The article examines the evolution of state regulation of public libraries in the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The research corpus comprises legislative acts of the Russian Empire, departmental regulations governing public library operations, and office correspondence from central and regional government bodies. These documents are preserved in the Russian State Historical Archive, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and the state archives of Irkutsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk regions. The source base is further supplemented by statutes of public libraries and periodicals.
Methodologically, the research relies on the problem-chronological approach, enabling the identification of consistent patterns in the evolution of library law with due regard for shifts in the sociopolitical environment across different periods of the Russian Empire's history. Additionally, the application of the historicalgenetic method facilitated the establishment of causal links and traced the transformation of state policy regarding public libraries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The article demonstrates that the legal framework within which public libraries operated combined elements of governmental encouragement of civic activity with mechanisms of censorship and police oversight.
Granting public libraries the status of a legal entity and simplifying their opening procedures facilitated the expansion of these institutions' organizational autonomy and their integration into Russia's cultural and educational space. At the same time, the abolition of preliminary censorship during the years of the First Russian Revolution did not lead to a real weakening of administrative-police supervision: law enforcement practice on the ground relied primarily on departmental directives rather than formal-legal norms. This led to systematic restrictions on readers’ access to legally published books and periodicals. The repressive and protective component of the authorities’ library policy significantly limited the substantive diversity of mass reading and, consequently, the educational function of libraries.

The article examines the role of Soviet specialists in the establishment and development of the higher education system in Northeast China during the 1950s, using Heilongjiang University (Harbin) as a case of study. The authors determine the relevance of the study by the fragmented nature of existing research on this aspect of Sino-Soviet cooperation from 1951 to 1960. The research employs a historical-archival research method.
The novelty lies in introducing previously unpublished archival materials from Heilongjiang University into academic discourse. Analysis of these materials enabled the verification and refinement of the personnel composition of the 1951 Soviet academic mission, resulting in a nominal list of 181 instructors and the discovery of photographic documents featuring some of these specialists. These findings are of fundamental importance as they allow for the correction of existing historiographical assessments: in contrast to information found in a number of Russian and Chinese sources mentioning the work of only 11 Soviet specialists, it has been possible to documentarily confirm the large-scale nature of their presence.
The aim of the research is the historical reconstruction of the activities of Soviet instructors based on the compiled list and an analysis of their professional contribution to the development of the Harbin Specialized School of Foreign Languages the predecessor of the modern Heilongjiang University. The objectives include establishing the biographical data of the specialists and assessing their influence on the formation of the university's curricula, pedagogical methods and institutional structure.

The article examines the features of the administrative-territorial division of the Tyumen region and the factors that led to the implementation of the “One region, three subjects” formula. The consequence of its implementation was the proclamation of both Tyumen region and the Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs as constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
The research sources are office records of state authorities, documents from public organizations, periodicals, memoirs of participants in the events, and reference materials. Based on the indicated sources and scientific research, the author concludes that the creation of the “Tyumen matryoshka” was a logical necessity for establishing interaction between the constituent entities of the Russian Federation; facilitating cooperation between government bodies at various levels and subjects of economic relations within the framework of environmental management and resource conservation policies; ensuring the rights of nations and peoples to preserve their self-identity.
Therefore, the search for a constitutionally fixed formula “One region, three subjects” became one part of the solution to the problems that had accumulated in the region by the middle 1980s.

The article analyzes the system of registration and medical-sanitary supervision of prostitution in the cities of Eastern Siberia in the late 19th–early 20th centuries basing on archival materials and statistical reports.
The article examines the legislative framework for the regulation of prostitution as established in the normative acts of 1844–1903. It includes the “Rules for Public Women” and the “Statute on the Organization of Supervision over Urban Prostitution in the Empire”, as well as the practice of conducting medical examinations of prostitutes. For the first time, the research introduces previously unpublished archival documents from the collections of the State Archives of the Irkutsk region, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Republic of Buryatia and the Trans-Baikal Territory into academic discourse.
Based on data from one-day censuses of 1889 and 1907, as well as on reports from medical boards and police departments, the author analyses the effectiveness of medical and police control in the cities of the region. The research shows that despite the existence of a developed regulatory framework, the supervisory system was ineffective. Medical examinations were formal due to a chronic shortage of doctors, the lack of unified examination methods and the weak material and technical base of medical institutions. Moreover, the significant portion of registered prostitutes evaded regular examinations, and administrative measures remained ineffective. The scale of hidden (illegal) prostitution according to doctors and police officials far exceeded official figures, rendering the actual epidemiological situation unmanageable. 

The article examines the role of archival institutions in the research of regional history during a period of growth in Russian regional studies and in the context of changes occurring in Russian history, and in particular, the archival industry, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Using a comparative approach, the research analyses changes in the forms and content of work by regional archives in the area of “document use” with Omsk as a case study. This process is equated with the concept of “local history”.
By analysing materials from the Center for Documentation of Contemporary History of the Omsk Region and the State Archive of the Omsk Region (renamed the Historical Archive of the Omsk Region in 2008), the author examines such forms of work as exhibition and publication activities, interaction with mass media, organization of academic conferences, periodical publication and the implementation of digital technologies.
The author concludes that the studied period involves a rethinking of national history and diversification of shared narratives. These institutions have emerged as platforms for studying and popularising local history, boasting developed communication channels and diverse local lore activities. The crucial role of key individuals in this process is highlighted.

The article is devoted to the elections of deputies to the Gorky Regional Council of People’s Deputies of the 21st convocation, which took place in the spring of 1990. The relevance of the article lies in the need to understand the transitional processes in the late USSR.
Important events of that period are associated with the elections, which began to take on a competitive character and created conditions for the opposition to participate in exercising governmental authority. The aim of the research is to identify the specific features of the election of people's deputies to the Gorky Regional Council of People’s Deputies in 1990 and to analyse its results. The research methodology is based on general scientific methods and involves the application of the comparative method. The paper outlines the specifics of the candidates' struggle for the sympathy of the electorate. The authors identify the particular features of the voter turnout among Gorky residents.
The research demonstrates that there is a discrepancy between the actual and nominal outcomes of the will expression among Gorky residents, as in a number of cases the formal data on a deputy's membership in the CPSU does not correspond to his real political beliefs at all. Moreover, the authors mention that the victory in the election to the Gorky Regional Council of People’s Deputies acts as a “catalyst” for a number of politicians including those of federal significance.

The article examines the role of the eminent Tatar thinker Rizaetdin Fakhretdin (1859–1936) in shaping the national-confessional identity of the Tatars at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Fakhretdin emerged as a chief systematizer of the modernization project during a period of profound sociocultural transformation marked by the crisis of traditional society, the rise of nationalism, an internal schism between Kadimism and Jadidism and rigid Russification policies.
Based on an analysis of his journalism, the large-scale reform project for the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly (1905) and materials from the journal “Shura”, the research demonstrates that Fakhretdin's activity constituted a coherent strategy. It synthesized the restoration of historical memory through his work “Asar”, the development of institutional mechanisms for ethno-confessional autonomy, a comprehensive educational reform and the formation of public discourse. The article emphasizes the specific identity consolidation strategies: defending the ethnicon “Tatars” in polemics with Pan-Turkists; protecting the Arabic script as a cultural code; implementing a three-tiered educational system and a “triumvirate” model within the mahalla community.
The article emphasizes the significance of everyday practices as an integral part of the modernization project and concludes that Fakhreddin's intellectual legacy laid the foundation that enabled the Tatar people to preserve their cultural, theological and doctrinal vectors of modernization in the 20th century.

The article provides an analytical review of the monograph by L. A. Lykova, Doctor of Historical Sciences and Chief Specialist at the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, and A. B. Moshchansky, retired police colonel and criminologist. The monograph is dedicated to the initial stage of the White Guard investigation into the murder of Nikolay II and his family (1918–1919).
The relevance of the study is determined by the sustained scholarly and public interest over the past three decades in the circumstances surrounding the death of the last Russian Emperor. The aim of the article is to evaluate the monograph within the context of modern historiography on the issue. Alongside the merits of the work (a broad coverage of sources, examination of the historical and legal aspects of the problem), certain shortcomings are also noted, which mainly consist of insufficient editorial preparation of the publication.
The author concludes that the monograph largely fills the historiographic gap in the study of the first stage of the White Guard investigation into the regicide. This review may be of interest both to specialists in historical and legal sciences, and to researchers of the history of the Civil War in Eastern Russia and, in particular, the circumstances surrounding the murder of members of the Romanov House in the Urals.

The article examines an original idea about the role of normative reasons for art. Attempts by art historians to explain artists’ actions in relation to works of art by deducing their meanings and symbolism fail to yield the desired results, as they have focused not on normative factors but on contingent factors that exist only due to the potential for a variety of possible linguistic associations and the desire of art historians to tell stories.
The key question of the research ‘How to make art rightly?’ focuses primarily on artists’ understandings of the normative order operating in the art world. Since a work of art is the direct result of the artists’ actions, a suitable theory of action is sought to analyze this type of normative order. In contrast to universalist-oriented normative theories (Derek Parfit, Henry Sidgwick), a particularist theory in the spirit of Jonathan Dancy is proposed.

Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Goncharnaya St., 12, bld. 1, Moscow, 109240, Russia nelson02@yandex.ru
There is an ongoing debate about the ethics of research on lifespan extension: roughly, using medical technologies to extend biological human lives beyond the current ‘natural’ limit of about 120 years. At the same time, there is an exploding interest in the use of artificial intelligence to create ‘digital twins’ of persons, for example by fine-tuning large language models on data specific to particular individuals.
In this paper, we consider whether digital twins (or digital doppelgängers, as we refer to them) could be a path toward a kind of life extension or more precisely, a kind of person extension that does not rely on biological continuity. We discuss relevant accounts of consciousness and personal identity and argue that digital doppelgängers may at least help us achieve some of the aims or ostensible goods of personspan extension, even if they may not count as literal extensions of our personhood on dominant philosophical accounts. We also consider relational accounts of personhood and discuss how digital doppelgängers may be able to extend personhood in a relational sense, or at least secure some of the goods associated with relevant relationships.
We conclude by suggesting that a research program to investigate such issues is relevant to ongoing debates about the ethics of extending the human lifespan.

The extension of human life constitutes one of the cornerstone challenges of civilization as a whole. History has recorded numerous projects aimed at achieving immortality, many of which have been utopian or overtly esoteric in nature. However, in the contemporary era, the development of Artificial Intelligencebased technologies has given rise to possibilities for the relational and functional extension of personal existence through the creation of digital twins via the fine-tuning and personalization of large language models. This technology departs from the concept of life extension as a biological phenomenon, instead focusing on replicating the idiosyncratic characteristics of an individual and their functional components.
This commentary article attempts to analyse the concept of digital twins as a tool for personal extension, problematises the classification of their types and functions, and identifies key ethical and social challenges (corporate control, the right to be forgotten, lifecycle management). Despite potential issues, the creation of digital twins also holds significant potential for bioethical research, as it could enhance the implementation of the principle of respect for autonomy (for example, by using them as supplements to advance directives) and allow for the modelling of interventions prior to their actual implementation, thereby helping to minimize harm.
The conclusion emphasizes the necessity of developing legal and ethical frameworks to regulate the creation, use and deletion of digital twins.

The article presents a critical analysis of the concept of landscape determination for philosophical traditions, proposed in Landscape Worlds of Philosophy: The Pomor Landscape and Continental Philosophy by Yu. V. Popkov and E. A. Tyugashev.
The author considers the most fundamental characteristics of analytic philosophy, including the priority of logic and the significance of argumentation, the emphasis on language as a central element, the analysis of which is presented as the main tool for solving philosophical problems, as well as the research consistency and clarity characteristic of the natural and exact sciences. Based on an examination of the distinctive features identified above, which determine the specific analytical style of philosophizing, the methodological inconsistency of the landscape worlds’ concept is demonstrated. It is argued that the reduction of the uniqueness of philosophical traditions to geographical and ethnographic factors is unfounded. The thesis on the ‘continentalism’ of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy is separately considered.
It is demonstrated that the essential, substantive, and stylistic differences between the analytic and continental traditions in contemporary philosophy lie in their attitudes toward science, their style of thought, and their epistemological precepts, rather than in their geographical origins. As an alternative, it proposes an understanding of analytic philosophy as an international tradition united by shared norms of rationality and argumentative practice.

This article is a critical response to Sergey B. Kulikov’s Did John Searle Take Everything into Account When Entering the Chinese Room? It seeks to examine not so much the soundness of the objection to Searle’s critique of strong artificial intelligence put forward by Kulikov as the adequacy of Sergey B. Kulikov’s proposed strategy of defending against objections of this kind.
First, it is shown why an appeal to progress and the emergence of qualitatively different architectures of intelligent systems, such as neural networks, cannot be rejected by invoking John Searle’s biological naturalism and his brain simulation reply. Then an attempt is made to relate Kulikov’s objection to the American philosopher’s thought experiment to other critical responses. On this basis, a distinctive way of classifying the variety of refutations of Searle’s argument is developed, and critiques that rely on new architectures of intelligent systems are located within the resulting types.
At the final stage, alternative ways are proposed different from those employed by Kulikov of defending John Searle’s intuitions against strong artificial intelligence. It is concluded that, without a renewal of the conceptual foundations of the Chinese Room argument, Searle’s original hypothesis remains in a vulnerable position.

The paper examines the theoretical and methodological aspects of the system-forming elements of scientific and technological development of industrial regions in the context of global scientific and technological challenges.
The methodological block of the research includes methods of comparison, synthesis, axiomatic, idealization, systematization, generalization, system analysis and balance. The research identifies the reproduction, organizational, process and territorial approaches among the methodological approaches.
The study of reproductive, organizational, process-based and territorial approaches concludes that relying on the methodological purposefulness of these frameworks, scientific and technological development can progress within the context of the established conditions features of industrial regions. The examination of the territorial and reproductive approaches reveal the advantages and disadvantages of each, enabling the proposal of a territorial-reproductive approach to scientific and technological development as well as the definition of its substance and key attributes.
The research elucidates the dynamism of scientific and technological development, substantiating its foundations, driving factors and outcomes. The authors argue that system-forming elements of scientific and technological development constitute the fundamental basis for the existence and dynamic functioning of a regional system. Industrial regions represent a potential sphere for the active application of these elements. System-forming elements allow reliably determining the vector orientation of an industrial region's scientific and technological development and obtaining monitoring-based assessments of results in both forecast and current timeframes.

The article examines the differentiation of management profiles in higher education and scientific organizations. The relevance of the research is determined by the growing role of management personnel in the context of the transformation of Russia’s higher education system and the expansion of managers’ areas of responsibility.
The aim is to identify functional areas of management activity most distinct in terms of required competencies and to substantiate the feasibility of developing independent soft-skills profiles for them. The research is conducted in a focus group format involving 15 experts: senior officials of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, university rectors, vice-rectors, directors of research organizations, and their deputies. The discussion resulted in a final list of ten areas of managerial activity, ranging from academic affairs and research to security management and human resources. The authors also identify behavioral performance indicators for leaders and key professional competencies significant for each functional specialization. Additionally, the article outlines general behavioral features of successful managers across all domains and criteria for identifying high-potential candidates for inclusion in the managerial personnel reserve.
The research results can be applied to the development of assessment, selection and leadership development programs in the scientific and educational sector, as well as to formulating qualification requirements for the talent pools of universities and research institutions.