Contents

BORDERLANDS

The Macedonian-Illyrian Border as the Origin of the “Military Miracle” of Philip II and Alexander the Great

A. A. Kleymeonov

Leo Tolstoy Tula State Pedagogical University
Lenina pr. 125, Tula, 300026, Russia
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The first half of the fourth century BC was a time of active military expansion by the Illyrians into Macedonia. It reached its climax in 360/359 BC, when the Illyrian king of Dardania Bardylis defeated the Macedonian King Perdiccas III in battle. This victory gave the Illyrians a portion of Upper Macedonia. Against the backdrop of this event, other neighboring territories also attacked the Argead Kingdom, but its new ruler, Philip II, successfully navigated the country through this crisis due to vigorous military operations and skillful diplomacy. The crucial event was the battle on Lake Lychnitis in which Philip defeated Bardylis’s forces and regained the lost territories. The victory over the Illyrians, who fought in close-ordered formation, was made possible by the creation of a corps of sarissa-bearing phalangites and the combined use of cavalry and infantry at the decisive site of the battle. Philip relied on the tactical ideas of Theban general Epaminondas in this battle. The wartime conditions also spurred him to pay special attention to the mobility of the army, which he increased by means of special training and the liquidation of the supply forces. Together, these factors made possible timely defensive and offensive operations. Moreover, the mobility of the Macedonian forces limited the time that the Illyrians could use to gather the tribal levy. The outstanding features of the forces created to defeat Bardylis, together with Phillip`s generalship, formed the basis for the new Macedonian warfare, which largely determined the future victories of Philip II and his son Alexander in Europe and Asia.

IN LIMITE / SINE LIMITIBUS

The Role of Trading Sanctions
in the Creation of the Hanseatic League
in the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century

M. B. Bessudnova

Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University
Grand St. Petersburg st. 41, Velikii Novgorod, 173003, Russia
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For several hundred years, the Hanseatic League, a trade and political association of (mainly northern) Germanic cities, played a significant role in the economic and political life of the Baltic region. Protecting its interests, the Hanseatic League was not afraid to enter into conflict with its neighbors. To this end, the League used various methods, including trade blockades and sanctions that the Hanseatic assembly (Hanzetag) imposed on competitors and opponents. In this article, the author considers one of the first and most important cases of the Hanseatic League’s trade war against Danish King Waldemar IV Atterdag. This example offers a window into the League’s methods for establishing trade blockades and imposing sanctions. In addition, the author demonstrates how this policy contributed to the cohesion of the Hanseatic League.

EMPIRES AND PERIPHERIES

The Roman Military Political Strategy in the Northern Black Sea Region during the Reign of Emperor Vespasian

S. V. Yartsev

Leo Tolstoy Tula State Pedagogical University
Lenina pr. 125, Tula, 300026, Russia
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V. G. Zubarev

Leo Tolstoy Tula State Pedagogical University
Lenina pr. 125, Tula, 300026, Russia
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This article considers the Roman military political strategy in the Northern Black Sea region during the reign of the Emperor Vespasian from 69 through 79 AD. Against the backdrop of the civil war in the Empire that broke out after Nero’s death, in the Northern Black Sea region Rome`s relations with Farzoy’s barbarian kingdom soured, and the Emperor Vespasian`s strategic aim in the north-east was to liquidate this kingdom. This study primarily focuses on the Alans’ march to Transcaucasia in 72 AD in the context of Roman interests. On analyzing the sources, the authors conclude that the move of the Asiatic nomads to the Northern Black Sea region through the Caucasus was inspired by the diplomacy of the Roman Empire to counteract the local Scythians and nomads ruled by Farzoy and Inismey. As a consequence, Vespasian was unable to respond the plea of the Parthian King Vologases to fight the Alans, as the latter were important element in the Roman strategy to liquidate the local hostile barbarians in the Northern Black Sea region. This objective outweighed the disturbance in Roman-Parthian relations. The authors argue that the most important actions of Vespasian were strengthening the defense of the lower Danube limes and blocking the mountain passes after the Alans`s move through the Caucasus. Hardly had the barbarians of Farzoy and Inismey been defeated (most likely, in 72–75 AD), when the Alans’ kings took over the hegemony in the region. As a result, the Roman strategy changed its focus; henceforth, it targeted the Alans. Romans` possession of the main Caucasian mountain passes gave them not only the dominant position in Transcaucasia and the control of trade routes to the East in bypass of Parthia, but also the opportunity to use the Alans in their policy in the region.

INTERVIEW WITH A HISTORIAN

“How Not to Get Carried Away by the Magnificent Plato?”

I. E. Surikov

Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences
Leningradskii pr. 32a, Moscow, 119334, Russia
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Interviewed by

S. N. Prokopenko

Belgorod National Research University
Pobedy st. 85, 308015, Belgorod, Russia
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Igor Surikov, Doctor of Science in History, is a Russian Classicist who specializes in the history and culture of ancient Greece. Currently Professor Surikov works as Senior Research Fellow in the Department for the Comparative Study of Civilizations at the Institute of World History (Russian Academy of Sciences), and as Professor in the History and Theory of Culture Department at Russian State University for the Humanities.

REGIONAL HISTORY OF RUSSIA

Coalitions of the Volost Soviets and Zemstvos
from the end of 1917 through the first half of 1918
(On the Materials of the Vladimir
and Yaroslav Regions)

E. M. Petrovicheva

Vladimir State University after Alexander and Nikolay Stoletovs
87 Gorky St, Vladimir, 600000, Russia
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The presented work is devoted to the study of such an important socio-political practice, which became the Soviet-Zemstvo coalition from the end of 1917 though the first half of 1918. The purpose of the article is to identify the features of the interaction of these bodies in two central industrial provinces, Vladimir and Yaroslavl gubernias, in the first months of the October Revolution. The analysis of a wide range of sources, mainly unpublished, gleaned from the central and local archives, with the help of the methods of the new political history, institutional and discursive approaches allowed us to draw the following conclusions. Despite the short period of existence, the Soviet-Zemstvo coalitions were a justified compromise on the part of the Bolshevik government. This intermediate form allowed to use the rich experience of self-government, accumulated by zemstvo institutions, to attract trained zemstvo cadres, as well as wider sections of the population to the side of Soviet power. However, this policy, flexible and expedient from the state point of view, was interrupted by the escalation of the civil war and the beginning of foreign intervention in Soviet Russia. By the beginning of summer 1918 in the vast majority of counties and volosts, Zemstvo institutions were liquidated.

INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Thinking about Elite:
Personal and Epistemological Meanings of the “Short” Twenty-First and “Long” Nineteenth Centuries
in Russian History

P. A. Olkhov

Belgorod National Research University
308015, Pobedy st. 85, Belgorod, Russia
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The term “elite” is widespread in the academic speech of post-Soviet Russia. This article presents the results of research into the history of this term and a comparative analysis of its semantic relevance in the social (primarily historical) sciences of the 2000s-2010s. It demonstates that “elite” is a specific abstract concept of a high order with no direct analogues in the earlier historical sciences of Russia; the semantically rich term is better grouped within the natural languages. The term, a reflection of the post-Soviet climate in Russian intellectual culture, makes clear the era’s metasocial and epistemological aspirations for new cognitive practices and conceptual reforms as opposed to earlier Marxist historicism. Morever, a study of the pre-Soviet “golden age” of historical thinking does not confirm any conceptual presence of the “elite” in any kind of semantic field of social and historical research during that “long” nineteenth century.
This article details the ethical-existential peculiarities of Russian thought in the nineteenth century, when Russian historical self-awareness blossomed. The concept of “l’élite,” an active term in French, was not conceptualized or used in literary-historical spaces in Russian society of this era. Ethical and existential constellations of Russian thought from that era did not give this term any credence nor conceptually transform it in various speech practices. This article pays special attention to the semantic settings of the normotive language of N. M. Karamzin and and A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky, who are otherwise methodologically polar opposites as Russian historians.

SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE MUSCOVITE RUSSIA

Incorporation of Various Service People into the System of Service Relations in the Muscovite Russia in the Fifteenth though Sixteenth Centuries

M. M. Bentsianov

Ural Federal University after the First President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin
19 Mira St., Ekaterinburg, 620002, Russia
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Studying the features of the process of formation and subsequent development of such an important layer in the social, political and economic structure of the Russian state of the late Middle Ages — the early New Age (“estate”) as service people, in recent decades has occupied not the last place in the historical research of Russian historians. The author of the article draws the attention of his readers to the ambiguity of the policy of the supreme authority on the “incorporation” of certain groups of service people who lived in territories that were not previously owned by the great Moscow princes. This policy was flexible - the supreme power tried to firmly tie service people to itself, taking into account local peculiarities and the nature of accession of one or another territory. This flexibility and the generosity shown by the authorities in relation to service people allowed to create a rather effective and tough system of service relations in the short historical terms. She cemented the state and allowed the authorities to engage in “social engineering” to create the all-Russian “rank” of service people.