Russian Germans as an Ethno-Linguistic Community: Historical Development and Current State of the Youth Group in Moscow

Abstract

From the end of September 2020 to November 2021, the Year of Germany was held in the Russian Federation. At present, while summing up its results, it seems only relevant to do some work on the study of the multifaceted ethnolinguistic community of Russian Germans, especially its Moscow diaspora. In this article, two key points are considered: the history of representatives of the community to the present day and the empirical part of the study that analyzes indepth interviews of respondents from among young Russian Germans under the age of 35, living in Moscow. The main purpose of the work was to find out what state this ethno-linguistic community is in today: to consider the problem of self-identification of its members, to trace their native language level and interest in studying and preserving the cultural heritage of their ancestors. The study of various sources has shown that throughout the history of the life of Germans in our country, the attitude towards them has repeatedly changed: from positive to hostile, to more neutral; from praising this community as that of competent specialists and innovators in many fields to persecution and repression during the first half of the twentieth century, and, eventually, refusal to be recognized as a full-fledged community. As a result of these actions on the part of the Soviet government, the community of Russian Germans found themselves in a state of identity crisis facing the problem of the gradual disappearance of their linguistic and cultural landscape. Interestingly, the interviews compiled on the basis of a form created within the framework of the “Languages of Moscow” project helped to find out that in Moscow, historically one of the most important centers of initial settlement of Germans in Russia, their community is not visible any more due to the low level of presence of native Moscow Germans. At the same time, there is a chance for its growth since many respondents consider it to be important to pass on their rich cultural and linguistic heritage to their descendants and continue to develop it on the territory of Russia. So, we believe that the current work has a potential for further and deeper research of the ethno-linguistic community, in particular with the focus on the diaspora of Russian Germans who emigrated to Germany (namely rusacks).