Slavonic and East European Review

Abstract:

This article reveals an unsuspected instance of a problem that has troubled most states: the transposition of ‘resident aliens into ‘enemy aliens. Acknowledging that many British residents in Russia remained undisturbed during the Crimean War, the article focuses on those who found their property and their persons at risk. Their experiences illuminate the wider question of treason, itself only one of the forms of betrayal that stemmed from the contrasting naturalization laws then in force in Russia and Britain. Because allegiance to a state and its monarch carried both rights and duties, the article discusses in turn the wartime diplomatic protection offered to British subjects and the obligations demanded by both sides of those naturalized Russian subjects who manufactured armaments for the tsar.