Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel and Russia in Comparative Perspective

DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS Germany, Israel and Post-Soviet Successor States in Compa...

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DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS

DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS Germany, Israel and Post-Soviet Successor States in Comparative Perspective Editors

RAINER MÜNZ AND RAINER OHLIGER

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR

First published in 2003 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side London N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 5804 N.E.Hassalo Street Portland, Oregon, 97213–3644 Website: www.frankcass.com Copyright collection © 2003 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd Copyright chapters © 2003 contributors British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Diasporas and ethnic migrants: Germany, Israel and post-Soviet successor states in comparative perspective.—(Nationalism and ethnicity) 1. Jews—Russia—Migration 2. Germans—Migration 3. Europe—Emigration and immigration 4. Former Soviet republics—Emigration and immigration 5. Israel—Emigration and immigration I. Münz, Rainer, 1954—II. Ohliger, Rainer 304.8 094 ISBN 0-203-48627-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-58376-0 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN (cloth) 0 7146 5232 6 (Print Edition) ISBN (paper) 0 7146 8384 1 (Print Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Diasporas and ethnic migrants: Germany, Israel and post-Soviet successor states in comparative perspective/edited by Rainer Münz and Rainer Ohliger. p.cm.—(Nationalism and ethnicity, ISSN 1462-9755) ISBN 0-7146-5232-6 (cloth), ISBN (paper) 0-7146-8384-1 1. Emigration and immigration—History—20th century—Case studies. 2. Minorities—History—20th century—Case studies. 3. Ethnicity—History— 20th century—Case studies. I. Münz, Rainer, 1954—II. Ohliger, Rainer, 1967— III. Cass series—nationalism and ethnicity. JV6032.D53 2003 304.8–dc21 2002074082 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Contents

Notes on Contributors

vii

List of Tables, Figures, Maps and Photographs

xiii

Acknowledgements

xvi

PART I INTRODUCTION 1

Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants in Twentieth-Century Europe: A Comparative Perspective Rainer Ohliger and Rainer Münz

PART II THEORETICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

1 2

16

2

From Diasporas to Migrants, from Migrants to Disaporas Gabriel Sheffer

17

3

Minority Existence in Twentieth-Century Central and Eastern Europe: Between Self and Other? Rainer Ohliger

32

4

The American Model of Diasporic Discourse Khachig Tölöyan

50

PART III MAKING AND UNMAKING DIASPORAS: ETHNIC UNMIXING AND FORCED MIGRATIONS IN TWENTIETHCENTURY EUROPE

67

5

The Spell of the Homogeneous Nation-State: Structural Factors and Agents of Ethnic Cleansing Philipp Ther

68

6

Ethnic Cleansing as an Invention of the Twentieth Century: An Account of Expulsions in Europe Karl Schlögel

87

7

Ethnic Migrations of the 1990s from and to the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union: ‘Repatriation’ or Privileged Migration?

100

v

Anne de Tinguy PART IV RUSSIA AND THE POST-SOVIET SUCCESSOR STATES: NEW DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS

114

8

The End of an Empire: Migration and the Changing Nationality Composition of the Soviet Successor States Tim Heleniak

115

9

The Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Ethnic Migration: The Return of Diasporas? Anatoly Vishnevsky

141

10

Returning Home? Approaches to Repatriation and Migrant Resettlement in Post-Soviet Russia Moya Flynn

160

11

Social Citizenship and Non-Migration: The Immobility of the Russian Diaspora in the Baltics Wim van Meurs

174

12

Today’s Politics and Yesterday’s Embitterments: Ethnic Restructuring and its Aftermath in the Baltic States Dovilé Budryté

191

13

The Russian-Speaking Identity under the Latvian Language Policy Jekaterina Dorodnova

206

14

Russians Abroad: Citizenship and Political Community in Estonia and Kazakhstan Jacqueline McLaren-Miller

222

PART V GERMANY: ETHNIC MIGRATION AND DIASPORA EXISTENCE IN TRANSITION

241

15

Ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe and their Return to Germany Rainer Münz

242

16

Young Ethnic German Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union: German Language Proficiency and its Impact on Integration Heike Roll

253

17

The Politicization of Ethnic German Immigrants: The Transformation of State Priorities Daniel Levy

269

vi

18

Who Organizes? The Political Opportunity Structure of Co-Ethnic Migrant Mobilization Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels

284

PART VI ISRAEL: OLD DIASPORAS AND NEW IMMIGRANTS

302

19

Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel: Returning Diaspora and Nation-Building Moshe Semyonov and Noah Lewin-Epstein

303

20

Integration and Social Dynamic of Ethnic Migration: The Jews from the Former Soviet Union in Israel William Berthomière

315

21

The Russian Language as a Base Factor: The Formation of the Russian Community in Israel Marina Niznik

332

22

A Case Study in Transnationalism: Russian Jewish Immigrants in Israel of the 1990s Larissa I.Remennik

346

23

The End of ‘Normality’: The Diasporization of Israel? William Safran

360

References

375

Index

409

Notes on Contributors

William Berthomière is a geographer specializing in migration studies. He received his PhD from the University of Poitiers, France, in 2000 with a thesis on Russian Jewish immigration to Israel. Since October 2001 he has been a researcher at MIGRINTER, France. His current research is dedicated to new migrants to Israel, particularly migrants from the former Soviet Union and foreign labour migrants. His publications include The Immigration of Foreign Workers: A Mirror of Israel’s Changing Identity’, in C.Danks and P.Kennedy (eds), Globalization and Identities: Reconstructing the Local (London: Palgrave, 2001) and ‘Soviet and Ethiopians Jews in Israel’, Hommes et Migrations, No. 1235 (2002) (in French). Dovilé Budryté, PhD, is assistant professor of international studies at Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia, USA. Her areas of expertise are democratization and ethnic conflict. She was a 2000–01 Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (New York) fellow and a 1998–99 fellow at the College for Advanced Central European Studies at Europa University Viadrina, Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany. Her article on reconciliation in the Baltic states is forthcoming in K.Christie and R. Cribb (eds), Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition (London: Taylor and Francis). Jekaterina Dorodnova holds an MA in international relations and European studies from Central European University, Budapest. She was a research fellow at the European University Institute, Florence) in 1998 in the research project ‘On the Eastward Enlargement of the EU: The Case of the Baltic States’. Currently she works for the Centre for OSCE Research (CORE) of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg in the research project ‘On the Effectiveness of the OSCE Minority Regime: Comparative Case Studies on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities’. Moya Flynn is a research fellow at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, UK, where she completed her master’s degree and PhD. Her thesis charted the experiences of migration and resettlement among returnees to Russia from the former Soviet republics. Her current research concerns the role of informal/social networks among

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returnees and in wider post-Soviet Russian society. Other research interests include the Russian diaspora in the post-Soviet states; gender aspects of migration and resettlement; and methodological and ethical issues concerned with the use of qualitative research methods in the post-socialist space. Timothy Heleniak is a demographer with the Development Economics Department of the World Bank, where he works on human development issues in the transition countries of Europe and Asia. He specializes in migration, population change and regional development issues. He is an adjunct professor in the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University. During the 2001/02 academic year, he was research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, doing research on demographic change in the formerly planned countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels received an MA in German and European Studies in 1996 and a PhD in comparative politics from Georgetown University in 1999. Her dissertation was entitled ‘Citizenship and Participation in Post-Cold War Germany: Aussiedler Migration as a Challenge to German Citizenship’. She held a Robert Bosch Fellowship in 1999–2000 and is currently a Research Officer at the International Organization for Migration. Her research focuses on ethnic German immigrants (Aussiedler) and the impact of their post-Cold War migration on German citizenship. She has published a dozen articles on Aussiedler and German citizenship as well as on regional consultative processes and human trafficking. Daniel Levy is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received his PhD from Columbia University. His research interests include the comparative sociology of immigration, political sociology and the study of collective memory. Among his publications are ‘The Future of the Past: Historiographical Disputes and Competing Memories in Germany and Israel’, History and Theory (February 1999). He is co-editor (with Yfaat Weiss) of Challenging Ethnic Citizenship: German and Israeli Perspectives on Immigration (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2002). In a recent book, Erinnerung im Globalen Zeitalter: Der Holocaust (co-authored with Natan Sznaider; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2001), he explores the impact of globalization on collective memories in Germany, Israel and the United States. Noah Lewin-Epstein received his PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago. He teaches at Tel Aviv University and is a former chairperson of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He currently serves as the president of Israel Sociological Society. His areas of interest include social inequality, ethnic stratification and comparative survey research. His recent journal publications address a variety of topics including attitudes towards state support of the family in Germany and Israel (European Sociological Review), immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Canada and Israel

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(International Migration Review) and welfare regimes and women’s part-time employment (American Journal of Sociology). Jacqueline McLaren-Miller is assistant director of the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and is a PhD candidate in political science at George Washington University. She received her AB and MPA from Cornell University. Her dissertation is entitled ‘Identity Crisis—Foreign Policy and National Identity in the Soviet Union and Russia’. Her current research focuses on minority politics, citizenship and Russia’s relations with former Soviet republics. She has worked in Estonia, where her interest in these issues was fostered, and in Kyrgyzstan, where she was an IREX visiting scholar. Wim van Meurs is a historian in Soviet and East European studies. He received his MA (1988) and PhD (1993) from Utrecht University, The Netherlands. His research interests are nation-building and nationalities policies; history of science and intellectuals; and modernization and transition, with a geographical focus on south-eastern Europe, the Baltic region, and Siberia. Since 1997 he has been a political analyst at the Centre for Applied Policy Research in Munich. Selected publications are ‘Baltische Wirtschaft und russische Diaspora’ Berichte des BIOst, 6 (Cologne, 1999), The Bessarabian Question in Communist Historiography (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994) and Beyond EU Enlargement, co-edited with I.Kempe (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 2001). Rainer Münz received his PhD from the University of Vienna. Until 1992 he was director of the Demographic Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria. Currently he is professor of demography at Humboldt University, Berlin. His main fields of research are demographic analysis of migration, analysis of ethnic and linguistic minorities, population change and its implications for social policy, and migration policy in comparative perspective. Recent publications include Migrants, Refugees, and Foreign Policy: US and German Policies Toward Countries of Origin (Providence, RI and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997; co-edited with Peter Schuck) and Zuwanderung nach Deutschland. Strukturen, Wirkungen, Perspektiven (Frankfurt and New York: Campus, 1999; co-authored with Wolfgang Seifert and Ralf Ulrich). Marina Niznik graduated from Moscow State University, Philological Department. In 1990, she and her family immigrated to Israel. In 1999 she received her doctoral degree from the Russian Academy of Education with a study on ‘Nationally Oriented Teaching of Russian to Hebrew speakers’. Her research interests are socio-cultural integration, problems of identity shifts and policies and language absorption of immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel. She is currently completing her post-doctoral research at Bar-Ilan University, on ‘Israeli Acculturation of Russian-born adolescents in Israel’.

x

Rainer Ohliger is a researcher in the research project ‘Ethnic Politics within System Transformation’ based at Humboldt University, Berlin. His main fields of research are historical and international migration, interethnic relations and transition in central and eastern Europe. His recent publications are ‘Allemands de souche en Europe de l’est et leur immigration vers l’Allemagne’, International Review of Sociology/Revue Internationale de Sociologie 10 (3)(2000) (co-authored with Rainer Münz) and European Encounters, 1945–2000: Migrants, Migration and European Societies since 1945, co-edited with Karen Schönwälder and Phil Triadafilopoulos (Ashgate 2002). Larissa Remennick received her PhD in social demography from the Moscow Institute of Sociology in 1988. Since 1991, she has lived in Israel; currently she is senior lecturer in and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University in Greater Tel-Aviv. Her research interests include integration, family, gender and health issues among firstgeneration Russian immigrants in Israel and in other host countries. She has recently completed a research project exploring cultural separatism and transnational tendencies among ex-Soviet immigrants of the 1990s. She has published two books in Russian, one monograph in English, a number of book chapters and over thirty articles in the major journals in the areas of health, gender and migration research. Heike Roll is a specialist in questions of migration and language, intercultural communication and East-West relations. She studied Slavic philology and German as a foreign language at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, and completed her PhD in 2002 with a discourse analysis on the experiences of migration among young ethnic Germans from post-Soviet successor states. Her publications include Jugendliche Aussiedler—Porträt einer Zuwanderergeneration, co-authored with Barbara Dietz (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1998). William Safran (PhD, Columbia University, New York, 1964) is professor of political science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has authored, coauthored or edited ten books, among them The French Polity (New York: Longman, 1st edn 1977, 5th edn 1998), Politics in Europe (3rd edn 2001) and The Secular and the Sacred: Nation, Religion and Politics (London: Frank Cass, 2002). He has contributed chapters to more than thirty books and authored numerous articles focusing on comparative politics and on the politics of nationalism and ethnicity. He is editor-in-chief of the quarterly Nationalism and Ethnic Politics and past president of the Research Committee on Politics and Ethnicity, International Political Science Association. Karl Schlögel is professor of East European history at Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt an der Oder. His main areas of research are Russian culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, forced migration and population transfers in east central Europe, and urban history in central

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Europe. His publications include Petersburg. Laborotorium der Moderne (Munich: Hanser, 2002), Berlin—Ostbahnhof Europas. Russen und Deutsche in ihrem Jahrhundert, (Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1998), Planet der Nomaden (Zurich: Vontobel, 2000) and Promenade in Jalta und andere Städtebilder (Munich: Hanser, 2001) and the edited volumes Russische Emigration in Deutschland 1918–1941 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995) and Chronik russischen Lebens in Deutschland 1918–1941 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999). Moshe Semyonov is professor of sociology and dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Tel Aviv University, and professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his BA and MA (1975) from Tel Aviv University and his PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook (1978). His current research focuses on socio-economic inequalities in the labour market and on the status of immigrants and labour migrants in society. He has authored and co-authored research articles and two books on these issues. Gabriel (Gabi) Sheffer has a DPhil from Oxford University, England, is a professor in the Political Science Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main research interest are ethnic politics with particular focus on ethno-national diasporas. He is the editor of Modern Diasporas in International Politics, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986). and author of Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). He has published many articles on various aspects of diapsorism, diasporas and the Jewish diaspora. Philipp Ther received his doctorate in history in 1997 with a thesis on ‘Polish and German Expellees. Society and Expellee Policy in the Soviet Zone of Occuption/GDR and Poland 1945–1956’. He works at the Centre for Comparative History of Europe at the Free University, Berlin. His main research interests are nationalism, regional and national identities in Central and Eastern Europe, forced migrations in the twentieth century, minority issues and cultural history. His publications include Deutsche und polnische Vertriebene: Gesellschaft und Vertriebenenpolitik in der SBZ/DDR und in Polen 1945–1956 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1998) and as editor of Nationalitätenkonflikte im 20. Jahrhundert: Ursachen von inter-ethnischer Gewalt im Vergleich (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001) and Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe 1944–1948 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). Anne de Tinguy received her doctorate in political science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, in 1981. A former fellow of the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale, she is a senior researcher at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales), Paris. Her publications on Soviet and Russian foreign policy as well as on population movements within of and from the

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former Soviet Union include The Fall of the Soviet Empire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), L’Ukraine, nouvel acteur du jeu international (Brussels: Bruylant, 2001, edited volume). Her current research focuses on Russian and Russian-speaking communities abroad. Khachig Tölölyan is professor of English at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. He was trained at Harvard College and Brown University, from which he received his PhD in comparative literature in 1975. He is the founder and editor of Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies (University of Toronto Press, published since 1990). His articles include ‘Rethinking Diaspora(s)’, Diaspora 5(1), 1996 and ‘Elites and Institutions in the Armenian Transnation’, Diaspora 9(1), 2000. Anatoly Vishnevsky is director of the Centre for Demography and Human Ecology of the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Previously he was a senior researcher at the Department of Demography, USSR Academy of Sciences. Between 1991 and 2000 he was visiting scholar and visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Politiques, Paris, University of Lyon, University of Paris and the Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques, Paris. His 250 publications include Demographic Revolution (Moscow, 1976), Reproduction of Human Population and Society (Moscow 1982); Population of Russia (since 1993, annual reports).

Tables, Figures, Maps and Photographs

TABLES 3.2 Minorities within the framework of Self and Other 8.1 Population change in the post-Soviet successor states, 1989–99 8.2 Net migration by country for the post-Soviet successor states, 1989– 98 8.3 Net migration of ethnic Russians within Russia, 1989–98 8.4 Net migration of non-Russian ethnic groups within Russia, 1989–98 8.5 Population change by ethnicity in the Soviet Union and the successor states, 1989–99 9.1 Ethnic groups of the USSR by area of settlement and mother tongue, 1989 9.2 The Jewish population in the Soviet Republics and in post-Soviet successor states, 1989 and 1998 9.3 World distribution of Jews, 1997–98 9.4 World distribution of Armenians, late 1980s to early 1990s 9.5 Return migration of ethnic Russians, 1990–98 9.6 Ukrainians in the USSR, 1926 9.7 Ukrainians in the USSR by area of settlement and mother tongue, 1989 9.8 Distribution of Ukrainians throughout the world, early 1990s 9.9 Distribution of ethnic Germans throughout the USSR, 1926 and 1939 9.10 Distribution of ethnic Germans in the USSR, 1989 9.11 Tatars in the USSR, 1989 11.1 Ethnic composition of the population of the Baltic states since 1989 11.2 Ethnic Russian emigration from the Baltic states, 1989–96 11.3 Urban and rural population of the Baltics, 1989 11.4 Titular nations and ethnic Russians in selected Baltic cities, 1989 11.5 Decline of industrial production, 1989–96 11.6 Socio-economic and demographic indicators for selected Latvian cities and provinces, 1996 11.7 Surveys: Russians’ opinions on forms of autonomy, 1993 11.8 Surveys: Russians intention to apply for Baltic or Russian citizenship

39 117 119 123 125 126 142 144 145 147 149 151 152 153 154 155 157 174 176 180 181 183 185 187 189

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12.1 Change in ethnic composition of the populations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 12.2 Number of people deported from the Baltic states by the Soviet Union, 1940–53 14.1 Ethnic composition of Estonia, 1923–93 14.2 Ethnic composition of Estonia, 1994–99 14.3 Population change in Estonia, 1935–89 14.4 Population change in Estonia, 1994–99 14.5 Total emigration from Estonia and migration balance, 1989–98 14.6 Ethnic composition of Kazakhstan, 1926–99 14.7 Emigration from and immigration to Kazakhstan, 1991–99 14.8 Migration by ethnic group in Kazakhstan, 1998 and 1999 15.1 German expellees (1944–45 to 1945–49) by country of origin and area of residence after expulsion; transferred ethnic Germans (1939– 44) by country of origin 18.1 Predictors of mobilization 18.2 Comparison of significant factors for POS of co-ethnic migrant groups in Israel and Germany 19.1 Socio-economic characteristics of immigrant population by period of immigration and geo-cultural origin, 1974 and 1994 19.2 Socio-economic characteristics of Israeli-born by geo-cultural origin, 1994 19.3 Earnings costs for immigrants by gender, geo-cultural origin and time since immigration: Israeli labour force, age 25–64, 1991–93 19.4 Typology of state involvement in immigrant absorption 20.1 Immigration to Israel, 1990–99 20.2 Population structure in Israel, 1948–98 20.3 First residence of immigrants to Israel according to main cities of origin in the former Soviet Union, 1990–93

193 194 226 227 227 227 232 233 237 237 244 291 300 306 308 309 312 316 319 320

FIGURES 15.1 Immigration of ethnic Germans to Germany by country of origin, 1950–99 16.1 Experience of ethnic identity among young ethnic Germans in their countries of origin 16.2 Self-assessed evaluation of German language proficiency 16.3 Language use within family 16.4 Composition of circle of friends 18.1 Israeli and German co-ethnic immigration, 1950–98 18.2 Auusiedler migration by country of origin, 1950–99 18.3 Jewish migrants of Asian/African and European origin

247 257 260 262 262 286 289 296

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19.1 Number of immigrants to Israel by year, 1948–99 19.2 Number of immigrants to Israel by geographic origin, 1948–99

304 305

MAPS 10.1 Distribution of forced migrants and refugees, Russian Federation, 1999 10.2 Regional distribution of forced migrants and refugees, Saratov oblast, 1999 20.1 Immigrants from the FSU in Israel since 1989

165 165 317

PHOTOGRAPHS 1 Ethnic German refugees from south-eastern Europe receive hot soup at the train station on the Austrian border, 1947 2 A family in the refugee camp at Neustadt, Germany, Western Allied zone, late 1940s 3 Ethnic German expellees or refugees from Hungary in a refugee camp in Ulm, 1947 4 Temporary housing for refugees in post-war Germany, 1947 5 Ethnic German immigrants arriving in Friedland camp, 1962. All belongings fit into an old pram 6 Alexander Kabashayev, a new immigrant from Russia, at Ben Gurion airport, on his way to his new home, June 1990 7 Notice board at the Ami Hotel in Tel Aviv, where immigrants reside, November 1990 8 Jewish immigrants wait in the departure hall at Moscow airport, en route to Israel, May 1990

71 90 248 249 288 335 336 350

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of intensive academic collaborations throughout the past few years. Most of the authors met at the international conference Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants in Twentieth Century Europe held at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in May 1999. The conference was organized within the framework of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on the Comparison of Societies (Forschergruppe Gesellschaftsvergleich) at Humboldt University headed by Hartmut Kaelble and Jürgen Schriewer. Our special thanks go to all members of this Research Group for providing the intellectual stimulus to address social, demographic and historical problems in a comparative and inter-disciplinary manner. The Research Group (Forschergruppe), which was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG) from 1995 to 2000, established the innovative intellectual environment and scientific freedom in which this enterprise could fully succeed and blossom. Moreover, our thanks go to a number of international cooperation partners who took an essential part in preparing and organizing the Berlin conference within an Explanatory Research Workshop of the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg (ESF). We would like to thank Sorin Antohi (Central European University, Budapest), Drago Roksandi (University of Zagreb), Judith Shuval (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), Anne de Tinguy (Centre des Etudes et Recherches Internationales, Paris) and Anatoly Vishnevsky (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow), who belonged to the organization committee of the project, and whose advice and support were invaluable at every stage. Our special thanks go to the ESF, which generously supported the project by making possible a meeting of the organization committee in Jerusalem, by co-financing, along with the DFG, the conference in Berlin and finally by contributing to launching the book. In the process of revising the conference papers as well as establishing contact with the publisher, William Safran (University of Colorado, Boulder), was of tremendous help and support. Jana Barthel and Jordanka Telbizova-Sack patiently and skilfully helped us edit the texts, tables and bibliography, while Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels (International Organization for Migration, Geneva) and Roy Hirsh carefully read the proofs and helped us with language editing. Not least of all, we would like to thank all of the authors for contributing

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and revising their texts, which made the process of editing a fruitful and pleasant experience for the two editors. Rainer Münz and Rainer Ohliger Berlin, Summer 2002

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants in TwentiethCentury Europe: A Comparative Perspective Rainer Ohliger and Rainer Münz

Within the last 20 years, ‘diaspora’ has become a widely used term in the social sciences and humanities as well as in the political sphere. At least in the Western world, the idea of belonging to a diaspora has lost its stigma. On the contrary, many now see it as a resource for identity politics and the asserting of claims. As a result, scholarship on diasporas and diasporic movements has significantly increased over the last two decades: numerous conferences, dealing solely with the phenomenon of diaspora,1 take place every year. Even journals completely dedicated to diaspora scholarship and research have emerged.2 This book tries to take the discussion one step further. It uses a comparative approach to explore interrelations between two phenomena which, so far, have rarely been examined and analysed together, namely the dynamics of diaspora and minority formation in Central and Eastern Europe on the one hand and diaspora migration on the other. It explores the history, the minority situation and the migration pattern of ethnic Germans, ‘Russian’ Jews3 and ethnic Russians in Central and Eastern Europe and in Central Asia. DIASPORA: A USEFUL CONCEPT OF ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON? The Greek term diaspora, meaning dispersion, was first used in ancient Greece to characterize the exile of the Aegean population after the Peleponesian War. It found its Hebrew equivalent in the term galut (Deuteronomy 28:25), meaning the exile of Jews during Babylonian times.4 In Roman times, the term became closely linked to Jewish history. It epitomized the fate of Jews living outside their ‘homeland’ in exile, in particular after the second destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the year AD 70 and the subsequent dispersion of Jews. Thus Jewish history became crucial to the development of what was understood by the concept and term ‘diaspora’. Forced displacement of population by a catastrophic event, dispersion of this population throughout different territories, countries or even continents, a collective memory of the catastrophe having caused dispersion, and the willingness and intention to perpetuate diaspora existence over generations and not to assimilate became crucial elements within

DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY EUROPE 3

the definition of diaspora (Chaliand and Rageau 1991). In more recent times, however, the concept was transferred from Jews to other dispersed minority and, particularly, migrant groups. The concept became more widely used even for ethnic or national groups who had not been forcibly displaced. Rather, it is argued that multipolar migration in combination with relations and networks of different kinds between these various poles is essential for the definition of diaspora (Ma Mung 2000:8–9). Being ‘diaspora’ provided the concept and framework for group formation and for the claim-making of minorities. From Jewish historiography the term was transferred to describe the analogous fate of Armenians who escaped genocide in Turkey. The term was also used to characterize dispersed minorities of Greeks and Chinese, whose existence cannot be linked to an original catastrophe that drove them from their historical ‘homelands’. Subsequently, it came to be used to describe immigrant minorities such as the Irish in the United States, or groups which were never conceived of as coherent ethnic entities before the wider dissemination and dispersion of the concept of diaspora (see Chapter 4). This is the case for people of African origin in the Americas, but could also be argued for two out of the three groups under consideration in this volume, namely ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians. Historically speaking, neither ethnic Germans nor ethnic Russians in the ‘Near Abroad’ (Laitin 1998) can be labelled as diasporas in a strict sense, given the aforementioned criteria of diaspora existence. Neither Germans nor Russians were dispersed in their areas of settlement as a result of tragic events or an historical catastrophe. Both groups settled outside their traditional ‘homelands’ as colonial or colonizing populations enjoying the status of a privileged or even dominant group, for example, ethnic Russians in Tsarist Russia and later in the Soviet Union, or ethnic Germans in the Habsburg Empire. Thus, their situation was initially rather similar to British, Spanish or Portuguese populations in overseas territories who were also not considered to be diasporas, but colonial settlers. However, as the course of history changed, so did the status and the conditions of existence for ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians. Traumatization and catastrophe has become an element of their group existence and history, though only post-settlement and post-dispersion. It can be argued that several events had traumatizing effects on ethnic Germans and, in the final result, on ethnic Russians as well, in particular, the change of Europe’s political landscape after the First World War, Stalinist repression and deportation, expulsion or collective punishment after the Second World War and the demise of the Soviet Union, thus qualifying them to be ‘real’ diasporas. The effects of the First World War turned some 6.5 million Germans— previously residing in the Habsburg Empire or the German Empire— from members of the titular nation into national minorities.5 Overnight they became ethnic Germans residing in newly established and nationalizing nation-states.6 Moreover, their expulsion after the end of the Second World War and the discrimination against the remaining population in Central and Eastern Europe

4 DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS

and the Soviet Union had traumatizing effects on many ethnic Germans. A similar argument can be made for 25 million ethnic Russians whose status declined from member of a titular nation to member of a minority, in many cases even an unwelcome minority. All this happened with the demise of the Soviet Union, though expulsion was missing as a severe traumatizing event in the ethnic Russian case. Thus the inclusion of ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians into the concept of diaspora defined in a broader sense seems to be justified without stretching the concept too far. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES AMONG ETHNIC GERMANS, ‘RUSSIAN’ JEWS AND ETHNIC RUSSIANS The most obvious similarity among the three groups analysed in this volume is their common area of origin: ethnic Germans, ethnic Russians and European Jews migrating to Israel, Germany, the Russian Federation or the United States overwhelmingly originate in Central and Eastern Europe or the successor states of the Soviet Union. Ethnic Germans who have come to Germany since the early 1950s as privileged co-ethnic immigrants—Aussiedler, resettlers—came almost exclusively from Poland, Romania and, in the 1990s, in particular from the USSR and its successor states (see Chapter 15).7 ‘Russian’ Jews who migrated to Israel in the 1970s and again as of the late 1980s came from all over the Soviet Union. However, the Russian part of the USSR, and now the Russian Federation, has been and still is their principal area of origin. ‘Russian’ Jews living in this area have migrated not only to Israel, but also to the United States and to Germany. Ethnic Russians were stranded as a kind of ‘beached’ minority (Kolstø 1995) in all the successor states of the Soviet Union, but there were and are significant differences in relative and absolute size. Whereas Estonia, Latvia and Kazakhstan each became independent states with more than 30 per cent of the population a Russian minority (see Chapters 8 and 9), Armenia’s population included as little as 3 per cent ethnic Russians after independence. For many of them, in particular for ethnic Russians from Kazakhstan and Central Asia, immigration to the Russian Federation has become a common option. At the same time in the Baltic States and in Ukraine, most ethnic Russians did not take emigration or ‘remigration’ to Russia into serious consideration. Although the three analysed diaspora groups share certain socio-geographical characteristics, there are also distinctive differences. This is particularly true with regard to the share of people living in cities or in rural areas and the resulting social, educational and economic differences. Historically, Russia’s ethnic Germans, who now make up the majority of ethnic German immigrants to Germany, were predominantly associated with agriculture or at least with rural life. This remained true even after Soviet collectivization of the 1920s and the deportation of ethnic Germans to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 1941. Ethnic Russians and ‘Russian’ Jews, however, more often settled in urban environments, which resulted in a different educational and occupational structure. Ethnic


Russians have a rather high concentration in manufacturing and in the mining and steel industries as a consequence of Soviet-style industrialization and related internal labour migration within the Soviet Union. Russians first migrated to the peripheries of their empire as quasi-colonial settlers and administrative elites. During the twentieth century, however, they settled in large numbers as industrial workers in newly developed areas such as the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, parts of Siberia or the Ida-Virumaa region in north-eastern Estonia. They also dominated the higher ranks of the Red Army and the Russian fleet. As a result, regions with large garrisons or naval bases also had a high concentration of ethnic Russians. Within the Soviet Union, Jews were the ethnic group with the highest proportion of high school and university graduates. Almost all Jews lived in bigger cities. The majority also worked in the service sector, as academics and in the ‘liberal’ professions, as do those who remain. An obvious similarity among all three groups is their shared minority status. This similarity is a recent phenomenon as a characteristic of all three groups, since only Jews and ethnic Germans can look back on a longer history of minority existence. In the case of Jews, their dispersion in the time of the Roman Empire and beyond created the first notion of diaspora. Since the twelfth century, Germans settling in Transylvania, in the Baltic states in other parts of Central Europe and, since the eighteenth century, in Russia as well, formed ethno-cultural minorities. For this reason, ethnic Germans and Jews, both belonging to old minorities, had socially and politically adapted to minority status over generations. Ethnic Russians, however, first came to Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Crimea and so on, as part of Russia’s imperial expansion in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, with Soviet settlement policies following that pattern. Russians remained politically and culturally dominant despite formal equality among all recognized nationalities of the USSR. Therefore, ethnic Russians living in Soviet Republics other than Russia only became members of a minority after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Hence we can speak of new Russian minorities and of older German and Jewish ones. The degree to which the three groups analysed in this volume have assimilated to majority language and culture differs considerably. In the second half of the twentieth century, ‘Russian’ Jews and ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union were highly assimilated, predominantly using Russian in everyday communication, whether in Russia proper, in Ukraine, in Kazakhstan or in Central Asia. In both groups, interethnic marriages became widespread, a development that led to further assimilation. As the Soviet Union enforced atheism, this assimilation weakened Jewish and German religious life but did not lead to any significant conversions to the Orthodox Church. Ethnic Russians, on the other hand, did not usually assimilate to other languages and cultures as long as they enjoyed majority status in the Soviet Union. Even after the demise of the USSR, linguistic and cultural assimilation among ethnic Russians is taking place only at a very slow pace.


The differences in the degree of assimilation are crucial if it comes to the question of ethnic migration to the respective historical ‘homeland’. Ethnic ‘return’ migration usually does not create any linguistic problems for ethnic Russians who come to the Russian Federation. In contrast, Russian, Ukrainian or Central Asian Jews migrating to Israel and ethnic Germans leaving Siberia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan for Germany regularly face considerable linguistic problems. Most of these Jews speak neither Hebrew nor Yiddish. The majority of ethnic Germans did not speak German as their main language even if they acquired some language proficiency from their parents.8 For these migrants and their ethnic Russian and other family members, social integration in Germany and Israel is more difficult, and not always successful. Many of them would like to retain key elements of their Russian cultural background. At the same time, those ethnic Germans and Jews remaining in Russia and some other successor states of the USSR have usually experienced no major problems coping with their position within the post-Soviet nation-states, even if their everyday lives have become more complicated during the difficult transition to a post-communist economy. In general, Jews and ethnic Germans have less difficulty than other ethnic groups in dealing with this transition. The situation is different for the majority of ethnic Russians who ended up as new minorities in the non-Russian successor states. Most of them have little or no knowledge of the new official state languages. They are barely familiar with local culture and religions such as Islam. During the 1990s, they have shown little initiative to learn languages such as Estonian, Latvian, Kazakh or Uzbek. Another relevant difference is the inclusion into or the exclusion from citizenship of the nation-states that became independent in 1991. Ethnic Germans and ‘Russian’ Jews were all Soviet citizens (for those ethnic Germans from Poland and Romania, respectively Polish or Romanian citizens) even if they were discriminated against or collectively punished on the basis of national origins. In 1991/92, Soviet ethnic Germans and ‘Russian’ Jews all became, for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh or Kyrgyz citizens. Many of them even kept their Russian, Kazakh or Ukrainian citizenship when emigrating to the West, thus enjoying dual citizenship after having been naturalized in Germany or Israel.9 Some retain property, such as flats or houses, and businesses in their countries of origin. Others return on a regular basis at least as visitors (see Chapter 23). Because of the growing number of people living in both societies, we are even witnessing the emergence of truly transnational communities.10 For ethnic Russians, this issue is more complicated. The majority of the successor states implemented a so-called ‘zero option’, thus granting citizenship to all legal residents living on their state territories upon independence, unless these residents explicitly rejected the new citizenship or openly applied for another country’s citizenship. However, there were notable exceptions, namely Estonia and Latvia, where most ethnic Russians were excluded from acquiring citizenship directly upon independence. In these two Baltic states, most ethnic Russians could acquire Estonian or Latvian citizenship only by way of


naturalization. Candidates for naturalization were required to pass an examination which tested knowledge of the state language, constitution, political system, history and so on. Latvia introduced a so-called ‘window’ system, restricting the right to naturalization to certain birth cohorts (see Chapter 11). Only ethnic Russians whose ancestors had lived in Estonia or Latvia prior to 1940 had immediate access to citizenship. This led to the exclusion of the overwhelming majority of Estonia’s and Latvia’s ethnic Russian population from the political life and citizenry. As a consequence, political mobilization and representation of Slavic minorities was made more complicated. As non-citizens were not allowed to buy property or to actively participate in post-communist privatization, the Russian minority also had substantial economic disadvantages resulting from restrictive citizenship laws. The original aim of this regulation was to counterbalance the effects of what the Baltic majority populations and their elites interpreted as 50 years of hostile occupation and assimilation, that is, the gradual Russification of public life in the Baltic republics. The implicit hope was that those who were excluded from the polity would sooner or later leave the country and ‘return’ to Russia. For various reasons, this did not happen on a large scale. The two unintended consequences, therefore, were the establishment of large stateless and/or foreign minority populations and the involvement of Russia, the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe in the whole issue. The originally domestic issue of politically negotiating membership as well as redistribution of power and resources turned into a foreign policy issue involving not only Estonia’s and Latvia’s eastern neighbour, Russia, but the whole international community. Special OSCE missions were set up in the two countries in order to constantly monitor the situation of the Russian and other Slavic minorities. The EU made it clear that future membership of the Baltic states in the EU would not only depend on economic performance and legal as well as political reforms, but also on the status and treatment of minorities. In the end, Estonia and Latvia were forced to partially liberalize their very restrictive citizenship laws and to give up hope that the conflict between the new titular nations and the Slavic minorities would disappear through ethnic ‘return’ migration (see Chapters 11 and 14). In Central and Eastern Europe, both ethnic Germans and Jews have a long history of immigration, settlement colonization and subsequent internal migration. Historically, their settlement has been closely linked to the settlement of ethnic Russians in Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, today’s Southern Russia, the Crimean Peninsula and the Baltic states (Hildermeier 1998). However, this settlement of Russians meant colonization and the expansion of Russian people, bureaucracy, language and culture within an empire dominated by Russians, in other words, within Tsarist Russia and subsequently within the Soviet Union. Thus minority status was not originally associated with the history of Russian settlements at the peripheries of this empire. Minority status became an issue for Russians only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when


substantial parts of the Russian population were transformed into being members of ethnic Russian minorities and nascent diasporas. In this case, it was the drawing of new borders and the establishment of new nation-states, but not the migration of people, that turned Russians into ethnic Russians. For this historical reason, Russian minority perception, self-understanding and behaviour differ substantially from those of ‘Russian’ Jews and ethnic Germans living in the same area. Jewish settlements in Central and Eastern Europe date back to medieval times. In Central Asia and the Black Sea region, Jews can look back to more than two thousand years of settlement. Some Jewish communities even trace their existence back to the times of the Babylonian exile. The majority of East European and ‘Russian’ Jews came to Central and Eastern Europe as a result of anti-Semitism, pogroms and expulsion of Jewish populations from Western Europe— mainly from German territories—from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.11 As a consequence, until the early twentieth century, many Jews kept Yiddish as their mother tongue or used it at least as a common language when communicating with other Jews living in Central and Eastern Europe. With the exception of the exclave of Kaliningrad, former East Prussia, German settlement on the territory of today’s Russia has a shorter history. Some early settlers came as religious refugees in the aftermath of religious conflicts and discrimination in early modern times.12 With the opening of Russia to the West during the rule of Peter the Great, a considerable number of German merchants, craftsmen and peasants moved to newly established St Petersburg and its surroundings. The main immigration of German settlers, however, took place during the rule of Catherine II in the mid-eighteenth century. Most of them became peasants along the Volga in territories recently conquered by and annexed to Russia. Jews and Germans were confronted with minority status from the very beginning of their immigration to and settlement in Eastern Europe, though under different conditions. Jews had a minority existence until the late nineteenth century, were subjected to feudal dependency and, for a long time also prevented from buying arable land and from exercising most liberal professions or becoming craftsmen. Periodically, they became victims of pogroms motivated first by religious and later by ethno-national and racist radicalism. As a result, emigration of Russian, Polish and Baltic Jews to bigger cities as well as to Western Europe and the Americas started in the 1860s. Within Tsarist Russia, civil and legal emancipation of Jews took place only at the very end of the nineteenth century. All this explains why many Jewish workers and intellectuals sympathized with Social Democratic and later also with Bolshevik movements. Only these political movements seemed to transcend religious intolerance and nationalism. In contrast to Jewish refugees coming to Poland, Ukraine and Russia in medieval and early modern times, Germans, from the beginning, settled in Tsarist Russia under privileged conditions. Special incentives were created in order to


stimulate their immigration. For a limited period of time, they were exempted from taxes and military service. Until 1941 they enjoyed cultural, religious and territorial autonomy under both Tsarist and Soviet rule. The same was true for ethnic Germans living under Hungarian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian rule in south-eastern Europe. Despite obvious differences in their history of migration and settlement, there are some similarities between ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians. These similarities, however, only hold when comparing today’s ethnic Russians in postSoviet successor states with Germans who, from 1918 to 1920, became members of ethnic minorities after their areas of settlement had become part of the newly established Poland, Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia or were annexed to Italy, France, Belgium or Denmark.13 A similar comparison could be made with ethnic Hungarians who, from 1918 to 1920, also became members of new minorities in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. In all these cases the minorities only came into being through the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German Empire. For most German and for all Hungarian minorities, this meant a decline from belonging to the titular or politically and culturally dominant nation to minority status, similar to the case of ethnic Russians in the successor states of the Soviet Union after 1991. The Jews of Central and Eastern Europe never enjoyed the status of a titular nation. However, at least in the late nineteenth century and during the inter-war period, the high degree of linguistic assimilation, and even conversion to Protestantism and Catholicism among German, Austrian, Czech, Hungarian and other Central European Jews, made many of them belong, at least culturally and religiously, to the respective majorities while a race-based anti-Semitism often continued to label them as members of an unwanted minority. PATTERNS OF ETHNIC MIGRATION Migration patterns, privileged access of ethnic Germans, (Central and Eastern European) Jews and ethnic Russians to Germany, Israel and Russia as well as their inclusion in the German, Israeli and Russian ‘homeland’ societies and institutions can be seen as another remarkable commonality between these groups. During the twentieth century, members of all three minorities began a ‘return’ migration to the historical or imagined ‘homelands’ of their ancestors. These migration flows, however, took place at different times and on very different scales. Migration of Jews to Palestine and Israel is almost as old as Zionism. However, until the 1930s, Jewish immigration to Palestine was rather small. It reached large numbers only immediately after the Second World War and the Holocaust. This flow continued after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. At that time, the majority of European Jews came from Poland and Romania, and they continued to come in smaller numbers until the late 1960s. A total of 300,000 Polish and 400,000 Romanian Jews settled in Israel. During the same


period, opportunities for Jews living in the Soviet Union to freely emigrate to Israel or another Western country were highly restricted. With the support of the United States and with the help of pressure exercised by the United States and some other Western countries, ‘Russian’ Jews first were able to leave the Soviet Union in the early 1970s (see Chapter 19), but during this period most went to the USA. Approximately 200,000 emigrated to Israel between 1970 and 1975, though not all permanently. Large-scale emigration from the former Soviet Union to Israel started only during the political liberalization of the Gorbachev era and continued after the collapse of communism, when the United States restricted immigration for citizens of Russia, Ukraine and other successor states of the USSR. As a consequence, some 850,000 ‘Russian’ Jews have come to Israel from the former USSR and its successor states since the late 1980s. They represent one-fifth of Israel’s Jewish population at the beginning of the twentyfirst century (Lesham and Shuval 1998). Emigration of ethnic Germans is also closely linked to the Second World War, Nazi and German war crimes and their consequences. The Nazi regime had itself started forced resettlement programmes for ethnic Germans living in the eastern half of Europe (see Chapters 5 and 6). Most ethnic Germans, however, fled or were expelled from their traditional Central and Eastern European areas of settlement as well as from the former eastern provinces of Germany. The number of refugees and expellees totalled some 12 million. Despite massive expulsion and ethnic cleansing from 1945 to 1948, some one million people of ethnic German or mixed origin remained in Poland, 1.4 to 1.5 million in the Soviet Union, more than 400,000 in Romania, 200,000 in Hungary, and some 150,000 in Czechoslovakia. This remaining German population later became the demographic basis for ethnic German immigrants coming to Germany. Already in the early 1950s, West Germany provided a special legal framework for members of these minorities, enabling them to immigrate under privileged circumstances and to naturalize upon arrival. During the Cold War, however, this immigration was highly dependent on international relations in general and bilateral relations between (West) Germany and the communist states in particular. Until 1987, only 1.6 million ethnic Germans had immigrated. After the dismantling of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the communist system, migration and travel were no longer restricted for citizens of Central and Eastern European countries, including ethnic Germans. After a massive inflow in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Germany started to restrict admission for ethnic Germans immigrants between 1990 and 199614 and has officially set an end to this privileged migration, which will gradually come into effect after 2010. As a result, ethnic Germans can no longer freely immigrate to unified Germany, but have to undergo a complicated and bureaucratic recognition and admission process. Between 1988 and 2001, some 2.6 million ethnic Germans were admitted, bringing the total for the second half of the twentieth century to 4 million.


Although Jewish immigration to Israel followed similar lines as ethnic German immigration to Germany, there are interesting differences when it comes to details. Ever since the Israeli Law of Return was passed in 1953, Jews from all over the world became eligible to claim Israeli citizenship on the basis of ethno-religious grounds, thus gaining the right to immigrate and to establish themselves in Israel. From the very beginning, providing not only a nation-state but a potential safe haven for all Jews has been a basic raison d’être for Israel. The experience of the Holocaust made this a founding principle of Israel. Thus the Israeli legal provision for privileged immigration went beyond the German one, which provided preferential treatment only for those individual members of ethnic German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe who were considered to have experienced particular hardships and discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity. This discrimination was interpreted as a direct consequence of the Second World War. Like Israel, the Federal Republic of Germany viewed support for and admission of these ethnic Germans as a historical and moral obligation. However, the fact that all co-ethnics who profited from these provisions came from communist countries legitimized this admission not only as co-ethnic solidarity and duty linked to the consequences of the country’s Nazi past, but also from the logic of the Cold War, a period during which some preferential treatment was given to almost everyone who managed to escape from the ‘Soviet bloc’. For the same reason, ethnic Germans living in Western countries were not eligible for privileged immigration to Germany even if they were discriminated against in their countries of residence, for example, the German-speaking population of Northern Italy during the 1950s and 1960s.15 Unlike Israel, Germany further restricted privileged admission in 1992–93 by essentially limiting it to ethnic Germans living in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. Germany further closed the special gates of entry and limited mechanisms of inclusion for those ethnic Germans who could claim victim status, whereas Israel established a universal mechanism of inclusion for Jews in Israeli society in order to provide an alternative to minority and diaspora existence and the potential or actual disadvantages linked to this status for every Jew. Thus it can be argued that Israel’s Law of Return also empowers Jews in the diaspora because it provides them with an alternative: they can always claim Israeli citizenship and privileged access to Israeli society. The Russian case is again different from the German and the Israeli ones. Until 2000, the Russian Federation provided an opportunity for all citizens of the former Soviet Union to apply for Russian citizenship regardless of their ethnicity and their place of residence after 1992. Therefore, not only ethnic Russians made use of this opportunity. Thus, in the Russian case, the specific ethnic element of the Israeli and German cases is less pronounced. However, the Russian Federation continues to see itself as the ‘homeland’ and, if necessary, also as the protecting patron state for ethnic Russians living in the non-Russian successor states of the USSR. This also means that ethnic Russians leaving these states are still welcome, enjoy preferential admission and have access to citizenship as


well as to state benefits (Pilkington 1998; Pilkington and Flynn 1999; see also Chapter 10). ‘RETURN’ OF THE DIASPORA: A SPECIAL FORM OF MIGRATION Integration programmes for ethnic migrants which provide privileged access to social and economic resources contribute to the levelling of social and other differences between these immigrants and the majority in the receiving countries. Thus ethnic migrants not only have privileged access to ‘homeland’ societies, but they benefit from privileged integration measures such as welfare and integration programmes, settling and housing programmes, language courses, vocational training or retraining, etc. These programmes, however, are much more developed in Germany and Israel than in Russia. Privileging ethnic migrants is justified through distinctive patterns and discourses of legitimation within ‘homeland’ societies and ‘homeland’ policies. The most common notion is directly linked to the concept of diaspora that links co-ethnic external minorities as victims to the nation-state and its population. As members of these diasporas are currently or were historically exposed to discrimination, marginalization or even persecution on ethnic grounds, the ‘homeland’ has a responsibility to support and rescue them, the argument runs. The special admission and integration policy of ‘homelands’ towards the coethnic population that wants to migrate to the ‘mother country’ has a decisive impact on the composition of the immigrant population. Migration, in particular labour migration, is generally highly selective towards age and social status of the immigrants and, to a lesser degree, also to gender. Selectivity in this respect is far less pronounced among ethnic migrants. Both men and women as well as all age groups are usually evenly represented among ethnic migrants. This is an effect of family migration that is dominant among ethnic migrants. In contrast, labour migration is characterized by a higher share of males and a concentration of migrants aged between 20 and 35. Ethnic migration, as a rule, is intended to be permanent migration. Return options are usually excluded, whereas return or at least the myth or wish of eventually returning to one’s country of origin is very often nurtured among labour migrants and refugees or is imposed on them by authorities in receiving countries. This divergence with respect to return myths or intentions for permanent settlement projects comes with different conceptions of ethnicity among ethnic migrants and other migrants. Ethnicity is an important factor for most categories of migrants, however, ethnic migrants differ in one crucial respect. For them, ethnicity plays an important role not only when immigrating, but also before the act of immigration when living as ethnic minorities in a nation-state dominated by another ethnic group. In contrast, labour migrants and most refugees are only turned into an ethnic minority through the process of immigration and often through the experience of political or social exclusion.


Thus, their ethnicity is differently marked both symbolically and in everyday life. For ethnic migrants, ethnicity is the crucial resource and social capital to draw on if emigration to the ‘mother country’ is intended to be achieved. The gate of entry to the ‘homeland’ can only be opened and passed with the key of having or claiming the same ethnicity as the fellow countrymen in the ‘mother country’. Although ethnic migration differs distinctively from labour migration and most forms of forced migration, certain common features exist, namely the social and economic challenges of integration and the alienation from receiving societies, which are often very similar for all groups of immigrants. Despite the fact that ethnic migrants are officially welcome within the receiving countries, they do not always integrate as easily as ideological claims maintain. Problems of being incorporated into the labour market, finding acceptance among the native population, as well as becoming accustomed to new traditions and different modes of life are not so different for the various groups of immigrants. Despite enjoying a privileged status in the receiving ‘mother countries’, ethnic migrants often face the same difficulties as their peers who do not enter on an ethnic ticket. CONCLUSION The comparisons upon which this book is based may come as a surprise to some, as members of the three groups analysed would probably not draw comparisons among their histories, their migration patterns and their current situation. Likewise, until the 1990s, scholars have also been reluctant to systematically compare ethnic German diasporas and their privileged immigration to Germany with Jewish diasporas and their ‘return’ to Israel,16 not to mention ethnic Russians living in the Baltics, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and so on, and their eventual resettlement in Russia. The burdensome historical legacies of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, namely German and Russian anti-Semitism, Nazi rule and the Holocaust, Soviet nationality policy and Stalinist repression, deportation and genocide have prevented us for a long time from systematically looking at these similarities. The focus was rather on the differences and on the uniqueness of suffering and victimhood. And even today, most Israelis, Russians or Germans might question and doubt the inherent logic of comparing their three countries with respect to ethnic immigration and diaspora politics. However, an analytical view of the three groups, as has been argued, shows certain important similarities which are worth investigating comparatively for the sake of better understanding minority existence and minority migration.


NOTES 1 This volume is the outcome of one of the many conferences on diasporas in the past years. ‘Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants in Twentieth Century Europe’ was the topic of a comparative conference at Humboldt University in May 1999. It focused on five nation-states and their respective external minorities or diasporas, namely, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the former Soviet Union (FSU) and former Yugoslavia (Croatia and Serbia). The present volume focuses on three of the aforementioned countries or spaces and their respective external minorities (Germany, Israel and the FSU). For details on the conference and the conference papers see: www.demographie.de/ethnic. 2 See Diaspora. A Journal of Transnational Studies, edited by Khachig Tölölyan, who founded the journal in 1991. 3 ‘Russian’ Jews is used in this introduction as well as in many chapters of this volume as a general term characterizing all Jews living in Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and its successor states as well as Jews who migrated from the USSR or one of its successor states to Israel, the United States or Germany. Although it is geographically disputable, the use of this term can be justified by the high degree of assimilation of Jews in the former Soviet Union and its successor states into Russian culture and language. 4 The Hebrew word for dispersion, in a purely physical, and neutral, sense is tfutsot— used increasingly today, especially by Israelis. 5 The somehow old-fashioned word titular nation or Titularnation is used to identify the majority ethnic groups which gave or gives its name to the nation-state in which several ethnic groups co-exist (ed). Thus, for instance, Hungarians were the titular nation in the Hungarian part of the Habsburg Empire. However, after the dissolution of the empire in 1918/19 Hungarians living outside the now smaller Hungarian state were turned from members of the titular nation into ethnic minorities, whereas former minorities such as Romanians or Slovaks gained titular status in the enlarged Romanian state or the newly founded Czechoslovakia. 6 The same is true for ethnic Hungarians in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia after the end of the First World War. For an analysis of nationalizing nation-states and their policy after the collapse of empires see Brubaker (1996). 7 Only some 100,000 out of a total of 4 million Aussiedler between 1950 and 2000 came from Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. 8 The same is not true for ethnic Germans in Romania. Most of them grew up in predominantly German-speaking villages. Intermarriage rates between ethnic Germans and other ethnic groups were low. German remained their language of school instruction even after the end of the Second World War. 9 Since the end of the Cold War, Central and East European countries as well as the successor states of the Soviet Union have no longer forced emigrants to relinquish their citizenship before leaving the country. Some countries, such as Poland, facilitate reacquisition of citizenship by former emigrants. For this reason, ethnic German immigrants (Aussiedler) and ‘Russian’ Jews in Israel have become immigrant groups with a very high proportion of dual citizens. 10 In the case of Aussiedler, transnationalism and return migration is more common among ethnic Germans from Poland than those from Russia and Kazakhstan, while


11

12 13

14

15

16

the transnational community linked with Russia and Kazakhstan usually consists of non-German spouses and children immigrating to Germany on the basis of family unification. However, in the fifteenth century Sephardic Jews also arrived in the Ottoman Empire (as well as in England, the Netherlands and some German cities) as an effect of expulsions from the Iberian peninsula. This history explains the some 10 per cent of the ethnic German population who are Mennonites, Pentecostals and Baptists in Russia and Kazakhstan. Comparing ethnic Germans and ethnic Russians in a historical perspective became popular in the 1990s along with the notion of ‘Weimar Russia,’ arguing that postSoviet Russia with its 25 million ethnic Russians had a potential for radicalization and revisionism, similar to interwar Germany. However, the developments of the 1990s proved this comparison to be an ungrounded or at least overstated anxiety. See Brubaker (1996:135–6) for a comparison between Weimar Germany and postSoviet Russia. On diaspora politics in post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s see King and Melvin (1998). First, potential Aussiedler were restricted from applying for Aussiedler status in Germany, but were required to do so in their countries of origin (1990). Then, an immigration quota for Aussiedler was introduced and recognition of Aussiedler status was essentially restricted to ethnic Germans living in the post-Soviet successor states (1993) and, finally, a mandatory German language test for potential immigrants was introduced (1996). After the First World War, the region of South Tyrol/Alto Adige, historically part of the Habsburg Empire, was annexed to Italy despite 90 per cent of the population being German speakers. Until the late 1960s, this German-speaking population suffered from various forms of ethnic discrimination as Italy tried to Italianize the province both culturally and demographically. One of the first examples for such a comparative approach was a conference held in Beer Sheva in 1992 (see Bade and Troen 1993).

PART II THEORITICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

2 From Diasporas to Migrants—from Migrants to Diasporas Gabriel Sheffer

ISSUES AND PURPOSES As it is now impossible to ignore the general ‘ethnic revival’ (Smith 1993), it is also difficult to ignore the existence, activities and growing cultural, political and economic significance of ethno-national diasporas, whether these are state-based or stateless (Sheffer 1993, 1994). This recognition, however, is fairly recent. Only two decades ago, both practitioners and analysts on the right and left, had dismissed the diasporic entities as ephemeral and not meriting serious attention. These belittling attitudes were also reflected in the state of academic deliberation of the phenomenon. While studies of specific diasporas were abundant, the study of the general phenomenon was negligible. Among the rather few exceptions were the works of Armstrong (1976), Seton-Watson (1977), Sheffer and colleagues (1986a), Marienstras (1989) and Cohen (1989). Admittedly, a major change has since occurred and this field has developed dramatically. Yet the study of ethnic-national diasporism is still in its infancy. Thus one aspect that has drawn some, but far from adequate, attention is the dynamic nature of diasporism in general, and the development of specific diasporas in particular (Hammar 1990; Glick Schiller et al. 1992, 1995; Tölölyan 1996a; Van Hear 1998). Nevertheless, it has been suggested that a distinction should be made between various diasporas not only according to the status of their homelands (namely, whether these diasporas are ‘state-based’ or ‘stateless’) but also in accordance with their age and development. This has resulted in the distinction between ‘classical’ (or historical), ‘new’ (or ‘modern’) and ‘incipient’ (or emerging) diasporas (Weiner 1986; Sheffer 1993). During the last few decades, the dynamism of the entire phenomenon and of the development of specific diasporas, has further increased. Thus, additional incipient ethno-national diasporas, such as the Bosnian, Moroccan, Filipino and Colombian, have been created, and ‘dormant diasporas’ (diasporas whose majority did not identify as full-fledged members and were inactive), such as many Polish, Irish and Baltic state’s diasporas in the United States, have awakened. Against this, members of various classical, new and incipient


diasporas have returned to their ‘homelands’—this applies, for example, to Russian Jews, the Irish, Pontic Greeks, ethnic Germans and Armenians. Members of diasporas, such as the Indians who were expelled from Uganda and South African Jews, have migrated to secondary and tertiary host countries. Members of other diasporas who were expelled from their host countries or voluntarily returned to their homelands have come back to their host countries, such as Palestinians to Kuwait after the Gulf War. As can easily be conjured up, multifaceted and complex processes cause these two opposite developments and they form a spectrum. At one end of this spectrum are the incipient diasporas and at the other end are the vanishing diasporas. This chapter has two intertwined purposes: first, to analyse the multifaceted underlying factors for those two extreme developments in contemporary ethnonational diasporism—that is, to re-examine the ‘making and unmaking’ of ethnonational diasporas (Van Hear 1998); second, to draw some general theoretical conclusions from this analytical discussion. THE NEED FOR FURTHER EXAMINATION AND EXPLANATION OF THE EMERGENCE AND DEMISE OF ETHNO-NATIONAL DIASPORAS It is now widely accepted that diasporas are made and unmade as a result of both voluntary and forced migration, shifting borders and the formation and the collapse of states (Sheffer 1986b; Cohen 1997; Van Hear 1998; Brubaker 1999). This is a departure from the traditional simplistic view that, essentially, all diasporas are ‘exilic communities’. This departure is important since it facilitates the understanding not only of diasporas’ emergence but also the unmaking of these entities. Yet there is no agreement about the underlying reasons for the making and unmaking of these diasporas. Debates that are conducted in the general field of ethnic studies, such as the debate among the ‘primordialists’,1 ‘instrumentalists’2 and ‘constructivists’,3 or between ‘perennialists’4 and ‘modernists’,5 are relevant and reflected in diaspora studies. Thus, like the debates concerning ethnic minorities’ revival and demise, recent explanations of the establishment and dissipation of diasporas range from those that strongly emphasize their essentialist nature to those that insist on the pragmatic decisions of individuals and small groups and to those that focus on the impact of social and political environmental factors. When focusing on the making and unmaking of diasporas, these explanations should be re-examined. There is a particular need to re-examine the explanation that has been offered by those who focus on migratory trends and ‘migration orders’, namely that recent migration cycles should be regarded as being caused by global systemic causes (Van Hear 1998). Accordingly, rather then focusing on social and political environmental explanations, which are influenced by the notion of regime (or systemic) change,

DIASPORAS TO MIGRANTS—MIGRANTS TO DIASPORAS 19

the emphasis here is on personal and small group considerations, against the backdrop of social, political and economic factors that influence both the dwindling of diasporas and the emergence of new ones. It is believed that this approach will enhance the general understanding of these groups’ motivations, raison d’être, organization, relations with host countries and homelands and the chances for their continued survival. Moreover, since ethno-national diasporas constitute an extreme case among all ethnic communities, this explanation will also contribute to the wider field of ethnic studies. FROM DIASPORAS TO MIGRANTS Like other aspects of diasporism, forced or voluntary return, and even secondary and tertiary migrations of members of ethno-national diasporas, are not modern phenomena (Sheffer 2002). Such movements occurred in antiquity, in the Middle Ages and in the Modern era (Brubaker 1996, 1999). Moreover, such processes have not been confined to Europe, the Middle East or the USA. These have happened in all parts of the world. When tackling the issues of deportation, expulsion, imposed repatriation and forced return of members of established diasporas to their homelands, the question is not only ‘what’ happens under these circumstances, but also ‘why’ such population movements occur. By definition, members of diasporas intend to stay indefinitely in their host countries (Sheffer 1986b, 1994). Indeed, in most cases where they are socially, politically and economically reasonably integrated in the host countries, they have little or no incentive to leave these countries. Actually, the reasons for forced migration out of their host countries should be sought mainly in their hosts’ policies. Reviewing the long and tortured history of forced exits of diasporas from their host countries, it seems that most were decided upon by rulers and governments. Only on rare occasions were massive exits determined by spontaneous grassroots sentiments. Since most state-based diasporas make great efforts to accept the principal rules of the game prevailing in their host countries and to contribute to the well being of these states, usually the main reasons for forced exits are not diaspora disobedience or worsening economic conditions. Rather the reasons for such expulsions are connected to deeper and non-economic layers of host countrydiaspora relationships (Sheffer 1993, 1994). While the causes for forced exit of members of state-based diasporas are complex, the reasons for the expulsion of entire or certain segments of stateless diasporas are clearer. First, since in the latter case there is no homeland that may come to the rescue of its diaspora, host governments feel less constraint in taking the decision to adopt and implement such a policy. This was, for example, the case with the Jews and Armenians before the re-establishment of their national states. Second, in these cases, the diasporas’ unequivocal support for that segment of the nation that resides in the homeland and for its struggle for


independence or autonomy, which may involve subversive activities, is regarded as sufficient reason to expel them. The voluntary exit of members of established diasporas from their host countries should be regarded in the same way as the exit from the homeland. The rationale for this proposition is that, as noted, the majority of the members of established diasporas, certainly members of historical and new state-based diasporas, do not regard their host countries as exile. Rather, most of them regard their host countries as a second, and at times even as the sole, homeland (this is, for example, the case with many of the African-Americans). Although they maintain regular contacts with the country of origin of the entire nation, most of them show full or split loyalty toward the host country. In all cases, however, emigrating out of the host country is as difficult and traumatic as leaving the original homeland. Again, the reasons for such decisions are varied and complex. Above and beyond reasons connected to ‘migration orders’ and ‘migration crises’ (namely, a particularly difficult moment in the history of a given migration system) and unfriendly or hostile attitudes of the host society and governments, all of which should be taken into consideration, the decisions are based on discrete individual and small group calculations. In any case, when a massive exodus of a diaspora from a host country occurs, not all members leave and return to the homeland. Even under the harshest circumstances in the host country, almost always some members remain behind. The recent history of the Jewish diaspora supplies plenty of evidence for such a situation. The same applies to other diasporas that have been forced to leave or have voluntarily left their host countries. Thus, in the wake of the expulsions during the Gulf War, some Palestinians remained in Kuwait, Egyptians in Iraq, Yemenis in Saudi Arabia, and so on. When circumstances in such hostile host countries improve, the situation of those who remain serves as a litmus test for changed circumstances there, and as ‘attractor’ for a renewed influx into these countries. In some cases these newcomers are relatives of those who stayed. In other cases those who had not left provide the necessary cultural, social and economic infrastructures for the re-emergence of these diasporas. The Palestinians who remained in Kuwait after the Gulf War, the Jewish refugees in Germany after the Second World War and the Marranos in Spain serve as examples of these patterns. THE PROLIFERATION OF NEW ETHNO-NATIONAL DIASPORAS Migrants who decide to form incipient diasporas experience multifaceted pressures that are generated and exerted by various groupings among the migrants themselves, by host governments and social forces in host countries (especially by competing ethnic groups and by rightist and nationalist elements in the dominant group) and by various social, political and religious forces in


their homelands. Yet the number of incipient and permanent diasporas is constantly increasing. Among the many diasporas in the making are the Turks— who have migrated from their homeland since the 1960s—in the United States, Germany, Sweden and other Western states. In some of their host countries, these Turks are on the verge of becoming permanent established and organized diasporic entities. The Moroccans in Belgium, France, Spain and Holland are becoming an incipient diaspora too. The same applies to the Cubans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in the United States; to the South Koreans in the USA and in various countries in the Middle East; to the Filipinos in the United States, Japan and various Asian and Middle Eastern countries; to the Gypsies, who have begun to organize as a diaspora; and last but not least, it applies to certain groups among the 25 million Russians in the successor states of the Soviet Union, who are becoming the largest incipient diaspora (see chapter 14). The list of such diasporas is still longer: these and other incipient diasporas join the numerous ‘classical’ and ‘modern’ diasporas. However, assimilation and full integration are still a force to be reckoned with in various host societies counterbalancing diasporization or ethnic persistence. Ethno-national groups that are either on the verge of becoming fully established permanent diasporas, or are still in early stages of development as diasporas, demonstrate most features of the profile of modern diasporas (Sheffer 1986b, 1994; Cohen 1997). That is, these entities are created as a result of both forced and voluntary migration (and therefore the majority are not exilic communities). After longer or shorter periods of residence in their host countries, most migrants, whether they were legal or illegal, settle there. Most of them do not intend to return to their homelands (although it is difficult to pinpoint the exact ratio, it seems that most of the recent incipient and established diasporas have been created as a result of voluntary rather than imposed migration). Members of such entities consciously maintain their ethno-national identity and they create communal organizations. They maintain explicit and implicit contacts with their homelands and, even if only in a rudimentary form, they develop trans-state networks connecting them and their organizations with their respective homelands and co-ethnics in other host countries and face grave dilemmas concerning ambiguous, dual and divided loyalties to their homelands and host countries. EXPLAINING THE EMERGENCE AND DEMISE OF DIASPORAS There are a number of major explanations for the proliferation and diminution of ethno-national diasporas. The most traditional general explanation is that of the ‘push and pull’ factors. For example, such explanations have provided the theoretical groundwork for the examination of the emergence of the Jewish diaspora, and for the return of certain segments of this diaspora to the Land of Israel. Explanations that are based on this perspective still abound in publications


on this diaspora. There is of course some truth in these twin explanations. The main problem is their oversimplification and non-differentiation between various categories of cases. More recent approaches to the explanation of migration in general, and of the establishment and dismemberment of diaspora phenomena in particular, offer more differentiated and sophisticated perspectives. Without dealing with the whole gamut of explanations of migration per se, such as ‘network theory’, ‘household strategies’, and so on, the critical examination here is of theories that connect migration trends to the creation and demise of diasporas. These explanations can be divided into three categories that merit some elaboration. The Impact of Globalization Aside from the ease of transportation and better communication, the proponents of this explanation mention the following sets of factors that encourage mainly the establishment of new diasporas, but also the demise of such entities. The first set is the global economy, and especially liberal trade and capital-flow policies adopted by more host countries. These, it has been argued, facilitate the use of the special attributes of diasporas, and consequently encourage the establishment of new ones (Kotkin 1992; Cohen 1997). On the other hand, liberalization and economic growth may also explain the renewed attraction of certain homelands such as Ireland, and thus the return of members of diasporas. The second set of factors that primarily influences emigration from the homeland and arrival in certain host countries is the attractiveness of ‘global cities,’ whose main appeal lies in their global rather than domestic, economic and political roles. Consequently, these new global centres attract migrants who, due to their connections to global networks, can enjoy an easier start in these states (Sassen 1990). The third set is the emergence of what has been termed as ‘the deterritorialization of social identities’. Essentially the argument here is that in the wake of the economic and cultural globalization, ‘horizontal groups,’ that is, coherent social groups dwelling across the borders of nation-states and demonstrating multiple affiliations and associations, have gained acceptance and legitimacy (Cesarani 1996). In sum, the essence of this overarching explanation is that these and other cultural, political and economic factors that are closely related to globalization, encourage massive migration and favour the emergence and prosperity of some diasporas, on the one hand, and the demise of other diasporas, on the other. Proponents of this approach further suggest that, despite psychological, political and economic obstacles on the migrants’ way to leave non-democratic homelands (as has been the case, for example, with Cubans, Chinese, Syrians and migrants from some African countries), subsequently to reach desirable, affluent, hospitable host countries and to settle there permanently, the new global environment produces favourable conditions that help migrants to overcome these obstacles. The global system has also generated, so it is argued, greater


tolerance, openness and readiness to accommodate migrants. These relatively new trends allow migrants to reside, at least for long periods, in these host countries. Thus, although some Western countries, such as the United States, France and Germany, periodically reconsider their policies concerning labour migrants and asylees, try to restrict their entrance and on certain occasions to deport them, they are both unwilling and incapable of totally sealing off their borders so as further to prevent immigration and subsequently permanent settlement. Migration Crises This category of explanations is also based on a number of interconnected arguments. It regards individual and household decisions to leave the homelands as part of some key elements in explaining the large waves of world migrants. It seems, however, that despite the significance that it attaches to individuals’ and households’ motivations to migrate, this approach still singles out as most significant the global and domestic economic reasons for migration. This approach regards economic disparities between countries of origin and destination, migrants’ networks and ‘migration regimes’ as the paramount factors for migration and consequently for the establishment and demise of diasporas. Above all, this approach regards business cycles and long-term economic restructuring influences on migration and settlement as the ultimate determining factors. To these factors it adds the impact of the noticeable weakening of the nation-state in the wake of the Cold War era, the disintegration of the Second World, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the current appalling economic and political conditions in the former Second World and in Third World countries. Varying combinations of these factors create transitory conditions that influence the migration and eventually ultimately the settlement of migrants in host countries. Hence, the proponents of this explanation agree with the ‘globalists’ who argue that migration is facilitated by the greater ease of transportation and communications (Van Hear 1998). A variant of this type of explanation is that which focuses on ‘global contagion’ and on its influence on the inclination of ethnic groups to migrate, then organize and eventually mobilize for action in their host countries (Gurr 1993:132–5). The essence of this approach is that as a result of the communication revolution, which has facilitated the rapid spread of news and fashions as well as social and political ideologies, people are ready to be on the move. Moreover, so this argument goes, information about general migration trends, about specific conditions prevailing in different host countries and about large groups on the move, influence further migration and diaspora formation.


The Impact of Conditions in Host Countries Again not entirely divorced from the previous explanatory models, this explanation centres on the migrants’ comparative perception of the situation in host countries and their homelands. Proponents of this explanation argue that the main reason for migration and consequently for the establishment of incipient diasporas, the transformation of such diasporas into permanent ones and, by implication, the demise of diasporas, should be attributed to the perceptions of changed conditions, especially in Western host countries, which are the most desired destinations for immigration and permanent settlement. It emphasizes that regardless of cyclical economic shifts between growth and recession in these countries and high rates of unemployment, there is still great demand for additional cheap labour, especially for menial labourers and unskilled workers in various services. Potential migrants tend to rely on such information and speculate that no great risk is involved in migration to, and permanent settlement in, these countries. The conclusion is that these trends will continue undeterred in the foreseeable future. The second element is that with the exception of some authoritarian regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iraq (which during the Gulf War had expelled the Yemeni, Palestinian and Egyptian incipient diasporas that had begun to emerge in these host countries), the chances of massive expulsions of members of incipient diasporas or established diasporas have been considerably reduced. Consequently, when thinking about their future, potential migrants speculate that the chances for permanent settlement and establishment of diasporas are good, and the possibility of forced large-scale repatriation are slim. This should be attributed, these theorists and analysts postulate, partly to the new international atmosphere and partly to the extensive coverage in the media of persecutions and the resultant major population movements. The third component is based on the view that in developed countries, including those countries that only recently have joined this club, there are slow but clearly discernible processes enhancing racial and ethnic tolerance. The implication is that these developments increase the ability of ethnic groups to enter these countries, establish themselves, create permanent diasporic communities and prosper without any major danger of expulsion. Japan is one of these previously homogenous Asian countries that has become more tolerant to migrants’ arrival and to prolonged periods of their residence. All these explanations include accurate elements. Yet new migration orders, transitions and crises, a more agreeable global environment, more favourable social and political conditions in an increasing number of desirable host countries and contagion are all indirectly contributing factors (that is, intervening variables) that increase the number of migrants. However, the root causes for the establishment of additional ethno-national diasporas and the diminution of existing diasporas should be sought in a different set of factors.


SETTLEMENT AND RETURN AS A RESULT OF MIGRANTS’ AUTONOMOUS DECISIONS IN HOST COUNTRIES Against this backdrop it is now possible to turn to the main question and argument of this chapter. The main question is whether there are more immediate factors than globalization, migration orders and host countries’ and homelands’ attitudes that influence the emergence and demise of diasporas. The intention here is to part from the argument about the close connection between the reasons for migration and the migrants’ background on the one hand, and the establishment of diasporas, their nature and ability to persist on the other, which has a respectable academic tradition. This, for example, was part of John Armstrong’s argument about ‘mobilized’ and ‘proletarian’ diasporas (Armstrong 1976). Its fundamental premise has been widely accepted and reflected in the analyses of various writers on this subject (Marienstras 1989; Esman 1994; Tölölyan 1996a; Cohen 1997; Van Hear 1998). This chapter will argue that cumulative decisions taken by individuals and groups of migrants, who are social actors, after their arrival in the host country are responsible for the emergence of new diasporas, for their persistence, and ipso facto also for their demise. Thus the main factor determining the emergence of new diasporas is the decisions taken by migrants, whether they are driven out of their homeland or migrate voluntarily, and whether they are poor, skilled professionals, manual labour migrants or affluent persons. Except in relatively few cases, these decisions are taken predominantly as a result of the migrants’ own needs and inclinations at the time. This alternative explanation is based on close observations of the emergence, development and diminution of diasporas in general and of new incipient diasporas in particular. First, upon leaving their homelands, most migrants’ response to the question of whether they intend to settle in a host country is noncommittal. Although in certain cases the chances are that they would indeed permanently settle in a host country, nevertheless, their initial position of noncommittal should be taken seriously. Furthermore, these responses should not be regarded as stemming from self-deception or as hiding real intentions. The traumas involved in individual or collective decisions to leave a homeland, and for that matter also the host country, the pressures exerted on the migrants by family, friends and society, and the ambiguity concerning the outcomes of such a decision, are so paramount that they render credence to such non-committal responses. At the bottom of this uncertainty about their future lie not only doubts about crossing the Rubicon and the conditions in the host country or homeland, but also a basic attachment of both migrants and returnees to the homeland. This does not, of course, characterize the attitudes of certain segments among such migrants who leave their homelands, or host countries, because of profound social disappointment, persecution, or immense political difficulties.


Another significant indication of the fact that the decisions of first-generation migrants to settle in a host country are actually taken only after a certain period of residence in the host country is that fewer migrants give up their homeland citizenship, or even acquire host country citizenship (Castles 1993). Furthermore, many migrants argue that it is not only family and personal ties that create a strong attachment to the homeland. Many are attached also to the ‘country’ and the ‘people back home’ at large (Connor 1986). This is a crucial factor in regard to the nature of the migrants’ identity in connection with the establishment of new diasporas. Thus the decision to maintain contacts with the homeland, which is a quintessential characteristic of diasporas, should be attributed to a combination of primordial (Geertz 1963; Grosby, 1995) and ethno-symbolic (Armstrong 1982) factors, rather than to pure instrumental ties. Following Connor (1994), Smith (1993) and Kellass (1991), the approach here postulates that the roots of ethnic identity constitute an inseparable combination of primordial, instrumental and environmental factors. The third reason for a delayed decision about settlement in host countries versus an immediate return to homelands is related to the fact that a considerable number of migrants, especially contract labour migrants, initially leave their countries of origin for defined periods of time. Occasionally, they migrate as part of either intergovernmental contracts and visa requirements, which formally dictate that they should leave the host country after a certain pre-set period. This was the case with the Egyptian guest workers in Iraq, the Yemenis in Saudi Arabia, most of the Asians in the Persian Gulf region, North Africans in Europe, Filipinos in Europe and so on. As viewed by such migrants upon leaving their homelands, these arrangements prevent them from attaining or at the least pose some obstacles on their way to permanent settlement and establishment of diasporic communities. Hence only after a certain period of dwelling in the host country, and after becoming better acquainted with the legal, social, political and economic conditions there, do these migrants make firmer decisions concerning permanent settlement. Only then do they either join existing diasporic organizations or establish new ones. MIGRANTS INTO INCIPIENT DIASPORAS—MEMBERS OF DIASPORAS INTO FULL CITIZENS OF THEIR HOMELANDS During the first period of their sojourn in their new host countries, or their old homeland, in the case of returnees, the ‘natural’ inclination of most migrants is to maintain contacts with their families and other social segments at home. During these initial stages, migrants to new host countries regard their kin in the homeland as the main source of moral support. Migrants also nurture expectations that if worse comes to worst, the homeland government would rush to their rescue. On the collective level, they usually perceive their homelands as the undisputed centres of their nation. During the initial period in their host


countries, many join existing compatriots associations (Landsmannschaften and fraternities based on common local or ethnic background) and organizations of their ethno-national or ethno-religious group, or they hesitantly begin to establish such organizations. The intertwined goals of joining or establishing these organizations are to facilitate the initial adjustment to their new place (Gold 1996) and to ensure means for keeping up contacts with their families and friends. The Turkish diaspora in Germany, but also the Russian Jews who ‘returned’ to Israel have followed these patterns when settling down. More generally, here are the roots of ambiguous, dual and divided loyalties of members of diasporas (Sheffer 2002). Ultimately, most of these migrants decide to stay permanently in the host country and or homeland, respectively. Though there are no accurate figures— the rough estimate is that the percentage of migrants that after a relatively short period return to their homelands, or to their previous host countries, does not exceed 20 per cent. For example, such is the estimate of a well-known Palestinian sociologist of the number of Palestinians who may want to return to a Palestinian independent state from Arab countries (Tamari 1990). Nevertheless, there is nothing deterministic or irreversible about migrants’ decision to stay put. Namely, even decisions taken after an initial period in their new place are tentative. On most occasions, the wish and hope to return to the homeland is genuine. It is neither lip service to the people back home, nor to governmental authorities (such as agencies dealing with immigration), or to social agencies (such as local organizations that are dedicated to the task of ‘absorbing’ the migrants). Except for a relatively small number of migrants, who are determined to remain in their new locale, the yearning to return to the old homeland is shared by many migrants and is maintained for long periods after their arrival in the host country. Thus, for example, in the late nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century some Irish, Italian, Greek and Polish migrants to the US maintained a sense of being there in ‘exile’ for limited periods. This sense remained alive not only among the first generation of those migrants, but also among the second and third generations, even though they have become firmly rooted in that host country. Most voluntary returnees do feel such an urge. Members of incipient diasporas maintain close contacts with their homelands because in many instances they arrive in host countries accompanied by their spiritual and social leaders. Occasionally, these leaders follow the first waves of migrants who stay for longer periods in a certain host country. Most notably, this has been the case with various Muslim groups, such as the Turks, Egyptians, Palestinians and Moroccans who have migrated to the United States, Canada, France and other European and Latin American countries. The large number of mosques that have been established in most host countries and their activities is indicative of this trend. Through the use of various means of communication and transportation, migrants can more easily keep in touch with their previous homes and families. This is certainly true on the individual level. An array of modern and new means


of communication, particularly movies, television, videocassettes, electronic mail, faxes, books, newspapers and the Internet, which are produced either in the homeland or in the host country, strongly foster such ties. A further indication for migrants’ need and wish to maintain contacts with their homes is the fact that many continue to use their mother tongues. Since on many occasions migrants live among their own folk and work with their compatriots, they do not bother to acquire either the homeland or host country language. Moreover, even after acquiring the new language, many migrants do not show a strong tendency to become bilingual. They tend to use their mother tongue at home and among other members of the diaspora (Citrin 1990). Although this is not an absolute precondition for maintaining their ethnonational identity and contacts with either the homeland or previous host country, it certainly helps to preserve these attributes. The use of their mother tongue, the presence of their spiritual and social leaders and the availability of cultural and political materials facilitate the creation of solid foundations for the establishment of coherent entities in host countries and homelands respectively. Invariably, however, whether their spiritual or social leaders encourage those migrants, or they act spontaneously, the wish to organize diasporic communities or to join such entities is strictly a matter of individual and small group decisions. This inclination originates at the grassroots level. It is due to the fact that while stronger elements among these migrants can manage on their own, the majority needs the support of their coethnics. Part of this spontaneous ‘bottom to top’ process is related to the appearance of new leaders after the settlement in their new place. Most of these new leaders are younger persons who have only vague memories of either the homeland or host country. Some of these young leaders are among the more successful members of the diasporas, especially in the economic sphere, but most are either students or academics: for example, this has been the case with the Palestinians in Europe and the United States, or workers: this has been the case with some of the Asian diasporas in the United States and the Middle East. The spontaneous and sometimes chaotic nature of the efforts involved in organizing these communities is not a major impediment on the way to attain the members’ goals. The availability of sophisticated modern means of communication, that is, the ‘new media’, reduces the costs involved in nonstructured communal organization and unplanned activities. In other words, there is neither an urgent need for a comprehensive premeditated blueprint for the establishment of such communities and institutions, nor an essential requirement for the involvement of rich migrants in forming such organizations. This trend further diminishes the importance of the initial motivations for migration. The relative ease of establishing such organizations is further enhanced by the fact that in most receiving countries there are no immense or unsurpassable barriers in the way of such organization. This is a result of the greater acceptance of the idea and practice of particular interest representation and action, which is now widespread in Western countries that are the preferred target destinations of


migration and settlement. Authoritarian governments encounter similar difficulties in stopping the development of organizations by incipient and new diasporas, especially when such efforts are initiated and carried out by religious and spiritual leaders, and evolve around religious institutions. Finally in this context, models for organization and operation are readily available. Such models that can be emulated exist either in the same host country and are operated by competing and cooperating diasporas, or in homelands and can easily be examined. SOME THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS The basic argument here is that there are striking similarities between processes leading to the demise of diasporas and to the creation of such incipient entities. That is, those who establish diasporas or join such existing entities, on the one hand, and returnees that migrate back to their homelands, on the other, confront similar psychological, emotional and cognitive difficulties. These are caused by their need to make critical decisions concerning assimilation and integration into their homelands and host countries, on the one hand, and return to their homeland, on the other. Other sources of emotional, cognitive and practical difficulties facing these migrants that should be reconsidered are the attitudes of governments and various social and political forces in their homelands and host countries. Thus, although some of the homelands and receiving societies and governments, especially in the West, show greater openness towards such migrants and offer encouragement for their assimilation and integration, it should be remembered that even in these countries there are still social groups who oppose their absorption, and the permanent settlement of migrants and the formation of diasporas. Similarly, in most of these countries there are political and legal obstacles that members of incipient diasporas and returnees have to overcome. To these two sources of tension one should add the pressures created by other actors, such as competing communities in the homeland and other diasporas in host countries. Furthermore, increasingly, regional (especially the European Union) and global (the United Nations and its various agencies) organizations have become interested players in the field. The scope of migrants’ exit from homelands and their subsequent permanent settlement in host countries, including secondary and tertiary movements of members of diasporas, the repatriation and return of members of established diasporas to homelands is immense. Therefore, these entities, their activities and movements have become a recognized important factor in global, regional and local politics. Since these diasporic entities constitute an inseparable part of the general ethnic phenomenon, they have been examined in the context of ethnicity, interethnic relations and nation-building at large. As with accurately estimating the ratio between forced and voluntary movements of migrants, and especially movements that contribute to the


dwindling of established diasporas, it is difficult to determine the exact ratio between exit movements from homelands and from host countries. Yet despite global trends towards democratization and liberalization, which favour all ethnic groups including ethno-national diasporas, forced exits from both homelands and host countries still occur. Basically, the forced making and unmaking of diasporas are caused by governmental decisions rather than by popular sentiments of racist or nationalist segments in host societies. Such governmental decisions are based on primordial feelings and fears, as well as on security and political considerations although economic and instrumental calculations play a certain role in such governmental decisions, these are only secondary. While decisions concerning the expulsion of members of incipient and established ethno-national diasporas can relatively easily be analysed, it is more difficult to conceptualize and accurately comprehend the reasons for voluntary migrations that result in either the establishment or swelling of ethno-national diasporas, or in their demise. However, one of the main conclusions of this chapter in this context is that there are noticeable similarities between the causes of the voluntary establishment of ethno-national diasporas and their demise. In any case, the recent, almost unstoppable, voluntary waves of migration, which are facilitated by modern transportation, communications and increasing tolerance towards pluralism and multiculturalism, have all contributed to the proliferation of ethno-national diasporas. Simultaneously, globalization and openness have also facilitated voluntary return movements. It means that migration orders and crises that are related to globalization, and regional and domestic conditions serve as background factors for the voluntary movement of migrants out of homelands and back to these countries. The question then is why personal and small group decisions are the most decisive factors that determine these developments. The answer lies in the nature of these persons’ identities. The emergence of more coherent ethno-national incipient diasporas that have succeeded in overcoming the initial difficulties confronting migrants in most host countries, as well as the voluntary return of some members of established diasporas, support what is probably the most significant general theoretical conclusion in this context pertaining to the issue of identity— these diasporas are neither ‘imagined’ nor ‘invented’ communities (Anderson 1991; Hobsbawm 1984; Sollors 1989). The drive to form incipient diasporas and then the motivation to maintain these entities are not based solely on instrumental calculations. Both as individuals and collectives, these migrants might have fared better in their host countries if they had made and expressed a firm decision to relinquish their ethno-national identities and assimilate or fully integrate there, which most of them do not do. Rather, the analysis of this aspect of the diasporic experience further substantiates the approach that maintains that the proliferation, organization, endurance and also the return of members of these diasporas are primarily based on a combination of primordial and psychological/symbolic factors.


Identity and identification per se, however, are not sufficient in generating these trends. The growth and maintenance of such entities, and making them significant political actors, depend on cumulative individual and collective decisions taken in the host countries. Thus the emphasis here is on the importance of determined choices in the life of ethnic groups including diasporas. This is particularly important in view of the improvement of local and international environmental conditions from these groups’ perspectives. Without explicit personal and small group decisions to join diasporic organizations, these could not have persisted, especially in view of the harsh conditions in all host countries. These underlying factors should also be applied to voluntary return movements that contribute to diasporas’ decline. The third interrelated general conclusion has to do with the respective roles of diasporic elites and grassroots. Resolute action is needed on the part of the elites in the endeavor to create these diasporas and maintain them, nevertheless, spontaneous grassroots decisions and the readiness to implement these decisions is essential in the intricate processes that contribute to the growth and demise of these diasporas. NOTES 1 Those who argue that ethnic identities are given and in fact unchanging. 2 Those who contend that people adopt and maintain ethnic identities because of practical reasons that may benefit them and that these can change as a result of changing circumstances. 3 Those who maintain that such identities are constructed and reconstructed in view of changing environmental situations. 4 Those who suggest that ethnicity and ethnic diasporas are historical phenomena. 5 Those who argue that these are phenomena that have been created by modernity.

3 Minority Existence in Twentieth-Century Central and Eastern Europe: Between Self and Other? Rainer Ohliger

After a century dominated by flight, expulsion, and the genocide of ethnic minorities, it is difficult to make statements about the existence of minorities in Europe which do not narrate the history of minority-majority co-existence completely negatively. Twentieth-century history, which saw 30 to 50 million forced migrants (Fassmann and Münz 2000; see Chapters 5 and 6), refugees and expellees in Europe alone, shaped and politicized the picture and status of ethnic minorities significantly. Thus the history of minorities and minority existence in Central and Eastern Europe is usually told as a history of conflict, ethnic strife and, primarily, of failure. These characteristics have been reinforced since the collapse of communism and the renaissance of ethno-nationalism in these parts of Europe. In the 1990s, the image of minorities prevalent in the inter-war period with its abundant ethnic conflicts reappeared in the public sphere: namely, the dichotomous perception of minorities as clearly belonging to either one side or the other re-emerged. This image of ethnic minorities is most often associated either with the idea of friends vs. foes or victims vs. perpetrators, depending on the political and national standpoint of the commentator. Consequently, the interrelations that minorities developed with their host (and homeland) societies or even the fact that they had become part of the host society—acted and interacted with them—was emphasized less and less.1 This consolidated—one may perhaps even say petrified—image of minorities as either part of the Other or part of the Self can historically be explained within the framework of a world of nation-states and the role that ethnic and national minorities played within the establishment of nation-state order in twentiethcentury European history. Particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, where state formation and nation-building were comparative latecomers, the exclusion of minorities served a crucial function in defining ethnic and national boundaries and thus making ethnically heterogeneous spaces more and more homogeneous and eventually nationally ‘pure’. Minorities often fell between an exclusion from their host states, which exercised a nationalizing policy towards them, and an inclusion by homelands or mother countries, which provided political, cultural and, often, also economic support or an option for escape.2 As a consequence, ethnic minorities were often regarded as outsiders or even wouldbe emigrants vis-à-vis their host societies. They were ascribed the status of

MINORITY EXISTENCE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 33

guests rather than that of permanent residents and citizens. Thus the legitimacy of continuous minority existence within nation-states was often placed in doubt. However, looking at twentieth-century history and, in particular, at the new situation of the 1990s and beyond, this dichotomous image of minorities could also be questioned. The ambiguities of the inclusion and exclusion of minorities into nation-state societies provide the central focus of this chapter. It will be argued that persistent ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe—those which managed to remain such despite ethnic unmixing, also developed characteristics throughout the short twentieth century (that is, since 1918) which placed them in between the dichotomy of being part of either a clearly defined Self or Other. Thus they did not always fall into clear categories. Rather they moved between these categories. Ethnic minorities in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe not only developed the potential for classification as inbetweens, but showed certain characteristics which increasingly allow us actually to cast them as such. In extreme cases they even played the role of intermediaries between two often competing and rival national sides. BEYOND DICHOTOMOUS PERCEPTIONS OF MINORITY EXISTENCE In the age of nation-states, ethnic and national minorities have more than once both caused and been the victims of political strife, seemingly unresolvable conflicts and violent persecutions (Boden 1993; Brunner 1996). These events have led to ethnic discrimination, expulsions and, in extreme cases, to genocide. This was particularly true in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe, although ethnic unmixing and ethnic cleansing were a universal phenomenon and not unique to European history. The establishment of sovereign nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe since the end of the First World War had the built-in effect that these, for the most part, newly created or enlarged states, which were based on the notion of national self-determination for ethno-nations, increasingly tried to homogenize their populations. However, telling the story of minorities in Central and Eastern Europe is more complex than a linear narrative which portrays Central and Eastern nation-states as becoming increasingly homogeneous by way of assimilation, ethnic unmixing, forced migration and ethnic cleansing or the ruthless physical persecution and extinction of minorities. Three counter-currents need to be taken into consideration to provide a complete picture. First, ethnic unmixing and ethnic homogenization did not affect all minorities to the same extent.3 Second, although the political changes in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia led to new, partly forced ethnic migrations, new minorities were also created in the wake of the establishment of new nationstates. This is particularly true in the case of the 25 million ethnic Russians living in the successor states usually remaining and not migrating to Russia (see Chapters 8 and 11). Third, internal population redistribution had fairly dialectic


consequences. As can be seen in the cases of Poland and Romania, internal movement of minority and majority populations (ethnic Ukrainians in the case of post-war Poland, ethnic Romanians from the eastern territories in the case of post-1918 Romania) had ambivalent consequences. These policies of planned population dispersion and mixing were intended to make the national population more homogeneous in the long run. However, in the short run, it had the opposite effect, making the population more mixed. Mixing and unmixing stood in a dialectic interrelation. The example of Romania and internal (east-west) migration of Romanians within Romania since the end of the First World War is telling. Migration of relatively poorer Romanians, particularly from Moldavia to Transylvania, not only contributed to making Romanians in Transylvania demographically relatively stronger vis-à-vis ethnic Hungarians, but also led to the creation of new cleavages between Translyvanian-Romanians and the newly arrived Romanians from the other side of the Carpathian mountains. This was an ongoing process throughout the twentieth century. Thus twentieth-century developments were not only linearly directed towards unmixing and homogenization. The persistent existence of ethnic minorities, in particular, as well as the emergence of new minorities, supports the idea of reading twentieth-century European minority history in a slightly different way. It is worth focusing on these features of minority existence in order to question and counterbalance the dichotomous and linear interpretation of interethnic relations and social realities in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe as predominantly a story of ethnic conflict and continuous ethnic unmixing. LEGACIES OF THE PAST—PROBLEMS OF THE PRESENT: MINORITIES IN THE AGE OF NATIONSTATES After 1918, Central and Eastern Europe inherited the legacies of the nineteenth century. Interethnic relations of nineteenth-century multinational empires were transformed into majority-minority relations within newly established or enlarged nation-states. Thereby, former power relations were often reversed. Leading groups, particularly Germans and Hungarians of the dissolved AustroHungarian Empire, became new minorities, whereas former minorities such as Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, etc. ascended to titular nations. Concepts, notions and ideas about ethnic minorities clearly belonging to one side or nation were omnipresent after 1918. The post-1918 new world order reinforced this notion by establishing nation-states claiming to be ethnically homogeneous and almost exclusively based on ethno-national notions of nationhood. As a consequence, ethnic minorities residing in these nation-states usually came to be seen either as a relevant part of the Other (the host state view) or as part of the Self (the ‘homeland’ view and often the minorities’ perspective as well). This view dominated political controversies, interethnic and international conflicts and was widely shared, shaped and reinforced by intellectuals, policy-makers and


members of the petty intelligentsia, especially teachers, the clergy and other local elites who often propagated and helped to disseminate this view. Thus, the resulting framework of analysis along which minority issues were scientifically investigated and politically decided was deeply influenced by this dichotomy. To give twentieth-century history the credit it deserves, historical processes and events provide evidence in abundance that social and historical reality matched these conceptions. The history of forced assimilation, irredentism, violent interethnic conflict, forced migration, population transfer and exchange, expulsion and genocide seem to support this dichotomous view (Bugaj 1996a; Benz 1995; Bookman 1997). However, ethnic strife and ethnic conflict as a result of minority-majority relations is only part of the story. Twentieth-century Europe has also seen very different—indeed, almost contradictory— developments. In some cases in the second half of the century, minorities did not exclusively become causes for conflict, but instead also turned into mediators and cultural brokers between their host societies and their mother societies (Hannerz 1996; Aligisakis 1997). As members of bicultural, or at least bilingual groups, living between two societies and cultures, they exercised, and continue to exercise, the ability to live and negotiate between these two worlds (Kürti 1997). After 1945, for example, this was the case for the Danish minority in Germany, German minorities in Denmark and Italy, ethnic Swedes in Finland and for Slovenian, Croatian and Hungarian minorities in Austria (Allardt 1977; Holzer and Münz 1993; Nowak 1994; Böckler 1996; Moritsch 1996; Scherrer 1996, 1997). Before 1989, however, peaceful negotiations and open, unhindered exchange were mostly limited to Western Europe. In communist countries, minority issues were either silenced, interpreted as solved, seen as secondary to overcoming social and class cleavages or simply denied official recognition. This situation has changed profoundly since 1989/90. However, one could argue—as will be done below— that structural changes occurred in Central and Eastern Europe even before 1989, which became the crucial precondition for minorities to develop an intermediate status between host and homeland societies and cultures. THE DICHOTOMY OF SELF AND OTHER WITHIN MAJORITY-MINORITY RELATIONS The dichotomy of Self and Other has been a useful and powerful tool for the analysis of minority-majority relations and the resulting conflicts. However, focusing on the persistence of minority existence and not only on processes of unmixing and homogenization, the limits of this concept can be questioned and possibilities for modification can be investigated. The binary understanding of majority-minority relations could be broadened into a model with at least four categories (see Table 3.1), thus questioning predominantly black and white notions of ethnic belonging, adding some grey, and at the same time opening up


questions for research on nation-building and the national belonging of ethnic minorities and ethnic migrants. The Starting Point: The State of the Art in Nationalism Studies and Migration Research Research on nation-building and nationalism since the mid-1980s has resulted in a stream of theoretical work as well as anthropological, historical, political and sociological case studies that provided arguments and evidence for the concept that ethnic groups and nations are actually young ‘products’ that were socially engineered or ‘constructed’, as the scientific terminology goes (Anderson 1991; Gellner 1983; Hobsbawm 1992). This new research paradigm opened up a different perspective which transcended long-established notions and modes of interpretation such as the primordial nature of ethnicity and nationhood and the essentializing assumption that ethnic strife is a product of hundreds of years of ethnic hatred. It rather allowed the interpretation that an essentialist notion of ethnicity is the result of conflict but seldom the true cause of its origins. In particular, the historical understanding of nationhood, nation-building processes and national identities was analysed more thoroughly, from different disciplinary angles and with a multilayered approach. Within historical scholarship, the shift to a more anthropological perspective broadened the horizon and provided for a more dialectical understanding of nation and nationbuilding. Interaction among (nascent, consolidating and consolidated) nations and ethnic minorities and the interrelational social spaces between them became of paramount interest. However, one shortcoming of the analytical framework was and continues to be that it is dominated by the ‘winner’s perspective’, namely the focus on nation-states and nations confined by state boundaries. One could argue that internal nation-building, that is, nation-building within a state, eventually leading to state formation or being linked to state history has been at the core of historical and sociological interest and scholarship. Ethnic minorities came into the picture of national Self and national Other with the interrelation between a majority titular nation and its internal minorities (that is, within the same nation-state) rather than through the perspective on external (co-)ethnic members of the national group. Thus, external nation-building processes, including out-of-state co-ethnic minorities or even writing the history of nationbuilding from its (ethnic) margins, is still a comparatively underdeveloped field of research. Writing, for instance, twentieth-century Czech-German history from the perspective of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, writing HungarianRomanian history from a Transylvanian point of view without taking the perspective of the centre(s) is a challenge for the future. Explaining majorityminority relations would then not just be reduced to a matter of conflict (although conflicts would remain an essential part of the story). The level of analysis would be shifted from nation-state to transnational, from core to peripheral influences and from rather static to more processual. Such an


approach would document that not all ethnic relations in the past and present are marred by the alleged ‘clash of ethnicities’, to borrow on Huntington’s essentializing argument. Moreover, the perspective on internal minorities and their relationship to titular nations emphasized the otherness of minorities. So far, the focus has not been directed so much towards the question of exchange, mutual influences and interferences between majority and minority populations. The focus on interferences has, rather, been mostly dominated by unilinear questions of exclusion and conflict. The inclusion of minority culture and identity into the majority and, vice versa, the impact the majority population had on minority culture and life and interdependencies between the two poles is an emerging field of research rather than an over-researched one. Since the mid-1980s, migration and minority research has shifted from a previously rather static framework to a more process-oriented analysis. The previous framework of analysis focused either on countries of origin and the reasons for emigration or on the reception and integration of immigrants in the destination countries and societies. This new analytical framework of transnationalism takes the social field and fabric of the countries of origin and of host societies as well as their interrelations more into consideration (Bauböck 1994; Beck 1997; Basch et al. 1994; Jacobson 1996; Lacher 1984; Pries 1997; Ressaissi 1984; Smith 1997; Soysal 1994). Within this explanatory scheme, migration and its resulting social processes are seen within the context of dynamically interrelated transnational networks, not within what is essentially a rather inflexible bipolar model limited to one or two nation-states. This strand of research argues that (new) forms of transnational networks mirror the situation of labour migrants more correctly than pictures of uprooted individual emigrants, transplanted communities or temporary migrants who eventually returned home. It has been argued that a new paradigm of in-betweenness, associated with going back and forth, having roots and attachments in two polities and even two societies, is a more precise tool of analysis for labour migrants. This interpretation is mainly grounded in research on Mexican and other Latin American immigrants to the US (Portes 1995, 1998; Pries 1997) and more recently on Turkish labour migrants to Western Europe (Faist 1993, 1997). However, within migration research, the debate on transnationalism, transnational communities, transnational rights, transnational citizenship and transnational identities has been dominated by a strong focus on (labour) migrant minorities. The project of taking the crucial step of applying the paradigm to nonmigrant ethnic minorities brings up the question, however, of whether these groups can be seen as sedentary transnational communities or transnational diasporas on the ground which came into being without any migration.


Broadening the Dichotomy: National Self and Foreign Other— Foreign Self and National Other In the case of ethnic minorities it can be argued that the categories of Self and Other might not completely suffice to provide a realistic model of analysis. Minorities might be better understood in the sub-categories of foreign Self and national Other. Instead of drawing overly clear lines of belonging or exclusion it might make more sense to develop an analytical framework which questions these clear boundaries and focuses on the overlapping areas and zones of contested belonging. The argument runs that the case of Central and Eastern European minorities and nation-states can (partly) also be analysed along an extended model that allows for the consideration of a minority status of inbetweenness which emerged within the twentieth century and, in particular, since 1989. What would this mean in practice for the analysis of ethnic minorities and their interrelation with nation-states, be it a ‘host’ state or a mother country? Lines of separation seem to be very clear as long as state borders and borderlines between states and ethnic groups coincide. In a world of nationstates, processes of identification and processes of forging national identities are made easier by clear boundaries.4 Thus, the prevailing mode of interpretation was the notion of an ethnic Self in its own nation-state (what one could call national Self). This perception went in line with the exclusion of other ethnic groups from the territory making them into national Others. This clear concept of division along ethnic lines had important consequences. The normative idea that all members of one ethnic group or ethno-nation should live within the same nation-state and that non-members should not was the implicit and underlying message of this concept. Not only did it form the basis for justifying population shifts and population redistribution along ethnic lines in twentieth-century Europe, but it also informed our understanding and analysis of minorities. Although ethnic homogeneity of nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe was the (ideological) claim, ethnic diversity was the reality. On an ideological level, the claim usually succeeded against reality. This is most obvious within the realm of history or, better, historiography. Constructions of national historical narratives were usually ethnocentric and linear, excluding or marginalizing ethnic minorities living in the same nation-state. Thus, for instance, the history of Hungary became the history of Hungarians, the history of Romania, the history of Romanians, the history of Poland, the history of Poles, and so on. Minorities were presented as part of another nation (as foreign Others) rather than as nation-or citizenry-building members of the state population and thus as part of the common polity (national Others). As a consequence, for instance, ethnic Hungarians were seen as belonging to Hungary, ethnic Germans to Germany, ethnic Poles to Poland, and so on. The notion of strict boundaries between Self and Other was often shared by the societies of host states as well as by homelands, not to mention that the ethnic minorities conceptualized themselves in these categories. Host states portrayed ethnic


minorities within the nation-state as enemy groups. Mother countries constructed their extraterritorial co-ethnic populations as part of their co-ethnic populations, as part of their ethno-national Self. However, the mother country perspective did not necessarily imply the intention to ‘repatriate’ co-ethnic populations or enlarge the nation-state borders to encompass all members of the ethno-nation in the same state. Minorities themselves bought into this ascribed dichotomous mode of interpretation despite social and cultural processes which were, in part, pulling in opposite directions, namely turning ethnic minorities into in-betweens with dual identities, mixed loyalties and participation in two cultures simultaneously to a certain extent. An alternative mode of interpretation which is based on the notion of foreign Self and national Other could broaden the previous dichotomous interpretation. The key argument is that ethnic minorities, even without being spatially mobile, have a potential for developing transnational and transcultural structures as migrants have done. Ethnic minorities, the argument goes, are insufficiently understood if one forces them into the dichotomous categories of Self and Other. They have, or at least they can have, the potential for developing dual belongings to nations and nation-state. Thus, they tend to form a separate, qualitatively and structurally different, social collective entity. Table 3.1 Minorities within the framework of Self and Other Self (same ethnic group) national Self members of the same ethnonation living in the same nation-state foreign foreign Self (different nation-state) members of the same ethnonation living in another nation-state (external coethnic minorities)

national (same nation-state)

Other (different ethnic group) national Other members of other ethnonations living in the same nation-state foreign Other members of other ethnonations living in other (neighbouring) nation-states

There is no reason to question the distinctiveness of ethnic minorities and the differences from majority groups or titular nations with whom they live in one state. The very definition of majority and minority is based on the concept of difference and not sameness. This is, of course, only true as long as the minority population does not completely assimilate, thus turning into a part of the majority. Thus they do qualify as Others, and often serve as a reference group against which a national Self of the majority population is constructed. However, differences and distinct social and cultural traits of ethnic minorities are just one side of the coin. On the one hand, ethnic minorities within a nation-state based on an ethno-national sense of nationhood usually share certain characteristics


with the majority population. This ties them to this majority and sets them apart from co-ethnic members of their respective homelands. On the other hand, other characteristics clearly separate them from the majority population and build bridges to the homeland. MINORITIES BETWEEN INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION In this section, the argument that ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe have developed group characteristics which provide them with an in-between status will be discussed with respect to six different aspects: citizenship, demographic size, consolidation of minority status, language, social structure and the impact of the international regime. Citizenship The notion of in-betweenness and contested belonging could, first and foremost, be applied to the areas of citizenship and civic, political and social rights resulting from citizenship. Ethnic minorities were usually incorporated into newly founded host states by enjoying the right of citizenship. This is true for the post-1918 as well as the post-1989 developments. Newly established states usually implemented a so-called ‘zero option’ giving citizenship to all residents of the state regardless of their ethnicity (Gál 1999; Kolstø 1995; Thiele 1999; see also Chapters 11 and 13).5 As a consequence, all members of the polity are included formally on equal terms. This appears to be evidence of clear, rather than contested, zones of belonging. However, one could argue that the very fact of having political citizenship, and thus being able to organize interests along ethno-political lines also created and continues to create a line of division between minorities and respective majorities. On the one hand, political organizations and parties along ethnic lines integrate minorities into the political system of the host state and make them part of the political Self within this state. On the other hand, their political agenda and claims, which most often pursue specific minority interests and follow ethnic rather than issue politics, set them apart from the majority at the same time by the ethnicization of politics (Elster et al. 1999). Moreover, the politics of ethnic minority parties were and are often influenced to a certain extent by homeland intervention or interests, so that the very fact of enjoying the right of citizenship and political agency in a host state can nevertheless tend to marginalize or even ostracize politically the minority from the majority. Having the host state’s citizenship does not provide clear lines of belonging in states where polity and nation carry a strong ethno-national underpinning and politics are ethnically strongly codified. Minority party politics made possible by inclusion into citizenship is often confronted with the allegation of being fifth column politics. Thus the right of (political) citizenship can have elements of including minorities into a political Self, but also elements of marginalizing them.


The debates about transnationalization of citizenship and postnational membership of labour migrants in Western European societies (Hammar 1997; Jacobsen 1996; Soysal 1994) might be used as a starting point to reinterpret the understanding of citizenship for minorities in Central and Eastern European host states. The notion of formal and substantive citizenship—holding the legal (formal) right of citizenship and of exercising substantive rights—could be transferred to the situation of ethnic minorities and just be turned around. Such an argument would state that ethnic minorities are formally full citizens in their respective host or nation-states. However, substantively, they are not always integrated citizens because they exercise their political rights only to a certain extent. When, for instance, limiting their own role to ethnic politics instead of issue politics they partly deprive themselves of a chance to achieve full political impact within the polity of the host society. Thus, they are not or only hesitatingly accepted as coalition partners, and their constituency is mostly limited to their own ethnic group. Having formal but not full substantive membership of the polity leaves them in a status of in-betweenness or in a transpolitical status. In other words, they may be incorporated into majority structures as part of the (political) Self, but remain nevertheless different when refraining from fully exercising their rights. Thus they enjoy the status of national Others within the political realm. On the other hand, external co-ethnic minorities often have a similar status of in-betweenness seen from the homeland perspective. On the basis of ethnonational or ethno-religious similarities, they are considered to be potential parts of the national Self even when living outside the state’s borders. As a consequence, they often enjoy special privileges, with mother countries providing economic and political support for external co-ethnic minorities or even opening privileged gates for immigration and subsequently giving them access to homeland citizenship. From a homeland perspective, external minorities are often considered as would-be citizens or as ‘long-distance’ citizen (Münz and Ohliger 1998) who could claim citizenship by way of immigration. In the context of Central and Eastern Europe, this is particularly true for ethnic Germans and Jews, to a lesser extent also for ethnic Finns, ethnic Greeks, ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Russians (see Chapter 7). However, the very consequence of ethnically privileged migration and inclusion into German or Israeli citizenship seen in today’s Germany and Israel undermines the notion of external minorities as an essential and easily integrated part of the ethno-national or ethno-religious Self that can smoothly be incorporated into the fabric of the nation (see Chapters 16, 18 and 20). In these two specific cases, several indicators emphasize the otherness of external minorities and ethnic migrants. The socio-economic problems of integration of ethnic German immigrants in Germany or Russian Jews in Israel and the scepticism, sometimes even open hostility of the native-born population to these immigrants is just one further argument for operating with notions of inbetweenness for ethnic minorities and ethnic migrants.6 The formation of


political parties along ethnic lines among Russian Jews in Israel or the discussion about Russian as a third Israeli state language could also be interpreted in this way. In the case of Hungary, (emerging and) existing separate forms of nationhood among ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Hungarian immigrants to Hungary also provide evidence for this hypothesis. Thus, it might be more adequate to analyse (re-migrated) ethnic minorities as part of a previously foreign Self rather than merely incorporating them into a supposedly homogeneous national Self, even if they are legally completely integrated into homeland societies. Demographic Size An obvious, though often neglected, change over time in the twentieth century is the decline of the relative demographic importance minorities played within host states. This is particularly striking in a comparison of the inter-war period with the time after 1989. Czechoslovakia’s minority population,7 for instance, fell from 34 per cent in 1930 to 6 per cent in 1950, Poland’s from 31 per cent to less than 2 per cent, Romania’s from 28 per cent to 10 per cent and Hungary’s from 8 per cent to 3 per cent. This meant a completely new quality not only of the ethnic make-up but also of the political make-up of these countries. One could argue that it made a significant difference whether, of the political actors in the nationstates, 30 per cent were minorities or only 10 per cent or less were. From the titular nation’s perspective, which was often governed by conspiracy theories associated with fears of being dominated by minorities, a small minority population looked far less dangerous and thus easier to incorporate. However, the relative demographic decline of minorities is, of course, not true for all Central and Eastern European states under consideration. Estonia and Latvia are notable exceptions, where the share of ethnic Russians increased considerably between the inter-war period and the present through in-migration and planned Soviet settlement policies (Estonia, 1934:8 per cent, 1998:28 per cent; Latvia, 1935:79 per cent Latvians, 1999:32 per cent; see Chapter 12). One could argue that it is these latter countries where minorities increased in numbers which saw the more forceful (though peaceful) ethnic conflicts. The same argument could also be made for Slovakia after independence, where the relative importance of minorities, particularly ethnic Hungarians, but also Roma, increased significantly after the peaceful separation of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992 (Czechoslovakia: 6 per cent minorities in 1992; Slovakia: 15 per cent in 1993), thus providing more reasons for conflicts over redistribution of power and resources, particularly between Slovak majority and ethnic Hungarian minority, than at the time of common Czech and Slovak statehood.


Consolidation (and Internalization) of Minority Status over Time Another argument for the relatively strong and increasing incorporation of minorities into Central and Eastern European host societies stems from the existence of a consolidated minority status for those minorities which became minorities (only) after the end of the First World War. It can be argued that a consolidation process has taken place over generations.8 The new minorities of the inter-war period have gradually been turned into old or at least established minorities recognized by majorities as an essential or legitimate (though not always welcome) part of their societies. This process of minorization or ‘diasporization’ was in particular crucial for those new minorities which had been part of ruling titular nations in multiethnic empires before 1918, namely ethnic Germans, ethnic Hungarians (in the 1990s also ethnic Russians) and ethnic Turks. The recognition of minority status from outside the group and its internalization by members of the respective minorities became a precondition for a consensual negotiation of minority rights and minority status which no longer nurtured revisionist goals. It was just one more step in putting these minorities into a position between host country and a homeland and thus beyond Self or Other. Language A similar argument to the one for inclusion into citizenship could be made for an aspect of education, namely with regard to the linguistic achievements of minority groups. Ethnic minorities of Central and Eastern Europe partly enjoy specific cultural, educational and/or religious rights. This provides the possibility for them to perpetuate cultural and linguistic group differences and distinctiveness, which is usually the basis for ties to their homeland. However, these rights are exercised within the framework and boundaries of specific nation-state institutions of host states. These institutions (schools, courts, local and national administrations) are usually dominated and governed by the majority population or the titular nation. Minorities are thus institutionally squeezed into a role of in-betweenness. Cultural autonomies cannot be understood without the counterbalancing and interfering influences which majority nation-state institutions exercise and their deculturating impact. Structurally, this provides for the emergence and establishment of dual forms of belonging. This is particularly true for linguistic competences, i.e. the bilingual language skills of minorities.9 Consolidating and consolidated nation-states usually make (some) schooling in the majority language mandatory. Within a state framework, minorities negotiate educational rights, namely education in minority languages. How do we account for the fact of bilingualism into the paradigm of national Other and foreign Self? Dual linguistic competences of groups set minorities


apart from the host state and homeland societies as much as it binds them to both reference points. Knowing and speaking the language of the host state turns them linguistically, and even to some extent culturally, into part of the majority nation. Majority and minority share part of the majority’s national Self, or at least they communicate within the same public sphere by using the same language. However, the cultural rights and practices of minorities are usually exercised in the minority language. Thus, the minority language creates a clear line of demarcation from the majority, which is excluded from the separate public sphere of minorities. Moreover, the perpetuation of minority language builds what is probably the strongest tie between minorities and respective homeland cultures and societies. For the historical case of ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, one needs, however, to take into consideration that a status of being linguistically inbetween can only be understood as a process over generations. Unlike citizenship, linguistic abilities cannot just be shifted or ascribed by a political decision or declaration. They emerge within the process of acculturation over generations. Social Structure Comparing twentieth-century minorities in Central and Eastern Europe historically demonstrates that a key line of division between dominant and marginal groups and between majorities and minorities has largely vanished over time. Social cleavages between urban and rural populations or, economically speaking, between agriculture on the one hand and industry and services on the other, have gradually been levelled over the course of the twentieth century. This is mostly due to social and economic policies during socialist times. These social differences often had an ethnic codification. The socially and economically dominant groups were usually part of the titular nations in multiethnic empires, such as Hungarians or Germans in the Austro-Hungarian or German Empires, Turks in the Ottoman Empire and Russians in Tsarist Russia and in the Soviet Union. An urban-rural split was a distinctive feature of most Central and Eastern European cities where urban life and economies were often dominated, or at least relatively strongly influenced, by (upper strata) minority (and/or titular) populations.10 For instance, Hungarians dominated in the city of Bratislava (Poszony, Preßburg), whereas the surrounding countryside was a stronghold of the Slovak population; a city such as Timi oara (Temeswar), which became part of Greater Romania after 1918, had a German-Hungarian-Jewish majority whereas Romanians were a demographic and economic minority. Or, for instance, the inter-war city of Vilnius (Wilno, Wilna, Vilna, Vilnè) with its ethnic mosaic, though belonging to the Polish nation-state, was not only a Polish city, but had a strong Lithuanian and Jewish as well as a Russian population (Minczeles 2000). After the implosion of the multinational empires, political power relations were reversed, however, and social and economic imbalances


often remained for a while in the hands of new or even old minority groups, though the new nationalizing nation-states mostly implemented forceful policies to change the situation. In many cases, the distinctive patterns of Eastern European cities started to be reshaped by out-migrations, expulsions and exterminations of minorities, comparatively faster urbanization of (lower-strata) majority populations and by population and social policy in the communist era.11 A ‘successful’ reversal or better levelling of the social cleavages along ethnic lines was mostly, though not exclusively, engineered and achieved under socialism when peasant and rural populations were systematically urbanized and Soviet-style industrialization was initiated. As a consequence, social differences and differentiation between ethnic groups became smaller and smaller, their social structure more and more alike, so that, for instance, socio-economic cleavages between ethnic Hungarians and Slovaks or Romanians in Slovakia or Romania had become more and more insignificant by the end of the twentieth century.12 Over the course of the twentieth century, socio-economic differences among ethnic groups in Eastern and Central Europe have changed considerably. Although minority and majority populations have not become a single socially coherent entity, they have become much more alike. It could be argued that minorities and majorities developed more and more common characteristics over time which, though not making them directly part of each other’s group, speaks for the argument of ascribing a status of in-betweenness to ethnic minorities in present-day Central and Eastern Europe. The Role of Intervening International Organizations Despite the fact that ethnic conflict resulted in war in Europe in the 1990s, it can be argued that violence in the sphere of ethnic relations has remained the exception rather than the rule. Although predictions of bloody conflicts in the Baltic Republics, former Czechoslovakia, Romania and Ukraine abounded, the Yugoslav case has remained essentially unique (Heuberger 1994, 1996; Lake 1998). Instead, other, less violent patterns developed, shaping minority-majority relations and establishing new methods of conflict resolution. One reason why ethnic strife and bloody conflict did not dominate in most Central and Eastern European countries in the 1990s despite the predictions of the early 1990s can be explained by comparing today’s framework of international organization with that of the first half of the twentieth century. As has been argued convincingly by Brubaker (1996), majority-minority relations are significantly shaped by the triadic interrelations and the fluctuating stances among ethnic minorities, nationalizing nation-states and external homelands. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, an important development occurred which cuts across these triadic interrelations, namely the establishment of international and supranational organizations which intervened in majority-minority relations from outside and exercised a disciplining effect on actors in potential interethnic conflicts. Direct interventions by international organizations like the CSCE/


OSCE, the Council of Europe, the European Union or even NATO often changed the field of potential conflicts. The attentive eye kept on developments by the international community controlled and prevented interethnic crises (Brown 1993; Büscher 2000). Moreover, alternative means of solving problematic and controversial minority issues were developed. These means of conflict resolution included cultural exchange, international cooperation and political negotiations. In particular, legal changes and their implementation formed the basis for non-violent solutions of ethnically based conflicts, leading to the formation of new patterns of interethnic relations and the establishment of transnational networks and communities. Minority status and minority rights have been recognized in several bilateral treaties since 1990 (between Hungary and Romania; Romania and Slovakia; Germany and Poland; Estonia and Russia; Ukraine and Romania; Ukraine and Russia), thus improving conditions for ethnic and national communities while simultaneously increasing their role as cultural mediators (Gál 1999). Admission to the Council of Europe, for example, is contingent upon the sufficient and democratic solution of minority issues. Within negotiations on enlargement, the EU makes minority issues a relevant and crucial point of discussion. In contrast to the inter-war period, the implementation of minority rights in post-communist times has been smoothed by the presence of a more or less influential monitoring and disciplining international community which has implemented and tried to guarantee these rights. Though the development of international organizations intervening into minority existence and ‘domesticating’ nationalizing nationstates does not per se make ethnic minorities into in-between groups it provides the legal and political framework for making such a development possible or more likely. CONCLUSION Minority existence in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe was significantly shaped and reshaped by conflicts throughout the century. From its beginning in the first and second Balkan Wars in 1912–13, until the very end of the century with the Kosovo War in 1999, minority issues, interethnic strife and the tendency for and practice of violent as well as non-violent means and measures for conflict ‘solutions’ were omnipresent: assimilation of minorities, intentional and institutionalized or spontaneous discrimination, deportation, forced and deliberate migration, resettlement, population exchange, border changes and genocide all turned out to be powerful tools and social forces for shifting the ethno-demographic composition of nation-state populations towards further and further homogeneity. These processes, however, did not occur in a linear fashion, nor were they only contingent upon historical circumstances. Twentieth-century history shows that ethnic homogenization was structured by distinctive social processes and it needed agents to start, influence, direct and control it (for an analysis of structure and agency with regard to ethnic cleansing


see Chapter 5). Ethnic homogenization in Central and Eastern Europe can only be fully grasped within the context of (partly belated)13 nation-building and state formation on the basis of strong ethno-national and ethno-cultural assumptions of what the nation ought to be, who should belong to it and that state and nation should be as identical as possible; that is, the nation-state should be an ethnically ‘pure’ state. However, the story of minority existence in Central and Eastern Europe should not only be told as a narrative of ethnic homogenization. Ethnic minorities persisted, despite all homogenizing efforts and practices. Moreover, wars and state dissolution/formation often only created (new) minorities, such as ethnic Hungarians or ethnic Russians. Emergence and persistence of minorities in opposition to dissolution or homogenization needs to be contextualized within the social processes which shaped and continue to shape minority existence. This existence cannot be analysed and understood merely within a dichotomous framework of Self and Other. The reflection upon minority existence in Central and Eastern Europe and its changes leads to the conclusion that the status of minorities has rather developed into stages of in-betweenness over time. Shifting patterns of belonging over time (as well as a sometimes functional approach to the possibilities of these ambivalences) have to be incorporated into the analysis of minority existence, as this article has argued. To summarize the key argument: ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe remain distinctively Other social and cultural groups, however, they share significant similarities with the respective majority nation in the host states, especially in the realm of citizenship, education and social structure. This could be expressed by (still) marking them as Others with a capital ‘O’, yet as persons who are not as different as other Others (i.e. members of other nationstates). Thus, the label ‘national Others’ is an adequate way of expressing their status of in-betweenness and providing a step for analysing them along nondichotomous, different lines. NOTES 1 This element is particularly epitomized in nationalist historiographies of nationstates and national media discourse. For an illustrative example see the debate which the voluminous ‘Short History of Transylvania’ (Köpeczi 1990) stirred between Hungary and Romania in the 1980s. It was not least the role of (ethnic) Hungarians in Transylvania which was at the heart of this debate. 2 For an analysis of the triadic interrelation between host states, minorities and homelands see Brubaker 1996:55–76. 3 There has been an important continuity of ethnic Hungarian life in Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia since the implosion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as well as a persistent Albanian presence in Macedonia and Kosovo.


4 This is one reason why ethnic homogeneity within nation-states with an ethnonational notion of the nation became so popular and widespread in the course of the twentieth century. 5 A notable exception is the case of ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia after 1992. They were not automatically granted citizenship, but were only offered certain opportunities for naturalization depending on cultural and linguistic preconditions (see Kolstø 1995, Laitin 1998; also Chapters 13 and 14). 6 The German case of the 1990s is a good example for the ambivalence of an ethnonation towards its external minorities and their incorporation by way of privileged immigration. The German policy shifted between rhetorics of inclusion and a pragmatic policy of exclusion (see Münz and Ohliger 1998). 7 Assuming that one takes Czechs and Slovaks together as the two constitutive ethnic groups building the titular nation of former Czechoslovakia. 8 See Bookman 1997 for a discussion of homogenization processes along ethnic lines in nation-states on a worldwide scale. 9 Ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia or Romania, for instance, who have been turned into bilingual groups over three generations are an example of such a social process. Ethnic Russians in the Baltic states will most likely follow this pattern in the next one or two generations. 10 In the multiethnic empires before 1918, the markers ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ were not always clear and unambiguous. Ethnic Hungarians in the Croatian, Slovak or Transylvanian territories of the Habsburg empire, for instance, were part of the titular nation, but were nevertheless demographically in a minority position. However, politically and culturally they exercised hegemony. Thus the terms ‘upperstrata minorities’ and ‘lower-strata majorities’ might be a useful terminological extension for an analysis. For the term (declining) ‘upper-strata minority’ see Cohen (1981), who uses it for Prague’s ethnic Germans before the First World War. 11 For a case in which the ethnic Hungarians lost power, hegemony and privileged status, the Romanian city of Cluj (Kolosvar) or the Slovak city of Bratislava (Poszony) are good examples. Narva (since 1940) is an illustrative case of the ethnic Russians becoming regionally dominant in the Baltic states. The whole Kosovo region has shown a trend of shifting ethno-demographic balances between Serbs and Albanians over the last two to three generations. 12 Again, ethnic Hungarians might serve as an illustrative example. The relative or even absolute dominance of ethnic Hungarians in the cities of its neighbouring countries (Slovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia) of the inter-war period has more or less vanished during socialist times. 13 The term ‘belated nation’ (verspätete Nation) goes back to the sociologist Hellmuth Plessner (1959), who coined it for historical Germany in particular. However, the very concept of belated nation-building and belated state formation is highly normative, assuming that there is something like a ‘normal’ way to modernity. As soon as Central and Eastern European, not to mention extra-European, developments are brought into the equation, this rather mechanistic assumption of ‘normalcy’ is weakened and questioned. The concept of ‘belatedeness’ itself—and the German case of a ‘special path to modernity’ (Sonderweg)—needs to be contextualized and historicized within post Second World War intellectual and


academic discursive fields which had political underpinnings within the process of ‘normalizing’, i.e. Westernizing (West) Germany.

4 The American Model of Diasporic Discourse Khachig Tölölyan

Diasporas exist in three overlapping but distinct forms. First, they are actual social formations made up of individuals, extended families, small groups and the relations conducted between them, within a partially closed communal field that can be identified (e.g. ‘a Greek diaspora community’). This diaspora functions within the host society and state around it (e.g. ‘the Greek diaspora community in Germany’), but also within the larger framework of the transnational field in which this particular diaspora sustains connections with other Greek diaspora communities, the totality of ‘the Greek diaspora,’ and the homeland. Finally, the transnational frame is itself embedded in and shaped by the largest field of all, that of supranationalism and globalization. Second, diasporas exist as multiple ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson 1991). That is to say, they are constantly articulated by their own individual and institutional members, who construct and disseminate numerous representations of what they are, what their diasporic experience feels like and what it means or should mean. Unlike the inanimate objects that the laboratory sciences study, the social sciences must deal with diasporas that aspire to develop their own discourse, shape themselves by their own cultural production and consumption and claim the right to ascribe meaning to their experience. They do so in contestation with the hegemonic representational media and the state mechanisms of the societies that host them. The third form of diasporic existence is wholly discursive: diasporas exist as objects of knowledge, as concepts, models and problematics for a number of scholarly disciplines, ranging from anthropology and ethnomusicology to postcolonial literary studies and sociology. Although each of these disciplines has its own protocols and constructs a specific disciplinary object, a crossdisciplinary and specifically American diasporic discourse is emerging between and above them, connected to the academic disciplines but also linked to the larger culture. This discourse, whose creation is an ongoing experiment in the laboratory that is the US, cannot be fully discussed in this context, but some of the factors that shape it must be mentioned. The size of recent immigration to the US is one factor, but cannot by itself explain the emergence of American cross-disciplinary discourse. Germany and Switzerland, for example, have a much greater proportion of immigrants in their

DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS 51

populations than the US, yet their academic discourses of diaspora remain the traditional language of migration studies and are insulated from crossovers. The specificity of American cross-disciplinary discourse is largely the result of the relatively porous boundaries of the institutions that produce it and the language of theory that permeates all of the literary and many of the more empirical disciplines. While some disciplines, such as history, resist crossovers with partial success, others contribute to it: in particular, post-structuralist theory and anthropology have played the role of catalysts, mediators and brokers of terms, images and concepts that circulate across the disciplines on both sides of the humanities and social sciences divide. It is no accident that one of the favoured tropes of this border-crossing discourse is the border zone, which encompasses not only the regions of two countries that straddle a frontier, but also metaphors of interstitial social spaces and zones of contact and exchange between them. Others who contribute to this phenomenon include analysts who, having received academic training, alternately work for private, public and especially semiprivate institutions such as the Urban Institute, the Brookings and the Rand. Journalists also contribute to it, as they draw upon academic language and concepts, simplify and embellish them and circulate them in the media. Globally famous anglophone diasporic novelists—such as Salman Rushdie, V.S.Naipaul, Bharati Mukherjee and Timothy Mo—and the prolific reviewers of and commentators on their work are also an influence, as are intellectuals from several minority groups who usually teach in universities. Together, they produce, reshape, combine and circulate the concepts, images and barely camouflaged political commitments that characterize this cross-disciplinary discourse. These ingredients are not reconcilable into a harmonious system; indeed, this chapter explores some of the characteristic tensions and incommensurabilities that are prominent features of the encompassing discourse. A sketchy history of how and why the term ‘diaspora’ lost some of its restrictive meaning and clarity but simultaneously became popular in the United States in the mid-1960s and after is available (Tölölyan 1996a). Here, the discussion will focus on some selected features and structuring binaries of the new, cross-disciplinary diasporic discourse, which is likely to become important outside the United States as well. Non-US specialists in major fields such as migration and ethnicity studies are increasingly adopting the US tendency to use the terminology and discursive model of diaspora. The effects of this adoption will increase as the triad of diaspora, transnationalism and globalization becomes important to media, academic disciplines and states everywhere. There is no easy way of fully separating and distinguishing the various disciplinary discourses from the cross-disciplinary discourse which cuts across them; precisely because it does so, its traces are everywhere, but it belongs to no single academic discipline. The works of James Clifford, Arjun Appadurai, Roger Rouse and Nina Glick Schiller have had a concentrated effect and decisive impact on anthropology, where the term ‘diaspora’ is preferentially linked to the study of mobile and translocal populations and lightly linked to the analysis of the

52 THE AMERICAN MODEL OF DIASPORIC DISCOURSE

institutional structures of specific local communities, groups of the size and sort that anthropologists would have studied in the recent past. Certain elements of the anthropological discourse are now part of the cross-disciplinary discourse as well1 (e.g., rooted or routed, global cultural flows, living on the transnational circuit, see endnote five). To take another example, literary studies has several discourses of diaspora focused on distinct notions of social text, subjectivity, identity and hybridity. Such concepts begin as metaphors devised to underpin the interpretation of various diasporic cultural texts and performances in literature, drama, music, dance, film, video and, increasingly, the Internet. These notions of subjectivity, developed within literary studies and post-structuralist theory, are increasingly relevant to the emergence of the cross-disciplinary discourse. Even the most empirically inclined social scientists eventually acknowledge that identity or diasporic identity are not definable simply by language, citizenship, religion and other quantifiable behaviours, but also require qualitative consideration of the subjective self-positioning through which individuals with several options claim a diasporic identity. What, then, are the most noteworthy features of this cross-or trans-disciplinary discourse? One can identify a few characteristic features. Because the schematic description that follows will exaggerate the extremes, it may be appropriate to begin by stating that while a discursive feature is always marked out by its boundaries and oppositional poles, most scholars’ practice is not at the extremes —which are used as markers in this chapter. TRADITIONAL DISCOURSES OF DIASPORA Until the late 1960s, the study of diasporas was conservative and rather exclusively focused on the three classical diasporas—Jewish, Armenian and Greek. Their definition and the range of issues considered worthy of study were so settled that one could look them up in an encyclopedia (Dubnow 1931; Safran 1991; Tölölyan 1991a, 1996a). After 1965, in a stunningly short time, the number of ethnic groups claiming—through their intellectuals and artists, then their leaders—the appellation of ‘diaspora’ began to increase, and the term lost its negative connotations for a variety of reasons (Tölölyan 1996a:19–28; Cohen 1997). It began to be applied to every kind of dispersed population and diasporic discourse began to be transformed in a disorderly, exuberant fashion. The concept did not migrate from its traditional homeland along a linear, sequential path, evolving slowly as it went. Instead, it dispersed energetically and simultaneously, so that different uses of it grew in tandem. Each disciplinary, as well as intellectual, artistic or communal-political, use of the term gave it yet another slight inflection, so that diasporic discourse evolved in divergent directions, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1990s, the heterogeneity of diasporic discourse and the tensions and contradictions within it became more visible as journals, interdisciplinary conferences and anthologies


began to juxtapose them and to underline their differences, occasionally eliciting interdisciplinary dialogue.2 In the traditional or classical discourse, the Jewish diaspora is the paradigm, according to which a diaspora consists of one or more communities dispersed away from their homeland and persisting in host countries. The cause of the dispersion is overwhelming military force or an equivalent coercion, a catastrophic event. The diaspora survives in the form of a series of subordinate, hierarchically encapsulated enclaves within more powerful social and state formations that function as their hosts. It strives to maintain a traditional identity or to create a new one that remains distinct, unassimilated and anchored in specific institutions and practices that may be, for example, religious or linguistic. It cultivates organized and institutionalized contacts between scattered kin-communities and with the homeland, whenever possible. Finally, it sustains the hope of actual or symbolic return to the homeland, often expressed in gestures of reciprocal assistance. These defining features do not encompass all aspects of the traditional discourse of diasporas, which was and remains a complex entity that includes both the way scholars talk about them and the way that the elites of ‘mobilized’ diasporas (Armstrong 1976) talk about themselves. It is often difficult to know where one ends and the other begins. Consider, for example, the question of ‘trade diasporas’. The wealthy notables of the Jewish, Armenian, Greek and Chinese diasporas surely knew that their wealth and influence was significantly dependent on their role in trade. Their cultural capital may well have included an accumulated competence in matters affecting such trade. But they nevertheless continued to define themselves in other terms, through religious, linguistic, kinship-based, stubbornly homeland-oriented and exclusive, endogamous behaviours and identities. On the other hand, scholars working on these same social formations, though aware of their self-identifications, have often preferred to assign and ascribe collective identities based on trade—hence terms like ‘merchant diasporas’ and ‘middleman minorities’—and to underscore the cosmopolitan aspects of these communities. This has led to a downplaying of the degree to which their demonstrable concerns remained those of proto-national communities. Such terminological differences are rarely neutral: they carry certain evaluations with them, and they privilege certain features of the community over others. This is not a feature of traditional discourse alone. It is equally present in the contemporary American discourse, which will be analysed here. It is in the nature of a discourse to become a vehicle of values, whether held consciously or unconsciously. No matter how objective it seeks to be, the very methodology that constructs a discourse also makes it the bearer of unacknowledged values. A discourse is never an exhaustive and neutral description of all the features of an objectively existing phenomenon in the world. Rather, it is a way of abstracting features from that infinitely complex phenomenon—a social formation, a cultural text or its context—and constructing with them what scholars in the


humanities and media studies call a representation and an object of knowledge. Inevitably, the process of constructing this object of knowledge involves investing certain features of the phenomenon with special meaning and value, thus ‘privileging’ them over and above others. Each discourse implicitly, sometimes unconsciously, insists that certain phenomena are more worth examining, certain questions more worth asking, certain statements more worth making. For example, a specialist in cultural studies can devote an entire book to the study of music, or football, or cricket teams as essential to the cohesion of a diaspora and as a clue to understanding its identity, while elsewhere a sociologist can devote an entire book to the labour economy of the same diaspora while wholly ignoring the constitutive power of cultural practices. This sort of selective discursive focus and consequent tunnel-vision is an inevitable by-product of all disciplinary specialization. It becomes more visible and obtrusive when a transdisciplinary discourse emerges, cutting across disciplinary boundaries, juxtaposing their methods, choices and values. Each disciplinary practice then raises implicit questions, of the sort that rarely arise from within the individual discourses, about the other. The questioning and the tensions are also made more acute by the fact that the transdisciplinary discourse involves non-scholars within diasporic communities, ranging from artists to political leaders, who work on the construction and maintenance of communal identity. The more organized a diaspora becomes, the more this is consciously undertaken by diaspora elites. More than most social formations, post-classical diasporas ‘talk back’ to the disciplinary discourses that seek to characterize them. This complicates the usual situation in which each scholar feels entitled to what Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1986) calls a ‘sanctioned ignorance’, when each feels that there is an a priori warrant for neglecting those features of diasporic existence not within her discipline’s purview. Each discipline constructs and understands an object of knowledge, not a phenomenon. Many disciplines create such overlapping, nonidentical, contradictory objects of knowledge. In the near future, what must increasingly complicate the study of diasporas is the constant exchange between disciplinary diasporic discourses, the emerging transdisciplinary diasporic discourse and the diasporic elites who both challenge and are challenged by these professional discourses. The resulting ‘interpretive triangle’ makes contemporary diaspora studies particularly complex. BINARIES OF DIASPORIC DISCOURSES A full discussion of all the binaries and tensions that mark the contemporary US transdisciplinary discourse on diaspora would require adequate coverage of each of the following: • Differences in emphasis and epistemology between approaches that are historical (diachronic), as opposed to those that focus on the structure of a


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• • • • •

•

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given diasporic community within a single moment or slice of time, including the present (synchronic). The tensions between the logic of mobility and the logic of the sedentary. The question of what diasporic identity is and how it is determined. What is to be the relative weight attributed to the roles of individual choice, the collectively sustained institutions of the diasporic community and the host society and state? Within the humanities and in many anthropological studies, this tension takes the particular form of valorizing the diasporic individual’s voice, identity, agency and personal story over the diasporic community’s collective labour. This set of issues is not wholly separable from the following point. The tension between approaches that emphasize the shaping of diasporas and diasporic individuals through cultural production, and those which underscore the role of social, political and economic formations. Competing emphases on the homeland, diaspora and the circuit between them as sites of defining experience and sources of identity. The tension between the ethnic and diasporic conceptions which has emerged because ethnicities have been renamed as diasporas without overcoming the powerful habits of ethnic thinking in the United States. The role of the hostland’s nation-state and of the alternating cooperation and resistance to the nation-state by the diaspora. The role attributed to race in the formation of the African diaspora and the degree to which ‘race’ can be analogically applied as a defining factor in the construction of other ‘non-white’ groups that are now described as diasporas, such as East Asian, South Asian and Latin American. The American discourse of diasporas is also characterized by a covertly politicized debate over the ways in which diasporic origins in different geographic, racial, national and religio-cultural sites can be conflated and amalgamated. The ongoing construction of ‘Asian’ (more precisely, East Asian), South Asian and more recently West Asian diasporas foregrounds the difficulty of deploying racial and national-origin categories together. Hence the debate as to whether in the ongoing construction of the East Asian and South Asian diasporas, specific diasporic communities with clearly national origins, such as the Koreans in America, can be subsumed in the East Asian diaspora, and how an individual or group can be part of two diasporas constituted on two different principles, one racial and one national. This leads back to the question of multiple and differently constructed identities characteristic of diasporas. Finally, potentially productive contradictions emerge when a linguistic and often racialized diaspora—above all the Spanish-speaking—is treated as a totality for some purposes, even as heterogeneity endures and tension persists between, for example, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Dominicans, or between terms such as Hispanic, Latino/a, Chicano/a and Mexican-American.


The epistemological and sometimes political tensions between these categories define the specificity of American diasporic discourse, although admittedly Canadian and some other discourses also face many of the same problematics. Others that do not yet share these issues will soon do so, both because of similarities that are prevalent in all immigrant-receiving industrialized democracies and because diaspora discourse is itself increasingly transnational, its ideas nomadic and migratory, and because the US is one of the chief exporters of such discourse. This article only deals at length with the first two of the tensions enumerated here. THE DIACHRONIC AND THE SYNCHRONIC Among the most persistent tensions in contemporary American transdiciplinary diasporic discourse is the one between historicism and presentism, the diachronic and the synchronic or the historical and structuralist views. At issue is the question of the degree of relevance that should be granted to the past in settling two questions: the meaning of the word ‘diaspora’ and the degree to which diasporas should be studied as having a history that is relevant to our understanding of their present state, including the transnational and globalist character of particular diasporas. Should the meanings ascribed to ‘diaspora’ today be constrained by the early historical examples of diaspora, and in particular by the Jewish diaspora, which has the longest history and is regarded by its students as paradigmatic? If so, does that make the definition of traditional diasporas, given earlier in this chapter, central to the semantic domain of diasporas? Are newer diasporas pushed to the discursive margin or periphery when they do not fully conform to this definition, as most do not? There are obvious risks here. One is the epistemological, making the first case the foundational, which is not automatically good practice. Another is prejudicial: in ethno-racially charged atmospheres, an insistence on such priority can be perceived as disrespectful and dismissive of the urgent realities of newly formed diasporas or recently renamed dispersions. Thus, an insistence on the priority of the historical is a problem, because priority in time comes to mean priority in definition. Among widely read scholars who defend some form of historical prioritization, William Safran (1991, 1999) has made the best case but his view is now very much a minority position. Of course he is not alone. Others have questioned the usefulness of unmooring a term from all historical precedent and applying it so broadly that it loses heuristic value (Schnapper 1999). But the ever-broader application of the term has momentum and urgency for a large number of US scholars, and so increasingly we see newly ‘baptized’ communities of dispersion —which used to be ethnic groups, migrants, refugees, minorities, overseas communities, exiles, expatriates or even colonial settlers—now born again as diasporas.


The urgency felt is due both to sociopolitical and intellectual factors, of which the former is the more obvious. By 1965, the partially successful struggle for the civil rights of African-Americans had brought this particular minority population to the point where some members of its intellectual elite wanted to claim the term ‘diaspora’ (Shepperson 1968; Baumann 1997) for what had hitherto been a racialized minority. Later, others in the community initiated terminological changes that moved from a racial to an ethnic designation, that is, from Negro to Black to African-American. While these changes were happening in the most important non-white community in the US, relaxed rules of immigration began the process by which, in the 35 years after the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965,3 legal immigration was to bring nearly 30 million people into the US and illegal immigration was to add six to eight million others. The sheer mass of new, unassimilated populations had an impact that began to be felt after a generation of eloquent scholars drawn from their ranks began to enter the American academy in the 1980s. They contributed powerfully to the discursive construction of new communities as diasporas. The period 1960–85 was an odd one in the history of white American ethnics. Suburbanization, almost synonymous with secularization and assimilation, weakened the ethnic commitments of some whites both to their grandparents’ land of origin and to their urban institutions in the USA, which their parents had constructed and sustained at great expense: synagogue and parish, school and clubhouse. At the same time, more wealth, university education, and the valorization of ethnic differences within academic and political discourse led to the emergence of new commitments. As an ever larger percentage of Americans attended universities, and as ever more universities instituted administrative policies favouring the recognition and nurturing of identities—based on race, gender and sexual orientation as well as on ethnicity—the vocabulary of diasporization accompanied the percolation of the more sweeping vocabulary of difference and identity through the academic system. Within that system, it manifested itself in new intellectual commitments and an outpouring of publications on old dispersions, such as the Italian, and surprising new selfnominated ones, such as that of homosexuals.4 Outside it, small groups of prosperous and young white ethnics began to organize new affiliative institutions that replaced their older, filiative communities of kinship and neighbourhood as the magnet of their new ethno-diasporic commitments. The Greek, Armenian and, especially, Jewish diasporic lobbies in Washington DC are largely products of this movement. As a result of the shifting landscape of identity discourse, the concept of the diasporic attracted a growing number of students, scholars and intellectuals, as well as artists and politicians from within and outside many communities who began to use freely the term ‘diaspora’ without regard to its historical origins or to the factors that had led their own people to disperse/migrate or to the relative absence of some of the features that were long considered essential in defining the classical diasporas. The negative connotations of diaspora—pain, humiliation,


subjugation as minorities—so commonly acknowledged in traditional diasporas are shunted aside or recalled within a framework that remembers those moments of history but moves forward in a climate far more hospitable to new diasporic claims. The more intellectually elusive factor in the adoption of a synchronist, antihistorical position has been the importance of the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure to scholars and intellectuals in the humanities in the US, a factor that is less familiar to social scientists. Saussure’s lectures were collected and posthumously published as the Cours de Linguistique Générale in 1916. Fifty years later, its translation into English in 1966 coincided with the sociopolitical conjuncture of the mid-1960s mentioned earlier, and with the general importation of French theoretical thought—Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan—into the most advanced and influential sectors of the American university system. All these thinkers had built upon Saussure, from whom two central concepts were derived. One is that of ‘difference’, namely the notion that in the realm of language and concepts, where such entities as the nation, the diaspora and their identities are imaginatively constructed, difference is the crucial factor (Tölölyan 1996a:26– 30). The second point borrowed from Saussure, and the one which is more important to this argument, is the distinction he made between diachronic development, which refers to the changes that take place in language across time, and the synchronic structure of language at any given moment in time. Although Saussure had the then customary historical training in IndoEuropean linguistics, he became a champion of focusing on the functioning of the linguistic system at any given moment, such as the present, because this synchronic approach would best reveal the structure of any system. As a way of illustrating his point, Saussure pointed out that any ordinary person can speak his or her native language, with no knowledge of its previous, developmental history. What matters is competence in assimilating the structure of the linguistic system at any given moment, and this humans do instinctively, without any conscious grasp of the laws of grammar and syntax or of the history of their evolution. Furthermore, Saussure pointed out, this priority of the synchronic over the diachronic can be exemplified in systems other than the linguistic, such as chess. A competent player may come to a chessboard after the first 20 moves have been made and can play to win: he does not need to know the history of the moves that brought the board to the current state. By analogy, the past history of any concept, such as diaspora, can claim no privileged role in our understanding or use of the term in the present moment, when it is ‘in play’ and in competition with other terms within a synchronic system. Saussure’s privileging of the synchronic/present over the diachronic/historical is not altogether persuasive. For example, what distinguishes chess masters is the ability to look at the present status of a chessboard and deduce from it both the past moves that probably led to the position and the future moves that are most likely. This ability to guess is founded on the saturation of the player’s mind with


examples of past games, with chess history. However, his claim has other virtues and has proved persuasive to a majority of humanists. It has contributed to the frame of mind that has led a new generation of researchers to disregard—on epistemological and not merely political grounds—the priority accorded to classical diasporas in shaping the debate on what is a diaspora today. In addition, the presentist emphasis has enabled many monoglot young American scholars to ignore that portion of the past during which cultural production took place in immigrant communities in the native language the immigrants brought with them, a language they do not know. The result is a form of historical myopia: potentially relevant material in pamphlets, books and the until recently vital ethnic press written in, for example, Yiddish, Armenian, Greek, Italian and Chinese is neglected. ‘Diaspora’ has returned to its most general meaning, becoming a term for that fragment of any people that lives in dispersion, outside its homeland. That definition facilitates thinking of the diasporic within the framework of the new transnationalism, but makes it difficult to distinguish the self-consciously organized, sometimes institutionally saturated diasporas from much more loosely organized communities of first-generation migrants, or even from powerful minorities, such as the ‘British imperial diaspora’ (R.Cohen 1997: 66–78). MOBILITY VERSUS SEDENTARISM Especially since the late 1980s, in the era of ascendant globalization and transnationalism, the mobility of capital, people, information and ideas across permeable borders and in cyberspace is recognized and often celebrated for what is regarded as its emancipatory potential; it is also criticized as an instrument of global capitalism and Western cultural imperialism. Of course diasporas begin in imposed mobility and often continue to be mobile. The frequent precariousness of their situation, as well as the habits of migration designed to improve economic and social status, can lead to repeated strategic mobility; having moved once, people are often more prepared to move again, from Moscow to Israel to New York, from Armenia to Beirut to Los Angeles, from China to Malaysia to Singapore to Sidney to San Francisco, and so forth. Diasporas are among the exemplary social formations of the transnational moment, and in the past decade, within the American cross-disciplinary discourse of diasporas, their mobility has come to be regarded as their most important feature. Because mobility demonstrates a refusal to attach identity to territory—as nations do, famously often with bad results—diasporic mobility has come to be not just a vector but a virtue. Within diaspora discourse, a persistent tension has emerged between (on the one hand) individuals, globalization and mobility and (on the other hand) communities, localization and the logic of the sedentary. Those diaspora communities which, once formed, persistently cling to localities, institutions and older identities are either neglected in analysis or—to employ the very useful


vocabulary first developed by Raymond Williams (1977)—are seen as ‘residual’ rather than ‘dominant’ or newly ‘emergent’ phenomena, embedded within national sites rather than nomadic, transnational or global circuits and pathways. They are more ‘rooted’ than ‘routed’, to employ James Clifford’s justly famous contrast (1994),5 and there is no doubt that in American diasporic discourse today, routedness is more interesting than rootedness. At a time when cyberspace provides a model for ‘virtual’ and ‘digital diasporas’, the rooted diasporas are neglected due to their very sedentariness. What factors have led to the hypervaluation of mobility in the current transdisciplinary discourse? The problem is due to several trends that emerged, not just in scholarly and disciplinary discourses, but also in the media and in political and cultural discourse. There are three major reasons for their emergence. The first has to do with the semantic confusion of mobility with other terms related to it but not identical with it and the generalized valorization of mobility in the United States. The second has to do with the association of individualism and subjectivity with mobility as a privileged site of action, agency and the moral and political valuations which accompany them. The third has to do with a particular understanding of globalization, transnationalism and pluralism, and the positive link that is ascribed to mobility in these powerful phenomena and discourses. Each of these must be addressed in turn. There are a number of terms that share what linguistics used to call a semantic field: dispersion, migration, movement, speed. In the US, these and related words are increasingly subsumed under a master trope, the image of mobility. Here, a history of expanding frontiers that allowed people to move, settle and move again made geographical mobility a synonym for opportunity and freedom even before the automobile was invented. When the car became central to US culture, a whole set of associated terms—such as the road, hitch-hiking, moving on, being ‘on the road’ like Jack Kerouac’s young protagonists or the heroes of the watershed film Easy Rider—reinforced the positive associations between mobility, freedom and opportunity and created a composite image, a constellation that captures the meaning of America for Americans of differing social classes. In the ranks of American executives—whether military officers, FBI agents or corporations such as IBM (‘I’ve been moved’)—a willingness to move geographically became a prerequisite for socio-economic upward mobility. This American privileging of mobility has been accompanied by a puzzled, even critical assessment of settled diasporic enclaves by the predominantly liberal academic elite of the US. True, white ethnic and diasporic neighbourhoods that resist mobility are sometimes accorded lip-service and sentimentalizing, superficial respect as sites of old-fashioned values and as pillars of electoral ward politics in urban America. However, they are also regarded as quasi-ghettoes or, worse, segregated areas. Areas in which migrants concentrate are insistently viewed as stopping off places from which they will move on into new territory. Indeed, most eventually do, some much more rapidly than others. Failure to move on is either attributed to real or imagined rejection


by the larger culture, or to a lack of skills and hope or to an enclave mentality that is regarded as evidence of narrow-minded exclusivity, a rejection of the great American virtue of inclusiveness. As William Safran has written of genuine multi-culturalism, the kind that seeks to perpetuate distinct communities, ‘wellmeaning liberals’ regard them, in their sedentary communal forms, as ‘interfering…with individual opportunity, insofar as [they] prepare children less well than a full immersion in the majority culture, and…impede the individual goal of upward mobility. Hence [they regard] multiculturalism [as] irrational’ (Safran 2000). As people from one ethno-diasporic group settle in one place, and prefer to do so with others like them, they may do so at a cost not just to themselves but also at the cost of excluding others. This always carries with it the risk of racism (see Clifford 1994:307; Goldschmidt 2000). Because the sedentary diaspora engages that risk, it is regarded with suspicion. Furthermore, the imposed isolations of the inner city of the African-American, the walled ghetto of the Jew, and of earlier American Chinatowns are among the painful images of the sedentary that are invoked to argue against a hesitation about, let alone a willed diasporic refusal of, mobility. Such stances overlook the fact that some diasporas may prefer the sedentary enclave in which they are a majority. Such an enclave enables them to reterritorialize, to construct ‘institutionally saturated communities’6 in which churches, schools, patriotic and charitable associations, clubs, old age homes, athletic and cultural groups require collective sacrifice and provide collective rewards. They enable an identity that is geographically anchored, like the nation’s, and commercially profitable: ‘Chinatown’ and ‘Little Italy’ are simultaneously sites of identity and commerce.7 In a quite different yet related set of circumstances, when new scholarship suggests that the Irish of Boston may have stayed in their neighbourhoods for two generations longer than the Jews because of their strong attachment to specific neighbourhood parishes and because of the Catholic Church’s active efforts to anchor Irish communities around urban churches and parochial schools, this is viewed primarily as evidence that the refusal of mobility is the result of a top-down, imposed or mildly coerced action by an undemocratic Church hierarchy. As argued elsewhere (Tölölyan 1996b), liberal scholars do not like to admit that diasporas are not always opposed to exclusion, but rather want to choose exclusions of their own, to select the exclusions to which they will be subject. They do not always consider all inclusiveness progress, because inclusiveness threatens consequential communal difference. The American discourse of diaspora generally prefers diversity over consequential difference, and favours the sentimental folklore of difference embodied in identity politics or ethnic food and the occasional Saint’s day. The transdisciplinary discourse of diaspora tends to approve only of the first immigrant generation’s immobility and exclusivity. The first diaspora can create a Little Havana in Miami or a Little Italy or Chinatown in New York; this is understood. But the next dispersion from such places is regarded as progress, and is expected and desired, while active


resistance to it is regarded with some anxiety. This anxiety is conveyed to the members of diasporic minorities in various ways. Don’t they want their children to learn English well and to have friends who are not of the same ethnic group? Don’t they want to sustain American pluralism and multiculturalism? Do they want to be perceived as racist, which is what will happen if they remain in the enclave and employ or work only with people of their own kin group, as Koreans, Indians and Chinese in the US so often do? In the end, faced with a constellation of polarized and paired images of separation and mixture, sedentariness and mobility, American discourse prefers mixture to separation, mobility to immobility and diversity to difference. The second reason why the importance of sedentariness to diasporas is neglected has to do with the identification of mobility with individuality and freedom. The focus on mobility begins and ends with a celebration of the individual’s freedom, especially the immigrant individual’s. The mobility of the individual pioneer who settled the virgin territories of the West was a foundation of America’s understanding of itself as a country of freedom and of second chances, of the possibility of starting over. However, by 1890, as Frederick Jackson Turner argued in 1893, the frontier was closed and such mobility ceased to be a geographically literal possibility. It also initiated the search for new, substitute forms of freedom and for potent, ideologically charged representations of sustained American socioeconomic mobility and openness. Donna Gabaccia (1999), a historian of Italian migration, has analysed the way in which American historiography renewed and refashioned the earlier understanding of America as a frontier territory with the help of the concept of immigration. This understanding was refreshed and restored by imagining the US as a space of a new kind, not a natural open space but as a socio-economic space in which a new kind of pioneer, the European immigrant, found opportunity for economic advancement. The major American struggles of the twentieth century for opportunity and civil rights continue to mimic this form. As noted earlier, the moment that the struggle for the formal political and civil rights of AfricanAmericans culminated with success is also the moment when America was redefined as an open space of opportunity through the massive new immigration that was made possible by the Immigration Act of 1965. What is marvellous and praiseworthy about the history of America’s relative openness to immigration has, as a side effect, a resistance to notions of settled, border-patrolling, quasi-territorialized, quasi-national diasporic life. To act in that way seems un-American and wrongly resistant to the spaciousness and mobility of American life. By analogy, early diasporic enclaves are considered youthful, immature, destined by a master narrative to mature and move on. It is certainly true that most do, but often, before doing so, they develop institutions— religious, social, political and cultural organizations—that command loyalty and in some cases move with the population. In fact, the idea of institutional loyalty can both precede the establishment of the diasporic enclave and survive its demise. It is loyalty that gives organized sedentary life its shape, and it is the


long slow reshaping of institutions in sedentary life that enables the idea to become mobile again. Like ancient Greeks who left their polis only to implant its architectural, organizational, religious and institutional forms elsewhere on the shores of the Mediterranean, certain diasporic ideas and institutions and cultural practices are repeatedly deracinated and then stubbornly localized again. They continue to keep the diasporic populations connected to each other and the homeland in ways that substitute for and mimic the effects of geographical proximity to a certain degree. These effects cannot be achieved by individuals and their mobility; they are by definition communal and require rooting alongside and after routing, sedentariness after mobility. Of course diasporic enclave-formation can be problematic. In certain instances, diasporic elites exercise actual communal authority as they insist on cohesion. In the ethnic Armenian enclaves of Beirut, Lebanon, this patrolling actually became literal during times of civil strife, when armed ethnic militias appeared to defend the borders of their enclaves from the lawlessness of civil war. That is an extreme example, of course, but it makes clear that diasporic social formations, although devoid of state power, have elites and hierarchies and exercise forms of social power that constrain and shape individual behaviour, often in negative ways (Tölölyan 1991b). Sedentary diasporas can be embodiments of the territorialized, albeit stateless power of what the Greeks used to call ethnarchs, referring to the leaders of the Jewish community in Hellenic Alexandria. At a time when state power is largely deplored in American discourse and the power of the individual is celebrated, such claims are not welcomed. It is worth reiterating that the exercise of such power works best in sedentary and clearly demarcated communities, whether in the form of militias or charitable organizations, criminal gangs or old-age homes funded by and situated in the community. Whether malevolent or benevolent, forms of power are exercised wherever the logic of the sedentary community prevails. Such settled enclaves serve as the stable, anchored nodes through and around which real diasporic mobility and circulation is actually conducted. The particular understanding of transnational and global mobility now prevalent in the United States underestimates the importance of the sedentary nodes of the transnation. Diasporic life can be anchored by, but not confined to, diasporic communities that in some way function quasi-territorially. The metaphors of transnational and global flows, when applied to diasporas, must not be imagined as mobility without fixity. Just as magnetic or electrical flow is facilitated by the existence of relatively fixed poles, so also sustained transnational flows require relations between localities, be they two diaspora communities or a homeland and a diaspora community. To honour this possibility in scholarship, it becomes necessary to study the sedentary and local community closely, in terms of its institutions, not to devalue it, as the prevailing opposition between mobility and sedentariness has done. In fact, as Schnapper (1999:233) has said, ‘the objective of historical and sociological analysis [of diasporas] must therefore be to show the concrete forms of exchanges, solidarities and mobilizations’ between them.


Mobilization requires not just mobility but the concentrated cultural and material power that the sedentary existence provides diasporas, whether in commerce or in congressional elections.8 Between and within these, there is a constant flow of people, money and ideas. Thanks to this collective sedentariness as well as these individual mobilities, exilic nationalism becomes truly diasporic transnationalism, and localisms become indispensable to emerging globalization. The cultural production of diasporic identity is a product not of mobility as such, but of a productive tension between diasporic institutional sedentariness and diasporic mobility. CONCLUSION A new, influential American transdisciplinary discourse has emerged in the 1990s and is—despite its noble intentions and internal heterogeneity—structured by a set of polarizing conceptualizations and evaluations. This chapter concentrates on two of them: the privileging of the present over the past and of mobility over sedentariness, the second being the more urgent problem. Ultimately, diasporas have become the most recent site of the American celebratory, indeed, Utopian, impulse, which is always vigorous, always disappointed, and always in search of new objects of knowledge that it can invest with positive meanings, hopes and aspirations. As a result, oppositions are created that posit strong differences between diasporas and their ‘Others.’ Thus, diasporas are juxtaposed to the nation in a manner that neglects diasporic nationalism, which can be quite ugly but also quite essential to the maintenance of some diasporic identities. Similarly, diasporas are juxtaposed to the state and the demands it imposes upon its citizens; however, while it is true that the stateless power of diaspora elites cannot coerce obedience as states can, it is simply not the case that diasporas are consistently non-coercive. The list can be expanded: diasporas are celebrated as hybrid and borderless within a matrix of assumptions that condemns the confining power of borders and wholly neglects the fact that to define is to confine, that to have identity is to have definition and so to exclude some while including others. Diasporas are also celebrated for their cosmopolitanism, while the cost of that cosmopolitanism is neglected.9 It must of course be acknowledged that such celebrations of diaspora have been instrumental in placing the until recently neglected diasporic social formation at the centre of debates about the ‘post-national’ world order. It is now time to begin to rectify the conceptually problematic effects of that celebration. NOTES 1 Anthropology and the humanities have been particularly receptive to each other’s ideas. A striking illustration of this openness is provided by the Harvard University Press’s ‘Anthropology 2001’ catalogue of books, issued in autumn 2000. Two of


2

3

4

5

6

the books in it are by Gayatri Spivak and Edward Said, specialists in comparative literature, and one is by Paul Gilroy, a sociologist who is primarily a critic of culture and transatlantic African studies. In more than a decade of lecturing at conferences on diasporas, this author has been to only a few gatherings where genuine, sustained inter-and multi-disciplinary discussion of diasporas took place: a conference on Africa’s diasporas in the Western hemisphere at Ohio State University in 1992; at the annual meeting of the Society for Cultural Anthropology in Washington DC in 1993; at the XVIIIth International Congress of the Historical Sciences in Montreal in 1995; the Ford Foundation Faculty Seminar on diasporas at the University of Illinois in 1998; and the conference on ‘locality, identity and diaspora’ organized by Professor Waltraud Kokot at the University of Hamburg in 2000. This Act was one of the most significant pieces of legislation of its kind in American history. Until 1855, the US had no general immigration legislation at the federal level. The 1855 Naturalization Act obliquely dealt with some aspects of immigration in that it explicitly extended citizenship to foreign-born white women who came to the US with American husbands. In 1875, Congress began to regulate immigration by barring convicts and prostitutes. Race became an issue in 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese immigration, first for a decade and then, in 1904, ‘permanently’, which meant until 1943, when Chiang Kai Shek’s China became a US ally in the Second World War and limited Chinese immigration was permitted. Between 1880 and 1921, huge immigration by white Europeans took place, which was slowed by the National Origins Quota Act of 1921 and further constrained by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which gave preferential treatment to north-western Europeans, of whom there were already many in the US. On 23 July 1963, just months before he was assassinated, President Kennedy asked Congress to liberalize immigration. The Hart-Celler immigration Act of 1965 did that, replacing national origin with broader, less racist, hemispheric quotas, easing the immigration of Latin Americans and Asians especially and basing immigration on skills, occupations and family reunification. Although added to by the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Immigration Reform and Control Acts of 1988 and 1990, the 1965 Act remains the keystone of American immigration policy. In recent years, Gabaccia (2000), Parati (1999) and Verdicchio (1997) have published useful volumes in which the Italian diaspora is reconsidered. Teixeira and Da Rosa (2000) have published a book on the Portuguese diaspora in Canada, Loucky and Moors on the Maya (as distinct from the Guatemalan or Mexican) diaspora (2000) and Patton and Sanchez-Eppler (2000) have edited a volume on the ‘queer diaspora’, a term that was unheard of until a few years ago. A diasporic community can be rooted in the sense of being strongly attached to a homeland, or it may be rooted in its traditional culture and attached to a usually urban territory in diaspora. Certain diasporas use complex political, institutional, cultural and even demographic strategies to build ‘a homeland of sorts’, even in a multiracial neighbourhood. For an excellent study of such a phenomenon of territorialization, see Goldschmidt (2000). Routed diasporas are mobile, characterized by their mobility, links, exchanges, open and changing boundaries and flexible meaning-structure. I owe this term to Professor Varouj Ayvazian of the University of Toronto Economics Department.


7 Such neighbourhoods were characteristic of densely populated urban areas, but are now appearing in Los Angeles, where the commercial concern is paramount. On 29 January 2000, Thai immigrants in East Hollywood persuaded the Los Angeles city council to name a six-block square area in which they are a majority Thai Town’. But some 35 per cent of that multiracial neighbourhood’s population consists of Armenian immigrants and their businesses and in the immediately adjacent neighbourhood they are a majority. In less than three months, their political organization, NOR, obtained recognition for the adjacent area as ‘Little Armenia’. In such cases, it is very difficult to distinguish the impact of geographical designations on collective identity from their value as brand names. 8 As Condon’s news article (1999) shows, within the American electoral system a sedentary and organized diaspora can acquire an importance disproportionately greater than its numbers imply. 9 For a rare exception see Chan 1997.

PART III MAKING AND UNMAKING DIASPORAS: ETHNIC UNMIXING AND FORCED MIGRATIONS IN TWENTIETHCENTURY EUROPE

5 The Spell of the Homogeneous Nation-State: Structural Factors and Agents of Ethnic Cleansing Philipp Ther

The twentieth century was not only the century of the Holocaust and of the Gulag, but also a century of ‘ethnic cleansing’. Over the course of the twentieth century, about fifty million people have been forced to permanently leave their homelands within Europe alone, while many more encountered the same fate in Africa and Asia. Three major periods of ethnic cleansing in Europe can be distinguished. The first one lasted roughly one decade from 1913 until 1923 and mainly affected south-eastern Europe and Turkey. In 1938, Nazi Germany started the second round of ethnic cleansing that substantially changed Central and Eastern Europe and lasted until 1948. The third period of ethnic cleansing was a consequence of the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991 and has continued in south-eastern Europe through the end of the twentieth century.1 The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is not an invention of the media of the 1990s. It was commonly used by the Czechs (o ista), the Poles (oczyszczanie), the Germans (Säuberung) and the French (épuration) in the first half of the twentieth century. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ is always directed at an ethnic group or a nation. The goal is to change the ethno-demographic composition of a given territory by removing an ethnic group, which is forced to migrate. The ethnicity of the victims is defined by a ruling or occupying power. Groups or individuals who are subjected to this definition usually have no chance to declare a different ethnicity or to influence their removal from their territory. The forced character of migration also distinguishes ethnic cleansing from other forms of migration. If ethnic cleansing is carried out over existing or newly created state borders, it can also be labelled as ‘expulsion’, whereas the removal of an ethnic group within a given country is a ‘deportation’. In most cases, expulsions are permanent. Some major causes of ethnic cleansing are undisputed. First and foremost, there is nationalism or, as it is frequently put, ‘radical’ and ‘ethnic’ nationalism,2 and other ideologies such as racism. One could also agree that dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, or more recently Mil sevi , are the main perpetrators of ethnic cleansing. External factors such as the international community can also play an important role. The international community can legitimize or even order ethnic cleansing, as the Allies did after the Second World War, fight ethnic cleansing as in 1999 in Kosovo, or contribute to it, as in the case of the wars in former

THE SPELL OF THE HOMOGENEOUS NATION-STATE 69

Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.3 It has become a truism that millions of people have been and are uprooted in wars, and that wars are a major cause of forced migration. The means to devastate an area and to drive out its population have become ever more sophisticated. Not only wars, but also the conclusion of peace can generate large-scale forced migration. For example, about 12–14 million people were forced to permanently leave their homelands after the Second World War ended. Most explanations of ethnic cleansing are united by tracing it back to immediate causes or to individual agents such as Hitler or Miloševi , using history only scarcely and then mostly in simplistic terms such as ‘ancient hatred’. In contrast to these explanations, this chapter concentrates on the underlying causes and structural factors that made the occurrence of forced migration not only feasible, but also quite probable. Therefore one has to look into nineteenthand early twentieth-century history, when ethnic cleansing was not yet common, but when mental, social and political prerequisites for this malicious practice came into being. It is no coincidence that large-scale ethnic cleansing occurred only in areas where nations and states came into existence in a specific way and period. Ethnic cleansing is connected to the formation of modern states and the building of modern nations. This structural explanation will be supplemented by an analysis of other underlying causes of ethnic cleansing, such as the changing attitude towards minorities. Finally, the relevance of some of the immediate causes and the actors named above will be empirically shown in the second part of this chapter to introduce agency and thus complete the picture. STATE FORMATION BETWEEN 1850 AND 1939 The European states which were established in the second half of the nineteenth century or later did not have the advantage of France or England, which could grow as states for several hundred years. As Ernest Gellner and Eric J.Hobsbawm have pointed out, centralizing and homogenizing policies such as unifying the state administration, the educational system and implementing or even creating a state language are a prerequisite for the functioning of a modern state (Gellner 1983:33–8; Hobsbawm 1992:93–6). States that were founded after the midnineteenth century in the periphery as well as in the geographic centre of Europe had to introduce features of a modern state over territories with distinctly different legal, economic and political systems. Moreover, they had to achieve this in a relatively short time. The governments of these states did not only need to create common currencies, weights and measures, but also had to cope with different mentalities, customs and traditions. No matter how great the enthusiasm for the new state or national unity (Breuilly 1993:96–122), the new administrations met with resistance from preexisting political institutions and the mentalities of previously independent regions. This was the case even if the population to be united in one state was relatively homogenous in linguistic and cultural terms. For example, the


population in the Italian regions of Piedmont and Sicily discovered that they often had different interests than those of the central government and, just seven years after the foundation of Italy in 1859, the Sicilians waged a revolt which was put down by the Italian army. The German Empire, founded in 1871, also saw much friction. In particular, the Bavarians, the Alsatians and the Silesians were notorious for their separatist urges, and even more so the ethnic Poles who lived in the Prussian partition. In order to integrate and strengthen the newly founded state, the German Empire at times suppressed ethnic, religious and political minorities and activated the nationalism of the population. Both cases show that by the late nineteenth century it had become rather difficult to build nation-states. However, contemporary observers did not pay attention to the obstacles faced by these ‘nation-states’, but were primarily interested in their apparent success. Germany, Italy and the national premise on which newly founded states were now built, became examples for all nations that did not yet have their own states. The use of force and of assimilationist pressure were seen as legitimate tools to secure nation-states and the so-called ‘national interest’. Even today, we are not detached from the misconceptions of the time. For example, nineteenth-century Italy and the German Empire are still commonly seen as nation-states,4 although they were then multinational entities. This viewpoint also conceals that they were in fact nationalizing states that resorted to force, if necessary. The formation of states was even more difficult in the Balkans and for the countries founded after the First World War, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The administration of these countries had to be built up from scratch, and they governed over regions with even more diverse historical traditions. Most infamous is probably the case of Poland, where the railway tracks did not fit together when the country was resurrected in 1918. The so-called nationstates founded after the First World War had to secure their rule not only over different, but often also disputed territories, which were partially inhabited by ethnic minorities. The consensus among the ruling elites in the new states was that this challenge could only be mastered by a centralized state with a strong government. The French model of political centralism was therefore chosen when it came to state formation.5 The attempts at centralizing provoked resistance and counteraction from groups which either did not belong to the majority population or advocated regional autonomy. However, it should be emphasized that the formation of centralized states created trouble not only in Eastern Europe, but also in the West. France experienced this in the 1920s in Alsace, where its policy of centralization combined with an attempted cultural and linguistic assimilation was bitterly resented and fought by the local population (Gras and Gras 1982:97– 170). All Central and Eastern European countries had similar experiences on their peripheries, and even ‘old’ nation-states such as Spain and Britain faced similar problems in the Basque region and in Northern Ireland after the Second World War. For the new nation-states it would have been the most prudent


Ethnic German refugees from south-eastern Europe receive hot soup at the train station on the Austrian border, 1947 Source: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.


solution to make concessions to regions and minorities, but any cultural or territorial autonomy was regarded as a danger for state and nation. The weaker the newly founded states were, the more pressure they applied to secure their rule, thus causing more political and ethnic conflict. Examples for this are Volhynia in inter-war Poland and Kosovo in inter-war Yugoslavia, where the new Polish and Serbian administrations were particularly weak, corrupt and inefficient, and especially suppressive in political and national terms.6 The tensions were aggravated by the fact that the elites ruling over disputed and secessionist regions were mostly imported from the ‘core’ of the nation. The very fact that the establishment of new states in Europe in 1859, 1871, 1878 and 1918 occurred as a result of wars, reminds us that force and violence have been seen as legitimite political tools to solve not only external conflicts, but also internal problems. NATION-BUILDING IN THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES There is a fundamental difference between a nation that is growing into an existing state, a nation that is being formed without a state and a third case where state formation and nation-building occur simultaneously. If nationalism was oriented towards an existing state, such as in the English, the French and the Spanish cases, in the late eighteenth century, in the Polish case, and—this might be surprising—in the Serbian case during most of the nineteenth century, political values were at the core of nationalist aspirations. It was never in question that a French nation existed. Therefore, the revolutionaries concentrated on the political character of the nation rather than on its cultural construction. French nationalism originally rallied around political values such as liberté, egalité and fraternité. At least in theory and according to the constitution of 1793 everybody who supported these values could become a citizen of France. It would be wrong to idealize French or ‘Western’ nationalism because of its temporary openness and political character. When France became threatened by foreign troops during the revolutionary wars, French nationalism hardened and was increasingly based on language, but throughout the nineteenth century the revolutionary nationalism based on political values remained at least a point of orientation and an example (Hobsbawm 1992:20–88). The situation was different in the case of Germany. German nationalism relied more than its French counterpart on a cultural and linguistic definition of nationality (Hobsbawm 1992:21–3; Breuilly 1993, 96–115). Its distinct character had already manifested itself in the wars against Napoleon I. It was the Germanspeaking people, not a political nation, to whom German nationalists appealed to take up the fight against France (Schulze 1987:10–12). Not only were the revolutionaries and Napoleon and their political values regarded as the enemy, but the entire French culture was seen as something detrimental. Already in 1814, the famous Prussian reformer Freiherr vom Stein had concluded: ‘Every people


that wants to be truly national, does not trust foreigners sufficiently as to mingle with them in a civil community, let alone to employ them in state offices.’ And: ‘It is our duty to the German fatherland…to cleanse the Rhineland from everything which has made them and keeps them un-German.’7 It would, of course, be wrong to portray vom Stein as a perpetrator of ethnic cleansing. However, his demand shows that the call for liberation from foreign occupation and rule partly relied on cultural and linguistic arguments. This pattern was to be repeated in the nationalist movements of liberation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When the Czechs demanded more autonomy and finally independence from Habsburg rule, they argued that they wanted to liberate themselves from the German yoke, and when the Poles rallied for independence, they wanted to be free from the Russians, although they were in fact ruled by a Czarist autocracy. One can conclude that if subdued nations called for liberation, they used cultural and ‘ethnic’ arguments rather than political ones. In Germany, the cultural and linguistic definitions of nationality were further entrenched in the consciousness of the population during the period of romanticism in the 1830s. Among all nations in Europe, language and indigenous culture became more important. When the Germans attempted to establish a nation-state in the revolution of 1848, this state was supposed to unify all German-speakers. During that revolution, the Czechs were the first nation ruled by a German-speaking monarchy that pointed out the difference between them and the German speakers. Whereas at the beginning of the revolution, the line of division in the societies involved in the upheaval was political, it soon became nationality, based on language and culture, that divided the revolutionaries. The revolution failed and so the demand to build a German state that united all German speakers was again suppressed. However, Italy in 1859 and Germany in 1871 achieved unification. In Germany there was a high price to be paid for unification. Firstly, the goals of the cultural nation once again gained priority over political values such as democracy, and, secondly it was built upon the division of Poland. Since the Poles could not be assimilated, the German state resorted to a policy of national engineering, discussed in the final section of this chapter. The cultural and linguistic, or German concept, of the nation subsequently was used or copied by all national movements in Central and Eastern Europe.8 One reason for the attractiveness of the German or Italian model of a nation was that before 1918 many Central and Eastern European nations lacked their own nationstates and had to define their boundaries culturally and linguistically.9 Even those nations whose nationalism was traditionally political changed their orientation during the nineteenth century. An example of this shift can be seen in the Polish case, whose nationalists did not regard language as the central element of defining a Pole at the beginning of the nineteenth century. One hundred years later the National Democrats, who formed the leading nationalist party, defined a Pole by language and denomination.


The Polish case demonstrates that the cultural and linguistic definition of nationality was usually supplemented with other elements, mostly denomination. Not only Poland, but also Croatia, Slovakia and Ireland perceived themselves overwhelmingly as Catholic nations. Obviously this presented Jews, even those who were culturally assimilated, with a dilemma. If there was no denominational differentiation possible, other elements were introduced. The Czechs perceived themselves as a decidedly democratic nation and thus included political values in their nationalism. It is impossible here to differentiate between each case in detail, but one crucial commonality remained: A ‘conversion’ to these nations was very difficult, and anyone who did not have certain cultural features that made him appear to be Polish, German, and so on, or who did not speak the national language properly, was not accepted as a member of the nation. Poles, Germans, Danes, Swedes, Russians and Italians were in a relatively favourable position because they already had a codified national language and an established national culture. Many other nations which had newly emerged on the map of Europe were initially lacking these key elements which were necessary to build a nation. Modern Bulgarian, Croatian, Albanian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Czech, Lithuanian and Latvian were created only during the late eighteenth or nineteenth centuries as standardized languages (Anderson 1991:70– 5). Regional dialects were usually established as a ‘national’ language. For example, the Prague dialect was the basis for modern Czech, and a dialect spoken in Herzegovina was chosen as modern Croatian (Banac 1988:77). The standardization of languages depended on a relatively small cultural elite and the dissemination of an ‘invented’ national culture from center to periphery. The process of linguistic and cultural standardization met with more resistance the later it occurred.10 Central and Eastern Europe became a notable wellspring for autonomist or separatist movements. In short, nation-building followed patterns in state-formation processes. In order to defend and strengthen themselves, the newly created nations needed to be centralizing, but afforded little tolerance toward culturally different groups or minorities. Hence, the national movements of newly and maybe even simultaneously emerging nations, although structurally similar, became bound to clash in ethnically mixed areas. However, one can but follow Rogers Brubaker in his scepticism about the ‘seething cauldron’ view, which suggests that these nationalisms were to result in bloody ethnic conflict and that they are restricted to Eastern Europe (Brubaker 1998:281). The aforementioned characteristics of a cultural and linguistic orientation were also typical for West European nationalisms such as Flemish, Catalan and Basque nationalism. Moreover, this factor by itself does not explain ethnic cleansing. The propensity of nations to assimilate or suppress minorities became even stronger when they were able to form independent states after the First World War. In the inter-war period, centralization went hand-in-hand with the attempt to nationalize and homogenize disputed territories. For example, the Polish government suppressed the Ukrainian and German minorities in the eastern and


western borderlands of inter-war Poland in order to strengthen the Polish state and the Polishness of these territories (Brubaker 1996:5, 83–4). Centralization combined with nationalization brought the newly established states inevitably in conflict with their periphery, and it deepened the conflicts between state-nations or dominant core-nations and minorities. As linguistic borders were blurred, with bilingualism a common feature and several written languages not yet defined, nationalists increasingly used history as a tool to define national belonging. They claimed territories with the argument that at some point in history these had belonged to their country. Poles, Serbs, Bulgarians and other nations demanded the return of ‘ancient lands’, even if these territories had come to be inhabitated by other ethnic groups. An example of this is the Serbian claim to large parts of the Balkan peninsula. Although Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo were inhabited by a majority of other ethnic groups, the Serbs perceived them as an integral part of Serbia. Bosnians and Albanians were either regarded as Turks’ and subsequently expelled, or viewed as Serbs who had acquired some foreign features. Hungary made similar claims about ‘Magyars not speaking Magyar’ (i.e. Croats, Slovaks and Romanians) and Greece about ‘slavophone Greeks’ in Macedonia and Bulgarians about the Muslim Pomaks (Hobsbawm 1992:97). Moreover, the need to delineate borders provoked dialectic distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. There was little tolerance for mixed identities or mixed ancestry. As an additional instrument for defining nationality by law and by popular perception, ancestry was introduced. Here again Germany served as an example. The idea that one is born into a nation, and that all Germans are German by descent, became popular at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1913, it was codified in the law of citizenship. Hence language, culture, history and, as a last element, ancestry defined German nationality. The criteria of history and ancestry were highly subjective and elitist, since only a small elite or a bureaucracy could decide whether a given person was by his or her ancestry a member of a given nation. The consequences of increased bureaucratization in the modern world deserve special attention. As Ernest Gellner emphasizes, the bureaucratization and the building up of modern states caused a general nationalization of the population, because bureaucracies, even if they were not nationalizing in Brubaker’s sense, needed a clear national subdivision of the population in order to operate effectively.11 Throughout Europe, state bureaucracies gained influence over the determination of nationality and citizenship, whereas it became more and more difficult to become German, Czech, Serbian and so on by one’s own free choice. Citizenship and nationality decided on issues of central importance to people’s lives such as education, military service and social welfare. While nationalism and nationality were rather detached and theoretical issues for most people in the nineteenth century, they became crucial for individuals in modern states. Nationalism was transformed from an ideology into a social reality.


While Germany served as an example of how to define national and ethnic belonging, state formation in the newly established states relied on the French administrative model. As mentioned above, all countries founded after the First World War sought to centralize their administration and political systems, even if this violated all traditions. While Poland was a federal and highly decentralized country until the third and final partition in 1795, the second Polish Republic established in 1918 was a highly centralized country, which left little power for distinctly different regions. The same was true for Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Romania. It comes as no surprise that these new centralized states met with resistance from the periphery. It would be a simplification to characterize these conflicts as national or ethnic only. They were fought over economic resources, education and political participation, and only coincided in some cases with national conflicts. The combination of the German concept of the nation and the French concept of the state made the newly founded nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe vulnerable, because it combined the most narrow and inflexible concepts of nation and state (Sundhaussen 1996:28–9). There was one other pivotal change. Originally these narrow and ideological conceptions of the nation and the state were restricted to a small elite and the sphere of politics. With some notable exceptions, such as the persecution of Jews in the Russian Empire, multiple ethnic groups still coexisted peacefully in everyday life. However, because of the development of public media, general education and the mobilization of the populace, nationalist ideologies were spread to the countryside. This is especially true for the period after the First World War. Subsequently the national premise, upon which political thinking and states were now built, influenced and damaged interethnic relations even in remote villages. ATTITUDES AND POLICIES TOWARDS MINORITIES In the nineteenth century, it was still commonly believed that non-dominant ethnic groups (the term ‘minority’ was hardly used at that time12) could be assimilated within a few generations (Hobsbawm 1992: 34–6). This ‘optimism’ was deeply rooted in liberal idealism and in supremacist and sometimes racist nationalist ideas. Prussian officials were convinced that they could ‘lift’ Slavic speakers to supposedly higher levels of German culture. The Poles held the same belief about the Ukrainians, who were expected to develop into Poles with some obsolete folkloristic habits. However, these Prussian Poles and Polish Ukrainians also experienced some upward social mobility, profited from economic progress and became more educated and thus more self-assertive. Because of these improvements in status, assimilation slowed down in the second half of the nineteenth century, and non-dominant nations and ethnic groups resisted attempts to assimilate them by force. The failing assimilation contributed to changing the perception of minorities, which were increasingly regarded as a problem and a hindrance to the development of states. Since it now became the assumption that minorities would not be educated or assimilated into the


population as a whole, dominant nations began to view them as an undigestible, always potentially traitorous element in the social fabric of the national body. The change of policy from attempted assimilation to a persecution of minorities depended on the nation involved and the ethnic group to be assimilated. Germans and eastern Jews were quite soon viewed as being difficult to assimilate, whereas minorities of the same language group belonging to the lower strata of society were longer regarded as potential targets of assimilation. In south-eastern Europe, the existence of minorities was already endangered in the nineteenth century. Recent research has shown that Muslims had been driven out of Serbia since the very foundation of the country as an autonomous region in 1830 (Höpken 1996:7). They were expelled because Serbs regarded them as a potential threat and as too different to be assimilated. Greece and Bulgaria followed this example. The expulsions can partially be explained by the long suppression of the ethno-religious majorities of territories belonging to the Ottoman Empire, but the Christians’ disdain for non-believers was as important a factor. During the First World War, the changed attitude towards minorities became visible in the policies of Tzarist Russia and Ottoman Turkey. Russia deported members of the German minority living near its western borders because the government was afraid of their possible allegiance to Germany; although such ethnic solidarity and therefore loyalty to Germany was questionable. The fate of the Armenians living on Turkish territory was even worse. The Turkish army collectively punished the Armenians for their alleged sympathies with Russia and drove them out of their homelands in 1915. This expulsion escalated into genocide. The long history of ethnic cleansing in south-eastern Europe also explains why there was no public outcry when Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria agreed to ‘exchange’ minorities after the Balkan Wars and as agreed upon in the Treaty of Lausanne.13 In 1913, after the end of the Balkan Wars, Bulgaria and Turkey had signed the first international treaty that contained a provision for the resettlement of minorities (Sundhaussen 1996:35). Greece and Turkey concluded a similar agreement in 1914, Greece and Bulgaria in 1919. However, it was the internationally sanctioned and supported Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, where Greece and Turkey agreed to ‘exchange’ their respective Turkish and Greek minorities, which became the first moment where millions of people were moved because they belonged to the ‘wrong’ nationality.14 It gave international sanction to and legitimized ethnic cleansing as a solution to the problem of national minorities. Moreover, it made politicians the world over believe that homogeneous nation-states were the ideal for international peace and stability, and that members of national minorities, whatever their own opinions about their identities, would be grouped together as a potential source of conflict and instability. During the Second World War, this radical solution to the problem of multinationality had its most tragic consequences.


Long before the treaty of Lausanne, one can also find demands to remove minority groups in Central Europe. Already in 1855, the German nationalist Paul de Lagarde declared: ‘It is undoubtedly not permissible that one nation exists within the other nation; it is undoubtedly necessary to remove those…who have caused this decomposition’ (Heckmann 1992:45). At the outset of the First World War, high-ranking military staff, politicians and publicists such as the liberal Ernst Jäckh contemplated how to homogenize Germany and territories to be acquired for Germany in the future. Before 1914 one can find similar thoughts among virtually all integral nationalists in Europe, and they began to influence the political mainstream. The demands to homogenize nation-states and eventually to remove people became even more virulent in the inter-war period.15 All newly created or reconfigured states in Central and Eastern Europe were inhabited by minorities linked by common ethnicity with a neighbouring country. Examples of this are the German minorities in inter-war Poland and Czechoslovakia, and the Hungarian minorities in inter-war Yugoslavia, Romania and Czechoslovakia. These minorities could be and were used to destabilize the aforementioned countries. Hence the idea that the internal problems of a country could be remedied by changing its ethnic composition, as professed in Lausanne, looked like a plausible and viable solution. Moreover, even Jews who were not connected yet to any external homeland16 came under pressure. As the various schemes to resettle them to far-away territories such as Madagascar show, the ideal of a pure nation-state had strong racist connotations that were typical of the spirit of the time. SOCIAL AND NATIONAL ENGINEERING The general attitude which made ethnic cleansing first imaginable and then feasible can also be characterized as a product of modernity (Bauman 1991). The twentieth century was an age of social and national engineering. Populations were used to transform the structure of societies and economies, as a tool to expand or stabilize nation-states who wanted to change the ethnic composition of newly acquired or disputed regions. National engineering emerged first in Prussia and the German Empire during the nineteenth century. As early as the 1830s, Prussia settled ethnic Germans in the Polish partition, which was inhabited by a majority of ethnic Poles, in order to secure its rule over these territories. A law passed in 1886 was explicitly aimed at changing the ethnic composition of areas inhabited by a majority of Poles and encouraged ethnic Germans to settle there.17 In 1908, the German government amended this ‘law of settlement’ and even allowed the dispossession of ethnic Poles in favour of ethnic Germans, a clear violation of the constitution. The goal of the government was clear: it wanted to increase the percentage of ethnic Germans among the populace until the Polish partition was no longer dominated by Poles. This wish was also the basis for the increasing restrictiveness against Polish immigrants


from the Russian and Austrian partitions and the restrictiveness of the aforementioned citizenship law of 1913. The National Democrats in Poland, the most important nationalist party, copied this policy of national engineering in their programme in the beginning of the twentieth century. They demanded the settlement of Poles in areas dominated by ethnic Ukrainians in order to preserve their Polishness.18 When the Polish state was re-established after the First World War, the government adopted this policy and settled ethnic Poles in Galicia and Volhynia.19 The Yugoslav government also followed the German example and settled Serbs in ethnically mixed areas while the Romanian government settled Romanians in Transylvania.20 Poles in Germany, Ukrainians in Poland and non-Serbian nationalities in Yugoslavia attacked these settlers as colonizers, and radical nationalists demanded their removal. One can conclude that there was a close connection between settling and unsettling, or, to put it in other terms, expulsions and ethnic cleansing. If population could be added like a technical tool, it could also be removed in order to reach certain goals. Dictatorships have been most vicious in social and national engineering. Both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany developed the most infamous schemes of resettlement and deportation. AGENCY OF ETHNIC CLEANSING As the examples of the First World War and the Treaty of Lausanne show, ethnic cleansing did not happen automatically as a result of certain historical structures. There were Russian and Turkish governments that decided to deport supposedly inimical minorities from the borders of their empires during the First World War, there was Venizelos who attacked Turkey, and a Turkish army commander who decided to drive back the Greek troops and the Greek population in Asia Minor. The importance of agents who started ethnic cleansing is even more evident in the second period between 1938 and 1948. When the Nazis conquered Poland in 1939, they annexed vast territories in western Poland and began to expel all non-Germans from the area in order to create an expanded ethnically and racially ‘clean’ German state. Between 1938 and 1940 Germany concluded treaties with the Soviet Union, the Baltic states, Romania and Italy to repatriate ethnic Germans from these countries. Close to 600,000 Germans had come ‘home to the empire’ (Heim ins Reich) by the summer of 1941.21 Almost one million Poles and Jews who lived in the annexed Warthegau district in western Poland had to leave their homes and were partially replaced by German ‘repatriates’.22 The deported Jews from Warthegau were among the first ones to be sent to the concentration camps.23 Thus repatriation, ethnic cleansing and genocide became fatefully linked. Nevertheless, the case of Warthegau also underlines the necessity to distinguish between ethnic cleansing and genocide. The Nazis intended from the very beginning to extinguish the Jews from Warthegau, whereas in the case of the Poles the primary goal was not extinction, but enslavement and ruthless exploitation. In general, expulsions and


deportations are primarily aimed at removing an ethnic group, whereas the goal of genocide is to extinguish it. However, the phenomena are in many cases linked. The Holocaust was preceded by the ethnic and racial cleansing of the Jews. As the cases of Žepa and Srebrenica show, ethnic cleansing can escalate into genocide. While the Nazis had only 12 years to carry out their plans, Stalin was in power for almost three decades. This was long enough to change the social and ethnic composition of the Soviet Union and vast parts of Eastern Europe. In the 1920s and 1930s, Stalin concentrated on social engineering and punished certain social groups such as the so-called Kulaks, or peasants with medium-sized farms that stood in the way of collectivization (see Chapter 6). Millions of people were deported and killed because they were portrayed as obstacles to the new social order. In the 1940s, the Soviet government aimed at changing the ethnic composition in its sphere of influence. Soon after the Soviets invaded and annexed eastern Poland and the Baltic states, they displaced several hundred thousand people (for the Baltic states see Chapter 12). According to recent research, at least 330,000 Polish citizens were deported from eastern Poland to Central Asia and Siberia between 1939 and 1941.24 Sixty-three per cent of the deportees were Poles, while the number of Jews was also very high in proportion to their share of the population. However, at this point, Stalin’s primary goal was not ethnic but ‘social’ cleansing; he wanted to remove the ‘ruling classes’ in eastern Poland in order to prepare the annexed territories for a rapid Sovietization.25 Stalin’s set of political priorities changed during the Second World War. The Soviets carried out the deportations of Chechens and other Caucasian nations, of Baltic peoples, Germans and Crimean Tatars after 1941 in order to prevent them from collaborating with the Germans, to secure their territories for the Soviet Union, and to assimilate these nations.26 Nazi and Soviet attitudes became infectious. Several nations began to engage in acts of ethnic cleansing during the war, often encouraged by their occupiers. The case of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict is a good illustration of how Soviet and Nazi policies turned a long-lasting ethnic conflict into violent ethnic cleansing. Polish-Ukrainian relations were burdened with all the underlying causes of ethnic cleansing, ‘belated’ state formation and nation-building, an increasingly negative attitude toward minorities, a tradition of solving conflicts by force and even a short civil war in 1918/19. Relations were already tense before the Second World War. When the Soviets occupied Volhynia and Eastern Galicia between 1939 and 1941, they literally encouraged the Ukrainians to ‘beat up’ their former lords, purged Poles from their positions and replaced them with Ukrainians. What looked like a Ukrainianization in 1939 soon turned into Sovietization. Depending on their immediate needs, the Soviets also cooperated with Poles, sometimes against Ukrainians, and used the Jews to secure their rule over the annexed territories. What is important here is not the degree of collaboration of any ethnic group with the Soviets, but how the Soviets used Ukrainians, Poles and Jews at different times to establish and secure their rule over the territory. In the end, the


Jews, Poles and Ukrainians suffered from the Sovietization, but there was no solidarity between the suppressed, rather a feeling that the ‘other’ ethnic group was damaging one’s own group interests (Ther, forthcoming). When the German Army conquered eastern Poland in the summer of 1941, the Nazis played the old game of ‘divide and rule’ even more viciously. Their ruthless exploitation of the region greatly aggravated social conflicts between ethnic groups, whom they consciously pitted against each other. Moreover, the Germans dealt only with radical Ukrainian nationalists who, from then on, dominated the political life of their nation. They also greatly helped to popularize the ideal of a homogenous nation-state among Ukrainians and directly provoked interethnic violence. In 1942, a flier of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizacja Ukrainskykh Nationalistiv) demanded a ‘great independent Ukraine’ which should be ‘without Jews, Poles and Germans. Poles behind the San, Germans to Berlin, Jews on the hook’.27 Units of the Ukrainian underground started to cleanse ethnically mixed areas of Poles in 1942. Up to 300,000 Poles fled from the former eastern territories of Poland to the west over the River San by 1944, and many more tried to survive in larger cities which were still under ethnic Polish control. The Polish underground retaliated against the Ukrainian underground by starting to drive out ethnic Ukrainians from areas it controlled in south-eastern Poland (Łukaszow 1989:180–1 and 194–5; Torzecki 1993). By 1944, Ukrainian and Polish military units had massacred the inhabitants of entire villages.28 In 1945, reports were relayed of the murders of pregnant women, old people and small children.29 This brutalization and the continuous persecution of Jews even after the Second World War was one of the most damaging legacies of the Holocaust.30 The occupation ignited similarly tragic ethnic conflicts in other parts of Europe such as Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. One can conclude that the nationality policies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during the Second World War and their occupation of Central and Eastern Europe were responsible for the tragic escalation of ethnic cleansing between 1938 and 1945. Without the Second World War, ethnic cleansing in East Central Europe might have remained a bilateral problem, as was the case between Turkey and Greece or Germany and Poland, and it might have been restricted to certain regions. One should note, however, that it was not only dictatorships which carried out, supported or provoked large-scale forced migration. In the first half of the twentieth century, democratic governments also advocated ethnic cleansing as the ‘final’ and rational solution of specific problems. It was the British and the democratically elected president of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš, who first proposed the ethnic purification of east Central Europe during the Second World War. At the conferences of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, the Americans and the British decided with the Soviets to carry out the largest scheme of forced migration in the entire history of humanity. The democratic advocates of ethnic cleansing had two major goals: to secure peace and to stabilize the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The Allies believed that only if state and ethnic


borders coincided could East Central Europe be stabilized. As proof of their theory, they pointed to the inter-war conflicts between virtually all neighbouring nations in Europe and the ‘success’ of the Treaty of Lausanne. This principle meant that millions of Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Finns and other minorities who lived outside the new borders of their respective nation states were living in the ‘wrong’ place. In particular, the German minorities in East Central Europe were to be ‘dissolved.’ The trickiest problem was Poland, which had been an ally of Britain and France since the outbreak of the war. Stalin insisted that the Soviet Union would retain the territory annexed in eastern Poland in 1939. Since the Soviets bore the main burden of the war and celebrated significant victories in 1943 and in the first half of 1944, the Western powers found it difficult to resist Stalin’s demands. In December 1944, Winston Churchill declared in his famous speech about the future of Poland: ‘There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble…. A clean sweep will be made’ (James 1974). The territorial changes made in 1945 were much bigger than had been planned in Teheran in 1943. Poland was moved to the west by between 200 and 300 kilometres and even Lwów (Lvov), one of its main cultural and political centres, was allotted to Soviet Ukraine. Subsequently, the Germans lost much more territory in the east, including the cities of Breslau (Wrocław) and Stettin (Szczecin). As a consequence, the number of forced migrants increased.31 Whereas in 1943 the Allies discussed the displacement of a couple of million people, predominantly Germans, they decided at Yalta and Potsdam to expel 12 million Germans, 2.1 million Poles and several hundred thousand Ukrainians, Finns and Hungarians, to name but a few of the nations severely affected by the moving of state borders and ethnic boundaries. The Soviet Union played a special role in initiating and implementing these population movements. In 1945, the Hungarian government hesitated to ‘transfer’ its German minority as had been decided by the Allies at Potsdam. This prompted high Soviet officials to order Hungary to compel this movement.32 Stalin had several major motivations for these actions. First, he was even more eager than the Western powers to ‘solve’ all minority problems in his sphere of influence. Second, the mass expulsions sharply increased Germany’s antagonism toward its eastern neighbours and made them more dependant on Soviet protection. The crucial role of the Allies was also demonstrated by an ethnic cleansing which was not completed. In 1945 the Czechoslovak government demanded the expulsion of the Hungarian minority in southern Slovakia. However, Hungary and the Allies resisted this proposal and allowed the Czechoslovak government to resettle only as many Hungarians as Slovaks were repatriated from Hungary. Hence, only 89,660 Hungarians were expelled from Slovakia to Hungary between 1945 and 1948, whereas several hundred thousand Hungarians were able to stay in their home region.33


CONCLUSION In order to isolate the factors which lead to ethnic cleansing, it is also fruitful to analyse cases in which it did not happen despite structural prerequisites which made it a likely outcome. A case where the international community played a preventive role was the Danish-German conflict. In 1945 it looked as unsolvable as the German-Czech and the German-Polish conflicts. Since the mid-nineteenth century the Danish and the German national movements, both based on language and culture, had fought each other. After 1864 both countries made mutually exclusive territorial claims and suppressed their Danish and German minorities in the border region of Slesvig. The state border was changed several times, but even this could not be the basis of creating peace, because the region as a whole and even single villages were mixed. The Second World War exacerbated the conflict between Danes and Germans. In 1945 there were proposals to dispose of the German minority in a way similar to that in Poland and Czechoslovakia. But European integration and the foundation of NATO precluded such a violent solution, and in 1955 Denmark and West Germany signed a contract, under international pressure, that solved the problem by granting the Danish and German minorities generous rights (Stehr 1985). As important as this external factor was, the German and the Danish governments made the assumption that the granting of minority rights could solve an interethnic conflict. This case shows that not every conflict between nation and nationality automatically results in large-scale ethnic cleansing, and leads us back to the initial question: are there certain common features of all regions where largescale ethnic cleansing occurred? As has been shown, these regions share certain structures. The nations situated there adopted a cultural and linguistic definition of the nation, and attempted to build up centralized nation-states during or after the second half of the nineteenth century. They combined relatively narrow and inflexible concepts of the state and the nation. These narrow concepts caused conflicting interests between the central government and peripheral regions and between the dominant nation and minorities. From the early twentieth century on, minorities were increasingly regarded as a problem and a danger. At the same time, the idea that minority problems could be solved by force alone became ever more popular. Ethnic cleansing appeared to be a rational solution for the internal problems of states and for international conflicts, making it acceptable for democratic governments and an increasing share of the European population. It is striking how normal it had become to remove ethnically different neighbours by the end of the 1930s, and how few people resisted this malicious practice.34 One can conclude that the two structural factors, the specific nation-building and state formation processes, and two mental factors, the changing attitudes towards minorities and the idea of national and social engineering, made ethnic cleansing likely to happen in large parts of Europe. This does not mean that large-scale forced migration was predetermined by structures. Carrying out


ethnic cleansing still depended on agents whose actions form an element of historical contingency. However, perpetrators of ethnic cleansing, such as Hitler, operated under very favourable circumstances. The Danish-German case demonstrates that decisive action and early intervention by third parties was needed in order to prevent an escalation of ethnic conflict into ethnic cleansing. This decisive outside intervention was clearly lacking in south-eastern Europe between 1913 and 1923, in Central and Eastern Europe during and after the Second World War, and in the 1990s when Yugoslavia fell apart. In all these cases, the aforementioned underlying and immediate causes of ethnic cleansing were effective, but there were no agents that would have prevented it from happening. The belated but decisive interference of the international community in Bosnia indicates that the DanishGerman case might have become something like an example, whereas the legacy of Lausanne is at last waning. Furthermore, there also seems to be a growing consensus that nationalizing and centralizing policies do not strengthen weak or newly formed states. The example of Ukraine shows that the lessons of the inter-war period might have been learnt. This consensus and the readiness of external agents to intervene against ethnic cleansing allows the optimistic outlook that ethnic cleansing can indeed be regarded as characteristic of the twentieth century and that this malicious practice will recede into history. NOTES 1 As an example for a phase model see Sundhaussen 1996:25–40. 2 See Denitch 1994. However, branding nationalism with terms such as ‘ethnic’ implicitly suggests that there is a nationalism which is non-ethnic or even innocent. 3 As Susan L.Woodward (1995:250–2) criticized, the West was rather quick to acknowledge the independence of former Yugoslav republics in 1991 and 1992, but did close to nothing to prevent the predictable ethnic cleansing. 4 Notable exceptions are several articles dealing with Germany in the eight-volume series Comparative Studies on Governments and Non-Dominant Ethnic Groups in Europe, 1850–1940 (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1991–93). 5 For a still valid criticism of this centralization see Seton-Watson 1945. 6 For the centralization of inter-war Yugoslavia see Banac 1988:214–25; for Poland see Brubaker 1996:84–103. 7 Vom Stein expressed these viewpoints in a letter to the governor of the duchy of Berg, Staatsrat Justus Gruner in June 1814 (Hybatsch 1964:1–3). For German demands for a homogenization of the nation-state in the late nineteenth century see Heckmann 1992:45. 8 See Jan K en’s classification of Central European or German nationalism in K en 1990:29. One should add that there was, of course, no direct transfer of this model, but a partial adaptation or orientation towards it. 9 A notable exception is Serbia, which had already come into existence as a semiindependent state at the beginning of the nineteenth century. For nation-building in Serbia see Kitromilides 1989.


10 This can clearly be seen if one compares the quite complete nationalization of peasants living in the periphery of France and the incomplete nationalization of peasants in the western regions of the tsarist empire at the same time. Both processes can be compared by using Weber 1979, for the French case, and Miller 1998 and Weeks 1996:194–6 for Russia. 11 John A.Hall emphasizes this key element of Gellner’s theory about modernization and the rise of nationalism in the introduction to his edited volume (Hall 1998:11). 12 One should note that before 1918 there was no legal definition of minorities, and that they perceived themselves much less as minorities than they came to do after the foundation of (majority) nation-states. 13 For the attitude toward minorities in south-eastern Europe in the inter-war period see Jelavich 1983:135. 14 The only exception was made for Greeks who had been residents in Istanbul before 30 October 1918 and for Muslims living in western Thrace. For the Treaty of Lausanne see Lemberg 1992:28. 15 As Rogers Brubaker has pointed out, the dissolution of the great European empires in 1918 motivated millions of Ottoman Turks, Germans, Hungarians and Russians to re-migrate from the lost peripheries to the core of the former empire (Brubaker 1995; Brubaker 1996:148–78). However, most of this remigration was voluntary and thus it is not considered as ethnic cleansing as defined in this chapter. 16 This is how Herbert Hoover argued in 1943 (Gibson and Hoover 1943:315). 17 Literally the law was called Gesetz betreffend die Beförderung deutscher Ansiedlungen in den Provinzen Westpreu en und Posen [Law for the promotion of German settlements in the provinces of West Prussia and Posen]. 18 See the corresponding programme from 1903 in Partacz 1996:178. 19 For the parallels between German and Polish settlement policies see Brubaker (1996:101). 20 For these settlement policies see Bookman 1997:121–46. 21 See the statistics in Bierschenk 1954. The entire number of German repatriates from the East rose to 770,577 in January 1944. For the resettlement of Germans from South Tyrol to Poland see Stuhlpfarrer 1985. For Romania see Jachomowski 1984. 22 For the expulsion and deportation of Poles in occupied Poland see Łuczak 1993: 145–6. 23 As recent research has shown, the settling of the German repatriates, the deportation of Jews to the Generalgouvernement (the General Governorship of Poland) and the initiation of the Holocaust were interconnected. See Aly 1995. 24 Ciesielski, et al. 1994:82. These new statistics are based on Soviet sources which were unknown to Polish and Western historians before 1992. 25 Hence Gross’s contention that Stalin’s policy had primarily national goals and was specifically anti-Polish is disputable (Gross 1988:198). 26 The distinction between a permanent and temporary removal and the many different motivations behind population transfers are not sufficiently clear in Paul Magocsi’s summary of population movements during and after the Second World War (Magocsi 1993:166–8). 27 Quoted from Pohl 1996:177. As Pohl points out, it is, however, uncertain whether this flier was really distributed by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Before the war, Ukrainian nationalists were not particularly known for their antiSemitism, so an ideological change is evident here.


28 For the expulsion of the Poles see also Ther 1998:67–87. For an example of how the Germans ignited ethnic violence see Archiwum Instytutu l skiegow Opolu [Archive of the Silesian Institute in Opole, AIS], Pami tniki trzech pokole mieszka ców Ziem Odzyskanych (1986) [Memoirs of three generations of inhabitants of the Recovered Territories], Pami tnik 95. 29 See as an example a report in AIS, Pami tnik no. 82; see also Burds 1997:106. The brutality is but one of the many parallels between the civil wars in eastern Poland and in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. 30 The worst pogrom in post-war eastern Europe happened in July 1946 in the Polish town of Kielce, where 42 people were killed. See Szaynok 1992. 31 The US and Great Britain warned in late 1944 against the destabilizing consequences of a transfer of 12 million Germans (Lemberg 1992:34; Eberhardt 1992:184–7). 32 In August and again in November of 1945, high-ranking Soviet officials ordered the Hungarian government to expel the German minority (Tóth 1997). 33 In ‘exchange’, 73,273 or almost three-quarters of the Slovak minority left Hungary for Slovakia (Šutaj 1993:138–9). 34 As a study on the Czech-German case has shown, it was already perceived as something quite normal to remove ethnically different neighbours by the end of the 1930s (Manner 1998).

6 Ethnic Cleansing as an Invention of the Twentieth Century: An Account of Expulsions in Europe Karl Schlögel

The post-war period has ended, but in a manner different from that envisioned in 1989. Images are emerging which have not been seen in Europe since 1945: signs of massacres, refugee treks, tent cities, children whose parents are missing wandering around, destroyed bridges over the Danube, burning oil refineries. What is happening has a name: ethnic cleansing. The semantic origins of this term lie in the Yugoslav wars of succession in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (Malcolm 1994, 1998). It has made its way into our vocabulary so fast that it seems as if the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ has always existed. However, it is not a millenium-old phenomenon, but has its own genesis; it belongs entirely to the modern era, in particular, to the nineteenth and, even more so, the twentieth century. Ethnic cleansing is not mere brutality. It could exist neither without the central notion of an ethnically homogeneous nation-state, nor without the experience of population transfers and rule over masses of people which first emerged in the era of modern imperialism with its bureaucratic apparatuses (Naimark 1998). Complex logistics and modern organizational knowledge and techniques are needed for the execution of mass expulsions and population transfers. Largescale planning and preparatory propaganda that stigmatizes and marginalizes the group in question in preparation for persecution are needed. This process does not work without a scientific apparatus which provides sociological and historical expertise and which creates national myths. Specialists in the execution of violence are needed who are capable of using surgically precise methods as well as axes and knives—when it gets that far. It is no easy task to cause an ethnically heterogeneous construction to lose its equilibrium and collapse, a construction which has grown over dozens of generations, over centuries, and has withstood the heaviest burdens and strongest of conflicts. The richest imagination and the greatest criminal energy are required to unravel the fabric of complex social relations and make people who have lived together more or less peacefully for most of their lives attack and slaughter one another. Both thugs and paper-pusher perpetrators are needed to lead the way. During the twentieth century all of these factors were brought to a perfection never before seen. It did not get involved in half solutions but went for totality, for final solutions. Nowhere else were the necessary competences

88 ETHNIC CLEANSING AS AN INVENTION OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

accumulated and mobilized to such an extreme extent as in Europe. What is dying now in the Balkans is what is left of the Europe of the twentieth century. The twentieth century has sometimes been called the century of refugees. This is, however, not quite right. There have always been refugees, even if not as many as during the world wars with their mass evacuations from approaching fronts, emigrations and deportations (Tägil 1990). Those who are evacuated, though, might return after the state of emergency is over and at the end of military action. People who flee can decide to return home, regardless of how great the risk. Those, however, who are expelled because they belong to a certain group do not have a choice, least of all members of a specific ethnic group. One can change one’s religion, language or political conviction, but not one’s ethnic origin. Expulsions are usually permanent. These distinctions are necessary not to clarify terminology, but because they can mean life or death in the age of maniacal ethnic and racial cleansing. THE IDEA OF ETHNIC UNMIXING Placing the experience of ethnic cleansing in the context of the never-ending chain of violence which runs through the history of human civilization will not get us very far. Whole tribes and peoples have been sent into exile or deported. Nebuchadnezzar expelled the Jews from Jerusalem in the sixth century BC. Assyrian and Chinese rulers used mass deportations to secure endangered borders. The Christian Occident has witnessed the persecution and expulsion of non-Christian communities or Christian sects communities. However, the history of the Moors and Jews expelled from Spain or that of the Waldenses or Huguenots proves only that these were mass expulsions for religious, not for ethnic, reasons. The pre-modern empires were usually multiethnic creations. They were populated by subjects of a king, an emperor, a tsar or a sultan, but not by members of a nation. The ruling elites were transnational by origin and orientation and did not concern themselves with their subjects’ ethnic origins. What mattered was whether one was a peasant or a city-dweller, free or not free. The rulers derived their legitimacy from God and the authority of a dynasty. This changed only with the emergence of the modern state and civic nation (Brubaker 1996). In Western Europe, linguistic and cultural community and political territory shared the umbrella of the nation. This was different in Central and East Central Europe, where linguistic and cultural borders only rarely matched state borders. In the Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanov and Hohenzollern empires, although they were scolded and fought against as being prisons for subdued ethno-nations (Völkerkerker), dozens of ethnic and national groups who spoke different languages, had different cultures and professed different religious beliefs lived together into the twentieth century (Arendt 1986; Bibó 1992). There are several theoreticians who are contenders for having first formulated the idea of the creation of an ethnically ‘pure’ state. It is certain, however, that


this idea stretches far back into the nineteenth century. As the historian Theodor Schieder discovered in his studies on historical terminology (Schieder 1979), the idea of an ethnically ‘pure’ state was apparently formulated as early as 1814 by Heinrich Luden (1780–1847) in his work Das Vaterland oder Volk und Staat (The Fatherland or People and State). Luden—who was influenced by Fichte and Schelling, and taught in Jena—advocated the idea of an ethnically determined liberalism in the journal Nemesis: First, one could remove the citizens of foreign nationalities from within the borders of our state and purify our state by this method; second, one could attempt…to dissolve the peculiarities of foreign citizens in our own peculiarities. The first, however, would be terrible and inhumane! Where should one expel the unfortunate souls, even if one had enough power and did not need to fear the revenge of their compatriots?… The noblest feelings in the human breast are outraged by such cruelty. Half a century later, in 1855, Paul de Lagarde, the nationalist intellectual forebear, wrote: It is without doubt not permissible that any other nation should exist within another nation; it is without doubt required that those who have brought about this decomposition…should be disposed of. Every nation has the right to be master of its territory, to live for its own sake and not for foreigners. In the twentieth century, the leader of the Pan-German League, Heinrich Cla , conceptualized the ‘transfer of a land free of people’ and a generous policy of evacuation as a ‘means of utmost emergency’. A little later, Paul Schiemann (1876–1944), a Baltic-German politician and vice-president of the European Minority Congress, wrote: ‘The consequence of this interpretation of the idea of self-determination is either the violent and brutal transplantation of complete parts of the population from one state to another with all of its pernicious consequences’, or assimilation, the dissolution of minorities in a majority nation. From an ethno-nationalist point of view it is apparently only a small step towards an ‘ethnic consolidation’, which ought to lead to the gathering together and concentration of the fragmented German people, and to the elimination of nonGerman peoples. The First World War brought with it the violent break-up of the so-called prisons for subdued nations and a completely new world order of states. The yearning for an independent state had at last become reality and had taken on a powerful substance. The complete force of national romanticism was released in the moment when the old powers guaranteeing order ceased to exist. Those nations which had once formed states had become minorities, often discriminated against, in the new nation-states which had emerged from the dissolution of


A family in the refugee camp at Neustadt, Germany, Western Allied zone, late 1940s. Source: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

empires. The nationality question (Nationalitätenfrage) of the old empires became


in many cases the minority question of the new order. Since the fall of the imperial order, Europe has been characterized by ethnic struggles and ‘minority questions’. The right of national self-determination, upon which the new order was based after the First World War, was too strongly influenced by the struggle between victors and losers to have been able to end justly. After the First World War the peace treaties of Paris (Neuilly, Sèvres, Trianon, Versailles) and border revisions agreed upon in Paris usually did not lead to the creation of homogeneous nation-states from the multiethnic empires. The new nation-states were multiethnic themselves and comprised large minorities which were perceived as dangerous for (national) integrity and sovereignty. They were seen as a fifth column, as non-loyal and subversive forces (Rothschild 1974). Every state has its minority beyond its own borders. Hungary, for instance, thanks to the regulations of Trianon in 1920, lost two-thirds of its territory and three-fifths of its prewar population; approximately three million Hungarians became minorities in the neighbouring states of Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Minorities did not only represent internal problems. Everywhere was crawling with irredentist and revisionist movements, since the new state borders did not coincide with ethnic borders. In Paris in 1919 the American president Woodrow Wilson thus determined that ‘nothing is more suitable to the destruction of world peace than the treatment to which minorities are exposed’ (Mandelstam 1925). No state remained untouched by ethnic strife, which entailed Germanization, Polonization, Romanization, Turkization, Serbization. The struggle for something greater than the current situation was always present: Greater Germany, Greater Romania, Greater Bulgaria, Greater Greece, Greater Serbia. Minorities were feared. Their existence often combines social with ethnic aspects and internal with external conflicts. The weak nation-state of the inter-war period thus provided the stage for eternally complicated struggles. The standpoint could be formulated that only an ethnically homogeneous state is a strong state and that the creation of such homogeneity, as a logical consequence, is the guarantee of stability. The creation of states resulting from the collapse of Europe’s multiethnic empires led almost everywhere to nationalist and ethnic strife, seen perhaps most clearly in the revolution of the young Turks, whose rise was connected with the herald of post-imperial Europe—the genocide against the Armenians. EXPERIMENTS IN THE BALKANS Nowhere was the map of peoples so complex and complicated as in the Balkans, which almost constitutes a miniature Europe with its ethnic and cultural diversity. The task of creating a modern homogeneous nation-state in this small and dense area with overlapping linguistic, cultural and religious areas could only lead to the greatest of difficulties. Perhaps it is no coincidence that ‘unmixing populations’, as British diplomats first labelled it, emerged here. When the


Ottoman Empire was forced out of the Balkans and new states were created in the nineteenth century, many Balkan Turks emigrated from the nascent Serbian state. This was possibly the ‘first modern case of expulsion sanctioned by contract long before the instrument of population exchange was brought into use in the early twentieth century’ (Höpken 1996). The Balkan Turks were forced out of the newly emerging states in several waves. Hence, in the aftermath of the Balkan wars, the first systematic ‘ethnic cleansings’ occurred with forced baptisms, changes of family names, expulsions and atrocities. Those who suffered the most in the two Balkan wars were the civil populations in the contested border regions. They reacted to discrimination, forced conversions and military action by mass flight, initially considered to be a temporary escape from war. In reality, however, it proved to be a permanent departure from their home territories. It was here that the first models for population exchange of ethnic groups originated. The 1913 Peace Treaty of Adrianopolis ‘was the first bilateral treaty in modern history which provided for population transfer between two states (though formally on a voluntary basis, and limited to the residents of border areas)’ (Sundhaussen 1996). In view of the complicated ethnic fabric, delimitation and exclusion had to take on particularly radical forms. The individual is only rarely what he or she, according to descent, ‘actually’ is supposed to be. Others’ definitions often stand in contrast to the indiviual’s own definition. A Macedonian is, for example, depending on the point of view of the speaker, ‘actually’ a Bulgarian or a Greek or a Serb. A Bosnian Muslim is ‘actually’ an Islamicized Serb or Croat. A Kosovo-Albanian is ‘actually’ an Albanianized Serb who has converted to Islam; a Serb in Croatia is a Croat who has converted to Orthodoxy or been forced to do so, a Turk in Bulgaria is an Islamicized and Turkicized Bulgarian. There are not actually any limits on what people ‘actually’ are. The ‘as-suchness’ does not have borders as such. Thus, writes Sundhaussen, the cause for what has been called ‘Balkanization’ in political journalism since the end of the First World War lies ‘in the discrepancy between historically based structures of settlement on the one hand and the modern principle of order of the nation-state on the other’. This conflict has come repeatedly to the fore, first when the Balkan Turks were forced out, then in the collective population exchanges between 1913 and 1923, then, too, in the cleansing excesses of the Croatian Ustaša against Serbs, Jews and Romany, in revenge actions of Tito’s partisans against the Swabians of the Danube area, in the cleansing measures in Krajina, Bosnia or most recently in Kosovo. The concept of a political nation, based on the French model, and federalism, according to the German model, which might have been appropriate for the unity and diversity in the Yugoslav area, were not available (Sundhaussen 1996). Ways out of this dilemma were sought early on, namely the elimination of the ‘centres of unrest and conflict’ through resettlement. The historical precedent of large-scale ‘massive transplantation’ occurred in 1922–3. Greece, supported by the Entente, used the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to occupy the coastal areas


of Asia Minor, where two million Greeks had been living for ages. However, the military adventure of creating a pan-Hellenic state failed. The Greek armies were beaten off by Kemal Pasha’s troops. On 9 September 1922, Smyrna was conquered by the Turks and the old and rich trading city went up in flames. Thousands died. Hundred of thousands fled in panic or had to be evacuated. The history of Greek tradition in Asia Minor seemed, in this way, to have reached its end. This fact was taken into account in the Treaty of Lausanne, concluded between Greece and Turkey on 30 January 1923, which covered the procedure for the evacuation and resettlement: approximately 1.35 million Greeks from Asia Minor were to be exchanged for approximately 430,000 Turks in Thessaly and Thrace. Unlike the Treaty of Adrianopolis, this was a forced exchange, with no choice (Ladas 1932). In an expose on the treaty, the Commissioner for Refugees of the League of Nations, Fridtjof Nansen, wrote the fateful words ‘to unmix the populations of the Near East will tend to secure true pacification of the Near East and because they believe an exchange of populations is the quickest and most efficacious way of dealing with the grave economic results which must result from the great movement of populations which has already occurred’ (cited in Ladas 1932:3). After that, there was no going back, forced resettlement, even if, to a great extent, it just confirmed what had already occurred, was seen as the key to pacifying a region. It was clear to everyone involved that it was, as Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Minister involved in the conclusion of the treaty, said, ‘a thoroughly bad and vicious solution, for which the world would pay a heavy penalty for a hundred years to come’ (cited in Ladas 1932:341). A new paradigm had been created for solving conflicts in the world. The Lausanne Treaty was referred to again and again, even after the end of the Second World War, as a point of reference for the practicability of ‘collective population transfer’, as proof not only of the feasibility, but also of the moral legitimacy of forced resettlement as the lesser evil. In the spring of 1943, as the Allies contemplated on the future of postwar Europe, the American President Franklin D.Roosevelt commented that: ‘We should take measures to remove the Prussians from East Prussia in the same way that the Greeks were removed from Turkey after the last war’ (Brandes 1988); it might have been crude, but was the only thinkable alternative. Winston Churchill also, when he explained that Poland’s westward shift would imply the expulsion of the Germans, but would prevent ‘endless unpleasantries’, referred to the Greek-Turkish population exchange in positive tones (Brandes 1988). More moderate voices fell on deaf ears. THE SHUNTING YARD Europe first discovered what large-scale resettlement and expulsion really meant with the Nazis. They did not waste much time reviewing the Versailles Treaty, as they had their own conception of the new Europe. It was to be ruled by the Aryan master race. The Nazis had everything at their disposal that one would need for


the project of shaping the new Europe: scientific expertise, organizational and logistical capacities, an apparatus of military terror which kept the occupied countries in check, and a society which collaborated. Götz Aly has meticulously reconstructed this gigantic ‘population-policy shunting yard’ (Aly 1995). There was not a single ethnic group which was not categorized, appraised, and sent on its way. Population policy experts, demographers, anthropologists, planning and transport experts cooperated to create the grand design called Generalplan Ost (Madajczyk 1977, 1994; Rössler 1993; Wasser 1993), in which settlement and resettlement were conceptualized, landscapes designed, transition and reception camps created, and the interlacing of long-and short-term solutions analysed. Within the central offices of this bureaucracy, ethnic groups were arbitrarily shifted around, repatriated and deported. For each resettled and repatriated ethnic German brought home ‘to the Reich’, others were expatriated, which involved expulsion from house and home with mere minutes’ notice, and deportation to somewhere ‘in the east’. Ethnic islands were formed, splinters of ethnic groups were gathered together and formed into ‘ethnic bridges’. Within a few weeks of the beginning of the war against Poland, the Baltic Germans were brought ‘home to the Reich’ in which they had never lived, and a settlement that had lasted for seven hundred years was wiped out (Loeber 1972). Ethnic Germans from Volhynia, from the Narev region, from Bessarabia, the Dobrudja (Jachomowski 1984; Hecker 1971) or from Lithuania were brought into the Polish territories annexed by the Greater German Empire by way of ‘great treks’ to make a start in Germanizing those areas (Engelhardt-Kyffhäuser 1940). Space had to be made for them, so the local Slavic population of the cities Posen/Pozna or Danzig/Gda sk was driven out and expelled or ‘resettled’ in the so-called Generalgouvernement—the part of Poland occupied by but not annexed to Nazi Germany—in order to be able to accommodate the middle-class ethnic Germans arriving from Reval (Tallinn), Riga and other parts of the Baltics. Hundreds of thousands of people were thus ‘newly positioned’, once hundreds of thousands had, as early as the autumn of 1939, been expelled, in a ‘wild’, and not in an ‘orderly and humane manner’. Resettlement experts, anthropologists, sociologists and future social historians provided the maps and guidelines (Aly 1997; Koehl 1957). It is altogether another matter that the great plan ended in chaos, that the failure of the manifold short-term solutions attempted ended in the radical ‘final solution’, and that the resettlement and repatriation in the wake of the military collapse became, at first, an ‘emergency settlement’ and then turned into panic-stricken flight. From the end of 1944 those who had been ‘repatriated’ into Nazi Germany in 1939, and who had returned to the Baltic states in the meantime, were put on the move once again, this time in flight westwards, from which there would no longer be a return to the old homeland. Thus, the planners of population movements and the organizers of the ‘great treks to the east’ turned into administrators of refugee reception and transition camps. At some point in the maelstrom of collapse, the borders between retreat, evacuation, flight, wild expulsion and orderly resettlement, pogrom and


‘organized shifts across borders’ became blurred. At some point the old eastern provinces of the German Reich were swept clean and prepared for the territorial and national ‘new order’ of the victors. Almost all the German settlements which had remained in the east of Europe had been erased. At the end of the ‘reordering of the ethnographic situation’, which Hitler had announced on 6 October 1939, the former Europe had ceased to exist. The Jews of Europe had been murdered, millions of people— whether forced labourers or prisoners of war—had been involved in unprecedented movements of population. Complete peoples and ethnic groups had been flung from one end of the continent to the other. The ethnic, linguistic and confessional map of Central and Eastern Europe had been changed beyond recognition. From 1939 to 1943, the triumphal period of National Socialist Germany, up to 15 million people were involved in mass population movements. Between 1944 and 1948, during the period of collapse and victory over Hitler, another 31 million people had to leave their homes. Around 50 million people were temporarily or permanently displaced and uprooted from their ancestral homelands (Magocsi 1993). It seemed as if the whole continent were populated by a new type of human being, by refugees, expellees and deportees (Pfeil 1948). It was no coincidence that the pact between Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany marked the beginning of the ‘reordering of the ethnographic situation’ in the autumn of 1939. Division into zones of influence was the condition for the ‘repatriation’ of the ethnic Germans, but also for mass deportations, which were directed against the ruling elite of the occupied countries. On the part of the Soviets, this was principally aimed at the neutralization and liquidation of potentially independent or even oppositional forces: members of the old elites, clergymen, intellectuals, representatives of the bourgeoisie and the political parties. Inasmuch as this was directed against the ruling groups in occupied Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the perfectly organized mass deportations which were then in full swing certainly had the character of surgical operations against national elites (Bugaj 1996a). Communism shared with National Socialism the passion for great, heroic and final solutions, yet its utopia of a classless society went in a very different direction than the ethnic Utopia of National Socialism. The new society, the new man, was not defined by his ethnic or national belonging. The cleansing mania of Stalin’s Soviet Union was directed against the ‘social other’, the ‘class enemy’. However, in reality this was also just a code for everything that was not compliant, not quite compatible, or which even appeared to be independent. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ in Stalin’s Soviet Union thus rather mirrored the successful implementation of total power. It was situated in the ruling tradition of the Russian Empire, albeit cloaked in a severity and ruthlessness which first emerged as a characteristic of modern times. The deportation of complete ethnic groups within the shortest of periods and under the harshest of conditions thus had less to do with the ethnic cleansings characteristic of the nation-state and much more


with the maintenance of the empire and the consolidation of the ‘total state’ (Polian 1994). The ‘small nations’ were attacked as agents of enemy powers and made scapegoats for successes which did not come about, and were later collectively accused of collaborating with the German Wehrmacht. The sum of the cleansing mania of the system unloaded itself on them. Tens of thousands of people were deported in large-scale operations within hours to inhospitable regions thousands of kilometres away. This affected dozens of ethnic and national groups, but above all, the large group of the Volga Germans (Dahlmann 1994), the Caucasian peoples such as the Chechens, Ingushians, Kabardins and Karachai, but also Kalmyuks, Crimean Tatars, Black Sea Greeks, Koreans, Kurds and many others. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives through these ‘actions’; they froze or starved to death and were stricken by disease (Bugaj 1991, 1996b; Bugaj and Gonov 1998). The expulsion of the Germans almost seems like the logical and compelling consequence of the crimes committed during the Nazi regime. More than half of the ten million Germans living in the eastern territories of Germany had been fleeing the Red Army since October 1944. The question of whether these, and the wild expulsions which followed, were ‘ethnic cleansings’ is, therefore, usually not asked. However, it soon became clear that the significant criterion for their expulsion was their ethnicity. All efforts to handle expatriations politically, selectively and individually—thus exempting opponents of Hitler from expulsion — failed. The attribution of blame remained collective. The lash of ethnic cleansing had caught up with the Germans, who themselves had wielded it most brutally, although seldom with those who actually carried the responsibility, but mostly those most defenseless: civilians, women, children and the old (Schieder 1953–1962). One person with firsthand experience of the expulsions, the Russian Jew Eugene M.Kulischer, who fled first from Lenin, then Hitler, made the following judgement in 1946: The largest organized mass population movement in world history, which comprises six and a half million Germans, is in full swing. Further mass deportations are being prepared…. They are governed by the belief that political and ethnic boundaries should coincide. Where this cannot be achieved due to heterogeneous populations made up of the most varied ethnic backgrounds, plans are being relied on to move hundred of thousands of people from one country to another. (Kulischer 1946) However, it was not just the expulsion of Germans from the territories east of the rivers Oder and Neisse or of the Sudeten Germans from post-war Czechoslovakia that was at issue. Other ethnic groups were affected by barely less painful expulsions and resettlements: Poles who had to leave former eastern Poland, which had been made part of the Soviet Union, and were resettled in


Poland’s newly acquired western territories; Ukrainians who had to leave their settlements in south-eastern Poland and who were deported either to Ukraine or to the north-west of Poland; Swabians of the Danube area; and TransylvanianGermans, who were deported to the Soviet Union (Donauschwäbische Kulturstiftung 1995). ETHNICALLY CLEANSED EUROPE Almost no territory in Central or Eastern Europe was spared this experience. Everywhere we meet people who do not originate from the area in which they live today. They carry their homelands with them. Almost every ethnic group has its lost territory: the Bulgarians their Macedonia, the Serbs their Kosovo, the Italians Fiume, the Germans their East Prussia and Silesia, the Poles Kresy, Vilnius and Lvov, the Hungarians Temesvar and Transylvania, the Turks Thrace and the Greeks Smyrna and Constantinople. They all have their lieux de mémoire, which were inaccessible for decades. One receives the impression that the mental homelands still exist when one sees Polish tourists at the Rossa cemetery in Vilnius where Pilsudski’s heart is buried, or Germans putting down flowers on Kant’s grave at the cathedral in Königsberg. Memories remain of the traces of violence: a memory of treks under fire, of low-flying aircraft, of the river no longer crossed by a bridge, of violence against women whom no one was able to protect. On the maps which try to illustrate the demographic dislocations of the world war era, arrows and vectors criss-cross each other, symbolizing the violent movement of millions of people. No corner of Europe was spared: not the Finns and not the Romanians, not the Russians and not the ethnic Germans in Russia, not the Crimean Tatars and not the Tyroleans, not the Greeks of Asia Minor and not the Turks of Thessaloniki or the Bulgarians from Dobrudja (Magocsi 1993). The houses of one group of expellees became the new homes of those who had been expelled somewhere else. Amidst or, better stated, beyond these colossal streams of people, there is something that, although it started with resettlement, expatriation and deportation, was completely different from ethnic cleansing: the genocide of the European Jews. ‘Unmixed Europe’ is not a metaphor, but a changed continent. European Jewry no longer existed. Where Poland once was, a new Poland emerged from the ashes. East Germany had ceased to exist, and there is no longer a German presence in Central and Eastern Europe. The ‘ethnic splinters’ have been removed, ethnically ‘diverse and mixed settlement’ ended and ‘repatriation’ resulted in the largest refugee movement, which cast aside all confessional, cultural and compatriot barriers and brought about the creation of a new map and new societies. States with new borders had emerged. The multiethnic states of the pre-war period had become more or less ethnically homogeneous entities. State territory, ethno-nation and language had never before coincided so closely.


Of the multiethnic metropolises of the eastern world, often only the facades remained, behind which the life of the multiethnic society had perished. Homogeneity was also, in many ways, uniformity and provincialism (Honžvi ka 1997). The multiplicity of religious beliefs had been replaced by a ‘national’ belief. Whole professional branches which were associated with specific ethnic groups before the war—lawyers, bankers, doctors—had vanished. With the expulsion of certain ethnic groups, a ‘social revolution’ was also entered into: the members of the former ‘master races’ (Herrenvölker) had been expelled from the country. Thus, not only did opportunities open up for career advancement, but a levelling out and primitivization of social structures also followed. In short, unmixed Europe is not only less charged with tensions, but also less complex, less rich in differences and structure, poorer in almost every respect. The transition zones as well as the ethnic patchwork and the mixed urban cultures which once characterized Europe, forming the basis for its vulnerability as well as its astonishing productivity and its elasticity, no longer exist. ‘Unmixing Europe’, this ugly term, has forced its way into almost every last corner. However, sometimes, if we look closely and venture to go to the most remote back country, we may still be able to glimpse the remnants of what the mixed Europe once was: perhaps in Daugavpils/Dünaburg or in Czernowitz/ Chernivtsi, definitely in Novi Sad and, until recently, in Sarajevo or in Prishtina. In this process of purification, war has always been the greatest simplifier and the most radical aggravator of crises. It cleansed the land and drove the refugees along like a tidal wave. The history of war is the history of evacuation, flight and expulsion, be it in the Russo-Turkish War, in the first Balkan Wars, in the Finnish-Soviet War or in the great world wars. That which remains from the mixed Europe in the wake of the epoch of world wars has recently been expunged during the war against Yugoslavia in 1999; it is perishing in mined paths and in the refugee camps of Macedonia and Albania. Ethnic cleansing cannot manage without a very specific hatred and a very specific cruelty. It is, after all, not foreigners who attack each other, but people from the same city, who speak the same language, who are often neighbours. Expulsion does not work without an overdose of hatred. Those who want to remove people, or even complete ethnic groups who have lived in one place for generations, have to employ the most extreme means. Terror, sheer horror, the bridging of the unspoken limits of the thinkable, swift attacks against bewildered victims and operations at dawn are the most important preconditions for the calculation which lurks in every ‘act of excess’. Everywhere in Europe, there are people who know what happens when there is no longer anyone there to intervene when the mob rules. Everywhere, there are people who can tell us that this is ethnic cleansing. They all know what the Balkans means, even if they have never been there. Europe, at the end of the twentieth century, which is lasting longer than the philosophers of history anticipated, is one great déjà-vu. One cannot be fooled by the mobile phones and the desperadoes sporting Reebok sneakers, or by laser-controlled missiles from


the arsenal of Star Wars. One hardly notices that the Europe of today has emerged from massacres. It consists, if we take a close look and listen to its inhabitants, of choked streams of refugees. Everywhere in Europe was the Balkans.

7 Ethnic Migrations of the 1990s from and to the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union: ‘Repatriation’ or Privileged Migration? Anne de Tinguy

Ethnic Russians who move to the Russian Federation, ethnic Ukrainians who move to Ukraine, ethnic Germans who move to Germany, former Soviet citizens of Polish, Finnish, Greek or Latvian origin who move to Poland, Finland, Greece and Latvia and Jews who move to Israel are not, in theory, ‘immigrants’. Because of the ethnic or sometimes ethno-cultural or even ethno-religious tie they have with the receiving country, defined as their ‘homeland’ of origin, they are not usually considered as foreigners, but as ‘return’ migrants or ‘repatriates’. The countries affected by this phenomenon do not all use the same words to describe it. Russian authorities, for example, use the term ‘forced migrants’ or even ‘refugees’ to refer to the ‘return’ of ethnic Russians to Russia.1 Israeli authorities use the term ‘immigrants’ in connection with the term aliya. Despite different terminology in all the cases, it is a ‘return’ migration of members of an ethnic group to the ‘home’ country or a ‘return’ over generations. Some of these ethnic migrations are flows that have established themselves during the twentieth century, as in the case of the ethnic Germans and Jews. Other flows are more recent ones, as in the case of the ethnic Finns or Latvians. Other flows are old ones, but they took on new dimensions following political changes in Central and Eastern Europe; this is the case with ethnic Russian and Polish migrants. The ethnic or ethno-cultural dimensions of this phenomenon are very important, but are not the only factors determining the policies of the receiving countries. These policies are linked to a so-called ‘moral duty’ which these countries consider they have towards their ‘blood brothers’ because of the discrimination and suffering they endured as a result of their descent. Consequently, the receiving countries set up specific reception and integration policies, which are different from regular immigration policies and which give preferential treatment to those who want to ‘come back’ to their country of ‘origin’. ETHNIC MIGRATIONS, A PHENOMENON OF GREAT MAGNITUDE In the case of the successor states of the former Soviet Union (FSU), the phenomenon of ethnic return migration did not start with the fall of communism


in Central and Eastern Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet period, most of the emigration from the former Soviet Union was composed of ethnic movements (see Chapter 9). However, this phenomenon not only remained significant after the fall of the Soviet Union, but took on a new scope. A few examples regarding emigration from the post-Soviet successor states and immigration into these states will be enough to emphasize this shift in scope. In numerical terms, the movements which have taken place since the beginning of the nineties are very different from one country to another. The many communities concerned are diverse and of varying origin. Their location is linked either to the many border changes in that part of the world, or to immigration and colonization and/or to internal exile and deportation: many of the groups under consideration in the FSU were created by forced exile decreed by the Tsars, then by deportations carried out under Stalin’s rule. Some of these communities comprise very large numbers of people: ethnic Russians, Germans, Poles and Jews run into millions; others (Greeks, Finns) consist of several tens or hundreds of thousands (Goskomstat of the USSR 1991; Kolossov et al. 1994). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of the migrations from and to the successor states have been ethnic. This is the case in the Russian Federation. Most of the people who left Russia permanently, and went to Western countries were of ethnic German or Jewish origin (69.3 per cent in 1993, 64.1 per cent in 1995, 47.3 per cent in 1997, 44.3 per cent in 1998) (Goskomstat of the Russian Federation, yearly). Their share is decreasing over time, but it remains very significant. The ethnic German migration is a ‘return’ migration: between 1993 and 1998, more than 99.5 per cent of the Russian citizens of German origin who emigrated went to Germany within the framework of the Aussiedler policy (see Chapters 16, 17 and 18). The Jewish migration is only partly an ethnic return migration; we can consider only the migration to Israel in the framework of the Law of Return as ethnic migration. During the nineties, about half of the Russian Jews who emigrated went to Israel (54.8 per cent in 1993, 52.2 per cent in 1995, 48.2 per cent in 1997, 53.7 per cent in 1998). Some other flows which are quantitatively less significant are also dominated by ethnic descent: 94.8 per cent of the 445 Russian citizens of Greek origin who emigrated in 1998 went to Greece (as did 96.6 per cent of the 685 who emigrated in 1997), 99.4 per cent of the 315 Russian citizens of Finnish origin who emigrated in 1998 went to Finland (and 95.9 per cent of the 372 who emigrated in 1997), 28.9 per cent of the 114 Russian citizens of Polish origin who emigrated in 1998 went to Poland (and 58.9 per cent of the 234 who emigrated in 1997); Goskomstat of the Russian Federation, yearly. A significant part of the emigration of ethnic Russians is directly linked to these flows because most of these people are family members of people who emigrate in the framework of ethnic ‘return’ policies. In 1997, 68. 2 per cent of ethnic Russians who left Russia permanently were family members of people of German origin who emigrated to Germany or of Jews who emigrated to Israel (20,360 persons out of 29,844).

102 ETHNIC MIGRATIONS OF THE 1990S IN THE FSU

Immigration to Russia is also dominated by ethnic patterns. The majority of immigrants are ethnic Russians. Of the 597,651 persons who immigrated to the Russian Federation in 1997—almost all of them from other successor states of the Soviet Union—58.4 per cent were ethnically Russian and 57.1 per cent of the 647,026 persons who immigrated into the Russian Federation in 1996 were also ethnic Russians. In Ukraine, the share of emigrations based on ethnic criteria seems to be less important than in Russia, but it is still significant: nearly half of the 64,587 Ukrainian citizens who emigrated in 1997 to Western countries went to Israel (20,752 persons) or to Germany (9,915 persons). In 1996 the share was 56.7 per cent of the 53,047 who emigrated (20,358 to Israel and 9,744 to Germany). In 1997, 50.9 per cent of the 15,954 Ukrainian citizens of Jewish origin who emigrated went to Israel and 82.3 per cent of the 1,968 Ukrainians of German origin, to Germany. The share of immigrations which is based on ethnic criteria is also large; they are dominated by the ‘return’ of ethnic Ukrainians. 46 per cent of the 504,577 persons who immigrated in 1992 into Ukraine (from other successor states) and 43.2 per cent of the 129,110 persons who immigrated in 1997 into Ukraine (from all countries of origin) were ethnic Ukrainians (Ministry of Nationalities and Migration 1995, 44).2 In Kazakhstan, emigration is also mainly an ethnic phenomenon. Ethnic Russians who emigrate to Russia (54.2 per cent of all emigrants in 1997), ethnic Germans who emigrate to Germany (18.4 per cent— with their families—in 1997) and some ethnic Poles represent the bulk of emigration. In 1997, nearly onethird (29.6 per cent) of immigrants were ethnic Kazakhs (IOM 1999). For several countries of origin (receiving countries), immigration is mainly (or only) grounded on some sort of ius sanguinis. This is the case for Israel. In this country, the immigration from the FSU is very significant: since 1990, 85 per cent of all immigrants to Israel have come from the successor states of the USSR (mainly from the Russian Federation, Ukraine and to a lesser extent from Belarus). Germany, which did not define itself as a country of immigration, has received some 2 million Aussiedler from the FSU (mainly from Kazakhstan and Russia) since 1988 (4 million between 1950 and 2000, including ethnic Germans from Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia; see Chapter 15). In Finland, which is not a country of immigration, return migration from the FSU is also the main source of immigration. All of the policies of repatriation do not date from the period since the fall of the Iron Curtain. In three states, Israel, Germany and Poland, the reception policies date from the post-war period. As the state of the Jewish people (the term Jewish has an ethnic and religious meaning), Israel was created in 1948 in order to receive Jews: ethno-religious immigration is its raison d’être. In the early 1950s, Germany set up reception programmes for people of German stock from Central and Eastern Europe which functioned throughout the Cold War. After German reunification and the end of the Cold War, it amended its legislation by restricting return migration to ethnic Germans from the FSU, but without


modifying the principles. In Poland, the first repatriation operations also date from the post-war period: 1.5 million Poles from the FSU were repatriated (or expelled) between 1945 and 1948 and 250,000 between 1955 and 1959, at which point these forced resettlements were suspended (Latuch 1994:70–1, 119–21; Stola 1992: 336). Poland’s present repatriation policy is based on a decision of the Council of Ministers of May 1996. The other repatriation policies all date from the collapse of the USSR. In some places, they were set up before the repatriation process began, in others, subsequently. Finland belongs to the first category: the declaration of President Mauno Koïvisto in 1990 was the starting point for both the policy and the process of repatriation. After ignoring these communities for several decades, Helsinki then recognized that the Ingrians2 were Finns and could therefore be entitled to repatriation. In Greece, a Secretariat for Greeks Abroad, in charge of reception and integration policies, was established in 1983 under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but it was only after 1989 that specific structures (the National Bureau for Pontic Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Foundation for the Reception and Settlement of Repatriated Greeks) were established. Russia, Ukraine and Latvia belong to the second category: policies were set up after the repatriation process began. During the Soviet period, movements between the various republics were always numerically significant. In the case of Russia, the mid-1970s saw a reversal of the migratory flows which had previously been oriented outwards from Russia to other republics: in the late 1970s and during the following decade, Russia’s net migration became positive. This trend of positive net migration has stepped up enormously since the collapse of the USSR. The establishment in 1992 of the Federal Office for Migration (FOM) and the adoption in 1993 of laws on ‘forced migrants’ and refugees marked the beginning of the repatriation policy. At that time there were a large number of return migrants. In Ukraine, a Ministry of Nationalities and Migration was established in 1993 and renamed in July 1996, following the adoption of the new constitution as the State Committee on Citizenship, National Minorities and Migration. The conditions for the return of populations of Ukrainian origin were stipulated in January 1996 in a five-year programme. At that time there were also a large number of returns. In April 1991, Latvia established a Department for Citizenship and Immigration, which contains a Repatriation Centre, as part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The law on immigration was enacted in 1992 and the one on repatriation on 10 October 1995. In fact, repatriation movements had begun well before that date. ETHNIC AND MORAL DIMENSIONS OF THE POLICIES OF THE RECEIVING COUNTRIES Policies of the receiving countries are primarily, but not only, based on ethnic descent. Individuals of German, Polish or Finnish origin living in the United


States or Canada cannot claim the right to repatriation if they have voluntarily renounced their former citizenship. Only those living in the former Communist countries could or can do so. Policies of the countries affected by this phenomenon have a twofold dimension: ethnic or ethno-cultural and moral. The self declared homelands consider they have a special responsibility towards coethnics (sometimes called ‘blood brothers’) who suffered because of discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity and, in the case of some of them, because of the policies of these states. This responsibility leads most of these countries to believe, for different reasons and to varying extents, that they have a moral duty to receive their co-ethnics who wish to return to their historic homeland. In the case of Germany, Finland, Poland, Greece and Israel, the concept of duty is linked to the suffering these communities endured in the time of the USSR. In the case of Germany and Finland, this concept is also linked to the idea that they are partly responsible for the suffering of their co-ethnics. Germany believes that it has a responsibility towards those who, because they were ethnic Germans, suffered the consequences of the Second World War, which Germany had provoked, and were oppressed by totalitarian governments. Its present policy, which is based on a long-term desire to establish a link between a people and a country, is the extension of the one established after the Second World War, permitting it to accept millions of people living on the other side of the Iron Curtain, i.e. Germans who had become Polish citizens because of shifts in the border, people of ethnic German origin living in the USSR and Romania. The policy is also designed to compensate people of German origin for the discriminations and material losses they had experienced during and after the war. This idea of compensation is at the very heart of the German policy (Ronge 1997:123–5, 137–8; Dietz 1998b:452–3). Finland’s concept of a moral duty, a duty which it considers is due to ethnically Finnish groups who suffered discrimination on the basis of their Finnish origin, is strengthened by the memory of the tragedy which befell the people expatriated to the USSR in 1944 by Finland. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris concluded between Finland and the Soviet Union, 55,000 of the 75,000 or so Ingrian Finns who had been evacuated to Finland in 1943/44 were ‘surrendered’ by the Finnish authorities to the USSR. In violation of promises made by Stalin regarding resettlement in areas where they had lived before, they were immediately deported to Siberia. This tragedy, better known since the early 1990s, ceased to be a taboo after President Mauno Koïvisto’s speech in April 1990. The uncovering of this deportation elicited a wide movement of sympathy in favour of repatriation among the Finnish people. In addition, in 1990 President Koïvisto linked repatriation with the fact that the King of Sweden had encouraged the ancestors of the present-day Finnish populations (when Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden) to leave for Ingria. President Koïvisto emphasized that the Ingrian Finns were the only expatriate Finns to be persecuted because of their Finnish origin.


In Israel, the State of the Jews, there is a direct and fundamental link between the Holocaust and post-war receiving policies based on the Law of Return, towards all the Jews who suffered or might suffer because they are Jews. In Poland, the idea that the ‘brothers from the East’ might need support reemerged at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Return movements were also implicitly considered to be the logical consequence of return policies enacted during the 1940s and 1950s—Poland has to assist those co-ethnics who were deported and who had been unable in the past to benefit from repatriation programmes, namely those from Kazakhstan. The will to find remedies for the ‘errors of history’ seems to be widespread throughout Poland’s population. This will is strengthened by the profound shocks and the prolonged trauma caused by the numerous and painful conflicts between Poland and Russia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by deep humiliations suffered by Poles, by territorial losses and wholesale transfers of population which ‘involve the painful separation from all that one holds most dear’ (Davies 1986:100–8, 243ff.). In Greece, apart from the wish to help populations which have been persecuted, the key element in the policy in the 1990s is solidarity with the diaspora,3 linked as it is with the perception of the Greek nation. Russia, for its part, feels morally obliged both on the basis of what it conceives of as its responsibilities as the successor state to the USSR as well as the idea that solidarity with the people who were dispersed is essential because of the collapse of the USSR and the arbitrary nature of the former Soviet frontiers. The Kremlin considers, therefore, that Russia has a duty to receive those Russians whose lives or well-being are placed in danger by emergency situations in their homes in other successor states of the Soviet Union, or those who have not succeeded in adapting to the new political situation. Are there any other reasons for the states in question to set up specific policies for their co-ethnics? While these states, apart from Israel and Latvia, do not explicitly advance any other consideration, some of them recognize that these movements may have positive demographic, economic, political or other effects. Greece, for example, and, to a lesser extent, Finland, are in this situation. The former considers the settlement of the Pontics in Thrace and Macedonia as a means of revitalizing farming regions which are depopulated and little developed economically, and of strengthening the Greek presence in the regions where there is a large Muslim minority. The latter country considers the possibility of establishing favoured links through the repatriated persons with the countries of departure. Networks established in this way could provide support for Finnish business. In Russia or in Germany, return policies are not based on demographic considerations. In Russia, however, natural population growth rate has been negative since 1992 due to the falling birth rate and the rise in mortality (Vishnevsky, annual). In Germany, the birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe: fertility is well below replacement level, which will lead to a sharp decrease of the German population in the years to come.


The cases of Latvia and Israel are different. In Latvia, the measures taken are in line with a policy aimed at re-establishing the demographic and national balance. In fact, the demographic composition of Latvia changed significantly during the Soviet period. Ethnic Latvians, who accounted for 77 per cent of the population in 1935 and about 80 per cent in 1940–41—within present-day frontiers—constituted only 52 per cent by the time of the 1989 census. In the 1990s, for the first time since the war, partly due to repatriations, ethnic Latvians represent a gradually increasing proportion, reaching, depending on the source, between 55.5 per cent and 57.1 per cent in 1998 (Zvidrins 1995, 1998:19, 22; United Nations Economic Commission for Europe 1998:12–4). In Israel, at the beginning of the 1990s the new flow of immigration from the former Soviet Union was interpreted by some, such as Prime Minister Yitshak Shamir (14 January 1990), as a ‘miracle’ and welcomed as a godsend (Levin 1996:212). The demographic considerations are politically linked to the share of the Jewish community in relation to the Israeli Arab community, mainly due to the fact that natural population growth is much higher among Arabs than among Jews. Jews represented 88.9 per cent of the population of Israel5 in 1960 and 81.9 per cent in 1990. Expectations were and still are that the wave of new immigrants could ‘solve’ the demographic ‘problem’. In reality ‘Russian’ immigration only slowed down this process. After a halt at the beginning of the decade, the share of the Jews kept on declining; in 1996, it fell to 80.5 per cent (State of Israel 1997:3, 94). Even if other considerations are taken into account, ethnicity and historical responsibility are the main elements of the policies set up by the receiving countries. Most of them undertake considerable efforts to receive their co-ethnics in favourable conditions. PRIVILEGED RECEPTION AND INTEGRATION POLICIES FOR ETHNIC IMMIGRANTS In all of the countries analysed, assistance in many forms, in varying degrees in accordance with their respective means, is given to help ‘repatriates’ settle in and integrate. These repatriates are de jure or de facto privileged immigrants. The assistance often includes payment for transport costs, but only in the countries where the decision about repatriation is made in the country of departure (as of 1 January 2000, the flight to Germany is no longer paid in Germany. Aussiedler get 200 DM when they arrive in Germany to pay for costs accrued in transit.) Accommodation is supplied for several months, during which time some form of means of subsistence are supplied. In Poland, since the granting of repatriation status is conditional on having accommodation, it is provided for an indefinite period. Special information centres (in Finland, in the event of emergency, assistance is available even at night), health insurance provided from the date of arrival by most countries (repatriates enjoy the same social protection as other citizens), language training (Germany, Finland and Israel are making particular efforts in this sphere) and payment of an allowance


in one or more instalments as of arrival by most of the countries concerned (its amount, variable from country to country, is generally set by reference to the minimum salary) are all also part of the privileges enjoyed by the repatriates. This assistance varies, of course, in accordance with the state’s means, but also according to the decision concerning the pace of repatriation. In certain cases (Germany, Finland, Poland, Israel), such decisions are made by the receiving country. Their aim is to control the process: to forecast and, when necessary, to restrict the number of returnees, to stagger arrivals over a period and to organize reception. The measures allowing this are, first, that the decision is made in the candidate’s country of residence and, secondly, that the decision-making process is centralized. In Russia or Latvia, in most cases the initiative for returning rests with the individual. In these countries it is not compulsory to file the repatriation application in the country of residence, nor are decisions taken centrally. In Russia, a candidate for the status of refugee or ‘forced migrant’ may apply either at the Russian embassy in the country in which he resides or upon arrival in Russia at the Federal Office for Migration (FOM) of the region in which the person wishes to settle. The decision is made by the regional FOM (it must be made within three months). In most cases, the policy pursued is essentially a response to the current situation, but for the authorities, who are faced, moreover, with serious budgetary difficulties, it makes the reception of ‘forced migrants’ much more difficult to organize. The countries concerned provide various types of assistance to help with integration. Housing assistance is given by all countries: low-cost social housing may be provided in various ways or financial assistance or interest-free loans may be granted. Several countries have paid special attention to labour market integration. This comprises language training (Finland and Germany), vocational training or retraining to assist repatriates in adjusting to the domestic labour market (Germany, Greece, Russia, Finland, Israel), financial support (such as low-cost credit) intended for setting up businesses (Germany, Greece, Israel) and special help given to particular sectors. The latter is the case in Germany (agriculture, trade, research), in Greece (agriculture, trade and liberal professions) and in Israel (especially in the academic and technological fields). In some countries, newcomers receive unemployment benefits until they have found work. All of the countries involved allow repatriates to claim entitlement to pension rights. Systems vary from country to country. The right to citizenship is recognized by all the countries concerned, either upon arrival (Germany, Russia, Latvia, Greece, Israel) or after some period of residence. For example, Finland, where the status of repatriate automatically entitles the individual to a residence permit, permits citizenship acquisition only after five years of residence, during which the repatriate has no right to vote. The repatriates are not the only ones to be supported by their self declared homelands. The policy pursued by most of the states analysed has a second component, support for co-ethnics in their countries of residence. The purpose of the measures taken in this sphere is to revitalize the culture and identity of these


minorities, to strengthen links between the diaspora and the homeland and to contribute to the improvement of their living conditions. In the German case, the purpose is also to reduce emigration from the successor states of the former Soviet Union, but in the Israeli one, to encourage it. The encouragement of emigration is the job of the Jewish Agency, which has set up and organized operations in the former Soviet Union since the beginning of the 1990s. These policies, as we see, are elaborate and comprehensive but do not, nonetheless, prevent serious and sometimes Herculean difficulties encountered by the repatriates. In spite of all the efforts invested and the fact that these individuals are not in principle foreigners, their integration is not easy. OUTCOMES OF THESE POLICIES The states of Central and Eastern Europe, confronted to varying degrees by very profound socio-economic problems, have limited resources available to put towards their reception and integration policies. In Russia, the machinery established allows only, at best, an inadequate response to the needs of the newly arriving return migrants. The assistance of the FOM is limited, so limited in fact that many people do not even apply for it. Not even all those who are granted the status of ‘forced migrant’ or refugee receive the assistance to which they are entitled. The situation is particularly difficult in regard to housing. The problem of resources also arises, although in a different way, in the EU countries and Israel. Finland finds it difficult to uphold the policy it has adopted to respect the choice of those concerned either to live abroad and be supported by the homeland or to be repatriated. In Greece, only a small number of people have had access to the various programmes established. Whatever the financial resources available, many return migrants face serious difficulties. The first and most serious obstacle to integration, in spite of all the efforts made by the states, is the command of the language of the receiving country. In all states apart from Russia, the language barrier is considered to be very serious. Since Russian was formerly the language of communication in all the republics of the Soviet Union, the language problem is one of the few that Russian return migrants do not encounter. This is not, however, the case in other receiving countries, because the Russification policy and repression by the Soviet authorities led to considerable assimilation of ethnic minorities. The results of the 1989 census show clearly that in the USSR knowledge of minority languages had decreased enormously. The actual situation appears to be even less favourable than the census results show. The Finnish authorities, for example, consider that only 10 per cent of repatriates, generally the oldest, speak Finnish. Virtually all the youngest people have never spoken it or even heard it spoken. This problem of linguistic de-ethnicization is a very difficult one to solve. Germany views it as such a key question for these people’s integration and social cohesion that since 1996, particular attention has been paid to linguistic aptitude. A German language test was introduced in July 1996 in the admission


procedure for potential Aussiedler wishing to immigrate to Germany. Between July 1996 and December 1997, 65,000 individuals took this test. According to Germany’s Federal Administration Office (Bundesverwaltungsamt), of these, 40 per cent failed and were subsequently denied Aussiedler status. As a result the immigration to Germany dropped by 18 per cent in 1996 and by 22 per cent in 1997 (Dietz 1998a). This linguistic problem remains among individuals in Germany who emigrated before the introduction of the language test. The survey conducted in 1995–96 by Barbara Dietz and Heike Roll among young ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union who had come to Germany between 1990 and 1994 shows that only 8 per cent among these surveyed adolescents exclusively spoke German in their families, 45.6 per cent spoke Russian and less than half (46.4 per cent) lived in bilingual (Russian-and German-speaking) families (Dietz and Roll 1998:81, Table 33). Rainer Münz and Rainer Ohliger also emphasize the seriousness of this problem and its impact: according to the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), two to five years after arriving in Germany, only 57 per cent of the former Soviet Aussiedler are fluent in spoken German (only 6 per cent of the people interviewed answered that their speaking proficiency was very good) and 34 per cent in written (only 5 per cent answered their writing proficiency was very good) (Münz and Ohliger 1998:180–1). The problem also exists in the case of the Jews. According to the results of the survey made by Rozalina Ryvkina in 1995 in Russia among Jews, Hebrew is the first language of 2 per cent of the 1,000 persons interviewed, Yiddish of another 2 per cent; and roughly 80 per cent do not know either of these two languages at all (Ryvkina 1996). After five years of residence in Israel, according to a survey conducted in this country, 55 per cent still speak only or mainly Russian and only 10 per cent speak mainly Hebrew (State of Israel 1997:28). The results of other surveys on the same topic are along the same lines. The fact that so many repatriates have no or insufficient command of the language of the receiving country has serious negative consequences on their integration into the labour market and the society. According to most of the states analysed, integration into the world of work is the most difficult problem to cope with. In Germany, it is not possible to assess this problem precisely because there are no statistics on work and/or unemployment of ethnic German immigrants. However, according to surveys and several works, the problem seems to have become very serious. According to Barbara Dietz, until the end of the 1980s, the integration of ethnic German immigrants ‘proceeded nearly without problems’ (Dietz 1998b:467–9). At that time, the economic situation favoured their integration and assistance programmes had a positive impact. By the end of the 1990s the situation had changed. Germany’s labour market has deteriorated and assistance for Aussiedler has been restricted. The labour market has become much more difficult for native born people and repatriates alike. As a result, the share of newly arriving immigrants remaining unemployed has also increased, especially among women and younger people. It is probable that more Aussiedler have accepted jobs below their level of qualifications. Because of this


lower labour force participation, they earn less income than German households and are therefore more dependent on welfare, also making it more difficult for them to establish contacts with native-born people. Reduced contacts, in turn, could lead to a long-term marginalization of this Russian speaking community (Dietz 1997; Koller 1994; Mammey and Schiener 1998). In Finland, the problem is considered as the first obstacle to integration. Exclusion from the labour market, which results not so much from lack of qualifications as from inappropriate skills, is aggravated by the deterioration of the labour market situation: when the repatriation policy was launched, unemployment in Finland affected only 3 per cent of the active population. In 1995, it affected almost 18 per cent. The repatriates were among the first to suffer. In January 1996, 59 per cent of them were unemployed (European Foundation 1995:20, 54). The problem is so grave that some repatriates return to their sending countries, especially to Estonia. Some leave their families in Finland and go back to work in Estonia. The fact that others do not assume responsibility for their economic integration makes the problem more difficult. The newly arriving ethnic Finns make good use of the services and programmes offered to them, but many do not show any economic initiative. Some are content to live on their unemployment benefits. Unemployment is also a major problem in Greece. In 1996, only half of the repatriates of working age had a job, but this job rarely corresponded to the level of their qualifications. The result is that many returnees are confronted with poverty. Over half of those who have settled in Greece since 1989 had in 1996 a monthly income per household which corresponded approximately to the minimum wage. In Israel, the unemployment problem has been very serious. At the end of 1991, nearly 40 per cent of those who had settled there since 1990 were unemployed, but the rate rapidly decreased to 10 per cent in 1998. However, some problems remain: the unemployment rate among Russian Jews is still higher than the national average, their salaries are often lower (this is the case in academia) and many of these people are overqualified for their current positions. There is, in particular, a lack of proper job opportunities for people with academic backgrounds (State of Israel 1997:15). In most of the receiving countries, co-ethnic immigrants are still considered as Russians. Sometimes, the situation is paradoxical. Former Soviet citizens of Jewish descent were, for example, seen in the former Soviet Union as Jews, but the same people are seen as Russians in Israel. Not all of them are from the Russian Federation, but as time went on they began referring to themselves as Russians and they created something like a new ethnicity, which is Russianbased. This ethnicity is linked not to a territory or a nation, but to the Russian language and culture, which they do not want to lose, to a common past and maybe to a shared future (de Tinguy 1998, 1999; Markowitz 1995:403–4, 410– 11), reflecting a phenomenon of integration without acculturation. Russians in Israel want to be both Israeli and Russian. They are integrated into Israeli society, they have work, they participate in political life. In general elections, the rate of


abstention is the same among these new immigrants as among other Israelis. Many of them say that they feel at home in Israel, but at the same time, there is a strong communautarization without acculturation. They speak Russian, they have their own newspapers published in Russian, they created their own political parties, Israel Ba’aliya in 1996 and Israel Beiteinu in 1999, they settle in the same towns, in the same districts, they watch Russian television, they consider their own Russian culture to be richer and superior to the Israeli one (Horowitz 1982:19–33). In Germany we can see phenomena of the same type. Integration seems to be even more difficult than in Israel. There is in particular a lack of political activity. Unlike Russians in Israel, the Aussiedler have not created any political party and are not active in political lobbying. Aussiedler from Kazakhstan and Russia are also seen as Russians. They are called Russlanddeutsche, Russkis and sometimes Russenmafia, while their settlement areas are referred to in a pejorative way as Klein-Kasachstan or Klein-Moskau. The survey conducted by Dietz and Roll shows that of the adolescents surveyed, the majority (54.2 per cent) stated that their friends were also Aussiedler, that nearly three-quarters of them would like to have more contacts with ‘local’ Germans and that only 8 per cent of them feel they are welcomed in Germany while 29 per cent feel they are not. They live concentrated in certain parts of cities, which have become ‘migrant enclaves,’ they speak Russian, they read their own newspapers published in Russian, they have created their own infrastructure and their own networks, reaching from family ties to formal organizations. We can conclude that a predominantly Russian-speaking ‘society within a society’ has developed (Dietz and Roll 1998: 37, 103, 109, 142–3; Dietz 1998a). Rainer Münz and Rainer Ohliger consider the situation along the same lines, writing that ‘culture and language set ethnic Germans apart from mainstream German society’ (Münz and Ohliger 1998: 180). In the Russian Federation, the situation is different. The Russian (or Russianspeaking) repatriates do not encounter any linguistic problems. Their culture is Russian—there is therefore no problem of acculturation—and they share a common Soviet past with local Russians. They do, however, encounter some integration problems related in particular to housing and entry into the labour market. Do these people have an identity which is different from that of the local Russians? David Laitin demonstrated that a new identity is emerging among Russian-speaking minorities living in the ‘near abroad’: that of a ‘Russianspeaking population’. According to him, ‘identification as a member of this population is in some way an alternative to assimilation (as titulars) and mobilization (as Russians)’ (Laitin 1998:263). Therefore we are able to observe the emergence of a different Russian identity among people who returned to Russia.


EXCEPTIONAL AND TEMPORARY POLICIES? As we see, there are serious difficulties and the integration of co-ethnics, in spite of the fact that they are not really foreigners, but are received as privileged immigrants, is all but smooth. Their integration does not seem to be easier than that of regular refugees or foreign labour migrants; it may even be more difficult. Common ethnicity and preferential treatment do not automatically open the door for integration. There is a gap between image and reality. The image which future repatriates have of their homeland, especially when it does not belong to the former Soviet bloc, rarely corresponds to reality, in the same way that the image which people or governments in the receiving countries have of their ‘brothers from the east’ rarely corresponds to reality. The repatriates think they will find in their home country a place where they will feel at home. The Aussiedler, for example, often say that they want to live as Germans in Germany. In fact, they discover a much more complex situation in a country where many of them do not feel at home and in which integration is anything but easy. Conversely, people in the receiving country believe they are inviting co-ethnics, but sometimes find that they are facing people with a Soviet mentality whose command of the language is poor or non-existent and who do not share the same culture. The idea of brothers tends to fade and give way to that of foreigners. In both cases, a myth dissolves and disappointment grows. Repatriation policies are based on the idea that a particular link exists between the repatriate and the receiving country, defined, as we saw, as the country of origin. Repatriates are not regular immigrants, from whom they are distinguished by ethnicity. The main factors which prompt the people concerned to return to their so-called homelands are, in principle, essentially identity-related. In most cases however, there are several factors—identity, economic considerations, security—which overlap: those relating to ethnic identity are closely linked with others, of safety or economic well-being. Ethnic identity legitimizes repatriation, but the latter is in reality often primarily or closely linked to a desire to improve one’s living conditions. When it is not linked to an awareness of belonging to the nation of origin, but when it is considered primarily as a means of leaving the USSR or its successor states and as a means of guaranteeing the future of one’s children, can repatriation still be considered as such? Are specific policies really correct and justified? Another problem is related to the assistance given by a nation to its diaspora. In the eyes of the people whose motivation is essentially economic, this assistance is perceived more as a way of possibly allowing emigration than as a means of confirming identity. The question then is whether it is possible to revitalize the identity without creating a desire to emigrate. The cultural input encourages the beneficiaries to acquire a command of the homeland language, to spend holidays there and to make contacts. By allowing them to discover another


lifestyle and to become aware of differences in the standard of living, it is likely to prepare the ground for future emigration. Taking into account all these difficulties and remarks, it emerges that some of these policies based on descent will probably be temporary and exceptional ones. Most of them, as was said, are justified by historical background. They are closely linked to the Central and East European histories of the twentieth century. In the case of Israel, whose raison d’être is the immigration of Jews, there is no doubt that ethnic policy will last for a long time. In the case of the Russian Federation, which needs this immigration for demographic purposes, where this immigration is welcomed for political reasons and where problems of integration of the repatriates are less overwhelming than in other countries, the present policy will also probably last for a long time. In cases such as Germany or Finland or even Poland, where these policies are linked not only, but largely, to the will either to pay for the suffering they provoked or to remedy the ‘errors of history’, it is unlikely that these policies will last long. They will be abandoned when the receiving countries consider that the aim they have pursued has been achieved. Germany has already decided to put an end to its repatriation policy. In 1992, the right to claim the status of Aussiedler was limited to members of German minorities living in successor states of the FSU. Furthermore, after 2010 persons who were born after 1 January 1993 will no longer be able to claim this status. This does not mean that the doors will be completely closed to people from the former Soviet Union: immigration will be possible at least on the basis of family reunification. However, it will no longer be repatriation, but will be immigration. NOTES 1 The word ‘repatriation’ was chosen by the Council of Europe and the countries (those mentioned in the opening paragraph with the exception of Israel) which took part in the committee established by the Council of Europe in 1995, running until 1997, in order to consider this phenomenon; see de Tinguy 1997. The word ‘repatriation’ is also used by the International Organization for Migration to refer to ethnic ‘returns’ within the former Soviet Union; see IOM 1999. 2 The original settlement area of Ingrians is the region lying between the Gulf of Finland, the Narva region, Lake Chudskoye and the Volkhov. It includes parts of the oblast of Leningrad and Estonia. 3 This solidarity did not always prevail. Emigrants from the civil war from 1945 to 1947 were not allowed to come back to Greece before the 1980s.

PART IV RUSSIA AND THE POST-SOVIET SUCCESSOR STATES: NEW DIASPORAS AND ETHNIC MIGRANTS

8 The End of an Empire: Migration and the Changing Nationality Composition of the Soviet Successor States Timothy Heleniak1

The break-up of the USSR in 1991 sparked a massive movement of peoples within and among the successor states of the former Soviet Union (FSU) as well as between the FSU and the rest of the world. Migratory flows set off by the break-up of the Soviet Union have compounded the social instability and economic hardships these states face as they embark on transitions away from centrally planned economies and engage in the process of state formation and nation-building. A majority, but certainly not all, of the migration flows in the post-Soviet space can be attributed to diaspora migration. The USSR was a country of almost unparalleled ethnic complexity. It was also a nearly selfcontained migration space with movements in and out greatly restricted. Though controlled to an extent, there were considerable migratory movements within the Soviet Union during the three-quarters of a century it existed and during the Tsarist era that proceeded it. As a result, most of the successor states found themselves with significant ethnic minority populations at the time of independence. In this chapter, data are compiled and analysed on the nationality composition of migration among the post-Soviet successor states during the turbulent decade from the 1989 census to the beginning of 1999, along with the impact of this migration on the nationality composition of the successor states during their first years of independence. POST-SOVIET MIGRATION AGAINST RELEVANT THEORY Viewing the migration processes that have taken place among the successor states of the Soviet Union as simply a by-product of the decolonization process is insufficient. However, placing post-Soviet migration in the context of conventional migration theory is problematic for two reasons. The first is that there is no single theory of international migration that captures all of its various complex nuances. The second is the sheer complexity of the migration processes under way in the Soviet successor states. Complicating the situation is the fact that, over the period of analysis, migration went from being internal within a rather tightly controlled system to being international with far fewer restrictions.


Because internal migration is ‘freer’, economic factors seem to predominate peoples’ decisions as to whether to move and destination choices, whereas international migration is governed more by political and social factors. This somewhat gross oversimplification is not to suggest that economic factors do not play a role in explaining post-Soviet migration. Even if the FSU were homogeneous and ethnic factors played no role, the economic transition from central planning to a market economy would serve to alter the spatial distribution of the population, as witnessed by the massive migration from the Russian north that has taken place during the transition period (Heleniak 1999). However, during this initial period when migration among the successor states first became international, ethnic and political factors seemed to predominate. Alhough not all post-Soviet migration is diaspora migration, the majority is. Thus a theoretical paradigm of diasporas is helpful in conceptualizing influences on post-Soviet migration, especially when analysing migration by nationality. Three sets of actors are relevant to diaspora migration—the diaspora group itself, the homeland and the host country (Brubaker 1996: 55–69; Shuval 1999). Characteristics of the diaspora group that play a role are the history of the group and how it came to be a diaspora. In this respect, many members of the postSoviet diaspora groups are particular in the sense that they became diasporas without geographic mobility. For Russians, their homeland went from being the Soviet Union to Russia and 25 million ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation became a diaspora population overnight. Other important characteristics are their concentration in various successor states and their attitudes toward their historical homeland. Crucial attributes of the homeland are the attitude of residents of the homeland toward the diaspora. This is best manifested in the various citizenship laws passed by the successor states. A majority of the successor states chose to adopt zero-sum citizenship laws, bestowing citizenship on all residents as of a given date. Others adopted more exclusionary laws giving preference to members of the dominant titular nation (for example, Balts in Latvia and Estonia), and some embodied a call to all members of the diaspora to return to the homeland (e.g. Kazakhstan).2 Features of the successor states are particularly important, especially as most successor states found themselves with large minority groups at the time of independence. As they go about establishing state institutions, they do so either with the goal of creating a multiethnic state or with the objective of making the new homeland a place for the titular ethnic group and that group alone. The confluence of these factors, along with differing economic paths of the successor states, have combined to influence migration patterns of the diaspora groups in the postSoviet space, such that the ethnic composition of these states has been greatly altered in a very short time.

THE END OF AN EMPIRE 117

POPULATION CHANGE IN THE SOVIET SUCCESSOR STATES SINCE 1989 Dramatic population changes occurred over the decade from 1989 to 1999 in the FSU and its successor states (see Table 8.1). These changes are related to migration as well as to a backdrop of overall population change.3 Change resulting from natural increase and from migration have to be separated to show the impact of each. Natural increase was followed by natural decrease (the number of deaths exceeds the number of births) in Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia by 1991, in Russia in 1992, in Belarus in 1993 and in Lithuania in 1994. In 1998, all of the Slavic and Baltic countries continued to have more deaths than births, a situation which is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. On the other end of the spectrum, three Central Asian states—Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—all grew by about 26 per cent due to natural increase, followed by Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, attributable to the younger age structures of their populations and higher fertility rates. The differential rates of natural increase of ethnic groups within a country are also a source of changing nationality composition. Table 8.1 Population change in the post-Soviet successor states, 1989–99 Total population (in thousands)

Absolute change (in thousands)

Per cent change

Total

Natural Migrati Total increas on e

1989

1999

Russia

147, 400 51,707 10,200 4,338

146, 693 50,106 10,227 4,293

−707

−3,989

3,282

−0.5

−2.7

2.2

−1,601 27 −45

−1,678 −82 170

77 109 −215

−3.1 0.3 −1.0

−3.2 −0.8 3.9

0.1 1.1 −5.0

2,667 3,675

2,439 3,701

−227 26

−87 45

−141 −19

−8.5 0.7

−3.2 1.2

−5.3 −0.5

1,566 3,449

1,446 3,798

−120 350

−34 351

−86 −2

−7.7 10.1

−2.2 10.2

−5.5 0.0

7,038

7,700

662

1,128

−466

9.4

16.0

−6.6

5,443 16,185

5,445 15,507

2 −678

253 1,517

−251 −2,196

0.0 −4.2

4.7 9.4

−4.6 −13.6

Ukraine Belarus Moldov a Latvia Lithuan ia Estonia Armeni a Azerbai jan Georgia Kazakh stan

Natural Migrati increase on


Total population (in thousands)

Absolute change (in thousands)

Total

Natural Migrati Total increas on e

1989

1999

Per cent change

Natural Migrati increase on

Kyrgyz 4,290 4,732 442 836 −394 10.3 19.5 −9.2 stan Tajikist 5,109 6,188 1,079 1,353 −273 21.1 26.5 −5.4 an Turkme 3,534 4,994 1,460 923 536 41.3 26.1 15.2 nistan Uzbekis 19,905 24,231 4,326 5,179 −853 21.7 26.0 −4.3 tan * Data give total population at the beginning of the year. Methodology: Net migration was computed as a residual by applying natural increase to total population change. Totals for the period were derived by summing natural increase and net migration separately across the years. Sources: See note 3 for details.

Over the entire period, the population has declined in six of the 15 states, with Latvia and Estonia declining the fastest in relative terms, each by about 8 per cent. Three central Asian states—Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—grew the most over this period, each by more than 20 per cent. In 1998, the population was declining in eight of 15 countries either because of net emigration or negative natural increase or both. Three Transcaucasian and four Central Asian states (not including Kazakhstan) continued to grow at the end of the decade, although the population estimates for some of the states, especially estimates of migration, seem inconsistent in the light of other demographic data and anecdotal evidence. All but the three predominantly Slavic states and Turkmenistan showed net emigration over the period.4 Net emigration caused population declines of 4 to 6 per cent in seven countries and larger declines in the two Central Asian states with the largest ethnic Russian and ethnic German shares, Kazakhstan (−13.6 per cent) and Kyrgyzstan (−9.2 per cent). In 1989, eight states—all of the southern tier plus Moldova—had net emigration but by 1998, every country except Russia and Belarus was experiencing net emigration, with Kazakhstan having the highest rate of emigration. But migration turnover among the successor states peaked in mid-decade around 1994 before declining considerably by the end of the 1990s. For example, net migration to Russia was +860,000 persons in 1994 and had declined to +284,000 by 1998, one-third of the 1994 level.


MIGRATION PATTERNS AMONG THE SOVIET SUCCESSOR STATES Between the last few years of the Soviet Union’s existence and the late 1990s, the process of migration and the measurement of migration have undergone profound changes. Migration data from the successor states are of uneven quality and quantity. In the immediate aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union, there was a period of not fully established borders, which made estimates of entry and exit rather difficult. Fortunately, Russia, the largest of the post-Soviet successor states, also has the most complete, comprehensive and consistent migration statistics. Since Russia was a major migration partner of almost all other successor states, statistics from Russia were often used to track the total and the nationality composition of migration from and to the non-Russian states5 (see Table 8.2).6 For most successor states, the migration turnover with Russia made up between 55 and 80 per cent of total turnover. For Russia, the two states with the largest ethnic Russian diaspora populations, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, together made up half of its total turnover. The fact that there was no massive emigration to Europe or the United States when migration was liberalized was a surprise to some. Based upon the data available (see Table 8.2), only 2.5 million persons left the USSR and its successor states from 1989 to 1998, amounting to less than 1 per cent of the 1989 population. For most of the successor states, over 90 per cent of total migration turnover has been within the post-Soviet space. Kazakhstan, with about 4.7 per cent, had the highest share of its 1989 population migrate beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union, the majority consisting of emigration of over half the country’s 958,000 ethnic Germans. Three states were the source for over threequarters of the migration to Europe, Israel and North America: Russia with 40 per cent of the total, Kazakhstan with roughly 28 per cent, and Ukraine with approximately 9 per cent. Having large ethnic German or Jewish populations, or both, contributed to these high rates of migration. Three states received the bulk of the post-Soviet emigrants: Germany (over half of them), Israel (roughly a quarter) and the United States (roughly 10 per cent) (see Chapters 16, 18, 19 and 20). Table 8.2 Net migration by country for the post-Soviet successor states, 1989–98 (in thousands)* Country

Russia

Ukraine

Belarus

1989–98

1990, 93–96

1990–98 1990–97 1990–98 1990–98 1989–98

Total Russia Ukraine

3,292.1 – 278.0

−185.7 −216.1 –

92.8 68.3 20.1

Moldova Latvia

−142.2 −40.8 −28.2

−133.2 −73.5 −18.7

Lithuani a

−57.7 −31.5 −7.6

Estonia

−84.6 −55.8 −10.5


Country

Russia

Ukraine

Belarus

Moldova Latvia

Lithuani a

1989–98

1990, 93–96

1990–98 1990–97 1990–98 1990–98 1989–98

Estonia

Belarus 2.9 −2.4 – −2.4 −22.4 −12.7 −5.8 Moldova 67.2 14.9 3.0 – −0.8 −0.1 −0.3 Latvia 113.2 7.7 24.5 0.8 – 1.7 0.0 Lithuani 51.9 3.1 15.5 0.2 −1.5 – −0.3 a Estonia 69.5 3.6 6.4 0.3 0.1 0.3 – Armenia 183.1 17.0 4.4 0.6 0.1 0.3 0.1 Azerbaij 364.8 26.2 7.6 0.7 −0.4 0.1 0.0 an Georgia 348.6 22.9 6.8 0.9 0.1 0.2 0.4 Kazakhst 1,375.4 37.1 26.2 1.2 −0.9 0.2 −0.3 an Kyrgyzst 278.7 6.3 3.0 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 an Tajikista 341.4 16.5 5.7 0.2 0.0 0.1 0.1 n Turkmen 113.0 5.4 3.4 0.3 0.0 0.1 0.0 istan Uzbekist 638.1 80.4 8.5 0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.0 an Total 4,226.0 22.6 203.5 −65.7 −118.4 −48.9 −72.5 FSU Germany −539.1 −14.1 −3.8 −10.7 −4.4 −0.7 −3.6 Israel −241.7 −141.0 −68.6 −48.1 −3.6 −3.1 −2.0 United −101.9 −49.2 −26.2 −13.8 −3.2 −1.8 −1.6 States Australia −3.6 −1.9 −0.7 – – – −0.0 Canada −6.8 −2.5 −0.7 – – −0.1 −0.2 Poland −1.9 0.6 −1.2 – – −0.7 0.1 Sweden −1.4 −0.1 – – – – −0.3 Finland −5.2 −0.1 – – – – −4.4 other −32.2 −0.1 −9.4 −2.3 −0.2 0.0 0.2 Total −933.9 −208.3 −110.7 −75.0 −14.8 −8.8 −12.1 non-FSU *Data in columns show net migration for each successor state with countries listed in left column, for the time period indicated.


Net migration by country for the post-Soviet successor states, 1989–98 (in thousands)* Country

Armeni Azerbai Georgia Kazakh Kyrgyz Tajikist Turkme Uzbekis a jan stan stan an nistan tan

1990–95 1990– 98

1990– 92

1990– 96

1990– 96

1990– 95

1990– 95

1990– 96

Total

−50.4

−298.6

–

−358.7

−357.1

−52.4

−670.8

Russia Ukraine Belarus Moldov a Latvia Lithuan ia Estonia Armeni a Azerbai jan Georgia Kazakh stan Kyrgyz stan Tajikist an Turkme nistan Uzbekis tan Total FSU German y Israel United States Australi a Canada Poland Sweden

−117.3 3.9 −3.7 −0.6

−266.2 −0.6 −6.4 −0.5

−85.2 0.9 −3.3 −0.4

−1, 455.9 −867.6 11.0 −18.1 −1.1

−251.9 2.1 −2.6 −0.1

−258.3 −3.7 −4.7 −0.2

−51.2 2.9 −1.8 −0.2

−504.2 −25.8 −6.6 −0.4

– –

0.1 0.0

– –

0.0 −0.1

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

0.0 −31.0

– −6.0

0.0 1.2

– 0.1

– −0.4

– −0.5

– −2.7

60.7

–

−13.7

0.2

−2.7

−0.3

0.1

−13.4

9.9 −1.0

19.0 1.1

– −1.7

3.0 –

0.2 −1.5

0.0 −11.4

0.3 −17.4

0.5 −36.6

−0.1

1.4

−0.1

3.8

–

−5.7

0.2

19.1

0.4

0.3

−0.1

12.7

7.3

0.0

7.0

30.4

0.9

−1.0

−0.1

23.0

0.0

−7.0

0.0

−7.0

1.9

16.0

−0.1

31.2

−21.9

−30.8

9.3

–

−23.8

−268.2

−109.6

−797.7

−270.6

−322.3

−51.1

−545.7

−0.1

−0.2

–

−632.1

−79.9

−19.6

−0.5

−12.4

−1.4 −20.4

−22.7 −5.5

– –

−13.5 −2.0

−4.7 −1.2

−12.5 −2.1

−0.7 −0.1

−50.1 −8.6

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –

– – –


Country

Armeni Azerbai Georgia Kazakh Kyrgyz Tajikist Turkme Uzbekis a jan stan stan an nistan tan

1990–95 1990– 98

1990– 92

1990– 96

1990– 96

1990– 95

1990– 95

1990– 96

Finland – – – – – – – – other −4.8 −0.4 – −28.0 −2.3 −0.7 −0.2 −2.7 Total −26.6 −28.8 – −658.1 −88.1 −34.8 −1.3 −125.1 nonFSU * Data in columns show net migration for each successor state with countries listed in left column, for the time period indicated. “–” indicates data not available or not applicable. A zero indicates that net migration rounded to less than 100.

POST-SOVIET MIGRATION PATTERNS IN RUSSIA Ethnic Russians have been the dominant group since the middle of the sixteenth century in the region that was Tsarist Russia and later became the Soviet Union. Because of their continued outward expansion during the Tsarist and Soviet periods and as a result of Russian colonization, Russians constituted significant minority populations in most Soviet republics that became independent successor states. The outward migration of Russians peaked in 1975, when Russia’s net migration reversed and return migration from the Soviet periphery to Russia set in. The patterns of migration of Russians into the non-Russian states, the causes for these migration flows and the status of Russians vis-à-vis the ethnic majority groups in the republics differs greatly among the non-Russian states. The status and reactions of the 25.3 million Russians (1989) in the nonRussian successor states, who went from being the dominant group in the Soviet Union to becoming ethnic minorities overnight, has been the subject of numerous studies (Kolstø 1995; Chinn and Kaiser 1996; Tishkov 1996; Shlapentokh, et al. 1994; King and Melvin 1998; Laitin 1998). The share of ethnic Russians in the non-Russian states peaked in 1970. During that year, 19.6 per cent of all Russians in the USSR were living outside Russia, declining to 18.2 per cent in 1989 (Harris 1993: 4). This share has declined to an estimated 14.7 per cent in 1999, roughly the same share that Russians constituted in the non-Russian states just prior to the Second World War. However, within this overall trend of Russian migration with the non-Russian periphery, there is a great deal of regional variation. The Russian share of the population of the eight southern republics peaked in 1959, while their share in the six European republics peaked only at the time of the 1989 census, just prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For the eight southern republics, the post-1989 trends are a continuation and acceleration of long-term trends while for the six European


republics, the migration trends of the past decade are a rather dramatic and rapid reversal. Russia’s population began declining in 1992, the same year that its rate of natural increase became negative; both trends are expected to continue into the future. In addition to the effects of migration, the differential rates of natural increase among ethnic groups in Russia continue to be a large source of the changing nationality composition in the country.7 Currently, Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Chuvash, Belarussians, Germans, Jews and several smaller nationalities in Russia all have negative rates of natural increase. Between 1989 and 1999 there was a net migration of about 11.5 per cent of all ethnic Russians living in other successor states back to Russia (see Table 8.3).8 About two-thirds of this total has been from Central Asia, with 35 per cent of the total coming from Kazakhstan. While the 2,910,200 Russians who have migrated back to Russia between 1989 and 1999 represent a considerable number of people, the Russian diaspora population remaining in the non-Russian states remains rather large at approximately 22 million. Since migration trends have slowed down since 1994, it is likely that significant ethnic Russian populations will remain in most of these states. Table 8.3 Net migration of ethnic Russians within Russia, 1989–98 (in thousands) Country

Number of ethnic Russians outside Russia, 1989

Net migration of ethnic Russians with other successor states, 1989– 98

Total net migration of Russia with other successor states, 1989– 98

Net migration of ethnic Russians/ total net migration of Russia

Net migration of ethnic Russians/ number of Russians, 1989

Total Ukraine Belarus Moldova Latvia Lithuania Estonia Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

25,289.7 11,355.6 1,342.1 562.1 905.5 344.5 474.8 51.6 392.3 341.2 6,227.5 916.6 388.5

2,910.2 295.4 18.0 50.8 92.5 45.1 58.3 32.1 188.8 153.0 1,031.9 215.0 220.0

3,292.1 278.0 2.9 67.2 113.2 51.9 69.5 183.1 364.8 348.6 1,375.4 278.7 341.4

88.4 106.3 624.9 75.7 81.7 86.9 83.8 17.5 51.8 43.9 75.0 77.1 64.4

11.5 2.6 1.3 9.0 10.2 13.1 12.3 62.2 48.1 44.8 16.6 23.5 56.6


Country

Number of ethnic Russians outside Russia, 1989

Net migration of ethnic Russians with other successor states, 1989– 98

Total net migration of Russia with other successor states, 1989– 98

Net migration of ethnic Russians/ total net migration of Russia

Net migration of ethnic Russians/ number of Russians, 1989

Turkmenista 333.9 84.4 113.0 74.7 25.3 n Uzbekistan 1,653.5 425.0 638.1 66.6 25.7 Sources: Number of Russians in the FSU states, 1989: same source as nationality compositions in Table 8.5. Net migrations of Russians, 1989–95: Goskomstat Rossii 1996b, 33. Net migration of Russians, 1996: Goskomstat Rossii 1997, 532–9. Net migration of Russians, 1997: Goskomstat Rossii 1998, 358–65. Net migration of Russians, 1998: Goskomstat Rossii 1999, 358–63. Total net migration of Russians: same as sources in Table 8.2.

There is a clear regional pattern of the Russian migration. The major causes seem to be the relative economic performance of the states and the amount of ethnic violence. While most of the ethnic violence of recent years in the post-Soviet space, aside from the war in Chechnya, has not been aimed at Russians, it has nevertheless been a push factor for migration, as they have been caught in the middle of the violence. The net immigration of the Russian populations from Ukraine and Belarus, the two other Slavic states, has been minimal, amounting to only 2 per cent of the 1989 Russian populations in those states. Between 10 and 13 per cent of the Russian populations of the Baltic states left between 1989 and 1998. Not surprisingly, given the ethnic violence, civil wars and economic decline, of the Russians returning to Russia, the highest share (48 per cent) has come from the three Transcaucasian states. During the same period, about 17 per cent of the Russians in Kazakhstan have returned to Russia, while roughly 29 per cent have left from the other four central Asian states combined. Over half of the Russians living in Tajikistan have left due to the civil war. Ninety-six per cent of migration to Europe and overseas has been to just three countries—Israel, Germany and the United States (see Table 8.2), confining the ethnic composition of these migration streams to just a few groups. Ninety-two per cent of these migrants have been ethnic Germans (52 per cent), ethnic Russians (26 per cent) and Jews (14 per cent) (Michugina and Rakhmaninova 1996, 47). Both Germany and Israel have provided financial and other assistance for the return of co-ethnic populations to these states. In the case of Germany, however, access became increasingly restricted during the 1990s (see Münz and Ohlinger 1998).9 Like Russians, ethnic Germans and Jews can be found scattered throughout the FSU, as they both belong to the ‘mobilized European


populations’ (Lewis et al. 1976). In addition to Russians, members of both of these groups have also been migrating to Russia from elsewhere in the FSU at the same time other members have been migrating to Europe, Israel and the United States. In 1989, there were 7,787,000 members of the titular nations of the other Soviet successor states living in Russia (see Table 8.4). The largest group were Ukrainians with 4,363,000 and the smallest were Turkoman with 40,000. Due to a variety of factors, these groups have exhibited very different patterns of migration between Russia and their nation states since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Tajiks, Armenians and Georgians, whose nation-states have become the scene of the worst ethnic violence in the FSU, have been migrating in large numbers to Russia. Tajiks have had the highest rate of net immigration to Russia of any ethnic group, resulting in a 65 per cent increase in their numbers in Russia between 1989 and 1998. Armenians have the second highest rate of population growth due to migration (59 per cent) and Georgians have the third highest (30 per cent). There has been net emigration of the other two Slavic nationalities, Ukrainians and Belarusians, from Russia to their respective nation-states but, at the same time, net immigration of members of these two groups into Russia. This indicates that many Ukrainians and Belarusians who have left Central Asia and Transcaucasia choose to go to Russia. Immediately following the break-up of the Soviet Union, there was emigration of these ethnic groups out of Russia. But since 1994, all have had positive migration rates, indicating an inflow into Russia (Goskomstat Rossii August 1996; Goskomstat Rossii 1997:9). This is a pattern witnessed at the time of the collapse of other empires where some members of the colonized populations follow the ruling nation as it retreats. Table 8.4 Net migration of non-Russian ethnic groups within Russia, 1989–98 (in thousands) Country

Net migration of nonRussian nationalities, 1989–98

Each nationality in Russia, 1989 (thousands)

Total net migration by nationality (1989–98) in % of the ethnic group in Russia (1989)

Total Ukrainians Belarussians Moldovans Latvians Lithuanians Estonians Armenians Azeris Georgians Kazakhs

707.1 226.8 32.1 5.4 0.5 −1.5 0.8 315.4 69.7 39.5 −8.3

7,787 4,363 1,206 173 47 70 46 532 336 131 636

9.1 5.2 2.7 3.1 1.0 −2.2 1.7 59.3 20.7 30.2 −1.3


Country

Net migration of nonRussian nationalities, 1989–98

Each nationality in Russia, 1989 (thousands)

Kyrgyz −5.0 42 Tajiks 24.6 38 Turkoman −1.7 40 Uzbeks 8.9 127 Sources: 1989 nationality composition: Goskomstat SSSR 1991. 1989–95: Goskomstat Rossii 1996b. 1996: Goskomstat Rossii 1997, 528–39. 1997: Goskomstat Rossii 1998. 1998: Goskomstat Rossii 1999, 357–61.

Total net migration by nationality (1989–98) in % of the ethnic group in Russia (1989) −12.0 64.9 −4.1 7.0

Available data allow an estimate of Russia’s ethnic composition at the beginning of 1999 (see Table 8.5).9 The result that initially seems to be rather surprising is the fact that the share of the ethnic Russian population in Russia has been declining in both absolute and percentage terms. The percentage has been declining since its high point during the Soviet period in 1959, with 83.3 per cent. In 1989, Russians made up 81.3 per cent of Russia’s population and declined further to 80.5 per cent in 1999. Since ethnic Russians constitute such a large share of Russia’s population, the explanations behind the decline in the country’s total population are similar to the decline of ethnic Russians in Russia, with the influence of some additional factors. While the return migration of Russians has been significant, it has not been enough to compensate for the growing excess of deaths over births. In contrast, many of the non-Russian ethnic groups in the Russian Federation still have natural increase, causing their relative shares to grow. Some of these groups also had significant and higher rates of migration to Russia than did ethnic Russians. At the same time the German and Jewish populations declined by the highest percentage of any nationality (for a comparative perspective see chapters 16, 19 and 19). Table 8.5 Population change by ethnicity in the Soviet Union and the successor states, 1989–99 Population by nationality* %

Change from 1989 to 1999

Thousands

%

Total

1989

Natural increase

Net migration

1989

1999

1999

Russia Russians Tatars

100.0 100.0 147,400 146,693 81.3 80.5 119,866 118,109 3.7 4.0 5,522 5,837

−0.5 −1.5 5.7

Of which:

−707 −1,757 315

−3,989 −4,424 99

3,282 2,667 217


Population by nationality* %


Thousands

%

Total

Of which:

1989

1999

1989

1999

Natural increase

Net migration

Ukrainian s Chuvash Bashkir Belarussi ans Germans Kazakhs Jews Other Ukraine Ukrainian s Russians Other Belarus Belarussi ans Russians Other Moldova Moldova ns Ukrainian s Russians Other Latvia Latvians Russians Other Lithuani a Lithuania ns Russians Poles

3.0

3.0

4,363

4,361

0.0

−2

−229

227

1.2 0.9 0.8

1.2 1.0 0.8

1,774 1,345 1,206

1,823 1,474 1,160

2.8 9.6 −3.8

49 129 −46

28 88 −78

22 40 32

0.6 0.4 0.4 7.7 100.0 72.4

0.3 0.5 0.2 8.5 100.0 73.1

842 636 537 11,309 51,707 37,419

431 701 309 12,487 50,106 36,620

−48.8 10.3 −42.5 10.4 −3.1 −2.1

−411 65 −228 1,178 −1,601 −799

−7 74 −103 564 −1,678 −1,172

−404 −8 −125 614 77 373

22.0 5.7 100.0 77.5

21.5 5.4 100.0 81.2

11,356 2,932 10,200 7,905

10,756 2,730 10,227 8,304

−5.3 −6.9 0.3 5.0

−599 −203 27 399

−304 −202 −82 −108

−295 0 109 507

13.2 11.4 1,342 9.3 7.4 953 100.0 100.0 4,338 64.4 69.8 2,795

1,166 757 4,293 2,997

−13.1 −20.6 −1.0 7.2

−176 −196 −45 202

30 −4 170 178

−206 −193 −215 24

13.8

12.9

600

552

−8.0

−48

−9

−39

13.0 8.8 100.0 52.0 34.0 14.0 100.0

11.3 6.0 100.0 55.7 32.3 12.0 100.0

562 381 2,667 1,388 906 373 3,675

484 260 2,439 1,358 788 293 3,701

−13.9 −31.9 −8.5 −2.2 −12.9 −21.4 0.7

−78 −121 −227 −30 −117 −80 26

−6 7 −87 −35 −35 −16 45

−72 −128 −141 5 −82 −64 −19

79.6

81.8

2,924

3,027

3.5

102

79

23

9.4 7.0

8.2 6.9

344 258

302 255

−12.2 −1.0

−42 −3

−15 −12

−27 9


Population by nationality* % 1989

1999


Thousands

%

Total

1989

Natural increase

Net migration

1999

Of which:

Other 4.0 3.1 148 116 −21.4 −32 −7 Estonia 100.0 100.0 1,566 1,446 −7.7 −120 −34 Estonians 61.5 65.2 963 943 −2.2 −21 −21 Russians 30.3 28.1 475 406 −14.5 −69 −15 Other 8.1 6.7 128 97 −24.0 −31 1 * Data give relation and absolute distribution at the beginning of the year. Population by ethnic group* %


Thousands

%

Total

1989

Natural increase

Net migration

1999

−24 −85 −1 −57 −27

Of which:

1989

1999

Armenia Armenian s Russians Azeris Other Azerbaij an Azeris Russians Armenian s Other Georgia Georgians Russians Other Kazakhst an Kazakhs Russians Germans Ukrainian s Other

100.0 100.0 3,449 93.3 95.8 3,218

3,798 3,639

10.1 13.1

350 422

351 314

1.6 2.6 2.6 100.0

0.6 0.1 3.5 100.0

54 89 88 7,038

22 4 133 7,700

−59.9 −95.8 51.0 9.4

−32 −85 45 662

0 −32 5 −90 32 13 1,128 −466

82.5 5.6 5.5

90.0 2.2 0.7

5,805 392 391

6,927 171 53

19.3 −56.4 −86.4

1,122 −221 −337

1,052 −32 13

6.4 100.0 69.6 6.3 24.1 100.0

6.8 450 524 100.0 5,443 5,445 71.9 3,787 3,913 3.2 341 174 24.9 1,314 1,358 100.0 16,185 15,507

16.4 0.0 3.3 −48.9 3.3 −4.2

74 2 126 −167 43 −678

71 3 253 −251 162 −37 −14 −153 105 −62 1,517 −2,196

40.4 38.5 5.9 5.5

53.4 30.0 2.4 3.7

6,535 6,228 957 896

8,281 4,652 372 574

26.7 −25.3 −61.1 −36.0

1,746 1,433 −1,575 −95 −585 23 −322 −13

274 −1,484 −584 −303

9.7

10.5

1,570

1,628

3.7

58

−98

170

−2 108

70 −189 −350


Population by ethnic group* % 1989

1999


Thousands

%

Total

1989

Natural increase

Net migration

1999

Of which:

Kyrgyzst 100.0 100.0 4,290 4,732 10.3 442 836 an Kyrgz 52.0 61.1 2,230 2,892 29.7 663 649 Russians 21.4 15.0 917 711 −22.4 −205 16 Uzbeks 12.8 14.5 550 684 24.3 134 158 Ukrainian 2.5 1.4 108 68 −36.8 −40 −11 s Tatars 1.6 1.1 70 53 −24.5 −17 7 Germans 2.4 0.4 101 19 −81.3 −82 −23 Other 7.3 6.4 314 305 −3.0 −10 40 Tajikista 100.0 100.0 5,109 6,188 21.1 1,079 1,353 n Tajiks 62.1 69.9 3,172 4,323 36.3 1,150 965 Uzbeks 23.5 24.6 1,198 1,522 27.0 324 364 Russians 7.6 2.7 388 165 −57.5 −223 −3 Other 6.8 2.9 350 179 −48.9 −171 27 Turkmen 100.0 100.0 3,534 4,994 41.3 1,460 923 istan Turkmen 71.8 74.5 2,536 3,720 46.7 1,184 785 Russians 9.4 5.0 334 249 −25.5 −85 −8 Uzbeks 9.0 9.1 317 456 43.7 139 102 Other 9.8 11.4 347 569 64.1 222 44 Uzbekist 100.0 100.0 19,905 24,231 21.7 4,326 5,179 an Uzbeks 71.0 77.8 14,142 18,861 33.4 4,719 4,477 Russians 8.3 5.0 1,653 1,202 −27.3 −451 −20 Other 20.6 17.2 4,109 4,167 1.4 58 722 * Data give relation and absolute distribution at the beginning of the year.

−394 15 −215 −24 −29 −25 −59 −57 −273 185 −40 −220 −198 536 67 −84 26 528 −853 242 −425 −670

Source and notes: The nationality composition for each of the FSU successor states as of 1 January 1996 was estimated by applying the components of population change to the ethnic group distributions enumerated in the 1989 census. For each country as whole, the population totals, total number of births and deaths, and computed net migration are from Table 8.1. Thus, for each ethnic group, the totals and each component of population change sum to equal the totals and each component for the country. For several countries, the distributions of ethnic groups are published for years during the period, thus estimates were not necessary. The countries that published data on ethnic composition for years after 1989 were Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan,


Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Because of flaws in the sample of the 1994 micro-census, the distribution for Russia was not used. The data on migration by country (Table 8.2) were used in these estimates as general indicators of the direction, magnitude and possible ethnic composition. However, as mentioned in the text, the data in those tables are not always consistent with other components of the population equation. Unless stated otherwise, data on the 1989 nationality compositions are from census results (Goskomstat SSSR, 1991). Data are available on birth rates (or the number of births) and death rates (of the number of deaths) by ethnic group for the titular nationality and Russians for 1989 (Goskomstat Rossii, 1994a:23–4) and for all major nationalities for 1993 (Statkomitet SNG 1995). For other years, estimates were made using various assumptions. The major difficulty is in estimating the patterns of migration by nationality. For some states, data on migration by ethnic group are available, and if so were used. For those where such data are not available, other indirect estimates were made. More complete details of the estimation methodology are available.

POST-SOVIET MIGRATION PATTERNS IN THE OTHER SLAVIC STATES AND MOLDOVA Ukraine and ethnic Ukrainians, as well as Belarus and ethnic Belarussians, though vastly different in size, share many similar attributes in terms of their history of integration with Russia and Russians, their dispersion throughout the Soviet Union and their post-Soviet migration patterns. Ukraine is the second largest of the Soviet successor states in terms of population and home to nearly half (45 per cent) of the ethnic Russian diaspora population, with ethnic Russians making up 22 per cent of the country’s population in 1989. After Ukraine and Kazakhstan, the third largest concentration of the Russian diaspora population can be found in Belarus. The percentages of the titular nations in Ukraine and Belarus were similar: 72.4 per cent and 77.5 per cent respectively. The return of ethnic Ukrainians to Ukraine (less than 5 per cent) is slightly more than the return migration of Belarussians (2.4 per cent) but less than that of Russians (11. 5 per cent). The net emigration of both Ukrainians and Belarussians from other successor states of the Soviet Union has been higher than their net immigration to Ukraine and Belarus as many have chosen to go to Russia rather than to their homelands. The outflow of Russians from the other two Slavic states has been minimal, amounting to only 2 per cent of the 1989 Russian populations of these states. This is not surprising, as Ukraine’s rather inclusive citizenship law has allowed most Russians in Ukraine to become citizens (Barrington 1995:757). Political relations between Russia and Belarus are quite close, with reunification being the declared political goal of the regime in Minsk. From 1989 to 1999 the Russian share of the total population of Ukraine declined slightly from 22.0 to 21.5 per cent of the total. The share that ethnic Russians constitute of the population of Belarus has declined slightly to 11.4 per cent.10 The second largest concentration of Jews in the Soviet Union was in Ukraine (486,000 in 1989). Since 1989,


between a quarter and a third of the Jews living in Ukraine have emigrated to Israel and other Western countries and approximately one-third of the 1989 Jewish population in Belarus (112,000 in 1989) have left. These compare with the trend for Russia, where there was a 42.5 per cent reduction in the Jewish population. Ukraine was former home to a number of populations deported during the 1940s. The largest of these were the Crimean Tatars, of whom there were 220,000 to 230,000 on the eve of deportation (Lewis et al. 1976, 230).11 In 1989, the population of 271,715 Crimean Tatars was located primarily in the Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Tajik republics (Schwartz 1991: 217). Between 1990 and 1995, approximately 240,000 of the deported Crimean Tatars and their descendants returned to the Crimean Peninsula (UNHCR 1996:145). In Moldova, the Ukrainian and Russian minority populations were of roughly comparable size, making up around 13 per cent of the total population in 1989. Moldovans comprised 64.4 per cent of the total. As in many of the FSU states, there are significant regional differences in nationality composition within the country. There have been ongoing demands for regional autonomy, which included a brief period of violence in 1992, by the Transdniester region of eastern Moldova. While not recognized by any other country, Transdniester operates very much like a sovereign state. Moldovans, Russians and Ukrainians each make up roughly 30 per cent of the region’s population. The emigration of Russians (9.0 per cent of their 1989 total) has slightly exceeded that of Ukrainians (6.7 per cent) over the period. Only the other two Slavic states had lower rates of emigration of Russians than Moldova. Emigration of Russians and Ukrainians to their titular states dominates Moldova’s pattern of migration by country. Moldova has had net immigration from every other successor state of the Soviet Union except the three Slavic states. Emigration to the countries of the ‘far abroad’ is dominated by migration to Israel, resulting in an emigration of approximately two-thirds of Moldova’s Jewish population. The Ukrainian population had been declining as a share of the total since 1959, as a result of a much lower rate of natural increase and reached its low point in 1999. The Russian share increased, due to continued immigration, until 1989. The emigration since then has reduced the Russian share of the total population in 1999 to about the level it was in 1970, while the share of Moldovans is higher than it was at the time of any of the post-war censuses. POST-SOVIET MIGRATION PATTERNS IN THE BALTIC STATES Estonia and its Baltic neighbour, Latvia, have similar trends in terms of ethnic composition, levels of natural decrease, recent migration trends and changes in nationality composition. This is not surprising in light of their common history, economic prospects and citizenship polices. In 1989, of all non-Russian states Latvia had the second highest percentage of ethnic Russians (34 per cent, behind Kazakhstan with 37.8 per cent) while Estonia in 1989 had a slightly higher


percentage of its ethnic Estonians (61.5 per cent) and a slightly lower percentage of ethnic Russians (28.4 per cent). Due to various historical, economic and demographic factors, Lithuania has always had a higher share of ethnic Lithuanians in its population and a lower share of ethnic Russians than the other two Baltic states. Because of the economic conditions in their own states, the Balts saw no great need to move to other republics, and under 5 per cent of the total population of each lived elsewhere in the Soviet Union (Lewis et al. 1976:251). Both Estonia and Latvia had experienced declines in levels of Russian immigration over the previous two intercensal periods (1970–79 and 1980–89) though these levels were relatively high (Schwartz, 1991:229). This trend, combined with the low rates of natural increase of the native populations, caused the ethnic Estonian and Latvian population shares to decline. There continued to be net immigration into the Baltic states until 1990–91, when the Baltic states began to push their independence agendas with Moscow and the issue of restrictive forms of citizenship began to be circulated. These restrictive forms of citizenship were confined to pre-war citizens of Latvia and Estonia and their descendants—the restored state model (see Chapters 12 and 13 for a historical perspective on forced migration in the Baltics and its impact on relations among nationalities today). The excess of deaths over births accounted for a quarter of the population decline in Latvia and Estonia and the emigration of the three major Slavic ethnic groups (Belarussians, Russians, Ukrainians) accounted for most of the rest. Latvia has the highest rate of natural decrease of any country in the world (−7.1 per thousand persons per annum) and its −8.5 per cent population decline from 1989 to 1999 is the largest of all Soviet successor states, followed closely by Estonia (−7.7 per cent). The ethnic Russian population in Latvia declined by 13 per cent while the other two Slavic groups, Ukrainians and Belarussians, dropped by 21 and 24 per cent, respectively. The decline of the 1989 Russian population in Latvia was smaller than the decline in the other two Baltic states and is, in fact, smaller than all states except the other two Slavic states and Moldova. The Russian population of Estonia declined by 14.5 per cent (1989–99). The share of ethnic Latvians in Latvia increased from 52.0 to 55.7 per cent, while ethnic Estonians increased their share of the total population in their nation-state by about the same magnitude, going from 61.5 to 65.2 per cent of the total population. In both, these are about the same shares as in 1979. The 12.2 per cent decline of the Russian population in Lithuania was due primarily to emigration. Lithuania had much lower levels of emigration than did the other two Baltic states, due to the fact that Lithuania had a much more inclusive citizenship law than the other two Baltic states (Barrington 1995:733–9).12 By 1999, the Russian share of Lithuania’s population was at its lowest point since the Second World War and the ethnic Lithuanian share was at its highest point since that date and was possibly the highest it has been the twentieth century (Harris 1993:4). The economies of both Latvia and Estonia have begun to grow over the past years and some of the more exclusionary aspects of the language and citizenship laws


have been watered down. In all three Baltic states, the Slavic groups continue to leave, but they are leaving in smaller numbers, which means that considerable ethnic Russian and Slavic minorities will remain in all of these countries. POST-SOVIET MIGRATION PATTERNS IN THE TRANSCAUCASIAN STATES The three Transcaucasian states, as well as the Caucasus region of southern Russia, have been the sites of civil war, ethnic violence and forced migration. In contrast to the three Baltic states, in the three Transcaucasian states, there were much smaller Russian populations and was much more dispersement of each of the three titular nations among the other states. Armenia is by far the most ethnically homogeneous of any of the Soviet successor states (93.3 per cent ethnic Armenians in 1989), but has also had the highest share of members of the ethnic nation living outside its homeland (33 per cent of all Armenians of the USSR). While they are fiercely loyal to their homeland, difficult economic circumstances, attempted genocide, a terrible 1988 earthquake, a war with Azerbaijan and the blockade by neighbouring countries resulting from the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh have conspired to make it difficult for Armenians to make a living in their homeland. They also had one of the largest diaspora populations outside the former USSR, estimated at 1.4 million people in the United States, France and the eastern Mediterranean. Because the Armenians were so highly educated, they were able to take advantage of employment opportunities in their republic, which impeded the immigration of Russians and other groups (Lewis et al. 1976:254). Consequently, the migration of Russians changed direction much earlier, resulting in a peak of the Russian population at only 3.3 per cent in 1937. Both trends of increasing ethnic homogenization and increasing emigration of Armenians have continued and, in fact, seemed to have strengthened since independence. Higher rates of natural increase by the Muslim Azeris caused their share of the population in Azerbaijan to increase from a low of 58.2 per cent in 1937 to 82.7 per cent in 1989. Over 85 per cent of all Azeris in the post-Soviet space live in Azerbaijan. Of those outside the republic, roughly one-third live in each of Russia and neighbouring Georgia, as many migrated to work in oil fields outside the country (Schwartz 1991: 237). Like the other inhabitants of Trancaucasion states, Georgians have made up an increasing share of the population within their nation-state as shown in past censuses. In 1989, 70 per cent of Georgia’s population was ethnically Georgian. Georgians have also remained highly concentrated within their own republic (95 per cent in 1989). There are some who would argue that the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh precipitated or, at the least, played a crucial role in the demise of the USSR. Following the violence over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Armenian population in Baku shrank from 200,000 to 15,000 (Rutland 1994:842). Over the


entire period, there was an emigration of about 350,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan, of whom 260,000 returned to Armenia, but this conflict also caused nearly all Azeris to move from Armenia to Azerbaijan. Given the economic conditions in Armenia, many choose to live elsewhere (Greene 1995:10). In the previous intercensal period, there was evidence of emigration of Armenians to Russia where their population grew by 45.8 per cent (Schwartz 1991:232). This trend has continued, as the legally registered Armenian population has increased by approximately 60 per cent in the Russian Federation. The Russian share of Georgia’s population was the largest of the three Trancaucasian states, but was still rather insignificant at only 6.3 per cent in 1989. At the time of the 1989 census, the Russian and Armenian populations in Azerbaijan were of virtually identical size, each making up about 5.5 per cent of the total population. The two ethnic groups that have autonomous oblasts within Georgia, the Abkhaz and the Ossetians, constitute 3.0 and 1.8 per cent, respectively, of the total population, and are both highly concentrated within their ethnic group’s oblast. There has been significant ethnic violence involving both of these groups, which has caused migration out of the country and has created large populations of displaced persons within Georgia. Members of the titular nations of the other Transcaucasian states, Armenians and Azeris, both have large populations in Georgia, making up 8.1 and 5.7 per cent, respectively, of the total. Azerbaijan had the highest rate of emigration of any of the three states. The ethnic violence over Nagorno-Karabakh, though between Armenians and Azeris, caused the Russian population to decline by over half between 1989 and 1999, falling to its lowest level at the end of the twentieth century. Because of these various ethnic disturbances, refugees and displaced persons constitute oneseventh of population, including 279,000 Azeris from Armenia as well as 50,000 Meshketian Turks from Uzbekistan (Greene 1995:19). There has been emigration of nearly every ethnic group from Georgia since 1989, including ethnic Georgians. The emigration of Russians was comparable to that from Azerbaijan and less than the rate for Armenia. Roughly two-thirds of the emigration of Georgians was to Russia, a continuation of the trend seen in the 1979–89 period. Until 1999 the already small ethnic Russian population in Armenia shrank by over one-half due to emigration. According to the estimates, the titular population now makes up 96 per cent of the population, making Armenia the most ethnically homogeneous country in the region. The Russian proportion of Georgia’s population is about the same level now as in the 1926 census. The share of the ethnic Georgian population is the highest it has been this century. Unfortunately, the ethnic disputes that gave rise to so much forced migration lack durable political solutions, thus creating the preconditions for further voluntary and forced migration. The three Trancaucasion states have by far the highest shares of refugees and internally displaced populations of all the post-Soviet successor states.


POST-SOVIET MIGRATION PATTERNS IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN STATES It was only in the 1989 census that Kazakhs became the largest ethnic group in their own republic for the first time since the early years of the USSR, constituting 39.5 per cent of the resident population, while the ethnic Russian population made up 37.7 per cent of the total. In 1959, at the peak of the statesponsored settlement programme and the large immigration of ethnic Russians, Kazakhs in their titular republic made up only 30 per cent of total population while Russians made up 42.7 per cent (Harris 1993:5). In 1989, the Kyrgyz became a majority in their titular state for the first time since the 1930s (Schwartz 1991:244). The Russian population peaked in size in 1959 but was still substantial at 21.5 per cent of the population in 1989, the second largest share in the central Asian states after Kazakhstan. In Kyrgyzstan, there was also a sizable population of Uzbeks (12.8 per cent), concentrated in the Osh region. In 1989, Tajikistan was one of only four non-Russian republics where Russians did not constitute the second largest ethnic group after the majority group (the three others were Moldova, Georgia and Armenia). Because of the large Uzbek population, Tajiks constitute a smaller portion of the population in their nationstate than the majority nationalities in either Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan had the highest rates of ethnic homogeneity among the central Asian states in 1989, making up 72 and 71 per cent of the population of their ethnic republics, respectively. Kazakhstan has been the largest absolute source of return migration of ethnic Russians, accounting for 35 per cent of the total return migration to Russia. However, the ethnic Russian population has only been reduced by about 25 per cent and Kazakhstan remains a very heterogeneous if bifurcated state, with ethnic Russians constituting the majority population in the northern regions and Kazakhs the majority in the south. The reduction in the share of the Russian population in Kazakhstan is on a par with that of the Baltic states. However, Kazakhstan is taking a number of steps to accommodate the country’s sizable Russian population at the same time, a policy which is at least partially behind the decision to move the capital north to Akhmola (later renamed Astana), as making Kazakhstan a homeland for all Kazakhs. From Kyrgyzstan, the emigration of ethnic Russians began in the late 1980s and greatly increased in the 1990s, causing the Russian population to decline by 23 per cent since 1989. As a consequence of the mass exodus, the ethnic German population in Kyrgyzstan declined by 80 per cent. Russians had begun to leave Tajikistan between 1979 and 1989, when the two last Soviet censuses were taken. The 1992–25 civil war caused emigration to accelerate greatly. The emigration of 220,000 ethnic Russians from the country was equivalent to over half the total 1989 Russian population. Only Armenia had a larger rate of emigration of Russians during this period. It was not only Russians who left the country, but Uzbeks and Tajiks as well. From


Turkmenistan, the emigration of Russians and others that had begun in the previous intercensal period continued, resulting in the drop of the Russian population by 25.5 per cent, mostly as a result of emigration. This rate of emigration was the lowest of any of the central Asian states (excluding Kazakhstan), due to the lack of ethnic violence in the country and the importance of Russians working in the Turkmen gas industry. The immigration of Russians to Uzbekistan peaked in the 1960s, began to slow in the 1970s and dramatically reversed in the 1979–89 intercensal period, causing the Russian population in Uzbekistan to decline for the first time. Over the entire 1989–99 period, about 26 per cent of all Russians living in Uzbekistan left. Altogether, approximately 31 per cent of the major non-central Asian nationalities in Uzbekistan (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, Tatars, Germans and Jews) have left over this period. Uzbekistan’s Jewish and German populations were reduced considerably over the period, by 80 and 46 per cent respectively, due to massive emigration. Ethnic Germans were one of the peoples deported by Stalin during the early 1940s. Unlike other groups, they were not allowed to return to their historical settlement areas (such as the Volga Region, St Petersburg). The net emigration of 584,000 Germans from Kazakhstan has nearly equalled the emigration of the Russians in absolute terms, but is obviously much larger in relative terms, representing an emigration of over half of the ethnic German population of Kazakhstan. Since independence, there has been a return migration of 160,000 Kazakhs from other parts of the former Soviet Union as well as from third countries. The government has organized the return of some 70,000 Kazakhs from Mongolia, Iran and Turkey (UNHCR 1996:8). For the region, the large-scale exodus of Russians, other Slavs and other noncentral Asian nationalities during the 1990s, combined with high levels of natural increase of the titular nations, has greatly altered the ethnic composition in a very short time. For all the central Asian states, the shares of the native populations are at their highest points and the Russian shares are at their lowest points since early in this century. In 1997, the Kazakhs became a numerical majority in their nation-state, making up 53.4 per cent of the population, although the accuracy of this population estimate could be questioned (RFE/RL 1997). The resulting nationality composition in Kyrgyzstan in 1999 contained the highest share of Kyrgyz (61.1 per cent) and the lowest share of Russians (15. 0 per cent) since the 1930s. Uzbeks will likely soon become the second largest ethnic group in the country. Following their rapid emigration from Tajikistan over the past decade, the estimated ethnic Russians’ share of the population has reached its lowest point since the 1930s. Similarly, the share of the Tajiks in their nation-state is at its highest point since the same period. The Russians’ share of the population, estimated at 5.0 per cent of the total population, is at its lowest point while the Turkomans’ share is at its highest. Following these largescale migration movements, the proportion of Uzbeks in the total Uzbek


population was, at 77.8 per cent, the highest in the twentieth century. The proportion of Russians is at its lowest since the 1926 census. CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE Although the underlying preconditions always existed, few scholars and politicians predicted the break-up of the USSR. However, much of the migration that has accompanied the re-drawing of the Soviet political space has been rather predictable. Using the example of the Russian diaspora, though there are examples of large-scale migration from some non-Russian states, the overall reaction of most Russians has been non-migration, a reaction similar to that of people throughout the world. While factors in the diaspora paradigm have exerted a strong influence on the migration patterns of Russians, economic factors have had an equal, if not stronger, influence. While Russians in Latvia and Estonia have been politically and socially marginalized, the Baltic states’ recovering economies and impending EU accession have caused most Russians to stay. At the other end of the spectrum, some of the southern states have had the largest economic collapses due to ethnic violence and poor policies which have caused ethnic Russians, as well as members of other ethnic groups including the titular nation, to flee. The precise effects of the post-Soviet migration upon the nationality composition of the successor states will not be known until the results of the 2000 census round are made available. While the rates of migration among the successor states have subsided considerably, migration continues to cause changes in the ethnic composition of the states of the FSU, as well as other characteristics of these societies. With the exception of Chechnya, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, most of the ethnic and territorial conflicts that produced so much of the migration, especially the forced migration, are not making headlines. However, many of the issues that caused the violence remain unresolved and, while ceasefires are being observed and some have lasted for a number of years, durable solutions to long-term ethnic conflicts remain elusive and territorial claims have not been resolved. Since the break-up of previous empires has been episodic, a further splintering of the successor states of the FSU should not be ruled out (Brubaker 1995). Any further dissolution of the successor states will likely be along the ethnic fault lines along which the Soviet Union broke apart. If that does occur, the region may experience yet another round of massive, and probably forced, migration. NOTES 1 The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not attributable in any manner to the World Bank. 2 See Chapter 11.


3 Data on total population, birth rates and death rates are from the following sources (net migration was computed as a residual. Summing natural increase and net migration separately across the years derived totals for the period): 1989–91 population totals (except Armenia and the Baltic states): Narkhoz SSSR v 1990, 67; 1989–91 population totals (Armenia): Goskomstat Armeni, 1994; 1992–24 population totals (except for Baltics): Statkomitet SNG 1995c: 9; 1995 population totals (except Baltics): Statkomitet SNG 1995;1996 population totals (except Baltics): Statkomitet SNG 1996c; 37. 1996 population totals (Latvia): Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1996a:10; 1996 population totals (Estonia and Lithuania): UNICEF, TRANSMONEE Database; 1989–95 population total (Estonia): Statistical Office of Estonia; 1995. 1989–95 population totals (Latvia): Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1994; 1995 population totals (Latvia): Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1995:6; 1989–95 population totals (Lithuania): Lithuanian Department of Statistics 1995a:13; 1989 birth and death rates (except Baltics): Narkhoz SSSR v 1989:38; 1990 birth and death rates (except Baltics): Narkhoz SSSR v 1990:89 1991–94 birth and death rates (except Baltics): Statkomitet SNG 1995:10; 1989–94 birth and death rates (Estonia): Statistical Office of Estonia 1995:1989–93 birth and death rates (Latvia): Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1994; 1994 birth and death rates (Latvia): Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1995:6; 1995 birth and death rates (Latvia): Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1996a; 1989–94 birth and death rates (Lithuania): Lithuanian Department of Statistics 1995a; 1991–94 birth and death rates (Baltics): UNICEF, TRANSMONEE database; 1995 birth and death rates: Statkomitet SNG 1996b:14; 1995 birth and death rates (Estonia and Lithuania): UNICEF, TRANSMONEE Database. 4 Turkmenistan showed a rather large increase as well, but much of this is likely to be a statistical discrepancy. 5 Data were compiled from a variety of national and international statistical sources, as well as publications of the Interstate Statistical Committee of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States). No attempt was made to rectify the bilateral migration statistics presented for each country or to fill in gaps where immigration or emigration data are not available for a particular country. 6 Data are for each state from the sources noted below without adjustment. The data from Statkomitet SNG, September 1996 have the following qualifications. Totals for the Baltics are included in FSU totals but are not shown separately. Emigration totals for Ukraine are not included for 1991 to 1995, for Georgia for 1993 to 1995 and for Tajikistan and Turkmenistan for 1995. Data for these flows do show up as immigration figures for the other states. Data from Statkomitet SNG, 1996 are for emigration to the countries of the ‘far abroad’. Data for immigration from the countries of the ‘far abroad’ are not given and are assumed to be zero or negligible. Entries for other non-FSU states may include flows for states for which data are not available. Sources: Armenia: 1991–94 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4. 1991–94 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996b, p. 127. Azerbaijan: 1991–95 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4.


1991–95 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996b, p. 83. Belarus: 1990–94: MinStat Belarus, 1995, pp. 48–9. 1995: MinStat Belarus, 1996, pp. 34–6. Estonia: 1989–95: Statistical Office of Estonia, 1994, pp. 77–8. Georgia: 1991–92 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4. Kazakhstan: 1991–92, 1995 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996, pp. 50–4. 1993 (FSU states): Goskomstat Kazakhstan, 1995, pp. 28–9. 1994 (FSU states): Goskomstat Kazakhstan, 1996, p. 247. 1991–95 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996, p. 234. Kyrgyzstan: 1991–95 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4. 1991–95 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996b, p. 278. Latvia: 1992–1993: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, 1994, p. 73. 1994–1995: Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, 1996b, p. 29 Lithuania: 1991–94: Lithuanian Department of Statistics, 1995a, p. 128 and Lithuanian Department of Statistics, 1995b, pp. 51–2. Moldova: 1990–94: Department of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova 1994, pp. 85–6. 1995 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4. 1995 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996, p. 322. Russia: 1989–94: Goskomstat Rossii, 1995, pp. 400–3. 1995: Goskomstat Rossii, June 1996, pp. 47. Tajikistan: 1991–94 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4. 1991–94 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996b, p. 411. Turkmenistan: 1991–92 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4. 1991–92 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996b, p. 452. Ukraine: 1993: MinStat Ukraini, 1994, pp. 263. 1994: MinStat Ukraini, 1995, pp. 89–90. Uzbekistan: 1991–92 (FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996a, pp. 50–4. 1991–92 (non-FSU states): Statkomitet SNG, 1996b, p. 489. 7 The differential rates of natural increase among nationalities are due to a variety of factors including cultural and religious differences, differing levels of economic development and education, rates of urbanization and age structures. 8 The interpretation of the second to last column in Table 8.3—net migration of Russians as a share of total net migration to Russia—is somewhat artificial but still illustrative. It shows the share of ethnic Russians in the total net flows to Russia, indicating whether the flow was predominantly made up of Russians, included


9

10

11 12

mostly other ethnic groups (e.g. Armenia), or whether the outflow of an ethnic group from Russia far exceeded the inflow of Russians (e.g. Belarus). The nationality composition for each of the post-Soviet successor states as of 1 January 1999 was estimated by applying the components of population change to the nationality distributions enumerated in the 1989 census. For each country as a whole, the population totals, total number of births and deaths, and net migration are from Table 8.1. For several countries, the nationality distributions are published for years during the period; thus estimates were not necessary. The countries that published data on nationality composition for years after 1989 were Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. For two countries, Belarus and Kazakhstan, preliminary 1999 census results were used. The data on migration by country (Table 8.2) were used in these estimates as general indicators of the direction, magnitude and possible nationality composition. Unless stated otherwise, data on the 1989 nationality compositions are from census results (Goskomstat SSSR 1991). Data are available on birth rates (total number of births) and death rates (total number of deaths) by nationality for the titular nationality and Russians for 1989 (Goskomstat Rossii 1994:23–4) and for all major nationalities for 1993 (Statkomitet SNG 1995). For other years, estimates were made using various assumptions. The major difficulty is in estimating the patterns of migration by nationality. For some states, data on migration by nationality are available and were used. For those where such data are not available, other indirect estimates were made. More complete details of the estimation methodology are available. Belarus is one of only two FSU states to have data available on nationality composition from their 1999 population census (the other is Kazakhstan). As is likely to be the case with all the newly independent states of the FSU, there appears to be more ethnic re-identification towards the titular nation or dominant ethnic group than was found in previous censuses in the former Soviet Union. Any changes from ethnic re-identification are subsumed into net migration. The Crimean peninsula did not belong to Ukraine when the Tatars were deported in 1941, but was annexed to this Soviet Republic in 1954. Both Estonia and Latvia initially restricted citizenship to pre-Soviet citizens and their descendants, making naturalization difficult for those not meeting this criterion. Estonia also included a language requirement, a prerequisite few nonEstonians could meet. In Lithuania, in addition to drawing upon a large pool of citizens from pre-Soviet residents and their descendants, others could be naturalized by simply signing a loyalty oath, without language or length-ofresidency requirements.

9 The Dissolution of the Soviet Union and PostSoviet Ethnic Migration: The Return of Diasporas? Anatoly Vishnevsky

The ethnic map of the Russian and Soviet empires was shaped over the centuries by the conquest and annexation of neighbouring territories and populations, and the subsequent inland migration or emigration of some of the new subjects. Likewise, the migration of Russians, Ukrainians and certain other groups to the new peripheries of the empires played a role in shaping the ethnic map. Such migration, sometimes voluntary, sometimes forced, became particularly important in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century and has led to both the intermixing and the dispersion of ethnic groups. Spatial dispersion was and is typical for many ethnic groups living within the territory of the former USSR. For some groups, this dispersion was a result of forced migration or deportation. For others, it was a result of their own imperial or colonial activity, while in certain cases, it was engendered by the mixing of peoples living in the same geographical area where there was no strict territorial delimitation. Historical and current political realities became intertwined and determined the emergence and dynamics of diasporas (see Table 9.1). The dissolution of the USSR had a dramatic effect on these dynamics. On the one hand, the new political frontiers have cut off certain ethnic groups from their territories of compact settlement, automatically transforming them into new ethnic minorities and raising the question of repatriation. On the other hand, for certain older ethnic minorities, new opportunities to emigrate to their homelands have appeared. Six diasporas—the Jewish, Armenian, Russian, Ukrainian, German and Tatar diasporas—are analysed to illustrate these shifts.


Table 9.1 Ethnic groups of the USSR by area of settlement and mother tongue, 1989 Ethnic groups*

Total population (thousands)

National language

Russian

Thousands

%

Members of the ethnic Per cent claiming as mother group living outside of their tongue: union republic, autonomons region

Ethnic groups with a union republic (90.3% of the total population of the USSR) Armenians 4,627 1,545 33.4 91.7 7.6 Tajiks 4,217 1,049 24.9 97.7 0.8 Belorusians 10,030 2,133 21.3 70.9 28.5 Kazakhs 8,138 1,606 19.7 97.0 2.2 Russians 145,072 25,264 17.4 99.8 99.8 Moldovians 3,355 564 16.8 91.6 7.4 Uzbeks 16,686 2,563 15.4 98.3 0.7 Ukrainians 44,136 6,766 15.3 81.1 18.8 Azeri 6,791 990 14.6 97.7 1.7 Kyrgyz 2,531 303 12.0 97.8 0.6 Turkomans 2,718 194 7.1 98.5 1.0 Estonians 1,027 64 6.2 95.5 4.4 Latvians 1,459 72 4.9 94.8 5.0 Georgians 3,983 194 4.9 98.2 1.7 Lithuanians 3,068 144 4.7 97.7 1.8 Total 257,839 43,450 16.9 Ethnic groups with an autonomous republic or region (2.4% of the total population of the USSR) Tatars 6,649 4,884 73.5 83.2 16.1 Mordovians 1,154 841 72.9 67.1 32.7 Maris 671 347 51.7 80.8 18.8 Chuvashs 1,842 935 50.8 76.4 23.3 Bashkirs 1,449 585 40.4 72.3 11.2 Udmurts 747 250 33.5 69.6 30.0 Ossets 598 198 33.1 87.0 7.0 Chechens 957 222 23.2 98.1 1.7 Avars 601 105 17.5 97.2 1.9 Total 6,865 2,642 38.5 Ethnic groups without territorial autonomy (1.59% of the total population of the USSR) Jews** 1,378 1,378 100.0 11.1 86.6 Germans 2,039 2,039 100.0 48.7 50.8 Poles 1,126 1,126 100.0 30.5 28.6

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOVIET UNION AND ETHNIC MIGRATION 143

Ethnic groups*


National language

Russian

Thousands

%

Members of the ethnic Per cent claiming as mother group living outside of their tongue: union republic, autonomons region

Total 4,543 4,543 100.0 * Ethnic groups with more than 500,000 members only. Groups are ranked according to the proportion of the ethnic group living outside their Soviet republic or autonomous region. ** Formally, the Jews have their autonomous region with the capital of Birobijan in the Far East. However, in 1989, there were only about 9,000 Jews living in this region. Of these 7,800 claimed Russian as their mother tongue. Source: Nacional’ny sostav 1991.

THE JEWISH DIASPORA Until the end of the eighteenth century, Russia’s Jewish population was very small. After the partition of Poland and the annexation of its eastern sector by Russia, however, the Russian empire became the state with the largest Jewish community in the world. During the course of the nineteenth century, its role as the main area of settlement of the Jewish diaspora continued to grow. In 1880, some 53 per cent of the world’s Jewish population lived in Russia (Kratkaja 1994:385). In spite of the size of the Jewish community in Russia (5.2 million in 1897), its situation and the conditions for the majority of the Jewish population were very unfavourable. In the nineteenth century, the emancipation of European Jews did not affect Russian Jewry. The Jews of the Russian empire remained deprived of the most important economic and civil rights. Their perception of an unstable, but at the same time unchangeable, situation in Russia motivated the Jews to leave the country. Emigration took on massive proportions after the pogroms of the early 1880s. The scale of emigration grew rapidly; from 1881 to 1885, the average annual number of Jewish emigrants to the United States alone was around 12,900. Between 1886 and 1890, it rose to 28,500, and between 1891 and 1910 to 44,800. During the ‘rush years’ 1906–10, Jewish emigration reached 82,200 annually (Rogger 1973:28; Kratkaja 1994:383). The total number of Jewish emigrants between 1881 and 1914 is estimated at two million (Kratkaja 1994:383), or nearly two-fifths of Russia’s total Jewish population in 1897. After 1900, the net emigration of Jews exceeded natural growth (Kratkaja 1994:384). The principal destination for Jews of Russian origin was the United States. Between 1871 and 1920, they accounted for 41.5 per cent of all Russian emigrants to the United States and 72.4 per cent of all Jewish emigrants coming from Europe (including Russia) to the United States (Kabuzan 1996:322).


Nevertheless, on the eve of the First World War, there were still more than five million Jews in Russia. As a result of post-war and post-revolutionary changes to state frontiers, about 55 per cent of the Jews of the empire became citizens of other states (Obolensky-Ossinsky 1931). Some of those who had remained in the Soviet Union were assimilated into their Russian, Ukrainian or Belarussian environments. The census of 1926 enumerated 2.7 million Jews in the USSR, the census of 1939, 3.0 million (Pinkus 1988:89). In 1939, as a result of the new frontier revisions and the annexation of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Bessarabia and the Baltic states to the USSR, the Jewish population of the Soviet Union again increased, but it dropped sharply thereafter due to the enormous loss of Jewish life in the Holocaust and in war casualties. At least 2.5 million Soviet Jews died or were killed during the Second World War (Pinkus 1988:261). After the Second World War, the Jewish population of the USSR never again reached its pre-war size. After the war it initially increased slowly, but then began to shrink again as a consequence of assimilation processes, of low fertility and finally due to massive emigration. While there was no free emigration from the Soviet Union, during periods of détente between East and West, the Soviet authorities occasionally gave members of certain ethnic or religious groups, including Jews, permission to leave the country. The number of Jewish emigrants between 1948 and 1990 is estimated at 592,000, of whom 301,000 emigrated after 1986 (Heitman 1991:2). According to the first post-war census of 1959, 2.3 million Jews were counted in the USSR (1.1 per cent of the total population compared with 2.5 per cent in 1940). By then, the United States had become the country with the largest Jewish population in the world. In the mid-1950s, the number of Jews in the US reached nearly 5 million (Chaliand and Rageau 1997:57), while the Soviet Jewish diaspora continued to decline. In 1970, it numbered 2.2 million, in 1979 1.8 million and in 1989 1.4 million. During the late 1980s, free emigration from the Soviet Union came to be permitted and increased yearly. The dissolution of the USSR accelerated this process. The significance of the Russian Jewish diaspora, previously the world’s largest, rapidly dwindled. According to recent estimations, the size of the Jewish population still living in the territory of the former Soviet Union is somewhat more then one-third of the Jewish population of 1989, one quarter of the Jewish population of 1959 and about one tenth of the Jewish population of 1897 (Table 9.2). Table 9.2 The Jewish population in the Soviet Republics and in post-Soviet successor states in 1959, 1989 and 1998 (in thousands)

Russia

1959 1989 1998 1989 as % of 1959 Census Census Estimate population

1998 as % of 1959 population

880

57.0

570

325

64.8


1959 1989 1998 1989 as % of 1959 Census Census Estimate population Ukraine 840 Belarus 150 Moldova 95 Uzbekistan 94 Georgia 52 Azerbaijan 46 Latvia 37 Kazakhstan 28 Lithuania 25 Tadjikistan 12 Kyrgyzstan 8.6 Estonia 5.4 Turkmenistan 4.1 Armenia 1.0 Total 2,278 Source: Tolts 1999b:23.

487 112 66 7 95 25 41 23 20 12 15 6 4.6 2.5 0.7 1,480

132 19 69.5 11 8 8 9 10 5 1.4 2.2 2.4 1.0 0.1 540

58.0 74.7 9.8 101.1 48.1 89.1 62.2 71.4 48.0 121.0 69.8 85.2 61.0 70.0 64.9

1998 as % of 1959 population 27.1 17.0 11.6 30.0 19.5 40.9 50.0 40.8 9.3 36.7 52.2 40.0 0.0 36.5

During the period 1990–99 the majority of Jews leaving the former USSR went to Israel (according to official Israeli sources 823,000, including their nonJewish family members). This last Soviet and post-Soviet wave of immigration to Israel in the early 1990s caused a significant increase in the number of Jews in Israel. It was comparable with the highest wave of immigration to Israel, between 1948 and 1952, when immigration reached 855,000 (Della Pergola 1996:20–2). Considerable numbers of Jews did leave the former USSR for the United States and Germany, where they remain part of the diaspora. Emigration from Israel also contributes to this process, though it is not generally typical for the newcomers from the Soviet Union (Della Pergola 1996:20–2). On the whole, the dispersion of Jews throughout the world remains very important, though the last ‘post-Soviet’ immigration has diminished it significantly. Table 9.3 World distribution of Jews, 1997–98 World total Israel Diaspora United States France

Thousands

%

13,093 4,702 8,391 5,700 522

100.0 35.9 64.1 43.5 4.0


Former Soviet Union Ukraine Other Successor States Canada United Kingdom Argentina Brazil Australia South Africa Germany Other countries Source: Della Pergola 1999:549, 578.

Russia 132 83

Thousands

%

540 325 1.0 0.6 362 280 203 100 96 92 78 418

4.1 2.5

2.8 2.1 1.6 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.6 3.2

THE ARMENIAN DIASPORA An important Armenian population appeared in the Russian empire in the late 1820s after Russia had conquered and annexed traditional Armenian settlement regions formerly belonging to Persia and the Ottoman Empire. These events were accompanied by the massive resettlement of Persian and Turkish Armenians in these henceforth Russian territories. Before the resettlement, there were 133,000 Armenians in Russia—around 6–7 per cent of the total number of Armenians in the world, whereas more than 80 per cent of the world Armenian population lived in Ottoman Turkey. The bulk of Russia’s Armenians, some 107, 000, lived in Russian Transcaucasia. It was estimated that during the late 1820s to early 1830s alone about 200,000 Armenian immigrants arrived in Transcaucasia. Thereafter the stream of immigrants diminished greatly, but did not cease altogether. In the 1860s, the Armenian population of Russia numbered more than 530,000 including almost 480,000 in Transcaucasia (Kabuzan 1996: 104–5.). In Turkey in the mid-18 90s, ethno-religious conflicts between Turkish and Kurdish Muslims and Christian Armenians started to become violent. Largescale massacres between 1894 and 1896 killed about 200,000 Armenians, and many survivors fled. Between 1897 and 1916 about 500,000 Armenians arrived in Russia (Kabuzan 1996:203). By the eve of the First World War, the Armenian population of Russia numbered 1.8 million, only a little less than that of Turkey (2 million). The tradition of Armenian repatriation to Transcaucasia, namely to the Armenian republic which was created as an independent state in 1918 and incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1924, persisted for many decades. There were three large waves of immigration and repatriation during the Soviet period:


from 1921 to 1936 (42,000), immediately after the Second World War (90,000– 100,000) and from 1962 to 1982 (32,000). The total number of Armenian immigrants and repatriates during the whole Soviet period is estimated at 180, 000 (Mouradian 1990:172). The adaptation to Soviet realities was not easy for many of the repatriates and the aspiration of leaving the USSR began to grow among them and their children. Emigration, mainly to Western countries, started in 1956. The total number of Armenian emigrants from the USSR from 1956 to 1989, primarily to the United States (more than 80 per cent of the total), is estimated at 77,000 (Heitman 1991: 2). Table 9.4 World distribution of Armenians, late 1980s to early 1990s (thousands) Countries World total Former Soviet Union

Countries 6,400 4,623 3,084 France Iran** Lebanon Syria** Canada Argentina** Australia Others

Other countries USA 250 100 100 80 50 50 25 545

Armenia Russia 532 Georgia 437 Azerbaijan* 391 Upper Karabakh 145 Ukraine 54 Uzbekistan 51 Turkmenistan 32 Kazakhstan 19 Other republics of the USSR 23 * Without Upper Karabakh. ** Rough estimates only. Source: Nacional’ny sostav 1991:148, 120; Chaliand and Rageau 1997:89.

1,800 600

At the beginning of the 1990s, the total number of Armenians in the world was estimated at 6.4 million. Seventy-two per cent of the total Armenian world population, or 4.6 million Armenians, lived in the USSR, including 3.1 million living in the Armenian Republic. Another 1.8 million were dispersed throughout the world (Table 9.4). The situation changed drastically in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The disintegration of the USSR had a significant impact on the Armenian population which was intensified by other regional events, in particular the earthquake of 1988, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and, after 1991, the growing political tension in Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus and Central Asia. On the one hand, these changes provoked forced migration of Armenians from


Azerbaijan, North Caucasus and Abkhazia. The number of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan in 1988–91 alone is estimated at 350,000 (Arutiunian 1999). On the other hand, the deterioration of the economic and political situation in Armenia entailed a massive emigration from Armenia, which was largely facilitated with the help of relatives and friends belonging to the diaspora, either in Russia, in other former Soviet republics or in Western countries. Between 1990 and 1998, according to official Russian data, the net migration of Armenians to Russia reached 312,000 persons, but it is likely that not all immigrants were included in official data. Taking into consideration natural increase, the number of Armenians in Russia in 1999 is estimated at no less than 875,000. In 1989 the number was 532,000 (Bogoyavlensky 1999). Moreover, a wave of Armenian emigration occurred not only to other former Soviet republics, for example to Ukraine, but also to Western countries. The total number of Armenian emigrants to the United States in the first half of the 1990s was estimated at 80,000 (Ter Minassian 1995:32). According to estimates by Armenian experts, the total emigration between 1990 and 1997 amounted to 700, 000 persons or 20 per cent of Armenia’s total population (Arutiunian 1999:71). It appears that the Armenian dispersion throughout the world is growing again. THE RUSSIAN DIASPORA In contrast to the diasporas arising from expulsion or flight, there are also diasporas which are created by voluntary migrations which are undertaken ‘in search of work, in pursuit of trade or to further colonial ambitions’ (Cohen 1997: 180). A classic example is the ancient Greek diaspora resulting from the creation of Greek colonies in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea region. This is a recent notion for ethnic Russians. The Russian colonization was considered to be internal. Leaving Russia’s heartlands for Siberia, Central Asia or the Caucasus, the Russians continued to perceive themselves as being at home. Relatively small numbers of Russian emigrants outside the Russian or the Soviet empire did not, as a rule, constitute stable ethnic communities and dissolved quickly. The situation changed after the dissolution of the USSR, when more than 17 per cent of all ethnic Russians remained outside the newly created Russian Federation. In a way they have become dispersed, and may be considered as a Russian diaspora. Such considerations correspond to the feelings of many ethnic Russians living in the Soviet successor states outside Russia. After the disintegration of the USSR, they perceived themselves for the first time as an ethnic minority, experienced a loss of social, cultural and political status and began to strive for the reinforcement of the links with the homeland or for repatriation to Russia. It may be that not all ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation are yet fully aware of their new situation, while the situation itself is not yet completely clear. Nevertheless, during the 1990s, return migration of ethnic Russians has become more and more important (Table 9.5).


Table 9.5 Return migration of ethnic Russians, 1990–98 Country

Ethnic Russians Net migration of in 1989, Russians to (thousands) Russia 1990–98 (thousands)

Net migration in % of the total ethnic Russian population of 1989

Share of ethnic Russian return migration by country of origin (%)

Armenia 51.6 29.4 57.0 1.0 Azerbaijan 392.3 177.5 45.2 6.2 elarus 1,342.1 28.9 2.2 1.0 Estonia 474.8 57.45 12.1 2.0 Georgia 341.2 148.4 43.5 5.2 Kazakhstan 6,227.5 1,006.1 16.2 35.3 Kyrgyzstan 916.6 211.2 23.0 7.4 Latria 905.5 90.2 10.0 3.2 Lithuania 344.5 43.5 12.6 1.5 Moldova 562.1 50.7 9.0 1.8 Tajikistan 388.5 214.6 55.2 7.5 Turkmenistan 333.9 81.5 24.4 2.9 Ukraine 11,355.6 306.5 2.7 10.7 Uzbekistan 1,653.5 407.4 24.6 14.3 Total 25,289.5 2,853.3 11.3 100.0 Source: Demograficheskiy ezhegodnik Rossii [The Demographic Yearbook of Russia], (Moscow: Goskomstat, different years).

Return migration of ethnic Russians is not a completely new phenomenon. Their out-migration from other ‘national’ republics was observed prior to the 1990s. In the 1990s, however, the pace of this process accelerated. During the nine years from 1990 to 1998, more than 2.8 million ethnic Russians, or more than 11 per cent of all ethnic Russians living in former Soviet republics outside Russia, returned to the Russian Federation. The relative importance of ethnic Russian return migration varied between the outflows from different post-Soviet states. It did not affect the Russian communities of the two other Slavic Republics—just 2–3 per cent of all Russians living in Ukraine or Belarus left the country for good. Nor was ethnic Russian emigration very significant in Moldova or in the Baltic states. On the other hand, there were very high outflows from the four countries of Central Asia, comprising 28 per cent of their combined Russian population, and in particular from Transcaucasia. More than 45 per cent of all ethnic Russians previously living in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia left these countries. In the four Central Asian countries, where the size of the ethnic Russian population is half as large as that living in Kazakhstan, the net out-migration of ethnic Russians almost equals the out-migration from Kazakhstan alone. Central Asia and


Kazakhstan together provide two-thirds of the net inflow of ethnic Russians to Russia. In Turkmenistan and, in particular, in Tadjikistan, the outflow of Russians in the 1990s exceeded their total increase over the four decades between 1959 and 1989. In Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the outflow was equivalent to about 70 per cent of the increase over the previous 40 years. In Kazakhstan it reached only about 40 per cent of this previous increase. In Transcaucasia, on the other hand, the ethnic Russian population had already diminished between 1959 and 1989. Here, the outflow of the 1990s can be interpreted as the continuation of a trend which had already existed before the dissolution of the USSR. THE UKRAINIAN DIASPORA While the Ukrainian and Russian diasporas have many similarities, significant distinctions can also be identified. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were about 26–27 million Ukrainians in the world. There have also been higher estimations—up to 34 or even up to 37 million (Sembratovytch 1907:22– 3, 29). In 1910, some 80 per cent of all Ukrainians, as identified by mother tongue, or about 22.4 million lived, in the Russian Empire. In addition, a large number of ethnic Ukrainians were to be found in the Austro-Hungarian empire. According to the census of 1910, the Ukrainian population of Austria-Hungary numbered about four million, of whom 3.2 million, essentially the members of the Uniate Church, that is, Greek Catholics, were concentrated in Galicia, 0.3 million, essentially the Orthodox, in Bukovina and almost 0.5 million, mainly Greek Catholics, in Transcarpathia (Auerbach 1917:24, 257, 272, 342, 381). Russian and Austro-Hungarian Ukrainians were divided by state boundaries, but they were not dispersed. Nevertheless a diaspora of Ukrainians existed. Before the First World War, several hundred thousand Ukrainian emigrants were dispersed throughout the world: about 250,000 to 300,000 Ukrainians from Galicia and Transcarpathia lived in the United States, about 170,000 in Canada and several tens of thousands in Brazil (Subtelny 1994:541, 545, 547). Besides these overseas emigrants, there was a Ukrainian diaspora in the Russian Empire. Though the Ukrainian settlements were frequently mixed with the Russian ones, at the beginning of the twentieth century there were welldefined areas with an overwhelmingly ethnic Ukrainian population. The Ukrainians formed a demographic majority in nine of the 50 provinces (goubernii) of European Russia. These nine provinces later formed the territory of the independent Ukrainian state (1918–19), then became Soviet Ukraine within the frontiers which existed between 1919 and 1939. But by 1897, according to the census, the total population of these provinces comprised only 76 per cent of all Ukrainians living in the Russian empire. The others lived either in neighbouring provinces with predominantly Russian or Polish populations or in regions characterized by Russian-Ukrainian settlements that emerged


following imperial expansion and subsequent migratory colonization of Siberia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The census results of 1897 accounted for 223,000 ethnic Ukrainians in Siberia and 102,000 in Central Asia. This settlement continued during the first decades of the twentieth century. Between 1896 and 1906…about 1.6 million Ukrainians migrated eastwards. …By 1914 about two million Ukrainians lived permanently in the Far East. Moreover, proportionately almost twice as many Ukrainians as Russians moved eastward in search for land. Thus, at exactly the same time West Ukrainians from the Habsburg empire colonized the prairies of western Canada, their East Ukrainian counterparts were bringing the plough to Russia’s Pacific coast. (Subtelny 1994:262) As a consequence of this process, the geographic dispersion of Ukrainians inside the Russian empire grew. It was obviously also accompanied by a rapid Russification of Ukrainians leaving their homeland, facilitated by the considerable cultural and linguistic proximity of Ukrainians and Russians. Table 9.6 Ukrainians in the USSR, 1926 Republics and regions of the USSR

Total Ukrainian population

Ethnic Ethnic Ukrainians Ukrainians (thousands (%) )

Ukrainians % Claiming Ukrainian , urban as mother tongue population (%)

Urban Ukrainian population

USSR 31,195 100.0 10.5 87.1 64.9 Ukraine 23,219 74.4 10.9 94.1 74.5 Russian SFSR 7,873 25.2 8.9 67.0 31.7 Siberia 828 2.7 3.6 56.6 36.9 Kazakhsta 861 2.8 3.7 76.5 39.8 n* * In 1926 Kazakhstan still formed part of the RSFSR. Source: Vsesojuznaja perepis’ naselenia 1926 g. [The All-Union Population Census of 1926] vol. IX, 34,40; vol. XI, 8, 10; vol. XVII, 8, 14.

As a result of the Second World War and the changed boundaries in Central and Eastern Europe, most members of Europe’s divided Ukrainian community were incorporated into the Soviet Union and united within the confines of a single state. As a result, the share of Ukrainians living in the Soviet Ukraine grew after the Second World War to some 85 per cent (86.3 per cent in 1959, 86.6 in 1970, 86.2 in 1979 and 84.7 per cent in 1989).


Migration of Ukrainians to other republics of the USSR continued, but remained relatively small and had no further impact on the geographic dispersion of Soviet Ukrainians. Those living outside Ukraine, however, were rapidly Russified. In 1989, more than half of the Soviet Ukrainians living outside Ukraine had Russian as their first language (Table 9.7). This fact can be variously interpreted. One could say that Russian-speaking people of Ukrainian origin identified themselves as Ukrainians due to tradition rather than through ethnic consciousness whereas, in reality, they were already completely assimilated to Russian language and culture. But one could also argue that linguistic assimilation, on the contrary, did not change their underlying Ukrainianness. This argument could be extended even to some of those who, according to census data, identified themselves as Russians. Such assumptions are the basis for a revisionist interpretation of the 1989 Soviet census results. According to certain Ukrainian authors, the real size of the Ukrainian diaspora in Russia in 1989 was not 4.4 million as the census data show, but 10 million or more (Informacijny buleten, 1995, 54). Table 9.7 Ukrainians in the USSR by area of settlement and mother tongue All Ukrainians Thousands

%

USSR

44,186 Ukraine 37,419 4,363 9.9 2,404 5.4

Ukrainians with Russian as mother tongue

Thousands as % of all Ukrainians

Russia Other republics Source: Nacional’ny sostav 1991.

100.0 84.7 2,487 1,243

8,309 4,578 57.0 51.7

18.8 12.2

In addition to being dispersed in the successor states of the Soviet Union, ethnic Ukrainians are dispersed throughout the world, mainly as a consequence of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century emigration to the New World, mostly from territories now belonging to Western Ukraine. An advanced process of linguistic and cultural assimilation of Ukrainians can be generally observed and, from the point of view of certain Ukrainian scholars, leads to the underestimation of the ‘true number’ of Ukrainians in the world. According to their estimations, more than one-third of all ethnic Ukrainians live outside their homeland and even by the official or lowest estimations, 21 per cent of all Ukrainians are part of the Ukrainian diaspora (Table 9.8).


Table 9.8 Distribution of Ukrainians throughout the world, early 1990s (thousands) Official Maximal data or estimatio minimal n estimatio n Ukraine FSU Kazakhst an Moldova Belarus Kyrgyzst an Others

Russia 896

37,419 6,767 4,363 4,000

600

800

291 108

1,000 300

508

508

Central Europe 562 Poland 250

Romania Czechosl ovakia Others

150 150

Official Maximal data or estimatio minimal n estimatio n

37,419 Western Europe 119 17,208 North America 1,693 10,600 Canada 963 United 730 1,300 States Central and South 580 585 America

Argentin a 1012 500

Brazil

350

220

220

Others Australia and Oceania

10 30

15 30

47,171

58,694

140 2,300 1,000

350

300 200

12 12 Total Source: Ukraine and Ukrainians 1994:9–10.

The dissolution of the USSR was accompanied by expectations of massive flows of ethnic Ukrainian return migration. According to the sociological poll in 1992, 10 per cent of the ethnic Ukrainian diaspora in the Russian Federation wanted to acquire Ukrainian citizenship, of whom half wanted to do so as soon as possible. In the Central Asian republics, this tendency was even more pronounced (Piskun 1999:258). In fact, starting in 1991–92, Ukraine became a region experiencing more immigration than emigration, the result of the inflow of people leaving other successor states. About 40 per cent of this inflow consisted of Ukrainians leaving Russia, mainly its northern regions (Zajonchkovskaia 1999:60). However, ‘beginning in 1993,…owing to the aggravation of the socio-political situation, the process of repatriation was suspended’ (Piskun 1999:258). Migration streams altered, and in-migration to Ukraine became less important than out-migration. The migration balance of ethnic Ukrainians moving between Ukraine and Russia between 1992 and 1997 was positive for Russia at 165,000 persons, as more ethnic Ukrainians left Ukraine for Russia than vice versa. At


the same time, return migration from the Western world, particularly from Canada and the US, was negligible. THE GERMAN DIASPORA The ethnic German diaspora of the USSR represented a different type of ethnic dispersion. In 1897, the census recorded some 1.8 million Germans in the Russian Empire, including 1.3 million in European Russia, 0.4 million in the Polish provinces, 57,000 in the Caucasus, more than 5,000 in Siberia and about 9, 000 in Central Asia (Pervaya 1905: Table 1). Their ancestors, mostly peasants, artisans and sometimes members of liberal professions, for instance physicians, had arrived in Russia during the rule of Peter I and later by invitation of the German-born Catherine II. In the nineteenth century, the German colonists ‘became a well-organized, privileged class, distinct from the Russian peasantry, with an internal self-government patterned on the institutions of their country of origin’ (Fleischhauer and Pinkus 1986:19), and the number of colonies and their population grew rapidly. However, the Germans were not completely separated from Russian society. Step by step, they became involved in the processes of general economic and social transformation. ‘Towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, the former colonists were about to relinquish their ethnic-cultural and social-class isolation and become an active, dynamic component in general Russian economic and social life.’ (Fleischhauer and Pinkus 1986:24) After the Civil War, at the beginning of the 1920s, not all territories of the former Russian empire became part of the USSR. As a consequence, after 1918, two-fifths of Russia’s ethnic Germans became citizens of other countries. In 1897, those parts of Tsarist Russia which later became part of the USSR had an ethnic German population of 1,030,000 (Vsesojuznaja 1928: Table 1). The Soviet Census of 1926 registered 1,193,000 Germans, using the criterion of mother tongue (as in 1897) and 1,238,000 Germans by ethnic identification. The majority of Soviet Germans lived in the European part of the Russian Federation, with a particular regional concentration in the German Autonomous Volga Republic and in Ukraine (see Table 9.9). Table 9.9 Distribution of ethnic Germans throughout the USSR, 1926 and 1939 Regions of the USSR

Thousands

%

1926

1939

1926

1939

USSR Russian Federation

1,239 806

1,4273 863

100.0 65.1

100.0 60.4


Regions of the USSR

Thousands

1926

1939

% 1926

1939

German 380 367 30.6 25.7 Autonomous Volga Republic Ukraine 394 393 31.8 27.5 Other republics 38 172 3.1 12.1 Source: Vsesojuznaja perepis’ naselenia 1926 g. vol. 9, p. 8, 70; vol. 11, p. 8, vol. 17, p. 8; Vsesojuznaja perepis’ naselenia 1939 g., 1992, Table 16.

The shift of Soviet frontiers to the West in 1939 and again in 1945 did not lead to an increase in the ethnic German population, as most ethnic Germans living in these newly annexed territories had been forced to emigrate and resettled between 1939 and 1944 in Germany (see Chapter 15). In accordance with the Soviet-German agreements of 1939–40, about 450,000 ethnic Germans from the Baltic states, Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia, all annexed by the USSR, and Southern Dobrudja, taken by Bulgaria, were transferred to Nazi Germany within its new frontiers (Fleischhauer and Pinkus 1986:64). Others were resettled from the Crimean peninsula and the nothern Caucasus. Similarly, at the end of the Second World War, almost one million former citizens either fled from the Soviet administered part of East Prussia or were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement (Reichling 1986, 1989). The destiny of the remaining ‘Soviet’ Germans was even more tragic. They were deported from the European part of the USSR to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia after the German invasion in 1941. Most of them remained there until the late 1980s, initially because they were deprived of their right to return to the places where they had lived before deportation, and thereafter because they had no real possibility of returning to their historical areas of settlement. A growing number of ethnic Germans perceived emigration to Germany as the only way to overcome the situation. However, in the 1950s, few Soviet Germans managed to emigrate (8, 000 from 1950 to 1958, 13,000 from 1958 to 1960). Some 62,000 emigrated from 1972 to 1980 (see chapter 15). Table 9.10 Distribution of ethnic Germans in the USSR, 1989 Regions of the USSR

Thousands

%

USSR total Russian Federation Western and Eastern Siberia Ukraine Kazakhstan

2,039 842 483 38 958

100.0 41.3 23.7 1.9 47.0


Regions of the USSR

Thousands

%

Central Asia Other republics European part of the USSR Asian part of the USSR Source: National’ ny sostav 1991:5–19.

178 23 420 1,619

8.7 1.1 20.6 79.4

Although the desire to emigrate already existed during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, it was not yet common among Soviet Germans. Many of them were isolated from German culture, had become linguistically assimilated and were losing their ethnic identity. In the 1926 census, some 95 per cent of all ethnic Germans claimed German as their mother tongue, but in the 1989 census, 51 per cent of all ethnic Germans declared that their mother tongue was Russian. According to the 1994 Russian microcensus, 87 per cent of ethnic Germans said that they used the Russian language at home, 99 per cent in their institution of education and 97 per cent at work (Rossijskij 1997: Table 2.9). For a long time, the majority of Soviet Germans still hoped to restore their settlement areas in the RSFSR and in Ukraine, to reconstitute the German Autonomous Republic in the Volga region and thus to return to the places where they had previously lived. None of these projects was realized and towards the late 1980s, repatriation to Germany became the only way to leave Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. It was at this time that repatriation of ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union became important. Only 95,000 ethnic Germans left the USSR between 1950 and 1986 whereas from 1987 to 1990, the number of emigrants reached 308,000. According to German immigration data, some 1.8 million ethnic Germans emigrated from the USSR and its successor states to Germany during the period from the end of the 1940s to 1999 (see Chapter 15 and Info-Dienst Deutsche Aussiedler, 1999). It is probable that the German diaspora in this part of the world will disappear in the near future. TATAR DIASPORA The idea of national-territorial autonomy, officially declared as a founding principle of the Soviet Union, required the creation of autonomous territorial units for each and every minority of the USSR. For most groups, union republics or territorial units of lower rank—autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts, and so on—were created. These territorial units were seen as official homelands, but (as shown in Table 9.1) many ethnic groups remained dispersed outside these homelands. The Tatars of the Volga region, the second largest ethnic group of the Russian Federation, represent a typical example for such a diaspora.


In the sixteenth century, after the military victories of Ivan the Terrible, the Volga Tatars lost their independent state and became Russian subjects. Over the next four centuries they maintained their language, culture and religion but continued interaction with ethnically Russian environments, and Russian authorities destroyed the isolation of the Tatar communities step by step. In the twentieth century, the processes of modernization involved Tatars as well as Russians, Ukrainians and members of most other ethnic groups of the Soviet Union, thus leading to major migration flows. In the late 1980s, almost three out of four Volga Tatars lived beyond the boundaries of Tatarstan and almost a quarter very far from their homeland—in Siberia, the Far East, Kazakhstan, Central Asia and so on. About 17 per cent of the Volga Tatars (1.1 million persons) lived beyond the boundaries of the Russian Federation. Table 9.11 Tatars in the USSR, 1989 Thousands %

USSR total Bashkortostan Other parts of European Russia Asian parts of Russia Other republics

6,649 Tatarstan 1,765 1,121 16.9 2,157 23.4

100.0 26.5 7 25

479 1,127

23 25

7.2 16.9

Tatars claiming Russian as mother tongue (%) 16 3

In 1989, only about 3 per cent of Tatars living in Tatarstan and about 7 per cent of those living in Bashkortostan claimed Russian as their mother tongue. Among the Tatars living beyond the boundaries of these two autonomous republics, however, the share of Russian-speaking Tatars had risen to 25 per cent. The actual degree of Russification is even higher. In the course of the 1994 microcensus, 38 per cent of the Tatars living in the Russian Federation declared that they use the Russian language at home, 86 per cent used Russian as their main language of education, and 79 per cent used Russian at work (Rossijskij 1997: Table 2.9). The dispersion of Volga Tatars throughout the Soviet Union grew until the late 1970s, but has since diminished through return migration. Between 1959 and 1979, the share of Tatars living outside Russia increased from 17.2 to 19.1 per cent, but fell to 16.9 per cent between 1979 and 1989. The migration flows of the 1990s show an accelerated repatriation of Tatars to Russia: between 1989 and 1999 a positive net migration of Volga Tatars to Russia added 211,000 persons to the number of Volga Tatars already living in the Russian Federation.


CONCLUSION The impact of the dissolution of the USSR upon the dynamics of diasporas was not the same for all groups. The migrations caused by the new political situation have, in some cases, led to the reduction of diasporas while the creation of new ethnically defined nation states has led to the emergence of new minority populations. A central question is whether we should apply the term ‘diaspora’ to all of these situations. One of the first objectives for voluntary as well as for involuntary migrants is to adapt and to root themselves in the alien, unfamiliar surroundings of the host societies. Adaptation is not a straightforward process and may often be very painful. Living in a diaspora is just an institutionalized form which helps migrants to live simultaneously in two milieus and thus facilitates the process of adaptation. In the past, such a dual existence could be long-lasting, and appeared to be permanent for the specific ethnic or confessional communities settled within a host society. Nowadays modern diasporas are much more numerous than the diasporas of the past, and in many cases the members of these diasporas face the choice of either returning to their homeland or assimilating in the host society. There are, on the one hand, universal and egalitarian ideas of the Enlightenment and French Revolution as well as the practice of the nation-states based on the civil criteria of territorial and political membership. On the other hand, opposing ideas have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe, such as notions of impermeable borders between cultures, the primordial and unchangeable belonging of individuals to everlasting communities, ethnically based nations, not to mention the resulting idea and practice of ethnically ‘pure’ states, marginalized ethnic minorities, and, in extreme cases, ethnic cleansing. The idea of ‘classical’ diaspora conforms more with the latter conceptions because it presumes that religious and cultural distinctions will be preserved and existing ethno-cultural cleavages will persist. But now, members of diasporas may see the chance to transcend ethnic borders within multiethnic societies, to assimilate and become part of the ethno-cultural majority or to find an alternative basis for social integration and self-identification. These processes can, in different societies, go a variety of ways. In the former Soviet Union, these processes were complicated by the contradictory attitude of the state, which tried to combine the policies of ‘melting-pot’, of assimilation and of diasporization. In the USSR, the ethnic affiliation of every citizen was not a question of personal self-identification but was a matter of descent. Soviet citizens ‘inherited’ their ethnicity from their parents. In Soviet documents, such as internal passports, ethnic affiliation was a criterion defining personal identity. Thus, everybody living outside the historical homeland was, by definition, a member of a diaspora. In the Soviet period, the preservation of ethnic boundaries played a double role. On the one hand, it allowed the retention or development of multiple identities for those who did not want to or could not become part of the Russian majority.


In such a manner it served the interests, even if only temporarily, of many ethnic minorities. One could simultaneously perceive oneself as Tatar, as a citizen of the Russian Federation and as a Soviet citizen. On the other hand, ethnic boundaries protected the status of the ethnic majority, for whom the real ‘melting-pot’ ideology and practice was undesirable because it tended to undermine older political and social privileges based on ethnic origins. Russians were first among equals in Tatarstan, in Uzbekistan, in Kazakhstan and everywhere else in the Soviet Union. The preservation of ethnic barriers by official policy promoted diasporization which sometimes also meant ‘ghettoization’ and, in any case, diminished the effect of the melting pot. The idea of ethnically based nations is one of the most important elements of the total ideological heritage of the Soviet Union. The universal conceptions of republican membership or the idea of the ‘melting-pot’ are not popular in any of the Soviet successor states. A revival of ethnic feelings is evident. All kinds of economic or political demands are, whenever possible, accompanied by ethnic references, or are camouflaged by them.

10 Returning Home? Approaches to Repatriation and Migrant Resettlement in Post-Soviet Russia Moya Flynn

This chapter aims to explore the experiences of ‘repatriation’ and resettlement of ethnic Russians and other Russian speaking migrants who have arrived on the territory of the Russian Federation from other former republics of the Soviet Union.1 It examines the Russian migration regime: the development of institutional structures (governmental and non-governmental), migration legislation, migration discourses, the place of repatriation within the debate and the resultant migrant resettlement policy. The chapter also analyses migrant responses and regional migrant resettlement policies in Saratov oblast (Volga region). This allows for an exploration of the constructed nature of the migration of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking populations to the Russian Federation as well as the meaning of this process for the individual migrant.2 RETURNING HOME? MIGRATION AND THE POSTSOVIET REALITY The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that during the 1990s some nine million people were displaced on the territory of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Any classification of the ‘types’ of migration movements taking place within the post-Soviet space is problematic.3 The migration movements are complex and diverse; they cut across, rather than fit within, established theoretical boundaries. This is particularly true for the ‘return home’ of the ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking populations from other postSoviet successor states to the Russian Federation. It has been argued that this current return migration can be explained as a continuation of a ‘decolonization’ process which had already begun in the late 1960s and 1970s (Migratsiia 1996; Messina 1994; Brubaker: 1995; Codagnone 1998).4 However, within the migration flow of Russians out of the former Soviet Republics back to Russia, there were and are multiple reasons for return. From the late 1980s, the intensity of the process of return accelerated rapidly due to civil war in a number of regions (Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and due to the mass political, economic and social changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. By 1994, the main regions of departure were Central Asia and Kazakhstan. With the exception of Tajikistan there was no

RETURNING HOME? 161

ethnic conflict in these regions; however, suggestions that the outmigration was purely for economic reasons are problematic. The intensity of the movements and the economic, social and political aspects of the surrounding environment complicate any simple notion of this being a post-colonial movement home, a situation which has been mirrored in responses by all actors in the evolving migration regime and in the experience of the movement by the individual migrants themselves. MIGRATION FLOWS, FEDERAL RESPONSES: THE RUSSIAN MIGRATION REGIME Official statistics indicate that at the end of 1998 there were 1,310,000 registered refugees and forced migrants in Russia (Goskomstat Rossi 1998, 68; Federal Migration Service 1998). Ninety per cent of these were Russians from other former Soviet Republics. It is estimated that at least another two million forced migrants and refugees are not registered. In addition, at the beginning of 1998, there were 159,000 officially registered refugees from Chechnya (Regent 1998). Another 230,000 refugees from Chechnya came to Ingushetia and other neighbouring regions in late 1999 and early 2000. During the Soviet period, the closed borders and the highly controlled nature of all kinds of migration, including forced migration, meant there was a complete lack of administrative structures or legislation to deal with any uncontrolled movement of peoples. Since 1991 such structures and legislative frameworks have been actively developed within a situation of rapid social, economic, political and cultural change—this has meant that any migration policy and discourse has been inextricably linked with the wider environment. The migration regime in post-Soviet Russia emerged in an initially liberal and humanitarian climate with the signing of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees in December 1992. In February 1993 the Russian Federation laws ‘On Refugees’ and ‘On Forced Migrants’ were introduced. A ‘forced migrant’ is a citizen of the Russian Federation while a ‘refugee’ is not. Thus, from the outset, legislative frameworks set the Russian returnees apart.5 The Federal Migration Service (FMS) of the Russian Federation was established in June 1992 and mandated to ‘protect the rights of refugees and forced migrants and help in their resettlement’. This initial receptive climate indicated Russia’s willingness to accept the obligations of having become the successor to the Soviet Union, as well as her readiness to downplay her interests in the former republics. During the latter half of 1992 and 1993, this policy agenda shifted as parliamentary and governmental concern increased for the Russian communities in the so-called ‘near abroad’, and the protection of the interests of these communities became one of the main strategic issues of Russian foreign policy. Although the right of Russians to return was still upheld, this was combined with strong support for their right to stay.


Institutional and legislative changes in the Russian migration regime reflected this policy shift. From the end of 1992, the role of the FMS gradually moved from one of provision of social protection and help with resettlement to one of migration control and regulation (Pilkington 1998, 70). Amendments introduced in December 1995 to the law ‘On Forced Migrants’ aimed to tighten up the definition of a forced migrant so as to distinguish between those migrants moving for economic as opposed to political reasons. If economic reasons are identified as the reason for migration, then the status of forced migrant is denied.6 The shift to a more restrictive migration discourse also reflected economic concerns that the initial liberal legislation was ill-suited to the actual resources available for migrant resettlement on Russian territory. In the years 1996–97 repatriation entered the mainstream migration debate. Amongst its main advocates were representatives of the democratic camp and the growing non-governmental sector whose voices were increasingly heard in the early part of 1996 at the first ‘Forum of Migrant Associations’ and the parliamentary hearings held in April 1996 in preparation for the CIS Conference on Refugees and Migrants. A bill on repatriation was proposed by the State Committee on the Affairs of the CIS and Relations with Compatriots with significant input from the non-governmental sphere, but was set within a wider law on support for the Russian diaspora and the protection of Russian compatriots and repatriates. The bill suggested a shift away from forced migration as the central concept of the legislative framework in an attempt to establish a fundamental right to return irrespective of the reason for departure. Although certain sectors of the government professed support for the bill, there has been no legislative outcome and a repatriation discourse has faded from the migration agenda.7 A legacy of this period can be seen in the increasingly strong voice of the non-governmental sector which meant that the political issue of protecting Russian interests in the so-called ‘near abroad’ became more tightly bound to the social issue of the reception and resettlement of Russians upon return. Concrete government assistance for migrant resettlement has been, and is, limited, with a gradual withdrawal by the state from responsibility for migrant provision. The Federal Migration Programme, which outlines plans for the control and regulation of types of migration flows and the resettlement of forced migrants on Russian territory, has had little impact at the local level and is hindered greatly by a lack of resources.8 The viability of FMS proposals for the resettlement of incoming migrants in rural, less-populated regions of Russia and in the Far East has been questioned by migration experts who stress the necessity of taking the specific urban characteristics of the migrant population into account, and who point out other evidence which demonstrates the requirements for successful resettlement.9 The patchy implementation of migration legislation also reflects governmental attitudes to the return of incoming migrants. Often forced migrant status is little more than the possession of a piece of paper. A number of resolutions have been

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introduced since 1995 to make the law more workable,10 but these additions have met with limited success and there is continued criticism of the legislation, especially from the non-governmental human rights sphere. There is widespread discrepancy in the application of the law at the regional level where the propiska (registration) system is consistently used to prevent registration and ultimately to exclude migrants from a region. As a result of local initiatives, which frequently contradict both federal legislation and the constitution of the Russian Federation, it is estimated that not less than 20 regions have legislation which restricts inmigration (Filippova 1997: 51).11 The haphazard application of the law means that the already vulnerable migrants belonging to this category are increasingly at risk and lack protection. The role of the FMS was under review during the late 1990s. Investigations during 1997 into the activities of the migration service at the territorial level revealed corruption, a mismanagement of funds and a distinct lack of control of the central body over its regional branches. In February 1999 the former head of the FMS, Tatyana Regent, was replaced, and there was talk of abolishing the service. Her successor, Vladimir Kalamanov, has initiated a number of new developments and changes. Most important of these is the possible introduction of a ‘Concept of a State Migration Policy of the Russian Federation’ which would place the return of ethnic Russians within a general approach to migration and attempt to bring together migrant resettlement and wider questions of economic regeneration and regional development (Katsner 1999). However, governmental response seems confined to providing status. Very limited help, furthermore, is focused on controlling migration flows, and the response does not frame the return of ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking migrants in terms of a positive repatriation movement home. NON-GOVERNMENTAL RESPONSES AND MIGRANT ORGANIZATIONS The non-governmental sphere has become a key structure within the contemporary Russian migration regime. Non-governmental associations have both adopted, and been given, increasing responsibility for migrant provision by governmental structures. One of the initiatives of Kalamanov as head of the FMS has been the creation of consultative committees made up of representatives of the migration service and migrant organizations at both the federal and regional levels. At the federal level the three major non-governmental organizations are the ‘Coordinating Council for Aid to Refugees and Forced Migrants’ (CCARFM), the ‘Civic Assistance Committee’ and the ‘Forum of Migrant Associations’. It is perhaps the Forum of Migrant Associations which most represents the force of migrants in influencing and shaping their own return and resettlement. The forum was created in 1996 by the CCARFM and serves as an umbrella organization for federal-level NGOs working for the protection of refugees and forced migrants and for the widespread network of migrants’


associations which now number 170, located in 47 regions of the Russian Federation. The initial aim of the forum was to create a general mass movement to foster the idea of the transformation of a chaotic form of migration to that of organized resettlement. The development of regional migrant associations has sometimes been linked to one of the methods of migrant resettlement within the territory of the Russian Federation—‘compact settlements’. The promotion of compact settlements was initiated by the CCARFM and seen as a ‘realistic solution’ to the problems of housing, employment and adaptation faced upon return, and as providing a necessary feeling of security, community and social inclusion (Grafova et al., 1995).12 However, compact settlement sites have shown mixed results. The most successful have been those situated close to urban centres with existing infrastructures, a market for produce and where interaction with local residents reduces feelings of isolation. Interaction and integration with the local community has been facilitated by small enterprise development designed to broaden opportunities for both migrants and local employment. Such grassroots action has been encouraged by non-governmental organizations at the federal Russian level (CCARFM, Compatriots’ Fund) and by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UNHCR. The attitude of the FMS to the idea of compact settlements has fluctuated over time, alternating between support for the idea and limited financial and material help to open hostility and opposition in cases of individual compact settlements. Governmental and nongovernmental experts now hold reservations about the future of compact settlements, one concern being that they may encourage the long-term social exclusion of forced migrants. There has been widespread recognition that settlements should be encouraged only when located in viable locations near existing urban settlements. The attempts at compact group settlement and the rapid growth of regional migrant associations demonstrate a type of migrant activity which has developed in response to both governmental policy, state indifference and to the situation migrants are facing in terms of their own displacement. Such group activity demonstrates one attempt by individual migrants to create a space for themselves in an often hostile Russia. The growing influence of migrant associations and their activity at both the regional and federal level indicates their increasingly important role in the contemporary Russian migration regime. LOCAL REALITIES: MEANINGS OF ‘HOME’ AND EXPERIENCE OF RESETTLEMENT AMONG RUSSIAN MIGRANTS IN SARATOV OBLAST When discussing the question of return and resettlement of forced migrants in the Russian Federation an essential question is to what extent repatriation articulates the experience of individuals themselves. Crucial to this question are the perceptions of the migrants about whether their new homeland represents what

RETURNING HOME? 165

Map 10.1: Distribution of forced migrants and refugees, Russion Federation, 1999 Source: Goskomstat Rossii, 1998; Federal Migration Service, 1998.

they imagine as their home and what the factors affecting these perceptions are (Zetter 1994). On the territory of Saratov oblast, an empirical study carried out by the author of this chapter revealed that the majority of migrants were either born, or had spent the vast majority of their lives, outside Russia. Of 44 migrants interviewed, only seven were born within the present territory of the Russian Federation. Thus, in many respects, Russia was an ‘unknown’ territory prior to 1991, the possible move to this territory had never been considered, and the process of return was one of leaving their home rather than returning to it. The understanding of home for migrants in Saratov oblast is problematic. The term rodina fixes homeland as the place of birth, and many respondents identified their rodina as ‘there’, where they were born: ‘Rodina is where you are born, we were born in Tajikistan, there is our homeland (tam nasha rodina)’ (Interview, I.D. 11).13 The various concepts of rodina are also linked to the former USSR as a whole and this rodina no longer exists. However, sometimes an identification with an ethnic homeland is made: ‘We are Russian (Russkie), we have come to our Russian brothers, we have not just moved anywhere, we have come to our native Russia’ (Interview, I.D. 35). Feelings of home have been disrupted by the situation in which migrants have found themselves. Although they may have


Map 10.2: Regional distribution of forced migrants and refugees, Saratov Oblast, 1999 Source: Saratov Territorial Migration Service, 1998.

imagined their necessary move to Russia as a possible return home, the situation they face is one of insecurity and uncertainty, which prevents these feelings developing. Much is attributed to home being where a person has feelings of stability and belonging, which to many was ‘there’ in the former Soviet Republic, where there was the security of employment, housing, established friends and community. The complexity of the meaning of home for just a small number of migrants reveals the problematic nature of what Russia, and return, signifies. To many, an understanding of their home will always be ‘there’; however, this understanding has been displaced and, through the process of migration and resettlement, feelings of belonging and home are gradually developing on the territory of Russia: ‘My rodina is there, where I was born, where my friends are. But I think Russia has to become my “home”. If there is housing, I will consider

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that Russia—it is my home’ (Interview, I.D. 35). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the communities in the former republics are having to face the choice of returning to a previously unimagined homeland (Russia) as their sense of belonging to their prior physical homeland (former republic) has been disrupted.14 There I am a stranger, and here I am still not myself. That is, I am between the sky and earth. I am not there, or here…if everything were settled, if there were housing and work, then I could say I would never leave here—it would be my ‘home’ (Interview, I.D. 43). Thus the process of resettlement includes a recreating of home. In the face of limited government assistance, Russian returnees are having to develop alternative strategies to facilitate this process. The chapter will now attempt to explore the reality of repatriation and resettlement on the territory of Saratov oblast. This analysis is based upon findings from fieldwork carried out in the region from 1997 to 1999. The conclusions do not claim to be representative of the situation in the Russian Federation, but aim to demonstrate the nature of the process of local migrant resettlement in Saratov, and to observe the way in which migrants are responding to the challenge of return in this region. The Volga region is one of the main regions for migrant settlement in the Russian Federation15 (see Map 10.1). Migrants started arriving at Saratov oblast in 1991–92 from Azerbaijan, following the pogroms in Sumgait and Baku, and from Tajikistan after the outbreak of civil war in 1992 (Zuev 1996:1). Up to August 1999 a total of 53,283 forced migrants and refugees, who make up approximately 2 per cent of the total population of Saratov oblast, have been registered on the territory of the oblast, but this does not include the large numbers who have not been registered (Saratov Migration Service 1992–99). Within the Volga region itself, Saratov oblast has the second largest number of registered forced migrants and refugees.16 During the late 1990s the majority of migrants were arriving from Kazakhstan and other Central Asian successor states of the Soviet Union. Since 1992, 70 per cent of migrants have settled in urban areas, approximately 45 per cent of these in the city of Saratov17 (see Map 10.2 and Chapter 8). The reasons for the attractiveness of the oblast include the moderate climate, proximity to the regions of departure and personal factors such as the presence of relatives or ancestral links to the oblast.18 In addition there is a fairly positive environment for migration. The Territorial Migration Service (TMS) of Saratov, established in June 1993, has the reputation of ‘accepting migrants’ and being ‘a migration service which could help’ (Interview, I.D. 8, 10, 11). The presence of three well-established migrant associations, Saratovskii Istochnik (Saratov Spring), Vozvrashchenie (Return) and the Komitet Bezhentsev iz Chechnii (Committee of Refugees from Chechnya) also play a role both in providing a network for potential migrants and in facilitating their resettlement upon arrival. Saratovskii Istochnik was founded in January 1995 by different groups of migrants, who had arrived from a number of republics. Vozvrashchenie and the Committee of Refugees from Chechnya were created to deal with problems


facing a specific category of migrants. Vozvrashchenie aims primarily to provide support for migrant women and children. The Committee of Refugees from Chechnya works mainly with displaced persons from Chechnya, but is open to all categories of migrants. All three organizations work closely with the TMS and are members of the Forum of Migrant Associations. Links also exist with the IOM and the UNHCR. Despite the apparent existence of a fairly positive environment for migration and a framework of structures to facilitate resettlement, the reality of the individual migrant experience is very different. Across the region there are widespread economic and social problems, specifically, high levels of unemployment and lack of housing. Upon arrival, migrants are completely excluded from any structures which exist to help in the provision of even the most basic services. Even if the migrants register this may not ease the securing of housing and employment. Migrants who either do not wish to register or are excluded from doing so must develop other strategies and draw on other sources to negotiate their resettlement. So-called unprotected migrants (lone pensioners, lone invalids, single mothers, large families) are entitled to limited monetary help and assistance in finding housing. Forced migrants may apply for a loan for the construction, renovation or purchase of housing, and migrants arriving from Chechnya are eligible for compensation. However, individual migrants seem to have limited knowledge of what is available and are wary of the bureaucratic procedure, for example, associated with the formulation of an application for a loan. Individuals have difficulty adapting to the position of needing to ask somebody for help. Both in reference to the TMS and the migrant associations, a number of migrants were reluctant to turn to anybody for help: ‘I am used to helping people, and when I find myself in such distress, I find it very difficult, morally, to turn to someone for help’ (Interview, I.D. 1), and had the feeling they should cope alone: ‘you just have to depend upon yourself, not on others’ (Interview, I.D. 7). In this environment, a variety of forms of migrant resettlement have developed on the territory of Saratov oblast. These may be divided loosely into three types. The aim here is not to label them as defined types of resettlement but to try and show different ways in which migrants are negotiating this return, and what different structures and networks they can use to facilitate their resettlement. Group resettlement One of the forms of organized, mainly migrant-initiated, return and resettlement which has taken place in the oblast is a group strategy based around the compacttype settlement idea. Such settlements are predominantly in rural areas. In 1999 there were 12 such settlements in the oblast.19 However, the reality of the experience of three settlements looked at during the empirical study is far from the ‘ideal’ which has been envisaged.20 The examples of migrant-initiated group resettlement reveal the problems of establishing a settlement in difficult

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economic conditions, in regions which lack existing infrastructure and in the absence of official, institutional support and financial resources. The tendency for group movement and settlement has lessened over the past two years. This is due both to changing conditions of departure and opportunities upon arrival. Plots of land are no longer available and, as a result of the problematic experiences, arriving migrants are not directed by the TMS to settlements. Although the migration service has professed support for existing compact settlements at both federal and regional levels, at present there is little indication of this support in Saratov oblast. It is possible to suggest that, with greater attention, planning and help from local structures—the TMS and local administration—the efforts of these migrant groups may have been more successful providing an example of a viable form of return and resettlement. Family networks and resettlement. The second type of resettlement is mainly family centred. The movement is usually planned as a family group. The move is either to relatives (or sometimes friends) who are already settled in the oblast— often migrants who have moved earlier or relatives who have always lived in the area—or to an area where certain members of a family act as scouts (razvedchiki). In the first example of movement, the migrants receive information from family or friends about the situation in the oblast before departure, and upon arrival are able to receive initial help with finding a place to register, finding accommodation and in finding employment. In the second example, the scouts will visit the oblast to assess the opportunities for accommodation and employment, make arrangements in these areas, and then either send back for the remaining members of the family or return to the former republics and move as a family at a later date. The migrant associations Saratovskii Istochnik and Vozvrashchenie play an important role in the provision of information to potential migrants in the former republics, sometimes through the Russian consulates, but predominantly via informal contacts. The associations are visited by individuals coming on exploratory visits to the oblast for advice and information. The ‘move to relatives’ is considered as one of the most favourable methods of facilitating return and resettlement, helping with initial accommodation, finding work and providing a period of time to adapt; however, obviously it depends upon the presence of these prior contacts. The use of both family contacts and scouts demonstrates the development of small migrant networks, which extend between the former republics and place of settlement. Official structures, primarily the Saratov TMS, may be used for acquisition of status and for information about jobs and housing. However, the migrants depend very much on their own strategies and contacts, primarily the family network and the use of scouts. Although, in some cases, links exist with family members still living in the former republics, the ultimate aim is usually for the whole family to make the move to Russia.


Spontaneous resettlement This type of resettlement occurs where migrants lack any supporting structures when they arrive and are more dependent upon initial, official help. Such movement and resettlement is largely shaped by the nature of departure where migrants have arrived in the oblast with no previous plans for resettlement. The majority of forced migrants who arrived from Chechnya were in this situation, as were migrants from the former republics who were unable to plan before departure and who lack contacts in the oblast. The majority of these migrants will initially turn to the TMS for assistance but concrete help is limited. Temporary accommodation may be provided at one of the two reception centres. However, these centres have been criticized for impeding, rather than helping, resettlement. They are situated in rural areas on the edge of small towns where there are already high instances of unemployment and lack of housing, and opportunities for movement out of the centres is limited. The official period for which a migrant can stay in the centre is three months. However, the majority often live there for one to two years (Director of Krasnoarmeisk Temporary Resettlement Centre 1997). Over two hundred forced migrants from Chechnya have received compensation, which has resulted in large numbers moving out of the centres of temporary resettlement into their own housing. Many of the migrants draw upon the support of the migrant associations which fill an important gap and are an important source of legal advice, emergency help and support.21 In the case of spontaneous resettlement, the arriving migrants have no structures of their own upon which to depend. Emergency official help is generally short term and does not facilitate long-term resettlement. The difficult reality of acquiring accommodation and employment is aggravated by the position of these migrants and is likely to require more time, involving the use of primarily non-official, but also official, frameworks, and the gradual development of individual survival strategies. CONCLUSIONS It is clear that the journey home for many Russians is far from simple or unproblematic. The process can be looked at through a combination of theoretical interpretations, migration discourse, policy and institutions and individual migrant experience. Drawing on recent attempts within migration theory, the experience of the individual has to be placed within the wider macro-, micro-and meso-environment, while acknowledging that the migrant is an important actor who is both influenced by, and can influence, the developing migration regime.22 However, it must be added that sometimes the individual migrant is in reality outside of this regime in terms of contact with other actors and structures. In the Russian Federation, the way migration is framed at the official or state level has impacted upon local-level migrant resettlement. The response to the resultant

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official migration policy has been a strengthening of the non-governmental and migrant voice which has aimed to reconstruct migration in a way which will facilitate the processes of return and resettlement for some migrants. These efforts, although limited by the wider environment, have succeeded in reshaping approaches to return. While the wider environment positions the returnee in a distinct way, repatriation is a process undertaken by the individual. Home is not simply a physical space which can be returned to, but rather a complex matrix of socio-spatial factors shaped by distinctive historical patterns and current socioeconomic and cultural determining forces. ‘Repatriation’ in post-Soviet Russia cannot just be seen as a unidirectional, homogenous movement, but is rather one of disjointed cultural and physical reconstruction experienced and negotiated by the individual. NOTES 1 The chapter raises the question of to what extent ‘repatriation’—in the sense of return to a homeland—describes the migration process for the individuals involved. Chapters 8 and 22 deal with similar issues related to the present migration of populations within and out of the post-Soviet space. 2 The constructed nature of migration implies the ways in which historical, academic, state, press and other discourses have shaped the process taking place. 3 In the ‘Programme of Action’ (adopted after the CIS Regional Conference on the problems of refugees and displaced persons, Geneva, May 1996, under the auspices of the UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)), the following definitions for the population movements were used: refugees; persons in refugeelike situations; internally displaced persons; repatriants; involuntarily relocating persons; formerly deported peoples; ecological migrants; illegal migrants. 4 Russian and Western experts (Brubaker 1995:210; Grafova 1995:6) have compared, as a case of colonial repatriation, the current events within the territory of the former Soviet Union to the case of the pieds noirs and their ‘return’ from French Algeria in 1962 (Jordi 1995). 5 The February 1992 Law on Citizenship states that any resident of the FSU is entitled to Russian citizenship if he or she applied before 31 December 2000. 6 Article 1 of the law states that ‘a forced migrant is an individual who has citizenship of the Russian Federation and who has left or intends to leave his/her place of residence on the territory of another state or on the territory of the Russian Federation as a result of violence or other form of persecution towards him/herself or members of his/her family, or who is under real threat of being subjected to persecution towards him/herself or members of his/her family, or who is under real threat of being subjected to persecution on the grounds of his/her race, nationality, religion, language, affiliation to a particular social group or political conviction in connection with the conducting of hostile campaigns against individual groups or individuals, mass violations of public order or other circumstances significantly restricting human rights.’


7 8

9

10

11

12

13 14 15

16

17 18

Point 3 of Article 2 states that persons who may be refused forced migration status are those ‘leaving their place of residence due to economic causes or owing to hunger, epidemic or extreme situations of a natural or technical character’. Law of the Russian Federation on forced migrants, Sobranie Zakondatel’stva RF, No. 52, 25 December 1995. For a more in-depth discussion of the repatriation debate see Pilkington and Flynn 1999. The Federal Migration Programme (1996–2000) was approved by the Russian government on 10 November 1997, and had been worked out on the basis of the Federal Migration Programme approved by presidential decree 9 August 1994, and amended 13 June 1996. In Saratov oblast the planned creation of workplaces at compact settlement sites contained in the programme have not taken place due to a lack of federal funding. It has been shown that the predominantly urban migrants prefer to settle in the central and south-western regions of Russia where the economy is more developed —if resettlement occurs in rural areas, this is likely to be in the European part of the country (Zajonchkovskaya 1997). Research in Yaroslaval and Sverdlovsk oblasts showed that ill-suited migrant resettlement and poor housing in rural areas led to widespread disillusionment amongst the migrant population (Vitkovskaya 1997). The two resolutions concerned compensation for victims of the Chechen conflict (30 April 1997) and a loan system for forced migrants for the construction, renovation or purchase of accommodation (28 January 1997). The propiska system was officially abolished on 1 October 1993, but has been replaced by a system of registration. Among the local authorities which use the procedure for obtaining a propiska to prevent in-migration are Krasnodar, Stavropol’ and Moscow. Initial construction began as early as 1989. There are different estimates of the numbers of compact settlements in existence. The FMS has spoken of about fiftysix compact settlements to which it provides support, whilst the Compatriots’ Fund estimates the number to be as high as seven hundred. This discrepancy demonstrates the difficulty in defining what constitutes a compact settlement (Filippova 1998:6). Interviews conducted by Moya Flynn with migrants (interview, I.D. 1–44), 1997– 99, Saratov oblast. Issues of home and cultural adaptation of Russian forced migrants are dealt with in more depth in Pilkington 1998:164–98 and Pilkington and Flynn 1999:188–90. By 1 January 1999 the Volga region had received the second highest number of forced migrants and refugees—a total of 240,741. The region which had received the highest number was the North Caucasus—267,564 (Goskomstat Rossii 1998:68; Federal Migration Service 1998). The Volga region includes Astrakhan, Volgograd, Penza, Samara, Saratov and Ul’ianovsk oblasts and the republics of Kalmykiya and Tatarstan. Samara oblast has received the highest number of forced migrants and refugees over the period 1992–99, a total of 67,257 (Goskomstat 1998:68; Federal Migration Service 1998). A total of 37,413 forced migrants and refugees settled in urban areas, with 16,931 of these in the city of Saratov (Saratov Territorial Migration Service 1992–99), Out of 44 migrants interviewed, 18 stated that the presence of family, or earlier family links with the region, influenced their move to Saratov.

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19 This is an approximate figure—the deputy director of the TMS quoted a figure of three, while the representatives of Saratovskii Istochnik and Vozvrashchenie knew of seven to twelve within the territory of the oblast. This discrepancy is further demonstration of the difficulty of definition. 20 The three settlements include Aleksandrova, Kleshova and Severyanka. Aleksandrovka is situated seven kilometres from the outskirts of the city and was founded in 1994 by a group of migrants from Uzbekistan. Initial support was received from the local administration and TMS. However, the majority of migrants still live in a hostel as the construction of the planned houses has not been completed due to a lack of resources. Kleskhovka is situated seventeen kilometres from the centre of the city. The migrants arrived as a group of eleven families from Dushanbe in 1992. However, the established joint cooperative failed and now there is little group contact. Although initial help was received from the FMS, no additional funding has materialized. Severyanka is made up of individual families of migrants from different republics, and was established by a migrant from Northern Russia in 1992. Despite the initial success of the settlement enterprise the situation has greatly deteriorated due to its isolated location, the failure of the enterprise and subsequent break-up of the group venture. 21 Migrants stressed that the presence of an association, made up of people who have had the same experience and who are able to understand, is of great importance (interviews, I.D. 1, 3, 5, 6). 22 These theoretical approaches (Goss and Lindquist 1995; Phizacklea 1996; Bakewell 1996) draw upon Giddens’s theory of structuration to acknowledge the relationship which exists between social structure and human agency, and the importance of individual agency in influencing wider policy and structures set within the framework of constraining and enabling factors (Giddens 1984).

11 Social Citizenship and Non-Migration: The Immobility of the Russian Diaspora in the Baltics Wim van Meurs

THE ETHNIC DIMENSION OF POST-SOVIET TRANSFORMATION The term ‘diaspora’ has only recently become a generic term for the new minority of 25 million ethnic Russians resulting from the end of the Soviet Union (Armstrong 1976:393–403; Kolstø 1995:4–6). The concept of diaspora indicates the dispersion of the Russian population, but in contrast to most historic diasporas, the Russian diaspora still has a powerful homeland of its own; the Russian Federation. The Russians in the former Soviet republics are definitely not a diaspora in the sense of a small, self-reliant community which manages to survive in adverse circumstances thanks to its consolidated national or religious identity and its adaptability. Particularly in the successful transformation countries, these ethnic Russians are considered to be ‘yesterday’s men’, unable to accept the loss of political power and socio-economic privileges and to come to terms with the new rules of a market economy in another nation-state. Table 11.1 Ethnic composition of the population of the Baltic states since 1989 (percentage) Ethnic group

Estonia

1989

1989

1997

1989

1995

61.5 0.2 0.2 1.8 30.3 3.1 0.2 2.8 35.2 61.9

65.1 0.2 0.2 1.5 28.1 2.5 0.2 2.6 32.2 65.5

0.1 52.0 1.3 4.5 34.0 3.5 2.3 2.3 42.0 53.4

0.1 55.3 1.3 4.0 32.5 2.9 2.2 1.7 39.4 56.7

1998

Estonians Latvians Lithuanians Belarussians Russians Ukrainians Poles Others East Slavs Balts

Latvia

Lithuania – 0.1 79.6 1.7 9.4 1.2 7.0 1.0 12.3 79.7

– – 81.3 1.5 8,4 1.0 7.0 0.8 10.9 81.3


Ethnic group

Estonia

1989

1989

1998

Latvia 1997

1989

Total 1.57 m. 1.45 m. 2.67 m. Source: Demographic Statistics 1996:33, Table 6.

Lithuania 1995 2.48 m.

3.67 m.

3.72 m.

From the academic perspective of research on nationalities and nationalism (Kolstø 1995:3–4), the Baltic states constitute a case study of particular interest. Apart from the relative size of the Russian-speaking minorities—35 per cent of the population in Estonia, 42 per cent in Latvia and 12 per cent in Lithuania—the geopolitical importance of the region and the tensions between the titular nations and the russophones on the one hand as well as between the small states and neighbouring Russia on the other hand enhanced the momentum of this question. Moscow went to great lengths to keep its influence in the Baltic region as long as possible and to destabilize the political situation within these states. Thus, the stationing of Russian troops and the border treaty negotiations were instrumentalized for years. The same applies to the issue of the treatment of the Russian minorities, which has become an additional argument and justification for interference. Baltic national emancipation movements, for their part, knowing that the demise of the Soviet Union was, to a significant extent, their doing, had only one well-defined goal: the reconstitution of the political and demographic status quo ante. The minorities policy in line with this goal not only drew criticism from the West, but also offered Russia numerous opportunities to play the role of protector for their compatriots in distress in the Baltic states (Smith 1998:3–5). Consequently, in the early 1990s there was a large number of academic studies dealing with the identity crisis of the Russians in the diaspora, conducting surveys on their attitudes towards democracy and market economy, or weighing Baltic national rights against human rights for russophones. Most of these studies typically ended with a number of alternative scenarios for the next decade: integration of the minorities in Baltic civil society and polity, an escalation leading to some sort of civil war or (forced) remigration to the crisis-struck Russian homeland (Kolstø 1995:290–315; Rose 1995; Klingemann et al. 1994). The situation of 2000 corresponds to neither of these scenarios: while in the years 1992–93, Estonia and Latvia registered a ‘promising’ migration rate in the range of tens of thousands of Russians leaving the country each year, this outflow has turned into a trickle, irrelevant for the overall minority problem (Dunlop 1994). The fact that restrictive minority policies and limited rights have failed to produce a substantial emigration and the fact that no visible progress concerning the integration of Russian-speakers could be achieved has, together with pressure from the West and from Moscow, recently motivated the Baltic states to change their strategy. The counter-scenario, however, also failed to materialize: despite occasional protests and tense relations between the titular nation and the

176 SOCIAL CITIZENSHIP AND NON-MIGRATION

russophones as well as between the Baltic states and Russia, much to the amazement of indigenous and foreign observers, cases of interethnic violence were very limited indeed. The Russian population’s attitude seems to be one of resignation. Collectively, they neither heed Moscow’s call for ethnic mobilization nor do they strive for integration in the new nation-states. (Smith 1998:7) Table 11.2 Ethnic Russian emigration from the Baltic states, 1989–96 (in thousands) 1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

Estonia 2.8 3.6 18.7 10.6 8.2 Latvia 3.5 5.2 19.7 19.4 19.3 Lithuania 5.1 4.5 10.2 13.4 5.4 Source: Smith 1996d:197, Table 8.5; Kirch 1997:144, Table 8.1.

1995

1996

6.2 10.7 2.2

4.1 5.9 1.5

Since this unstable equilibrium has consolidated into a lasting situation, the priorities and dilemmas of both minorities policy and ethnic studies have changed. The demographic changes have come to a halt, the legal framework has been generally completed, and any integration policies will produce substantial results only in the long run. In the new reality of this consolidation, neither the classical minority issues nor constructivist topics of identity-building are in the centre of ‘interethnic relations’. Thus, it seems that in addition to ethnic issues, socio-economic asymmetries are becoming the main determinants of political and social development. In Paul Kolstø’s 1995 list of eight causes of interethnic tension in the Baltic region, the socio-economic dimension was notably missing. The main revelation of developments in the past decade is, however, that issues of socio-economic differentiation and ethno-cultural antagonisms, habitually seen as two separate themes, are connected in complex and contradictory ways. Consequently, the tools of classical minority policies or ethnic studies are inadequate because of their tendency to reduce the multiple conflicts to ethnicity. Rather, an analysis of ethno-politics as a whole, defined as ‘any politics among ethnic entities…that impinges on the relative power or position of ethnic groups’, is needed (Karklins 1994:4). Far more aspects of Baltic politics, society and economics in the postcommunist state-building and economic transformation—e.g. regional investment programmes, restructuring of industry, land reform, privatization strategies, ecological policies and even housing policies—influence, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the relative political and socio-economic position of minorities and titular nations than do regulations concerning language, education, elections and citizenship.


‘CLASSICAL’ MINORITY POLICIES AND THE RUSSIAN DIASPORA The ideal of a return to an imagined status quo ante, a ‘post-socialist road to a pre-socialist future’ (Meurs 1997) played a crucial role for both the Popular Front and Congress movements in Latvia and Estonia as well as for Sajudis in Lithuania. This task of restoration was generally also seen as an ethnic issue. The main problem of restoration was the demographic legacy of communism, the Russian diaspora, rather than Soviet communism itself. Russian became synonymous with communism, Soviet nostalgia and rejection of pluralist democracy and market economy. As soon as state independence had been achieved, relevant legislation was initiated on the basis of the idealized situation of the inter-war period. The instruments of classical minority policy were to guarantee a dominant position for the titular nations in their own nation-states. Apart from demographic and cultural survival, as well as political power, the envisaged dominant position also involved socio-economic advantages. The Russians, being ‘illegal’ settlers, were to be excluded from the body politic by means of the constitution, electoral and citizenship law. The professional and cultural advantages of the Russian language as lingua franca were to be reversed by a language law. Soon, however, it turned out that the Russians remained immobile, unwilling to emigrate collectively. Thus, the Baltic governments were forced nolens volens to come to terms with their minorities by means of aliens’ laws and non-citizen passports. Although the Popular Front in Estonia had originally championed a modified zero-option (i.e., giving full citizenship to all people who were residents at the time of independence, regardless of ethnic affiliation or the family’s migration history) on 26 February 1992, the new parliament—elected by the Estonian citizens of 1940 and their descendants—passed a citizenship law, modelled on the 1938 law which obliged all non-historic inhabitants to go through a naturalization procedure. The requirements for naturalization were three years of continuous residence, a language test and an oath on the constitution. Thus, 500, 000 to 600,000 non-Estonians were excluded—30 per cent of the population (Chinn and Kaiser 1996, 100–1). Additionally, on 12 July 1993, an aliens’ law was passed. In order to control the presumed tens of thousands of Russian-speaking illegals without passport or Soviet propiska (a permit of residence granting the possibility of moving within the state), all were compelled to apply for a residence permit, renewable every five years. Non-citizens, moreover, were not allowed to be members of a political party or functionaries of trade unions and had no right to vote on the national level and no right to run for office on the local level. The constitution, however, gave ‘social citizenship’ to all, including the non-citizens: pension rights, unemployment and health benefits and other social security protection. Yet the prolongation of the residence (and working) permits was not guaranteed, and there were sometimes hints of restricting social security for non-citizens.


In Latvia, the zero option ceased to be an issue as soon as independence had been achieved, when a long and heated debate began. On the basis of the 1919 citizenship law, a parliamentary resolution first proposed in 1991 demanded an oath of loyalty, command of the Latvian language and ten years of residence. Thereafter, it took three years before the citizenship law of 22 July 1994, which regulated citizenship and naturalization, was passed. Because of international protests, ‘naturalization windows’ (a clause allowing one particular age cohort to apply each year) replaced the envisaged naturalization quota. Thus 700,000 Russians had to cope with a long period of uncertainty concerning their rights and future. The parliamentary resolution of 15 October 1991 had already deprived them of the right to vote, banned them from civil service, and prohibited them from buying or possessing land. In Lithuania, the citizenship regulation comes close to the zero-option model. The law of 11 December 1991 determined that all post-1940 immigrants had to produce evidence of command of the language and ten years of residence (this had been reduced from 16 years in the initial resolution), but the first law of December 1989 and the agreement with Russia (29 July 1991) had already given all Russians living in Lithuania the right to claim Lithuanian citizenship as long as they were prepared to give up any other passports they might have. Thus by 1991 more than 90 per cent of all non-Lithuanians had acquired Lithuanian citizenship. Since 1997, imminent decisions on EU membership, criticism from international organizations and Russia’s menacing gestures have, in addition to domestic motives, made Estonia and Latvia take initiatives concerning citizenship and aliens’ regulations. In the long run, such a large non-integrated minority is an unacceptable situation for any state. The Latvian president Ulmanis and his Estonian counterpart Meri pressed for an acceleration of the naturalization process and a liberalization of the conditions. Plans to give citizenship to small specific groups on an ‘unscheduled’ basis were, however, politically highly controversial. As both countries are known for their unstable political situation, with frequent changes of coalition governments, the citizenship issue is a hot iron no party politician would touch of his own volition. Nevertheless, despite vehement protests by the nationalist Pro Patria Union, on 1 July 1997, all of the 200,000 non-citizens who had applied for temporary residence permits were promised a permanent permit. Similarly, on certain conditions, young children born in Estonia of non-citizens could receive Estonian citizenship. This regulation, however, was more a matter of principle than substance: it would be applicable for 6,500 children at best (out of 300,000 stateless inhabitants). In Latvia, an amendment to the citizenship law passed parliament in 1998, which abolished the ‘naturalization windows.’ The law possibly made the language tests easier to pass and offered citizenship automatically to children of non-citizens born after independence (Current Latvia, 22 July 1998). A referendum instigated by the rightist party Fatherland and Freedom against this amendment failed on 3 October 1998.


In the Baltic Republics under Soviet rule, a command of Russian as a second language was a prerequisite for a career in management, public administration or certain specialized professions. Nevertheless, in the Baltic Republics, both the Russians’ knowledge of the titular languages and the autochthons’ command of Russian were below the Soviet average. Many Baltic people learned Russian as a second language, but few acquired Russian as a mother tongue: in 1989, 97 per cent of the Baltic people identified the main language of their ethnic group as their mother tongue (Smith 1996b:125). Conversely, in the same year, most Russians admitted to not knowing any language other than Russian (84 per cent in Estonia, 74 per cent in Latvia and 60 per cent in Lithuania) (Melvin 1995:136, Table A3). Here again, regional and sectoral differences were remarkable: rural Estonians almost never speak any Russian, but Estonians working in industry have a working knowledge of Russian (Kaplan 1993:210). The fact that language laws—even more than citizenship regulations—became a permanent conflict in interethnic relations was based on concrete socio-economic motives rather than emotional and patriotic feelings. Language knowledge remains a career factor, although advantages and disadvantages have been turned upside down. SECTORAL CONCENTRATION OF MINORITIES AND ECONOMIC POLICIES Not only Western observers such as Francis Fukuyama, who said that ‘there is no reason to assume that Lithuania will be less liberal than Sweden or Finland, as soon as they have regained national independence’ (Fukuyama 1992:37), but also the entire political leadership in the Baltic states expected to see a speedy ‘return’ to the national traditions of liberal democracy and laissez-faire economics after the demise of the Soviet Union. Indeed, a decade later, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are among the more advanced Central and East European transformation states. The secrets of their success are objective economic advantages and favourable preconditions: the excellent geopolitical location as part of the growth region along the Baltic Sea, the small size of the national economies and the head start in modernization which they had in comparison with other former Soviet republics. Additional factors, however, are the perceived continuity with and return to a status quo ante as well as the refusal to accept the Soviet legacies as a fait accompli. This national consensus of politicians and the general public alike has given the transformation in the Baltic states a singleness of purpose and persistence lacking in most other post-Soviet states (Smith 1996b: 169–98). This transition period of historical blueprints and ethnic mobilization had negative long-term ethno-political consequences, such as restrictive citizenship and minority policies, as well as the low priority given to social security of transformation as a redistribution between the rich and the poor or to regional policy as a means of redistribution between successful and structurally weak regions (Meurs 1997; Smith 1996a:5–8). The ambiguous ideal of reversing the


socio-economic changes of the Soviet period has aggravated the contrasts between the titular nations and the Russian diaspora. Because of Soviet policies, the Russians are overrepresented both among the industrial workers and in the cities. According to an Estonian 1991 survey, 40 per cent of all Russians worked in industry while only 13 per cent of the Estonians did so. The Russians were, generally speaking, the untrained bluecollar workers, looked down upon by the Baltic people as a lumpenproletariat. In the agrarian sector the situation was reversed: Russians accounted for 8 per cent and Estonians for 88 per cent of the rural labour force (Kaplan 1993: 209). The sectoral disproportions in Latvia are similar. The Russians in Lithuania are more evenly spread over rural and urban areas as well as in economic sectors. Among the Lithuanian cities, only Vilnius and Klaipeda have a substantial Russian minority, but in both cases the Lithuanian majority is more secure now than it had been before the war. Table 11.3 Urban and rural population of the Baltics, 1989 (percentage) Estonia Urban Of total population 71 Of Russian population 92 Russian share in % 39 Source: Melvin 1995:136, Table A4.

Latvia

Lithuania

Rural

Urban

Rural

Urban

Rural

29 8 8

71 85 41

29 15 18

68 90 12

32 10 3

Conversely, the Russian minority of the Soviet migration is under-represented in the agrarian and service sectors as well as in the small and medium-sized enterprises. The logic of economic transformation, however, is that the large industrial enterprises are immediately hit hardest by monetarization. Generally, industrial production was reduced by half and recovered very slowly indeed. The privatization of large enterprises proceeded without restructuring and enterprization, but consisted merely of splitting them up into smaller competitive companies, and all but failed. Conversely, in the case of most small and mediumsized companies, privatization as such was more or less sufficient for the transition to the market economy. In many cases, macro-economic stabilization of industrial production is based on the establishment of new firms in other branches, compensating for the closure of obsolete installations in heavy industry. The new firms rarely use the same location or the same personnel. The decline of production and income in the agrarian sector is more gradual and in the countryside there are more readily available opportunities for alternative sources of income and labour. The service sector—in which the Russians are also under-represented—and trade recovered far more quickly. This professional and sectoral asymmetry implies that the Russian population is over-represented among the ‘losers’ of economic transformation, and is notably aware of it


(Savoskul 1996:152, Table 5.1). These Russian ‘disadvantages’ were caused by the structural sectoral asymmetries as well as the inherent pressures of transformation and enhanced by the strategies for privatization and restructuring chosen in the Baltic states. The transformation of the large industrial enterprises not only involved economic policy, but also had an ethno-political dimension. Part of the selfimage of the Baltic people was a special attachment to nature. Thus industrialization and the growth of large cities were viewed of as Russian phenomena. The man in the street often saw the uncontrolled influx of Russian migrants as a demographic subjugation of the Baltic nations and the forced industrialization as a threat to mankind and nature in the Baltic states. Despite the paradox that the immediate victims of industrial pollution were the Russians living and working in the industrial cities, the ecological argument became a strong mobilizing factor in the national emancipation process. In the last years of Soviet rule, the environmental movement mobilized the populations against ecological damage and threats to public health caused by Moscow-initiated mega-projects (Muiznieks 1987). These projects were seen not as examples of a misguided policy of economic modernization, but as a coordinated Russo-Soviet assault on the survival of the Baltic peoples and their native country. Each megaproject, moreover, entailed a new wave of migrant workers from Russia (Taagepera 1989). This ethnic reading made the green movement a direct contributor to the national movement. Consequently, after independence, apart from macro-economic and ecological motives, ethno-political arguments played a significant role in the drive to erase the large industrial complexes. Table 11.4 Titular nations and ethnic Russians in selected Baltic cities, 1989 (%) Titular nation

Russians


36.5 13.0 37.3

47.3 58.3 55.0 38.0

910.5 124.9 42.3 983.4

4.0 47.4

85.9 41.2

77.5 479.0 24.0 20.5

63.0 50.5

28.2 20.2

202.9 575.8

Latvia Riga Daugavpils Rezekne Liepaja (1995) Estonia Narva* Tallinn Kohtla-Järve* Sillamäe* Lithuania Klaipeda Vilnius


Titular nation

Russians


Kaunas 80.0 8.3 419.0 Snieckus 64.2 32.0 * Russian-speakers: Narva: approx. 96%, Kohtla-Järve: approx. 77%, Sillamäe: approx. 97%. Source: Gaidys 1994:92, Table 7.1; G.Smith 1996d:193, Table 8.1.

In the cases of Estonia and Latvia, Moscow decided to use these republics after annexation to get a head start in industrialization, urbanization and infrastructure building. Apart from further developing the traditional industrial branches of these countries, large industrial complexes in heavy and military industry production were formed, most of them under direct command of the branch ministries in Moscow. From the perspective of Moscow’s planning, the fact that these small republics had neither the necessary labour surplus and energy resources nor the raw materials for production was not a major problem, resulting, as it did, in increasing dependence on the Soviet Union as supplier of energy and raw materials as well as the only market for the industrial production, thus creating a crucial problem for the economic transformation in the Baltic states after 1991. As a small market in the global economy, the Baltic states depend heavily on import and export for their prosperity: the future of the three small national economies depends on high-end industrial production, services and agro-industry. A successful transition would imply a shift from industry to the service sector as well as a shift of branches within the industrial sector. This introduces an additional ethno-political element of asymmetry in industry production: the industrial branches with the bleakest prospects in a young market economy are concentrated in north-eastern Estonia (Ida-Virumaa region) and south-eastern Latvia (Latgale region). As former examples of Soviet progress, their workforce is predominantly Russian, concentrated in mining, heavy industry and chemicals. Conversely, food and consumer industries with good or even excellent prospects were concentrated on the west coast and in the capital cities (Götz 1991:338–55). All three Baltic states—Estonia more rigorously than Latvia and Lithuania— chose a strictly neoliberal market-economy strategy with as little state intervention as possible, which implied budget austerity—no subsidies for unprofitable companies, minimal social policies and an ‘island of reform’ strategy instead of a redistributive regional development policy. At the same time, the ethno-political dimension of industrial policy is self-evident to all involved. It is a vicious circle, as a subsidized continuation of the enterprises and the employment of surplus labour strains the state budget, delays restructuring and increases the production costs. On the other hand, the rigorous logic of the market has enormous potential for conflict and destabilization in the form of


mass unemployment with a visible ethnic component. Even a government with as principled a stance on shock therapy as all Estonian governments since 1991 cannot fully evade these ethno-political pressures. The government decided to subsidize individual companies in the Ida-Virumaa region as mass employers in a region with an estimated real unemployment rate over 25 per cent, forcing investors in privatization agreements to limit the number of employee dismissals (Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs 1995, Chart 1.7). Due to the economic legacy of Soviet heavy industry and the economic policy decisions of transformation, the Baltic states experienced a more marked and rapid decline of industrial production than did most other transformation countries. The decline bottomed out in Estonia at 40 per cent of the not particularly impressive annual production figure of 1990, in Latvia at 30 per cent and in Lithuania at 20 per cent (these figures may be compared to: Czech Republic: 60 per cent, Romania 40 per cent) (von Hirschhausen 1998:16, Table 16). The consequences of the decline of these industry branches for the workers went far beyond mere unemployment: in line with the Soviet model, in many cities these industrial complexes provided not only employment, but also a whole infrastructure of social services, housing, medical care and leisure activities. Table 11.5 Decline of industrial production, 1989–96 (percentage) 1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

Estonia – 0 −10 −34 −27 −3 2 Latvia – 0 0 −46 −30 −10 −4 Lithuania +4 −3 −3 −51 −34 −27 5 Source: von Hirschhausen 1998:10–31 and Eurostat data.

1996

1997

1998

3 6 5

15 14 3

2 3 7

A fast free model of privatization by selling enterprises to the highest bidder (including foreign investors) would have corresponded to the radical transition to a market economy and the neo-liberal consensus of the ruling parties. Nevertheless, in Estonia and Latvia, restitution to former owners was given priority over privatization, despite the obvious economic costs and delays to the transformation process. Simultaneously, the government introduced a complicated system of voucher privatization with obvious ethno-political motives. The voucher privatization was intended to assure a broad distribution of economic participation in order to consolidate the legitimacy of the new states and to prevent the old Russo-Soviet nomenklatura from reappearing as an economic elite. Thus, land reform was also much more than just an economic question: the Baltic smallholders, as the symbolic nation, had to be restored and a Russian reconquista had to be prevented. Although macro-economic indicators seem, at a first glance, to demonstrate the parallel transformation of the Baltic states, the form and sequencing of


privatization, restructuring and restitution could not have been more different, partially based on economic policy strategies, partially on general political constellations. Some of these differences, however, were also derived from ethno-political considerations. Pivotal to this issue was the question of who would be allowed to participate in the process and to what extent. For the Baltic people, the conflicting motives were the revision of Soviet injustice and the economic rationale of transformation policy. After 50 years of Soviet equality, ideals and slogans, many Russians were concerned by the reality of new inequalities rather than by the falsity of the old promises. The fact that only the (descendants of) historical citizens could possibly have restitution claims may be self-evident, but it nevertheless had an ethno-political aspect. Baltic politicians in Tallinn and Riga, moreover, made good use of the privatization legislation to assure that not only political, but also economic power and property rights would pass into the hands of the co-ethnics. REGIONAL CONCENTRATION OF THE DIASPORA Apart from the general concentration in the cities, the Russian diaspora in the Baltic states also has two larger regions of concentration: the north-eastern border region of Ida-Virumaa in Estonia, which includes the industrial cities of KohtlaJärve, Sillamäe and Narva. The Russian majority of over 80 per cent in this urbanized province consists mainly of post-war migrants. The second region of concentration in the Baltics, Latgale in Latvia, has an ethnically mixed population and is also a more rural region. Apart from those Russians in the regional centre, Daugavpils, and in a few other major towns, the Russian settlement is generally much older, dating as far back as the eighteenth century. Specific regional socio-economic characteristics of the regions have produced specific transformation problems, quite dissimilar to those of the country as a whole. Because of the Russian ‘face’ of both regions, these problems and the political initiatives to solve (or instrumentalize) them by Baltic politicians or local (Russian) functionaries have an inevitable ethnic colouring. The concentration of (foreign) investment and prosperity in the capital cities as the centre of economic and political power and its surroundings is typical for Baltic transformation. As, traditionally, a disproportional part of the national population lives in the capital, this transformation policy of ‘islands of reform’ produced good results. Yet one of the consequences of the market-economy strategy and the budget austerity is—apart from a low priority for social policy and industry subsidies—a lack of initiatives and funding for a development policy for structurally weak regions. Interference between regional policy and ethno-politics is inevitable because of the regional concentration of the minorities, but is intensified by the Baltic governments’ view of regional policy.


Table 11.6 Socio-economic and demographic indicators for selected Latvian cities and provinces, 1996 Life expectancy (years)

Secondary or higher education per 10,000

Latvia 71.4 604 Riga (city) 71.7 731 Daugavpils 70.7 682 (city) (province) 68.4 424 Rezekne 71.4 620 (city) (province) 68.6 406 Ventspils 71.7 614 (city) (province) 68.5 393 Source: UNDP 1996b, Ch. 2, Table 2.4.

Unemploym Natural ent rate (%) population increase per 1,000

Average income (lats)

6.4 2.9 7.2

−6.9 −8.6 −8.4

60.3 68.0 55.3

17.6 10.6

−11.2 −8.3

48.5 51.8

21.6 2.3

−10.8 −5.9

38.5 118.0

4.5

−4.6

48.3

Latgale traditionally has strong Polish and Russian minorities, and with the creation of military-industrial complexes in Daugavpils since the the Second World War, a further Russification of the region has occurred; in 1959, the regional centre’s population was only 15 per cent Latvian. After independence, Latgale was considered a hotbed of old nomenklatura, but by now it has turned into a deprived problem region in Latvian regional policy. The restructuring of agriculture, the decline of military industry and most of all the breaking of economic ties with the Russian side of the border have plunged the region into a dramatic economic crisis. Unemployment here is three times as high as the national average of 6.4 per cent. In the Rezekne province (part of Latgale), registered unemployment reached 21.6 per cent in 1996 (compared to 2.9 per cent in Riga) (UNDP 1996b, Chapters 2, 3, 6). Due to the slow progress of restructuring in the urban enterprises, the situation in Daugavpils seems to be relatively stable, even compared to the total eclipse of agriculture in the surrounding countryside. Nevertheless, interethnic relations in Latgale are far less tense than they are in Riga. Latgale had surely been a multiethnic region for centuries, and the perceptibly increasing demographic and cultural Russification in Riga was one of the triggers of the Latvian national movement. This Latvian movement in its turn provoked a reaction on the part of the local (i.e. Riga-based) Russian communities. Surprisingly, support for Russian cultural and/or economic autonomy is higher among Russians in Riga than among their compatriots in Latgale. Evidently, the socio-economic competition in the transformation is much more marked in Riga than in Latgale: in Riga the Russians feel


disadvantaged, while those in Latgale share the fate of the Latvian population in the slow decline of Daugavpils as an industrial centre under privatization and restructuring (UNDP 1998, Chapter 1). In the villages of Latgale, all feel victimized by transformation and central Riga-based policies, independent of nationality. Cultural autonomy is not an issue in Latgale, as the general lack of monolingual Latvian schools never provoked a Latvian cultural offensive against Russification. Economic autonomy would imply a loss of regional development aid from Riga in exchange for a tightening of ties with crisis-shaken Russia—a dubious trade-off. The Russian-speaking population of northeastern Estonia consists primarily of post-war immigrants. In contrast to their co-ethnics in Tallinn—so-called rouble migrants moving from place to place driven by economic incentives—the Russians in Narva tend to be more settled and have been living there for decades, segregated from the culture, economy and people of Estonia (Kirch 1997:11). In 1934, Russians accounted for only 18 per cent of the population in the province of Ida-Virumaa, but by 1989, the region had become a unique case in the whole USSR with 71 per cent Russians and over 80 per cent Russian-speakers. Up to 1991, the economy of the region was absolutely dependent on industrial complexes under direct command from Moscow. Neither the factories nor the managers and workers had much of an economic future in an independent Estonia in a global market economy. Many industrial complexes have been closed down in recent years and, as the region offers hardly any alternative possibilities of employment, the true unemployment rate is estimated to be 25 per cent (interview with Gulnara Roll, director of the Lake Peipus NGO, Tallinn April 1998). For the industrial workers and their families, a continuation of economic ties with Russia rather than political incorporation in a new confederation seemed to be the only, albeit minimal, guarantee for the future in 1991 (Kolstø 1995:118–20). In these times of maximum uncertainty on citizenship regulations, residence permits and social security, the Russians cherished the idea of creating a special economic zone in Ida-Virumaa (originally and provocatively construed with Tallinn as its capital!) (Dunlop 1993: 137). The struggle for resources and competencies between the central government in Tallinn and the Russian functionaries in Narva or Ida-Virumaa had been ethno-politically dominated from the very beginning. The Narva proposal to give the region more autonomy because of its special economic character was interpreted by Tallinn as a secessionist attack. Nevertheless, although the idea may have been counterproductive from a transformation point of view, there was a certain logic in view of the inevitable economic decline of the region. Without access to Russian energy resources and raw materials, and without the CIS market for its products, the region was economically doomed. The voters’ support for the old nomenklatura in these industrial cities decreased rapidly in the 1990s. In view of the socio-economic malaise of the 1980s, the smug privileges of the nomenklatura, and the lack of credible


strategies for the future of the region, support was reduced to doctrinaire adherents among the older generations. As soon as the rights of the Russians to stay in Estonia had been legally guaranteed (1993–94), the Russian economic crisis left the diaspora no alternative to their status as non-citizens. Socio-economic issues became their primary concerns. The 1993 survey demonstrates a wholehearted nyet to secession and a prevailing preference for economic autonomy, in contrast to lukewarm support for cultural autonomy. Unlike Latgale, Ida-Virumaa expected better results from local Russian functionaries than from the central government. Thus, the Russian functionaries in Ida-Virumaa were much more outspoken than their colleagues in Latgale in their competition for the division of resources and competencies in the ethno-politically coloured policy areas: they wanted charge of local self-government, regional policy, infrastructure, crossborder cooperation, etc. (Kempe and van Meurs 1998:54–67). The existing asymmetries and ethnic mistrust have made it inevitable that policy decisions in these areas are more like to be read by the Russians as ethnic discrimination rather than as regional discrimination. Table 11.7 Surveys: Russians’ opinions on forms of autonomy, 1993 (percentage) Yes

Cultural autonomy

Economic autonomy

Political secession

No

No

Yes

No

25 25 30 60

15 50 35 15

– 10 20 5

Yes

Riga 35 15 Daugavpils 45 30 Klaipeda 20 40 Narva 50 15 Source: Smith 1996d:200, Table 6.

– 70 60 65

ETHNICITY AND SOCIAL POLICY Those victimized most directly by economic transformation and Baltic austerity policies are those whose prospects of adapting to the changing circumstances of a market economy are socially and economically limited: pensioners and unskilled industrial workers who have lost their jobs. The concentration of Russians among the socially weak cannot be demonstrated by means of economic data, but only by means of surveys or, indirectly, on the basis of the sectoral and regional concentrations. Yet surveys tend to focus on subjective questions of identity and integration. The social question as such has both a transformation policy and a ethno-political side to it; the monetarization of the economy and the competition in the market imply that the Soviet norm of full employment guarantees is being replaced by criteria of productivity efficiency and market-driven employment rates. The fundamental transformation of the economy leads to a higher unemployment rate and, in the case of a successful


transformation, competitive new or restructured companies are supposed to absorb most of the unemployed in the medium term. The prospects are generally not very good for the unskilled workers and those in structurally weak regions or who were trained for obsolete professions typical in Soviet times. Soviet industrial regions register the highest rates of hidden unemployment because of the old industrial complexes that have stopped producing but have failed to dismiss the work force. At the same time, due to the economic structure and general socio-economic crisis in these regions, there is hardly any unofficial employment, which is estimated at one-third of all employment in boom towns such as Tallinn and Riga. Pensioners have been hit badly by the transformation in several ways: the inflation of the first years has made their savings disappear and left them with a monthly pension far below the subsistence level. Pensioners are, moreover, seldom able to profit from the chances of a market economy, and depend on state support even more than the industrial unemployed. Baltic policies have aggravated the consequences of the self-momentum of economic transformation, balancing a maximum effort for economic transformation with a minimization of budget posts like company subsidies, regional policy and social security. Therefore, the level of pensions and unemployment benefits is extremely low in the Baltic states, while eligibility for these benefits, which are available only for a short time, is governed by strict criteria. The transformation has caused a dramatic increase in regional differences in unemployment rates. In Estonia, unemployment and dismissals are concentrated in the industrial north-eastern part and the structurally weak south-eastern part of the country. New jobs tend to appear in the cities on the west coast and in small and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, it is highly doubtful whether the surveys indicating that Russians tend to be the ones who consider employment a state responsibility correctly identified a purely ethnic distinction or got misled by underlying sectoral or regional differences (Kempe and van Meurs 1998:132). In the perception of these transformation developments, both on the Baltic and on the Russian side, a fatal combination of ethnic colouring and Soviet equality principles occurs. The visibly increasing differences in prosperity and welfare are a shock to many who have lived for 50 years in a society with primitive equality as a proclaimed ideal and life-long guarantees of low-level subsistence as the reality, in particular for those who do not count themselves among the winners of transformation. For the socially weak within the diaspora community who depend on state subsidies for subsistence survival, the most important issue ever since 1989–91 has not been the loss of their political rights but the question of social security. For them, from a socio-economic perspective, remigration to Russia is not an option. The only option left is so-called ‘social citizenship’ in the Baltic republics. The stateless among the Russian diaspora lost their political rights in 1991 but kept their social rights (unemployment benefits, pensions, sickness benefits and so on, first on the basis of their Soviet passports, and later on the


basis of their new non-citizen passports. The need to have these social rights guaranteed for the long run may have been the main motive behind the declared intention of many Russians to apply for citizenship of one of the Baltic countries and their lack of interest in a Russian passport. The high requirements defined for citizenship then made those Russians—even those who were formally entitled to join the procedure—shy away from the application procedure. For most of them, it was enough to have the certainty that social rights were also guaranteed to non-citizens. Thus, the links between citizenship, residence permits and social security constitute the real ethnopolitical dimension of social policy issues: ‘social citizenship’ meant more to the Russians than the piece of paper guaranteeing political citizenship. Table 11.8 Surveys: Russians’ intention to apply for Baltic or Russian citizenship (percentage) Citizenship

Answer

Estonia (1990)

Estonia (1993)

Riga (1993)

Daugavpils (1993)

Baltic Yes 70 53 71 81 Russian – – 27 5 Baltic No 30 47 18 10 Russian – – 52 73 Baltic Don’t – – 11 9 Russian know – – 22 22 Source: Smith 1996d:197, Table 8.5; Kirch 1997:144, Table 8.1.

Klaipeda (1993)

Narva (1993)

99 8 0 75 2 17

40 19 28 48 32 33

WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS In countless surveys and interviews, the Russians are usually questioned about their identification with the state they are living in and the civil society they are part of as a means of assessing the improvement of their political attitudes, ability to integrate and democratic maturity—all seen as one long process of intellectual consolidation and learning. The quickly declining appeal of communist and Soviet restoration movements among the Russians in the Baltic states in the early 1990s, however, indicates that even the diaspora communities themselves do not live from identity questions alone. Their expectations, fears and plans for the future are primarily socio-economic issues. Taking account of the socio-economic side of the minority question and the differentiation of the diaspora community according to their regional, sectoral and social positions might be a proper way to explain both the continuation of interethnic tensions as well as their non-escalation. Ethnicity derives its meaning and relevance largely from these connections with the ongoing economic transformation. The question of the continuing, but non-escalating, ethnic tension is based, however, primarily on the behaviour of the ‘losers’ of the


transformation process. There is much to indicate that the explanation for the restraint of this rather large group may be found in their ‘social citizenship’. The Russians who live as pensioners in the larger cities, are unemployed in the industrial centres or live in the peripheral regions are unable to come to terms with the market economy. All they have left is their non-citizen residence permit and the subsistence guarantees attached to this permit. From a loser’s perspective, the rapidly increasing gap between the rich and the poor contradicts their experience of minimal benefits from the Soviet state and primitive equality. For them, this gap has an ethnic colouring. As soon as either the consequences of the economic transformation themselves or the government policy jeopardizes the residence permits and their rights to minimal social security, this group proves that the diaspora can be mobilized. Typically, only a handful of Russians protested their disenfranchisement at the 1995 Saeima elections in Latvia, but many more gathered at the same location three years later to call attention to their deteriorating social situation.

12 Today’s Politics and Yesterday’s Embitterments: Ethnic Restructuring and its Aftermath in the Baltic states Dovilé Budryté

The break-up of the old political structures in the Baltic states has released an avalanche of memoirs, diaries and life stories, many of which are about the experiences of displacement and deportation to Siberia, Tajikistan and other distant areas of the former USSR. Similar developments took place in other East and Central European states (Skultans 1998:25–6). This literary deluge has been accompanied by social movements for recovery of factual history, many of which have adopted ‘correction of collective memory’ and ‘retrieval of history’ as explicit parts of their political programmes (Osiel 1997). By retelling the stories of displacement and resistance, the governments by and large have shown that they are sympathetic to the requests of these movements. Thus, after the ‘organized oblivion’ (Koonz 1994:258) of the communist period, the restored polities tried to establish a shared sense of history among the people in whose name they govern. In academic discourse, these developments were referred to as ‘reopened’ wounds, ‘unleashed’ furies or a ‘return of the repressed’. They spurred a debate about the role of memory in post-communist states, which questioned whether there is ‘a future in sight for a just collective memory in East-Central Europe, for national narratives without scapegoats or exclusion?’ (Esbenshade 1995:85). Given that official histories told by the state and national metanarratives tend to exclude or suppress competing and conflicting memories and histories—for example, some groups, like immigrants and ethnic minorities, often have no place in national memory1—some have wondered whether it would be better to ‘banish all metanarrative, to let memory bloom in all its manifestations, true, false, or otherwise’? (Esbenshade 1995:86) The etiquette of national apologies and reconciliation has been an alternative viewpoint. According to the latter perspective, acknowledgement of past injustices on the national level is a major step toward a tolerant society within a nation-state (Hann 1996:405). Others argued that the best way to prevent violence towards an ethnic other was to establish strong state institutions (Holmes 1996). Such arguments imply that material well-being and some forgetfulness are the best cure for those ‘old wounds’ and a potent protection against interethnic furies. Clearly, intense contests over which symbols and memories from the past should constitute national identity are not a particular post-communist

192 TODAY’S POLITICS AND YESTERDAY’S EMBITTERMENTS

phenomenon. For example, in consolidated democracies, such as Germany or Israel, struggles over memory take place as historiographical disputes (Levy 1999a:51). In transitional states lacking well-established competing schools of thought, struggles over memory sometimes lead to what Tzvetan Todorov calls ‘the interminable cycles of revenge and reprisal’, during which the past is used obsessively for present grievances, thus fortifying ethnic borders (Todorov 1995: 132). Ethnic conflicts are often at least partially provoked by competing memories about the experiences of genocide and deportation conducted in the past.2 Such antagonisms reaffirm the enduring relevance of the question raised by Maurice Halbwachs and many others: how do we explain the movement from the multitude of diverse individual perspectives to the collective ‘we’? Events such as genocide, expulsion or deportation are remembered by each individual differently, but what are the processes whereby these events become a part of national identity? One way to identify relationships between historical events and construction of national identity is to examine the forms of commemoration whereby individual and group memories are coordinated and sustained (Gillis 1994:5). In line with this questioning, this chapter identifies the ways in which three democratizing Baltic states have confronted the previous experience of ethnic restructuring, forced migration and deportation. No attempt to trace this process would be complete without a short account of the ethnic restructuring which took place in the Baltic states. ETHNIC RESTRUCTURING IN THE BALTIC STATES: A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT As explained in the order ‘On the Expulsion of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia’, signed by Ivan Serov, the official goal of the Soviet deportations in the Baltic states was to clean out all ‘alien elements’— members of noncommunist organizations, policemen, owners of plants, officers, government employees and their families. Thus, within the first month of Soviet occupation (June-July 1940), about 100,000 people (including members of minority groups) were deported to other parts of the Soviet Union (Smith and Grunts 1993:33; Damušis 1998:23–7).3 According to the official documents, resettlements and deportations in the Baltic states were not pursued according to ethnic criteria. Ethnicity as a criterion for deportations was openly used only after the Second World War, in 1945, in order to ‘cleanse’ the Baltic states of ethnic Germans and their families. Residents of the Baltic states with German names found themselves being dragged out of their homes to be deported.4 The influx of people from other areas of the former Soviet Union started as early as 1940. The exact number of non-Baltic newcomers in 1940 and the first half of 1941 is not known. In 1940, the Soviets were still ardently trying to find


collaborators among the local population, trying to appeal to the poor and to the local Russian population (Sabbo 1996:688–9, doc. 217). A large inflow started in mid-1941, after the first mass deportations of ethnic Balts and ethnic minorities residing in the Baltic states. Prior to the Second World War, the greatest number of new Russian-speaking immigrants worked in the Soviet apparatus which exercised repression (Truska 1996:5). After the Second World War, mostly as a result of industrialization, the percentage of ethnic Russians and russophones increased significantly. Table 12.1 Change in ethnic composition of the populations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (%) Pre-1940 Estonia

1959 Census

1989 Census

1990s

1934 1959 1989 1999 Estonians 88.2 74.6 61.5 65.2 Russians 8.2 20.1 30.3 28.09 Germans 1.5 0.1 0.2 0.09 Jews 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.16 Others 1.7 4.7 7.7 6.46 Total population 1,126 1,197 1,566 1,445 (thousands) Latvia 1935 1959 1989 1999 Latvians 77.0 62.0 52.0 55.7 Russians 8.8 26.6 34.0 32.3 Jews 4.9 1.7 0.9 0.4 Germans 3.3 0.1 0.1 0.1 Others 6.0 9.6 13.0 11.5 Total population 1,905 2,094 2,667 2,439 (thousands) Lithuania 1923 1959 1989 1998 Lithuania 83.88 79.3 79.6 82.3 ns Russians 2.49 8.5 9.4 8.2 Jews 7.58 0.9 0.3 0.2 Poles 3.23 8.5 7.0 6.8 Others 2.82 2.8 3.7 2.5 Total population 2,620 2,711 3,675 3,653 (thousands) Sources: Krupavicius 1998: Appendix A; Dreifelds 1996:147; European Parliament 1999; Raun 1997b:336; Statistical Office of Estonia 1999:33; Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1999:71.


The peak of influx occurred during the post-war years. Between 1945 and 1959 about 400,000 ethnic Russians and 100,000 people of other ethnic origins immigrated to Latvia. This influx amounted to 25 per cent of the pre-war population (Misiunas and Taagepera 1993:112). During the same period, at least 60,470 Latvians were deported. From 1945 to 1953, more than 213,000 nonEstonians immigrated to Estonia, amounting to 19 per cent of the pre-war population (Misiunas and Taagepera 1993:112). During this period, nearly 40, 500 Estonians were deported. From 1944 to 1959, some 150,000 ethnic Russians immigrated to Lithuania (Kairiukštyte 1996:109), while approximately 132,000 Lithuanians were deported. Table 12.2 Number of people deported from the Baltic states by the Soviet Union, 1940–53 (partly estimates)*

Estonia Population in 1934: 1,126,000 Latvia Population in 1935: 1,905,000 Lithuania

1940–41

1945–49 (incl. mass deportations)

Mass deportations, 1948–49

Total, 1939/40–53

At least 10,605 (Salo)** 1941:5,978 (Terekhov’s report) 16,563

1949:20,702 (Terekhov’s report)

25–30 March 1949:20,480 (Spasenko’s report)

At least 40,455 (memento cards)***

43,904

At least 60,469

(Vevers’s report)

(Vevers’s report)

25–30 March 1949 41,708 (Spasenko’s report) 22–27 March 1948: 41,000 (LGGRTC) 25–30 March 1949: 28,656 (Spasenko’s report)

(Vevers’s report)

18,093 86,654 132,000 (Grunskis) (Grunskis) Population in 19,285 (LGGRTC) 1923: (Kerulis) 2,620,000 1939–41: approx. 26,000 (LGGRTC) **** * Expelled Germans are not included. **Salo and Kerulis used the lists of deportees compiled during the German occupation, but the Nazi authorities had forbidden mention of the deportees of Jewish descent. ***Memento, an Estonian organization, has compiled 40,455 cards of deportees, but the actual number is estimated to be much higher. ****This figure includes Lithuania’s current Eastern territories, formerly belonging to the Poland, occupied by USSR in 1939. Sources: Grunskis 1996; Kerulis, L., cited in Anušauskas 1998:12; LGGRTC: Lietuvos gyventoju genocide ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras, Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre. The data are displayed in the Museum of


1940–41

1945–49 Mass Total, (incl. mass deportations, 1939/40–53 deportations) 1948–49 Genocide in Vilnius; Õispuu 1996, A2; Salo 1989; Spasenko (NKVD general), a report to Ryasnoy, dated 31 March 1949, in Sabbo 1996:886; Terekhov, G. Report to A.Mikoyan, the head of USSR Supreme Council, dated 6 March 1965, in Sabbo 1996:1038–43; Vevers’s report, dated 7 December 1962, kept in the Latvian state archive, fund 101, 26 description, 109 dossier.

There are two explanations for Lithuania’s retention of its ethnic homogeneity. First, there was a fierce armed resistance in Lithuania. In those places where the guerrilla war was very intense, the influx of Russian-speaking immigrants was lower than in acquiescent areas (Gaškaite-Zemaitiene 1999:33). Second, Lithuania experienced a 33-year rule by Antanas Snieckus, a Lithuanianborn Soviet leader, who decided to surround himself with a Lithuanian-born nomenklatura. He insisted that Lithuania remained an agricultural republic. The agricultural nature of Lithuania thus reduced the need for industrial workers from other parts of the USSR. After Snieckus’s death in 1974, Lithuania experienced an increase of ethnic Russian migration. A total of 442,112 people immigrated to Lithuania from other areas of the USSR between 1970 and 1989 (Lithuanian Department of Statistics 1995a, 1995b). Well-liked by Stalin, Snieckus, however, was an ardent supporter of deportations (Tininis 1995). The deportations of the post-war years were one of the most traumatic events for the people of the Baltic states. Since the rationale for deportation was not discernible, people had no idea why their relatives were being taken away and loaded on to cattle-trucks. Villagers rushed to church to pray, believing that this was the end of the world (Truska 1995:91). The deportations also coincided with operations of armed resistance movements, which continued until 1953. The dead bodies of partisans were sometimes left in the middle of the city for ‘recognition’. However, even mothers of the killed did not dare to identify their sons because to do so could mean deportation along with the rest of their families (Gaškaite 1997:49). There is evidence that the state apparatus sometimes fabricated evidence by creating bogus resistance organisations and accusing people of having taken part in them.5 Thus, often people who had nothing to do with the resistance movement and even some of those who had sympathies for the Soviet regime were deported. As early as 1940–41, when the Soviets were passionately trying to recruit collaborators among the local population, such deportations occurred. This fact emerges, for instance, from the memoirs of the deportees: ‘Being put onto the truck, we saw the family of Vytautas Duoba, whom we knew very well, approaching,’ writes Valentinas Gustainis, the former Director of Elta, the Lithuanian news agency, who was deported in 1940.


The parents of Duoba were poor peasants from an old peasant commune in Zemoji Panemune. The Duobos had a couple of hectares of land. They lived together with their old mother, who had never taken a bus, train, or car before in her life. Duoba had two little girls and a pregnant wife. The women were walking barefoot, trying to save the soles on their shoes… We considered the Duobas to be pro-Soviet not only because of their (proletariat) origin, but also because of their beliefs. Vytautas Duoba had welcomed the Soviet regime in Lithuania. He became the first leader of the Kriukai district, and was an enthusiastic servant of the Soviet regime. And there he was, with us! Why? We did not know, and neither did they. Realizing that not only the intelligentsia from the Baltic states was being deported, we began to calm down a little bit: maybe we won’t be shot. (Gustainis 1989:51) This quotation captures perfectly the response of the population to the deportations. Most regarded it as an incomprehensible and irrational act of violence. Thus, given the scope of deportations and the way they were conducted, this policy resulted not only in a change in the ethnic structure of the Baltic populations, but also became a basis and reason for long-lasting traumatic collective experiences. REVIVAL: COLLECTIVE MEMORY RECOVERED During Soviet times, memories about resettlement were, by and large, restricted to the private sphere. Public commemorations were not possible. Many formerly displaced persons wrote about their experiences and put their writings into glass jars, then dug out a hole near their houses and buried the jars. Even after Stalin’s death, criticism of deportation in Lithuania was not welcome, and was even silenced. In Latvia and Estonia, the atmosphere was somewhat more relaxed. In 1956, the Estonian Rudolf Sirge wrote a novel, Maa ja rahvas [The Land and the People], which, although pro-Soviet, included a realistic deportation scene and caused a sensation in Estonia (Taagepera 1993:91). The first works of art that dealt with this subject in Lithuania were not created until the 1970s. In his novel Zuvys nepazista savo vaiku [Fish do not Recognize Their Children] Juozas Pozera wrote about small autochthonous groups and their gradual disappearance in Siberia. The nature of the north is a dominating subject of the narrative, and in its rough vastness Pozera tells the story of a deported Lithuanian family. They live in a burrow, and two potatoes are their food for the whole day. Released from forced exile after a decade or so, they find a pile of stones where their farm used to be in Lithuania. Unable to adapt to their changed homeland, they return to Siberia. Samizdat (underground) publications were another channel used to bring memories about forced resettlements to life. Lietuvos Baznycios Kronika [the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Church], produced and distributed in Lithuania, but


also smuggled to Chicago, where there is a large Lithuanian community, often published letters from deportees. An illustration of these kinds of semi-public memories was given by Kestutis Jokubynas in 1975, when he wrote: ‘[After deportation], I got a passport with a stamp which is used to mark the passports of prisoners jailed for the worst crimes. It meant numerous restrictions’. Even though Jokubynas was innocent, he wrote that, after deportation, ‘a chasm was opened in my life, and it is impossible to bridge it… I became invisible, unknown, silent’ (Lietuvos Baznycios Kronika 1975:184). In Catholic Lithuania, personal memories about the deported were embodied by the crosses of Kryziu kalnas [The Hill of Crosses]. Also known as the mound of Meškuiciai, or the Hill of Prayers, this site became a ‘sacred’ place to which people came to pray and to put up crosses, leave rosaries, holy pictures and statuettes mourning those who were deported or killed. The Soviet authorities tried to destroy the site numerous times: the hill was bulldozed and the crosses were burned, taken away or buried. Despite close supervision by the state authorities, new crosses kept reappearing during the night. There were plans to flood the place, block the roads and make the hill an inaccessible island. It was only in 1985 that the hill was finally left in peace by the government. In the mid-1980s, with the decline of Soviet power, memories of the displacement began to emerge in the public and political sphere. In 1986, a chapter of the human rights group Helsinki ‘86 was formed by blue-collar workers in the city of Liepaja in Latvia. Helsinki ‘86 organized a series of demonstrations to commemorate the events of 14 June 1941 (the date of mass deportations). In addition to stirring up rebellious feelings against the Soviet state, Helsinki ‘86 pushed the Latvian Communist Party to reconsider the official interpretation of Latvian history. On 14 June 1987, despite the arrest of its leaders, Helsinki ‘86 motivated several thousand demonstrators to march to the Freedom Monument in Riga and lay flowers. Until that day (14 June 1987) this was the largest demonstration which sparked the following waves of demonstrations in the Baltic states. News about the 14 June demonstration spread like fire to Vilnius and Tallinn (Karklins 1994:70). On 25 March 1988, rallies were held to commemorate the mass deportations of 1949. On 22 May 1988, memorial services were held simultaneously in Vilnius, Kaunas and Riga to commemorate those who had been deported to Siberia. One year later, on 14 June 1989, thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the cathedral in Riga to once again commemorate the 1941 deportation. Thus, the calendars of the three Baltic nations were marked with a new date—14 June. Since then, this day has become known as the Day of Sorrow and Remembrance. Beginning in 1988, thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians went to look for the graves of relatives who had been deported, bringing some of the remains back by plane. During the revival period, collecting the bones of compatriots and reburying them in the Baltic states became a symbolic act of commemoration. The Lithuanian airports were full of coffins at that time, all of


which were covered with national flags. According to the Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees, the remains of approximately ten thousand deportees have been brought back to Lithuania from Siberia since 1989. Vytautas Landsbergis, the leader of Sajudis6 and an active participant in these acts of remembrance, captured the mood of those days in his memoirs: In the wilderness of Siberia, from the Arctic Ocean to Altay and Kazakhstan, there are graveyards containing the remains of nothing but Lithuanians. Some of them have survived. People went there, and, having found the graves of their relatives, took care of them. Some of the remains were brought back, and re-buried in the homeland. Many graves are unknown… These people [the deported] have not been counted, and it is not possible to count them. (Landsbergis 1997, 89) Many members of the Baltic diaspora who remained in the places of deportation and did not return to Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia in 1950s were assimilated to Russian language and culture. Only in the mid-1990s did the Baltic governments begin to reach out to the former deportees still living in the remote Siberian and Central Asian regions of the former USSR, encouraging them to return.7 Once the Baltic collective memory turned to remembering deportations and deportees during the first two years of perestroika, the process of commemoration took off, and hunger for more history was insatiable. The questions asked in the Baltic media were, ‘How many of “us” [i.e., the natives] were deported? Who did it?’ As Janis Peters, a Latvian writer, has observed, ‘the most dangerous are the underground structures of our “building” [the nation] because there are mines in the cellars’ (Peters 1989:5). Those ‘mines’ soon began to explode. A controversy that shook the Soviet Estonian establishment began when the cultural weekly Sirp ja Vasar [Hammer and Sickle] published Evald Laasi’s survey of Estonians deported under Stalin (Bungs 1988:2). Under enormous pressure from the Estonian people, the Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR passed a resolution condemning the repressions that were carried out by the Soviet regime during 1942–50. Similar resolutions were passed in Lithuania and in Latvia. ‘Genocide’ became the preferred word for post-war deportations (Plakans 1995:162). The process of coming to terms with the past in Lithuania started a bit differently. On 21 April 1988, Komjaunimo Tiesa [The Truth of the Communist Youth], the Lithuanian Komsomol newspaper, provoked a lively debate about the deportations of Lithuanians under Stalin. Several months later, Edvardas Eismuntas, the head of the Lithuanian KGB, revealed that in 1941 and from 1945 to 1952, 120,924 people had been deported. He added, however, that some 25, 000 civilians had been killed by ‘bourgeois nationalists’ (i.e., anti-Soviet resistance fighters) and not by the KGB (Eismuntas 1988:2). This suggested that the rehabilitation of resistance fighters, who were the primary targets for deportation, could not be expected from the ‘reformed’ KGB. Thus the former


deportees and resistance fighters did not expect the changes to last. During the meetings they passed around notebooks to record the names of the formerly deported and thus to record the crimes of the previous regime. Recording the names of the deported was later undertaken by the Commission for Research into Stalinist Crimes Committed in Lithuania, a centre for research on totalitarian crimes in Latvia and Memento, the Association of the Illegally Repressed, in Estonia. These lists are a site of memory and commemoration. Enumerating thousands of names with similar stories, they represent the fate of family members, neighbours or acquaintances of those who underwent forced resettlement or who knew someone who did. In January 1989, however, different lists began to be compiled. The Estonian Heritage Society (established in December 1987 for the study of Estonian history) called for the creation of a parliament elected exclusively by pre-1940 citizens and their descendants. Citizens’ Committees, which were supported by former political prisoners and deportees, began to register the names of all citizens of the inter-war republic and their descendants. The idea of a relationship between nation, the national past, national ordeals and contemporary state formation and nation-building began to crystallize and take shape. After part of the truth about the crimes of the past was revealed, the next step was to name perpetrators and restore justice. This turned out to be a difficult, if not impossible, task. HISTORY AND MEMORY IN THE RESTORED STATES In 1991, the Baltic states declared themselves independent. The three newly restored states found themselves with people/residents for whom the years 1940– 41 and 1945–53 had different meanings. In addition to restoring the historical truth, the states faced a more immediate task— the drafting of citizenship laws. The problem of citizenship in the Baltic states has been extensively researched. Its essence can be summarized as follows: ethnic Russian residents, backed by Russia, demanded that their Soviet citizenship automatically translate into Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian citizenship (zero option). This procedure occurred in Lithuania, while the Estonian and Latvian governments were unwilling to grant automatic citizenship. Under international pressure (from the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and with hope for membership in the European Union and NATO, the governments of the two states agreed to ease the requirements for citizenship in 1998. Historical memory about deportations became a part of the debates on citizenship. Those who argued for restrictive citizenship laws—often victims of Soviet repression—noted that the Baltic states fall under provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits the transfer or settlement of members of an occupying power’s population into the territory it occupies. Thus, they argued, Latvia and Estonia should be permitted to ‘decolonize’ their


territory (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1993a:6). Such opinions, underlining the link between memories about the past and deciding who will be ‘one of us’, were captured in the writings of Rein Taagepera: If you were to subtract deportees’ children and their relatives, few Estonians would be left. And this [deportation] was done to Estonians by Russians, not by some faceless ‘Soviets’—unless, of course, one is also willing to claim that the Jewish Holocaust was Nazi and therefore not German. Russian colonists took the place of Estonians who either fled or were deported. Forgive? Yes. Forget? No. Accept colonial settlers who refuse to learn Estonian as substitutes for those Estonians who were killed and those who, as a result, were never born? Take a guess at the answer. (Taagepera 1953:218) For some, ‘decolonization’ implied resettlement or expulsion of Russianspeakers. During the intensive discussions which took place in the Estonian parliament on the laws of citizenship (September and October 1991), the following opinion was voiced by Johannes Kass, one of the more radical members of parliament: ‘In an indirect way, you [ethnic Russians living in Estonia], as citizens of the Soviet Union, are guilty for what that state did to the Republic of Estonia in 1939’ (Kask 1994: 382–3). Passions were running equally high in Latvia. In February 1993, Latvian Foreign Minister Andrejevs attributed the country’s demo-graphic situation (more than one-third of its residents are Russian speakers) to large-scale population transfers and called for ‘affirmative action for Latvians to compensate them for discrimination in their own country’. He went on to say that ‘we will not sacrifice our country for the democratic rules of the Western world which are currently simply not suitable for our situation’ (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1993b, 8). Juris Bojars, who drafted the Citizenship Act of Latvia, argued that ‘unfortunately, the [citizenship] Law of 1994 gave no decisive priorities to applicants of indigenous ethnic groups—Latvians and Livs who suffered most under Stalinist reprisals in the Soviet Union’. He suggested liberalizing the requirements for Latvian citizenship for applicants of Lithuanian, Estonian or Polish origin who were residents of Latvia and who decided to settle in Latvia because they were prevented by the Soviet government from returning to their homelands after deportation (Bojars 1995:26). In the heat of the debate, the out-migration (‘repatriation’) of Russians, which had already begun in 1989–90, received the official backing of the Latvian government.8 During 1991, 5,394 ethnic Russians left Latvia, another 27,332 left in 1992 and 17,762 followed the next year (Stamers 1995:13–14). Emigration peaked in 1992, remained stable in 1993 but began to decline in 1994 (Smith et al. 1998:107). In 1996, 8,395 Russians left, but in 1998, their number declined to 3, 442 (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 1999:73) In 1999, the Latvian branch of


the International Organization for Migration (IOM) agreed to help 2,000 Russians to leave the country.9 The initial version of the Estonian Law on Aliens adopted on 21 June 1993 and the introduction of temporary travel documents were also partially intended to make the Russian speakers leave. The trend of Russian out-migration in Estonia was similar to that in Latvia: 8,238 Russians left Estonia in 1991, then their number increased to 25,892 in 1992. It began to decline in 1994, when 6, 421 Russians left the country. This number declined to 1,401 in 1998 (Statistical Office of Estonia 1999, 54; FBIS-SOV-98–204, 23 July 1998). Russians were also leaving Lithuania, despite the liberal citizenship and language laws in that country. In 1991, 10,409 ethnic Russians left Lithuania, and this number increased to 16,380 the following year. It began to decline in 1993, when 9,423 ethnic Russians left and just 2,145 did so during the following year. This number further declined to 827 in 1998 (Statistical Department of Lithuania 1999, 112–3; FBIS-SOV-98– 204:23 July 1998). A notable aspect of the legacy of the past in the Baltic states was, in the words of Ella Agranovskaia (a Russian Estonian), that ‘those who were involved in [deportations and other types of repression] either remained nameless, as was customary in the Soviet Union, or had died’ (Agranovskaia 1988:81). Therefore, in the beginning stages of state building, the radical nationalist discourse sometimes associated the ‘guilt’ with an entire ethnic group. Such discourse was not forgotten and was later instrumentalized by conservative Russian political groups. To illustrate, in 1999, the representatives of the Russian Community of Latvia and Ravnopraviye [Equal Rights] movement backed up their arguments rejecting the Latvian state programme on ‘the formation of an integrated society’ by saying that the ‘Latvian nationalists’ should not be trusted because they blame ‘all Russians’ for the injustices of the past.10 So far, such discourse has not brought much political capital for the two Russian organizations. To confront the legacy of the past, the governments of the Baltic states initiated an intense search for those guilty of deportations. In January 1999, an Estonian court convicted Johannes Klaassepp, a former Soviet security official who was involved in the deportations that occurred in 1949.11 In Latvia the first case was initiated in 1995 against Alfons Noviks, a former KGB general, who was sentenced to life in prison (Baltic Times, 16–22 July 1998:8). In 1998, a case was initiated against Vasily Kononov, who, together with 18 other pro-Soviet partisans (dressed up in German uniforms), had committed atrocities in a Latvian village in 1944. Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, criticized Latvia for ‘harassing war veterans’, and the Russian Duma passed a resolution in favour of Vasily Kononov (Strelis 1998). On 27 September 1999, a Riga regional court found Mikhail Farbtukh, an 83-year-old former KGB agent, guilty of signing the deportation orders.12 In Lithuania, the first case against people involved in deportations and repressions was initiated in 1997. After two years of investigation, on 19 February 1999, Kiril Kurakin, Petras Bartasevicius and


Juozas Sakalys were sentenced to several years in prison (Lietuvos Aidas, 20 February 1999:2). Even though it is too early to hypothesize about the long-term social and political implications of these trials, it is probably safe to say that they became a forum in which the former victims voiced their memories. This is also their quest for an ‘official story’, a national metanarrative. As a former deportee from Latvia said, ‘What we remember is not only just individual but also tells the national story’ (Baltic Times, 29 April-5 May 1999:21). Collecting factual evidence for these trials and discussing the ‘guilt’ prompts revisions of this metanarrative. During this process, the survivors and other members of societies agree on what is ‘real history’ and what has become a myth. Post-independence commemorations have played a similar function. During the days of remembrance, the societies began to revise their national metanarrative. For example, on 25 March 1999, the Latvians commemorated the day of mass deportation. A huge wreath and a long carpet of flowers were placed at the Freedom Monument, and a special exhibition was opened in the Museum of Occupation in Riga. Henrihs Strods, a historian and the head of the Museum’s research programme, reformulated the question of guilt by revealing that even though the deportations were led by the officers from other parts of the USSR, many Latvians were involved. Local score-settling and greed among neighbours were the partial reasons why many Latvian names appeared on the deportation lists (Baltic Times, 1–7 April 1999:17). Similar thoughts were expressed by recently released narratives of the Lithuanian deportees: ‘I remember so well that the Lithuanians involved in the deportations were much more cruel than the Russians. The Russians told us that we will not be shot, but driven to Siberia instead, and we will have to stay there. (Antanina Kundrotiene, quoted in Matulkaite 1998:19) These revisions of the national metanarratives suggest that the borders of national communities are being challenged, possibly to include the ‘others’. Even the official rhetoric of commemoration reflects this shift: ‘The word “deportation”’, remarked Lennart Meri, the former President of Estonia, in his mourning day address on 14 June 1998, ‘turned overnight into a term of equal abhorrence as “genocide”, “holocaust”, marking the crimes against humanity that were committed on the Estonian territory by foreign invaders… As we mourn our compatriots today, we also mourn all the victims of Stalinism and Nazism, regardless of their nationality, religion or land of residence.’ This change of national discourse suggests a hypothesis that competing identities emphasizing the universalist criteria are currently on the rise. Although it is probably too early to speak about the emergence of multiple identities challenging the hegemony of the nation, the Baltic ‘master narrative’ is likely to become contested terrain in the near future.


CONCLUSION The evidence from the Baltic states allows us to assess the long-term consequences of traumatic events, such as ethnic restructuring, deportation and forced migration. Societies with such experiences are quite unwilling to banish all metanarrative, as the first perspective, outlined in the introduction, suggests. On the contrary, there were widespread demands, especially during the formative phase of nation-state-building, that the experiences of ethnic restructuring, deportation and forced migration were officially recognized by the democratizing polities as genocide. These experiences became a part of national metanarratives and a powerful source for mobilization. It is probably not a coincidence that many Baltic politicians have had a personal experience of displacement,13 which helped them to become effective ‘entrepreneurs of memory’ (in Maurice Halbwachs’s terminology), capable of stimulating personal memories in Baltic societies. This created a sense of unity and became a basis of social cohesion among the ethnic Balts, which was a necessary condition for the nation-building. At the same time, it defined the boundaries of the emerging political communities and later became a dividing line between the autochthonous residents of the Baltic polities on the one hand and the ‘newcomers’ with the new minorities on the other hand. Invoking the past during the debates on citizenship in Estonia and Latvia explains why the more radical, exclusionist version of citizenship gained legitimacy vis-à-vis the more moderate approaches to political community-building. Nevertheless, the return of collective memory was not transformed into ‘the interminable cycles of revenge and reprisal’, as many have feared. Was it because of the etiquette of national apologies and reconciliation, as suggested by the second perspective? Probably not. Even though Yeltsin condemned the deportations that were carried out in the Baltic states under Stalin (in 1994), Russia has not officially apologized for the occupation of the Baltic states and deportations. There were only a few conscious reconciliation efforts made by the representatives of the ethnic Russian communities. Those were mostly calls for forgetting embitterments about the past (Diena, Russian edition, 3 May 1999:3). Then what about forgetting? Is ‘strategic forgetting’, coupled with material wellbeing, a route to tolerant societies? Certainly, the Baltic populations have been tempted to (and probably did) discard some elements of their history, especially the ones that did not fit the prevalent perceptions of the national past. Yet, as Gillis pointed out, ‘identities and memories are not things we think about, but things we think with’ (Gillis 1994:5). Once memories about displacement were evoked during the initial stage of nation-building, they became a part of interethnic relations and ethnic politics. The route undertaken by the Baltic states was not the one of forgetting displacement, but the one of recovering and constant revisiting. The establishment of functioning state institutions helped to place the experiences of displacement into history books and record them as crimes. As displacement was revisited by public debates, trials and


commemorations, some Balts began to turn a critical glance towards themselves, which helped to prevent the cycles of revenge and reprisal. Collective memory about displacement is becoming a tradition, a learned history, thus opening up spaces for competing identities. NOTES 1 The exclusion of immigrants from national memory has been analysed for the case of France (see Noiriel 1995). 2 For example, for the role of memory about genocide of Serbs during the the Second World War, see Hoepken 1999. For a discussion of the relationship between memories about displacement and conflicts in the Caucasus, see Tishkov 1997:155– 206. 3 On 14 June 1941, Ivan Serov, a deputy commissar of the Soviet Secret police, coordinated the deportations from the Baltic states. 4 This is especially true in the case of the Germans from Lithuania, many of whom returned to their country of residence in 1942–43 after the 1941 transfer. They were deported strictly on the basis of their ethnicity, which was often identified by their last names. This was a case of ethnic cleansing. See Kairiukštyte 1994:92–105. 5 In 1952, the Soviet secret police admitted that such organizations had been created in the past. See the Lithuanian Special Archive, collection K-1, file 2–3. 6 Sajudis was a popular movement in Lithuania which was active from 1986 to 1991. Its name stems from a resistance organization which operated from 1944 to 1949. From 1992 to 1995 Vytautas Landsbergis was the leader of the opposition in the Lithuanian parliament. Since 1995 he has been the chairman of the Lithuanian parliament. 7 In May 1998, preparing for his visit to Moscow, Guntis Ulmanis, then president of Latvia, called for legal and financial measures by the parliament and the government to help the Latvians residing in Siberia to return to Latvia. See FBISSOV-98–145, 25 May 1998, wnc.fedworld.gov. On 22 May 1998, during the conference The Destruction and Defence of Lithuania’, Valdas Adamkus, then the Lithuanian president, made a similar plea. 8 Financial support was offered to the Soviet era settlers. See Smith et al. 1998: 106. Since the mid-1990s, the official support for repatriation has declined. This topic is still sensitive, and politicians are reluctant to talk about it. See ‘Latvia’s Forgotten Few,’ Baltic Times, 22–28 July 1999, 7. 9 ‘Latvia’s Forgotten Few’ Baltic Times, 22–28 July 1999:7 (see also Chapters 11, 8 and 13). 10 See Diena (Russian edition), 4 April 1999:2. 11 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline (web edition, www.rferl.org), 25 January 1999. 12 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline (web edition), 28 September 1999. 13 For example, Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Valdas Adamkus, presidents of Latvia and Lithuania, have experienced exile in the West. Vilis Kristopans, a former prime minister of Latvia, was born in Siberia. Guntis Ulmanis, the former president of Latvia, was deported to Siberia in his youth. This fact softened the opposition of


radical nationalists and the Independence Movement to his presidential candidacy. Lennart Meri, the former president of Estonia, and his family were exiled to Russia during the Second World War.

13 The Russian-Speaking Identity under the Latvian Language Policy Jekaterina Dorodnova

This chapter examines the implications of the general trends in identities and attitudes of Latvia’s Russian-speakers for their likely reactions to the recent developments in the Latvian minority policy, particularly in the area of language regulation in education and elsewhere. The adoption of the new Law on Education in October 1998 and the new Law on the State Language in December 1999 aroused considerable controversy both at domestic and at international levels, the laws having been heavily criticized for their potential to serve as instruments of marginalization and discrimination. Considering that governmental attempts to regulate language usage, especially in the educational sphere, are often a source of conflict between the minority and the state, the question of whether the policies envisaged by the new Latvian legislation are likely to produce violent opposition appears legitimate. Russian-speakers in Latvia have not responded with violence to the nationalizing citizenship and language policies pursued by the Latvian government. However, the closure of a number of Russian-language educational institutions1 has been marked by pickets, hunger strikes, petitions and court proceedings, which suggests that the issue is of major significance to the Russianspeakers, who now find themselves in the position of being both a linguistic minority (approximately 36 per cent) and political minority (24 per cent).2 Thus this chapter seeks, first, to establish the general trends observed in identity formation of Latvia’s Russian-speakers after the restoration of independence; second, to analyse the extent to which the nationalizing state policy takes account of these trends and, third, to determine how the current trends are likely to be affected (if at all) by the implementation of the language policy, thereby outlining the likely reaction of the minority and assessing the degree of conflict potential surrounding the language issue. THE RUSSIAN-SPEAKERS’ IDENTITY IN THE BALTIC STATES Identities and loyalties of the Russian-speakers in the Baltic states, especially Estonia and Latvia, have been extensively analysed by a number of prominent social scientists, both Baltic and Western, throughout the 1990s (Kirch 1997;

RUSSIAN-SPEAKING IDENTITY UNDER LATVIAN LANGUAGE POLICY 207

Kolstø 1996; Laitin 1998; Linz and Stepan 1996; Rose 1997; Smith, Aasland and Mole 1994; Smith 1998; Volkovs 1996; Zepa 1995). These analyses have been of particular interest because post-Soviet citizenship laws excluded the majority of the Russian-speakers in Estonia and Latvia from citizenship on the basis of allegations of disloyalty.3 The surveys, therefore, helped to establish whether the identities and attitudes of the different ethno-linguistic communities in Estonia and Latvia were in conflict with each other and what implications this had for the political stability of these nationalizing states.4 Attitudes of Baltic Russianspeakers towards national sovereignty of the Baltic states and their political regimes, as well as the degree of their identification with the Baltic states, on the one hand, and with Russia on the other, appeared to be of crucial importance for determining what ethnic policies would best guarantee democratic stability in Estonia and Latvia. Linz and Stepan (1996:429) suggested four types of arrangements for a multinational society. Type 1, based on the assumption that demos and nation should be the same, results in the state expelling or systematically encouraging the ‘exit’ option for minorities. Type 2 recognizes that demos and nation can be different, but, by excluding the minority from the political process, does not allow it to participate in state-building. In Type 3, the state guarantees political rights for minorities, but tries to achieve cultural homogeneity by making a major effort to assimilate minorities into national culture. Finally, Type 4 appreciates both political and cultural diversity. An inclusive citizenship policy is combined with an effort to accommodate the minority by crafting a series of political and civil arrangements that recognize minority rights. Identities, loyalties and attitudes of minorities are considered to be of particular relevance when opting for one or another type of political arrangement within a multinational society. Kolstø (1996:613) proposed eight identity options most likely to be chosen by the ‘diaspora Russians’ outside Russia, based on their political loyalty and cultural self-understanding. In terms of political loyalty, four options were identified: loyalty towards the historical boundaries of the Russian (Soviet) state, including attempts to resurrect it; loyalty towards the modern Russian state; aspirations for the creation of a new Russian state and loyalty towards the nationalizing state of residence. On the ‘cultural self-understanding’ axis, three options were suggested: identification with the dominant culture in Russia; development of a new but primarily Russian self-understanding and identification with the dominant culture in the state of residence. Kolstø found that the identity patterns of Russian speakers—including those of the Baltic Russian-speakers—still had a high potential for being influenced by a variety of factors. From this the author concluded that the general trend was towards the development of a new self-understanding among Baltic Russians which, combined with loyalty to their Baltic homeland (Kolstø 1996:629), would gradually distance them from the Russian core group (Kolstø 1996:634).


The numerous surveys conducted throughout the 1990s have generally confirmed this finding, entirely dismissing the ‘fifth column’ perception of Baltic Russian-speakers dominating Estonian and Latvian political discourse and used to justify their exclusion. In Latvia, their consistently increasing civic and territorial identification with the republic was revealed. By 1994 more than half of those polled did not question the irreversibility of independence (which is the crucial indicator of loyalty) and two-thirds would have opted for Latvian citizenship by that year (Zepa 1995:43). It was also revealed in the 1994 polls that some 60 per cent see Latvia as their homeland, with only a minority identifying with Russia or the USSR (Zepa 1995:35). Nostalgic sentiments for the socialist system were found among about 30 per cent of both Latvian and non-Latvian residents of Latvia. However, these attitudes were found to depend on age, social status and education rather than on ethnicity or citizenship status (Zepa 1995:38). The number of those considering emigration from Latvia has been negligible since 1992,5 as has the number of those opting for Russian Federation citizenship.6 The democratic system of government, as opposed to the authoritarian one, has been regarded positively by the majority of Russianspeakers. In addition, research has repeatedly emphasized the optimism of Russian speakers towards the future of the Baltics, considering that this attitude essentially determines their disposition towards tolerance (e.g. Zepa 1995; Rose and Maley 1994; Rose 1997). One of the most important characteristics of the Russian-speakers’ identity is found to lie in its dual nature, where the territorial component prevails over the ethnic one. Unlike the ethnic Latvians, most Russian-speakers neither emphasize their ethnicity nor regard it as the primary reference point for their identity (Rose and Maley 1994; Zepa 1995; Rose 1997; Baltic Data House/BDH 1998). Given the option between prioritizing ethnicity or language, once again the Russian language was mentioned as the basis for the Russian speakers’ identity, ethnic descent being given a lower rating (Volkovs 1998:4). In 1998, 56 per cent of Russian-speakers in Latvia viewed themselves as a people different from the Russians in Russia (BDH 1998:126). These general trends have remained quite stable (BDH 1998; BDH 1999a). Generally, although differences in the attitudes towards the entitlement to citizenship and the language issue exist between ethnic Latvians and non-Latvians, the inclination to compromise in society appears greater than that towards conflict (Kirch and Kirch 1997:146; Zepa 1995: 43; Rose 1997:34; Moshes 1999:32). Linz and Stepan hold that ‘the key question for a democratic multi-national state is whether the minorities are or are not open to multiple and complementary political identities and loyalties and, if so, whether they will be given citizenship’ (Linz and Stepan 1996:410). Survey results have led these authors to conclude that, ‘for the possibility of building a democracy, non-Baltic attitudes toward the present and especially the future give grounds for optimism about the possibility of a multinational democracy’ (Linz and Stepan 1996:419). Thus, it was suggested that given the trends present in the formation of the Russian speakers’


identity and loyalty, the most effective arrangement for Latvia (and in the same manner for Estonia) would be that of adopting an inclusive approach to citizenship and at the same time ensuring recognition of cultural and linguistic pluralism of the society, that is, opting for a Type 4 arrangement described above (Linz and Stepan 1996:432). THE IRRELEVANCE OF THE RUSSIAN SPEAKERS’ IDENTITY TRENDS Notwithstanding the generally favourable trends in the identity and loyalty of Latvia’s Russian speakers, the policies opted for by the state were closer to Types 2 and 3 rather than the Type 4 arrangement as framed by Linz and Stepan. The findings presented above have been made against the background of the political discourse portraying the Russian speakers first of all as a legacy of Soviet occupation whose presence in the Baltics is hardly legitimate, and as a group whose loyalty is questioned—the rhetoric described as the ‘discourse of danger’ (Jæger 1997:21). Rhetoric in which ‘Russian’ and ‘Soviet’ are used interchangeably, also referred to as ‘a specific identity politics of exclusion’ (Smith 1998:95), has accompanied the development of policies that resulted in the deepening of divisions between the two groups rather than their neutralization. In the Latvian case, the disposition of the Russian-speakers towards an increasingly firmer identification with the independent Latvia was largely irrelevant for the making of state policy. The 1994 Latvian Citizenship Law, based on the presumption of legal continuity of the inter-war Latvian state, excluded those who did not possess Latvian citizenship before 1940 (mostly Russian-speakers) as well as their descendants from the citizenry, providing them with only limited opportunities for initiating naturalization applications.7 This led to a situation where, currently, 78 per cent of the citizenry are ethnic Latvians (while they constitute only 56 per cent of the total population) and 22 per cent are non-Latvians (UNDP 1997:49). Simultaneously, pressures were exercised in the linguistic sphere. The Law on Languages of 1989 with its 1992 amendments significantly restricted the use of the Russian language in all spheres of public life. Compulsory Latvian language examinations for Russian-speakers were introduced and the State Language Inspection Board was set up to monitor compliance of the employees with language requirements and to trace violations. State-sponsored university education in Russian was abolished and the number of Russian secondary schools has been gradually reduced.8 Restrictions were also introduced with regard to the rights of non-citizens to property, privatization, employment and travel. Thus, Latvia has succeeded in establishing an ethnic rather than a multicultural democracy (Smith 1996) where members of the titular nation enjoy preferential status and treatment by the state, whereas others are marginalized both politically and socially. This Type 2 arrangement has allowed the state to


proceed with the Type 3 pressures aimed at achieving greater homogeneity of the demos and the nation. The political rationale behind this strategy declaratively aimed at reversing the effects of 50 years of Soviet rule was in the distribution of scarce resources, as it has provided members of the titular nation with easier access to the privatization process, to jobs in the public sector and to educational resources (Smith 1998:98). Subsequently, however, discussions of the necessity of changing the status quo were initiated in the late 1990s when it became clear that preserving the existing situation could undermine Latvia’s chances for EU membership. The possibility of amending the 1994 Citizenship Law was discussed throughout 1998 under the government dominated by Fatherland and Freedom—an openly nationalist party. The discussion about amending the law was a result of the application of international political conditionality by the core international actors—primarily the OSCE and the EU. The law was finally amended following a national referendum in October 1998, giving all of Latvia’s non-citizens who were able to meet the requirements, irrespective of age and place of birth, the opportunity to apply for naturalization. Subsequently, a framework document entitled ‘Integration of Society in Latvia’9 was drafted with a view towards developing a national programme to the effect. The document, in principle, gives recognition to the rationale of a Type 4 multicultural democracy, however, it has had no legal consequences. The change of the Citizenship Law provided hope that a shift towards greater official tolerance of both political and cultural diversity would continue. However, many members of parliament openly recognized that concessions in the citizenship sphere were made because of outside pressure from European institutions.10 Therefore, an ‘assimilative’ trend in the Latvian minority policy intensified with the introduction of a number of measures arguably aimed at counterbalancing the anticipated widening of the citizenry. Thus the new Law on Education that aims at the gradual elimination of secondary education in Russian was adopted in October 1998. Subsequently, the Law on the State Language that imposed yet greater restrictions upon the use of the Russian language in all spheres of life, including conferring upon it the status of a foreign language,11 was adopted in December 1999. THE IMPACT OF STATE POLICY UPON IDENTITY Following a constructivist approach within the analysis of ethnic and national identities, Kolstø (1996:621) proposed twelve factors that may influence identities and attitudes of minorities. Among them, he mentioned the policies of the nationalizing state, assuming that ‘a heavy-handed assimilation policy may produce a backlash of political disloyalty and restitutionist sentiment’. In a similar manner, emphasizing the effect of the political discourse accompanying such nationalizing policies, Linz and Stepan have noted that ‘the logic of a nation-state produces a political language and a set of descriptive terms whose


discursive effect is to create polar identities and to work against multiple complimentary identities that make possible democratic life in a de facto multinational state’ (Linz and Stepan 1996:417). As mentioned, Latvia’s Russian-speakers are characterized by multiple identities, the one related to Latvia generally being stronger than the one having to do with the notion of an external homeland, that is, Russia or another former Soviet republic. However, state policy is such that it may undermine this duality. Nevertheless, the weak ethnic identity among most Russian-speakers has prevented their consolidation on the basis of ethnicity, making it problematic to refer to them as an ‘ethnic’ or, for that matter, a ‘national’ minority.12 This weak identity may partly explain why their opposition to Latvia’s nationalizing policies so far implemented has not been conspicuous, as the counterbalance to the ethnically based argumentation of the majority has not been expressed in similar nationalistic terms. The nationalizing Latvian environment has so far not shifted the loyalty of Russian-speakers, the large majority of them ethnic Russians, towards Russia. Nor has it produced separatist sentiments. Contemporary Russian nation-building is largely foreign to the Russian-speakers in Latvia, the majority of whom were born or spent most of their lives outside Russia. The general feeling produced by the political exclusion most of them are facing at home may be described as that of passive indignation rather than violent frustration. At the same time, a perception that no collective action is taken may not be accurate. For example, the discrepancy between the number of persons eligible for naturalization (around 152,000 by 1998)13 and the number of actual naturalizations (10,625 before the change of the law)14 has been viewed as inaction. However, this may also be interpreted as a collective boycott of naturalization—a procedure seen by many Russian-speakers as an unjustified barrier to their acquiring citizenship.15 Seen as such, the strategy represents a form of political opposition by those lacking political rights; however, this does not imply disloyalty, as the choice of the Russian-speakers for the civic Latvian identity has remained unchanged. Thus the complementarity of the Russian-speakers’ identity has not been affected as might have been expected under the circumstances. Whether the ever-increasing linguistic pressures introduced with the legislation of the 1990s may indeed bring about a shift in the political loyalty of the Russian-speakers and contribute to their mobilization is a question that requires an analysis of their language competence, linguistic attitudes, the nature of the new policies and the strategies so far chosen to cope with the growing pressure. LANGUAGE COMPETENCE AND LANGUAGERELATED ATTITUDES It may be suggested that the greater the Latvian language competence of the Russian-speakers, the lower the chance that restrictions upon the usage of


Russian will cause conflict situations. It is generally believed that the overwhelming majority of the Russian-speakers in Latvia have no or very little knowledge of Latvian. The most familiar data is that of the 1989 census, according to which only 22 per cent of the Russian-speakers had some knowledge of Latvian. However, in the course of the decade that has passed since the restoration of independence, Latvian language competence has increased considerably among the Russian-speakers, which is particularly impressive considering that the learning incentives have been negative rather than positive. State strategy in this area may be described as ‘shock therapy’, characterized by the establishment of institutions (the State Language Inspection Board, the State Language Centre) aimed at checking and monitoring language competence as well as punishing non-compliance with language-related legislation, rather than facilitating the acquisition of language knowledge.16 In the educational sphere, a similar trend is observed. The preference of the policymakers is to transform Russian-language schools into schools with instruction in Latvian, rather than concentrating on providing qualitative training of Latvian as a subject in Russian schools.17 Under these circumstances, it appears that the Russian-speakers have approached the problem pragmatically, the majority having made an effort to master Latvian. Throughout the 1990s, Latvian language competence among the Russian-speakers has been increasing. The most reliable data have been collected by the regular surveys of the Latvian Social Research Centre. The respondents were asked to assess their knowledge according to the three categories of language proficiency required by law for various jobs. In 1999, 38 per cent of respondents assessed their knowledge as corresponding to the higher categories (two and three) and 52 per cent as corresponding to category one (lowest), but ten per cent claimed no knowledge of Latvian. Language knowledge has particularly improved among the younger Russian-speakers. For example, among those aged 35–49, 45 per cent of the respondents assessed their knowledge as corresponding to category two or three (BDH 1999a:4). Out of the total number of respondents, 40 per cent felt their language knowledge was sufficient for the performance of their functions or duties and 73 per cent wished to improve their knowledge (BDH 1999a:8–9). Furthermore, over 90 per cent of the respondents to the Baltic Barometer survey of 1997 considered learning the state language a duty that every resident of the country owes to the state (Rose 1997:38). Thus, there is no opposition towards mastering Latvian among the Russian-speakers. In fact, as Druviete (1998:9) reports, there is even a sense of guilt present among the Russian-speakers resembling a feeling of collective responsibility for the dominance of Russian under the Soviet system. However, many policy-makers are unwilling to recognize this, as the argument of the alleged reluctance to master Latvian serves as a powerful tool for justifying the current marginalization of the Russian language. Considering these attitudes, it appears obvious that the pressures imposed by the Law on the State Language are unlikely to turn the minority radically against


the state. This does not mean, however, that no objections will be raised should the implementation practices lead to discrimination. As a consequence, greater political opposition to the nationalizing policies and practices as well as weaker political support of the ruling parties may be expected. Although substantial progress in Latvian language proficiency has been observed after independence, the number of those perceiving their knowledge to be sufficient (40 per cent) remains low, which raises concern of the minority that the linguistic pressures imposed by the new legislation have the potential of resulting in infringement upon the rights of individuals whose knowledge is insufficient. Although when asked whether Russian should also be an official language in Latvia, many of the Russian-speakers would reply positively,18 no major demands of such nature have been made during the entire decade since Latvian was raised to the status of the only official language. The incorporation of the constitutional provision of 1998 that Latvian would be the only official language did not arouse objections either. Thus, although critical of what they see as assimilative pressure, the Russian-speakers do not call the official status of the Latvian language into question. The response, therefore, will most likely be expressed in a purely political way. As argued by one of the MPs representing the pro-minority faction ‘For Human Rights in the United Latvia’ during the second reading of the Law on the State Language, those who feel discriminated are likely to appeal to the judicial system and present their cases to the European Court of Human Rights with increasing frequency: ‘People have learned to defend their rights by purely legal means.’19 LINGUISTIC PREFERENCES IN EDUCATION The Law on Education appears to have even greater long-term significance. The basic idea behind the law with regard to Russian schools is the switch from instruction in Russian to Latvian.20 Article 9 of the law stipulates that in state and municipal educational institutions, education shall be obtained in the state language. Education in another language may be obtained in private educational institutions or in state and municipal educational institutions implementing minority educational programmes. This formulation leaves it up to the Ministry of Education to work out the content of ‘minority educational programmes’ and determine which and how many subjects must be taught in Latvian. This gives the ministry considerable discretion in the decision-making process, where the possibility that all subjects will have to be taught in Latvian in Russians schools is not ruled out. Currently, Russian schools are obliged to teach at least two subjects in Latvian in grades one through nine, and at least three in grades ten through twelve in accordance with the 1997 amendments introduced to the 1991 Law on Education. In the meantime, the Ministry has developed four experimental transitional models that have been referred to as ‘bilingual education models’ for schools


which teach grades one through nine. All of these models are aimed at increasing the number of subjects taught in Latvian in Russian schools differing only in the pace of transition. For example, model one starts off with teaching 25 to 50 per cent of subjects in Latvian in the first grade, 50 to 80 per cent in grades two and three, 95 per cent in grade four, 50 per cent in grade five, 70 to 80 per cent in grade six and 95 per cent in grades seven, eight and nine. Model two suggests that 50 to 95 per cent of all subjects be taught in Latvian in the first and second grade, 50 to 75 per cent in grades three to six and 40 to 60 per cent in grades seven to nine (BDH 1999b:47). From 2004 it is planned to discontinue instruction in Russian in grades ten through twelve in accordance with the Law on Education.21 Although there is common concern over the unsatisfactory instruction of Latvian in Russian schools, which, under the present conditions, bars many graduates from entering universities and decreases their chances at the labour market, the reform is viewed as harassing, since linguistic experiments are viewed as aiming at ‘a conscious destruction of the Russian education and pushing Russian children into the streets’.22 The preference of the Russianspeakers points towards providing qualitative teaching of Latvian as a subject in Russian schools, which would ensure an excellent command of Latvian among the graduates without denying them the right to acquire education in their native language. Among teachers, 44 per cent believe the best way to improve the acquisition of Latvian in Russian schools would be through (only) improving the teaching of Latvian as a subject, 8 per cent through (only) teaching certain subjects in Latvian and 48 per cent through combining both methods (BDH 1999b:34). While there is general consensus that a number of subjects, such as Latvian literature and the history of Latvia (24 per cent of all respondents agreed to that) could be taught in Latvian, the strategy of changing the language of instruction for other subjects raises opposition. Schools have been largely unprepared for the linguistic transition and there seems to be general confusion of what the ‘bilingual method’ actually means.23 Overwhelmed with the feeling of uncertainty as to the future of Russian schools and due to the lack of teachers and methods of teaching Latvian as a second language, the strategy of many parents has been to send children to Latvian kindergartens and schools, with the hope that when placed in a Latvian language environment, children would be more successful at picking up the language through natural interaction with the native speakers.24 No statistics exist on the scope of the trend, but Tsilevich and Antane have estimated that the native language of some 20 per cent of the children attending Latvian schools is not Latvian. However, where this has been happening, complaints came from the parents of Latvian children who felt that the linguistic influence of Russianspeaking children upon Latvian children was excessive (Tsilevich and Antane 1999:129). This sentiment was openly expressed by the key inspirer of state language policy, head of the Parliamentary Committee for Education, Culture and Science, Dzintars bikis. When discussing the proposal to simply start


instruction in the first grade in the Latvian language beginning with the year 2000 in the whole of Latvia, he stated the following: First, this is impossible because even schools with instruction in Latvian lack teachers. Second, the opportunity of gradual transition into Latvian in the other grades will be lost. Besides, such an unprepared and swift transition into Latvian as the language of instruction in all schools will in the end be very damaging to the Latvian children in large cities. Because if we announce that we enroll in the first grade in Latvian only, we cannot indicate to each child which school to go to. In this way, in big cities and in many places in the Latgalian countryside, Latvian and Russian children will be literally thrown into one kettle. It is possible that there will suddenly be, for example, four Latvians and twenty Russians in one class. And I do not think that the Latvian children will benefit from that. Considering differences in the mentality, it might be entirely realistic that the whole class will speak Russian during the break. By the way, this is happening already now—in places where parents of Russian ethnicity decide to send their children to Latvian schools, and in cases when the number of such children exceeds five to six. And this is now, when the situation is developing gradually. What would happen if this were determined by law? (Latvijas Ve stnesis, 30 October 1998; author’s translation) Indeed, when considering this concern of the policy-makers, it becomes clear that educational reform that has opted for the transitional ‘bilingual education’ programmes envisages the preservation of ethnic segregation, while introducing Latvian as the medium of instruction in Russian schools at the same time. This option shows that the Russian-speakers’ concerns about the reform aiming to marginalize them are well-grounded. In any event, the preferences of the state in the field of education and the preferences of the minority do not coincide, which indicates that there is a certain potential for conflict in this area. However, as has been shown, the response of the Russian-speakers has not been that of radical confrontation with the state, nor with the Latvians as an ethnic group. Similarly to the situation where naturalization was largely boycotted in the period from 1994 to 1999, some Russian-speakers choose to ‘boycott’ educational reform, however, in quite an unexpected way—by deserting the reformed schools and sending children to Latvian schools. Perceived as a sign of disposition to voluntary assimilation, when examined more closely, this trend also appears to represent a form of protest against state policy. Consequently, when considered from this point of view, the trend appears to be likely to result in bilingualism of the Russianspeakers combined with their protest mobilization.


CONCLUSION: MOBILIZATION OF IDENTITY Discussing the possible identity trends likely to prevail among the Russianspeakers, Laitin (1998:299) suggested that, among other things, ‘the Russianspeakers might well be considered not as a vague transnational diaspora but rather as a standard interest group’. Under quasi-democratic conditions, in which the government has passed language and citizenship laws that put hardships in the way of certain segments of the population, it is perfectly reasonable for those segments to coalesce into a movement that seeks to alter those laws… The question at hand is whether those who now represent themselves as Russian-speakers will sharpen the boundaries that separate them from others, and make claims for political/territorial autonomy based on the cultural distinctiveness of the group within those boundaries. There is no clear evidence that such efforts are now taking place, but there are reasons for holding that the groundwork has been laid for such a project. (Laitin 1998: 296) As discussed above, identity shifts are still possible under the influence of a variety of factors, state language policy being, perhaps, among the most important. As follows from the analysis, the latest developments in this area contribute to the perception among the Russian-speakers of being discriminated against on the basis of language—one of the principal reference points for their identity. This line of policy provides an incentive for a firmer consolidation of the group on the basis of the Russian language. That the group will coalesce into a new nationality on this basis is questionable, but it is evident that opposition to discrimination will find its political expression, making the Russian-speakers possessing Latvian citizenship unite in an effort to counter-balance state policy. Such a trend is already visible on the Latvian political stage. In the October 1998 elections, the various political movements representing non-Latvians (who constitute only 22 per cent of all citizens) cooperated by running as a single block, now forming the parliamentary faction For Human Rights in the United Latvia. Political formations, some of them with opposite ideological stances, cooperated to serve this goal, regardless of belonging to the traditional ‘left’ or ‘right’ of the political spectrum. The leftist Socialist Party (holding four seats) and the Equal Rights Movement (five seats), the cosmopolitan People’s Harmony Party (six seats) and the rightist Russian Party (one seat), which emphasizes Russian ethnicity and the Orthodox religion in its ideology, cooperate under the common denominator of standing up for the rights of noncitizens and the Russian language. Most of the other political formations on the Latvian political stage tend to follow a nationalistic line. Its most conspicuous expression was the passage of the Law on Education and the Law on the State Language. It is evident that the


Russian-speakers, as they acquire voting rights through naturalization, are not likely to cast their votes in favour of these political forces, thereby strengthening the support for those with pro-minority orientation. However, radical political confrontation is ruled out for the near future as the pace of naturalization, although accelerated after opening the ‘windows,’ is still insignificant for altering the current political balance. According to the most optimistic forecasts, around 300,000 persons, or about half of all non-citizens, are likely to be naturalized, with about twenty to twenty-five thousand naturalizations per year.25 This means that the citizenry will expand slowly and those defending the interests of the Russian-speakers will remain in opposition for a long time to come. On the other hand, this creates a basis for ‘negative mobilization’ on the basis of being discriminated against. As Zepa (1998:3) reported, a negative identity—that of being ‘non-citizens’, with all of the implications of this status, has been forming among those excluded from the political community. This phenomenon is also important to note when considering the potential for mobilization of the group. Laitin has expressed concern that although no open violence has been observed in Latvia, ‘no one seems confident that there will always be peace between the two nationalities either. Thus, if violence does break out between gangs from the two nationalities, it will probably be hard to contain’ (Laitin 1998:185). He also assumed that in spite of the generally individualistic strategies the Russian-speakers opted for adapting to the nationalizing Latvian environment, this does not rule out the possibility of their collective mobilization as Russians (Laitin 1998, 177). However, the responses the Russian-speakers have given so far to the nationalizing policies of the state, along with, most importantly, their current identity structure as well as their political preferences suggest that opposition to discrimination is in no case likely to be expressed in a violent form, particularly due to the virtual impossibility of nationalistic mobilization of the Russians. In the 16-seat parliamentary block representing Russian-speakers, the most nationalistic Russian Party holds only one seat out of the 16. It is clear that this party, which sees Russian nationalism as an appropriate answer to Latvian nationalism, would not have been represented at all had it run independently. The overall support for the party’s ideology is weak. One of its leaders, reporting on the meeting of the faction representatives with Latvia’s President Ulmanis following the October 1998 elections, made the following comment: I was not surprised by the President’s reaction to my speech, as he belongs to the ruling majority. He said that parties should not be created on an ethnic basis, probably referring to the Russian Party. But I was surprised by my colleagues’ reaction—they all fervently supported the President in that parties should not be created on an ethnic basis, that this will not lead to anything good, etc However, all the other parties that participated in the elections are Latvian parties. And it is not the name, but the essence that


matters. Moreover, all the state administration…is practically made up of Latvians Why should the Russians be refused the right to exist in the framework of the Russian Party? (Russkoje Slovo, 16–22 October 1998, author’s translation) However, this idea enjoys little support. The organization leading the human rights block is the democratic People’s Harmony Party, advocating a Type Four society described above. The other two faction members place themselves left of the centre of the traditional political scale, but nationalistic sentiment is not present in their ideology. Russian nationalistic mobilization is unlikely for a number of reasons. First of all, the group of Russian-speakers is ethnically diverse. Secondly, the scope of the Russian-speaking voters still comprises those characterized by certain aspects of ‘Soviet identity’. However, in most cases this does not imply restitutionist sentiments. One component of what is referred to as Soviet identity is the ideology of internationalism, which, although a product of propaganda, had an undeniably profound impact on, primarily, but not exclusively, the Russians. Those sharing the cosmopolitan values of international friendship of peoples have developed an a priori intolerant attitude towards expressions of ethnic nationalism, condemning the attempts to emphasize ethnic particularities of the groups they themselves represented. Simply put, the majority of Russian-speakers living in Latvia today would hold that ethnic nationalism is unacceptable and will, therefore, try not to present themselves as nationalists, but point out the flaws of the particularist understanding of justice that comes with the nationalist ideology. Another problem is that the nationalist discourse has been insisting on associating everything Russian with the Soviet past, providing disincentives for the expression of Russian consciousness in any form.26 The response of the Russian-speakers in the Baltics to such attitudes has been their disassociation from ethnicity and concentration on cosmopolitan values.27 This means that in the Latvian case, a classical clash of two nationalisms is ruled out, the Russian-speakers attempting to set their ‘internationalism’, or ‘cosmopolitanism’, against nationalism, which implies that their preference will be to choose strategies that would not resemble the strategies of the nationalists. To a great extent, this has been the case until today, which may explain the absence of violence so far observed in Latvia. State policy in the field of language and education, which, in the understanding of the Russian-speakers, is an expression of the vices of nationalism, will most likely contribute to the strengthening of their belief in anti-nationalistic or cosmopolitan ideas, and consequently, of their preferred identity as ‘internationalists’. Although the mobilization of identity is occurring in opposition to, primarily, linguistic discrimination, the fact that this mobilization is non-nationalistic in nature may imply that it bears less potential for conflict than if it were taking place on the basis of ethno-nationalist ideology. This factor appears to be the key explanation of the adjustment strategies of the Russian-speakers, as well as the most


powerful restraint to future violence. The ethnic nihilism (Volkovs 1996:67) of the Russian-speakers, often invoked as a negative phenomenon used for a sympathetic portrayal of the group as being deprived of, or ignorant of its ‘roots’ is, in fact, a conscious choice of many Russian-speakers and an advantage for Latvia. NOTES 1 For example, Riga Secondary Schools No. 26 and No. 9 and the Riga Civil Aviation University. 2 According to the 1995 Latvian Citizenship and Immigration Department data, 58 per cent of the inhabitants of Latvia use Latvian in the family, while 37 per cent use Russian. The linguistic composition of the population is more appropriate for the purposes of this analysis than the ethnic one, as ethnicity in Latvia is official and in many cases has nothing or little to do with the individual’s self-perception. Nor does it always coincide with the person’s native language. Data on self-perception are not available and have not been collected since independence. Officially (as noted in passports), the distribution is as follows (UNDP 1997:49):56.7 per cent Latvians, 30.2 per cent Russians, 4.2 per cent Belarussians, 2.8 per cent Ukrainians, 2.5 per cent Poles and 3.6 per cent other ethnic groups. In 1997, 28 per cent of the total population were non-citizens, with ethnic Latvians constituting 1.6 per cent in this group. Among citizens, 78 per cent are ethnic Latvians, while 22 per cent are non-Latvians (16 per cent are ethnic Russians). 3 As Štamers (1996:192) has explained, ‘At the basis of this caution was the idea that it would be best to proceed only with people who are loyal to the country and who have become part of the nation’s culture and lifestyle. The absolute majority of ethnic Russians did not meet this definition, however, and their number was quite great.’ 4 The concept of the nationalizing state is discussed by Brubaker 1996. 5 This appears natural considering that 52 per cent of ethnic Russians (Rose and Maley 1994:12) and about one-third of all non-citizens (UNDP 1997:53) were born in Latvia. 6 By 1997, some 60,000 persons had acquired Russian citizenship, with half of them having moved to Russia (UNDP 1997:55). 7 The ‘windows’ system initially contained in the law allowed only certain age groups to apply each year, and preference was given to those born in Latvia. Persons born in Latvia aged 16 to 20 could start the application process in 1996, those up to 25 years old in 1997, those up to 30 in 1998 and so on. Under this system, the last group could only begin applying in 2003. See e.g. Smith 1996; Tsilevich and Antane 1999. 8 For a detailed discussion of the Latvian language policy, see Tsilevich and Antane 1999. 9 The document can be found at http://www.mfa.gov.lv 10 Parliamentary debates over the amendments can be found at http://www.saeima.lv 11 The law regulates the use of language in state and municipal institutions, in education and other spheres. The use of language in private institutions (including


12

13

14 15

16 17

18 19 20

businesses) and by self-employed persons is regulated in cases when their activities relate to the legitimate public interest (public safety, health, morality, protection of health, consumer rights, labour rights, workplace safety, supervision by public administration). The use of language ‘is prescribed by the law for formal sittings and meetings, with private institutions being obliged to provide translation into Latvian if requested by at least one participant of the meeting. The law also requires Latvian be used in record-keeping, on stamps, seals, letterheads, for personal and place names, in films, at public events, for the purposes of public information, and so on. Documents submitted by individuals to state and municipal institutions must be in the state language or accompanied by a notarized translation or by a translation verified in accordance with the Cabinet of Ministers regulations. Persons violating the law shall be held responsible. The law entered into force in September 2000. Full text is published in Latvijas Ve stnesis, 21 December 1999. Minority formation on the basis of ethnic descent has partly occurred, notably among those of non-Russian ethnicity, e.g. Ukrainians, Poles, Jews. Numerous ethno-cultural societies (including Russian), have been created and encouraged by the state; however, their membership is, in most cases, negligible in relation to the group they attempt to represent (UNDP: 1997:390–454). The total number of non-citizens in Latvia in 1998 was still well over 600,000. However, only about 152,000 were eligible to apply for naturalization by that year under the ‘windows’ system. Official data of the Latvian State Naturalization Board, available at: http:// www.np.gov.lv The degree of efficiency of this strategy generally perceived as an expression of extreme passivity of the Russian-speakers must not be underestimated, considering that the virtual absence of naturalization attracted attention of the international organizations (primarily the EU) that made the facilitation of the naturalization procedure part of its conditionality policy towards Latvia as an applicant state for membership. Following this, the law was amended. For comprehensive data on language attestation, see Tsilevich and Antane (1999: 114–16). The national programme for the gradual transition to the acquisition of secondary education in the state language and the increase of the proportion of subjects taught in the state language in the framework of general education was adopted by the government on 12 May 1998 (LVAVP 1999:3). The National Programme for Latvian Language Training worked out in cooperation with the UNDP is financed almost entirely by international organizations and foreign governments (LVAVP 1999:29–30). Although the programme is carrying out activities to train teachers of Latvian as a second language, the priority for the programme is the training of Russian-speaking teachers in order to enable them to teach their subjects in Latvian (LVAVP 1999:20). Thus, the programme accepts the idea of the gradual elimination of instruction in Russian in secondary schools (which is not the preference of the minority and, therefore, arouses its criticism). Fifty-five per cent of parents and 60 per cent of teachers in Russian schools supported the idea (BDH 1999b:11). Minutes of parliamentary debates are available at www.saeima.lv In 1990, 48 per cent of all school students in Latvia were acquiring education in Russian schools (Karklins 1994:153). This number has been gradually decreasing,


21 22

23

24 25 26

27

having fallen to 39 per cent by 1996 (Tsilevich and Antane 1999: 127), the Ministry of Education providing the figure of 36 per cent for 1998. The number of Russian schools has been steadily decreasing over this period. The figures on the correlation between the decrease in the number of Russian-speaking students and in the number of Russian schools are, however, not available. A general decrease in the number of school-age children is observed in Latvia, which leads to cuts in the number of both Latvian and Russian schools, particularly in the countryside. The minority claims, however, that the demand for Russian schools is deliberately underestimated by the officials. Education is compulsory in Latvia up to the ninth grade. Grades ten to twelve are not compulsory, but necessary for entrance into institutions of higher education. Opinion of Dr Ulyanov, Chair of the Centre for the Protection of the Russian Language, Russkoje Slovo, 9–15 October 1998. The sentiment is generally widespread in the Russian-language media. When asked what they thought ‘bilingual education method’ meant, 58 per cent of school principals, 43 per cent of teachers and 48 per cent of students thought this meant ‘when two languages are used in the acquisition of a subject’, while 28 per cent of principals, 35 per cent of teachers and 11 per cent of students believed this meant ‘a gradual increase in the number of subjects taught in Latvian’; 14 per cent of principals, 19 per cent of teachers and 17 per cent of students thought this meant ‘a fixed number of subjects in Latvian and in Russian’ (BDH 1999b:27). Eighty-one per cent of parents and 65 per cent of teachers supported the idea that Russian-speaking children should go to Latvian kindergartens (BDH 1999b:37). Forecast by the Head of the Latvian State Naturalization Board Eiženija Alderma ne, Chas, 6 October 1998. As Guroff and Guroff (1994:86) have expressed with regard to Russians, viewing themselves as victims of the Soviet system, Russians now ‘find themselves implicitly at war with themselves and their past in their current search for a national identity’. Surveys support this view implicitly rather than explicitly. Apart from putting low positive value on ethnicity, assuming a variety of identities and attempting to master the titular language, the Russian-speakers are also found to claim a great deal in common with the ‘core’ group, the respective attitudes being far more reserved (Zepa 1995; Rose 1995b; Rose 1997; BDH 1998); provide (at times) greater support for EU enlargement compared to the ‘core’ group representatives (Rose 1997:44); have positive attitudes towards both Russia and the countries of Western Europe (Kirch and Kirch 1997:160); be characterized by a high degree of interethnic marriage—around 40 per cent among ethnic Russians, compared to about 17 per cent among ethnic Latvians (Dreifelds 1996:163).

14 Russians Abroad: Citizenship and Political Community in Estonia and Kazakhstan Jacqueline McLaren-Miller

The collapse of the Soviet Union left some 25 million ethnic Russians outside the borders of the former USSR. This Russian ‘diaspora’1 quickly became a convenient ‘vehicle’ by which Russia tried to maintain some degree of influence in the domestic affairs of the successor states of the Soviet Union. Citizenship laws became the focus of much debate and contention as some former Soviet republics adopted extremely liberal citizenship laws for ethnic minorities while other states adopted restrictive citizenship laws that Russia claimed were in violation of human rights norms. What was not debated was the role of citizenship—citizenship was the mechanism through which ethnic Russians could become part of the political community of these states. The denial of citizenship then meant that ethnic Russians were seen as interlopers and were not to be included in post-Soviet state-formation and nation-building. ‘Bounded citizenry’, it has been argued, ‘is usually conceived as a nation—as something more cohesive than a mere aggregate of persons who happen legally to belong to the state’ (Brubaker 1992:21). Lack of citizenship was largely seen as not only denying ethnic Russians membership in the political community, but in the national community as well. Russia pressed for citizenship for ethnic Russians in the other successor states of the Soviet Union. Several of these states resisted citizenship for ethnic Russians and other ethnic minorities due to a fear that this would somehow dilute their nationhood and threaten their independent existence. There is empirical evidence that citizenship has not turned out to be a reliable indicator of the level of political community and political identification that has developed in the post-Soviet states. The relationship between conceptions of citizenship (ethnic and civic), political community and national identity may not be as straightforward as the literature seems to suggest. Ethnic and civic notions of citizenship may not necessarily reveal the level of inclusion in a given polity. In this chapter, two cases are examined to explore the role of citizenship in creating a sense of political community and belonging: Estonia and Kazakhstan. At issue are their differing conceptions of citizenship—one ethnic and the other civic. At stake are these two states’ ability to build and maintain a viable sense of national identity, given a sizeable ethnic minority population, and thus their ability to survive as sovereign states: ‘In contemporary times, the assertion of


sovereignty by a state involves implicit claims to represent an identifiable presence. In other words, it is a political community with some sense of shared national identity’ (Doty 1996:122). Without this sense of political community, without a clear sense of just who is the nation, the ability of the state to function as a legitimate and sovereign state can be called into question (Doty 1996). THE POLITICS OF CITIZENSHIP The collapse of the Soviet Union made painfully evident the widespread ethnodemographic changes that had taken place throughout the Soviet republics. The states that emerged from the Soviet Union were, with few exceptions, faced with significant national minorities. The triple transition,2 an onerous undertaking in and of itself, has been vastly complicated by minority politics. The politics of transition has been complicated by the politics of national identity. Estonia and Kazakhstan represent two such cases of widespread demographic disruptions from Soviet practices. They have, however, embarked on different paths to confront the inherent difficulties in building a new state and nation with significant national minorities. For the post-Soviet states to function as legitimate and viable states, it is absolutely crucial that the inhabitants of these states ‘transfer their political loyalty to the new state. They must develop a sense of belonging in the state and forge a common identity’ (Kolstø 1998:51). Citizenship cannot merely be understood as defining who can enjoy the full bundle of rights and obligations of any given state. In any and every state, citizenship is inextricably tied to conceptions of the nation, nationhood and national identity and must be considered in its political-cultural context (Brubaker 1992:182). Citizenship ‘does not simply imply formal membership in a state’s political body; it also assumes that all citizens are members of the nation owing their adherence to universal principles’ (Roudometof 1996:55). Building the political community must involve more than merely delineating its members; it must seek to integrate them by forging a sense of identification that runs concurrently with the polity. Political community is more than the political system or the sum of a state’s institutions; it is ‘the collection of persons in and out of government who recognize the government as the legitimate decision maker for that territory, generally comply with its decisions, and cooperate toward shared purposes’ (Juviler and Stroschein 1999:438). As such, it is a key indicator of likely political stability, legitimacy, shared purpose and identity. Especially in multiethnic states, political community includes members in a shared identity and shared sets of rights and obligations (Juviler and Stroschein 1999). An examination of citizenship policy in a state is largely considered to provide a useful way of discovering the limits of political community and uncovering the connection between ethnic identity, authority and legitimacy (see Ndegwa 1997). As Rogers Brubaker explains:

224 RUSSIANS ABROAD

The politics of citizenship today is first and foremost a politics of nationhood. As such, it is a politics of identity, not a politics of interest. It pivots more on self-understanding than self-interest. The ‘interests’ informing the politics of citizenship are ‘ideal’ rather than material. The central question is not ‘who gets what?’ but rather ‘who is what? (Brubaker 1992:182) The examples analysed in this chapter show, however, that the connection between citizenship, political community and national identity is not as straightforward as it would seem. Citizenship policy in the former Soviet Union varies, as does the extent to which ethnic Russians living in the Soviet successor states have been able to integrate themselves into the nascent political communities. This variance is largely due to the varying degrees of relevance of ethnic nationalism and national identity in these republics. Defining citizenship in the post-Soviet republics has raised substantial and contentious issues of national identity and belonging in some, but not all, of the successor states. POLITICAL COMMUNITY AND CITIZENSHIP IN ESTONIA In Estonia, nationalist sentiment provided the initial impetus for defiance against the Soviet regime and the basis for building (or rebuilding) post-Soviet Estonia. Initially, Estonia sought only to increase political and economic autonomy within the framework provided by perestroika and glasnost. Predominant in the initial movement for change was an aspiration for the ‘restoration of Estonian political, cultural, and economic self-determination’ (Raun 1991:222). Gorbachev opened the way in the Baltic states for the possibility of increased autonomy. Independence was not even an issue at the beginning of Estonia’s protest movement. ‘Eco-nationalism’ dominated Estonia’s protests. The event given credit for starting Estonia on the path to independence was a broadcast of an Estonian television programme called Panda that aired on 25 February 1987. This broadcast alerted its viewers that Moscow was planning to expand phosphate mining into northern Estonia. The ‘green’ protests that followed this report evolved into a much more powerful and significant conflict as protestors began calling for political and economic autonomy for Estonia (Gerner and Hedlund 1993). The environment became the ‘issue that activated the Estonian masses’ (Raun 1991:223; see also Chapter 11). What started out in the spring of 1987 as student protests against the centre’s decision to expand phosphate mining developed into something much larger. On the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact3 on 23 August 19874 between two thousand and five thousand demonstrators gathered in Tallinn, testing the limits of glasnost (Raun 1997). Riga and Vilnius saw similar demonstrations as the Balts began to push the limits of Gorbachev’s glasnost (Senn 1995:11).


By late 1988, Estonian demands had crystallized into calls for more control over the republic’s economic affairs, cuts in immigration and greater cultural and ecological self-determination (Hiden and Salmon 1991). Increasingly, issues of nationality, not the environment, were at the centre of demonstrations. On 16 November 1988, Estonia declared its sovereignty. In January 1989 Estonia passed language laws that made Estonian the official state language. Additionally, Estonia directed that, within four years, government officials and sales people should be able to speak in both Estonian and Russian. In the early summer Estonia also passed a local election law linking voting rights to minimum length of residence. Tensions between ethnic Russians and ethnic Estonians were strongly increasing, especially as the drive to regain statehood accelerated in 1989. Increasingly, ethnic cleavages were emerging as political cleavages and the political agenda of many of Estonia’s new political groupings focused on national goals. As one commentator observed, ‘Nationalities have turned into political parties’ (Zaslavsky 1992:105). Some Estonian political organizations adopted nationalist stances. As Kaplan explains, ‘The clearly nationalist position assumed by these organizations placed not only independence on the political agenda, but also focused attention on nationalist issues, such as language and citizenship.’ (Kaplan 1993:214) The Estonian political centre, represented by the Popular Front of Estonia (PFE), had to join the more radical groups in pushing for independence if it wanted to remain a viable political entity. This left many Russians in Estonia feeling a strong need to organize their own political groups. Countermobilization along ethnic lines was witnessed as Intermovement and the United Council of Labour Collectives (OSTK) were created with the aim of giving voice to the concerns of ethnic Russians. Intermovement, composed primarily of retired military officers and factory workers, sought to keep the Soviet Union intact. OSTK, originally conceived as the labour union arm of Intermovement (Gerner and Hedlund 1993), did not support Estonian independence but by 1991 began to support the idea of an autonomous Estonia within a loose Soviet confederation (Kaplan 1993). These two largely conservative political movements did not represent all Russian-speakers. There were Russians in the Baltic states who supported the drive for autonomy and then the struggle for independence. Many scholars of the Baltic region have taken great pains to show that ethnic Russians supported the drive for independence in the Baltics. In March 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev was elected president of the Soviet Union. He was to be the first and last elected president of the USSR. Estonia held elections for its regional parliament at the same time. In these elections, proindependence forces garnered a majority. The considerable success of proindependence groups had to mean that many members of the Slavic minorities, first and foremost ethnic Russians, also voted for these candidates. The Estonian parliament wasted little time in seceding from the Soviet Union. Soviet annexation was declared illegal and a legal transformation was begun towards

226 RUSSIANS ABROAD

the ‘reformation of the constitutional institutions of the Republic of Estonia’ (Hiden and Salmon 1991:163). The desire to create, or recreate, independent democratic states was based on memories and experiences of the inter-war independence. The same phenomenon was witnessed in Latvia and Lithuania. In May 1990, Latvia’s Parliament also voted to declare Soviet rule illegal and to restore Latvia’s independence. In June 1991, Latvia’s 1922 Constitution was reintroduced (Muiznieks 1997). On 18 May 1989, Lithuania declared the restoration of independent Lithuanian statehood. Rather than being removed from the forced transformation of their states to Western-oriented fledgling market economies from Soviet republics, many Balts were a part of the transformation. The knowledge of the precedent of statehood, nationhood and parliamentary democracy made the attempts to restore the interwar republics credible and legitimate, at least for some (Karklins 1994). The goal of restoring or recreating what had existed in the inter-war period ignored the fact that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were, in 1991, radically different from their 1939 incarnations. The ethno-demographic composition of the populations of Latvia and Estonia had been fundamentally altered, the economies were based on inefficiencies, centralization and subsidies, and the concept of political competition had become alien to several generations of potential voters. To essentially ignore the past 50 years of Soviet power and declare continuity between the inter-war republics and the newly independent nations of 1991 was a goal destined to run into serious problems. The massive influx of Soviet labourers, primarily Russians, had completely altered the ethnic composition of Estonia and Latvia. Lithuania, however, did not see the same kind of demographic changes. Stalinism had dramatically reduced the populations of Estonia and Latvia. It has been estimated that the population of Estonia decreased from 1.13 million in 1939 to 850,000 in 1945 (Lieven 1993). The influx of Russians began immediately after the Soviet annexation of Estonia. Within ten years, the population had surpassed the pre-war level due to the immigration of some 230,000 non-Estonians. In 1959, Russians made up 20 per cent of the Estonian population whereas before the war they had totalled only 8 per cent. Latvia saw 535,000 non-Latvians increase its population, but only 160,000 labourers migrated to Lithuania (Lieven 1993). So even as the population of Estonia grew, the percentage of the population made up of Estonians declined. Table 14.1 Ethnic composition of Estonia, 1923–89 (percentage) Estonians Russians Others

1923

1945

1959

1979

1989

92.4 3.9 3.7

94 – –

74.6 20.1 5.3

64.7 27.9 7.4

61.5 30.3 8.2


1923

1945

1959

1979

1989

“–” Data not available Sources: Gerner and Hedlund 1993: Table 1.1; Kirch, Kirch and Tuisk 1993: Table 1; Hiden and Salmon 1991: Chart 2. Table 14.2 Ethnic composition of Estonia, 1994–99 (percentage)* 1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

Estonians 63.8 64.2 64.6 65.0 65.1 65.2 Russians 29.0 28.7 28.5 28.2 28.1 28.1 Others 7.2 7.1 6.9 6.8 6.8 6.7 *The data for 1994–99 are estimates. The last Soviet census took place in 1989 and Estonia’s first post-independence census took place in 2000. Source: Statistical Office of Estonia 1994, 1999. Table 14.3 Population change in Estonia, 1935–89 Total population

Ethnic Estonians

Change (%)

Ethnic Russians

Change (%)

1935 1,058,000 977,000 42,000 1959 1,197,000 892,962 −8.6 240,597 +472.8 1979 1,464,476 947,516 +6.1 408,589 +69.8 1989 1,565,662 962,882 +1.6 474,396 +16.1 Sources: Gerner and Hedlund 1993: Table 1.1; Kaplan and Brady 1992: Table 1.

Table 14.4 Population change in Estonia, 1994–99* Total population

Ethnic Estonians

Change (%)

Ethnic Russians

Change (%)

1994 1,506,927 962,326 436,562 1995 1,491,583 957,948 −4.5 428,360 −18.8 1996 1,476,301 953,947 −4.2 420,435 −18.5 1997 1,462,130 950,124 −4.0 412,628 −18.6 1998 1,453,844 946,646 −3.7 409,111 −8.5 1999 1,445,580 942,526 −4.3 406,049 −7.2 *The data for 1994–99 are estimated. The last Soviet census took place in 1989 and Estonia’s first post-independence census was in 2000. Source: Statistical Office of Estonia 1994, 1999.

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In an effort to protect the status of ethnic Estonians in the face of the demographic conditions, Estonia’s 1938 citizenship law was, with only minor modifications, reintroduced in 1991. Pre-1940 Estonians and their descendants only, even if living abroad, automatically and without application (re)acquired Estonian citizenship. For non-ethnic Estonians who wanted to become Estonian citizens, the law made two years of residence mandatory, with the residency requirement to start being counted from 30 March 1990. In addition to the citizenship provisions, including a language test,5 a one-year wait was required after the time of application. The earliest, then, that any nonethnic Estonian could gain citizenship was 30 March 1993. This issue was a major point of contention. When the constitutional referendum was held in June 1992 and elections for the presidency and Parliament (Riigikogu) were held in the autumn of 1992, most ethnic Russians had no right to vote. There were 660, 000 registered voters for these elections (out of a total population of 1.6 million); only approximately 100,000 of the some 600,000 non-ethnic Estonians were eligible to vote (Chinn and Truex 1996). This legislature approved the passage of a constitution and decided on the status of foreigners and non-citizens, which quickly became the status of non-Estonians. Thirty per cent of the population had been disenfranchised. At this same time the privatization process was being legislated. Lack of citizenship also hampered non-Estonians who may have wished to join in the privatization process. The Law of the Estonian Republic on the Foundations of Property Reform stated that foreigners and persons without citizenship may acquire privatized property, but only for hard currency.6 Additionally, the Estonian Law on Land Reform stated that only citizens were the entitled subjects of privatization. As there was no law on citizenship at the time, the ‘entitled subjects of privatization’ were those who, as of 16 June 1940, had citizenship in the Estonian Republic and were currently residing in Estonia, and their direct descendants residing permanently in the Estonian Republic. As it turns out, this was a prescient view of who would turn out to be initially eligible for citizenship in Estonia. Although citizenship and naturalization laws usually apply to newcomers, the Baltic states were in the novel situation of ‘inheriting’ a state and a population and then deciding who would be granted citizenship and who would not. In general, international law defers to states to define who their nationals are (see Akehurst 1991). As such, Estonia had no international laws or protocol to follow. The initial decision of Estonia to extend citizenship only to the pre-1940 inhabitants of the states and their descendants provoked the wrath of many Russians and a debate in the West, but it broke no international law or treaty. From a human rights position, a zero-option approach to citizenship would enhance civil and political rights.7 The Estonian perspective, however, differed: [P]eople who moved to the Baltic states during the Soviet period should be put on the same footing as newcomers because they came as part of a


colonial occupation, which had as one of its goals the dilution of the native populations. (Baltic Independent, 17–23 September 1993:9) Denying citizenship denies the ensuing political rights, including the ability to participate in the selection of leaders. Permanent residents were given the right to vote in local elections.8 In January 1993, Freedom House, which ranks the level of human rights in the world, demoted Estonia from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ based on its citizenship restrictions. Most ethnic Russians were disenfranchised when the most elementary laws were being fashioned. In the first free elections in Estonia, in 1990, every resident could vote, and the Russians voted for independence candidates. After independence ethnic Russians, whether they had supported independence or not, could no longer vote. Estonia’s parliament, the Riigikogu, has since passed Estonia’s Law on Citizenship, which took effect on 1 April 1995. The naturalization process mandates: • five years of continuous residence in Estonia and a one-year waiting period after the receipt of the application; • knowledge of the Estonian language;9 • knowledge of the Estonian constitution;10 • an oath of loyalty to Estonia; • permanent lawful income; • the ineligibility of those who have been employed or are currently employed by the intelligence or security forces of another state and those who have served in a ‘career position’ in the armed forces of another state or have retired from a career position in foreign armed forces (including spouses of such people if they entered Estonia in conjunction with such military service). The issue of citizenship and minority rights in Estonia was a source of conflict between the Russians and Estonians living in Estonia and the Estonian and Russian governments. Russia demanded that all ethnic Russians be granted full citizenship. Russia also declared that the rights of those of Russian origin in the Baltic states were being infringed upon, calling the citizenship laws a violation of human rights and comparing the situations of Russians in the Baltic states to the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia (Chinn and Truex 1996). It has been argued that citizenship is ‘at the root of human rights problems affecting the Russian minority in the Baltic states because it determines an individual’s fundamental civil and political rights. It therefore determines who shall have the authority to participate in decisions that affect everyone’ (Baltic Independent, 17–23 September 1993:9). Estonia’s citizenship policy has given the Russian government an easy target through which to try to intervene in Estonia’s domestic politics. The manipulation of the diaspora issue is key not just to politicians in Estonia, but also those in Russia. The Russians abroad are viewed by Russia’s political elite

230 RUSSIANS ABROAD

as belonging ‘in some sense, to Russia; they are viewed as legitimate, even obligatory objects of concern on the part of the Russian state’ (Brubaker 1996:53). In addition to providing a justification for a meddling foreign policy, the existence of the Russian diaspora also offered Russia ‘a new identity, a raison d’être as a kin-state, an “historic homeland” for the Russian communities abroad’ (Melvin 1995:6). For many of the successor states of the Soviet Union, however, the ethnic Russian minorities are viewed as colonizers and rejecting them has been crucial to building a post-Soviet identity. The identity of the minority group itself, though, is rarely considered by those on either side trying to manipulate the ethnic Russians. For the titular group, they are Russians. For Russians in Russia, they are also Russians, but there is evidence that there is no coherent diaspora identity. Indeed, the ‘response of the Russian diaspora to non-Russian nationalisms, and to the nationalization of life in the incipient successor states, has been strikingly varied’ (Brubaker 1995:209). The Russian minority in Estonia is still trying to define its identity, and is trying to do so while under pressure from both Estonian and Russian authorities. Ethnic Russians ‘are seeking to determine what role ethnicity will play and whether it will be linked primarily to a Baltic or Russian (Rossiskii) identity’ (Melvin 1995:27). Melvin continues: The local Russian populations themselves are also struggling to define their own identity. Under Soviet ideology, the migrants largely lost their cultural roots. At present most Russian-speakers have great difficulty identifying themselves with any one particular culture. Multiple and often competing identities are therefore found among the settlers. The minorities tend to view themselves as being simultaneously representative of overlapping…cultures. (Melvin 1995:27) Ethnic Russians in other successor states of the Soviet Union outside Russia have tended to develop an identity along the lines of Russians in Estonia or Russians in Kazakhstan, but with a difference from Russians in Russia (Aasland 1996). Polling research in Estonia has detected a ‘slow but perceptible’ change in diaspora identity to an Estonian-Russian local identity. One Baltic-wide study found that 50 per cent of ethnic Russian respondents identified with their city or locality, whereas 29 per cent listed ‘Russian’ as their first identity choice. The corresponding figures were 22 per cent of Balts noting a local identity. Additionally, 69 per cent of Baltic Russians responded that they had a ‘great deal’ or ‘something’ in common with the titular nationality (Kolstø 1996). Diaspora identity may be beginning to shift more noticeably, however, as more and more ethnic Russians become naturalized Estonian citizens and Estonia eases its citizenship requirements. An example of such easing was the passage of an amendment that allows children born to non-citizen residents in Estonia after 26 February 1992 (the date Estonia’s 1938 Citizenship Law was revived) to


become citizens if their parents apply on their behalf (Baltic News Service, 8 December 1998). The bill, passed on 8 December 1998 and in effect as of 12 July 1999, also provided that the parents must themselves be stateless persons who have resided in Estonia for five years (RFE/RL Newsline, 9 December 1998, available from: http://www.rferl.org/newsline/1998/12/091298.html). It took a year for the bill to be passed by the Riigikogu, with those in opposition holding out to the end (unsuccessfully) for a language proficiency requirement for these children (Cleave 1998). In terms of formal participation, ethnic Russians are adopting out Estonian citizenship, although Russian citizenship is still an option on the table. Additionally, a sizeable proportion of ethnic Russians is participating in political life in Estonia. It was estimated that in the parliamentary elections that were held on 7 March 1999, almost one in five voters would be Russian-speakers (Teterin 1999). Estimates for naturalization over the past five years stand at about 100,000. Of the approximately 250,000 stateless persons presently in Estonia, ‘the majority also associate their hopes for the future precisely with receiving Estonian citizenship’ (Teterin 1999). At the beginning of 1998, 107,000 people had applied for Estonian citizenship and 95,000 had been granted citizenship (International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights 1998). Of the 1.5 million people in Estonia, Interfax estimates that there are 120,000 people with Russian citizenship and about 70,000 persons residing in Estonia illegally (Interfax 11 February 1998, in FBIS-SOV-98– 042 [Internet], available from: http://wnc.fedworld.gov). Political community has become more inclusive as Estonia has largely moderated ‘mono-ethnic’ state-formation (Melvin 1995). In Narva, a town on the Estonian-Russian border populated overwhelmingly (95 per cent) by ethnic Russians, Estonian citizenship is actively sought. Anatoli Paal, chairman of the city council, explains: ‘Every year we run a poll on citizenship attitudes. The latest poll showed that 75 per cent of parents say they want to become Estonian citizens while 95 per cent want their children to become Estonians’ (Financial Times., 24 February 1998:2). There are, however, key dissenters to Estonia’s moderation and there are Russians still at a loss to know where they belong. In 1998, the Riigikogu tabled a proposed amendment to citizenship laws that would have allowed some, including pensioners, disabled people, minors and persons who settled in Estonia before 1 July 1990 and have been granted permanent residence permits, to obtain citizenship without taking the language test (Radio Tallinn Network 10 March 1998, in FBIS-SOV-98–069 [Internet], available from: wnc.fedworld.gov). One story anecdotally highlights the difficulty for some Russians in obtaining citizenship and all its benefits. Now, apart from a bit of black market money-changing, Pavel is unemployed: most of the jobs he could apply for require him to speak Estonian. Nor does he have the vote, because although he has a residence permit he has not applied for Estonian citizenship— he knows he would fail the stiff language test: ‘It’s wrong,’ he said. ‘This is my country, I have nothing in Russia. Estonians are nice people, but their language

232 RUSSIANS ABROAD

is very difficult and I can’t afford lessons. I don’t know what I am any more’ (Tenley 1997:11). Estonia’s Citizenship and Immigration Agency (Kodakondsus ja migratsiooniamet) estimates, however, that 85–90 per cent of those who have taken the language test have passed it (Rislakki 1998). The former director general of this agency, Andres Kollist,11 is reflective of Estonian elites who still seem to harbour lingering doubts about the role of Russians in Estonia: Unfortunately, at one time, we had a policy to allow those who wanted it to take Russian citizenship. About 100,000 took it. I believe it hurts our nation, it is like establishing a Russian nation inside Estonia… The intention at the time was to prevent an uncontrolled immigration here from the East and to help Estonians return to their native land and Russians move out of here’. (Rislakki 1998) Ethnic Russians with and without Russian citizenship have not moved out of Estonia (see Table 14.5) in significant numbers, though (see also Chapters 11 and 18). The emigration of Russians from Estonia to Russia rose dramatically in 1992, from approximately eight thousand in 1991 (and roughly the same number in the preceding years) to some 25,000 in 1992 (this figure does not include the emigration of other Slavic minorities, Ukrainians and Belorussians, in Estonia; these two populations’ emigration totals in 1992 approached eight thousand). Emigration figures for ethnic Russians were slightly over ten thousand for 1993 and dropped lower than pre-independence figures in the following years (Smith et al. 1998; see also Chapter 8). Table 14.5 Total emigration from Estonia and migration balance, 1989–98 Net migration

Immigration

1989 172 184,326 1990 −4,022 8,381 1991 −8,034 5,203 1992 −33,827 3,548 1993 −13,779 2,39 1994 −7,631 1,575 1995 −8,170 1,616 1996 −5,683 1,552 1997 −2,496 1,585 1998 −1,131 1,414 Source: Statistical Office of Estonia 1994, 1999.

Emigration 12,326 12,403 13,237 37,375 16,169 9,206 9,786 7,235 4,081 2,545


Whereas Russians and Estonians cannot be said to share a common national identity based on ethnicity, they do not need to do so for the Estonian state to be seen as legitimate. As argued above, a stable and inclusive political community can, and must, cut across ethnic lines. In Estonia, it has been argued that key sections of the population have come to accept that the Russians would have an important political role (Melvin 1995). With increased avenues of participation, where Russians are more confident that their voices can be heard, in conjunction with a dampening in the ethno-national ardor of some key Estonian elites, the task of building an inclusive political community in Estonia has begun. POLITICAL COMMUNITY AND CITIZENSHIP IN KAZAKHSTAN An examination of the politics of citizenship in Kazakhstan provides an interesting contrast to the Estonian case. As in the rest of the Soviet republics, Kazakhstan experienced significant ethno-demographic alteration due to Soviet policy. Despite the declining share of ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan, the figures are a telling indicator of the potential for ethnic strife had Kazakhstan adopted an ethnic basis for political community. Table 14.6 Ethnic composition of Kazakhstan, 1926–99 (percentage) 1926

1939

1959

1970

1979

1989

1994

1999

Kazakh 57 38 30 36 36.0 39.5 44.3 53.4 s Russian 20 40 43 41 40.8 37.7 35.8 30.0 s Others 23 22 27 23 23.2 22.8 19.9 16.6 Sources: 1926–70 and 1989–94 data in Olcott 1997: Tables 15.2 and 15.3; 1979 data in Smith et al. 1998: Table 2; 1999 data from Statistical Agency of Kazakhstan.

The processes of state-formation and nation-building must be undertaken simultaneously in Central Asia. Independence caught Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian republics by surprise. The leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were neither prepared for, nor enthusiastic about, independence. Independence was largely forced on the Central Asians (Olcott 1992). The collapse of the Soviet Union ‘left the republic with little choice but to take formal independence’ (Olcott 1997:547). Kazakhstan declared its sovereignty on 16 December 1991—a week after the Soviet Union had officially disbanded (Olcott 1998). Whereas the Baltic republics were witnessing a resurgence of nationalism due in no small part to Gorbachev’s misinformed nationalities policies (see especially Goble 1992 and Motyl 1992), the Central Asian republics did not develop strong

234 RUSSIANS ABROAD

nationalist movements that could make a popular call for independence. The Central Asian republics gained their independence without having to fight for it. This is important because it is a unique circumstance in post-imperial nationstate formation. Historically, post-imperial states emerged only by military conflict in some form. The lack of struggle in Central Asia means that the significant ‘heroic period—a time of common effort, struggle, and sacrifice (real or perceived) that normally looms large in the history of all nation-states is missing’ (Subtelny 1995:185). Although writing about Ukraine, Subtelny’s conclusion that Ukraine will have difficulty fashioning an inspiring ‘founding myth’, which is a standard feature of new state-formation (Subtelny 1995), is equally applicable to Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian states. Unlike Estonia, Kazakhstan had no history of having been an independent state. Also unlike Estonia, Kazakhstan had no sense of nationhood before the Soviet period. There was, in essence, no Kazakhstan and there were no Kazakhs until the Soviet Union created them. Soviet nationality policy, and specifically Soviet federalism, actually complemented nation building and the development of ethnic identity, as opposed to creating an overarching Soviet identity: ‘Precisely because the Soviet regime had destroyed all other bases for political organization while constitutionally enshrining the national basis, national sentiment emerged to overwhelm federal politics. This form of federal organization…reinforced rather than undermined ethnic difference’ (Verdery 1993:182). In much of Central Asia, the Soviet Union created a national republic, and a national group developed. Perhaps the Soviet Union’s most significant failure was its inability to replace ethnic loyalties, even ethnic identities it had fostered, with an overarching Soviet loyalty and its inability to eradicate ethnic differences once they had emerged (Zaslavsky 1992:105). Brubaker writes: ‘No other state has gone so far in sponsoring, codifying, institutionalizing, even…inventing nationhood and nationality on the sub-state level, while at the same time doing nothing to institutionalize them on the level of the state as a whole.’ (Brubaker 1996:29). The Central Asian republics were perhaps the most profoundly influenced by Soviet nationality policy. The creation of the Kazakh and Uzbek SSRs, for example, created national units where before there had been no nationally or ethnically based organization. The Soviet Union unwittingly created nations and an ensuing nationalist sentiment when before there had been none (Allworth 1990). There may not have been Kazakhs before the Soviet Union, but Soviet nationality policy had ensured that there would be Kazakhs after its collapse. The Soviet Union failed to create a Soviet nation, but a fragile Kazakh nation was born under Soviet tutelage and constraints. In Kazakhstan, nationalism was not behind efforts to gain independence from the Soviet centre. There were, in fact, precious few independence movements to speak of.12 Nationalist sentiment was not on the minds of Kazakhs when they became independent, reflected in Kazakhstan’s initial state-formation, as civic ideas of the state prevailed. Kazakhstan’s citizenship law holds that all residents


of Kazakhstan (as of March 1992) are citizens of the republic. Thus the question of citizenship has not been a serious issue in Kazakhstan (Svanberg 1996). Despite an inclusive definition of citizenship, Kazakhstan has not been successful in building an inclusive political community. Most ethnic Russians feel politically marginalized due to the nature of political and social advancement, which ‘rests with the old tribe-and clan-structures from which Europeans are excluded’ (Kolstø 1996:631). The exclusion in Kazakhstan seems not to be driven so much by institutions, as appears to be the case in Estonia. The first constitution (1993) made reference to Kazakhstan as ‘the form of statehood of the self-determining Kazakh nation’ and granted dual citizenship only to ethnic Kazakhs abroad, despite intense pressure from Russia and ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan for dual citizenship. This privileged status was defended as being necessary to redress the mass migration (numbering in the hundreds of thousands) of Kazakhs to China and Mongolia during the devastating collectivization programme of the 1930s. These groups were also granted unique immigration privileges (Kolstø 1998). Russian was given the status of the language of interethnic communication, but was not considered to be a state or official language. It is around the issue of language that much of the discontent of the Russian population has been focused. In 1989, only 0.8 per cent of ethnic Russians living in Kazakhstan claimed fluency in Kazakh (Kolstø 1996). Kazakhstan had the highest percentage of Russians of all the republics outside of Russia and the lowest number of Russians claiming fluency in the republic’s language. The corresponding figure for Estonia is 14.9 per cent. In Armenia, which had the lowest percentage of ethnic Russians (1989:1.6 per cent), 33.0 per cent of these few Russians claimed fluency in Armenian (see also Chapter 9). During the Soviet period, the large number of Russian-speakers in Kazakhstan obviated the need for ethnic Russians to learn Kazakh. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, however, this low language capability had the potential to become a serious liability for Russians in Kazakhstan. What had formerly been a privilege of status for Russian-speakers became a disadvantage. The chairman of LAD (the all-republic Slavic movement), Aleksandra Dokuchayeva, stated that ‘language remains the most important instrument of establishing an ethnocentric Kazakh state’. She continued: The time has come for a national referendum, where Kazakhstan residents would express their attitude to the problems of bilingualism, the nature of statehood, private ownership in land, and dual citizenship. The sooner this happens, the more confident all of us— ‘native’ and ‘non native’—will feel ourselves on this land. (Karavan 6 January 1995, 7, in FBIS-SOV-95– 010-S [Internet], available from: wnc.fedworld.gov) Defending the status of Kazakh as the only state language, one ethnic Kazakh argued:

236 RUSSIANS ABROAD

The Kazakh language is still only used as a household language and is on the verge of extinction on its historic territory. And when the language disappears, so does the nation. Giving the Russian language the status of a state language will not improve the life of Russians in any way… For the Kazakh language, however, bilingualism is ruinous. The Kazakh language cannot compete with Russian… That is why it became necessary to attach the status of the state language only to the Kazakh language—but without infringing on the rights of other languages, first and foremost Russian. (Karavan 6 January 1995, 7, in FBIS-SOV-95–010-S [Internet], available from: http://wnc.fedworld.gov). The recognition that ethnic tension was growing despite an inclusive concept of citizenship led to the promulgation of a new constitution in 1995. The constitution, in effect today, raised Russian to the status of an official language, although Kazakh remains the sole state language. In addition, the dual citizenship privilege for Kazakhs was removed, as was the phrase that defined Kazakh statehood as a self-determining Kazakh nation. However, shortly after the new constitution was put into effect, the Concept for the Forming of a State Identity of the Republic of Kazakhstan was introduced. To many observers this represented a retreat from the 1995 constitution. It noted that the ‘ethnic center’ of Kazakhs was and is Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan ‘is a national state because it is the ethnic center of Kazakhs, who enjoy no other statehood elsewhere in the world, unlike the peoples who have moved here.’ The document continues: However, although it is a national state, it now represents the interests of the entire population. Given that a mono-ethnic people has lived here since earliest times, Kazakhstan is a unitary country, and neither the establishment of national autonomous formations nor the introduction of two state languages can be accepted. (Karavan-Blits 30 May 1996, 2, in FBIS-SOV-96–108 [Internet], available from: http://wnc.fedworld.gov) In Kazakhstan, a strange situation seems to have developed. Russia is generally pleased with the institutional developments in Kazakhstan vis-à-vis minority rights, but ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan are politically and socially marginalized. In 1994, Kazakhs filled 60 per cent of the seats in the Kazakh Parliament. Only 49 Russians (28 per cent) and 16 other ethnic Europeans were elected (Kolstø 1998). Out-migration continues at a substantial, although slowing, pace (see Chapter 8). Tatyana Regent, head of the Russian Federal Migration Service states that in 1995, 88,000 Russians left Kazakhstan (called forcefully displaced persons due to economic reasons), in 1996 there were 62, 000 and in 1997, 55,000 (Radiostantsiya Ekho Moskvy, 22 January 1998, in FBIS-SOV-98–022 [Internet], available from: http://wnc.fedworld.gov; see also Chapter 8).


Table 14.7 Emigration from and immigration to Kazakhstan, 1991–99 Overall Countries of the CIS*

By CIS/non-CIS designation

Non-CIS countries

Net Immigrati Emigratio Immigrati Emigratio Immigrati Emigratio migration on n on n on n 1991 1992

−57,686 170,787 228,473 161,738 150,781 −156, 161,499 317,760 148,165 216,906 261 1993 −219, 111,082 330,107 100,075 229,643 025 1994 −406, 70,389 477,068 63,863 372,053 679 1995 −238, 71,137 309,632 67,861 208,215 495 1996 −175, 53,874 229,412 51,236 155,672 538 1997 −261, 38,067 299, 455 35,530 239,318 388 1998 −203, 40,624 243,663 38,340 193,866 039 1999 −128, 37,102 165,457 35,366 120,724 355 *1991–94 data include the Baltic states in the CIS figures. Source: Statistical Agency of Kazakhstan.

9,049 13,334

77,692 100,854

11,007

100,464

6,526

105,015

3,276

101,417

2,638

73,740

2,537

60,137

2,284

49,797

1,736

44,733

Table 14.8 Migration by ethnic group in Kazakhstan, 1998 and 1999 1999 1998

Net migration

Immigration

1999

1999

1998

37,102

40,624

165,547

243,663

9,456 18,453 2,420 384 1,386 1,004

10,955 19,875 2,545 427 1,493 1,136

8,046 91,742 15,407 3,540 32,937 4,011

9,270 144,369 22,788 5,282 39,953 7,027

1998

Total −128,355 −203,039 By ethnicity: Kazakh 1,410 1,685 Russian −73,289 −124,494 Ukrainian −12,987 −20,243 Belorussian −3,156 −4,855 German −31,551 −38,460 Tatar −3,007 −5,891 Source: Statistical Agency of Kazakhstan.

Emigration

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According to Russian newspapers (published in Russia), the reasons for the emigration from Kazakhstan is clear: the Russian language lacks state status, and Russians do not have the right to dual citizenship (Argumenty I Fakty, No. 45, 1994 and Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1 December 1994). Economic conditions, however, appear to be an important factor promoting emigration. The Kazakh State Committee on Statistics and Analysis, based on a survey of emigrants, states that the main reasons for departure, at least in 1994, were problems of an economic nature (Novoye Pokoleniye, 26 May 1995). The Centre for Russian Minorities had similar findings, noting that 90 per cent of the Russians in Kazakhstan and 80 per cent of the Russians in Estonia were primarily concerned with the socio-economic situation in their respective republics (Rabochaya Tribuna, 19 May 1995, in FBIS-SOV-95–102-S [Internet], available from: http:// wnc.fedworld.gov). Kazakhstan, however, is witnessing significantly higher emigration rates than Estonia. Despite an inclusive political system, Kazakhstan has not developed an inclusive political community in which ethnic Russians feel they have a sense of belonging and a stake in the maintenance of the system. CONCLUSION Estonia initially developed restrictive citizenship laws in an attempt to develop a political community defined largely along ethnic lines. As the ethno-nationalism of the first few years of Estonian existence has been tempered, more ethnic Russians have begun to see themselves as members of the Estonian state. Despite its best initial efforts, then, an increasingly inclusive political community is developing in Estonia. Paradoxically, Kazakhstan, with its liberal citizenship laws, has witnessed the growth of an exclusionary political community. Russians are socially and politically marginalized and have been migrating to Russia in large numbers, although the bleak economic situation in Kazakhstan is also an important factor in the decision to move. The sense of marginalization and departure for economic reasons are closely related, though. Russians do not feel they have a future in Kazakhstan. The pains of the transition from Soviet rule are proving too great for Russians who do not feel they have a place in the political or social system of Kazakhstan. So, despite its initial efforts to build an inclusive political community, Russians and Kazakhs largely do not share a common identity or loyalty to the Kazakh state. This chapter has suggested that political community cannot be gauged solely by definitions or conceptions of citizenship. Ethnic citizenship, which is by definition exclusive, should intuitively lead to restricted political communities and a narrow conception of identity along ethnic lines. Ethnic citizenship, however, does not appear to have had this result in Estonia. In contrast, civic definitions of citizenship are inclusive and could be expected to lead to a broadbased political community with national identity based not on ethnicity, but on identification with state institutions, norms, and so on. Again, this does not


appear to be the case in Kazakhstan. This phenomenon challenges the ideal type argument of civic versus ethnic nations developed from the western European experience. Soviet nationalities policy and the Soviet legacy, especially the demographic legacy, have impacted post-Soviet nation-building in perhaps unanticipated ways as the relationship between inclusiveness and basis of citizenship and nationhood (ethnic and civic) does not seem to hold up well in at least two former Soviet republics. This points to the utility of exploring further the decoupling of rights and identity. The formation of national identity and political community cannot logically be traced from the institutionalization of citizenship. Ethnic Russians are resisting the efforts of Estonia and Kazakhstan, respectively, to impose an identity on them through citizenship laws that are either inclusive or exclusive. Ethnic Russians in Estonia are, for the most part, rejecting the efforts of Estonia and the Russian state to define them as a Russian diaspora. Ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan, however, are rejecting the attempts of the Kazakh state to incorporate them into a multi-ethnic Kazakhstan. NOTES 1 This chapter avoids using the term ‘diaspora’ to describe the 25 million ethnic Russians or Russian-speakers living outside of Russia within the borders of the former Soviet Union. Calling them ‘ethnic Russians’ instead has its own disadvantages, due to the lack of coherent ethnic identity as Russians that has developed among Russians in the former Soviet Union. ‘Diaspora’ is often used as a term of convenience and thus loses its utility. If, on the most basic level, a diaspora is defined by dispersion and some sort of orientation to a homeland, it may be largely inaccurate to use the blanket term diaspora to describe ethnic Russians in the former Soviet Union because it might, in fact, lead to the masking of the very real and highly significant differences between Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics. Even Laitin’s concept of a ‘beached diaspora’, reflecting the fact that these ethnic Russians were stranded when the Soviet Union collapsed rather than becoming a diaspora from their homeland by dispersion, diverts attention away from the distinct identities forming among these Russians abroad (a trend which Laitin traces). Both host states and the homeland have widely resorted to the term diaspora to describe these Russians, but both have instrumental reasons for doing so. As scholars, we need to be more careful with our terms. The extent to which we can speak of a Russian diaspora is highly contingent and highly varied as the connection to Russia varies. See also Chapter 4. 2 The triple transition, as discussed by Claus Offe, is the multifaceted transformation affecting the Central and East European states. Post-Soviet democratic transitions are unlike previous democratic transitions, such as the post-war democracies (West Germany, Italy, Austria, and so on) and the development of democracy in the Mediterranean (Portugal, Spain and Greece) and Latin America (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and so on) (Offe 1991). These transitions entailed only political and constitutional modernization. In the post-Soviet states, in addition to political and

240 RUSSIANS ABROAD

3

4

5 6 7 8 9

10

11 12

constitutional modernization, these states are faced with massive economic reform based on principles diametrically opposed to the previous economic dogma and alien to most of the population, and also with nationalizing projects that are needed due to the large-scale migrations (either populations moving from a state or a state moving from its population). The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the 1939 agreement reached between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany that assigned spheres of influence. The Baltic states and eastern Poland were assigned to the Soviet sphere in return for the rest of Poland going to Germany. Two years later, on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of this pact, some two million people turned out to form a human chain from Tallinn to Vilnius, through Riga. The language requirement was waived in the case of ethnic Estonians returning to Estonia from abroad. The Estonian currency, the kroon, had not been introduced when this law was passed. Zero-option citizenship means that all those who live on the territory of a newly founded state receive citizenship in that state. Non-citizens and citizens of other countries could vote if they had lived in the election area for at least five years. They could not, however, run as candidates. Knowledge of Estonian sufficient for use in ‘day-to-day life’ is mandated, which includes listening comprehension, conversation, reading comprehension and writing. The state administers a language exam to confirm proficiency in Estonian of those applying for citizenship. Similarly, knowledge of the Estonian constitution is established by passing an exam which tests the applicant’s knowledge of the general precepts of Estonia’s state system, the basic rights, freedoms and duties of Estonian citizens, the authority of state institutions and the provisions of the citizenship law. Kollist was fired in January 2000. Interestingly, though, Alma-Ata (now Almaty) was the site of one of the first popular demonstrations of Gorbachev’s tenure, the basis of which was nationalist sentiment. Traditionally, in the non-Russian republics of the USSR, the SSR first secretary (essentially the leader of the Communist Party of that republic) was a member of the titular ethnic group, and the second secretary was a Russian. In December 1986, Kazkahstan’s first secretary, Dinmukhammed Kunaev, was forced into retirement and replaced with an ethnic Russian, Gennady Kolbin. Three days of protest followed, with estimates ranging from two deaths (official) to more than 250. Kolbin was replaced by Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s current president, in June 1989.

PART V GERMANY: ETHNIC MIGRATION AND DIASPORA EXISTENCE IN TRANSITION

15 Ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe and their Return to Germany Rainer Münz

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, some members of ethnic German minorities living in Central and Eastern Europe were resettled in Germany at the request of the Nazi government while others, as a consequence of Stalinist policies, were deported from the European part of the Soviet Union to the Asian part. Altogether, this affected at least two million people. Between 1945 and 1948 the post-war expulsion of twelve million Germans led to what might be called the largest single state-organized ethnic cleansing in the history of the twentieth century.1 German citizens as well as ethnic Germans from other Central and Eastern European states were deported from their traditional areas of settlement mainly to the British, Soviet and US occupation zones of Germany. After 1950, the West German government decided to facilitate immigration for members of the remaining ethnic German minorities living in the communist countries of Europe. Officially, they were called resettlers (Aussiedler).2 In total, between 1950 and 1999 some four million people came as ethnically privileged migrants to Germany. This chapter discusses the ethnic German expellees and resettlers, their regions of origin, the most important periods of the primarily involuntary, but in recent times also voluntary migration, the magnitude of these migration flows and the legal regulations and their political context. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW From the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, hundreds of thousands of German settlers migrated from the southern and western parts of Germany to Central and Eastern Europe. This included the conquest and colonization of territories, for instance by Teutonic Knights.3 In other cases, German settlers were recruited by local rulers.4 Still others left their homelands for political or religious reasons. With the founding of nation-states on an ethnic basis, the majority of ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe became members of a German diaspora. In 1871, with the creation of the second German Empire, some twelve million German-speaking people (both ethnic Germans and Jews) remained citizens of the Habsburg and Tsarist empires. After 1918, notable German speaking minorities lived in France, Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania

ETHNIC GERMANS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 243

and Yugoslavia, as well as Italy and the Soviet Union. During the inter-war period, the future of the ethnic German diasporas had already become a key issue of German domestic politics and, later, a foreign policy issue as well. The German government and the ruling elites promoted two ethno-political solutions: the revision of borders in order to include territories with ethnic German populations and the resettlement of ethnic Germans from their historical areas of settlement, sometimes portrayed as necessary ‘evacuation’. Nazi Germany realized both: in 1938/39 through the annexation of areas of compact German settlement (Austria, parts of Bohemia and Moravia, Danzig and western Poland) and from 1939 to 1944 through the ‘transfer’ of 625,000–650,000 ethnic Germans living outside territories annexed to, or occupied by, Germany in 1938– 39. This forced resettlement affected ethnic Germans from the Baltic states, from Polish territories that later became parts of Ukraine (Volhynia, Bukovina), from Crimea (today also part of Ukraine), the Caucaus, Romania (Bessarabia, Dobrudja), Slovenia (Gottschee) and Northern Italy (South Tyrol; see Table 1).5 In 1941, some 1.4 million ethnic Germans living in the Volga region and in other parts of the USSR, along with many other ethnic groups, became victims of Stalinist policies. They were deported mainly to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan because of alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany, or at least sympathies for the German invasion of the USSR. Unlike other deported groups, ethnic Germans were not allowed to return to their traditional settlement areas in the European part of Russia. POST-WAR EXPELLEES AND THEIR RESETTLEMENT IN THE ALLIED ZONES OF OCCUPATION At the end of the Second World War, German refugees came to Germany in large numbers from what had been the eastern provinces of Germany and territories formerly annexed to the territory of present-day Germany. In 1945– 48, an even larger number of people, 12 million persons, were expelled from former German provinces annexed to Poland and the USSR, from other parts of Poland as well as from Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The victorious Allied powers had allowed Poland and Czechoslovakia to deport all members of their ethnic German minorities. In 1945–46, Hungary and Yugoslavia carried out similar measures. To the public, this was explained as retaliation and collective punishment for Nazi and war crimes, but the ethnic cleansings were also carried out to ensure that no relevant groups of people with German citizenship or of German origin would remain in East-Central Europe. The underlying rationale was that this would prevent, once and for all, any further interethnic conflicts or future territorial claims by Germany vis-à-vis its eastern neighbours. The last all-German census of 1946 listed 5.8 million expellees in the three Western zones of occupation, and 3.6 million expellees in the Soviet zone. Further expulsions in the years 1947–48 and the migration of expellees from the Soviet zone to the Western zones led to a situation in which some 7.9 million


expellees were already living in West Germany, mostly in the British and US zones in 1950, and another 3.6 million in East Germany (GDR) (Lemberg and Edding 1959). During the same period Austria absorbed some 430,000 ethnic German expellees (see Table 15.1). By the beginning of the 1950s, some twelve million German citizens and persons of German origin from former German provinces and from East-Central Europe had been resettled to East and West Germany as well as to Austria, which was also occupied by the Allies of the Second World War (Table 15.1; see also Benz 1995; Stanek 1985). A further half-million people originally came from regions in which German residents were expelled, but were not expelled themselves because they had either left the area before 1944–45 or because they were still serving in the German army or were already prisoners of war in Allied camps in 1944–45. Later, these quasi-expellees, whose return to their old homelands had become impossible, were given the same legal status as those actually expelled, at least in West Germany. This status gave them, among other benefits, a legal claim to compensation payments for lost possessions and property (Lastenausgleich). Of the 12.5 million expellees and quasi-expellees of the years 1945–49 more than half (56 per cent) were from former eastern provinces of Germany (now parts of Poland and Russia), 24 per cent from Czechoslovakia as re-established in 1945 and 8 per cent from Danzig and territories of inter-war Poland (Table 15.1). In relation to population size there were more of these involuntary migrants in East Germany (GDR: 3.6 million or almost 19 per cent of the total population) than in West Germany (FRG: 7.9 million, or 16 per cent of the total population). The proportion of German expellees in Austria was even smaller (0.4 million, or 7 per cent of the total population). The influx of German expellees and their integration were in no way unaccompanied by conflicts, as these expellees were unwanted in many places. However, the recognizably involuntary nature of their expulsion, along with the ethnic origin of this group and/or their German citizenship played a large role in the integration of this group and its later acceptance by German post-war society (Frantzioch 1987). Table 15.1 German expellees (1944–45 to 1945–49) by country of origin and area of residence after the expulsion; transferred ethnic Germans (1939–44) by country of origin Country

in thousands thousands

Expellees 1944–49 Total

West Germany

East Germany with Berlin

Austria and other Western countries

Transferre d ethnic Germans 1939–44*

in thousands

in %

in thousands

in thousands

in thousands


Country

Expellees 1944–49 Total

West Germany

East Germany with Berlin

Austria and other Western countries

Transferre d ethnic Germans 1939–44*

Former 6,980 55.8 4,380 2,600 – – German territories Poland 980 7.8 630 335 15 150 (with Danzig) Czechoslo 3,000 24.0 1,900 850 250 – vakia USSR 270 2.2 180 55 10 1,555 (with the Baltics)** Hungary 210 1.7 175 10 25 – Romania 250 2.0 145 60 45 200 Yugoslavi 300 2.4 150 35 115 35 a Italy – – – – – 100 Subtotal 11,990 95.8 7,560 3,945 460 2,040 Quasi525 4.2 385 125 15 – expellees* ** Total 12,515 100.0 7,945 4,070 475 2,040 * Between 1939 and 1944, some 625,000–650,000 ethnic Germans were transferred to Germany and another 1.4 million were internally deported to the Asian part of the USSR. ** In 1939–42, some 130,000 ethnic Germans from the Baltics and a relatively small number of Germans from the Crimean peninsula and from the Caucasus (25, 000) were transferred to Germany. * * * Quasi-expellees are persons originating from territories where the expulsion took place, but who themselves in 1945 already lived in Germany (in its present-day borders) or had become POWs. Source: Benz 1995, Münz 2000, Reichling 1986, Ther 1998.

GERMAN RESETTLERS AND THE LEGAL BASIS OF THEIR ABSORPTION IN (WEST) GERMANY From 1950 to 1987 the immigration of ethnic Germans to Germany from EastCentral and Eastern Europe continued at a low level (Figure 15.1). Until 1987, some 1.4 million ethnic German immigrants were registered in West Germany. Only thereafter did a clear increase begin with a further 2.6 million arriving between 1988 and 1999. The (West) German Constitution (Grundgesetz) of 1949 defined as citizens not only former citizens of Nazi and inter-war Germany but also all ethnic Germans who had found refuge on German territory (within the


boundaries of 1937). Since the 1950s, an extensive interpretation included other ethnic Germans still living in Central and Eastern Europe as potential citizens. The first legal basis of the ethnically privileged immigration of these potential citizens to Germany was the Federal Law concerning Refugees and Expelles (Bundesflüchtlings-und Vertriebenengesetz). This law of 1953 regulated the admission and absorption of former German citizens and ethnic Germans, who ‘after the completion of the general expulsion measures leave Germany’s (former) Eastern provinces currently under foreign jurisdiction, Danzig, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania or China’ (§ 1 (2) 3). The original regulation was aimed at persons whose situation was comparable with that of the expellees of 1945–48. In 1957, ethnic German immigrants were for the first time officially called resettlers (Aussiedler). They were given the same status and access to benefits as post-war expellees. In this context, the concept of ethnic origin was clarified: ‘Anyone who has professed his (her) Germanness in his (her) homeland is a member of the German nation’ (§ 6). In addition to this declaration, so called ‘objective’ features were brought into play in order to distinguish ethnic Germans from other persons. Ethnic Germans were defined by descent, language and cultural or ethnic orientation. All those fulfilling the criteria and living in the aforementioned countries were (and some still are) entitled to claim German resettler status and to be admitted as privileged immigrants. The publicly declared moral and political justification for this admission to Germany was the repressive measures against members of ethnic German minorities (e.g., deportation, suppression of the German language, political and economic discrimination, etc.) at least in part legitimized as retaliatory measures for Nazi and German war crimes. The fact that, until 1989– 90, all ethnic Germans of Central and Eastern Europe lived under communist rule, came as an additional argument in their favour. Ethnic German immigrants (Aussiedler) become German citizens immediately upon arrival in Germany. They can also make use of a series of benefits designed to facilitate their integration: the claim to a subsidized apartment, free German language courses and courses of vocational training as well as professional retraining; they also have a claim to transfer payments for which most foreign immigrants would not be eligible; such as public pensions, even for those ethnic German immigrants who did not contribute to German pension insurance (Heinelt and Lohmann 1992). The origins of the considerable material support for ethnic German immigrants lay in the material compensation, originally introduced after 1945, for persons who had lost or left behind all their property in Germany’s former eastern provinces. This can hardly justify the benefits accorded to late twentiethand early twenty-first-century Aussiedler. They do not come from regions once belonging to pre-war Germany. Since 1990, the post-communist countries of origin no longer force them to give up real estate or other possessions. Now, the


Figure 15.1: Immigration of ethnic Germans to Germany by country of origin, 1950–99 (in thousands) Source: German Federal Administration Office, Ministry of the Interior

existing measures only serve the purpose of integrating the Aussiedler into German society as quickly as possible. Until 1988–89, the chance to emigrate was offered to ethnic Germans mainly on the basis of bilateral agreements between West Germany and the governments of Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. The migration was more voluntary than the expulsions of the years 1945–49 had been, and usually only occurred when members of the ethnic German diaspora made a corresponding application. Against this background, the analytical distinction between expellees (Vertriebene; 1945–49) and resettlers (Aussiedler, since 1950) makes sense, although the latter term was only introduced in 1957. Nevertheless, members of the German minorities living in Poland, Romania and the former USSR were discriminated against in many cases—not only before, but also after 1950. Large parts of the West German public interpreted the Aussiedler’s decisions to emigrate both as a response to political and social discrimination at home and as a clear profession of Germanness and belief in the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. Rarely was the emigration of Aussiedler primarily seen as an economically motivated decision (Bethlehem 1982; Delfs 1993). AREAS OF ORIGIN AND PERIODS OF IMMIGRATION From the beginning of the 1950s until the 1980s, Central and Eastern Europe’s communist regimes limited the freedom of movement of their ethnic German citizens to almost the same extent as that of citizens belonging to the ethnic majority. The borders were well guarded. Leaving the state without authorization was treated as a crime. Only privileged people received a passport valid for


Ethnic German expellees from Hungary in a refugee camp in Ulm, 1947. Source: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

international travel to Western countries. After the end of the organized post-war expulsion, there were, for a while, only a few cases of family unification. In 1950 the number of ethnic immigrants coming to West Germany was still 47,000, but in 1952 it had dropped to only 5,000. During the following Cold War period (1953–87), on average 37,000 Aussiedler per year came to Germany. On the one hand, the annual fluctuations mirrored periods of domestic political liberalization or crisis in the countries of origin: during the second half of the 1950s and in 1979–80 in Poland; 1967–8 in Czechoslovakia and after 1986 in the USSR. On the other hand, the communist regimes of Poland and Romania also used concessions on exit permits for Aussiedler as ‘leverage’ in order to improve their political relations with the Federal Republic of Germany and to receive economic or financial aid. At the same time, the political elites of these two sending countries hoped that the still existing ethnic minorities would be weakened and finally disappear through emigration. These factors all played a role in the mid-1950s when some 250,000 persons of German and mixed ethnic background were allowed to leave Poland in the direction of West Germany. This is also true for the period before and after the conclusion of a Basic Treaty (Grundlagenvertrag) between Bonn and Warsaw. In 1970, the number of ethnic Germans who were allowed to leave was almost five times higher than in 1968– 69. During the 1970s, Poland received substantial financial support in return. In the case of Romania, Germany even agreed on a ‘fee’ per ethnic German migrant (Münz and Ohliger 1998).


Temporary housing for refugees in post-war Germany, 1947. Source: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

Between 1950 and 1987 almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of all ethnic German immigrants came from Poland (848,000) and a further 15 per cent from Romania (206,000). Although there also was a strong German minority in the Soviet Union, in that period (1950–87) only 110,000 persons (8 per cent of the Aussiedler) were able to emigrate from that country (Figure 15.1). Despite this out-migration, the majority of remaining German minorities continued to live in their traditional areas of settlement (Upper Silesia, Transylvania, Banat) or in regions into which they were deported during the Second World War (in particular Siberia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan). With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the rescinding of administrative travel restrictions in East-Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, the number of ethnic German immigrants rose considerably. In 1988, 203,000 Aussiedler came to Germany, almost three times as many as in the previous year. In 1990, with 397,000 persons, the influx of Aussiedler reached its highest mark ever. From 1988 to 1999, a total of 2.6 million Aussiedler migrated to Germany. In this phase, the post-Soviet successor states—namely Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan—became the most important regions of origin (1,775,000 Aussiedler, or 69 per cent). The second largest group was ethnic Germans immigrants from Poland (1988–99: 574,000, or 22 per cent). Those from Romania ranked third (1988–99: 219,000, or 8 per cent). Until 1989–90, members of ethnic German minorities from East-Central and Eastern Europe were not able to leave their home countries freely, but were allowed free entry to West Germany, and almost automatically became German


citizens. The application for Aussiedler status could be made during a short-term visit to Germany or even after illegal entry. Fast and unbureaucratic naturalization under such conditions allowed ethnic Germans an immediate stay in the country of their forefathers. But with the fall of the Iron Curtain, Germany became much more restrictive. Since 1990, members of ethnic German minorities have to apply in their country of origin for Aussiedler status and for a special entry permit to be issued by German consulates. The German ethnicity and descent of the applicants is now checked in advance by German government representatives operating in the countries of origin. What started as a simple prima-facie check has now turned into a serious investigation. These new regulations immediately led to a much smaller influx of ethnic immigrants (1991:221,000 people), and to a backlog of applications to be processed. In 1992, an annual quota for the admission of Aussiedler was established. Until 1999, the size of this quota was 220,000 and since 2000 has been reduced to 110,000 persons per year. On top of this, in 1996, the German administration introduced a language test in which potential Aussiedler have to prove their proficiency in German. This led to a further reduction of the inflow. In 1994, still as many as 222,000 Aussiedler were given permission to enter Germany, but in 1999 the number was only 105,000 (Figure 15.1). Another reason for this reduction is the pace of administrative procedures and individual decisions to actually migrate. In 1999, some 500,000 applications for Aussiedler status were pending. Another 300,000 ethnic Germans have already been granted Aussiedler status, that is, the right to immigrate and become a German citizen, but they have not yet exercised this right. REDUCTION AND FORESEEABLE END TO THE IMMIGRATION OF ETHNIC GERMANS The immigration of ethnic Germans to Germany has been declining since 1990. There are several reasons for this decline. Since 1993, the unconditional right to immigrate to Germany has existed only for ethnic Germans living in the successor states of the Soviet Union. The regulation by which ethnic Germans must prove their linguistic competence also has a restrictive effect on the influx of Aussiedler, because people with poor or no knowledge of German are denied privileged access to Germany. In the years 1996–98 only some 50 per cent of all applicants passed the mandatory language test. The remaining 50 per cent have no right to repeat the test a second time. However, some of those who fail the test later come to Germany as family members, that is, spouses, parents, children or children-in-law of someone who has successfully claimed Aussiedler status. Only those who pass the test, their spouses and their children become German citizens upon arrival. Other accompanying family members without German ancestry—usually sons and daughters-in-law—remain foreign nationals. They are not entitled to some of the existing integration measures, they have no immediate access to the German labour market and they can only apply for


German citizenship after three years of residence in Germany provided they can show some proficiency in German. During the second half of the 1990s only a quarter of all immigrants coming to Germany within the framework of Aussiedler policies have themselves successfully passed the language test. The others qualified as direct or as accompanying family members. This has added to popular resistance in Germany. Many critics argued that those who had come during the 1990s and at the beginning of the twenty-first century would no longer be ‘true Germans.’ An end to the ethnically privileged immigration into Germany is foreseeable. In 1992 the so-called ‘Law dealing with late consequences of the Second World War’ (Kriegsfolgenbereinigungsgesetz) limited the options of future applications for Aussiedler status and subsequent entry to Germany to ethnic Germans born before 1993. This regulation will gain importance after the year 2010 when people born in 1993 reach the age of 18 and will no longer have independent claim to Aussiedler status. Some of them, however, will still be able to immigrate legally to Germany within the framework of family unification. Between 1950 and 1999, a total of four million Aussiedler came to Germany. Of them most were from the Soviet Union and its successor states (1.8 million) and from Poland (1.4 million). Although the potential for a further influx of Aussiedler cannot be exactly foreseen, it is nonetheless quite limited. There are almost no ethnic Germans still living in the successor states of Yugoslavia, in the Czech Republic or in Slovakia. In Romania, the great wave of out-migration (1989–92) reduced the German minority population to a core of older people who were unwilling to emigrate (1999: approximately 60,000). Estimates say that there are 500,000 to 800,000 people in Poland who see themselves as ethnic Germans, in particular those living in Silesia. Many of them have already received permission to immigrate as Aussiedler, but have not yet exercised this right. Others migrated but did not settle in Germany permanently and have returned to Poland as dual citizens. A considerable number successfully regained German citizenship without emigrating. For this reason, the number of people in Poland with both German and Polish citizenship has grown (1999: approximately 275,000). In the successor states of the USSR, the number of remaining ethnic Germans and people of mixed origin with at least some German ancestry is estimated at 0.5 to 1 million. In the face of the crises of economic transformation as well as political and ethnic conflicts, one can expect that many of them have either already declared themselves as Germans, or will do so in the future, in order to keep open the option of later emigration to Germany or to profit from public funds earmarked by Germany for the support of ethnic Germans in the Eastern diasporas.


NOTES 1 One has to note, however, that both the Nazi regime and Stalin’s regime forced a larger number of people into exile or deported them into concentration camps and recruited others as forced labour migrants. 2 Since 1993, the official term used by German authorities is ‘late resettlers’ (Spätaussiedler). 3 During the crusades of the twelfth century, the Teutonic Knights were founded as a congregation of German noblemen. During the thirteenth century, these Teutonic Knights conquered East Prussia as well as parts of the Baltic states and established German settlements in this area. 4 As early as the thirteenth century, German farmers were invited by Hungarian rulers to settle in Transylvania. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, several Russian Tsars—in particular Peter I and Catherine II— encouraged settlement migration of German traders, craftsmen and farmers. 5 Bessarabia: eastern part of inter-war Romania, occupied by the USSR in 1940–41 and again in 1945, today largely coinciding with the territory of the state of Moldova; Bukovina: former eastern province of Austria-Hungary, ceded to Romania in 1918, partly occupied by the USSR in 1940–1945, today mainly part of Ukraine; Gottschee: former German-speaking enclave in Slovenia; Krain: former southern province of Austria-Hungary, became part of SHS/Yugoslavia in 1918, today northern and central part of Slovenia; South Tyrol/Alto Adige: central part of the historical Austro-Hungarian province of Tyrol, annexed to Italy in 1918, today Italian province with large internal autonomy; Volhynia: former part of tsarist Russia, annexed to Poland in 1918–20, occupied by the USSR in 1940–41 and again in 1945, today the north-western part of Ukraine.

16 Young Ethnic German Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union: German Language Proficiency and its Impact on Integration Heike Roll

‘Return to the homeland of the forefathers’—until the end of the 1980s this almost proverbial saying summarized attitudes towards ethnic German immigration, both in West German official policy and amongst ethnic German immigrants (Aussiedler) themselves. West German governmental integration policy presumed that German ethnicity would enable the rapid adaptation of incoming German immigrants into both the labour market and German society. This assumption held true for the post-war period until the 1980s, with the economic and social integration of the Aussiedler progressing almost without friction. Since the beginning of the 1990s, ethnic German immigrants have been at risk of becoming economically and socially disadvantaged, some even marginalized. This risk is due to various factors: the high number of newcomers in a short period (a total of more then two million in the period 1990–99), changes in their socio-demographic background, cuts in integration measures,1 high unemployment and an increasing degree of hostility towards immigrants in Germany. The shift from Poland and Romania to the successor states of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) as sending countries has caused a change in the social composition of the ethnic German population, especially with regard to competence in German. Moreover, the newcomers tend to integrate into their immigrant network, not into mainstream German society. This is particularly true for young ethnic German immigrants from the FSU. In the 1990s, they figure as the largest immigrant youth group in Germany, the next most populous being German-born offspring of Turkish labour migrants.2 Immediate access to German citizenship for ethnic German immigrants no longer guarantees smooth integration:3 at the time of their immigration, most young Aussiedler have neither any knowledge of German language and culture nor of modern or even postmodern German society. As a consequence, they have to face the same difficulties as other immigrant youths: the need to acquire German language proficiency, to reorient in an unfamiliar social environment and to overcome educational disadvantages and the experiences of exclusion on ethnic grounds. For young ethnic German immigrants (Aussiedler), knowledge of German is a key factor in determining their socio-economic position: insufficient dominant language skills impede the acquisition of formal qualifications, of

254 YOUNG ETHNIC GERMAN IMMIGRANTS FROM THE FSU

professional skills and the exchange with non-immigrant peers.4 In recent years the rate of German language-learning among young ethnic German immigrants has been declining, while Russian has become a new element in the linguistic spectrum of Germany’s immigrant society. Previous research on language and immigration issues suggests that factors such as country of origin, knowledge of the dominant language prior to immigration, age at migration, duration of residence, region of residence (minority group concentration), family characteristics and return options are important determinants of proficiency in the language of the host society (Chiswick and Miller 1992:232). From the sociolinguistic point of view, attitudes of immigrants towards the dominant language are both related to their own identification with the host society and to their reception by the population and government of the country of destination (Ehlich 1991; Rivera-Batiz 1992). The impact of these factors on the acquisition and use of the German language among young ethnic German immigrants is analysed in this chapter. The analysis is based on data collected in a survey among young ethnic German immigrants by the Osteuropa-Institut München (Eastern European Institute in Munich). The sample consists of 253 interviewees aged 15 to 25 who came to Germany between 1990 and 1994. The majority of the respondents immigrated from Kazakhstan (50 per cent), the rest came mainly from Russia (33 per cent) and Kyrgyzstan (9 per cent). The sample is representative of ethnic German immigrants in terms of gender, education and religious affiliation (see Dietz and Roll 1998). IMMIGRATION OF ETHNIC GERMANS TO GERMANY— A SHORT OVERVIEW Between 1950 and 1987 the great majority of the Aussiedler came from Poland and Romania, while only a comparatively small number left the Soviet Union, where emigration was rigorously restricted.5 The smooth absorption of this first Aussiedler generation was mainly due to their privileged legal status, their better maintained knowledge of German language and culture and more favourable economic conditions in Germany. The legal basis for the admission of the Aussiedler is provided through an extensive interpretation of the German Constitution (Grundgesetz) (Article 116) and the Expellees’ and Refugees’ Law (Bundesvertriebenen-und Flüchtlingsgesetz) of 1953; this law permits members of ethnic German minorities in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and its successor states to immigrate to Germany and to claim German citizenship upon recognition as Aussiedler.6 This legal framework also regulates comprehensive settlement services (financial aid, housing, language courses, vocational (re-) training, and so on). With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the number of ethnic Germans immigrating to Germany rose sharply: between 1988 and 1999 a total of 2.6 million Aussiedler entered Germany; of these, 1.8 million


came from the (former) Soviet Union. In response to this unexpectedly large scale influx, admission and integration-policy towards ethnic Germans was significantly revised: a revision that made the political construction of Aussiedler recognition and admission apparent. In 1993, the Law Dealing with Late Consequences of the Second World War (Kriegsfolgenbereinigungsgesetz) provided an immigration quota.7 Ever since, 95 per cent of all ethnic Germans have arrived from the successor states of the Soviet Union, more than half from Kazakhstan, one-third from Russia and the rest from Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and the Baltic states. In July 1996, a further selection criterion was introduced. To be eligible for the Aussiedler status, that is, for the legal status and the privileges associated with that status, potential emigrants now must undergo a German language test. Between July 1996 and December 1999, 49 per cent of 147,000 applicants failed due to insufficient language skills.8 Language as a cultural barrier has led to a considerable decrease in the number of ethnic German immigrants since 1996. The rate of immigration decreased by 18 per cent in 1996 and by 23 per cent in 1997 and 1998. In 1999, the number of ethnic German immigrants—104,000 people—remained at the same level as in 1998. Young people make up a comparatively large proportion of the ethnic German immigrant population. In 1998, 36 per cent were under the age of 20 upon arrival. People aged 20 or less consistently made up approximately this proportion of the ethnic German population in the 1990s. In 1995, by comparison, this age group comprised only 22 per cent of the native-born German population. It has been pointed out in favour of ethnic immigration that —if the economic and social integration of this immigrant group is successful— they will contribute to the social security system of Germany. However, a survey of young ethnic Germans from the CIS shows that a growing proportion of this group runs the risk of becoming both economically and socially disadvantaged (Dietz and Roll 1998), often ending up without employment and living on welfare. ETHNIC SELF-IDENTIFICATION AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AMONG YOUNG ETHNIC GERMANS IN THEIR COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN Born in the 1970s and 1980s, young ethnic Germans were part of the Perestroika generation in their countries of origin (Pilkington 1994). They were socialized in a period of rapid economic and institutional transformation, a time of severe crisis, but also of liberalization. Ethnic German identity, however, played a minor role in their maturation. The majority of young ethnic Germans were integrated into Russian-speaking neighbourhoods, schools and youth organizations in Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of Central Asia. Linguistic and cultural assimilation was almost complete. In the survey mentioned, 55 per cent of interviewees said that they felt completely accepted in their former social contexts; 31 per cent felt accepted, only a small group felt partly not accepted


(13 per cent) or even isolated (1 per cent). The majority of respondents coming from Russia (61 per cent) lived in a predominantly Russian environment. In Kazakhstan, a multicultural context prevailed: 52 per cent of interviewees lived in ethnically mixed neighbourhoods. Only a small percentage of the respondents lived in villages or neighbourhoods where German language and culture still functioned in daily life (15 per cent).9 Although the majority of young ethnic Germans had not suffered individual discrimination as ethnic Germans, the nationalistic policies in the new nation states of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan did affect their socialization. The designation of the languages of the titular nations as official languages compromised the status of the German minority as equal citizens, while the preferential treatment of members of the titular nations lowered their career prospects in the educational, professional and political arenas. Despite their sociocultural assimilation, ethnic Germans were assigned German ethnicity from outside, for instance by ethnicity stated in their passport or by their German names, which could hinder their admission to university or to qualified employment opportunities. Ethnic German identity was ‘transformed from a selfascribed, predominantly cultural frame of reference to a more politically and administratively defined category’ (Münz and Ohliger 1998:163). Thus, the question emerges of how young ethnic Germans defined themselves ethnically before coming to Germany. According to the data of the survey mentioned, for the majority of young Aussiedler interviewed, German identity is largely a matter of descent (41 per cent) or of subjective self-ascription (32 per cent) that is not related to a vital cultural frame. Family traditions and particularly the German language are of minor relevance as are external ascriptions such as passport, ethnic discrimination, and so on (see Figure 16.1). Presumably, the ethnic composition of their families influences the ethnic orientation of young ethnic Germans. In the recent immigrant group the proportion of bicultural families is higher than it was among the first Aussiedler generations. This is reflected in the youth survey: 39 per cent of the persons interviewed came from mixed marriages, one parent in most of these cases (86 per cent) being ethnically Russian. With reference to descent-oriented concepts of ethnicity there is a difference between youths from German families and those from bicultural families. Young ethnic Germans with two German parents had kept closer connections to German language and culture. Most young ethnic Germans grew up with Russian as their first language in their countries of origin. Unlike their grandparents and, to some extent, their parents, they did not acquire Russian under strong pressure to assimilate, resulting in a different attitude towards the Russian and the German language among this generation. They do not have any conception of German as the mother tongue and no traumatic memories of discrimination or the loss of childhood through deportation. However, for the older generation, loyalty to the German mother tongue remains an important element of their ethnic identity, even if they have only poor skills (Dietz and Hilkes 1992:47–8).10 After the


Figure 16.1. Experience of ethnic identity among young ethnic Germans in their countries of origin (two options possible) Source: Survey of the Osteuropa-Institut München (Eastern European Institute, Munich).

Second World War, when the German language and culture were suppressed in public life and institutions, German was primarily maintained in private domains of families and religious communities. A link between religious affiliation and language preservation is evident. Religious families, mainly of the Protestant minority denominations (Baptists, Mennonites, Pentecostals and Lutheran Brother communities), refused assimilation to atheist Soviet society. They preserved German as the language of their services and praying circles. Young people with a religious background are closer to their families and religious communities and thus figure as a special minority group with a strong ethnoreligious orientation among young ethnic Germans. This holds true for their countries of origin as well as for Germany.11 In the youth survey, all of the respondents affiliated with a Protestant religious minority (10 per cent) considered themselves to be German. Since German was not spoken in the private domain, the majority of ethnic German children had minimal opportunities to acquire German. German as a foreign language was taught at a low level in secondary schools, while so-called ‘German mother tongue’ instruction (introduced in 1957) was offered only in German linguistic and cultural enclaves in Western Siberia and Kazakhstan. Since 1991, the German government has been financially supporting German language training in Russia, Kazakhstan and other parts of Central Asia, mainly to enhance the cultural life of the remaining ethnic German inhabitants. After the introduction of the language test significantly more courses have been offered to improve the skills of potential emigrants.12 Many of these courses take place in schools and kindergartens in compact German settlements, or in schools where


German is already a major subject. Only a small group of young ethnic Germans can participate in these courses. Thus, the impact on language proficiency prior to immigration is small. GERMAN LANGUAGE TRAINING, EDUCATIONAL PROSPECTS AND LANGUAGE USE IN FAMILY AND PEER GROUP Upon immigration to Germany, young ethnic Germans immediately acquire German citizenship. However, identifying oneself as a German citizen is an individual process that varies a great deal within different institutional conditions (school, occupation) and situations of social interaction (family background, peer group, and so on). It can be hard for these young people to find their own orientation because of different expectations from teachers, parents, peers or administrative workers. Most native-born Germans expect Aussiedler to learn German and to adapt to the new social and cultural surroundings because of their supposed German ethnicity, rejecting their Russian background as negative or ‘second-class’. At the same time, the Russian language and daily culture is the basis of their peer and family life. Keeping the balance between different expectations and assessments of the respective social groups requires a high degree of self control and ability to tolerate conflict (Heckmann 1992:198). Recent studies on migration presume that young migrants do not necessarily suffer identity disorder and are not ‘torn between two worlds’, but may develop bilingual and bicultural strategies to adapt to the new environment without denying or depreciating their culture of origin (Dittrich and Lenz 1994). However, ethnic discrimination and cultural antagonism can discourage the process of language acquisition and encourage withdrawal into the family and ethnic peer group (Rivera-Batiz 1992).13 An important factor affecting integrational attitudes is the return option. Ethnic German immigrants are usually (in contrast to labour migrants) admitted as citizens, that is, neither with a return perspective nor with plans to return. The answers of interviewees of the youth survey indicate that although less than 5 per cent would like to return forever, the great majority still keeps contact with the countries of origin and want to go there as visitors (68 per cent). Only 13 per cent of the respondents never want to go back. German Language Training German language programmes and vocational (re-)training have been an important part of the settlement services provided for ethnic Germans over the last decades. They have eased the socio-economic integration of previous Aussiedler to a considerable extent (Schafer et al. 1995). In 1993 there were significant cuts in those programmes—somewhat ill-timed, as they coincided with the influx of ethnic Germans from post-Soviet successor states, who


brought along the least transferable human capital.14 Despite these cuts young ethnic Germans still have a range of opportunities for language and vocational training, which privileges them in comparison with other young immigrants. German language policies towards young ethnic Germans differ from those towards other immigrant youth: although there are additional language support programmes for children of immigrants, there is no systematic support of German as a second language. Instead, in most cases an uncontrolled secondlanguage acquisition takes place, which exacerbates the disadvantages immigrant children have in the German school system (Gogolin 1994). In contrast, young ethnic German immigrants are officially expected to learn and accept German as their supposed mother tongue and to abandon their first language. The form of the language training depends on the young immigrants’ age at migration, the formal school qualifications they bring from their countries of origin and the existing opportunities in their place of residence. If they are of school age at the time of immigration, they get language training either in addition to regular schooling or in special preparatory classes. The 16 German states (Bundesländer) have, according to the federal principle, adopted different strategies in linguistic training programmes. There are both homogeneous Aussiedler classes and mixed classes with other immigrant children. As a result of the cuts in integration benefits, special transfer classes (Übergangsklassen) are fewer in number and the percentage of students in regular classes is larger. This has a negative impact on their German proficiency (Pannes 1998). The additional German language training is not offered in all school levels, but mainly in the lowest of the three levels in the German mainstream secondary school system (Hauptschule), which prepares students for blue-collar jobs. The additional German training is one reason why students from the former Soviet Union were primarily sent to the lowest level, although their cognitive competences qualify them to attend the middle level (Realschule) or even the Gymnasium (preparation for higher education). Young ethnic Germans who are not of school age or who have already graduated can participate in an intensive language course for six months15 or, in combination with vocational training, for 12 months. The age structure of the participants of these courses is very heterogeneous, which produces, in addition to the shortened duration, poor rates of success in learning. The great majority of young ethnic Germans take advantage of language training. The data of the youth survey shows that 75 per cent of the respondents participated in a language course that was not related to school; among those not of school age the figure was 94 per cent. The number of young women who attend a language course is much higher than those of young men. Despite language training, only 30 per cent of the survey respondents evaluated their language skills as good and only 3 per cent reported very good language skills. However, those with longer residence in Germany have a better command of the language. Other variables such as gender, age or country of origin did not influence the self-assessment of proficiency in German.


Figure 16.2. Self-assessed evaluation of German language proficiency (in %). Source: Survey of the Osteuropa-Institut München (Eastern European Institute, Munich).

Educational Prospects Educational levels attained by young ethnic German immigrants are increasingly comparable to structural education patterns of immigrant youth in general. A significantly higher proportion of young ethnic German students attend the lowest level of the school system than native-born students. In the meantime, these schools have become the level for educationally disadvantaged and immigrant children, whereby Turkish and Italian children make up the highest percentage of all immigrant students finding themselves in this stream (Alba et al. 1998). Lately, young ethnic German students outnumber them in schools situated in regions with strong ethnic German communities. A statistic from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia shows that 29 per cent of all ethnic German students attended the lowest level school (Hauptschule) in the school year 1998/ 99, whereas the proportion among students in general was only 12 per cent. The data from the youth survey reflects this development. Examining the educational integration of those respondents who were students at the time of the survey (31 per cent), the majority (41 per cent) attended the Hauptschule. Twenty-seven per cent of the students interviewed attended the middle level (Realschule) and 15 per cent the Gymnasium (highest level). Every tenth interviewee participated in a special programme for young Aussiedler (11 per cent). Which factors, except for the language training being offered at the Hauptschulen, might be responsible for this development? The youth survey shows a relation between German proficiency and educational attainment. Students who attended the highest level (Gymnasium) at the time of the survey reported a higher level of German language command than those attending the lowest level (Hauptschule). Evidence from teachers and social workers points out that lack of German proficiency is a barrier to higher


education for many ethnic German students (Pannes 1998). Another factor that supports a higher educational attainment is parental education; students from families where at least one parent has an academic background are more likely to attend a higher level of school. Compared to other immigrant groups (mainly migrant workers), ethnic Germans have a higher educational background and are more motivated for further qualification (Münz et al. 1997:120). It could be anticipated that because of these educational resources, the number of young Aussiedler attending higher level schools will increase over time as more of them develop better language skills. Schools offer the opportunity for a ‘second linguistic socialization’ through the acquisition of the German language in the educational institution. Thus, the age of migration is an important determinant of ease of integration. Hence, the most difficult starting position is that of young ethnic German immigrants beyond school age, who arrive with low educational qualifications from their countries of origin, attend only a six-month language course and do not get any further vocational training. They are especially in danger of not finding a job and ending up in the welfare system. GERMAN LANGUAGE USE IN SOCIAL CONTEXTS The language acquisition of young immigrants is not only influenced by institutional conditions of the host society but also by the socio-cultural situation at home and amongst peer groups. The linguistic adaptation process of immigrants has been characterized by the functional splitting of the first language and the dominant language in the host society. The first language is used in the individual sphere, the dominant language in the societal sphere (Oksaar 1982). Linguistic absorption takes place when the dominant language shifts into the individual sphere and the immigrant language is abandoned, which is a two-or three-generation process. First, language retention is closely related to family and immigrant enclave communities, where the first language covers a range of communicative demands. As Chiswick and Miller (1992:233) point out, an individual’s incentive to acquire dominant language skills is related to the extent to which the native tongue is used in the present environment. According to the data of the youth survey discussed, only a few families communicate at home exclusively in German (8 per cent). A high percentage of the respondents (46 per cent) reported that their family language is mainly Russian. For young people from binational families Russian is more often the family language (61 per cent). Duration of residence shows a positive correlation with the use of German as the family language. The longer families live in Germany, the less often Russian is exclusively spoken at home. In the peer group, the Russian language is even more important. Ninety-four per cent of interviewees report that they speak Russian very often, 67 per cent speak Russian with friends, 29 per cent with family and 20 per cent with their parents.


Figure 16.3. Language use within family (n=252, in %)

Figure 16.4. Language use within family according to year of immigration (in %)

The data show that more than half of all respondents (54 per cent) make friends mainly with other young ethnic Germans. The establishment of a new social network is a major step for young ethnic immigrants towards integration in Germany. Research in migration psychology shows that contact with other peers, whether co-ethnic or native, may reduce social anxiety and loss of self confidence (Jerusalem 1988). During the first phase of integration, time spent in co-ethnic circles where young Aussiedler know and understand the social and cultural pattern and do not suffer from competition with local peers may even reduce the stress of acculturation (Schmitt-Rodermund 1997). In the long run, contact with locals is a necessary


Figure 16.5. Composition of circle of friends (n=253)

factor in restructuring social and cultural patterns. However, the respondents of the youth survey are not content with their situation. Seventy-one per cent would like to have more and closer contact with native peers, 13 per cent do not want contact and 16 per cent are indifferent. Changes in youth culture since the dissolution of the Soviet Union also have important implications for young Aussiedler. In their countries of origin, young ethnic Germans did not grow up as ‘pioneers’ or ‘komsomols’, that is, as members of the Soviet youth organizations. Rather, they experienced the crisis of Soviet educational institutions and values, and simultaneously a new freedom to choose their own styles and invent their own subcultures. The central significance of peer groups in individualization processes has been acknowledged and analysed in Western societies since the 1970s. It is only since the late 1980s that peer groups have played an increasingly important role in Central and Eastern European countries. Thus, recent young ethnic German immigrants differ from previous generations for whom any evidence of youth culture was often said to be ‘invisible’. Coming to Germany, adolescents now bring their own distinct music, style, communication patterns and gender roles. Most ‘visible’ in public is the appearance of young (male) ethnic German groups on street corners and public places, usually in ethnic German neighbourhoods. The Russian language often functions as a marker of group identity to include or exclude group members. Fights between young Aussiedler and peer groups of young Turkish males are often related to territorial claims or to a ‘male’ youth cultural value system based on hierarchy, honour and male pride. The formation of peer groups along ethnic lines is a new development that is related to the ethnic pluralization of the youth scene in Germany by immigration (Tertilt 1995; Findeisen and Kersten 1999).


GERMAN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY AND THE EMERGENCE OF IMMIGRANT ENCLAVES The emergence of ethnic German neighbourhoods in different cities and communities in Germany is mainly due to chain migration, the wish of Aussiedler to live close to relatives and friends from their countries of origin and take advantage of established social networks (Münz and Ohliger 1998). The number of newcomers is notably high in cities or communities where French, Canadian and US troops were based until the 1990s. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Western and also Soviet troops left as a consequence of the Multilateral Balanced Force reduction. Communities where Allied troops had been stationed before were now confronted with new citizens from former socialist states, namely ethnic German immigrants from the FSU. They moved into the barracks, apartments and houses left by the military forces. In Lahr, for instance (a community in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in the south of Germany), where the Canadian Air Force used to be stationed, Canadian troops and their families were accepted among the local population and contributed to the regional economy by providing employment, paying good rent and providing demand for the local economy. Since the withdrawal of the Canadian troops and with the immigration of ethnic Germans, this community numbers around 40,000 inhabitants, of whom approximately 8,000 are ethnic Germans. The majority of them arrived in the 1990s. The locals are reserved towards the ‘Russians’, and the newcomers tend to stay in their circles of family and friends, who often live in the same block. There are some shops with goods from Russia, agencies specializing in travel to Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgystan and youth meeting places on the street. A Russian-speaking infrastructure has developed. Due to efforts by engaged church communities, social workers, individuals (locals and ethnic Germans) and teachers, the social environment and tensions, although problematic, are not getting worse. As a consequence, the schools in these neighbourhoods have a high percentage of ethnic German students. In total, there are about 1,800 ethnic German students in the schools of Lahr. In one of the lowest-track (Hauptschule), they make up more than 50 per cent, in two other schools around 30 per cent. In response to this sudden intake of ethnic German students, these schools developed a unique model in Germany. They engaged ethnic German immigrants as so-called ‘bridging teachers’ (Brückenlehrer), who assist in the learning process and sustain contact between ethnic German families and the school. This successful model was funded for only three years, although it is obvious that these schools cannot cope with the task of integrating such a high number of immigrant students without adequate integration programmes. As a consequence of this development, Russian predominates among young people in most spheres of life, particularly within the family, the neighbourhood and in school when talking to peers—though not in class. The monolingual basis of the German education


system is fixed in the curriculum, in educational methods and in the attitudes of many teachers. There are some transitional programmes that allow Russian instead of English as an subject of examination, or additional programmes supporting Russian, but there is no systematic instruction in Russian. This is possible, however, in the Gymnasium, where Russian can be learnt as a third foreign language (in Lahr about 12 per cent of the Aussiedler students attend the highest level school). Case Study Ira, 18, immigrated in 1992 from Kazakhstan. She lives with her family. Her spoken German is fluent, but she speaks with a significant Russian accent and uncertainties in grammar. Having finished the Hauptschule (in her class more than 50 per cent of her classmates were Aussiedler) she is now attending a vocational training school for two years. Her circle of friends consists mainly of Aussiedler and their language of communication is Russian. This is also the case at home. Like most ethnic Germans in this neighbourhood, they receive Russian TV at home via satellite. She reports that her parents, one of whom is Russian, regularly read Russian books and newspapers. She considers Russian to be her mother tongue and prefers it to German. In school, she was upset by teachers forbidding her to speak Russian in class and to her friends, which she felt was very discriminatory. She is conscious of the local population’s prejudices against Aussiedler. Her social life takes place within the Aussiedler network and a positive attitude towards Russian language and culture is reinforced within this context. Her verbal communication is characterized by strategies typical for bilingual immigrants, switching between languages, depending on topic or social situation. The existence of a fully ethnic German network keeps her from seeking contact with native-born peers, which she does not miss. The Russian language is an important factor of identity for her. For parts of the local population, the use of Russian among Aussiedler is a concrete fact, on which they focus their rejection and exclusion of this group of immigrants. This rejection reflects the anxiety of the locals about becoming strangers in their own social environment. The acceptance of Russian language and culture among local people is very limited. There are a few local activists who founded, among other projects, a Russian-German Association, and organize Russian theatre or literature nights. However, this is a comparatively small number of people. In general, ethnic German immigrants are expected to adapt and to assimilate. This attitude is also found in ethnic German immigrants


from the first generation or those with a strong affiliation to German ethnicity (often connected to a religious background). They criticize the adherence of the recent immigrants to the Russian language and culture and refuse to support them. CONCLUSION The analysis of the sociolinguistic background of young Aussiedler indicates that, while being German is a part of their social identity, it is largely constructed through descent and fragmentary knowledge of German language and culture. Russian language and culture were the background of their socialization in Russia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, and thus remain important elements of self-identification and group membership after immigration to Germany. Considering this background, new integration models in school and social work have to be based on intercultural concepts, that is, on accepting and incorporating the young Aussiedler’s Russian biographical background. Lack of German language proficiency is a real integration barrier for a growing number of young Aussiedler. The frequent use of Russian in all informal networks of family and peer groups, and residence in an ethnic German neighbourhood are reasons for slower acquisition of German language skills. A relationship between German language proficiency and educational disadvantages has been identified. Young ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union currently incorporate a new immigrant group broadly confined to the lowest level of the German school system. Still, linguistic adaptation is gradually taking place. For young ethnic German immigrants, the duration of residence in Germany correlates positively with language competence. The longer the respondents of the youth survey had been living in Germany, the more likely they were to speak German at home and the better the language skills they reported having. With no language policy supporting the Russian language, it is predictable that the next generation will lose full competence in Russian. Only in communities where Aussiedler are concentrated and where Russian functions as a language of everyday communication in most private and some public domains is Russian likely to be transferred to the second generation. The shift to the German language is also supported by the express decision of most Aussiedler to stay in Germany. Still, an increasing percentage of Aussiedler do maintain connections with their country of origin, with family and friends whom they regularly visit, thus establishing a transnational community in which the Russian language functions and is needed as a means of communication. The linguistic spectrum in Germany has been diversified by immigration in the last decades, with Turkish and Russian currently being the most widespread minority languages. Yet the idea of national linguistic unity determines the monolingual language policy in school curricula. Schools provide immigrant children neither with adequate German language programmes nor with opportunities to receive training in their parental language. Rather than


privileged language training for young Aussiedler, a German-language acquisition programme targeted at all immigrants needs to be developed. Policies encouraging the acquisition of German also presuppose the motivation and willingness of the immigrants to take part actively in the programmes. However, the more young immigrants feel accepted by German society and become aware of the educational and professional opportunities they have, the higher their motivation will be to learn German and participate in German society, thus exercising their rights of citizenship which they fully enjoy only in a formal sense, and not yet substantively. NOTES 1 Although the level of financial integration aid is lower than it was during the 1980s and early 1990s, the integration of the Aussiedler is still strongly supported. In 1999 Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior paid a total of 900 million, of this, 200 million for German language training (Information of the Federal Ministry of the Interior). 2 Some 2.1 million legal residents of Germany are Turkish citizens. Another 200,000 naturalized German citizens are of Turkish origin. 3 Since January 2000 children of foreign parents born in Germany automatically acquire German citizenship if one of their parents has been living in Germany for eight or more years and has a residence permit. 4 The positive impact of language skills on the socio-economic integration of immigrants has been shown for Canada and the United States by Chiswick and Miller (1992), amongst immigrant youth in the United States by Rivera-Batiz (1992) and Portes and Schauffler (1994). 5 Between 1950 and 1987 a total of 1,368,500 Aussiedler immigrated to Germany, 62 per cent of these from Poland, 15 per cent from Romania and 8 per cent from the USS. 6 The historical background of this ‘right of return’ is connected to the Second World War, when Germans in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union had to endure expulsion and deportation and, in the post-war decades, discrimination in retaliation for Nazi aggression against Eastern Europe states and the USSR. Although this law is linked to the German past, it is also related to German immigration discourse that favours a concept of nationhood and citizenship based on ius sanguinis (see Chapter 17). 7 Until 1999 this law restricted the number of Aussiedler to 220,000 per year. It also requires that immigrants must prove that (persistent) discrimination is a consequence of belonging to the German minority; ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union are exempted from the latter requirement. As a consequence, recognition rates from East Central European countries outside the post-Soviet space countries are near zero. Since 2000, a further restriction to 100,000 Aussiedler per year. 8 Information of the Federal Administration Office. Those persons claiming the legal status of an Aussiedler have to undergo the language test. Other family members are not tested.


9 Compact German settlements still exist in Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. Since the begin of emigration in the 1990s, ethnic structures have been dissolving and emigration rates in these regions are especially high. 10 A survey conducted among ethnic Germans in 1990 shows that the generation born before 1930 was primarily socialized in different local German dialects (Dietz and Hilkes 1992:50). 11 In the 1990s, protestant minorities (Baptists, Mennonites, Pentecostals) made up about 20 per cent of each year’s immigration rate (information from the Federal Administration Office). 12 In 1998–89 the Federal Ministry of the Interior paid 10 million for language courses in Russia and Kazakhstan, in which 81,500 persons participated (information of the Federal Administration Office). 13 The relation between social disintegration and the withdrawal into ethnic networks by activating ethnic positions is indicated by a recent survey of Turkish youth in Germany (Heitmeyer et al. 1997). 14 In 1990 the agency funding for youth integration had 250 million at their disposal, in 1999 only DM166 million. However, the per capita sum remained almost the same as the total amount was reduced in accordance with the smaller influx of immigrants. 15 These courses were cut step by step from twelve to six months.

17 The Politicization of Ethnic German Immigrants: The Transformation of State Priorities Daniel Levy

This chapter examines the transformation of the ethno-cultural idiom in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), with particular emphasis on the development of this idiom in the context of debates about the return of ‘ethnic Germans’ to the FRG. Ethnic Germans exemplify the notion of the ethnocultural nation, an idea of nationhood not bound by the territorial limits of the state but expressive of shared language and culture (the Kulturnation) and the principle of descent (Ethnonation). Changing representations of ethnic Germans play an important part in understanding this notion. The politics that surround them—that is, the politics they pursued and the politics pursued with them in mind—played a key, but underappreciated, role in the history of (West) Germany. The claim is not that ethnic Germans are the only force acting on national identity. Nor is it suggested that there cannot have been changes in German national identity in which expellee politics played a minor role. They are, however, the primary symbolic and political conveyors of Germany’s official ethno-cultural self-understanding. The ways in which official political discourse has addressed them in the last 50 years is not identical with national identity but is a symptomatic illustration of the reformation of Germany’s ethno-cultural selfunderstanding. The German case is part of a broader phenomenon in post-war Western Europe, where controversies about immigration have replaced conflicts between states as the primary arena for the articulation of nationhood (Cesarani and Fulbrook 1996; Schain and Baldwin-Edwards 1994; Tilly 1995). Most of these debates on collective identification in Western European countries have been triggered through the cultural, economic and political effects of migration, giving rise to widespread politics of belonging and reassessments of collective boundaries (Geddes and Favell 1999). The Allied Potsdam Agreements sanctioned large population transfers after the Second World War, which led to the flight and expulsion of about 12 million German citizens and ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe. They are commonly referred to as expellees (Vertriebene). Between 1950 and 1987, 1.4 million followed, referred to as Aussiedler (ethnic German immigrants). In 1988– 99, another 2.6 million Aussiedler arrived in Germany. However, they are not a culturally homogeneous group. Indeed, ethnic German minorities are a rather


heterogeneous group, who over the last two centuries have developed different cultural attributes and a variety of German dialects. Some have maintained cultural and linguistic ‘ethnic traits’ and preserved German traditions while others have been highly assimilated (Münz and Ohliger 1998). It is a legally sanctioned ethno-national self-understanding that defines them as German—no matter how feeble their ‘ethnicity’ in terms of culture or language—rather than a set of uniform cultural practices. It was the legally privileged access of ethnic Germans to Germany that institutionalized descent as a definition of Germanness, independent of culture and ethnicity.1 National identity can be understood as a changing discursive formation. Political culture analysis focuses on how particular acts of claim-making, in addition to gaining political advantage, reproduce or change identities (Berezin 1997). Here culture is understood as redefined in formative moments. ‘Usable pasts’ are chosen and elaborated, not passively inherited (Swidler 1986). From this perspective, national identity is grounded no less in political contingency than in the purported inertia of culture and diverse collective memories. According to Charles Tilly, identity refers to ‘an actor’s experience of a category, tie, role, network, group or organization, coupled with a public representation of that experience; the public representation often takes the form of a shared story, a narrative’ (Tilly 1995:7). As such, national identity is discursively constituted. Geoff Eley and Grigor Suny treat national identity as an ongoing process to be understood in the ‘discursive universe in which it operates and realizes itself. [Experience], always itself discursively framed and understood, creates identities of “interest”’ (Eley and Suny 1996:10). National identity is perceived as a changeable product of collective self-identification, ‘not as its stable underlying cause’ (Brubaker 1994:9). On this view, national identities are continually constructed, contested and negotiated as historically contingent, path-dependent projects, arising in politically charged settings. The literature commonly presents the privileged access of ethnic Germans to citizenship and the persistence of ius sanguinis versus the exclusion of labour migrants and their offspring as expressing Germany’s ethno-cultural understanding, at the expense of a civic-territorial conception of nationhood (Bade 1992; Fulbrook 1996; Schnapper 1994). In a comparison of citizenship and nationhood in France and Germany, Rogers Brubaker focuses on the prevalence of the ethno-cultural idiom in German national self-understanding. He argues that ‘particular cultural idioms, ways of thinking and talking about nationhood—ethno-cultural and differentialist [i.e. exclusionary] in Germany— were reinforced and activated in specific historical and institutional settings’ (Brubaker 1992: 6).2 According to Brubaker, the expansive approach toward ethnic Germans ‘reflects the pronounced ethnocultural inflection in German selfunderstanding’ (1992:4). This chapter builds on the idea that, in Brubaker’s terms, ‘citizenship in a nation-state is inevitably bound up with nationhood and national identity’ and that ‘proposals to redefine the legal criteria of citizenship raise large and

THE POLITICIZATION OF ETHNIC GERMAN IMMIGRANTS 271

ideologically charged questions of nationhood and national belonging’ (1992: 182). However, in contrast to Brubaker, the focus in this chapter is on those circumstances in which Germany’s ethno-cultural idiom is challenged. German identity over the last 50 years has been a contingent and political creation. Representations of ethnic Germans during these years express a changing national self-understanding, not solely the confirmation of ethno-cultural conceptions. Rather than presupposing that the inclusion of ethnic Germans expresses an essentialist ethno-cultural self-understanding, this study describes a historical process in which the ethno-cultural idiom itself is remade. It examines how changing policies and perceptions of ethnic German immigrants have affected, and in turn been affected by, emerging forms of national identity in Germany since 1945. Representations of ethnic Germans over time reflect both ethnic and civic conceptions of nationhood. Rather than presupposing that citizenship rights for ethnic Germans always correspond to an ethno-cultural understanding, it is argued that the balance between ethnic and civic understandings of nationhood is shaped on the background of crucial historical turning points, political contingencies and evolving generational memories. ETHNIC GERMANS AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY Data West German national identity has been shaped in the context of three historical junctures during which the place of ethnic German immigrants in the articulation of ethno-cultural nationhood was transformed, the end of the Cold War being the last of these.3 Findings are based on three categories of data covering a wide range of Germany’s political discourse about ethnic Germans. Memories of the past and emerging perceptions of ethnic Germans are established and interpreted by a variety of social institutions that involve official-political,4 institutionallegislative5 and public-cultural spheres.6 Together these three kinds of data encompass a wide range of perceptions. They delineate the discursive possibilities to imagine and talk about the nation. The Post-war Period In the first post-war decade, Germany’s ethno-cultural self-understanding remained largely intact. However, questions of political legitimacy, rather than ethnic attachments explain this persistence. After the Second World War, West Germany faced the problem of salvaging aspects of German nationhood not tainted or defined by the Nazi regime. Rather than focus on the active participation and widespread consent of the German population in the Nazi


regime, Germans portrayed themselves as victims. This image of victimization dominated the first post-war decade and provided a consensus around which a sense of nationhood was reconstructed. The expulsion of Germans from former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line was a major basis for the collective claim to victim status. Ethnic Germans were the primary carrier of this ethno-cultural notion. The strength of this understanding of suffering was underscored through the widespread institutional power ethnic German expellees had at the time. They were a pervasive presence in all realms of German politics and society. They formed their own party and were part of Germany’s first postwar government coalition. In total, 18 per cent of all members of the West German Parliament in 1953 were expellees. Images of victimhood were reinforced in the context of occupations and the emerging Cold War. Among other things, victimhood was constructed in opposition to the often violent largescale expulsions from states under Soviet influence in Central and Eastern Europe. In light of the Cold War and Germany’s ensuing division, anticommunist rhetoric was a cornerstone for the reconstruction of a sense of nationhood. The Western Allies as well as Chancellor Adenauer perceived the expellees as a bulwark of anti-communism and were eager to exploit their expulsion as a reminder of Soviet aggression and the advantages and superiority of a free West. Perceptions of ethnic Germans’ suffering—sustained through social memories and promoted by published autobiographies and official commemorative occasions—played a significant role in the rehabilitation of German national identity and the reproduction of an ethno-cultural selfunderstanding. The cultivation of victimhood was not confined to the political realm and legislative measures. Thus, for example, the state sponsored a largescale project on the ‘Documentation of the Expulsion of Germans from EastCentral Europe’. The political purpose of this work was unmistakable (Beer 1998). It created awareness of the suffering of expellees and established factual foundations for the return of property. No less important was the institutionalization of extensive legislative measures on behalf of ethnic German expellees and refugees. West Germany adopted descent-based citizenship legislation that relied on the 1913 Law on Citizenship (Reichs-und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz) and modifications made by the Nazi regime, but also included ethnic German refugees who were stateless or citizens of other states. Why would this liberal post-war state adopt citizenship regulations based on ius sanguinis and ethnic descent? One possible answer points to Germany’s powerful ethno-cultural traditions and their hold on the national imagination (Brubaker 1992; Fulbrook 1996). However, the choice of ius sanguinis as the basis of citizenship in 1948–9 was not a simple adoption of the pre-existing ethno-cultural German citizenship law dating back to 1913. There was nothing ‘natural’ about this initial adoption and the continuous reliance on the 1913 law. It was determined by social policy concerns and political calculations shaped in specific circumstances of the post-war period.


It was, first and foremost, a matter of social policy. That is to say, only a generous interpretation of German citizenship law could provide legal equality between expelled German citizens, expelled ethnic Germans and the resident population. Legal equality for expellees and refugees from the former Eastern territories within the borders of 1937 as well as for expelled ethnic Germans was established through the (provisional) German Constitution of 1949. This status was extended to Aussiedler (ethnic German immigrants) in the Federal Expellees’ and Refugees’ law of 1953 (Bundesvertriebenengesetz). A second consideration was largely of political nature. The reproduction of an ethnocultural understanding was instrumental in sustaining West Germany’s claim to embody German unity, despite its actual division and loss of its eastern territories to another sovereign German state as well as to Poland and the USSR. The main point here is that it was those political and social considerations that were institutionalized in the citizenship law, not a pre-existing understanding of Germanness. Détente and New Political Culture The second historical turning point emerged during the 1960s against the backdrop of new foreign policy considerations (Cold War détente) and Chancellor Brandt’s reconciliatory Ostpolitik (policies towards Central and Eastern Europe). Expellee organizations objected to these changes and their rhetoric against the East—a resource during the earlier phases of the Cold War— now appeared retrograde and disruptive. Brandt marked them as radical and dangerous. Negative public perceptions of expellees contributed to the gradual demise of the ethno-cultural idiom. The discrediting of the ethno-cultural theme was intensified in the conflict between Germany’s first post-war generation and its predecessors. The revolt against the older generation by the 68ers was also a revolt against the ethno-cultural understanding of Germanness since it was associated with Nazism. The outcome was a re-evaluation of Germany’s national past, resulting in public and official representations that increasingly associated expellee organizations and, by extension, ethno-cultural nationhood, with outdated traditions, historical revisionism or even the legacies of the Nazi past. Ethno-cultural ideas were weakened and relegated to the fringes of political discourse, but not forgotten. However, official attempts to revive ethno-cultural references during the early 1980s by stressing historical memories of the postwar decade were futile.


THE POST-COLD WAR PERIOD From National Symbol to Social Subject The weakness of the ethno-cultural code is underscored on the backdrop of crucial historical junctures (i.e. the opening of the Iron Curtain and German unification) and related political contingencies (i.e. the inclusion of ethnic Germans in a highly politicized debate about immigration). The findings of the post-Cold War period show how official ethno-cultural rhetoric about ethnic Germans has been replaced with social and economic references and how their integration has increasingly been situated within a broader debate about immigration (Münz et al. 1997). Realizing that ethno-cultural appeals were insufficient to generate public support for the integration of ethnic Germans, the government complemented its organic rhetoric with an emphasis on the economic contributions of ethnic German immigrants. However, this ‘utilitarian’ approach, portraying ethnic German immigration as economically beneficial, contradicted the government’s own arguments about the economic costs of other migratory movements. For years, the Kohl government had warned against immigration, associating it with a socio-economic burden for the wider population. Ultimately, this utilitarian approach contributed to the public conflation of ethnic German immigrants and other groups of immigrants. Public surveys during the early 1990s reveal that ethnic German immigrants were publicly identified as Russians, Poles and Romanians. Thus when asked whether ethnic German immigrants were true Germans, only 31 per cent answered affirmatively, with 40 per cent not sure, while 29 per cent felt that they were clearly not ‘true Germans’ (Noelle-Neumann and Köcher 1993:520). Once the public perceived of ethnic German immigrants as just another group of immigrants, representations relied on the same negative symbolism previously reserved for labour migrants or asylees (Levy 1999b). The majority of the population showed little interest in ethno-cultural considerations when assessing the economic benefits the participation of specific groups would yield.7 Most Germans perceived of ethnic German immigrants in terms of ‘social envy’ (Sozialneid). A majority favoured a more restrictive approach regarding the immigration of ethnic Germans.8 Against the backdrop of high unemployment rates, housing shortages and a charged public debate, arguments used against the immigration of foreigners now also shaped public opinions on ethnic Germans. Concomitant with the absorption of the ethnic German theme into the broader debate about immigration, official ethno-cultural references were minimized and the hitherto expansive approach toward these fellow ethnic Germans was replaced with increasingly restrictive legislation.9 Conversely, restrictive legislation and administrative practices toward ethnic Germans were reflective of and contributed to the ways in which they were addressed in public discourse. Although some politicians in the government continually insisted on the special


status of ethnic Germans, control and regulation of ethnic German immigration became the primary policy objectives. With ongoing revisions to the expansive legal framework from the 1950s, discrepancies between public proclamations of ethno-cultural solidarity and restrictive administrative practices were apparent to the public. The interest is not in procedural rules, but in the larger normative implications of these legislative changes. To put it in Brubaker’s terms: ‘A strongly institutionalized system of official ethnonational identities makes certain categories available for the public representation of social reality, the framing of political claims, and the organization of political action’ (Brubaker 1996:17). Early legislation between 1989 and 1992 was aimed at the regulation of integration and the amelioration of social tensions between resident Germans and ethnic German immigrants.10 After 1992, these regulatory efforts continued but legislative changes also involved redefining Germanness. If post-war legislation for ethnic German immigrants was generous and justified in social and ethnocultural terms, new legislation after 1989 was recast in social terms only. In both periods, integration was a central policy objective. However, in the post-war period, expellees exerted a strong influence on the legislative process and the need for integration led to an expansive approach that provided ‘positive discrimination’ for ethnic Germans. In comparison, the need for integration in the post-Cold War period has been framed in the context of ‘social envy’ (Sozialneid) precluding preferential treatment of ethnic Germans in the absence of a grand narrative of suffering. On the contrary, reduced integrative measures were deemed necessary to ameliorate social tensions with long-time residents. Paradoxically, financial cuts have exacerbated their dependency on welfare measures, which, in turn, has made ‘social envy’ even more salient. After 1992, these regulatory measures were complemented by legislation that essentially will eventually put an end to privileged immigration of ethnic Germans and in the process redefined the criteria for belonging to the German nation. In contrast to previous administrative adjustments aimed at the regulation and restriction of ethnic German immigration, this legislation explicitly inscribed the end of ethnic German suffering into the ‘Law Dealing with Late Consequences of the Second World War.’ Political transformations in Eastern Europe—democratization processes and the recognition of minority rights— weakened the appeal of an ethno-cultural rhetoric and undermined the central rationale for ethnic German immigration, namely the post-war assumption of an ongoing ‘expulsion pressure’ (Vertreibungsdruck). Not only was the ethnic German theme absorbed into the heated debate about immigration, namely with the so-called ‘asylum compromise’ (Asylkompromiss), but fundamental ethno-cultural assumptions about their automatic right to immigrate were undermined or eliminated. The government and administrative courts actively redefined what it means to be German. Descent and commitment to the German Volk were ambiguous criteria. It was precisely because of the vagueness of these criteria that administrative guidelines enjoyed a certain room for manoeuvre. This left many decisions about who is legally German to the


discretion of administrative bodies that had been remarkably expansive toward ethnic Germans (Brubaker 1992). Prior to 1989, ethnic Germans who had minimal or no command of German and who had been fully assimilated in their home countries were recognized as Aussiedler. Their forced assimilation—that is, their inability to preserve the German language and culture—was interpreted as discrimination and thus reason enough to grant them citizenship. It was precisely because of their inability to display any of those criteria that they were legally recognized as a persecuted ethnic minority. If the absence of language skills for years counted as evidence for repression and an argument for the inclusion of ethnic Germans, the lack of German skills was now a ground for exclusion. Analysis of the legislative process reveals that the justifications for these changes were not made with reference to concerns over nationhood but were absorbed into the broader debate of integration and social envy. Language was no longer discussed as an ethnocultural signifier and its relationship to a narrative of victimhood, but as a prerequisite for the successful integration into German society. In sum, changes in public perceptions and the inclusion of ethnic Germans into highly politicized debates about immigration in conjunction with widely publicized restrictive state measures contributed to the official and popular decline of an ethno-cultural self-understanding. After years of highly politicized debates and governmental rhetoric about the economic and social downsides of immigration, Germans were more concerned with their socio-economic wellbeing than with the smooth integration of their ‘fellow ethnic Germans.’ They were now perceived as immigrants rather than as bearers of a particular sense of Germanness. The Universalization of Nationhood This chapter reveals how non-ethnic criteria complemented descent as desirable conditions for membership in the German nation.11 Official ethno-cultural rhetoric was gradually replaced by a discourse that situated national identity in distinctively non-ethnic terms revolving around universalistic norms. Once the ethnic German theme was absorbed into a discourse of integration, they ceased to confirm an ethno-cultural self-understanding, but instead representations of this group undermine the very homogeneous vision of Germany they used to exemplify. In contrast to the memories of successful post-war integration, the dominant frame of reference for the situation of ethnic Germans after 1989 turned on the theme of social marginality and its relationship to a multicultural society . Increasingly, the underlying theme of most published reports was that legally privileged ethnic German immigrants had become socially as marginal as other immigrant groups. Public discourse shapes the transformation of ethnic Germans from a national symbol to one representing the perils of immigration in the context of a society that is increasingly perceived in multicultural terms.12 The


demise of Germany’s ethno-cultural idiom, however, did not mean the elimination of ethnic criteria as such. Ethnic Germans are now perceived as yet another ethnic group in a multicultural society. This perception has been particularly strong since 1992, as most of them come from the former USSR. One result of their difficult integration is that ethnic German immigrants have become a popular example for both advocates and adversaries of multiculturalism.13 Debates about multiculturalism in Germany are less about the integration of foreigners than about the reconfiguration of nationhood. Different groups appropriate the experience of ethnic German immigrants for their respective positions on multiculturalism. Opponents of a multicultural society point to the social and economic perils of ethnic marginality by framing the integration of ethnic Germans with reference to rising criminality and violence, often drawing on metaphors of the American ‘inner city’. Extreme depictions of ethnic identifications are frequently invoked. Processes of self-segregation are condemned and often presented as endemic to the mentality of a group. The centre-left, the staunchest opponent to the conservative ethno-cultural rhetoric of the Kohl era, now identified ethnic Germans as a group of indigent immigrants who deserved public support not because of their nationality but because of their destitute situation. Having ignored the topic of ethnic Germans for over two decades, mostly because of its official association with ethnocultural themes, some forces on the left now capitalized on the failed integration to promote their vision of a heterogeneous society. They appropriated the marginal position of ethnic German immigrants as a public theme focusing on the problems that strangers encounter in a society that subscribes to the myth of ethnic homogeneity. According to this view, the marginal position of ethnic German immigrants has become a gateway for the legitimization of a multicultural conception of German society. Representations of ethnic Germans are no longer antithetical to a pluralistic vision of society, but are part of a discourse in which the right to particularistic identities is celebrated in universalistic terms. For the most part, they serve as an illustration that Germany, after all, is ‘a country of immigration’ and that ethnonational traditions of the homogeneous Volk are less salient. CONCLUSIONS Germany’s citizenship doctrine and practice has changed. In the autumn of 1998 a centre-left coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and the ecological Green Party was elected. Their first policy decision was to introduce a bill that would reform citizenship legislation and be more inclusive toward millions of guest workers who have been living in Germany since the 1950s, essentially introducing elements of ius soli.14 The changing status of ethnic Germans expressed in restrictive policies, negative perceptions and a broad recognition that they are part of a debate about immigration rather than a privileged group have informed a discourse where ethno-cultural criteria no longer carry symbolic or political


weight. The proposal also contained a provision for ‘dual citizenship’, allowing new Germans to keep the passports of their countries of origin. Without dual citizenship, earlier administrative easing of naturalization procedures remained insignificant since the majority of eligible foreigners was unwilling to give up their original citizenship. The dual citizenship provisions became a topic of heated political and public controversy. It reinforced the argument stating that attempts to redefine citizenship in Germany are about questions of national self-understanding and the imagined boundaries of the national community. This citizenship controversy is not about potential immigration but rather about what the criteria for becoming German should be for those foreigners already in Germany. The controversy illuminates the ways in which the ethno-cultural code has been bereft of its political and cultural relevance. The inaugural speech of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in November 1998 and the ensuing debate about dual citizenship offer illustrative examples for the official reconfiguration of German national self-understanding and the concomitant weakening of ethno-cultural values. In contrast to Kohl, Schröder does not mention ethnic Germans in his speech. Instead he focuses on Germany’s extensive group of guest workers and emphasizes the need to reform Germany’s citizenship regulations: ‘This government will develop a modern citizenship law. … Nobody who wants to become German will have to repudiate or deny their foreign roots. Therefore we will allow dual citizenship’ (speech to Bundestag, 10 November 1998). The citizenship initiative was strongly contested by the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU). Shortly after the government announced its plans, the Christian Democrats initiated a campaign against the ‘dual citizenship’ provision. It literally took its objections to the street, collecting signatures against the proposed measure.15 Critics from the centre left and even the right were alarmed by the populist element of the signature campaign. They accused the Christian Democrats of playing on the fears of the resident population and creating fertile ground for xenophobia. Moreover, they blamed them for engaging in electoral politics since the campaign coincided with upcoming state elections in the State of Hesse. The elections were hyped as a referendum on the governing SPD/ Greens coalition and its citizenship reform. The Christian Democrats won the state elections. Pressured by the strong support for the ongoing signature campaign and concerned about a lasting electoral backlash resulting in the loss of a majority in the Upper House of parliament, the Social Democrats agreed to reconsider its initial proposals for dual citizenship. One could surmise that the rejection stance on ‘dual citizenship’ is a sign of the persistence of ethno-cultural conceptions. To be sure, some far right members of the Christian Democrats and the Bavarian CSU openly expressed concerns about the possibility that millions of Muslims would become German citizens, a sentiment certainly shared by a significant portion of the native population. However, the objections by Christian Democrats to the citizenship


proposals did not refer to any of the ethno-cultural tropes that had characterized debates on citizenship in the early 1990s. Instead, objections against dual citizenship were primarily raised in the context of concerns with integration and in terms of alleged problems with dual loyalties. During the 1980s and early 1990s, opponents of dual citizenship for Germany’s Turkish immigrant minority ritualistically invoked the formula that ‘Germany is not a country of immigration’. Since the mid 1990s, mainstream objections to the incorporation of Turks have no longer been conducted with reference to an ethno-cultural vocabulary but have been absorbed into a functional approach that centers on the conditions of successful integration.16 Statements by Günther Beckstein (CSU)—the Bavarian Minister of the Interior —a fierce opponent of dual citizenship and on the right of the political spectrum, are instructive. He writes in the conservative newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ): Naturalization has to stand at the end of integration, not its beginning. The cardinal mistake of the proposal is the general acceptance of dual citizenship as it is an obstacle to integration… the proposal lacks a concept for the solution of pressing integration questions as well as a test of language competency. That reduces their integration chances, especially since more and more parents send their children to attend schools in their home country and only return them after they have completed school. Without sufficient language skills they have less of a chance of being integrated in the labour market (FAZ, 24 January 1999). Reliance on language skills as a prerequisite for labour market integration rather than language as a cultural marker of nationality is reminiscent of the argument that is used to determine whether people from Eastern Europe are granted the status of ethnic German immigrants. Concerns over the social effects of immigration rather than ethno-cultural attributes of immigrants inform debates about citizenship. Successful integration into the social fabric is perceived as the primary issue for becoming a national, and language rather than descent its chief expression. A second objection to dual citizenship revolves around the question of alleged loyalty conflicts and speaks to the theme of belonging. Opponents of dual citizenship invoke scenarios in which dual loyalties stand in contradiction to the idea that one’s primary collective commitment should focus on the country of which one is a citizen. According to Beckstein (CSU), ‘the German government thereby [with dual citizenship] indicates that it is not even demanding full loyalty to Germany’ (FAZ, 24 January 1999). Opponents of dual citizenship point to the potential loyalty conflicts resulting from the exercising of one’s civic duties. It is not uncommon to draw up examples such as: ‘Imagine a German-Turkish policeman has to protect a Kurdish demonstration from Turkish counter-demonstrators or a German-Serbian Bundeswehr soldier had to protect


Kosovo Albanians from an attack by Serbs. That endangers the domestic peace.’ (Beckstein, FAZ, 24 January 1999) The question of civic and political loyalty is an important and legitimate concern for the state, although it seems that immigrants, when forced to choose, usually display political loyalty to their country of settlement (Rex and Drury 1994). Once immigration is predicated on integration and loyalty rather than on descent, choices can be made, both by immigrants themselves and by the state. This is the decisive political aspect of the controversy rather than the xenophobic subtext and popular anti-immigrant sentiments of the signature campaign. Faced with mounting public opposition to its plan and the loss of a parliamentary majority in Germany’s upper house, the governing red-green coalition agreed to abandon its original proposal for dual citizenship. Eventually a compromise was reached and the government unveiled a revised version that was ratified in May 1999 and went into effect on 1 January 2000. It incorporated a previous FDP proposal to allow children born of foreign parents who had been in Germany legally for at least eight years to be dual nationals until age 23, at which point they would lose German nationality if they did not renounce their parents’ nationality. Questions about dual citizenship deflected attention from the real incision into Germany’s body politic. The government made it clear that it agreed to the compromise in order to pursue its central goal, namely its broader effort to reform Germany’s citizenship legislation by introducing elements of ius soli and making naturalization easier. The new law awards children born on German soil a German passport. Since ius soli does not hinder integration—on the contrary— nor does it relate to split loyalties, it has not been contested. Ethno-cultural considerations have been relegated to the fringes of Germany’s political discourse as debates about immigrants, including ethnic Germans, have shifted from a national rhetoric to preoccupations with social integration. Occasional ethno-cultural references continue to exist as a mechanism of exclusion against immigrants. However, since it also tends to exclude ethnic Germans—not to mention the continuously antagonistic relationship between West and East Germans—the ethno-cultural code remains a weak category for collective identification let alone mobilization. Tensions between native residents and ethnic German immigrants are not merely a function of distributive struggles. These conflicts also existed in the post-war period. However, 50 years later, the dissonance between the ethno-cultural code and emerging politicalcultural traditions in Germany seem irreconcilable. Germanness is predicated on the ability to partake in ‘new traditions’ that are distinctive for the Federal Republic which are, for the most part, based on its economic accomplishments and firm integration into the Western democratic alliance. The post-Cold War period experience of ethnic Germans differs from the official memories of expellees’ post-war integration. Like the expellees, they are not a homogeneous group in terms of cultural traditions and dialects. In contrast to the majority of expellees, most ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union,


especially the younger generation have little command of the German language (Dietz and Hilkes 1994). Furthermore, in contrast to the post-war period when the entire population shared the experience of economic reconstruction, differences between long-time residents and newcomers in the post-Cold War period persist. Overall then, the reception of ethnic Germans after unification implied a new process. German identity had changed so much—and with it the international position of Germany that had justified the earlier discourse—that the old discourse was unusable. This time, ethnic German immigrants had the opposite effect they had had 40 and 50 years earlier. Instead of solidifying the country around an ethno-cultural identity, they highlighted just how much it had changed. NOTES 1 It should be noted that this was not merely a German decision but also a praxis promoted by the Soviet Union which deported ethnic Germans and enforced various measures of discrimination against them. 2 Brubaker juxtaposes ‘Germany’s Volk-centered and differentialist understanding of nationhood against France’s state-centered and assimiliationist one’ (1992:1). 3 This article is part of a larger project that examines political debates about ethnic Germans in three distinctive periods including the first post-war decade, the late 1960s and early 1970s (see Levy 1999). 4 The official-political dimension consists of an examination of parliamentary speeches. Parliamentary debates are complemented with keynote speeches that refer to ethnic Germans (e.g. Berichte zur Lage der Nation—State of the Nation addresses, Regierungserklärungen—governmental declarations and inaugural addresses). In addition, the official governmental stance towards ethnic Germans as expressed in a monthly publication called Info-Dienst Deutsche Aussiedler is analysed. The government distributes this publication to state agencies, the press, policy-makers and voluntary organizations involved with the integration of ethnic Germans. 5 The institutional dimension of legislative measures reflects how memory of ethnic Germans has been institutionalized in citizenship regulations and how legislation, in turn, shapes public perceptions. 6 Public discourse about ethnic Germans is particularly salient in the post-Cold War era when the number of ethnic German immigrants rose dramatically. Key editorials from leading national newspapers are examined. The analysis of these editorials is complemented with relevant opinion surveys. This allows distinguishing between public and publicized modes of representation. 7 In 1990, when questioned about the advantages and disadvantages of labour market participation of different ethnic groups, 46 per cent of Germans saw the presence of labour migrants as advantageous (17 per cent as disadvantageous), whereas only 13 per cent responded affirmatively for ethnic German immigrants and 53 per cent thought of their presence as disadvantageous (ALLBUS 1990). 8 In a 1990 survey, public opinion indicated that 83 per cent of Germans wanted to restrict immigration access for ethnic Germans, of whom 20 per cent wanted to end


9

10

11

12

13

14

their immigration altogether. Only 17 per cent thought they should continue to enjoy privileged access to citizenship. This is even more striking when we compare these figures with the relatively high level of approval for employees from EU countries (almost one-third) and for Übersiedler from East Germany (almost one quarter) (ALLBUS 1990). In a 1996 survey, the number of people who wanted to restrict the immigration of ethnic Germans rose to 85 per cent (ALLBUS 1996). The main legislative changes are expressed in the Law on Allocation of Housing, Law for Establishing a Provisional Place of Residence for Late Resettlers (Gesetz über die Festlegung eines vorläufigen Wohnortes für Spätaussiedler— Wohnortzuweisungsgesetz), 1989; Integration Adjustment Law (Eingliederungsanpassungsgesetz), 1990; the Law Regulating the Reception of Resettlers (Aussiedleraufnahmegesetz), 1990; Law Dealing with Late Consequences of the Second World War (Kriegsfolgenbereinigungsgesetz), 1992. In addition, many administrative guidelines were changed in the aftermath of unification, most notably the institution of stringent language tests for applicants for ethnic German immigration status in 1996 (see Chapter 16). Despite its attempts to separate ethnic Germans from the larger immigration theme, the government ultimately yielded to public and political pressures and instituted a yearly quota of approximately 200,000. The government has been jubilant about its ability to reduce the number of ethnic German immigrants ever since. When asked in 1996 which criteria Germans deem as the most important condition for naturalization, not having a criminal record was listed first (86 per cent), followed by concerns that those to be naturalized can provide for their own livelihood (78 per cent), have long lived in Germany (73 per cent), speak German (66 per cent), have adjusted to a German lifestyle (62 per cent) and are born in Germany (60 per cent). Only then was German descent listed (54 per cent) (ALLBUS 1996). There is little consensus about the concept of multiculturalism (Leggewie 1993), but there is some agreement that the term is closely connected to the notion of ethnicity and related issues of national identity (Joppke 1998). Groups are identified on the basis of their cultural properties. The term multiculturalism has multiple uses, sometimes applied as a descriptive and analytic device, other times used as a prescriptive category and sometimes as a tool for both (Dirke 1994). Worried about the problems they were facing, both in terms of their actual integration and with respect to their public acceptance, the federal government launched a state-wide competition ‘Vorbildliche Integration von Aussiedlern in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’ (Exemplary Integration of Ethnic Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany). The first competition started in 1991 and asked high schools and other voluntary organizations to report their experiences with the integration of ethnic Germans. Aiming to generate broader acceptance for ethnic Germans and provide local grass-roots organizations with financial and moral support, the competition was repeated in 1993 and 1996. The law, which has been in effect since 1 January 2000, affects up to three million of the seven million resident ‘foreigners’. Immigrant children born in Germany qualify temporarily for dual citizenship if one parent was under 14 upon entering the country and has remained a resident, or if one parent, at the time of the child’s birth, had lived in Germany for at least eight years and is in possession of a residence permit. Between the ages of 18 and 23 they have to opt for one of the two


passports. In addition, foreign residents who have lived for eight years (as opposed to the previous 15 years) in Germany can claim naturalization. Foreigners aged 18 or older who wish to naturalize have to pass some kind of German language test and must have no criminal record. 15 The government responded with an unconventional method by running ads featuring three young German celebrities endorsing the dual citizenship proposition. By mid-1999 the Christian Conservative opposition had collected some five million signatures. Dual citizenship remains controversial. According to surveys, 53 per cent were against it and 39 per cent in favour of it (EMNID 1999). There are clear differences based on age. Among those under 30, 50 per cent were in favour as opposed to only 28 per cent among those over 50 years of age (Newsletter/Migration und Bevölkerung, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, February 1999:3). 16 To be sure, the argument is not that all Germans subscribe to a multicultural vision of society or that tolerance levels are higher, but rather that a multiethnic society frames the mnemonic experience of nationhood for the majority of the population. West Germany’s post-war generations have not known anything but a multiethnic society. With the institutionalization of ius soli, this demographic fact is invested with an official normative power. Hence the shift from an officially sanctioned ‘we are not a country of immigration’ as an expression of a Volksgemeinschaft to the popular standpoint that ‘we do not want any more immigrants’ is interpretively and politically important.

18 Who Organizes? The Political Opportunity Structure of Co-Ethnic Migrant Mobilization Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels

Between 1987 and 1999, ethnic Germans leaving Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia for Germany (Aussiedler) totalled 2.6 million; of those, 1.8 million came from the former Soviet Union (FSU). While the circumstances— presence of grievances, high concentration (4 per cent of the population, and 15 to 30 per cent in many areas), leadership from the post-war League of Expellees (Bund der Vertriebenen)—seemed to favour mobilization, no action was taken. No leaders have yet emerged among the Aussiedler themselves. The prevalent explanations for the lack of mobilization among the post-Cold War Aussiedler (Dietz and Hilkes 1994) describe poor language skills, socialization in a communist regime, subsequent distrust of politicians in general and socialist parties in particular and an overall feeling of powerlessness in politics. Yet these same characteristics also apply to the 850,000 post-Cold War Jewish migrants to Israel from the FSU. Their Hebrew language skills were likewise generally non-existent and they were socialized in the same communist regime. Their grievances are similar to the Aussiedler’s, namely that integration or, as it is called in Israel, absorption, is not given high enough priority by the government and is failing, in comparison to previous migrations, as evidenced by such indicators as employment and housing. These so-called Russian immigrants constitute, like the Aussiedler, a high percentage of the population—about 14 per cent, and up to 40 per cent in some areas—and have ready-made leaders in émigrés, generally members of an intellectual elite, who rose to prominence as dissidents in the Soviet Union. In the Israeli case, successful mobilization has been the outcome. The post-Cold War Russian Jewish immigrants have successfully achieved parliamentary representation and influenced government policy. In Israel and Germany, both co-ethnic migrant groups receive citizenship and all associated formal rights. Each group has the legal right to become politically active within or outside the political system, nationally or on the local level, but only the Jewish immigrants to Israel have done so. Aussiedler activity, however, has been restricted to supporting roles in several rural townships. This chapter uses the lens of social movement theory to explore what factors played a role in spurring on the successful mobilization of the Jewish migrants in contrast to the non-mobilization of the German migrants.

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Israeli and German laws permitting co-ethnic migration differ in their fundamental nature. Established as a ‘homeland’ for Jews, Israel has always been committed to accepting all Jews in diaspora. The 1948 Law of Return is one of the cornerstones of the Israeli state, enabling all Jews1 to immigrate to Israel. Largely in response to the Cold War, rather than purely on the basis of national self-understanding, Germany passed the 1953 Federal Expellees’ and Refugees’ Law (Bundesvertriebenen-und Flüchtlingsgesetz), which covered the admission and integration of the post-war ethnic German expellees and the future admission of ethnic Germans explicitly suffering ethnically based discrimination in communist countries. Since the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, migration flows of Jews to Israel and ethnic Germans to Germany have been dependent upon politics: in 1957 and 1958, and again in 1975, after the passage of the Helsinki Act, more ethnic Germans were able to leave Poland, while in 1970 the same applied to Jews from the USSR. As the Cold War ended, emigration skyrocketed. WELCOMING HOMELANDS: HAVEN FOR IMMIGRANTS Between 1945 and 1949, 8 million ethnic Germans were expelled or fled to the three western zones of Germany (and a further 3.6 million to the Soviet Occupation Zone) and just over 1 million Jews migrated to Israel in 1948 and 1949. Between 1950 and 1986, 1.4 million (co)ethnic immigrants came to Israel and 1.3 million to Germany. At the end of the Cold War, however, the numbers once again rose steeply: between 1987 and 1998, 880,000 Jews immigrated to Israel and 2.5 million ethnic Germans to Germany. The social and political systems of Israel, based on immigration, were constructed with the goal of bringing Jews to Israel and easing their absorption process. The World Zionist Organization established branches across the world where Jews could state their intention to immigrate and receive assistance with the process, retaining this role even after the Ministry for Immigrant Absorption was formed in 1968. Once in Israel, immigrants must learn Hebrew, a language few speak prior to their immigration, but are generally eager to learn, partly because of the ideological import of speaking the sacred language of the Jews, and partly because of its importance for integration. Special networks, or ulpanim, developed and funded by the Israeli government help immigrants gain a working grasp of Hebrew (Gitelman 1982:149). Housing was built based on the number of potential immigrants who declared their intent of immigrating. During the Cold War, with modest numbers of migrants, providing adequate housing and language training was unproblematic.


Figure 18.1. Israeli and German co-ethnic immigration, 1950–98 (in thousands) Sources: for Germany: Statistisches Jahrbuch 2000 (Statistical Yearbook 2000); for Israel Statistical Abstract of Israel 2001:52, Table 4.2 and 4.4a.

In Germany, Aussiedler are eligible for immediate citizenship and other privileges, including German language instruction, job retraining and low-interest housing loans. They remain in initial acceptance centres for about a week and then move to temporary housing, where they remain during their language instruction and until they find permanent housing. The Aussiedler of the 1950s to 1980s were from Poland (60 per cent), Czechoslovakia (15 per cent) or Romania (14 per cent), where many had been able to maintain the German language to some degree. While statistics are limited, anecdotal evidence suggests that these Aussiedler found jobs easily; their German skills were sufficient for employment, particularly when supplemented by twelve or, for a brief period of time, eighteen months of German language instruction. Similarly, their training was easily adaptable to German standards. In contrast to Israel, no single Ministry was created for the integration of Aussiedler, the original Ministry of the Expellees being absorbed by the Ministry of the Interior in 1969. WELCOMING HOMELAND? In Israel, with the arrival of 200,000 immigrants in 1990 and nearly 180,000 in 1991, the majority from the USSR, the institutions’ design to provide housing, Hebrew instruction, vocational training and jobs rapidly became overburdened; quick absorption was no longer guaranteed. In Germany, the number of Aussiedler reached 200,000 in 1988, in 1990, almost 400,000. As in Israel, the acceptance centres became overburdened. Unlike Israel, Germany had maintained the Aussiedler policy for political reasons—the Cold War—rather

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than ideological reasons fundamental to the existence of the state. When the Cold War ended and ethnic Germans left Central and Eastern Europe in large numbers, primarily from the USSR (after 1990), neither the German infrastructure nor the German populace was ready to accept them. In Israel, while the will for acceptance was stronger, the state’s resources likewise soon became strained. Housing shortages, ghetto formation and unemployment increasingly became problems in both states. In Israel, the emergency attempts at constructing many apartments in a short time led to the creation of areas with high percentages of immigrants, all competing for jobs. In Germany, undesirable areas, such as highrise areas in the former East Berlin, or barracks left empty in the early 1990s by the departure of Soviet and Allied troops, became areas where Aussiedler were able to find subsidized apartments. Consequently, Aussiedler ghettos formed, where unemployment, alcoholism and drug addiction rose. Likewise, unemployment has risen among recent immigrants to Israel. One survey shows that 62 per cent of immigrants were employed after two years in Israel. Seventy-eight per cent of men were employed, but only 49 per cent of women (Naveh et al. 1994:86). Official data show that, of those who immigrated after 1990, 11.1 per cent are unemployed, but of those who immigrated before 1989, only 4.3 per cent are unemployed. Moreover, of those professionals employed, between one-third and two-thirds are employed as menial labour (Cashman 1993; Mantver 1999). Comprehensive statistics are maintained in Israel, but in Germany, the official policy is that Aussiedler are German and are thus not distinguished in statistics from other Germans. Aussiedler unemployment statistics are, however, maintained for five years by the Federal Labour Market Administration (Bundesanstalt für Arbeit). Aussiedler in language instruction, job retraining (with no guaranteed employment) or shortterm make-work jobs are excluded from the figures. Thus, the given figure of 30 per cent unemployment among Aussiedler is an underestimate; an accurate figure would approach 40 to 45 per cent unemployment. MOBILIZATION VERSUS NON-MOBILIZATION: ISRAEL AND GERMANY Likud governed Israel during the high-immigration years from 1991 to 1992 and controlled absorption policies. Labour, in opposition, assumed that the new migrants from the Soviet Union would reject a socialist party, while Likud calculated that the high education level of the migrants would lead them to support Labour. Consequently, neither party initially courted the new immigrants. However, several opinion polls created uncertainty, turning the disinterest into a fight for the immigrants’ votes (Fein 1995). The traditional cleavages in Israel of ethnicity and religion—Ashkenazi versus Sephardi and religious versus non-religious Jews—were strengthened in 1992 as the largely secular Russian immigrants joined forces with Labour, the party of the nonreligious and the Ashkenazim. It is estimated that the strong support of the


Ethnic German immigrants arriving in Friedland camp, 1962. All belongings fit into an old pram. Source: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

Russian immigrants, unhappy with Likud’s absorption policies, helped Labour win the 1992 election for the first time since 1977 (Fein 1995:171). Neither of the two immigrant parties running in the 1992 election gained the 1. 5 per cent needed to win seats in the Knesset (Fein 1995: 165). However, by 1994, recent immigrants became dissatisfied with the Labour government’s absorption policies, while alarm had spread after a chance remark by a government official that immigration to Israel might be restricted. Demonstrations began to emerge as immigrants, unhappy with their unemployment and underemployment, their poor housing conditions and promises that were never kept, protested. Natan Sharansky, a prominent Soviet dissident who had immigrated in 1986, supported the cause, declaring his support for continued immigration to Israel and belief in government support of absorption. Grassroots protests continued while organization of a single immigrants’ party for the 1996 election began in earnest, with hopes that if Sharansky joined, media attention would follow (Sommer 1994), which it did, drawing international attention. The establishment of Israel Ba’aliya,2 its platform based on the continuation of immigration to Israel and higher governmental priority on absorption, made the immigrants political players. In the 1996 election, Israel Ba’aliya won seven seats in the Knesset, including two cabinet positions. The immigrants shifted their support from Labour to Likud as they continued to find fault with the

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Figure 18.2 Aussiedler migration by country of origin, 1950–99 (in thousands) Sources: Federal Statistical Office; Münz and Ohliger 1998.

formation and priority of absorption policy as administered by Labour from 1992. In part because of Benjamin Netanyahu’s close personal relationship with Natan Sharansky, as well as the upset in 1992 when the Russian immigrants granted their votes to Labour, Likud had supported the formation of Israel Ba’aliya. Netanyahu ultimately formed a coalition including Israel Ba’aliya in 1996. Israel Ba’aliya’s success was greater than had been suggested in polls, while other recent Russian immigrants also won seats independently on the Likud ticket. The impact of the immigrants’ political activity was clear: the Netanyahu government became more supportive toward immigrants after the success of Israel Ba’aliya in the 1996 elections (Cohen 1997). This success led to continued courting of the immigrants. As reflected in party platforms, Russian immigrants were clearly the various parties’ primary target in the 1999 elections. The Russian immigrants did turn out in force and once again influenced the elections. Aussiedler were not, and are not, specifically targeted by any party. The general assumption was that, having left a communist country, they would not support a Socialist or Social Democratic party. Furthermore, they were seen as having a lifestyle that was outdated and, hence, would tend toward being conservative. Thus, the Christian Democrats (CDU) relied upon their votes while the Social Democrats (SPD) discounted them. Although the migration flow of the Aussiedler to Germany took off two years before that of the Russian Jews to Israel, no organization on the scale of the Israeli immigrant organization had emerged by 2000. In the 1990 federal elections, the Aussiedler do not appear to have played a role. However, Chancellor Kohl’s narrow victory in the 1994 elections may very well have been, in part, the result of the nearly two million Aussiedler who tended to vote for the Christian Democrats (Münz and Ohliger


1997:23), just as his loss in 1998 is at least partially attributable to disillusioned Aussiedler who chose either not to vote at all or to support other parties. Local self-help organizations began to emerge, supplementing the large Protestant and Catholic charity organizations. Russian language newspapers were founded. In the 1996 Baden-Württemberg state election, Oskar Lafontaine, then federal chairman of the Social Democrats, suggested that ethnic German migration should be sharply restricted, accusing the migrants of living off welfare benefits and pensions. One survey showed that some 70 per cent of Germans agreed with Lafontaine (Karacs 1996). Another 1996 survey showed that over 60 per cent of Germans agreed that too many Aussiedler live in Germany (Noelle-Neumann and Köcher 1997, 639). Although the Aussiedler theme became central to the Baden-Württemberg election, the Social Democrats lost. Despite Baden-Württemberg’s traditional leanings towards Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the outcome was surprising, given the strong support for Lafontaine’s comments. One explanation is that the Aussiedler, by that point already numerically quite strong in Baden-Württemberg, voted against the Social Democrats (SPD) on the basis of Oskar Lafontaine’s remarks. Even today, Aussiedler have reservations against voting for the SPD, not because of its social democratic leanings, but because of Lafontaine’s comment, cited in Russian language papers, that he would prefer accepting asylum-seekers to Aussiedler. Nonetheless, moving away from CDU support, there are signs that more Aussiedler supported SPD in the 1998 federal elections, as they became discontented with Chancellor Kohl’s cutbacks in Aussiedler benefits, particularly pensions.3 By 1998, about ten Aussiedler had achieved seats on town councils in areas where they constituted approximately 20 per cent of the population. These seats theoretically provide Aussiedler with representation on local councils, but realistically, they are ignored by the others as either incompetent or unimportant (interviews, February 1998). These local gains may yet translate into more general Aussiedler organization—one meeting in February 1998 bringing these council members together, was, however, only a forum for a litany of problems specific to Aussiedler and resulted in no concrete plans for action. One organization, Heimat (homeland), was formed in 1998 with political aspirations (Der Spiegel, August 1998:64–6), but did not get off the ground, largely due to its self-identification as a group for Russian Germans, whereas a plurality of Aussiedler wish simply to be Germans. This division in identity led to the rejection of the group by many Aussiedler (interviews, February 1998) and has hindered future organization.

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THE POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY OF CO-ETHNIC MOBILIZATION Political opportunity structure (POS), or the likelihood of groups to enter the political system and exert political power, helps explain the differences in political mobilization in the Israeli and German cases. When the POS is favourable, protest is somewhat more likely to occur than when the POS is such that the political system is inaccessible to external groups. Three elements of the political context affect POS: governmental responsiveness, level of community resources and environmental elements imposing constraints or opening avenues for citizen action (Eisinger 1973). Not only the constellation of elements is important, but also the potential actors’ perception of success in mobilization: will it be worth their time and effort to undertake this action? (Tarrow 1994:85). They must believe that their collective action can solve the problem (McAdam et al. 1996). Furthermore, POS can either be applicable to one group within society or to an entire society. The structure of political opportunities varies among systems: what is possible in a federal multiparty system is not possible in an authoritarian system with oneparty rule or even in a centralized or federal state with a two-party system. Herbert Kitschelt developed a four-part schema for categorizing states in an attempt to explain and predict mobilization. Table 18.1 Predictors of mobilization Political input structures Open

Closed

Political output structures Weak Source: Kitschelt 1986.

Strong United States

Sweden W. Germany

France

The open state is characterized by the following criteria. First, how many political parties sit in parliament? A multiparty system enables new parties to enter more easily, denoting openness. Germany has a small number of political parties in the legislature, limited by a clause requiring a party to win at least 5 per cent of the popular vote in order to win seats in Parliament. Israel has a similar threshold, but at 1.5 percent it is significantly lower than the German hurdle. In Israel, Labour was the major coalition partner in power until 1977, when Likud won its first election. Since then, the number of parties has skyrocketed, particularly with new regulations in the 1996 elections permitting voters to cast one vote for prime minister and one for the Knesset. Second, the capacity of the legislature to develop and control policies aside from the executive is important for determining the openness of a state. How easy is it for these multiple parties to enact legislation, that is, to affect the policy


process? Again, the easier it is for the legislature to act on its own, the more open the system is judged to be. Neither in Germany nor in Israel is the legislature particularly powerful on its own; the chancellor/prime minister and cabinet ministers play much stronger roles. Third, how strong are links between interest groups and the executive? Can an interest group easily and effectively introduce its platform to the government? Stronger links indicate a more open system. In Israel as well as in Germany, these links are fairly weak. Finally, according to Kitschelt, can groups articulate their demands easily and can these demands make their way into the process of policy making? Do mechanisms exist that aggregate demands, thus making entry into the policy making process possible? Entry into the policy-making process is difficult in both Israel and Germany (Kitschelt 1998). The weakness or strength of a state is, in turn, defined by the following criteria: First, what degree of centralization does a state have? A more federal structure tends to make policy implementation difficult, thus weakening the state’s strength. Israel is a highly centralized state, Germany a federal one, rendering Germany weaker, according to Kitschelt’s schema. Second, how much control does the government have over economic policy-making? What is the public share of the GDP? The stronger the state role in economics, the stronger it is judged to be. Third, is the judiciary independent? A strong and independent judiciary which intervenes in resolution of policy conflict weakens the state to some extent. The judiciary maintains its independence in both Israel and Germany. Based on these criteria, Kitschelt concludes that Germany is a weak, closed state. We can extend his analysis and conclude that Israel is a strong, somewhat closed state. Germany’s federal system, characterized by a complex network of policymaking institutions (Katzenstein 1987) is an inherently weak structure. The independent judiciary contributes to this weakness, as do restrictions on government role in the private market. Israel, on the other hand, is a strong centralized state with strong state control in the economic market. Despite its weakness, the German system can be characterized as closed, with restricted entry to the party system (5 per cent rule), a weak legislature and an inaccessible executive. While the closed nature of the input system makes it difficult for groups to enter the system, at the same time, the weak nature of the state does not offer much resistance to a potential mobilizing group. For challengers attempting to break into the political system, Israel’s multiparty system offers an easier path via formal means, whereas informal strategies can be more successful in Germany, as the Green Party discovered with its history of protest politics resulting in entry into the German parliament in 1986 and becoming the junior coalition partner in the government with the SPD in 1998.

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Case Studies The differences in the Israeli and German political and economic systems thus provide the background for a discussion of the differential mobilization of coethnic migrants. However, Israel and Germany differ not only in terms of political and economic system, but also in terms of social system. As a country of immigration, Israel has not only developed a number of institutional integration measures, but has also prepared its citizens—over one-third of whom, in 1997, had immigrated to Israel themselves—to accept immigrants. The immigrants themselves are prepared to undergo a difficult period of adaptation with the government’s help. Germany, on the other hand, with sizeable co-ethnic immigration, remains reluctant to call it such. The Aussiedler are ‘returning’ to Germany and are expected to fit in immediately. There is little institutional arrangement for the Aussiedler, while the Aussiedler themselves come to Germany with the expectation that they should fit in immediately— which they often do not. On the other hand, since the Jews are, in fact, ‘immigrating’ to Israel, they are not expected to speak Hebrew or to know Israeli customs, and are instructed accordingly, to some extent even before immigration. Germany’s largest group of co-ethnic migrants, the expellees of 1945–48, were all German speakers, and subsequent Aussiedler came either from parts of Poland which had been part of Germany until 1945, or from adjacent territories and from Romania, where German was still widely spoken among the German minority and German-language churches and schools were widespread. The postCold War Aussiedler come from Kazakhstan and Siberia (see Figure 18.2). While Germans had been able to maintain a vibrant culture in the Russian Volga Republic, Stalin’s 1941 deportation of the Germans to Siberia and Kazakhstan guaranteed that German culture would disappear. Consequently, only the generation that had finished schooling by 1940, those who are today at least 70 years old, is completely fluent in German. Ties to Germany are generally outdated and based on pre-war traditions. In Israel, the earlier waves of immigration covered the world—Jews arrived from Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe, the United States and Central and Eastern Europe. Each of these waves was integrated in Israel—some to a lesser, others to a higher degree, yet no one particular area of origin outnumbered the others as thoroughly as the Russian Jewish migrants have done in the 1990s. Each of the past waves retained some aspect of their culture and/or traditions, and these from part of Israel’s very identity. Indeed, the many waves of immigration created two deep cleavages in Israeli society: ethnic and religious. Along the ethnic cleavage, Ashkenazic Jews (of European origin) and Sephardic Jews (of Middle Eastern or African origin) are distinguished from one another as are, along the religious cleavage, ultra-Orthodox versus less religious or nonreligious Jews. Both of these cleavages have brought acrimony and violence to Israel.4 While there are stronger complaints among native Israelis about the large


post-Cold War wave of Russian immigration than about any other immigration wave, other groups of Jews have been subjected to discrimination as well; in the mid-1990s, when Ethiopian Jews discovered that their blood donations were discarded for fear of HIV contamination, it became clear that ethnic divisions persisted in Israeli society. While mobilization by Russian Jews brought attention to them as a group, some of it negative, each immigration wave has become politically active, while maintaining some aspect of its original culture. In Germany, on the other hand, the primary distinction between residents is that between Germans and foreigners,5 leading Germans to identify Aussiedler as foreigners because of their poor command of German. Meanwhile, Aussiedler themselves protest that they are Germans. In this environment, mobilization or organization would serve only to highlight the difference. Many Aussiedler thus prefer to remain as quiet as possible, hoping that things will improve of their own accord. Expectation versus Reality Co-ethnic immigration differs from other forms of immigration; migrants have a privileged status and a different perception of their new home. Many ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe were raised on glowing family stories, if not from parents, then from grandparents, of their German homeland. Jews in the Soviet Union were often Zionists, believing in the traditional aliya, or ascent, into the Jewish homeland of Israel, and many were even imprisoned for their support of Zionism. Both groups of migrants, discriminated against on ethnic or religious bases in Central and Eastern Europe, dreamed of returning to a homeland where they would be welcomed with open arms and accepted as belonging to the same group. Thus, integration is doubly difficult. Not only are there problems such as language, housing and employment, but there is the question of belonging. In Israel, the tradition of immigration is one of integration while maintaining at least some aspects of one’s original culture. In Germany, the only regional differences readily accepted are those within the borders of the Federal Republic of Germany. Post-war expellees, who have been living in Germany for over fifty years, complain that their Silesian or Sudetenland culture is still rejected. Despite the ethnic mix in Israel, absorption has become more difficult since the end of the Cold War. The number of new immigrants has overburdened the system and the patience of native Israelis. The welcome is starting to be no easier in Israel than in Germany. Grievances The presence of grievances is assumed as a prerequisite in all mobilization literature. No group will mobilize, indeed, few groups would form, without having specific grievances. However, the mere existence of grievances is not enough to spark mobilization (Eisinger 1973; Wayland 1993; McAdam et al.

WHO ORGANIZES? 295

1996). A perception that collective mobilization can help solve the problem is necessary as well. Both groups of migrants have grievances, yet only one has mobilized. What differences are there between these groups on the basis of grievances? The problems which a minority of Aussiedler experienced prior to the end of the 1980s became much more widespread in the 1990s. In a 1994 survey, 25 per cent of Aussiedler complained about societal and community problems and 31 per cent complained of few or poor personal relationships. However, problems in the social sphere were supplemented by outright hostility in public interaction. Nearly 50 per cent experienced rejection by the native population at work, an equal percentage in their neighbourhoods and nearly one-third in governmental offices. This rejection also had a more general effect: well over a third felt that they were, as Aussiedler, unwelcome in Germany and somewhat over half felt that they are only partially welcome (Dietz and Hilkes 1994:79–85). Anecdotal evidence in Israel suggests a similar situation. These two groups of migrants clearly have grievances, which must, however, be put into context. Compared to the FSU, the circumstances in Israel or in Germany are not necessarily worse. Food and shelter can be paid for with welfare payments, even if there are no jobs. However, in comparison with previous decades’ migrants, the immigrants of the 1990s have a bleaker future. The emphasis placed on immigration in Israel allows post-Cold War immigrants to recognize that they have not been treated as well as previous immigrants. Israel welcomes immigrants and, by keeping statistical track of their achievements and difficulties, creates a paper trail of the absorption process. Nearly every Jewish immigrant settling in Israel seeks to become an Israeli, not only improving the lives of his or her own family, but also contributing to the state of Israel. Indeed, the history of Israel has been that immigrants become involved in Israeli society; their immigration to Israel is not purely self-serving, but is also intended to help Israel. Germany does not maintain such records, making a comparison more difficult, nor does it have such a tradition. Common Purpose and Solidarity The post-Cold War immigrants are overwhelmingly Ashkenazim from postSoviet successor states, whereas previous post-war waves were more equally divided between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Thus, the post-Cold War migrants are ethnically distinguished from natives and other previous immigrants and, in terms of national origin, already have a common identity (see Figure 18.3). They have felt slighted in the process of absorption and are pressing for two distinct issues: improvement in absorption and continued immigration to Israel. While, in the 1992 election, the immigrants had not yet consolidated their grievances, by 1996, they united behind one party, Israel Ba’aliya, and were able easily to elect seven Knesset members (of a total 120). In the 1999 elections, two immigrants’ parties ran in the election, winning


Figure 18.3. Jewish migrants of Asian/African and European origin (in thousands)

eleven seats altogether. Until mid-2000, Israel Ba’aliya held one cabinet position (Sharansky as interior minister) and one deputy minister position. In Germany, the issue is less clear-cut. Until 1990, most Aussiedler came from Poland and after 1990 from the former Soviet Union. There is little contact between Aussiedler from different countries of origin; they may have ethnicity in common, but have no language in common. Even among the Aussiedler from the FSU, a common identity is difficult to discern. Some Aussiedler say that they are German and want to be regarded as such, while others believe that their distinctive Aussiedler identity should be recognized by Germany. There is not, as in Israel, a long public history of absorption, of the transition from immigrant to native. Many Aussiedler believe that the German government has assisted as much as it can, and that they are now responsible. Others maintain that their initial acceptance was adequate, but complain that their German language course was too short and that they do not qualify for job retraining, particularly with poor German. A more fundamental difference in identity is between those who believe they should attempt to learn and speak German among themselves and those who believe in maintaining Russian as their primary communication and identity vehicle.6 This lack of common identity makes a transfer to a common purpose, such as improvement in integration or continued immigration, difficult. The differences in belief among Aussiedler on integration hinder them from organizing on that basis. While some Aussiedler believe that ethnic Germans should be continue to allowed to migrate to Germany, others feel that enough is enough. Again, there is no consensus. If anything, the common identity and purpose in the Aussiedler case is simply a wish to fade away and fit in through inconspicuousness.

WHO ORGANIZES? 297

Access to Resources Resources can be widely defined as anything which is necessary for organization: access to the media, contact with one another, time and financial backing. In Israel, media access was enhanced when Natan Sharansky, already a well-known figure in Israel, joined Israel Ba’aliya. Two years before he joined the party, papers were already speculating about the possibility of Sharansky leading a new immigrants’ party. In addition, several well-publicized stories about the poor housing conditions for Russian immigrants—in comparison to earlier waves of immigrants—had already focused Israelis’ attention on the new immigrants. To be sure, a number of negative news stories about growing problems of alcoholism and crime among the Russian Jewish immigrant community also appeared. It was precisely these stories that Russian Jewish immigrants wished to confront in establishing their own political party. For Aussiedler, access to the media is limited and press coverage is often negative. The majority of the newspaper stories revolve around the poor German skills of the Aussiedler, unemployment, alcoholism and, increasingly, fights between unemployed Aussiedler youths and Turkish or Bosnian youths. Success stories remain unnoticed, as the negative stories receive the majority of the press coverage. Indeed, the coverage of Heimat—one article—was written in a tone which suggested that the Aussiedler were not really Germans and that their political party, as such, was a hopeless case. This negative media coverage has hurt the Aussiedler’s chance of having their problems taken seriously and has not increased sympathy for their situation. The general German view is that the Aussiedler are lucky to have been admitted to Germany at all, and are already being given far too much.7 In Israel, the media paint a far more balanced picture, avoiding the one-sided negative reporting in Germany. The availability of the resource of time is scarce both for Jewish and German immigrants. For those immigrants who are unemployed, language skills are often a problem, creating a communication barrier with the government institutions. Those with jobs often only find cleaning jobs or other low-paying, time-intensive jobs which leave little time for organization (interviews, 1997 and 1998). Nevertheless, the Russian Jewish immigrants have found the time to organize, while the Aussiedler have not. The explanation here lies in the perception of success in mobilization: in Israel, success appeared to be possible. In Germany, the possibility of success was too far away to grasp; the Aussiedler are more likely to be resigned to their situation. Contact among recent immigrants appears to be far better in Israel than in Germany. The new housing settlements created specifically for immigrants help create contacts. Meanwhile, immigrants’ associations also foster personal and social contacts. Various social organizations for Aussiedler in Germany offer social settings as well as practical information, but are generally attended by the elderly; working-age people, whether employed or unemployed, seldom come to meetings. Here, the perception of the immigrants is decisive. In Israel,


immigrants expect daily life in Israel to be radically different. Many of them realize that immigration entails learning about a new system, coming to terms with new customs and daily life and, thus, are willing to go to meetings. In Germany, the expectation among Aussiedler is that they are returning home. Thus, everything should be second nature to them—immediately. This attitude, as well as that of resignation, contributes to the unwillingness of Aussiedler to frequent such organizations. The lack of social contact contributes to nonmobilization: social isolation contributes to a ‘tendency of people to explain their situation as a function of individual deficiencies rather than as features of the system’ (McAdam et al. 1996:9). That is to say, protest would achieve nothing, since the problem is not with the system, but with the individual. Protests such as one in Israel, where 300 men with professional training who now clean streets protested their lack of adequate employment (Cashman 1993), are unheard of. Small wonder, since Aussiedler do not seem to feel ‘optimistic that, acting collectively, they can redress the problem’ (McAdam et al. 1996:5). Points of Access to System A change in the election procedure came into effect in 1996 in Israel permitting voters to cast two votes—one for the prime minister and one for a party, thus allowing tickets to be split: for instance, permitting voters to cast one vote for the peace process and one for domestic policies. This move, intended to lessen the strength of the smaller parties, had precisely the opposite effect, allowing more small parties, including Israel Ba’aliya, to enter the Knesset. This change in rules certainly played a role in the entry of the immigrants’ party to the Knesset in 1996, permitting seven seats and two cabinet posts to go to members of the Russian immigrant party, and again played a role in 1999. Bearing the 5 per cent barrier in mind, Germany’s system allows entry on every level; it is on the local level that Aussiedler have broken into the system. The other possibility of entering into the German Parliament (Bundestag) is to achieve three direct mandates, or a clear majority in a district. If a party wins three local voting districts outright, it will then be allocated the percentage of seats in the Bundestag accorded to it by the percentage of votes it received, even if under 5 per cent. Governmental Responsiveness Ethnic migrants differ from other migrants in that they expect to be welcomed and to fit into their new home. When the government provides support and the framework for further action, co-ethnic migrants will respond, as have the Jewish immigrants. In the German case, the Kohl government (CDU/CSU, FDP; in office until September 1998) treated the Aussiedler as objects of policy, never consulting the Aussiedler about any policy changes. The Schröder government elected in 1998 (SPD-Greens) promptly changed the focus of Aussiedler policy,

WHO ORGANIZES? 299

allocating more funds to the integration of Aussiedler already in Germany, and giving less funds to Germans still in Central and Eastern Europe. This new policy may yet affect the Aussiedler’s quiescence. Presence of Influential Allies Although the presence of the post-war expellees’ organizations would seem to give the Aussiedler a strong ally, no advantage can be identified. Aussiedler draw little support from politicians, as Aussiedler policy is generally regarded as outdated. It is only since the election of the SPD-Greens government in 1998 that integration problems of Aussiedler have been recognized. The Aussiedler commissioner appointed in 1998, Jochen Welt, spoke openly about the problems, marked more funds for integration and, for the first time, is drawing Aussiedler themselves into the planning. The situation changed after the end of the Kohl government, which refused to acknowledge integration problems, and thus, effectively made helping Aussiedler a contradiction of the government policy. In the Israeli case, the strong showing of the Russian immigrants in the 1992 election, tipping Labour into power, showed the government that the immigrants not only had the potential for political power, but were also willing to use it. When protests began in 1993 and 1994 for a higher priority for absorption, Likud —in opposition—began to support the immigrants’ quest for representation. The emergence of Natan Sharansky as the leader of the immigrants’ party brought national media attention to the movement, as well as creating a political leader with whom two successive Israeli prime ministers, Netanyahu and Barak, formed governments. State Capacity for Repression State capacity for repression is often cited as a factor in the mobilization of indigenous peoples in quasi-dictatorial regimes. Israel and Germany are hardly likely to move against people they have willingly included in the polity, yet the migrants’ perception plays a role. Both these groups of migrants came from a state where repression was an integral part of the system. Many Jewish immigrants spent periods in jail as dissidents and many of the Germans still remember their period in internment camps until 1956. Thus, Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Aussiedler might fear a state capacity for repression even in states where such repression is highly unlikely.


Table 18.2 Comparison of significant factors for POS of co-ethnic migrant groups in Israel and Germany Grievances Access to system Common identity Governmental support Israel Yes Germany Yes

Yes Somewhat

Yes No

Yes No

Allies Yes No

CONCLUSION The strong migrant leadership in Israel is crucial, while the lack of social contact among Aussiedler is detrimental to their organizational capacities. Many of the structural or infrastructural problems relating to the migrants’ integration and organizational difficulties may be attributed to the states’ attitudes towards the migrants. In the Israeli case, while the high numbers of immigrants in the wake of the Cold War have negatively influenced the situation, the integration and mobilization of co-ethnic migrants remains higher than that of the Aussiedler in Germany. In Israel, the raison d’être of the state rests upon continued immigration to Israel. In Germany, the series of laws affecting Aussiedler since 1989 indicate increasing restrictiveness, including a limit of 100,000 per year from 2000 on and a renewal of the Law Dealing with the Assignment of Residence until 2009. The attitudes of the respective states have an effect on the co-ethnic migrants themselves. If they feel welcomed by the state and/or government and feel that they have an opportunity to make the government listen, they will act, as in Israel. In Germany, on the other hand, Aussiedler feel that mobilization would be a waste of their time. Governmental support plays a stronger role in the mobilization of co-ethnic migrants than may have been suspected. Allies and common identity are also decisive factors in the development of the political-opportunity structure for co-ethnic mobilization. Although other factors —allies’ support, leadership, the perception of potential for success and the willingness of immigrants to mobilize and become a public presence—have been shown here to play a role, they are, in turn, influenced by the government of the receiving country itself. NOTES 1 The Law of Return mandates at least one Jewish grandparent, differing from religious law, which follows a matriarchal line. 2 The party’s name is a play on words: aliya, or immigration to Israel, also means ‘ascent’. Thus, Israel Ba’aliya not only means ‘Israel with immigration’ but also ‘Israel on the ascent’, suggesting that immigration is positive for Israel. 3 Interviews conducted by author in Berlin, Hannover and Osnabrück, Germany, 1997 and 1998.

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4 The divide between Arab and Jew is a third significant cleavage in Israel, but will be left aside here. 5 While the unification of Germany has added the distinction of West/East German, the primary identifying characteristic of residents in Germany remains German/nonGerman. 6 Interviews with Aussiedler and counsellors, 1996 and 1997; Dietz and Roll 1998. 7 Indeed, much of the legal literature on Aussiedler addresses the question of whether the granting of pensions and integration funds to Aussiedler privileges them over other German citizens, thus possibly violating the equality clause in the Basic Law. Little is made of restrictions on Aussiedler’s freedom of movement in the 1996 Law Dealing with the Assignment of Residence, renewed once again by the Bundesrat on 7 April 2000 for a period of nine years.

PART VI ISRAEL: OLD DIASPORAS AND NEW IMMIGRANTS

19 Immigration and Ethnicity in Israel: Returning Diaspora and Nation-Building Moshe Semyonov and Noah Lewin-Epstein

Israel is a multiethnic society inhabited by Jews and Arabs. The Arab minority constitutes approximately 18 per cent of the population of Israel. While Arabs have lived in this region for generations, the settlement of Jews in Palestine began at the turn of the century. In 2000, approximately 40 per cent of the Jewish population in Israel were first-generation immigrants and most of the remaining population were sons and daughters of immigrants. Jews migrated to Israel from practically every corner of the globe. Some arrived from highly developed, industrialized countries such as the United States, England, France and Germany, while others came from less developed and traditional societies, such as Ethiopia, Yemen, India and Libya. Between the years 1948 and 1995, immigration accounted for over 40 per cent of Israel’s population growth and for approximately 50 per cent of the increase in the Jewish population (Della Pergola 1998). The importance of migration for Israeli society is not only in its immense effect on the size of the Jewish population, but also on the character, structure and essence of Israeli society. That is, migration patterns have constituted a central defining characteristic of Israeli society in general and its stratification system in particular. Since migration is so central to the emergence of Israeli society and is a major component of its collective identity, one cannot understand stratification patterns within the Jewish population without considering the role played by the immigration process and immigration policies. Thus this chapter focuses on the impact of immigration on nation-building and patterns of ethnic inequality in Israeli society. MIGRATION AND POPULATION COMPOSITION Migration to Israel has several unique features. Unlike most migratory movements, migration to Israel can be characterized as a returning diaspora. Such migration is distinguished by two complementary features: first, the immigrants feel an affinity with the destination society even prior to migration and they exhibit feelings of homecoming upon arrival. Second, the host society and receiving institutions grant the newly arrived immediate and unconditional


Figure 19.1 Number of immigrants to Israel by year, 1948–99 Source: State of Israel, Central Bureau of Statistics.

acceptance. Indeed, throughout the years, the state of Israel has been ideologically committed to the successful integration of immigrants into the society. This is most evident in the Law of Return, according to which every Jew has a right to settle in Israel, and citizenship is conferred automatically upon arrival. Furthermore, immigrants can benefit from state support in the transition from country of origin to country of destination. Jewish immigrants arrived in Israel in a sequence of currents beginning at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing through to the present. It is useful to distinguish among four major and meaningful periods of immigration: immigration prior to statehood (1948), mass immigration immediately after the establishment of the state (1948–52), sporadic migration during the following three decades (1953–89), and mass exodus from the former Soviet Union (1989– 95). Changes in migration flows to Israel are quite evident from Figure 19.1. The periods immediately after statehood (1948) as well as the period between 1990 and 1995 are periods of peak migration. The periods between the two peaks, however, are characterized by a low-level, fluctuating migration rate. Figure 19.2 displays the immigration rate to Israel by the geo-cultural regions of the world from which immigrants arrived. Thus it provides information on the changes in the social and ethnic composition of the Israeli population. Two major geo-cultural groups are commonly distinguished within the Jewish population of Israel: Jews of Asian or North African (AA) descent and Jews of European or American (EA) origin. The latter group is advantaged in every aspect of social stratification, including education, occupational status and income (see Ben-Rafael 1982; Haberfeld 1993; Semyonov 1996; Smooha 1978). The first wave of migration to Palestine came mostly from Central and East European countries at the turn of the nineteenth century. This was largely an ideological migration, whose members had the goal of establishing a homeland

IMMIGRATION AND ETHNICITY IN ISRAEL 305

Figure 19.2 Number of immigrants to Israel by geographic origin, 1948–99 Source: State of Israel, Central Bureau of Statistics.

for Jews. These immigrants established the pre-state political, economic and civil institutions which were in place at the time the State of Israel came into being. These early immigrants occupied the upper echelons of the social and economic institutions and constituted the elite of the newly founded state (Matras 1965). The second period of migration pertains to the immigrants who arrived in Israel immediately following the establishment of the State. This wave was characterized by a massive immigration of refugees from the Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, along with European survivors of the Holocaust. To appreciate the size of this immigration, it should be noted that during the first five years of independence, the Jewish population of Israel more than doubled, from 600,000 to over 1.5 million. The combination of the massive and heterogeneous immigration and the scarcity of resources in the post-war period had a detrimental effect on the socio-economic achievements of these immigrants, the consequences of which are still evident in the stratification system of contemporary Israel (Smooha 1978; Spilerman and Habib 1976; Semyonov 1996). Immigration during the following three decades was scattered and sporadic. It was mostly the result of political, social and economic events in specific countries of origin (political unrest in South American countries, the Iranian revolution, famine in Ethiopia, and so on). The rate of migration during these years was rather low and did not strain the resources of the receiving society. The year 1988 marks a turning point in immigration to Israel. Following the gradual erosion of the former Soviet Union, a mass of emigrants began an exodus from the Soviet republics. Israel was the primary viable destination for Jewish emigrants leaving the former Soviet Union. As a result, Israel, a country of 4.5 million, was faced with over 700,000 immigrants (400,000 of whom


arrived between 1989 and 1991). Although the overwhelming majority of these immigrants were of Jewish ancestry, non-Jewish family members have also arrived as immigrants.1 This new current comprised highly educated immigrants, most of whom had academic and professional training (Raijman and Semyonov 1995; Lewin-Epstein et al. 1997). COMPARING IMMIGRANT GROUPS BY SOCIOECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS Table 19.1 displays the basic characteristics of the Israeli labour force by time of immigration and by geo-cultural origin in 1974 and 1994 in order to examine the impact of immigration on patterns of ethnic stratification in Israel. The data presented in the table reveal that in each wave the immigrants from Asia or North Africa are younger and have lower levels of education than do immigrants from Europe or the United States. Asians and Africans are also characterized by lower levels of occupational status and lower levels of earnings. When the different groups of immigrants are compared over time, it becomes clear that all immigrants improved their educational levels over the years in Israel but the improvement among Jews from Asia and North Africa was much more dramatic. Nevertheless, Jews of Asian and North African descent were less successful in converting their improvement in education into occupational status and earnings. That is, the relative gaps in occupational status and earnings between immigrants from Asia/Africa and Europe/United States have not diminished. It seems that the improvement in education levels among Jews from Asia and Africa took place at the lowest end of the distribution, through educational programmes that eliminated illiteracy, but did not take place at the upper levels of the educational distribution. Table 19.1 Socio-economic characteristics (mean and standard deviations) of immigrant population by period of immigration and geo-cultural origin, 1974 and 1994 Foreign-born (1974) Immigrated: Foreign-born (1994) Immigrated: Vari Before able 1948 Ag e (in yea rs) Ed uca tion

1948– 1952

1953– 1974

Before 1948

1948– 1952

1953– 1989

1989–

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

49. 0 (12 .5)

56. 0 (10 .8)

44. 0 (12 .8)

51. 0 (13 .8)

43. 4 (13 .3)

48. 5 (14 .3)

64. 7 (11 .3)

71. 4 (11 .0)

58. 9 (10 .9)

65. 0 (12 .8)

50. 1 (14 .0)

52. 8 (17 .3)

54. 2 (19 .1)

53. 4 (18 .9)

6.6

10. 3

6.3

9.7

6.4

10. 4

9.2

10. 8

9.3

11. 0

10. 7

12. 7

7.4

12. 7


Foreign-born (1974) Immigrated: Foreign-born (1994) Immigrated: Vari Before able 1948 AA EA

1948– 1952

1953– 1974

Before 1948

1948– 1952

1953– 1989

1989–

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

AA EA

(in (4. (3. (4. (3. (4. (4. (3. (3. (3. (4. (3. (4. (5. (3. yea 6) 5) 6) 9) 8) 5) 8) 6) 7) 0) 6) 1) 4) 9) rs)* Oc 34. 43. 33. 42. 32. 43. 39. 45. 39. 50. 40. 51. 32. 38. cup 9 0 6 6 5 2 7 7 1 3 2 8 8 2 atio nal Stat (16 (18 (15 (18 (15 (21 (17 (19 (18 (20 (18 (21 (18 (21 us* .1) .4) .2) .3) .0) .2) .9) .1) .1) . .1) .7) .7) .3) * 00) Ear 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 5, 3, 6, 4, 4, 1, 2, nin 04 35 91 24 78 95 89 21 82 13 15 52 74 34 gs 3 6 5 2 6 8 6 9 0 7 0 1 2 5 (in Isra eli she kel s) (1, (1, (96 (1, (97 (1, (3, (4, (3, (8, (5, (3, (99 (1, 032 22 8) 20 7) 06 31 83 51 48 42 48 2) 80 ) 1) 6) 8) 3) 1) 1) 4) 9) 0) 3) AA: Jews of Asian or (North) African origin. EA: Jews of European or American (EA) origin. * Years of formal schooling. **100-point scale for occupational status in Israel. Source: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics: Labour Force Surveys and Income Surveys.

In this regard, it is important to note that the gaps between Asians and Africans and Europeans and Americans are most pronounced among those that arrived during the period of mass immigration, right after statehood. Furthermore, in 1994 the gaps between these immigrants had not declined but rather had increased. Apparently, almost fifty years after statehood, Asian and African immigrants who arrived in the second wave could not close the socio-economic gap. In effect, they, unlike Jews of European origin, are still victims of the special circumstances and the context of their immigration. In any event, the data show that the occupational status and earnings of all immigrants tend to improve over the years, but the disparities between immigrants of different ethnic groups have not declined. The socio-economic differences between immigrants from different regions of the world can be explained, to some extent, by different levels of human


resources and skills (that is, education) and by different cultural orientations. The data show that, regardless of the period of arrival, Jewish immigrants of Asian and African origin were characterized by lower levels of formal schooling than were Jewish immigrants of European and American origin. Even though the former group has considerably increased their level of education over the years, the gap has remained substantial. In addition, one should consider that immigrants from Asia and North Africa arrived from societies with traditional orientation, culture and values. Such sociocultural orientation is, indeed, a disadvantage in a society whose ties and connections are with the West, and which is committed to modern Western values and orientation (Ben Rafael 1982; Eisenstadt 1954). However, it is reasonable to expect that the impact of cultural orientation that was so pronounced in the first generation of immigrants would diminish in the second generation. The mean socio-economic attributes of the Israeli-born labour force population, classified by geo-cultural origin of the father, are presented in Table 19.2. Table 19.2 Socio-economic characteristics (mean and standard deviations) of Israeli-born by geocultural origin, 1994 Native-born (1994)—father born in: Variable

Asia or Africa

Europe or America Israel

F

F

M

M

F

M

Age 35.7 35.4 42.7 41.7 40.3 37.7 (in years) (9.0) (9.0) (11.0) (11.2) (14.4) (13.1) Education 11.9 11.7 13.9 14.0 13.1 13.3 (in years)* (2.7) (2.8) (3.2) (3.5) (3.5) (3.5) Occupational 43.8 41.4 54.5 54.7 52.4 52.0 status** (18.4) (16.5) (18.7) (20.3) (19.2) (20.2) Earnings (in Israeli shekels) 2,877 4,474 3,731 7,166 3,326 6,110 (1,815) (2,773) (2,769) (5,572) (3,220) (4,998) * Years of formal schooling. **100-point scale for occupational status in Israel. Source: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics: Labour Force Surveys and Income Surveys.

The figures show that the ethnic disparities among sons and daughters of immigrants—second-generation immigrants—have not vanished. That is, the gaps between Israelis of Asian or African origin and European or American origin have not declined. In fact, for the most part, the occupational and earnings gaps are more pronounced among second-generation immigrants than among first-generation immigrants, and several researchers suggest that the gaps have systematically increased (Haberfeld 1993). An explanation of this finding is rather complex. It is important to emphasize, however, that occupational and


economic gaps between ethnic groups are mostly due to educational gaps, to some extent due to differential opportunity structure (Spilerman and Habib 1976) and even to some prejudice and discrimination (Smooha 1978; Swirski 1995). ECONOMIC COSTS AS AN INDICATION OF INTEGRATION Israel is committed to nation-building and thus to the successful integration and absorption of its immigrants into the social and economic system. Immigrants tend to lose socio-economic status upon arrival to the new country but improve this status over the years due to better integration. One way to examine the extent to which immigrant integration has been successful is to estimate the economic ‘costs’ immigrants pay when compared to the native-born population and the extent to which such costs decrease with the passage of time in the new country. Such estimates can be obtained by deriving the expected earnings of an immigrant group, had their earnings been determined exactly like the Israeli-born population with similar characteristics. The difference between actual and expected earnings serves as an estimation of ‘cost’ or the ‘loss’ experienced by immigrants (for further details on the estimation procedure, see Semyonov 1996). The ‘cost’ of being an immigrant (in terms of earnings), as compared to being Israeli-born, was estimated for various immigrant groups, classified by geocultural groups, by gender and by time in Israel. The results (presented in Table 19.3) indicate that, regardless of country of origin and regardless of gender, the costs are substantial upon arrival, but small—even negligible—after more than twenty years in the new country. That is, the economic disadvantage of immigrants tends to decline with the passage of time in the host society. Table 19.3 Earnings costs* for immigrants by gender, geo-cultural origin and time since immigration: Israeli labour force, age 25–64, 1991–93 Men Geo-cultural origin and time in Israel Asian and African Under 5 years 5–10 years 10–20 years 20+ years

Women

Ln(0) Ln(E) Cost Ln(0) Observed Expected Ln(E)-Ln Observed earnings earnings* (0) earnings *

Ln(E) Cost Expected Ln(E)-Ln earnings* (0) *

7.533

7.945

0.412

6.823

6.998

0.175

7.489

7.881

0.392

7.110

7.196

0.086

7.903

8.081

0.178

7.249

7.314

0.065

7.817

8.052

0.235

7.085

7.144

0.059


Men Geo-cultural origin and time in Israel

Women

Ln(0) Ln(E) Cost Ln(0) Observed Expected Ln(E)-Ln Observed earnings earnings* (0) earnings *

Ln(E) Cost Expected Ln(E)-Ln earnings* (0) *

European and American Under 5 7.557 8.001 0.444 7.209 7.540 0.331 years 5–10 8.067 8.298 0.231 7.392 7.583 0.191 years 10–20 8.265 8.353 0.088 7.523 7.629 0.106 years 20+ years 8.199 8.252 0.053 7.487 7.593 0.106 Former Soviet Union Under 5 7.527 8.061 0.534 7.004 7.493 0.488 years 10–20 8.071 8.196 0.125 7.630 7.664 0.034 years 20+ years 8.223 8.275 0.052 7.663 7.652 −0.001 * Values are presented in terms of the natural logarithm of earnings (Israeli shekels). ** Expected earnings were estimated through regression equations predicting earnings for the relevant Israeli-born labour force population, age 25–64. For more details see Semyonov 1996. Source: Semyonov 1996.

The data reveal considerable variation in the size of the economic costs across geo-cultural groups. Whereas all ‘new arrivals’ (fewer than five years in the country) experience economic disadvantage, the disparity between actual and expected earnings is most extreme among immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The earnings disadvantage of this group of immigrants can be attributed to the special circumstances of their arrival. They came to Israel in large masses in a very short period of time. They generated remarkable pressure on the Israeli economy. The labour market, in turn, was unable to produce suitable jobs for the ‘too many’ highly educated immigrants. Consequently, these immigrants faced considerable hardships in finding suitable and rewarding jobs in the Israeli labour market; hence, the dramatic economic disparity between actual and expected earnings. It is not yet clear to what extent the unique circumstances associated with this cohort of immigrants will have a lasting effect on their future status and economic outcomes in the Israeli labour market. In general, the economic disadvantages of immigrants who have been in Israel more than twenty years are quite low. The only group that still faces considerable disadvantages in the Israeli labour market is the Asian and African group. These


immigrants (most arrived shortly after statehood in large masses as refugees from the less developed countries of the Middle East and North Africa) cannot escape the detrimental consequences of their subordinate ethnic origin and the circumstances of their arrival in Israel. That is, even after more than twenty years in Israel, Asian and African immigrants still experience economic disadvantages in comparison to the Israeli-born. Researchers have explained these disadvantages as resulting from a combination of inferior opportunity structures, prejudice and institutional discrimination (Spilerman and Habib 1976; Smooha 1978; Swirski 1995). The data suggest that those who stayed long enough in Israel (except for the Asians and Africans) were able to attain high status and more lucrative jobs. It should be noted, however, that immigrants from the highly developed countries in Europe or the United States are a select group. Unlike Asians and Africans or Russians, these immigrants can return to their country of origin if they are unsuccessful in Israel and are free to do so. That is, if unsuccessful, many of them can adopt the option of leaving Israel and returning to their home countries. Indeed, the groups of immigrants from Europe and the United States are those who have enjoyed economic success in Israel. They are the immigrants who show a steady improvement in earnings and decline in cost over time. THE ROLE OF THE STATE Research on migration to Israel has generally patterned itself on the study of migration in other immigrant societies, most notably the United States and to a lesser extent Canada and Australia. The basic assumptions underlying these studies view the incorporation of immigrants into the host society in terms of assimilation. Immigrants tend to enter at the bottom of the stratification system of the host society and, with the passage of time, they acquire the social and cultural capital which enables them to improve their position. Eventually they achieve parity with native-born members of the society (that is, they receive equal returns on their work-related resources). These models assume, by and large, a market economy where rewards reflect the degree of assimilation in the host society. According to this model, the disparities among immigrants and native-born citizens should decline with the passage of time (see Semyonov 1996). The market model of immigration as used in other societies is rather problematic when it comes to Israel. Throughout most of its history, decisionmaking in Israel has been highly centralized and the state has been intensively involved in shaping the opportunity structure and immigration policies. Indeed, one cannot ignore the major role played by the state in the incorporation and absorption of immigrants. The central role of the state is evident in all spheres of life. The state provides settlement assistance to new immigrants during the first years after arrival. The assistance includes stipends and language instruction, free housing for several


Figure 19.4 Typology of state involvement in immigrant absorption Societal resources State control Low High

Low Period 1 Pre-state immigration Period 2 Post-independence immigration

High Period 4 Recent mass-immigration Period 3 Intermittent immigration

months and subsidies for the purchase of homes, job training and employment services as well as tax exemptions. In that sense, the state of Israel has established a ‘social contract’ with the new immigrants. While the involvement of the state is aimed at facilitating the transition to the host society, it also creates dependency. Furthermore, in many cases, state actions have had detrimental and long-term consequences for the social and economic status of immigrants. Thus, one has to consider two major factors when studying the impact of the state on the emergence of ethnic stratification in Israel: first, the rate of state control and the rate of immigrants’ dependence on state authorities and agencies; and second, the amount of resources provided by the state to immigrants. These two factors have varied considerably throughout the years, hence shaping the system of ethnic stratification. In a somewhat simplified model, one can consider a two-dimensional table. The first dimension pertains to societal resources (differentiating between high and low). The second dimension represents the level of state control (as opposed to market control) which is also (inversely) related to the level of immigrants’ dependency. According to this typology, the pre-state period is characterized by a low level of societal recourses and a low level of centralized control. The years immediately following Israel’s independence, during which mass refugee migration took place, were characterized by scarce societal resources available for allocation and a high level of state control. During this period the immigrants became extremely dependent on state agencies and state policies. Early on, the state engaged in a rapid development of new housing projects. When this did not suffice, tent towns were erected on the outskirts of major cities and, finally, a policy of population dispersion was enacted. Immigrants were directed to newly created development towns in the peripheral regions of the state. Concomitantly, new industries were developed in these towns which offered primarily low-paying jobs in labour-intensive industries. To date, these towns are still characterized by limited industrial and occupational structure and a high concentration of a population that immigrated from North Africa. This pattern of settlement has long-lasting consequences, as observed in the data presented in the previous tables.


In the following years (1960s to 1980s), while immigration to Israel had actually declined, resources for immigrants’ absorption substantially increased. At the same time, state involvement in policy on immigrants and the government’s assistance services were intensive. During this period, there was much less pressure on the job and housing markets and immigrants faced substantially better opportunities for achievement and for socio-economic success in the new society. Finally, after 1989, a large current of immigrants from the successor states of the former Soviet Union arrived in Israel. The period is characterized by a high level of resource availability to be allocated to the new immigrants, but low levels of state control over immigrants’ absorption processes. A new policy of immigrants’ absorption—‘direct absorption’—had been established. According to this policy, immigrants receive an ‘absorption basket’—cash and services. Thus, new immigrants could adopt various strategies of absorption with state assistance. They could choose where to reside, they could study the labour market before taking a job or choose a job-retraining programme and the like. Although it is rather early to arrive at a conclusion regarding the last period of immigration, intermediate assessment shows that the position and status of recent Russian immigrants have improved considerably since their arrival. They are closing the gaps with Asian and African immigrants who arrived in earlier currents of immigration. CONCLUSION The proposed model calls attention to the importance of the state and the role the state plays in shaping the system of stratification in immigrant societies. The model was illustrated with data on labour market outcomes among ethnic groups in Israel with specific reference to the returning diaspora in the process of nationbuilding. The data presented in this article underscore considerable socioeconomic gaps between ethnic groups, not only in the first generation of immigrants, but also in the second generation. This model leads to a better understanding of the sources of socio-economic gaps by introducing social policies and the role played by the state. When considering the massive immigration to Israel and the fact that many of the immigrants are actually refugees, one has to entertain the possibility that without government help and support, the gaps observed between immigrant groups could have been even greater. NOTES 1 There are no accurate estimates of the number of non-Jewish family members in the last wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Also, the definition of ‘Jewish origin’ used by the immigration authorities and the religious institutions


differ considerably. In general, estimates of the non-Jewish immigrants range between 20 and 25 per cent of the total who arrived in this period.

20 Integration and the Social Dynamic of Ethnic Migration: The Jews from the Former Soviet Union in Israel William Berthomière

Whether strolling along Ben Yehuda or doing some shopping on Dizengoff, the passer-by coming to Israel for a few days’ visit will inevitably be astonished and intrigued. The discussion overheard on the terrace of a café or between a young couple in front of a Supersol store, and the newspaper abandoned on the seat of the 405 bus somewhere between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are all clues revealing a country curiously tinted with sounds and scenes which are far more Slavic than Mediterranean. In terms of migration, Israel is, alongside Germany, one of the first countries in the world to have felt the consequences of one of the greatest geopolitical events of the post-Cold War era—the collapse of the Soviet Union. While most European countries have only opened their doors timidly to the population of Eastern Europe—clearly preferring those who are highly qualified —Israel has welcomed hundreds of thousands of former Soviet citizens within a few years. One reason for this tendency is that the only populations to leave Eastern Europe en masse were those which had a historical homeland to which they could emigrate. That was the case for ethnic German, Jewish and Greek minorities who, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, were released from their ‘house arrest’. Even a casual glance at the post-1989 patterns of migration will confirm the passage of these ethnic minorities through the opening created by the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Of the 450,000 people who left the Soviet Union in 1990, 45 per cent moved to Israel, 42 per cent moved to Germany, 6 per cent went to the United States and 5 per cent went to Greece (Vichnevski and Zayontchkovskaia 1992:44). Even if the percentage of Jews migrating has been on the decline globally, no fewer than 770,000 migrants from the former USSR have entered Israel between 1990 and 1999, around 12 per cent of Israel’s current population. These hundreds of thousands of immigrants asked the state of Israel for assistance and in turn brought an incredible wealth of growth and knowledge, but have also raised the question of Israeli identity in the course of these last eight years. The purpose of this chapter is therefore to explore the process of FSU Jews’ integration in Israel and to establish sociopolitical points of reference on this migratory movement towards a country in full identity introspection, towards a Mediterranean area of a great complexity.

316 INTEGRATION AND THE SOCIAL DYNAMIC OF ETHNIC MIGRATION

A CONSIDERABLE MIGRATORY MOVEMENT Between 1990 and 1999, Israel welcomed more than 770,000 people from the former Soviet Union (see Table 20.1).1 Half of these immigrants entered the country during the two years which followed the events of 1989. December 1990 alone saw the immigration of more than 35,000 Soviet citizens, which is a number equivalent to the total French migration to Palestine and later Israel since the end of the First World War. Over the passing months, the whole country was affected by migratory movements. Every part of Israel witnessed the arrival of the much-expected ‘Jews of Silence’2 (see Map 20.1). Table 20.1 Immigration to Israel (1990–99) Total immigration 1990–99

%

Former Soviet Union 799,081 85.8 Ethiopia 39,248 4.2 Other countries 92,772 10.0 Source: Central Bureau of Statistics (for 1999: January to September inclusive).

This inflow is of major significance for Israel, probably as important demographically as the mass migration that occurred after the creation of the State in 1948 (687,624 people migrated to Israel between 1948 and 1951). Nevertheless, the volume of immigration decreased after the mid 1990s. In 1995, only 61,200 immigrants were recorded, in 1997, 55,600 and in 1999, 43,900.3 It is nevertheless difficult to estimate the evolution of that migration in terms of stability and thresholds, because the current situation is conditioned by different factors. The decrease in the current flood from the former Soviet Union is partly connected to the global diminution of the Jewish immigration to Israel. The perception of Israel as the gathering country of the Jews is less prominent than before in the Jewish diaspora. Moreover, as the post-1989 agitation calms down, the combination of growing stability within most successor states of the former USSR and the relative difficulties of integration in Israel all contribute to keeping the Jewish population in this region. Finally, the Jewish population which is likely to emigrate to Israel has significantly decreased. According to the Jewish Agency, almost all Jews who lived in Transcaucasia and Central Asia have already emigrated. In 1996–7, this rate reached 70 per cent in Ukraine and 55 per cent in Russia (Jerusalem Post, 19 August 1997). In addition, a substantial percentage of the non-emigrated Jewish community is above 55 years of age, which is an inhibitor of emigration.4 One has to check the ‘iconography’ of the Jewish solidarity between the former Soviet Union and the rest of the world (provided by the United Jewish Appeal) to understand the structural state of the remaining Jewish communities, and to realize how difficult emigration is for elderly people who in future will constitute an essential part of the remaining


Source: Immigrant population from Former USSR 1995, Demographics trends, CBS, Jerusalem, 1998. Made by W.Berthomière, Migrinter-UMR 6588 CNRS, University of Poitiers, 1998. (1): Only cities with more than 500 immigrants and more than 5,000 habitants (at 12/31/ 1995) are on the map. Eilat (located in the Gulf of Akaba) received 2,700 immigrants and is not represented for technical reasons. Map 20.1 Immigrants from the FSU in Israel since 1989

migratory potential. An advertisement from the Joint Distribution Committee’s solidarity campaign testifies to this. An old woman is shown leaning on her kitchen table, claiming: ‘It’s not an easy life in Moldova, but my friend from the


“Joint” comes to see me every few days. She brings me food and medicine. And news of my family. They went to Israel three years ago. Life is just starting for them, that’s good. But leaving’s not for me. This is my place, my home. Everything I know is here. I will never, ever leave.’ Thus it becomes clear that the aging Jewish population is another reason behind the slowdown in departures (Paltiel et al. 1997:291). Even though those facts may be the catalysts of the migratory dynamic, one must also take into account other elements, such as the opportunities to emigrate to a country other than Israel. The United States and Germany constitute the two other attractive poles. They have become welcoming places, ‘competing’ with Israel. For example, of those leaving Russia in 1993, 55.5 per cent of the Jews moved to Israel, 34.6 per cent to the US and 7.9 per cent to Germany, whereas in 1998, the figures were, respectively, 55.1 per cent, 16.1 per cent and 25.8 per cent (CDEH 1997; Tolts 1999a). In the late 1990s, some 250,000 non-ethnic German immigrants from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine lived in Germany, many of them in Berlin (Münz 2000). THE FIRST STEPS TO INTEGRATION: ‘FROM SCIENTISTS TO STREET-SWEEPERS’5 The first five years of the immigration of Jews from the FSU were probably the most intensive as regards the management of the current immigration wave. During this period, the integration policy of Israel moved from a liberal point of view (developed by the Likud Party at the beginning of the 1990s) to a policy characterized by the assistance of the state (which was, in fact, close to paternalism in the tradition of the Labour Party). It was finally transformed into a political system in which the subject himself or herself became an actor of his or her future. However, the period which led to this equilibrium in the integration policy was (and still is) considered as a real ‘crossing of the desert’ in the eyes of many of the former Soviet citizens. One of the consequences of these difficulties in the management of the immigration wave and in the adjustment of the integration policy was a loss of social status for most of them as well as a difficult period of cultural dislocation. RELEARNING TO BE A WELCOMING PLACE Israel was overwhelmed by the sudden immigration from the former Soviet Union. The country was not prepared to receive so many immigrants, one of the likely reasons that, for most of them, initial integration has been the most serious problem of migration (IMIA 1996; Berthomière 1995; Damian and RosenbaumTamari 1996; Horowitz 1996). According to the ‘Law of Return’,6 Israel should be the country of all Jews. Therefore, in the face of the immigration from the former Soviet Union, Israel had to turn renewed effort to such issues as the integration and welcoming of immigrants. Whereas at the very beginning of the


state, two-thirds of the Israeli population were immigrants and one-third sabarim (native-born Israelis) the situation is, at present, the opposite (see Table 20.2). Since the end of the 1960s, the Israeli population has mostly drawn its demographic growth from natural population increase. On three occasions in the 1980s,7 the migratory balance (within global growth) was even reduced to zero. In the perspective of the new Israeli sociology, Israel’s loss of attraction suggested that the country was becoming a post-Zionist society. The reason for this transition could be the normalization process which took place in Israeli society. Consequently, both relations with, and the hierarchical system of, the Israeli diaspora were affected (Goldscheider 1996:228–9; Leibowitz and Burg 1995:178–97; Sheffer 1996). Table 20.2 Population structure in Israel (1948–98) Year

1948

1961

1972

Total 872,700 2,179,500 3,147,700 population of Israel Jewish 716,700 1,932,400 2,686,700 population of Israel Percentage 64.6 62.2 52.6 born abroad in the Jewish population Source: Statistical Abstract of Israel 1999.

1983

1990

1998

4,037,600

4,821,700

6,041,400

3,350,000

3,946,700

4,785,100

42.5

38.1

36.8

The new aliya8 (Jewish immigration) led Israel to take a step back. In terms of migration rate, the state was experiencing a migratory wave similar to that of 1948. That moment was all the more exciting as it was dealing with the return of the ‘Jews of Silence’, around whom the Jewish community had to gather in order to obtain the Soviet group’s freedom.9 As the state was somewhat overwhelmed by the arrival of so many immigrants, Israel developed a programme of ‘direct absorption’ in which the new immigrants (olim) received financial and other subsidies (called an ‘absorption basket’ or Sal Haklita), and were given the opportunity to choose where they wanted to live within the country. They could also attend Hebrew lessons (ulpanim). This policy quickly led to a critical situation. There was a concentration of immigrants in urban areas with insufficient accommodation available. This situation led the Soviet Jews to ‘revolt’ because the high concentration of immigrants in some areas gave rise to severe problems of unemployment.


Table 20.3 First residence of immigrants to Israel according to main cities of origin in the FSU, by republics, 1 January 1990 to 31 December 1993 Russia Locality ranking

Moscow

Immigrant population

First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

Jerusalem Tel Aviv-Yafo Haifa Netanya Beer Sheva Bat Yam

5.360 3,246 3,073 1,509 1,422 1,372

Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Ukraine Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

St Petersburg Jerusalem Haifa Tel Aviv-Yafo Beer Sheva Bat Yam Netanya

Immigrant population 3.502 2,924 1,530 1,283 1,105 1,090

Kiev Haifa Jerusalem Netanya Bat Yam Holon Petah Tiqwa

Immigrant population 3.535 1,926 1,589 1,540 1,385 1,350

Locality ranking

Odessa


First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

Haifa Netanya Bat Yam Tel Aviv-Yafo Rishon le Zion Holon

1,278 1,023 876 738 665 485

Locality ranking First Second

Kharkov Haifa Jerusalem

Immigrant population 2,089 640

Ukraine


Ukraine Locality ranking

Odessa


Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Moldava Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Belarus Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Latvia Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

Netanya Tel Aviv-Yafo Bat Yam Rishon le Zion

594 575 513 474

Kishinev Haifa Rishon le Zion Netanya Rehovot Beer Sheva Ashdod

Immigrant population 1,462 1,346 1,191 1,132 1.121 987

Minsk Haifa Netanya Jerusalem Petah Tiqwa Rishon le Zion Nazareth Illith

Immigrant population 1,672 1,086 884 852 831 757

Riga Haifa Tel Aviv Yafo Jerusalem Beer Sheva Bat Yam Rishon le Zion

Immigrant population 495 389 373 370 366 324

Locality ranking

Vilnius


First Second Third Fourth

Rishon le Zion Petah Tiqwa Netanya Holon

396 275 258 242

Lithuania


Lithuania Locality ranking

Vilnius


Fifth Sixth Estonia Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Georgia Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Armenia Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Azerbaijan Locality ranking First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

Bat Yam Rehovot

209 208

Tallin Jerusalem Haifa Ashdod Rehovot Tel Aviv-Yafo Petah Tiqwa


Tbilisi Bat Yam Holon Jerusalem Ashkelon Netanya Beer Sheva


Yerevan Haifa Petah Tiqwa Tel Aviv-Yafo Jerusalem Bat Yam Netanya


Baku Haifa Netanya Beer Sheva Akko Tel Aviv-Yafo Qiryat Yam

Immigrant population 1,971 1,569 1,224 1,062 944 686


Kazakhstan Locality ranking

Baku

First Haifa Second Tel Aviv-Yafo Third Bat Yam Fourth Petah Tiqwa Fifth Jerusalem Sixth Holon Uzbekistan Locality ranking Tashkent First Tel Aviv-Yafo Second Holon Third Bat Yam Fourth Haifa Fifth Jerusalem Sixth Beer Sheva Tadjikistan Locality ranking Dushanbe First Tel Aviv-Yafo Second Ramla Third Petah Tiqwa Fourth Holon Fifth Haifa Sixth Jerusalem Kyrgystan Locality ranking Bishkek First Tel Aviv-Yafo Second Jerusalem Third Beer Sheva Fourth Haifa Fifth Bat Yam Sixth Peta Tiqwa Turkmenistan Locality ranking Ashkhabad First Tel Aviv-Yafo Second Beer Shevaa Third Haifa Source: Ministry of Absorption 1996.

Immigrant population 296 274 228 219 173 151 Immigrant population 3,087 1,389 1,268 1,130 1,091 1,040 Immigrant population 2,455 592 461 457 429 403 Immigrant population 258 156 133 112 101 109 Immigrant population 29 20 19


ONE REASON FOR THE DESTABILIZATION OF ISRAELI SOCIETY The wave of migration had considerable impact on Israeli society. At the beginning of the immigration wave, the reasons for this instability were twofold: on the one hand, the aim of the Shamir (1988–92) government’s policy was to build the ‘Great Israel’, and not to worry about the newcomers’ integration. The housing programme was relegated, for a large part, to the private sector which was not in a hurry to plan in advance and, for the part controlled by the government, the construction was mainly oriented in development areas and in the occupied territories. On the other hand, the spatial strategy of the immigrants was opposite to the government policy that placed the wave of immigration as an opportunity to achieve the plan of demographic development of peripheral districts. Two-thirds of the immigrants settled in the main districts of Israel: central Tel Aviv and Haifa (see Map 20.1). Above all, Soviet Jews wanted to live in the largest towns of Israel, partly because they themselves came from large towns and also because they believed that opting for these cities would make labour market integration easier (Berthomière 1995:25; Jones 1996:129). The employment of the immigrants became the key problem which successive Israeli governments had to solve; this posed a real dilemma. Our strolling visitor from the introduction could not ignore that reality. In Jerusalem, the walls of the immigration and integration ministry offices (visited by many former Soviet citizens) were all covered with ads. The bus-stops and the streetlights looked dressed up, wrapped with dozens of ads from people looking for work. In 1992 one-third of the immigrants (aged 20 to 65) were unemployed (IMIA 1996:17), a situation which led half the former Soviet citizens to cast left-wing votes during the 1992 elections. Consequently, Yitzhak Rabin was elected against all odds: pre-election surveys at the time showed that the result would be a majority for the Likud because of the low predisposition of the Soviet Jews to vote for a socialist party (see Chapter 18). We were therefore dealing with the first Soviet vote in which the new immigrants expressed their discontent (Goldberg 1996:192). Even if it seems contradictory, the fact that immigrants were overqualified was a real obstacle to their integration. Their professional qualifications were indeed very high: engineers, medical doctors, academics, and so on. Among former Soviet citizens who arrived between 1990 and 1995, 40 per cent of them had studied for 13 years or more (only 25 per cent of those already in Israel had studied that long). Employment was all the more difficult as there was a real discrepancy between supply and demand. A qualification as a petrochemist or metallurgic industry engineer was in fact unusable. Moreover, the field of medicine was already overloaded.10 The immigrants very quickly understood that they would have to look for jobs in fields other than those for which they were trained. The demand was so important that they also understood they would be forced to work within a less valued field. This phase of the Soviet integration is explained well in Allan Galper’s survey From Bolshoi to Be’er Sheva, Scientists


to Streetsweepers (1995). Even the press mentioned the various problems the migrants had to face on the labour market in stories detailing how a company manager who had a heart attack was saved by a maid who happened to be a former Soviet doctor. A study carried out by anthropologists and other researchers revealed the cultural and social deprivation of the migrants. The government of Yitzhak Rabin tried to fight these problems of integration, but unfortunately, the proposals were ‘more tranquillizers than real cures’. The challenge was considerable. As the following statement shows, the loss of social status was a very tough ordeal for the immigrants: There are no words for how important work is. It’s not just for money. Without work, there’s no status, there’s no life. Maybe there will be food, but if there’s no work, you don’t need food. If there’s no work, why do I need to live? It’s not life. It’s important to have even simple work so you have hope. If you have no work, it’s worse. [Forty-year-old computer technician from Minsk unemployed in Haifa] (Galper 1995, 50) Both time and political mobilization were major assets in improving the hardship of emigration.11 Even if migrants engaged in political mobilization, emigration remained synonymous with loss of social status, an unbearable experience for most migrants. While the daily life of the Soviet Jews underwent a notable improvement, this improvement was lost in mourning for those of the new immigrants who, due to situations of distress, committed suicide. Compared to the rest of the Israeli population, the suicide rate within the migrant population is 60 per cent greater for men and 40 per cent higher for women (Jerusalem Report, 5 March 1998). According to experts, the reasons for such a dramatic difference could be the difficulty of going through problems of professional integration, the depreciation of social status, and also the difficulty of feeling culturally alienated in Israel. The entire sociopolitical context led to a reorientation process of integration policy and practice. Once more, this change found its expression in the political sanction represented by a vote for the Russian immigrant party—called Israel Ba’Aliya—and the Likud (Saadia 1996). The year 1996 was a real turning point. At that time, all the efforts that the immigrants made and all the strategies they used became evident. THE IMMIGRANT AS AN ACTOR: ‘FROM STREETSWEEPER TO COMPANY MANAGER’ The Likud’s return to the political arena constituted a landmark change in the history of immigration integration. The new immigrants’ vote had once again sanctioned the government. In 1996 two-thirds of the former Soviet citizens living in Israel voted for Likud (Goldberg 1996:194). One reason for such a sanction was the disappointment of the Russian intelligentsia (Storper Perez


1996, 1998), who could not bear being ignored by the Ashkenazi elite, which was identified with the Labour Party. Another reason was the revolt against the intellectual waste and loss of social status caused by the ex-Soviet immigrants’ underemployment (see chapter 18). Yet beyond these political considerations, this date represents for immigrants the point when they gained control of their own fate. Many factors enable us to understand this reversal of the situation. As Dominique Vidal explained it: ‘Against all expectations the burden turned into a lever, for production, construction, and for consumption, and this thanks to an exceptional combination of circumstances’ (Vidal 1996). Vidal seems to give importance to the change of the political context, symbolized at the international level through Yitzhak Rabin’s and Yasser Arafat’s handshake and, at the national level, by the Israeli privatization process. Besides these exterior factors, a whole set of interior factors can be taken into account in the context of the migratory wave. These facilitated the ‘lever process’. A REORGANIZATION OF MIGRATION First of all, the current of migration decreased due to a self-regulation process, the emigration potential decreased, and the options for other destinations increased. The potential post-Soviet emigrants were told by the earlier immigrants of the difficulties within the Israeli context. Second, a reorganization of the spatial distribution was implemented. Many strategies backed this territorial decomposition, such as the departure to development cities in Galilee;12 and the establishment of migratory networks between FSU localities and some Israel areas or towns. This led to a self-management of the current of migration and of the integration. For example, the majority of emigrants from Derbent (Daghestan) moved to Hadera, the ones from Gomel (Belarus) to Nahariah and the ones from Central Asia to the southern areas of Tel-Aviv (Berthomière 1996; Berthomière 1997; Lipshitz 1998:107–15; see Table 20.3). The southern districts of Israel obviously took advantage of this internal reorganization as the proportion of former Soviet citizens increased from 10.8 per cent in 1990 to 18.3 per cent in 1993. It even reached 24 per cent in 1997, and became the first choice of residence for the new Soviet immigrants. The mobility viewed as an economic necessity by the migrants was considered a strategic asset by the leaders. Many ex-Soviet Jews indeed found very cheap accommodation in former Arab areas, for example, in the east of Jerusalem (Kaminker 1997; Rivière-Tancer and Attal 1997), such as Pisgat Ze’ev or Gilo, and in West Bank settlements such as Ma’aleh Adumin or Ariel (see Map 20.1). In 1997, Ariel had the highest proportion of immigrants in respect to total real estate business transactions. According to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, out of the 356 premises bought in Ariel, 80 per cent were purchased by recent immigrants (Ha’aretz, English edition, 6 April 1998).13 The needs of these immigrants served the intentions of Likud policy (which were to develop the Jewish presence in the occupied territories), particularly aiding in the ethno-


national change in East Jerusalem. The Jewish population increased and the nonJewish decreased relatively.14 Nevertheless, that period of migration, during which the migrants saw themselves as plenipotentiary actors shaping their future, embodied an effective stage in the resolution of the integration problems within Israeli society. The movement went through two stages: first, the mobilization organized around the Soviet forum (created by Natan Sharansky); secondly, it was supported by a ‘community withdrawal’. Facing the difficulty of the time of integration, the Soviet Jews had a tendency to withdraw to their communities. The refuge taken in the ‘Cyrillic space’, or in the columns of the Russian newspaper, demonstrates these problems and difficulties. These patterns of behavior somehow offended the ‘veterans’ (vatikim). The socalled ‘Second Israel’ (Israelis of Sephardic origin) saw the complaints of Russian Jews as unjust. They were already living in hard conditions, e.g. in development cities, where the unemployment rates were high. Consequently, they considered these newcomers, who kept asking for more recognition of their plight, as disloyal competitors. Through the Sal Haklita (‘absorption basket) and other advantages that the immigrants were given, they changed local purchasing power, and their high level of education caught the employers’ attention. This of course led to some conflicts between the two groups and an indirect influence on the Sephardims’ interests. It even made many Sephardic Jews think they were being left behind by society (Jones 1996:143–9). As a matter of fact, the results of the 1996 election revealed respective fears within the two groups, because of the entry of the party Israel be-Aliya into the Knesset and the progress of the radical religious party Shas.15 At the same time, the unemployment rate decreased and the State’s financial inducements enabled 70 per cent of the former Soviet citizens (who had entered the country in 1990) to become homeowners.16 This confirms the establishment of the former Soviet citizens in their new homeland, Israel. At the beginning of the year 1996, the emigration rate among these recent immigrants did not exceed 8 per cent and has not risen since.17 TOWARDS A NEW PROFILE OF SOVIET IMMIGRANTS Caricaturing the analysis, some people would say that the former Soviet citizens have integrated perfectly in Israel, as they have taken on the so-called ‘Israeli chutzpah’ (the famous audacity). The media does not cease to praise the migrants’ economic success. Imagine our passer-by strolling in the same place today. He would have a completely new vision of immigration from the former Soviet Union. On Ben Yehuda, he would no longer meet a saxophonist, playing with a small box in front of him, on which ‘New immigrant from Russia—No Job’ could be read. On the contrary, if our passer-by looked up, he would discover a poster saying ‘Arbat Restaurant’ written in Hebrew. He could also see a bookshop, whose stock had just arrived from Moscow. Even if poverty has not


completely disappeared among the migrants—in 1999 around 20 per cent of them lived below the poverty line18—their standard of living has clearly increased. The statistics concerning unemployment reflect this improvement. The rate of unemployment dropped by 20 percentage points between 1992 and 1995 and stood at 10 per cent in 1999. The fact that many immigrants are now nearly fluent in Hebrew has helped them improve their social condition. As mentioned above, this improvement was achieved at the expense of a serious loss of professional and social status, but since then, many migrants have regained new social status. During interviews conducted among the new ex-Soviet entrepreneurs, we were surprised by the stories they told us. Some of them, such as a musician from Kiev, who ended up as the head of a’help at home’ company, are today responsible for prosperous small and medium-sized businesses. The majority of them worked in more or less precarious jobs before reaching these positions. In the last few years, those tendencies have been accelerated by the fact that migrants arrived in the country with the money from selling their flats or other properties in the former Soviet Union. These amounts of money plus a subsidy for the establishment of firms have enabled the immigrants to attain more acceptable living conditions. By mid-1999, 7,000 former Soviet Jews had decided to create their own companies and in 1998 alone, 900 new ‘Soviet businesses’ had been created (Jerusalem Report, 25 December 1997 and 12 March 1999; Gomelski et al. 1995). Because of the market potential, Soviet Jews preferred developing businesses which would serve the new immigrants’ needs. They also tended to favour those from their former home regions in the Soviet Union. Most of them aimed to employ almost exclusively Soviet and post-Soviet immigrants. Their rates of success led them to be suspected of belonging to the Mafia, or of setting up a state within the state. The fact is that all these examples of advancing professional status testify to the improved social status which more and more Soviet Jews have reached, even if it does not indicate complete integration. CONCLUSION What can we conclude from the most recent decade of immigration to Israel? The expression ‘tour de force’ could be the most appropriate one. Israel welcomed some 770,000 new immigrants between 1990 and 1999, which is more than 12 per cent of its total population. Even if the comparisons are quickly made, would any European country have accepted such a challenge? This aliya represents a major new element since the creation of the state. During the official ceremonies for Israel’s 50th anniversary in 1998, a young Ukrainian-born Jew came and lit one of the twelve torches that illuminated the event. By doing so, she symbolized the stone brought by those who constituted the lines of the first aliyot, and by those who participated in the building of the country. Nonetheless, the perception of immigration has evolved considerably over the passing decades. While one ought not attempt to give an answer to this changing


perception of immigration in this article, stressing the hesitation to use the word aliya is more revealing. Some articles, such as the one by Judith Shuval (1998), called ‘Migration to Israel: the Mythology of “Uniqueness”’, raised questions which will have to be answered sooner or later (Barnett 1996). Will this immigration continue? Answering this question is difficult, as too many variables enter into consideration. In the course of the last years, the prospective analysis has already revealed its poor accuracy in the face of an unpredictable world. One can nevertheless argue that because of the demographic structure of the Jewish communities in the successor states of the Soviet Union, emigration to Israel will continue to decrease (Paltiel 1997 et al.). Such a decrease will probably be intensified by the improvement of living conditions for Jews within those states. The Jerusalem Report., 2 April 1998, published the following headline: ‘Suddenly, it Feels so Nice to be Jewish in Russia.’ The published anecdote testifies to the present situation in Moscow: a member of the Moscow Jewish Community, lighting a menorah in Pushkin Square, meets a policeman from Moscow and wishes him a happy Hanukkah. Internal migration towards Moscow is becoming an alternative to emigration to Israel. NOTES 1 Some estimated statistics reveal 30 per cent of non-Jewish people within the total number of immigrants from the FSU. In addition to the anecdotes concerning the falsification of passports, which enabled them to enter Israel as ‘Jewish’, these statistics reveal the high frequency of mixed marriages among the Soviet Jewish community. On average, in 1988, more than half of the Jews in the Soviet Union found themselves in mixed marriages (see Tolts 1999a). 2 Jews of Silence is the title of Eli Wiesel’s book about the Soviet Jewish community. 3 For 1999, this figure only covers immigrants registered until end of September. 4 Sergio Della Pergola and Mark Tolts underlined that the Russian Jewish community had reached its final stage in terms of age structure. They explained that the proportion of people below age 15 had fallen below the rate of 10 per cent in the 1970s (8.4 per cent in 1989), and that on average Jews from Russia were 20 years older than the rest of the Russian population (52.3 and 32.8 years old, respectively). 5 This is a paraphrase of the title of Allan S.Galper’s book (Galper 1995), which deals with the cultural adaptation of Soviet immigrants in Israel. 6 This law, which was promulgated in 1950 (and amended in 1970), enables any Jew to settle in Israel. The rights of the immigrant are also granted to the child or to grandchild, to the spouse or to the spouse of the child and the grandchild of a Jewish person, except for a person who was Jewish and who converted voluntarily to another religion. 7 In 1985, 1986 and 1988, the balance of migration was negative, reaching 4,700 people in the first two years and 1,100 in 1988.


8 Aliya is a Hebrew word meaning ‘ascent’, and refers to Jewish immigration to Israel. The opposite, namely emigration, is called yerida (‘descent’). Using this terminology, the Jewish immigrant (who is considered under the Law of Return) is called an oleh (plural olim). Correspondingly, the emigrant is the yored. 9 The second largest wave was the immigration from Ethiopia. In 1991, Operation Solomon enabled the transfer of thousands of Ethiopian Jews known as the Beta Israel (REMI 12, 3, 1996 and Anteby 1996). 10 Out of the 10,597 medical doctors who asked for permission to practise in Israel, only 6,227 were given permission. Among those who were accepted, only a minority opened a practice (IMIA 1996). They encountered difficulties because Israel ranks among the countries with the highest number of doctors in employment proportional to the population. 11 For these families, the motivations for immigrating were mainly linked to the desire to ensure the welfare of their children, the desire to live as ‘a Jew in a Jewish environment’, and also to live in an Western democracy (see Damian and Rosenbaum-Tamari 1996). The support which was given to the former Soviet citizens who arrived in the 1970s and 1980s was crucial. The solidarity networks which developed in Galilee cities such as Karmiel are good illustrations (Horowitz 1989). 12 The originally low-level growth in the numbers of Jews in this district during the 1980s was compensated for by the migratory dynamic in the 1990s. With the immigration of 79,500 former Soviet citizens between 1990 and 1995, the total increase in the population was to the advantage of the Jewish Community with the net addition of 76,400 people to the Jewish population versus 70,600 for the nonJewish population. As a consequence, the difference between these two communities considerably decreased within five years. In 1989, the Jewish population of the North reached 364,800 (and 397,900 non-Jews); in 1999, it lies at 470,300 and 481,800, respectively. 13 The journalist explains in this article his surprise concerning the weak participation of new immigrants in the expansion of the new city of Modi’in, with only 4 per cent of the purchases. This reflects the non-participation of Modi’in in the migratory networks. 14 For reasons of ideology, some former Soviet citizens deliberately chose to settle in the occupied territories. Nevertheless, the interviews we performed in Ariel made us understand that most of these people chose such a place because the accommodation was four times cheaper than in Tel Aviv. Moreover, by car, it only takes 40 minutes to drive from Ariel to Tel Aviv. 15 Many young Sephardic Jews find an answer to their problems in this religious movement belonging to the Israel Religious revival. Shas undertakes tasks in the social sphere neglected or even abandoned by the Likud and Labour and has become the most influential political voice of the Sephardic Jews in Israel. 16 Among the remaining 30 per cent, 9 per cent were settled through public accommodation offices, and 20 per cent found rented accommodation (IMIA 1996, 15). 17 Most of them left Israel for the United States or Canada, some for Germany. 18 The poverty threshold is fixed at 1,300 New Israel Shekel per month per person (by the National Insurance Institute). ‘According to government estimates, 1,500


people live on the street in Israel…ninety percent of them are Russian immigrants’ (Jerusalem Report, 12 March 1999).

21 The Russian Language as a Base Factor: The Formation of the Russian Community in Israel Marina Niznik

The massive immigration to Israel from the Soviet Union and its successor states has greatly influenced all spheres of Israeli society. First attempts to investigate this phenomenon have already been carried out, primarily on the demographic impact and economic and social absorption of these recent immigrants, while numerous newspaper articles have appeared after each political or ethnic conflict in which these immigrants, generally perceived as ‘Russians’, have been involved. The object of this chapter is to investigate the role, functions and significance of Russian language in the social life of this relatively closed community. RUSSIANS IN ISRAEL—WHO ARE THEY? So-called ‘Russians’ form a heterogeneous group which includes Ashkenazic Jews and non-Ashkenazic Jews (for some of whom Russian is a second language), those who used to live in capitals and big industrial centres (especially Moscow and St Petersburg) and those who came from Russian provinces or from mestechki, small towns in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia with a relatively high percentage of the population being Jewish (the former Pale of Settlement). The substantial socio-economic differences between these groups have already been described in research on Russian immigration (Tolts 1997). All of the abovementioned groups consist of both immigrants who are ‘halakhically Jewish’ and those who are not (including non-Jewish family members). There are, in addition, Russian veterans (those who came to Israel in the 1970s) and the newcomers of the 1990s. However, the vast majority all have something very important in common—the Russian language is their mother tongue. Some of the investigators define this group as the Russian-language community (Zilberg 1995:5), emphasizing language as a basic uniting factor. This ‘Russian’ component of the total population of Israel numbers about a million people today, or in other words, 20 per cent (Sharansky 1998:9) of the Jewish population. Hence, according to Bonvillain’s definition (Bonvillain 1993:3), it can be defined as a speech community— a group which, although heterogeneous, is united in numerous ways, where people interact by means of speech. The group members speak the same language and agree upon what are considered ‘proper’

THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AS A BASE FACTOR 333

and ‘improper’ uses of language. Taking Dell Hymes’ definition of a speech group, Bonvillain stresses that in this community, knowledge of the rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech is shared. Concerning our case, the most appropriate definition seems to be that of William Labov: ‘A speech community cannot be conceived as a group of speakers who all use the same forms; it is best defined as a group who share the same norms in regard to language…who share a set of social attitudes toward language’ (Labov 1972:158, 248). HEBREW AND RUSSIAN—DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS IN DIFFERENT SPHERES Among immigrants from the former USSR, the linguistic assimilation to the Hebrew language is relatively rapid. Sixty-four per cent of those who came in 1990 could speak fluent Hebrew by 1995 and another 26 per cent were able to express themselves by then. Of those who came in 1991, 51 per cent could speak fluent Hebrew five years later and 22 per cent were able to express themselves (Mozaika 1999:5). Taking into consideration that the respondents included elderly people for whom learning foreign languages is quite problematic, these figures can be viewed as a success. Once their command of Hebrew has become strong enough to meet the needs of basic communication in activities outside the home (employment, shopping, healthcare, and so on) immigrants do not seek to further improve their Hebrew. Hence Hebrew has become a language for the public sphere while Russian remains the language for family, community and cultural needs. Even after the immigrants have lived in Israel for years, Russian does not become less important, although it receives new meanings as a definition of social boundaries and contrasting self-identifications. The reasons for this maintenance of Russian vary in origin, with some being purely pragmatic. Ulpan1 teaching focuses on colloquial, ‘survival’ Hebrew. There is no extra reading programme (or home reading) and spelling is considered to be of less importance than speaking. After leaving ulpan, students can hardly read or write. An enormous effort is required by the new immigrants to overcome this obstacle, mostly because of the difference between Hebrew and Russian, especially in letter-sound correspondence. The partial absence of vowels and the absence of capitals in addition to groups of letters that cannot be distinguished phonetically make reading and writing in Hebrew almost puzzlesolving. According to the Ministry of Absorption statistics, after five years in Israel, only about 40 per cent of recent immigrants could write almost fluently, and about 45 per cent could read (Mozaika 1999:5). However, the definition of being able to ‘read’ is not specified, which is important. Hence, this figure is not accurate, but is in reality much lower. Another problem is the great difference between colloquial and written Hebrew. The latter is greatly influenced by Biblical language. In Hebrew literature, there are many Biblical allusions which are known to almost every


Israeli-born Jewish child of Jewish origin (basic religious knowledge is part of the school programme) but unknown to Russian immigrants, since the vast majority of them are secular. Language is not only a very important means of communication and information, but also has the logical-discourse function of verbal image formation. As a child, one learns language (one’s mother tongue) as one explores the world, linking the results of cognition to certain signs (words, expressions, grammar constructions). Later, language becomes a base of all mental activity that, no matter how abstract, is always verbal. Cumulative function, which is connected with the logical-discourse function described above is equally important. Language registers, records and preserves the results of human comprehension which makes it an important part of culture. If culture is an ‘inherited system of ideas that structures the subjective experience of individuals’ (Le Vine 1984:20), then language is a reflection of this system. Hence, learning and using a foreign language means not only learning certain forms and expressions but also accepting another people’s experience, and getting used to another system of notions. In other words, adjusting to another cultural model is a quite complicated task for adults, but is possible if they are highly motivated. ISRAELI-RUSSIAN LANGUAGE CULTURE— CHALLENGING THE LOCALS In theory, the newcomers, as regards their cultural and linguistic absorption, choose between isolation, acculturation and assimilation. Isolation refers to a state of maximum disengagement from everything Israeli and the creation of their own infrastructure. Groups of pensioners in ‘Russian’ neighbourhoods are an example of such isolation, which, in their case, is almost total. Another process (and the most widespread phenomenon) is acculturation, which actually means being ‘in-between’, accepting some of the elements of the target culture, while preserving the culture of origin. In the area of language, acculturation leads to bilingualism. Assimilation results in the almost total abandonment of one’s mother tongue and culture of origin. The first and the third processes, while possible, are quite rare. Except for the given example, almost every immigrant is involved in some labour and other activity outside the home, which requires from him or her certain language competence. The third possibility is technically very problematic, since the majority of immigrants do not have any prior knowledge of Hebrew, but there are still some cases, especially intermarriages, where one spouse is not of Russian origin. Hence, in most cases we deal with acculturation, but to a differing extent.2 The important factor in acculturation, of course, is the degree of similarity between the mother tongue and the target language, between the culture of origin and the target culture. The main differences in the languages are in script and spelling, which impedes the process of writing and reading, as was already


Alexander Kabashayev, a new immigrant from Russia, at Ben Gurion airport, on his way to his new home, June 1990. Source: Beth Hatyefutsoth, Musem of Jewish Diaspora, Tel Aviv.


Notice board at the Ami Hotel in Tel Aviv, where immigrants reside, November 1990. Source: Beth Hatyefutsoth, Musem of Jewish Diaspora, Tel Aviv.

mentioned. At the same time, since modern Hebrew was influenced greatly by Russian, the structure of Hebrew, especially in syntax, does not differ greatly from that of Russian, while there are a number of similarities on the semantic and the idiomatic levels. Many second and metaphoric meanings of the words and expressions are the same or very close in the two languages (Moscovich 1984: 70), and the large number of equivalent proverbs is remarkable (Guri 1990). As for the target culture, the question is quite complicated. On the one hand, the Russian roots of Israeli authors are undeniable, since many Israeli classics were of Russian origin and influenced by Russian culture (Tchernichowski,3 Bialik,4 Lea Goldberg,5 Blobhshtein6 and many others). In the early years of the state, ‘an affinity for Russian culture was held to be a criterion for Israeli authenticity, a kind of test of belonging and identity’ (Shapira 1998:64). Russian literature, with its high regard for spiritual values and disregard of everything pragmatic and materialistic, became part of the Israeli ethos to a certain degree. On the other hand, things have changed. Israel is, nowadays, heavily inspired by everything American, and Israelis view the United States as a sort of model in


almost all spheres of life. That means that, for the younger generation, ‘Russian’ values are of lesser, if any, importance. Additionally, Russian immigrants seem neither to be very familiar with Israeli culture nor very much interested in it, so they are not really motivated to overcome the difficulties inherent in acquiring literary Hebrew. Their lack of motivation can be explained by many circumstances, but primarily by their deep roots in Russian culture, their lack of Jewish education, since most of the Yiddish cultural institutions were almost totally shut down by the Soviet authorities (Morozov 1998:90–4) and a certain superciliousness towards Israeli culture. Native Israelis sometimes complain that Russian immigrants look down on them because they had Dostoyevsky and others did not. This is very symptomatic. Russian Jews see Dostoyevsky as ‘theirs’ despite his numerous anti-Semitic remarks. This is true not only of Dostoyevsky, but of Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and so on. They see themselves as the representatives of a great Russian, and hence a great European, culture, maintaining European standards in education, culture and consumption, longing for everything European equally as much as, if not even more than, they long for everything Russian, including ‘European architecture’ and ‘European behavior’ (Markowitz 1997:334). Although their Jewishness is important to them, Russian culture and language are major factors in their identity and they are determined to preserve them. They also believe that Russian culture is important not only for themselves, but for the society as a whole, and they consider the Russian language to be an integral part of Russian culture. The Israeli reluctance to benefit from the Russian language irritates them. It is revealing that when the head of the main Russian Jewish political party Israel Ba’aliya, Natan Sharansky, refers to the integration of the former Russian Jews, he means ‘primarily’ the absorption by Israeli society of the unique Russian cultural tradition (Sharansky 1999). The problem of acculturation and assimilation is connected in many aspects with problems of self-identification. Russians do not seem to be very enthusiastic about converting themselves into ‘true Jews’ or ‘genuine Israelis’. According to the latest research, Soviet Jews show a hesitant self-definition (Ben Rafael et al. 1997:370). That many of them maintain their their former citizenship is more proof of this hesitancy. The other factor that contributes to the low motivation of newcomers to become a part of a mainstream society is their low opinion of sabras (native Israelis). In his article ‘In-Group Humor of Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union’, Zilberg provides very persuasive examples this attitude, which can be partially explained by different education and different concepts of what ‘being intelligent’, ‘being cultural’ and ‘being appropriate’ mean, as well as by the economic conditions of absorption, by which the newcomers mainly come in contact with the lower strata of Israeli society. In the first issues of the Russian humour magazine Beseder there were satirical instructions for sabras on how to use a rubbish bin or tongue-in-cheek advice on how to use the multiplication table to teach sabras arithmetic (Zilberg


1995:12). The lengthy column ‘All the best to Sabras’ substantiates in the best possible way the unwillingness of the Russian newcomers to be ‘part of them’: Sabras—they are like children… The perception of sabras differs from the perception of those who are mature… Many sabras cannot manage to button up their shirts or zip their zippers… Sabras are very curious. Every five minutes they ask you a question and patiently wait for your answer: ‘Kama zman ata po?’, ‘Meayin atah’, ‘Lamah batah?’ [How long have you been in the country? Where are you from? Why did you come?]. Don’t try to give abstract or evasive answers… They will get information anyway, perhaps in the streets or from hooligans… (Zilberg 1995:17–18) Over time things have become less extreme, since some of the highly educated and well-trained Russian Jewish immigrants have regained their pre-emigration status, converging with ‘other Israelis’, but their self-evaluation as ‘a more elite, educated, mannered and mature community’ (Zilberg 1995:19) does not seem to have changed greatly. This can be seen, for instance, in the fact that the majority of Russian Jews are not satisfied with the cultural life in Israel, but have tried to import all sorts of Russian cultural productions. Numerous Russian actors, singers and even theatre groups—including the first-class ones— come regularly to perform in Israel. This does not, however, seem to satisfy all of the cultural requirements of the community, which is trying to develop a Russian-language Israeli cultural life. There are as many Russian newspapers as there are Hebrew ones. There are two daily editions with the nostalgic titles Vesti and Vremyai, reminding the reader of the most popular Russian television news programmes, and about ten weekly editions of different social and political orientations, not to mention various local presses. In addition to original materials on Russian and Israeli life and the most important world political and cultural events, these publications include articles reprinted from Russian newspapers and digests of the Russian press. Two weekly newspapers provide their readers with leading Russian newspapers free of charge (Globus with Izvestiya and Novosti nedeli with Argumenty i fakty). The Gesher (Bridge) theatre group is one of the brightest and the most famous examples of Russian cultural success in Israel. It was established by a group of immigrant artists in 1991 under the artistic management and direction of Yevgenii Arie. Gesher is unique in a way, not only because it is popular both with Russian-and Hebrew-speaking audiences, but because of its attempt to span the gap between the two cultures. The actors speak in both Hebrew and Russian and the playwrights are also both Russian and Israeli.


SCHOOL EDUCATION—SHOULD RUSSIAN BE A PART OF IT? If one asks a Russian Jew the annoying question ‘Why did you come to Israel?’ he or she is not likely to give the questioner a serious and detailed answer. But in case the questioner is lucky and he receives a serious answer, one of the main reasons would, no doubt, be that he is seeking a better future for his children. Since Russian Jews believe that proper education is the best key to success, they are very concerned about their children’s education. They are not happy with the Israeli approach, which is actually American in many aspects, when children start intensive study only in junior high school, if not in high school. They also cannot accept the fact that many subjects that are compulsory in Russia are optional in Israel and are not even taught in all schools (for example physics, chemistry, geography). In addition they do not seem to be pleased with the fact that general education of the younger generation is not among the major priorities of those who are in charge of school education. Being very pragmatic and having no ambition to change the Israeli system of education, ‘Russians’ developed their own system with the challenging and self-explanatory name ‘MOFET’ (paragon, model). Russian language and literature are, of course, parts of the MOFET programme. Not every Russian child, however, is a MOFET student, for various reasons. Unemployed teachers of Russian and Russian parents, who see the language as an important linkage between generations and the key to the cultural values they want to convey, began to struggle to have Russian accepted within the school programme as one of the languages a student can learn. After English, pupils would have a choice between Russian, Arabic and French. Although the Ministry of Education was quite sceptical about this project in the beginning, it eventually gave in and a new school programme of teaching Russian as a foreign language was accepted in 1997. Russian used to be taught earlier, but only as a mother tongue to those who had come recently. The new project gives an opportunity to restore the language of origin to those who have almost lost it, and to support and help those whose competence is better to master the language. All of the points mentioned above show that former Soviet Jews can hardly be considered to support a ‘melting-pot’ policy. They consider separation, to a certain extent, more an advantage than a disadvantage. Voting for the Russian political party is one of the steps to consolidate this advantage. Israel Ba’aliya, the party of Russian Jews, achieved six seats in the Knesset out of 120 in the 1999 elections. The second ethnic Russian party, Israel Beiteiny, got another two. It should be mentioned that Russian Jews ‘learned the lesson’ of the North African Jews who came to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s, when the official government policy was to re-educate the newcomers, replacing the language and traditions of the country of origin. Israeli society even today confronts the adverse consequences of the destruction of this old cultural tradition. Even now, almost fifty years later, Sephardic Jews remain the least successful group of the


Israeli population with respect to income and education. It turned out that forging a new identity was much more complicated than the obliteration of an inherited one. Painful experiences of the past seem to have changed the attitude of many Israelis, including officials, towards the ‘melting-pot’ dilemma. Yair Tzaban, the former Minister of Absorption, spoke for cultural pluralism as the only legitimate policy, reminding his audience of the considerable price paid for monoculturalism. He admitted as well that a controlled ‘melting-pot’ policy toward olim (immigrants to Israel) is not realistic and can hardly be implemented. ‘I do not want to belittle our capabilities or tasks, but we must be more modest when talking about shaping the character and image of any aliya. The olim are not clay in the hands of the potter’ (Tzaban 1977:132). There are at the same time examples of the retention of the culture and the language of origin that are quite different from that of the North Africans. Immigrants who are native English-or French-speakers are inclined to continue using their ‘prestigious’ languages, which are associated with universally recognized cultural values. The parents in these families continue speaking with the children in their language of origin and do everything to improve their performance in it, including reading and writing. They are not concerned with Hebrew, which will undoubtedly be learned outside the family network (Bentolila 1994:90). Russian immigrants seem to follow this example, not paying very much attention to what society thinks about the prestige of their culture. THE ROOTS OF CULTURAL DIVSIONS: REGIONALISM AS A PROBLEM FOR FORGING AN IDENTITY In fact, the Russian-speaking community in Israel can be an illustration of a competition (conflict) model of cultural change (Ben Rafael and Sharot 1991; Milroy and Milroy 1992; Yaeger 1994). Scientists who ascribe to this model claim that modern economic development brings ‘subordinate group members into more direct competition with members of other groups of society, thereby strengthening the group’s perception of social inequality between the minority and dominant groups and strengthening their sense of ethnic identity’ (Yaeger 1994:111). The idea of economic roots of cultural division seems quite reasonable, especially considering numerous accusations from people belonging to the lower strata of Israeli society that Russians were handed everything the moment they came to Israel. According to what is observed today it seems correct as well that increasing socio-economic status does not mean less concern for ethnic identity. On the contrary, the ability of group members to implement their wishes increases. As stated above, the Russian community in Israel is anything but homogeneous and the Russian spoken in Israel reflects the differences in former social and educational status and, mainly, the former residence of the newcomers.


Regionalism as a sort of disunity among Soviet Jews has been already described by Gold (1997:268–9). Generally, emigres from Russia (especially Moscow and St Petersburg) feel themselves to be superior to those from the Ukraine. Among emigrants from Ukraine, those from Kiev tend to denigrate Odessans. An accomplished chemical engineer from Moscow pointed out the irony of losing prestige because his daughter was mixing with ‘common’ Odessan emigres and beginning to speak [emphasis added] like them. The importance of these differences can be readily observed in personal ads in Israeli Russian newspapers, where such descriptions as ‘former Muscovite’ or ‘former resident of Leningrad’ are often stressed. These differences are manifested, to a great extent, as already mentioned, in the language. Hence marking has a shibboleth function as well. In a humorous poem published in the Russian Israeli newspaper Russkii Israil’tianin, the author Gennadii Usim chose two words of the South Russian dialect to symbolize the differences between his metropolitan mentality and the mentality of the people who speak dialect. He connects his non-acceptance of the mestechkovost (Jewish provincialism) and the lack of education with the things he cannot accept in Israel. It is very clear here that the struggle not only for the Russian language in general, but also for the pure classical Russian language, became a struggle for ‘being myself the way I am and I want to be’, which is typical and characteristic of the modern Western way of thinking. Ia ne liubliu! V torn blizkii drug, uveren, ne pomogzhet, Ia o rodnyh voobshche ne govoriu: Ia ne liubliu slova maloi i loghit I slovo rega tozhe ne liubliu. Ia ot bul’ona s kletskami boleiu, I ne liubliu politiku i gvalt, Ia ne liubliu borotsia za ideiu, Kotoryiu nam Gerzl zaveshchal. Ia ne liublliu, kogda lomaiut steny, Iz konury v”ezzhaia v konuru. Kogda tverdiat ‘Vo vsem povinny geny!’ I v zerkalo smotret’sa poutru. Ia ne liubliu, kogda zaboriy kras’at. Zelenyie kolgotki—chereschur. Ia ne liubliu, kogda sosed moi Vas’a Idet molit’s’ia skorbno v Iom Kipur. Ia ne liubliu, kogda migaet lampa,


I ne liubliu, kogda royal v kustah, Ia ne liubliu v teatre zhrushchich bambu, I cheshuschikhsia v raznych tam mestakh. V torn blizkii drug, uveren, ne pomozhet, I ia, uvy, ne znaiu, kak mne byt,’ Ia ne liublu slova maloi i lozhit, No vidimo pridetsia poliubit. I do not like! I’m sure a close friend won’t help me with it. Not to speak about the relatives, I do not like the words maloi i loghit7 And I do not like the word rega8 either. I became sick from broth with klotskas,9 I do not like politics and hubbub, I do not like to fight for the idea Bequeathed to us by Herzl. I do not like when they tear down the walls, Moving from one hovel to another, When they say These genes are to blame for everything!’ And I do not like to see myself in the mirror in the morning. I do not like when the fences are being painted, Green tights—that’s too much. I do not like when my neighbour Vasia Goes to pray dolefully on Yom Kippur. I do not like when a lamp twinkles, I do not like piano in the bushes, I do not like those gorging chips in the theatre, And scratching themselves in all these places. I’m sure a close friend won’t help me with it, And I, alas, do not know what to do. I do not like the words maloi and loghit, But it seems I will have to start liking them.10 While the English translation ruins the charm and the ‘between the lines’ of the Russian original, the main idea is obvious. The Russian spoken in Israel is a modified language full of calques and adoptions. There are numerous jokes about it, and the problem is well known (Moscovich 1984:167–9). Nina Berberova, describing the immigrants of the ‘first wave’—those who left Russia after the revolution and the Civil War and lived in Paris—said that the language the immigrants spoke was anything but the language of Bunin, Rachmaninov, Diaghilev and Remizov. Besides idioms and words typical for the South Russian provinces (mirrored today) there were calques and adoptions from French, mainly for the things and notions that do not exist or have another meaning in


Russian (Berberova 1997:3). The most famous example of such adoptions from Hebrew in Russian spoken in Israel is beseder, which literally means ‘okay’, but can mean anything from ‘do not worry’ to ‘leave me alone’. Another adoption is mazgan, or air-conditioner, which was a rare luxury item in Russia, but vital in Israel. The shift in role was followed by the change in name. Russian spoken in Israel is simplified (because cultural sources, though available, are limited in comparison to Russia) and much less formal, because of the influence of Hebrew and Israeli culture, which manifests itself, for example, in the use of ty and vy.11 These changes make the language fully suitable for the new needs of the speakers. THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IN ISRAEL—IRRITATIONS AND JUSTIFICATIONS The attitude to the Russian language developed by the immigrants is often rejected by those who see, in the widespread use of Russian, more proof of the voluntary separation and growing power of the community. This belief sometimes leads to dangerous incidents. On 6 November 1998, the whole country was shocked by the murder of 21-year-old Jan Shapshovich. He was killed in a fight initiated by the native locals, who were outraged by the fact that some boys were talking loudly in Russian. Dan Margalit, one of the most famous Israeli journalists, in his very popular television programme Hakol politi said, based on what the national newspapers reported, that: The real reason for the murder was the fact the boys were speaking Russian.’ Everybody who spoke in the media condemned the murder itself, but it gave renewed impetus to the endless discussion on how they (immigrants from Russia) should behave here (in Israel). It turned out that people who are quite respectable also do not like the widespread use of Russian. For example, in a school in Beer Sheva, two girls were punished for chatting in Russian during the lesson. It was stressed that the reason for punishment was the language used and not the fact of chatting itself (Vesti, 2 December 1999). In response, the representatives of the Russian community try to do everything possible to protect and legitimize the use of Russian in Israel, sometimes even in an extreme way. Sofia Landver, Russian Jewish deputy in the Knesset from the Labour Party, tried to promote the law of making Russian the third national language (together with Hebrew and Arabic). Even many Russian immigrants (including the political leaders) saw this attempt as a dangerous curiosity (Brofman 1998), but the time it was proposed spoke for itself (December 1998, less than a month after the murder of Shapshovich). Similar (but not the same) tendencies can be observed in countries with a large Russian-speaking population. In the United States, for example, ex-Soviet Jews tend to cluster in what can be termed Soviet Jewish enclaves, which are characterized by a great degree of self-sufficiency. The enclave provides Russianspeaking services to co-ethnics, including cable television and newspapers (Gold


1997:263). This enclave living and cultural separation is typical for the Russian Jewish communities in all the countries where they exist, leading to references to the existence of a post-Soviet trans-national Russian Jewish community (Markowitz 1995:419). However, there are factors that make immigration to Israel unique. The first is the legal status of the immigration and its special character as a returning diaspora, legitimizing the right of the immigrants to be unconditionally accepted. More than that, since the newcomers get Israeli citizenship immediately upon arrival in Ben-Gurion airport, they feel legitimized soon after their arrival to express publicly their views on Israeli social, political and cultural life and sometimes to take an active part in changing it. Being members of a returning diaspora in a Jewish country, they do not feel themselves to be an ethnic minority, but a part of a ruling majority, and being of European origin they consider themselves a part of the Ashkenazic elite as well. Another aspect is the high percentage of Russian Jews in Israel (about a fifth of the Jewish population), which means they influence every area of Israeli life and no politician can afford to ignore them. These two aspects make Russian Jews recognize themselves as a serious social and political power and inspire their activity in different fields, mainly in culture and education. CONCLUSION In the Russian community in Israel, language has become more than a means of communication. For this quite heterogeneous group, language is one of the basic uniting factors. No matter how good their command of Hebrew, Russian olim prefer to use Russian for their activities in the home and community and their cultural needs. Besides natural convenience, it can be explained as well by the unwillingness to become a part of the culture of the receiving country, and by the high motivation to preserve their language and original culture. The high percentage of Russian-speakers in Israel provides necessary conditions for the development of a Russian-language Israeli culture which differs both from the culture of origin (Russia) and from the culture of the host country (Israel) and increasingly influences Israeli society. However, the Russian language is not only uniting but, in certain cases, can be a separating factor as well, since it reflects cultural and region divisions in the community. The role and functions of the Russian language in Israel reveal tendencies in the contradictory process of the acculturation of Russian immigrants: determination to preserve their cultural values, hesitant attitudes towards Israeli culture, complicated process of forging a new identity and confidence in the right to be accepted the way they are and they want to be.


NOTES 1 Six-month Hebrew-language courses sponsored by the government. 2 Among teenagers (not to mention children), acculturation is very close to assimilation, but this chapter will principally address the case of adults. 3 Saul Tchernichowski (1875–1943) was a famous Hebrew-language writer and translator. He was born in Russia (Crimea), emigrated to Germany in 1922 and settled in Palestine in 1931. He was president of the Jewish Writers’ Association and wrote short stories and ballads and translated Greek and West European classics into Hebrew. 4 Hayyim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) was a famous Hebrew poet and translator. He was born in Volin, Russia, and emigrated to Palestine in 1924. 5 Lea Goldberg (1911–70) became a famous Israeli poet, translator, critic and novelist. She was born in Kovel, Lithuania (at that time part of the Russian Empire) and emigrated to Palestine in 1935. She was a professor of European literature at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 6 Rachel Blobshtein (1890–1931) was a famous Hebrew-language poet and translator. She was born in Russia and emigrated to Palestine in 1909. She translated the works of Anna Akhmatova, one of the most famous Russian poets of the twentieth century, into Hebrew. 7 Typical examples of ‘incorrect Russian’, mispronunciations used in southern Russia and Ukraine, meaning a small boy and to lay something down. 8 A second or a moment (Hebrew). 9 Klotskas is a very popular Ashkenazic meal. 10 This poem was kindly passed to me from the Russki Isral’tianin editorial electronic archive. 11 The informal and formal means of address, equivalent to tu and vous in French or Du and Sie in German.

22 A Case Study in Transnationalism: Russian Jewish Immigrants in Israel of the 1990s Larissa I.Remennick

TRANSNATIONAL IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES The concept of transnationalism, described as an integral part of the globalization process, is becoming increasingly popular in the social and political sciences (Glick Schiller et al. 1995; Guarnizo and Smith 1998; Portes et al. 1999). Originally coined in international economics to describe flows of capital, goods and labour across national borders in the second half of the twentieth century, this concept was later applied to the study of migrations and ethnic diasporas. The lens of transnationalism became increasingly useful for exploring such issues as immigrant economic integration, identity, citizenship and cultural retention. Some authors argue that transnationalism may actually be a new name for an old phenomenon, in the sense that most big immigration waves of the past were typified by ethno-cultural retention and contacts with co-ethnics abroad (Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Van Hear 1998; Guarnizo and Smith 1998). Indeed, historic studies of ethnic diasporas show that immigrants never fully severed their links with the homeland, and some of them (endowed with special means and/or talents) were active in politics, diplomacy and commerce in both their old and new countries. Yet, due to the technical and financial limitations of the time, for most regular migrants these links remained mainly in the sentimental and cultural realms, and were seldom expressed in active shuttle movement or communication across borders. Economic ties with countries of origin were typically limited to monetary remittances to family members. Although up to one-quarter of the transatlantic migrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries eventually returned to their homelands, the decision to repatriate was in fact another critical and irreversible choice to be made. Hence, for the majority involved in historic migration waves, resettlement was an irreversible process always involving a dichotomy: stay or emigrate, or else: stay or return (Thomas and Znaniecki 1984; Jacobson 1995; Van Hear 1998). In the late twentieth century, efficient and relatively cheap means of communication and transportation—called, by Portes et al. (1998) ‘time and space compressing technologies’—made this old dichotomy largely irrelevant. As


Castells (1996) pointed out in his book The Rise of the Network Society, new technologies have virtually created new patterns of social relations, or at least strongly reinforced pre-existing tendencies. They have allowed numerous diasporic immigrants to live in two or more countries at a time, thus maintaining close physical and social links with their places of origin. Transnational activities and lifestyles have become commonplace, embracing large numbers of people and playing a significant role in the economy, politics and social life of both sending and receiving countries. Guarnizo and Smith (1998) have introduced a useful distinction between the two types of transnationalism—‘from above’ and ‘from below’. The former refers to institutionalized economic and political activities of multinational corporations and organizations such as the UN, Amnesty International or Greenpeace, which set in motion large-scale global exchange of financial and human capital. On the other hand, an increasing role in these networks belongs to ordinary migrants—grassroots agents of transnationalism who run small businesses in their home countries, organize exchange of material and cultural goods (such as ethnic food and tours by folk artists, respectively) within the diaspora, pay regular visits to their birthplaces, receive co-ethnic guests, and so on. While much of the current writings on transnationalism are concerned with long-distance economic activities and financial flows across the borders, the focus of this chapter is on its sociocultural dimension and implications for immigrant integration. Migration experience in the context of global society, where constant exchange of people, products and ideas is reinforced by transnational media networks, has attained a whole new quality. No longer is emigration a one-way life choice: either you leave for ever or you stay for good. The full-time loyalty to one country and one culture is no longer self-evident: people may actually divide their physical presence, efforts and identity between several societies. Citizenship and political participation are also becoming bifocal or even multifocal, since some sending countries allow their expatriates to remain citizens, vote in national elections and establish political movements. In this context, international migrants are becoming transmigrants, developing economic activities, enjoying cultural life and maintaining dense informal networks not only with their home country, but also with other national branches of their diaspora. The split of economic, social and political loyalties among migrants, and the gradual attenuation of loyalty to the nation-state as such, is seen as problematic by some receiving countries (Glick Schiller et al. 1995; Guarnizo and Smith 1998). To be sure, the intensity of transnational tendencies depends on social and political context: in host countries that officially encourage multiculturalism (such as Canada) these trends may be stronger than in countries with a dominant assimilative ideology (such as France). By the same token, sending countries with oppressive political regimes can ban or hinder contacts between their citizens and expatriates, although this is increasingly rare, since even dictators seek the benefits of transnational exchange. The geographic proximity of the

348 CASE STUDY IN TRANSNATIONALISM

sending country is another determinant of transnational exchange. A small entrepreneur or political activist who can make a return flight to his home city over a weekend in order to supervise his enterprise there, or to vote in local elections, would embark on the trip more easily than one who has to plan a transatlantic flight and take time off work. However, with the advent of efficient electronic communications, physical travelling becomes less necessary; a growing number of transnational activities take place in cyberspace or simply over the telephone. Most transnational networks in business, politics, communications and culture organize along ethnic lines: that is, they include members of the same ethnic community spread between different locales on the map. Common language and cultural heritage are the key cementing factors for the transnational diasporas (Jacobson 1995; Van Hear 1998). In most cases, transnationals become bilingual and bicultural, but different communities may exhibit various extents of cultural separatism versus integration in the host society. Over time, many immigrant groups develop cultural and linguistic hybridism—the mix of the elements of their ethnic language, symbols and lifestyles with those adopted from the host culture. The most common expression of this trend is the formation of hybrid immigrant lingoes—Mexican English, Algerian French, Turkish German, and so on (Glick Schiller et al. 1995; Guarnizo and Smith 1998; Van Hear 1998). In psychosocial terms, transnational identity and personality are becoming increasingly ‘elastic’, if not ‘fluid’, and are being constantly shaped and reshaped by the multiple influences of the different societies migrants actually live in. The transnationals of today experience increasing difficulty in answering the questions, ‘What or who are you? Where do you belong?’ In that sense, transmigrant identity emerges as the epitome of postmodern identity (Giddens 1991; Guarniso and Smith 1998). However exciting, transnational lifestyle has its downside. While for many immigrants it may be a blessing, enabling them to enjoy the best of two (or more) worlds, for others it means virtually living in limbo, or in a state of permanent uprootedness. In some cases, transnationalism leads to social and cultural alienation from the host society and to poor chances for integration and success. An important issue in the studies of transmigration is the involvement with ethnic networks and cultural retention of subsequent generations of immigrants. The expansion of transnational links within ethnic diasporas has further challenged traditional theories of linear assimilation processes (Portes and Min 1993; Alba and Nee 1997; Rumbaut 1997). The basic assumption of classic assimilation/acculturation theory was that the persistence in clinging on to ethnically defined languages and lifestyles is typically limited to the first generation of adult migrants. Their children make decisive steps towards integration, while those belonging to the third and subsequent generations become fully fledged members of the host society. In the age of rising ethnic consciousness and fortification of transnational diasporas, this process looks much more complex and certainly non-linear. Seemingly assimilated children


and grandchildren of immigrants come to reclaim their ethnic roots and many of them may develop transnational identities, re-establishing the links with the country of their parents’ birth and with co-ethnics in other countries. In the context of global society, transnational networks are increasingly seen as an asset (Alba and Nee 1997; Faist 1998). ISRAELIS WITH A RUSSIAN ACCENT: PATHWAYS TO TRANSNATIONALISM The majority of recent studies on transnationalism focused on the immigrants (typically labour immigrants) who moved from the economically less developed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America to the West, mainly the US and Canada (Guarnizo and Smith 1998; Portes et al. 1998). This chapter seeks to apply this concept to another sub-stream of late twentieth century migrations: those from socialist Eastern Europe to Western or Westernized countries. The community of former Soviet Jews in Israel—the focus of this chapter—forms one of the main branches of the so-called post-communist diaspora, although several other ethnic groups (such as ethnic Germans, Armenians, Greeks) were on the move during the late 1980s and the 1990s. Over 60 per cent of the Jews who left the USSR and its successor states moved to Israel: the rest chose the US, Canada, Germany, Australia and other Western countries. In the early 1990s, the Israeli social anthropologist Fran Markowitz (1995) suggested that Russian Jews in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and abroad were developing transnational tendencies. There is, however, a lack of special studies among Russian Jewish Israelis which would measure and analyse these tendencies in more concrete terms. As a result of the demise of the Soviet Union and the open-door policy of emigration, over 850,000 Soviet Jews arrived in Israel after 1989 (IMIA 1998). This mass influx of immigrants increased the Jewish Israeli population by some 18 per cent, and the total number of Russian-speakers—including the immigrants of the 1970s—has reached one million. This ‘critical mass’ of immigrants has made a significant impact on the Israeli society, economics and politics. By virtue of its size and timing, the aliya1 of the 1990s carried with it all the necessary conditions for the development of transnational tendencies. Several demographic and social characteristics of this immigration wave were important prerequisites to its transnational orientation. To begin with, the Israeli Law of Return does not impose any eligibility criteria (such as age and health status) for Jewish immigrants and, therefore, the aliya of the 1990s was a mass, unselected family movement across borders. Younger families immigrated together, or in chain, along with their parents and other relatives. As a result, the advanced age structure of Soviet Jewry has been ‘transplanted’ to Israel: middleaged and elderly immigrants comprise a high percentage of the total. In 1997, about 40 per cent were over age 45 and 15 per cent over age 65, versus 30 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively, in the Israeli Jewish population (IMIA 1998;


Jewish immigrants wait in the departure hall at Moscow airport, en route to Israel, May 1990. Source: Beth Hatyefutsoth, Musem of Jewish Diaspora, Tel Aviv.

CBS 1998). Older immigrants are more prone to ethnic and cultural retention and have a lower potential for professional, social and cultural integration. Second, due to intense assimilation and intermarriage among Soviet Jews, over one-third of the immigrants are partly Jewish or non-Jewish— that is spouses or non-Jewish parents of repatriates recognized by the state as Jews.2 After seven decades of atheist indoctrination in the USSR, over 90 per cent are non-religious and their Jewish identity is mainly ethnic. Non-Jewish and assimilated immigrants are less likely to develop a strong Israeli identity and may have less motivation for studying Hebrew, mandatory military service and general cultural integration in the host society. It is important to bear in mind that the latest immigration wave from the FSU was set in motion mainly by the ‘push factors’ (economic crisis, political instability, growing nationalism and anti-Semitism in post-socialist countries). Positive identification with Judaism, Zionism and other Israeli values was, for the most part, weak. For many among the last-wave emigrants, Israel was a less desirable destination than the United States or other Western countries, which closed their doors or introduced strict quotas for Soviet citizens in the late 1980s. The only practical way of fleeing the deteriorating empire for ex-Soviets with at least some Jewish origins or with Jewish family members was moving to Israel, either as a permanent or a temporary destination. Thus, for most, aliya was a pragmatic rather than an ideological decision. In this sense, the mental state of Russian immigrants of the 1990s is markedly different from that of the smaller Zionist aliya from the USSR of the


1970s (comprising some 160,000 people), who had opted for Israel in the period when other Western countries also welcomed Jews from the USSR (Remennick 1998). Third, the Russian language and Russian-Soviet culture play the crucial role in the formation of Russian-Jewish ethnicity (a by-product of immigration) and the Israeli Russian community. It is, in fact, the main common ground for the otherwise diverse groups of former Soviet immigrants, including Jews of European, Caucasian and Central Asian origins coming from a whole array of places and social backgrounds. Across the multi-ethnic USSR, the Russian language was dominant both as the official and everyday language for most urban residents, and for all but a few educated professionals and white-collar workers. In the last Soviet census of 1989, 95 per cent of Jews named Russian as their mother tongue, compared to 30–60 per cent among other non-Russians (see Chapter 9). Soviet Jews counted in their ranks many prominent writers, poets, journalists, actors, theatre and film directors, media and show business people— that is, they belonged to the core of Russian intelligentsia and took an active part in the very creation of Russian-Soviet culture of the twentieth century. Hence the strength of the umbilical cord connecting Russian Jewish identity with Russian cultural tradition. Last but not least, many Israeli Russians have extensive networks of relatives and friends in North America and in Western Europe, i.e. in other branches of the post-Soviet diaspora, thus forming a transnational social space. As more Russian immigrants in Israel can afford long-distance phone calls and periodic air trips to these destinations (not to mention email connections), these networks are becoming more dense and sustainable. Many immigrants of the 1990s wave have kept their citizenship of Russia, Ukraine or of one of the other successor states of the USSR; many others who immigrated after 1992–93 have also kept their apartments there. This further facilitates the travel and business activities of the immigrants in the post-Soviet states. Although no national statistics or representative surveys characterizing transnational activities have been published so far, some estimates can be made using data from the annual Statistical Abstract of Israel (Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel 1995–98), publications of the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption (IMIA 1996, 1998) and some published (Remennick and Shtarkshall 1997; Remennick 1998, 1999a, 1999b) and unpublished work of mine. We can estimate that about 20 per cent of Russian Israelis make annual trips to their home cities in the former Soviet Union and over 40 per cent go there every two to four years. Around half call their relatives and friends in the FSU, the US, Germany and other diaspora countries at least once a month. About threequarters have received relatives and other co-ethnic guests from various countries in their homes at least once during their life in Israel. Over 20 per cent of working-age immigrants own a small business in one of the post-Soviet successor states, work for a Russian company in Israel or are otherwise involved in joint ventures. Many retired immigrants who still have apartments in the FSU


— especially in Moscow and St Petersburg—return there for several months every year to escape the hot Israeli summer. Typically, these activities start after the initial resettlement period is over—two to four years after arrival—and reach their peak after five to seven years in Israel. It is too early to know if transnational trends have reached saturation: their intensity may level off, grow or fall along with the increasing tenure of ‘Russians’ in Israel. Yet, as it is, personal and business exchange between the post-Soviet successor states, Israel and other post-Soviet diaspora countries looks fairly dense. Using Guarnizo and Smith’s (1998) distinction between the two sources, or levels, of transnationalism, it can also be argued that most transnational activities among Israeli Russians originate ‘from below’, that is, as a result of individual immigrants’ personal initiative. Transnational projects sponsored by Israeli institutions—for example, the joint ventures initiated by the most famous Israeli Russian, former ‘prisoner of Zion’ Natan Sharansky—(the Minister of Industry and Commerce in the 1996–99 government) also act as catalysts for human exchange. Yet their scope is not comparable with the amount and intensity of contacts growing from ‘below’. BETWEEN INTEGRATION AND SEPARATISM Close involvement of Russian Jews with the ethnic networks in Israel, the postSoviet successor states and elsewhere is intertwined with cultural separatism, in relation to mainstream Israeli society. Newcomers revealed great resistance towards the attempts of the Israeli institutions and broad public to achieve the rapid and full ‘absorption’ of the newcomers in line with the dominant ‘meltingpot’ ideology. The explanations for the isolationist trends among the Israeli Russians have to be sought in two realms: professional and cultural/linguistic. Occupational downgrading Occupational integration of the immigrants of the 1990s can hardly be called successful. The professional and educational profile of Russian Jews (over 65 per cent holding academic degrees) was grossly incongruent with the structural opportunities of the small and saturated Israeli professional labour market. The numbers of immigrant engineers, physicians, musicians and many other professionals greatly exceeded both the numbers of their local colleagues and the demands of the market. For example, over 75,000 Russian Jewish immigrants had been trained as engineers vis-à-vis some 25,000 Israeli-trained ones, and many of them had worked in Soviet-type heavy industry almost non-existent in Israel. Conversely, there were relatively few specialists in computing and electronics. About 15,000 Russian medical doctors have been added to some 18, 000 of their local colleagues in a health system that already has one of the highest doctor-to-patient ratios worldwide. About 10,000 musicians filled all the existing


orchestras and music schools and created many new ones, so that, today, every Israeli village or kibbutz has its own orchestra (IMIA 1998). Thus qualified professionals were clearly in excess, and many immigrants soon had to give up hope of regaining their former occupational status. Apart from their sheer redundancy, Soviet professionals often lacked the technical, social and linguistic skills necessary in the Israeli market (e.g., English, computer skills, self-marketing) and had great trouble mastering professional applications of Hebrew. Although immigrants broadly used retraining programmes and language courses sponsored by the state, these programmes could only help a limited number of younger and more dynamic newcomers. Hence, after a whole decade of attempted occupational integration, a significant amount of human capital brought to Israel by the immigrants remains unclaimed. In this sense, the mass migration of the 1990s has involved not only a ‘brain drain’ for the post-Soviet successor states but also ‘brain waste’ on the receiving end. As a result, many immigrants were compelled to make their living by semiskilled or unskilled work, usually in the service sector. Although by the late 1990s general unemployment rates among Russian immigrants had decreased to the national average, many of them still have jobs unrelated to their training and experience (Naveh et al. 1994). Due to the gendered structure of professional work in Israel, occupational downgrading was worse for women (mostly those trained in engineering and technology). Older immigrants, who had often been well-established professionals in the USSR, also had slim chances of regaining their former status (Remennick 1999a). The loss of occupational aspirations has had multiple negative psychosocial ramifications for the immigrants, among them low motivation for improving their command of Hebrew, few points of contact with their Israeli peers and increasing economic dependency on the welfare system. The bitter feeling that their professional and human potential was not wanted in Israel has also contributed greatly to the self-isolation of the RussianJewish community and its growing reliance on ethnic subculture. Cultural retention As has already been noted, the strong attachment of Russian-speakers to their language and culture is one of the prominent features of all historic waves of Russian/Soviet emigration and diaspora. Russian Jews, most of whom had formed an integral part of the Russian intelligentsia, cherish their identity and heritage, and see no reason for losing them after migration. Moreover, many immigrants see themselves as bearers of a ‘high European culture’, allegedly superior to the local ‘Asian’ (that is, more ‘primitive’) Hebrew-based culture (Lissak and Leshem 1995). However, even the most hard-core advocates of the purity of ‘Russian culture in exile’ cannot isolate themselves and their children from the ‘sounds and smells’ of the Israeli street outside. Elements of Hebrew idioms and slang inevitably penetrate the speech of Russian Israelis, turning ‘immigrant Russian’ into an amalgam lingo hardly penetrable by outsiders. The


dress, cuisine, leisure patterns and other elements of the everyday Israeli culture slowly but surely make their way into the lifestyle of the newcomers. As a result, an interesting cultural hybrid is growing within the invisible walls of the Israeli Russian community, providing yet another example of cultural hybridism among transnational migrants (Guarnizo and Smith 1998). Yet linguistic and cultural arrogance does a severe disservice to RussianJewish immigrants, discouraging them from learning more about the ways of their new homeland, understanding its social dynamics and political life and becoming, gradually, full-fledged citizens. The state policy of ‘absorption’, traditionally applied to successive waves of aliya, proved largely inadequate for Russian immigrants. Blatant cultural proselytisms of the Israeli institutions (Amir et al. 1997; Ilatov and Shamai 1998) and strong pressure on the immigrants to switch to Hebrew have been counterproductive, only enhancing silent resistance. Admittedly, cultural and linguistic adjustment clearly varies in successive generations. While children and youngsters rapidly become bilingual, the middle generation speaks Hebrew at work but strongly prefers Russian at home. The elderly make do with ‘survival’ Hebrew, sometimes supplemented with Yiddish remembered from their youth. As a matter of fact, older and less integrated Russian immigrants have few incentives to improve their Hebrew since most of their daily needs are met within the strong and multifaceted Russian subculture. During the 1990s, the branches of this subculture grew stronger and encompassed a greater number of activities. On the economic side, they include thousands of small businesses, most typically food and book stores, small trades in building and reconstruction, car maintenance, real estate, medical and personal services and consulting. Over 20 per cent of working Russian-Jewish immigrants are self-employed (legally or illegally) and their clientele typically consists of their co-ethnics. Cultural life in the ‘Russian Street’ is also thriving and versatile. The Gesher (‘Bridge’) theatre company, founded in the early 1990s by the Russian-speaking director Evgeny Arie and Russian-trained actors (performing in Russian and in Hebrew) has grown very popular among both immigrants and veteran Israelis. Several local publishers issue books of prose, poetry and literary almanacs for Russian readers. Prominent Russian writers living in Israel (for example, Igor Guberman and Gregory Kanovich) continue publishing their books in Russia as well. Many popular Russian musicians, rock groups, stand-up comedians and theatre companies make regular tours in Israel, performing in virtually every small town where they can find an immigrant audience. In the area of communications, Israel’s Russian Jews have created thriving press and electronic media of their own (Zilberg and Leshem 1996). These include over twenty newspapers and magazines, several regular programmes on Israeli radio and television and three television channels transmitted by cable companies directly from Russia. The most popular of these, NTV, is also aired in Germany and in other countries with a Russian-speaking diaspora. Russian television, watched in most immigrant homes, plays a special role in the


formation of transnational consciousness among Russian immigrants. Being permanently exposed to the information flow from their original home country— watching daily news, talk shows, cultural programmes, old and new movies, following all the twists and turns of dynamic Russian politics—creates the effect of mental presence, sympathy and virtual participation in events happening in the ‘post-Soviet space’. Since many immigrants, especially older ones, do not understand Hebrew well enough to watch local channels, they are sometimes better informed on Russian than on Israeli news items. For some, this creates a situation of physically living in one country while mentally belonging to another one. In addition, those Russian-speaking professionals who have made it into Israeli institutions (especially medical doctors, teachers and social and community workers) have become cultural mediators between mainstream Israel and ‘Russian Street’. Through these messengers, the language and cultural ways of Russian immigrants slowly penetrate the mainstream Israeli institutions and commercial structures. By way of market response to the demands of potential Russian clients, all kinds of signs, packages and brochures have begun to be printed in Russian while television commercials are broadcast in Russian and office receptionists have started speaking Russian, further reinforcing the illusion of living ‘almost at home’. Although spoken Russian is ubiquitous in today’s Israel, no attempt has been made by the Israeli educational system to preserve it as a literary language for the second generation of immigrants. Very few schools offer Russian as a second language, either for native-speakers or for Israeli students. As a result, most Russian youngsters grow up only semi-literate in their mother tongue. Thus the ostensible cross-fertilization of the immigrant and host cultures is rather shallow, occurring ad hoc rather than as a result of deliberate policy. The creation of the Israeli-Russian ethnic universe has been completed by the formation of an ethnic party (Israel Ba’Aliya, headed by Natan Sharansky), which in 1996 won seven seats in the Knesset and two ministerial posts in the government. Through the 1999 elections to the Knesset, another Russian party, Israel Beiteinu—‘Our Home Israel’, has appeared on the political map, winning four Knesset seats and adding diversity to political life on the ‘Russian Street’. Given the increasing division of Israeli society and politics along ethnic lines, these parties may become an effective instrument of lobbying for the interests of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Yet political participation among last-wave immigrants, at both national and local levels, remains rather low. Few Russians have joined the mainstream political parties (Labour and Likud), and even ‘Russian’ parties and movements count no more than several thousand members (out of some 500,000 adult immigrants). The development of active citizenship, voluntary associations and other features of civil society among former Soviet citizens in Israel (and in the US) is slow, reflecting the political and mental legacy of their past (Gold 1997; Remennick 1998).


Implications for the Integration Process Do close ties of the former Soviets with their home country and with other branches of Russian diaspora serve as a source of empowerment, attenuating their dependency on the host society and thus enabling self-isolation? Or, conversely, does the lack of successful integration into the host society compel Russian immigrants to turn to co-ethnic networks in Israel and abroad in search of the security, meaning and self-actualization they lack? Probably both assertions are true to some extent: transnationalism and cultural separatism feed on each other or, rather, comprise two sides of the same coin. Indeed, the immigrants’ linguistic and cultural self-reliance became possible due to the size of the Russian community alone, comprising some 20 per cent nationally and in some towns (for example, Ashdod, Haifa and Bat-Yam) reaching 30–50 per cent of the local population. The above-mentioned educational strength of Russian Jews and the sense of cultural superiority further enhance these isolationist trends. Low involvement with the host culture may affect the lives of Russian-Jewish Israelis in a dual way. On the one hand, the availability of co-ethnic cultural life, social and economic networks—for example, shopping in Russian stores, using services provided by co-ethnics and staying in touch with the former home society—comprise an important safetynet during the initial resettlement period, strongly ameliorating the adjustment process and improving immigrants’ mental health. Thus, in my recent study of immigrant women, who carry a triple burden as breadwinners and caretakers for the young and for the old in their families, reliance on co-ethnic networks has emerged as an important source of social support, especially for older and less adjusted women (Remennick 1999b). In another study, the accounts of immigrant physicians pointed to the significant role of their co-ethnic colleagues as a peer support group in the difficult process of licensure and accommodation in the new, and often unfriendly, professional environment (Remennick and Shtarkshall 1997). In fact, transnational lifestyle and co-ethnic networking enable immigrants to transplant their old identity to the new soil, which is an important asset in the face of the many losses they have to cope with. For instance, a senior Russian physician remains a respected specialist in the eyes of other Russians, regardless of the fact that he (or she) has failed to get a local licence or is unemployed. Even if he (or she) dispenses medical advice free of charge, or for a symbolic fee, to his (or her) ex-compatriots, he/she feels needed and remains a medical doctor. Since one’s profession is very central to the personal identity of most members of the former Soviet intelligentsia, the maintenance of social status among coethnics helps many educated immigrants to keep their self-respect in the face of an unfriendly economic environment (Remennick and Shtarkshall 1997). Admittedly, the need to preserve the old identity (with an added ‘immigrant facet’) is stronger among older and less successful immigrants.


However, there is a price to be paid for the luxury of keeping one’s old identity in a new country. The tendency of Russian immigrants towards selfisolation (Lissak and Leshem 1995) may hinder their occupational success and social accommodation as well as heighten cultural conflict between the newcomers and the host society. Since one million Russian-speakers in a country of five million present a ‘critical mass’, the expansion of the Russian subculture and its apparent resistance to assimilation are perceived by Israeli institutions and the broad public as a potential threat to the fragile national unity.3 In the country of immigrants founded only 54 years ago, surrounded by hostile neighbours and still striving towards nation-building, the group that fails to comply with this cause may come to be seen as a ‘fifth column’. Former Soviet citizens, in turn, are disappointed to see that they have ‘traded’ one type of ideological pressure (socialism) for another (Zionism). They try to escape any obliging tenets and to focus on the private realm: professional and economic mobility, the well-being of their children and other personal issues. In everyday life, this implicit conflict between the hosts and the newcomers is expressed in mutual negative stereotyping, immigrants’ social isolation, their discrimination on the job market and other forms (Leshem 1998; Remennick 1999a). Thus, in the unique context of Israeli society, cultural continuity among Russian immigrants (significantly enhanced by various forms of transnationalism) implies, in fact, social isolation from the mainstream. To be sure, explicit or implicit exclusion of immigrants by the mainstream is common in many receiving countries. Yet, in our case, Russian-speakers themselves contributed to this exclusion as a reaction to their apparent reluctance to cross the bridge to the host society. Israel differs from other countries receiving immigrants in the strong expectation of their loyalty to the national causes.4 Immigrants who move to Israel for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons and show little national sentiment are largely a disappointment. This is predominantly the case with the long-expected Russian aliya of the 1990s. The above is true at least for the first generation of adult migrants. Yet the trend towards cultural retention and maintenance of transnational links with the co-ethnics seems to transcend generations of Russian Israelis. Young people who immigrated at high school age and above are almost as determined to remain ‘Russians’ as are their parents. Although they master Hebrew quickly and generally do well at school and in college, their informal social networks remain mainly co-ethnic. This has been shown in several small studies among schoolchildren in the early and mid 1990s (Sever 1997; Ilatov and Shamai 1998), but there seems to be little change when these teenagers have become soldiers and students. Although young immigrants’ interest in Russia and actual social ties with their former homeland are usually weaker than in older generations, they still display some of the transnational tendencies discussed above. It remains to be seen whether these trends will fade or thrive in the second generation of Russian Israelis.


CONCLUSION This chapter explores the case of post-1989 Russian immigrants in Israel through the lens of transnationalism. By virtue of its ethnic diversity and timing in the years of intense international exchange and growing openness of the former Soviet states to their expatriates, the last Russian aliya was ready to become transnational at the very outset. Empirical research has shown that the transnationalism of Israeli Russians may have a dual role to play in their future. On the one hand, it is closely linked to their cultural alienation from the host society and, therefore, is conducive to social marginalization. In fact, if integration occurs at all, it happens mainly in the economic marketplace, where immigrants are dependent on mainstream employers for income and promotion. Even so, the portion of the immigrants who are self-employed, retired, or provide services catering for the ‘Russian Street’, has little economic contact with local society. In the realms of informal socializing and cultural consumption, the interaction between immigrants and host society, although growing, is still very limited. Yet, on the positive side, co-ethnic networking and cultural continuity serve as potent sources of social support and mental well-being for many immigrants, ameliorating the process of uprooting and hardships of resettlement. The apparent self-sufficiency of the Russian community is made possible largely by reliance on co-ethnic networks in Israel, in the successor states of the USSR and in other branches of the post-Soviet diaspora. The very availability of co-ethnic transnational community, in both material and virtual terms, attenuates the newcomers’ dependency on the host society and allows them to preserve their old identity or to ‘invent’ a new, hyphenated identity of ‘Russian-Israeli’.5 International electronic media have a special role to play in sustaining a binational identity among Russian-speakers, enabling their mental and emotional, and sometimes actual, participation in the life of more than one country. Therefore, the Russian-Israeli version of transnationalism can be described as pertaining mainly to the socio-cultural and identity realm. Economic and political activities of Russian immigrants across national borders (other than travel) certainly exist, but they embrace relatively small numbers of people. The transnationalism of Russian Jews mainly grows from ‘below’, i.e. through individual initiative not supported by a strong institutional basis. The latter may develop in the future, if and when Russia, Ukraine and other sending countries achieve economic and political stability. To be sure, the extent of immigrants’ involvement with transnational networks varies greatly, mainly as a function of their age, personal and family history and occupational success in Israel. Younger and better-adjusted immigrants are typically less prone to ethnic retention and strong connections with their coethnics abroad. The opposite is true of older people and those disappointed in their professional ambitions, who turn their back on Israeli society and seek selfactualization and support on the ‘Russian Street’. Since tens of thousands of former Soviet professionals faced dramatic occupational downgrading and social


exclusion, the potential pool of candidates for joining the ‘transnational immigrant club’ never runs out. Despite the tacit resistance of the mainstream, the overall influence of Russian Jews on Israeli politics, legislation and economic life is growing. This is conducive to both the incorporation of the immigrants into the existing institutions and to their successful lobbying for the cultural rights of Russianspeakers. The gradual penetration of Israelis with a Russian accent in national and local government may also enhance organized support for transnational activities, such as scientific and industrial cooperation with the post-Soviet states. The latter will largely depend on the political situation and economic stability in the post-socialist space. Hence, five to seven years from now, grass-roots transnational structures of Russian Jews may add a new institutional roof ‘from above’. NOTES 1 Aliya is a Hebrew word for the ‘repatriation’ of Jews to Israel, literally meaning ‘ascent’ to the historic homeland and to Jerusalem as the Jewish capital. Jewish ‘repatriates’ are called olim in Hebrew, or the ‘ascending’. These ideologically loaded terms signify the national Zionist aspirations. 2 By Jewish common law (Halakha), only a child of a Jewish mother is a Jew, regardless of the father’s descent. Children of Jewish fathers with non-Jewish mothers are not considered Jews. Yet, according to the Law of Return, children and grandchildren of Jews on any side, and their immediate family members, have a right to Israeli citizenship. 3 This unity is increasingly challenged by the tension (and at times open conflict) between the religious and the secular, the political right and left, and Jews coming from Europe/America versus Arab countries. Ever-deepening ‘tribalization’ of Israeli society puts in question the very notion of the ‘mainstream’. Yet, some pillars of Israeli identity (including Zionism, Jewish tradition and military service) still comprise a common denominator for most old-timers, and loyalty to them is expected of all newcomers. 4 See Chapters 16, 17 and 18. 5 This is the title of a popular Russian-language weekly, Russkii Israil’tianin.

23 The End of ‘Normality’: The Diasporization of Israel? William Safran

The collective self-definition of Israelis depends, inter alia, on the extent to which they compare their condition with that of Diaspora Jews. It has been said that in the Diaspora, Jews are never free fully to be themselves because they are always defining themselves against other Jews, either associating themselves with or separating themselves from the larger Jewish community. In Israel alone can Jews achieve normalcy. Only here can they freely act… Only here is total Judaism. I’m talking about a Jewish environment that is as natural for Jews as France is for the French. That is to say, in all aspects of life…everything is Jewish. America can never provide that for its Jews. (Chertok 1990:8–12) That statement is too simplistic: Israeli politics, culture, and religion are deeply influenced by traditional experiences, outlooks and behaviour patterns of the diaspora and by relations with it. This relationship has caused many Israeli Jews to be concerned about their identity and to ask whether they are Jews or Israelis— much as Jews in the diaspora have asked themselves whether they were primarily Jews or, respectively, Americans, French or British. ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE HOLOCAUST AS IDENTITY MARKERS After the establishment of Israel, the country’s leaders attempted to break with the diaspora mentality and instil a more ‘normal’ set of national attitudes in their citizens. They tried to replace the traditional Jewish identity based on religion and a strongly internalized martyrology with an Israeli identity based on a ‘civic religion’. One manifestation of that was contempt for things associated with the diaspora, among them the Yiddish language, the typical occupations of European urban and shtetl Jews, the submissiveness of their leaders and the preoccupation with the Holocaust. The sedentary habits of the yeshiva (Talmudic academy) students of Eastern Europe were replaced by an interest in nature; the pacifism of the masses yielded to a fighting spirit and the conviction that collective aims

THE END OF ‘NORMALITY’ 361

could best be achieved by ‘creating facts on the ground’. These efforts were successful insofar as they helped to build a democratic state. In recent years, however, there has been a selective return to ‘diasporic’ behaviour, as Israelis have realized that their fate was in many ways similar to that of their diaspora brethren. This attitudinal backsliding, which started in the 1960s, has continued. The Eichmann trial made Israelis aware of their connection with the diaspora and imposed upon them the task of guardianship of Holocaust memory, which is reflected in institutions, physical reminders and public observances. Two kibbutzim are named in memory of the Holocaust, there is a commemoration of the Holocaust a week before that of Israel’s battle casualties and eight days before Israel’s Independence Day and Yad Vashem, the National Holocaust Memorial Authority in Jerusalem, functions as the official ‘wreathlaying’ site for visiting diplomats. The Six Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973) reaffirmed the Israelis’ connection with the diaspora. Israelis became convinced that just as diaspora Jewry had been surrounded by enemies who threatened their lives, their country was alone, its existence threatened by its neighbours, its legitimacy questioned, and its status that of a pariah nation.1 Traditional diaspora anti-Semitism was based on religious grounds and, later, on sociological and ‘racial’ ones; contemporary anti-Israel attitudes are based on residual anti-Semitism, economic or strategic considerations and ideology. Just as modern anti-Semitism was expressed by both the ‘organicist’ right and the socialist left, so now contemporary anti-Israel attitudes are voiced by extreme right and left ideologues. For much of the world, there is no difference between Israel and the diaspora, a situation manifested in a conflation of Israeli behaviour with the allegedly archetypical behaviour of diaspora Jews. Anti-Semitic stereotypes once used against diaspora Jews came to be used by Israel’s enemies against Israelis: for instance, cartoons showing them with crooked noses and thick lips, and meeting in secret conclaves to confect conspiratorial ‘protocols’. These developments have led to a gradual ‘diasporization’ of Israeli attitudes— that is, victimhood syndromes expressed in discourse and behaviour, such as the reference to Israel as ‘the third temple’ (habayit hashlishi)—the articulation of the fear that it would be destroyed like the first two and that there would be a ‘second Holocaust’. According to the old view of the diaspora, the Shoah was regarded as a culmination of two millennia of anti-Semitism, which transformed Jews into passive subjects, so that ‘they went like sheep to the slaughter’. The diaspora is now approached more objectively. The events in Cambodia, Rwanda and Kosovo suggested that Jews were not the only minority who ‘let themselves be killed’. Moreover, it is now acknowledged that Jews in the ghettos and concentration camps tried to resist in the face of insuperable odds. This explains why Holocaust Observance Day in Israel is now called the ‘Day of the Shoah and of Heroism’. Half a century ago, the Zionist founders of Israel developed the notion that an independent Jewish state would be a guarantee against a new Holocaust. In pursuit of their state-building efforts, Israelis could not afford to waste time


looking back to diaspora Jewish history, in particular, to anti-Semitism and its consequences. Moreover, in the eyes of many Israelis, religiously inspired antiSemitism was becoming increasingly irrelevant in an age of secularism. Racial anti-Semitism was discredited and socio-economic anti-Semitism, based on the perception of an ‘inverted pyramid’ of the occupational structure of European Jewish communities, would be misplaced in a country whose immigrants were being downwardly mobilized to become farmers and construction workers. In many countries, overt anti-Semitism is out of fashion because of a lingering guilty conscience of enlightened majorities and because the Jews have been replaced as objects of xenophobia by other minorities such as blacks (in the United States), Maghrebis (in France) and Turks (in Germany). There was, however, a new kind of anti-Semitism directed against Israel; in some respects a sublimation of the older forms, it was based on political ideology (especially of the left): the notion that Zionism was a product of Western colonialism and was associated with the oppression of ‘people of colour’. From the 1960s on, a consciousness of the Holocaust injected itself into the collective identity of Israelis when they realized that the traditional indifference of the civilized world to the fate of Jewish diaspora communities was now replicated in an indifference to the fate of Israel as a state. The memory of the Holocaust was not only perpetuated by Israelis of Ashkenazic descent but was also internalized by Sephardic and ‘oriental’ Jews in Israel who had not personally experienced that part of Jewish history. Owing to the enmity of surrounding Arab states, the continuing harassment of their country by the United Nations and the growing belief of many Israelis that the major powers (whatever their motivations) would betray their country when circumstances permitted, Israelis have turned increasingly to diaspora communities, in particular the American one, which came to be regarded as the country’s only reliable ally. These changes in attitude have constituted a mythic convergence between Israel and the diaspora and contributed to a ‘diasporization’ of Israeli mentalities. This diasporization is reflected in an inversion of perceptions. Traditionally, life for Jews in the diaspora was uncertain: their fate was in the hands of their host societies and Zionists believed that only in a state of their own could they live securely and be their own masters. After the Shoah, that belief took on a renewed meaning with the widespread conviction that the lives of many Jews would have been saved had there been a Jewish state. Today, several Western democracies are regarded by many Israelis as more reliable havens for Jews than the state of Israel. It is because the diaspora still exists that if a physical threat to Israel ever materializes, the Jews have a chance of survival. DIASPORA JUDAISM The extent to which diasporic conceptions of Judaism maintain themselves or have been reintroduced in Israeli Judaism is a matter of controversy. During the first decade of independence, attempts were made to reinterpret Judaism in terms


of pre-diaspora perspectives; in consonance with the ‘statist’ ideology of the founders, Jewish ritual stressed its biblical and Palestinian aspects (Don-Yehiya 1995). The observance of religious festivals—for instance, the three ‘pilgrimage festivals’—was oriented towards a purely territorial history and the local flora and fauna, and buttressed by archeological evidences of the Jewish presence in the area. Before long, however, Israeli Judaism was ‘rediasporized’ by the increasing influence of an Orthodox rabbinate whose Judaism was that of the Eastern European or Sephardic tradition and, conversely, by the non-Orthodox approaches of American Jews. The reason for that diasporization is the fact that Israel became the locus of many spiritual leaders of the communities of Eastern Europe who had survived the Holocaust and re-established their yeshivot in Israel. These leaders, the ‘Great Men of Torah’, were not Zionists, and their identification with the state was, at best, half-hearted. Nevertheless, their learning and stature were such that the status of the chief rabbinate—regarded as an excessively politicized institution—declined (Eisenstadt 1985:365–89). The activism of these leaders in fostering religious education and observance worked to the detriment of the National Religious Party, which often emphasized its loyalty to the state at the expense of the promotion of religious demands. In Israel, as a (more or less) Jewish state, Judaism enjoys special legitimation. Nevertheless, Israel has not yet been able to develop a ‘national’ form of Judaism or a specifically Israeli secular substitute (Urian and Karsh 1999:4; Shaked 1999: 85). There are two distinct Jewish communities in the country, each defined in terms of the diaspora and each with its own chief rabbi. The religion of both communities, however, is Orthodox and expresses a form of Judaism that was defined in the diaspora and that the Orthodox rabbinate has kept in a ‘frozen’ condition.2 This condition is reflected, especially among the Ashkenazim, in the diasporic language of the prayer books and the retention of Eastern European orientations of yeshivot. The diaspora is reflected even in architecture: in an Israeli village, Kfar Habad, there is an exact replica of the Lubavitch (Habad) Hasidic headquarters in Brooklyn.3 The ultra-Orthodox, often referred to as haredim (‘tremblers’), practise a form of Judaism developed in Eastern Europe over many generations. One such community, the anti-Zionist Natorei Karta, constitutes an ‘internal diaspora’: although they are permanently settled in a section of Jerusalem, its members are oriented towards the diaspora in dress, culture and language. They deny the legitimacy of the state, they refuse to use Hebrew for non-religious purposes and their everyday language is Yiddish. Even Orthodox Zionists who have settled in Israel without any interest in leaving it, and without nostalgia for the ‘old country’, have retained an ‘exilic’ (galut) approach to Israel, which they continue to regard as a promised, but not yet fully acquired, land; they pray for the ‘ingathering of exiles’ and for the rebuilding of the temple (while refraining from undertaking such a task themselves). Thus, even in Israel, Jews will remain in ‘exile’ until the advent of the Messiah. That is all the more the case since the country is ruled not according


to the laws of the Torah, but according to secular legal norms that in many respects do not differ from those of diaspora countries.4 To the extent that there are non-Orthodox alternatives to Judaism, these, too, are non-Israeli; they are mostly imports from the US diaspora. At the same time, the critique by the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel of non-Orthodox Judaism is based on an image of the kind of Reform Judaism found in pre-Hitler Germany: that of a desiccated religion modelled on Protestantism. Today, specifically Israeli approaches to religion are found in the kibbutz. There the celebration of the sabbath and the Jewish festivals has been in terms not of theology, but of secularism and naturalism, that is, an evocation of the agricultural seasons. The kibbutzim, however, contain less than 3 per cent of the Jewish population of Israel and are in the process of radical transformation. Many Israelis who rebel against the rampant materialism of bourgeois Israelis become hozrim bitshuvah (repentant, or ‘born-again’, Jews), and their Judaism tends to be patterned after its Eastern European variant. THE DIASPORA INGREDIENT IN ISRAEL’S CULTURE There is a never-ending debate among Israeli Jews about the extent to which their culture has liberated itself from that of the diaspora. This debate focuses primarily on language. Israel, perhaps alone among newly independent states, has succeeded in reclaiming the historic language of its people for everyday use. In the view of some Israelis, the speakers of the functionally restored Hebrew got rid of its galut images and began to resort to purely local idiom. However, contrary to the assertion of other Israelis, they did not return to a ‘pre-Jewish’ biblical language. The Hebrew of the yishuv (the Jewish inhabitants of pre-state Palestine) was sprinkled with Yiddish expressions, and many current Israeli locutions are translations of Yiddish phrases. This language is moving ever further away from biblical Hebrew as it continues to Europeanize itself and to absorb countless words from English (Ben-Amotz and Ben-Yehuda 1972, 1982). Israeli Hebrew literature has evolved far beyond the religious writings of diaspora rabbis and has taken up both national and international secular themes. At the same time, the diaspora continued to be the principal theme of the country’s major writers, including Bialik, Agnon, Hazzaz, Grinberg and Apelfeld. A generation ago the traditional multilingualism of diaspora Jews was replaced by monolingualism as a desirable cultural aim, but now bilingualism is the rule. With the successive waves of immigration, Yiddish, Arabic, Russian and German continued to be widely spoken, and the cultural and emotional connection with ‘home countries’ in Europe and the Middle East was kept alive. However, while this connection was largely one of nostalgia, the more recent cultivation of English became a necessity in a country that wanted to be part of the ‘globalization’ process. The fact that English is the second language of Israeli intellectuals, technocrats and business executives, and that half of the


world’s Jews are now anglophones, adds to the magnetic pull of the United States. During David Ben-Gurion’s prime ministership, Yiddish was denigrated because of the undesirable diaspora mentality it was thought to convey. Moreover, the language was spoken by so many Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel that it generated the fear that it would eclipse Hebrew. That did not happen, and in the 1980s and 1990s a new appreciation of Yiddish and of diaspora history and culture developed, signalized, inter alia, by the opening of Beit Hatefutsot, the Museum of the Diaspora. Above all, the revived interest in Yiddish was attested by the translation of Yiddish classics into Hebrew and the establishment of chairs in Yiddish literature.5 The continuity of diaspora identity is manifested in the survival of ethnic communalism (for example, the persistence of fraternal societies based on common local background) and of congregations for those hailing from particular Eastern European shtetls. Such identity is also reflected in the continuing reference to Jewish subcommunities in Israel in terms of their country of origin (‘Anglo-Saxons’, ‘Orientals’, ‘Russians’, and so on), and in selected instances of diasporic behaviour. ASPECTS OF DIASPORA POLITICAL CULTURE One of the features of Israel’s political culture has been referred to as ‘illegalism’ (Sprinzak 1993). It has been pointed out that there are increasing incidences of the sidestepping of legal norms by both the Israeli masses and the elite. This phenomenon is manifested in a lack of respect for the environment, in irresponsible driving and in the fact that Knesset members who commit traffic offences are exempt from fines (Ben-Meir 1973:231; Fishman 1974:12–13, 169). This lack of civic-mindedness is manifested in an emphasis on party interests (miflagtiut) above national interests, in evasions of the law, fiscal violations, bribery scandals and the resort to protektsia (‘string-pulling’) to bypass an unwieldy and often arbitrary bureaucracy. The spreading incivisme is attributed by some observers to a growing elite selfishness, which is itself attributed to the decline of the kibbutz, the traditional repository of civic-mindedness and egalitarianism (Ben-Meir 1973:77–9). It is also argued that these patterns are residues of traditional diaspora attitudes, which were particularly prevalent in Eastern Europe. The states in which Jews lived were not ‘theirs’; politics was a reflection not of popular sovereignty but of a reactionary elite, and whatever decisions were made tended to favour the Gentiles, not the Jews. The attitude towards the law of the land was one of suspicion because no shtetl Jew could trust the law of the Gentiles, and state law was seen as another instrument of oppressive Gentile society (Sprinzak 1993:178). The survival of Jews often depended on the evasion of positive law. That was equally true for the Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, where the baksheesh was often the only way to get things done. These attitudes have


continued with the influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union, where the evasion of law was characteristic of society as a whole—an influx reflected in the growth of a ‘Jewish mafia’ in Israel. The Jewish state was intended to ‘normalize’ Jewish attitudes towards the law. However, the founders of the state, being for the most part socialists, had been imbued with the typical socialist notion that legal formalism was an instrument of the bourgeoisie to oppress the people. More important, there was a widespread belief that the Jewish state would not have come about if the founders of the yishuv and, later, the founders of the state, had adhered to laws that were unjust. Specifically, under British Mandate laws, many of the activities leading to the building of the state— immigration, settlement, and self-defence-were illegal (Sprinzak 1993:178–9, 191). To be sure, the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948 had been a reflection of formal international legitimation, since it came in the wake of the United Nations Partition Resolution of 1947. Gradually, however, the legal cachet of the UN came to be regarded with contempt, as the norms of the international community (with respect to minorities, human rights and sovereignty) were inconsistently applied and were as discriminatory against Israel as the positive law of the countries of the Eastern European diaspora had been against Jews. The consolidation of Israeli democracy was accompanied by the ascendance of civil positive law over halakha (Jewish religious law) and by vestiges of the social norms of the ghetto or the mellah; in our own day, however, the conflict between ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis has led to a low-intensity Kulturkampf, in which decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court in favour of secularism, an improved position for non-Orthodox Judaism and the ending of draft exemptions of yeshiva students are being labelled by the Orthodox as ‘anti-Semitic’.6 Political culture in Israel is also reflected in relations between its ethno-cultural subcommunities. The old diaspora rivalries between Litvaks and Galitzianers (in Eastern Europe) and between Yekkes and Ostjuden (in Germany) have become irrelevant; they have been replaced by conflicts between Ashkenazim and nonAshkenazim (for example, ‘Orientals’ or Mizrahim and Sephardim). The Ashkenazim (the principal creators of the state and the purveyors of its original socialist Zionist ideology) have continued to regard the political and administrative institutions as their ‘turf and have had patronizing attitudes toward the Mizrahim; the latter, in response, have developed a degree of hostility towards these institutions and tried to gain access to them by voting against the Labour Alignment, the major party of the Ashkenazim. THE IMPACT OF THE DIASPORA ON ISRAEL’S POLICIES One of the elements of Zionist thinking was the notion that in their own state Jews would be able to protect their proper interests and make decisions independent of the goodwill of others. Traditionally, Jews in the diaspora were


submissive; they frequently acted on the basis of ‘what will the goyim [Gentiles] think?’ In contrast, from the founding of Israel to the mid-1970s, many of its leaders (including David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir) argued that the country could not base its decisions on what others might think. Today, however, traditional ‘Uncle Tom’ attitudes have come to the surface again. Certain contemporary Israeli politicians, as they yield to escalating Arab demands for territory, convey a sense of virtually apologizing for the existence of Israel as a state and its need to defend itself. To some extent, this behaviour may be attributed to the fact that these politicians spend a great deal of time abroad, where they may get a better reception than at home and are heavily influenced by outside views. There is, however, another explanation for this accommodationist behaviour: its diasporic essence may reflect the notion of Israel as the country of the ideal Jew, who for some is religious and for others is socialist, pacifist or universalist. There is still another dimension: after the end of the Cold War, Israel lost significance as an anti-Communist bulwark. The accommodationist stance resulting from this change reflected a new kind of realpolitik which in many ways resembles the adaptive realism of diaspora Jewry. Traditionally, Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East relied on intercessors (shtadlanim) who used their access to the public authorities to speak on behalf of Jewish interests. Since 1948, the pre-modern Hofjude has been replaced, albeit selectively, by the government of Israel. Yet the intercessor continued to function in the diaspora even after Israel had come into existence. For example, Nahum Goldmann, head of the World Zionist Organization and a diaspora leader par excellence, initiated the negotiations with Germany on reparations, of which Israel was to be the primary beneficiary. It is debatable whether Israel’s sensitivity to the diaspora is due to dependency syndromes that predated the state or to plain realpolitik. In any case, Israel’s foreign policy cannot be imagined without the diaspora. To be sure, Israel is, at least formally, a sovereign state whose policies reflect its national interests. At the same time, it is sensitive to the needs of the diaspora, whose status Israel does not wish to imperil, and for that reason its own decisions are frequently subject to pressures from Jews abroad (Liebman 1977:156–74). This constraint applies in particular to matters of religion. One of the habitual features of Israel’s domestic politics is the influence of the diaspora leaders of the Lubavitch (Habad) movement and of its rival, the Aguda, on Israeli elections, advising their adherents on how to vote. A more recent manifestation of diaspora interference in Israeli religious affairs is that of the American Conservative and Reform movements. On occasion, the Zionist-oriented National Religious Party, which has been the most accommodating of Israel’s religious parties to the statist exigencies of the country, has had its attitudes on matters of autopsies, dietary proscriptions and other religious issues ‘stiffened’ by the pressures of American Orthodox rabbinical organizations. There have even been instances where the Israeli government has solicited the input of diaspora Jewry, as in the case of defining ‘who is a Jew’ (Liebman 1977:91ff). The recent decisions of the Israeli


Supreme Court tending towards the legitimation of non-Orthodox rabbis have been heavily influenced by the concerns of diaspora Jewry. The behaviour of Israelis regarding general or global issues is in some respects a replay of that of their diaspora brethren in the past. Four generations ago, persecuted Jews in Russia and Romania turned for help to their more powerful co-religionists in Western countries. Today, Israel looks to the US Jewish community for economic and diplomatic help. Many Israeli institutions, including political movements, rely on diaspora financial support. ‘Diasporatropism’ is even reflected in the behaviour of the country’s political elite; at any given time, a significant proportion of deputies and cabinet ministers is abroad. During most of their trips they make a point of addressing Jewish audiences in other countries. The diaspora influence on Israel has not been effectively counterbalanced by Israeli influence on the diaspora. When the state of Israel was established, many of its leaders hoped that it would serve as a fount of Jewish culture that would inspire the diaspora Jews. That proved to be a vain hope; the cultural emissaries sent by the Israeli government to various Jewish communities in the diaspora have for the most part been unsuccessful in attempts to inculcate Israeli (or Jewish) values in their co-religionists or to persuade them to settle in Israel. It is true that many Jews in the diaspora have replaced their focus on religion with a focus on Israel. However, Jews in the United States and Western European countries, being content with their condition in these countries, have no intention of leaving them. In any case, in order to survive as a modern democratic state, Israel had to concentrate not on being a spiritual centre for diaspora Jewry, but on national interests—in this case the interests of sheer survival: political consolidation, military readiness and building an economic infrastructure (Schweid 1973:203–14). THE PULL OF THE DIASPORA: THE YERIDA PHENOMENON Yehuda Halevi, the medieval Spanish Hebrew poet and philosopher, began a poem with the words, ‘My heart is in the East, and I am in the uttermost West.’ In the nineteenth century, Zionist essayists dreamed of a land flowing with milk and honey. Conversely, members of the second aliya (wave of immigration), who settled in Palestine between 1904 and 1914, fondly remembered the old country and its temperate climate when they had to suffer periodic heat waves and were confronted with the need to drain marshes in Galilee and tease harvests out of the often inhospitable soil. Today, many sabras (native-born Israelis) go back to visit Poland, Romania or Ukraine in search of their ‘roots’. When they get there, they find that their roots have been effaced and when they visit Auschwitz or meet with anti-Semites in these countries, they are glad that they do not live there. Poland is still the galut; the United States is not— it is merely a ‘parallel’ Jewish community.


Originally, emigration from Israel (yerida) had a bad connotation among Israelis in general; it implied the shirking of one’s duty to a collective enterprise. Israeli leaders took a dim view of emigrants from Israel (yordim), the yerida of immigrants was seen as ingratitude to the yishuv, which had made considerable economic sacrifices to provide a haven for Jews fleeing from oppression. Later, emigration met with greater understanding, as many of Israel’s educated individuals could not find places in the country’s workforce. Concurrently, the solidaristic collectivism characteristic of the early settlers was replaced by individualism and materialism, and people looked for greener pastures and the kind of opportunities for advancement that Israel could not match. There are various kinds of yordim, and there is a growing Israeli diaspora. Yerida began even before the establishment of the state. For example, many German Jews who had come to Palestine—one of the few havens from the Nazi regime—in the 1930s left Israel soon after the Second World War to go to the United States or even back to Germany. While in the country, they replicated a German lifestyle as much as possible. A significant number of these immigrants could not adjust to the ‘oriental’ climate, culture and language;7 they continued to speak German and teach it to their children. From the early 1980s to the present, Israel again became a stopping point between a less desirable diaspora to a more desirable one—in this case, between the (ex-)Soviet Union and the United States or Europe. Why do Israelis leave? Israeli immigrants to the United States have come to that country for economic reasons: they complain about the high taxes, relatively low salaries and steep housing costs in Israel. The economic motive is, however, not always the decisive one, for many who leave Israel are economically well off (Sobel 1986). This is especially true today, when the Israeli standard of living is roughly comparable to that of Western European countries. Diaspora Jewry often regards these yordim with embarrassment because they do not incarnate the idealized Israeli (Cohen 1986; Levy 1986). Among other reasons given for yerida is that life in Israel is too hard; the country is too small; society too ‘closed in’ and the bureaucracy too inflated and overbearing. Army service seems to be disruptive and never ending, and the constant military threats of Israel’s neighbours and incessant pressures emanating from outside contribute to the nervousness and lack of politeness that are believed to be endemic to Israeli society. Israelis who leave their country, either temporarily or permanently, often express the yearning to escape the psychological burdens of everyday life, a yearning that has become a frequent theme of contemporary Israeli novelists (Zerubavel 1986). There are Israelis who rationalize their yerida in terms of ideology. Some give as their reason the conviction that Israel has not fulfilled its Utopian expectations —that it has developed into an ‘ordinary’ country and come to lack definition. They refer to what they consider the abandonment of the vision of the Zionist founders and their ideological precursors. According to that vision, Israel was to be a place where nationalism would be more progressive than elsewhere—a


secularized version of the notion that ‘out of Zion shall come forth the law’. Furthermore, they were morally offended by Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its fighting an ‘optional’ war: the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. In any case, Israelis who leave today seem to do so with an easier conscience than those who left during the founding years: contemporary yordim have done their military service and contributed to the building of a country that is now consolidated. For the early settlers, the imagined Land of Israel was a far-away land that was more attractive than the real one later proved to be, with its small size and its aridity; with rapid urbanization of the country, the romanticized image of Israel as a land of palm trees and olive groves yielded to the reality of cityscapes that were difficult to differentiate from metropolises elsewhere. For the generation that grew up after the establishment of the state, the United States and Western Europe became the newly imagined places. These had more agreeable climates, provided better economic opportunities, and were less confining geographically. The United States in particular had become so attractive that it was not considered galut in the traditional sense. Moreover, Zionism was so reinterpreted that it became possible to remain in that country, or to settle there, while still being a Zionist in a convoluted ideological sense (Shimoni 1995). The ‘wandering Israeli’, when he returns from abroad and recounts the glories he has seen, appears like a ‘pioneer’ of the new diaspora and has a contagious effect upon Israelis who originally had no urge to leave. Yerida has affected two different kinds of Israelis: many secularists who left because Israel was becoming too ‘theocratic’, and, conversely, some Orthodox Jews who left because Israel had become too secular. The group that tended by and large to stay behind were mizrahim because they had no other place: they were certainly not welcomed back by the Muslim countries they had come from and many were insufficiently Western and inadequately educated to face the competitive societies of Western countries. For Israelis with professional or kinship connections abroad, prospects outside Israel have been especially enticing when its existence has seemed to be threatened.8 Some Israelis have accepted the argument, often used by non-Israeli Jews, that although living in a diaspora may produce the marginal Jew, it may also lead to intellectual liberation and produce the kind of tension that stimulates and leads to great creativity. The yordim are not necessarily lost to Israel. Many of them navigate between two worlds: they are pulled towards Israel for various reasons; they visit the country often and they send their children to summer camps in Israel and later, to serve in its army; and every year, thousands of yordim return (Sharkansky 1997: 84–7). Yordim, like diaspora Jews who have never set foot in Israel, have contributed to the ‘diasporization’ of Zionist ideology itself by arguing that the idea of ‘exile’ (as opposed to mere expatriation) is so quintessentially Jewish that it is part of the identity of Jews as such, irrespective of where they live. Moreover, the adjustment of Jews to the diaspora can never be complete—for the simple reason that even the most comfortable and most pluralistic country, such as the


United States, is fundamentally Christian. In that sense, Jews may continue to be Zionists after they have left Israel for the diaspora (Shimoni 1995). Although the yordim express their Zionism with the hope of being (again) ‘next year in Jerusalem’, they may yearn for the diaspora (again) once they have returned, because, as A.B.Yehoshua has put it: Jews in the Diaspora have a fear of being locked into a total Jewish situation. It is an independence for which Jews have not been trained, and our culture and civilization perhaps even reject it. Israelis, too, are not free from this disease which I call ‘the genetic elements of Diaspora in our blood. (Cohen 1990:79) MODERNIZATION, GLOBALIZATION AND IDENTITY PRESSURES: POST-ZIONISM A generation ago, Israelis criticized the Jews in Western capitalist countries for being too materialistic and for becoming Jewishly illiterate. Today, such criticism has largely evaporated as Israelis are themselves becoming materialistic and as traditional Jewish culture (based on religion) is being eclipsed by a technicist and globalized one that is not easy to distinguish from non-Jewish national cultures, except that much of it is expressed in Hebrew. As Israel became more solidly connected with the transnational world of science and technology, spending a year in the United States became a status symbol for ambitious academicians. These developments have increased the growing cultural empathy of Israelis with the diaspora and reduced the gap between the two universes of Jewry. According to an Israeli scholar, diaspora consciousness has been removed from both Israel and the majority of diaspora Jewish communities, at least in Western democracies, a situation that is the consequence of the ‘normalization’ of conditions in both places and of the relationship between them. In the United States and Western Europe, the diaspora is no longer viewed as ‘exile’ but is seen as a theologically neutral manifestation of free choice of residence, essentially no different from non-Jewish ethnic or religious minority communities whose members departed from their ‘homelands’ of their own free will and dispersed throughout various countries in search of better lives. In Israel, in contrast, Jewishness has been replaced as a primary identity marker by a territorially based collective consciousness. In other words, the Jew in the United States is first of all an American and then a Jew; and the Jew in Israel is first of all an Israeli. This ‘normalization’ has meant that the diaspora and Israel have different, and independent, agendas: the diaspora Jews have a sense of acceptance and equality, whereas the Israelis have ‘a normal measure of sovereignty’. Such a situation renders the relationship between them no different from that which exists between other ethnic minorities and their ‘home’ countries (Gorny 1994).


This view is open to challenge. Israel, being heavily dependent on the financial and diplomatic support of the diaspora, has a far more limited measure of sovereignty than other countries with large ‘external’ communities of fellow ethnics; moreover, none of the homelands of other diasporas—Greece, Italy, Poland, China or even Armenia—is in danger of being destroyed by its neighbours. These conditions make it impossible for Israelis to rid themselves entirely of diasporic attitudes. There is a saying that ‘you can take the Jew out of the galut (exile), but you cannot take the galut out of the Jew’. An important aspect of galut mentality was the perennial feeling of being an outsider. In Germany and France, Jews were considered strangers who had no place there. Now Israel as a Jewish state is considered a foreign intruder into an area that is viewed as exclusively Arab and/ or Muslim. The frequent response by ‘enlightened’ and self-conscious German and French Jews used to be the feeling that the Gentiles were basically right, and they acted accordingly. In an effort to assimilate, they cast off the ‘oriental’ elements of Judaism and redefined themselves as German or French nationals of the ‘Mosaic faith’ or abandoned Judaism altogether. Just as many European Jews believed that the Jewish problem would be solved if Jews became ‘de-Judaized’, so many Israelis now believe that the Arab-Israeli problem would be solved if Israel became ‘de-Zionized’. This explains why some Israelis who wanted to fit into the spatial scheme of things defined themselves as ‘Canaanites’ and why, today, they call themselves ‘post-Zionists’. Whereas in the secularizing nineteenth century, traditional Judaism was often dismissed by some enlightened European Jews as oriental superstition, so today, in the globalizing (and allegedly ‘post-national’) twenty-first century, Zionism (tsionut) is dismissed by modernizing and globally oriented Israelis as nonsense (shtut). Another aspect of the galut mentality was the inclination of Jews to blame themselves for their misfortune: indeed, the very existence of galut was attributed to Jewish sinfulness. Being for the most part religious, Jews tended to judge themselves and their fellow Jews by a higher standard than they would use to judge others. In short, they had a guilt complex. With growing secularization, the compass for Jewish moral judgement was changed from a religious to an ideological one, explaining why so many Jews wanted to engage in tikkun olam, that is, repairing the ills of the world via socialism, liberalism and reform measures aimed at social justice. This typically diasporic approach is now reflected in the ‘post-Zionist’ writings of Israeli academicians. Their revisionism consists of a re-examination of the founding myths of the state and of the circumstances under which it came into being. This revisionism is based on the desire to reject Zionist particularism in favour of universalism, but to some extent it is also based on the need to appeal to a wider academic world. Post-Zionists tend to be impatient with ideology (except for an inchoate kind of new leftism), to stress the legitimacy of Arab over Jewish claims, and to be more sensitive to Palestinian national rights than to Israeli national interests. The self-flagellation of writers such as Benny Morris, Ilan Pappé and Gershon Shafir9 is analogous to


the breast-beating of religious Jews as they tried to atone for their sins on Yom Kippur. This pattern of thinking reflects a growing influence of external and ‘politically correct’ ideologies, according to which the Jewish state is not regarded in a kindly light—an influence that has made many Israeli intellectuals increasingly uncertain about the legitimacy of their country. This feeling constitutes an interesting reversion to the ‘diasporist’ thinking of pre-Holocaust leftist ideologues for whom Zionism was a retrogressive nationalism. There is, however, a difference: earlier Jewish socialists were aware of the problem of anti-Semitism in Europe but hoped that it would disappear with the advent of a socialist system; in contrast, many Israeli left-wing intellectuals, while highly sensitive to Arab aspirations, are blind to continuing anti-Semitism (Gonen 1975: 267). For the early Zionist idealists, the Jewish state was to be a model society, ‘a light unto the nations’. For many post-Zionists, however, that hope has not been realized, and Israel is presented with its blemishes for all to see. The post-Zionist polemics function like a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more the assumptions of Zionism are called into question, the less attractive the whole idea of Israel becomes, and the less convincing it is for an intellectual to argue about the superiority of Israeli values over those of the diaspora—and the easier it is to dismantle the barriers against a return to the diaspora. The ‘diasporization’ of the Israelis is to a considerable extent the consequence of modernization. With the galloping embourgeoisement that has accompanied the shift of the Israeli economy from agriculture and small business to high technology, and with ever-growing globalization, Israel’s uniqueness has been undermined, so that some of its citizens began to feel that they might as well leave. Israeli society has re-created something resembling the occupational structure of the Western diaspora, and a new elite has developed whose outlook is less national and Jewish than international and technicist. If diaspora connotes a condition of spiritual corrosion informed by the abandonment of Jewish religious values and their replacement by the materialism of other cultures, then it may be argued that Israel has not lived up to the promise of ‘negating’ the diaspora; rather, it has constituted a new diaspora. In the eyes of many Israelis, that new diaspora is just as fragile and faced with danger as the old one. They would contend that the ‘saving remnant’ of the religion of the Jews is to be found not in their own country, but in the ‘improved’ diasporas of other lands. NOTES 1 ‘In the eyes of many of its citizens and leaders, Israel now appeared like a small Jewish island that everybody plotted against—an image that was connected with the traditional image of the persecuted Jew, like that of the Jewish community in the Diaspora’ (Rubinstein 1980:94).


2 One of the continuing distinctions in ritual relates to the three ‘pilgrimage festivals’, when the additional day of observance customary in the diaspora (yomtov sheni shel galuyot) is omitted in Israel. 3 The Habad (Lubavitch) Hasidim constitute one of the largest, most organized and globally the most widespread of the Hasidic sects, with numerous adherents in Israel. 4 The only rhetorical concession has been the change of the wording of the first stanza of the Zionist national anthem from a reference to the hope of ‘returning to the land of our fathers and to the city where David dwelt’ to ‘being a free people in our land, the Land of Zion and Jerusalem’. 5 The finest Yiddish literary journal (Di goldene keyt) is published in Tel Aviv. 6 In a recent demonstration, many of the 250,000 participants attacked the Court’s decisions and vowed to disobey them. ‘Culture War Declared in Huge Jerusalem Demonstrations’, Jerusalem Post (weekly, North American edition), 19 February 1999:1. 7 Such problems were found in particular among Jews from Germany and Austria who were professionals and intellectuals (Ofrat 1998:47ff). A notable example was Arthur Koestler, who believed that Hebrew would be virtually unlearnable and useless unless it adopted the Latin alphabet. 8 At a soirée in Jerusalem I attended during the Yom Kippur War, a university professor was spinning out a scenario for the event of an Israeli military defeat, and he began with the phrase ‘if they close down the state’ (‘k’she-yisgeru et hamedina’). 9 On these and other ‘new historians’, see Pappé 1988, 1995.

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Index

‘absorption baskets’, Israel, 343 acculturation, 357, 359–60 Adenauer, Chancellor Konrad, 292 Adrianopolis Peace Treaty (1913), 103 African diasporas, 63, 72 Agranovskaia, Ella, 216 aliya (Jewish immigration), 342, 353, 374, 375, 383, 384 Allied Potsdam Agreements, 289 Althusser, Louis, 65 Aly, Götz, 105 Anthropology 2001, 72 anti-Semitism, 9–10, 385–6, 387 Appadurai, Arjun, 58 Arafat, Yasser, 349 Arie, Yevhenii, 362, 379 Armenia: diaspora (FSU), 159–61; ethnic Russian population of, 5; post-Soviet migration patterns, 146–7 Armenians, Turkish genocide and, 4, 87, 160 Armstrong, J.A., 21, 29–30 Ashkenazic Jews, 309, 315, 317, 387 Asia Minor, occupation by Greeks, 104 assimilation: ethnic migrant groups, 7; forced (Aussiedler), 296; nineteenth-century, 86; Russian community, formation in Israel, 357–8; transnationalism, 373 Asylkompromiss (asylum compromise), 296 Aussiedler (ethnic German immigrants): assistance for, 119;

case study, 285; citizenship, 265, 305; councils, representation on, 312; countries of origin, little contact between, 318; first generation, smooth absorption, 273–4; forced assimilation, 296; foreigners, regarded as, 315; FSU, young immigrants from, 272–88; grievances, 316–17; integration problems, 321; labour force participation, 123; linguistic requirements, 122; media, access to, 319; numbers, 308; origins of status, 265; political opportunity structure (POS), 314, 315; post-Cold War period, 268; resources, access to, 319; status of, right to claim, 126, 274, 307; transnationalism, 17; twentieth century developments, 261, 305, see also Germans (ethnic) Azerbaijan, post-Soviet migration patterns, 148 Babylonian exile, 9 Baden-Württemberg, election in, 311 Balkan States: ethnic cleansing experiments, 103–5; Ottoman Empire forced out, 103 Balkan Wars, 87

409

410 INDEX

Baltic states: ‘classical’ minority policies, 191–3; economic policies, sectoral concentration of minorities and, 193–8; ethic restructuring (history), 206–11; immobility of Russian diaspora in, 188–205; independence declaration (1991), 214; migration patterns, post-Soviet, 145–6; past, coming to terms with, 211–14; political and social development, 190; restored states, history and memory, 214–18; Russian people, attitudes towards, 194; sectoral concentration of minorities, economic policies and, 193–8; social citizenship, 203, 204; social policy, ethnicity and, 202–4; transformation, post-Soviet, 188–90; unique features, 189; ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, transformation process, 204–5, see also Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania; Riga Bartasevicius, Petras, 217 Barthes, Roland, 65 Beer Sheva Conference (1992), 17 Beit Hatefutsot (Museum of Diaspora), 390 Belarus, post-Soviet migration patterns, 143–4 ‘belated nation’, 53, 55 Ben-Gurion, David, 390, 392 Berberova, Nina, 366 Berthomière, William, 338 Beseder (Russian humour magazine), 361 Bialik, Hayyim Nahman, 369 bilingualism, 40, 84 Blobshtein, Rachel, 369 Bojars, Juris, 215 Bonvillain, N., 356 Bosnia-Herzegovina, national identification, 85 ‘bounded citizenry’, 238 Brandt, Chancellor Willy, 293 British Mandate laws, Jewish diaspora, 391

Brubaker, Rogers, 51, 85, 240, 251, 290–1, 295 Budryté, Dovilé, 206–20 Bund der Vertriebenen (League of Expellees), 305 Castells, M., 371 CCARFM (Coordinating Council for Aid to Refugees and Forced Migrants), 177 CDU (Christian Democrats), Germany, 299, 310 Central Asian states, migration patterns, 148–50 Central and Eastern Europe, ethnic cleansing, 38 centralization policies, 78, 81, 84, 85–6 century of refugees, twentieth century as, 99 Chechnya, refugees from, 174, 182 ‘Chinatown’, 68 Chiswick, B., 281 Christian Democrats, Germany, 299, 310 Christian Occident, 99 Churchill, Sir Winston, 105 chutzpah (audacity), 350 CIS Conference on Refugees and Migrants (1996), 175, 185 citizenship: Aussiedler (ethnic German immigrants), 265, 305; Estonia, 8, 240–9; Europe, Central and Eastern, 46–8; Israeli, eligibility to claim, 13, 305; Kazakhstan, 249–55; Latvian law, 193, 215–16, 225; nation-states independent in 1991, inclusion/exclusion, 8; politics, 239–40; rights, ethic migrants, 120; Russian Federation, 13; transpolitical or in-between status, 47 Civic Assistance Committees, Russian Federation, 177 Cla , Heinrich, 100 Clifford, James, 58, 67 Cohen, J., 21 Cold War, 293, 308


‘collective population transfer’, 105 Communism, 107, 206 Communist Party, Latvia, 212 communities, organizing of, 33–4 Conference on Refugees and Migrants (CIS) (1996), 175, 185 conflict, twentieth-century Europe (Central and Eastern), 39–41 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, UN (1951), 174 ‘Coordinating Council for Aid to Refugees and Forced Migrants (CCARFM)’, 177 Cours de Linguistique Générale (Saussure lectures), 65 cultural brokers, 40 Czechoslovakia: demographic size, 48; ethnic cleansing, 77, 93; state formation, 79 Das Vaterland oder Volk und Staat (The Fatherland or People and State), 100 Day of Sorrow and Remembrance, 212 de Lagarde, Paul, 88, 100 de Tinguy, Anne, 112–27 demographic size, Europe, Central and Eastern, 48 demonstrations: Baltic states, 212, 241; Israel, 310 Derrida, Jacques, 65 diaspora: Armenian, 159–61; extensions of use, 4; German, 167–9; impact on Israeli policies, 392–4; Jewish see Jewish diaspora, 3, 57, 63, 66; return of as special form of migration, 14–15; Russian, 161–3; Tatar, 170–2; Ukranian, 163–7 diaspora Judaism, 388–9 diasporas: African, 63, 72; ‘dormant’, 22;

dynamic nature, 21–2; emergence and demise, 22–3, 26–31; ‘exilic communities, as’, 22; forms (United States), 56; ‘imagined communities’, as, 56; Israeli culture, diaspora ingredient, 389–90; members, full citizens of homelands, 31–4; new, proliferation of, 25–6; origins, 3–4; political culture and, 391–2; social formations, as, 56 dictatorships, 78, 89, see also Hitler, Adolf; Nazism; Stalin, Joseph/Stalinism ‘Documentation of the Expulsion of Germans from East-Central Europe’, 292 Dokuchayeva, Aleksandra, 252 Dorodnova, Jekaterina, 221–37 Dostoyevsky, Fedor Mikhailovich, 360 education: differences among migrant groups, 6; German immigrants from FSU, prospects for, 280–1; Law on Education (1998), Latvia, 221, 229, 232; linguistic preferences, Latvia, 229–31; Russian community, formation in Israel, 362–4 Eichmann, Adolf (trial of), 386 Eley, Geoff, 290 emergence and demise of diasporas, 22–3; explaining, 26–31 enclave-formation, diasporic, 70, 124 Equal Rights Movement, Latvia, 232 Estonia: citizenship, 8, 240–9; Citizenship and Immigration Agency, 248; demographic size, 48; diaspora identity, 247; eco-nationalism, 240; Freedom House, 245; Heritage Society, 214;

412 INDEX

as independent state, 5; industrialization, 196; language laws, 241; Law on Aliens, 216; Law on Citizenship, 245; Law on Foundations of Property Reform, 244; Law on Land Reform, 244; migration rate, 189; political community in, 240–9; Popular Front, 191; post-Soviet migration patterns, 145, 146; sovereignty, declaration of, 241; unemployment, 203; zero-option, 191, see also Baltic states ethnarchs (leaders of Jewish community in Hellenic Alexandria), 70 ethnic cleansing, 77–111; agency of, 89–93; Balkans experiments, 103–5; causes, 77–8; Central and Eastern Europe, 38, 81, 83; centralization policies, 78, 81, 84, 85–6; Europe, 109–11; German people, deportation of, 263; goal, 77; history, 77, 78–86 Lithuania, 219; minorities, attitudes and policies towards, 86–8; nation-building, 81–6; Nazism, 90, 105–7, 108; nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 78– 86, 98–111; Second World War, 12, 87; semantic origins, 98; ‘shunting yard’, Nazi expulsions as, 105; social and national engineering, 88–9; Stalinism, 107–8; state formation, 78–81; unmixing, 38, 39, 99–103; Yugoslavia, 246 ethnic migrant groups: assimilation, 7;

consolidation/internalization of minority status, 49; contacts with homelands, 32; educational prospects (young German immigrants from FSU), 280–1; FSU, from and to, 112–27; Gypsies, 25; homelands, entry to, 15; in-between status (Central and Eastern Europe), 45–52; Latin Americans, 25; migrant status, shared, 6–7; Moroccans, 25; Palestinians, 32; post-Soviet, 132, see also Soviet successor states (changing nationality composition) reception, privileged, 119–21; resettlement, post-Soviet Russia, 182– 4; settlement and return of migrants, 29– 31; similarities and differences, 5–11, 34; social, educational and economic differences, 6; South Americans, 25; Turks, 25, see also Germans (ethnic); Hungarians (ethnic); immigrants; Jewish people; migration; minorities (ethnic); Russians (ethnic) ethnic restructuring, Baltic states, 206–11 ‘ethnic revival’, 21, 22 Ethnonation (principle of descent), 289 Europe, ethically cleansed, 109–11 Europe (Central and Eastern), 37–55; citizenship, 46–8; consolidation/internalization of minority status over time, 49; demographic size, 48; ethnic cleansing, 38, 81, 83; ethnic minorities, in-between status, 45–52; Germans, ethnic, 261–71, 305, 316; homogenization, ethnic, 38–9;


immigrants in, history, 9; international organizations, intervening, 51–2; language, 49–50; majority-minority relations, 39–41, 54; reception and integration policies, 121; Self and Other, dichotomy of, 41–5; social structure, 50–1; twentieth-century strife and conflict, 39–41 ‘exilic communities’, diasporas as, 22 Farbtukh, Mikhail, 217 Federal Expellees’ and Refugees’ Law (1953), Germany, 306 Federal Migration Programme, 176, 186 Federal Migration Service (FMS), 174, 175, 176, 177 Federal Office for Migration (FOM), Russia, 115–16, 121 Finland: linguistic problems, 121; moral duty concept, 117, 118; reception and integration policies, 121; repatriation policies, 115; unemployment problems, 123 First World War: ethnic cleansing, 89; ethnic Germans, effect on, 5; homogenization of nation-states, 88; minorities, attitudes towards, 87, see also Second World War Flynn, Moya, 173–87 FMS (Federal Migration Service), 174, 175, 176, 177 FOM (Federal Office for Migration), 115– 16, 121 For Human Rights (Latvia), 232 forced migration, 23–5, 38–9 Forum of Migrant Associations (Russian Federation), 175, 177 Foucault, Michel, 65 France: ethnic cleansing, 77; nationalism, 81–2; Paris peace treaties, 102 FRG (Federal Republic of Germany):

ethnic German immigrants in, 289– 304; ethno-cultural idiom, transformation, 289, 290–1; political parties, 298, 299 From Bolshoi to Be’er Sheva, Scientists to Streetsweepers (survey), 347 FSU (former Soviet Union): citizenship rights, 120; ethnic migration from and to, 112–27; exceptional and temporary policies, 125–6; Germany, young immigrants from, 272–88, 305; integration assistance, 120; Jewish people from (in Israel), 305, 338–54, 373–4; outcomes of policies, 121–5; privileged immigrants, 119; receiving countries’ moral policies, 116–19; repatriation policies, 115; successor states, changing nationality composition, 131–54, see also Russians (ethnic); Soviet Union Fukuyama, Francis, 193 Galper, Allan, 347, 353 galut, origins of diaspora, 3, 389, 398 Gellner, Ernest, 78, 85 Generalgouvernement (Poland occupied by but not annexed to Nazi Germany), 106 Generalplan Ost, ethnic cleansing, 105 Geneva Convention, Fourth (1949), 215 genocide, 90; Turkish, 4, 87 Georgia (Transcaucasion state), postSoviet migration patterns, 147, 148 German Basic Law, 274 German diaspora (FSU), immigration periods, 268–9 German Empire: ethnic cleansing, 79; national engineering, 88 German language: attitudes towards, 276–7;

414 INDEX

proficiency in, 283–6; social contexts, use in, 281–3; training, 122, 278–9 Germans (ethnic): areas of origin, 268–9; ‘bridging teachers’, as, 284; Central and Eastern Asia, from, 305; diasporas, not labelled as, 4–5; discourse, diasporic, 57; educational prospects, young immigrants, 280–1; ethnic cleansing and, 108; Europe (Central and Eastern), from, 261–71, 305, 316; First World War, effects on, 5; Former Soviet Union, young immigrants from, 272–88; FSU, from, 272–88, 305; historical overview, 261–2; immigration to Germany, decline of, 270–1; Jewish immigrants contrasted, 305–23; Kyrgyzstan, deportation to, 6; language and, 276–86; multiculturalism, 297; national identity, reconfiguration, 291– 4; nationhood, universalization of, 297–8; as new minority, 40; politicization, 289–304; post-Cold War period, 294–8; resettlement of refugees in allied zones of occupation, 262–4; Russian language, learning of, 282, 285; Second World War, effect on, 12; self-identification, 275–7; Siberia, deportation to, 6; socio-geographical characteristics, 5; Stalin, deported by, 150, see also Aussiedler (ethnic Germans immigrants) Germany: Basic Law, 274; citizenship rights, 305; diaspora (FSU), 167–9; ethical attitudes, 116; ethnic cleansing, 77;

Expellees’ and Refugees’ Law (1953), 274; Federal Expellees’ and Refugees’ Law (1953), 306; ghetto formation, 308; housing shortages, 308; integration problems, 124; nationalism, 82–3, 85; reception policies (1950s), 115; unemployment, 308, see also FRG (Federal Republic of Germany); Germans (ethnic); Nazism; West Germany Gesher (Bridge) theatre group (Israel), 362, 379 Gilroy, Paul, 72 glasnost, 241 ‘global contagion’, 28 globalization, impact of, 26–7 Gold, S., 364 Goldmann, Nahum, 393 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 242, 250 Greece: ethical attitudes, 117, 118; unemployment problems, 123 Green Party, Germany, 314 groups, ethnic see ethnic migrant groups GSOEP (German Socio-Economic Panel), 122 Gymnasium (preparation for higher education, Germany), 279, 280 Gypsies, new diaspora, 25 habayit hashlishi (third temple), 386 Habsburg Empire, 16, 82 Halakha (Jewish common law), 384, 392 Halbwachs, Maurice, 207, 218 Halevi, Yehuda, 394 haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews), 389 Hart-Celler Immigration Act (1965), 63 Hasidic Jews, 389, 400 Hauptschule (German secondary school system), 279, 280, 284 Hebrew, learning of, 307, 356, 357 Heim ins Reich (home to the empire), 89


Heleniak, Timothy, 131–54 Helsinki ’86 (human rights group), 212 Hill of Crosses, Lithuania, 212 Hill of Prayers, Lithuania, 212 Hitler, Adolf, 78, 107 Hobsbawm, Eric J., 78 Holocaust, 13, 90, 91, 107, 386; new (independent Jewish state as guarantee against), 387; Observance Day, Israel, 387 ‘home’, meaning, 178–9 ‘homelands’, attitudes to immigrants, 14 host countries: impact of conditions in, 28–9; migrants’ autonomous decisions, 29–31 hozrim bitshuvah (repentant Jews), 389 Hungarians (ethnic): migration patterns, 11; as new minority, 40 Hungary: nationalism, 85; territory, loss of, 102 Hymes, Dell, 356 Ida-Virumaa, Baltic states, 200, 201 identity: Catholicism, 83; clear boundaries, importance, 44; Estonians, 247; Germans, ethnic, 275–7; national, as changing discursive formation, 290; politics of, citizenship, 240; Russians, 189, 355–6, see also nationalism; Self and Other, dichotomy of identity, ethnic German immigrants: data, 291–2; détente (Cold War), 293; ethno-cultural theme, discrediting, 293– 4; post-war period, 292–3, see also Latvia (Russian-speaking identity) immigrants: German see Aussiedler (ethnic Germans immigrants);

Germans (ethnic); history, Central and Eastern Europe, 9; ‘homelands’, attitudes to, 14; Israel, in, 327–84; privileged (FSU), 119; return options, 14; socio-economic characteristics, comparison of groups (Israel), 330–2 immigrants to Israel (from FSU): actors, as, 348–9; first steps to integration, 341–2; migratory movement, 339–41; new profile of, 350–1; welcoming of, 342–6 Immigration Act (1965), 70 Immigration Reform and Control Acts (1988 and 1990), 73 Independence Day, Israel, 386 integration: economic costs as indication, 332–4; first steps to (Israel), 341–2; FSU, ethnic migration from and to, 120; programs for ethnic migrants, 14; separatism and, 377–83; transnationalism case study (Israel), 377–83 Intermovement, 242 international organizations, intervening, Europe (Central and Eastern), 51–2 IOM (International Organization for Migration), 177, 185, 216 Israel: citizenship rights, 13, 305; cleavages in, 309, 315, 317, 350; contact among new immigrants, 319– 20; creation of, 115; culture, 360; destabilization of society, reason, 346– 8; diasporization of, 385–400; economic costs, as indication of integration, 332–4; ghetto formation, 308; housing shortages, 308; immigration and ethnicity in, 327–37; impact of diaspora on Israel’s policies, 392–4;

416 INDEX

Independence Day, 386; Israeli culture, diaspora ingredient, 389–90; Jewish people from FSU, 338–54; Law of Return, 13, 117, 328, 374; migrant mobilization, co-ethnic, 309– 10; migratory movements, 339–41; modernization, 399; ‘normalization’, 398; numbers of immigrants, 308; political culture (diaspora), 391–2; population composition, 119, 327–30; post-Zionism, 397–400; raison d’être, 126, 322, 387; Russian community in, formation, 355– 69; Six Day War (1967), 386; socio-economic characteristics, comparing immigrant groups by, 330– 2; state, role of, 334–6; subcommunities, 392; transnationalism case study (Russian Jewish immigrants), 370–84; unemployment, 308; Yerida phenomenon, 394–7; Yom Kippur War (1973), 386, see also Jerusalem; Palestine Israel Ba’aliya, 310, 318, 320, 348, 380 ius sanguinis, 114, 287, 290

Ashkenazic, 309, 315, 317, 387; Asian descent, 329; Central and Eastern Europe, settlements in, 9; cleavages in Israel, 309, 315, 317, 350; destabilization of Israeli society, reason, 346–8; diaspora (FSU), 156–9; European origin, 329; German immigrants contrasted, 305– 23; immigrants as actors, 348–9; integration in Israel, first steps, 341–2; Israel, in (from FSU), 305, 338–54; migratory movement, 339–41; new profile of immigrants, 350–1; North African descent, 329; Orthodox and non-Orthodox, 315; reorganization of migration, 349–50; Russia, in, 157, 158; Russian Federation, area of origin, 5; Sephardic see Sephardic Jews; shtetl Jews, 386, 390, 391; Tsarist Russia, emancipation, 10; welcoming of immigrants, 342–6, see also anti-Semitism; ethnic cleansing; holocaust; Israel ‘Jews of Silence’, 339, 343, 352 Johnson-Reed Act (1924), 73 Judaism, diaspora, 388–9

James, Clifford, 67 Jerusalem: employment of immigrants, 347; expulsion of Jews from, sixth century, 99; National Holocaust Memorial Authority, 386; second destruction of temple, 3 Jewish Agency, 339 Jewish diaspora, 59, 63, 388–9; from FSU, 156–9 Jewish history, diaspora, link with, 3–4 Jewish people: American origin, 329;

Kalamanov (FMS head), 177 Karta, Natorei (anti-Zionist), 389 Kass, Johannes, 215 Kazakhstan: citizenship politics, 239, 249–55; emigration as ethnic minority phenomenon, 114; German immigrants from, 315; as independent state, 5; language, 253; migration patterns, 134, 149; nationalism, 251, 275; political community in, 251–5; repatriation programmes, 117;


sovereignty, declaration of, 250 Kfar Habad, Lubavitch headquarters replica in, 389 Kitschelt, Herbert, 312–14 Klaassepp, Johannes, 217 Klotskas (meal), 369 Knesset (Israeli parliament), 309, 313, 320, 367 Koestler, Arthur, 400 Kohl, Chancellor Helmut, 310, 320–1 Koivisto, President Mauno (Finland), 115, 117 Kokot, Professor Waltraud, 72 Kolstø, Paul, 190, 222, 223, 226 Komjaunimo Tiesa (Truth of the Communist Youth), 213 Komsomol newspaper, Lithuania, 213 Kononov, Vasily, 217 Kosovo, national identification, 85 Kriegsfolgenbereinigungsgesetz (Law dealing with late consequences of Second World War), 270, 274, 296 Kulaks (peasants), 90 Kulischer, Eugene M., 108 Kulturnation (shared language and culture), 289 Kunaev, Dinmukhammed, 257 Kundrotiene, Antanina, 218 Kurakin, Kiril, 217 Kyrgyzstan: ethnic Germans, deportation to, 6; nationalist policies, 275; post-Soviet migration patterns, 148–9 Laasi, Evald, 213 labour migration, ethnic migration contrasted, 15 Labour Party, Israel, 309, 310 Labov, William, 356 Lacan, Jacques, 65 Lafontaine, Oskar, 311 Landsbergis, Vytautas, 213 Landsmannschaften (existing compatriots’ associations), 31 Landver, Sofia, 367 language: attitudes towards (German), 276–7;

Baltic Republics, 193; bilingualism, 40, 84; Estonia, 241; Europe (Central and Eastern), 49–50; German see German language; Hebrew, learning of, 307, 356, 357; Kazakhstan, 253; Latvia (Russian-speaking identity) see Latvian language; Lithuania, 192; mother tongue, 33, 278, 359; proficiency in (German), 283–6; regional dialects, 84; Russian, maintenance of (in Israel), 356–7, 366, 367–8; social contexts, use in (German), 281– 3; standardization, 84; Yiddish, 385, 390 Latgale, Latvia, 198–200 Latin Americans: new diaspora, 5; Self and Other, dichotomy, 41 Latvia: citizenship acquisition, 8; Citizenship and Immigration Department data (1995), 235; citizenship law, 193, 215–16, 225; Communist Party, 212; demographic trends, 48, 118; demonstrations, 212; Department for Citizenship and Immigration, 116; independence declaration, 242; as independent state, 5; industrialization, 196; language see Latvian language; migration rate, 189; mobilization of identity, 231–5; multinational society, arrangements, 222; political parties, 212, 232, 234; post-Soviet migration patterns, 145; repatriation, 115; ‘window’ system, 8; zero option, 192, see also Baltic states Latvian language:

418 INDEX

competence and attitudes, 227–9; education, linguistic preferences, 229– 31; Law on Education (1998), 221, 229, 232; Law on Languages (1989), 225; Law on State Language (1999), 221, 228, 232; National Programme for Latvian Language Training, 236; Russian-speaking identity, language policy, 221–37; State Language Inspection Board, 227; state policy, impact upon identity, 226– 7 Latviav language, identity trends of Russian-speakers, irrelevance, 224–6 Lausanne Treaty (1923), 87, 89, 92, 105 Law on Citizenship (1913), 293 Law on Citizenship (1992), 185 Law on Education (1998), Latvia, 221, 229, 232 Law on Languages (1989), Latvia, 225 Law of Return, Israeli, 13, 117, 328, 374 Law on State Language (1999), Latvia, 221, 228, 232 League of Expellees, 305 Levy, Daniel, 289–304 Lewin-Epstein, Noah, 327–37 Lietuvos Baznycios Kronika (Chronicle of Lithuanian Church), 211, 212 Likud (Israeli right-wing political party), 309, 310, 313, 321, 341, 348 Linz, J., 222, 224 Lithuania: Commission for Research into Stalinist Crimes Committed in, 214; deportation in, 211, 212; ethnic cleansing, 219; ethnic homogeneity, 210; Komjaunimo Tiesa (Komsomol newspaper), 213; post-Soviet migration patterns, 146; Sajudis in, 191; Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees, 213; zero-option model, 192 ‘Little Italy’, 68

‘lower-strata’ majorities, 54 Lubavitch (orthodox Jewish sect), 389, 400 Luden, Heinrich, 100 Luzhkov, Yuri, 217 Maa ja rahvas (The Land and the People, novel), 211 McLaren-Miller, Jacqueline, 238–57 majority-minority relations, Europe (Central and Eastern), 39–41, 54 Margalit, Dan, 367 Marienstras, R., 21 Markowitz, Fran, 373 marriages, interethnic, 7 ‘massive transplantation’, precedent of, 104 mediators, 40 Meir, Golda, 392 Meri, Lennart, 218, 220 mestechkovost (Jewish provincialism), 365 miflagtiut (party interests), 391 migrant mobilization, co-ethnic, 305–23; absorption of Jews, 306–9; Germany, 310–12; historical background, 306; immigrants, haven for, 306–8; Israel, 309–10; political opportunity structure (POS), 312–21; welcoming homelands, 306–8 migrant organizations, non-governmental responses to, 177–8 migrants’ networks, 28 migration: diaspora, return of as special form of, 14–15; ethnic, labour contrasted, 15; forced, 23–5, 38–9; voluntary, 24, 35, see also ethnic migrant groups migration crises, 24, 27–8 migration orders, 23, 24 migration patterns: general background, 11–14; Soviet successor states, 134–50 migration regimes, 28 Miller, P., 281


Mil sevi , Slobodan, 78 Ministry for Immigrant Absorption, 307 minorities (ethnic): attitudes and policies towards (ethnic cleansing), 86–8; ‘classical’ policies (Baltic states), 191– 3; in-between status (Central and Eastern Europe), 45–52; sectoral concentration, Baltics, 193–8; ‘upper-strata’, 55, see also ethnic migrant groups mobility, sedentarism and (US), 66–71 MOFET programme, 363 Moldova, post-Soviet migration patterns, 144–5 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), 241, 256 Moroccans, new diaspora, 25 Morris, Benny, 399 mother tongue, 33, 278, 359 multiculturalism: ethnic German immigrants, 297; transnationalism, 372 Münz, Rainer, 3–17, 261–71 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 147, 148 Nansen, Fridtjof,, 104 Narva, Russians in, 200 nation-building: internal/external, 42; late nineteenth and early twentieth century, 81–6 national engineering, 83, 88–9 National Holocaust Memorial Authority, Jerusalem, 386 National Origins Quota Act (1921), 73 National Programme for Latvian Language Training, Latvia, 236 National Religious Party, Israel, 388, 393 National Socialism see Nazism nationalism: ancestry, 85; cause of ethnic cleansing, 77; denomination, 83; Germany, 82–3, 85; Kazakhstan, 251;

nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 81– 6, see also identity; nation-building nationalism studies, state of art in, 41–3 Nationalitätenfrage (nationality question), 102 Naturalization Act (1855), 72 ‘naturalization windows’, 192, 193, 235 Nazism: ethnic cleansing by, 90, 105–7, 108; pact with Soviet Union, 107; Poland, conquer of, 89, 91, see also Hitler, Adolf ‘Near Abroad’, 4 Nebuchadnezzar, 99 Nemesis (journal), 100 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 310 nomenklatura (Russo-Soviet), 198, 200, 201, 210 Noviks, Alfons, 217 oblast, Saratov (resettlement among Russian migrants in), 179–84 occupational downgrading, transnationalism, 377–8 Offe, Claus, 256 Ohliger, Rainer, 3–17, 37–55 olim (new immigrants, Israel), 343, 353 open-door emigration policy, 373 Organization of Ukranian Nationalists, 91 OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), 185, 225 Osteuropa-Institut Müncben (Eastern European Institute in Munich), 273 OSTK (United Council of Labour Collectives), 241, 242 Ostpolitik (policies towards Central and Eastern Europe), 293 Ottoman Empire: Balkans, forced out of, 103; Greek occupation of Asia Minor and, 104 Pale of Settlement, 355 Palestine: Jewish immigration, 11;

420 INDEX

pre-state, Jewish inhabitants, 390 Palestinians, as diaspora, 32 Pappé, Ilan, 399 Paris peace treaties, 102, 117 Partition Resolution (1947), 391 People’s Harmony Party, Latvia, 232, 234 Peters, Janis, 213 PFE (Popular Front, Estonia), 191, 241 Plessner, Hellmuth, 55 Poland: ethnic cleansing, 39, 77, 79, 90; law of settlement, 88; National Democrats in, 83, 89; nationalism, 83; Nazis, conquered by, 89, 91, 106; privileged immigrants, 119; return movements, 117; state formation, 79, 85; territorial changes (1945), 92; Ukraine, conflict with, 89, 90–1; Warthegau district, 90 political opportunity structure (POS), 312– 21; case studies, 314–16; common purpose/solidarity, 317–18; expectation versus reality, 316; governmental responsiveness, 320–1; grievances, 316–17; influential allies, presence of, 321; points of access to system, 320; repression, state capacity for, 321; resources, access to, 318–20 political parties: Germany, 298, 299, 310, 311, 314; Israel, 309, 310, 313, 318, 320, 321, 341, 348, 388; Latvia, 212, 232, 234 Popular Front, Estonia, 191, 241 POS (political opportunity structure) see political opportunity structure (POS) post-Zionism, Israel, 397–400 Pozera, Juozas, 211 pre-modern empires, ethnic unmixing, 99 Pro Patria Union, 192 propiska (residence permit), 191 proteksia (string-pulling), 391 Protocol on the Status of Refugees (1992), 174

Rabin, Yitzhak, 347, 348, 349 racism, 77 rallies, against deportations, 212 razvedchiki (scouts), 183 Realschule (German middle school), 279 reconquista, 198 Refugee Act (1980), 73 Regent, Tatyana, 253 Remennick, Larissa I., 370–84 repatriation: FSU, successor states, 112–27; Russia, post-Soviet, 173–87; Volga region, 180–1 resettlement, post-Soviet Russia see Russia, post-Soviet Rezekne, unemployment in, 200 Riga: demonstrations in, 241; Freedom Monument, 212, 217; interethnic relations in, 200; Museum of Occupation, 217 Riigikogu (Estonia’s parliament), 245 Rise of the Network Society (Castells), 371 rodina (where born), 180 Roll, Heike, 272–88 Romania, ethnic unmixing, 39 Roosevelt, President Franklin D., 105 Rouse, Roger, 58 Russia, post-Soviet: ethical attitudes towards minorities, 118; family networks (oblast, Saratov), 183; Germans in, 10; group resettlement (oblast, Saratov), 182–3; ‘home’, meanings of, 178–9; migrant organizations, nongovernmental responses, 177–8; migration flows, 174–6; oblast, Saratov (resettlement among Russian migrants in), 179–84; repatriation, 173–87; ‘return home’, 173–4; spontaneous resettlement (oblast, Saratov), 183–4; Volga region, 180–1, see also Baltic states; Russian Federation;


Soviet Union Russian community, formation in Israel, 355–69; acculturation, 357, 359–60; assimilation, 357–8; cultural divisions, roots of, 364; Hebrew, learning of, 356, 357; identity, 355–6; regionalism, 364–5; Russian culture, maintenance, 360–1; Russian language, maintenance, 124, 356–7, 367–8; school education, 362–4; transnationalism case study and, 370– 84; US model for Israelis, 360 Russian diaspora: Baltic states, in, 188–205; dissolution of Soviet Union, 161–3; minority policies, ‘classical’, 191–3; regional concentration, Baltics, 198– 202 Russian Federation: citizenship, 13; ‘Concept of a State Migration Policy of’, 176; ethnic migrations, 113; Federal Migration Service, establishment (1992), 174; integration issues, 125; ‘On Forced Migrants’, laws on, 174; ‘On Refugees’, laws on, 174; Russian diaspora, homeland of, 188; Russian Jews’ area of origin, 5, see also Russia, post-Soviet Russian language: German immigrants, learning by, 282, 285; maintenance of in Israel, 124, 356–7, 366, 367–8; problems with, 121 Russians (ethnic): Baltics, in, 188–205; diaspora not labelled as, 4–5; immigration to Russia, 114; Israel, community in, 355–69; socio-geographical characteristics, 5–6; ‘yesterday’s men’, as, 188

sabarim (native-born Israelis), 342, 394 Safran, William, 63, 68 Said, Edward, 72 Sakalys, Juozas, 217 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 64–5 Schieder, Theodor, 100 Schiemann, Paul, 100–1 Schiller, Nina Glick, 58 Schlögel, Karl, 98–111 Schröder, Chancellor Gerhard, 299 ‘Second Israel’ (Israelis of Sephardic origin), 350 Second World War: Denmark/German conflict, exacerbation of, 93, 94; ethnic cleansing, 12, 87; ethnic Germans, effect on, 12; Jewish deaths, 157; ‘right of return’ connected to, 287; Ukraine diaspora and, 165, see also First World War; Kriegsfolgenbereinigungsgesetz (Law dealing with late consequences of Second World War); Nazism; Poland: Nazis, conquered by secularization, 64 sedentarism, mobility and (United States), 66–71 Self and Other, dichotomy of, 41–5; clear boundaries, importance of, 44; nation-building, internal/external, 42; national self, foreign other, 43–5; nationalism studies, state of art in, 41– 3; research, 42–3; transnationalism, 42–3 Semyonov, Moshe, 327–37 Sephardic Jews: diasporization of Israel, 387; FSU jews in Israel, 350, 354; migrant mobilization, co-ethnic, 309; Ottoman Empire, in, 17; political opportunity structure, 315, 317 Serbia: Muslims driven out of, 87; nationalism in, 85

422 INDEX

Serov, Ivan, 207, 219 Seton-Watson, H., 21 Shafir, Gershon, 399 Shamir, Yitshak, 118, 346 Sharansky, Natan, 310, 318, 321, 376, 380 Sheffer, Gabriel, 21–36 Shoah, 386 shtadlanim (intercessors), 393 shtetl Jews, 386, 390, 391 shtut (nonsense), 398 Siberia: deportation of ethnic Germans to, 6; German immigrants from, 315 Sirge, Rudolf, 211 Six Day War (1967), 386 Snieckus, Antanas, 210 Social Democrats (SPD), Germany, 298, 310, 311 social engineering, 88–9, 90 social structure, Europe (Central and Eastern), 50–1 Socialist Party, Latvia, 232 Society for Cultural Anthropology, annual meeting of, 72 South Americans, new diaspora, 25 Soviet successor states (changing nationality composition), 131–54; Baltic states’ migration patterns, 145– 6; Belarus’ migration patterns, 143–4; Central Asian States’ migration patterns, 148–50; migration patterns, 134–50; Moldova migration patterns, 144–5; population change (since 1989), 133–4; theory, 131–2; Transcaucasian states’ migration patterns, 134, 146–8; Ukraine migration patterns, 143–4, see also FSU (former Soviet Union) Soviet Union: atheism enforced in, 7; dissolution, 39, 131, 155–72, 274, 283; ethnic complexity, 131; ethno-demographic changes following collapse, 239; Gorbachev, election of, 242; Hitler’s Germany, pact with, 107;

population movements (1945), 93; repatriation (post-Soviet Russia), 173– 87; successor states (changing nationality composition), 131–54, see also FSU (former Soviet Union); Russia, post-Soviet; Russian community, formation in Israel; Russian diaspora (FSU); Russian Federation; Soviet successor states (changing nationality composition); Tsarist Russia Sozialneid (social envy), 295 Spain, expulsions from, 99 SPD (Social Democrats), Germany, 298, 310, 311 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 61, 72 Stalin, Joseph/Stalinism, 78, 90, 107–8, 117, 150, 211 state formation, ethnic cleansing, 78–81 Stepan, A., 222, 224 Strods, Henrihs, 217 suburbanization, 64 Sundhaussen, H., 104 Suny, Grigor, 290 Taagepera, Rein, 215 Tallinn, Estonia, 200, 201, 241 Tatar diaspora (FSU), 170–2 Tchernichowski, Saul, 369 Territorial Migration Service (TMS), Saratov, 181, 182, 184 tfutsot (dispersion), 16 Ther, Philipp, 77–97 ‘third temple’, Israel referred to as, 386 Tilly, Charles, 290 Titularnation, 16 TMS (Territorial Migration Service), Saratov, 181, 182, 184 Todorov, Tzvetan, 207 Tölölyan, Khachig, 56–73 Transcaucasia: Armenian repatriation to, 160; Jews, emigration from, 341; Russian outflows from, 163


Transcaucasian states, post-Soviet migration patterns, 134, 146–8 transnationalism, 370–3; Aussiedler, 17; Self and Other, dichotomy of, 42–3 transnationalism case study (Russian Jewish immigrants in Israel), 370–84; cultural retention, 378–80; integration, 377–83; occupational downgrading, 377–8; pathways to transnationalism, 373–6; separatism, 377–83; transnational immigrant communities, 370–3 Tsarist Russia: ethnic cleansing, 87; Jewish emancipation, 10 tsionut (Zionism), 398 Turkey: genocide of Armenians, 4, 87, 160; Turks as new diaspora, 25 Turner, Frederick Jackson, 69 Tzaban, Yair (Minister of Absorption), 363 Ukraine: diaspora (FSU), 163–7; emigrations based on ethnic criteria, 114; Jews, emigration from, 341; migration patterns, 143; Ministry of Nationalities and Migration, establishment, 116; post-Soviet migration patterns, 143–4; repatriation, 115; State Committee on Citizenship, National Minorities and Migration, 116 Ulmanis, Guntis (Latvian president), 220, 233 ulpanim (networks providing Hebrew lessons), 307, 343, 356, 357 underground publications, 211 unemployment, 123, 200, 203, 308 UNHCR, 173, 177, 181 United Council of Labour Collectives (OSTK), 241, 242 United Nations:

Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951), 174; Partition Resolution (1947), 391; UNHCR, 173, 177, 181 United States (diasporic discourses), 56–73; binaries, 61–2; diachronic (historical) and synchronic (present), 62–6; forms of diasporas, 56; mobility, sedentarism and, 66–71; traditional discourses, 58–61 unmixing, ethnic, 38, 39, 99–103 ‘upper-strata’ minorities, 54 Usim, Gennadii, 365 USSR see Soviet Union Uzbekistan, immigration of Russians to, 149 van Meurs, Wim, 188–205 vatikim (veterans), 350 Versailles Treaty, 105 Vertreibungsdruck (‘expulsion pressure’), 296 Vertriebene (expellees), 290 Vidal, Dominique, 349 Vilnius, demonstrations in, 241 Vishnevsky, Anatoly, 155–72 Volga region: countries included, 186; German culture in, 315; repatriation, 180–1; Tatar diaspora, 170–2 Völkerkerker (ethno-nations), 100 vom Stein, Freiherr, 82, 95 von Koppenfels, Amanda Klekowski, 305– 23 West Germany: German resettlers absorbed in, 264–7; young German immigrants in, 289–304 Williams, Raymond, 67 Wilson, Woodrow, 102 World War I see First World War World War II see Second World War World Zionist Organization, 306, 393 Yad Vashem, 386

424 INDEX

Yerida phenomenon, Israel, 394–7 yeshivot, Israel, 289, 388, 392 Yiddish language, 385, 390 yishuv (Jewish inhabitants of pre-state Palestine), 390 Yom Kippur War (1973), Israel, 386 yordim (emigrants from Israel), 394, 395, 396–7 Yugoslavia: break up of, 51, 94; ethnic cleansing, 246; national engineering, 89; state formation, 79 zero option, Baltic states, 191, 192 Zilberg, N., 361 Zuvys nepazista savo vaiku (Fish do not Recognize Their Children, novel), 211

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