Koreans in the Ural in the 1920-1930s: mobility, social appearance, and structures

This article is devoted to the migration of Koreans to the Urals in the 1920s and 1930s. It focuses on migration, socio-demographic appearance, and the social structures of Korean migrants. The study is based on archival documents, the censuses of 1926 and 1939, and books in memory of the victims of political repression in the regions of Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Perm. The territorial framework was chosen as the overwhelming majority of Koreans in the Urals lived within these three regions that. The theoretical and methodological framework was the theory of mobility. Koreans moved to the Urals from the Far East to receive education and employment in large industrial and cultural centers. The military-political situation in the Russian-Chinese border area was heating up and the Koreans began to be perceived by the authorities as an undesirable social element. There was a shortage of fertile land and ideas about the gradual resettlement of Koreans were floated. These all served as push factors for citizens of Korean nationality and contributed to their move to the interior of the country, including the Urals. The deportation of Koreans and repression against them led to the fact that Koreans actually “dissolved” into the local population for a long time, and they became known only after several decades.