M. Thatcher and R. Reagan in their contemporaries’ memoires: political portraits

Abstract

This article is devoted to the political portraits created exclusively on the literary memories. Outstanding personalities of both M. Thatcher and R. Reagan are shown as their contemporaries saw them. Different politicians’ and diplomats’ memories are the valuable historic source and they enable us to feel and understand the very essence of their political activity period. The comparative analysis of the literary memories reveals us the factors, which influenced the formation of these political figures, shaped their political style, their approaches to the internal and foreign policy decisions. The aim of the article is to give the political portrait of Thatcher and Reagan through the prism of analysis of memoir literature. Tasks is been: 1) analysis of factors, having influence on becoming of them as politicians and making of their political style; 2) research of reasons, having influence on forming and realization of hard foreign policy in the first half 80th; 3) study of circumstances resulting in the evolution of their foreign-policy looks and approaches in the second half 80th. Thatcher and Reagan as politicians were formed in the conditions of «cold war». Getting in large politics and conducting a course on confrontation with Soviet Union, they assisted its strengthening. In the bipolar era such approach could not be nothing either but a threat to the world.