British Humanitarian Activity in Russia, 1890-1923

Book excerpt: This book analyses the efforts of British civil society to help a Russia seen to be struggling between 1890 and the 1920s. Luke Kelly seeks to show why churches, pressure groups, charities, politicians and journalists came to promote religious and political liberty and to relieve the victims of famines in late-tsarist and early communist Russia. By focusing on the roles of Christian, Jewish and liberal interests in deploying humanitarian solutions, Kelly shows how humanitarianism developed ‘from below’, while also examining the growth of a broader humanitarian discourse in the context of the Anglo-Russian relationship.