{"id":10486,"date":"2018-02-05T07:25:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T07:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/?p=10486"},"modified":"2018-02-06T04:27:45","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T04:27:45","slug":"who-gets-called-russian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/russian\/who-gets-called-russian\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Gets Called “Russian”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

How often have you heard the phrase “So-and-so is Russian”? What was meant by “Russian” in that case? Was the person a citizen of the Russian Federation? Did they live in any of the neighbo(u)ring countries? Did they speak Russian? This post will examine the many ways “Russian” (\u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439<\/strong> and other related words) is used.<\/p>\n

Subject of the\u00a0Russian Empire<\/h2>\n
\"Polish

1907 Marriage Certificate from Warsaw (\u0412\u0430\u0440\u0448\u0430\u0432\u0430), then in the Russian Empire\/\/Public Domain, Link<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Often, when talking to a person outside Russia about their family history, you may hear them say, for example, that their grandmother (\u0431\u0430<\/span>\u0431\u0443\u0448\u043a\u0430<\/strong>, note the word stress) was from Russia. So far so good, right? Then they casually mention said grandma lived, let’s say, in Odessa<\/a> (\u041e\u0434\u0435<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u0430<\/strong>, a city currently in Ukraine). What’s going on here? Did the person confuse Russia and Ukraine?<\/p>\n

When it comes to family trees or immigrant ancestors, “Russia” (\u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438<\/span>\u044f<\/strong>) is sometimes used as a catch-all equivalent of the Russian Empire<\/a> (\u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438<\/span>\u0439\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f \u0438\u043c\u043f\u0435<\/span>\u0440\u0438\u044f<\/strong>). That empire, which existed from the 18th century until the Russian Revolution<\/a> in 1917, spanned various territories including parts of what is now Poland (\u041f\u043e<\/span>\u043b\u044c\u0448\u0430<\/strong>), Finland (\u0424\u0438\u043d\u043b\u044f<\/span>\u043d\u0434\u0438\u044f<\/strong>), Georgia (\u0413\u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0437\u0438\u044f<\/strong>), Ukraine (\u0423\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0438<\/span>\u043d\u0430<\/strong>), and other sovereign nations. Some of these became independent after the collapse of the Russian Empire, while others broke away after the collapse of the Soviet Union<\/a> (\u0421\u043e\u0432\u0435<\/span>\u0442\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439 \u0421\u043e\u044e<\/span>\u0437<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Soviet or Russian?<\/h2>\n

\"Jewish

Hebrew writers in Odessa\/\/[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>An American once asked me if I was from Russia or one of the former Soviet Republics. A tongue-in-cheek answer is “both” as Russia\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>a former Soviet Republic (\u0441\u043e\u0432\u0435<\/span>\u0442\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f \u0440\u0435\u0441\u043f\u0443<\/span>\u0431\u043b\u0438\u043a\u0430<\/strong>). A more serious answer is that a person from any of the newly-independent nations that used to be ruled by Russia is unlikely to say “Russia” instead of the name of their country.\u00a0However, “Russia” was often used interchangeably with “the Soviet Union,” especially by foreign press, so people abroad may refer to all former Soviet republics as “Russia.”<\/p>\n

For instance, my distant American cousins tell me their grandfather used to send clothes to his sister (\u0441\u0435\u0441\u0442\u0440\u0430<\/span><\/strong>) in “Russia.” I happen to know that the sister, who was my great-grandmother (\u043f\u0440\u0430\u0431\u0430<\/span>\u0431\u0443\u0448\u043a\u0430<\/strong>), lived in Chernivtsi<\/a> (\u0427\u0435\u0440\u043d\u043e\u0432\u0446\u044b<\/span><\/strong>, formerly \u0427\u0435\u0440\u043d\u043e\u0432\u0438<\/span>\u0446\u044b<\/strong>,\u00a0in Russian) in Ukraine. It also gets confusing because there are people who identify as Russian<\/a>\u00a0(\u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0435<\/strong>) and people who do not identify as Russian but speak Russian as their first language<\/a>\u00a0in the former Soviet republics.<\/p>\n

Heritage or Citizenship?<\/h2>\n

\"Buryat

By \u0410\u0440\u043a\u0430\u0434\u0438\u0439 \u0417\u0430\u0440\u0443\u0431\u0438\u043d (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>Several of my friends and I have heard people abroad say we “don’t look Russian.” As Jenya pointed out on this blog, there is no such thing as a single Russian look<\/a>. People of various backgrounds came to live on the territory of Russia as a result of conquest or migration, so you may find, among other groups, people of\u00a0Slavic<\/a>, Turkic<\/a>, Mongolian<\/a>, or\u00a0Finnic<\/a>\u00a0heritage, or often a mixed heritage.<\/p>\n

As I wrote before<\/a>, “Russian” may refer to a person’s ethnicity (\u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439\/\u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f\/\u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0435<\/strong>) or citizenship (\u0440\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044f<\/span>\u043d\u0438\u043d\/\u0440\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044f<\/span>\u043d\u043a\u0430\/\u0440\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044f<\/span>\u043d\u0435<\/strong>). Some documents in Russia, like birth certificates (\u0441\u0432\u0438\u0434\u0435<\/span>\u0442\u0435\u043b\u044c\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e \u043e \u0440\u043e\u0436\u0434\u0435<\/span>\u043d\u0438\u0438<\/strong>), may still indicate a person’s ethnicity, and a citizen of Russia (\u0440\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044f<\/span>\u043d\u0438\u043d<\/strong>) may well be labeled something other than \u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439<\/strong>. However, in casual conversation, \u0440\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0435<\/strong> is much more common when referring to people hailing from Russia or sharing its culture, whatever their ancestry or current citizenship. For example, one may say “\u0420\u0443<\/span>\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0445 \u043b\u0435\u0433\u043a\u043e<\/span> \u0443\u0437\u043d\u0430<\/span>\u0442\u044c \u0437\u0430 \u0433\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0438<\/span>\u0446\u0435\u0439<\/strong>” (“It’s easy to recognize Russians abroad”) without conducting a passport check or a DNA test.<\/p>\n

What other contexts have you heard the word “Russian” used in?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"Buryat

How often have you heard the phrase “So-and-so is Russian”? What was meant by “Russian” in that case? Was the person a citizen of the Russian Federation? Did they live in any of the neighbo(u)ring countries? Did they speak Russian? This post will examine the many ways “Russian” (\u0440\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439 and other related words) is used…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":10554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,178],"tags":[253017,507273,507254,349633],"class_list":["post-10486","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-history","tag-former-soviet-union","tag-former-ussr","tag-russian-outside-russia","tag-russians-abroad"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t