Sahadeo, Jeff, Soviet “Blacks” and Place Making in Leningrad and Moscow,

Sahadeo, Jeff, “Soviet “Blacks” and Place Making in Leningrad and Moscow,” Slavic Review, 71, no. 2. (Summer 2012).

Agenda:

“Race emerged as an important category [in migrations from non-Slavic areas to Slavic areas of the USSR] but interacted with ethnicity, class, gender—perhaps, in some cases, sex—perceptions of cultural and professional prestige, and work ethics in complicated ways in the everyday life of the two capitals… Their interplay, I argue, allows us to examine how citizens on the periphery and core alike understood the Soviet project of progress and development and made it their own.”

Stresses importance of networks in making places of Moscow and Leningrad by immigrants. The involvement of the state in these networks brings additional agency for immigrants to initiate structural reforms ‘from below’. Soviet immigrants exploit ‘grey zones’ and negotiate meanings with official bodies.

Host society differentiated migrants on the basis of racial (…) characteristics. Migrants, in response, became engaged in place making which aspired to overcome this classification. “This article will follow southern and eastern migrants through three phases of place making in Leningrad and Moscow, from initial encounters with the two capitals, to settling into new homes and networks, and, finally, educational or work experiences.”

1) initial encounters: To cope with a new place, migrants adopt identities of its citizens or emphasize positive experiences or consumed cultural expectations learned through school education or TV. Places of interests became certain landmarks of tolerance in alien space and helped transforming it into “one’s own.” Linking old homes to new was another strategy in immigrants’ making places. Contrast with local population (Russians) for preserving one’s identities in a new place. Moreover, the common Soviet narrative (narrative of Soviet unity) was a unifying force which eased immigrants’ adaptation to new realities.

2) New Homes and New Networks: dormitories as places of contact, which on the other hand created a tension with local population (‘ponaekhali’). New networks helped to negotiate identities between ‘old’ and ‘new’.

3) On the Job, In the Classroom: job market as a context for migration. Job places created urban microworlds where personal relations were a key to personal success. At workplace, migrants were able to build equal relations which they sometimes were unable to find in larger social spaces, as Moscow and Leningrad could be hostile.

Conclusion: “Migrants framed place- making efforts as inclusion in modern, European, wealthy, upwardly mobile worlds. Interaction between factors influencing place making shaped and reshaped Leningrad and Moscow as multiethnic postcolonial cities.”