2014 Issue №4(22)

Based on the nation-wide censuses conducted between 1959 and 2010 in the Soviet Union and in the Russian Federation, as well as on the contemporary data of the Estonian Department of Statistics, the author of this article studies the spatial aspects of the dynamics of the ethnic area of Ingrian Finns within their main settlement area. This is done through utilizing ethnicity-related statistical data of the district at the lowest level of administrative division. The author emphasises a significant increase in the rates of degradation of the Ingiran settlement area in the post-Soviet period, identifies the factors behind it, and considers district differences in the rates of depopulation and assimilation of the Russian Finns. The results of research make it possible to foreground and describe in detail the available information on the spatial organisation of Russian Finnish population in the North-western region of Russia.

This article examines the views of modern Russian scholars A. Dvornichenko, M. Krom, A. Filyushkin, and S. Mikhalchenko on the pre-revolutionary and Soviet historiography of medieval Lithuania. Chronological problem analysis constitutes the methodological framework of the study. Special attention is paid to the priorities of the Russian scholars in the analysis of the pre-revolutionary and Soviet Lithuanian studies. It is shown that the disintegration of the Soviet Union marked a new period in research on the historiography of medieval Lithuania. The activation of historical and historiographical studies was a result of a revision of views of Lithuanian past. The authors believe that modern historiography exhibits a “nostalgic” attitude to pre-revolutionary works, while the reception of the later, Soviet-era publications is more critically inclined. Post-Soviet historians do not restrict themselves by describing previous historiography: they also consider factors behind the change in the attitudes to Lithuani an past. Thus, the scholars pay special attention to studying the connection between the political situation and the evolution of the views of Russian scholars on the events of Lithuanian history.