Abstract
The integration of immigrants into Czech society is a key topic in the public debate as well as essentially a political issue. The most numerous groups, within a half-million migrant population, include Slovaks, Ukrainians, Vietnamese, and Russians. Such composition points out that Czechia is predominantly attractive to non-EU immigrants. This article focuses on the integration process of Russian immigrants into Czech society. Representing highly educated and financially well-secured migrants who come as entire families, the Russians are distinct from other Eastern European immigrants. However, various factors hinder their integration. The paper discusses the factors that shape symbolic and social boundaries in this integration process: (1) the development of Czech-Russian relationships that have been influenced by dramatic past events, (2) the representation of Russians in Czech media, (3) their specific socio-economic status, and (4) Czech immigration and integration policies. Negative experience, socio-economic inequalities, strict implementation of immigration policies towards third-country immigrants, and an unfavourable media discourse affect the attitudes of the majority toward the Russians and limit meaningful encounters.
Highlights
With the rapid growth of immigrants in Czechia, the issue of their integration becomes important at the institutional level through the implementation of immigration policy, as well as at the social level due to its impact on public opinion in society
The aim of the article is to explore the context of the integration process through the concept of symbolic and social boundaries (Lamont, Molnár 2002) with an emphasis on (1) the historical development of Czech-Russian relationships, which has undergone both positive and negative events in the past; (2) representation of Russians in Czech media discourse; (3) the socio-economic status of Russians that distinguish them from ‘others’; and (4) modes of Czech immigration and integration policies that disadvantage the legal status of Russians as third-country immigrants over EU immigrants
Czech-Russian relationships arose in 1918, during the first Czechoslovak Republic, when Russian students, professors, scientists, and wealthier intelligentsia (Kopřivová 2001) were forced to flee from Tsarist Russia for political reasons (Sládek 2010) after the Bolshevik coup. They were joined by Russian soldiers who did not want to return after the First World War, and stayed in Czechoslovakia
Summary
With the rapid growth of immigrants in Czechia, the issue of their integration becomes important at the institutional level through the implementation of immigration policy, as well as at the social level due to its impact on public opinion in society. Integration is considered a two-way as well as a reciprocal process (Bosswick, Heckmann 2006), where both immigrants and the majority may participate. On both sides, participation is necessarily conditioned by mutual interaction that mostly manifests in coexistence at the local level, where encounters between foreigners and members of the majority society come about most often. Russians are distinct from other foreigners from Eastern Europe, especially in terms of their composition They represent a group of highly educated, economically well-resourced immigrants of working age who migrate as whole families (Drbohlav et al 2010; Drbohlav, Janská 2004)
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