This article is dedicated to the participation of representatives of the Gagauz people in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 Current problems of historical science in the Republic of Moldova, connected with the falsification of the history of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945, which have political significance for the statehood and independence of the Republic of Moldova, are considered. On the basis of historical sources, archival materials, personal memories of participants of the anti-fascist resistance, the situation of the Gagauz people in the south of Bessarabia during the period of the Romanian-fascist occupation of 1941-1944, the struggle of the inhabitants of the Gagauz regions of Bessarabia against the Romanian occupation regime is highlighted.

The article examines in detail the cultural and historical prerequisites for the formation of national self-consciousness in the context of its specificity. Its specificity is predetermined by the historical destiny of the people, the geographical location of the state and the worldview of Russian people. Attention is focused on three bases of the formation of this phenomenon: “their” faith, power and rigid ethno-social distance with the poles “we” and “they”. The dynamics of the mythologeme of “anti- Westernism”, the transformation of religious consciousness, as well as the specific manifestation of tolerance, conditioned not by origin, but by the common space of settlement, are analyzed separately. It is emphasized that these structural elements of national self-consciousness in various forms existed in all periods of Russian statehood: from ancient Russia to the present. The author’s reflections are illustrated by the data of interdisciplinary sociological research conducted in the period from 1995 to 2021 under the guidance of the author by the team of the Laboratory of Ethnic Sociology and Psychology of the Faculty of Sociology of St. Petersburg State University. The peculiarity of their presentation is the analysis of the dynamics of people’s worldview and behavior under the systemic impact of social and political transformations of the external environment.

Based on statistical data and materials of the All-Union population censuses of 1959-1989, as well as national population censuses of the Republic of Belarus in 1999-2019. the development trends of ethnic processes in Belarus are analyzed. The characteristic of the ethnic structure of modern Belarusian society is given. An excursion into the history of the Russian ethnic group and the indigenous peoples of Russia in the Belarusian lands was made. The role and place of the Russian ethnos in the post-war period of Belarus is shown. The role of migration in ethnic processes is considered. An important place is given to the analysis of the push migration of the Russian-speaking population in the national republics of the period of the collapse of the unified demographic space of the USSR. An analysis of the features and problems of the Belarusian-Russian migration is given. The characteristic of individual indigenous Russian peoples in the national structure of Belarus is given. The ethnic ties of the border regions of Belarus and Russia are highlighted. The changes of the Belarusian ethnos in the national structure of the Russian Federation are reflected.

The present paper deals with the confirmation evidence of the Volga Germans in the form of the visual communication artifacts, in which religious meaning has been depicted. The semiotic analysis has identified the structure of the confirmation documents in the symbolic space. The structure contains a number of similar grounds or markers and indicates the formation of the Volga Germans’ confessional culture. The religious ceremonies’ transmission and the traditional forms’ reconstruction by the Lutheran community in «the alien environment» were based on the existential nature, contributed to the preservation of the Russian Germans’ ethno cultural image, to the ethnic identity functioning and to the national consciousness determination. Having resettled to the vast Russian expanses and to the Volga region in particular and being isolated from their homeland, the Germans built their mode of life in accordance with the traditional religious way of life. Lutherans did their best in perpetuating every stage of the Christians’ lifestyle, the Lutheran confirmation texts detecting it easily. The preserved extant examples of the confirmation evidence maintained personal data of each believer. The quotations from the Bible, the Psalms, the lines from the pastor’s sermon, the verses of the anthems and chants, the Biblical stories paintings have been found in the symbolic space under research. Thus, he confirmation evidence has been proved to comprise Lutheran confessional culture markers on the verbal, artistic, musical levels in the symbolic space of the visual communication.

The approval of the foundations of the state policy for the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values has actualized the issues of their legal formalization. The applied scientific methods were dialectical, systematic and formal-legal methods that contributed to the identification of the features of the legal regulation of the analyzed concept of “the unity of the peoples of Russia”. The analysis of regional legal acts testifies to the diversity of legal regulation in the sphere of national policy. In the course of the study, it was found that the legal formulations “unity of peoples” and “the unity of a multinational people” do not quite coincide, the unity of peoples is defined as a goal, task, priority for the implementation of national policy in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and there is both “territorial” and a nationwide approach to the regulation of this issue. State unity, being the constitutional principle of Russian federalism, acts as an organizational condition for ensuring the unity of the peoples living on the territory of the Russian Federation.

The article examines the specifics of the manifestation of the Crimean Tatar ethnos in the socio-economic and ethnopolitical processes of the Republic of Crimea. It is noted that the socio-economic factor in some cases can act as an additional factor in the destabilization of ethnopolitical processes. Within the framework of the study, the index of the level of socio-economic development is calculated, as well as the index of the level of ethnopolitical instability in the municipalities of the Republic of Crimea is calculated. It is concluded that in 66% of municipalities with the largest share of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group in the population structure, either high or maximum values of the ethnopolitical tension index are recorded. In four municipalities with the largest share of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group in the population structure, a minimum and low quantitative indicator of the level of socio-economic development is recorded (Belogorsky, Dzhankoy, Sovetsky and Pervomaisky districts), and in four more districts (Bakhchisarai, Kirovsky, Simferopol and Krasnogvardeysky), average values of the index can be observed. The exception is the Sudak city district, where a high quantitative indicator of the level of socio-economic development is recorded. Another conclusion is that in the Belogorsky, Sovetsky and Pervomaisky districts there is a high probability of the influence of a socio-economic factor on the destabilization of ethnopolitical processes. At the same time, the socio-economic factor can have almost no effect on the deterioration of ethnopolitical stability in the Krasnogvardeysky district and the Sudak city district.

The article is devoted to the history of the Russian diaspora on the African continent. Russia is a country with a relatively long emigration tradition. Having taken on a massive scale at the end of the XIX century, emigration from Russia continues to this day, representing a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that has always had a great impact on the life of Russian society, regardless of the position that the state authorities took in relation to it at one time or another in history. The article traces its formation at different stages – from its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century to the middle of the twentieth century, marked by the beginning of the national liberation struggle of African peoples for their independence. An independent section of the article is devoted to the current state of the Russian Diaspora in the countries of the African continent., which highlights the problems of the formation of the Russian Diaspora at the present stage, comprehensively analyzes the civil and socio–cultural characteristics of the female Russian contingent - the main source of replenishment of the Russian Diaspora in modern Africa, the specifics of this group of compatriots and their descendants from Afro- Russian marriages de jure and de facto, its role in the social and cultural life of recipient countries and relations with the historical homeland. the unique potential of the “soft power” of the Russian Federation, concluded in its interaction with Russian-speaking communities on the African continent.

The article notes that one of the urgent tasks of the state is the formation of a legal framework and tools for the implementation of the Russian policy towards compatriots abroad. It is analyzed that currently the state management in the field of migration by the executive authorities is paid increased attention. It is argued that the successful implementation of the policy of returning compatriots corresponds to the strategic interests of the state. The conclusion is formulated that the improvement of public law regulation should continue.