Skip to main content

CAIS

  • Home
  • About us
  • Study
    • Undergraduate
    • Postgraduate
    • Why Study the Region?
    • Current Courses
    • Prizes & Awards
    • Career Opportunities
  • Languages
    • Arabic
    • Persian
    • Turkish
  • Research
    • Publications
      • Books
      • Book chapters
      • Journal articles & papers
      • Other
    • Conferences
    • Past conferences
    • NEPF
  • Our People
    • Director
    • Advisory board
    • Academic Staff
    • Professional Staff
    • Current PhD Students
    • PhD Graduates
    • Visiting Academics
    • Centre Affiliates
    • Vacancies
  • Events
    • Event series
  • News
    • In the media
    • Audio/Video Recordings
  • Contact us

Related Sites

  • ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences
  • Research School of Social Sciences
  • Australian National Internships Program

Administrator

Breadcrumb

HomeResearchPublications'Mechanics Fleeing Communism: Russian Refugees In Iran and Their Resettlement In Australia, 1930–1955'
'Mechanics Fleeing Communism: Russian Refugees in Iran and their Resettlement In Australia, 1930–1955'
'Mechanics Fleeing Communism: Russian Refugees in Iran and their Resettlement In Australia, 1930–1955'
Author/editor: James. M.
Published in (Monograph or Journal): Vostochnye vetvi rossiiskoi diaspory (Eastern Branches of the Russian Diaspora)
Publisher: Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow
Year published: 2020

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the experience of the Russian refugee diaspora in Iran between 1930 and 1960. Un-like other waves of the post-Revolution Russian diaspora (i.e. those ending up in Europe and the Far East), this group of Russians has not been the subject of scholarly attention. Most of these refugees arrived in Iran between 1928 and 1932 fleeing the upheavals attendant on Collectivisation and Dekulakisation in the Soviet Union.

These `stateless Russians’ lived in Iran for two decades, long enough to raise a generation of children speaking both Russian and Farsi and, during the Second World War, to make a valuable contribution to the delivery of Lend Lease Aid to Russia through the ‘Persian Corridor’. After the War, in the face of rising Iranian nationalism, the oil nationalisation crisis, and incipient Cold War rivalry between Britain and the United States and the Soviet Union, these refugees and other stateless Europeans were increasingly unwelcome. By 1955, with the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Western governments and refugee relief agencies including the Tolstoy Foundation, most of these Russians were able to leave Iran to resettle in Australia and the United States.

File attachments

AttachmentSize
Marcus_James_Diaspora_Chap.pdf(387.71 KB)387.71 KB