THE CLASH OF CLICHÉS: MIGRANTS ANT LOCAL PEOPLE DURING II WORLD WAR (THE CASE OF THE URALS, THE USSR)

Abstract

Migrations have become an important factor in social stability. Caused either by extreme circumstances or increasing professional mobility they affect the life of both local people and newcomers. Local and migrant population live side by side and inevitably share and exchange their experience. The locals have distrustful attitudes towards refugees and vice versa. The role of social prejudices, so-called clichés, turns out to be significant if not crucial. The authors scrutinize migrants’ stereotypical images of the Urals and its provincial population and compare them with clichés that the population of the Urals had about evacuated people. Both evacuees and locals perceived each other as ‘strangers. It is concluded on the factors determining Soviet people's prejudices such as lack culture, ethnical differences, low living standards and low mobility. The article deals with the nature of domestic and ethnic, often antisemitic, conflicts. Another point of the research is to find out if there is a way to overcome the stereotypes impeding the atmosphere of trust and social solidarity. The experience of the Soviet people lived in the rear during the Soviet-German war shows some paths towards social stability. In the case of the USSR, the elimination of clichés was due to the national-scale tragedy of the war and the sense of common grief as well as to the single economic market and internationalist politics of the Soviet government. The subject matter of the article lies at the intersection of social and military history. The study is based on published and archival materials. Among primary sources, there are archival documents, memoirs and personal diaries, former Soviet residents’ interviews and memoirs. Some of the materials have been published or filmed in documentaries.