Features of institutionalization of sociology in Belarus are revealed. The focus is on the constructive role in this process of creating and developing the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Belarus. Main directions of scientific activity of the Institute’s employees, their creative connections with sociological institutions of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, China, Poland and other countries are described.

Based on the analysis of transformations of the technical reality of the last century related to the development of computers and digital technologies, the article discusses the processes of digitalization and digital transformations. It has been established that digitalization can be understood as the process of creating, through digital technologies, a specific real or virtual digital product with information, communication, production, economic and other purposes. It is noted that the digitalization process leads to digital transformations – processes of a qualitative change in the structural elements of reality associated with the development and use of digital technologies and digital products. The study also establishes that digitalization processes, due to the advent of computer devices and digital technologies, are transforming technical reality.

The article focuses on the historical stages of the study of the Old Believers in Belarus, Russia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine and main methodological strategies. The article notes the experience of creating interdisciplinary centers for the study of Old Believers (Lithuania, Russia, Poland) which is useful for Belarus in connection with the existence of its own tradition of security. The author makes a conclusion about the necessity of comprehensive interdisciplinary studies of Old Believers, as well as about development of regional dimension in the Belarusian religious studies.

The article is devoted to the actual problem of formation of Belarus history concept in the second half of the 1930s in the Belarusian SSR. The article highlights the methodological turn in historical knowledge observed in the first half of the 1930s, focuses on the processes of creating a textbook on the history of Belarus for students of secondary schools and development of a textbook for students of higher educational institutions of the Republic. The place of the history of Belarus in the unified history concept of the USSR, the contribution of individual researchers in the development of historiography of national history is determined. By the end of the 1930s, draft sketches of a new concept of the history of Belarus based on the Marxist-Leninist methodology and organically inscribed in the General course of the history of the Soviet Union were prepared.

The study is aimed at understanding the process of formation and development of the Soviet national historiography in 1950s–1980s of the socio­cultural history of Western Belarus in 1921–1939, identifying its thematic, ideological and political orientation. Based on a wide range of sources, a conclusion was made about the conditionality of domestic journalism and scientific historical thought on the socio-cultural issues of Western Belarus in 1921–1939. the assimilation policy of Poland and the desire of the Belarusian people for social liberation and national consolidation. With the exception of the problems of the communist and democratic press and the state of public education, there was no systematic substantive development of the topic during the Soviet period, which was explained by the secondary importance of cultural themes in the system of Marxist-Leninist methodology. The events of social and cultural life were used to confirm the difficult situation of the Belarusian people and as an illustration of the revolutionary struggle for “social and national liberation”, the approaches to its study were determined by the place and role of the Communist Party in the social and political situation, the Polish was clearly negative and alien to Belarusians. Socio-cultural influence on Western Belarus, ignoring the socio-cultural life of members of other national minorities and under control Communist Party groups. Socio-cultural issues developed in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist social-class canons, aimed at leveling national features and fostering internationalist priorities, resulting in the impoverishment of the sociocultural history of Western Belarus, the rejection of significant achievements of the Belarusian people in material and spiritual culture, in the field of education and science literature and art.

Most scientific works on the subject of the occupied territories are devoted to the heroic struggle of partisans and underground fighters, and punitive practices of the Nazis to destroy the civilian population. The problem of Hitler’s security services, whose activity led to large losses on the part of the underground movement, remained out of sight of researchers.

One of the white spots remains the problem of Abwehrnebenstelle (ANST) “Minsk” – the head unit of military counterintelligence (Abwehr) in the General District of White Ruthenia. During the occupation, employees of the Minsk branch of Abwehr participated in operations against the Minsk city party Committee; they also identified underground groups in Stalag­352 and others.

In the postwar years, for ideological reasons, the work of Hitler’s security services was not discussed in the open press. References to them served as a background for showing the heroic struggle of the underground and partisans. The situation has changed since the early 1990s.

The article presents a historiographical analysis of publications on this problem for the period from the year 1952 to the present. As a result, a number of errors were identified, discussion and other issues were highlighted, which allow to conclude that the activities of ANST “Minsk” did not become the subject of a separate scientific study. Hence, the issues to further investigation are outlined.

On the well-known jurists’ publications from the 1920s – 1930s their priority role in creating and streamlining Belarusian legal terminology in comparison with philologists’ role was identified. It shows the active participation in the Belarusization of legal science and education, except for the natives of Belarus, and legal specialists invited to work in the BSSR because of the lack of their own personnel. The features of practical implementation of basic principles of creating the dictionary of legal terminology developed by the Scientific and Terminology Commission under the People’s Commissariat of Education of the BSSR are clarified, changes in attitude to these principles during specified time are tracked depending on changes in linguistic ideology in the BSSR.

In the context of globalization, it is important to implement effective intercultural communication, which requires a clear understanding of the relationship between language and culture. Therefore, this article discusses approaches to determining the relationship between language and culture based on the analysis of scientific papers and publications. It is established that there are three points of view on the nature of the relationship of culture and language in modern scientific discourse; characteristics of these views are given. The forms of influence of culture on the language are analyzed, and the hypothesis of influence of the language on culture is also considered. It is determined that the most appropriate is the consideration of language as an element of culture.

In the modern period, the need for a comprehensive study of the social culture of the ethnos and its important component, the family, is growing. At the same time there was no sufficient attention given to study of family relations of the Jews of Belarus. In ethnological science there are no special scientific papers on this issue. Meanwhile, the identification of religious customs that affect marriage and family relations, age of marriage and conditions for its increase, mechanisms of marriage, reasons for maintaining the stability of marriages and reducing the number of divorces among Jews using structural, historical and functional research methods is of particular scientific interest and has practical importance. Marital and family relations of the Jews of Belarus in the XVI – in the beginning of the XX century established religious practices (betrothal of young men from 14 and girls from 12–13 years old, forcing a spiritual court to marry a 20-year-old bachelor, disapproval of marriages for the sake of wealth and marriages between old and young). In the second half of the XIX century with the weakening of the influence of the rabbinate on public life and the increase in the general educational level, men began to marry at the age of 18, and women – in 16 years. Shadhonims (matchmakers) were engaged in arranging marriages, who introduced suitable couples and helped draw up a preliminary and marriage contract. Families were large and strong. Adultery infidelity rarely violated. Violators punished the spiritual court by fasting, physically and publicly humiliated. There was a custom “conditional divorce”. The husband who was leaving for a long time left a letter of divorce to his wife, which said that if he did not return by the deadline, the wife could be free. For men, the process of divorce was simplified. It was enough for them to give his wife a check sheet (“het”). With the weakening of the influence of these customs, the number of divorced women declined.

The original works of Belarusian poets V. Zuyonak, M. Myatlicky, A. Razanau are examined in the article. Authors show individual author’s interpretations of the world picture, focus on the “eternal” problems in the lyrical texts. Moreover, the article reflects indirectly the creative evolution of poets, it makes possible to emphasize the main vectors of the development of “poetry of thought”, and to follow the formation of the author’s worldview.

The object of the research is the current trends in flexible regulation in international private law. The subject of research is the individual aspects of the criterion of the closest connection. The main purpose of the article is to analyze the possibility of using a flexible methodology for determining applicable law on the basis of the current legislation of the Republic of Belarus. The article can be used as a scientific reference point (bridgehead) for a more detailed study of the problems of applying the principle of the closest connection. The author’s study, based on the techniques of formal logic, examines the main aspects of the functioning and application of the principle of the closest connection. The idea is substantiated that for the full application of the principle of the closest connection in the domestic legal system, certain changes are required, as well as a tendentious response of the legislator to the processes occurring in the most advanced legislative systems. Particular attention is paid to the justification of the need to update conflict of laws regulation at the present stage of development of private international law. Examples of presumptions of the closest connection and auxiliary reservations involved in the mechanism for determining the closest connection are given. The study proposed a number of author’s definitions, taking into account the characteristics of the studied legal mechanisms.

The article is devoted to the study of interregional differentiation of labor productivity. International comparisons of the level of labor productivity per one employed in the economy have been carried out. Distinctive criteria for determining and statistical accounting of high-performance workplaces in Belarus and Russia have been identified. A methodological approach to assessing the conformity of available workplaces to a high-productivity level in the regions in the medium and high-tech sector of Belarus is proposed. The regions of Belarus with a lower level of labor productivity in comparison with the national average are identified. A positive relationship between the availability of high-performance workplaces and gross regional product is confirmed. The industry distribution of high-performance workplaces in Russia is presented. A high level of interregional differentiation of labor productivity in Russia compared with Belarus was identified. Comprehensive measures have been worked out to stimulate the growth of labor productivity and the creation of high-performance workplaces in the regions of Belarus and Russia.