Emigration of ethnic germans from the Russian empire to the United States: Causes and social consequences

Abstract

Within the framework of the presented study, the issue of the specifics and driving factors of the emigration of ethnic Germans from the Russian Empire to the United States in the late 19th - early 20th centuries is highlighted. The aim of the work is to highlight the features of this process, including from the point of view of the motivation of the migrants. The source base of the work was formed by attracting archival materials, data from pre-revolutionary statistics and sources of personal origin. The research methodology is based on a combination of structural and comparative analysis. The author comes to the conclusion that the emigration of Germans from the Russian Empire did not take on a large scale, comparable to the resettlement of such ethnic groups as Jews or Poles. This process mainly covered the Baltic provinces and the territory of the Western Territory. The move of the Germans to the United States was motivated primarily by economic considerations. At the same time, the Germans used migration mainly as a source of accumulation of funds for solving development problems (for expanding the economy, acquiring technology, etc.). The national policy of the Russian authorities had little effect on the models of migration behavior chosen by ethnic Germans. Both the move to the United States and the process of adaptation in the new society were more comfortable for the Germans than in the case of representatives of other ethnic groups who came from the Russian Empire. First of all, this was facilitated by the presence of sufficient savings at the time of emigration, a fairly high level of literacy, a high proportion of artisans and highly skilled workers in the structure of German immigrants, and a great readiness for naturalization. © 2021 International Network Center for Fundamental and Applied Research. All rights reserved.