Fortress in the village of Achabet in the Republic of South Ossetia According to Written Sources and Historiographic Data

The fortress in the village of Achabet is known from a number of written sources of the early 15th and 18th centuries. Despite this circumstance, in the scientific tradition it is contradictory to believe that the first information about the fortress contained in written sources refers to the events of the middle of the 16th century, and the lower limit of several periods of its construction is correlated by researchers with the same time. The presence of a contradiction between the information about the fortress contained in written sources and the presentation of this information in the scientific tradition determined the relevance of this study. The aim of the study, therefore, was to resolve this contradiction by analyzing and comparing the known information from written sources about this monument with information about it contained in the historical and linguistic literature, as well as with descriptions of the monument presented in the literature on the history of fortifications of the Transcaucasia. This comparison, in turn, made it possible to present a possible chronology of the construction of a number of objects that made up the complex of the monument over several periods of its construction. According to the results of the study, it is assumed that the tower and the adjacent semicircle of the first fortress wall were erected at the turn of the 13th–14th centuries, the second fortress wall was built along the first in the second half of the 15th century, and the third wall, the largest in terms of area covered, was erected in the 30-s of the 18th century. The materials for the study were written sources, as well as information about field examinations of the monument, available in the scientific tradition. The research was carried out on the basis of the method of comparative historical analysis.

Alcohol abuse and the fight against it in Ufa Province in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

This article is a comprehensive study of issues and problems related to alcohol abuse among the population of Ufa province at the turn of the centuries. The study uses methods of statistical and comparative-historical analysis. An important source is a survey of 1913, next to archival and published sources. The questionnaire, prepared by the Commission for Combating Drunkenness at the Society for the Protection of Public Health, was distributed among the peasant population of the Ufa province. It included 30 questions and touched on various aspects related to alcohol consumption, the causes of drunkenness, and methods of combating this social evil. The analysis of the information contained in more than one and a half thousand questionnaires allowed us to conclude that the population of the agricultural villages of the Ufa province suffered from a fairly high level of alcoholization. This hypothesis is confirmed by other sources. Moreover, the Russian-speaking population was most affected by the harmful effects of alcohol; to a lesser extent, this process affected Muslim villages, including Bashkir villages. The article also describes activities to combat drunkenness on the part of the state and public organizations, which included economic, cultural, educational, sanitary, hygienic, medical and other measures, up to the declaration of the prohibition law in Russia at the beginning of World War I. The article draws conclusions about the causes of alcoholism in Ufa province in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and attempts to give a comprehensive assessment of this phenomenon in the region at the time under consideration.

The functionality of class-numerical indicators in suffixes of adjectives of the Dargin languages

This article examines the class-numerical indicators functioning in the suffixes of adjectives of the Dargin languages that belong to the Nakh-Daghestanian language family. The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that these languages have rich morphological system; however, many grammatical categories are yet to be studied. The goal of this work is to determine the etymology of suffix indicator -ch-b (-v,- p), which forms the adjectives and contains an Aslaut changing class indicator. For achieving the set goal, the article employs comparative-historical analysis and descriptive method; for collecting verbal material of various idioms – the methods of field linguistics. The novelty consists in the fact that this attributivizer is analyzed from the comparative-historical perspective in the Dargin studies for the first time. It is established that the morpheme under review is formed from the short form of the adverb of place chedi (ch-) “upwards”. In  the Dargin languages, it functions in form of the essive comprised by affixing class indicators to the lative form. With evolution of the language, this morpheme has been grammaticalized. The acquired results can be applied in preparing comparative-historical grammar of the Dargin languages, teaching the course of the Dargin literary language, as well as in typological research.

How to select good leaders in Asian countries: the case of China and Singapore

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to bring out the possibility of selecting good leaders in Asian countries, i.e., China and Singapore.Design/methodology/approachSince comparative historical analysis enhances the objectivity for academic discussion, Deng Xiaoping’s and Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership successions have been chosen as the cases for studies by virtue of “method of agreement”. Incorporating “argument based on the contrary” into the context for macro-historical analysis, this paper characterises the duo’s successful (at least quite successful) leadership successions, thus offering an alternative paradigm beyond Western-style democracy.FindingsBoth cases of post-Mao China and the independent Singapore indicate that in quite a number of Asian countries, good leaders could still be selected beyond universal suffrage as practised among Western Electoral Democracies, mainly because of the elites-driven context. As to the duo’s succession results, Deng Xiaoping’s selection of leaders was somewhat successful, while Lee Kuan Yew’s was phenomenal.OriginalityThis paper offers readers a glance over the possibility of selecting good leaders in Asian countries not fully based on Western-style democracy. Learning from the duo’s leadership successions, the West may treat elite politics as the supplement under Western Electoral Democracies in order to avoid their countries falling into the trap of populism. The West could meanwhile consider the exceptional criteria prized by the duo for leadership successions. Considering such interactions among elites in the real-life context, it could serve as an alternative model to Western-style democracy.

Educational Policies and Schooling for Arabic Speaking Refugee Children in Australia and Turkey

This paper aims to compare refugee settlement and education policies between two geographically and culturally distinct nations, Australia and Turkey. Due to its geographical position in the Middle East, Turkey now hosts millions of refugees especially following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Australia also has a long history of hosting and supporting refugees from many countries and the Arabic-speaking nations are no exception. Conducting a comparative historical analysis, this study aims to fill the gap in our knowledge about the education policies and practices of both countries. Based on the expectations and needs of refugee students, it emerges that new policy practices and approaches backed by adequate academic and financial resources are required in both countries.

RECORDING OF RESEARCH RESULTS IN THE COURSE OF FORENSIC HISTOLOGICAL EXAMINATION IN RUSSIA

The objective of the study was to identify the features of recording microscopy results in case of forensic histological examination in Russia at present and the prospects for its development in the future. Research material included conclusions of an expert (specialist) of state forensic medical institutions of Russia. The methods used to study the material were as follows: comparative-historical analysis, microscopic, thanatogenetic analysis, microphotography and description of histological sections. The authors analyzed in details two methods of recording the results obtained by microscopy, which are mostly often used while performing forensic histological examinations at present in Russia. The article reflects the historical, legal and forensic aspects, as well as some unresolved problems of recording information obtained during forensic histological research. The authors also express their opinion about the use of computer vision in the microscopy of histological sections in the near future, as a supplement but not the opposite of biological vision.

MYTHOLOGY OF ORPHEUS IN CLASSICAL CULTURAL TRADITION

The article examines the peculiarities in the formation of the Orpheus mythologeme in the ancient cultural tradition. An analysis of the works of ancient authors, including Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil and Ovid allows to single out the specifics of creating the image of Orpheus. The latter is seen by the above-mentioned authors not only as a poet and musician who had lost his beloved Eurydice, but also as the founder of cult rites known as Orphic mysteries. “Orphism” as a system of religious and philosophical views became most widespread in the era of Peisistratus in the 6th century BC in Attica. Dionysus, revered by the Orphic, was important for farmers as a deity of eternal rebirth and powerful natural forces. In the ancient cultural tradition, the image of Orpheus develops under a double sign: both Apollo and Dionysus. The ideas of Orphic philosophy can be found in the religious and philosophical teachings of the Pythagorean school and in the writings of Plato. The original transformation of the Orphic-Pythagorean ideas and the mythologeme of Orpheus occurs in Virgil’s Georgics and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which are also the subject of this article. The comparative historical analysis of artworks and philosophical treatises of antiquity carried out in the course of this study indicates that the mythologeme of Orpheus in the ancient cultural tradition is an example of the embodiment of the syncretic unity of art and religion in the archaic consciousness.

Education of transport industry specialists: reflecting on the experience of the oldest transport university in Russia

Analyzed is historical experience in breeding of engineers of transport communications in Emperor Alexander the First Petersburg state transport university. For the first time in national literature presented is generalized characteristic of unique experience of breeding of young specialists at the first transport and engineering building institute of Russia. Presented is comparative-historical analysis of influence on brains and hearts of young Russians in oldest transport university of the country. As scientific hypothesis, given is supposition, that during more than 210 years of functioning of famous transport institution in breeding of engineers of transport on various stages there were solving similar tasks, and reckoning similar factors, and discovered were common tendencies and features in the process of breeding work of scientific-pedagogical collective. The process of breeding of future engineers of ways of communication examined is on material of four significant periods in the history of university.

Formation of historical commenting competence in students – future teachers of the Russian language and literature

Introduction. The relevance of the research lies in the fact that historical commenting on linguistic phenomena is an important means of solving the problems of training language teachers, since it allows explaining modern linguistic facts, concepts, patterns by establishing their diachronic properties. The purpose of the study is to test a model of the formation of historical commenting competence in students – future teachers of the Russian language and literature. Materials and methods. The study was conducted from January to December 2020 at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. The sample included 90 people. Methods applied: comparative historical analysis of monuments of ancient Russian writing; expert assessments; methodology for determining the formation of linguistic competence of students (E.N. Piskunova); mathematical statistics (χ2-Pearson test). Research results. The program of the courses "Old Church Slavonic" and "History of the Russian literary language" included the study and comparative historical analysis of the monuments of ancient Russian writing. The results of testing the model showed statistically significant changes in the experimental group according to the following criteria: information-cognitive (χ2 = 20.3; p <0.01), activity-semantic (χ2 = 45; p <0.01), professional-communicative (χ2 = 8.5; p <0.05) and practice-oriented (χ2 = 21.1; p <0.01). Discussion and conclusion. A comparative analysis of the research results showed that teaching the historical syntax of the Russian language affects the formation of the competence of historical commenting in students – future language teachers and the level of their training. The developed methodological toolkit provides an analysis of the syntactic field of subject sentences of the Old Russian language and their historical commenting on the basis of the subject of the dictum and the subject of modus.