Well, it is true that the word "rossiyanin" is only about 15 years old, introduced to give an idea of non-ethnic-based national belonging. Previously it would have been "Soviet peoples" in that peculiar Soviet "you can wear your funny hat as long as you do what you're told" kind of way, and in the Tsarist period really they conceptualized things mostly in terms of religion -- passports would say, e.g., "Orthodox, a subject of the Tsar" rather than "Russian" or "Ukrainian" or what-have-you.
Not that it really matters now that "nationality" is no longer given on internal passports.
--- On Mon, 8/4/08, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Technically, maybe. But Jews have't been treated as
> Russian of any sort in Russia/USSR/Russia, maybe ever. Not
> like the Welsh in the UK. Maybe more like the Irish.
> (Certainly not like the Scots!) We've been regarded as
> Yids.
>
> When I have time I will tell you the story about
> Ryabakov's DiL.
>
> And assimilation has to be both sides. German Jews between
> the wars thought they were assimilated Germans. The Germans,
> however, disagreed.
>
> You know the Wessi/Ossi joke from unification, right?
>
> Ossie: Wir sind ein Volk!
> Wessie: Wir auch!
>
>
> --- On Mon, 8/4/08, Chris Doss
> <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Dies at
> 89 (NY Times)
> > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > Date: Monday, August 4, 2008, 4:08 PM
> > Well, yes and no. A Russian Evrei is a Rossiyanin, a
> member
> > of the class of Eurasian peoples, alongside Russians,
> > Chuvash, Tatars, Ossetians, etc. etc. etc. He or she
> is not
> > a Russian, which is an ethnocultural category. As, for
> > instance, the Welsh and Scots are British, but not
> English.
> >
> > Of course, these things are much more blurred today
> now
> > that 99% of Russian Jews are assimilated, as opposed
> to 80
> > years ago, when they spoke a different language and
> had a
> > totally different culture.
> >
> > --- On Mon, 8/4/08, andie nachgeborenen
> > <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Anyway, I would not be considered a Russian.
> Least of
> > all
> > > by AS.
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
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