Lord Rennell, Chief of AMGOT: A Study of His Approach to Politics and Military Government (c.1940–43)

Following Operation Husky in 1943, Francis Rodd, Lord Rennell (1895–1978) was Chief Civil Affairs Officer of AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories) in Sicily and Southern Italy. He had previously held important posts in civil affairs in Africa. This article examines his approach to politics and military government, with particular reference to his support for ‘indirect rule’. This doctrine helped rationalize the fact that British/Allied military rule often rested on a small number of staff. Rennell’s thoughts on AMGOT’s administrative structures are also covered. A geographer and banker by background, Rennell emerges here as a reform-minded pragmatist

Alexei Navalny and Russia's 'Conscience' Wars

With roots in stoic philosophy and Byzantine theology, ‘conscience’ is a term with a powerful resonance in Russia, and the focus for an ongoing cultural war about what the country stands for

Interviews on ethics, conscience and dissent in the USSR (Беседы об этике, совести и инакомыслии в СССР)

Interviews on ethics, conscience and dissent in the USSR These interviews, all of them in Russian, were conducted by Philip Boobbyer for a research project on the role of ‘conscience’ in shaping opinion and undermining communism in the late Soviet era. They were done in the years 1994-2003 in a range of locations. Material from the interviews was first used by Boobbyer in his journal article, 'Truth-telling, conscience and dissent in late Soviet Russia: Evidence from oral histories', European History Quarterly 30 (2000), 553-585. Material was then used in his book Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia (London: Routledge, 2005), which was published in Russian as Sovest’, dissidentstvo i reformy v Sovetskoi Rossii (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2010). The interviews, which were conducted in a semi-structured way, explored the ethical thinking and experiences of human rights activists, intellectuals and Party reformers, and the ways in which moral and spiritual motivations were present in their ideas and activities. For a list of interviews, brief biographical details about the people interviewed, as well as information on transcripts and summaries, see 'Summary of interviews' in the 'Documentation' section

Lord Rennell, Chief of AMGOT: A Study of His Approach to Politics and Military Government (c.1940–43)

Following Operation Husky in 1943, Francis Rodd, Lord Rennell (1895–1978) was Chief Civil Affairs Officer of AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories) in Sicily and Southern Italy. He had previously held important posts in civil affairs in Africa. This article examines his approach to politics and military government, with particular reference to his support for ‘indirect rule’. This doctrine helped rationalize the fact that British/Allied military rule often rested on a small number of staff. Rennell’s thoughts on AMGOT’s administrative structures are also covered. A geographer and banker by background, Rennell emerges here as a reform-minded pragmatist

A Russian philosopher: The life and work of Semen Liudvigovich Frank, 1877-1950.

This thesis offers the first full-length historical biography of Semen Frank. Frank is well-known as one of the most important representatives of Russian 20th century philosophy, and as a contributor to the famous collection of essays of 1909, Vekhi. Apart from that, he is a slightly obscure figure. This thesis attempts to rectify that by putting his work in the context of his time and his own personal Journey. It reveals the extent to which his philosophical Journey was a response to personal problems, how his thought was In some way confessional. Frank's philosophy was closely linked to his religious ideas and experiences, and this biography outlines the motives and landmarks of his spiritual Journey. In addition it shows how his ideas, even those which were most abstract, were often responses to contemporary social challenges. Although the thesis contains a lot of information and comment about Frank's philosophical ideas and development, its focus is primarily historical. In providing a detailed account of Frank's life both in Russia and in emigration, it offers an insight into the dilemmas of the generation who were forced to leave Russia after the Bolshevik revolution. The thesis contains a lot of new information about Frank's life and work. In particular, this involves material from the archives in Moscow and St Petersburg, from the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University in Jew York and the Solzhenitsyn Archive in Vermont, and from correspondence and family papers held in private hands. It has also benefited from extensive Interviews with Frank's sons and daughter and other friends

End of organised atheism. The genealogy of the law on freedom of conscience and its conceptual effects in Russia

In the current climate of the perceived alliance between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state, atheist activists in Moscow share a sense of juridical marginality that they seek to mitigate through claims to equal rights between believers and atheists under the Russian law on freedom of conscience. In their demands for their constitutional rights, including the right to political critique, atheist activists come across as figures of dissent at risk of the state's persecution. Their experiences constitute a remarkable (and unexamined in anthropology) reversal of political and ideological primacy of state-sponsored atheism during the Soviet days. To illuminate the legal context of the atheists’ current predicament, the article traces an alternative genealogy of the Russian law on freedom of conscience from the inception of the Soviet state through the law's post-Soviet reforms. The article shows that the legal reforms have paved the way for practical changes to the privileged legal status of organized atheism and brought about implicit conceptual effects that sideline the Soviet meaning of freedom of conscience as freedom from religion and obscure historical references to conscience as an atheist tenet of Soviet ethics