Russian Refugee Crisis and Its Possible Solutions

Abstract

The first co-ordinated international efforts for refugee protection were a direct response to the Russian exodus that had followed the 1917 revolution and the subsequent Civil War. The Russians who had left their homeland lived in exile with no legal rights, in great misery and deprivation, as the Russian ‘problem’ clearly exceeded the capacities of the existing humanitarian organisations. Difficult circumstances and poverty similarly afflicted the majority of those Russians who found refuge in Slovenia. The situation of the Russian refugees and the humanitarian role played by the Roman Catholic Church in that period came under the spotlight of Slovenian press. The latter gave detailed reports of Bishop Jeglič’s visit to the barracks at Ljubljana’s central train station, where many Russian refugees had been housed.