Watch the recording of Constantinople: The Emigration’s First Stop on the Way to Creating an Independent “Russia Abroad”.
This lecture was originally broadcast live from the Café Rejans in Istanbul. Presented by Dr. Anatol Shmelev and PhD candidate Timur Saitov of SUNY Binghamton, the lecture picks up the story of the First Wave of Russian emigration as they left left Russian territory, fleeing the 1917 Revolution and the Civil War, experiencing loss, deracination and a sense of irrelevance. Yet they never abandoned being Russian, creating an independent, active and free “Russia Abroad” that stayed substantially coherent till the descent into WW2.
This lecture proceeds with the Fifth Wave in mind, trying to address their concerns by presenting the experience of our ancestors who, when facing similar choices, picked an émigré life “from suitcases” hoping to stay relevant to Russia’s fate and for an eventual return.
