Articles

The “Russian threat” factor is constitutive for the logic and guiding principles of Poland’s security policy implementation, as evidenced by a systematic analysis of the corpus of strategic‑planning documents in the domain of foreign and security policy. The article’s primary objective is to trace the evolution of strategic assessments of Russia in the key documents of Polish security policy adopted in 2014 and 2020. The author employs elements of institutional and comparative analysis in combination with qualitative political analysis and expert assessment, while the analytical framework conceptualises international‑political dynamics as a shifting outcome of political design, shaped by the national strategies of states and institutional actors. The study boasts not only significant academic value, contributing to the empirical investigation of security‑theory case studies, but also substantial applied relevance for the Russian foreign‑policy forecasting and planning system.

The article presents a comprehensive deconstruction of Russophobia as a multidimensional interdisciplinary phenomenon, the paper examines in detail three main dimensions of which: historical-political, political-legal, and media-communicative. The author analyzes the evolution of Russophobia from spontaneous xenophobic attitudes to a complex transnational ideological construct and a tool for legitimizing the geopolitical expansion of the West. In the legal aspect, the official institutionalization of the definition of Russophobia in the Strategy for Countering Extremism in the Russian Federation and academic discussions regarding its criminalization are studied. In the media sphere, Russophobia is analyzed as an algorithmically managed digital matrix in the network space, which threatens the cognitive sovereignty of the state and requires ensuring communicative and linguistic security. The interdisciplinary analysis allows proposing an effective analytical toolkit for monitoring and neutralizing destructive content in modern digital communicative practices. The author concludes that countering Russophobia is impossible solely through reactive measures and requires combining theoretical conceptualization with applied analysis of the specifics of network discourse practices.

The article is devoted to a political science study of the phenomenon of medievalism — the use of images and symbols of the Middle Ages in current politics and public discourse. The authors consider medievalism as a reaction to the crisis of universalist educational narratives and analyze its role in the post-Soviet space, especially in Russia. The work argues that the political actualization of medieval images in the countries of the post-Soviet region is closely related to the processes of nation building and the wars of memory aimed at revising the general imperial and Soviet historiography. The authors identify two competing models of medievalism in present Russian public space: conservative, idealizing the domestic Middle Ages within the framework of traditional values, and liberal, using ironic images of the European Middle Ages to criticize the current political agenda and distance from the official sacralization of history. As a result, it is concluded that, despite its active use in public policy, medievalism has a limited impact on present commemorative practices.

The paper examines fundamental changes in modern socio-political organization as a process of transition of social systems to a new technological order. The essence, social significance and directions of the technological policy of the state ensuring sovereignty, security and the civilizational vector of development in the context of ongoing technological transformations are discussed. The authors show the connection between the technological policy of the state and the design of the image of the technological future of society. The principles and theoretical and methodological tools of designing the image of the technological future are analyzed in a substantive way. The article substantiates that technological policy is a complex and strategically oriented state-legal activity implemented jointly with various civil institutions. In modern conditions of transition to a new technological order, this policy, being focused on building a sovereign infrastructure that is adequate to technological changes, acquires a cross-cutting character, and the design of the image of the technological future becomes one of the most important directions of the technological policy of the state.

The article discusses the results of a political and psychological study on how Russia’s development is perceived by the public. It examines the structural components, functions, and characteristics of the country’s future image. The authors draw conclusions about the most significant parameters for assessing these images of the future. Based on these conclusions, the most typical scenarios for Russia’s development as perceived by Russians are described. The most pronounced trends in political perception include a significant ambiguity in these images, driven by increasing uncertainty, as well as the instability and unpredictability of social processes. The study also highlights the need to develop critical thinking and imagination skills in society, the increasingly limited nature of planning horizons, and the refusal to scale goals. These risks are heightened by the instability of society’s psychological state and its sensitivity to the changing events. The study revealed a differentiation in the country’s images, based on the criterion of assessing reality based on emotional significance and activity. The data reflect the increasing relevance of basic materialistic values, as well as the complexity of society’s construction of long-term development scenarios. In this case, the communicative factor rather exacerbates the problems of perceiving the future. Generational, value, and temporal factors also appear to be significant ones in perceiving the future today.

The study aims to assess the potential for applying cognitive technologies to construct a coherent conceptual framework for describing the value-based foundations of Russian statehood. Issues regarding the definition of a terminological basis for describing traditional values — as a cornerstone for strengthening Russian statehood — were examined by integrating approaches from epistemology, axiology, and linguistics. In addressing the research objectives, the study demonstrates the rationale and effectiveness of employing specialized tools for ontological modeling and semantic analysis alongside general methods of generalization and systematization. The study highlights the growing role of the ideological factor — specifically the competition between national development models — amid the emergence of a multipolar world order. It identifies challenges associated with reflecting and verifying the value-based foundations of civilizational identity when formulating domestic and foreign policy measures. An empirical assessment of perceptions regarding value hierarchies is presented, based on a survey of university students. The study outlines the results of developing an ontology system to describe the values underpinning the strengthening of statehood, derived from the analysis of relevant texts. Finally, recommendations are offered on utilizing the proposed toolkit to identify and interpret these value foundations within public administration and political activity.

The purpose of this article is to identify the specifics of conceptualizing the concept of “political design” in Russian political science. It is established that political design attracts the attention of scholars recognizing the importance of understanding the possibilities and limitations of transformative activity in politics. However, the identification of political design is characterized by inconsistency, manifested both in the ambiguity of definitions of basic concepts (design, project) and in the semantic interpretation of their political content. Both general reasons for the difficulties of conceptualizing political design, associated primarily with the methodological pluralism of political science, and specific ones associated with the characteristics of political design as a complex phenomenon are identified. A clear bias in the interpretation of political design is noted towards its definition as a value-oriented activity aimed at constructing an image of the desired future. The methodology of design, describing the subject area and methods of project work, remains in the shadows. Issues requiring in-depth scholarly discussion are identified, and it is concluded that delays in their discussion contribute to the formation of a skeptical attitude toward political design.

This article examines the origins of the Serbian mentality, which matured over thirteen centuries in southeastern Europe’s cultural, historical, and religious-dogmatic landscape. Due to its strategically significant location, Serbia endured many trials and was exposed to external cultural and civilizational influences. These processes, as well as fateful imprinted events and the activities of prominent Serbs, had a radical impact on the formation and development of the national mentality. As Serbs explored the Balkans, they mentally found themselves within the sphere of expansion of Latin culture and language. Local elites found the foundations of their cultural development, initial theological education, and political reflection here. A distinctive identity and political mentality were formed and ingrained on the foundations of the Orthodox Christian tradition in the consciousness of a people previously defined by polytheism, Slavic character, and geographical location. The folk epic of Kosovo—the Kosovo Testament—integrates historically significant national ideals into the dominant mentalities of the Orthodox people. In the Serbian mentality, the religious dimension of national and political identity is expressed in the desire to preserve national integrity, sovereignty, and uniqueness, and in a passionate commitment to the values of faith, justice, and freedom.

The article is devoted to the study of contemporaries’ views on the Polish question in the Russian Empire in the 19th century. The problem, being considered in the context of international relations, domestic politics and the national specifics of the region, is presented through the analysis of the correspondence of the Russian diplomat Prince N.A. Orlov with Tsesareviches (heirs apparent) Grand Dukes Nicholas Alexandrovich and Alexander Alexandrovich. The article presents an approach to assessing the evolution of imperial policy from granting autonomy to the Kingdom of Poland to the events of 1863–1864, emphasizing the complexity of the balance between centralization and consideration of local characteristics. Special attention is paid to the role of the Polish uprisings as some kind of catalysts for changes in the governance of the region. The purpose of the study is to examine the contradictions and consequences (as reflected in Russian elites’ consciousness, according to the analysis of N.A. Orlov’s manuscripts) of the Russian Empire’s policy in the Polish territories and neighboring ones.

The article examines the formation of the internal security system on the Asian outskirts of the Russian Empire in the last third of the 18th century — a period of large-scale transformations under the reign of Catherine II. The author analyses the institutional foundations of law enforcement in Eastern Siberia and the Far East, regions characterised by low population density, ethnic and confessional diversity, underdeveloped infrastructure, and the absence of a landowning nobility that was a key element for maintaining order in the European part of the country. Particular attention is paid to the description of the pre-reform security system and the key innovations introduced by the Governorate reform of 1775 and the Police Ordinance of 1782. The new security model combined the principles of legality and crime prevention with traditional mechanisms of social control. The article highlights the key changes: the establishment of the institutions of gorodnichy (city commandants) and zemsky ispravnik (district police chiefs), the separation of police, judicial, and fiscal functions, and the involvement of the local population in maintaining public order. The study concludes that by the end of the 18th century, a relatively unified and structured internal security system had been formed on the Asian outskirts. This system met the objectives of imperial administration and remained in place for nearly a century.