Written by: RETROactive staff
The last RETROactive Live Alberta Heritage Speaker Series for the next few months is taking place on Thursday, June 18. Click the registration link to sign up. You can also watch recordings of the previous four webinars.
The Russian Revolution and Civil War (1917-22) created an enormous refugee crisis, as hundreds of thousands of people fled Russia to escape violence and persecution. Approximately 16,000 sought refuge in Harbin, China, where they appealed to the international community for assistance. In 1924, Canada agreed to open its borders to several groups of Russian refugees on the condition that they pay for their own passage and settle on agricultural land. Between 1924 and 1927, over 1,000 Russian refugees arrived in Canada to start a new life, with hundreds initially settling in central Alberta.
The story of the Russian refugees intersects with many important themes in provincial, national and global history. On the largest scale, it is part of the evolution of international law regarding the movement and resettlement of displaced people. Nationally, it reflects the combined efforts of the Government of Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway to bring new immigrants to the Prairie West for agricultural settlement in the 1920s. Locally, it reflects the personal stories and family histories of hundreds of individuals starting new lives in Alberta.
The job of the historian is to synthesize these contexts into a compelling, accurate and informative analysis. To do so, they draw upon a wide range of sources, including government documents, photos, personal memoirs and the published work of other historians. Each source is unique and provides different types of information – the challenge faced by historians is to bring these sources together to support a detailed analysis of their topic. Using recent Heritage Marker research on the 1920s settlement of Russian refugees in Alberta as a case study, this talk will discuss how historians approach research and use different sources to answer questions about the past.
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