Abstracts
Abstract
Political mobilization of the Russian-speaking immigrant community in Canada is a relatively recent phenomenon, but it has permeated multiple spheres of community life in recent years. This paper examines how Russian-speaking immigrants living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) used the history and memory of World War II to mobilize their community from 2014–21, what forms of war commemoration they performed, and what these commemoration practices meant for the community and the individuals who participated in them. The commemorative practices and performances in the GTA’s Russian-speaking community remained controversial as they borrowed extensively from Soviet and post-Soviet political imagery and rituals, yet, as I argue in this article, political activism of Russian-speaking immigrants was also informed by Canadian multiculturalism policies and international political discourses and was intimately linked to their demands for full citizenship and cultivation of their identities in Canadian society.
Keywords:
- diaspora,
- citizenship,
- war commemoration,
- Russian-speaking immigrants
Résumé
La mobilisation politique de la communauté des immigrants russophones au Canada est un phénomène relativement récent, mais elle a imprégné de multiples sphères de la vie communautaire au cours des dernières années. Cet article examine : la manière dont les immigrants russophones du Grand Toronto (Greater Toronto Area, GTA) ont utilisé l’histoire et la mémoire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale pour mobiliser leur communauté de 2014 à 2021 ; leurs organisations de commémoration de la guerre ; et ce que ces pratiques de commémoration signifiaient pour la communauté et les individus qui y ont participé. Les pratiques et les performances commémoratives au sein de la communauté russophone du Grand Toronto sont restées controversées car elles empruntaient largement à l’imagerie et aux rituels politiques soviétiques et post-soviétiques. Pourtant, comme je le soutiens dans cet article, l’activisme politique des immigrants russophones était également nourri par les politiques canadiennes de multiculturalisme et les discours politiques internationaux, tout en étant intimement lié à leurs demandes de citoyenneté à part entière et à la culture de leurs identités dans la société canadienne.
Mots-clés :
- diaspora,
- citoyenneté,
- commémoration de la guerre,
- immigrants russophones
Appendices
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