Intergroup Relations in States of the Former Soviet Union

The Perception of Russians

Louk Hagendoorn, Hub Linssen, Sergei Tumanov, Louk Hagendoorn, Hub Linssen, Sergei Tumanov

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134951932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 left 25 million Russians living outside the Russian Federation. This important new book explores their social identity, examining the mutually held perceptions, fears and resulting nationalism of both the ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation and the indigenous, or 'titular', populations they live amongst.
Based on a unique study involving national surveys conducted in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Kazakhstan, the book maps the main individual, intergroup and cross-national factors that shape the fears of 'titulars' and Russians as well as the possible consequences and the risk of ethnic conflict in the five republics. There is detailed statistical analysis of how background factors (personal and national) affect intergroup perceptions; along with discussion of mutual stereotypes, social distance, language and the perception of citizenship and analysis of the dynamics of assimilation and separation of Russians in former soviet states. The attitudes of both groups to other smaller minority groups are also examined.
This book provides significant new conclusions on the complexity of intergroup relations and seeks to relate these findings to a general theory of intergroup relations. It will be essential reading for those working in this area within the disciplines of Psychology, Sociology and Politics.

1 Intergroup dynamics in states
of the former Soviet Union

Imagine being a Russian in Ukraine. The memory of how it was before 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated is still vivid, on some days so vivid that it is hard to bear. The world was stable. Friends were Russians, many of whom had also originally come from Russia to live and work in Ukraine. They, and you, had been living there for decades, some even for generations. Being Russian was not so crucial to your identity, what was more important was belonging to the ‘Soviet people’ who were working towards the common goal of socialism, or, less grandiose, who were building up a decent life in Ukraine. Yet beneath the surface, there was a certain pride in belonging to the cosmopolitan Soviet Russian group, and it did not matter all that much where one lived in this huge multicultural Union, because it was Russians who formed its heart. Thus, pride was derived from speaking Russian and interacting as a Russian with Ukrainians. It was important to send one's children to a Russian school, to ensure their future in the next generation of leading Soviet Russians. Newspapers were in Russian, as was television and all other forms of public communication. The sound of Russian was in the streets and on the instruction for any product. In other words, to live in Ukraine was to live in a province of Russia. It was but one patch in the multinational quilt of the Union with the Kremlin at its centre.

However, by the mid-1990s this was already the past, a painful memory at times. Without having undergone the wrenching upheaval of emigration, without having moved at all, Russians in Ukraine now have to accept that they are living in a foreign country. Increasingly, public communication is in Ukrainian, which is unfortunate if one does not speak it well. There are still some newspapers in Russian, but most are in Ukrainian. It is no longer clear whether it is sensible to send one's children to a Russian school. It might be better for them to become fluent in Ukrainian and be accepted within Ukrainian networks. However, whether to move them to a Ukrainian school is a hard decision. They would lose their Russian friends and leave the Russian environment. Moreover, you consider Russian schools better because teaching material, specifically material related to technical subjects, is mostly available in Russian. Additionally, to actually speak this tongue, to become fluent in Ukrainian, will require much investment, perhaps too much in addition to what a child already needs to learn at school. Should not the Russian-speaking community be accepted as it is, with the same language rights as indigenous Ukrainians? Come to think of it, what right do Ukrainians have at all to consider themselves the titular nationality of Ukraine and grant themselves preferential status on such grounds? After all, it was Russians who made the Soviet Union into an international superpower, who designed nuclear weapons, who destroyed fascist Germany. Who then, is it that should be proud? Undoubtedly, Ukrainians are the dominant nationality now. They run the government, they determine who is appointed to public positions, and they dictate the civic status of Russians. Certainly, in that sense, Russians have lost their status. Still, is it not ironic that many Ukrainians do not even speak their own language fluently and continue to speak Russian?

Such are the thoughts that may be on the minds of Russians as they consider their position within the new republics emerging after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The position of Russians was good in Ukraine and it is still not too bad. It may be better in Belarus where every Belarusian wants to be Russian, but it is certainly worse in Moldova, Georgia, or Kazakhstan, where the disparities between the local and Russian culture and language are that much greater than in Ukraine, and thus titulars try all the more frenetically to prove that they are not inferior to Russians. In Ukraine, there are millions of Russians and the whole south-east of the country is virtually Russian. This is also true of Kazakhstan, but the Russians there are living in a void, closed off from Russia and from the now dominant Kazakh clan-society. The rates of intermarriage between Russians and titulars in the five republics give a clear indication of the relationship between the communities. In Ukraine and Belarus Russians and titulars are closely interlocked, whereas in Georgia and Moldova they live largely apart, and in Kazakhstan they are completely segregated.

RUSSIANS' MOBILITY AND MOBILISATION OPTIONS

Since 1991 the new situation in the former Soviet republics forces Russians to think deeply about their alternatives. What are their options? One is faced with the bewildering task of assimilating to the titular community, learning its language, going through the painful process of shifting one's children to new schools. Yet, even if one adapts to the loss of the old known environment one will never become a ‘real’ titular, because the memory of being Russian will always prevail. Assimilation is never complete because the new social identity is just the last chapter of a personal biography. Consider the uncertainties of whether one will be accepted by the titular community. What of Russian friends who are not making the move? Will they accept or exclude those who assimilate, now possibly perceived by them as defectors? In other words, the individual option of assimilation may evoke negative reactions from the in-group one is leaving as well as from the out-group one wants to ‘pass’ into. If many Russians decide to assimilate, it will weaken the remaining Russian group. By the same token, the titular group may also perceive the assimilating Russians as competitors and therefore as a threat. Their articulation of this, along with what the remaining Russians may be experiencing as an exodus, could inspire some of the Russians to join ultranationalistic groups or the growing wave of dissenters. However, if the titular group responds positively, perhaps even grants incentives, the option of assimilation becomes more attractive. The move becomes even less painful if the former in-group does not exclude those who make the move or if many make the move together.

Tajfel (1981c) calls this first option, the decision to leave the group, ‘exit’. The motive for ‘exit’ and assimilation to the titular group is to improve one's opportunities and social status. Russians may also pass for titulars if they are already fluent in the indigenous language, and if they need make no further adjustments in order to be accepted as new group members. The move is the same but the adaptations are less explicit. As we will see, ‘passing’ is easier in Belarus and Ukraine than in Moldova with its Romanian culture, or in Islamic Kazakhstan. However, in each country assimilation is, at some level, necessary no matter how explicit, or not, it may be; therefore assimilation is a better word to describe what is at stake.

The choice to ‘exit’ or to ‘pass’ is an individual decision for every Russian. However, the reality of the act of passing and assimilation may vary. A diluted form of assimilation occurs when Russians merely identify with the republic in which they reside. True assimilation is when Russians really ‘become’ titulars. The former, a civic type of assimilation as a citizen of the republic, requires no more than loyalty to the state and its language. The latter, is ethnic, and requires Russians to redefine themselves as members of the titular nation, erasing any trace of a prior Russian identity. Tajfel (1981c) calls the first type of assimilation ‘accommodation’, while Berry (1990) uses the term ‘integration’ (Berry & Sam, 1996). Both terms indicate that the assimilating minority retains many aspects of its original identity while being fully accepted as an equal partner of the majority group in terms of opportunities and status. Although state policy determines largely which type of assimilation must be undertaken, the titular majority may play a role too. Even where the state considers civic assimilation to be sufficient, the titularmajority may still discriminate against non-titulars in areas such as employment, housing, and education, simply because they have a more stringent type of assimilation in mind.

There is another form of ‘exit’ applicable to the Russian minority that is not extensively elaborated by Tajfel (1981c). He focused on migrant groups in Western Europe and racial minorities in the United States. However, he did not analyse the position typical of Russians in the former Soviet Republics, that is, of national minorities monitored by their neighbouring ‘homeland’, such as the German minorities around Germany up until 1945 and the Hungarian and Turkish minorities today (Brubaker, 1996). This scenario offers two other exit-options, both of which may improve the status of the exiting minority group member(s). The first is individual emigration to the ‘motherland’. The second is to exit as a group by secession from the existing state, with or without the support of the ‘motherland’. The first option is very costly. Everything has to be given up: residence, jobs, opportunities, a familiar environment along with all the prior investments made in it. Moreover, it is often not certain whether the Russian Federation will assist Russian immigrants and Russians in the Federation may not respond well to incoming ‘oriental’ Russians. Hence, while Russian emigrants hope to improve their position and status, they may also doubt whether this really will be the outcome. Given this, assimilation begins to look more attractive than individual emigration. Emigration may be attractive only if intergroup boundaries are virtually impermeable, when the Russian group is seriously threatened, or when the cultural distance to the titular group and culture is large. Take Kazakhstan, where Russians perceive Kazakh culture as inferior (Laitin, 1998) or Georgia with its unstable military situation. Then there is Moldova where Russians and Ukrainians in Transdniestria have seceded from the rest of the republic. In these three republics, emigration may be more attractive than assimilation, in contrast to Belarus and Ukraine where assimilation is a more viable option.

The internal exit and pass option whereby Russians assimilate to the titular group requires permeable group boundaries (Tajfel, 1981c; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The majority group has to allow members of the minority group to settle among them and to accept them. Similarly, emigration is only possible if the motherland will accept the immigrants. The possible barriers to passing group or state boundaries combined with the high costs of either exit option will be considerable deterrents to Russians considering how to improve, or perhaps just to maintain, their influence, social status, and self-respect. Other, easier, options are of a more psychological than social nature. Tajfel and Turner (1986) call these options cognitive alternatives. Russians may, for example, accept the difference in status and its consequences for their social identity. Alternatively, they may try to redefine the social status assigned to particular group characteristics. They might stop comparing themselves with titulars and instead try to derive a positive social identity by comparing themselves to groups lower in the social hierarchy.

Such cognitive alternatives are not very satisfying even if they were feasible in the new republics. Russians are the former dominant group and comparison of status and competition with the titular group is therefore virtually inescapable. Russians have to define their new position in the republics and the titular group is the obvious point of reference for them. However, the definition of the relative positions of the two groups leaves room for different interpretations and it is at this point that cognitive or ideological alternatives become relevant. On one hand, its very newness makes the new social system insecure, unstable, and for Russians relatively ‘unjust’. Thus, while titulars may experience their new-found independence as a legitimisation of their identity, for Russians it may be a loss of the very same. However, the attribution of illegitimacy to the independence of the new republic may naturally entail the claim to restore or improve the position of Russians and thus transforms into ‘voice’; a term we will return to shortly.

One aspect of the Russians' situation leaves room for a psychological solution to their identity and status problems. It is the definition of the Russian group, as former Soviet people, ethnic Russians, local Russians, or as Russian-speakers. Different status positions evolve from these different definitions and, moreover, these definitions imply different mobility strategies, different alliances and sensitivity to different policies. The definition of what Russians are (as given by Russians themselves, by the titular republic, or by the Russian Federation) has direct consequences for claims that can be made and for expectations of protection. For example, as Brubaker (1996, pp. 142–145) indicates, being defined as ethnic ‘Russki’, that is, as a part of the Russian people, accentuates Russians' right of access to and protection by the Russian Federation. Russians can also define themselves as ‘rossiiani’, that is, as Russian citizens on equal footing with all Russian and non-Russian citizens in the Russian Federation. This inserts them in a numerically much wider circle of people. Both these definitions imply that Russians are Russian citizens and thus are entitled to claim dual citizenship of the republic as well as Russian protection of their rights as citizens in the republics and, if necessary, direct access to the Russian Federation. A third definition is ‘russkoiazychnye’, Russian-speakers. This disconnects the Russian minorities from the Russian motherland, but it includes other Russian-speaking minority groups. Crucially, it also includes parts of the titular majority namely Russian-speaking titulars. This is a powerful definition in terms of group size. The ethnic Russian group in Ukraine, for example, is about 11 million, but the number of Russianspeakers, including one-third of the ethnic Ukrainians, is about 20 million. This definition articulates the common interest of all Russian-speakers to maintain the Russian language in the administrative, educational, and public communication system of the republic. In Ukraine, a ‘conglomerate identity’ constituted through the definition ‘Russian-speakers’ (Laitin, 1998) constitutes a group almost twice the size of ethnic Russians alone. The power entailed in such a group position, in terms of status and political claims, is why Laitin (1998) expects this definition to become the most dominant in the future. A fourth definition, ‘sootechestvenniki’ or compatriots, is most frequently used in the Russian Federation. It denotes citizens of the former Soviet Union. Russia feels a historical obligation to this category, but does not consider them Russian citizens. It is a weak version of the ‘rossiiani’ definition, which allows Russia to escape its political responsibility for the ‘compatriots abroad’. Just like a fifth definition of ‘grazhdane’ or citizens, it maintains the possibility of Russian jurisdictional rights, and thus intervention, in the near abroad. For Russians in the republics, these definitions imply only a vague possibility of diplomatic or political protection, however attractive the Russian Federation may find them. In contrast, ‘Russki’, ‘rossiiani’, and ‘russkoiazychnye’ offer powerful alternative positions with which the Russian group can define itself in relation to others. Which of these definitions prevails will be determined by calculations as to the group power and status that each may confer.

Tajfel (1981c) proposes what he calls ‘voice’ as an alternative strategy for escape from the lack of status of a minority position. For Tajfel, voice represents a collective attempt to change the position of the group and thus the recognition received from others. For Russians in the five republics this is an attractive option. Not only can the decision to assimilate or emigrate be postponed in favour of monitoring the situation in the country for a while. A sense of collective and individual pride can be derived from the act of deciding to join a movement or organisation working to improve the position of the Russian group. However, the strategy is not totally assured; it will only work if undertaken en masse, and it is constrained by the definition of ‘Russian’ implicit in the enacted mobilisation. ‘Voice’ principally refers to the articulation of Russian group identity through the ‘voicing’ of one or a range of possible claims aimed at improving the position of Russians, the articulation of group identity being ‘voiced’ by the degree of differentiation from titulars entailed by the claim(s). Claims entailing multiple levels of differentiation may be brought simultaneously. Russians may demand the same treatment as titulars while at the same time claiming local autonomy. Paradoxically, the claim entailing the highest degree of differentiation may be the most effective by virtue of being the most threatening. A moderate claim would be a demand for equal citizenship and the recognition of Russian as the official second language, which would fit a definition of Russians as Russian-speakers. A move producing an even greater level of differentiation would be to demand cultural autonomy for regions where Russians or Russian-speakers form the majority. This would imply that these regions receive greater administrative powers and their position and status be reinforced. A nationalistic movement threatening to secede from the republic represents an extreme form of voice. This would lead to a disadvantageous reduction of who can be included in the Russian group to ethnic Russians alone. However, the belief in the superiority of the national in-group, encapsulated in the nationalistic ‘fist’ that this formulation of voice presents to the other groups, would have a strong effect on the self-esteem of Russians joining the movement. Further, although such a nationalist move restricts group membership to ethnic Russians, its incorporation of the political power of the Russian motherland enlarges the group. The threat encapsulated in this increase in power enables other less extreme claims to be realised: dual citizenship, equal representation, protection of the Russian language, or local autonomy. Such a plan of action is, however, inherently risky. Thus nationalistic voice, implying the threat of secession, may encourage the titular group to negotiate, but only as long as the Russian minority is perceived as a group with whom conciliation is necessary. The strategy is inherently dangerous: attempts to force the titular group to negotiate may lead to initially moderate claims escalating into more extreme ones. Hence, the threat implied by nationalistic voice can also create resistance among titulars and lead to violent conflict. Yet, it is this very risk...