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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.

The article discusses the most significant issues of legal regulation and forensic support for the identification of living persons carried out within the framework of pre-trial proceedings. Empirical materials illustrating typical mistakes made during this procedure are provided. The authors also emphasize the necessity of working with the recognized individuals during the identification process. Examples of procedural and criminalistic errors in presenting individuals for identification in conditions that exclude visual observation by the identifier are examined. The essence of presenting individuals for identification is defined as an independent investigative action, the procedure of which is regulated by Article 193 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. The main characteristic of identification is identified as the recognition (identification) of the presented object. The conclusion is justified that this recognition is the procedural form of criminalistic identification.

The study presents the concept of the special evidentiary value of the results of operational experiments and test purchases. This is due to the fact that these actions reflect a criminal event carried out under the control of law enforcement authorities. To dispel doubts about the admissibility of documented results of such operational measures, a legal standard for their conduct is developed. Unlike sectoral developments regarding such a legal standard, an interdisciplinary legal standard is proposed. It includes criminal procedural norms, norms of criminal investigative law, as well as judicial precedents. Compliance with this standard should guarantee the admissibility of using the results of these operational measures in criminal procedural evidence. Simultaneously, the rights of individuals implicated in the commission of a crime must be ensured. The material-legal and procedural components of the standard for the lawful conduct of operational experiments and test purchases are analyzed. A material-legal criterion for distinguishing lawful operational experiments and test purchases from entrapment is formulated. Criteria for the procedural component of this legal standard are provided. In conclusion, a synthesis of all analyzed components is made in the form of a comprehensive standard for the activities of law enforcement authorities, preliminary investigation bodies, and prosecutors in forming evidence of charges from the results of operational experiments and test purchases. The conclusions drawn can be used in the field of operational and investigative activities and criminal procedural evidence to eliminate legal uncertainty and increase the effectiveness of prosecuting individuals who have committed serious, covert crimes. Additionally, it may reduce the professional risk for operational personnel authorized to conduct these activities.

An attempt has been made to determine the views of Warsaw positivists on the January Uprising. The author turns to literary works, letters, and memoirs of representatives of Warsaw positivism and concludes that the suppression of the uprising in 1863-1864 contributed significantly to the formation of the ideology of this philosophical movement. Positivists openly condemned the Polish liberation movement, believing that armed conflicts would lead to the disappearance of the Polish nation. Despite this, they held great respect for the participants of the January Uprising, simultaneously realizing the futility of armed methods in the struggle for the independence of Poland. In addition to criticizing the Polish liberation movement, Warsaw positivists negatively assessed representatives of the conservative Polish aristocracy who continued to live in the past, romanticizing Polish uprisings and their participants while ignoring the needs, aspirations, and desires of the lower strata of Polish society. Warsaw positivists also expressed their views on violent methods of fighting for the independence of Polish lands in memoirs, letters, and literary works.

The article examines the issue of the place of the Old Believer community in the Northwestern region of the Russian Empire during the process of Russification in the 19th to early 20th centuries. To achieve the research goal, the following tasks were addressed: a historical overview of the formation of the community in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was provided, a characterization of the existence of the Old Believer community in the region within the Russian Empire was given, circumstances of the settlement of the community members in the Northwestern region were discussed, and the dynamics of changes in the community’s population were outlined. The religious peculiarities of the ethno-confessional group of the Great Russian people were analyzed both regionally and in the broader imperial context. The development and spread of “legal Old Belief” or “Edinoverie” and the social specifics of the Old Believer community in the Northwestern region were examined. Special attention was given to the complex relations between the state authorities and the official church with the Old Believers in the Northwestern region. The interest in this topic is linked to the study of the role and place of the Old Believer community in the system of ethnic and religious relations that developed in the Northwestern region during its incorporation into the Russian Empire. The role of the community in the process of Russification of the Northwestern region after the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863—1864 was also explored. The cross-border relations between the Old Believers of the Northwestern region and their coreligionists from the Woinowo community in East Prussia are of regional historical interest.

The article examines the system of training academic personnel in the history of the Russian state and law at the law faculties of the Russian Abroad in Harbin and Prague in the 1920—1930s. The main sources include case-related documentation from the archives of Russian institutions (State Archive of the Russian Federation, Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, State Archive of the Rostov Region), memoirs, and publications by contemporary emigrant scholars. It is argued that the training system for this discipline did not have the opportunity to develop in the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire, as the academic degree category “History of Russian Law” was only introduced in 1915. Consequently, the preparation of students at the department for professorial candidacy had a largely innovative character in the higher education institutions of the Russian emigration. Considerable attention was paid to the training of specialists in the history of Russian law at both faculties. However, the shortage of well-established academic staff in Harbin necessitated sending students to European research centers. In Prague, an independent training system for this discipline emerged. Nevertheless, the outcome proved to be unproductive—with only one master’s and one doctoral dissertation in the field of the history of Russian law within the framework of the pre-revolutionary Russian tradition defended (by M. V. Shakhmatov).

The article presents a brief biography of Friedrich Münzer (1868—1942), a prominent German historian of Antiquity, a expert in Roman political history. Throughout his life, Münzer taught at the universities of Basel, Königsberg, and Münster, demonstrating high creative activity and publishing numerous works on ancient history. His fate was tragic. Münzer became one of the victims of the National Socialist regime in Germany and died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The “Königsberg period” (1912—1921) in his career is characterized, this period involved teaching at Albertina University and the writing of several important scholarly works, including a fundamental monograph on the history of Roman aristocratic parties and families. The state of the sources does not allow for a complete reconstruction of the professor’s everyday life at Albertina. Nevertheless, the article attempts to recreate the circumstances of Münzer’s personal and professional life in Königsberg (adaptation after moving, university activities), and several assumptions are made about the scientist’s social circle. The proposal to commemorate the memory of the distinguished German classical scholar in Kaliningrad is justified.

The key commemorative practices associated with the name of I. Kant in the Kaliningrad region during the post-Soviet period have been examined in the article. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, due to the growing interest in the pre-war history of the region, there was an expansion of the landscape of “places of memory” related to and associated with Kant. This resulted in the establishment of the philosopher’s image in the cultural memory of the residents of Kaliningrad as a “local” historical figure. The main events of this period were the installation of the Kant monument, the restoration of the Cathedral (near the walls of which the philosopher’s tomb is located), and the inclusion of Kant’s name in the university’s title. Today, according to the results of mass sociological surveys, Kant remains an undisputed leader on the list of historically significant figures associated with the region. His name has firmly established itself as a tourist and marketing brand of the Kaliningrad region. Despite the integration of Kant’s image into the cultural memory of Kaliningrad residents, it retains a conflicting potential: there is a layer of “activists” in the region who perceive Kant as a foreign symbol, leading to “memorial clashes.”

The issue of the development of the observer state institution within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) has been considered. An attempt has been made to assess the possibilities for the current observer states to acquire full membership and increase the number of observer states within the EAEU. Based on the analysis of regulatory acts and the application of comparative positional analysis, it has been established that the relatively recent institution only took on a more or less complete form by 2023. The main focus of the author’s work is on the international-political usefulness of the observer state status and the problems of its actual implementation. A comparison is made between the positioning of Moldova, Cuba, and Uzbekistan as observer states within the EAEU. Special attention is given to ranking the factors hindering and promoting the effective implementation of this specific international-political status. The conclusion is substantiated that among the hindering factors are the weakness of the national economy and domestic political instability, while among the promoting factors are the presence of political will from a consolidated ruling elite and social demand for the integration proposal. The author concludes that there are two fundamentally possible scenarios for the institutional development of the Union: a) deepening integration; b) expanding the integration space through the advancement of contractual policies. The list of potential future observer states within the EAEU is small: China, Vietnam, Iran, Serbia, and Singapore. As Armenian-Azerbaijani relations normalize and Uzbekistan progresses in integration, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan may potentially attain similar status.