By Vestnik Kavkaza
The “Russian World in the 20th Century” six-volume book composed by the AIRO-XXI Association of Researchers of the Russian Society will describe the history of the Russian world abroad. Each volume is dedicated to a certain period of history. The thorough topics include attitude of Russia towards migration, approximate numbers of migrants, their occupation and geographic locations all over the world; laws and norms for emigrants in different countries, consolidation of Russians in different countries. A unique database available online was formed to write the book.
Gennady Bordyugov, President of the AIRO-XXI Association, told Vestnik Kavkaza that “now, in these complicated conditions, when the Russian world goes through hardships and challenges, as we can see in Ukraine, understanding of the origins, roots has a fundamental significance. It is not a politicized publication, not an ideologized one. We wanted to show that the Russian world is not some festivals, fairs, Orthodox Church service, it is a complicated organism, space that has firm and solid institutions. We have mainly studied the juridical, legal bases of the Russian world. How the Russian world builds relations and understands the legal space of the country the compatriots live in. We can see juridical aspects, economic and legal ones. It is important to show the cultural diversity, work of Russian culture centers, Russian schools, achievements of members of the Russian Orthodox Church in a certain country. It is important to show the fate, history and sometimes survival of the Russian language because it had to fight for in many countries of the world, many regions.”
In Bordyugov’s words, “out compatriots have never conflicted with natives, native nations. On the contrary, the Russian world has always formed peaceful relations and thought about overcoming Russophobia in different parts of the world together. When we all watch the events in Ukraine, Crimea with attention and tension, we understand that the Russian world faces complicated times. This is why the support Russia gives, the support I hope authors of the project may get should have consequences. Let us hope that they would be positive, they would be peaceful and would not ruin the relations with Ukrainian people and other nations living in Ukraine, the relations formed throughout ages.”
Alan Kasayev, one of the authors of the project, Head of the Journalism Mastery Subdepartment at the MSLU, reminded that “Russia lived through many tragedies of the past 150 years, two world wars, a civil war, two revolutions, collapse of the 1990s, each period was followed by departure of a large part of the population. This population lived an active life wherever fate brought would bring them, yet they had certain common traits.
Firstly, the majority of Russians abroad continued to practice the Orthodox religion.
Secondly, they tried to protect the Russian language.
Thirdly, they tried to preserve the traditions they had from Russia.
We have used empirical methods to see that there were phenomena that had not been fully studied or not studied at all, in terms of historic science. So we decided to take up this mission.”
