The Nansen factor. Refugee stories

Norwegian diplomat Fridtjof Nansen created a passport for stateless persons used by refugees as a valid travel document from 1922-1937. The world is all too aware of what happened to Russia over the last 100 years—Lenin, Stalin, and now Putin with his iron-fist policies and invasion of Ukraine. But what about the aristocrats whose ancestors governed Russia before Communism? How did they fare in displacement? Civil War, Red Terror, and Bolshevik rule caused over one million to flee Russia. The pain of losing one’s homeland may fade, but the injury to the psyche is slow to heal. THE NANSEN FACTOR shines a light on the lives on some of these Russian refugees and their descendants.