2012 Issue №12

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).

This article considers the possibility of the use of Polish concentration camp prose as a primary source. Its features are analysed on the basis of its genre and subject characteristics. The works of a prominent representative of this literary trend help demonstrate the potential of concentration camp short stories as primary sources.

This article presents a historiographical review of the restoration of Lithuanian independence in the 1980s-early 1990s and the establishment of Lithuania-Russian interstate relations in the early post-Soviet years. The topic of the article serves as a context for the analysis of the sources and general trends characteristic of Russian and foreign historians.