Russian Germans / Rossians and Russians

Wed Mar 15 11:35:50 UTC 2006

  ..........................I got confused...
  "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM> wrote:
What I meant was that if we follow the model of "Italian Americans" 
etc., where the ethnicity is given first and the nationality is given 
last (ethnicity being a modifier of nationality), a phrase like "Russian 
Germans" would normally be interpreted as a person of Russian ethnicity 
and German nationality, i.e., a Russian living in Germany. By the same 
token, a Pole living in France would be a Polish Frenchman and not a 
French Pole. If we want to speak of ethnic Germans living in Russia, the 
English grammar would normally yield "German Russians" (Â«Ð½ÐµÐ¼ÐµÑÐºÐ¸Ðµ 
ÑÐ¾ÑÑÐ¸ÑÐ½ÐµÂ») like "Italian Americans."
  ..........................Okay. English ia actually not my language...I see what you mean. Now I know how I should call at least some part of Germans located in the former USSR. I mean in ENGLISH. In Russian it sounds, however, strange. I have never heard smth like "nemetskie rossiiane". If I had to translate smth like this, I would say "etnicheskie nemtsy, prozhivaiushchie na territorii Rossii" or "nemetskoe naselenie Rossii", or "nemtsy Latvii", etc. I think the problem is the word "rossiianin". It didn't become smth like "American" just because there was another word which kind of united the whole population  -- the USSR. If you say "sovetskie liudi", as far as I remember, that was a normal "shtamp", it is clear for me that the whole population of the USSR is meant. If you say "rossiiane"... I don't know...At least my mind associates the word exactly with Russians. But it may be connected with the fact that Rossia how it looks now is actually rather young, so to say. Maybe in 50
 years the word "rossiiane" will become smth like "sovetskie liudi" in our minds, meaning that it implies that many different ethnic groups are covered with this word.

  I will try to save this "shtamp" in my memory because I could never understand if I had to say Ukrainian Americans or American Ukrainians. So the right is Ukrainian Americans, although I myself would prefer American Ukrainians, and I don't know why. And I actually know that in Ukrainian it is "amerykanzi ukrajins'kogo pokhodzhennia". So at first they are Americans... It's probably my own perception because I think that exactly ethnicity, and not nationality ("grazhdanstvo"), is that what makes us unique and interesting to each other, and what MUST be kept, and not killed, deleted, assimilated or whatever it is called in English. I am probably against all those assimilations, globalizations, etc.

  Then, "ethnicity" is what we call "nacional'nost'". "Nationality" is what we call "grazhdanstvo". If we accept this, the particular group of population who came to Germany from the former USSR should be called "nemetskie nemtsy" in Russian... Just because according to their ethnicity they are actually Germans, not Russians. Many of them managed to keep their language, traditions, etc. 
  Well, it is really confusing... So they are actually double Germans, but they are called "Russen" in Germany... 

Of course, other factors come into play here, the most obvious one being 
which "nationality" the person considers primary. In the case of 
Americans, most of whom are proud of their adopted country, it is common 
to say they are Americans most of all and also secondarily of Italian, 
Irish, etc. descent.
  .........................I see. Histories are different, so sometimes it is better not to draw parallels. Sometimes it is really very very different.

   From what you said this evening, the German 
Russians consider themselves primarily Germans and secondarily residents 
of Russia, so it would be natural for them to call themselves "Russian 
Germans." 
  ...........................Yes, as to the Germans on the territory of the former USSR, they did try to keep their language and their traditions. They did comsider themselves primarily Germans. I know for sure that there were families who even tried to oppose cross-cultural marriages among younger generations just because they wanted to preserve their ethnicity in any way, although, sure, it was very difficult, considering the mentality of a country that was really multi-cultural. 

  Okay, I accept that in English they are called "Russian Germans". But now we have to distinguish between two different situations or two different perspectives to understand how they should be called in Russian. If we mean those Germans who were or still are on the territory of the former USSR, I would not call them either "russkie" or "rossijskie nemtsy". I would call them simply "nemtsy" or "etnicheskie nemtsy, prozhivaiushchie na territorii byvshego SSSR" or "prozhivaiushchie na territorii Rossii (now), Latvii, etc." I have never heard smb say "russkie" or "rossijskie ukraintsy", or "russkie" or "rossijskie latyshi". So why say "russkie" or "rossijskie nemtsy"? 

  One more argument... I would not use "russkie nemtsy" in this case also because, to my mind, it is being more and more associated with another situation these Germans may find themselves in if they immigrate to Germany. They become "russkie nemtsy" exactly here. At least in Ukraine, if smb says "russkie nemtsy", everybody thinks that the conversation will be exactly about those from the former USSR who live in Germany now. 

  In Germany I even heard once the following definition: "krasnye nemtsy"... I don't know... maybe we should accept it to make some things simpler... "Russkie nemtsy" (still on the territory of the former USSR) vs "krasnye nemtsy" (on the territory of Germany now)... KIDDING!!!

Regards,
  Maryna Vinarska

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