The humanities and social science

The article investigates the crime situation as an object of focus of crimi­nological and criminal justice measures of crime prevention. The methodology of the research relied on both general scientific methods (logical and systemic methods, method of analysis) and the method of formal legal analysis for in­terpreting the norms of criminal procedure and criminal law. The author demonstrates the growing attention to the crime situation, and this awareness contributes to crime prevention both at the level of regular practice and the legislation. The situational crime prevention was chosen as the optimal theo­retical framework for practical and legislative measures that affect the crime situation. The purpose of situational crime prevention is to neutralize or re­duce the external factors which let the criminal commit crimes more easily and introduce some barriers to it (ensuring protection, limiting the availabil­ity of funds and tools) or reduce the benefits from the criminal act (identifica­tion marks, increased surveillance). Considering a number of drawbacks in the crime-mitigation practice, in particular, ignoring the causes of criminal be­havior and totalizing control, the continuous assessment of such measures is seen as an effective solution.

Improving the quality of crime investigation is tightly linked with im­proving the quality of evidence gathering. The nature of the witness testimony requires further improvement of the forensic support to the process of evidence obtaining. The purpose of the study was determined by the need to consider the tactical possibilities of obtaining objective testimony from witnesses. While analyzing the ways to improve the interrogation tactics, the research considered social groups the witnesses belonged to. The article discusses gen­eral issues of the content of information and its basic elements. Dialectical and comparative research methods helped to define ways to improve the tactics of interrogation and the likelihood of applying the findings to administrative in­vestigation. The analysis of the selected categories of crime witnesses has de­termined the strategies of improving the testimony objectivity.

The article questions the need to introduce mediation as an alternative for criminal prosecution. The author of the article aims to prove the urgency of mediation for the criminal process, changing the concept of criminal prosecu­tion in relation to accused juveniles. Methodologically, the article relies on general scientific methods: logical and systemic ones, the method of analysis and comparison. The author argues that mediation is possible only in relation to minors aged 14 to 16 years. The mediation criteria system is analyzed and the obtained results are based both on the theoretical postulates of the criminal process and on an empirical basis (a survey was conducted among the subjects of law enforcement agencies of the Kaliningrad region).

The article analyses approaches to understanding the term "economic policies". The author proceeds from the fact that the state acts as a specific economic agent and, being the economic agent, on the one hand has the right to establish formal institutions of the national economics, and on the other hand, it itself is one of the elements of this sector of the global socio-economics system. The article proposes the author’s definition of the economic policies regimes, which is understood as a set of rules, measures, norms to achieve the macro-goal of the country's growth through the development of its economic system. With this approach, it becomes possible to adjust the economic policies by changing their regimes if, for a predetermined period of time, the target in­dicators are not achieved for any reason. The author proposes to divide the ex­ternal environment in which the state acts as an economic agent into two spaces. The first is that part of the world economic area, which stays under the authority of a particular state as an economic agent. The second space is a part of the global economic area where this state does not have the authority to di­rectly establish formal institutions. The criterion of correlation of the state economic policy with the macro-development goals of the country is proposed to serve to measure the quality of economic policies.

For Russian rural areas, the level of transport accessibility is increasingly a decisive factor in socio-economic development. Since this process has long been self-regulated and secondary among the tasks of regional development, today not all opportunities to improve transport accessibility in remote rural areas are fully or partially used. Taking into account the specific nature of the settlement pattern of the region, this research topic is of certain interest for the Kaliningrad Region to be considered as a regional model of social and natural space. The classical field, economic-geographical and sociological methods used in the work are narrowed down to the idea that the problem of transport accessibility within the frame "center-rural periphery" is interdependent with the residents’ standard of living. The settlements work in an optimal regime when the distance to the administrative and public-business center of the re­gion — Kaliningrad, is reduced. The implementation of programs on the Transport Strategy of the Russian Federation and regional programs is an in­strument for increasing the investment, demographic, production, economic, and socio-infrastructural potential of rural settlements and the region as a whole.

In the past few years there has been a significant increase in the number of publications by Russian authors in international databases of scientific cita­tion which is dictated by the desire to increase the global competitiveness of scientific and educational organizations. In order to assess the effectiveness of scientific work scientometric indicators are used to compare the achievements of countries, regions and individual researchers. Thus spatial scientometrics makes it possible to organize data on the information flow of scientific publica­tions and to optimize navigation in the publication space at various spatial levels. The aim of this work is to identify centers for the generation of scien­tific knowledge in Russia using scientometric methods, as well as to classify regions by the level of scientific productivity. The bibliographic and abstract database Scopus and the analytical toolkit Scival were taken as a data source. The study revealed the spatial distribution of new knowledge on the territory of Russia, the largest centers, the dynamics of their productivity growth and indicators of the quality of scientific research.

This article analyzes the memoirs of August Winnig,  Reichskommissar and Oberpräsident of East Prussia, covering the time from the revolutionary events of early 1919 to the Kapp Putsch in March 1920, against the back­ground of the foreign-policy situation and inner-party struggle in the prov­ince. Particular attention is paid to the political views of A. Winnig and the reasons for cooling in their relations toward the SPD leadership.

The article examines the volunteer movement from European countries to Greece in order to assess its role in the revolution of 1821—1830. The study relies on the proclamations of the rebels, diplomatic documents, materials of the Philhellenic committees, the press, diaries, memoirs and correspondence of contemporaries. The author analyzes the background, organization, funding sources, the nature of the participation of volunteers in hostilities. The study used historical-genetic and historical-comparative methods. The idea of the responsibility of Europeans for the fate of the Greeks appeared in the enlightened circles of Europe long before the Greek Revolution. With the beginning of the uprising on the Peloponnese, it developed into Philhellenic committees, which raised money for the Greeks and sent volunteers to Greece. The author concludes that the participation of foreign volunteers in hostilities had limited importance, while the contribution to the propaganda of the Greek cause was highly significant and encouraged public opinion and the governments of European countries to intercede for the Greeks. In turn, diplomatic assistance from European powers played the major success role for the revolution and Greece's independence.

The article studies the development of Russian-language school education in independent Latvia from 1992 to 2020, as well as the process of reforming this system by official authorities. At the time of declaration of independence and withdrawal from the USSR, a bilingual education system which was formed in Latvia, made it possible to get education at all levels (from kinder­garten to technical school and university) in both Latvian and Russian lan­guages. The rise to power in the 1990s. nationalist politicians and the percep­tion of the Soviet period as a period of "occupation", made it impossible to keep the Russian-speaking school unchanged. The transformations were not long in coming — already in 1995 amendments to the law on the primary school and gymnasium were adopted, proclaiming the need to introduce sev­eral subjects in the Latvian language in schools for national minorities. The largest reforms were carried out in 2004, when high school in Russian-language schools (grades 10—12) was required to study in a 60/40 ratio — at least 60 % of subjects in Latvian and no more than 40 % in Russian. The sec­ond package of reforms began to be implemented in 2017, when the high school (of national minorities) completely switched to the Latvian language of instruction, and the secondary school was only partly switched to the Latvian language. The Latvian authorities explain the need for these reforms by the desire to increase the level of knowledge of the state language among national minorities, primarily Russian-speaking. The reform continues and will be completed only in 2021. This article is the first attempt at understanding the reform of the Russian school of Latvia, taking into account the latest trans­formations. The work uses statistical data from public organizations and the Ministry of Education of Latvia, as well as sources in the Latvian language, which are introduced into research space for the first time.

The article touches upon the issue of state-civil identity of student youth. Theoretical analysis of the provisions of social constructivism made the author focus on the fact that state-civil identity is an element of the value component in the structure of the political consciousness ethnopolitical construct of the subjects of politics. Through the implementation of a comprehensive socio-political study, an assessment of the level of state-civil identity of student youth in some federal districts is given, which turned out to be possible thanks to the use of the mass survey method. As a result, it was revealed that the study participants demonstrate a high level of state and civic identity. The fo­cus-group method has shown its consistency in studying how this value ori­entation in the political consciousness of student youth develops. For the re­search participants, statehood is the semantic identity category. The research group also noted that the state-civic identity of university students formed an advantage in affective and cognitive aspects, while the conative component is not sufficiently represented in their narratives. It indicates a certain lack of state-civic identity in the structure of the ethnopolitical construct of student youth.