This article proposes an approach to the analysis of the role of universities in the socioeconomic ecosystem of their host city, which makes it possible to pinpoint the specifics of the university city phenomenon in modern Russia. The study uses the theory of functional specialization of complexly organized spatial systems as its underlying methodology. To address specific research questions, methods of comparative, evolutionary and economic-statistical analysis are used. As a result of the study, the authors establish the specifics of the spatial distribution of universities in Europe, the USA and the Russian Federation; and substantiated the choice of Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg as the relevant research sample for the Russian Federation. The article proposes the methodology for assessing the role of universities in the socio-economic space of the city comprising: a set of calculated economic and statistical indicators; analysis of the established practice for deciding if to represent a particular city as a scientific and educational center in strategic management directives; and integral interpretation of the results obtained. The analysis of the leading scientific and educational centers in Russia stated above indicates that in no city the share of the university sector in the overall number of the city’s employees, or its population, reaches 20%–the key threshold for establishing the predominance of universities in the functional the structure of a city. At the same time, the economic dominance of Tomsk universities in their city (the total income of Tomsk universities exceeds the city’s budget, which is unique for Russia) became the basis for positioning the city as the “student capital city” of the country. Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk, which exceed Tomsk in absolute terms, such as number of universities and total number of students studying in the city, lag Tomsk in the sphere of symbolic representation. The article concludes that, due to the specifics of its genesis and evolution, the phenomenon of a university city in Russia receives a new significance, reflecting the diversity of relationships between a large city and a complex, hierarchical system of universities operating in the socio-economic space of a common territory.

Les auteurs analysent la représentation qui est faite de la toute puissante république de Novgorod dans les écrits historiques et politiques russes du xviii^e – début du xix^e siècle. Dans la tradition européenne, la république classique est une république militaire, qui s’appuie sur le modèle de la république romaine militairement puissante. En opposition, la république commerciale est considérée comme un petit État, inférieure militairement aux grandes monarchies. La pensée sociale russe, à commencer par celle développée par A.I. Mankiev, identifie Novgorod à une république mais demeure ambivalente dans l’évaluation de sa puissance militaire. Sous l’influence de l’imagerie romaine et du discours général « de gloire et de grandeur » de la fin du xviii^e siècle, un canon s’est mis en place, qui fait de l’ancienne Novgorod « une république militaire » tout en conservant la république commerciale comme outil conceptuel pour l’analyse de l’histoire ultérieure de la ville. La reconnaissance d’un pouvoir militaire à la république de Novgorod sape l’un des arguments clés en faveur de la monarchie, selon lequel seule une monarchie est capable de contrôler et défendre efficacement un large territoire. De ce fait, l’évaluation de Novgorod en tant que république militaire marque une étape importante dans l’apparition dans la société russe du xix^e siècle d’une alternative républicaine à un monarchisme apparemment inébranlable.

The paper investigates the development of concept of authenticity in industrial cities. The author analyzes the presentation strategies pursued by the key enterprises of the Ural tube industry, as embodied in material (urban planning and industrial complexes) and verbal (historical narrative) forms. For those plants established in the 1930–1940s, namely, Pervouralsk Novotrubny and Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plants, the main strategy was technological heroism associated with unique projects and recent reindustrialization. In contrast to them, the Seversky Pipe Plant, which switched to the production of tube only in the 1960s, built a representation around historical continuity in relation to the “mining civilization” of the Urals by preserving the place of historical memory – the blast furnaces of the 19th century. The author concludes that the historical differences in the narratives about enterprises affect the practices of their positioning in the urban environment, and, consequently, the very concept of authenticity, which in turn is required for the successful formation of the experience economy.

The time-honored tradition of writing the history of Russian political thought as the history of constitutionalism describes it as a sequence of reform projects, unsuccessfully trying to circumscribe autocratic power with the use of new theories and concepts exported from the West. Marc Raeff depicted modernization in Russia by emphasizing the contrasts between Anglo-Saxon liberal individualism and continental collectivist "state dirigisme," yet the attempts to construct an effective Polizeistaat were halted by the autocratic monopoly of personalized power.¹ David Ransel has spoken of the "paradox of a would-be reformer" characteristic of the political culture of 18th-century Russia.² Some researchers insist that the principal conflict within Russian political thought in the 18th century was between absolutist arbitrariness and legal, procedural limitation.³ If the history of Russian political thought revolves around the problem of the unlimited power of the autocrat, then its key problem is the juxtaposition of arbitrariness and law.