To acquire knowledge of the historical processes that characterized the contemporary age (XIX-XXI century) in Russia and in the space of Eurasia (i.e. the space that was part of the Russian Empire and then of the Soviet Union); to gain knowledge of the main historiographic issues and interpretative categories of the history of Russia and Eurasia in the contemporary age; to grasp the interweaving of cultural, political, religious, social and geopolitical elements in the historical becoming of this area; to acquire the awareness that the profile of Russian otherness in the contemporary age was formed in the interaction between dynamics of connection with world history and processes of differentiation.