03.2021). Most of the specimens have been collected since 1977, with the most intensive collecting years being 1995–2008. In 2019, the label-data table of the Virtual Herbarium ALTB was modified to bring it into conformity with the Darwin Core specification (http://altb.asu.ru/). This effectively solved the major impediment to sharing plant diversity data from the AMC and adjacent regions in a multilingual environment.

The Road to Kingship: 1–2 Samuel

The Road to Kingship: 1–2 Samuel

Scientific and organizational activity of historians for the preparation of the five-volume work «Histories of the Belarusian SSR»

The article analyses the process of creating a generalizing multi-volume work on the history of the Belarusian SSR. The publication reveals a unique experience of coordinating historical research related to the most important phenomena of the socio-political, socio-economic and cultural life of Belarus in the post-war period of the development of national historical science. For the first time in historiography, the scientific and organizational activity of creating a fundamental work reflecting the history of Belarus from ancient times to the mid 1970s has been studied. The idea of subordinating historical science to the interests of party politics is presented. The article is based on unpublished archival sources of the Central Scientific Archive of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

Полісько-карпатські зв’язки на картах Загальнослов’янського лінгвістичного атласу

The article considers the types of areal connections of two archaic Ukrainian dialect areas – Polissia and the Carpathians, presented on the maps of the lexical and word-formational series of the fundamental multi-volume work The Slavic Linguistic Atlas, both in published issues and those under study. The types of isoglosses, the configuration of the areas of distribution of some lexical units in the Polissia dialect and Carpathian dialects on atlas maps and in a broader view, with an approach to the all-Slavic context, are analyzed. It was found that many maps identify continuous lexical areas that connect Polissia and the Carpathians against the background of the Ukrainian or even wider. Common areas have also been identified in the Ukrainian northern dialects and the Carpathian dialects, but they are not continuous, interrupted by a wide range of other lexical forms, which cover most of the Ukrainian south-western dialects; there are distinct areas limited by Carpathian and West-Polissian (and sometimes Central-Polissian) isoglosses. Data from lexicographical and descriptive works were also used for the analysis, which allowed to reveal the so-called hidden isoglosses, both internal and external, in the Eastern, Western and Southern Slavic dialectal continuum.

Исторический очерк ботанико-географического районирования территории Северного Казахстана на примере Государственного национального природного парка «Буйратау»

The article is devoted to the history, principles and methods of geobotanical exploration of the territory of Northern (steppe) Kazakhstan and the steppe part of the shallow settlement. The studied territory of Kazakhstan occupies a large area and botanical and geographical research, starting from the pre-revolutionary period, continues to this day. Thanks to these works, multi-volume works appeared, maps were created. The work provides a table reflecting a systematic analysis of the work carried out on the geobotanical zoning of the territory of Kazakhstan as part of the USSR on the work of various authors. But, despite this, this territory needs more local geobotanical zoning, so modern science requires a more thorough, detailed approach to floristic zoning. Although floristic and geobotanical zoning differ in the principles of work, both approaches are combined in the development of integrated or synthetic botanical-geographical zoning. Each type of zoning depends on natural conditions; accordingly, such work requires a systematic analysis of the soil cover, climatic conditions, hydrological nature, etc. The article provides an analysis of the territory study periods, the principles of the work carried out, as well as a more detailed description of the vegetation of the «Buiratau» SNNP by subzone, depending on physical and geographical conditions.