Broad is My Native Land: Repertoires and Regimes of Migration in Russia's Twentieth Century

by Leslie Page Moch (Author), Lewis H. Siegelbaum (Author)

New
Paperback
2014
$53.71

Whether voluntary or coerced, hopeful or desperate, people moved in unprecedented numbers across Russia's vast territory during the twentieth century. Broad Is My Native Land is the first history of late imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia through the lens of migration. Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Leslie Page Moch tell the stories of Russians on the move, capturing the rich variety of their experiences by distinguishing among categories of migrants-settlers, seasonal workers, migrants to the city, career and military migrants, evacuees and refugees, deportees, and itinerants. So vast and diverse was Russian political space that in their journeys, migrants often crossed multiple cultural, linguistic, and administrative borders. By comparing the institutions and experiences of migration across the century and placing Russia in an international context, Siegelbaum and Moch have made a magisterial contribution to both the history of Russia and the study of global migration.The authors draw on three kinds of sources: letters to authorities (typically appeals for assistance); the myriad forms employed in communication about the provision of transportation, food, accommodation, and employment for migrants; and interviews with and memoirs by people who moved or were moved, often under the most harrowing of circumstances. Taken together, these sources reveal the complex relationship between the regimes of state control that sought to regulate internal movement and the tactical repertoires employed by the migrants themselves in their often successful attempts to manipulate, resist, and survive these official directives.

Synopsis

Whether voluntary or coerced, hopeful or desperate, people moved in unprecedented numbers across Russia's vast territory during the twentieth century. Broad Is My Native Land is the first history of late imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia through the lens of migration. Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Leslie Page Moch tell the stories of Russians on the move, capturing the rich variety of their experiences by distinguishing among categories of migrants-settlers, seasonal workers, migrants to the city, career and military migrants, evacuees and refugees, deportees, and itinerants. So vast and diverse was Russian political space that in their journeys, migrants often crossed multiple cultural, linguistic, and administrative borders. By comparing the institutions and experiences of migration across the century and placing Russia in an international context, Siegelbaum and Moch have made a magisterial contribution to both the history of Russia and the study of global migration.The authors draw on three kinds of sources: letters to authorities (typically appeals for assistance); the myriad forms employed in communication about the provision of transportation, food, accommodation, and employment for migrants; and interviews with and memoirs by people who moved or were moved, often under the most harrowing of circumstances. Taken together, these sources reveal the complex relationship between the regimes of state control that sought to regulate internal movement and the tactical repertoires employed by the migrants themselves in their often successful attempts to manipulate, resist, and survive these official directives.

$53.71

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 440
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 13 Nov 2014
ISBN 10: 0801479991
ISBN 13: 9780801479991

Media Reviews

The main merit of this work lies in its systematic approach, which allows authors to reveal the central place of migration in the history of Russia in the twentieth century. At the same time it greatly complements existing work on migration in Russia, dedicated primarily deportations, exile and other forms of forced migration.

-- Gijs Kessler * Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research *

Siegelbaum and Moch argue that, in reality, throughout three distinct periods in Russian history-the late imperial era, the Soviet years, and today-the phenomenon has been far more complex. The authors address what all this movement meant to these different groups and to society at large, offering insights into a little-understood aspect of Russian history.

-- Robert Legvold * Foreign Affairs *

The work is chronologically ambitious-spanning the entire twentiethcentury and covering three different political systems-and thematically comprehensive.... Most importantly, by bringing a plethora of life stories into what could easily have been a dry, state-centric narrative, [the authors] provide a deeply human history of migration-the lives that it made, the lives that it changed, and the lives that it destroyed.

-- Ian W. Campbell * The Journal of Interdisciplinary History *

This major work shows both the diversity and significance of migrations in twentieth-century Russia. A thought-provoking read, the book is recommended to all students and scholars of modern Russian history.

-- Denis Kozlov * Slavic Review *

By linking migration firmly to the Russian state and society, Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Leslie Page Moch show that the migration angle is perfectly suited to deeply understanding Russian history of the twentieth century, thus offering a new and surprising perspective that stresses both continuities and changes over time. Broad Is My Native Land is a major contribution to the fields of global migration history and Russian history. The combination of the vast expertise of these two top scholars has resulted in a very well-written, well-structured, innovative, and thorough narrative that has major repercussions for how we conceive of mobility, migration, and state formation.

-- Leo Lucassen, Leiden University, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University, and author of The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850

Broad is My Native Land will not only be an indispensable read within the field of Russian, East European and Eurasian history, it will also be of great value to scholars outside the field who are interested in the causes, effects and experiences of human mobility. The book opens up new and exciting avenues of research, which could, for example, connect migration studies more closely to discussions on everyday subjectivity and identity-formation in the Soviet Union, or link them to debates on how space and the natural environment influence the human experience-and how individuals in turn transform abstract space into a place inherent with values.

-- Franziska Exeler, University of Cambridge/Freie Universitat Berlin, H-Soz-Kult

Author Bio

Lewis H. Siegelbaum is Jack and Margaret Sweet Professor of History at Michigan State University. He is the author of Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile and the editor of The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc, both from Cornell. Leslie Page Moch is Professor of History at Michigan State University. She is the author of books including The Pariahs of Yesterday: Breton Migrants in Paris and Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe since 1650.