The article studies Peter the Great “revolutionary” westernization project of Russia by reviewing the most significant differences in the socio-cultural system of Russia centuries compared to its Western European counterparts in the second half of the 15th – early 18th century. The first part of the article identifies the distinctive features of the socio-cultural system of Russia, which the observers from the Western European saw as the most different from the “correct” European norms and institutions in the second half of the 15th-16th centuries. The most distinctive feature was the concentration in the hands of the Moscow sovereign not only of the state political power but also the property rights on all the country's resources. It resulted in the development of the public sphere in Russia along the line of “sovereign vs slaves”, which precluded the Renaissance Western political thought “to accept” Russia into “Europe”.

The author examines two main Western description of Muscovy (Muscovia) in the 15th – 17th centuries: a benevolent approach adopted by Johannes Fabry, Paolo Giovio, Alberto Campense; and a critical approach taken by most authors analyzing Muscovy (Matvey Mekhovsky, Sigismund Herberstein, etc.). These two approaches were also reflected in the dispute between the jurists of the late 16th century about the legitimacy of the state power in Russia – “illegitimate tyranny” by Herberstein and Fletcher and “legitimate despotism” by Boden. These debates in Renaissance
Europe informed and shaped the concept of the patrimonial monarchy (patrimonial system) in Russia, which was subsequently developed by Russian influential historians (V.O. Klyuchevsky, P.N. Milyukov and others) and foreign experts (R. Pipes, E. Carrer d'Ancausse and others).

The second half of the article analyzes the concept of “Europeanization” (“Westernization”) of Russia and offers a periodization of this phenomenon. The start of early Europeanization, when Russia began borrowing military, technical, cultural, and other innovations from Western Europe can be dated from the birth of a unified Moscow state. Peter's Westernization was indeed a new stage in adopting European experience because he removed the state and church barriers in the communication of Russian people with Western Europeans and encouraged not only going to the West for education and science, but also opened the way to the creation of secular education and science in Russia. These were prerequisites for the beginning of the modernization of Russia.

In other matters, Peter's westernization differed from the previous periods only in the number of cultural and institutional adoptions. Peter’s political system was the apogee of the patrimonial culture in Russia.

The article reconstructs the views of Russian conservatives on the Russia’s international position and foreign policy under Peter I. His military victories, and successes in diplomatic field made him popular among conservatives of the 19th century: N. Karamzin, F. Tutchev, M. Pogodin, S. Tatishchev, V. Lamansky, etc. In their studies they focused on Russia’s international posture in the late 17th– early 18th century, comparing the main features of Peter's diplomacy with his those of his descendants. The conservatives, while criticizing the emperor for undermining the tradition, imitating the West, and widening the socio-cultural rift in the society, highly appraised Peter’s foreign policy. They attributed the success to the foreign policy strategy based on national interests. This strategy and Peter’s personality fared better compared to the times of «palace coups», and personalities of Catherine II, Alexander I, and Nicholas I. Peter I «in his relations with foreign powers...was guided solely by the consciousness of our national benefits and needs, while strictly protecting the honor and dignity of the sovereign and the state». The conservatives criticized the emperor's 19th century heirs for what they saw as abandonment of national interests in favor of pan-European ones.

Many historians believe that Russia became a great power either as a result of the Poltava victory in 1709, or after the Nystadt Peace of 1721. It is difficult to agree with this. Peter the Great’s rule indeed produced a combat-ready regular army, a guard, an officer corps, a navy with shipyards, military bases, and coastal artillery. There was an upsurge in the metallurgical industry and mining. Schools with high-quality military and secular education, the Academy of Sciences, the Senate, and the Synod were established. St. Petersburg was founded. Talented and enterprising individuals were promoted to military, diplomatic and administrative posts. The main factor in the rise of the state was military modernization. The main geopolitical achievement of Peter I was the conquest of full access to the Baltic Sea. However, a limited resource base, military and diplomatic defeats and setbacks did not allow Russia to rise to the rank of a great power. The disasters of Narva in 1700 and on the Prut River in 1711 were painful. Russia lost access to the Sea of Azov, the city of Azov, city of Taganrog, the Azov squadron, shipyards and shipbuilding in the Voronezh Territory were lost. The damage from three treatises with the Ottomans in 1711-1713 was great. Russia has lost all of Zaporozhye. The demarcation of the borders of 1714 threw Russia back several hundred kilometers from the Black Sea region. In 1719, the Russian military force was squeezed out of Central Europe – from Mecklenburg. The sphere of influence of Russia after the victorious Peace of Nystad in 1721 was established only in Northern and Eastern Europe – in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Swedish and Danish-Norwegian kingdom, partly in Prussia. The tsar had no claims to hegemony in Europe and no claims to join the circle of the then great powers. Russia was not a great power like the Habsburg monarchy, France, Great Britain, and the Eurasian-African Ottoman Empire. Russia could not compare with the great powers of that time neither in terms of economic (industrial, financial) power, nor in terms of the intensity of expansionism. The entry of the Russian Empire into the system of international relations as one of the five great powers – France, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia – occurred during the Seven Years War of 1756-1763. Another rise to great power took place during the reign of Catherine II. The apogee of greatness and the culmination of Russia's influence on European affairs was the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815.

During the Northern War (1700-1721), the Russian government had to make great efforts to strengthen the anti-Swedish coalition. Peter the Great developed a broad foreign network of state representatives: employees of the diplomatic corps (envoys, ministers, residents, agents, etc.), trade commissioners, and correspondents. Peter the Great himself, his Cabinet, and the foreign policy department (Posolsky Prikaz, Collegia Inostrannykh Del) controlled these agents of influence. Peter’s diplomats fought for symbolic capital by taking part in official negotiations and unofficial meetings, in diplomatic and court ceremonies, in gift-exchanging, and organizing various festivities. This capital then was converted into the international prestige of the ruler, his title, honor, glory, and position in the hierarchy of European rulers. Considerable attention was paid to promptly inform Western partners about events in Russia’s foreign and domestic policy. Russian information policy emphasized the news that can strengthen Russia’s international prestige: dynastic, diplomatic, and military successes, political reforms, and court celebrations. The article examines the practice of news dissemination through Russian diplomatic missions and foreign diplomatic representatives in Russia. The practice reduced the negative effect of the spread of unofficial information, fake news, and false rumors. The war continued in the pages of print media. To limit the dissemination of information damaging Russia’s prestige, Russian diplomats began to use the same instruments of influence (newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets), which European diplomats used at that time: various methods of pressure and bribery, propaganda, and censorship. The successes of Russian diplomacy have led to the strengthening of Russia’s international prestige and contributed to creating a positive image of the country abroad. The Russian government transferred the gained experience into domestic policy. Peter the Great also demanded fighting against “reprehensible” information about “the person of his majesty, or his troops, as well as his state.”

The article examines the correspondence of the Hanoverian resident in Russia Friedrich Christian Weber over the period from January 1718 to the spring of 1720. The set of letters includes over two hundred reports written by the diplomate in French and currently deposited in the French Manuscripts collection of the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford. The goal of this article is to present this source to the scholarly audience and to offer its preliminary analysis. Although Weber was formally a Hanoverian resident, he represented the interests of England, because the Elector of Hanover, since 1714, was also the monarch of Great Britain. The addressee of Weber’s letters was John Robethon, George I's diplomatic secretary. The article examines various aspects of Weber's diplomatic activities, including the methods he used to collect information in Russia and send it to England, such as bribing Russian officials, resorting to secret agents, ciphers, sending dispatches “under the cover, and others. The letters also reflect the tasks set before him by his government, first of all, investigating the nature of relations between the Russian court and the Jacobites and monitoring the progress of the Congress of Åland, including the views of the Russian and Swedish courts regarding the prospects of a separate peace treaty between them. The article also considers Weber’s approach to the analysis of the international situation and the political situation in Russia. He concluded that a separate treaty between Russia and Sweden was highly unlikely and sought to convey this to his addressee. In spite of this the British government continued to view the ongoing negotiations at Åland as a threat. Beginning in May 1718, the Court of St. James repeatedly instructed Weber to find ways to disrupt Congress. The set of letters shed light on the history of Russian foreign policy at the final stage of the Great Northern War on the eve of the conclusion of the Peace of Nystad.

The article attempts to find out the reasons for the failure of the collective security system in Europe, developed to counter German revisionism in the second half of the 1920s – early 1930s. Research literature tends to consider collective security not just as a diplomatic tool, but as a quality of international system developed after the First World War based on the idea of indivisible security with universal international organization presiding over it to deal with problems of war and peace. The principle of the balance of power and war itself as a means of international politics thus lost their legitimacy.

Historians agree that the system proved unsuitable for the challenges of the early 1930s, demonstrated by the Ethiopian War and the Rhineland Crisis. Two alternative ways eventually developed to deal with the inconsistences of the early collective security system: «appeasement» project, initiated by British diplomacy; and the Soviet idea of military-political deterrence through coalition building. Modern historiography views «appeasement» as the idea presupposing the creation of a European Directory, which would have taken on the functions of resolving international contradictions. Historians see the reasons for its failure in an incorrect assessment of Hitler's policy due to thinking in the spirit of collective security. The position of the USSR is more contested among historians. In recent works, however, there appears the consensus that the reason for the failure of the project of a military-political alliance aimed at containing Germany was the unwillingness of the West to strategic interaction with Moscow and its adherence to the principles of «new diplomacy» at a time when it already lost their relevance.

The key research task addressed in this article is to identify, using the example of Tajikistan, the main methods of struggle for influence currently used by leading international actors. Tajikistan is considered both as an autonomous actor with significant internal sources of development, and as an object of influence from more powerful states. The article analyses the nature of the actions taken by the United States, China, and Russia to gain political, economic, and cultural influence in this Central Asian republic. These states act as investors and trade partners in Tajikistan, they gain influence in education by promoting the study of English, Chinese and Russian languages. While the Western investments tend to decrease, the United States retains its influence, primarily in the financial sector. It also attracts the most active, young, educated citizens of Tajikistan to US for permanent residence. Of all countries, China has the most consistent and effective investment strategy, which includes the allocation of investment loans to Tajikistan, the creation of infrastructure facilities through these loans by Chinese companies and labor. The gradual establishment of China's dominance in the economic sphere is accompanied by an increase in China's presence in education and culture. Russia is Tajikistan’s main trading partner, the most important security provider, and destination for a critical number of labor migrants. There is a fundamental difference in the approaches of Russia, China, and the United States to Tajikistan: the activities of Russia and China are focused on maintaining and strengthening stability in Tajikistan, the United States, in the context of their campaign of tough confrontation with Russia, is ready to assist in destabilizing the situation in Tajikistan, using Islamists for this purpose.

The article analyzes US-UK voting cohesion in the United Nations General Assembly in 2001 – 2019 based on the annual lists of important votes drawn up by the US Department of State. Voting cohesion in the UNGA demonstrates the level of support for US policies in this representative international forum. Since most UNGA resolutions are not binding, countries have more room for maneuver compared to voting in the UN Security Council. Washington pays close attention to other countries’ voting behavior in the UNGA, especially when it comes to Israel-related issues. Whereas the Anglo-American Special Relationship has been extensively studied with the focus on the military and political aspects, US-UK interaction in international organizations, especially in the UN, deserves greater attention. Both countries use their permanent membership of the Security Council to promote their interests. Nevertheless, US-UK voting cohesion in the UNGA has not attracted much attention yet, although it can help to objectively assess the interaction of these powers in the world arena. Four groups of important resolutions were identified for comparison: human rights, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nuclear non-proliferation and international security, as well as sanctions and development. In 2001 – 2019 U.S.-UK voting cohesion on important resolutions was relatively high. Nevertheless, under Republicans George W. Bush and Donald Trump it was lower than during Barack Obama’s presidency. Despite the special relationship, the UK often aligns itself with the EU countries when voting in the UNGA. We paid special attention to resolutions on which the countries diverged, although Washington did not vote in complete isolation. U.S.-UK cohesion was higher on non-proliferation and human rights. At the same time, there were differences regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and development, especially in those cases when the US and the EU disagreed. Divergences were apparent when the US was prone to act unilaterally.

Book review: Review of the book by Shelly Chan. Diaspora’s Homeland: modern China in the age of global migration. Durham, Duke University Press, 2018. 281 p.

Book review: Fred Aja Agwu. 2021. Foreign Policy in the Age of Globalization, Polpulism and Nationalism. A New Geopolitical Landscape. Springer. 485 p. https://doi.org/10.1007/978- 981-16-3372-0

Book review: Christofoletti R., Botelho M. L. (ed.) 2021. International Relations and Heritage. Patchwork in Times of Plurality. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. 468 p. DOI: 10.1007/978-3- 030-77991-7