Emigres and Global Russian Identities

A great deal of the scholarship published by emigres in The Russian Review was meant to grapple with the situation in which these emigres found themselves. Uprooted from their native lands and separated from their communities by the destructive trauma of revolution and civil war, many of them strove to process and make sense of their past, their current circumstances, and their future trajectory. Alexander Kerensky, former chairman of the Provisional Government, was a ready source of insight into the shared past of Russian Emigres. In an article titled “Russia on the Eve of World War I,” Kerensky shared his perspective on the social and political developments taking place in the empire after the revolution of 1905. He detailed his opposition to Pyotr Stolypin and his belief that Russia needed to be forcibly pacified before it could be reformed (Kerensky, 12). Kerensky believed this to be a dangerous position, putting Stolypin at odds with both socialist revolutionaries and more moderate democratic liberals. Stolypin’s policies, Kerensky wrote, “showed a fighting spirit, but a lack of political wisdom” working against the will of both the working people and the peasantry (Kerensky, 15). This created an adversarial relationship making some kind of revolution against the imperial state inevitable.

At the same time, Kerensky sought to rehabilitate the memory of the Russian government before the revolution. Writing about his time in the Duma, he emphasizes that the democratic process did bring about numerous reforms and freedoms, but he laments that many of these had been forgotten since the October Revolution. Almost as if he was writing preemptively to his critics, he described this era of Russia as “a federal democratic republic on the basis of radical social reforms" (Kerensky, 29). His account leads up to just before the outbreak of the First World War, which he calls “Russia’s greatest catastrophe" (Kerensky, 10). He portrays himself as a statesman working to bring about basic and necessary reforms to a political system until that catastrophe “brutally interrupted” Russia’s advancement, creating “a new political atmosphere” that led to state collapse, fragmentation, and revolution (Kerensky, 30).

This collapse and fragmentation seem like a fundamental and natural component of the life cycle of empire, according to George Fedotov. In “The Fate of Empires,” Fedotov examined the nature of empire as understood by the intellectuals of the late Imperial period, defining empire as “representing the subjugation of nations by force" (Fedotov, 84). Fedotov wrote with interest about how Russian intellectuals opposed imperialism, but were slowly taken in by the rhetoric of the empire and the imperial project of expansion and incorporation of neighboring nations. Thinking themselves to be civilized and refined, these men “were indignant at the forcible Russification or compulsory baptism of alien ethnic groups,” but their true objection was only to the more distasteful methods used; the actual ends of the project – expanding the empire’s power and influence – was generally accepted as good (Fedotov, 85)

The modular structure of empire, Fedotov argues, is the cause of its fragility. When the power structures of an empire become weak, its constituent nations demand independence. He tracks the development of nationalist movements in Poland, Ukraine, and other regions of the Russian Empire, describing how collapse led to their independence movements. Looking forward, he ultimately predicts that, in the event of war between the USSR and the West, Russia’s defeat “would result… in the uprising of all her nationalities against Moscow" (Fedotov, 92). The victorious Western powers would even insist on it, he predicts, dividing Russia up, though he hopes they would learn from the end of the German and Austo-Hungarian empires, doing so in a way that prevented nationalism, fascism, and other extremist ideologies from taking hold in the wake of Soviet defeat. Where Kerensky tries to elucidate the circumstances of the collapse of the Russian Empire, Fedotov explains its mechanism, and speculates that the same mechanism may take hold within Russia again in the future. He hopes that if this should happen, that Russia “would be able to devote herself to her inner problems – to the building up of a free social democracy,” though he is far from certain (Fedotov, 94).

Other emigre writers also hoped to find both a place for Russia, and for Russians, in the post-Second World War world. Nicholas Berdyaev, in his article “Russia and the New World Era,” argues that the world is entering a new epoch, one that is defined by the West’s fear of both Communism and of a powerful resurgent Russian Empire. In trying to determine Russia’s place in this new world era, Berdyaev is clear that he is including within his definition of “Russia” both the Soviet Russia and what he calls “eternal Russia,” a sort of platonic ideal of Russia and Russianness which is carried within the emigre community (Berdyaev, 3). This “New World Era” is characterized by three major developments. The first is the increase of humanity’s power over nature through science and technology. Second is that the broad popular masses have taken a much more active role in the political and historical paths of their nations. Third, Berdyaev writes, the new epoch has shown that humanity’s spiritual growth has not kept pace with the changes in human life. This, he claims, leaves people open to radicalization in this or that direction, citing the militant atheism of the early years of the Revolution. Berdyaev images a new Russian society, resembling the United States, “dominated by technology and the thirst for earthly good,” but, like Fedotov, he insists that, for Eternal Russia’s sake, the will behind that society “should be directed towards the creation of another future,” where social problems will be solved equitably, and the Russian people will stay true to their spiritual nature (Berdyaev, 14).

In a later article, Fedotov also attempts to explore that nature. In “The Russian,” he asks what it means to be Russian, settling on two “national types.” One is the young idealist, fiercely devoted to truth, art, and changing the world for the better. The other is characterized by “profound calm, taciturnity, on the surface even apathy” (Fedotov, 6). Fedotov does not assign any kind of moral value or judgment to either archetype; as he explains, both kinds of Russian have the capacity for both kindness and cruelty. He describes other dichotomies as well. These include the wandering European-Russian and the Russian who is tied to the Russian soil. One Russian archetype might appear inactive, indolent, or even lazy, but when put under extreme pressure he “is capable of making up in a few days for months of idleness.” Conversely, a Russian can be doggedly industrious, steadily working with unrestrained and intense passion; “without this ruthless and strong-willed type the creation of the Empire… would have been unthinkable” (Fedotov, 7). The first type willingly submits to the leadership of the elite, but rarely respects them. It is a strange system which, to Fedotov, perfectly embodies the contradictions at the heart of Russianness.

Fedotov writes that he does not know the future of the Russian; how Russians will continue to connect to their history and homeland, how they will connect with each other, and how they will continue to fit into a world that slowly forgets them more and more each year. What “Russianness” meant constantly evolved within the Russian diaspora as writers and scholars, separated from their homes, grappled with their circumstances. 

1. Bill, Valentine Tschebotarioff. “Faith and Reason in Russian History.” The Russian Review 13, no. 3 (1954): 186–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/125970.

2. Bill, Valentine Tschebotarioff. “National Feudalism in Muscovy.” The Russian Review 9, no. 3 (1950): 209–18. https://doi.org/10.2307/125765.
3. Bogoslovsky, Boris B. “The Genius of the Russian Language.” The Russian Review 4, no. 1 (1944): 18–29.
4. Fedotov, G. P. “The Religious Sources of Russian Populism.” The Russian Review 1, no. 2 (1942): 27–39.
5. Florinsky, Michael. “Russian Social and Political Thought, 1825-1855.” The Russian Review 6, no. 2 (1947): 77–85.
6. Guins, George C. “Russia’s Prize in Manchuria.” The Russian Review 6, no. 1 (1946): 43–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/125384.
7. Ivanov-Razumnik, R. V. “After Twenty Years: I.” The Russian Review 10, no. 2 (1951): 146–54. https://doi.org/10.2307/126064.
8. Karpovich, Michael. “Church and State in Russian History.” The Russian Review 3, no. 2 (1944): 10–20.
9. Maklakov, V. “The Agrarian Problem in Russia before the Revolution.” The Russian Review 9, no. 1 (1950): 3–15.
10. Mazour, Anatole G. “The Russian Ambassador in France 1789-1792.” The Russian Review 1, no. 2 (1942): 86–93.
11. Pritsak, Omeljan. “The Origin of Rus’.” The Russian Review 36, no. 3 (1977): 249–73. https://doi.org/10.2307/128848.
12. Raeff, Marc. “Some Reflections on Russian Liberalism.” The Russian Review 18, no. 3 (1959): 218–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/126298.
13. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. “‘Nationality’ in the State Ideology during the Reign of Nicholas I.” The Russian Review 19, no. 1 (1960): 38–46. Riasanovsky, N. “The Norman Theory of the Origin of the Russian State.” The Russian Review 7, no. 1 (1947): 96–110.
14. Riasanovsky, N. “The Norman Theory of the Origin of the Russian State.” The Russian Review 7, no. 1 (1947): 96–110.
15. Subtelny, Orest. “Russia and the Ukraine: The Difference That Peter I Made.” The Russian Review 39, no. 1 (1980): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.2307/128548.
16. Tolstoy, Alexandra. “The Russian DPs.” The Russian Review 9, no. 1 (1950): 53–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/125494.
17. Tolstoy, Alexandra. “Tolstoy and the Russian Peasant.” The Russian Review 19, no. 2 (1960): 150–56.
18. Turkevich, Ludmilla B. “Russian Women.” The Russian Review 16, no. 1 (1957): 24–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/126156.
19. Zenkovsky, Serge A. “The Russian Church Schism: Its Background and Repercussions.” The Russian Review 16, no. 4 (1957): 37–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/125748.
20. Zguta, Russell. “Witchcraft and Medicine in Pre-Petrine Russia.” The Russian Review 37, no. 4 (1978): 438–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/128509.

Russian emigres who wrote in The Russian Review were often deeply interested in what was happening in the Soviet Union. From the development of its political system and the internal power struggles, to its victory in the Second World War, and the cultural and artistic trends that rose and fell over time in the Soviet sphere, Russian emigres kept a close eye on how life in their former homeland developed. George C. Guins wrote about the trends of Soviet culture, informing readers that artistic and scientific production had neither stopped nor slowed down in Russia since the Revolution. In fact, it had increased; many times more museums opened, a prolific film industry grew, and the number of universities functioning under the Soviet regime was double what it had been under the tsars. Artistic and scientific production and consumption had only increased with the advent of the Soviet Union.

Of course, Guins notes, that production comes with significant restrictions. Rather than being directed by experts and specialists by virtue of their merit alone, scientific research was now done at the direction only of scientists who were party members. “The acceptance of the principles of Leninism-Stalinism,” Guins informs the reader, “and the inadmissibility of any deviation from them” is a foundational principle which must be observed in Soviet scientific and cultural production (Guins, 26). The Soviets had embraced certain features of the West, such as industrialization and materialism, but Guins argues that Western society still had religion and idealism to balance against this materialism. The Soviets, who have largely rejected religion, did not, therefore any form of idealism, any sense of an idea greater than oneself, for which one would be so devoted as to give one’s life – aside from the Soviet state, of course – had become almost a form of idolatry.

Ultimately, Guins argues, Soviet leaders “regard themselves as the greatest carriers of culture, called upon to reeducate the nations of Western Europe" (Guins, 28). Soviet literature depicted Europe as a place of moral chaos and cultural stagnation, where there were no new ideas being born and no hope for the future of society. Soviet society, by contrast, was seen as inherently superior, a sensibility that could be found in all writings dealing with the relationship between the Soviet Union and other countries. The West was too decadent; the East, too primitive. Soviet culture was seen as a civilizing force in both directions, and, Guins notes, “Soviet” culture effectively meant “Russian” Soviet culture.

As important as Soviet cultural development was to the emigre scholars and readership of The Russian Review, Soviet policy was of equal interest. Belarusian-born Davd J. Dallin, in 1959, explored the system of Soviet-style imperialism, finding that Stalin’s methods had both followed and deviated from the old tsarist model. Under tsarist empire-building, the state sought to maintain a strong land-based empire with one relatively autocratic and consistent political system. Whenever the tsars tried to expand in some new way – for instance, by jumping across the sea to try and secure a foothold in the Mediterranean by taking control of Malta, or by moving across the Pacific to establish a Russian colony in Alaska – it had ended in failure. “Stalin’s experience in Spain in 1936-38,” Dallin writes, “had proved once again that it was impossible for the Soviet Union to attain predominance in far-off lands” (Dallin, 5). His endeavor to secure a Soviet-style satellite in Western Europe did not succeed; in his expansion of Soviet power, Stalin was most successful with neighboring states, which he shared in common with the tsars.

He did deviate from the old tsarist model, however, and even from early Soviet practices, in his decision to not formally incorporate a number of neighboring states like Poland and Czechoslovakia into the Soviet Union. Lenin had sought a single unitary state, leading to all the republics of the Soviet Union being placed under the same political system (Dallin, 6) Lenin believed that any people who had freed themselves of their capitalist oppressors would, automatically, move to join themselves to the Soviet Union. Stalin, on the other hand, said that he thought only those nations which had formerly belonged to the Russian Empire would do so; those nations had never had a state of their own, and so attaching themselves to the apparatus of the Soviet state would be the most reasonable way to achieve unity. Later, when Soviet power extended to Poland, Finland, Hungary, and other states, to annex these states directly, it was believed, would push supporters away by giving the impression of the old imperialist Russia.

This, of course, did not mean that these other states should be allowed to freely make decisions against the will of the USSR; they were still a part of the empire, and another tenet of Soviet-style empire-building was that there could be no socialist state of equal power or influence with the Soviet Union. In other forms of empire-building, such as the British, French, Ottoman, or even the late-imperial Russian style, “a multitude of great sovereign powers competing amongst themselves can and do exist,” but the Soviet model of empire-building could not allow this (Dallin, 8). This is best seen in Stalin’s handling of the Soviet’s relationship with Yugoslavia; while he begrudgingly tolerated their independence, Stalin made sure to prevent their growth into greater stature and influence, both regionally and on the world stage (Dallin, 11).

The Soviet Union exerted its influence in other ways beyond expanding its imperial control. W. W. Kulski explored this in his article “Soviet Diplomatic Techniques.” He started with elucidating Soviet diplomatic objectives, which included “not only the promotion of State interests of Soviet Russia but also the unlimited goal of gradually extending Soviet-like regimes to all countries of the world" (Kulski, 217). This objective, Kulski writes, informs all Soviet diplomacy, which views history as a series of epochs, including the current era. The Soviet ideological framework offers certain advantages, he argues; it encourages objectives to be planned out decades in advance, and trains individuals to take initiative in shaping these events. It also teaches patience, allowing one to wait “for the most appropriate moment for a diplomatic action”; victory is essentially assured, in a Marxist historical sense, so Kulski argues that Soviet diplomats are protected from the discouragement of failure (Kulski, 218).The disadvantage of the Soviet position, however, is the tendency to become too rigid and dogmatic, although Kulski believed that Soviet diplomats had so far been well-trained enough to avoid this, navigating such perils as nuclear fears successfully.

The emigre community was also fascinated by what they identified as a new, post-war exodus out of the Soviet Union. As refugees from that part of the world themselves, it is easy to see why this migration – now of Soviet citizens instead of tsarists, constitutional democrats, republicans, and the like – would interest them. George Fischer contrasted this new emigration with the “White” emigration of Russians who had fled the collapsing Russian Empire some thirty years before in his 1949 article “The New Soviet Emigration.” Intrigued by this new cross-border movement, he identifies four main categories of refugees: Soviet soldiers who had been held as prisoners of war by the German army, Soviet citizens who had been forced laborers throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, Soviet citizens who willingly defected to the German side, and Soviet military and civilian personnel who, at great personal peril, crossed into Western-occupied zones, mainly in Germany and Austria, after the war.

Fischer writes that this migration was partially spurred on by the forced repatriation of many prisoners of war, sent back to the Soviet Union by the Allied forces against their will. People tried desperately to escape this fate in many ways; some burned their Soviet passports and became stateless, while others escaped their POW camps and tried to disappear into the civilian crowds, claiming to be Serbian or Polish or Czech or some other nationality. Others resorted to attempts on their own lives, though in most cases these were thwarted. Many of them had seen how POWs had been treated in the past upon their return to the USSR – Fischer specifically cites the treatment of repatriated POWs from the Russo-Finnish war as an example – which included being rounded in up barbed-wire camps and prisons, considered guilty of aiding or sympathizing with the enemy. Most never returned to their homes. “Many Soviet emigres will admit,” Fischer writes, “that it is definitely this fear of automatic exile upon return to the USSR” that led to their decision to escape (Fischer, 10).

In observing the circumstances and experiences of these Soviet defectors, Fischer notes three trends. First, he is intrigued by “the readiness with which Soviet emigres have fraternized with the old ‘White’ Russian emigres" (Fischer, 13). Where one might have expected disdain and suspicion, he finds none; in its place, a welcoming attitude and an eagerness to communicate and commiserate. The second trend among these Soviet emigres is a turn toward embracing Russian Orthodox religious practices as well as Russian nationalism. Third, he describes the confluence of an absolute aversion to socialism, even the word itself, with the insistence that, if the Soviet Union should ever be deposed, Russia must move forward in a new direction. Echoing the sentiments of earlier emigres as expressed by Berdyaev and Fedotov, these Soviet defectors hoped that a post-Soviet Russia would move in the direction of the West, embracing democracy and rejecting both Soviet and monarchist autocracy.

1. Alexandrova, Vera. “The Soviet Family.” The Russian Review 5, no. 2 (1946): 74–82. https://doi.org/10.2307/125161.
2. Anisimov, O. “The Soviet System of Education.” The Russian Review 9, no. 2 (1950): 87–97. https://doi.org/10.2307/125454.
3. Dallin, David J. “Inside the Red Army.” The Russian Review 3, no. 1 (1943): 23–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/125228.
4. Kalvoda, Josef. “Soviet Agricultural Reform and the Future of the Collective Farms.” The Russian Review 19, no. 4 (1960): 384–95. https://doi.org/10.2307/126478.
5. Katsenelinboigen, Aron. “Conflicting Trends in Soviet Economics in the Post-Stalin Era.” The Russian Review 35, no. 4 (1976): 373–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/128437.
6. Krypton, Constantine. “Secret Religious Organizations in the U.S.S.R.” The Russian Review 14, no. 2 (1955): 121–27. https://doi.org/10.2307/125571.
7. Kulski, W. W. “Soviet Colonialism and Anti-Colonialism.” The Russian Review 18, no. 2 (1959): 113–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/126807.
8. Kurganov, Ivan. “The Problem of Nationality in Soviet Russia.” The Russian Review 10, no. 4 (1951): 253–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/125836.
9. Lossky, N. O. “Reflections on the Origins and Meaning of the Russian Revolution.” The Russian Review 10, no. 4 (1951): 293–300. https://doi.org/10.2307/125839.
10. Mansvetov, Fedor S. “Tannu-Tuva-The Soviet ‘Atom City’?” The Russian Review 6, no. 2 (1947): 9–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/125304.
11. Mohrenschildt, Dimitri von. “Postwar Party Line of the All-Union Communist Party of the U.S.S.R.” The Russian Review 9, no. 3 (1950): 171–78. https://doi.org/10.2307/125761.
12. Nicolaevsky, Boris I. “The New Soviet Campaign against the Peasants.” The Russian Review 10, no. 2 (1951): 81–98. https://doi.org/10.2307/126059.
13. Nikolaieff, A. M. “The February Revolution and the Russian Army.” The Russian Review 6, no. 1 (1946): 17–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/125380.
14. Nikolaieff, A. M. “The Red Army in the Second World War.” The Russian Review 7, no. 1 (1947): 49–60. https://doi.org/10.2307/125332.
15. Sandomirsky, Vera. “Sex in the Soviet Union.” The Russian Review 10, no. 3 (1951): 199–209. https://doi.org/10.2307/125678.
16. Savinkov, Boris, and D. von Mohrenschildt. “Boris Savinkov’s Letter to Felix Dzerzhinsky.” The Russian Review 29, no. 3 (1970): 325–27. https://doi.org/10.2307/127540.
17. Shub, David. “Kamo-the Legendary Old Bolshevik of the Caucasus.” The Russian Review 19, no. 3 (1960): 227–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/126539.
18. Timasheff, N. S. “The Church in the Soviet Union 1917 - 1941.” The Russian Review 1, no. 1 (1941): 20–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/125428.
19. Timasheff, N. S. “Postwar Trends in the U.S.S.R.” The Russian Review 8, no. 3 (1949): 186–200. https://doi.org/10.2307/125118.
20. Tschebotarioff, Gregory P. “The Cossacks and the Revolution of 1917.” The Russian Review 20, no. 3 (1961): 206–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/126399.

The artistic heritage of Russian culture has been lauded across the world for hundreds of years, and it was no less important to the Russian emigre scholars who published in The Russian Review. To them, it was a symbol of what the peoples of the former Russian Empire could contribute to the world, and confirmation that, no matter how the world continued to change, they would have a place in it. Although some feared that Russian cultural contributions would wither and fade into the past as their producers were scattered across the globe, instead they thrived and evolved in new and exciting ways as the years in exile grew into decades. Hélène Iswolsky, in her 1942 article “Twenty-Five Years of Russian Emigre Literature,” brought forward again this debate of “whether Russian culture could continue to develop in exile” (Iswolsky, 61). Uprooted from their homeland, would they merely become conservative forces jealously guarding a disappearing past? Or, she posed, considering the restrictions on cultural and intellectual production in Soviet Russia, would the emigre population be the only place where Russian culture could truly continue to develop? Was it the only place where this cultural development would have the oxygen it needed to survive and not be suffocated by radical and dogmatic ideology?

Iswolsky argued that both outcomes were proving true. Many Russian emigre writers – particularly the old guard, those of what she called the “classical” school of Russian emigre literature – made their homeland and their past lives a major tentpole of their writing. “The memory of Russia,” she wrote, “forms the keynote of the works produced by the older generation” of emigre writers and artists (Iswolsky, 64). Their thoughts seemed to center around it continuously, yearning to return to their homes. Much of their work was tethered to what Iswolsky described as “this resurrection of the past,” the attempt to relive and revive their pre-revolutionary lives and experiences (Iswolsky, 66). At this very same time, however, other Russian emigre writers and artists strove to prove that the Russian soul was not becoming stagnant, listless, unmoored. On the contrary, the literary community was alive and well with vibrant new centers of Russian emigre art and literature rising among emigre communities in Paris, Prague, Berlin, and even the Far East, or, as Iswolsky notes, “in all the important centers of Russian emigration” (Iswolsky, 62). They wrote in new and experimental styles and did “not in any way confirm the assertion that a writer uprooted from his native soil is incapable of creation” (Iswolsky, 72). Iswolsky took the reader through a number of new artistic schools and methods being innovated among the Russian emigre community, showing that, while the old guard was perhaps too attached to a lost age, the rising generation of new artists and writers proved that Russian cultural contributions had not ceased.

Nor had artistic cultural production ceased within the Soviet Union. While many emigre scholars have noted the tremendous restrictions placed on Soviet artists, musicians, and writers, Ludmilla B. Turkevich made clear, in her 1956 article “Soviet Propaganda and the Rebellious Artist,” that clever Soviet producers of culture could still find ways to express themselves by working within and around the Soviet system. She described the incredible importance placed upon art and literature in Soviet culture, how Soviet writers intensified the desire to dedicate oneself to the task of rebuilding and industrializing their country, and how they inspired Soviet scientists and engineers “to push back the frontiers of knowledge and exploit new territories.” The Soviet Union cultivated its artists and writers from every region, from the metropolitan centers of Moscow and Leningrad to Ukraine and the tribal peoples of Siberia, and through them the peoples of the USSR were “shown their kinship to the Russian people and their common interests with the Soviet Union” (Turkevich, 49).

Even as these writers and artists were set to the work of building a shared loyalty amongst all the peoples of the Soviet Union, however, Turkevich showed that they were also finding ways to be subversive in their endeavors. For instance, in Uspenskaya’s Our Summer, a progressive geneticist, Professor Lopatin, is opposed by a reactionary administrator called Shumsky. While Lopatin advises a group of biology students with field research, Shumsky works against him, stripping him of his assistants, students, and funding. In the end, Lopatin’s students stage a mini-revolution, ousting Shumsky and reinstating Lopatin. On its face, the story is an attack on reactionaries, and a reminder to the reader that they must be vigilant against traitors.

As Turkevich pointed out, however, Uspenskaya “endows the villain Shumsky with the methods of the government.” Her character uses the same methods whereby “scientists can be trampled by government stooges and silenced by political damnation.” A Soviet reader might see Shumsky as a stand-in for counterrevolutionaries, but they might also see in him the same tactics and methods employed by the bureaucratic class within the Soviet government. In that reading, then, the story becomes a condemnation of incompetent administrators using bureaucracy to impede and discredit people with talent and expertise. The ending might even carry with it the implication that such bureaucrats should be overthrown. Through a reading easily accessible and understandable by Soviet audiences, Turkevich wrote, “it is an indictment of Soviet despotism and regimentation of creative effort" (Turkevich, 52). When working as intended, Soviet art and literature was meant to be consumed by the masses, and writers were so restricted by official regulations and attitudes that there could be little room for any kind of individual style, much less humor or emotion. Turkevich concluded, however, that “a few of the more gifted writers have consciously or unconsciously raised some awkward questions.” Remarkably, they managed to inject the feeling of rebellion into their work, showing that “even in the monolithic Soviet society the creative artist is fighting for those human qualities” which made Russian art resonate with the world (Turkevich, 56).

Alongside Soviet artistic production, Russian emigre scholars were also intrigued by literary criticism within the Soviet Union, particularly of prolific pre-revolutionary writers. Two of the most famous Russian writers, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, provide compelling perspectives into the ways in which Soviet people perceived the literary heritage which they shared with the emigres. Marc Slonim, in “Dostoevsky Under the Soviets,” shares an anecdote of the Soviet poet A. Tvardovsky who was asked by a Norwegian farmer why Dostoevsky was banned in the Soviet Union. Tvardovsky claimed that this was one of the greatest misconceptions among people outside the USSR. “After the Revolution we published Dostoevsky’s works in infinitely greater numbers of copies than ever before… we have an incomputably rich literary heritage,” Tvardovsky replied, but “this does not prevent us, as its possessors, from a critical approach to the opinions of our great writers" (Slonim, 118).

Noting Tvardovsky’s implication that the Soviet people were the “possessors” of this literary heritage, Slonim argues that this statement sums up the prevailing attitude toward Dostoevsky in the Soviet Union. Even before the revolution, radical intellectuals had struggled and wrestled with Dostoevsky, unable to accept his political and religious views, but equally incapable of denying his artistic genius. Over the decades following the revolution, attitudes and policies toward Dostoevsky’s work fluctuated wildly. In the 1920s, when there were fewer controls on artistic expression and criticism, Soviet scholars were free to write what they pleased about him. This later tightened considerably, particularly after World War Two, with officials emphasizing that Dostoevsky’s ideology was opposed to Communism, and he could not be treated with scholarly reverence or respect. Ultimately, Soviet leaders settled on a kind of compromise; “they allowed the reprinting of his works but did so reluctantly,” Slonim writes. “They left considerable latitude to scholars and literary and literary critics… although they occasionally did so with ill grace,” and would exert control over which parts of his body of work were acceptable for public consumption (Slonim, 120).

According to the emigre scholar Gleb Struve, a similar process took place around Russia’s other great writer, Leo Tolstoy. Struve described the Soviet literature about Tolstoy as “voluminous,” saying that “much has been done for the study of Tolstoy since the Revolution" (Struve, 171). Some Soviet literary critics, he writes, such as Boris Eichenbaum and Victor Shklovsky, even took up positions on Tolstoy’s work that went at odds with the official Soviet line, although most of them were eventually forced to make “some grudging concessions to the sociological method" (Struve, 172). The two greatest authorities within Soviet literary criticism on Tolstoy, Struve explains, are Vladimir Lenin and Maxim Gorky, who wrote on the Russian author extensively. In particular – to no one’s surprise – Lenin’s view of Tolstoy “dominated official Soviet attitude to Tolstoy,” were even widely used beyond Tolstoy’s work to buttress the entire basis of Soviet literary theory (Struve, 173).

One of Lenin’s most well-known treatises on Tolstoy, which Struve illuminated, is entitled “Leo Tolstoy as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution.” Lenin wrote of a number of “glaring contradictions” within Tolstoy. He was, at once, “an artist of genius who not only gave some matchless pictures of Russian life, but also some first-rate works of world literature,” who, at the same time, was “a landowner who plays a fool in Christ.” Tolstoy represented a powerful and sincere force against falsehood and social lies, and at the same time, was, in Lenin’s eyes, a weakling who “beats his breast in public,” declaring his own sinfulness while boasting of his moral self-improvement. He was a ruthless critic of capitalist exploitation and government violence, and simultaneously, an ineffective and short-sighted preacher of nonviolent resistance (Struve, 174). In short, he was a titan of Russian literary heritage, and at the same time, incompatible with the virtues of the Revolution. The contradiction perplexed and intrigued Lenin, and, therefore, Soviet literary critics.

1. Adamovitch, George. “Tolstoy as an Artist.” The Russian Review 19, no. 2 (1960): 140–49. https://doi.org/10.2307/126736.
2. Alexandrova, Vera. “Postwar Literary Patterns of Soviet Russia.” The Russian Review 8, no. 3 (1949): 221–29. https://doi.org/10.2307/125121.
3. Alexandrova, Vera. “Soviet Literature in 1958.” The Russian Review 18, no. 2 (1959): 126–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/126808.
4. Aldanov, Marc, and Ida Estrin. “Reflections on Chekhov.” The Russian Review 14, no. 2 (1955): 83–92. https://doi.org/10.2307/125567.
5. Bakshy, Alexander. “Latest Trends in the Soviet Theatre.” The Russian Review 5, no. 1 (1945): 80–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/125541.
6. Gasiorowska, Xenia. “The Career Woman in the Soviet Novel.” The Russian Review 15, no. 2 (1956): 100–109. https://doi.org/10.2307/126045.
7. Gasiorowska, Xenia. “Two Decades of Love and Marriage in Soviet Fiction.” The Russian Review 34, no. 1 (1975): 10–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/127757.
8. Iswolsky, Hélène. “Russian Emigre Literature in World War II.” The Russian Review 6, no. 1 (1946): 69–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/125386.
9. Ivask, George. “The World of Vladimir Nabokov.” The Russian Review 20, no. 2 (1961): 134–42. https://doi.org/10.2307/126652.
10. Karpovich, Michael. “The Chekhov Publishing House.” The Russian Review 16, no. 1 (1957): 53–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/126159.
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Amid the Russian diaspora, emigres traveled and settled in countless places all across the globe, many of them coalescing in centers of Western civilization such as London, Paris, Berlin, and various parts of the United States. It should be no surprise, then, that Russian emigre scholars took a great interest in the places they now called home, and in particular the relationship between those places and their former homeland. In fact, Russian emigre scholarship has uncovered numerous striking connections between Western countries, especially the United States, and Russia. One intriguing example comes in an article written by Max M. Laserson, a politician and philosopher from present-day Latvia. Laserson examines the political writings of Alexander Radishchev, a Russian poet and fierce admirer of the American Revolution. In his poem Ode to Freedom, directly inspired by the American rebellion, Radishchev “attacked monarchic tyranny and serfdom and hailed Cromwell and Washington as leaders of people’s revolutions" (Laserson, 179).

Laserson remarks at the boldness, and at the apparent hypocrisy, of this poem, considering that Radischev was at the time an aristocrat, a landlord, and an official within Catherine the Great’s government. Still, despite Catherine’s turn from liberalism and relative benevolence to her “crass defense of Russian autocracy,” Radishchev did not attempt to skirt the potential consequences of his writing by adding a disclaimer to the front of the poem, as some other writers did (Laserson, 180. There was good reason, as well, to doubt that this gamble would work out for him; as Laserson notes, “when the Ode was originally written, there was only one successful revolution – that of the former British colonies.” The French Revolution had not yet occurred, and so for Radishchev to publicly support the principles of public liberty was a particularly dangerous political stance for him to take. As an ardent defender of democracy within the heart of Russian autocracy, Radishchev would become one of the most prominent of the Decembrist rebels.

Radishchev was not the only Russian figure with deep historical ties to the United States to catch the interest of Russian emigre scholarship. John Basil Turchin – born in Russia as Ivan Vasilevich Turchaninoff – was both a colonel in the armies of Nicholas I and a Union brigadier general during the American Civil War. In an article exploring the man’s fascinating story, Albert Parry argues that Turchin “remains the best example of Russia’s contribution to America’s military effort.” There were a few other Russian volunteers who fought for the Union army; a few unnamed sailors who deserted the tsar’s navy to enlist in New York, a prince from the Caucasus who joined up with the North to fight “for the principles of progress and freedom” only to return to his tremendous estate after the war. Others had come to America at such a young age that they no longer remembered Russia at all. Turchin, on the other hand, was a decorated soldier when he arrived, and after the war he lived out the rest of his days in the country he had defended (Parry, 45).

Parry provides a biographical sketch of Turchin, from his birth to a lesser noble family in the province of the Don to his enlistment in the tsar’s armies at nineteen. It was in the Crimean War that Turchin achieved the rank of colonel, part of a successful career as a military officer. Parry asks, then: why would Turchin leave Russia to fight in a foreign army and never return? He concludes that, despite his success and comfortable life, Turchin had grown tired of military service under the tsar. Like Radishchev, Parry’s Turchin was enamored of what he heard about a land of freedom across an ocean, and he grew more and more eager to abandon Russian despotism for American liberty (Parry, 46-7). He purchased land in the United States, moving to New York and then Philadelphia where he worked as an engineer. When troops fired on Fort Sumter, Turchin immediately joined the Union army and received his commission as a colonel, leading the Nineteenth Illinois regiment. He and his men won victories, suffered defeats, and secured territory for the Union. Turchin’s command increased to the Eighth Brigade, Army of the Ohio, and he was affectionately given the nickname “the Mad Cossack” for his battlefield successes. Turchin was in fact promoted to Brigadier General, and served until the end of the war when a stroke sent him into retirement. Parry, like Laserman, displays a fascination with this striking connection between the land of his birth and his adopted home, and his depiction of Turchin – an aging military officer who lived out his last days in a foreign land – bears a remarkable resemblance to the experiences of many emigres who might have read it.

At the same time, these scholars were not always looking into the past. Indeed, their interest in the interactions between the West and Russia continued into the present, and many contributors to The Russian Review also wrote about the West’s relationship to the Soviet Union. Xenia J. Eudin wrote in 1954 about the immediate international aftermath of World War Two, wherein it briefly seemed that the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union might all become partners in cooperation through the newly-founded United Nations. This relationship first became strained, according to Eudin, with the Soviet reaction to the Marshall Plan. Soviet leadership immediately denounced the rebuilding effort, characterizing it as an imperialist push by the United States to turn the nations of Europe into puppet states under an American global hegemony; only the Soviets were anti-imperialists defending true democracy (Eudin, 276).

This reaction had its origins, Eudin writes, in the words of Lenin during the First World War, when he “developed the theory of the progressive decay of the capitalist system" (Eudin, 278). Eudin follows the history of economic antagonism and coexistence between the newborn Soviet state and the outside world, through Lenin’s death, Stalin’s proclamation of “Socialism in One Country,” and into the development of a pan-European movement which the Soviets considered to be incredibly dangerous. The more unified Europe became, it was believed, the more insulated it would be from Communism, and the less likely it would be for any revolutionary movement to succeed (Eudin, 281). Increasing stability for Europe was existentially threatening to the Soviet Union. The more the US funded Europe’s rebuilding and economic growth, the more dependent the nations of Europe would be on the Americans, and the deeper their economic hold on Europe would grow.

The following decades would prove to produce another new kind of international political system. Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, a founder of The Russian Review, explored the growing movement of supranationalism – the surrendering of national sovereignty to an international authority – and the different ways that this was interpreted and implemented in both the West and the Soviet Union. If the unification of Europe had worried the Soviets in the early years after the Second World War, those concerns could only have grown in the following decades. Inspired by Churchill’s call for European unity and the establishment of “a kind of United States of Europe,” supranational economic organizations were formed to strengthen ties between the Western-aligned European nations (von Mohrenschildt, 378). By 1973, nine nations had joined what would become the European Union, and European authorities predicted that not only would a supranational political bloc be established, but it may also influence and embrace Eastern European nations as well.

The Soviets, of course, had their own interpretation of supranationalism. Through the power of the Soviet Union, international Communism “provided supranational loyalty to the world proletariat, not to the nation” (von Mohrenschildt, 379). In fact, the Bolsheviks had held designs on expanding supranational power across Europe, and the rest of the world, decades before any kind of European Common Market was established. The Soviet Union itself was a kind of supranational organization; just after national independence movements tore the Russian Empire apart, the Soviet Union gobbled them back up again, establishing – against Lenin’s preference – a federal system over a number of national and ethnic groups. Initially, this federal system included even granted its constituent republics the right of secession, though it was believed that they would eventually become so integrated together that the USSR would grow into a unitary state. Over time, as the revolution spread to other parts of the world, they would form “a future single world-wide culture of communist society" (von Mohrenschildt, 381).

According to von Mohrenschildt, both the capitalist states and the Soviet-style socialist countries were both moving in the direction of different kinds of supranational orders. The Soviet bloc, he wrote, favored “a unitary state and a homogenous communist culture,” while he characterized the West’s trajectory as moving “toward a free-world federation with a diversified culture and a mixed economy” (von Mohrenschildt, 384). What he found most encouraging, however, were the “individuals in both societies, for the most part top scientists and scholars,” who believed in the principle of pan-human unity. With Laserman and Parry’s work in mind, this viewpoint imagines age of excitement and movement across borders, a time of belief in ideals that surpassed national allegiances.

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