Crossing Borders: Displacement and Refugees in Soviet History

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Recent scholarship on the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (e.g. Siegelbaum & Moch, 2014) has brought to the fore the central role played by population movements of various kinds. This roundtable focuses on group of people ‘on the move’ within and across the borders of the Soviet Union - refugees. The presentations engage with the causes of displacement, the solutions which have been envisaged and the experiences of the displaced. A roundtable format allows us to bring themes and perspectives from a variety of regions and periods into dialogue. Presentations will address the following themes:

- The contribution of refugee studies to the history of population displacement in 20th century Russia
- Soviet defectors as a subset of refugees and the rise of defection as a paradigm for understanding and regulating movement across the borders of the Cold War world
- Population exchange at the Soviet/Polish border in the aftermath of the Second World War and the adjustment of populations to new border regimes
- Refugee resettlement and the construction of Soviet states in the South Caucasus after the First World War.

These presentations are a starting point for a wider discussion of the ways that refugee histories may nuance existing narratives of Soviet history. They also provide an opportunity connect the Soviet Union to global histories of displacement and ‘refugeedom’ and consider how paying closer attention to this case may challenge or inform existing historiographies.

Sub Unit

• History: Russian and Eurasian, since 1924

Chair

• Philippa Hetherington, U College London (UK)

Roundtable Members

• Peter Gatrell, U of Manchester (UK)

• Catherine Marie Gousseff, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)

• Jo Laycock, U of Manchester (UK)

• Erik R. Scott, U of Kansas