Academic literature on the topic 'Religious aspects of Civil war'

Ask any Civil War historian about the cost of the Civil War and they will recite a host of well-known assessments, from military casualties and government expenditures to various measures of direct and indirect costs. But those numbers are not likely to include an appraisal of the humanitarian crisis and suffering caused by the wartime destruction of slavery. Peace-time emancipation in other regions (the northern U.S., for example) and in other societies (like the British West Indies) certainly presented dangers and difficulties for the formerly enslaved, but wartime emancipation chained the new opportunities and possibilities for freedom to war’s violence, civil chaos, destruction and deprivation. The resulting health crisis, including illness, injury, and trauma, had immediate and lasting consequences for black civilians and soldiers. Although historians are more accustomed to thinking of enslaved people as the beneficiaries of this war, rather than its victims, we cannot assess the cost of this war until we answer two important questions: first, what price did enslaved people have to pay because their freedom was achieved through warfare rather than a peacetime process; and secondly, in this war in which so many Americans paid such a high cost, to what extent did racism inflate the cost paid by people of African descent? In answering these questions, we reconsider this specific war, but we must also tie the U.S. Civil War to a larger scholarship on how wars impact civilians, create refugee populations, and accelerate harsh treatment of people regarded as racial, religious, or ethnic outsiders. We are reminded that war is not an equal-opportunity killer.

Between 1900 and 1930, Los Angeles attracted thousands of white and black migrants from the Midwest and the South. Many had attachments to Protestant churches. But they also arrived with commitments to Freemasonry, Spiritualism, and social reform causes. This paper argues that these religionists in Los Angeles covered a broad spectrum of faiths, including Free Thought, innovative versions of Protestantism, and Freemasonry, and that traditional accounts of religion in the city have ignored these aspects of religious life and civic engagement. As World War I ushered in conservatism in every aspect of public life, the Los Angeles Times, the City Council, and the Protestant churches combined in an effort to squash these challenges to orthodoxy. In profiling two prominent Spiritualists, African American George W. Shields and white midwesterner Cynthia Lisetta Vose, this article illustrates the wide ranging civil and religious engagement of two committed Spiritualists. By the end of the 1920s, the fragmentation of Los Angeles neighborhoods and the growing racism of the city had nearly destroyed what had been a vigorous religion and a thriving commitment to progressive reform. Segregated white women's clubs and Freemasonry organizations turned the worship of California into a replacement for older forms of religious practice and civic engagement.

The wars of postcolonial Asia, although often viewed by U.S. officials as struggles between Communist and non-Communist forces or between colonial powers and independence movements, were in fact far more complex and ambiguous in nature. The conflicts displayed some of the characteristics of civil war, brigandage, and ethnic, regional, and religious warfare. This article exams the experience of Phat Diem, a predominantly Catholic enclave in northern Vietnam, during the First IndochinaWar, to highlight the dynamics of these cross-currents of regionalism, nationalism, and religion. Ultimately Phat Diem's attempts to steer a middle course between Communism and French colonialism ended disastrously, but its story highlights several important but little recognized aspects of the war in Indochina and the nature of Asia's wars in the first decade after the end of World War II.

Since peaceful coexistence reflects in its various aspects the concept of harmony between the members of the same society with their different national, religious and sectarian affiliations, as well as their attitudes and ideas, what brings together these are the common bonds such as land, interests and common destiny. But this coexistence is exposing for crises and instability and the theft of rights and other that destroy the communities with their different religious, national, sectarian, ethnic aspects, especially if these led to a crisis of fighting or war, which produces only destruction and mass displacement, ttherefore, the process of bridging the gap between the different parts of society in the post-war phase through a set of requirements that serve as the basis for the promotion of peaceful coexistence within the same country to consolidate civil and community peace in order to create a general framework and a coherent basis to reconstruct the community again. Hence the premise of the research by asking about the extent of the possibility and ability of the community of religious and ethnic diversity, which has been exposed to these crises, which aimed at this diversity, basically to be able to rise and re-integrate within the same country and thus achieve civil and community peace, and Mosul is an example for that, the negative effects of the war and the accomplices of many criminal acts have given rise to hatred and fear for all, leading to the loss of livelihoods, which in the long term may have devastating social and psychological consequences. To clarify all of this, the title of the first topic was a review of the concept and origin of peaceful coexistence. While the second topic dealt with the requirements of peaceful coexistence and social integration in Mosul, the last topic has identified the most important challenges facing the processes of coexistence and integration in Mosul. All this in order to paint a better future for the conductor at all levels in the near term at the very least to achieve the values of this peaceful coexistence, especially in the post-war period.

It is the argument of this paper that many aspects of Lucan's characterization in the Bellum Civile of Caesar and Pompey, and of the conflict itself, reflect a ritual combat for kingship such as the combat and murder codified in the myth of Romulus and Remus. It was a well-established convention by Ennius's time, further developed in the late Republic, that the conflict between the founding brothers over control of Rome was the ultimate cause for the Civil Wars. The religious (and possibly the historical) basis of this myth can be found in the rites of the priest of Diana at Aricia, the rex nemorensis, which were still extant in Lucan's time. The evidence for Lucan's use of this paradigm is reviewed, and Book 3 of the Bellum Civile is then reassessed in the terms that it suggests. The themes of sacred place (especially the sacred grove), scared combat, and the necessary murder are most clearly presented in Book 3. It is further argued that seeming inconsistencies in the nature of the gods in Lucan's epic can be at least partially resolved if we understand that the gods must remain aloof and outside the action while the ritual takes place, even though they themselves have instituted the ritual of kingship murder, and will, when it is completed, receive the murderer as their ritually validated priest-king. In the conclusion, ways are suggested in which this paradigm, if accepted, begins to clarify various puzzling choices Lucan has made elsewhere in the epic regarding his narrative of events, his development of character, and the recurrent images of lightning, tree, and blood-sacrifice owed to the gods.

Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country comprising four of the world’s major religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Buddhists are the predominant ethnic group, constituting 70.19% of the total population, while Muslims make up the second largest minority in the country. There are many records in the history to prove well the cordial relationship between Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka. However, in the past couple of years, particularly during the aftermath of the civil war, tension may be observed in the relationship between these two religious groups. This is due to a campaign undertaken by a several Buddhist nationalist groups whose intensions are to create a division among these respective societies. These groups have been carrying protests against Muslim social, cultural and religious aspects, including issuing Halal certification, slaughtering of cattle, conducting prayer services, etc. Moreover, they have disseminated misinterpretations about Muslims and Islam with derogatory speeches among the Buddhist public, for the purpose of accomplishing above division. Given the above backdrop, this paper attempts to determine the post-war relationship between Muslims and Buddhists in the country, including major interrupting factors, through analyzing Muslims’ point of views. According to the results, there is no remarkable fluctuation in the relationships between Muslims and Buddhists, and Muslims have posited that there are several social, cultural and religious practices them that act as significant barriers to maintaining a better community relationship with Buddhists, such as slaughtering of cattle for meals. Therefore, almost all of the Muslims have been demanding proper guidelines regarding the slaughtering of cattle, the Niqabs (face cover of Muslim women), and other factors related to interrupting a better interaction with the Buddhists for better cordiality, within the context of Sri Lanka.

What aspects of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s (a.k.a. the Ikhwan) cultural/ideological framing contributed to its failure to gather opponents of the Assad regime around its leadership during the 2011uprising? What does this reveal about why some Islamist political parties failed in situations of high political contention, such as the Syrian civil war? I argue that despite considerable evolution in the Syrian Brotherhood’s cultural/ideological framing since its first uprising (1977-82), it failed to target three crucial aspects of the 2011 uprising: the military struggle, the masses, and the religious minorities. My research outlines how the movement’s ideological shift toward non-violence and post-1982 reorientation toward democratic elections (ironically) prevented its members from playing a leadership role in what was mainly an armed struggle. At the same time, my research outlines how this evolution and its related changes attracted neither the masses, which remained oriented toward the traditional economic elites, nor the Sunni-oriented religious minorities. I argue that these three crucial aspects undermined the Ikhwan’s efforts and illustrate how poor cultural/ideological framing can doom even those Islamist political parties with the strongest resource mobilization capacities and previously unmatched situationsof political opportunity structures.

Indications are that the success of the American experiment is fading. Perceived declines in family and religion are of particular concern as key aspects of civil society. But family and religion are difficult to measure, and it is challenging to have clarity about our own times and the past. The 1950s are commonly seen as the end of a long run of success for religion and family in America. Yet marriage and family have consistently gone through cycles of growth and decline. Thus, post-World War II religion was more “civil religion” than Christianity. To gain perspective on the past and envision the future, this essay revisits two classic books: Carle Zimmerman’s 1947 study of the family and Will Herberg’s 1955 study of religion. Zimmerman describes a decline in family structure that seems to fit the last 50 years. But other literature indicates that we may be at the trough of a cycle in family structure. How much does family structure matter to society, and what is the future of the family in America? Herberg describes religion as largely a way of “belonging”--more cultural than religious. How do cultural and “religious” dimensions contribute to the health of a society? Without vibrant religious faith and strong families, can we keep the republic?

Within early modern Christianity the idea of church government always entailed a basic contradiction. How could a spiritual body, devoted to Christ's teachings of love and forgiveness, exercise coercive authority? Given the widely accepted need of any sixteenth- or seventeenth-century government to enforce religiously based codes of behavior, churches and church officials were inevitably involved with the secular authorities in detecting and judging offenders. Inasmuch as such judgment had to include the threat of punishment, church officials of any kind were open to the charge of violating their Christian mission, which by nature was to be persuasive and educative rather than punitive, and also their Christian character, which, even among more radical Protestant sects, was to be more otherworldly than that of the laity.

Thesis (MPhil (Political Science))--Stellenbosch University, 2006.
Sudan, Africa’s largest country has been plagued by civil war for more than fifty years. The war broke out before independence in 1956 and the last round of talks ended in a peace agreement early in 2005. The war started as a war between two different religions embedded in different cultures. The Islamic government constitutionalised their religious beliefs and imposed them on the whole country. This triggered heavy reaction from the Christian and animist people in the South. They were not willing to adhere to strict marginalising Islamic laws that created cleavages in society. The Anya-Anya was the first rebel group to violently oppose the government and they fought until the Addis Ababa peace accord that was reached in 1972. After the peace agreement there was relative peace before the government went against the peace agreement and again started enforcing their religious laws on the people in the South. This new wave of Islamisation sparked renewed tension between the North and the south that culminated in Dr John Garang and his SPLM/A restarting the conflict with the government in 1982. This war between the SPLA and the government lasted 22 years and only ended at the beginning of 2005. The significance of this second wave in the conflict is that it coincided with the discovery of oil in the South. Since the discovery of oil the whole focus of the war changed and oil became the centre around which the war revolved. Through this research I intend to look at the significance of oil in the conflict. The research question: how religious is Sudan’ Religious war? asks the question whether resources have become more important than religion.

Thesis (DTh)--Stellenbosch University, 2000
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation is a theological-ethical study of suffering and God in relation to the war in Sudan. It examines historical, political, socio-economic and religious factors behind one of the longest wars of Africa. Over the last forty years, Sudan, the largest country in Africa has intermittently been at war with itself. This bitter conflict, pitting the predominantly Moslem north against Christian and animist south, has devastated communities, families as well as basic socio-economic infrastructure and has turned this potentially rich land into one of the most impoverished and heavily indebted countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. From 1983 to the present, this war of attrition has claimed nearly two million lives and displaced double that figure of people from their homes, scattering them all over the globe. But in the midst of this human catastrophe, the church has grown enormously. It has one of the fastest growth rates in Africa today. In its struggle with faith and the reality of suffering, the church in Sudan variedly interprets its predicament if only to make sense of this sordid experience. In that regard, it interprets suffering as divine judgement and as a direct result of a cosmic conflict between God and the forces of evil. At the same time, the church pleads with God for his intervention and deliverance. Thus, the image of God as Judge-Deliverer largely dominates the theology and worship of the suffering church in the war-torn country. This seems to be the major theme of more than 1 500 Bor Dinka new songs, composed in the war. To place the suffering of the church in Sudan in the larger context of Christian theology, this dissertation briefly looks at the problem of evil and suffering in 'classical theology', examining the thought of Augustine, Luther and Calvin as well as the paradigm shift in the optimism of the Enlightenment. Similarly, this dissertation takes a brieW look at 'alternative theodicies' that followed the collapse of the fine edifice of the Age of Reason and the dereliction of the world wars and natural disasters. In this category is to be found the dialectic theology of Karl Barth and Ji.irgen Moltmann. The praxis of Liberation Theology is also briefly explored as a response to suffering. GC Berkouwer's 'believing theodicy' is examined as a theological and Biblical critique of the whole project of theodicy as a wrongheaded enterprise vainly trying to justify the ways of God to man instead of the reverse. The African traditional view of suffering and evil is explored as a sharp contrast to the Western view. Looking at the Scripture, this work identifies five ways the Bible addresses the problem of evil and suffering. In the Bible, suffering may come as a punishment for sin or as a disciplinary measure from God or as a test of faith or faithfulness or as a price of choosing to follow Jesus or simply as innocent as in the case of Job. Admitting to the apparent mystery and insolubility of the problem of evil, this dissertation, finally, proposes the cross, community, character and hope as the only viable framework of transcending and transforming suffering. It argues in that regard that the incarnation is the distinctively Christian answer to the problem of evil and suffering in which that transcending and transforming can be effected. Within the framework of the cross, community, character and hope suffering can be transcended and transformed into the highest good possible in this life. The cross reminds those who suffer that God has done and will do something about suffering and that he does not abandon us in suffering. The community absorbs suffering and helps the victim through the ordeal. Character is formed and toughened as the sufferer chooses to respond appropriately to suffering. Hope tells us that suffering shall be ultimately overcome and a new order of things shall be ushered in, thus spurring us on to participate in the present as we anticipate that bright future.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif is 'n teologies-etiese studie van lyding en God in verhouding tot die oorlog in Soedan. Dit ondersoek die historiese, politiese, sosio-ekonomiese en godsdienstige faktore agter een van die langdurigste oorloe in Afrika. Soedan, die grootste land in Afrika, is oor die afgelope veertig jaar ononderbroke in oorlog met sigself gewikkel. Hierdie bittere konflik, waarin die hoofsaaklik Moslem Noorde die Christen en animistiese Suidelike deel van die land teenstaan, het gemeenskappe en gesinne verwoes, sowel as die basiese sosio-ekonomiese infrastruktuur, en het sodoende hierdie potensieel ryk land omskep in een van die armoedigste lande, met een van die swaarste skuldelaste, in Afrika benede die Sahara. Vanaf 1983 tot op hede het hierdie uitputtingsoorlog amper twee miljoen lewens geeis, terwyl dit tweemaal sovee! mense van hul tuistes verplaas en hul wereldwyd versprei het. Ter midde van hierdie menslike katastrofe het kerklidmaatskap ontsaglik toegeneem. Die groeitempo is inderdaad tans een van die hoogstes in Afrika. In sy worsteling met die geloof en die realiteit van lyding interpreteer die kerk in Soedan sy toestand op 'n verskeidenheid van wyses, in 'n poging om sodoende van hierdie haglike omstandighede sin te maak. Lyding word interpreteer as die strafgerig van God, en as 'n direkte gevolg van die kosmiese konflik tussen God en die bose magte. Gelyktydig pleit die kerk met God vir sy ingryping en verlossing. Die siening van God as Regter- Verlosser is dus oorheersend in die teologie en aanbidding van die lydende kerk in 'n oorloggeteisterde land. Dit blyk die hooftema te wees van die meer as 1 500 Bor Dinka liedere wat ontstaan het gedurende die oorlog. Om die Iyding van die kerk in Soedan binne die groter konteks van die Christelike Teologie te plaas, word die probleem van die bose en Iyding in die klassieke teologie in hierdie proefskrif kortliks behandel. Die denke van Augustinus, Luther en Calvyn, sowel as die paradigmaverskuiwing wat gepaard gegaan het met die optimisme van die Verligting, word ondersoek. Hierdie proefskrif beskou ook kortliks die alternatiewe godslere wat gevolg het op die ineenstorting van die agttiende eeu se "Age of Reason" asook die verwaarlosing and ontwrigting van die wereldoorloe en verskeie natuurrampe. In hierdie kategorie vind ons die dialektiese teologie van Karl Barth en Jurgen Moltmann. Die praktyk van die Bevrydingsteologie word ook kortliks ondersoek as reaksie op Iyding. GC Berkouwer se 'believing theodicy' word ondersoek as teologiese en Bybelse kritiek op die hele projek van godsleer as 'n aweregse onderneming wat vergeefs probeer om die werkwyse van God te regverdig vir die mens, in plaas van die teenoorgestelde. Die tradisionele Africa-siening van lyding en die bose word ook ondersoek, as skerp kontras met die Westerse siening. Vanuit die Skrif, identifiseer hierdie studie vyf wyses waarop die probleem van die bose en lyding in die Bybel aangespreek word. In die Bybel is lyding In straf vir sonde, In tugmaatreel van God, In toets van geloof oftrou of die prys wat geeis word vir die keuse om Jesus te volg. Andersins, kan die mens heeltemal onskuldig wees, soos in die geval van Job. Hierdie proefskrif erken dat die probleem van die bose raaiselagtig en skynbaar onoplosbaar is. Die kruis, die gemeenskap, karakter, en hoop word uiteindelik voorgestel as die enigste gangbare raamwerk vir die transendering en transformasie van lyding. Daar word geredeneer dat in hierdie verband die opstanding die kenmerkende Christel ike antwoord op die probleeem van die bose en lyding bied, waarbinne hierdie transendering en transformasie kan geskied. Binne die raamwerk van die kruis, die gemeenskap, karakter en hoop, kan die mens lyding transendeer en dit transformeer tot die hoogste moontlike goed in hierdie lewe. Die kruis herinner die lydendes dat God reeds iets gedoen het, en nog sal doen omtrent lyding, en dat Hy ons nie in ons lyding sal verlaat nie. Die gemeenskap absorbeer lyding, en help die slagoffer deur die beproewing. Karakter word gevorm en geslyp soos die lydende kies om op geskikte wyse te reageer op die lyding. Die hoop verkondig die uiteindelike oorwinning oor lyding, en die begin van In nuwe bedeling; dus word ons aangespoor om deel te neem aan die aksie van die hede terwyl ons op daardie helder toekoms wag.

This thesis investigates the theology of violence in early modern England. It finds that violence had an important place in the theology of the English Revolution, which is at variance with many twentieth-century perceptions of Christianity. After introducing these ideas in the first chapter, chapter two begins with an outline of the general conceptions of the relationship between the Divine and violence, contrasting the image of a God of peace with a God of war. It also outlines just war theory, which was central to early modern English views of legitimate violence. Additional aspects of contemporaries' conceptions involved ideas of authorisation, violence as punishment, and a hierarchy of legitimate violence. These ideas are further developed in chapter three, first with reference to the Elizabethan Homilies and then in relation to theologians during the civil wars. This discussion of theologies of obedience anticipates chapter four's analysis of the theologies of resistance in relation to the theology of violence. Chapter four addresses a variety of themes concerning the illegitimacy of suicide and the corresponding legitimacy of self defence. The chapter concludes by addressing the idea of direct divine authorisation for violence, which is modelled by the biblical Book of Joshua and developed by examining Calvin's commentaries on the text. Direct authorisation lays the groundwork for chapter five, which addresses the apocalyptic perspective in relation to the theology of violence. The three interrelated themes of anti-Catholicism, anti-idolatry, and a new dispensation are examined. In chapter six, the previous themes are considered in an analysis of the regicide. The discussion of the regicide not only draws on the preceding discussion of the theology of violence but also examines the "scapegoating" dimension of the execution of the king. The final chapter offers reflections on the importance of the theology of violence for the view of the English civil wars as "wars of religion."

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2007.
Thesis Advisor(s): Simons, Anna. "December 2007." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 18, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-72). Also available in print.

This study looks at the responses of the Yorkshire Catholic gentry to the immense changes to their religious landscape in the early modem period, between 1536 and 1642. It examines how they continued to adhere to the Catholic religion, despite all attempts first to induce and then compel conformity and highlights the ways in which they managed to survive and prosper throughout the period, demonstrating that previously neglected groups such as women and younger sons had a crucial role to play in this process. The overwhelming theme to their actions was one of pragmatism, rather than the heroic and self-destructive behaviour that was much admired by earlier historians who wanted to identify martyrs to the Catholic cause. The areas that are to be examined reflect both public and private gentry activities. In the public sphere the Yorkshire gentry's part in the rebellions of the Tudor and Stuart eras are studied along with their rejection of plots. The importance of marriage as an early modem tool for building alliances and social advancement is acknowledged and the impact that a continuing adherence to Catholicism had on this is considered. The gentry and the church are examined through a study of the Catholic gentry's involvement with their local parishes, their reaction to the dissolution and their continuing adherence to monasticism, as shown through their devotion to English orders on the continent. To reflect the changes that were occurring in this period Catholic involvement in education, the law and medicine are also explored showing that the Catholic community was not isolated from the wider society. Lastly the role of Catholic women is given specific consideration in order both to redress the imbalance in previous studies and due to the crucial role that women played in the continuation of the Catholic community within Yorkshire.

The conflict in Sudan reflects historic hatred and ethnic discrimination between Northern Arab Muslims and Southern African Christians and Animists. The longest and worst conflict began in 1983 and ended in 2005, when African Christians and Animists struggled to form an interim autonomous government. This conflict claimed 2 million lives from both sides and displaced almost 4 million people from the South. This thesis attempts to understand how people from Southern Sudan perceive the root causes and sustaining factors of the Sudanese conflict between Arab Muslims and African Christians. This research looks specifically into the roles of ethnic differences and religion. In this study, 10 emigrants from South Sudan were chosen to present their perceptions and views about the conflict, in the form of written responses to 22 questions. Analysis of their responses in light of conflict resolution literature suggests that the North-South Sudan conflict involves complex issues primarily fueled by ethnic and religious differences. This research reveals that South Sudanese refugees from varying backgrounds and professions expressed similar experiences of racial, religious discrimination and political and economic marginalization, and suggests that Sudan's July, 2011 declaration of independence, creating two separate nations, North and South Sudan, was a positive solution to achieving a just peace.

In the following papers I propose to construct economic models that incorporate the disastrous effect of conflict. I model conflict theoretically in a Solow growth model and empirically in a GDP per worker growth model, in a civil war onset model and a model for civil war’s severity. The first chapter theoretically and empirically analyzes economic growth with conflict in the context of the Mankiw et al. (1992) adaptation of the Solow growth model and the natural resource growth model by Sachs and Warner (1995). I incorporate a variable of capital destruction in the physical and human capital accumulation equations and derive coherent theoretical and empirical results. The second chapter considers the onset of civil war across all countries and specific subsamples of countries from 1970 to 2007. The onset of war is modeled using economic and financial variables in addition to grievance variables from the political science literature to ascertain the extent to which financial crises and hyperinflation can bring about civil war. I estimate using panel time-series logistic regression techniques and discover the risk of conflict in Africa, Asia, highly-indebted poor countries, and low income countries. Some civil wars are fought for government control and others are fought over local issues - both types of war are controlled for with their own determinants. The third chapter determines factors that significantly affect the severity of civil wars from year to year. I employ the same IV/GMM estimation techniques from Chapter 1 to discover the role of financial crises, hyperinflation, unemployment, and development assistance and aid in the severity of war.

The growing number of terrorist attacks waged by Islamic fundamentalists has led to an increasing desire to understand the nature of jihad. These attacks have led to a renewed sense of urgency to find answers to such questions as why these attacks occur, and who they are waged against. Towards this end I turn to examine the political philosophy of four Muslim theologians. Specifically I look at the political philosophy of Sayyid Qutb, Shah Walai Allah Dihlawai, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and Muhammad Sa'id al-Ashmawy. I find that the notion of jihad is very inconclusive. Furthermore, the question of jihad revolves largely around the question of whether or not individuals can be reasoned with, and secondly whether religion should be compelled upon individuals.

This chapter examines aspects of American Catholic history that lay outside the commonly told story of parishes and immigrants by surveying the efforts of American Protestants—from the colonial era to the present—to properly map that Catholic place in the life of their nation and their own religious sensibilities. It shows how the ambivalent greeting initially extended to Catholic immigrants by U.S. Protestants was shelved for outright hostility during the nativist era prior to the Civil War, when the mass emigration of impoverished, famine-stricken Irish Catholics greatly aggravated preexisting fears of “popish superstition.” At the same time a number of Protestants—often from elite backgrounds—found themselves powerfully drawn to Catholic art and ritual, and more than a few took the plunge into religious conversion.

‘Creative words’ studies how the American South became the home to a vital cultural explosion, seen in such modernist writers as William Faulkner, Richard Wright, and Eudora Welty. Their themes of agrarian life, the memory of the Old South and the Civil War, religious values, the tensions of the biracial society, and the modernization of society connected their literary achievements with southern life itself. Early nineteenth-century writers generally became defenders of slavery against abolitionist attacks. By the 1920s, southern writers were incorporating aspects of modernism into their works. After 1980, a new term, “post-southernism,” became a descriptor for writers living in the most economically prosperous and racially integrated South ever.

Saudi Arabia enjoys a privileged position in the Middle East by virtue of its strategic position, and because of its political, economic and religious factors, as the Saudi political system was established in 1744 in accordance with a political-religious agreement between the Al Saud and the religious institution represented by the Wahhabi da'wa (Salafism), and continued to receive its legitimacy and support from it, tribalism also took an important aspect in maturity, and the expansion of the influence of this country until the oil wealth contributed to its development, and strengthened its relations with the outside world, which in turn casts an important aspect of maturity, and the expansion of the influence of this country until the oil wealth contributed to its development, and strengthened its relations with the outside world, which in turn casts an important aspect of maturity. In the importance of future studies that address topics related to Saudi domestic and external affairs, notably the issue of reform. The reform trends in Saudi Arabia coincided with its opening to the world specifically western countries in the early 1990s, and increased elitist and popular calls for reform, as well as a number of structural causes that reinforced the alliance between the political and religious institution that clearly controlled the social, political and civil life of the Kingdom. This study is concerned with the reform process in the Saudi political system by showing the future scenes of that process, and then relying on internal variables, and the study tries in the framework of its problem to answer a key question: where is the Saudi political system going in light of internal variables. The hypothesis of the study in the context of future studies is based on an optimistic scene that supports the success of the reform process in Saudi Arabia, and another pessimistic scene that believes that the political system in the Kingdom will remain the same, if not turn into a worse state than it is now.

In his article, the author considers the works by the famous political opponents of Bolsheviks: N.D. Avksentiev, V.P. Zenzinov, K. Goppers, A. Budberg, K.V. Sakharov, G.K. Guins and D.F. Rakov, in which the activities of A. Kolchak and his government are evaluated. Their evaluation concerns such aspects as the interrelations between Kolchak and the representatives of the «Allies» army, the reaction to the coup and proclaiming him Supreme Governor of Russia, evaluation of his real possibilities and abilities and also of the internal political situation in Siberia and Far East. According to the author, this evaluation does not contradict the conclusions of Soviet historiography. Taking into account the attempts made to re-examine the image of A. Kolchak consolidated in historiography, the author suggests one should evaluate his activities from the perspective of the historicalgeopolitical approach rather than from the perspective of the class theory. Taking into consideration the role of foreign states in his political biography, his choice during the years of the Civil War was not between the Red and the White but between Russia and foreign intervention. The proposed approach allows us to consider the political activities of A. Kolchak in a broader context and to make judgment about him from the geopolitical perspective rather than from the perspective of the class theory. In this case, the criterion for evaluation of the activities of the politician are his actions aimed at the defense of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state.