Russian Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union

by Eric Lohr

Overview

Russian Citizenship is the first book to trace the Russian state’s citizenship policy throughout its history. Focusing on the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the consolidation of Stalin’s power in the 1930s, Eric Lohr considers whom the state counted among its citizens and whom it took pains to exclude. His research reveals that the Russian attitude toward citizenship was less xenophobic and isolationist and more similar to European attitudes than has been previously thought—until the drive toward autarky after 1914 eventually sealed the state off and set it apart.

Drawing on untapped sources in the Russian police and foreign affairs archives, Lohr’s research is grounded in case studies of immigration, emigration, naturalization, and loss of citizenship among individuals and groups, including Jews, Muslims, Germans, and other minority populations. Lohr explores how reform of citizenship laws in the 1860s encouraged foreigners to immigrate and conduct business in Russia. For the next half century, citizenship policy was driven by attempts to modernize Russia through intensifying its interaction with the outside world. But growing suspicion toward non-Russian minorities, particularly Jews, led to a reversal of this openness during the First World War and to a Soviet regime that deprived whole categories of inhabitants of their citizenship rights.

Lohr sees these Soviet policies as dramatically divergent from longstanding Russian traditions and suggests that in order to understand the citizenship dilemmas Russia faces today—including how to manage an influx of Chinese laborers in Siberia—we must return to pre-Stalin history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674066342
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	10/31/2012
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Eric Lohr is Susan E. Lehrman Chair of Russian History and Culture at American University.

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

1 Boundaries and Migration before 1860 11

2 Annexation and Naturalization 28

3 Immigration and Naturalization 44

4 Emigration and Denaturalization 83

5 Citizenship in War and Revolution 115

6 Soviet Citizenship 132

Conclusion 177

Tables 193

The Statute on Soviet Citizenship 201

Archival Sources 205

Notes 209

Acknowledgments 269

Index 271

Editorial Reviews

Lohr tells a fascinating and important story. He traces the grand arc of Russian policy toward citizenship, which was characterized by a move toward globalization that accelerated in the 1860s, but was superseded by a shift toward autarky in the Soviet period. Russian Citizenship will appeal to any reader interested in late imperial Russia, Russian law and international relations, nationality policy, and the Jewish question. A truly original book.

Paul W. Werth

An extremely rich and thought-provoking book. Lohr's work will have a powerful impact upon the field of Russian history, and its arguments will feed into broader debates about citizenship, globalization, and the way in which Russian conceptions of membership in the state were or were not similar to those found across Europe. To my mind, Russian Citizenship is unique: there is nothing like it any language.

Dominic Lieven

Lohr's fine study examines Russian citizenship across a broad time period, tracing both underlying similarities and important ruptures across nearly one hundred years. Ranging across the entire Russian empire, from the Russo-German border to the Far East, he examines the laws which framed citizenship, but probes beneath these laws to show how citizenship operated in practice. Fluidly written and deeply researched, this book will be of interest to historians of Russia and the Soviet Union, to historians of Europe more broadly, and to all interested in questions of citizenship and nationality.

Peter Holquist