George Kennan, a man who can rightfully be called one of the main architects of the Cold War, has died in the United States. It was he who came up with and developed the doctrine according to which the spread of communism must be contained - using any measures to do this. And American diplomacy towards the USSR owed a lot to him. At the same time, Kennan was not delighted with the way the United States pursued its foreign policy, and sincerely loved Russia.
American Kennan found himself connected with Russia even before he was born. And he was born, by the way, on February 16, 1904 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, into a wealthy family. His birthday was celebrated together with the birthday of his grandfather's brother, George Kennan, a journalist, traveler and ethnographer, who gained considerable fame for his works on Russia and, in particular, on Siberian penal servitude.
As a sign of respect for the eminent relative, Kennan Jr.'s parents decided to name him George Frost Kennan - the child received the name Frost in honor of Kennan Sr.'s comrade on his travels in Russia.
After graduating from military school in Wisconsin, George Frost Kennan continued his studies at Princeton University. It was there that he became interested in the problems of international politics, and primarily in relations between the United States and Russia. In 1925, immediately after graduating from Princeton University, Kennan entered the diplomatic service. After a short stay in Geneva, he had the opportunity to undergo a three-year postgraduate study at one of the European universities, on the condition that he would take up the study of some rare language. Kennan chose the University of Berlin and Russian language in the hope of being assigned to work in the Soviet Union. Later, he actually worked at the American diplomatic mission in Riga, and finally, in 1933, Kennan was sent to the US Embassy in Moscow.
Initially, Kennan was a classic anti-Soviet. He believed that a compromise with the Soviet regime was impossible. For him, the USSR was the center of evil, a country that destroyed the aristocratic culture of pre-revolutionary Russia, and influenced world politics exclusively bad influence. It's hard to blame him for this, because since the time October revolution and the civil war, only 10 years have passed, and for that part of the population globe, which considered itself civilized, the Bolsheviks differed little from the barbarians.
But being an intelligent man, Kennan did not dwell on his dislike for the USSR, but preferred to study this mysterious country, about which most Americans had the vaguest idea. He became acquainted with Russian culture and really fell in love with Russian literature, in particular Chekhov and Tolstoy - Kennan visited Yasnaya Polyana several times. American diplomats at that time, surprisingly, traveled relatively freely around the USSR - the meeting of Ostap Bender with the Americans described in “The Golden Calf” is not an invention of Ilf and Petrov.
Mr. Kennan, our people believe that one can be a friend of another country and at the same time remain a loyal and devoted citizen of one's own country. You are exactly that kind of person.
Mikhail Gorbachev
Cannon was impressed by Orthodox culture - he visited New Jerusalem, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl and a number of other shrines. In Orthodoxy, the Presbyterian Cannon found traditionalism and patriarchy - values that were unconditional for him. He tried to understand the mentality of the Russian people, who seemed to him to be a representative of the pre-industrial world, nostalgia for which was very widespread in America at that time.
The beginning of the twentieth century was marked for the United States by widespread industrialization and urbanization. It was hardly a coincidence that Owen Whistler's novel The Virginian, published back in 1903, met with a very warm reception from readers: more than 300 thousand copies were sold in two years, not to mention constant reprints. "The Virginian" became an expression of protest against the advent of the machine age, against the loss of the values of rural life. It was no coincidence that Whistler chose a native of Virginia as the main character - the “heart” of pre-war agrarian America with its valor, honor and principles, with its loyalty to traditions.
No people have been as deeply wounded and humiliated as the Russian people, who have survived several waves of violence that our cruel century has sent upon them. That is why it is difficult to expect that a huge state, social and economic system Russia has changed in one decade. Given the enormous scale of losses and abuses that have befallen the country, it is impossible to hope to put everything in order in one decade. Perhaps the life of an entire generation will not be enough for this.
George Kennan
Internally, Kennan did not accept the “mechanization” of the United States, which destroyed the world of decent, respectable and religious people dear to him. Therefore, the industrialization of the USSR, which he witnessed, also did not cause any delight in Kennan. The construction of a new world on Tolstoy’s land seemed to him absolutely inorganic for Russian society. Kennan believed that Russia prefers spirituality to rationalism and is prone to introspection rather than increasing efforts to improve material life. The modernization of life in the USSR, he feared, would lead to the disappearance of the country’s natural way of life, its patriarchal identity.
At the same time, Kennan observed with equal hostility the changes taking place in both the USSR and the USA. He disliked the massive social protest movements that arose after the 1929 crisis and Roosevelt's New Deal. In the growing and expanding democracy, Kennan saw a threat to meritocracy, a much more just, in his opinion, type of social order - after all, Kennan believed that the right to participate in political life must be earned, and not received ready-made by birthright in a certain territory.
His love for Russian culture did not prevent him from remaining a critic not only of the USSR, but also of the actions of the West towards the country of the Bolsheviks. Kennan condemned Roosevelt for his concessions to the Kremlin, in particular on the issue of Soviet debts. He also criticized the West for its indifferent attitude towards Russian emigration, who found themselves in the United States as literally poor relatives.
And yet, Kennan was one of the first to see that the Soviet system was a developing organism capable of producing unexpected, albeit undesirable, results in the distant future. But in this development, Kennan also saw the death of the Soviet system.
In February 1946, George Kennan replaced Averell Harriman as US Ambassador to Moscow. Among other documents arriving from Washington, Kennan came across a request from the State and Treasury Departments to analyze Soviet statements regarding the various international financial institutions that emerged after the war in order to clarify true goals and the motives of Soviet leaders in their post-war policies. The task was not God knows what, just an ordinary routine note; but Kennan saw an opportunity.
At the heart of the Kremlin's neurasthenic view of international affairs is the traditional and instinctive Russian sense of the presence of danger, the fear of Western societies that are more competent, more powerful, more highly organized in the economic sphere. However, this latter type of insecurity affected Russia's rulers more than the Russian people, since Russian rulers always felt that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological basis, unable to withstand comparison or contact with political systems in Western countries.
George Kennan. Origins of Soviet behavior
The result was one of the longest (and certainly most famous) official telegrams in history. Telegram No. 511 contained 8 thousand words. A year and a half later, her text entitled “The Origins of Soviet Behavior” was published in Foreign Affairs magazine under the pseudonym “X.” (Kennan G.F. The Sources of Soviet Conduct // Foreign Affairs. 1947. July. No. 25. P.566-582.)
Kennan's opinion was sharply at odds with generally accepted views in the United States about the main directions of national foreign policy. In the immediate post-war years, Americans wanted to live in peace. They felt sympathy for the USSR, their recent ally. Accordingly, Washington was inclined to be sympathetic to the demands put forward by Stalin. Kennan argued that any concessions to Stalin would only whet his appetite, since the Soviet dictator respected only strength and considered “good will” a sign of weakness.
Popular ideas that one can “come to an amicable agreement” with Stalin, Kennan wrote, are false and dangerous. We must give up illusions, he believed, and proposed a “strategy of containment” of the USSR. Kennan wrote that the Kremlin has a paranoid fear of the free world and this makes the normal coexistence of the two systems impossible. But also new war(in the opinion of many sober-minded Americans, inevitable), Kennan did not consider it a way out of the situation. The war against the USSR, he believed, should be “cold,” that is, reduced to a policy of containment. As a result, Kennan wrote, the Soviet system would collapse on its own, since the internal processes occurring within it would make it completely unviable.
This "long telegram" influenced US public opinion and the policies of the Truman administration during the period of uncertainty that followed the end of World War II. By adopting a course of opposition to Stalinist expansion and refusing to return to traditional isolationism (the Monroe Doctrine), the United States assumed the role of a superpower.
At the same time, Kennan’s speech was sharply criticized, and he had to explain what he actually meant. For all his dislike for the USSR (and sincere love for Russia), Kennan offered the Americans non-violent coercion of Russians to peace, that is, political containment of the USSR through political methods.
In 1950, Kennan retired from diplomatic work due to differences with the State Department on a number of issues, and accepted Robert Oppenheimer's invitation to visit the Institute for Advanced Study, which he headed. But in the spring of 1952, Kennan was recalled from this vacation and appointed US Ambassador to the USSR. At the same time, both the USA and the USSR understood that the appearance of such a person in this post would most likely lead to conflict, which soon happened.
In September of the same year, Kennan, while in West Berlin, sharply criticized the Soviet system. Punishment was not long in coming. On October 3, 1952, the Soviet Foreign Ministry declared him persona non grata. This episode put an end to the career of professional diplomat George Kennan.
But by that time the historical mission of this man had already been completed - Kennan became one of the main architects of the Cold War. His ideas served as the basis for major international initiatives, in particular the Marshall Plan.
On June 5, 1947, US Secretary of State General George Marshall, in a speech at Harvard University, presented the “European Recovery Program” to the world. Marshall believed that the speedy elimination of the destruction caused to Western European countries by World War II was in the interests of the United States and other countries of the world whose economies suffered from the lack of stable and large-scale ties with Europe. The Secretary of State offered to provide assistance to a number of European and Asian countries, including former enemies, which would ultimately strengthen peace and promote the development of democracy. The US Congress included the Marshall Plan in the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948.
The European economic recovery program was supported by Great Britain and France. In the summer of 1947, at an international conference in Paris, 16 countries gave their consent to participate in it. They concluded a convention creating the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, which was supposed to develop a joint “program for the recovery of Europe.” The plan began to be implemented in April 1948.
Assistance was provided from the US federal budget in the form of gratuitous supplies of goods, subsidies and loans. From April 1948 to December 1951, the United States spent about $17 billion under the Marshall Plan, with the bulk of aid received by Great Britain, France, Italy and West Germany, to which the Marshall Plan was extended in December 1949.
On December 30, 1951, the Marshall Plan officially ceased to exist and was replaced by the Mutual Security Act, which provided for the simultaneous provision of economic as well as military assistance. Later, on this basis, a united Europe was born.
The Kennan Institute is a structural unit of the Wilson Center. The main objective of the institute is to promote the expansion of knowledge in the United States about Russia and other states of the former USSR; preparation of scientific research and reports on this issue; developing a dialogue between American scientists and government experts on US relations with Russia, Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics; expanding contacts between scientists from the USA and CIS countries.
In 1991, forty-five years ago, Kennan's prophecy came true - the Soviet Union collapsed from the inside, unable to withstand the burden of internal contradictions. The US approach to relations with an ideological enemy proposed by Kennan was partly used in the Marshall Plan and in other American diplomatic developments. This approach worked throughout the post-war decades and ultimately led to the collapse of the communist system.
During his life, Kennan wrote 21 books and published numerous articles, projects, criticisms, letters and speeches. He twice won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. In 1974-1975, Kennan, along with Woodrow Wilson Center director James Billington and historian Frederick Starr, founded the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies. It should be noted that the institute received its name in honor of George Kennan Sr. In 1989, President George W. Bush presented Kennan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.
But ultimately, Kennan will be remembered as the man who predicted the imminent collapse of the USSR long before the Bialowieza Accords. At the same time, Kennan was not a prophet - he was “just” an ambitious aristocrat of the spirit, possessing a remarkable analytical mind. He was lucky to be in in the right place at the right time and lucky to be heard. But sometimes such luck can change the course of history.
George Kennan He was interested in traveling from childhood, however, first he had to work as a telegraph operator. On instructions from the Russian-American Telegraph Company, he came to Russia as part of an expedition that explored the possibility of laying telegraphy from America to Russia via Alaska. Bering Strait, Chukotka and Siberia.
This is how Kennan’s love for Russia began - in the area of the mouth of the Anadyr, Kennan and his partner, moving on dog sleds, explored the area, several times they were on the verge of death from cold and hunger. Failures accompanied the project - no money was sent, local Koryaks did not want to work, in the end the project was closed and 22-year-old Kennan went home from Okhotsk on a Russian troika through Siberia home. And at home, in his native Ohio, he published a book “Tent Life in Siberia” , after which he declared himself as a writer, and his popularity made it possible to earn a living by lecturing about Russia.
In 1870, He undertook a trip to the Caucasus and became the first American to visit there. The Caucasus was extremely popular at that time due to Caucasian War. In St. Petersburg, daggers inlaid with silver and gold were sold, and hoods became fashionable. All this made an indelible impression on Kennan and in 1870 he appeared in St. Petersburg, ignoring the warnings of friends about the dangers of travel, he soon found himself in Dagestan.
Preparation of trench road near Bodo (photos from the Kennan archive)
There he hired as a guide a certain Ahmed of Avar, whom he described as a 10th century barbarian, who boasted that he had killed about 14 people.
When Kennan asked "How did you kill the first person? Was it a fight?"
Ahmet explained: "We argued and he insulted me, I took out the dagger - bam! - and that's it."
Akhmet, in turn, asked what would happen in such a case in America. "I would call the police"- Kennan replied.
Disappointed Ahmet asked “So what, you don’t kill anyone, don’t raid and take revenge?”
Having received a negative answer, Akhmet concluded: "You live the life of a sheep."
For two months, Kennan traveled through the foothills, where he met representatives of 30 ethnic groups who spoke different languages, it was as if he had been transported to the time of Julius Caesar - these people did not want to part with their traditions, the custom of blood feud and much more was preserved here - Kennan wrote down these customs in order to later tell the world about it.
Shocked that these people had failed to advance in their social development over many centuries, he reflected on the role of Russia in the Caucasus.
Returning home through Istanbul, he was already sure that it was Russia that had the honorable role of bringing the achievements of Western civilization to this lost world.
After the new trip, Kennan’s reputation as a specialist in Russia was firmly established. He, popularizing information about Russia, became its active propagandist. It was thanks to Kennan's lectures and book that many Americans first learned about a distant, unknown, and in many ways exotic, country. In 1877, Kennan finally got a job as a journalist.
At that time in America there were two opposites in relation to Russia. Some saw her as the only strong ally and sought to establish trade ties, others pointed to tyranny and called for her isolation.
One of the denouncers of royal despotism was William Jackson Armstrong, who worked for some time in Russia at the American consulate. Despite the assassination of Alexander II, and the sympathy of American society for the Russian Tsar, he continued to criticize Russian monarchism.
Armstrong convinced his fellow citizens that despite the abolition of serfdom, the Russian Empire continued to remain a barbaric country, because the government still hindered democratic development and harshly punished those who did not agree with it.
Kennan, considering himself an expert on Siberia, openly opposed attacks on Russia. A verbal battle broke out between the two experts on the pages of the press. Everyone defended their point of view.
Seriously carried away by the discussion, Kennan began to get acquainted with books about Russia, tried to get Russian newspapers and magazines, and looked for books by Russian authors among the books. That's how he met Maximov And Yadrintsev, their work on Siberia made him think about what he actually knew about Russia.
Sergey Vasilievich Maksimov
The question of attitude towards Russia worried Kennan so seriously that in order to draw up own opinion about the situation of convicts in Siberia, Kennan decided to make a new trip.
To do this, he convinced the magazine "The Century" send him as a journalist to Siberia, and he undertook to write 12 articles about his journey for the magazine. Soon an agreement was reached not only with the editor of the magazine, but also with the American government. Kennan was to receive $6,000 for his work and an advance of 100 monthly sent to his wife while he was away for 15 months. The purpose of the trip was to check conflicting information about the situation of prisoners in Siberia, to obtain additional information in support of the correctness of this or that information and, based on the data received, developing one’s own attitude to the events in Russia.
American readers found it difficult to understand “the seasoned intensity of the feeling of hatred among young people in Russia towards their government” This is what the American journalist should have understood and explained to his readers.
A year before the trip, Kennan decided to prepare well and despite the existing basic knowledge Russian, learned Russian well. This gave him, unlike other travelers, the opportunity to receive information directly, without an interpreter. He also familiarized himself with all possible critical articles about Siberia.
For this purpose, he went to St. Petersburg to buy as much literature as possible. In addition, he took care of all possible official permissions to travel around Russia and visit prisons. And since he had a reputation as a supporter of Russia, he easily received recommendations from high officials.
However, that was not all; before the trip, Kennan finally met Nikolai Mikhailovich Yadrintsev, a man who today would be called a separatist for supporting the idea of separation of Siberia from Russia.
Yadrintsev was arrested in the case of the Siberian Independence Society, spent two years in Omsk prison and 8 years in exile in the Arkhangelsk province. Then he worked in St. Petersburg as secretary to the chairman of the prison supervision commission, which gave him the opportunity to collect very valuable statistical material. At the time of their acquaintance, Yadrintsev was the editor of the newspaper “Eastern Review” and the author of the book “Siberia as a Colony”, known abroad. Yadrintsev drew attention to the high mortality rate of exiles and convicts, as a result of cruel treatment of people, but also to the destructive effect of the system of exile to Siberia. |
Yadrintsev not only introduced Kennan to his views on the problem, he provided him with directions to places that were not usually shown to “tourists,” the names and addresses of those who could give him unofficial information about the state of affairs in Siberia, and letters of recommendation, who opened the doors for Kennan, behind which the “opposition” was hiding.
In June 1885, Kennan, accompanied by the artist and photographer George Frost, was already in the Urals, where he spent the summer; in September, the travelers arrived in Irkutsk and in the fall they reached the Kara mines.
The trip was not easy; travelers had to look for places to spend the night, negotiate a change of horses, get food, and prudently bypass those settlements in which typhus and plague were raging. They learned what it was like to spend the night on the cold floor of post stations, to get rid of the insects that infested the huts at the post. It was a test of physical strength. The need to hide contacts with exiles, to behave in such a way with local authorities so as not to lose their trust, to collect and encrypt information, to be prepared for searches and even arrest, required a lot of nervous tension.
Towards the end of the journey, George Frost suffered from mental confusion due to physical exhaustion, and Kennan also had to undergo long-term treatment after the journey.
Windmills near Omsk
A Siberian etape or exile station houseStreet in Irkutsk
Tarantas - a large four wheel carriage without seats used for travel in Siberia during the summer
Siberian convicts working in a placer mine
From an album of photographs of convicts and exiles
Dr. Martinoff's little boy & son of Yakimova born in fortress
Children born during the imprisonment of convicted Yakimova in the fortress
After visiting city and transit prisons, talking with a variety of people from official representatives to exiles, former exiles and members of their families, Kennan returned to St. Petersburg with the firm conviction that his previous position towards Russia should be reconsidered.
“One of the most important and effective reasons that prompted Russian revolutionaries ... to adopt a criminal policy of terror is the treatment of political exiles in Russian prisons.”
- this is one of Kennan’s main conclusions
Administrative expulsions of politically unreliable people, who very often end up there due to frivolity, trivial facts, false denunciations, as a result of system errors, cause greatest harm to society.
“...in the entire civilized world there is nothing comparable to the disaster and horror that results from exile in Siberia. In a certain respect, no doubt, the negligence, heartlessness and bribery of officials are to blame, but all the horror is the consequence of the entire cruel system, which must be completely abolished.”
Returning from Russia, Kennan met with political emigrants - Kropotkin, Stepnyak, Tchaikovsky, who were surprised by Kennan's deep knowledge, his accurate observations and correct conclusions.
Subsequently, Kennan not only did not lose contact with the Russian opposition, but supported it in every possible way, not only in print, but also financially. Suffice it to say that Felix Volkhovsky, who fled from Siberia, whom he met in Tomsk, came to Kennan, and only then (possibly with his help) moved to London.
Contacts with Yadrintsev continued until Yadrintsev’s death in 1894. Yadrintsev not only met with Kennan when he came to Russia, but also continued to supply him with information and introduce him to people who could provide interesting information.
For example, shortly before Yadrintsev’s death, Kennan asked him to send information on the Caucasus. Kennan, in turn, talked about what interested Yadrintsev, for example, the system of organizing schools for the indigenous population.
In the process of further communication, Kennan became convinced of the need to promote the ideas of the Russian opposition. The first step towards this was a series of articles for the magazine, and then the book “Siberia and the exile system” appeared.
After its publication, Cannon’s book was translated into German and Danish, and in Geneva, Russian political emigrants translated it into Russian and published it.
In Russia, keeping copies of even Kennan’s articles risked arrest; however, they illegally leaked across the border, the exiles translated the articles and distributed them among themselves. Yadrintsev’s newspaper “Eastern Review” published a review of this book, so the whole political Siberia learned about it.
In Russia, the book was published only in 1906 and, thanks to censorship, turned out to be much thinner than the original, moreover, it did not contain Frost’s illustrations.
George Kennan(English George Kennan; February 16, 1845 - May 10, 1924) - American journalist, traveler, writer, author of books about Siberia and Siberian exile.
Known for his support of Russian revolutionaries. His public revelations of the harsh conditions of detention of political prisoners in Siberian exile became the impetus for the spread in the United States of a critical view of the political regime existing in Russian Empire. In the wake of public indignation around Kennan’s speeches in 1891, the American Society of Friends of Russian Freedom arose in Boston, whose members from 1891 to 1919. participated in various propaganda campaigns, some of which had a significant impact on the attitude of US public opinion towards Russia.
George Kennan's great-nephew was George F. Kennan.
Biography
Born in Norwalk, Ohio. At the age of 12, he dropped out of school and began working as a messenger at a railway telegraph office, and later as a telegraph operator. In 1865, J. Kennan was hired by the Russian-American Telegraph Company to study a possible telegraph route from the United States to Russia through Alaska, the Bering Strait, Chukotka and Siberia. He spent two years traveling around Chukotka and Kamchatka, after which he returned to America through St. Petersburg. In 1870 he published the book “Tent Life in Siberia” about his journey. In 1870 he set off on a new journey to Russia (the Caucasus), this time through St. Petersburg. After returning from Russia in 1871, he worked as a bank clerk in Medina (New York), but was extremely dissatisfied with his profession, dreaming of a career as a writer and publicist. In June 1876 he moved from Medina to New York, hoping to make a career in the literary field. However, in the first year, Kennan did not find suitable work and in the summer of 1877 he was forced to get a job at the Mutual Life Insurance Company. In November 1878, J. Kennan left New York and moved to Washington, where he became a correspondent for the Associated Press agency.
In May 1885 - August 1886, J. Kennan, together with artist from Boston George Frost, traveled through Siberia, getting acquainted with the system of hard labor and exile. Here he met many political prisoners. Kennan’s friends were Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaya, Egor Lazarev, Felix Volkhovsky. Returning to the USA, in 1887-1889 Kennan published a number of articles in Century magazine in which he sharply criticized the tsarist government and glorified the revolutionaries. Exposing the abuses of the Russian authorities made Kennan famous. He began to actively publish in serious socio-political magazines. In addition to “Century”, these were “The Outlook”, “The Nation”, “Forum” and others. In addition, he gave numerous paid public lectures in the United States and England. To achieve greater effect, Kennan often appeared in front of audiences dressed as a prisoner and in shackles.
A direct result of J. Kennan’s activities in England and the USA was the emergence in the early 1890s of the movement for a “free Russia” and the formation of societies of “friends of Russian freedom”. Although he himself did not take part in the creation of the Society of American Friends of Russian Freedom in April 1891, he became a member of it, regularly giving small sums for the publication of the Society's printed organ, Free Russia. Also in 1891, Kennan published the book “Siberia and the Exile System,” which was less successful than his articles and speeches about Siberian exile.
After some decline in interest in Russia, he switched to covering other topical events. In 1898, J. Kennan worked as a correspondent for the Spanish-American War. Shortly after the end of the war, his book “Campaigning in Cuba” was published. All this time, he maintained correspondence with Russian political emigrants - Volkhovsky, Kropotkin and others. In July 1901, J. Kennan again came to Russia, stopped in St. Petersburg, but a few weeks later he was expelled from the country.
) - American journalist, traveler, writer, author of books about Siberia and Siberian exile. Known for his support of Russian revolutionaries. His public revelations of the harsh conditions of detention of political prisoners in Siberian exile became the impetus for the spread in the United States of a critical view of the political regime existing in the Russian Empire. In the wake of public indignation around Kennan’s speeches in 1891, the American Society of Friends of Russian Freedom arose in Boston, whose members from 1891 to 1919 participated in various propaganda campaigns, some of which had a significant impact on the attitude of US public opinion towards Russia.
George Kennan's great-nephew was George F. Kennan.
Biography
George Kennan in the Studies of Historians
Modern Russian historian D. M. Nechiporuk in his dissertation “The American Society of Friends of Russian Freedom” writes that the personality and activities of George Kennan, who was the central figure of anti-tsarist agitation in the late 1880s - early 1890s, occupies a significant place in studies of the history of cultural relations between Russia and the USA. In 1950, the American historian M. Lazerson, for the first time in historiography, examined in detail the influence of Kennan's agitation on American-Russian relations. It was Lazerson who, with his research, laid the foundations for a liberal approach to the study of both Kennan’s agitation and the activities of the American Society - according to this approach, Kennan was a sincere and disinterested opponent of the Russian autocracy, who helped Russian socialists and liberals with his printed speeches and money in their struggle for a democratic Russia. This thesis subsequently became widespread not only in American, but also in Soviet historical literature.
In the 1970s-1980s. American historian T. Stalls offered a more critical view of Kennan’s campaigning than was common in previous works. For the first time, he voiced the thesis about the commercial motives of the American journalist’s activities and, relying on archival materials, tried to dispel the persistent idea of Kennan as an exclusively “ideological” fighter against autocracy.
The most detailed study of George Kennan's activities was published in 1990 by the American historian F. Travis.
In Soviet historiography, Kennan was certainly portrayed as a convinced, sincere and disinterested opponent of tsarism, who supported the Society of American Friends of Russian Freedom and its agitation.
Essays
- Tent life in Siberia, and adventures among the Koraks and other tribes in Kamtchatka and Northern Asia. - N.Y., G.P. Putnam&sons; L., S. Low, son & Marston, 1870. - 425 rub.
- Siberia and the Exile System. - N.Y., The Century co., 1891. 2 vols.
- Russian translation: Siberia and exile. In two volumes. SPb.: Russian-Baltic information Center"BLITZ", 1999.
- Campaigning in Cuba. - N.Y., The Century co., 1899. - 269 p.
- The Chicago and Alton case: A misunderstood transaction - Garden City, N.Y.: Country Life Press, 1916. - 58 p.
Notes
Links
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
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- Born in 1845
- Born on February 16
- Died in 1924
- Died on May 10
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- Memoirists USA
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Kennan, George North American writer. In 1861 68, on behalf of the Russian-American telegraph company, he visited the extreme northeast of Siberia to study the possibility of conducting a telegraph from America through the Bering Sea... ... Biographical Dictionary
Kennan George Frost (George F. Kennan) - born in February 1904 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, inherited from his uncle not only the name George, but also an interest in Russia. D. Kennan Sr. founded the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom to support the liberal movement in Russia. At Princeton and Berlin universities, K.D.F. studied Russian language and Russian history. After a short stay as consul in Hamburg, Kennan worked for five years (1928-1933) in the American missions in Riga, Kaunas, and Tallinn. Here Kennan moved in the circles of white emigration, drawing from primary sources information about our country, with which the United States did not yet have diplomatic relations. He came to Moscow in 1933 together with the first American ambassador to the USSR, V. Bullitt, in 1935-1937. was the second secretary of the embassy in 1937-1938. - expert on USSR affairs at the State Department. In subsequent years, D. Kennan served in American embassies and missions. In 1945 - Minister-Counselor of the US Embassy in Moscow. In 1950-1952 became a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University and, finally, in 1952, ambassador to Moscow. Since 1956, he has been a professor of history at Princeton University and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Social and Political Science. Kennan became a celebrity after the appearance in July 1947 of the article “Sources of Soviet Behavior.” The article became an important historiographical fact in the history of the Cold War.
Material used from the site " Russian abroad" - http://russians.rin.ru
Kennan George Frost (b. 1904) US statesman and politician. One of the leading American Sovietologists. Born in Milwaukee (Wisconsin). He graduated from St. John's Military Academy and then from Princeton University (1925). In 1925-1926 - US Vice Consul in Geneva. Later he held a number of diplomatic posts in US missions in Hamburg, Tallinn, Riga and Kaunas. He studied Russian language, literature, legislation and economics of the USSR at the University of Berlin.
In 1934 and 1935-1937. - Secretary of the American Embassy in Moscow. In 1939-1941. worked in Berlin. In 1945-1947 - Counselor at the American Embassy in Moscow. In 1952 he was appointed US Ambassador to the Soviet Union; met with Stalin several times. Due to hostile anti-Soviet attacks, he was recalled from Moscow at the request of the Soviet government. In 1953 he left the diplomatic service and took up teaching. Professor of History at Princeton University. At the end of the 60s, he repeatedly spoke out for a more realistic course towards the USSR.
Your impressions and thoughts about Soviet Russia, about Stalin and other party leaders of our country, outlined in the book “Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin” (Kennan G.F. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin. Boston, 1960). In Russian, a large excerpt from this book was included in the collection “Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle. Political portraits" (Minsk, 1991).
Describing Stalin, Kennan writes: “...cautious, secretive, hiding his cold ruthlessness under the mask of modest politeness, influenced by a morbid suspicion towards those who were his friends and followers, capable of the most insensitive acts when he had to dealing with those whom he considered his ideological opponents. Stalin... was always more polite with recognized enemies than with recognized friends.”
Another quote from Kennan’s book: “The German ambassador in Moscow, Count Schulenburg, informed Molotov that Germany had attacked the Soviet Union. Molotov's response to this message seems to me to be an example of the terrible hypocrisy that permeated Soviet-German relations as a whole. “Is this really possible? said a veteran spokesman for a regime that recently attacked neighboring Finland, annexed three countries unwilling to join and deported hundreds of thousands of people in eastern Poland under conditions of extreme brutality. - Do we really deserve this?
I believe he was surpassed only by Stalin, speaking a year or two later at a banquet with representatives of the allied countries. Stalin, who always loved to tease his subordinates, proposed a toast to Molotov, and then addressed him with a friendly command: “Now, Molotov, stand up and tell us about your pact with the Germans.”
Book materials used: Torchinov V.A., Leontyuk A.M. Around Stalin. Historical and biographical reference book. St. Petersburg, 2000
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Telegram of the US Embassy in Moscow No. 511(“Long Telegram”) February 22, 1946
