Earlier this year we received a mail from Sergei Nikitin, the former Amnesty International Russia director and Friends House Moscow employee.
Sergei has been studying the Quakers’ relief work in Russia for over 20 years and he came across the Museum’s research on Dorking Quaker, John Rickman. In 1916 Dr John Rickman of Rose Hill joined the Friends’ War Victims’ Relief Committee and was posted to aid starving refugees in Southern Russia who were escaping from the German invasion.
An essay was published in the Russian newspaper Nasha Gazeta on 16th May 2018 about the life of John Rickman. Sergei referenced a document that the Museum had used in our Dorking in 1916 exhibition.
“In the Dorking Museum in England, the home town of John Rickman, one can find at a display a document confirming the trust of the Bolshevik authorities in Quakers. A faded certificate dated May 1918, says: “all government and public institutions and superiors to render proper assistance to Ivan [John] Rickman”. “
John Rickman had married Lydia Lewis in March 1918 on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution. In addition to the Quaker wedding they consciously decided to register their status with the new authorities. Doing this Quakers wanted thereby to demonstrate their recognition of the new authorities of the Bolsheviks, and by this act to get their support, which is very important for work with the local population, for work with refugees.
This certificate, together with the other documents issued by the Buzuluk authorities during Rickman’s life and work in the Buzuluk county, saved the life of the English doctor. In the summer of 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaireswere approaching the city.
John Rickman went to Buzuluk, to the refugee barracks, to find out how the inmates had fared during the siege. He was arrested by the Cossacks who took him to the Czech Army. He was imprisoned in the railway station, which the Czechs were using as their headquarters. From time to time, from the room where he was locked, the Czechs would take out spies and prisoners to shot them right there in the courtyard. John needed to convince the guard that he was an English doctor who had been working in this district for 18 months. The Czechs were convinced there were no Englishmen in Buzuluk County. That’s where his papers came to the rescue. The documents convinced the Czech officers, and the Quaker was released. When the Czechs became more familiar with the English mission, with the work that the Quakers were doing in Buzuluk and the county, they began to help them in every possible way.
After the War, Lydia and John went to work with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, and John became a famous psychoanalyst.
Sergei Nikitin hopes that his article will remind the people of Buzuluk of the good work John Rickman and the other Quakers did during the First World War.
Here the full article by Sergei Nikitin
First published in Russian in Nasha Gazeta on 16 May 2018
Foreigners Ivan and Lydia in Buzuluk by Sergei Nikitin
First published in Russian in Nasha Gazeta on 16 May 2018
“Ivan Richardovich Rickman and Lidia Ivanovna Lewis declared husband and wife”, states the Logbook of the Civil Status Record at the Buzuluk County Council of Peasants’ Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Two Brits – Frank Keddie and Theodore Rigg were witnesses.
It was the first wedding in Buzuluk which was registered by the new Bolshevik authorities of the town in March 1918, and it happened to be the wedding of an Englishman and an American woman. The two were working in the Quaker relief mission, which had been operating in this city since April 1916. The revolution did not frighten the British and American Quakers who came to help refugees and local residents to alleviate the hardships that struck the local population after the outbreak of the World War.
With the outbreak of the war, doctors from local hospitals scattered around the vast county were drafted into the army. But the locals still needed medical help in Buzuluk and the surrounding villages. Quakers called on British doctors to help Russia, which was an ally to Britain during the First World War. As well as the medical care provided for locals, the Quakers were kept busy with the displaced citizens of the Russian Empire who fled from the war in the western part of the country – to the east. The Quakers decided to choose Buzuluk for their relief work, as so many refugees had gathered there. The Americans (six women who arrived in August 1917) and the British Quakers, opened workshops in the area and opened an orphanage for the refugee children in Mogotovo. The Friends managed to provide certified English doctors for hospitals in the county villages and hamlets. In addition to providing medical care, the English doctors taught local staff, in order to carry on their work once the English doctors left.
John Rickman, a young conscientious objector (CO), a British Quaker who received a medical education at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, refused to serve in the army for religious reasons and came to Buzuluk. Here he organized the work of hospital in Andreevka, and then moved to another Quaker hospital in Mogotovo.
It was there, in Mogotovo he met Lydia Lewis, one of the six American Quakers who arrived in in August 1917, on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution. The young couple got married in March 1918, and in addition to the Quaker wedding, they consciously decided to register their status with the new authorities. By doing this Quakers wanted to demonstrate their recognition of the new authorities of the Bolsheviks, to get their support, which was very important for their work with the local population, and for work with refugees.
In the Dorking Museum in England, the home town of John Rickman, one can find a document confirming the trust of the Bolshevik authorities in Quakers. A faded certificate dated May 1918, says: “all government and public institutions and superiors to render proper assistance to Ivan Rickman”.
This certificate, together with the other documents issued by the Buzuluk authorities during Rickman’s life and work in the Buzuluk county, saved the life of the English doctor. In the summer of 1918, Czechoslovak legionnaireswere approaching the city. The first firing was heard for the first time on June 23rd, the Quakers remembered, during a thunderstorm: it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between muttering of the guns and thunder. John and Lydia Rickman, along with another Quaker, Frank Caddy, went to the orphanage, on the far side of the river, in the Transfiguration Monastery, a few miles from the city of Buzuluk. On the bridge they were stopped by the Red Army soldiers who arrested them on suspicion of espionage. The discussion took place between soldiers whether the three should be shot at once or sent back to the city for interrogation. Frank Caddy managed to overhear what was being said, and he managed to insist that they should be sent to the city for the interrogation. The moment was critical, because the fingers of the soldiers were already on the triggers of their guns. In the end, the Quakers were put in a cart, and taken to Buzuluk to the Bolshevik commandant’s office. The secretary of the commandant immediately recognized the detained foreigners, and they were released with no delay. All three returned to the house in Orenburgskaya Street, 27, which served as an office for the Quaker mission in Buzuluk.
The day following, John Rickman went to the refugee barracks — to find out how the inmates had fared during the siege. And then he was arrested again, this time, by the Cossacks. They brought him to the Czechs, who shut the doctor up in the railway station, which they were using as their headquarters. From time to time, from the room where he was locked, the Czechs would take out spies and prisoners to shoot them right there in the courtyard. John Rickman realized that soon they would come after him. He needed to convince the guard that he was an English doctor who had been working in this district for 18 months. To this, the Czech soldier replied that such a statement only reinforced suspicion of Rickman, because they knew for sure that there were no Englishmen in the Buzuluk County. That’s where his papers came to the rescue. John Rickman cautiously kept all the certificates and permits issued by the local authorities, each paper was requesting for “kind assistance.” In response to the suspicions expressed, the Englishman pulled out of his pocket these greasy and soiled pieces of paper with stamps and signatures. The documents convinced the Czech officers, and the Quaker was released. When the Czechs became more familiar with the English mission, with the work that the Quakers were doing in Buzuluk and the county, they began to help them in every possible way.
The civil war that started in Russia in the summer 1918 forced the Quakers to leave Buzuluk and the surrounding area: all the members of the Quaker mission successfully left in the autumn of that year, and they all reached their homes alive and unharmed.
John and Lidia Rickmans left Buzuluk around that time: they went to England by the eastern route, along the Trans-Siberian Railway, and then by sea – to the USA. They had to stay in the Russian city of Irkutsk for several weeks, where they were entertained by the British consul, who was so anti-Bolshevik that the two Quakers, who did not share such sentiments, had a hard time. It was in his house that John and Lydia met with two American engineers, mining specialists who had just arrived from Ekaterinburg. The Americans said that shortly before they left the city, the Russian Tsar and his family had been shot there.
The Rickmans reached Vladivostok on October 1, 1918. Tickets to America had been ordered in advance, and the couple went immediately on arrival to Washington to share the first-hand information on what was happening in Soviet Russia. They expected that they would be listened to at least with some kind of interest, but they were met with formal courtesy, and waved off with annoyance. Throughout their journey to London, the Rickmans faced prejudices as soon as they tried to show the Bolshevik experiment in a positive light.
The Rickmans came to England, and in 1919, John — following the advice of his colleagues went along with Lydia to Vienna, to Freud. John Rickman worked in Vienna with Sigmund Freud, while his wife made contact with the Quaker mission in Vienna. She was a social worker with great experience — and this time she tried to heal wounds in society in the capital of Austria, where she worked with the victims of wars.
John Rickman’s career was brilliant. He became one of the most famous psychoanalysts, his writings and publications are widely known. In addition to his scientific work, John Rickman has written two pamphlets about his work in Russia: “An eyewitness from Russia” and “Common sense and our policy towards Russia.” I must confess that in their stories, speeches and articles written after they had returned from Russia, the Rickmans sounded very much pro-communist.
Their daughter, Lucy Rickman Baruch, who lived in London, also a Quaker, recalled that her parents could talk endlessly about their adventures in Russia, how they travelled on the Trans-Siberian Express, throughout the vast country.
John Rickman died in 1951, leaving behind his scientific legacy. Much to my regret, the memory of his relief work, the work of the Quaker missions in Buzuluk in Russia is not known.
What led the English and the Americans there, was compassion and love to their neighbour. I am so glad that the great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren of those who were treated by Lydia Lewis and John Rickman are alive. It is a shame that my compatriots do not know the names of those who worked in Buzuluk and the district. Of those who literally were saving our people’s lives. That’s why I have written this article and will write more stories on Quaker relief work in Russia in the 20th century. We mustn’t forget the good work that was done.
