Utopia's Discontents : Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom, 1830s-1930s Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom, 1830s-1930s

Abstract

In the years before the 1917 revolution, exiles who had fled the Russian empire created large and boisterous Russian colonies across Western and Central Europe. Centers of radical activity in the heart of bourgeois cities, these émigré settlements evolved into revolutionary social experiments in their own right. Feminists, nationalist activists, and Jewish intellectuals seeking to liberate and uplift populations oppressed by the tsarist regime treated the colonies as utopian communities, creating new networks, institutions, and cultural practices that reflected their values. Prefiguring the ideal world of freedom and universal fraternity of which radicals dreamed, émigré communities played a crucial role in defining the Russian revolutionary tradition and transforming it into praxis. The dreams born in the colonies also influenced their European host societies, informing international debates about the meaning of freedom on both the left and the right. But if the utopian visions forged in exile inspired populations far and wide, they developed a tendency to evolve in unexpected directions. Colony residents’ efforts to transform the world unwittingly produced explosive discontents that proved no less consequential than their revolutionary dreams.