‘The Russian Empire and Europe’ shows how Peter the Great's creation of a national army and navy consolidated Russia as a European power. To defend its frontiers, and to deal with threats among its diverse populations, Russia also needed friendly relations with its European neighbours. Catherine II attempted to broaden the social and cultural basis of the monarchy and to give it a foundation of legality. The war against Napoleon in 1812 and the resulting division between Russia's ‘Westerners’, who were attracted by European culture, and the ‘Slavophiles’ who took a pride in Russia's distinctiveness, are considered. Finally, Russia's role in the Crimean War and the fall of the Ottoman empire is also discussed.

Muscovite civilization utilized Byzantine-Greek alphanumerals for its mathematical symbols. Occasionally derided by historians for being retrograde in comparison to the Hindu-Arabic numerals sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe adopted, Muscovy’s alphanumerals were versatile and suitably contoured to perform a variety of computational tasks. Muscovite alphanumerals were an integral part of early Moderen Russia’s administrative culture, and played a prominent role in fostering the experiential knowledge underlying the educational achievements of the Imperial Period. Though they lacked the zero and the decimal, Muscovites still had a reasonable grasp of the base-ten system, and comprehended well basic arithmetical skills and relationship properties, less so equational ones. The Russians developed complex abaci well suited for commercial transactions, large-scale construction, military inventories and payrolls, and the land registry, to name a few. These instruments manipulated an extensive variety of weights, measures, linear distances, area dimensions, volume measurements, and currency. Muscovite arithmetic was a prominent factor assisting in the advancement of critical thinking skills in 1600’s Russia. Nonetheless, as the seventeenth century wore on, sociological, educational or pedagogical, military scientific, administrative, and cultural arguments or interactive phenomena came to bear and increasingly found the Muscovite algorithmic symbols wanting. In 1699 the government decreed that Hindu-Arabic numerals henceforth were to be used in official documents throughout the country. Directly and indirectly, the complex thought processes bound up when operating with Muscovite alphanumerals were one impetus for the further unfolding of Russian civilization after 1700.

Donald Ostrowski proposes that Ivan IV made Simeon Bekbulatovich the grand prince of all Rus’ in order to thwart a conspiracy aimed at replacing Ivan with the Crimean khan. Ostrowski invokes the theory of steppe politics, which includes the principle that only Chinggisids could hold the title of tsar, to explain and support his hypothesis. A review of the practice of steppe politics in the decades preceding 1575, however, reveals that the rivalries among competing branches of the Chinggisid dynasty and the bases for Crimean hostility toward Muscovy make it unlikely that Ivan could have effectively preempted the presumed coup by yielding his throne to Simeon Bekbulatovich. This observation suggests that the theory of steppe politics does not offer a satisfactory explanation for the appointment of Simeon to the position of grand prince of all Rus’.

Ostrowski’s article poses the important question as to why Ivan the Terrible appointed Simeon Bekbulatovich as Grand Prince of all Rus’. Ostrowski describes Bekbulatovich’s identities as khan of the Kasimov Khanate, Chinggisid prince, and a Tatar enrolled in the service of the Grand Prince of Moscow. It is also quite possible that after his baptism, Bekbulatovich became a sincere Orthodox Christian. He was also a warrior and a military commander, a landowner and a slaveholder. But the central event of his life was his mysterious assignment on the Muscovite throne in 1575. It seems, however, that there is no understanding for this mysterious event. Ostrowski's paper doesn't provide an answer to this question. It was likely a Muscovite medieval performance and, unfortunately, today’s modern historians do not understand the meaning and purpose of this episode.

The author surveys Muscovite law regulating monasteries, focusing on which courts exercised jurisdiction over monasteries and the legal right to appoint or remove superiors of monasteries. Throughout the Muscovite period secular courts had jurisdiction over lawsuits involving claims to land brought by or against monasteries, and this jurisdiction was confirmed in the 1550 Sudebnik. Lawsuits involving “spiritual matters” were heard by church courts, and the Stoglav confirmed the church courts’ jurisdiction over lawsuits brought by laymen against monastic personnel. The Stoglav also gave the tsar a veto over the appointment of monastic superiors, but many secular officials, prelates and the brothers themselves had influence and authority over the choice of a candidate. While the Stoglav and actual practice required that the brothers obey the superior, there is much evidence that in the management of monasteries the superior sought the consensus of his council of elders. Chapter 13 of the 1649 Ulozhenie constituted a major change in the law. It confided jurisdiction over lawsuits against monasteries and their personnel to a state chancellery staffed by lay judges. The 1666-1667 Church Council, however, restored the jurisdiction of church courts to where it had been prior to 1649. Although the law was unstable throughout the Muscovite period, the monasteries continued to exercise some measure of legal autonomy from the state.

Abstract On 16 March 1714 Peter I issued a decree on the printing of decrees. Previously all decrees (ukazy), and indeed almost all legislative texts apart from the 1649 law code (Ulozhenie) of Aleksei Mikhailovich, had been issued in manuscript and disseminated through hand-written copies and oral proclamation. Peter's decree on the use of print was a landmark in the administrative uses of printing in Russia. It was intended as such by Peter, and perceived as such by his successors. The continued success of this initiative is contrasted with the repeated failure of other projects for the systematic use of printing in legislation: the attempts to produce a new systematic code, and to publish regular chronological compilations of laws. This article considers the context, implications, and consequences of Peter's innovative ruling. The main questions under consideration are: why had printing not been used for these purposes earlier? what specific functions was the technology called upon to fulfil? and what were its relations with other technologies? Particular attention is paid to the perceived and actual roles of printing as an aid to (i) distribution, (ii) standardization, and (iii) the emblematic projection of authority. In each case, printing is considered not in isolation, but in its relations with the uses of manuscript and speech. A final section considers some ways in which Peter's instruction was followed or adapted by his 18th-century successors.

Abstract This article critically examines contemporary narratives which frame Serbian politics as a conflict between supporters of a pro-European Union (EU) policy and supporters of closer ties with Russia. Contrary to this narrative, contemporary Serbian political actors increasingly present policies and platforms oriented towards both the European Union and Russia. These developments reflect the contradictory legacies arising from the history of Serbian and Russian diplomatic relations along with the sometimes ambivalent implications of Russia's stance on the issue of Kosovo's independence, Serbian public attitudes towards Russia, and recent developments in Serbian-Russian economic relations. Given the long time frame for EU membership and the current impasse over issues like Kosovo and Serbia's potential NATO membership, Serbia's leaders currently enjoy the luxury of simultaneously deepening ties with both the EU and Russia. However, a future linkage between Kosovo's independence and EU membership and/or the possibility of Serbia's joining NATO will likely present Serbian political elites with mutually-exclusive choices bearing important implications for their relations with either Russia or the EU.

Abstract This article treats the philosophical writings of Nikolai Vasilievich Bugaev. Known best as a mathematician, father of Andrey Bely, and teacher of Pavel Florensky, Bugaev also wrote philosophical articles treating the arrangement of human knowledge and intellectual activity and the structure of being and consciousness. An examination of Bugaev's philosophical work sheds light not only on these questions, but also on the peculiar character of "background" figures and works in intellectual history.

Abstract Western cultural influences swept the closed Ukrainian city of Dniepropetrovsk under Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. Imports included rock music, western literature and films, consumer products such as jeans. Primary consumers were children of the elite, and later young working class students of technical institutes. These products entered Dniepropetrovsk from L'viv, and later from fraternal socialist countries and the west. They were brought illegally by black marketers and tourists. Consumers used the western products to assert new non-Soviet identities, which could include Ukrainian nationalism, religiosity, and westernized youth culture. Official reactions were contradictory, revealing tensions between Moscow and Ukrainian authorities, and within the Ukrainian cultural and security apparatus. Komsomol activists were instrumental in disseminating new trends in western music through officially sponsored discotheques. These activists would form the core of the entrepreneurial class that emerged during Gorbachev's market reforms. Zhuk offers an original picture of Soviet cultural practices by focusing on a closed Ukrainian city, rather than the more cosmopolitan Moscow or Leningrad, and by featuring cultural changes during the final three decades of Soviet power. He provides rich documentation through participant interviews, and periodicals and archival documents not previously consulted by researchers.