AHC: Russian Immigration Wave

Exactly what it says on the tin. With a PoD any time after 1815, create a scenario where Russians immigrate to the US in large numbers, comparable to Italians and Germans.
 
Do East European/Russian Jews count?

Most immigrant groups resulted from severe economic disruption and/or population surges. I dont know if you can recreate something like the Irish famine in the Russian empire in the 19th Century. It is a bit ASB to have some Asiatic group invade & occupy, displacing millions of Russians westwards. Equally ASB for a resurgent Polish revolt/conquest?
 
If you lump together emigres from the Russian Empire (Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Ruthenians, Belorussians, Russians), then the historic emigration numbers aren't actually that far off from the Germans and Italians.
 
Do East European/Russian Jews count?

Most immigrant groups resulted from severe economic disruption and/or population surges. I dont know if you can recreate something like the Irish famine in the Russian empire in the 19th Century. It is a bit ASB to have some Asiatic group invade & occupy, displacing millions of Russians westwards. Equally ASB for a resurgent Polish revolt/conquest?

I was thinking ethnic Russians that eventually form a community on par with Germans, Irish, Italians, and Poles in OTL.
 
We need a modern-day Hunnic empire rising from Siberia. The Russians would be so scared they would swim across the Atlantic to remove themselves away from the bloodthirsty plague.
 
Do East European/Russian Jews count?

Most immigrant groups resulted from severe economic disruption and/or population surges. I dont know if you can recreate something like the Irish famine in the Russian empire in the 19th Century. It is a bit ASB to have some Asiatic group invade & occupy, displacing millions of Russians westwards. Equally ASB for a resurgent Polish revolt/conquest?

Perhaps a more disruptive Napoleonic invasion could devastate Russia, or maybe a loss in the 1877 war could promote anti-government social unrest and hardship caused by war indemnities and causalities. The latter could maybe promote the revolution/civil war that RandomWriterGuy suggested.
 
OTL, instead of going to the US, many Russians went to the Wild East of Siberia, which had many of the tropes associated with the US Wild West (land of opportunity! cheap farmland! so much space a man can breathe free of the restraints of serfdom!). An easy way to achieve this would be to remove that option by delaying the conquest of Siberia as long as possible. Say, a strong insurgent Turkish empire on the steppes, or a Russia that gets crippled by Sweden or the Ottomans and is focused primarily on recovering from that instead of trying to colonize some cold lands over the Urals.
 
I am wondering where the Russians would live though. West Coast? East?

They'd mostly come in through the east, especially if the 'no Russian Siberia' scenario is in place. Where they'd wind up ultimately is a different question. Likely, they'd wind up in most of the same places the Slavs did OTL, that is, the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. If they get big enough they might affect some settlement patterns on their own, though. I can imagine the Dakotas could be Russian-influenced in a similar way to how Minnesota and Wisconsin are Scandinavian-influenced...
 

phatmaus

Banned
If you lump together emigres from the Russian Empire (Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Ruthenians, Belorussians, Russians), then the historic emigration numbers aren't actually that far off from the Germans and Italians.
You're wrong there, the Russian empire was always mindful of the fact that they were under-populated and made immigration difficult unless you were undesirables like Jews. The vast majority of poles and Ukrainians who emigrated to America and Canada before ww1 were from Austria Hungary (and Germany in the case of poles).
 
"At the turn of the century, the data on American ethnic groups provided by the Bureau of the Census and other federal agencies grew in volume and became considerably more refined. Beginning in 1899, immigration officials went beyond the crude compilations of figures by country of origin and began to distunguish newcomers by 'race or people,' allowing the student of immigration to separate Armenians from Turks, and to distinguish the many peoples from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Thus it can be determined that a mere 2 percent of the more than six hundred thousand immigrants from Russia who arrived in the years 1899-1904 were actually ethnic Russians; 42 percent of them were Jews, 27 percent Finns, and 10 percent Lithuanians..." http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0814734790&id=cKDHSic4-P4C&pg=RA1-PA91&lpg=RA1-PA91&ots=9R0s1HVgg1&sig=mdU6YAOS8Byy8yJRr0Ag
 
Exactly what it says on the tin. With a PoD any time after 1815, create a scenario where Russians immigrate to the US in large numbers, comparable to Italians and Germans.

Based on personal observation it happened after 1991 and a whole bunch of them wound up in California.
 
If they get big enough they might affect some settlement patterns on their own, though. I can imagine the Dakotas could be Russian-influenced in a similar way to how Minnesota and Wisconsin are Scandinavian-influenced...

Yeah. . . no. The scandinavian influence in Minnesota is totally blown out of proportion. Sure, it has a higher proportion of the population claiming Norse ancestry than most other places in the United States but half the state claims German ancestry (pretty much the same story across the Midwest) and southern Minnesota contains some of the most German places I've ever been to outside of Germany. Some areas celebrate German festivals, like Oktoberfest, but I've never heard of anything resembling a scandinavian festival. Hell, my school still teaches German and I have yet to find any places in Minnesota that contain a norse language as part of their curriculum. If it wasn't for the whole anti-German backlash during WW1, both Minnesota and Wisconsin would likely be speaking German today.
 
Yeah. . . no. The scandinavian influence in Minnesota is totally blown out of proportion. Sure, it has a higher proportion of the population claiming Norse ancestry than most other places in the United States but half the state claims German ancestry (pretty much the same story across the Midwest) and southern Minnesota contains some of the most German places I've ever been to outside of Germany. Some areas celebrate German festivals, like Oktoberfest, but I've never heard of anything resembling a scandinavian festival. Hell, my school still teaches German and I have yet to find any places in Minnesota that contain a norse language as part of their curriculum. If it wasn't for the whole anti-German backlash during WW1, both Minnesota and Wisconsin would likely be speaking German today.

A little off topic, but the Norwegian and Swedish immigration to the Midwest was smaller in numbers and came later than the German immigration which was already large before the Civil War. Between 1860 and 1900 Germans were the single-largest group of foreign born immigrants in Minnesota, however German immigration began to decline rapidly in the 1890s. According to the 1910 census of the 543,010 foreign-born in the state, 22.5% were Swedish-born, Norwegians were 19.4% and Danes 3%, in total accounting for nearly 45% of the foreign-born population.

By 1910, Germans were the second-largest group with of foreign born individuals in Minnesota with 20.2% of the total. Austrians were 6.8% (though how many of these were ethnically German is unknown), Russian-born individuals were 3.2% and presumably some of these were German-Russians.

If we look at native-born residents with one or more immigrant parent, they accounted for 941,136 individuals or 45.4% of the total population in 1910. The largest group was German with 26.7% German, followed by Norwegian with 18.8%, Swedish with 18.1%. Danes accounted for 2% so it seems that the Scandinavians were still ahead of the Germans.

If we look at the cities in 1910, Minneapolis had 86,099 immigrants, accounting for 28.6% of its population, of these 26,478 were born in Sweden, 16,402 in Norway, 8,650 in Germany, 5,654 in Russia, 4,978 in Austria, 4,639 in England and 2,030 in Denmark. For Saint Paul, 56,657 residents were immigrants in 1910, or 26.4% of the population. Of these the largest group were Scandinavians with 16,810 of the total, Germans came next with 14,025.

If we look at North Dakota, Scandinavians seem to have consistently outnumbered Germans, especially the Norwegians. In 1890, 44.6% of the population was foreign born with a total of 81,461 individuals. Of these the largest number were born in Norway with 25,754, second came British North America 23,025 and third was Germany with 8,890. The peak in foreign-born for that state was in 1910 with 156,654 individuals. Of these 45,937 were born in Norway, this was followed by Russia with 31,341 (many probably ethnic Germans), Canada & Newfoundland with 21,507, Germany 15,763, Sweden 12,160, Denmark 5,385 and Austria 4,714. So it appears the Scandinavians still outnumbered Germans in this state.

What is clear is that the Scandinavians were the largest immigrant group in Minnesota and North Dakota by 1910, but never achieved the overall dominance that the Germans did in say Milwaukee. In 1910 that city had 111,529 foreign born individuals, of these over half were born in Germany 64,816 whereas the next largest group was born in Russia amounted to only 11,992.
 
Geez, dude, I said influenced, not dominated. I'm well aware that many people from many places moved to MN and WI. But they had a disproportionately sized migration there so they have an outsize cultural influence there compared to the rest of the country, even compared to other Midwestern states. Russians could do something similar elsewhere, if they came in sufficient numbers, and I wager they'd be attracted to places with a similar climate to the old country...

Of course most Midwestern cities would probably wind up with a sizable Little Russia in addition to the Little Polands and Germantowns of OTL.
 

LordKalvert

Banned
"At the turn of the century, the data on American ethnic groups provided by the Bureau of the Census and other federal agencies grew in volume and became considerably more refined. Beginning in 1899, immigration officials went beyond the crude compilations of figures by country of origin and began to distunguish newcomers by 'race or people,' allowing the student of immigration to separate Armenians from Turks, and to distinguish the many peoples from the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Thus it can be determined that a mere 2 percent of the more than six hundred thousand immigrants from Russia who arrived in the years 1899-1904 were actually ethnic Russians; 42 percent of them were Jews, 27 percent Finns, and 10 percent Lithuanians..." http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0814734790&id=cKDHSic4-P4C&pg=RA1-PA91&lpg=RA1-PA91&ots=9R0s1HVgg1&sig=mdU6YAOS8Byy8yJRr0Ag

I would add further that Lithuania, Poland and the Ukraine were the areas of highest Jewish population in the Russian Empire. I wouldn't be surprised if we scratched under the surface a little that we would find a lot of ethnic Jews in those groups as well

Given Romanov policies, if I was a Jew or even "looked Jewish", I'd seriously consider leaving as well

Unfortunately, we don't have too much information on the numbers of people who came back. Many immigrants to America returned to their own country. I doubt if were going to find many Jews who returned to Russia.

The Finns are a bit interesting especially given the small percentage of the Empire that Finland consisted (like 2% if memory serves)

The best indicator of how small ethnic Russian (and Ukrainian) immigration to America was at the time is the size of the Orthodox Church in America and the uniate church which is where these people would go. Very, very small
 

LordKalvert

Banned
My money is on a earlier Russian Revolution or Civil War. I can't imagine what else would cause a mass migration.

Even that didn't get the Russians to leave. Only rich Russians left after the Revolution

The Russians even went back to the Soviet Union under Stalin after WWII. They seem to really, really like the place
 
One has to keep in mind that the Russian Empire was one of the few countries before World War I to require passports and not allow free emigration of its subjects. Prior to World War I, the majority of migrants in the world tended to be young men. In Russia, strict conscription laws were against the emigration of potential soldiers, so you'd have to get rid of that.

Another thing to keep in mind is that millions of Russians began moving from European Russia to the Caucasus and later Siberia where free land was available. Once the Trans Siberian Railway was completed this movement numbered hundreds of thousands per year until 1914. As early as 1831-1836 some 320,000 Russians were transported to Siberia as colonists.

Jews were the single largest group of emigrants from the Russian Empire before World War I, mostly due to their persecution. In addition, they had the largest number of women emigrating as a group. Regarding return migration, there was some indication that Russian Jews were the least likely to return, with only around 5% ever returning to the Russian Empire. Jews from Austria-Hungary, for instance had a return rate of 15%.

Ethnic Germans which had been welcomed to Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great were also numerous in proportion to their overall numbers. Many were Mennonites and against conscription, therefore they sought to emigrate to the United States, Canada and Latin America. Like the Jews, these groups tended to emigrate in family units, rather than single males. Unlike Jewish immigrants, they tended to settle in rural areas and engage in agriculture.

The Poles, Lithuanians, Finns and Russian were mostly male and a large proportion of these (one-fourth to one-third) returned to the Russian Empire after being temporary migrants.

Immigrants from the Russian Empire and Finland to the USA 1899-1910
Jewish 765,531
Polish 471,378
Lithuanian 168,740
Finnish 148,183
German 100,817
Russian (Includes Belarussians & Ukrainians) 77,321
Scandinavian 13,624
Others 3,291

Female Immigrants as a Proportion of the Above
Jews 43.4%
Germans 40.6%
Finns 33.9%
Poles 30.5%
Lithuanians 29.4%
Russians 15%

Illiteracy Among Persons over 14 years of Age
Lithuanians 48.9%
Russians 38.4%
Poles 35.4%
Jews 26.0%
Germans 5.2%
Finns 1.3%
 

Kingpoleon

Banned
POD: Slavic intellectuals stir up trouble against the Russian threat to intervene in Hungary and other parts of Europe(including Sweden), hoping to propel their own nationalism.

In 1848, Russia east of the Urals experienced a massive Liberal Uprising, alongside Polish, Lithuanian, Finnish, and Ukrainian revolts. This was due to mistrust of the reactionary regime and Slavic love for the Hungarian revolt. Eventually, Ukraine gained the status of Grand Duchy while Prussia sent supplies to the Lithuanians, including some 50,000 armed Prussian soldiers, citing Russia's threat to intervene in Hungary as 'upsetting to the European balance of power and... Expressing disbelief in the German Confederation's ability to... maintain order in a member state.'

Prussia managed to gain independence for Lithuania, which was given it's OTL land, Latvia, and Estonia. Poland and Finland gained recognition as separate identities in the army, forming the 1st Polish Protection Battalion and the 1st Imperial Finnish Battalion. However, the many nationalists and intellectuals, fearing backlash, fled either to the remote colony of Alaska or emigrated to America as fast as was possible. Some 80,000 Slavics settled in former Anchorage, Alaska, forming the Novo-Krim. The German aristocracy gained voting rights in Lithuania, who elected a half-German, half-Lithuanian as Grand Duke. This Grand Duke Nikolaus recognized Frederick William IV as his overlord and became engaged to the Kaiser's niece, the 13-year old Princess Anna, a girl five years his junior.

In 1848, there were some 300,000 Slavic nationalists and intellectuals in Alaska. Many of them went to California in '49, where one Polish man, a Joseph Poniwitski, married the Chinese woman Tovu Lee. He struck gold and soon became a wealthy man, with the equivalent of $72,300,000.00 in today's money. After heavily investing in land in Missouri, he moved back to Alaska and began funding a movement to join America from there. Many Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, and the like, who could not gain access to America but could to Russia moved to Alaska too. By 1851, the Alaskan population numbered some 80,000 Russians, 280,000 Slavic non-Russians, and 140,000 Asians. These 500,000 people joined America in 1852, when America purchased Alaska. Joseph became it's first unofficial governor in a vote held by a few leading politicians to the common people.

Joseph received 63% of the vote and went to his Missouri holdings, whee he first sold the slaves purchased by his managers and then the land. His investment had gained him the equivalent of over four hundred million dollars now. He later encouraged immigration from Russia, especially after 1860 when he became the American ambassador to Russia. Making many speeches, he led a mass exodus of their populations, becoming an Elected King of Poland, a title he held the rest of his life. The 600,000 Polish and 300,000 other Russian citizens who went to America post-1859 due to him hold him as their leader to this day. His descendant in 2014, Alexander Poniwitski Konitowski, is a 27-year old Senator from Alaska whose father is a former governor to Alaska, now serving as the Secretary of State in Missouri. Alexander is a supporter of Polish monarchism to this day, and holds the title of Duke in the New Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth(1848 Polish Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, and Estonia), established after Germany and Austro-Hungary won the Continental War against Russia.
 
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