Food distribution. Russian-American stories

February 3rd, 2017

Yesterday we discussed a topic that has caused a lot of controversy. Some say that there was no famine, some say that there was, but not like this and not for such a long time. There is debate about its causes and consequences. Let's continue this topic by discussing another, rarely mentioned story.

At the beginning of the post you see Aivazovsky’s painting “Distribution of Food”, painted by the artist in 1892. On the Russian troika, loaded with American food, stands a peasant, proudly raising the American flag above his head. The film is dedicated to the American humanitarian campaign of 1891-1892 to help starving Russia.

The future Emperor of Russia Nicholas II said: “We are all deeply touched that ships full of food are coming to us from America.” The resolution, prepared by prominent representatives of the Russian public, read, in part: “By sending bread to the Russian people in times of hardship and need, the United States of America is showing a most moving example of fraternal feelings.”

Here's what we know about it in more detail...

I.K. Aivazovsky. ""The arrival of the steamship "Missouri" with bread to Russia", 1892.

In April 1892, American ships loaded with wheat and corn flour arrived at the Baltic ports of Liepaja and Riga. In Russia they were eagerly awaited, since for almost a year the empire had been suffering from famine caused by crop failure

The authorities did not immediately agree to the offer of help from US philanthropists. There were rumors that the then Russian Emperor Alexander III commented on the food situation in the country as follows: “I have no starving people, there are only those affected by crop failure.”

However, the American public persuaded St. Petersburg to accept humanitarian aid. Farmers in the states of Philadelphia, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska collected about 5 thousand tons of flour and sent it with their own money - the amount of assistance amounted to about $1 million - to distant Russia. Some of these funds also went towards regular financial assistance. In addition, American public and private companies offered long-term loans worth $75 million to Russian farmers.

Aivazovsky wrote two paintings on this topic - Food Distribution and Relief Ship. And he donated both to the Washington Corcoran Gallery. It is unknown whether he witnessed the scene of the arrival of bread from the United States to the Russian village depicted in the first painting. However, the atmosphere in the picture of universal gratitude to the American people in that hungry year is very noticeable.

“Unexpected” disaster

“The autumn of 1890 was dry,” wrote Dmitry Natsky, a lawyer from Russian city Yelets, located near Lipetsk. “Everyone was waiting for rain, they were afraid to sow winter crops in dry soil and, without waiting, they began to sow in the second half of September.”

He goes on to point out that what was sown almost never came up anywhere. After all, the winter had little snow, with the first spring warmth the snow melted quickly, and the dry ground was not saturated with moisture. “ There was a terrible drought until May 25th. On the night of the 25th, I heard the babbling of streams outside and was very happy. The next morning it turned out that it was not rain, but snow, it became very cold, and the snow melted only the next day, but it was too late. And the threat of crop failure became real,” Natsky continued to recall. He also pointed out that they ended up harvesting a very poor rye harvest.
Drought was widespread in the European part of Russia. The writer Vladimir Korolenko described this disaster that befell Nizhny Novgorod province: “Over the drying fields, clergy with prayers passed every now and then, icons rose, and clouds stretched across the hot sky, waterless and stingy. From the Nizhny Novgorod mountains the lights and smoke of fires were constantly visible in the Volga region. The forests burned all summer, caught fire on their own”.

The previous few years were also poor harvests. In Russia, for such cases, since the time of Catherine II, there has been a system of assistance to peasants. She was involved in the organization of so-called local food stores. These were ordinary warehouses in which grain was stored for future use. In lean years, the regional administration lent grain from them to the peasants.

At the same time, by the end of the 19th century, the Russian government got used to constant cash receipts from grain exports. In good years, more than half of the harvest was sold to Europe, and the treasury received more than 300 million rubles annually.

In the spring of 1891, Alexey Ermolov, director of the non-salary collections department, wrote a note to Finance Minister Ivan Vyshnegradsky, warning about the threat of famine. The government conducted an audit of food stores. The results were frightening: in 50 provinces they were filled by 30% of the norm, and in 16 regions where the harvest was the lowest - by 14%.

However, Vyshnegradsky stated: “ We won’t eat it ourselves, we’ll export it" The export of grain continued throughout the summer months. That year, Russia sold almost 3.5 million tons of bread.

When it became clear that the situation was truly critical, the government ordered a ban on grain exports. But the ban lasted only ten months: large landowners and businessmen, who had already bought up grain for export abroad, became indignant, and the authorities followed their lead.

IN next year When famine was already raging in the empire, the Russians sold even more grain to Europe - 6.6 million tons.

Meanwhile, the Americans, having heard about the enormous famine in Russia, collected bread for the starving. Not knowing that grain traders' warehouses are filled with export wheat.

The famous agronomist and publicist Alexander Nikolaevich Engelhardt wrote about what the export of grain meant for the Russian peasantry:
« When last year everyone was rejoicing, rejoicing that there was a bad harvest abroad, that the demand for bread was high, that prices were rising, that exports were increasing, only the men were not happy, they looked askance at the sending of grain to the Germans... We do not sell bread out of excess, that we sell ours abroad daily bread, bread necessary for our own food.

We send wheat, good clean rye abroad, to the Germans, who will not eat any rubbish. We burn the best, clean rye for wine, but the worst rye, with fluff, fire, calico and all sorts of waste obtained from cleaning rye for distilleries - this is what a man eats. But not only does the man eat the worst bread, he is also malnourished. If there is enough bread in the villages, they eat three times; there has become a derogation in the bread, the bread is short - they eat it twice, they lean more on the spring, potatoes, and hemp seed are added to the bread. Of course, the stomach is full, but bad food causes people to lose weight and get sick, the boys grow tighter, just like what happens to poorly kept cattle...

Do the children of a Russian farmer have the food they need? No, no and NO. Children eat worse than calves from an owner who has good livestock. The mortality rate of children is much higher than the mortality rate of calves, and if the mortality rate of calves for an owner with good livestock was as high as the mortality rate for children of a peasant, it would be impossible to manage it. And we want to compete with the Americans when our children are not white bread even in the pacifier? If mothers ate better, if our wheat, which the German eats, stayed at home, then children would grow better and there would not be such mortality, all this typhus, scarlet fever, and diphtheria would not be rampant. By selling our wheat to the German, we are selling our blood, i.e. peasant children."

It was not only traders who ignored the famine; at first the authorities did not recognize that there was a real disaster in the country. Prince Vladimir Obolensky, Russian philanthropist and the publisher wrote about this: “ Censorship began to erase the words hunger, hungry, starving from newspaper columns. Correspondence that was banned in newspapers circulated from hand to hand in the form of illegal leaflets, private letters from starving provinces were carefully copied and distributed”.

Chronic malnutrition was supplemented by diseases, which, given the then existing level of medicine in the empire, turned into a real pestilence. Sociologist Vladimir Pokrovsky estimated that by the summer of 1892 at least 400 thousand people had died due to famine. This is despite the fact that in villages, records of the dead were not always kept.

On November 20, 1891, William Edgar, an American publisher and philanthropist from Minneapolis, who owned the then quite influential Northwestern Miller magazine, sent a telegram to the Russian embassy. From his European correspondents he learned that there was a real humanitarian catastrophe in Russia. Edgar proposed organizing a collection of funds and grain for a country in distress. And he asked Ambassador Kirill Struve to find out from the Tsar: would he accept such help?

A week later, without receiving any response, the publisher sent a letter with the same content. The embassy responded a week later: “ The Russian government accepts your proposal with gratitude”.

Sociologist Vladimir Pokrovsky estimated that at least 400 thousand people died due to famine by the summer of 1892

That same day, Northwestern Miller issued a fiery appeal. “ There is so much grain and flour in our country that this food supply is about to paralyze transport system. We have so much wheat that we won't be able to eat it all. At the same time, the most mangy dogs roaming the streets of American cities eat better than Russian peasants”.

Edgar sent letters to 5 thousand grain traders in the eastern states. He reminded his fellow citizens that at one time Russia helped the United States a lot. In 1862-63, during Civil War, a distant empire sent two military squadrons to the American coast. Then there was a real threat that British and French troops would come to the aid of the slave-owning south, with which the industrial one was at war. Russian ships then stood in American waters seven months - and Paris and London did not dare to get involved in the conflict with Russia. This helped the northern states win that war.

Almost everyone to whom he sent letters responded to William Edgar's call. The fundraising movement for Russia has spread throughout the United States. New York Symphony Orchestra gave charity concerts. The baton was picked up opera performers. As a result, the artists alone raised $77 thousand for the distant empire.

To provide humanitarian aid In the United States, a famine relief committee was organized (Russian Famine Relief Committee of the United States). The committee's funding came primarily from public funds. The so-called “Famine Fleet” was formed. The first ship, the Indiana, which delivered 1,900 tons of food, arrived on March 16, 1892 at the port of Liepaja on the Baltic Sea. The second ship, the Missouri, delivered 2,500 tons of grain and cornmeal, arriving there on April 4, 1892. In May 1892, another ship arrived in Riga. Additional ships arrived in June and July 1892. total cost humanitarian aid provided by the United States in 1891-1892 is estimated at about $1,000,000 (US dollars).

The Americans spent three months delivering humanitarian flour. Edgar himself swam to Berlin, and traveled to St. Petersburg by train. At the border he suffered his first shock. “The Russian customs officers were so strict that I felt like a rat in a trap,” wrote the traveler. Edgar was struck by the Russian capital - its luxury did not really correspond to the starving country. Moreover, we met him on local tradition with bread and salt in a silver salt shaker.

Then the American philanthropist traveled through famine-stricken regions. That's where he saw real Russia. “In one village I watched a woman prepare dinner for her family. Some kind of green herb was boiling in a pot, to which the hostess threw in a couple of handfuls of flour and added half a glass of milk”, Edgar later wrote in his journal.

He was also struck by the scenes of the distribution of humanitarian aid he had brought. One distribution official allowed hungry peasants to take as much as they could carry. “ Exhausted people shouldered a sack of flour and, barely moving their legs, dragged it to their families.“, Edgar reported.

There were also some oddities familiar to Russia, which were incomprehensible to an American. Already in Liepaja, part of the humanitarian aid disappeared without a trace. Edgar was warned that local merchants would resort to any tricks for profit. A month earlier, the government purchased 300 thousand pounds of grain. It turned out that almost all of it was mixed with soil and was therefore unsuitable for consumption.

There is also this opinion about this entire campaign: The role of the USA is insignificant. The fact is that the United States actually received stable harvests in those years, but in order not to bring down the price, the capitalists burned the grain, it was more profitable than selling it at a low price. In total, there were 5 ships from the United States of approximately 2000 tons. They came in the spring at the very end of the famine. And basically this grain was used for spring sowing, and not for food.

In the future of Crimea as Ukrainian territory, I have been for 8 years in a row summer rest spent exclusively in Feodosia. Well, I fell in love with this city, despite the crowded beaches and promenade. Without fail, every time I came to Feodosia, I visited art gallery Aivazovsky (and only sometimes twice per visit). In the end, I became so familiar with the staff that they invited me to the Aivazovsky Foundation repository and allowed me to get acquainted with those works that are not shown to the general public.
To be honest, at first it was interesting, then educational, but after looking at over a thousand watercolors of the great artist, I already began to feel sick.
It was all the more surprising for me to see the two pictures below, which I had not even suspected before.

Aivazovsky’s painting “Distribution of Food,” painted by the artist in 1892, is one of those that was not welcomed to be shown in modern Russia.

That is why this painting, along with another painting, “Relief Ship,” was sold in 2008 at Sotheby’s for $2.4 million to one of the patrons, who immediately donated them to the Corcoran Gallery museum in Washington, where they are still stored.

Not too much famous paintings Aivazovsky is dedicated to large-scale American humanitarian aid in 1891-1892 to starving Russia. At that time, Aivazovsky personally witnessed the meeting of ships with long-awaited food arriving from the United States as part of the “Famine Fleet” campaign organized by American philanthropists.

In the canvas “Distribution of Food,” Aivazovsky depicted the arrival of American food in one of the Russian villages and the enthusiastic welcome of carts with food for the hungry local population.

Having become interested in this topic, I found information in one of the LiveJournal posts. During his visit to the United States, the Russian artist donated paintings to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. Subsequently, before they got into private collection in Pennsylvania, the paintings were repeatedly exhibited in the USA. From 1961 to 1964 they were exhibited at the White House. The initiator of the exhibition was J.F. Kennedy's wife, Jacqueline. She ordered the paintings to be hung in the room where the American president usually held conferences. The First Lady of the United States intended thereby to emphasize the deep sympathies of the Americans for the Russian people, to whom they always came to the aid and whom, by the way, they perceived separately from the government. Thus, in the second half of the twentieth century, Aivazovsky’s painting contributed to the maintenance of a “romantic” image people's Russia.

In turn, the artist himself (Aivazovsky) in 1893 in an interview with the newspaper " The New York Evening Post" tried to soften the negative image of official Russia as a country of violence and tyranny, emphasizing that the Americans distort the meaning of discriminatory policies towards Russian Jews. They, Aivazovsky enlightened US citizens, are not discriminated against ethnic group, but as heavy a burden for Russia as Chinese immigrants are for America.

The magazine "Free Russia" made critical comments about of this interview. The editorial stated: "Of course, art is not best field to fight against tyranny, and we cannot expect from the overwhelming majority of artists even such a mild form of protest against imperialism as is present in Vereshchagin’s paintings. But what seems even more regrettable to us is the fact that artists like Aivazovsky, instead of painting, consider it necessary to speak out in defense of the Tsar and “historical friendship”... Professor Aivazovsky is deeply mistaken if he intends to find among sensible Americans those who advocate the introduction of the law against Chinese immigration, guided by the idea of its similarity to those in force in the Russian Empire".

It is clear that in the light modern events, American assistance to anyone is considered official Russia exclusively in the form of Danaan gifts. However, as we see, this was not always the case.

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One of two paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky dedicated to American aid to starving Russian peasants. The Stars and Stripes and the worship of the hungry peasants are clearly visible on the canvas

At the end of the 19th century, Americans saved Russians from starvation. The memory of this incident is documented in an unusual way- in the paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky

Russians have a short memory: according to opinion polls, they consider the United States enemy No. 1, having forgotten that the United States has repeatedly helped their country. This was the case during both world wars - official Washington was not only an ally, but also helped with loans and various techniques. And shortly before the First World War, ordinary Americans in literally saved the mighty, as it seemed to many then, Russian Empire from hunger.

Even artistic evidence of this has been preserved - paintings drawn by the famous Russian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky.

In April 1892, he watched as American ships loaded with wheat and corn flour arrived at the Baltic ports of Liepaja and Riga. In Russia they were eagerly awaited, since for almost a year the empire had been suffering from famine caused by crop failure.

Aivazovsky wrote two paintings on this topic - Food Distribution and Relief Ship. And he donated both to the Washington Corcoran Gallery. It is unknown whether he witnessed the scene of the arrival of bread from the United States to the Russian village depicted in the first painting. However, the atmosphere of universal gratitude to the American people in that hungry year was much greater than in modern Russia.

If the paintings had remained in the Russian Federation, perhaps the Russians would have retained a sense of gratitude to the Americans.

“Unexpected” disaster

“The autumn of 1890 was dry,” wrote Dmitry Natsky, a lawyer from the Russian city of Yelets, located near Lipetsk, in his memoirs. “Everyone was waiting for rain, they were afraid to sow winter crops in dry soil and, without waiting, they began to sow in the second half of September.” .

Censorship began to erase from newspaper columns the words hunger, hungry, - Prince Vladimir Obolensky, publisher, about the famine of 1891-1892

He goes on to point out that what was sown almost never came up anywhere. After all, the winter had little snow, with the first warmth of spring the snow quickly melted away, and the dry soil was not saturated with moisture. “Until May 25, there was a terrible drought. On the night of the 25th, I heard the babbling of streams outside and was very happy. The next morning it turned out that it was not rain, but snow, it became very cold, and the snow melted only the next day, but it was too late. And the threat of crop failure became real,” Natsky continued to recall. He also pointed out that they ended up harvesting a very poor rye harvest.

Drought was widespread in the European part of Russia. The writer Vladimir Korolenko described this disaster that befell the Nizhny Novgorod province in the following way: “The clergy with prayers passed through the drying fields every now and then, icons were raised, and clouds stretched across the hot sky, waterless and stingy. From the Nizhny Novgorod mountains the lights and smoke of fires were constantly visible in the Volga region. The forests were burning all summer, catching fire on their own.”

However, Vyshnegradsky said: “We won’t eat it ourselves, but will export it.” The export of grain continued throughout the summer months. That year, Russia sold almost 3.5 million tons of bread.

The following year, when famine was already raging in the empire, the Russians sold even more grain to Europe - 6.6 million tons.

Meanwhile, the Americans, having heard about the enormous famine in Russia, collected bread for the starving. Not knowing that grain traders' warehouses are filled with export wheat.

It was not only traders who ignored the famine; at first the authorities did not recognize that there was a real disaster in the country. Prince Vladimir Obolensky, a Russian philanthropist and publisher, wrote about this: “Censorship began to erase the words hunger, hungry, starving from newspaper columns. Correspondence that was prohibited in newspapers was passed around in the form of illegal leaflets, private letters from the starving provinces were carefully copied and distributed.”

Remember the good

A week later, without receiving any response, the publisher sent a letter with the same content. The embassy responded a week later: “The Russian government accepts your proposal with gratitude.”

Sociologist Vladimir Pokrovsky estimated that at least 400 thousand people died due to famine by the summer of 1892

That same day, Northwestern Miller issued a fiery appeal. “There is so much grain and flour in our country that this food is about to paralyze the transport system. We have so much wheat that we won't be able to eat it all. At the same time, the most mangy dogs roaming the streets of American cities eat better than Russian peasants.”

Edgar sent letters to 5 thousand grain traders in the eastern states. He reminded his fellow citizens that at one time Russia helped the United States a lot. In 1862-63, during the Civil War, a distant empire sent two military squadrons to the American coast. Then there was a real threat that British and French troops would come to the aid of the slave-owning south, with which the industrial one was at war. Russian ships then stood in American waters for seven months - and Paris and London did not dare to get involved in a conflict with Russia as well. This helped the northern states win that war.

Another Western illustration depicting what would be repeated in Ukraine in the 1930s - Cossacks riding through a Russian village in search of grain, Maxim Dmitriev, DR

Almost everyone to whom he sent letters responded to William Edgar's call. The fundraising movement for Russia has spread throughout the United States. The New York Symphony Orchestra gave benefit concerts. Opera performers picked up the baton. As a result, the artists alone raised $77 thousand for the distant empire.

The Americans spent three months delivering humanitarian flour. Already on March 12, 1892, the steamships Missouri and Nebraska set off for Russia with a cargo of aid. Edgar himself swam to Berlin, and traveled to St. Petersburg by train. At the border he suffered his first shock. “The Russian customs officers were so strict that I felt like a rat in a trap,” wrote the traveler. Edgar was struck by the Russian capital - its luxury did not really correspond to the starving country. Moreover, they greeted him according to local tradition with bread and salt in a silver salt shaker.

Then the American philanthropist traveled through famine-stricken regions. It was there that he saw the real Russia. “In one village I watched a woman prepare dinner for her family. Some kind of green herb was boiled in a pot, to which the hostess threw in a couple of handfuls of flour and added half a glass of milk,” Edgar later wrote in his journal.

He was also struck by the scenes of the distribution of humanitarian aid he had brought. One distribution official allowed hungry peasants to take as much as they could carry. “Exhausted people shouldered a sack of flour and, barely moving their legs, dragged it to their families,” Edgar reported.

Ashes of history

The Americans greatly eased the lives of starving regions and in return received sincere gratitude from the main recipients of assistance - ordinary peasants. This impressed Aivazovsky, who wrote two paintings about American aid at once.

But the famine, as well as the marine painter’s paintings taken to Washington, were soon forgotten in Russia. As, indeed, about the movement started by William Edgar.

Only in 1962 did American newspapers begin to write about all this. Then the USA and the USSR found themselves on the brink of nuclear war due to the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba. And the Americans tried to find common ground in the past.

US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy borrowed Aivazovsky's paintings from the Corcoran Gallery for a conference room in the White House. Against their background, the president and his press secretaries made statements on the progress of clarifying relations with Moscow. Aivazovsky’s canvases, according to the American side, were reminiscent of past fraternal feelings between the two peoples.

The historical paintings were sold at Sotheby’s auction for $2.4 million in 2008. The buyers, private individuals, are unknown.

There were pages in Russian history that she carefully tried to hide. However, as they say, you can’t remove the words from a song... It so happened historically that the Russian people often and heavily had to starve, and not because there were not enough supplies of bread, but because its rulers and those in power for the sake of their own profit, Having fleeced the people to the skin, they decided only on their own financial interests. One of these forbidden pages of history was the famine that gripped the south and Volga region of the country in 1891-92. And as a result - humanitarian aid collected by the American people and sent to Russia by five ships for the starving population.

“Unexpected” disaster in Russia

No matter how political scientists tried to blame the cause of the famine of 1891-92 on unfavorable weather conditions, the main problem was the state’s grain policy. Replenishing the treasury with agricultural resources, Russia annually exported wheat. Thus, in the first year of famine, 3.5 million tons of bread were exported from the country. The following year, when famine and epidemic were already raging in the empire, the Russian government and entrepreneurs sold 6.6 million tons of grain to Europe, which was almost twice as much previous year. These facts are simply shocking. And what was absolutely terrifying was that the emperor categorically denied the existence of famine in Russia.

And this was said at a time when people were dying out in villages.

The situation in the country was catastrophic, and this terrible news spread across Europe and reached America. The American public, led by William Edgar, editor of the weekly North Western Miller, offered humanitarian aid to Russia. However, the emperor delayed with permission and only after a while did he allow the starving Russian people to be fed.

Leo Tolstoy described the situation in the villages at that time: “People and livestock are really dying. But they do not writhe in the squares in tragic convulsions, but quietly, with a weak groan, they get sick and die in the huts and courtyards... Before our eyes, a continuous process of impoverishment of the rich, impoverishment of the poor and destruction of the poor is taking place... In moral terms, a decline is taking place spirit and the development of all the worst qualities of a person: theft, anger, envy, begging and irritation, supported especially by measures prohibiting resettlement... The healthy weaken, the weak, especially the elderly, children die painfully prematurely in need.”.

Collection of humanitarian aid for starving Russians by Americans

This movement was organized and supervised by philanthropist W. Edgar, who in the summer of 1891 published the first articles in his magazine that spoke about the outbreak of famine in Russia. In addition, he sent out about 5 thousand letters to grain traders in the northern states asking for help.

And also in the means mass media Edgar reminded his fellow citizens that during the Civil War of 1862–63 Russian fleet provided invaluable assistance to their country. Then distant Russia sent two military squadrons to the shores of America. At that time, there really was a real threat from England and France, who could come to the aid of the Southerners at any moment. However, the Russian flotilla stood off the American coast for about seven months - and the British and French did not dare to get involved in the conflict with Russia. This helped the Northerners win the civil war.

The appeals of the American activist found a response in the hearts of his fellow citizens, and donations began to be collected everywhere. The work was carried out unofficially and on a voluntary basis, since the American government did not approve of the gesture of friendly assistance, but it also could not prohibit it.

After all, there has always been both an ideological and political-economic struggle between the superpowers. In addition, increased competition on the world grain market has had an impact. Surprisingly, despite the raging famine in the country, Russian tycoons continued to export grain, and this specifically affected America's financial interests.

But be that as it may, ordinary Americans were not cooled by the negative attitude of their government and the philanthropic movement under the slogan: “This is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of humanity” gained new round. America, as they say, collected humanitarian bread from the whole world for the starving Russians. These were representatives of all strata American society: "farmers and millers, bankers and religious leaders, owners of railway and shipping lines, telegraph companies, newspapers and magazines, statesmen, students and teachers of higher and secondary educational institutions, journalists, workers and employees."

However, ordinary Americans, who were collecting food bit by bit, could not know then that warehouses with export grain in Russia were filled to capacity and the grain was being prepared for shipment to European markets.

Arrival of humanitarian cargo in Russia

Three northern states and the Red Cross society transported humanitarian aid to American ports for several months, and by the end of winter, the first two ships, loaded with flour and grain, set off for distant Russia.

And already in the early spring of 1892, ships with valuable cargo arrived at the Baltic port. The organizer of the food collection, William Edgar, went to Russia on one of the ships. He had to go through a lot and see with his own eyes: the pomp of northern capital and hunger in the provinces, and unfair distribution of aid, and the godless theft of American food even in the ports. The American's surprise and indignation knew no bounds.

But be that as it may, from the beginning of spring to mid-summer, five ships arrived in Russia with humanitarian cargo with a total weight of more than 10 thousand tons, which was estimated at a total of $1 million.

Although in the near future the Russian government tried to completely forget about this gesture of fraternal assistance.

Aivazovsky - an eyewitness to a historical event

No matter how Russian politicians try to belittle and cover with oblivion the fact of friendly assistance from one people to another, there are still many documents and unusual artistic evidence captured on the canvases of eyewitness artists.

Relief ship" and "Food distribution".

Distribution of Food", where we see a rushing Russian troika loaded with food. And on it is a peasant proudly waving an American flag. Village residents wave scarves and hats in response, and some, falling into the roadside dust, pray to God and praise America for its help. We We see the extraordinary joy, delight and impatience of hungry people.

Paintings painted by Aivazovsky were strictly prohibited from being shown to the public in Russia. The emperor was irritated by the mood of the people, transmitted to artistic canvases. They also served as a reminder of his worthlessness and insolvency, which plunged the country into the abyss of famine.

Aivazovsky in America

At the turn of 1892-1893, Aivazovsky went to America and took with him those he disliked. Russian authorities paintings. During this visit, the painter presented his works as a sign of gratitude for Russia's assistance as a gift to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. From 1961 to 1964, these paintings were exhibited at the White House on the initiative of Jacqueline Kennedy. And in 1979 they ended up in a private collection in Pennsylvania and long years were not viewable. And in 2008, at Sotheby’s auction, both historical paintings Aivazovsky were sold for $2.4 million to one of the patrons, who immediately transferred them to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington.

To all of the above, I would like to add that these paintings, painted by the artist in 1892, were not allowed for viewing in modern Russia. And who knows, if Aivazovsky’s paintings had remained in Russia then, perhaps the Russians would have retained a sense of friendly gratitude to the Americans.

Russians have a short memory: according to opinion polls, they consider the United States enemy No. 1, having forgotten that the United States has repeatedly helped their country. This was the case during both world wars - official Washington was not only an ally, but also helped with loans and various equipment. And shortly before the First World War, ordinary Americans literally saved the mighty, as it seemed to many then, Russian Empire from famine.

Even artistic evidence of this has been preserved - paintings drawn by the famous Russian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky.

A crumbling hut of a starving Tatar peasant in one of the villages of the Nizhny Novgorod province (photo from 1891-1892) Photo: Maxim Dmitriev, DR

Aivazovsky wrote two paintings on this topic - Food Distribution and Relief Ship. And he donated both to the Washington Corcoran Gallery. It is unknown whether he witnessed the scene of the arrival of bread from the United States to the Russian village depicted in the first painting. However, the atmosphere of universal gratitude to the American people in that hungry year was much greater than in modern Russia.

If the paintings had remained in the Russian Federation, perhaps the Russians would have retained a sense of gratitude to the Americans.

“Unexpected” disaster

Censorship began to erase from newspaper columns the words hunger, hungry, - Prince Vladimir Obolensky, publisher, about the famine of 1891-1892

Western illustration - hungry peasants crowd in search of food in St. Petersburg, DR

The following year, when famine was already raging in the empire, the Russians sold even more grain to Europe - 6.6 million tons.

People's canteen in one of the villages affected by famine / Photo: Maxim Dmitriev, DR

Meanwhile, the Americans, having heard about the enormous famine in Russia, collected bread for the starving. Not knowing that grain traders' warehouses are filled with export wheat.

Remember the good

A week later, without receiving any response, the publisher sent a letter with the same content. The embassy responded a week later: “The Russian government accepts your proposal with gratitude.”

Sociologist Vladimir Pokrovsky estimated that at least 400 thousand people died due to famine by the summer of 1892

Edgar sent letters to 5 thousand grain traders in the eastern states. He reminded his fellow citizens that at one time Russia helped the United States a lot. In 1862–63, during the Civil War, the distant empire sent two military squadrons to the American coast. Then there was a real threat that British and French troops would come to the aid of the slave-owning south, with which the industrial one was at war. Russian ships then stood in American waters for seven months - and Paris and London did not dare to get involved in a conflict with Russia as well. This helped the northern states win that war.

Another Western illustration depicting what would be repeated in Ukraine in the 1930s - Cossacks riding through a Russian village in search of grain, Maxim Dmitriev, DR

Ashes of history

But the famine, as well as the marine painter’s paintings taken to Washington, were soon forgotten in Russia. As, indeed, about the movement started by William Edgar.

The historical paintings were sold at Sotheby’s auction for $2.4 million in 2008. The buyers, private individuals, are unknown.