Rossijanin

[John Dunn]

I would add one point to Neil Bermel's recent comments.  There is one
difference between the United Kingdom and the former Soviet Union and
the present Russian Federation (actually, there are several, but we
can take the rest for granted for the time being): unlike the Union
Republics before their independence and unlike the autonomous
republics and regions of Russia, the constituent parts of the UK have
always had their own separate association football (and other
sporting) teams, and ethnic status is determined as much as anything
by allegiance to one or other of these teams.*

Conversely, questions of language are less relevant to this issue in
the UK.  The overwhelming majority of the Scots and the Northern
Irish and even a significant majority of the Welsh are, whatever they
may claim for themselves, effectively monolingual anglophones; while
important questions of language do arise here and comparisons between
Wales and Ukraine and more particularly between Scotland and Belarus
might produce interesting results, these questions (except perhaps in
Northern Ireland, and then in a very specific way) do not relate
directly to ethnic allegiance.

Meanwhile, going back to the original question, though in deference
to the esteemed owner of this list, I should leave this to another
posting.

John Dunn,

*[Aside No.1.  Question to Robert Orr: when Canada played Scotland at
rugby union earlier this summer, who did you support?]  [Aside No.2.
This principle was spotted a few years ago by the Conservative
politician Norman Tebbit, when he devised the so-called 'cricket
test' for Britons of South Asian origin.  Had he had the inestimable
privilege of reading the previous correspondence on this topic, he
would have realised he was barking up the wrong tree.]  [Aside No.3.
Now that former Union Republics are independent states and have their
own football teams, it would be an interesting research project to
examine the allegiances of the various communities living within
these states].

--
John Dunn
Department of Slavonic Studies
University of Glasgow
Hetherington Building
Bute Gardens
Glasgow
G12 8RS
Tel.: +44 (0)141-330-5591
Fax: +44 (0)141-330-2297
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk

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