The article deals with the role of the leaders of the older generation of the school of Annals by M. Blok who originated the study of the “history of mentalities” as an independent direction of historical cognition, in the development of the mentality conception.

There are revealed and considered the stages of formation and development of monument protection work of power structures and public organizations regarding the objects of cult architecture at the territory of the modern Volgograd region in the XIX - beginning of the XXI centuries. There is represented the historiographic comprehension of these issues in pre-revolutionary and modern scientific research.

Migrations played a special role in the history of Russian people. They influenced greatly the objective and subjective manifestations of their lives and self-actualization. During its history Russian ethnos increased its settlement territory carrying out the historical mission of “developing of remote areas”. In Russian colonization both state and Russian ethnos played the equal role.

Along with the regularities of the processes of socio-ethnical temporality there are marked out and characterized the main tides of ethnic formation in the world history. Having determined the main stages of Russian ethnos development and having stated their dominant features and peculiarities, the authors show the place of Russia in the world ethnic time.