Abstract | Among the numerous ego-documents, which were written by foreigners about Russia in the epoch of the Civil War, the reminiscences on the dramatic events in the Ural and Siberia holds a unique place. А travelogue of the Irish journalist Francis McCullagh (1874–1956), «A Prisoner of the Reds: the Story of a British Officer Captured in Siberia» (1921), who visited Russia as a member of Knox’s British military mission, has been an important evidence of political events in Ural in the first half of 1920. Nevertheless, McCullagh was watching the Civil War as a war journalist. He judged events in Russia through the prism of his personal religious and political beliefs. He was detained by the Bolsheviks in January 1920 in Krasnoyarsk, along with a group of British officers. However, McCullagh managed to conceal the reasons for his stay in Siberia and passed himself off as a journalist. This allowed him to travel by train from the East to the West toward the Finnish border to leave the country safely. In Siberia and Ural, he traveled through Novo-Nikolayevsk, Omsk, and Yekaterinburg. After reaching Moscow, McCullagh was arrested by the Cheka in April 1920 and spent several days in the Lubyanka prison. In May 1920 the journalist was finally able to leave Russia and return to London.
The memoirs of McCullagh are of interest for several reasons. Firstly, the book was written as a response to the tendentious portrayal of Bolshevism in Anglo-American journalism, although the author himself was not a supporter of the Communism. Secondly, McCullagh's religious nonconformism, his strong anti-Anglicanism sentiment, defined his perception of the Bolsheviks. He repeatedly compares the anti-religious policies of the Bolsheviks and anti-Catholic propaganda in the Great Britain. Thirdly, McCullagh's publications and speeches in the Anglo-American press were important evidence in favor of the version of the violent death of the Royal family at the hands of the Bolsheviks. The journalist believed that the tragic events were the initiative of the local Bolsheviks. During his stay in Ekaterinburg, he conducted his own investigation of the causes of the death of the Imperial family. Fourth, a significant part of the book is devoted to Yekaterinburg, the city where McCullagh stayed three times in 1918-1920. Besides describing the daily life of Yekaterinburg, McCullagh explains the reasons of the Kolchak army defeat in the Urals. |