This book comprises a collection of essays on vital problems of art history seen as the practice of reviving of meanings related to the visual reality of the past. Here the model for the investigator has een Ernst Gombrich, the art theorist, as well as art historian, whose scholarly discourse is truly creative. Gombrich revealed the performative core of any kind of scholarly knowledge. Gombrich's work and personality, and also the story of his relationships with Popper, Warburg, Panofsky, Mitchell, Preziosi, Wind and many others, give us insight in research as interpersonal communication in the variety of conceptual contexts, which causes specific illusive effects resembling the illusion which is usually considered typical of visual arts exclusively.

The book will be useful to specialists in esthetics, psychology and philosophy, and to all interested in art and its interpretation.

The collection includes articles on the struggle and the interaction of two ideas, state sovereignty and the right of nations to self-determination. It reviews the evolution of political systems and different forms of nationalism, as well as their modern transformations, to identify common development trends, regional characteristics and vital outlook of the nation state. The authors explore the history and the formation of the basic concepts of national statehood and nationalism, especially in Europe, Asia, and Africa of the 20th and early 21st century.

This book is intended for specialists in history, political science, sociology, students and teachers of humanitarian institutions, as well as for anyone interested in issues of state sovereignty and the right of nations to self-determination.

The book, for the first time in the Russian scholarly tradition, attempts to analyze the information provided by Russian and Western travelers about statehood and law of the Central Asia countries, regions and nations in 18th to early 20th century. Diplomats, explorers, spies, merchants, sometimes tourists and even captives had opportunities to observe the functioning of power structures and legal regulation in the Central Asia states, not so rarely being participants of this kind of relations. In the book the memoirs and accounts of over 200 travelers summarizing and reflecting their experience in Central Asia have been analyzed. The systematization of this information has allowed to shape a rather detailed picture of the state mechanisms and legal regulation in the Central Asia states and domains observed through the prism of European legal systems thus making political and legal reality of Central Asia understandable for the representatives of Russian and Western cultures.
This book is designed for specialists in history of state and law, comparative law studies, legal anthropology, Russian history, Eastern studies, historiography and source studies, political science and ethnic studies, as well as for students majoring in the aforementioned specialties.

The book is the first research in the Russian scholarly tradition of accounts, notes and memoirs of Russian and Western travelers who visited Mongolia in 17th to early 20th century as a sources on traditional state and law of the Mongols. The authors of notes were diplomats and intelligence officers, scientists and merchants, missionaries and even “extreme tourists.” Using their notes gave an opportunity to form a view on different aspects of power and legal relations in Mongolia. Diverse goals of trips to Mongolia caused visits of foreign contemporaries to various regions of Mongolia at different stages of their political and legal development. The analysis of that sources allows to create the “legal map” of Mongolia during the period of independent khanates and under the power of the Manchu dynasty of Qing including specific features of the legal status of the Northern Mongolia (Khalkha), Southern (Inner) Mongolia and the Zunghar Khanate which was independent state till the mid of the 18th c. The research is based on the analysis of about 200 texts written by travelers as well as on additional materials on history of foreign travels to Mongolia, on persons of travelers themselves. This approach allowed to form an impartial position on the notes and to analyze them critically.
The book is designed for specialists in the field of history of state and law, comparative legal studies, legal and political anthropology, historians, mongolists, specialists in source study, political scientists and ethnographers. It also could be an additional material for students who study these specialties.