Swiss emigration to Russia
Encyclopedia
There was significant emigration
of Swiss people to the Russian Empire
from the late 17th to the late 19th century. Rauber (1985) estimates that a number of 50,000 to 60,000 Swiss lived in Russia between roughly 1700 and 1917. The late 18th and early 19th century saw a flow of Swiss farmers forming colonies such as Şaba (Bessarabia
, at the Dniester Liman
, now part of the Ukraine
), besides specialists of various professions, working as winemakers, cheesemakers, merchants, officers or governesses. The Russian-Swiss generally prospered, partly merging with German
diaspora populations. Early Swiss emigrants to Russia were not poor, but brought money with them, establishing themselves as specialist elites, choosing Russia as migration target because it offered greater opportunities for their trades than America. Only in the later 19th century, with Russian industrialization, saw significant migration of lower social classes.
Most of these Swiss diaspora populations returned to Switzerland
in during the interwar period
in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and especially as a result of the Dekulakization
under Stalin during 1929-1931.
The most famous Swiss to have lived in Russia are probably the mathematician Leonhard Euler
and the military officer Franz Lefort
, a close associate of Peter the Great. Lefortovo
district in modern Moscow
still bears his name.
Other notable Russian-Swiss include botanist Johannes Ammann, artist and architect Leonhard Christian Gottlieb Leonardowitsch Schaufelberger, entrepreneur Arnold Schaufelberger, politician Frederic Cesar de la Harpe and general Antoine Henri Jomini in the tsarist period and Fritz Platten
and Jules Humbert-Droz
in the Soviet period. In 1918, Platten saved Lenin's life in St. Petersburg, and in 1923, a Russian-Swiss assassinated Bolshevik leader Vatslav Vorovskii in Lausanne.
The Swiss-Russian connection went both ways, and Switzerland was a destination for holidays, studies and exile for Bolshevik
s and anti-Bolsheviks
alike. Notably, Zürich
played host to both Lenin and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
, and in the years predating the Revolution, up to a third of students at Swiss universities were citizens of tsarist Russia.
Since 1978, the History Department at the University of Zürich
under Carsten Goehrke has been assembling an archive of historical documents relating to Swiss emigrants in Russia. The archive collects records of some 5,600 individuals who had come to Switzerland following the collapse of the tsarist state claiming Swiss citizenship, estimated to correspond to about two thirds of the total number.
Since the 2000s, there is a renewed limited trend of Swiss farmers emigrating to Russia. In 2006, there was a number of 676 Swiss citizens registered to permanently reside in Russia, or 100 more than in the preceding year.
Emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement before the establishment of political boundaries or within one state is termed migration. There are many reasons why people...
of Swiss people to the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
from the late 17th to the late 19th century. Rauber (1985) estimates that a number of 50,000 to 60,000 Swiss lived in Russia between roughly 1700 and 1917. The late 18th and early 19th century saw a flow of Swiss farmers forming colonies such as Şaba (Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, at the Dniester Liman
Dniester Liman
Dniester Liman of Dniester Estuary is a liman, formed at the point where the river Dniester flows into the Black Sea. It is located in Ukraine, in Odessa Oblast. The city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi lies on its western shore and Ovidiopol on its eastern shore. Shabo, situated downstream of...
, now part of the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
), besides specialists of various professions, working as winemakers, cheesemakers, merchants, officers or governesses. The Russian-Swiss generally prospered, partly merging with German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
diaspora populations. Early Swiss emigrants to Russia were not poor, but brought money with them, establishing themselves as specialist elites, choosing Russia as migration target because it offered greater opportunities for their trades than America. Only in the later 19th century, with Russian industrialization, saw significant migration of lower social classes.
Most of these Swiss diaspora populations returned to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in during the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and especially as a result of the Dekulakization
Dekulakization
Dekulakization was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, and executions of millions of the better-off peasants and their families in 1929-1932. The richer peasants were labeled kulaks and considered class enemies...
under Stalin during 1929-1931.
The most famous Swiss to have lived in Russia are probably the mathematician Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion...
and the military officer Franz Lefort
Franz Lefort
Franz Lefort was a Russian military figure of Swiss origin, general admiral , and close associate of Peter the Great....
, a close associate of Peter the Great. Lefortovo
Lefortovo
Lefortovo could refer to a number of places or things in or around Moscow, Russia:*Lefortovo District, a district in South-Eastern Administrative Okrug*Lefortovo prison, a prison*Lefortovo tunnel, a road tunnel...
district in modern Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
still bears his name.
Other notable Russian-Swiss include botanist Johannes Ammann, artist and architect Leonhard Christian Gottlieb Leonardowitsch Schaufelberger, entrepreneur Arnold Schaufelberger, politician Frederic Cesar de la Harpe and general Antoine Henri Jomini in the tsarist period and Fritz Platten
Fritz Platten
Fritz Platten was a Swiss Communist.After the collapse of the Second International, Platten joined the Zimmerwald Movement and became a Communist....
and Jules Humbert-Droz
Jules Humbert-Droz
Jules Humbert-Droz was a Swiss Communist and a founding member of the Communist Party of Switzerland. He held high Comintern office through the 1920s and also acted as Comintern emissary to several west European countries. Prior to his becoming a Communist, Humbert-Droz was a pastor...
in the Soviet period. In 1918, Platten saved Lenin's life in St. Petersburg, and in 1923, a Russian-Swiss assassinated Bolshevik leader Vatslav Vorovskii in Lausanne.
The Swiss-Russian connection went both ways, and Switzerland was a destination for holidays, studies and exile for Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s and anti-Bolsheviks
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
alike. Notably, Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
played host to both Lenin and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
, and in the years predating the Revolution, up to a third of students at Swiss universities were citizens of tsarist Russia.
Since 1978, the History Department at the University of Zürich
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....
under Carsten Goehrke has been assembling an archive of historical documents relating to Swiss emigrants in Russia. The archive collects records of some 5,600 individuals who had come to Switzerland following the collapse of the tsarist state claiming Swiss citizenship, estimated to correspond to about two thirds of the total number.
Since the 2000s, there is a renewed limited trend of Swiss farmers emigrating to Russia. In 2006, there was a number of 676 Swiss citizens registered to permanently reside in Russia, or 100 more than in the preceding year.
See also
- Swiss diaspora
- Swiss AmericanSwiss AmericanSwiss Americans are Americans of Swiss descent.There are several ethno-linguistic subgroups among Swiss Americans, including Swiss German-speaking, Swiss French-speaking, and Swiss Italian-speaking....
- Swiss people
- BeresinaliedBeresinaliedThe Beresinalied, originally known as Unser Leben gleicht der Reise is a Lied composed by Friedrich Wilke after the 1792 poem die Nachtreise by Ludwig Giseke....
- Foreign relations of SwitzerlandForeign relations of SwitzerlandThe foreign relations of Switzerland are the primary responsibility of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs . Some international relations of Switzerland are handled by other departments of the federal administration of Switzerland.-History:...
- History of German settlement in Eastern EuropeHistory of German settlement in Eastern EuropeThe presence of German-speaking populations in Central and Eastern Europe is rooted in centuries of history, with the settling in northeastern Europe of Germanic peoples predating even the founding of the Roman Empire...
- Russia–Switzerland relationsRussia–Switzerland relationsRussia–Switzerland relations are foreign relations between Russia and Switzerland. Switzerland opened a consulate in Saint Petersburg in 1816, upgrading it to a legation 90 years later. The two countries broke off diplomatic relations in 1923, when Russia was going through a period of revolutionary...
Literature
- Bühler Roman, Gander-Wolf Heidi, Goehrke Carsten, Rauber Urs, Tschudin Gisela, Voegeli Josef, "Schweizer im Zarenreich - Zur Geschichte der Auswanderung nach Russland", Zürich, Verlag Hans Rohr, 1985
- Bühler Roman, "Auswanderung aus Graubünden in das russische Zarenreich", Zürich, Verlag Hans Rohr, 1988
- Collmer Peter, "Die besten Jahre unseres Lebens. Russlandschweizerinnen und Russlandschweizer in Selbstzeugnissen, 1821—1999", Zürich: Chronos Verlag 2001 , ISBN 978-3034005081
- Collmer Peter, "Die Schweiz und das Russische Reich 1848–1919. Geschichte einer europäischen Verflechtung" (Die Schweiz und der Osten Europas 10), Zürich, Chronos Verlag 2004.
- Goehrke Carsten (ed.): "Die Fremde als Heimat - Russlandschweizer erinnern sich", Zürich, Verlag Hans Rohr, 1988
- Goehrke Carsten, Schweizer in Russland. Zur Geschichte einer Kontinentalwanderung, RSH 48, 1998, 289-290.
- Lengen Markus, "Ein Strukturprofil der letzten Russlandschweizer-Generation am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges", Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte 48 (1998), 360-390
- Maeder Eva, "Auswanderungsziel: Russland. Schweizer Alltag im Zarenreich und im Sowjetstaat", Der Landbote, 29.12.2001, p. 20
- Mumenthaler Rudolf, "Das Russlandschweizer-Archiv. Entstehung und Aufbau", Carsten Goehrke (Hrsg.): 25 Jahre Osteuropa-Abteilung des Historischen Seminars der Universität Zürich 1971—1996. Zürich 1996, 37—45.
- Mumenthaler Rudolf, "Schweizer im Nordwesten des Zarenreichs. In: Der Finnische Meerbusen als Brennpunkt. Wandern und Wirken deutschsprachiger Menschen im europäischen Nordosten", ed. Robert Schweitzer, Waltraud Bastman-Bühner. Helsinki 1998, 145-165
- Rauber Urs, "Schweizer Industrie in Russland - Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der industriellen Emigration, des Kapitalexportes und des Handels der Schweiz mit dem Russischen Zarenreich", Zürich, Verlag Hans Rohr, 1985
- Schneider Harry, "Schweizer Theologen im Zarenreich (1700-1917)", Auswanderung und russischer Alltag von Theologen und ihren Frauen, Zürich, Verlag Hans Rohr, 1994.
- Tschudin Gisela, "Schweizer Käser in Russland", Zürich, Verlag Hans Rohr, 1988
- Voegeli Josef, "Die Rückkehr der Russlandschweizer 1917-1945", Zürich, Verlag Hans Rohr, 1988
- Jost Soom, Avancement et fortune: Schweizer und ihre Nachkommen als Offiziere, Diplomaten und Hofbeamte im Dienst des Zarenreiches, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Russlandschweizer, Hans Rohr (1996), ISBN 978-3858656339
- Alfred Erich Senn, Review of Bühler et al. (1985), Rauber (1985), Slavic Review (1986), p. 332f.