“Of course, I’m a Jew, but I’m a Soviet Jew”: Multiple Identities in the Memoirs

Abstract

This article analyses the issue of multiple identities manifested by the coexistence of a Soviet (non-national, civic) identity and an ethnic identity with reference to Soviet Jewry. The source base consists of personal interviews with Siberian Jews, supplemented by published interviews collected by other researchers. The key research issue is the actualisation of the Soviet and Jewish components of multiple identities. The author uses the “Soviet common man” methodological concept formulated by Yu. Levada’s group (a person’s belonging to a social system and the Soviet regime and their ability to become part of the system), as well as the argument that during Soviet times, religious confessional identity ceased to be significant. It is demonstrated that for the Jews who were not activists in the national movement, the domination of either of the identities was mostly situational. The notion “Soviet” implied internationalism, atheism, and the lack of a right to exclusivity or uniqueness. Ethnic identity could be constructed through positive and negative emotions. The source of negative emotions was the external environment, which was expressed through every day and state anti-Semitism. The positive experience was formed within the family or through an individual’s personal choices. For most of the informants, their turn to a Soviet identity was intuitive and not reflected upon. Also, certain markers can be interpreted as exclusively Jewish: the tradition of name giving to honour a deceased relative; using Yiddish; and a connection between food codes and religious tradition (Kashrut). Yiddish was not used actively in everyday life, and in later years it was used as a secret language to talk to one’s own kind. Even non-religious Jews treated the observance of some religious practices (primarily Shabbat and Kashrut) as normative due to their family upbringing.