Mariya Dmitrievna Kovrigina (1910–1995) — a prominent organizer and head of Soviet healthcare

The article is dedicated to Mariya Dmitrievna Kovrigina. She was a prominent organizer of Soviet healthcare, the Honoured physician of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). During the Great Patriotic war and the post-war period M.D. Kovrigina for 17 years held many leading posts of Deputy Minister and Minister in the apparatus of Ministry of Healthcare of the RSFSR and USSR (1942-1959). Then for 27 years, she worked as the rector of the Central institute for Advanced Training of Physicians (1959-1986). The article provides some little-known facts from the biography of M.D. Kovrigina, which allows showing her contribution to the development of Soviet healthcare, as an experienced and professional organizer and as person sincerely sick soul for the work entrusted to her.

The Introduction and Practice of Awarding Orders of the Soviet Republics During the Civil War (1917–1922)

This article analyses the military award practice in the Red Army during the Civil War. The author turned to archival materials, published data from official statistics, and scientific literature. The study is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, and systematic approach. In order to process quantitative data, statistical analysis was used to calculate the results obtained by means of continuous sampling. Due to the abolition of the pre-revolutionary award system, new awards had to be created in parallel with the formation of the Red Army. The first award established in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was the Order of the Red Banner. Initially, it was awarded to individuals; over time it could also be re-awarded and presented to military units. Other Soviet republics – Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Armenian, Azerbaijan and Georgian – followed this example and established their own orders, which had much in common in terms of composition and meaning. The overwhelming majority of the awards presented during the Civil War were the Order of the Red Banner of the RSFSR. To optimize the award process, military personnel were divided into four categories, one category being authorized to award another. The total number of awards was small, only about 0.001 % of military personnel were awarded this order. The most awarded were Red Army soldiers, while the most frequently re-awarded were the upper echelons of military power – unit and formation commanders. The dynamic and socially determined nature of the Civil War explains the prevailing number of awards presented to servicemen in cavalry, artillery and armoured forces. The largest number of awards was given in 1922. The results of the study allow us to draw a conclusion about the democratic nature of the award system during the Civil War in Russia, as well as about the high motivational effect of these awards.

Discreet Signs of the Supreme Idea: On Certain Transcendent Categories in Russian and Soviet Constitutional Law

The purpose of this article is to analyse world-view and mythological expressions in Russian and Soviet Constitutional acts that implicitly or explicitly refer to any kind of idea legitimising the shape of the state, its political system or the nature of political power. The object of the argument will be exclusively such provisions of fundamental laws which: (1) having neither a purely regulatory nor a purely programmatic character, model mental representations of the world of the legal text by reference to ‘situationally transcendent’ ideas in Mannheim’s sense (i.e. ideas which refer to a reality different from the perceived one; those that sketch visions alternative to it); (2) justify the content of the legal provision by means of such imagery, without being part of the preamble or any different integral part of the Constitution, characterised by a different ontology of the text; (3) justify the content of provisions linked to political power and/or the nature of the state. The materials of the analysis are: Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire of 1906, the Constitutional texts of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of 1924, 1936 and 1977, and the current Constitution of the Russian Federation. Consecutive Constitutions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic are also referred to. The analysed formulations, legally irrelevant in a conventional reading of a legal text, participate in the semiosis of both the provisions that contain them and the entire texts of the fundamental laws. In this way, the Constitutions incorporate into their complex of meanings either religious expressions, mythologised ideological figures or figures of historical memory associated with collective identity.

On the Contribution of Professor V.V. Chernikov to the Development of Scientific Grounds and the Establishment of the Police Law Branch in the Russian Federation

This article, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the famous Russian administrative law scholar — Doctor of Law, Professor, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation Valery V. Chernikov, examines his contribution to the development of scientific foundations and the formation of police legislation as one of the branches of the current legislation of the Russian Federation. The Author shows the role of Valery V. Chernikov in the preparation of official drafts of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Law of April 18, 1991 “Militia” and the Federal Law of February 7, 2011 № 3-FZ “Police”, reveals his interpretation of the definitions of “police legislation”, “police activity”, “the police system of Russia”. Particular attention is paid to vital faults, which, according to Valery V. Chernikov, are inherent in police legislation, and the main directions for the further development of this branch of modern domestic legislation, including, among other things, the development and adoption of the Police Code of the Russian Federation.

Policy of Postponed Sovetization: Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Georgia in 1920–1921

Introduction. The author presents a brief description of the situation in the South Caucasus after the establishment of the Soviet power in Azerbaijan. A brief characteristic of the international context influencing decisionmaking in relation to Georgia and Armenia is given. The author makes a short review of historiography. Methods and materials. A list of historical sources is presented. The materials of the Archive of foreign policy of the Russian Federation and the Russian state archive of social and political history, private documents and the description of Menshevik Georgia in 1920 by Soviet scientist and publicist N.L. Meshcheryakov are the base of the research. Analysis. Based on these sources, the author explores the Soviet-Georgian relations, which are considered as interstate, since Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic legally accepted the independence of the Georgian state. A comparison of the positions of the representatives of the Caucasus Bureau and the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs revealed the difference in approaches to politics in Georgia. Moscow was against forced Sovietization and considered the Georgian Republic as a temporary buffer between Russia, on the one hand, and the forces of the Entente and Kemalist Turkey, on the other. The main directions of the Soviet-Georgian interaction were analyzed. The author, giving examples from documents, proves that Georgia was used as a center for strengthening control over Azerbaijan, consolidating success in the North Caucasus and pursuing a policy of reintegrating the South Caucasus into the Russian statehood. One of the clauses of the SovietGeorgian treaty signed in May 1920 was the creation of an associated commission. The article considers the features of its work and shows its inefficiency using the documents. Results. The author draws the conclusion that achieving independence in a wide international context was impossible for Georgia at that date. The RSFSR policy during 1920–1921 can be called the course of postponed Sovietization. It became an independent stage in the reintegration of the South Caucasus.

Anti-Collaborationist Propaganda in the Occupied Territories of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Based on the Material from the Kalinin Region).

The article deals with the problem of anti-collaborationist propaganda on the territory of the Kalinin region during the Wolrd War II. This thorny subject has been hushed up for a long time by official historiography. It has been openly discussed since the 1990s when it immediately turned out polemical. It is this article that turns to documentary sources of the Kalinin region. The most imprtannt of these sources is the report of V. A. Dunaev who was at the head of the primary party organization at the Idritsky district level. The author discusses the methods of propaganda struggle against the accomplices of the occupation fashist regime and gives a high assessment of their effectiveness.

Monthly Distribution of 1933 Famine Losses in Soviet Ukraine and the Russian Soviet Republic at the Regional Level

One of the distinct characteristics of the 1932–1933 famine is that between 65 and 80 percent of all famine-related deaths (direct losses) in rural areas of Soviet Ukraine (UkrSSR) and its oblasts and some regions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) occurred during the first six or seven months of 1933, and that in all oblasts of UkrSSR and some regions of RSFSR the number of famine losses increased by a factor of six to 15 between January and June–July of 1933. The historical explanation of this sudden explosion of deaths is critically examined, and a more comprehensive explanation is proposed. We show that the regional variations in these increases in losses are correlated with four factors: extensive household searches for grain with all food taken away in many instances, closing of inter-republic borders and limitation of internal travel by peasants, resistance to collectivization and grain requisitions and repressions, and the “nationality factor.” Analysis of the monthly dynamics of rural losses during the first half of 1933 suggests a possible independent confirmation of the hypothesis that during the searches for “hidden” or “stolen” grain, all food was taken away in many households.

Resettlement Processes in the Ukrainian SSR during the Holodomor (1932–34)

This article, based on archival documents, reveals resettlement processes in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932–34, which were conditioned by the repressive policy of the Soviet power. The process of resettlement into those regions of the Soviet Ukraine where the population died from hunger most, and which was approved by the authorities, is described in detail. It is noted that about 90,000 people moved from the northern oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR to the southern part of the republic. About 127,000 people arrived in Soviet Ukraine from the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) and the western oblasts of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). The material conditions of their residence and the reasons for the return of settlers to their previous places of inhabitance are described. I conclude that the resettlement policy of the authorities during 1932–34 changed the social and national composition of the eastern and southern oblasts of Ukraine.

THE PROTECTION OF HEALTH OF INDUSTRIAL WORKERS DURING YEARS OF NATIONAL RESTORATION AND INDUSTRIALIZATION (TO CENTENARY OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT OF HEALTH CARE OF THE RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERATIVE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC)

The article considers activities of the People's commissariat of health care of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic targeted to preservation of health of industrial workers in second half of 1920s - 1930s. The leading role industrial workers in implementation of plans of reconstruction of national economy determined direction to their preferential medical care. The forms and methods of medical sanitary activity were altered by its ultimate drawing near to production to resolve task of decreasing of morbidity with temporary incapacity to work, occupational traumatism that was one of the most important factors of increasing labor productivity and decreasing of cost price of produced industrial production.

Armenii droga do leninowsko-kemalowskiego rozbioru (1917–1921)

After the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the former nations of the Russian Empire searched for the possibility of forming their own independent countries. The situation was the same with three nations of Transcaucasia, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. After the separatist Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (signed on the 3rd of March 1918), Bolshevik Russia in practice gave away the Transcaucasia region to Germany and Turkey. Especially Turkey assumed an aggressive and annexationist stance at the time. And it was the Armenians who mainly put up the resistance. Armenia, together with Azerbaijan and Georgia, first created the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. However, the state was short-lived and it soon collapsed due to different approaches to preserving independence by the three countries. Azerbaijan tried to unite with Turkey, Georgia with Germany,while Armenia counted on the White movement Russians (led by General Denikin). Each of the three countries formed separate independent republics and one of them was the First Republic of Armenia. Germany and Turkey lost the First World War soon after but Caucasia was first attacked from the north by the White General Anton Denikin, who was supported by England and France. And later (in 1920) the country was invaded by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, thanks to the military might of the Red Army, overthrew the independent governments of those republics one by one. Subsequently, they introduced their own governments and annexed the countries into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). The RSFSR signed the Treaty of Brotherhood with Turkey on the 16th of March 1921, which was mainly directed against Great Britain and France. In order to realize this alliance, Russia and Turkey divided between themselves the Armenianlands.