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Part I. Intercultural Contacts and Conflicts in the Mediterranean (ed. by Alexandre Tchoudinov)
The first part of the issue is devoted to the history of the Mediterranean, which has long been a place of active intercivilizational contacts. For centuries, this region has remained the main focus of military, economic and political expansion of many states. The authors focus on the evolution of international relations in the Mediterranean countries, the peculiarities of their internal political and economic development, as well as migration processes and intercultural interaction in this region.
Part II. Historical Past of Russia and Belarus in Historiography and Historical Memory (ed. by Olga Vorobyova, Viktor Belozorovich)
The part of this issue is dedicated to understanding of the historical past of Russia and the Republic of Belarus and its reflection in the historiography and modern historical memory. Russians and Belarusians are connected by common historical roots both in belonging to the East Slavic civilization, religion, certain periods of common history. In other periods, their historical destinies diverged, contributing to the development of specific features of statehood, ethos, and culture. Thus, the comprehension of the past of Russia and Belarus at different stages of history is not only of academic interest, but is also important from the point of view of their present and future cooperation. The history of relations between different peoples that were part of the Soviet Union is now increasingly becoming the object of heated political discussions. Regarding most of the issues such as the study of the Great Patriotic War, socio-political, socio-economic and cultural development of the USSR, the approaches of the Russian and Belarusian authors coincide. Some subjects related to the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or the development of nationalism in the Russian Empire of the 19th and early 20th centuries receive different interpretations, demonstrating the diversity of opinions and approaches. But considering the problems from different perspectives, the authors of this issue try to find points of “convergence” in order to use them in a comparative analysis of the established historiographic narratives, cultural identities and strategies of representation of historical memory and the historical past in the contemporary socio-cultural space of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. The authors of the issue are researchers from the two countries: representatives of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno, Academy of Administration under the President of Belarus, and a number of Russian universities.