Stories from the Roaring Twenties

San Francisco Russian Diaspora: Stories from the Roaring Twenties

Delve into the dynamics of the San Francisco Russian community in the 1920's. Our speaker, Dr. Nina Bogdan, will reveal how the early immigrant community strove to maintain its unique cultural heritage, while simultaneously integrating into the American way of life. Gain a unique perspective of the challenges Russian immigrants faced in forming its own community, within an American society that was also experiencing enormous social change.

Photo: Nadejda Ermolova (Siromiatnikoff), late 1920s-early 1930s, photo from MRCSF collection

Our Speaker

Nina Bogdan is a scholar and historian. Her latest book is Before We Disappear into Oblivion: San Francisco’s Russian Diaspora from Revolution to Cold War (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025). She was the primary author of the “Russian American Historical Context Statement” for the San Francisco City Planning Department, co-author of Russian San Francisco (2010), an Images of America series book, and author of The Desolation of Exile: A Russian Family’s Odyssey (self-published, 2013). She earned an M.A. in Political Science at the University of California, Davis, and a PhD in US History at the University of Arizona.

San Francisco's Russian American Community History Project

Learn how Dr. Bogdan's work provided the foundation for the Community History Project and how the SF Planning Department will use this as a tool to preserve sites associated with Russian American cultural heritage.

Speaker Biography

Melanie Bishop is a Senior Preservation Planner at the SF Planning Department. She works collaboratively on SF Survey, a multi-year effort supported by the Planning Department to identify and document places and resources of cultural, historical, and architectural importance to SF's diverse communities. She holds an M.S. in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

After the presentation, attendees will have the opportunity to provide feedback to SF Planning about local Russian American heritage sites and contributing additional information to the project.

Museum of Russian Culture

Our museum exhibit hall will be open to visitors from 12pm to 5pm. Don't miss this opportunity to view and discover the narratives and artifacts that chronicle our Russian-American immigrant history.

Additional Events

If you're not able to attend the presentation at the Russian Center, Dr. Bogdan will also be speaking at the following events in the Bay Area.

• October 3, Fort Ross Conference, 12:45 to 1:30, event details.

• October 10, Globus Bookstore, 6:30pm, event details.

• Recorded Podcast, The Eurasion Knot, link to recording.