THE NATIONAL MINORITIES EMIGRATION FROM THE UkSSR DURING THE NEP PERIOD (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE VOLHYNIA PASSENGER AGENCY "RUSCAPA")

Abstract

Abstract
 The purpose of the article is to study the main problems and factors of the ethnic minorities emigration, in particular, Germans and Jews, from Volhynia-Zhytomyr region in the 1920s; to reveal the peculiarities of the activities of the Russian-Canadian-American Passenger Agency (RUSCAPA) that helped USSR citizens to emigrate legally during the NEP period. Methodology of the study was general scientific methods (analysis of the available archival documents, synthesis of other sources that allowed to recreate the picture of the organization of migration flows), historical research methods (historical-comparative: parallels were drawn with previous periods and the causes of various migration waves), methods of classification and typology (to study the categories of citizens who could obtain permission to leave and enter another country). Scientific novelty. New documents from the archival fund «The Volhynia passenger agency «RUSCAPA»», stored in the State Archives of Zhytomyr region, are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The conditions of emigration during the NEP period and the methods of its regulation by the Soviet authorities are systematized.
 Conclusions. The second wave of emigration among the representatives of national minorities (primarily Jews and Germans) was an indicative form of protest against the conditions of economic, religious life, and other restrictions imposed by the Soviet political system. The former Volhynia province, with its center in Zhytomyr, was a region with a compact population of German and Jewish communities, whose representatives made up the highest percentage of those who took advantage of the short «window of opportunity» to travel abroad that existed in the USSR during the NEP period. That was a reason for the presence in Zhytomyr a representative office of a private company that organized emigration. However, it was not easy to leave the USSR, nor was it easy to get to the country of immigration, due to significant bureaucratic obstacles and arguments for the expediency of permits/prohibitions for the departure/entry of representatives of different social categories and national groups. Restrictions were created by the Soviet government that sought to prove to the world the advantages of the young «proletarian» state and by the immigration policy of «overseas» states that were interested in attracting physically, socially and financially prosperous citizens to their countries. RUSCAPA helped to bypass the restrictions, and its liquidation was a consequence of the collapse of the NEP and the transformation of the USSR into a totalitarian system closed by the Iron Curtain.