No 3 (2025)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the activities of I. V. Stalin and the highest Soviet authorities during the war. Attention is drawn to the methods and style of his leadership in the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters Stavka). His relationships with the military are also discussed. Stalin's contribution to the Victory is emphasized, but the ambiguity and contradictory nature of many decisions is pointed out.

The article is devoted to the problems of covering the events of the turning point in the Great Patriotic War, the Battle of Kursk, in Soviet memoir literature, and the disputes of military commanders in the post-war period about the causes of certain failures and victories in the Central and Voronezh Fronts during the summer battles of 1943.

The article analyzes the processes of formation, recruitment and activities of the fighter battalions of Moscow and the Moscow region in the period June 1941- 1942 on the basis of an array of NKVD records and sources of personal origin. These units, with created at the beginning of the war, were in many ways unique in terms of subordination, models of recruitment and use of units. The methods and institutions of managing fighter battalions, their social composition, the dynamics of numbers are studied, and the range of tasks they solve is indicated. Another important task of this article is to identify and analyze the mobilization mechanisms of the Soviet state on the example of the NKVD fighter battalions.

The article deals with two attempts of the Soviet authorities to start a dialogue with the Vatican on normalization of mutual relations, which took place in March and May 1942. The reconstruction of these attempts is based on the documents of the representative of the Catholic Church in Moscow, Father Leopold Braun, kept in the archive of the Vatican State Secretariat. The need to normalise relations between the USSR and the centre of the Catholic world had been gradually realised since the autumn of 1941, when it became clear that the Soviet Union's reputation as a persecutor of religion was causing protests from religious, including Catholic, circles in the USA against its involvement in the Lend-Lease programme. In the spring of 1942, the Soviet side tried to demonstrate to the Holy See the anti-Christian nature of Nazi religious policy in the occupied territories of the USSR, hoping that this would create conditions for a correction of the attitude of the centre of the Catholic world towards the USSR. However, this did not happen because of the Vatican’s deep distrust of the Soviet side, the anti-communism of its leaders and their unwillingness to take a position of complete condemnation of Germany and its allies. On the contrary, the Vatican continued to make plans to develop missionary activities in the Soviet territories occupied by the Nazis and their allies. As a result, the Holy See missed the chance to make the Catholic Church one of the beneficiaries of the ‘new deal’ of Stalin’s religious policy, which would begin to unfold in 1943.

The topic of using cartographic materials in the study of the Great Patriotic War has been practically unexplored. There is still no scientifically based classification of maps, their potential for the researcher has not been revealed. The first part of the article provides general information on the preparation of maps on the eve of and during the Great Patriotic War, an overview of the main types and kinds of cartographic materials, from the point of view of their use as a historical source. In the second part of the article, using the example of studying military topographic maps reflecting the actions of the Red Army to block the German Army Group "North" (from 25.01.1945 - Army Group "Courland") in October 1944 - May 1945, the main methods of working with cartographic materials are characterized and demonstrated.

The article attempts to overcome the stereotype that has developed in recent decades in the historical literature about the widespread poor catering during the Great Patriotic War. The dynamic materials on the operation of the canteens of seven large military factories in the Penza region suggest that the documents recorded the greatest number of shortcomings in 1942. There were queues in the canteens, poor-quality cooking, lack of dishes and chairs, rude service, and unsanitary conditions. In the following years, the situation has noticeably changed for the better. Some aspects of the catering problem are considered in the context of the general situation in the country. The organization of subsidiary farms and the development of horticulture have become a successful means of improving the nutrition of workers at enterprises.

Sports life during the Great Patriotic War remains a little-studied page of history. This is also true for football. Football, being the most spectacular and popular sport, remained an important sphere of social activity during the Great Patriotic War and as such was the object of attention of state and party bodies. The article analyzes key aspects of the history of football during the war using new archival materials: problems of adaptation of the football sector to military conditions in the summer and winter of 1941/1942; life strategies and practices of football players in maintaining their fitness; attempts by sports management to achieve the return of all-Union tournaments (the championship and cup of the country); problems of overcoming the consequences of the war in the big football sector.

The article examines the history of the development of government agencies for managing the mobilization preparation of the economy and mobilization planning of the national economy of the USSR in the post-war period (1945-1964). If in the first post-war decade the Soviet economy was managed mainly on a sectoral basis, then from the mid-1950s the transition to a territorial management system began, and enterprises began to be transferred from the operational management of the abolished ministries to the subordination of regional councils of the national economy. These reorganizations naturally influenced the development of the system of mobilization bodies. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite numerous experiments on dividing the issues of mobilization preparation and planning between different institutions, eventually the Soviet leadership came to the conclusion about the need to concentrate the subject of mobilization preparation within the framework of one governing body.

In both domestic and foreign historiography, the evolution of intelligence institutions of the Russian Empire after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and before the beginning of the military reforms of Alexander II remains extremely poorly studied. This article analyzes the development of Russian military intelligence in the above-mentioned period in the context of the activities of F.F. von Berg (1793 - 1874), a prominent statesman of the 1st - early 2nd half of the 19th century. Based on the study of a wide range of archival documents, it was concluded that Berg's ideas for improving the mechanisms for collecting intelligence were progressive in nature, but were not implemented in a timely and full manner on the eve of the Crimean War for a number of reasons, although they could have provided Russia with a strategic advantage over the enemy in the upcoming conflict.

The Starodub Regiment is a military-administrative unit of the Zaporizhian Host, the center of which was the city of Starodub (today Bryansk Oblast of the Russian Federation). The border position of the regiment predetermined the uniqueness of the processes that took place on its territory. The chronological framework of the article from 1654 to 1764 covers the entire historical period of the hetman's administration functioning in the region. The purpose of the work is to analyze the mobilization capabilities and features of the military organization of the Starodub Regiment in connection with the transformation of "center-periphery relations" in the region. To carry out the research in accordance with the set goal, the author used a wide range of historical sources from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, as well as the achievements of both modern and pre-revolutionary and foreign historiographies. The subject of the study is the transformation of the military organization of the Starodub regiment, including changes in its mobilization capabilities, as well as forms of using Cossacks, both in the immediate theater of military operations and for fortification work, depending on the change in the degree of influence exerted on the region by the Russian government, the hetman administration and local elites. The article provides a description of the position of the Starodub Cossacks at various stages of the historical period under consideration. It is noted that as a result of a change in the center or when one of them acquired a prevailing importance, the forms and methods of using Cossacks in military expeditions changed. At the same time, tangible reforms of the military organization of the Zaporozhian Host were first carried out only in the mid-1730s on the initiative of the Russian government. They were caused by a significant decrease in the combat effectiveness of the Cossack units, which were clearly manifested during the War of the Polish Succession of 1733-1735. Although the reforms turned out to be useful, they were insufficient. The combination of various factors led the Zaporozhian Host to the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763 in an even more depressing state. In conclusion, a conclusion is made that the military organization of the Cossacks required immediate radical reform. The subsequent reforms, carried out under the supervision of Count P.A. Rumyantsev, were not a whim of Empress Catherine II, but a necessity that was able to preserve the malorussian Cossacks as a separate class.

The paper analyzes P.A. Avakov's monograph dedicated to the "Azov project" of Peter the Great. The author comes to the conclusion that, despite a number of shortcomings, Avakov's book for the first time made it possible to realize the true scale of the transformations taking place in the Azov region at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is shown that the whole country participated in the implementation of the "Azov project", as in the shock construction of socialism.

The review is devoted to the analysis of Russian-Serbian relations during the Eastern crisis of 1875-1878 in the monograph by L.V. Kuzmicheva.

The new book by Yaroslavl and Samara historians, Man against the Environment, provides a new perspective for Russian historical science on the environmental component of the First World War in the Eastern European (Russian) theater of military operations. The authors consider the process of interaction between man and nature during the war in Galicia, Bukovina, the Kingdom of Poland and Romania, the most affected by the actions of the warring parties in 1914-1918.

A review devoted to the coverage of Soviet-French contacts in the 1930s in the monograph by A.A. Vershinin.

The article is a review of a book by American historian Paul Josephson, which is dedicated to the study of the role of atomic energy and nuclear technologies in the politics and culture of the USSR and Russia. The reviewed publication reveals the intricate relationships between science, politics, and culture in the context of using nuclear energy for both peaceful and military purposes. Containing controversial positions and conclusions, the book highlights the ongoing relevance of the issue of nuclear energy use in the modern world and encourages further thoughtful discussion on this topic.

Yuri Aleksandrovich Petrov is a prominent Russian historian, since 2010 the director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 2025 he was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Petrov made a great contribution to the study of the economic history of Russia in the 19th - early 20th centuries, the history of entrepreneurship, the banking sector. His works on the activities of leading Moscow manufacturers and financiers reveal not only a high level of organization of their business, but also the existence of a well-defined political program aimed at the progressive development of the country. Y.A. Petrov also organized major scientific projects, including those of an encyclopedic nature. As the director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he initiated the creation of the twenty-volume History of Russia and led the work on its preparation.