Denationalized Women: Russian-Speaking Refugees and the Gendered Language of Humanitarianism

In 1921, the Soviet Union denationalized 1.5 million citizens of the former Russian Empire, declaring those who emigrated after the Bolshevik Revolution without Soviet permission “class enemies.” As a humanitarian response, Fridjtof Nansen, famed arctic explorer and the League of Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees, developed the Nansen Passport, an identity card giving holders the right to cross international boundaries. This paper examines how the gendered language of humanitarianism influenced the United States’ decision to accept 20,000 Russian refugees with Nansen passports between the World Wars, despite the U.S. neither ratifying the Treaty of Versailles nor joining the League of Nations. Drawing on a literature of statelessness begun by Hannah Arendt, it responds to Linda Kerber’s call to U.S. historians to examine the category of statelessness rather than dismissing it as a foreign problem. Combining the Russian language press with government documents and the papers of private organizations shows how post-1917 refugees competed against the prewar characterization of Russian-speaking immigrants as single male radicals. American private charitable organizations used a language of sympathy and suffering prevalent among female reformers in the early twentieth century to raise funds and promote the entrance of Russians fleeing war and revolution. Their advocacy cast refugees as victims of a communist state that would nationalize women’s bodies and destroy the family, emphasizing Russian refugees as fit for incorporation into American democratic society. Russian refugees’ appeals resonated with American policy makers because of Russians’ perceived whiteness and opposition to communist challenges to traditional gender roles.