Context
Historical Background
In the midst of the political and social upheaval caused by the first world war, the Russian tsarist monarchy began to crumble. Strains placed on the Russian government and economy were mounting as the country struggled to provide basic goods and services to its population. Seizing the opportunity, radical revolutionary and leader of the Bolshevik party, Vladimir Lenin lead a revolution to consolidate power of the people, and establish communist governmental controls to replace the failing Tsarist monarchy. However Lenin’s control was far from complete, and the country began to descend into civil war between the communist Bolsheviks, and the pro-monarchical forces that still supported Tsar Nicholas II. These domestic shifts in Russia resulted in the Bolshevik government withdrawing support from World War I, citing workers who were hungry, and families that were torn apart by violence and the staggering casualties. Beginning in 1918, Lenin withdrew troops and resources from the global conflict to focus them on the Russian home front. This decision shifted additional burdens onto the other allied forces of France, Britain, and the United States to make up for lost troops and resources. Sensing the possibility of a tidal shift in the war, United States President Woodrow Wilson dispatched a company of soldiers to the Russian front to aid pro-tsarist revolutionaries in the civil war, and attempt to subvert the Bolshevik uprising, in the hopes of bringing Russia back into the broader war.
In fulfillment of Wilson’s orders, only one US company was dispatched to the Russian front, the 85th Infantry Division of the Army, based out of Camp Custer, Michigan. In total, 5,500 soldiers were dispatched, with roughly 75% being of Michigan origin. Linking up with an engineering division and an ambulatory corps, the troops were tasked with defending allied stockpiles meant for the war effort, and to prevent those supplies from falling into Bolshevik or Axis hands. The 85th Infantry Division is significant in this context because it was the first and only US military intervention into the Russian Revolution and resulting civil war. By the end of the deployment, over 200 Michiganders in the 85th lost their lives, many of them being buried and left in Russia for almost two decades until their remains could be repatriated. 30 soldiers remains are still buried in Russia. This mission became known as the Polar Bear Expedition.
Memory and Death
This archive on the Polar Bear Expedition serves to investigate issues of memory and death by making public different documents relating to the repatriation of bodies from Michigan’s 85th infantry division. This archive uses the theory around historical memory, death, mourning, and burial practices as a lens to view the broader Polar Bear Expedition. Efforts to repatriate bodies of soldiers killed in the initial 1919 deployment were delayed for a host of political and social reasons by the Russian government. The process of exhumation, transportation, re-internment intersect with the broader process of military burial services, notification of loved ones, memorial plaques, commemoration ceremonies, statues, and other aspects of historical memory, as well as archival selection and positionality. Ultimately, this archive serves as a way to understand and interpret how the memory of the Michigan 85th “Polar Bears” has been impacted by repatriation efforts, and how that memory is negotiated through memorials and human interaction in a variety of media.
Biblography
Ali, Tariq. The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution. ix, 373 pages. London ; Brooklyn, NY: Verso, imprint of New Lift Books, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/.
Cubitt, Geoffrey. History and Memory. Historical Approaches, vi, 263 p. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/.
Faust, Drew Gilpin. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. Reprint edition. New York: Vintage, 2009.
Fentress, James., and Chris Wickham. Social Memory. New Perspectives on the Past (Basil Blackwell Publisher), xii, 229 p. Oxford, UK ; Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/.
Foote, Kenneth. “To Remember and Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture.” The American Archivist 53, no. 3 (07011990): 378–92.
Franco Venturi. Roots Of Revolution A History Of The Populist And Socialist Movements In Nineteenth Century Russia. Alfred A Knopf, 1960. http://archive.org/details/rootsofrevolutio008262mbp.
Lieven, D. C. B. Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia. ix, 428 pages. UK: Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/.
Nikulin, Dmitri, ed. Memory: A History. 1 edition. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations, no. 26 (1989): 7–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928520.