Спогади Дональда Реншоу та висвітлення діяльності АРА у американській пресі

Abstract

Nikolina I., Ocheretianyi V. Donald Renshaw’s memoirs and ARA’s activity in the RSFSR (1921–1923) in the American press. Introduction. Nowadays the interest in help provided by the ARA during the 1921-1923 famine is quite natural due to the fact that Soviet historians paid much attention to the research of US-Russian relations, but they rarely adressed to the issue of the activities of the American assistance mission in Russia during the 1921-1923 famine. Even though the problem was raised, then only with the aim to emphasize once more how “American” foreign policy was “mercenary”. That is the reason of todays necessity to look objectively, as far as possible, at the problems connected with the action of assistance, to study the assistance in practice, to find out who participated in its delivery, what relations were between the Soviet government and American philanthropic missions. The purpose of this article is the survey of the American press during the famine and the examinational analysis of the letters of D. Renshaw to make out the activities of the ARA during the period 1921-1923 on the territory of the RSFSR. Results. The material presented to us in his letters or memoirs by D. Renshaw is mostly descriptive. With his impressions he describes the routine of both the Moscow dwellers and the employees of the ARA. Analyzing his letters to D. Renshaw, we recognize that he did not ever try to overstate the role of the ARA in overcoming hunger, and in the main simply stated statistics that is found in other works and is publicly available. Referring to this information, his letters should be glared, where he writes with disgust about Soviet power and its attempts to start the Holodomor. Conclusion. As for the American press, it seemed to us that they had the main task of forming by the american readers an image of an American hero fighting against hunger. It should be underlined that, despite the fact what the ARA did for the RSFRR, the press did not manage to recognize the main role of the ARA in overcoming hunger.У статті аналізується американська преса та листи Д. Реншоу часів голоду 1921–1923 рр. на території РСФРР для з’ясування діяльності АРА в цей період. Прослідковується як здійснювалася допомога на ділі, хто брав участь у її наданні, які стосунки були між радянським урядом і американськими філантропічними місіями.