Russian diaspora

The term Russian diaspora refers to the global community of ethnic Russians. The term "Russian speaking (Russophone) diaspora" (русскоговорящая диаспора, russkogovoryaschaya diaspora) is used to describe people for whom Russian language is the native language, regardless of whether they are ethnic Russians or, for example, Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews or Chechens.

The number of ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation is estimated at roughly between 20 and 30 million people (depending on the notion of "ethnicity" used), the majority of them in countries of the Former Soviet Union; about 30 million native speakers of Russian are estimated to live outside the Russian Federation (compared to 147 million living within the Russian Federation).^[1]

The largest overseas community is found in the United States, estimated at some 3 million people. The next largest communities of Russian speakers outside the Former Soviet Union are found in in Israel and then in Germany, both of unknown size but estimated in the six-figure range in Israel and in the five-figure range in Germany. In addition, in Canada, Brazil and Venezuela, several hundred thousand citizens each identify as of partial Russian descent.

History

Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery near Paris, the foremost necropolis of the White émigrés.

A significant ethnic Russian emigration took place in the wake of the Old Believer schism in the 17th century (for example, the Lipovans, who migrated southwards around 1700). Later ethnic Russian communities, such as the Doukhobors (who emigrated to the Transcaucasus from 1841 and onwards to Canada from 1899), also emigrated as religious dissidents fleeing centrist authority.

Ethnic Russians migrated from Russia proper throughout the Russian Empire, and later the Soviet Union, sometimes at the encouragement of the government. After the Belavezha Accords of December 1991, many ethnic Russians found themselves in newly independent states outside of Russia, notably the Baltic states, Ukraine, and in Central Asia. They represent the largest number of ethnic Russians living outside Russia. Russians distinguish these "migrations," however, from several bursts of emigration in the twentieth century.

A sizable wave of ethnic Russians emigrated in the wake of the October Revolution of 1917 and Civil War of 1917-1922. They became known collectively as the White émigrés. This emigration is also referred to as the "first wave", even though previous emigrations had taken place, as it was comprised the first emigrants to have left in the wake of the communist revolution, and because it exhibited a heavily political character.

A smaller group of Russians, often referred to by Russians as the "second wave" of Russian emigration, left during World War II. They were refugees, Soviet POWs, eastern workers, or surviving veterans of the Russian Liberation Army and other anti-communist armed units who had served under the German command and evaded forced repatriation. In the immediate postwar period, the largest Russian communities in the emigration settled in Germany, Canada, the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Russia experienced one of the most dramatic periods in its history; as a result, the former administrative Russian republic of the Soviet Union became a separate sovereign state. The collapse of the USSR resulted in an upsurge of international migrations to Russia, and the overwhelming number of them involve population movements between Russia and other post-Soviet states.^[2] Israel and Germany received the largest shares of Russian-speaking immigrants (Israel, predominantly Jews; Germany, predominantly ethnic Germans and Jews) in the 1990s, because of incentives provided by the governments of both countries.

Statistics

Some 20 to 40 million ethnic Russians are estimated to live outside the bounds of the Russian Federation (depending on the definition of "ethnicity"). Official census data often only considers nationality. The number of native speakers of the Russian language who reside outside of the Russian Federation is estimated as close to 30 million by SIL Ethnologue.^[3]

In the Former Soviet Union

Country	ethnic Russians
Ukraine	8.3 million (2001)[4]
Kazakhstan	4.5 million (1999)[5]
Uzbekistan	1.6 million[6]
Belarus	0.8 million[7]
Kyrgyzstan	0.6 million[8][9]
Latvia	0.57 million[10]
Moldova	0.37 million (2004)[11]
Estonia	0.31 million[12]
Turkmenistan	0.3 million [13]
Lithuania	0.18 million[14]
Azerbaijan	0.14 million[15][16]
Tajikistan	68,200[17]
Georgia	67,671[18][19]
Armenia	14,660[20]

Outside of the Former Soviet Union

Country	ethnic Russians
United States	3.1 million[21]
Germany	1.213 million[22]
Israel	938,500[23]
Canada	550,520[24]
Brazil	200.000[25]
Finland	50,000 (2009)[26]
France	200,000 to 500,000 [27]
Colombia	88,000[28]
Australia	67,550[29]
United Arab Emirates	56,600[30]
Cuba	50,200[30]
United Kingdom	c. 35,000 (2013)[31]
Venezuela	34,600[32]
Austria	30,249[33]
Romania	30,000[34]
Belgium	c. 20,000[35]
Italy	20,000 (2006)[36]
China	15,600[37]
Bulgaria	15,595[38]
Norway	13,914[39]
New Zealand	10,235[40]
Qatar	5,000[41]
Serbia	3,290[42]

Former USSR

Ethnic Russians in former Soviet Union states according to the most recent census

Today the largest ethnic Russian diasporas outside of Russia exist in former Soviet states such as Ukraine (about 8 million), Kazakhstan (about 4.5 million),^[43] Belarus (about 1.2 million), Latvia (about 620,000), Uzbekistan (about 650, 000)^[44] and Kyrgyzstan (about 600,000).^[45]

The situation faced by ethnic Russian diasporas varied widely. In Belarus there was no perceivable change in status. While in Estonia and Latvia^[46] they were labelled foreigners or non-citizens if none of their ancestors had been a citizen of these countries before Soviet occupation and if they did not request Russian Federation citizenship during the period it was available.

East Asia

Russians (eluosizu) are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. There are approximately 15,600, living mostly in northern Xinjiang, and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang. In the 1920s Harbin was flooded with 100,000 to 200,000 Russian White émigrés fleeing from Russia. Some Harbin Russians moved to other cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. By the 1930s, Shanghai's Russian community had grown to more than 25,000.^[47]

There are also smaller numbers of Russians in Japan and in Korea. The Japanese government disputes Russia's claim to the Kuril Islands, which were annexed by the USSR in 1945 after Japan's surrender in World War II. The Red Army expelled all Japanese from the island chain, which was resettled by Russians and other Soviet nationalities. A few Russians also settled in the Korean peninsula in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[48] The population of Russians in Singapore was estimated at no more than a thousand by the local Russian embassy in 2008; they are a largely professional and business-oriented expatriate community, and count among their numbers more than a hundred company owners or local heads of branches of large Russian multinationals.^[49]

Americas

Russian settlement in Mexico was minimal but well documented in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A breakaway sect of Old Believers of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Molokans arrived in Baja California in the 1880s-1920s to escape persecution from Tsarist Russia. The Molokans received a land grant in the Guadalupe Valley south of Ensenada to establish a few villages and maintained their Russian culture for a few decades before they were abandoned; cemeteries bearing Cyrillic letters remain. Dissenters of the official Soviet Communist party like the Trotskyites along with leader Leon Trotsky found refuge in Mexico in the 1930s, where Trotsky himself was assassinated by Ramon Mercader in 1940.

Russian Orthodox Church in Belgrade, Serbia

Some Ukrainian Americans, Belarusian Americans, Russian Jewish Americans, Russian German Americans, Georgian Americans, Azerbaijani Americans, Armenian Americans, and Rusyn Americans identify as Russian American.

Other

Finland borders Russia directly (Finland was autonomous Russian Grand Duchy 1809-1917, but not part of Soviet Union) and has 31,000 Russian Federation citizens, which amounts to 0.56% of the population,^[50] and 66,000 (1.2%) speak Russian language as their mother tongue.

There are also small Russian communities in other European nations. These communities may identify themselves either as Russians or citizens of these countries, or both, to varying degrees.

References

• Russia Abroad: A comprehensive guide to Russian Emigration after 1917 Biographical databases. Photoarchive. Research results accompanied by original documents, paper extracts.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Russian diaspora.