Russian Migrations in the Sixteenth to Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

Migration and colonization played an outstanding role in Russian history. This was noted by many historians, Russian and non-Russian alike. In 1887, Michael Kulischer, a Russian historian and ethnologist, published two articles in Vestnik Evropy in which he traced the role of major population shifts in Russian history (M. Kulischer 1887, in E. Kulischer 1948, v). Another noted Russian historian, Vasilii Kliuchevsky, wrote that “Russia’s history, throughout, is the history of a country undergoing colonization.… Migration, colonization constituted the basic feature of our history, to which all other features were more or less directly related” (Kliuchevsky 1937 [1948], v:20–21, in Treadgold 1957, 14). Among westerners, Sumner, Pipes, and many others reached similar conclusions. “Throughout Russian history one dominating theme has been the frontier” (Sumner 1947, 9, in Treadgold 1957, 14).