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From Russia with love: medical modernities, development dreams, and Cold War legacies in Kenya, 1969 and 2015

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Ruth J. Prince
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Abstract

In 1966, a new hospital was being built in western Kenya with Soviet aid. Designed by Soviet architects and planners, with equipment transported from the USSR, it was to be the largest hospital in Kenya. Still referred to today by Kenyans as ‘Russia’, it was the pet project of Oginga Odinga, the central figure of political opposition in postcolonial Kenya, who cultivated friendship with the USSR. Like the training offered to African students at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, the hospital was a gift of the Soviets, a material embodiment of medical modernity, socialist internationalism and Africa's hopeful future. However, it soon became deeply embroiled in Kenya's Cold War politics. This article explores the remains and legacies of these Soviet gifts, tracing their connections to visions of progress and development, decolonization and struggles for political freedom in postcolonial Kenya. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, archival material, newspaper reports and interviews with Kenyans who were educated in the Soviet Union, I trace how, in institutional, bureaucratic, affective and biographical remains, diverging dreams and anticipations of progress and development converged and collided. Russia, like the city of which it forms a part, emerges as a palimpsest: a site of hopes and dreams, violence and disappointment, and the anticipation of futures.

Résumé

Résumé

1966 vit la construction d'un nouvel hôpital dans l'Ouest du Kenya, avec l'aide des Soviétiques. Conçu par des architectes et des planificateurs soviétiques avec des matériaux et des équipements transportés depuis l'URSS, cet hôpital se voulait être le plus grand du Kenya. Appelé encore aujourd'hui « Russia » par les Kenyans, c’était un projet que tenait à cœur Oginga Odinga, figure centrale de l'opposition politique du Kenya postcolonial qui cultivait une amitié avec l'URSS. Tout comme les formations offertes aux étudiants africains à l'université Patrice Lumumba de Moscou, l'hôpital était un cadeau des Soviétiques, une incarnation matérielle de la modernité médicale, de l'internationalisme socialiste et d'une Afrique pleine d'avenir. Or, il fut rapidement profondément mêlé à la politique de Guerre froide du Kenya. Cet article explore les vestiges et l'héritage de ces dons soviétiques en retraçant leurs liens avec des visions de progrès et de développement, la décolonisation et les luttes pour la liberté politique au Kenya postcolonial. S'appuyant sur des travaux ethnographiques de terrain, des documents d'archives, des articles de journaux et des entretiens avec des Kenyans ayant fait leurs études en Union soviétique, l'auteur retrace comment, dans des vestiges institutionnels, bureaucratiques, affectifs et biographiques, des rêves divergents et des anticipations de progrès et de développement ont convergé et sont entrés en conflit. « Russia », tout comme la ville de son implantation, apparaît comme un palimpseste, un lieu d'espoirs et de rêves, de violence et de déception, et d'anticipation de l'avenir.

Type
Dreaming histories
Information
Africa , Volume 90 , Special Issue 1: Beyond realism: Africa's medical dreams , January 2020 , pp. 51 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2020

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