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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of the First World War — and many countries therein looked unfavourably upon Russian citizens, as Russia had withdrawn early and made a separate peace with Germany — many of these emigrants made for the Americas, and particularly the United States and Canada.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.
