On September 9−10, 2021, the Days of Science were held in our region. Leading representatives of the scientific community of the Ural region delivered reports and gave master classes, in which they outlined the latest trends in various branches of scientific knowledge. The grand opening of the event took place at South Ural State University, and the work of the second day ended at the venue of Chelyabinsk State University.
Students and teaching staff members from the Department of Domestic and Foreign History of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities showed special activity in the work of the section of Social and Humanitarian Sciences. Students from all Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes were present in the classroom. And this is not surprising: the number of speakers included several prominent Russian scientists − full corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Historians, first of all, were interested in the speech of representatives of the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences: its Director, Doctor of Sciences (History) Igor Poberezhnikov, and Senior Research Fellow, Candidate of Sciences (History) Viktor Kuznetsov.
The report by Igor Poberezhnikov, "Russia in the Dynamics of Civilization and Modernization", was devoted to one of the most debatable topics in Russian historiography. In his speech, the lecturer paid special attention to the Ural region, emphasizing its specificity − the frontier (borderline) nature of development. The coverage of this and other aspects of modernization, both regional and all-Russian ones, aroused great interest among the audience and provoked a "lively" discussion. In this regard, Igor Poberezhnikov made a promise to history students to visit SUSU again in the near future and share his experience.
The report by Viktor Kuznetsov on the implementation of the atomic project in the South Ural region directly concerned the Chelyabinsk Region and turned out to be more practical for future specialists in history studies. The author put forward his own periodization of the history of the development of the Soviet nuclear weapons, revealed the secrets of working with archival documents on this topic, some of which are still labelled as classified information.
The presented studies demonstrate the achievements of modern historical science and open up the prospects for students and young scientists for conducting their own scientific research based on new theories and concepts, involving other related disciplines.