Complex sentence: He submitted a thesis on "totemic society", a fully-fledged work of research, and was supported by a short but very flattering recommendation from Viacheslav Petrovich Volgin.
Split into simpler sentences: He submitted a thesis on "totemic society", a fully-fledged work of research. His application was supported by a short but very flattering recommendation from Viacheslav Petrovich Volgin.