The Economic Life of Polish Immigrants in Siberia at the Late 19th – Early 20th Century: Strategies for Success

Abstract

The theme of the Siberian adaptation experience of Polish agrarian voluntary immigrants at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries is traditional for modern Polish-Russian historiography. There it is reviewed in the context of the impact of resettlement forms on the strategies of adaptation. Several variations of the adaptive strategies implemented in Polish ethnic villages (settlements with a significant proportion of Polish immigrants) and Polish families, which live separately in foreign ethnic communities (farm households) were identified. On the example of the settlement Minsk-Dvoryansk demonstrated the use of a resource of ethnicity in the adaptation process by immigrants. In the absence of a parental ethnic environment, the Poles preferred the neighborhood of Catholic immigrants or isolation in the form of a farm household.