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The article is based on the review of archival materials and other sources. It aims to study the specific character of public local shrine veneration and the relevant reaction of the religious governance in Tobolsk eparchy in the XVIII-XIX centuries. While studying popular shrines the least attention is paid to the historical aspect, particularly to the reaction of the official religious community in the XVIII and XIX centuries (or a synodic period) to new or “uncontrolled” venerated shrines. Combatting pilgrimage to shrines that were not included in “the rules” of church, up to removing them, in the XVIII and XIX centuries, became the result of Peter I’s legislaive initiatives. It has been supposed that the spring, which was formerly situated in Tyumen and spurted out in one of the gullies in its “historical” part, was the first venerated water spring in Siberia, where Cross Processions were held every year on the Ninth Friday from the beginning of the XVII century. The article reveals eventual reasons of emergence of this venerated place in the first Siberian Russian city. During Peter I’s clerical reforms, the monarch’s ally Phylophey Leshchinsky forbade Cross Proces-sions, and the spring was filled up with soil. The archival depository of Tobolsk clerical consistory remains the main source of restoring the historical canvas. Twice a year all clerical ruling councils were to report to the authority, executing supervisory function as well, about the absence, as stated in the headline of a case dated from 1774, of “any superstitions, veneration of non-recognized dead bodies as holy relics, icon false miracles, springs, wells, monks dissolutely hanging around and other mischiefs”. In order to prevent different “unorthodoxies” in ecclesiastic canon, religious authorities had to nip in the bud probable rumors by applying prohibition of eventual shrines. For example, a number of Cross Processions with popularly venerated icons were called off and eventual practices of “weeping” icons veneration were suppressed.

Zemstvo reform was carried out in the territory of Kazakhstan during the period of Revolutions and Civil War in 1917-1919. Kazakh liberal intelligentsia, which considered zemstvo as the first step towards self-administration on the national level and as a way of transfer to the territorial national autonomy, were interested in creating territorial institutions. The majority of the Kazakh population showed their interest in zemstvo. Changing governments were also interested in spreading the national self-administration system. Despite this, zemstvos were not created in a majority of Kazakh regions. It was due to a low activity of regional committees organizing zemstvo’s self-administration. The regional election commission activity was complicated by the Kazakh population’s nomadic way of life. The launched work on introducing zemstvo was interrupted by the Soviet system’s establishment, and after its overthrow, the elections of public persons (glasnyi) to zemstvo, appointed for the winter of 1918-1919, were slowed down by the difficulties of communication in winter, snowstorms and severe weather conditions. The zemstvo elections stopped due to the cold winter, loss of livestock, typhus epidemic in some regions and a difficult economic situation of the Kazakh population. In the summer the military operations began. The government of Alash-Orda, which had a great influence on the Kazakh population, played a contradictory role related to zemstvo. It was supposed that it closely cooperated with zemstvos. Zemstvos were often headed by its supporters. The councils of Alash-Orda created in districts, trying not to interfere in the competence of territorial justices, performed lots of their functions de facto. Representatives of the Kazakh population working as a part of district territorial zemstvo justices got familiar with the experience of local government. Involving the Kazakh population in zemstvo’s elections was a great achievement in their political rights development.

The article considers the organization structure, strength, specifics of recruitment and military activities of the 12th Siberian rifle division formed in March 1919 in Tomsk as a part of the strategic reserve of Admiral Kolchak armed forces. Military draft of the new recruits born in 1900-1901 was implemented to staff the newly formed divisions in the rear. Calls-up were timed by delivering uniforms and weapons from England and the United States, that were absent at the military authorities’ disposal. A successful offensive of Kolchak armed forces in March-April 1919 caused complacent confidence in speedy victory over the Bolsheviks in high command, which eased tension on the issue of reserves preparation for the current army. However, in May the situation at the front changed dramatically in favor of the Red Army. In order to regain the strategic initiative, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief became actively moving to the war theatre military units, which were in the rear. At the time of sending to the front the majority of the 12th Siberian rifle division soldiers - 18-year-old recruits - had been in formations for no more than three- four weeks. They had not had time to get a training course of a “young soldier”, had not worked out the interaction of units within a squadron, a battalion, a regiment, as well as a division. It was the disorganized community of village guys, non-adapted to the military service conditions. As a consequence, the division was unfit for military actions and disbanded. The failure of the military high command plans to form the front reserves in the rear was due to the lack of coordination in organizational arrangement of the Supreme Commander Headquarters and the Military Ministry of the Russian Government, the absence of adequate material-technical resources to form the battle worthy army.

The USSR example in the First five-year period allows us to trace the relationship between ideology, political system and restrictions on military production. In the USSR during the First five-year period the dynamics of the defense industry development was lower than in the Russian Empire on a number of points. At the beginning of the First five-year plan in terms of military production (except for tanks), the Soviet Union lagged behind Italy of the period of its participation in the First World War. So, at the end of the First five years the Soviet Union military industry returned to the tendencies of the First world war. Taking into account the fact, that the Russian war industry had been functioning under conditions of labor shortage in 1914-1917, whereas the USSR hadn’t such limitation in the early 1930s, we should conclude, that the USSR planned economy efficiency during the First five-year period was even lower than in the Russian economy of 1916, when there was a maximum mobilization of the economy in the First World War. In this regard, the development of the USSR military industry in First five-year plan should be regarded as a process of overcoming the consequences of the Civil War crisis, but not surmounting underdevelopment of Russia in general. Although we couldn’t say that Russia was on the same level with the Western powers during the First World War. Still, the backwardness of the Russian Empire was somewhat exaggerated by the Bolshevik propaganda, as well as achievements of the First five-year plan. The author relies on ideas of a work by P. Gatvell and M. Harrison, which compares the economies of the Russian Empire during the First World War and the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The author criticizes the methodological approach by P. Gatvell and M. Harrison, which does not take into account the foreign policy’s factor within different global conflicts, but at the same time, the author recognizes the high scientific importance of a conceptual idea of comparing two different systems that existed in similar historical periods in the territory of Russia.

The article studies the activity of Academician M.F. Zhukov (1917-1998), an outstanding scientist-mechanic of the XX century. He is known as a specialist in the field of gas-discharge plasma, electric arc plasmatrons and their application in space technology. Innovations by M.F. Zhukov are successfully used in metallurgy, machine building and other scientific and technical areas. Mikhail Zhukov was born in 1967 on August 24 (September 6) in a large family of the railway worker in Orel province. Thanks to diligence and the pursuit of knowledge, the provincial young man was able to enter the preparatory department (rabfak) at Moscow State University (MSU). The profession choice was determined by well-known scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, to whom the young man wrote a letter. Training at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of MSU made it possible for Mikhail Zhukov to receive an excellent education. During the Great Patriotic War, Mikhail Zhukov worked in Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI). In 1941-1942 a group of TsAGI’s employees headed by Academician Sergei Chaplygin was in evacuation in Novosibirsk. Mikhail Zhukov took part in the combat aircraft improvement. After the war, he continued research on supersonic aviation at the Baranov Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM). In 1950 he defended his thesis and headed the department at this institute. Since 1956, M.F. Zhukov switched to study gas-discharge plasma and the development of powerful electric arc generators of plasma (plasmatrons), which was related to the space industry intensive development. In 1958, Mikhail Zhukov was invited to work in the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences by Academician Sergei Khristianovich, who proposed to the 41-year-old candidate of sciences to organize a laboratory, and then a department of plasmodynamics at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM). From 1970 to 1996, the department headed by M.F. Zhukov continued to work in the Institute of Thermophysics (IT), afterward transferred to ITAM again. In Novosibirsk, M.F. Zhukov realized his creative potential and became a scientist with world renown. He defended his doctoral dissertation (1962), was elected a Corresponding Member (1968), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1992) and awarded prestigious prizes and awards. Professor M.F. Zhukov taught at Novosibirsk State University and Novosibirsk State Technical University, and brought up a pleiad of students achieving significant results in science.

The article subject is the problems of forming the theoretical-methodological base in historical demography research. Its present state hinders the vision of population demographic development as an integral autonomous process having own internal determinants, and at the same time affecting actively all social processes. The paper objective is to overcome this constraint and to propose a variant of this base for studying the population history of Russia in the XX-XXI centuries. The author shows that the multifaceted nature of the research object - the population in a historical context - requires a multi-layered theoretical-methodological approach and a multi-disciplinary methodological design consisting of macro-, meso- and micro-level representations. Each of them provides a solution to their own problems. The basis of the macro-level methodology is the theory of modernization. It interprets the essence of all processes taking place in the society and explains the features of this or that period in the history of the country where the population in question lives. The meso-level methodology is formed on the basis of theories and concepts that treat development processes of the actual population, all forms of its movement - natural, spatial, social. The task of this level is to determine the population place in the society, to explain the patterns of changes occurring in it, their directions and driving forces, the nature of interaction of population processes with other spheres of society and between each other. The micro-level methodology consists of concepts and categories of sciences that treat certain aspects of the particular population development (inhabitants of villages, cities, regions, etc.). A special level of methodology consists of approaches, principles, methods and procedures, borrowed from different sciences.

The article analyzes the demographic situation in the Ural cities after the Civil War, which was characterized by the population super death-rate exceeding the birth rate, and was defined as a demographic catastrophe. The author identifies main causes of increased mortality - infection diseases (typhoid, cholera, dysentery), which were complicated with malnutrition and hunger in the form of epidemics. The paper shows main reasons for the epidemiological situation’s sharp deterioration in the region: municipal economy’s and health care system’s destruction during the Civil War, movement of the large amount of population along the Ural transportation routes due to the famine in the early 1920s. The public health care authorities tried to control infections, but they experienced enormous difficulties, their financial resources were limited. Extraordinary bodies (Chekatif, Chekahol and others) with dictatorial powers were founded in the Ural cities. They centralized the epidemics control. Sanitary supervision was established in the cities. The main municipal authority activities to overcome the infections were medical personnel restoration, expanding hospital bed stocks to isolate infectious patients, organizing insulating-crossing points on transport, carrying out a campaign on the population vaccination, measures to clean up cities from dirt and debris, supervision of food products, spreading basic hygiene skills among the population through health education work. These measures allowed reducing the mortality in 1923 sharply and obtained the urban population natural growth. It was the evidence that the Ural cities overcame the demographic catastrophe.

The research subject is the medical-sanitary service provided to the population in process of its evacuation (caused by the war) to the West-Siberian region. The main aim of the service was to avert the risk of an epidemiological catastrophe, which was more than real for the country at that period. Social statistics confirm that the overwhelming majority of infectious diseases occurred during the population movement in the places, where people gather - on the railways, the wharves, crowded transport. Taking into account that among those, who fled from the war, many people were sick, malnourished and affected by infections, the risk of a rapid contamination of the whole rear seemed inevitable. The article objective is to identify conditions and mechanisms of main activities in this sphere, to reveal the work scope and results through the comprehensive study of the issue. The main research focus is the sanitary transport inspection and sanitary control posts activities. Intrinsically their staff acquired emergency powers and major material and technical support. The author concludes that thanks to all actions performed and the emergency powers acquired by the sanitary control posts an efficient barrier against spreading infectious diseases in the transport was built. Transportation medical-sanitary conditions and at the evacuees destination locations were becoming more and more manageable. Providing the reliable and appropriate state of the rear area, including West Siberia, was of great importance for normalizing the whole subsequent medical-demographic situation in the country.

The article shows the features of infant and child mortality in the cities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic based on the current and medical statistics. Improvement of the children health care in cities contributed to reducing infant and child mortality. However, in the 1960s the mortality of infants, especially boys, remained high. The highest infant mortality was among the Kazakhs, its decrease was observed in Tatars, Armenians, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, the lowest one - in Jews. Infants under 1 year of age died from respiratory and infectious diseases, toxic dyspepsia in Russian cities. The level of infant mortality from pneumonia and tuberculosis, especially from the respiratory system decreased significantly. There were high rates of infant perinatal mortality and birth trauma, premature birth, congenital malformations. The mortality causes classes were related to the health of biological fathers and, especially, mothers. However, in the 1960s in the cities of Russian Federation cities the mortality rate of infants from neonatal sepsis slightly decreased. Increasing environmental problems - soil, water, air pollution, especially in cities, contributed to spreading infant deaths from not peculiar to this age diseases of circulatory and endocrine systems, oncological ones. In 1960s the mortality rate of children under 5 years remained high in the Russian Federation. The death probability of boys under 5 years was higher than that of girls. Children under the age of 5 years were ill and died from diseases of the respiratory, digestive, circulatory systems, infectious and cancer rates. Thus, changes in death causes indicated the development of a modern type of infant and child mortality.

The article discusses medical-demographic consequences of the anti-alcohol campaign of 1985-1991 in the regions of Western Siberia. Harmful effects of the excessive alcohol use are an important issue for a large part of humanity. A huge part of irretrievable losses from injuries (road traffic accidents, murders, suicides) is related to alcohol use. In addition, a significant part of somatic and mental pathology is caused by excessive alcohol consumption. Attempts to reduce the scale of drunkenness were made with different success in many countries. In Russia, anti-alcohol measures were carried out not only in the Soviet period, but also in the Russian Empire. The author used data from Russian State Statistics Committee: the form of Central Statistical Office N 5-a and N 5-b up to 1989, since 1989 it was C-51 form for all territories of Western Siberia, and summary data for the Russian Federation. The materials of the regional (provincial and municipal) Bureaus of Forensic Medical Examination were analyzed in some territories of Siberia. The dynamics of life expectancy was studied by a component method, which was also used to analyze its elimination reserves. The measures of forced sobriety in the late Soviet period (1985-1991) had very significant medical-demographic consequences. The population mortality rate decreased and the life expectancy increased. The rate growth by ¾ was associated with reducing mortality from injuries and poisonings, and by ¼ - from the circulatory system diseases. The positive changes were manifested more in men than in women, and, as a result, the sexual dimorphism of life expectancy decreased. These effects were short-lived. The article concluded that improved population’s cultural and educational level and people’s mentality changes are necessary for sustainable reduction of the alcohol’s harmful effects on the population health. Only on this basis, the level of alcohol use and the associated excessive human losses can decrease in the future.

The article studies levels and causes of the population mortality in different historical periods of social-economic development in Komi Republic. The topic relevance is determined not only by the prolonged lag in the Russian life expectancy from European countries, but also related to regional features of northern territories: climatic conditions, life-style, industrial branch structure, population formation peculiarity and ethnic composition. The article focuses on differences in rural and urban mortality, men and women death rates. Analyzing statistical information, the authors reveal periods of mortality growth and decrease, substantiate peak values of absolute rise of deaths numbers, fluctuations of general and special coefficients. The article proves relationships of mortality with historical events, the country economic-social development. It shows that the highest loss of life associated with the Soviet state formation: industrialization, collectivization, starvation in 1932-1933, and the Great Patriotic War. The mortality rate growth during the late 1970s - early 1980s is of particular interest. Thanks to the well-known anti-alcohol campaign, it was possible to reduce the problem. The country’s transition to the market determined the next stage of increasing mortality. The mortality highest rates were recorded in 1993-1996 and 2002-2006. Authors show that male mortality is higher than female one, especially in able-bodied population, the reasons are working conditions and various self-preserving behaviors. The dynamics of the overall mortality rate of the rural population is traditionally higher than the urban one. Rural people are at the risk zone - an increased mortality rate, which along with decreasing birth rate can lead to a significant decline of the indigenous people’s number.

The article objective is to show the dynamics features of population morbidity of the Siberian Federal District and its regions for 1995-2015, carry out a comparative analysis of population morbidity in the Siberian and other Federal Districts, and in Russia as a whole. Multiregional demographic analysis of dynamic series is used as a research tool. Rosstat data are the study information base. The paper shows that despite the mortality decrease and life expectancy growth in the recent years, the situation with morbidity in the Siberian Federal District and in the country continues to be tense. The Siberian Federal District ranks first in main diseases classes in the country, and first, in those, which make a major contribution to the population mortality and disability. Moreover, the first places in these classes of diseases relate to a younger age population group than the average in Russia, and especially in the Central and North-Western Federal Districts. In future the population ageing may lead to further exacerbating of negative trends In the Siberian Federal district itself, Altaisky Krai has the negative position with the highest morbidity level, for a long time holding the first places on the incidence of circulatory and oncological diseases. A special anxiety is much higher growth of the children, and especially, adolescent morbidity in comparison with the whole population. The tendency to deterioration of morbidity indicators among children and adolescents may lead to the health weakening in all population age groups. Authors conclude that against the background of depopulation and out-migration there was a decrease in population size and its quality due to morbidity growth and ageing. All together, this affects adversely both the demographic potential and population reproduction, and the economy state and prospects.

The article objective is to consider the Old Believers’ reading practices. The repertoire and existence of both Old Russian and Old Believers hand-written miscellanies have attracted the attention of researches for a long time; a special term for the field of philology studying medieval collections - “miscellanology” has recently appeared. A hand-written miscellany allows understanding the readers’ interests of the compiler, as well as gives an interesting material to study the process of its existence in the presence of owners’ records and litters. The article deals with a manuscript miscellany of the 18th century written by raznochinetz Ivan Ivanov; nowadays it is stored in the Manuscripts and Book Monuments Department of Tomsk State University Research Library. The paper presents characteristics of the miscellany content and ornamentation. It shows that the manuscript contains texts being read both by the Orthodox, and Old Believers. It is established that the miscellany scriber was not an Old Believer, but later the manuscript appeared in the Old Believer environment and the text was corrected (for example, in the name “Jesus” the first letter was scraped off). The author analyzes ownership records, which show that the miscellany belonged to Matryona Tiunova. The question arises about relations of M. Tiunova and Tiunovs’ Old Believer family, who lived in hermitages of the Tomsk region. The base for this assumption is the similarity of M. Tiunova and Maria Fedorovna Tiunova handwritings. The article shows that the spiritual verses copied by M. Tiunova in the manuscript fields existed among the Orthodox environment. The author makes an assumption about the miscellany existence in the Old Believers surroundings: the manuscript originally was created by a person, who didn`t belong to the Old Believers, but it was also demanded in the Old Believers environment. This fact is another evidence of the complex interaction between the Orthodox and Old Believers peasant cultures, and material for the study of peasant reading practices.

The article objective is to review the polemics of the priestless Old Believers about khomonia in the late XIX - early XX centuries in the context of legalization of the Old Believer schism and cultural modernization. The paper tries to define the place of a liturgical edition prepared by L.A. Grebnev, an Old Believer leader. Researchers examining these polemics have considered only its individual cases. In contrast, the present article characterizes these debates as a holistic phenomenon and analyzes factors of the polemics intensification at the centuries turn. The paper is built around Grebnev’s liturgical version, a scholarly description of which has already been published. This article first analyzes Grebnev’s work in the context of priestless polemics about church singing. These debates also touch upon wider problems of identity and adapting tradition in accordance with calls of a changing epoch. The study is sustained along the lines of intellectual history, has a multidisciplinary character: the methods of the historical discipline are combined with those from musicology. An analysis of Grebnev’s work allows us to uncover the author’s intent and characterize the way of editing liturgical texts. His plan was compared with the ideas sounded in the priestless polemics. An analysis of modern liturgical performances by Fedoseevtsy and Pomortsy in Vyatka allows us to make some remarks about the development of priestless liturgical chanting and evaluate the alternatives to the debates about khomonia. The author concludes that the legalization of the Old Believer schism enabled the polemics about chanting. The entry of the Old Believers into public space posed the problem of how they should integrate themselves into the modernizing society while maintaining their authentic character, including their unique chant tradition. According to the educational practice of this time, Grebnev founded a school for teaching the hook-note chanting. In order to make the liturgical language more comprehensible, he sought to remove anachronisms, including khomonia during his editorial work. Thus, he went directly from oral debates to preparing a version of liturgical texts. However, his work along with the polemics themselves were interrupted by the Bolshevik power, which had raised another problem of the Old Believers’ survival.

The article offers to examine a case of modern reaction of a national Orthodoxy representative to the heretical (on his mind) idea of a bar code as the Antichrist’s seal. The essay is based on the original scenario of the world history and its ending. Its author, A.G. Murachev, borrowed the basis of his theory on Roman genesis of modern states and the united proletariat as the Antichrist’s servant from his mentor, Father Simeon, the hegumen of Lower Yenisey Dubches sketes, who died in Stalin’s labor camps after the skete destruction in 1951. His essays with theoretical formulations connected the ancient exegetics of Revelation to John with modern life were preserved and copied out in the sketes and peasant’s surrounding community. A.G. Murachev has significantly developed the ideas of Father Simeon, but without his great authority, hasn’t found many adherers in sketes - the main spiritual center of Old Belief supporters of a priestless sect. Among other disagreements there was one worth mentioning. A.G. Murachev unlike the skete ideologists believed that the end of the world according to a series of evidences was rather remote. In particular, this was the reason why he denied the theory of a computer-Antichrist that got into the Lower Yenisey Old Believers’ society and included the idea of a bar code as the Antichrist antipode’s seal, who, presumbly, had already come to this world. A.G. Murachev inexactly called this theory ‘Baptist tales’, as in the 1970s this theory was distributed by the New Evangelistic Church. The Yenisey scholar treated this theory as something alien to the Orthodoxy, and criticized his coreligionists for their interest towards this unorthodox heresy. The essay analyzed in the article is a perfect sample of manifestation against the transconfessionalism (term introduced by G.L. Freeze). In the meantime, borrowing of ideas from other confessions (Catholicism - through Ukrainian writers and Protestantism) was pointed out for the supporters of a priestless sect by N.N. Pokrovsky, N.D. Zol’nikova, et al. Thus, A.G. Murachev’s paper shows the ambiguousness of the confessional interaction process among the Old Believers.

Two documents are introduced into the scientific circulation, which are the evidence of difficult food and material situation in Khakass countryside in the first post-war years. The memorandum of the People’s Commissariat of the State Security district department describes a severe famine that struck a number of collective farms in Tashtyp region in early 1946. It was caused by the actual cessation of the food provision to collective farmers as a payment for labor. The note of the Khakass Autonomous Oblast authorities to the Council of Ministers of the USSR on February 8, 1947 reported that the crop failure of 1946 left the collective farmers without bread. According to the memorandum authors, the hunger could have a negative impact on the results of spring sowing and other economic campaigns. Thus, the famine in the Khakass countryside began already in winter of 1945/46 and continued in 1946-1947.

The article analyzes a unified image of “chiefs” and characteristics of public officials and officers described in diaries and memoirs of three Cossacks, who were born in Siberia: P.V. Belokopytov, R.K. Bogdanov, A.P. Kazin. The memoirs reflect not only individual opinions of the authors, but also point of view of their social community. The author defines factors influencing the features of these images. Participation in military operations put to the forefront the martial qualities of the officers, the Transbaikalian Cossacks highly appreciated the knowledge of lifestyle, which caused a disfavor towards “strangers” - officers who came from other regions. The direct authorities showed much care about their subordinates lives and safety, lifestyle and property. The high-ranking officials showed accessibility, skilful region management, patronage for the common Cossacks. Taking into account the respect to the particular chiefs and loyalty to the monarch, the memoirs analyzed overall authorities’ characteristics, which were mostly negative. Individual peculiarities of these public officials, changes in memoirs authors’ status and social-political environment, chiefs’ communicative practices and ability to get on with subordinates played very important role.