Vanishing Worlds: Russian Exile Culture in Paris under the Nazis

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'Vanishing Worlds' focuses on the cultural production (e.g. literature, theatre, journalism, music) of the Russian emigration in Paris during the German occupation of 1940-44. In tracing the course of Russian culture during a period of great upheaval and uncertainty the project aims to establish how Russian cultural activities came to reflect shifts in cultural and national identities and the conflicting loyalties of the Russian diaspora in occupied France. Thematically, the project follows what are three interrelated strands of history, narrative and authorship: reconstructing Russian cultural life under German occupation in Paris; examining the subsequent creation of collective and personal narratives of this history within the Russian émigré community; and discussing how archival collections are more than just repositories of empirical evidence, and are also part of the historical narrative shaped by a variety of authorial voices and personal agendas. Taken together, these three thematic strands examine the interplay between different authorial and narrative agents in the creation of both complementary and competing historical narratives. With the beginning of the German occupation of France in June 1940, the Russian emigration in Paris, a 50,000 strong community which had established itself there subsequent to the Bolshevik revolution and the end of the Russian civil war, entered a phase of ideological and cultural reorientation. The attitude of the Russian émigrés towards the German occupier was complicated by the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, after which the Germans came to be seen as both liberators and enemies of a true (i.e. non-Soviet) Russia. Initial reticence on the part of the émigré community to engage in and with cultural initiatives was followed by a period of intense cultural activity (1942-44), when émigrés took advantage of a new direction in policy from the German Military Command that encouraged controlled cultural activities among the émigré community. These initiatives included the establishment of three Russian theatres, literary readings, concerts and cabarets and the publication of a new Russian émigré newspaper, the German-funded Paris Herald (Parizhskii vestnik). Looking at individual acts of remembering (diaries, reports, letters) as well as public and artistic responses to the time of the Occupation, the project examines the processes by which Russian émigrés arrived at various narratives which sought to make sense of the individual and collective experience of the Occupation. Identifying and contrasting the different narrative strands which unite individual and collective experiences of the Second World War, this project investigates the relationship between memory and forgetting, narratives of suffering and sacrifice, and the relationship between memory and the construction of national identities in the Russian émigré community in Paris. 'Vanishing Worlds' also examines the crucial role that archives themselves play in shaping our understanding of Russian émigré culture under Occupation. The project looks at how the major archives of the Russian emigration (e.g. the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Culture in Moscow) are themselves an integral part of the story. This study examines the status of archives not just as repositories of historical facts but also as progenitors of historical narratives.