The Post-Soviet Diaspora in Comparative Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Sadowski-Smith
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
State Surveillance ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
The Russian Empire

This chapter analyzes additional data from my interviews with post-Soviet immigrants and Gary Shteyngart’s novel Super Sad True Love Story (2010) in order to outline connections between post-USSR, Latina/o, and Asian American migration. In the interviews, post-Soviet migrants largely stressed their ambivalence toward laws like Arizona’s 2010 Senate Bill 1070 that target undocumented migration and from which they expected exemption because of their differential modes of entry. Because of their shared status as immigrants or experiences with state surveillance in the USSR or in post-Soviet nations, however, interviewees also expressed empathy with Mexican immigrants as the group most targeted by the law. While these views are reminiscent of turn of the twentieth century European immigrants’ insistence on their differences from nonwhite contemporaries, they also recall eastern European Jewish immigrants’ ambivalence toward or rejection of white supremacy through empathy with African Americans because of their own marginalization in the Russian empire. Set in a dystopian United States that is undergoing similar neoliberal shock therapies as the former Soviet Union, Shteyngart’s novel draws attention to parallels between second-generation Russian Jewish immigrants and Asian Americans, who are similarly associated with upward mobility, while Latina/os and African Americans are considered losers in the neoliberal era.

Marital Stability Among Jewish and Mixed Couples Following Immigration to Israel From the Former Soviet Union

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoav Lavee ◽  
Ludmila Krivosh
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Social Adjustment ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Marital Stability ◽  
Marital Instability ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Mixed Marriages ◽  
Marital Outcomes ◽  
Jewish Immigrants

This research aims to identify factors associated with marital instability among Jewish and mixed (Jewish and non-Jewish) couples following immigration from the former Soviet Union. Based on the Strangeness Theory and the Model of Acculturation, we predicted that non-Jewish immigrants would be less well adjusted personally and socially to Israeli society than Jewish immigrants and that endogamous Jewish couples would have better interpersonal congruence than mixed couples in terms of personal and social adjustment. The sample included 92 Jewish couples and 92 ethnically-mixed couples, of which 82 couples (40 Jewish, 42 mixed) divorced or separated after immigration and 102 couples (52 Jewish, 50 ethnically mixed) remained married. Significant differences were found between Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants in personal adjustment, and between endogamous and ethnically-mixed couples in the congruence between spouses in their personal and social adjustment. Marital instability was best explained by interpersonal disparity in cultural identity and in adjustment to life in Israel. The findings expand the knowledge on marital outcomes of immigration, in general, and immigration of mixed marriages, in particular.

scholarly journals Between Berlin and Moscow: Polish Western Thought in the Twenty-Year Interwar Period

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Masnyk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Russian History ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The Russian Empire

This article deals with the professional discussion about the so-called “difficult questions” of Russian history that involves historians and teachers in the now independent republics of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Block. Both academic publications and teaching books are used as primary sources for the study. In the first section, the author studies several problems connected with the origin of Russian statehood, the Varangian question, and civilizational characteristics of East Slavic nations. The second section is devoted to the Russian imperial past and especially to the discourse on colonialism, which is often used as an explanatory model for the imperial period by historians and textbook authors in some of the post-Soviet countries. The third section is concerned with the conception of the 1917 revolution. The author emphasizes the fact that the conception of a continuous revolutionary process (1917–1922) has yet to be accepted by Russian secondary schools. In this part, the author considers several other factors significant for understanding the revolutionary process including issues such as the origins of the First World War and the developmental level of the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century. In the fourth section, the article discusses the conception of the 1930s Soviet modernization along with negative opinions about the Soviet period given by scholars of different former Soviet republics. In the fifth section, the author briefly observes contemporary studies of culture and everyday life. It is concluded that the history of culture is not represented well in Russian school textbooks, and it is also found that the studies on everyday life are often lacking in depth. Discussing various “difficult questions” of Russian history, the author highlights controversial historical ideas and opinions, formulated in the post-Soviet countries during the last decades.

Traumas and Tyranny?

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-43
Author(s):  
Scott Radnitz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Political Control ◽  
Critical Events ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
Narrative Account

This chapter seeks out the origins of conspiracism in the former Soviet Union. It critiques arguments that conspiracism in Russia (and in other successor parts of the Russian Empire) is best explained by the region’s troubled historical development. It argues that history does matter, not by preordaining a country’s fate, but by providing a set of reference points and tropes that can be invoked under certain circumstances. It then examines challenges the region’s leaders faced in more recent times that might trigger a conspiratorial interpretation, focusing on two major preoccupations: political control and sovereignty. The chapter closes with a narrative account of the 42 critical events sampled to compile the database of conspiracy claims, laying the groundwork for the next chapter.

scholarly journals Fifty Shades of Gray: Satisfaction with Life Among Jewish Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 92-96
Author(s):  
E. Tartakovsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Satisfaction With Life ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Mixed Blessing ◽  
Two Populations

In the present study, we tested the morbidity and salutary hypotheses of immigration investigating satisfaction with life (SWL) among Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel. The study was conducted using a random representative sample of first-generation immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel (N = 400) and a large geographically dispersed sample of Jews staying in Russia (N = 935). We applied three measures of SWL: general satisfaction with life (GSWL), multifaceted satisfaction with life (MSWL), and relative satisfaction with life (RSWL). The results demonstrated that immigrants were higher than stayers in GSWL. At the same time, the difference between the two populations was not significant in the average scores of MSWL. When comparing the two populations in ten domains of MSWL, immigrants reported higher satisfaction only in medical care. Stayers reported higher satisfaction in four domains: work, family relationships, relationships with friends, and entertainment and leisure. Immigrants assessed their standard of life as higher compared to the premigration period and to that presently existing in their country of origin. However, they assessed their standard of life as lower compared to the non-immigrant Israelis. Thus, immigration was a mixed blessing for the studied group of immigrants, salutary in some aspects and onerous in others.

Health-related quality of life in Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Germany

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuriy Nesterko ◽  
Michael Friedrich ◽  
Nadja Seidel ◽  
Heide Glaesmer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Perceived Discrimination ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Related Quality ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Jewish Immigrants

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test a hypothesized structure of interrelations between pre-migration dispositional factors (cultural identity and optimism/pessimism) and immigration-related experiences (level of integration and perceived discrimination) in association with mental and physical components of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a sample of Jewish people from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who immigrated to Germany. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire in Russian, including items about the immigration background, level of integration, perceived discrimination as well as cultural identity, dispositional optimism/pessimism (Life Orientation Test-R) and HRQoL (SF-12) was handed out to Jewish immigrants from the FSU living in Germany. The data of 153 participants were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings Whereas no significant associations between Jewish identity and HRQoL could be found, both a positive association between optimism and level of integration with a link to physical and mental health, and an inverse relation between optimism and perceived discrimination with a link to mental health, were observed. Opposite associations were found for pessimism. Originality/value The results replicate prior research findings on Jews from the FSU living in Israel and the USA and suggest more detailed assessment methods for further investigations on integration processes and cultural identity in the selected group of immigrants. Additionally, HRQoL is significantly lower in the Jewish sample than in the general population. These findings underline the need for a better integration policy, especially for Jewish people from the FSU.

Joining the Jewish People: Non-Jewish Immigrants from the Former USSR, Israeli Identity and Jewish Peoplehood

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Yakobson
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
National Minority ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
The Right ◽  
Law Of Return ◽  
Former Ussr

The Law of Return grants every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel; this also applies to non-Jewish relatives of Jews. The Citizenship Law grants every such “returnee” automatic citizenship. The wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 90s brought a large number of immigrants not considered Jewish under the definition accepted in Israel. Is this large group of Israeli citizens—who do not, at least formally, belong to the Jewish people—an emerging second substantial national minority in Israel? This Article argues that regardless of formal definitions based on Orthodox religious law under which a religious conversion is the only way for a non-Jew to become Jewish, these immigrants, through their successful social and cultural integration in the Hebrew-speaking Jewish society in Israel, are joining, de facto, the Jewish people. It is no longer true that religious conversion is the only way to join the Jewish people.

‘Without it I am nothing’: The internet in the lives of older immigrants

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Khvorostianov ◽  
Nelly Elias ◽  
Galit Nimrod
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Later Life ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Older Immigrants ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Depth Interviews

This article aims to explore how using the internet may facilitate coping with the challenges of immigration in later life, based on the case of older Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel. For that purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with 32 immigrants living in southern Israel. Results indicated that internet usages by the study participants were: (1) Managing health; (2) Nurturing professional interests; (3) Maintaining and extending social networks; (4) Appreciating the past; and (5) Enjoying leisure. Each usage seemed to preserve and even strengthen the participants’ self-worth and improve their quality of life. These findings suggest that older immigrants who use the internet practice, in fact, strategies of successful ageing, which help them to cope not only with the challenges associated with ageing, but also with the tremendous difficulties and losses posed by immigration.

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