Welcome to the website for the ‘China Russians’ project.
This transnational project studies Russian and Russian-speaking Jewish refugees who came to Australia via the ‘China’ route (mainly from Harbin and Shanghai) after the Second World War. In Australia, they coexisted with the former Soviet citizens ‘displaced persons’ of Russian, Ukrainian and Baltic nationality who reached Australia via Europe. Their prewar experiences led many of the refugees to be strongly anti-Communist, but a minority were not, and became subjects of interest both to ASIO and the Soviet KGB. The project investigates their trajectories of exile, migration and settlement, and the impact of this refugee experience on the development of Australian anti-communism in the 1950s.
On this website, we provide information about the project, including about the project team, our ongoing research and our public engagement.
ARC Project ID: DP160101528
China Russians 