As a bilingual journal publishing in both English and Russian, Ab Imperio developed a house style capable of reconciling divergent national bibliographic standards – specifically the evolving GOST and the Chicago Manual of Style. During the early days of the internet, the journal’s electronic version was restricted to plain HTML, which precluded the use of formatting like italics. Consequently, the unified house style relies on punctuation marks to delineate the various elements of bibliographic references.
To simplify punctuation, bibliographic elements – such as the author, title, venue, and date – are separated by periods. Higher-level distinctions, such as a journal title relative to an individual article, are marked by double slashes (//). A single forward slash after a title introduces clarifying information, such as the name of the translator or editor, or its status as a manuscript or dissertation.
When citing authors, please provide their names as they are formally acknowledged in the original publication. List the given name first, followed by the family name.
Transliterate all non-Roman scripts following the Library of Congress (LOC) Romanization Tables. Translit.ru can assist with Russian transliteration (https://translit.ru/ru/lc). Please follow the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for all placenames. Both geographical and personal names should maintain consistency with traditional historiographical spellings. When using alternative spellings, please introduce them by citing the period-accurate form alongside any variants derived from other relevant languages. For example, regarding the imperial period, the modern Ukrainian city of Odesa can be referenced as “Odesa (Odessa in Russian and European languages; odes in Yiddish)”.
Reflecting the evolution of global book publishing, our house style as of Vol. 27 (2026) requires the publisher’s name in addition to the main city of publication.
Please ensure all in-text citations are converted to footnotes in the final accepted manuscript. All sources must be fully cited in footnotes upon first mention. Subsequent citations should be abbreviated to include only the author’s surname, the initial words of the title, and relevant page numbers. “Ibid.” is used for consecutive citations of the same source.
Ab Imperio uses superscript numbers for footnotes.
Note Style Examples
Books: Author Name. Book Title. Place: Publisher, Year. Page numbers are cited as P. (single) or Pp. (range):
Ernest Gellner. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983. Pp. 22–24.
A. V. Remnev. Rossiia Dal’nego Vostoka: Imperskaia geografiia vlasti XIX – nachala XX vekov. Omsk: Izdatel’stvo OmGU, 2004. P. 3.
Edited Volumes: Follow the book format but include “Ed.” or “Eds.” for editors:
Darius Staliūnas and Yoko Aoshima (Eds.). The Tsar, The Empire, and The Nation: Dilemmas of Nationalization in Russia’s Western Borderlands, 1905–1915. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2021.
Karl Marx. The Eastern Question: A Reprint of Letters Written 1853–1856 Dealing with the Events of the Crimean War / Ed. Eleanor Marx Aveling and Edward Aveling. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1897.
Journal Articles: Author Name. Title // Journal Name. Year. Vol. No. Pp.:
Kevin M. F. Platt. Will the Study of Russian Literature Survive the Coming Century? // Slavic and East European Journal. 2007. Vol. 50. No. 1. Pp. 204–212.
Chapters in Edited Volumes: Follow the journal article format:
Andrii Portnov. Memory Wars in Post-Soviet Ukraine (1991–2010) // Uilleam Blacker, Alexandr Etkind, and Julie Fedor (Eds.). Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillian, 2013. Pp. 233–254.
Dissertations: Follow the book format: Author. Title / Degree level; Institution, Year:
Seymour Becker. Russia’s Central Asian Protectorates: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865– 1917 / PhD in History dissertation; Harvard University, 1963.
Gul’mira Salimzhanovna Sultangalieva. Ekonomicheskie i kul’turnye vzaimootnosheniia kazakhskogo naroda s narodami Srednego Povolzh’ia i Iuzhnogo Urala (XIX – nachalo XX vv. ) / Candidate of Sciences in History dissertation; Kazakh State University, 1990.
Archives: Please provide the archive’s name in English, followed by its standard local abbreviation and the document citation format used by that archive. Include the full title of the fond (collection). The title of the delo (folder) should be included if it provides essential context for the discussion. The title of the cited document should not be translated, mirroring the standard for foreign-language bibliographic entries:
The State Archives of Kyiv Region (DAKO). F. 1716 (Chancellery of the Kyiv Province Commissar of the All-Russian Provisional Government). Op. 1. Spr. 4. Ark. 15.
O vvedenii v gorode Belostoke voennogo polozheniia // Lithuanian State Historical Archives, Vilnius (LVIA). F. 378. Ap. 1906. B. 35. L. 1.
Newspapers and magazines: Follow the article format adding the full date:
Zasedanie obshchestvennogo komiteta // Kievskaia mysl’. 1917. March 3. Pp. 3–4.
Volzhskii Vestnik. 1906. June 11. No. 149. P. 4.
Internet resources: Follow the standard article format, providing the full source and publication date where possible. If a link is inactive at the time of final submission, please provide a stable link from the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive):
TEFL Interviews 34: Mario Saraceni on World Englishes // The TEFLology Podcast. 2018. February 1. 2026 GLP 1 Ozempic Pill US26OZM00300 Ozempic Vs Spotlight USNNOZE1562H youtube 06s.
Tiazhelyi put’ kotoryi vdokhnovliaet // GBU Moskovskoi oblasti “Edinyi migratsionnyi tsentr MO”. 2022. August 3. https://t.me/s/emcmo/54.