2019 Issue №3

The authors reflect on the interaction of nature and society in the territo­ry of the modern Kaliningrad region in the Stone Age. Natural factors played a decisive role in the formation of the region’s cultural landscape. In the Stone Age, anthropogenic changes in the natural environment were minimal and were mainly noticed in separate components of the natural landscape. At the boundary of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, megafauna species — mammoths, woolly rhinos and turs — disappeared from the territory of the re­gion. The reindeer population decreased significantly and completely disap­peared in the middle of the Mesolithic. Changes in the fauna were caused by both natural and anthropogenic factors. It is difficult to trace the anthropo­genic effect on vegetation before the Late Neolithic when floodplain agricul­ture (though not everywhere) started playing an auxiliary role. Favourable natural conditions in the Mesolithic-Neolithic periods contributed to the for­mation of a complex adaptive type of economy, characterized by sustainability.

The article examines the course and outcome of the operations of the 1st Russian Army during the second stage of the East Prussian offensive in Au­gust 1914. The author used the example of an infantry division to analyse its combat operations in the battles in East Prussia and its disbandment follow­ing the operation. The failure of the Russian invasion to Germany at the be­ginning of the First World War led to the disbandment of two divisions that could not withstand the severity of the defeat. The injustice of this decision, especially given the fact that dozens of new divisions were formed in the Rus­sian army, is undeniable.

The article is a review of the body of literature published in Finland dur­ing the 1990s — 2010s, describing the evolution of Finland's foreign policy to­wards the USSR in the last decade of the Cold War. The author identifies chronological stages of the study of Finland’s policy towards the Soviet Union and analyses the most relevant themes, which were the subject of attention of Finnish historians and historiographers. The author characterizes each histo­riographic period, its main topics and key research works. The author con­cludes that the main research interest of Finnish authors was the position of Finland in relation to the separation of the Baltic States from the USSR in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, Finnish researchers did not comprehen­sively consider the evolution of the Finnish policy towards its eastern neigh­bours during the entire period of the 1980s — early 1990s.