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The Status Of Russian German In Siberia. A Case Study Of Four Women Living In The Region Of Krasnoyarsk (Russia), Christiane Andersen

CALL: Irish Journal for Culture, Arts, Literature and Language

This paper introduces the difficult relation between language, ethnicity and individual identity of the German population living in Siberia today. In 2010, we interviewed four women born in the former German Volga Republic but now living in a village in Siberia. Their German language and identity were strongly stigmatized as a result of the Second World War. Today they primarily speak Russian in their everyday communication. Nevertheless, the women’s ethnic identity is still very strong, - they call themselves “daitsch” (Germans). In the linguistic analysis, which can be seen as pioneer work for German in Siberia, we identified a large …