Tsarist Counterintelligence in Faces. Investigators for Especially Important Cases (1908–1915)

The results of many years of archival search and research work in the federal archives of Russia made it possible to find specific documents that canshed light on the unpublished pages of the personalized history of Russian counterintelligence. The purpose of the article is to reveal new facets of professional competence and previously unheard characteristics of outstanding counterintelligence officers and investigators of the Russian Empire. To implement the author's intention, the following methods of historical knowledge were used: actualization, retrospective, descriptive, biographical analysis, generalization of independent characteristics, deduction, content analysis. The achieved conclusions and deductions helped to get closer to a complete picture of the historical and psychological profile of the «cloak and dagger knights», who functioned mainly in the territory of the Privislinsky region (and later in the Active Army) before and during the First World War. The results of the research conducted in this article can be used in research and teaching activities on the history of domestic state security agencies.