In the March/April issue of the Stanford Magazine the article “Waging a Kinder Cold War” highlights a great effort of humanitarian aid during 1921, when widespread famine threatened millions of lives in Bolshevik Russia. By the summer of 1922, Americans, led by Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, were feeding nearly eleven million Soviet citizens a day in nineteen thousand kitchens. Details of this campaign can be found in the Hoover Institution Library and Archives.
On April 6, the PBS series American Experience will chronicle Hoover’s 1921 campaign against starvation and disease that saved millions of lives in Soviet Russia in the episode titled “The Great Famine.” The film is based on the book The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921, by Hoover Institution research fellow Bertrand Patenaude, who found much of the material for his book in the Hoover Archives.
The Great Famine, written and produced by Austin Hoyt, Emmy Award nominee, will premiere on April 6, 2011, at 7:30 pm at the Lane History Corner, Bldg 200, Room 002, Stanford University. This event is free and open to the public.
