No 3 (2025)

The article is devoted to a previously unknown dramatic episode from the history of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 – the fate of a large group of ethnic Moldovans from the left bank of the Dniester river in captivity in the Russian Empire. In October 1769, during military actions near the Bendery Fortress, Russian troops devastated the villages inhabited by Moldovans on the left bank of Dniester, which were under the jurisdiction of the Crimean Khanate. About a thousand of their inhabitants, including women and children, were taken prisoner and taken away to Russia. The commander of the advanced Russian corps, Major General Count Ch.L.K. zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, under the pretext of saving these people from starvation, distributed them among the officers of his troops, effectively turning them into serfs. This decision not only did not comply with the European laws and customs of war of that time, but also ran counter to the interests of the state policy of Russia in the context of the struggle with the Ottoman Empire, contradicted specific orders of the supreme power regarding people from Moldova. The article is written on the basis of archival documents of the military and diplomatic departments of the Russian Empire, introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

At the beginning of the First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813), in addition to official authorities, its leaders used other channels in their contacts with Russia. The key figures were two clergymen with political influence: the Karlovac Metropolitan Stefan Stratimirović and Archpriest A.A. Samborsky. A new surge of unofficial diplomacy emerged after the Crimean War, and the scenario and roles of the participants in the interaction resembled what had happened at the beginning of the century. However, by this time, a fairly broad and extensive network of supporters of the «Slavic cause» had already formed in Russia. Its key figures were the Empress's maid of honor A.D. Bludova and the rector of the embassy church in Vienna Archpriest M.F. Raevsky. The Moscow Slavic Benevolent Committee, approved by the tsar at the beginning of 1858, was also considered an auxiliary instrument of Russia’s Balkan policy. Unofficial diplomacy could partially compensate for the lack of official resources of influence. The latter gained the necessary flexibility, but risked falling into a trap due to incomplete coordination of actions. A similar situation arose in connection with the support that was provided to M. Ban in preparing the uprising in Bosnia in 1860–1861.

The article presents Soviet assessments of Romania's economic situation in the early 1950s. Based on documents from the Russian archives, the sources of information received in Moscow on the state of the Romanian economy and the main economic problems have been identified. According to the documents, the personnel policy, the activities of mixed Soviet-Romanian enterprises («sovroms»), the effectiveness of economic management etc. were in the field of view of Soviet observers and experts. There was also a question about the objectivity of the information received. Special attention is paid to economic projects, the need for which was prompted by the Soviet leadership and personally by Joseph Stalin, such as the monetary reform of 1952 and the construction of the Danube–Black Sea canal. The past reassessment of the importance of the «Soviet factor» in the process of the country's socialist industrialization in modern Romania and the relevance of turning to the study of bilateral Soviet-Romanian economic relations are noted, given the strong influence of politicized assessments on the public consciousness of these countries.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the syntactic constructions with the coordinating conjunctions in the Homilies of the Old Russian writer of the XII century Kiril of Turov, who created the original works, continuing the Byzantine rhetorical traditions. The syntax of the works of Kiril has not been considered by the researchers before. In the first part of the article the semantics and use of the conjunctions и, а, но and the rare да (да и), ли, или are considered on the material of the six texts. The neutral conjunction и is present in all the Homilies; the use of the conjunctions а and но is conditioned by the content of the text. Kiril of Turov uses the conjunctions и, а, но in the complex constructions comparable to the compound sentences and at the beginning of predicative construction. The main function of the conjunction и in the Homilies, as in other texts, is the function of the connection. The temporal relations between the parts of complex constructions traditionally emphasized in Old Russian sources are not relevant for the Homilies; the parts are related by the relations of the connection and of the union. The other meanings of the complex constructions with the conjunction и (results, consequence etc.) are rarely found in the Sermons of Kiril. The conjunction и at the beginning of the sentence indicates the continuation of the narrative and the new subject. The conjunction a is used less often than и and но. Its usual position was the second part of a complex construction. The use of the union in the Homilies appears to be the same as in the modern Russian. The union a at the beginning of the sentence was peculiar to Old Russian syntax, including business sources; Kiril uses it rarely to convey the complex antithetical-comparative semantics. The conjunction но in the second part of the complex construction has a general antithetical meaning. In the beginning of the predicative construction но indicates a new semantic fragment or the resumption of the previous narrative. In contrast to the sentences with и, constructions with the conjunction но in these cases have the former comparative and antithetical meaning. The conjunction да and the compound conjunction да и and were mostly used in business writing and in the texts reflecting the lively colloquial speech. Kiril uses, though rarely, both conjunctions in the usual accusative sense.