Historical and Current Trends in Emigration From Russia

The range of emigration-related issues that require extensive and thorough studies is impressive enough. But many of these problems can only be studied with foreign data or using the results of surveys conducted abroad. This kind of research requires support from the state or Russian science foundations, but Russian emigration – given its socio-economic and demographic consequences – is more of a problem for Russia than for the host countries.

The study of immigration in Russia, in contrast to the process of emigration from the country, has a relatively short history [1]. This is primarily due to the, often negative, attitudes towards immigrants and poor accessibility of relevant data on their number and flow.

This has its origins back in the pre-revolutionary era, when, as V. Obolensky noted, “emigration remained a semi-legal phenomenon, tacitly recognized, but officially unresolved.” Under pre-revolutionary Russian law, Russian citizenship was highly regulated. The law restricted time spent abroad to 5 years, after which it was necessary to ask for an adjournment. Violation of the law was punished by expulsion and seizure of property. Exceptions were made for Finland and Poland. At the end of the 19th century, Jewish people and sectarians were allowed to emigrate. After the 1905 revolution the interpretation of the law allowed for certain indulgences, making it possible for emigration agencies to operate in western provinces.

It is significant that the first work on international migration in pre-revolutionary Russia appeared in 1928 [2]. Its author V. Obolensky (Osinsky) was a prominent revolutionary and became Chairman of the USSR Central Statistical Committee. Distinguished Russian academics, including Head of Population Statistics Department M. Krasilnikov, eminent economist and demographer L. Lubna-Gertzik, and one of the founders of research into migration in our country I. Yamzin, helped him to prepare the monograph. In his book, V. Obolensky also analyzed Soviet statistics on USSR border crossings to 1926. Emergency migration prompted by the Civil War were excluded from his research.

Photo: wikipedia.org
Oberbürgermeister Haken. Philosophers' ships is
the collective name of several boats that carried
Soviet expellees abroad, most notably prominent
intellectuals.

At the late 1920s, the state border was closed, and soon after that – so were statistics on border crossing and research in this area. The guiding view was: no emigration – no problem. The phenomenon of Russians abroad, formed as a result of refugee flows during the revolution and the Civil War, was strongly identified with the concepts “traitor” and “enemies of the people.” It is worth noting that Soviet literature of the 1920s estimated white emigration at 2 million people, a figure which corresponds to the number of Nansen passports issued to expatriates of the former Russian Empire. Head of the Population Statistics Department of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic V. Mikhailovsky estimated this emigration at 3 million people [3]. These figures by far exceeded Russian emigration before the Revolution. Thus, in the period 1905-1910, of the 1.3 million migrants who left the Russian Empire for the United States and Canada, only 5.5 percent were officially classed as “Russians” (including the categories Great Russians, Little Russians and Belorussians), 44.4 percent were Jewish, 27 percent were Poles, and the rest were Germans, Finns and people from the Baltic [4].

Emigration studies were tentatively renewed during Khrushchev’s thaw in the late 1950s - early 1960s. The cultural phenomenon of Russians abroad was recognized at the highest political level. Works on prominent Russian writers, composers, and artists appeared, such as Bunin, Shalyapin, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Chekhov, Anna Pavlova, etc. At that time the main contribution to the study of Russian emigration or the Russians abroad was made by cultural historians. However, the migration outflow caused by World War II and contemporary emigration received little attention, and the attitude to migrants was predominantly negative (they were viewed as traitors or turncoats).

In the Soviet Union, emigration data was classified. Some estimates of emigration outflows from the Soviet Union reached the country via foreign and translated publications. For example, in 1969 a translation of Contemporary Migrations of the Population by Andrzej Marianski was published, which traced the history of emigration from the Russian Empire and the post-war population exchange between the Soviet Union, Poland and Finland. During the following decades, this book was the main source of information on the history of Russian emigration. Detailed information from the time could be found in UN publications [5]. Thus, the UN Demographic Yearbook 1977 covered information on migration from the Soviet Union to all countries where it had been recorded, from the end of the 1950s [6]. The data published there and in other reference books confirmed that the Soviet Union was a fairly closed country as compared to others. However, there was an outflow from the country: it had an apparent ethnic specificity (Judeo-German) and was largely determined by foreign policy. So, in 1958, 2,700 people left the Soviet Union for Germany. In 1972 the number of emigrants reached about 40,000 people: 32,000 went to Israel and 1,400 – to Germany. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union’s international positions suffered a setback and emigration outflow was severely restricted. By the mid-1980s it had dropped to the lowest level for two decades. According to Soviet statistics, in 1986, the number of emigrants who left to settle permanently abroad was 12,500: 2,100 left for Germany and just over 200 people – for Israel. The total number of people who emigrated from the Soviet Union during the Cold War period is estimated at about 500,000 people.

Photo: peopleandcountries.com
Russian-speaking diaspora outside the CIS

Gorbachev's perestroika made Soviet society and borders more open and changed the attitude toward emigration. In 1987 regulations governing leaving the country were relaxed for those with relatives abroad, which triggered an increased outflow of people with foreign heritage: Germans, Jews, Greeks, etc. That year the number of Soviet emigrants to Israel reached 2,000 and to Germany – 17,400. Over the next two years the Soviet Government adopted a number of decisions allowing Soviet citizens greater opportunities for international travel. As a result, “against the background of renewal and democratization of all aspects of life in Soviet society, the introduction of a new political thinking in international practice, development of modern forms of multilateral cooperation of the USSR with foreign countries” [7] the number of people who left the country in 1990 was more than 36 times greater than the total number of emigrants in 1986, and stood at 452,300.

The significant emigration potential that had accumulated over decades in Russia and other former Soviet republics was released in Europe and America. However, mass emigration from the Soviet Union in the first half of the 1990s did not involve millions, as many domestic and foreign experts had predicted, and turned out to be much more modest [8]. If the migration potential of particular groups (Germans, Jews, Greeks, Finns, Poles), for whom Germany, Israel, Greece, Finland, Poland introduced repatriation programs, was determined accurately enough, the one for the rest of the population was greatly exaggerated.

The Iron Curtain was finally destroyed by the Soviet Union’s adoption the May 20, 1991 law On the Procedure for Exit from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Entry into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of USSR Citizens [9]. Under the Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting in 1986 [10], the Soviet Union, and other states that participate in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe undertook to fully respect the human right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state, the right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s own country.

The liberalization of society and opening of borders triggered a surge in studies on emigration specifically covering two includes a relatively large number of works published in the 1980s and early 2000s [11]. This second area of research is of particular interest and will be known as socio-demographic. Researchers working in this field are looking for answers to the following questions: who goes abroad for permanent residence; what countries they leave for; how many people emigrate and for what reasons; how they settle down; whom they marry, etc.

Obviously, neither individual articles nor academic research focus on just one area. The leading demographer Vishnevsky is not only known for his publications on the problems of emigration from Russia [12]. He has also penned a collage-novel, a genre particularly interesting in both content and form, based on the letters and diaries of real people. The novel traces the fate of the three generations of the Tatischev family, and their friends and associates, through exile in the 20th century [13].

E. Tyuryukanova
Gender composition of Russian emigration
in 1994, %

This article does not aim to offer a detailed analysis of the publications that the last decade has seen on socio-demographic aspects of emigration and emphasize the historical and demographic issues of research carried out in Russia. At first glance, it seems that most of this work has already been done. The quantitative parameters of wave of each emigration have been assessed in relation to the particular historical period involved, the causes and influencing factors have also been studied, as has the adaptation of these migrant groups in host countries [14]. However, both historical and contemporary studies lack a unified scholarly approach to identifying migration outflow and the number of Russian emigrants, taking frequently changing borders and ethnic diversity into account. Different approaches deliver different quantitative assessments of the number of Russian emigrants.

Therefore, we should treat data on Russian emigration provided by American sources from the early 20th century with some caution, as those figures reflect the number of Russian-speaking expatriates. These were not necessarily migrants from Russia, since the (Rusyns) Russians who moved to the United States from the Austro-Hungarian Empire also fell into this category. According to available data, before 1910, 65,000 people emigrated from the Russian Empire to Brazil and more than 100,000 – to Argentina. Who were these people? And what happened to them? These questions are not prompted by idle curiosity alone, and answers to them quite often have practical significance. In the United States for example, immigrants exercised a notable influence on shaping Americans’ ethnic stereotypes [15]. In terms of the historical analysis of Russian emigration there are a great many lacunae.

One of the main aims of carrying out research into migration is to evaluate current migration outflow and the current number of Russian migrants abroad in quantitative terms [16]. Until the mid-2000s this was time-consuming and involved collecting and processing a large body of information from a variety of diverse national sources. The authors of articles listed (M. Denisenko, S. Ryazantsev et al.) encountered this problem. In later years it became much easier to collect information, due to the online databases of Eurostat, the OECD, and since 2011 – the UN Population Division, all of which contain current data on migration. However, interpreting the data, as before, requires special skills. As a rule, it is difficult to correlate data from different countries since national definitions of migration and the statistical monitoring systems differ greatly country to country. All this has to be understood before attempting to use and analyze the data, as otherwise there is a high risk that the results will deliver an incorrect assessment of migration outflow from the country.

Practice shows that the host countries’ immigrant registration processes are greatly superior to those in the country of origin responsible for registering the number and nature of emigrants. Foreign nationals that arrive legally in a country with the stated intention of acquiring permanent residence, register the place, date and purpose of their stay, partly in order to gain access to the benefits due to them. However, when it comes to the long-term resettlement of their own citizens in foreign countries, those very same states operate to a much lower level of efficiency, even in most OECD member-states, since not all emigrants are crossed off the register and many countries do not even require that to happen. Different countries have different criteria for defining a migrant: one and the same person can be classed as a migrant in one country but not in another. This happens if a resident of Germany goes to work in Canada for a period of, say, one year, but does not receive a residence permit there. Germany considers international migrants all those who arrive in the country or leave it for a period of three months or more. For Canada, an immigrant is a foreigner who has received permanent resident status. Russians who retain their residence registration in Russia while also obtaining a residence permit in another country are not counted as having “emigrated” and are therefore not represented in Russian emigration statistics, although they are considered immigrants abroad.

Today’s high territorial mobility considerably complicates the identification of permanent migrants. Migration is an integral part of the globalization process, in which new communication technologies have markedly increased the diversity of migration relocations. Drawing a hard line between temporary and permanent migration is problematic today, because there is a clear continuum of migrant movement among countries. Permanent emigration has itself become a relative notion, as those who leave a country know they can return, thus starting a new migration cycle, prompted perhaps by study, work, marriage or simply choice. Russian temporary migrants may own property and have family abroad while they are also formally considered to be permanently resident in Russia. Therefore, identifying and assessing different categories of Russian migrants (permanent, temporary, seasonal, labor, academic, family, etc.) living abroad is an important task for research.

Table 1 gives an idea of the scope of Russians’ relocation to other countries for permanent residence [17]. It shows a great disparity between Russian data from the 2000s and foreign migration sources’ estimates - chiefly in its significant underestimation of the scale of emigration outflow. According to data from 14 countries, the total outflow from Russia was 2.7 times higher than that shown in Russian statistics. Second, Russian data does not fully reflect the geography of contemporary immigration. In particular, it does not show the markedly increased importance of such centers of gravity for Russians as Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Great Britain, and the Czech Republic. Taking into consideration there is considerable data not presented in the Table (relating to Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey, Australia, etc.), it can be assumed that emigration from Russia in 2003-2010 exceeded 500,000.

This outflow is less than that observed over the same time period during the previous decade, chiefly due to the fact that the repatriation potential of Russian Jews, Germans, Poles, Finns and others had been exhausted by that time. This “fourth wave of emigration” was supported by generous repatriation programs, the almost automatic granting of refugee status, and the opening up of many other migration channels through a variety of grants for education, immigration lotteries, support programs for scientists, representatives of certain diasporas, etc.

But this is a thing of the past. Today, international migration between Russia and countries with developed market economies is shaped primarily by economic factors and immigration laws in host countries. Unlike those “fourth wave” emigrants, most modern migrants have to pass tests assessing their skill-set, proficiency and command of the language and ability to integrate.

Foreign data indicates that the number of Russian nationals and citizens abroad continued to grow over the last decade (Table 2). Clearly, the dynamics of this process in many European countries (unlike the United States or Canada) was affected by the practice of granting migrants a residence permit only after a certain period of temporary residency. It should also be noted, that from 2000 to 2010, about 150,000 Russian citizens were granted citizenship of a European country (other than the Baltic States) [18]. The UK granted citizenship to over 14,000 people, Germany – about 35,000 people, France – almost 20,000 people, Finland – more than 15,000 people, and Sweden – 7,000 people.

The data given in Table 2 on the number of Russian nationals or citizens resident in foreign countries does not reflect the Russian Diaspora outside the USSR’s borders. This latter includes a significant number of migrants from former Soviet republics. Moreover, statistics show that many of those who emigrated before the mid-1990s still identify themselves and their origins with a country that no longer exists: the Soviet Union.

To assess the causes and consequences of emigration, and to forecast return migration flows, it is necessary to understand how migration outflow is structured. But this issue is still poorly represented in national surveys. As a rule, it is much more difficult to obtain demographic and socio-economic data from host countries on migrants from Russia than it is to establish the numbers of people involved. Due to their relative scarcity in many countries, migrants from Russia or the former Soviet Union are not covered by sample surveys of migrants or labor force. The data collected by us both at home and abroad indicates that most Russian migrants who have successfully integrated into their host society, have a good command of the language, are well-educated or highly skilled, possess the requisite financial resources to cover the costs of relocation and resettlement, including the acquisition of property abroad, and also have friends and/or relatives in the country. Undoubtedly, emigration among high-income segments of the population has a significant impact on the scale of capital outflow abroad. But this issue, as opposed to labor migrants' remittances to the republics of the former Soviet Union, has not yet received due attention from Russian researchers. The migrants’ professional skills and educational level are closely connected with the problem of the “brain drain” from Russia. Unfortunately, research into this issue has, in recent years, slowed significantly [19].

Photo: tori-tolkacheva.deviantart.com
Anatoly Vishnevsky:
The New Role of Migration in Russia’s
Demographic Development

Let us examine some distinctive features of the Russian immigrant community. In the 2000s it became younger compared to that of the 1990s. For example, the median age of a Russian-born Australian was 48.4 years in 1996 against 40.6 in 2010. In 2002, migrants from Russia to Germany in the 18-25 age group accounted for 24 percent of the migration gain, while the corresponding figure for 2010 was 42 percent. Migrants from Russia are typically well-educated. In the early 2000s, 43 percent of Russian migrants in OECD countries aged 15 years and over had higher education. For immigrants from most other countries, including the OECD, this indicator was lower [20]. Migrants from the United States (48 percent), Israel (42 percent) and some other countries have a similar education level as those from Russia. The 2000 U.S. Census registered a very high level of education among Russians: more than half of those over 25 years of age (52 percent) had a BA and an MA. Only one in four Americans had the equivalent level of education (24 percent); while the corresponding figures for British and German immigrants are 35 percent and 27 percent respectively. Almost three quarters of Russian migrants arriving in Australia come via the Skilled Migration Program. However, just 43 percent of the total number of immigrants to Australia are economic migrants. The same is true for Canada.

Most Russian migrants, in all countries, are women. In Italy they account for more than 80 percent of Russian citizens living there; in Spain, Germany, Norway, Australia, and France their share varies from 60 to 70 percent. Undoubtedly, this phenomenon can be explained the fact that they marry foreigners more often than men do. So, in 2006, marriage accounted for 30 percent of female immigration from Russia to France, while the corresponding figure for men was just 3.5 percent. Other factors contributing to the increased share of women among migrants are the labor market, in which women are offered jobs in the service sector (in private houses and as social workers), and the predominance of women among the group of migrants who travel in order to be reunited with close relatives.

Issues including the adaptation and integration of Russian migrants in particular countries and regions is another important subject for research. Currently, immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union and the position of migrants there appears to be the most studied phenomenon, in many ways due to work by prominent demographer and statistician M. Tolz [21]. Issues related to life after resettling abroad, from their welfare and work to family, health, and well-being are not only of academic interest but also of practical significance too.

This kind of information is an important instrument in assessing our compatriots’ potential for return migration. The results of these studies can contribute to the development of relations with compatriots abroad and with their host countries, promoting the accelerated integration of Russia into the Western world. The study of integration models can find a practical application in Russia. Emigration is a kind of social experiment, which is impossible to carry out within the country. It can also show how Russians’ life expectancy increases after they resettle in Western Europe or the United States, and can also help identify mechanisms to extend longevity.

One of the most important tasks for migration studies is exploring the emigration potential of Russia's population. Russia’s leading sociological research institutions Levada Center, the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), all study Russians’ attitudes to emigration. But this is clearly not enough. Where we are talking about the groups that are most likely to emigrate, detailed studies are needed [22]. At present, it is obvious that emigration from Russia, prompted by lower standards of living compared with the developed countries, will continue. In a globalized world, migrants will move to those countries offering better opportunities such as decent income, interesting work, inexpensive and high quality health care and education, safety and political freedoms. Russia is becoming an ever more integral part of the global world.

Thus, the range of emigration-related issues that require extensive and thorough studies is impressive enough. But many of these problems can only be studied with foreign data or using the results of surveys conducted abroad. This kind of research requires support from the state or Russian science foundations, but Russian emigration – given its socio-economic and demographic consequences – is more of a problem for Russia than for the host countries.

Strange as it may sound, the most detailed and authoritative work on international migration and the Russian Federation was written by a foreign scholar – the French historian and political scientist Anne de Tanguy. She called her book La Grande Migration. La Russie et les Russes depuis l'Ouverture du Rideau de Fer [23]. It was published in France back in 2004. Much of the book is focused on emigration from Russia and the former Soviet Union to the West; however it reflects the Western researcher’s particular view of the problem.

Notes:

1. By separate periods of history we mean the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.

2. V.V. Obolensky (Osinsky). Mezhdunarodnye i mezhkontinentalnye migratsii v dovoennoy Rossii i SSSR. Izdanie TsSU SSSR. M., 1928.

3. V.G. Mikhailovsky. Vvedenie k itogam perepisi 1920 g. // Trudy TsSU. T. 1. Vyp. 3. M., 1921.

4. S.A. Novoselsky. Obzor glavnejshih dannyh po demografii i sanitarnoy statistike Rossii // Kalendar' dlja vrachei na 1915 g. Ch. 2. Pg., 1916

5. United Nations, International Migration 1945–1957. Geneva, 1959

6. United Nations, Demographic Yearbook 1977. New York, 1978

7. The Council of Ministers of the USSR Decree of August 16, 1989 # 661 On Improving Procedures for Travel Abroad on Official Business.

8. See: Zh. Zayonchkovskaya. Chetvertaja volna: migratsionny obmen Rossii so stranami dalnego zarubezh'ja // Rossija i ee regiony v XX v.: territoriya – rasselenie – migratsii. M., 2005. p. 545; Öberg S., Wils A. East-West Migration in Europe. Can Migration Theories Help Estimate the Numbers? // Popnet. 1992, № 22; Öberg S., Boubnova H., Poverty, Ethnicity and Migration Potentials in Eastern Europe // In R. King, ed., Mass Migration in Europe, Bel Haven, 1993.

9. The USSR Law dated May 20, 1991 On the Procedure for Exit from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Entry into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of USSR Citizens

10. Concluding Document of the Vienna Meeting 1986 of Representatives of Participating States of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe

11. See, for example, Pivovar E.I. Rossijskoe zarubezh'e XIX – pervoy poloviny XX v.: nekotorye itogi izuchenia problemy // Istoricheskie zapiski. 2000. № 3 (121); Pronin A.A. Rossijskaja emigratsia // Menkovskij V.I. i dr. Sovremennaya rossijskaya istoriografiya / Pod red. V.I. Menkovskogo. V dvuh chastah. Ch. 2. Minsk: Respublikansky institut vysshei shkoly, 2009.

12. See, for example, A.G. Vishnevsky, Zh.A Zayonchkovskaya. Migratsiya iz SSSR: chetvertaya volna // Rabochie doklady Centra demografii i ekologii cheloveka. Vyp. 3. M., 1991. Dekabr'; Vishnevsky A., Zayontchkovskaya J. Auswanderung aus der früheren Sovjetunion und den GUS-Staaten // Migration in Europa. Historische Entwicklung, aktuelle Trends, politische Reaktionen. Ed. by H. Fassman and R. Mûnz. Campus, Frankfurt/M.-New York, 1996. Vishnevsky A. The Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Ethnic Migration: The Return of Diasporas? // R. Münz and R. Ohliger (Eds). Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants. Germany, Israel and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective. London–Portland: Or. Frank Cass Publishers, 2003. С. 155–174.

13. A.G. Vishnevsky. Perehvachennye pisma. M.: OGI, 2001.

14. Apart from the works of Zh. Zayonchkovskaya and P. Polyan in this reading book, see, for example, V.N. Zemskov. Rozhdenie vtoroj emigracii 1944–1952 // Sociologicheskie issledovaniya. 1991. № 4; Ju.A. Polakov. Problemy emigratsii i adaptatsii v svete istoricheskogo opyta // Ju.A. Polakov. Istoricheskaya nauka: lyudi i problemy. M., 1999; P. Poljan. Zhertvy dvuh diktatur. Ostarbajtery i voennoplennye v Tret'em Reyhe i ih repatriatsiya. M., 1996; V.A.Ioncev, N.M. Lebedeva, M.V.Nazarov, A.V. Okorokov. Emigratsiya i repatriatsiya v Rossii // Sost. i gl. red. A.A. Bondarev. M., 2001.

15. M.B. Denisenko, O.A. Haraeva. Russkie ne ponimajut SShA, a SShA ne ponimayut russkikh // Otechestvennye zapiski. 2004. № 4 (19).

16. Meanwhile, the study of emigration is still based on the borders of the Soviet Union. Migration interaction between Russia and other former Soviet republics remains close enough to retain the features of internal migration movements (high intensity, visa-free border crossing with most countries, common linguistic space, and close personal ties of people).

17. For more details see: M. Denisenko. Emigratsija iz Rossii v strany dal'nego zarubezh'ja // Demoscope Weekly. # 513–514. June 4–17, 2012. URL: http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2012/0513/tema01.php

18. This data does not include repatriates in Germany, Greece, Poland, Finland, where citizenship is granted automatically.

19. Ushkalov I.G., Malaha I.A. Utechka umov. Masshtaby. Prichiny. Posledstviya. Editorial URSS, 1999, still remains one of the best books on this issue.

20. Dumont J.C. Lemaître G. Counting Immigrants and Expatriates: A New Perspective. Paris: OECD, 2005.

21. Apart from the article in this reading book, see M. Tolz. Posle ishoda: postsovetskiye evrei v sovremennom mire // Mezhdunarodnaja migratsija: ekonomika i politika / Pod red. V.A. Ionceva. M., 2006; M. Tolz. Vyhodtsy iz SSSR v Izraile: demograficheskiye izmeneniya // Demoskop-Weekly. 2010. № 411–412. February 22 – March 7, 2010. URL: http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2010/0411/tema01.php

22. In 2002, the author worked with O.S. Chudinovskikh and E.V. Donets to conduct a similar study among Russian students. See: O.S. Chudinovskih, M.B. Denisenko, E.V. Donets. Migratsionnye namereniya rossijskogo studenchestva. M., 2003.

23. Anne de Tinguy. La Grande Migration. La Russie et les Russes depuis l'Ouverture du Rideau de Fer, Plon, Paris, 2004.