The Koran became an inspiration to the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), made obvious in many of his works, such as Imitations of the Koran, The Prophet, and In a Secret Cave. Pushkin studied the translation of the Koran carefully and used many verses of its Surahs in his texts. Many of his contemporary poets and followers were influenced by his poetry, like Ivan Bunin (1870–1953), who continued the traditions of Pushkin. Bunin repeated many thoughts from Koranic discourse and placed them in his poems that were full of faith and spirituality. He wrote many of them at the beginning of the 20th century1, before his emigration to France in 1918, for example: Mohammed in Exile, Guiding Signs and For Treason. It has been noted that Bunin was quoting verses from the Koran to create an intertextual relationships between some Surahs and his poems, showing a great enthusiasm to mystical dimension of Islam. We find this aspect in many works, such as The Night of al-Qadr, Tamjid, Black Stone of the Kaaba, Kawthar, The Day of Reckoning and Secret. It can also be said that a spiritual inspiration and rhetoric of Koran were not only attractive to Pushkin and Bunin, but also to a large group of Russian poets and writers, including Gavrila Derzhavin, Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Tyutchev, Yakov Polonsky, Lukyan Yakubovich, Konstantin Balmont, and others.

Biography and scientific achievements of Academician Leonid Maksimovich Brekhovskikh - Russian physicist, the founder of the scientific school of Ocean Acoustics, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

This article describes the results of the pilot stage of qualitative fi eld research on Russian social memory in the second half of the 1980s. The aim of the research was to reveal what is the image of perestroika preserved in today’s social memory of those Russians who remember the events of those years. The main objective of the pilot stage was the identifi cation of the lexicon of terms and the set of concepts used to verbalize the memories of the perestroika period, as well as the caesuras and temporal characteristics related to the memory of this time. The results are outlined in the main topics, terms and concepts that pop up in conversations with respondents.

This article is dedicated to the publications of the Russian legal scholars on the annexation of Crimea in 2014 or, according to the Russian version of the events “Crimea’s reunification with Russia.” Based on the factual circumstances of the case and the norms of Ukrainian constitutional law and international law, as well as modern approaches in international legal doctrine, the article analyses the key arguments of the Russian authorities and its legal scholarship, namely the following: 1) Russia’s use of force against Ukraine was necessary to defend Russian nationals and compatriots; 2) Russia’s use of force against Ukraine was a lawful response to the request for assistance by the legitimate leaders of Ukraine (V. Yanukovych) and Crimea (S. Aksyonov); 3) the events in Crimea were a secession, with the subsequent accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation as an independent state; 4) Ukraine disregarded the principle of the equality and self-determination of peoples vis-à-vis the residents of Crimea, therefore, Crimeans had the right to secede; 5) Crimea is historically Russian; 6) Ukraine had been exercising peaceful annexation of the peninsula since 1991, and Russia did not object to this (subject to certain conditions, which Ukraine violated in 2014); 7) the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 was illegal. This article evaluates whether these claims hold any weight under international law. In addition the general trends in contemporary Russian approaches to international law are outlined and their effects on its foreign policy are examined.

In light of international law, the incorporation of the Crimean Peninsula (Crimea), which forms part of Ukraine’s territory, into the Russian Federation qualifies as annexation, i.e. the illegal acquisition of the territory of another state by the threat or use of force. In this respect, Crimea remains an occupied territory under international law. The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation has violated many treaties and fundamental principles of international law, namely the principle of territorial integrity of states, non-intervention into the domestic affairs of another state, and the prohibition of the threat or use of force against another state. Consequently, the Russian Federation has violated Ukraine’s rights which enjoy international protection. Moreover, due to the special legal status of the principles of international law that have been violated, the Russian Federation has breached its commitments under law to the entire international community. This community has an international legal obligation not to recognize the illegal situation created by the illegal use of force in the form of armed aggression, and its consequences.

In this article, the analysis has been subjected to discussing the autobiographical novel: The Prologue of Galina Kuznetsova- the representative of the Russian Emigration and the First Wave. This article presents the process of formation of the novel and identifies the impact of the personality and work of Ivan Bunin on its shape. Kuznetsovas novel was presented in a broader context of autobiographical novels of the Russian Emigration.

The article is dedicated to the determination of the types and functions of “someone else’s word”, i.e. intertextual relationships, present in political dramas of contemporary Russian writers. The author focuses on two types of intertexts such as quotes and allusions; determines their importance to the dramatic work as a whole, and distinguishes topic-related groups of texts to which dramatists refer. The conclusions of the study incline to place the phenomenon of political drama between what is “literary” and “social”, “eternal” and “up-to-date”.The analysis was carried out on the materials of dramas such as: Putin.doc by Victor Teterin, Sentry (Часовой) by Siergiej Reshetnikov, Meat by Olga Pogodina, and Beria by Dmitry Karapuzov.

The article reconstructs the dispute that evolved in the first decade of the 20th century between Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy – who both in addition to being world‑famous fictionists, played an essential part as notable public figures in Russian philosophical and political life. The outbreak and the course of the First Russian Revolution (1905– 1908) prompted both thinkers to define their positions on the most important problems of Russian thought. In this dispute, Gorky represented the position of socialist humanism, social revolution, civilizational development, activism, the culture‑formingr ole of the intelligentsia and Western‑style modernization. Against these hopes Tolstoy advocated archaic anarchism, negation of civilization, rural primitivism, personal and moral excellence, in short a Russian Sonderwege. The author puts forward that this debate is an important extension of the famous discussion triggered by the publication of the Vekhi almanac („The Milestones”, 1909).

The aim of the article is to assess the current image of Poland as a tourist destination from the point of view of the Russians. To achieve the assumed goals, surveys were carried out. Basic statistical indicators such as mean, standard deviation, Pearson similarity index and graphic methods were also used in the study. Russian citizens did not perceive fully Poland as a country attractive for tourists both for themselves and for other European tourists. Their opinion in this regard was more critical than representatives of other nations.

The article aims at the explanation of some distributional peculiarities of two high unrounded vowels [i] and [È] in Russian. More generally, it looks at some phonotactic constraints of Russian vowels which are directly related to a broader topic of palatalization and vowel reduction in this language. Although the discussion in this paper concerns only a tiny section of Russian phonology, which is the distribution of high unrounded vowels, it is necessary to introduce several facts from Russian phonology, such as palatalization, velarization, stress and vowel reduction. They, at first sight, may look pretty much irrelevant to the main topic of the paper but, as it will become evident, are closely related and actually indispensable to the understanding of vowel distribution including the two high unrounded vowels in Russian.

Although the Russian Orthodox Church participates in the activities of the ecumenical movement, it remains sceptical about the evolution of Western Christianity, mainly Protestantism. In particular, attempts to challenge traditional dogmatic and ethical formulations are unacceptable. The Russian Orthodox criticism goes even further when it reveals the sources of the rejection of church tradition in early Protestant theology. In this context, the article presents the main elements of the contemporary Russian Orthodox critique of the Reformation’s rejection of tradition as an authoritative source of Christian faith. The first part outlines the theological and ideological specificity of the Russian Orthodox discourse on the Reformation. The second part presents the Orthodox concept of the authority of tradition in the Church as a starting point for the criticism of the Reformation. The third part discusses the main elements of the criticism of the reformatory concept of sola Scriptura with particular emphasis on its socio-political reasons and consequences.

One of the direct results of the collapse of the former USSR was the emergence of centrifugal ethnic minority nationalisms, which posed a threat to the stability of the then newly-established (or restored in the case of the Baltic democracies) states. In this context, one of the mechanisms introduced by the leading elites in several countries (e.g. Latvia, Ukraine, Estonia, the Russian Federation) in order to address the minority diversity issue, ensure stability, and gain international support (in the case of the Baltic states) was a cultural autonomy scheme, which has its origins in the ideas of the late 19th century Austro-Marxist school of thought. This model was successfully implemented once in the past, in inter-war Estonia. However, its modern application, even in cases when it does not just remain on paper (such as in Latvia and Ukraine), seems to serve other motives (e.g. a restitutional framework in Estonia, control of the non-titular minority elites in Russia) rather than the satisfaction of minority cultural needs, thus making cultural autonomy a dead letter.

On 11 March 2014 Crimea declared independence. Ukraine and international society has not recognised that act. However Crimea’s independence was recognised by Russia and on 18 March 2014 an agreement on the accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation was signed. Many countries and international organisations have condemned that step, viewing it as illegal annexation. Regardless of how this situation is treated however, it is at present a fait accompli. Such a situation evokes legal consequences both in the internal law of Ukraine and Russia as well as on the plane of international law. The residents of Crimea appear to be in the worst situation. Legal certainty is a fiction for them now. There are also problems on the international plane. Despite the fact that in the opinion of international society Crimea remains an integral part of Ukraine, in practice there are many conflicting problems of a legal nature that cannot be solved, at least for the time being. This article analyses the legality and certain legal consequences of the “accession” of Crimea to Russia and the effect of this accession on the legal situation for residents of Crimea. The article concludes that legal situation of Crimeans will not improve anytime soon, and that the legal problems which have arisen on the international plane will not be resolved soon either.

This article describes the study of the reception of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works by Polish and Russian readers. I have tried to identify similarities and differences in the interpretation of his novels in relation to readers’ nationality, age, education, life experiences and worldview. This study (survey) confi rmed some of the previously obtained results. It turns out, once again, that Dostoevsky is a writer who still arouses interest, his novels are popular. The study also showed that the interpretation of Dostoevsky’s works usually does not depend on reader’s nationality – Polish and Russian respondents are in agreement when it comes to their views about the books. Differences in the reception of novels can be correlated mostly with respondents faith and/or unbelief.

The work is devoted to the analysis of quite rare kind of wedding speeches occurring in a ceremony of the part of Vologda province in the end 19th – early 20th century. The author considers features of functioning of the text in a wedding ceremony, national terminology, the territory of distribution, poetic features, a ratio of all-Russian and regional components in the texts. It is shown that by means of these texts the party of the bride implicitly declared about her physical and emotional preparedness for marriage because the themes of female physical beauty, health, portliness, youth, fertility, complaisance, etc. are emphasized in these texts.

Provence has been playing an important role in Russian literature for two hundred years. Numerous Russian artists have visited this French region or settled there for a longer time; enchanted by the beauty of south European nature and mild climate, they depicted it in their poems, stories or travel journals. The list includes, e.g. Semen Nadson, Alexandr Kuprin, Ivan Bunin, Sasha Chyorny, Vladimir Nabokov. Galina Kuznetsova (1900–1976), representative of the first wave of Russian emigration, spent several years in Provence. The poet lived in Grasse on and off from 1927 to 1942. Her stay on the south of France greatly influenced the journal she then wrote (Грасский дневник, 1967), and her only poetry collection published in her lifetime, entitled The Olive Garden (Оливковый сад, 1937). This article covers the Provence threads present in both texts. Kuznetsova depicts in these works the beauty of exotic nature, combining descriptions of landscape with her own emotional states, using solutions characteristic of impressionism.

The Old Believers appeared on the Polish territories in 18th century. They are a bilingual community. They use Russian dialect and Polish language, depending on communicative situation. Polish influence on the Old Believers’ dialect increased after two World Wars, when they became separated from their co-religionists in other countries and had more often contacts with Polish neighbours. In Old Believers’ Russian dialect more and more Polish elements are noticable, especially in lexis. In the technical terminology there are a lot of borrowings from Polish language caused above all by the civilization progress. The aim of this article is to analyze the lexis borrowed from Polish language in the field of technics in Russian dialect of the Old Believers of Suwałki-Augustów Region and furthermore confront it with the material gathered in “Słownik gwary staroobrzędowców mieszkających w Polsce” (1980 a.d.). The gathered material was analyzed paying special attention to assimilation to the Russian dialect.

Soils of Russian European North were investigated in terms of stability and quality of organic matter as well as in terms of soils organic matter elemental composi-tion. Therefore, soil humic acids (HAs), extracted from soils of different natural zones of Russian North-East were studied to characterize the degree of soil organic matter stabilization along a zonal gradient. HAs were extracted from soil of different zonal environments of the Komi Republic: south, middle and north taiga as well as south tundra. Data on elemental composition of humic acids and fulvic acids (FAs) extracted from different soil types were obtained to assess humus formation mechanisms in the soils of taiga and tundra of the European North-East of Russia. The specificity of HAs elemental composition are discussed in relation to environmental conditions. The higher moisture degree of taiga soils results in the higher H/C ratio in humic substances. This reflects the reduced microbiologic activity in Albeluvisols sods and subsequent conser-vation of carbohydrate and amino acid fragments in HAs. HAs of tundra soils, shows the H/C values decreasing within the depth of the soils, which reflects increasing of aromatic compounds in HA structure of mineral soil horizons. FAs were more oxidized and contains less carbon while compared with the HAs. Humic acids, extracted from soil of different polar and boreal environments differ in terms of elemental composition winch reflects the climatic and hydrological regimes of humification.

The article features an analysis of the ideas of Yurij Levada, an eminent Russian academic, sociologist dealing both with theory and with practice of sociology, a founder of a research institution inMoscow known as Levada-Centre. Levada gave a special place to culture within sociology and he himself called his project on theoretical sociology an “attempt at culturally justified sociology” (grounded in a perspective orientated to culture). The project was based on structurally complex, culturally conditioned and symbolically indirect social actions. In his opinion, such knowledge of culture required to be looked at retrospectively, which provides for tackling the issue of social system reproduction while enabling to understand contemporary culture at the same time. This way of thinking was a basis for Levada’s analyses of the surrounding social reality, e.g. his analyses of intelligence or the concept of “simple Soviet man”.

This article examines the connection between media use and social in/security from the perspective of Finnish Russian-speakers. Based on 25 interviews conducted in Finland in 2015–2016, it analyses the ways in which people in conflict situations mitigate social risks and attempt to produce security by governing their use of the media. Drawing from von Benda-Beckmann and von Benda-Beckmann’s work on social security, the article argues that security studies ought to include transnational media use in their scope and broaden the emphasis towards the social and societal aspects of threat and insecurity. Furthermore, it explains how, in times of conflict, transnational media may turn into a digitalised ‘war zone’ with alarming consequences on the identification and social security of their audiences.

This article explores the nature and impact of stigmatisation upon Russian and Russian-speaking migrants living in Scotland. It is based upon data gathered from 19 interviews with Russians and Russian-speakers living in the Aberdeen/Aberdeenshire and Central Belt regions of Scotland. Ongoing conflict in Syria and Ukraine has worsened relations between the UK and Russia, while EU enlargement and, latterly, the ‘refugee crisis’ have fuelled hostile attitudes towards migrants. Russians and Russian-speakers liv-ing in Scotland therefore face two potential sources of stigma, firstly because of a (perceived) associa-tion with the actions of the Russian state and, secondly, because they are often misidentified as Polish and are consequently regarded as threatening the availability of resources such as jobs, housing, ben-efits and school places (Pijpers 2006; Spigelman 2013). The article explores how people respond to such stigmatisation, emphasising the complexity of engaging with misdirected stigma. It is suggested that stigma – and the way in which people respond to it – is situational and context-specific in that it is significantly influenced by the identity, background and perspective of the stigmatised person. Also in-vestigated is the wider impact of stigma on Russian and Russian-speaking migrants’ lives, highlighting the emotional and social insecurities that can result from stigmatisation. Drawing on anthropological theories of social security (Caldwell 2007; von Benda-Beckmann and von Benda-Beckmann 2000), the article suggests that robust social support, particularly from people who are local to the host country, can mitigate the negative effects of stigmatisation.

This article aims to analyze the structure and semantics of Polish and Russian speech acts of wishing sent in greeting cards in the second half of the 20th century. The research leads to the conclusion that speech acts of wishing usually come in a fixed and concise form in both languages. However, some of the described formulas have not been recorded by researchers so far. The brevity of the texts may be related to the small size of the card, which requires the senders to write concise messages. It is also worth pointing out that formal modifications of Russian wishes are sometimes made for pragmatic purposes, mainly with the intention of reflecting the asymmetry of relations and the distance between the interacting partners. In contrast to Russian wishes, the form and content of their Polish counterparts is more varied depending on the holiday they concern. In addition, Polish speech acts of wishing are more often combined with other speech acts than are their Russian equivalents.

The aim of this article is to answer the question, “How Philaret Drozdov understood God’s holiness and human holiness and how both the ideas were displayed in his writings?” The research material constitutes selected homilies and a catechism. In the first place, the author discusses the definition of holiness and its understanding by the Orthodox Church with regard to the issue of deification. Also, he familiarizes the reader with the concept of holiness in its various aspects. Subsequently, the homilies and the catechism of Philaret Drozdov are analysed. The article shows the Moscow Metropolitan’s beliefs about the essence of human holiness as well as about the eschatological dimension of temporality and the pneumatological aspect of holiness, the issue of grace and a human seen as a vessel of God’s energy. The author proves that the Moscow Metropolitan continued in his works the traditions of the Church Fathers and creatively developed the most important assumptions of Orthodox anthropology and soteriology and, hence enriching Russian spiritual thought.