At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change
This article analyzes the infusion of North American ideas, culture and experience into the Soviet society, and depicts immigrants as agents of social and cultural change. Having embodied North American representations of modernity, they introduced new working methods, values and routines, as well a...
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crsagepubl:10.1177/0022009414564802 2024-06-16T07:41:13+00:00 At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change Efremkin, Evgeny 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009414564802 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022009414564802 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0022009414564802 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license Journal of Contemporary History volume 51, issue 3, page 531-554 ISSN 0022-0094 1461-7250 journal-article 2015 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009414564802 2024-05-19T13:11:42Z This article analyzes the infusion of North American ideas, culture and experience into the Soviet society, and depicts immigrants as agents of social and cultural change. Having embodied North American representations of modernity, they introduced new working methods, values and routines, as well as novel forms of labor organization to Soviet Karelia. With the help of imported machinery, tools, and equipment, immigrants drastically increased the production rates at Karelia’s industries. Glorified and publicized by the Karelian government and the media, their labour shops, and farm communes became models to be emulated in Karelia and throughout the Soviet Union. North American Finns also came to play an important part in Soviet elites’ attempt to modernize the Soviet society, both economically and culturally. Although they were agents of cultural and technological change in their own right, immigrants’ social and ethnic identities were subsumed and appropriated by the Soviet state and Karelia’s cultural producers in attempts to promote a Soviet version (an alternative) of economic and cultural modernity. Their physical and intellectual movement across national borders shaped and reconstituted the Soviet path to modernization, even if for a short period of time. In the process, concepts of the local, the national and the modern (that is, the global), became increasingly entangled. Article in Journal/Newspaper karelian SAGE Publications Journal of Contemporary History 51 3 531 554 |
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This article analyzes the infusion of North American ideas, culture and experience into the Soviet society, and depicts immigrants as agents of social and cultural change. Having embodied North American representations of modernity, they introduced new working methods, values and routines, as well as novel forms of labor organization to Soviet Karelia. With the help of imported machinery, tools, and equipment, immigrants drastically increased the production rates at Karelia’s industries. Glorified and publicized by the Karelian government and the media, their labour shops, and farm communes became models to be emulated in Karelia and throughout the Soviet Union. North American Finns also came to play an important part in Soviet elites’ attempt to modernize the Soviet society, both economically and culturally. Although they were agents of cultural and technological change in their own right, immigrants’ social and ethnic identities were subsumed and appropriated by the Soviet state and Karelia’s cultural producers in attempts to promote a Soviet version (an alternative) of economic and cultural modernity. Their physical and intellectual movement across national borders shaped and reconstituted the Soviet path to modernization, even if for a short period of time. In the process, concepts of the local, the national and the modern (that is, the global), became increasingly entangled. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Efremkin, Evgeny |
spellingShingle |
Efremkin, Evgeny At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change |
author_facet |
Efremkin, Evgeny |
author_sort |
Efremkin, Evgeny |
title |
At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change |
title_short |
At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change |
title_full |
At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change |
title_fullStr |
At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change |
title_full_unstemmed |
At the Intersection of Modernities: Migrants as Agents of Economic and Cultural Change |
title_sort |
at the intersection of modernities: migrants as agents of economic and cultural change |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009414564802 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022009414564802 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0022009414564802 |
genre |
karelian |
genre_facet |
karelian |
op_source |
Journal of Contemporary History volume 51, issue 3, page 531-554 ISSN 0022-0094 1461-7250 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009414564802 |
container_title |
Journal of Contemporary History |
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51 |
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3 |
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531 |
op_container_end_page |
554 |
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1802008362674552832 |