The article deals with some aspects of development of the Balkar mountain societies in the conditions of Imperial modernization of Russia. It is based on archival sources of the 19^th – early 20^th century from the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA), the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA), the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of Russian Academy of Sciences (SPb.FA RAN), the Central State Archive of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic (CGA KBR), the Central State Archive of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (CGA RSO-Alaniya). The source base is supplemented by legislative acts and periodicals on the topic of the study. These sources allow depict the history of Balkaria during its political and socio cultural integration into the Russian Empire. It is proposed an original interpretation of the specific features of realization of administrative and judicial reforms of the 19^th century in Balkar societies as transformations carried out taking into account the specifics of local conditions and contributed to their ethno-social consolidation. The development of communications, the formation of social infrastructure and new forms of economic activity in mountain societies of the post-reform period are shown. Based on the materials of mass historical sources, the study of the demographic and socio-economic structure and evolution of Balkarian rural societies by the beginning of the 20^th century was carried out. The analysis of the considered issues leads to the conclusion that the source of the historical dynamics of the Balkar society, the transformations that it underwent during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, was the policy of the Russian state in the Caucasus and its impact on the internal life of local societies. Gradually, the mountain community got more and more «open character». The society to go beyond local communities, acquiring its own social scale corresponding to ethnic boundaries. The paper presents a description of the local model of traditional society in the transit to modernity.  The research results are indispensable for writing a generalizing work on the problem of integration of such a culturally complex macro-region as the North Caucasus into the Russian state area.

Congress of entrusted – an original institution of district self-government of Kabardinians and Balkars, regularly functioning under the control of the Russian administration in the last third of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. Representatives of rural societies have repeatedly turned to the school issue, which included several aspects related to the possibility of getting a school education by Kabardians and Balkars, including at the level of aul schools. However, in 1878 and 1907. congress of entrusted drew up sentences on the abolition of aul schools. The circumstances of the adoption of these decisions and their consequences were different, and their analysis allows us to see in the discussion forms and ways of solving the school issue the features of educational practices and intellectual culture of the indigenous population of the Nalchik district. A certain evolution of the enlightenment activity of local self-government is revealed, explained by the increased access of Kabardians and Balkars to education, cultural and treger initiatives of regional authorities and representatives of the national intelligentsia. At the same time, the limited possibilities of local education, first of all, of its initial stage – aul schools, appeared due to difficulties in mastering the Russian-language curriculum, lack of educational practices in the native language, as well as prejudices of the traditional ethno-confessional environment, focused on isolation and rejection of cultural innovations, represented by threats of traditionalist sociocultural self-organization. The consolidation of the differentiation of educational strategies of a small educated part of society with an uneducated majority contributed to the growth of cultural distances within ethnic communities and the persistence of difficulties in overcoming them. Trusted congresses, regularly making decisions on co-financing the education of Kabardians and Balkars at educational institutions in Nalchik or outside the district, but only occasionally addressing the problems of aul schools, did not contribute to resolving the revealed contradictions.

The article examines the activities of military, state and party authorities of Kabardino-Balkaria in the context of the approach of the front. They adopted a number of regulatory documents on the evacuation of the population, equipment, machinery, livestock and raw materials. The analysis of their content and implementation revealed that the measures of state bodies and the military leadership were belated and were not fully implemented. Particular attention is paid to the organization of the evacuation by 46^th army retreating units of workers of the Tyrnyauz tungsten-molybdenum plant and their families, as well as tungsten, molybdenum, livestock and weapons through the Donguz-Orun and Becho passes in the Caucasus. Drawing on the new sources, the total number of evacuated population, equipment, tractors and livestock is defined. The analysis of organization of the underground work and partisan movement in the occupied territory of the republic revealed the causes for their weak effectiveness. It is indicated that these shortcomings in significantly affected the socio-political situation in Kabardino-Balkaria. The combat operations of the units of the 37^th and 9^th Armies on the defense and liberation of the territory of the republic are highlighted. Particular attention is paid to battles in the Elbrus direction.

The paper’s aim is to outline general parameters of demographic evolution, current demographic situation and ethno-demographic specifics of Kabardin-Balkar Republic, which reflect the outcomes as well as the limits of modernization process during the 20^th century and set the socio-demographic format of the region’s development for the near future. For the last century Kabardin-Balkar population increased fourfold and revolutionary changes occurred in its socio-demographic image. Socio-cultural modernization was based on outpacing dynamics of industrialization, urbanization and population’s education rates growth and it was accompanied by the demographic transition. There is a model of population reproduction in the republic now, which is characterized with low birthrate and low death rate. Natural population growth sustains yet but it is almost wholly offset by population decline caused by migration. Population growth and massive influx of new generations into the workforce cannot be more the main source of development. Meanwhile since the 1990s the trend of deep de-industrialization became visible that leads to the erosion of industrial socio-professional cluster where the Russian population dominated. Stagnation of urbanization process and manifestations of de-modernization in population’s socio-professional structure enhanced the significance of archaic in their origin factors of structuring society along the lines of ethnic groups, boundaries. As a whole an inversion of the kind took place in interrelation between the general and the socio-demographic development. Within the Soviet period the development “came into” Kabardin-Balkaria. It brought with itself or formed in the local population a contingent bearing general and professional culture necessary for functioning of the development institutions. Nowadays in the condition of socio-economic stagnation in the republic the outer centers of development would pull out not mere surplus workforce but – more importantly – the bearers of modern professional competencies depleting the demographic base of Kabardin-Balkaria’s development.

The article presents an analysis of migration problems in their interconnection with the socio-political situation in Kabardino-Balkaria at the end of the 20th and early 21st century. It is demonstrated that intensified in the mid-1980s. the influx of migrants from Transcaucasia and Central Asia to Kabardino-Balkaria exacerbated a number of problems in the republic: housing, land, unemployment, rising crime rates, and others. Serious problems arose in Kabardino-Balkaria in connection with the stay of a significant number (over 80 thousand people) of refugees from the Chechen Republic in the mid-1990s. – the beginning of the XXI century. A regular and massive influx of Meskhetian Turks into the KBR, which began in the second half of the 20th century and continues in our days, caused a number of serious problems and had an impact on the demographic, ethno-cultural, socio-economic and delinquency situation in the republic. Their number in Kabardino-Balkaria increased from several families in 1964 to more than 20 thousand people at the present time. At the same time, there is an outflow of indigenous youth from the KBR that leads to a change in the ethnic and socio-professional composition of the population. In the areas of the Meskhetian Turks’ compact settlement the competition in the labor market is aggravated and the local, mostly Russian-speaking population is driven out the agricultural sector and from the sphere of trade. After appeals from Kabardian public organizations to the government bodies of Kabardino-Balkaria, they adopted regulatory legal acts restricting registration of migrants in the republic. The implementation of these acts to a certain extent limited the influx of migrants, but it was not possible to stop the migration flows to the republic. Illegal migrants used various workarounds. In the following years, the regulatory acts of the state authorities of the KBR to limit the registration of migrants on the territory of the KBR were terminated due to the harmonization of the regulatory acts of the republic in accordance with federal legislation.

The research is intended to systematize Ossetian, Balkarian, and Kabardian tombstones of the XX century. Exploration of the plases of commemoration and commemorative markes was held through the prism of ethnographic field data. The research’s objective is to uncover the similarities and differences in grave styling the Central Caucasus. The selection of monuments was made in the frontier settlements of Chegem and Cherek Gorges and Lesken area of Kabardin-Balkarskaja Republic, Irafsky, Digorsky, and Alagirsky areas of North-Ossetia-Alania. The paper is focused on Soviet period monuments (1917-1991). The conservatism in the funeral rites and tomb shaping has affirmed the undoubted ethnocultural kinship of peoples in the region.

The article is devoted to topical issues related to the study of ethnic virtual communities. For the first time, we consider Tatar ethnolocalized virtual communities in the Russian social network «Vkontakte». Ethnolocalized virtual communities unite users not only on the basis of a common ethnic identity, but also conditional territorial framework. A territorial framework can be either a locality or a region. We used information processing tools big data, as well as content analysis of publications for studying virtual communities “Tatars of Ufa” (the largest Tatar urban group), “Tatar’s Youth of the Ulyanovsk region” (the largest Tatar regional group), “Tatars and Tatarochki of Kazakhstan” (the largest diaspora group). The categories of content analysis were: culture, news, religion, politics, history, sports, humor, autostereotypes, dating, communication. The result of the research is the identification of content and functions of ethnolokalized Tatar communities (declared and real), socio-demographic specificity and number of their audience, language models of communication of ethnolokalized communities, the impact of communities on offline space.

Article is devoted to research of some aspects of one of the most important and actual problems of karachay-balkarian folklore study – genre and intragenre classification. Despite of presence of generalizing works and some researches in this area, it cannot be considered solved up to the end. The schemes, used today, borrowed in due time from russian folklore study, don't quite correspond to the national material. So, for example, at division of oral prose into fairy-tale and unfairy-tale some types of works fall out (fables, fiction), others, on the contrary, being divided into two groups, join to both types and represent boundary genres (parables, anecdotes). The similar phenomenon is observed also at attempt of intragenre classification. In philological science it is traditionally accepted to allocate household, magic and animalistic fairy-tales, however upon deeper study scientists reveal also other versions (mythological, heroic, magic-heroic). Besides there remains opened a question about where to carry philosophical fairy-tales with parable nature and a fairy-tale-riddles of type «Who is bigger?», «Who is stronger?», the genre accessory of hunting tales  also raises the doubts. Solution of the problem is also complicated by genetic link and diffusion of various genres. In accordance with carried out research, in the end is made the conclusion about an indispensability of adaptation and improvement of existing classification schemes, based directly on the specifics of national folklore material.

The article discusses aspects of the development of detective prose, necessary for understanding the status of a detective in Kabardian literature. The functionality of stereotypes of perception and «memory of the genre» is briefly presented, which manifests itself in the history of understanding a domestic detective story as a constant appeal to the foreign sources of the genre. The reasons for the detective’s unpopularity in Kabardian literature, the role of mental attitudes and their connection with the peculiarities of the history of written culture are examined. The material of the novels «The Case is Tobacco», «Card Debt» and «Ebarg» by the contemporary writer A.A. Sarakhov show the most noticeable features that individualize the genre of “police detective” in the work of a particular author. In this case, they turn out to be the variability of the main event and the characters. The lack of scientific works devoted to the genre of the detective in Kabardian literature and the work of A.A. Sarakhov determines the relevance of the presented study.

Based on the comparative analysis method, the article establishes the proximity of small genres of Karachai-Balkar folklore, phraseological units, ethnographic realities to the content of such well-known common Turkic monuments of the Middle Ages, like Yusuf Balasagunsky's «Kutadgu bilik», Makhmud Kashgar's «Divan lugat it-Türk» and «Codex Cumanicus». The authors explain the correspondence of many literary and linguistic facts with the ethnogenetic affinity and the rather isolated living of the Karachay-Balkarian people, who have preserved the substrate-wide parameters of their language. The proximity of linguistic art means, stylistic techniques of the monument, compiled by M. Kashgarsky, and the facts of modern Karachai-Balkar literature (especially poetry of the pre-Soviet period) gives grounds to consider the «Dictionary» as an anthology of linguistic and artistic sources of Karachai-Balkar literature and culture, as well as of literatures and cultures of other Turkic peoples.

The basic intention of the authors of the reviewed publication was to get nearer to historical synthesis in understanding the complex interplay of geopolitical, socio-political and socio-cultural factors conditioning the content and the forms of political rapprochement and consequent incorporation of the region into Russian empire during the 16^th – 19^th centuries. In the work’s two parts this process is examined in accordance with the periodization suggested by the authors: 16^th – 18^th centuries – the stage of transition from asymmetric partnership to Russian domination in the macro-region; 1801-1864 – the stage of direct incorporation of the macro-region into the empires state frame. Caucasian war is interpreted as military-political dimension of the process of incorporation. Temporal and political boundaries of the war are limited by the initial and final pints of the process of irreversible changes in political and administrative status of territories, societies and peoples of the region resulting from armed struggle between Russian empire and local ethno-political formations. Military envelope of the process was to a large extent caused by civilizational distance between the sides of the conflict. Simultaneously it entailed deep restructuring of ethno-demographic and ethno-social composition, administrative and judicial system, cultural and ideological spheres of region’s life thus bringing closer imperial state and North Caucasus peoples to better mutual understanding. There are some propositions in the work, which aren’t fully consistent with the historical realities of the epoch: on the system of “vertical” hierarchy of societies in the region where the “lowers” always dominate the “uppers”; on early rooting of Islam in Daghestan; on 16^th century Tarki Shamhaldom while at that time it was really Gazi-Kumukh Shamhaldom: on the absence of state institutions in native ethno-social formations. Some elements of the proposed in the work periodization give rise to objections as well. But in general, suggested in the book conceptual chain – “accession-incorporation -legitimation-integration-synthesis” seems to be interesting. It reflects not as much stages as aspects, various “phase states” of Russia-North Caucasus relations, which are present in various degrees at the every stage of their development.

The reviewed monograph concerns the really fundamental problem in relations of Russia with the North Caucasus peoples in the 16^th – mid 19^th centuries that of divergence of the conditions, forms and “the pace” of abridging the socio-cultural distance between them and of their nearing to the political unity. The authors note that the problem under investigation is highly ideologized and politicized in public in academic discourse as well as objectively caused difficulties of reaching its overall interpretation. Their approach to the problem is built on elaborating the more differentiated conceptual framework, which would internally be enough complex and flexible to embrace all the complexity and contradictory nature of historical and political process and externally be rigid enough to protect the scientific historical discourse from foreign to science socio-cultural and political influences. As a whole the authorial team succeeded in resolving the task they had put before themselves. In the first part of the book they reconstruct the evolution of relations between Russian state and the peoples of the North Caucasus during 16^th – 18^th centuries from asymmetric partnership to the Russian domination in the macro-region. In the second part of the book the period of 1801-1860s is considered. Military-political aspects of the process of incorporation of the region into the Russian empire and re-formatting of its ethno-demographic and ethno-social composition as a result of Russian colonization are examined. There follows further thoroughly elaborated research of the history of administrative reforms and of establishment of Russian judicial institutions. The chapter on cultural and ideological changes in the highlander’s societies and the ways of imperial power’s legitimation concludes the work. The general conception of the work successfully balances historical and logical as well retrospective and prospective dimensions in the vision of Russia’s political interactions with the North Caucasus. But nonetheless one can see the elements of inconsistency or one-sidedness in the analysis of each phase or aspect of investigated process. While the authors were eager to take into consideration all meaningful works in the field they did not escape the visible shortcomings here. Notwithstanding all of these the reviewed work may be characterized as valuable experience in generalizing research of the North Caucasus’ history.