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EASTERN PEOPLE ON WESTERN PRAIRIES...
This paper does not mean to suggest that there were not behavioural
differences between Russian Empire refugees and Anglo-Canadians. Certainly,
behavioural differences existed — and many of these served to contribute to
the continued lack of intermixing between rural groups of Eastern Europeans
and rural and urban Anglo-Canadian groups. Interpersonal violence, often
with improvised weapons and at the apparent drop of a hat, plagued Eastern
European settlements, and helped to contribute to the distrust towards such
settler groups in Alberta.* Not only do official records show an increased
rate of violent assault in such groups, but personal recollections help to
reflect the surprisingly cavalier attitude many Russian refugees had towards
violence as a solution. Descriptions of cavalier violence at public events were
also common. Weddings in these communities in the 1920s were “the most
notorious crime scene.”* Descriptions of such events included statements like
“Ithe Ukrainians] usually murder somebody or stab somebody before they
get through with [the wedding].”” It is interesting to note that almost exactly
the same kind of violence was used in the pop culture hit Game of Thrones
nearly a century later to get across the image of a foreign group of people
as barbaric and uncultured. Much of this culture of interpersonal violence
was a direct transport from the role of peasants in the Russian Empire.
During the era of serfdom, serfs were legal property and physical disciplining
was common. When these groups came to Canada, they carried with them
hundreds of years of socially acceptable physical violence, and this translated
into the above discussed trends.
In the 1920s, after the first influx of refugees from the Russian Revolution,
over 90% ended up in the northern portion of Alberta, and particularly the
rural west-central area.** By 1921, five years after the official census of the
prairies, the population of Alberta had grown to 588,454, almost 120% of
what it had been in 1916.*? Only Saskatchewan had a similar population
increase during that time — though other provinces grew, it was at a much
slower pace. While cities and towns were still dominated in this census by
Anglo-Scots-Irish-Canadians, the same was no longer true of Alberta as a
whole. Southern Albertan demographics, particularly in Calgary and the
surrounding areas, also remained largely dominated by people of relatively
recent Western European descent. The rural populations of central Alberta
however, and particularly the area between Red Deer and Edmonton, saw
a marked increase in immigrants from the former Russian Empire, and
# Ibid., 153-157.
46 Ibid., 157.
47 Ibid., 157.
48 Ibid., 150.
® Census of Canada, 1921, Statistics Canada, Textual Records, RG31, Volume 81709, LAC.
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