The humanities and social science

The relevance of the presented study lies in the active process of reform­ing domestic civil legislation, and in particular, the rules of insurance. A number of proposals for changing the current legal regulation, formulated in the Concept for the Development of the Provisions of Part Two of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation on Insurance Contracts, naturally need a thorough doctrinal assessment. Such proposals also include the hereditary as­pect of personal insurance highlighted in the Concept (paragraph 1, clause 2, article 934 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The purpose of the study is to interpret, given the provisions of the doctrine of civil law, foreign legislation and law enforcement experience, the provisions of paragraph 1 of paragraph 2 of Article 934 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which establishes the right of the heir of the insured person to receive insurance payment after his death. Conclusions. The term "heir" used in Article 934 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation should be determined based on the provisions of Section V of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation only in a subsidiary manner, which rejects the possibility of including insurance pay­ment in the estate of the insured testator. Welcoming the general vector of the Concept and the positive potential of the changes proposed by it, it seems that with the support of the interpretation proposed in the framework of the study and its consolidation at the level of acts of the highest court, there is no need to make appropriate changes to Article 934 of the Civil Code of the Russian Fe­deration.

This article describes a legislative framework for a new model of higher education institutions, oriented towards business and innovation. The author offers practical recommendations for the development of competitive socioentrepreneurial innovation-based universities. It is shown that the new generation university should be formed on the basis of the socio-entrepreneurial ideology.

This article explores the possibility of using the methods of public-private partnership (PPP) in integration processes, including those at a regional level.The author offers a typology of PPP projects and models of cooperation between business and authorities with regard to integration. The article describes specific practices of implementing PPP projects within foreign economic activity and attraction of foreign investors. The author formulates the priority tasks of developing interaction between public structures and business community.

The aim of this research is to consider the possibility of applying actornetwork theory (STS) to political processes. The authors analyze B. Latour’s criticism of the traditional political science and sociological approaches to the understanding of different spheres through the prism of ideology and interest. The initial assumptions and main arguments of the actor-network theory are compared with the post-Marxist theory of hegemony by E. Laclau and C. Mouffe. The conclusion draws attention to the limited possibilities of the practical application of STS since it lacks instruments of political action.

The article develops an ‘ideal city’ theme and focuses on the relationships of its statics and dynamics in a mobile local-global context. The author offers the defini­tions of these two notions under historical and modern conditions, and determines the specificity of the ‘ideal city’ as a complex socio-biotechnical system both dependent on the scale of it (local, na­tional, global) and its posi­tion within the dynamic global whole. Then, the ideal city notion is analyzed in two aspects: as a channel of presentation of a model of future living envi­ronment, and as a form of its application to the goal of making (constructing) of quality model of Russian megalopolises safe and comfortable for its inhabit­ants and visitors. In any case, the harm produced by their social systems to the biosphere has to be minimal. It means that the meg­alopolises should simul­taneously be well supplied with their own renewable resources and to be well supplied with resources coming from the outside. The megalopolis inhabitants have to be well informed about the inside and outside metabolic processes. In conclusion the author claims the necessity of an inter­disci­plinary approach to designing and constructing an ‘ideal city’ model in Russia and everywhere. Such interdisciplinary research and development teams of the research­ers, tu­tors, students, journalists, grassroots activists and municipal workers have to be formed. It is stated that a practical realization of any ‘ideal city’ project is neither a ‘social project’ in a traditional sense, nor a set of indices that have to be followed. An ‘ideal city’ project is a model of un­interrupted process of transformation of so­cial, material, informational and other interrelated com­ponents of such city mobile whole.

In this article, I consider the institution of constitutional control and its development during the Enlightenment. I stress that enlighteners thoroughly disapproved of French parliaments as forerunners of modern bodies of consti­tutional justice and explain why this was the case. In an early modern state, conditions for constitutional control and its very possibility were viewed in conjunction with the principles of sovereignty and the division of power. I conclude that the enlightenment doctrine of general will affected the percep­tion by enlighteners of how the function of control over the constitutionality of laws and other normative legal acts was vested in an authority.

The concept of regional innovation system builds upon prospective innovation and takes into account the subsystem generating the knowledge that regulates the context and enterprises in regional innovation activity. This article considers the importance of innovation-investment activity evaluation for the construction of regional innovation systems, technological development of the economy, more efficient knowledge distribution,
and the formation of competitive advantages.

This article focuses on the public policy in the field of charity in Russia in the 19th — ealry 20th century and lists state awards for charity handed out to charity departments under the auspicious of the emperor’s family — the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria and the Emperor's Philanthropic Association. The author examines state orders and medals, ranks and uniforms used as social and class motives for charity.

In this article, I formulate the problem of a search for a new approach to the state in the modern economic system. The aim of this research is a critical analysis of the current scientific picture of the state and a search for a new way to describe interactions among states, organisations, and households. The methodology I employ relies on critical analysis, the noosphere economy con­cept, and the systemic-behavioural approach to economic processes and phe­nomena. In analysing existing approaches to the state and the socio-economic evolution, I emphasise the need to develop a special approach – a behavioural geoeconomics. It perceives states as single-order actors in the external and in­ternal segments of the economic space. I propose to treat states as economic agents of a special type, which have resources, fulfil a target function, and in­teract with organisations and households. I conclude that a behavioural geoe­conomics will dramatically change research discourse on the role of the state in the economy.

The paper analyses the role of the civilian population during the siege of Fortress Königsberg between late January and April 1945. It will discuss the scope of coercion and the living condition in the city, as well as the reasons why civilians decided to stay in Königsberg. Their large presence makes them impossible to overlook if one is to construct a view of the siege of Königsberg.

This article deals with the issue of the food supply problems on the territory of the Novgorod land in the 11th-16th centuries. Despite permanent bread budget deficit, Veliky Novgorod managed to maintain political and economic independence and avoid purchasing significant amounts of grain. The reconstruction of a budget of a peasant agricultural farm shows that, in the then conditions, it could not rest solely on own-grown corn and livestock products in the Novgorod land. For centuries, peasant diet included products compensating for the shortage of bread. Such adaptability to environmental conditions helped optimise the life of peasant families and minimise the food budget deficit throughout the Novgorod land.

The problem if interaction between the international financial law (IFL) and the EU law has become particularly vital in this integrational entity where a special legal system was created. It has been developing until now and carries the features of the both international and municipal law. Global financial crisis and subsequent sovereign debt crisis have substantially changed global financial architecture and led to a comprehensive reform of the financial branch in the EU. The author implementing systematic analysis and formal legal method as well as functional and structural analysis reviews different types of interaction between IFL and the EU legal order. Although international agreements form an integral part of the EU legal order, the rules of their interpretation differ from the primary and secondary EU legislation. The reverse influence of the EU law is carried out by EU institutions and Member States by participating in inter-governmental organizations and other international bodies which work out and review national implementation of International Financial Standards.

The article presents the results of a study of the asymmetry in the real and financial sectors at the sub-regional level. The authors use their own methodology for assessing this asymmetry in the Kaliningrad region. The article describes changes in the sub-regional asymmetry under the conditions of economic sanctions. The authors noted a decrease in its level in the real economy due to the development of import substitution in Kaliningrad municipalities specializing in agriculture.

The article presents new series of radiocarbon dates in the context of the South-Eastern Baltic maritime culture chronology. The author emphasises the antiquity of the radiocarbon dates in comparison to the maritime culture period.

This article considers the history of one quotation from Winston Churchill’s article on the Gumbinnen battle (1914). The context of this reference is reconstructed on the basis of author’s correspondence with the American historian Richard M. Langworth.

The article attempts to analyse the socio-cultural significance of transport development in the USSR within the framework of ‘visual turn’ in social sciences and the humanities. The author uses family photo archives of the 1950s—1980s, presented in the "People's Album", a digital project of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, to explore the role of the public, company and personal transport in the life of the Soviet people.

This article develops a theory of the structure of operational and functional components of the thinking process: the problems of analysing procedural units of thinking are formulated; the content of the “method of thinking” and “technique of thinking” concepts are given a precise definition. The author analyses the content and relational characteristics of procedural units of different types.

This article discusses a number of matrimonial legal issues relating to dissolution of marriage at a registry office. Possible ways of legal settlement are proposed and incompatibilities in the legal regulation identified.

The article explores consequences of revising the Constitution. Based on 25 years of experience in implementing the supreme law of the Russian Feder­ation, various approaches to changing the text of the Constitution are ana­lyzed. Speial attention is paid to the analysis of proposals to reform the consti­tutional law, which in effect means replacing the current Constitution with a new one. The author aims to study possible effects of constitutional reforms and the stability of the Constitution. He substantiates his position regarding the amendment of the main law. The author employs methods of historical, systemic, comparative legal and dialectical logic analysis. The following forms of the development of the Constitution have been identified: revision, amend­ment, adoption or perfection of the existing sub-constitutional normative legal acts, official and casual interpretation of the Constitution by the Constitu­tional Court of the Russian Federation. The author considers all proposals to revise the text of the Constitution groundless since the main law has not ex­hausted its potential. The evolutionary development of the supreme law, which is the key to the progressive development of both state and society, can be achieved through the application of the above forms, including a non-textual amendment of the Constitution.

The article examines the correlation between two basic concepts of the theory of law and transcendental phenomenology. Each concept has its own meaning and performs its specific function. The article aims is to identify the specifics of each concept in order to understand the existing theoretical distinctions between them.

This article explores local crafts of peasant women of the north-western provinces, namely, weaving, needlework, and lacework. The work conditions are examined. The author stresses that workers were highly dependent on dealers who provided them with raw materials and sold their products at the market. The phenomena identified are indicative of the formation of capitalistic forms of using the labour of peasant women practicing crafts, including that of a “dispersed manufactory.”

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.

The paper analyzes the influence of modernization on social processes of different European states. On the example of desertion of the Central Power’s soldiers to Russia one comes to conclusion that changes in the manning system of European armies during the 19th century were one of the most important components of traditional society’s transformation and a vital source of new social practices.

This article presents a case of developing a balanced performance scorecard for a Kaliningrad trading company. A general solution includes five stages: analysing economic performance, studying dependencies between performance indicators, building strategic map charts, identifying goals and planning relevant measures, and assessing the efficiency of such measures.

The article analyzes of the creation of a computer database on the pogrom movement history. In the research, systematization methods enabled to pre­pare sev­eral maps with a breakdown of the pogroms' speeches by time inter­vals in accord­ance with the main stages of the revolutionary process of 1917—1918 and the com­position of participants. One of the objectives of this work is to demonstrate the need to optimize the databases and offer the most illustra­tive thematic maps. The study resulted in the analysis of practical experience gained in the “adaptation” of ready-made databases to the formation of geo­graphic information systems.

The author discusses negative influence of globalization processes on world economy, presents global geopolitical and geo-economic trends in the context of system of challenges for Russia.

The article discusses the development and implementation of digital technologies in the supervisory activities of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation. The main aspects of the state policy on the digital transformation of the bodies and organizations of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office have been studied. The authors focus on general trends in the informatiza­tion of prosecutorial activities for the purpose of strengthening legality and maintaining law and order. The experience of the effective implementation of informational platforms in the Prosecutor’s Office of St. Petersburg, providing for the qualification improvement and know­led­ge assessment of prosecutors, is presented. In addition, the article reflects the digital trans­for­mation of the prosecution authorities in the context of the 2020—2021 pandemic. and sanctions pressure from unfriendly countries against the backdrop of the current foreign poli­cy situation. The relevance of training specialists in information security and the protection of the digital infrastructure of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation is substantiated. The article identifies the main directions of developing the system of prosecutors’ qualification enhancement in the context of a practice-oriented digital educational environment. An analy­sis of tasks within the digitization of supervisory activities is conducted, and proposals are formulated to enhance the efficiency and optimize both departmental control by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office and information-analytical and monitoring activities during supervisory measures.

Historical examples reveal the peculiarities of bilateral intergovernmental relations. There are two non-convertible variants, based on the positive contribution of the actual international agent into the formation of a new state — the prospective added value variant — or aimed at deliberated suspension/breach of relations — the prospective tension variant. This suspension of sovereignty leaves a permanent scar in the national memory and leads to continuous alienation of the states.

This article examines the economic and legal consequences of the changes in the law on financial support of tourism to small tour operators in the Kaliningrad region.

In 2017-2018, the historical community commemorated the centenary anniversaries of revolutions that took place at the end of the First World War. Although the revolutionary events in Russia attract greater attention, the German revolution of November 1918 is of no less interest. In this article, I set out to highlight the situation of the German ruling elite on the eve of the war. The absence of bright personalities among the country's political estab­lishment, on the one hand, and the lack of unity among the German elite, on the other, were the major causes of the bankruptcy of the Kaiser’s Germany. Social and class conflicts within the German elite, in particular, the tensions between the German bourgeoisie and agrarians rendered it impossible to de­vise coherent domestic and foreign policies. Incompetent leadership and fre­quent political scandals, which discredited the German ruling elite in the eyes of the public, created an extremely negative image of the monarchy. Thus, the lack of competent managers and political leaders able to take responsibility and lead the country out of the crisis created a revolutionary situation in the country.

This article presents proposals to ensure a balanced development of the strategic areas of regional specialization based on managerial decisionmaking in the conditions of the system uncertainty of integrated coastal interaction. To this end, it is suggested that a balanced scorecard system identifying the possibility of aligning such decisions and maintaining the synergy effect in the chosen directions of prospective ratio development is applied.

This article considers the events of the synodal period in the history of Russian Church. In the first half of the 19th century, the formation of governmental bodies – eparchial consistories – was completed. Many consistories faced the opposition of archiereis who still resisted the church reform of Peter I.

This article emphasises the extinction of the classical Euroasian doctrine, which, however, did not become a theoretically substantiated and integral one. This process was hindered, according to G. Florovsky, both by the variety of its genealogical sources, and the attempts of Euroasians to combine scientific-philosophical provisions with ideological attitudes.

The article evaluates the achievements of Russia’s pre-revolutionary civil law as the basis for the civil law of today. The basic elements of the Russian system of civil law are unique in their character. The authors argue that there is a certain correlation between the legal position of the state in the prerevolutionary Russia and Russia of today. The article ends with a conclusion It is necessary to develop a new conception of the participation of the state in civil relations.

The article shows the development of political practices of the regional government bodies in the field of protecting the rights of citizens to the freedom of conscience and the freedom of religion. The author analyses the principles of regulating the activity of religious organizations, and monitoring their interaction with different religious confessions in the Saratov region. Special attention is paid to the emerging system of partnership between the state and religious institutions, which is a key vector in the development of religious policy at the subnational level.

Russian economy is overcoming the crisis; its further restoration and growth depend on different factors: abrupt and not always predictable changes in the world economic situation, dynamics and fluctuations of oil prices, inflow and outflow of capital from financial markets, and other external economic and political factors. However, there is increasing awareness that the restoration and growth largely depend on internal fundamental factors: modernisation of economy and the prospects of increase in national labour productivity.

The article defines and compares four groups of factors influencing the construction and development of the united legal classifier in the Republic of Belarus and the classifier of legal acts in the Russian Federation: legal systems and all its structures, legislative system and all its structures, the system of public administration; electronic system of legal information collecting, processing, storage, systematisation and dissemination. The author offers to methods to improve the inner structure of the legal classifiers of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation: (a) possible changes in the organisation of regulatory material alongside with the conservation of today’s approaches to comprising legal classifiers by means of current legal sources; (b) improvement of legal classifiers by new content, new forms of law’s being and new sources of law in force.

In this article, I analyse the improvement of the system for financial support for military personnel during the Great Patriotic War. Financial support included a monetary allowance, material bonuses for involvement in combat, and welfare benefits for families and veterans. The financial support system was vertically integrated from the centre (the Financial Directorate of the Red Army) to an individual soldier through the financial bodies of military units. The financial situation in the country was stabilized through non-cash transactions using deposit books. The transactions were carried out in not only roubles but also foreign currency. The allowance system was improved through the introduction of rewards. The initiative accounted for most of public spending, which increased 5.4-fold during the war years. I stress that financial incentives for involvement in combat contributed to greater professionalism and personal commitment of the personnel, which were major factors in the victory.

The theoretical and methodological approaches to forecasting political processes are considered. The relevance of forecasting knowledge for contemporary political management and designing is grounded. The methods and implements for forecasting are evaluated not only within the context of the forecast function of political science but also as a means to cognize political
reality. The advantages and disadvantages of various methods and approaches are compared; the constraints of political forecasting are demonstrated.

The paper considers three basic stages of formation and development of furniture manufacturing in the Kaliningrad region. Based on official statistics, the authors define pre-competitive assets of the furniture industry in the region on each of the stages of its development.

This article considers and offers an overview of Semyon Frank’s sociophilosophical and historiosophical ideas. Special attention is paid to the philosopher’s perception of contemporary history as being fraught with catastrophes and tragedies. It is demonstrated why Frank claimed that the true history of philosophy was that interpreting the concrete expression of supra-temporal unity of human spiritual life as the only meaning of history. The author describes the methodological consequences of this assumption.

The article investigates the specifics of the interaction between political institutions and civil society. Analyzing relevant research literature, the author studies the effectiveness and legitimacy of political institutions in Russia. The author identifies the main trends in their activity of political institutions, which should be given special attention when establishing functional connections between civil society as such and political institutions.

The concept of “unclaimed land share” appeared and developed in Russian legislation due to the debatable nature of the legal nature and the ambiguity of the legal regime of the land share as a category of land law. The article provides a description of the theoretical and practical issues related to the genesis of the doctrinal and legal concepts of land share and unclaimed land share, the topical issues of recognizing a land share as unclaimed. The author gives the timeline of the concept of unclaimed land share in the legislation, and indicates the change in the criteria for classifying land shares as unclaimed, as well as the complexity of the legal mechanism for recognizing the right of public ownership of them. The article also outlines the possible areas for further development of the legal regime of unclaimed land shares and improvement of its efficiency: procedural improvement to recognize land shares as unclaimed and the criteria for classifying them as such; regulation of the extrajudicial transfer of unclaimed land shares into municipal ownership; establishment of a term for the right to recognize unclaimed land shares as municipal property; use of the legal mechanism for recognizing ownership of unclaimed land shares as ownerless; limitation of the period of use of the legal category of “unclaimed land share”.

The challenges of regional strategic development planning for contempo­rary Russia are of major socio-economic and political importance. With regard to the Kaliningrad region since when it was established, the problem of choos­ing a devel­opment strategy has always been and remained an urgent issue. Especially sharply, it arose with a change in the geopolitical position of the re­gion after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Baltic economic area. Ex­clavity is the most important geopolitical factor in the life of the region. The dialectic of exclave is in the discretion of not only the obstacles, but also of the development possibilities of the region. An­other major factor is the immediate proximity of the European Union. Through understanding the geopolitical po­tential of development, by comparing various theo­retical and practical solu­tions, the authors search for mechanisms that would allow a regional society to develop an adaptive strategy that can ensure the absolute priority of all-Russian civic identity and effective social, economic and humanitarian cooper­ation with its Baltic neighbors. Such a mechanism could be the expansion of cross-border cooperation in non-political scope.

The article is dedicated to the problem of racial segregation in the USA. Harry S. Truman was the first American president to raise the question of the necessity to eliminate this shameful tradition.

Within a polemic with B. Willems's article, the author analyses the size of civilian population of Königsberg remaining in the city during the siege of 1945. The article considers approaches of Soviet and German command to evaluating the role of civilians in defending the fortress during the siege.

Constitutional complaint is an efficient instrument of constitutional right protection in Russia. The judicial body dealing with such complaints is
the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. However, certain problems arise due to the legislative regulation of constitutional complaints in the Constitutional Courts practice.

This article justifies the need and system-and-function-based methodology for institutional support for strategic management of regional development. The author offers an empirical analysis and proposes recommendations for updating and establishment of institutions of strategic management of socio-economic development at the federal and regional levels.

This paper analyses theoretical approaches to studying interorganizational networks offered in foreign economic sociology. The authors describe main conceptual problems, the key aspects of network form of interorganizational interaction, and embeddedness effects.

The international disaster relief represents one of actively developing are­as of interstate cooperation, both at universal, and the regional level. It repre­sents one of sustainable development goals of the UN (UN SDGs). This arti­cle sees its purpose in the analysis of activity of the international organiza­tions in disaster prevention, development of idea on what the global mecha­nism of such prevention is about, and the role of the international organiza­tions. The research used comparative, analytical and historical analyses. The author states that the international organizations actively participate in pro­tection of the population and territories against disasters while implementing various programs and certain activities. Such work is carried out on universal (within the UN) and regional (ASEAN, CE, etc.) levels. However, there are certain differences between the regions in this sphere of cooperation are pre­sented is non-uniform. The author reveals features and advantages of some of them. Activity of the international organizations in general in the field of pro­tection against disasters promotes gradual growth of the independent branch of international law — international disaster relief law, by means of develop­ment of the basic principles and norms and practice of their application.

This article examines the connection between establishing the investigation objective and investigative situations at the initial stage of investigation. The author describes the role of investigative situation in establishing the objective of investigation.

This article analyses the influence of the Varennes crisis on the balance of political forces in the National Constituent Assembly and Le Chapelier’s and other constitutionalists’ opposition to the radicals in the Assembly and in the streets in order to strengthen the position of the king and constitutional mon¬archy.

The main purpose of this article is to answer the question of the role of Kantian political philosophy for the theory of international relations. The answer is giving through the examination of the main trends in the interpretation of Kant's place in one of the major paradigms of the theory of international relations: realism, idealism, liberalism, and institutionalism. Author shows that Kant’s inclusion in a particular paradigm of international relations cannot be directly done. Otherwise, inevitably it comes to distortion and incorrect interpretation of the texts and ideas of Kant.

The article deals with the development of the Canadian military industry in 1939-1945. The effectiveness, organisation and scale of production of aircraft, ships, armored vehicles, artillery and small arms are analyzed. The author reveals the influence of geographic, economic, home and foreign policy factors on the type of weapons produced and the volume of their production. Using official Canadian documents and statistical publications, the author concludes that the military-industrial complex of Canada showed good performance indicators during WWII. However, having an impressive economic growth and rapid development of new industries, Canada, for several reasons, still failed to make the most of its economic, natural and human resources. As a result, Canada was only a junior partner of great powers in military production. Based on the structure of the Canadian military industry, the author draws a conclusion about the initial stage of globalization of the Canadian economy in the period under study.

The paper focuses on Königsberg’s elites faced with fast changes in the 19th century. The city’s old merchant families were up against increasing competition from new actors – industrialists and bankers – trying to take advantage of the former. The author examines changes in the elites in the course of major economic, social, and political changes

This article examines legal conscience in view of its little-studied generating function. The author considers the ideas affecting legal consciousness in different types of cultures – humanocentric and sociocentric ones. The idea of power underlies legal consciousness in sociocentric cultures, and the idea of freedom that of person-oriented cultures. The deformations of legal consciousness characteristic of modern Russia are explained by an incomplete transition from socio- to himanocentrism.

This article describes the category of legal monitoring, its essence and object. The author considers the possibility of legal monitoring in justices of the peace and stresses its significance.

The article explores the sanction factor impact on the legislative frame­work regulating Russian and European joint economic activities in the Arctic. The fundamental documents on the joint projects with the European Union get analyzed in the context of the sanction factor. The paper focuses on chang­es in the legislative framework for Russian — EU joint activities, as well as relevant restrictions. The author concludes that the sanction factor is hardly affective as the main restrictions are imposed on the offshore oil production sector, which cannot yet be developed effectively due to its high cost. The con­sidered measures do not seriously challenge any other economic areas, allow­ing the joint projects develop at almost the same level. According to the au­thor, the influence of the sanction factor is exaggerated, which means further joint activities of Russia and the EU may have the same prospects.

This article considers the public control institution at the federal level and that of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Based on an analysis of the current legal regulation of public control in different constituent entities, the authors formulate recommendations for the development of a relative legal framework in the Kaliningrad region

In Rome, libraries played the role of cultural centres and were closely linked with publishing. The latter was a subject of correspondence between Pliny the Younger and Suetonius. The way to the birth of a book is complicated: writing, recitation, reference-review, and proofreading. Donation was one of the ways to build up library collections. The copyright was not known to Rome. A book was treated as an intellectual value. Pliny the Younger became the founder of a society of devotees of certain literature works and historical subjects in the 1st century AD.

The article focuses on the book "Utopias of the Age of Enlightenment" by A. V. Chudinov. Analyzing this work, the author reflects on the contradictions and paradoxes of the Enlightenment: the utopian ideals of the Enlightenment, aimed at achieving universal happiness and prosperity, in practice were often associated with terror and violence.

The article reveals major tasks and logistics trends as one of instruments for effective management.

Historically, the magistrates’ court — being a public institute in its nature — has co-existed with community (communal) authorities, including judiciary institutions. As a result, under certain conditions, community courts are subject to the magistrates’ court or even included in its structure, absorbed by it. This article investigates the background and course of this process in the history of the Russian Empire of the 19th/early 20th centuries. The author explains how volost courts gradually became part of the Justice of the Peace.

Studies published as early as the 19th century, prewar guidebooks, postcards, books of model projects, and archive materials serve as the sources of information about the architectural and urban development of the resort of Cranz. The collection of cadastral plans and maps of 1844—1943 settlements held in the Secret Archive of Prussian heritage in Berlin remains virtually unstudied. A project used in the construction of the wooden music pavilion in the park Plantage in Cranz was found in a textbook for architects published in 1894.

The article focuses on the issue of cultural organizations performance measurement. The author explains the benefits of applying a non-parametric “Data Envelopment Analysis” that is based on comparison of input and output indicators, to performance measurement of cultural organizations. Using statistical data on Russian federal theatres, the author empirically tests their performance that relates to such aspects as organization’s reputation, artistic excellence, maximization of access to cultural assets, etc. Based on statistics of the Russian Ministry of Culture in 2012—2016, the author analyses overall trends in performance of federal theatres, as well as provides results concerning each research object. Efficiency indices of theatres allow the author to distinguish four groups of Russian federal theatres in terms of performance aspects under research.

The article is devoted to forecasting the development of small and medium- size businesses (SMEs) in Russia. The authors offer an algorithm of the identification of development tendencies for small and medium-sized businesses using linear equations. The medium-term econometric model of economic forecasting is based on the application of a set of dominating factors, which were previously selected. The authors present a medium-term trend of SMEs turnover in modern Russian conditions.

The author considers the scope of the «military culture of society» concept and analyses the possibilities of its application in humanities in order to extend our knowledge of the past and the present.

This article considers the issues of establishment and activity of commandant’s offices of the Third Belorussian front on the territory of Prussia at the closing stage of World War II.

The publication reflects the problem of new identity of the Baltics in the conditions of competition between European spaces. The Baltic States are presented as a political structure, where mutually competitive identities oriented towards different centres of modern Europe are developing. In the Baltics, the identity discourse acquires new markers. The agenda includes the crisis of confidence in the institutions of power and integration problems.

The article deals with the questions of the current legislative budget process of local autonomies in the Russian Federation and Italy. The current
budget process of an Italian autonomy is characterized by the growing role of municipal taxes and overall decline in public transfers. In the Russian Federation, municipal budgets depend crucially on the mechanism of federal and municipal tax redistribution at this stage of municipal reform. The author comes to the conclusion that legal innovations in the field of the tax base of local autonomies in Russia follow the pattern of the Italian local autonomy reform.

The author explores mutual alimentary obligations of children and parents. There are different forms of financial support including alimony. Alimentary obligation is the most important concept of the Family Code. However, neither the Family Code of the Russian Federation, nor other normative acts contains any legal definition of alimentary obligation. The author defines the concept of alimentary obligation and analyses the difference between the concepts of ‘support’ and ‘alimony’. The article describes the alimentary obligations of children in relation to parents and those of parents in relation to children. The author identifies some problematic issues of alimentation.

This article addresses the problem of economic security organization in the coastal region of Russia. The authors offer a network model of the process as a tool of effective management

This paper analyses the historiosophical views of François Guizot (1787—1874) based on his works from the period of the First Empire (1804— 1814). The established chronological framework makes it possible to identify the foundations of the great thinker’s historical theory — foundations cleansed of the political influence of the Bourbon Restoration (1814—1830) and the July Monarchy (1830-1848), where Guizot was an activist of the liberal opposition and later became one of the leaders of the French political elite.

This article uses archive documents to consider the management of Orthodox priests serving in the Russian Navy in the 18th century. The author describes the duties of the Holy Synod, bishops’ administrations, and the Admiralty and naval ship commanders. Special attention is paid to ober-hieromonks and commanding hieromonks of the Navy. The author studies their responsibilities in different locations and presents new biographical information.

The article considers the peculiar problems of criminological characteristics of justifiable defence and excessive defence situations. The author analyses and compares objective criminological characteristics of the situations of justifiable and excessive defence. The article is based on the legislation of the Russian Federation and empirical research conducted by the author.

They urgency of this topic is caused by poor knowledge of specific issues in development of Soviet outbound tourism, especially on the regional scale. The purpose of this research is to define the functional aim and effectiveness of use of specialized tourist groups in the structure of outbound tourism in the Kaliningrad region. For this purpose, the author examines the available archive materials of the Kaliningrad Regional Council of Trade Unions and the Regional Council of CPSU (Communist Party of the USSR), analyzes relevant publications. Particular attention is drawn to the implementation of the mission of tourist groups aboard, following the specialized routs. The author identifies the measures taken by the state organizations dealing with the outbound tourism issues aimed to improve the efficiency of the tourist trips. The article considers the basic elements borrowed from foreign experience and implemented in the Kaliningrad regional economy.

This article examines the measures of constitutional responsibility and other measures of constitutional enforcement. The author puts forward several proposals regarding the classification of constitutional enforcement measures imposed on the executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and their officials.

The authors suggest differentiating between integral and industrial zoning. Correspondingly, regions (integral regions) and industrial regions are distinguished within a state. The interaction of several states results in the emergence of transnational regions, while the development of mutual connections between international regions brings to the formation of transboundary regions. Regions, including international (transboundary and
transnational) ones have a certain hierarchy but, unlike national regions that cover the whole territory of a state, same-levelled international regions do not encompass the whole world.

The article examines the role of Kaliningrad region’s government in managing market infrastructure development on the regional level. Special attention is given to the foreign experience concerning the role of regional authorities in formation and development of small- and medium-sized business supporting infrastructure.

This article focuses on the role of Länsipohja and Ruija in the "Greater Finland" ideology. The growing interest in the closely related peoples in the 1920s became a prerequisite for the foundation of the Academic Karelia Society (AKS). The author addresses the activity of the AKS concerning Länsipohja and Ruija.

This article considers the current problems of fight against corruption in Russia. The author analyzes the capacity of the state and society to combat corruption. It is concluded that the scale of criminal factors affecting corruption is not proportional to the means of combating this phenomenon. In the current conditions, the most effective anti-corruption measures are the upgrading of criminal penalties.

This article suggests that, in many interesting cases when considering the given reference domain, one has to deal with a system of formalisms rather than a single formalism. It is argued that these systems are integrated through isomorphic embeddings of their elements into each other. The article considers some alternative notions of formalism and the definitions of isomorphic embeddings
corresponding to them. A number of new results concerning their interrelations are presented without proofs.

This article examines the charter statute as a new type of legislation of constituent entities of the Russian Federation on the basis of the analysis of the Charters of the Kaliningrad and Krasnoyarsk regions. The emphasis is placed on the theoretical and practical issues of the charter statutes incorporation in the sources of law system.

The elimination of disparities in the economic conditions of regional development is an important task of government regulation. The tariff policy influences the economic development of Russia and different regions. The market incentives for innovation are not sufficiently strong. The rise in prices and tariffs has a negative impact on cost structure and production efficiency. The research conducted shows the degree of variation in the level and dynamics of prices and rates in each region and provides a basis for analyzing the conditions of economic development and their comparison at a regional level. The paper shows the impact of tariff policy on the development of regional markets and the creation of conditions for economic development.

This article focuses on the basic aspects of organizational support for the function-object approach to regional development in the system of strategic management. The author proposes a mechanism combining the principles of regulation and self-regulation on the basis of application of function-object modeling of regional growth and motivation to achieve regional goals.

Almost all recent historical and literary studies agree that the Livonian Chronicle conveys an impression of a poetical work containing archaic elements. The affinity between the Chronicle and German heroic epic poetry is often stressed. The established perspective, which distorts the image of the Chronicle, requires adjustment. This literary study into the Chronicle’s text complements research on the development of corporate identity in the Teutonic Order.

This article considers the issues of improving the efficacy of pardon committees in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The author puts forward proposals concerning the improvement of the criminal and penal legislations and emphasises the need for the restoration of certain institutions of the civil society that successfully functioned as early as the Soviet period.

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.

The authors consider the structure of the Latvian political elite in 1993—2014 and analyse the major network parameters. The roles of key network actors and their changes over the study period are examined

This article addresses the problem of the realisation of political interests in the Russian Federation in the context of political diversity stipulated in the Constitution. The author distinguishes the social groups of political process actors, analyses their current state, and formulates the problems and possibilities of the realisation of their political interests.

The advance of the population aging process leads to new socioeconomic consequences, including the formation of the so-called sandwich generation — 55-65 year olds, predominantly females, who care for their elderly parents, raise children (or grandchildren), and perform their professional duties. One of the key problems faced by people in this situation is psychological adaptation to the changing life conditions. This article considers changes in the 50-65 year old population in Russia and identify generation gap problems faced by this age bracket.

This article focuses on the issues of introduction of possession and possessory protection into the Russian Civil Code. It is emphasized that the authors of the draft bill did not manage either to develop a consistent approach to possession as a fact or justify theoretically the need for such innovation and its practical significance for modern Russian law and order.

The article explores the life of the Königsberg preacher Ludwig Ernst Borowski (1740—1831). Special attention is paid to his biography and his pastoral activities. A detailed analysis of Borowski's patriotic sermons (1806—1816) is undertaken; the idiosyncrasies of his literary style are emphasized. The main themes and subjects of pastor Borowski's sermons are vcarefully examined. The author emphasizes the significance of Borowski's personality for the intellectual and political life of Königsberg and East Prussia at the beginning of the 19th century.

The analysis of the procedural position of the prosecutor at the current stage of initiating a criminal case, the legal regulation of which has undergone significant changes, has been carried out. The participation of the prosecutor in the stage of initiating a criminal case is limited by the lack of his rights to prove, independent decision-making at this stage. As a result of the implementation of the concept of the procedural independence of the preliminary investigation body, the prosecutor is currently suspended by law from direct participation in the first stage of the criminal process. This situation does not correspond to the leading role of the prosecutor in combating crime and ensuring the rule of law. From the concept of the accusatory power of the state, headed by the prosecutor's office, the thesis is developed about the need to expand the rights of the prosecutor at this stage of the criminal process. Concrete measures are proposed to turn the prosecutor into a leading participant in the stage of initiating a criminal case and to transform prosecutorial supervision into a means of procedural management of the preliminary investigation bodies. It is substantiated that the optimization of the stage of initiating a criminal case is possible only according to the model of the supremacy of the prosecutor in pre-trial proceedings.

This article considers the main problems of improving the legal regime of the Special Economic Zone through the prism of efficiency increase. The author stresses the imperfection of some provisions contained in the Law on the Special economic Zone. Certain proposals on the legal regulation and law enforcement are formulated.

In the current article, the author explores the legal basis for investigation activities on Internet, paying particular attention to the provisions set forth in the Federal Laws “On Communications,” “On Information, Information Technologies and the Information Security”, “On the Investigative Search ac­tivities” in the context of countering extremism. The article analyzes the technical and legal features of online investigation measures.
The author analyzes the legislation on the investigation measures on the Internet aiming at counteracting extremist. The difference of the operational-search measures "obtaining computer information" from other operational-search measures on the Internet is justified.
The research used formal-logical, logical-legal and comparative-legal methodology to study legal norms and to work out the proposals on improving the investigation measures on the Internet when dealing with extremist crimes.
Particular attention is paid to the differences in investigation in tele­communication networks and the Internet as their certain kind, as well as the relevant legal regulation in countering extremist crimes. To eliminate possible contradictions in the legislative acts regulating this activity, amendments to the current legislation are proposed.

This article reviews theoretical works of Russian legal scholars on pub­lic law entities and analyses several provisions of the Constitution of the Rus­sian Federation and the Charter of the Kursk region. The author reflects on the rep­resentational functions that public law entities perform in public relations. The article aims to study the terminology and essential characteristics of legal entities in public law. The author considers the widely discussed problem of the juridical person as a legal fiction and explores it proceeding from the methodological assumption that Russian legislation recognizes the legal standing of the juridical person (public law entity). The author performed a comparative semantic analysis of the terminology and used a formal method of legal research revealing the constitutional foundations of the representational functions of public law entities in public relations. Many legal scholars have demonstrated the fallacy of separate terms in public law and have drawn at­tention to the increasing number of arbitrary provisions in public legislation. In their works, they have noted a growing number of fictitious legal construc­tions and relations that complicate the assessment of the legitimacy of the in­dividual’s conduct.

This article describes the final stage of the East-Prussian Offensive of 1945. Particular attention is paid to the problem of redeployment of the 3rd Belorussian Front forces to create the necessary conditions for defeating the enemy during the Battle of Königsberg and the follow-on front mission on the Samland peninsula.

The author considers the problem of regional self-government model functioning in the cities where the German right had not been introduced. The article analyses the systems of self-government in Vitebsk, Pinsk, Mogilev, Orsha and other settlements. The author introduced the notion of selfgovernment regulations, examines the functions of main government institutions in a number of cities, and identifies the features of their self-government models.

This article studies the criminogenic circumstances associated with cor-ruption and those impeding effective fight against it. In view of the extreme social danger of corruption and the considerable economic, political, and moral damage to the society, this article formulates a number of proposals primarily relating to criminal law relevant at the current stage of social development.

The article investigates the phenomenon of rent-seeking and rent-oriented behavior in the sphere of culture and arts. The author describes the specific features of the cultural production. It is shown that, the supply of cultural goods is characterized by the different level of rarity and consists from creative production, services of the institutions of culture and art, antiques, reproductions of works of art. Given the demand the cultural goods are structured in compliance with inquiries of its dealers, traders, collectors, adherents of prestigious consumption, real connoisseurs of art, consumers of entertainments. The article claims that the sphere of culture is divided into two sectors according to rental factors. In the first sector (primary market) production of the specific rent is possible (rent of talent, rents for rarity, marketing quasirent) that promotes rent-seeking behavior. In the second sector (services of the institutions of culture and art, art-object markets) rent-focused behavior is possible (capital rent, tourist rent, status rent, administrative rent). Political quasirent is the object of rent-seeking and rent-oriented behavior.

In the Russian Federation, everyone is guaranteed the right to freely use their property and skills to carry out entrepreneurial activities. The State is taking a set of measures aimed at both stimulating the population to engage in entrepreneurship and creating the most comfortable conditions for its implementation. However, providing entrepreneurs with ample opportunities to accomplish their intentions, unfortunately, not only gave rise to such a phenomenon as illegal entrepreneurship, which is a deterrent to the further development of market relations, but also promoted the growth of economic crimes. The analysis of law enforcement practice indicates that the preliminary investigation bodies are experiencing significant difficulties in determining the amount of damage caused by the crime in question. The dialectical-materialistic method of scientific cognition, analysis, synthesis and statistical method are used as the methodological basis of the research. The purpose of the research is to determine the amount of income received and the damage caused by illegal entrepreneurship. The achievement of this goal predetermined the need to consider various approaches to the interpretation of such a concept as "income from a crime under Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation". Within the framework of this study, a classification of damage from illegal entrepreneurship is proposed, depending on the subjects to whom it may be caused, and the need to include the loss of profits of the affected persons in the composition of the damage from the crime under consideration is analyzed.

In analysing Pitirm Sorokin’s The Sociology of Revolution, future so­ciologists and political scientists assimilate revolutionary processes in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and try to establish reasons and factors behind social shocks. Students seek to juxtapose the consideration of evolu­tionary changes with cardinal changes in the life of society and to register the existence of manipulated and spontaneous processes. In their essays, students arrive at conclusions about whether a revolution is possible today.

Berdayev’s works The New Middle Ages, The Meaning of History, The Crisis of Art help reveal the essence of the eschatological consciousness of the 20th century. The principal feature of New Middle Ages in European culture is proved to be the polarization of consciousness, which is most vividly manifested, according to Berdyaev, in the structure of Russian soul (the apocalyptic and nihilistic type), as well as the divergent trends of contemporary art (synthetism and analytism).

Russian philosophy abroad is associated with the names of those representatives of Russian culture who left the country or were forced to leave after the well-know revolutionary events, for instance, the outstanding Russian thinkers: Nikolai Berdyaev, Ivan Ilyin, Nikolay Lossky, Semyon Frank, and others. The article considers the conceptual framework of Russian philosophies. It allows stating, that the categorical structures of Russian philosophy are obviously original and have great theoretical potential granting new opportunities for philosophical creation.

The author substantiates the function of sea-industry complex in overcoming economic crisis and makes the forecast of project development
of this complex in the Kaliningrad region.

The article analyses the main problems of social cognition development under modern conditions; it suggests considering the anomie in the modern society in the framework of short social projects.

This article considers the literary career of the famous East Prussian poet Simon Dach in connection with the history of Koenigsberg University. With the support of the ruling house of the Electorate of Branderburg and Prussia, Dach managed to obtain the position of a professor of poetry at the university, with which both his work and life are closely connected. One of Dach’s university works is the poetic composition “Prussiarchus” dedicated to the centenary of Albertina (1644). This work is a poetical-allegorical depiction and
interpretation of the history of the Prussian land in the time of duke Albrecht, the founder of the university.

This article analyses the internal and external factors of social security in Russia in the late 2000s. The author pays special attention to the polysemy of the concept of social security and the problems of deviant behaviour.

The principles of law are considered within the positivist legal understanding as the normatively fixed fundamental concept of each industry. The general legal principles enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation are thought to directly apply both in codified and uncodified industries, regardless of whether they are duplicated in industry legislation or not. The article highlights a number of problems related to the allocation of the principles of uncodified branches of law. Firstly, it is rather unclear whether a particular legal entity is a specific branch of law or not. This is particularly difficult in the case of uncodified branches of law. Secondly, some of the criteria for recognising legal principles that are characteristic of codified branches of law do not work when identifying the principles of uncodified branches of law. Thirdly, sectoral principles in codified branches of law are enshrined only in the Constitution of the Russian Federation and/or sectoral codes. In uncodified branches the source of enshrining the principles of law is the Constitution of the Russian Federation and branch uncodified legislation that is a set of normative legal acts. In this situation the problem arises whether any normative legal act can enshrine the principles of the corresponding branch or only in some basic act which replaces the codified act? Finally, if the author accepts the possibility of principles of law being enshrined in different normative acts, the problem arises of the hierarchy and correlation of principles from different normative acts. The article outlines the ways to solve these challenges.

This article considers the contentious issues of modern military anthropology, including research methodology. The author focuses on the use of anthropology as a method of historical research since the early 19th century until today. The problem of correlation between the subjective and objective in the objective of historical research is analysed, a promising direction of development of this research field is suggested.

The article analyses the controversial provisions of the Law on Special Economic Zone in the Kaliningrad region and requirements to the residents of the Special Economic Zone. The author points out some problems of the practical application of special entrepreneurship regime faced by the residents.

In 2016, the Kaliningrad region economy is entering a new stage of development. It is important to establish whether the new investment mechanism proposed in the framework of amended SEZ legislation can ensure the development of regional economy. In recent years, investment performance has deteriorated in almost all areas, since the expected abolition of customs preferences brought about dramatic changes in the business environment. The investment mechanism proposed in the new SEZ law could not create a new model for the sustainable development of regional economy.

The legal category of ‘legal regime’ is considered as a means of differentiating legal regulation of entrepreneurial activities. The author stresses the use of special legal regimes in entrepreneurship legislation and examines the purposes of their application. The article emphasises the problems of improving special legal regimes of entrepreneurship.

This article attempts to elucidate the fundamental connection between law and morals. The authors substantiate the thesis about the spiritual nature of law as a methodological principle of theoretical and practical jurisprudence. The subject content of spiritual foundations of law is demonstrated through the triunity of dignity, autonomy, and mutual respect and trust. Alongside factual and legal aspects, the article addresses the moral aspect of legal relationship.

This article deals with the system of taxes paid by the residents of special economic zones, tax benefits provided to the residents, and the application of special rules and tax payments procedures in special economic zones on the territory of Russia. The author pays attention to the imperfections of certain legislative formulations decreasing the efficiency of legal regulations.

This paper analyses the grounds for terminating a credit agreement at the initiative of either the bank, or the borrower. The author analyses relevant law cases. This article is intended for practicing specialists — attorneys and bank lawyers.

In this article, we analyse the concept of ‘local community’, its distinctive features, and its role and place in socio-geographical studies. We stress the connection between local communities and the area where community members reside and go through everyday routines. Processes characteristic of local communities include territory socialization, residents’ self-identification, selfregulation, and taking over administrative functions. In the case of the Perm region, we study the features of localities at a regional level, namely, the formation of vernacular areas. We conclude that neighbourhood, which requires consolidation to improve the living environment, is manifested today in new forms including owners’ associations.

This article analyses the "thrust toward the East" concept in the Soviet historical discourse. The author identifies the bases of this concept underlying its theoretical framework.

This paper considers the cultural, political, and historical problems of the development of European identity in the discourse of Europe. The author addresses the question as to whether European identity is a category of political discourse or a real instrument of European integration and comes to a conclusion that the concepts of European identity are stuck in a methodological trap. And the EU institutional design does not inspire confidence among the residents of united Europe. The question as to how European identity will develop after the EU crisis is becoming increasingly topical.

This article examines the first contacts of future foreign mercenaries in Russian military service with the Posolski Prikaz in the beginning of the 17th century.

This article consdiers the issues concerning the military training of schoolchildren in the post-war years (1945—1962) in the Kaliningrad region.The authors analyse the processes of integration of military and physical training at school as well as the management of these processes by public education authorities.

This article considers the logical modelling of a set of arguments. The author shows that logic offers normative models, which impose the pre-set structure on the argumentation. The article introduces the notions of macro-, micro-, and mesostructure of argument sets as well as the notion of argumentation circle as a variety of the hermeneutic circle. The author determines the advantages and disadvantages of logical models.

This article considers the events of the 1930—1940s in the Baltics. The authors analyse changes in the political systems and international priorities of the ruling elites of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The influence of domestic factors on solving the problem of independence preservation in the conditions of world war is identified.

The article considers the history of George Boole’s main philosophical conception consisting in using his logical-algebraic and theoretical-probabilistic methods in modelling thought processes. Despite the project’s failure, current developments in computer science and programming have surprisingly confirmed Boole’s ideas on the applicability of rigorous methods of logical calculus in the explication of thought processes.

This article considers the determinants of organised and corruption crime, its extent, and associated public danger, as well as the economic, organisational and legal measures of its prevention.

This article addresses the problem of discretionary powers of judges and considers the correlation between the notions of judicial discretions and discretionary powers. Based on an analysis of scientific literature, the author identifies the features of discretion powers of judges, as well as the possibilities for their efficient application in the administration of justice.

In this article, the author examines the actual issue of applying provisions of an extreme necessity to actions containing signs of a crime under Article 199.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on such a circumstance that excludes the criminality of the act. The author analyses a variety of views on the problem under consideration. Methodologically, the study relies on general scientific methods, as well as the method of formal legal analysis. The purpose is to identify existing gaps of a theoretical and practical nature and to propose possible ways to bridge them. The article notes the importance of making amendments to the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 48 dated 26.11.2019 "On the practice of applying Legislation on Liability for Tax crimes by courts".

This article analyses Robert Merton’s and Thomas Kuhn’s approaches to the concept of paradigm. Whereas Merton identifies the function of a paradigm in analysing data obtained within a social study, Kuhn considers a paradigm as a key notion at a certain stage of the development of science – that of normal science. It is stressed that, despite differences in approaches, the theories do not contradict but rather complement each other.

This article analyses the formation of a new type of rationality in N. Lobachevsky's works. The author identifies the reasons for hostility against the new theory of outstanding Russian mathematicians and pays special attention to the development of rationality in Russian philosophical thought of the 19th century.

The article develops the concept of «morality» and establishes its content as an object of constitutional and legal protection. The author analyzes some legal provisions related to the protection of public morality. Another issue which is considered in this publication is the views of researchers who stud­ied the content of morality as a matter of legal protection in various legal spaces.

This article is devoted to the investigation of forensic and psychological features of persons sentenced to restriction of liberty on the basis of a psychological and sociological analysis of persons sentenced to restriction of freedom registered at penal institutions of the Kaliningrad region. An analysis of the results of the study suggest that, during the sentence period, those sentenced to restriction of freedom either do not reject the commonly accepted norms, values, and behavior patterns or demonstrate the medium degree of rejection. This category of convicted persons shows either low or medium degree of readiness for delinquent behavior and aggression. In most cases, those sentenced to restriction of liberty are able to control the behavioral manifestations of emotional reactions.

Drawing on a comparative analysis of current research and academic literature published in Russia and the United States, I describe the stages of the development of forensic science in the two countries. I analyse the structure and major areas of modern criminalistics. Special attention is paid to the relevant philosophical and methodological framework and the functions of forensic science. I give a detailed account of Russian and US scholars’ approaches to the nature, subject, and object of criminalistics and provide an overview of the history of the discipline. I address the relationship between criminalistics and criminal procedure law. In considering the methodological framework for criminalistics, I focus on the thought experiment (event reconstruction) technique and the situational approach, which is used both in Russia and in the US. I describe the concept, essence, and capabilities of the situation approach to crime investigation. Today, the situational approach is central to forensic thinking. I demonstrate the role of the approach in the training of lawyers and in investigative practices. I describe the use of forensic thinking in the US in the advanced training of detectives and investigators as a means to further their professional growth. I demonstrate how civil and arbitration procedures may benefit from modern criminalistics.

This article analyses major approaches to the development of entrepreneurship theory relating to its regional aspects. The author emphasizes the need and describes the possibility of applying interdisciplinary approach to the development of regional aspects of entrepreneurship theory. The theoretical assumptions and conclusions presented in the article can be used in research on theory of entrepreneurship and the preparation of training, methodological, and research literature.

This article explains the need for the construction of an integral legal framework for Russian economy and considers its principal problems.

The subject of this study is the influence of area factors on the innovation activities of small enterprises. The main theoretical aspects of regional asymmetry of economic development are analyzed. The article presents the author’s method of assessing regional asymmetry of small enterprise innovation development and the mechanism of its diagnostics tested in the case of the regions of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation. The most meaningful factors affecting innovation activities of small enterprises are identified.

This paper considers the problem of European identity in the conditions of the current European crisis. European identity developed over a long time on the moral and political grounds. The author arrives at a conclusion about the need to reconsider the concept of European identity in the EU crisis conditions. European identity cannot develop in an institutional crisis. The concept of European identity requires structural reconstruction, new foundations, since the old ones are, to a great degree, an extension of earlier political discourses.
The author forecasts that the change in discourses around European identity will lead to a shift in the paradigm and the perception of this phenomenon in political theory.

This article analyses the problems of civil law regulation, identifies contentious issues, and states that the dispositive principle can act as a basis for economic relations development.

The article presents the main factors of the emergence of Russian conservative nationalism in the first quarter of the XIX century and the role of socalled «Russian Party» (N. Karamzin, A. Shishkov, F. Rostoptschin, S. Glinka) in this process. The author defines the basic elements of conservative nationalist ideology: interpretation of the people as a «body politic», antiwesternism, antiliberalism, cult of autocracy, selective glorification of Russia’s historical past.

This article analyses the ethnonymy and other ethnocultural markers (denomination, language) of the residents of Belarusian lands during the partitions of Poland on the basis of works by S. Plescheev, H. F. Hackmann, L. M. Maksimovich, V. M. Severgin, and other scholars. The urban population was ethnically identified as Polish, whereas the rural peasant one as predominantly Lithuanian.

This article focuses on the execution of one of the leaders of the Prussian revolt, Herkus Monte, according to the “double death” rite dedicated to two gods — Patollo and Potrimps. This rite is typical for the Baltic perception of the other world and is a special case of the common for Indo-European peoples idea of death.

This article is devoted to the analysis of influence of a certain set of factors on human capital reproduction financing. The basic factors are as follows: demographical factor, public sector development level, technological development, labor market situation, political factor, and the state of economy.

This article is an attempt at a comparative analysis of legal documents regulating social services commissioning in a number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Furthermore, the authors specify the concept of the given form of interaction of public authorities and noncommercial organizations and describe the advantages of social services commissioning as a mechanism of the implementation of regional socioeconomic policy.

This article shows that the opposition between formal and dialectical logic first emerged within Hegel’s dialectical logic. The article shows that in the framework of the division of time into «now» and «not now», the incorrect formal logical description of dialectical opposition disappears. The author comes to a generalised conclusion: the rejection of language description of dialectical opposition as a true conjunctive proposition of the A ¬A type marks the end of opposition between formal and dialectical logic in Russian philosophy.

The author examines the image of the Frenchman in Russian quality journals published between the Napoleonic and Crimean wars. In many Russian journals, the emphasis was laid on creating a positive image of some social strata of French society. The author identifies the reasons for this phenomenon. The image of a ‘good Frenchman’ reveals the attitude of Russian press towards acute political and social issues of the time.

This article explores Russian-Lithuanian trade relations under the EU sanctions against Russia and Russian counter-sanctions. The authors identify changes in the structure of foreign economic activities and examine the main trends, features and problems of trade. The authors analyse transformations in bilateral trade — the role of Russian in Lithuanian foreign trade and the volume of Russian-Lithuanian exports and imports of goods and services.

This article analyzes the attitude of Marx and Engels to Kant’s philosophical legacy. The author proposes a similarity between Marx’s idea on nature as a substantive implementation of a human being, their reflection and analog, and Kant’s doctrine of the world of phenomena created by the subject from things-in-themselves. The article criticizes the Marxist interpretation of Kant's philosophy as agnostic and divorced from practice.

The uniqueness of a territorial socio-economic system lies in the specific features of spatial networking of economic entities that form clusters of excellence and ensure the competitiveness of the entire system. Identifying the key elements of territorial capital is a global challenge faced by modern regional policy. I analyse the background for, and limits to, the development of a spatially targeted regional development policy. Lithuania’s so-called valleys – integrated centres for research and business — are a possible way to embrace the approach that suggests concentrating resources on breakthrough areas, which makes it possible to put local growth points on the international map.

This article analyses the institutional concept of territory marketing. The authors suggest considering institutional environment as the key factor of territory management and the minimization of the transaction costs as the objective of territory management. The authors substantiate the cybernetic and synergetic approaches to territory marketing.

On the basis of the resource approach to analysing the mechanism of the formation and application of competitive advantages of organisation, this article stresses the need for the examination of the category of the "strategic potential of an organisation. The author considers the ability of the management of organisation to cooperate at the international level, or the international cooperation capability (ICA), in the framework of a more advanced version of the resource approach — the dynamic capabilities concept.

The analysis of existing rule of International humanitarian law governing the cases of use of human shields by the parties of armed conflict justifies the conclusion that these persons are a sui generis case and should be regarded as an exception to a number of general rules. As a result, they should not be classified as taking a direct part in hostilities and must be treated according to the principle of proportionality provided that the permissible level of excessiveness of collateral damage can be lowered.

This article analyses the debatable legislative provisions concerning the exclusion from the register of the residents of the Special economic zone in the Kaliningrad region, the court practice regarding the implementation of investment policy statements by the residents and the exclusion of the latter from the register in case of violations. The author draws attention to the problems of the improvement of the corresponding legislation and law enforcement practice.

This article analyses the problems of implementation of the Special economic zone regime in the Kaliningrad region, outlines its major development trends, suggests prolongation of the transitional period for business entities using the free customs zone procedure, and emphasises certain problems of legislation improvement and application of law in the field under consideration.

The study examines the transformation of the legal status of agricultural cooperatives in Russia from the period when the Provisional Government came to power to 1929, the period when this type of cooperation was liquidated as a separate entity. The study demonstrates changes in cooperative legislation after the February Revolution of 1917 until the late 1920s — from expanding the democratic foundations of cooperative societies to the complete abolition of agricultural cooperation as a separate type of this socio-economic movement. The legislation of the Provisional Government on cooperation, including agricultural, expanded the rights of agricultural societies, established a unified legal status for all types of cooperatives, introduced the concept of a “cooperative society” into legal circulation for the first time, allowed cooperatives to form unions, and outlined a clear algorithm for the organization of cooperative activities. The period of “war communism” was characterized by extremely harsh measures regarding the state control of cooperatives. During the New Economic Policy, the legislator adopted imperial cooperative legislation, granting democratic rights and freedoms to cooperatives. This was driven by the difficult financial situation of the population, especially peasants, and the acute shortage of food products. The policy of building a socialist state determined the further fate of agricultural cooperation, as well as cooperation in general, transforming it from a private-law institution into a public-law one and thereby depriving it of the fundamental principles on which it had been built for several decades.

This article deals with the provisions of a number of international criminal codes determining the permissible damage that can be inflicted on the criminal during detainment, thus creating the theoretical framework for the improvement of the corresponding provisions of the Criminal code of the Russian Federation.

This article analyses the changes to the legal status of various categories of allotment during P.A. Stolypin’s agrarian reform. It is shown that the introduction of the institution of personal property (which is not identical to private property) did not mean the elimination of rural community’s ownership of a significant part of the allotment land.

This article considers the main aspects of the methodology of formation of object-functional approach to regional development, which makes it possible, due to taking into account the patterns of regional function distribution, to choose strategic regional objects and ensure their interaction on the basis of incentives for economic agents.

This article considers different methodological approaches to research on anomie. The author analyses Durkheim’s approach to social pathology and the application of P. Sztompka’s concept of cultural trauma. Special attention is paid to R. Merton’s theory of anomie and strain and D. Murphy and M. Robinson’s concept of maximization. At the same time, the author takes into account
the specific features of post-communist transformations, Polish and Russian experience of overcoming social unrest relating to the period of transition, and the modern contemporary problems faced by states today.

This article describes the major issues in studying the gender aspects of the First World War in modern historiography. Major topics of studies include women on the battlefield and on the home front, gender-specific propa¬ganda, and the crisis of masculinity. The author argues that the explanation of history of societies during and after WWI is incomplete without taking into account the gender aspects.

This article focuses on the reasons behind and the diplomatic aspects of the Neuchâtel crisis in Prussian-Swiss relations. The Neuchâtel crisis arose in the end of 1856 as a result of the Prussian territorial claims and interference in Swiss home affairs. The author examines the diplomacy of the leading European powers – mainly England – aimed to resolve the Neuchâtel crisis.

The issue of structural policy in the Kaliningrad region remains pressing. Russia’s commitment to modernisation based on innovative development, overcoming the dependence on raw materials, and the current crisis phenomena require a transformation of the structure of region’s economy.
An effective structural policy requires assessing the structural transfor-mation potential, identifying the rates and criteria of structural changes, and developing a mechanism of reforming the structure of economy in view of the availability of highly specialized professionals in the region and based on the practices of developing traditional industries in the Kaliningrad region.

Prejudice is one of the most problematic procedural institutions. It substantiates the inviolability of the facts established by a judicial act that has entered into legal force. At the same time, the issue of the intersectoral nature of prejudice is relatively new for domestic science and requires close research, taking into account the specifics of various branches of legal proceedings. This issue is of particular importance in criminal proceedings, where the verdict can be based on the conclusions of the courts made in civil, arbitration or administrative proceedings.

This study focuses on the existing points of view in the academic papers, as well as in the law enforcement practice on application of the intersectoral nature of prejudice in the modern Russian criminal process and its limits. Comparative, analytical and historical research methods were used in the research. The author formulated the approach to solving the issue of the possibility and necessity of taking into account court decisions taken in the framework of civil and arbitration proceedings as an intersectoral prejudice in criminal proceedings. Intersectoral prejudice in criminal proceedings has its pros and cons. The institute of intersectoral prejudice in cases of economic crimes is rather special to apply and it is studied in the paper. The author considers the need for guiding clarifications of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the issue of the possibility and feasibility, as well as the procedure for using in proving the facts established by a court decision that has entered into legal force.

The article analyzes the preventive function of the notary, defines the concept and place of the notary in the Russian legal system and among the bodies of civil jurisdiction, reveals the issues of notarial mediation, makes some proposals for improving the legislation. The notary, as an institution of preventive justice, carries out pre-trial resolution of conflicts, ensures the rule of law and plays a huge role in the successful resolution of disputes without going to court, thereby facilitating their work, protecting their rights and interests, and also establishing mutual understanding between the subjects of civil circulation. Taking into account the main preventive function of the notaries, some additions should be made to the legislation on notaries, namely, Art. 1 of the Fundamentals of the legislation of the Russian Federation on the notary, the provision that the main purpose of the notary is to prevent offenses by performing notarial acts, provided for in Art. 35 Fundamentals.

This article considers the tariff policy issues serving as the focus of economic discussions, since their solution has a profound effect on the opportunities of the country’s economic development. The tariff policy problems impair the efficiency and competitiveness of national business and lower living standards. The government declares its readiness to limit the growth of tariffs, which, however, suggests “manual operation” and stopgap measures. The author emphasizes the need to reconsider the methodology and principles of public tariff policy.

This article analyzes the provisions of the recently adopted federal law on the contract system and identifies its shortcomings. The author stresses that new rules are not capable of solving the problem of legal regulation aimed to satisfy state requirements and will create additional complications in the use of terminology, application of legislation, identification of the scope of different regulations, and the correlation of private and public law regulation.

Using documents, the press, and studies of Polish scholars, this article analyses the problem of changing German toponyms during the remaining campaign in Warmia and Masuria in the early postwar years. The historical background, conditions, and principles of renaming settlements, natural objects, streets, and squares are identified and the practical problems of the renaming campaign are analysed. It is concluded that these processes were quite dissimilar in Poland and the USSR, which is explained by different historical pasts and different approaches to solving the problem of ‘appropriating’ the space of former East Prussia by the authorities and communities of the Masurian district of the Olsztyn voivodeship in Poland and the Kaliningrad region in the RSFSR.

This paper attempts to summarise the established in Russian legal science conceptions of legal regulation of contract forms of public administration implementation and offers a model of legal regulation of preparation and conclusion of administrative contracts.

This article analyses an efficient method of interacting with customer, which is aimed at the successful adaptation of innovations. It is noted that, in hi-tech markets, such interaction with all groups of customers can be carried out through a strong brand, whereas special importance is attached to the creation of the brand’s ecosystem, which would make it possible to offer the customer package solutions and include them into the value added chain.

This article focuses on the powers of regional constitutional courts relating to the legal responsibility of regional officials and public authorities in the Russian Federation. The author analyses possible participation of constitutional courts in providing a mechanism for legal responsibility of public authorities in regions of the Russian Federation. Attention is paid to the stages of regional legislation development and current trends. The author suggests avenues of legislation improvement.

This article examines the main trends in the development of customer loyalty programmes and describes companies’ approaches to creating and implementing them. The authors identify the challenges facing companies that modify customer loyalty programmes in accordance with the features of the Russian institutional environment.

The Declaration of the Heads of State and Government of June 29, 2012 was the birth of the European Banking Union. It demonstrated considerable and, in some ways, unprecedented support by the member states of the European Union to each other. This move was highly questioned by the public. In addition to eloquent statements about the need to break the adverse interdependence of sovereign risks and risks of the banking sector, this Declaration included two specific legal obligations. Firstly, the creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and the centralized supervision of the banking sector of the Member States of the eurozone with supervisory powers transferred to the European Central Bank in accordance with Article 127 (6) of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU. Secondly, the direct recapitalization of banks from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), established under the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) based on the Treaty, signed a few months earlier — February 2, 2012. The fulfilment of these obligations directly depends on the effective work of the European Central Bank (ECB). That is why the formation of the EU Banking Union and its current activities are inextricably linked with the efficiency of the ECB. EU member states gave the ECB a certain credit of confidence by giving up part of their mandates and transferring powers to a supranational level in the hope that the ECB has sufficient resources and experience to increase the transparency, stability and security of the EU banking sector.

This article examines the interaction between the principle of honesty and the other principles of the civil law of the Russian Federation. Honesty is manifested in various institutions of law; it interacts with each principle and basic element thus limiting each freedom. It is stressed that honestly — despite having the potential of broad practical application — has not been sufficiently developed in either theory or jurisprudence. The formation of honesty-driven behaviour in the participants in civil legal relationships is part of the trend towards the development of law and society

English-Russian state-to-state relations in the second half of the 19th/ beginning of the 20th century are distinguished by complex character and dramatic shifts from cooperation to confrontation and vice versa. Different circumstances and factors, including the level of trade and economic contacts, affected the condition of English-Russian relations. The author analyses the principal stages of the evolution of trade and economic contacts between Great Britain and Russia from the Crimean war to the agreement of 1907 and identifies their role and influence on the political English-Russian relations of that period.

This article delves into the etymology of the names of the Dnieper rapids of the Ros origin mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogennetos. The author reveals the similarity between these names and the Baltic toponymy.