This article analyzes the usage of legislation as a legal source in the Russian Empire through the phenomenon of the publication of law. The author argues that the absence of separation of executive, legislative and court powers had definite negative effects for lawmaking and enforcement. The...

Luxury has always been an intrinsic part of world history, but only in the 18th century the core of this phenomenon came up for discussion in Europe. During these debates the concept of luxury was gradually demoralized by economic liberalism and reshaped as “modern and more objective economic...

The article examines the role of degeneration theory in Russian medical and public discourses at the turn of the 20th century. Drawing on a wide range of historiography and primary sources, including archival records and medical writings, the article aims to outline different contexts of the...

This study presents research on a set of Venetian lettere ducali of the 14th to mid-16th centuries and the preparation of their full-text publication. Due to their diplomatic and palaeographic characteristics, the lettere ducali stored in St. Petersburg are an example of well-developed chancery...

This article examines the biography of the historian Alexander Nikolaevich Savin (1873-1923), a specialist in English agrarian history of the 16th and 17th centuries. Based on archival sources, the published and unpublished writings of the historian, reminiscences about him, his diaries and his...

This article uses the records of monastic account books to assess the level of prices in Russia in the second half of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The data from these books allow us to construct salt and rye price series, and identify prices of other goods for single years....

This paper reconstructs the origins and the meaning of the “Most Illustrious and Incomparable Order of Antisobres,” that was to be instituted in 1728 in St Petersburg by Duke de Liria, the Spanish ambassador. While this unusual fraternal society might have never taken off the ground and...

This study investigates the role of the climato-economic characteristics of 85 Russian regions in the formation of collectivism in those territories. Based on the results of previous research, the authors suggested that in regions with harsh climatic conditions, the richer population has a lower...