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EASTERN PEOPLE ON WESTERN PRAIRIES...
an area affected by the “retarding influence” of the Mongol invasions centuries
earlier were considered lesser in the hierarchy, even if they had moved several
generations ago.”” Other major issues of the 1905 Revolution included labour
movements and the rise of an educated class. However, at least half of the
primary issues were peasant issues, and these issues were little resolved in the
1905 and 1906 reforms. Peasants remained the majority of the population, and
they remained tied to agriculture and small kin groups.
Coming towards the end of the First World War, the October Revolution in
1917 and the ensuing civil war seemed to be, for many outsiders, important
globally only in the sense that it had pulled a member of the Entente forces
out of the war against Germany. Though almost totally determined by 1920
due to several decisive Red Army victories, the war lasted until 1923 officially,
and armed resistance continued as late as the mid-1930s. The human cost
of the war was devastating, and greatly contributed to the influx of Eastern
European refugees into North America. Total military fatalities alone can be
conservatively estimated at some 800,000 men, and are sometimes believed
to be as high as 1.2 million. Coming hot on the heels of the fatalities on the
Eastern Front of WW, almost an entire generation of young men had been lost
in under a decade. These totals do not include civilians or civilian sympathizers
who were executed or died from starvation and other causes. Millions died as
a direct result of the famines of 1920-1922, in addition to rampant disease
caused by a lack of clean water, medical services, and government oversights.”4
Such desperate conditions created a mass wave of emigration. As Western
Europe was recovering from the devastation of the First World War — and
many countries therein looked unfavourably upon Russian citizens, as Russia
had withdrawn early and made a separate peace with Germany — many of
these emigrants made for the Americas, and particularly the United States and
Canada. This was often a difficult and dangerous process. One rural peasant
who was relocated to Canada as a child recalled his father (who had been
pressed into service for the Red Army) sending money to his mother, with
“the clear instruction it be buried” in the root cellar, in order to save enough
to book passage on a boat via a British port.? This took several years, and
the family ran the risk of being accused of hoarding or other crimes, which
could have resulted in hard labor, forced transport to Siberia, or execution.
When the family made their escape, the money was sewn into the lining of the
father’s coat in order to avoid detection.”
Yanni Kotsonis, Arkhangel’sk, 1918: Regionalism and Populism in the Russian Civil War,
The Russian Review, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Oct. 1992), 529.
3 Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, Crows Nest, Australia, Allen and Unwin, 1987.
Kindle ebook edition by Brilinn Ltd, 2011, 534-546.
24 Ibid., 536.
25 Wolodimer Banko, letter to Ida Jess, 16 February 1939.
26 Tbid.