The humanities and social science

The author analyzes the place and role of parliament in today's trans­forming society and investigates the causes of the crisis of parliamentarism, the confrontation between parliament and government in some countries and in others - the widespread "legitimization" of government policy in the sphere of legal norms. The author has identified the reasons for a decrease in trust to parliaments, which no longer play a decisive role in the division of power, be­ing forced aside by the executive authorities. Today the regulatory function of parliament is narrowed to the elaboration of legislation regulating, widely speaking, the standing of both individuals and corporations in all kinds of public relations. The author has proposed to focus the legislative activity of Parliament on the creation of basic norms and principles that outline the framework of public relations rather than elaborating legal acts regulating many spheres at large. The author has reviewed the role of the parliament reg­ulations and rules of procedure in the activities of parliament. It is proposed to to move away from the practice of speedy adoption of laws and to introduce expert support and evaluation of the legislative process in parliament as mandatory elements of the legislative process. The article asserts the need to strengthen the role of expert councils under the committees of the Russian State Duma and the place of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation, fixing in the parliamentary regulations and laws, the mandatory nature of their analysis and expertise of introduced bills at the stages of the legislative process.

This article describes the basic principles of operational and investigative activities (OIAs), with a focus on the formation of evidence on the basis of in­formation obtained during the OIAs. The author analyses judicial actions tak­en during court proceedings, which are aimed at the verification of the evi­dence formed on the basis of the information obtained in the course of the in­vestigative activity. The author reviews the main approaches to the analysis of evidence by a defense lawyer and offers tactical and technological recom­mendations for the analysis of this evidence. The author describes possible problems, which participants of criminal proceedings can face during the de­fense.

During the period of implementation of the policy of import substitution in Russia, the level of production of basic agricultural products is gradually approaching the rational rate of their consumption. The biggest gap in provid­ing the population with basic food remains in the production of milk. Only 71.0 % of the recommended norm of dairy produce is consumed. At the same time, in 2017, the level of self-sufficiency of Russia with this type of food was 84.0 % (against 90.0 % indicated in the Doctrine), due to a steady decline in the number of cows. Consequently, there was a drop in milk production. The main reason for the crisis in the dairy cattle industry is low investment at­tractiveness of the industry, poor breed composition of the herd, a long pay­back period, and poor provision of balanced feed. The production of commer­cial crops is more profitable compared with the production of milk. The aim of this research is to substantiate conceptual and methodological approaches and tools for forecasting the development of dairy cattle breeding in Russia during the implementation of the policy of import substitution. The methodical basis of research is a set of methods of economic and mathematical modeling, in­cluding scenarios and their quantitative justification. Special attention is paid to the method of extrapolation modeling linear and nonlinear trends. The method of trend modeling has been supplemented by the method of expert as­sessment. The empirical basis of the forecast calculations was the assessment of trends in the development of agricultural producers during 2004—2017.

The economic and demographic situation in the Kaliningrad region is better than in most regions of the country. The dynamic economic deve­lop­ment results in high employment and low unemployment rates. The demand for labour force is partially satisfied through high net migration rate. Ho­we­ver, there are obvious distinctions between municipalities. Having analyzed the statistical data on the situation in urban districts, the authors identified ter­ritorial differences, influencing the economic and demographic situation in mu­nicipalities of different types. It is shown that peripheral eastern muni­ci­palities lag behind the western part of the region, where the city of Kalinin­grad is located. In the east, where the level of employment is lower and the prob­lem of unemployment is more complicated, there is a significant migra­tion outflow of the population to Kaliningrad and its satellite towns. The re­gio­nal programme Vostok is being developed to tackle the problem of the eas­tern municipalities. It offers additional benefits to investors compared with the me­chanism of the Special Economic Zone. However, less developed social inf­ra­structure, low standards of living and the outflow of the population from the eas­tern municipalities require additional attention.

The article presents the results of the quantification analysis of urban ri­ots (pogroms) of 1917—1918. The objects of the study are cities of the Russian Empire (Republic) located on the territory of modern Russia. The initial data was obtained through the content analysis of published and archival sources. The authors examined more than 600 events. The results of the study are the main quantitative parameters of the rebel movement: action forms, the composition of participants, requirements, etc. The largest number of events occurred in the Volga region (22 %), Petrograd (17 %), Moscow (13 %) and the Central Industrial District (12 %). The most active rebel groups were commoners (participated in 52 % of the events), soldiers (45 % of the events) and industrial workers (11 %). The most widespread form of ur­ban riots (pog­roms) was lynching and other forms of spontaneous violence against individ­uals (53 %). Rebels most often put forward the following de­mands: the distri­bution of bread (36 %), anarchist demands (27 %), dissatis­faction with indi­viduals (23 %), the struggle against tsarism (14 %) and the bourgeoisie (13 %).

The author analyses the reception of works and academic ideas of a re­nowned Soviet historian Boris Porshnev (1905—1972) in foreign historiog­raphy. The research shows that the historian failed to repeat the success of his monograph (1948) on popular uprisings in France before the Fronde, which was well received abroad and provoked long-standing dispute among the his­torians. Other works of Porshnev evoked a much more moderate reaction from foreign colleagues. The paper outlines the main objections expressed by for­eign researchers to the various academic ideas of Porshnev, and provides the reader with general assessment of Porshnev’s late works in the humanities.

This article presents a comparative hagiographic analysis of the life and martyrdom of Adalbert of Prague, who was extremely popular in Central Europe X—XII centuries, and hagiographies and old Russian chronicles re­lated geographically to the events that took place in the basin of the Upper Oka. The author identified several direct and indirect parallels of the plot. Among them, there is a description of the activities of the Adalbert-Gaudentius brothers and the legendary Radim and Vyatko brothers. The story describing the tragic death of hieromonk Kuksha is similar to the ones describing the killing of Adalbert of Prague. This similarity can be explained both by the commonality of the plot and the storyline, and the writer’s acquaintance with the hagiographies.

The article presents the results of the sociological analysis of environ­men­tal awareness of the residents of a regional centre (the case of Kaliningrad) and a settlement (the case of Nivenskoye, the Kaliningrad region). The study is relevant for the federal authorities since environmental problems have beco­me a frequent cause of protest actions in Russia. The relevance of the study for the regional authorities is predetermined by social conflicts related to the con­st­ruction of a potassium-magnesium production facility in the village of Ni­ven­skoye. The study revealed a number of characteristic features typical of the en­vironmental consciousness of the two territorial communities. The analysis sho­wed that villagers are more trustful of all sources of information related to en­vironmental issues. They are more willing to spend money on envi­ron­men­tal protection. Villagers are more inclined to blame business for environ­men­tal problems, while Kaliningraders tend to blame the state. The author iden­tified common features of environmental consciousness of the urban and rural re­si­dents: distrust of the information on environmental risks coming from bu­siness and the unwillingness to sacrifice safe and clean environment for im­pro­ved living standards. The author offers recommendations to the Kalinin­grad region authorities and to large businesses on the prevention of social ten­sion associated with the perception of environmental risks.

This research aims to determine the characteristics of the perception of environmental risks using the case of a salt deposit in the Kaliningrad region as an example. To achieve this aim, the author analyzed the social and cultural determinants of the population. The grid-group analysis was used as a sup­porting technique for the identification of cultural determinants. The follow­ing cultural determinants were identified: individualism, hierarchism, fatal­ism and egalitarianism. Social determinants were factors related to the re­spondents' living environment — urban or rural. The main method of re­search was a focus group with subsequent processing of results using ATLAS.ti software programme. The study revealed that environmental risks are not a priority problem for the region. Rural residents are more concerned about en­vironmental risks. There are similarities in the assessments of environmen­tal conditions by urban and rural residents. However, the author identified some differences particularly regarding the development of the salt deposit. These differences can be explained by different cultural types: a negative atti­tude prevails among individualists and egalitarians, a contrasting position prevails among hierarchs. It has been established that there are socially deter­mined forms of communication regarding overcoming environmental risks, for in­stance, word of mouth and appeals to government institutions (villag­ers) and street protests (city residents). There are also differences in the choice of effec­tive methods of risk communication, depending on the respondent’s cultural type. Hierarchs prefer communication in social networks; egalitarians tend to organize petitions and appeal to the authorities; the fatalists do not ex­press their own opinion; individuals strive for greater control over the situa­tion and therefore prefer all possible forms of interaction.