The Russian emigration as socio—cultural phenomenon

Abstract

The author makes an attempt at clearing up the peculiarities of social, cultural and political development of the Russian emigration in the first half of the XX century as a consequence of the Russian revolution of 1917.
The article is based on the materials and sources of the Russian and foreign archives, first of all, the statistical data of Zemgor - the special Russian organisation for the assistance to the Russian political refugees after the bolshevist revolution.
During the War the Zemgor (the Union of Zemstves and Towns) assisted civilians behind the front lines and on their evacuation from the regions of military operations. After 1918 the Zemgor reconstituted itself in Paris, with executive offices in Prague and other major centres of the emigration and resumed its work by aiding emigrants, particularly in matters of education, employment, social guarantees, material and medical help.
The original social, cultural, educational, political and economic conditions of emigration were as diverse as that of the population in the Russian Empire. The russian emigration was not homogeneous in its religious, ethnic, educational and economic makeup: the major religions, political parties and cultural strata of the Russian Empire were represented and continued their activities and the most numerous ethnic minorities also had representatives in exile.
Geographically russian emigration was not homogeneous also. The most representative part of the emigration distributed in Western Europe (France, Germany, Belgium). Another part of the emigration concentrated in Slavic countries (Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia) and frontier states (Poland, the Baltic states, Romania).
A comparative analysis of the different centres of the Russian emigration discovered a degree of assimilation of the different groups of the refugees in unequal social and national conditions.
The author of the article presents statistical data and empirical evidences for the analysis of the typical trends and peculiarities of the russian emigration in general as the important social and cultural phenomenon of our century.