Explore the vast range of titles available.

This valuable study explores the Russian Enlightenment with reference to the religious Enlightenment of the mid to late eighteenth century. Grounded in close reading of the sermons and devotional writings of Platon (Levshin), Court preacher and Metropolitan of Moscow, the book examines the blending of European ideas into the teachings of Russian Orthodoxy. Highlighting the interplay between Enlightenment thought and Orthodox enlightenment, Elise Wirtschafter addresses key questions of concern to religious Enlighteners across Europe: humanity's relationship to God and creation, the distinction between learning and enlightenment, the role of Christian love in authority relationships, the meaning of free will in a universe governed by Divine Providence, and the unity of church, monarchy, and civil society. Countering scholarship that depicts an Orthodox religious culture under assault from European modernity and Petrine absolutism, Wirtschafter emphasizes the ability of Russia's educated churchmen to assimilate and transform Enlightenment ideas. The intellectual and spiritual vitality of eighteenth-century Orthodoxy helps to explain how Russian policymakers and intellectuals met the challenge of European power while simultaneously coming to terms with the broad cultural appeal of the Enlightenment's universalistic human rights agenda. Religion and Enlightenment in Catherinian Russia defines the Russian Enlightenment as a response to the allure of European modernity, as an instrument of social control, and as the moral voice of an emergent independent society. Because Russia's enlightened intellectuals focused on the moral perfectibility of the individual human being, rather than social and political change, the originality of the Russian Enlightenment has gone unrecognized. This study corrects images of a superficial Enlightenment and crisis-ridden religious culture, arguing that in order to understand the humanistic sensibility and emphasis on individual dignity that permeate Russian intellectual history, and the history of the educated classes more broadly, it is necessary to bring Orthodox teachings into the discussion of Enlightenment thought. The result is a book that explains the distinctive origins of modern Russian culture while also allowing scholars to situate the Russian Enlightenment in European and global history.

In 1378 Metropolitan Alexis, who was residing in Moscow, died. Even though nominated in 1354 head of the entire Russian Orthodox world, during the years of his ministry he had to challenge plans of creating separate metropolises in Lithuanian Russia and Galitian Rus'. In the course of indefatigable plans of Algirdas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, in 1375 Philotheos Patriarch, for the Lithuanian part of the Rus' metropolis, appointed Cyprian as a close collaborator to Alexis. According to Philotheos's idea, after Alexis's death, Cyprian was to extend his jurisdiction over Moscow. Such a decision provoked indignation there and brought the idea of nominating another candidate for the metropolitan throne. Prince Dmitry Ivanovich forced the candidacy of Mitya. The rejection of the Patriarch's favorite in Moscow started a period of \"church's confusion\" in the Russian Orthodoxy. In this article the author analyses Alexis's attitude towards his own succession. It is widely known that he pictured Sergius of Radonezh in this role. This alone testifies that the Metropolitan did not intend to respect the Patriarch's decision, and further, despite the lack of clarity of the sources, it cannot be ruled out that he also more or less supported Mitya for some time.

Introduction. The article deals with the problem of emergence of analytical conclusions in Russian historical science at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Based on the historiographical analysis of the text of “Concise Russian Church History” of Metropolitan Platon (Levshin) the author makes an attempt to demonstrate that scientific analytics is formed in the historical discourse through authors sentence, the deductive excursus created by the author in the process of making a text and providing the discovery of the pragmatic sense of the narrative. On the basis of the purpose of sentence in general text linguistics, the author makes an assumption that such a sentential generalization finds its way into the historical work of Metropolitan Platon through the orthodox homiletics, making the structure of authors narrative similar in a sense and purpose to a sermon. Methods. The research is based on the hermeneutic research method supplemented by the comparative historical and linguistic methods of text research. Applying the historiographical methods results in analyzing the sense and purpose of sentences in the text of historical composition of Metropolitan Platon. Analysis. The article describes a number of coincidences of some sentential generalizations suggested by Metropolitan Platon with sentences included in Karamzins “History of Russian State”. In particular, the researcher remarks the meaning coincidences of authors sentences in evaluating Russian paganism as well as in characterizing Russian society shortly before and after the Mongol-Tatar invasion. He emphasizes some differences in using authors sentences in these texts, analyses the reasons of these differences, finds out a place of sentences in every composition. Results. Finally, the researcher makes a conclusion that in spite of any differences in using sentential generalizations, in these compositions of Platon and Karamzin they form a summarizing part of their historical discourse as an inherent side of their writing styles in presenting historical material. Such a sentence becomes the first step in the formation of scientific analytics, allowing historians of the early 19th century to rise above information of the source, divide information flows, instill scientific discoursivity to the narrative, give conceptual importance to authors conclusions.

Chulos reviews Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, 1782-1867: Perspectives on the Man, His Works, and His Times edited by Vladimir Tsurikov.

In the recent past, the question of determining the optimal city size in relation to the quality of urban life (QoUL) was raised of city inhabitants. This article has evaluated the correlation of the QoUL index in cities in relation to the number of inhabitants. We also deal with selected variables for which we assume a relationship with QoUL. The authors who calculated the indices of the quality of urban life equated the quality of life with its objective dimension considered as the quality of the place. It turned out that growth in the number of inhabitants of Slovak cities did not correlate with improving quality of life. Our article examined QoUL in two different countries on a scale of 0–10 through questionnaires. The obtained values are a subjective assessment. From a global point of view, one city is small and the other is big. The small city achieved better results in international rankings of quality of life, and it was assumed that this fact would also be reflected in the quantification of the quality of urban life. One hypothesis was that a small city will achieve better urban life quality values than a large city. The paper presents the results of measurement and correlation.

Protected areas (PAs) are among the main tools for preserving biodiversity and creating an environment for the natural course of ecological processes. The identification of forest biodiversity is especially important for large metropolitan areas. An obvious problem in assessing the efficiency of the PAs network is the lack of up-to-date cartographic materials representing the typological diversity of vegetation. The aim of the paper is to identify forest biodiversity and fragmentation in the example of the Moscow region (MR)—the largest metropolis in Eastern Europe. The typological classification was carried out at a detailed hierarchical level—33 association groups (ass. gr.) considering the diversity of the land cover. A random forest algorithm was used for cartographic mapping (overall accuracy 0.59). Remote sensing (RS) data included Sentinel-2A, DEM SRTM, and PALSAR radar images. Six fragmentation metrics were calculated based on the raster map of forest typological diversity. A significant correlation between the forest diversity and PAs forest patch fragmentation metrics was noted. It has been established that the PAs proportion of the territory accounts for almost 20% only within the northernmost district and noticeably decreases to the south to 1–2%. At the same time, fragmentation noticeably increases from Northeast to Southwest. The category of PAs does not affect the state of the forest cover. Additionally, there was no direct influence of the anthropogenic factor from both local sources and a large regional source, i.e., the city of Moscow. It is shown that the average area of PAs, supporting 75% of the typological diversity of regional communities, was about 1000 ha. The results of the study suggest that there is a general lack of environmental protection measures in the region. It is recommended to increase the area of PAs, primarily for less fragmented forest patches, including indigenous forest-steppe and forest types of communities.

(1) Background: As global urbanization accelerates, effective mobility in metropolitan areas becomes crucial. City transportation systems, often congested, have diverse transit modes and numerous access points. Our study focuses on the transportation accessibility of the various districts within Moscow, a city with a population of over 12 million and covering approximately 900 square kilometers. (2) Methods: The city was divided into 2 km-by-2 km squares, and we used both personal and public transportation data. This allowed us to analyze spatiotemporal mobility patterns, calculating travel times and distances between these defined centroids. Our assessment not only considered transportation to key hubs, such as major train stations, airports, and the city center, but also weighed the integral interconnectedness of individual districts. Various time frames, including morning and evening peak hours and quieter weekend periods, were used. (3) Results: The study pinpointed the most and least convenient districts for various transit options across the city. Our findings underscore the intricacies of daily commuting patterns in Moscow, highlighting bottlenecks and areas for potential infrastructure enhancement. (4) Conclusions: Using Moscow’s case, we demonstrated the methodology to better understand and improve strategic urban planning and intelligent mobility solutions, aiming to bolster transportation accessibility.

The morphological properties of biogenic particles in the near-surface aerosol composition in the Moscow Metropolitan Area were studied by scanning electron microscopy. Analysis data on aerosol samples (2019–2022) obtained during a complex experiment at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, to study the variability of the physicochemical properties of bioaerosol particles under various meteorological conditions were summarized. The main types of bioaerosol particles were determined, as were their shapes and sizes. For the first time, brochosomes were detected in the surface aerosol in Moscow during field aerosol observations.

The paradox of the coexistence of two canonical Metropolitan Churches in Bessarabia (Moldovan Metropolitan Church – subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate and Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia – under the canonical jurisdiction of the Romanian Patriarchate) is assumed as a phenomenon related to the political area. Therefore, it is interesting to understand to what extent the church as an institution is influenced by the politics în Bessarabia, and to what extent the theological discourse is affected by the ideology, as well as whether the church în Bessarabia is or may become involved în the legitimising of the authority, as it occures în Russia, where the church has an important rol beside the power. Based on the analysis of official discourses of representatives of the involved institutions and other relevant documents stating the cultural and religious elites opinion, the study aims to analyse and interpret the legitimizing formulas and the impact of this split on the church and on the elite.

In this article I examine Moscow's role in the political-economic space of the Russian Federation. A broad range of data supports the thesis that the capital has become a primate city, one that serves no longer as the command center of a closed system but as the primary node of interconnection between Russia and the rest of the world. The effort to create a larger, polycentric \"New Moscow\" next to the ancient capital is marked by a tightening of central control, in contrast to governance regimes of European megaregions. Nevertheless, expansion of the capital region very likely will further boost Moscow's dominance over the country.