Although human mobility has been among the themes of several major monographs in Russian history during the last decade (see, inter alia, the work of Brown, Gatrell, and Sunderland), the field has lacked a comprehensive study of migration in all of its forms.1 In Broad Is My Native Land, Siegelbaum and Moch join forces to offer just such an account. The work is chronologically ambitious—spanning the entire twentieth century and covering three different political systems—and thematically comprehensive, with chapters devoted to resettlement, seasonal migration, urbanization, various forms of professional movement, refugees, deportees, and a broad category of “itinerants.” Although the authors acknowledge that such thematic separation obscures what was, at times, the mutual constitution of different forms of migration (8), such an approach allows them to trace continuity and change clearly among different political systems.
The book’s argument is structured around two key concepts invoked in the...