2024 Issue №2

Using the method of content analysis, this article examines publications from popular Russian newspapers “Novoe Vremya,” “Russkie Vedomosti,” “Svet,” “Nedelya,” and “Russkoe Slovo” dedicated to the activities of the Commission for the Revision of the Statute on Civil Service of 1895. By utilizing data from unpublished documents of the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA), the author aims to answer questions regarding public opinion towards civil ranks, the reform of the civil rank system, and how this issue was reflected in periodicals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The results of the content analysis complement previously conducted research and reveal additional details about the impact of civil service reform on various aspects of public life during the studied period.

The activities of Russian and Crimean state and public figure N. A. Sultan-Krym-Girei in the development of the Sokols’ sports and gymnastics movement in Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries have been studied. It was established that N. A. Sultan-Krym-Girei’s development as a specialist in gymnastics took place during his education and military service in the Lithuanian Life Guards Regiment, where he served as the head of the gymnastics team. In his civil service in the Taurida Governorate, Nikolai Alexandrovich was a trustee of Feodosia gymnasiums and actively participated in improving education, strengthening the health, and physical fitness of students in Crimean educational institutions. He was one of the first initiators of introducing hygiene education in Russian schools. During his Caucasian period, N. A. Sultan-Krym-Girei was directly involved in the creation and leadership of the first Sokols’ gymnastics society in the Russian Empire. As a senator, he played an active role in the creation and activities of the Sokols’ gymnastics societies in St. Petersburg and the unified governing body of the Sokols’ movement in Russia, the “Union of Russian Sokols,” and led them. He facilitated the Union of Russian Sokols’ affiliation with the “Union of Slavic Sokols.” Through his many years of work in developing the sports and gymnastics movement, N. A. Sultan-Krym-Girei made a significant contribution to the emergence, formation, and spread of Sokols’ gymnastics in Russia, not only as a means of physical and moral education but also as a social movement aimed at consolidating the entire Russian society.

The article examines the views of early 20th-century Russian conservatives (Black Hundreds and nationalists) on the causes of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, their attitudes towards the development of the revolutionary situation, and the judgments of the Russian right-wing about the consequences of the power shift in the Ottoman Empire. These questions have not previously been the subject of independent research in the scientific literature. Based on materials from right-wing periodicals (newspapers “Zemshchina,” “Russkoe Znamya,” “Moskovskie Vedomosti,” “Kolokol,” “Kievlyanin,” “Novoe Vremya”) and journalistic works by conservative authors, three significant aspects through which the opinion of the Russian right on the Young Turk Revolution was formed are identified: the ideological positions of conservatives rejecting revolutionary social changes; Turkey’s place in the system of international relations and the forecasting of geopolitical changes in light of the Young Turks’ rise to power; and the perception of revolutionary events in Turkey as a negative example of potential further developments in Russia’s domestic political situation. The range of issues related to the Turkish revolution raised by conservatives allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the foreign policy views of the early 20th-century Russian right-wing.