This third edition of Moral Constraints on War offers a principle by principle presentation of the ethics of war as is found in the age-old tradition of the Just War. Parts one and two trace the evolution of Just War Theory, analyzing the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello: the principles that determine the conditions under which it is just to start a war and then conduct military operations. Each chapter provides a historical background of the principle under discussion and an in-depth analysis of its meaning. More so than in the previous editions, there is a special focus on the transcultural nature of the principles. Besides theoretical clarifications, each of the principles is also put to the test with numerous historical and contemporary examples. In Part three, Just War Theory is applied in three specific case studies: the use of the atomic bomb against Japan in World War II, the Korean War (1950-53), and the use of armed drones in the "war on terror." Bringing together an international coterie of philosophers and political scientists, this accessible and practical guide offers both students of military ethics and of international relations rich, up-to-date insights into the pluralistic character of Just War Theory.

This groundbreaking volume reassess the philosophical trajectory of German Idealism and its aftermath from a political-theological perspective. Over the course of the volume, German Idealism emerges as a crucial phase in the genealogy of political theology and an important point of reference for the ongoing reassessment of modernity and secularity.

This book presents the main findings of a study on school learning environments and student outcomes, which the World Bank conducted in 2019 in three regions of the Russian Federation. Using data collected through the OECD School User Survey and the pilot “Trends in Mathematics and Science Study” (TIMSS), the book analyzes how a school’s infrastructure and learning environment may affect the progress and success of students in math and science. It also delves into teaching practices, analyzing their impact on learning and highlighting the important nexus between learning environments and teaching methods. The book concludes by recommending areas in which focused attention by educational authorities could improve educational policy and help maintain high-quality learning environments. The book will be useful for educators, school principals, architects, and policy makers who are involved in school infrastructure projects and are interested in increasing their knowledge of school design planning.

The book contains tests and exercises to help learners improve their langugae skills.

This book is dedicated to Viktor Shklovsky literary and theoretical legacy

This collection of essays was published in a form of a catalogue for one of the propgrams screened at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Fstival in October 2019. The program entitled "The Creative Treatment of Grierson in Wartime Japan" was co-organized by the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and the National Film Archive of Japan and presented a broad variety of wartime Japanese documentaries as well as British and Soviet films that have influenced them. The collection of essays explores the development of wartime Japanese documentary cinema from variety of historical and theoretical perspectives.

This training manual is addressed to law students, learning English for professional purposes.

The book consists of two parts:

Part 1 – Legal Listening

The main aim of the materials of the 1st part is teaching students listening to texts on legal topics in English. The materials are supplied with the recording of texts to practice in-class listening (on CD), they also contain communicative tasks and key answers as well as scripts. The texts cover the following themes: The Practice of Law, Company Law, Contract Law and Employment Law.

Part 2 - Legal Reading is directed to teaching students different kinds of reading based on authentic legal texts.

The texts of all the sections cover the following topics: Company Law, Contract Law, Family Law.

Both parts of the manual envisage exercises for both  inclass  and out-of- class work, including the use of the Internet.

The book includes Progress tests with answers.

This paper focuses on the scrutiny of structural units of myth within mass cultural discourse. The author reviews studies of the mythologeme and my theme in semiotics and also relevant research in other fields concerning the announced research object. The main aim of the paper is to distinguish inner semiotic markers of myth and to examine their application to mass cultural narratives. Drawing on the analysis of previous theoretical research and case studies, the author compares the two structural units and makes an attempt to formulate specifications towards existing definitions. Particular examples of mythemes and mythologemes in mass culture discourse are regarded within this paper. The author points out the mytheme of Transformation, the mytheme of Backtracking, the mythologeme of Childhood (Golden Age), the mythologeme of Armageddon (Flood), and the mythologeme of World Tree.

Academic Bibliography of Syriac and Christian Arabic Studies in Russian published in 2019.

Full Abstract

Russian migrant communities in Europe, as well as the USSR and European states’ policies towards them, were sufficiently studied in English-, French- and Russian-language relevant scholarship. However, West and South Asia received significantly less attention, although the region served the main transit zone in this process, especially the countries such as Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and even British India. During the interwar period hundreds of thousands of migrants from Soviet Russia either passed through these Southern regions towards Europe and the United States or founded their migrant communities there. These migrants became an integral part of political activism professed by Russian émigré communities all over the world in the 1920s-30s. This quite often resulted in them being manipulated on a massive scale by other governments in their foreign policies toward Soviet Russia, especially by Britain – Russia’s traditional rival in the region. On the other hand, the positions of the Soviet government in political and military terms toward its southern neighbours were significantly stronger than those in Europe. Having an upper hand in its relations with these states, the Soviet government would resort to military invasions, large-scale intelligence operations, the massive bribing of local police and the military, particularly in the border areas, as well as to imposing inter-state border-control treaties, − all this done with the aim to neutralise the anti-Soviet émigré activities and to physically liquidate their active representatives abroad as well as to conduce to the repatriation of larger numbers for subsequent prosecution on the Soviet territory.

Methodologically drawing on the most recent works in Migration Studies, in general, and in Russian Emigré Studies, in particular, the current research studies migration from the USSR into the neighbouring countries of West and South Asia – one of the most strategically important regions in the twentieth century. Within the timeframe 1917-1930, research looks into the phenomena, such as displaced statehood, political activism and cross-cultural interaction in the context of the migration policies of the relevant states (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Britain and the USSR). The primary-source base of this research consists of mostly untapped documents from British, Russian, French, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Iranian archives and the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, collections as well as memoirs and private correspondence of migrants themselves. While highlighting some commonalities, the paper argues that the situation of Russian migrant communities in West and South Asia diametrically differed from the one in Western Europe, and puts forward a detailed analysis of the causes, developments and outcomes of this phenomenon.

 This paper focuses on the Tsoi Wall in Moscow, an iconic place on Russia’s music map that appeared in Moscow in 1990 in memory of the cult Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi, to develop a framework for studying non-auratic music place—that is, places that are not connected with the biographies of musicians or musical events, but emerge directly from the experiences of visitors and fans. These places are constantly negotiated and only lightly formalized, but are nevertheless enduring. To analyze this type of place, we propose a concept of institutionalization “in becoming.” The case of the Tsoi Wall reveals that light formalization (vague and changing positions and rules, and openness to different interpretations of a place and ways of using it) leads to the recognition of the place as a significant one and to its popularity. We put institutionalization “in becoming” in a wider context and juxtapose it with well-studied musical places in Europe and the US.

A quarter of a century has passed since the Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted in 1993, yet the issue of the results and the prospects for constitutional transformation has not disappeared from the political agenda. For some, the Constitution signifies an ultimate break up with the communist past and a legal foundation for the advancement of the Russian society toward democracy and the rule of law; for the others, it is exactly the Constitution that is the culprit for the authoritarian trend that has prevailed, and for the sustained stagnation in Russia’s economic, social and political development.

The author of this paper is in the middle of these extreme viewpoints. He believes that the Constitution has truly played a pivotal role in Russia’s move toward democracy by establishing the basic principles of civil society and the rule of law, and in this respect, it remains of everlasting and paramount importance. Nevertheless, that does not mean that it should be utterly inaccessible for changes, especially given the elapsed time and the negative experience of the authoritarian transformation of the political regime, the amendments that were introduced between 2008 and 2014, and the current objectives of the democratic movement. The rationale for changes is to return to the constitutional principles, reaffirm their initial democratic meaning by rejecting the excessive concentration of the Presidential power, the results of counter-reforms and the adulteration through legislative and regulatory compliance practices.

This paper focuses on the theory and practice of jihād in the Mamlūk Sultanate, especially during the Circassian period (1382-1517). Some ideas of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406), Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373), Ibn al-Naḥḥās (d. 1411), as well as scholars of the pre- Mamlūk epoch are taken in consideration. The authors explore the issue of understanding jihād as the responsibility of the community (farḍ al-kifāya) and/or personal duty (farḍ al- ʿayn) and the role of jihād ideology in the inner- and international Mamlūk politics.

Article presents reply on re-analysis of Durkee, published as Durkee PK. 2019 Do the Maasai perceive weak walkers to be stronger and more attractive than strong walkers? A re-analysis of Fink et al. (2019). Biol. Lett 15, 20190240. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2019.0240).

The paper discusses the phenomenon of nostalgia for the USSR which is widely spread among Russian rural settlers from various regions. The focus of analysis is biased by taking in the consideration specialties of the media consumption common to villagers. The satellite TV which came to Russian village in 21th century enhances nostalgia for the USSR because of the emergency of Soviet films transmitting. The basis of the research is formed by five expeditions conducted in villages of Kostroma region (2012), Rostov-on-Don region (2013), Republic of Tatarstan (2014), Irkutsk region (2014) and Tambov region (2018). The results of semi-structured indepth interviews with 240 villagers correlate with analysis of the television content which interviewees watch. The authors show that permanent transmitting of Soviet films on popular among rural settlers TV-channels sustains nostalgia for the USSR and constructs the ideal image of the USSR. “Generalized elsewhere” of the USSR as it could be interpreted in media ecology tradition appears to be paradise. Paradise of the USSR is not lost but it is immortalized on TV screen which shows the world of fairy tale where nothing dies.

Background: Two recent meta-analyses have suggested the association between digit ratio (2D:4D) and ag-

gression is weak. This conclusion has been criticised because the meta-analyses conflate forms of aggression that show strong sex differences with those that do not, and most studies have considered post-pubertal participants. Aims: We test the influence of 2D:4D and ethnicity in the expression of aggression in children and adolescents in four ethnic groups of European and African origin.

Study design: Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire. Direct measurement of the 2nd and 4th digits. Subjects: 1296 children and adolescents from Tanzania and Russia from 4 ethnic groups – Datoga, Meru, Russians, Tatars. Results: There were ethnic and gender differences in ratings on aggression with boys consistently reporting more physical aggression. In all four samples right 2D:4D was significantly lower in boys, compared to girls. With regard to our total sample of boys, the right 2D:4D was significantly and negatively associated with self-ratings on physical aggression, but no association was found for left 2D:4D. No associations between 2D:4D and physical aggression were found for girls. Hostility was negatively correlated with 2D:4D for boys, and anger was posi- tively correlated with 2D:4D in girls. Conclusion: Sex differences were strongest for right 2D:4D (boys < girls), and for physical aggression (boys > girls). Right 2D:4D was negatively related to physical aggression in boys only, suggesting possible relationship to prenatal androgenization.

Mate choice lies close to differential reproduction, the engine of evolution. Patterns of mate choice consequently have power to direct the course of evolution. Here we provide evidence suggesting one pattern of human mate choice—the tendency for mates to be similar in overall desirability—caused the evolution of a structure of correlations that we call the d factor. We use agent-based models to demonstrate that assortative mating causes the evolution of a positive manifold of desirability, d, such that an individual who is desirable as a mate along any one dimension tends to be desirable across all other dimensions. Further, we use a large cross-cultural sample with n = 14,478 from 45 countries around the world to show that this d-factor emerges in human samples, is a cross-cultural universal, and is patterned in a way consistent with an evolutionary history of assortative mating. Our results suggest that assortative mating can explain the evolution of a broad structure of human trait covariation.

The article reviews the narratives on childhood in medieval autobiographical writings. It argues that these narratives allow us both to see differences in perception of childhood between medieval and modern autobiographers and to rethink the well-known argument of historians of childhood that medieval culture was indifferent to the first years of human life.

The present study is aimed at the research of the set of the Venetian lettere ducali of the fourteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries and the preparation of their full-text publication. Due to their diplomatic and paleographic characteristics, the lettere ducali stored in St. Petersburg are an example of a fairly well-developed chancery production, despite the chancery still being in the process of institutionalization at that point. At the same time, the lettere ducali are among the most widespread varieties of the documents issued by the Venetian Doges at that time. In this regard, the clarification of the criteria of authenticity and attributive features of these letters is the most urgent purpose of the project, given that the systematic publication and sequential study of the lettere ducali of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries are yet to be done in the future. As regards the medieval and early modern chancery activity in the Venetian Republic, only the period up to the thirteenth century has been studied well enough; as for the later times, only minor sets of the authentic lettere ducali have been published. The documents in question from the manuscript collection of N.P. Likhachev (1862-1936), Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, have never been published, and went almost unnoticed in the scholarly discourse. The publication of these documents will allow the medievalists the study of the previously unknown sources. The extensive study of the diplomatic and paleographic peculiarities of the letters, their description and visualization, their attribution and the transcription of the notes of the scribes will provide the researchers of the given period with the tools of the historical criticism of this variety of documents. The preliminary outcomes of the research and the deep analysis of certain case studies found in the manuscripts are to be presented as scholarly articles in double-blind peer-reviewed journals, as well as in conference proceedings.

The present study is devoted to the research into a set of the Venetian lettere ducali to the Marquises d’Este of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries collected by N.P. Likhachev (1862-1936), Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, stored in the Western European section of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the preparation of their full-text critical publication. The lettere ducali are an excellent source to study the Serenissima and its continental and overseas domains. The source material of the Venetian lettere ducali have long and not without reason been considered and actively investigated by researchers as one of the most important sources on the economic, social, political, legal, environmental, cultural, and ethnic history of Venice. In addition, Venetian sources often provide researchers with important material on the history of other states of the Italian Peninsula, including, in our case, the domains of d’Este. This explains the exceptional importance of studying lettere ducali as the most important source on the history of the Western European Middle Ages and early modern times. This study revealed historical material on the specific cities and regions of Italy (Venice, Treviso, Ferrara, Verona, Padua, the Po Delta), as well as the Venetian colonies in the Mediterranean (Crete, Cyprus) and the Adriatic (Shkodra, Dalmatian Coast), history of international relations, history of economic relations, history of everyday life, history of state institutions and international law, history of a medieval document, history of Latin writing.