IET Biometrics

The negotiations of the Russian mission in Vienna, headed by the clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz K.N. Nefimonov, are analyzed. The embassy was sent to conclude a written agreement with the Holy Roman Empire within the framework of the Holy League, which opposed the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate. The result of almost a year’s stay in the Austrian capital and more than two dozen meetings and “conversations” with nobles and diplomats of the two countries was the conclusion of the Vienna Agreement between Austria, Russia, and Venice for a three-year period. Among the causes of the delay in the negotiations, one can single out the diplomatic “tightrope walking” of the Austrians; the lack of a clear understanding by the Russian envoy of the tasks set before him; and the complicated logistics of correspondence between the clerk, the Ambassadorial Prikaz, and Peter the Great. The latter even led sometimes to the loss of diplomatic mail. Overall, it seems that the events described were Russia’s first experience in signing multilateral treaties.

The article analyzes the narrative surrounding the political support, and military aid provided by Russia, and Russian Emperor Nicholas II himself, as well as the presence and role of the Russian soldiers on Serbia’s and Greece’s (Thessaloniki front) battlefields during the World War I in the Serbian public discourse in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (from 1929 – Kingdom of Yugoslavia). It examines viewpoints and stances of the Serbian journalists, politicians, intellectuals, diplomats, military personnel and clergymen.

This article is devoted to the reconstruction of the civil status and social practices of WWI prisoners of war who remained permanently in Russia/Soviet Union and ended up in Kazakhstan. Chronologically, the study covers the period from 1914 to 1939. Based on the materials of archival and investigative cases of former prisoners of war who became victims of mass repressions during the Great Terror, aspects of migration and social mobility, including repatriation, naturalization, civil status, and the status of foreigners, and discriminatory and repressive policies are considered. It is concluded that the dynamics of the status and the diversity of adaptation practices of former prisoners of war were determined by a number of external and internal political factors. For former prisoners of war, captivity became not only a trauma but also a social marker that secured their status as “former,” which ultimately made them marginals in Soviet society.

The article deals with methods for handling sources describing combat losses of opposing armies in the Russian theater of operations (battlefront) during World War I. The problem of establishing the size and clarifying the categories of casualties suffered by the belligerents both in separate operations and in campaigns or during the war as a whole can be addressed by engaging published and unpublished archival sources. The paper defines the range of such sources including dispatches and reports of various regularity, nominal lists, and personnel orders (the latter only for the Russian army). Ways of working with each type of sources and their specific features are described and their representativeness, completeness, and the possibility of closing knowledge gaps are assessed.

The article is devoted to the political interaction of the supreme power, government circles, and the public during the First World War (before February 1917). The issues of the formation of this interaction on the eve of the war, development in the mainstream of the “sacred union” of 1914, “patriotic anxiety” of 1915, “parallelism of actions” of 1916, and the “storm of power” at the turn of 1916–1917 are considered. The author comes to the conclusion that the supreme power and the government as a whole were inclined to an agreement, striving to maintain national unity during the war. The public increased its demands, considering its domestic political tasks more important than foreign policies. The split of the elites became an important reason for the February Revolution.

The article explores how the World War I affected the scope and contents of the social and economic functions of the European states. Basing on the idea about the interlocked development of warfare and welfare state during the twentieth century, author analyses how exactly “total war” of 1914–1918 induced the European belligerent governments to expand their impact on war economies and societies. Nevertheless, he underlines that this apparent movement to “total state” remained unfinished, and the governments continued to operate in the realities of the capitalist economic system, pluralistic polities (though the degree of this plurality, obviously, differed from country to country), and industrial warfare. During 1914–1918, the authorities of the belligerent powers were rather the mediators between the different interest groups, depending in a significant degree on their consent. The reverse was true as well, and this consent depended largely on the successful management of the “total war” by the states. Outlining the perspective of “total state”, the World War I showed its limitations too.

The cost of transportation expenses in the Muscovite state in the first decade after the end of the Time of Troubles in the 17th century is analyzed. In regions where the provision of stage deliveries was imposed on the taxable population, money for the hiring of transport vehicles and payment for the work of rowers and steersmen was collected and spent by the stage elders. The latter had ample opportunities for abuse, as a result of which up to a third of the stage money was stolen. The transportation of grain reserves by merchants to service people on the outskirts of the state was also expensive: the high cost of delivery increased the cost of maintaining the garrisons of the Lower Volga by a third, and the forts of Siberia, three times.

In this article, I present the first comprehensive study in Russian historiography of the Obukhov Steel-Foundering Works of the Naval Ministry and its role in supplying the Russian army with artillery goods and products during the First World War. I explore how the plant created new types of guns and shells, developing production to meet the troops' urgent needs for essential combat means. I analyze the extent of the enterprise’s participation in supplying the front with artillery systems, ammunition, and optical instruments.

The paper is devoted to the “great transport revolution” in Russia. The author shows that the users of passenger carriages in the Moscow state of the late Middle Ages were mostly women from aristocratic families. Aristocratic men usually rode on horseback. They could be forced to take a carriage only by illness or old age. In the 16th century, the kolymaga, which differed little from the medieval European carriages, remained main wheeled means of transportation in Russia. Late in the 16th century, more advanced European coaches with the body suspended on leather straps began to get to Moscow. Lexemes of European origin—carretta and coach—began to penetrate into the Russian language along with them. From the end of Ivan the Terrible’s reign, coaches began to be used in diplomatic practice, which gradually created an idea of them as an element of prestige. The “transport revolution” in Russia was delayed by the Time of Troubles. From the middle of the 17th century, the number of European-made equipages began to increase in Moscow. In the late 1660s–early 1670s, coaches became fashionable among the Russian aristocracy. In 1681, the first decree restricting their use in Moscow was issued. It led to the widespread use of buggies. The “transport revolution” ended late in the 17th century.

An attempt is made to analyze the influence of the confrontation between the Russian and Ottoman navies on the course and outcome of  World War I. The author’s attention is focused on the influence of military actions in the Black Sea on the economic and partly sociopolitical situation in Russia and Turkey. It is concluded that the results of the struggle in the Black Sea, mainly the actions of the opposing navies on sea supply routes, largely catalyzed economic and political problems in the Russian and Ottoman empires, which ultimately led to their military defeat and subsequent collapse.

In the 1560s–1580s, the Ambassadorial Prikaz (foreign ministry) began to create a series of reference books that had a dual purpose. On the one hand, they allowed for quick access to up-to-date information on the relations between the Russian state and foreign powers and explained how to format messages to certain sovereigns. At the same time, each of the reference books could only cover one or two aspects of diplomatic contacts. On the other hand, taken together, these materials were a kind of training manual that allowed new employees of the foreign policy department to quickly get up to speed. Such reference books included order inventories, books of titles, viceroyal books, thematic extracts on contacts with a specific state, examples of gold-lettered design of charters to neighboring states, and books (notebooks) that recorded what seals were used to a particular document.

Historiography quite rightly emphasizes the sharp aggravation of ethnic conflicts during and after the First World War, but little attention is paid to the reverse process of reconciliation of interethnic contradictions on the basis of unification against a common enemy. The article examines the trends towards improving Greek–Slavic relations in Trebizond and Thessaloniki in 1916–1918. Signs of gradual reconciliation on the basis of pan-Orthodox and pan-Slavic community are especially evident against the background of prewar deterioration and are further developed in the postwar period.

The causes of the exodus in the summer of 1915 are examined, as well as the motives for the government’s decision to evacuate the population to interior provinces. The hardships and deprivations that refugees faced during the exodus from their places of permanent residence are highlighted, as well as the problems that the authorities had to solve regarding the necessity to meet the needs of refugees in their places of temporary residence. The activities of government bodies at all levels and the attitude of the local population toward refugees are assessed considering the responses of the refugees themselves, recorded in their memoirs.

The features and patterns of the development of the country’s land transport road network in the 16th to mid-19th centuries are examined. Particular attention is paid to the main objective factors that had a decisive influence (both positive and restraining) on the development of land communications. Without considering them, it is impossible to assess objectively road construction and the functioning of the Russian road network, as well as to abandon a number of persistent stereotypes that are not so much a reflection of objective processes as their interpretation in the context of ideological positions and interpretations of different times. This work covers the period from the formation of Russian statehood to the victory of the concept of mass railway construction. The study provides a description of both the entire road network and the main highways, shows the process of their improvement within the framework of existing capabilities and tasks, and assesses the place of land communication routes in the unified transport system of Russia.

Ideas about the space of Russia in the second half of the 18th century are reconstructed based on the analysis of ideas developed by the Russian intellectual sphere. The increase in knowledge about the country contributed to the conceptualization of the phenomenon of space as a unique habitat. Productive was a holistic perception of the impact of historical process factors that did not overestimate the significance of natural and climatic phenomena. The territory and nature of the country were perceived as an asset, were a source of pride for society. Thoughts about the mutual influence of nature and man were spreading. Approaches to solving the problem of space developed in the second half of the 18th century were further developed in the 19th–first quarter of the 21st century, due to which theorization of the role and significance of the geographical determinant in the history of Russia reached a new level.