International Committee Of The Red Cross: Supporting, Protecting, And Providing Medical Care To Russian Emigrants In The 1920s-1930s

Abstract

The Russian Red Cross Society was abolished in Soviet Russia in January 1918, but the Soviet Red Cross was created only in 1923. Part of the Russian Red Cross Society (RRCS) staff was able to emigrate and continue its activities abroad, aimed at helping and supporting Russian emigration. The article investigates the role of the RRCS in emigration; analyzes the number of people who had received assistance, including medical aid; and states, in which European countries the RRCS was most active. The chapters of the International Red Cross rendered prodigious assistance to the Russian emigration: in particular, the American Red Cross financed a sanitarium for emigrants with tuberculosis, and provided assistance to an orphanage in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak Red Cross, both directly and through the structures of the so-called Committee of Zemstvos and Towns for Assistance to Russian Citizens Abroad (Zemgor), participated in supporting emigration: it financed the stay of students in sanitariums and hospitals, and allocated funds for the functioning of the division of medical assistance at the Zemgor. Despite the fact that the Czechoslovak Red Cross was formed just in 1919, on account of the active actions of its chairman, Alice Masaryk (the daughter of the Czechoslovak President), it was able to attract financial resources and organize assistance to people, including Russian emigrants.