Russian Guatemalan

Russian Guatemalan
ruso-guatemalteco

Regions with significant populations
Guatemala City, Zacapa and Antigua Guatemala
Languages
Spanish, Russian
Religion
Russian Orthodox Christianity, other Christian, Islam and Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Russian people, Demographics of Guatemala

Russian Guatemalans are Guatemalan citizens who have Russian ancestry, full or partial.

History

The first Russian immigrants arrived in Guatemala in the late 1890s, although some had already established in Mexico but for the regime of Porfirio Diaz, some preferred to go to Guatemala or Nicaragua. Other immigrants were socialist politicians who had good relations with the dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera. However the Russian immigration was insignificant. Although many refugees Russian, Greek and Polish families came after the First World War.^[1]

Russian Orthodox missions in Guatemala

In the late of the nineteenth century, some Orthodox Christians immigrants from the Holy Land and Lebanon came to Guatemala. In the early of the twentieth century, came a wave of German immigrants, and a wave "minor" but still present, Russians and Greeks, arrived in Guatemala. These Orthodox Christians have settled with their families in their new country and have preserved their Orthodox faith and traditions.^[2]

Communist influence

During the government of Jacobo Arbenz, there was communist influence in Guatemala, communist influence in Guatemala was carried out through the arrival of Soviet agents who came to Guatemala to create a communist core, as in other Latin American countries, and Communists revolutionaries like Ernesto Guevara. Communism was attractive for some Guatemalan politicians who had relations with Russia, but mostly poor people, because communism was intended to eliminate private property and take away land from the United Fruit Company.^[3]

The CIA intervened two times to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz from power, one was a failure and another was successfully, placing Carlos Castillo Armas, who returned the land to the Guatemalan landholdings and the United Fruit Company, through the overthrow of Arbenzn the relations between Russia and Guatemala were almost dissolved, although the purpose of the cold War re-unify these relations. In the 1990s, many retired soldiers left Russia to go to Guatemala and start a "new life".^[4]

Russian influence in the art and culture of Guatemala

The National Ballet of Guatemala emerged in 1948, led by the grandmaster Kiril Pikieris and the Belgians Marcelle Bonge de Devaux and her husband Jean Devaux (refugees from the World War II). Between 1949 and 1954, the Ballet of Guatemala was directed by the Russian master Kachurovski Leonide with his wife Marie Tchernova, who was also in charge of the National School of Dance. When the United States Government overthrew the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz, the Ballet of Guatemala was abolished because Liberacionista Governing Board accused the Russians directors of being communists, and if those who translated the president Arbenz everything that came to Guatemala of the Soviet Union.^[5] The March 19, 1955, the President Carlos Castillo Armas created the advisory committee of the Department of Fine Arts and Cultural Extension, which advised the School of Dance, among other agencies, with the intention of restarting the Ballet in Guatemala directed by Claire Denis Carey and Joop Van Allen.^[6] At the end of the Cold War, a group of Germans and Russians, to December 1992, introduced the Russian tradition, the Nutcracker in Guatemala, the work is presented in December of each year at the Centro Cultural Miguel Ángel Asturias.^[7]

Demography

Notable Russian Guatemalans

• Anastasia Bitkova (Anastasia Aven), model.

See also

• Russians
• Guatemala–Russia relations
• Immigration to Guatemala

References

1. "Guatemala, un futuro próximo". Edition: IEPALA. Place: Madrid, España. ISBN 978-848543610-1. Year: 1980. P: 61, 66.
2. History of The Orthodox Church and Monastery in Guatemala
3. Ninth Interim Report of Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Latin America of the Select Committee on Communist Aggression House of Representatives, Eighty-Third Congress Second Session. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1954. 114-117, 122.
4. The Cold War - Guatemala in 1954 The Cold War Museum.
5. Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala Dirección General de Investigación, Programa Universitario de Investigación en Cultura, Pensamiento e Identidad de la Sociedad Guatemala: 30 años de historia de la danza teatral; institucionalización cultural en Guatemala (1948-1978). Mertins Luna y Ana Lizette. 2009
6. Constitución política de la República de Guatemala. 1945
7. El Cascanueces llega al Teatro Nacional Prensa Libre.