"Rossianin"

[Alina Israeli]

>For me as a Russian the weirdest thing about Rossiyane is that it may
>be used as appellative. Nobody addressed me as Russian for the whole
>of my life before Eltcin.

This is actually a step towards westernization. It is all because
"nationality" in Russian and in most Western languages means different
things. In France (as elsewhere in Europe or in the US) anyone with a
French passport is French, regardless of his/her ethnic origins.
Consequently the French president addresses the nation by saying "Cheres
Francaises et chers Francais" or something like that (I am deliberately not
using US as an example because everyone knows what an ethinc hodge-podge
the US is, and there is no such thing as an "ethnic American").

So instead of saying "dorogie grazhdane Rossijskoj federacii" which is also
an innovation (there were only "zakony Rossijskoj federacii", I believe; in
other words, "Rossijskaja federacija" had a very limited use prior to the
break up) "Rossijane" was reintroduced as a unifying name. Thus the split
between the blood and the citizenship has occurred and the new term
reflected a new state.

"Russian" means strictly the blood, and Nickolas II was only 1/256 Russian
by that measure and resented by many because of that. Meantime one of his
daughters refused to marry a Romanian saying that she is Russian and
doesn't want to live abroad (and she was already 1/512 Russian by blood).

For many Russians, someone named Isabelle Ivanov (or Ivanoff) not speaking
a word of Russian and not knowing much about the culture, being the third
or fourth generation born in France, would be Russian, but for French she
is French.

I believe this reflects the Eurasian element in Russian culture, since it
is a more Eastern approach to one's identity. I was told that in Arab world
answering the question "Where are you from?" one actually speaks of the
father, not oneself. For example, a man born and raised in Jordan told me
that a proper answer for him is "I am from Jerusalem." because his father
is from Jerusalem.

Alina

_____________
Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Mass. Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20016

phone:  (202) 885-2387
fax:    (202) 885-1076

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