Protectors and Watchdogs: Tsarist Consular Supervision of Russian-Subject Immigrants in Canada, 1900–1922

Abstract

The paper uses the massive records of the Russian imperial consulates in Canada (known as the Li-Ra-Ma Collection) as well as other Russian and Canadian sources to demonstrate the role played by the tsarist diplomats in early twentieth-century immigration from the Russian Empire to Canada. It argues that while the functions of administrative and political surveillance were always a priority for the consuls, they also served as intermediaries between the immigrants and Canadian authorities and a medium of maintaining their links with the homeland. The majority of the consuls’ clientele were temporary labour migrants of Slavic origin, who resorted to the authority of the old state in resolving their problems in the host country, usually after alternative methods such as appeal to Canadian law or private agents did not bring results. Viewing all immigrants from Russia as subject to the tsar and Russian law, the consuls assumed the dual role of guardians of the immigrants’ interests and monitors of their political orientations.