Formation of Jomo Kenyatta as a Politician. The First Years of the Presidency

The purpose of the article is to trace the formation of Jomo Kenyatta as a politician who led the anti-colonial struggle in Kenya, to identify the problems he faced during this struggle, as well as methods of solving them, to analyze the social and political activities of the African leader as President of Kenya, the reasons for the emergence of opposition within the country, as well as foreign policy activities. Considering that the factual part of Kenyatta’s biography has been fairly well studied, the author simultaneously set the task of comparing the approaches of Russian and foreign (mainly British) researchers in assessing his activities in different years. The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that in many countries of the African continent the memory of the leaders of the period of liberation is still an important instrument of national solidarity. This fully applies to Kenya, where Jomo Kenyatta, in the memory of all segments of the population, is still the “father of the nation”, one of the symbols uniting the people of Kenya, despite the fact that his role in the life of the country is assessed ambiguously.