“Another Russia: Studies in the History of the Russian Emigration”

Contrary to Georges Danton’s aphorism, “The motherland cannot be carried away with you on boot soles,” the Russian emigrants of the “first wave” (1918-1940) created “another Russia” abroad. The book by Oleg Budnitskii, a historian of Russian emigration, describes this community’s political and social life as they built their lives abroad while plotting a return. One of the book’s subjects is the fate of Russian money abroad: “Kolchak’s gold,” finances of the imperial family and the Petrograd loan treasury (pawnshop) that ended up in the hands of the White General Petr Wrangel and became the source of his army’s financing. Another section examines the emigrants’ search for ways to defeat Bolshevism, from hoping for its evolution or decomposition from within to contemplating terror. The most extensive part of the book is devoted to the history of emigration during World War II. Some anti-communist Russian emigres followed the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” even if the friend was Adolf Hitler. Others believed that the war would fundamentally alter Soviet power for the better and tried reconciling with it. Finally, the book contributes portraits of prominent yet little-studied emigration figures, including diplomats, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and writers.

Oleg Budnitskii is Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Advanced Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at the National Research University –" Higher School of Economics in Moscow. His most recent books (in Russian) include Kolchak’s Gold (2022), Another Russia: Studies in the History of the Russian Emigration (2021), People at War (2021), Terrorism in the Russian Empire (2021), and the edited volume On the Move: Russian Jewish ├âÔÇ░migrés on the Eve and at the Beginning of World War II, 1938-1941 (2020). His book Russian Jews between the Reds and the Whites, 1917–"1920 (2012) is available in English from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Budnitskii serves as editor-in-chief of the annual Archive of Jewish History and is on the editorial board of The Russian Review and East European Jewish Affairs. He is the recipient of various honors and awards, including grants and fellowships from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Fulbright program, MacArthur Foundation, and IREX.

Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies | View More Events
Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies, Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (OWNER)

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