Радянські шведи в пошуках кращого життя: між Швецією та СРСР

Abstract

The article analyzes the short period of the Soviet Swedes living outside the USSR in Sweden (while their re-emigration). It is proved that majority of the native Swedes saw the common roots with the Soviet Swedes diaspora, approved their reunion and admired their ability to preserve national identity for a long period (about two hundred years) of living outside Sweden. Their arrival in the Motherland was called as reunification. However, there was also a different opinion among the native Swedish society. Some parts of the Swedes were criticising the Swedish government for the financial support of the resettlement. In the context of the economic crisis in the country, the Soviet Swedes were considered as a labor force. The Swedish government set up a committee to take care of the migrants` adaptation. The committee planned to сonnect the Soviet Swedes to successful farmers so that they could get business experience. The settlers were reported that all the money, having spent on their settlement, was only a government loan that they would have to repay. The mismatch between the expectations and the reality, the new conditions and requirements (loans and interest rates, capitalist competition and a new type of society) they faced, gave rise to the Soviet Swedes' desire to seek an even better fate. The last one they traditionally associated with relocation and emigration. Under the influence of the communist propaganda, some poor Swedes decided to return to the USSR. Changing their plans for future, they considered their departure to Sweden as a reckless step and proclaimed the Soviet Union their only true homeland. The back return of 265 Swedes (33% of the diaspora) to the USSR proved that the mentality of the Ukrainian Swedish immigrants had been changed by the Bolsheviks power and national policy. It turned out that the paternalistic policy of the state during the Russian Empire and the uninitiated life during the Soviet era (when the Swedes realized that nothing depended on them) did make some of them a kind of "other" people. This thing changed them so much that they were ready to be satisfied with small possibilities. That is why they were unable to take risks, could not live under the condition of competitive society and capitalist market.