Relief Provided by International Organizations to Academic Community of Soviet Ukraine during the Famine of 1921-23

Abstract

International organizations, such as the American Relief Administration (ARA), the Joint, the Nansen Mission, etc., played an important role in overcoming the famine of 1921-23. A separate area of relief was the support of students and professors, who were cared for by the European Student Relief and the American Section of the European Student Relief. Help was provided through the mediation of the Nansen Mission and the ARA, and the latter played a key role because of its extensive logistical network and the largest financial resources. In the Ukrainian SSR, that organization assisted the academic communities of Odesa, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Ekaterinoslav, where the majority of higher education institutions were located. The organizations established canteens for students, and in Odesa, there was also a separate canteen for professors. At the same time, the assistance, which lasted until 1925, was not limited to food, clothing, and medical care, but it was much broader, under the specifics of the intellectual stratum: provision of stationery, teaching aids, sports equipment, laboratory instruments and equipment, sending of scientific literature and subscribing to periodicals, establishing contacts with foreign colleagues and publishing the research works in European journals.