Research Issues of the Volga Germans

Shindel' Svetlana Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-5253-0068 PhD in Cultural Studies Associate Professor, Department of Economics and Humanities, Engels Technological Institute (branch) of Gagarin State Technical University 410031, Russia, Saratov region, Saratov, Chernyshevsky str., 223/231, office 77 schindelswetlana@mail.ru

In our opinion, the problem of studying Russian Germans, or, if we take it already, Volga Germans, is significant solely because it can be followed by concrete solutions to save and preserve this unique socio-cultural group. The dramatic situation of this ethnic group, derived from the repressive influence of the state (especially during the Great Patriotic War) ^[2], has led to the fact that by now the migration of Germans to their historical homeland continues without slowing down: "The remaining insignificant part of the Russian Germans are on the verge of extinction. It seems that the measures taken today by the Russian authorities to preserve the German ethnic group in the country, coupled with the assistance provided by Germany, due to the general low level of the socio-economic situation of the population of Russia, are insufficient and are unlikely to stop the process of the disappearance of the people in the coming decades" ^{[5, pp.116-117]}.

We have identified several problems that seemed key to understanding the essence of the current situation, as well as developing appropriate tools to change it for the better. The first in a row is the problem of the scientific definition of Volga Germans as a special socio-cultural group. Here we propose to analyze the definitions of the concepts "nation", "ethnos", "national (ethnic) minority". The second problem that will be analyzed is the problem of preserving the language as the basis of the cultural identity of Germans, including Volga Germans. Finally, we will try to outline a more or less distinct plan for conducting a sociological study aimed at making the situation more understandable.

Let's start with the concept of nationality: "The concept of nationality in the prevailing case is defined as a legal relationship between an individual and the state; a person's belonging to a certain nationality. Nationality grants a person State jurisdiction and protection from the State. What these rights and obligations are vary from state to state" ^[8]. Despite the pronounced legal emphasis, the concept of nationality actually becomes identical to the concept of ethnicity. Especially when it comes to national identity.

In general terms, researchers with insignificant variations give national identity the following definitions: "National identity includes many components, such as worldview, national identity and mentality, national character, historical memory, ethno-national images, national traditions, myths, symbols and stereotypes of behavior, etc. Important components of identity are historically formed, relatively formalized and often competing ideas about the country's place in the world, its cultural and civilizational affiliation, national interests, geopolitical priorities, etc." ^[4].

In a more systematic and concise form, the signs of a nation are presented as follows::

"- literary standardized language;

- the presence of the territory of settlement of representatives of the nation;

- common economic space;

- national character;

- unified culture

Each of these features is quite problematic and cannot be considered as a sign separating a nation from other forms of human community" ^[1]. With regard to the phenomenon of Volga Germans, the most problematic characteristic is the presence of a "common" territory or, as mentioned above, a "settlement territory". As we know, the destroyed German autonomy was never restored as an appropriate administrative-territorial unit. Here, in our opinion, the researchers are misled by the very concept of "common territory", since it is not entirely clear what is meant by the word "common" in this phrase. The concept of "settlement territories" is no less ambiguous. If we take into account that the territory of Russia as such is a common settlement territory for all Russians, then the problem of defining the Volga Germans as a nation or ethnos is simply "removed". But, obviously, the concept of a common territory implies something else. And since this is the case, it would be more correct to use the concept of "places of compact residence" in relation to this territory, i.e. the localization space of a particular nation. In any case, this concept seems to more adequately reflect the qualitative characteristics of the territory occupied by a nation or ethnic group.

The same applies to the concept of "unified culture", regarding which we have the right to ask the question to what extent national culture should be unified. Especially when you consider that within a nationality, its representatives are often divided into estates, teips, juzes, etc. For this reason, it seems more correct to speak not about a single national culture, but about common basic elements of culture, to which we can refer, for example, religion.

Since the concepts of nation and ethnos from the point of view of formal logic are "overlapping" concepts, we note once again that the concept of nationality has a more pronounced legal connotation. Meanwhile, analyzing various definitions of the concept of ethnos, Yu.V. Bromley wrote: "[...] determining the place of ethnic communities among various human associations is an extremely difficult task, as is clearly evidenced by significant discrepancies in the existing definitions of ethnos. Some authors, for example, name language and culture as the main features of an ethnos, others add territory and ethnic identity to this, some also point to the peculiarities of the mental warehouse; others also include common origin and nationality among the ethnic features [...]" ^[3]. In our opinion, it is not quite correct to include such a characteristic as nationality in the definition of an ethnos, since in this case it is not clear how an ethnos differs from a nationality.

Analyzing the concept of an ethnos in a culturological aspect, Yu.V. Chernyavskaya writes that "an ethnos is one of the forms of an ethnic community; a stable intergenerational community of people historically formed in a certain territory with relatively stable features of culture, psyche and self–consciousness that allows members of an ethnos to distinguish themselves from all other ethnic formations [...]" ^{[12, c.10]}. This definition is practically no different from many others, so it can be considered "average typical".  

The adequacy of this kind of definitions is disputed by E.M. Kolpakov: "It should be said that the quality of the classical definition of an ethnic group is such that even the Soviet party-state apparatus fits it without much stretch. Historically, there is a stable set of people in a certain territory. Language features – isn't hardware-clerical jargon a "newspeak"? Features of culture – it is better not to discuss the sphere of material culture, but there are also special rituals, rules of conduct, etc. Self–awareness of their community and unity of interests, as well as the well-known opposition of "we" - "they" is stronger here than in many peoples. What is included in the concept of self-designation? "Nomenclature", "the best people", just "people", "real communists", "ours" [...] It turns out that the ethnos by definition does not differ from other types of social communities and even from the Soviet party-state apparatus. [...] As a result, the modern concept of "ethnos" in our ethnography turns out to be incapacitated, it does not allow distinguishing the phenomenon of reality described by it from other relatively close phenomena ..." ^{[7, p.15]}. However, this is not quite the case: if we take into account that each representative of an ethnic group, as a rule, is aware of the common origin with other members of the ethnic group, if you like, kinship. As a rule, the common origin refers us to the concept of "historical homeland", and if someone says that he is German, it means that his historical homeland is Germany. One can, of course, parry this argument by saying that representatives of the nomenclature are aware of a common party kinship, but this will be an obvious stretch.

Summarizing what has been said, it is necessary to highlight the following characteristics of the ethnos, these are:

- the territory of compact residence;

- language;

- self-consciousness, including a conscious community of origin;

- traditional forms of management;

- sustainable values and general characteristics of political culture

- basic elements of culture, including material and spiritual cultural heritage;

The definition of ethnic (national) minorities is as follows: "Such are groups of people of any socio-ethnic community living outside their statehood in a foreign environment and, as a rule, constituting a minority of the population in their countries of residence. National minorities are characterized by the preservation of national (ethnic) identity, culture, way of life, traditions, language of the main part of the ethnic community" ^{[6, p.7]}.

Any ethnic group that is not dominant in a certain limited territory seeks either to preserve traditional culture or to assimilate with the dominant ethnic group. In the first case, the result may be cultural conservation. Secondly, there is a complete loss of cultural identity and loss of ethnic identity. The intermediate result of assimilation is the creation of hybrid forms of culture that combine the features of both interacting ethnic groups. In the social aspect, researchers distinguish the following results of interethnic interaction, these are:

"Coexistence (ethnic groups do not mix and do not absorb each other, borrowing innovations);

Assimilation (absorption with complete oblivion);

Metisation (combination of tradition, unstable variant);

A merger in which the traditions of the primary components are forgotten and a third ethnic group appears next to (or instead of)" ^{[6, p.8]}.

With all the thoroughness of the presented classification, one can only partially agree with the thesis about "borrowing innovations". In some cases, co-existing ethnic groups treat the achievements of the "neighbor" group either neutrally or openly hostile. An example of a neutral (at present) attitude can be the attitude of the Old Believers to any innovations, say, Russian neighbors. Of course, over time, the nature of the relationship may soften, but this does not lead to the rejection of one of the coexisting ethnic groups from the foundations of their own identity.

So, Volga Germans represent an ethnic (national) minority. But what are the qualitative characteristics of this minority, is it independent? Regarding the definition of the identity of Russian Germans as such, the researchers write: "As for the ethnic identity of Russian Germans, modern authors propose to consider the following types of identity as the main ones: Russian Russian and German at the same time – the concept of an "intermediate" ethnos [...]; 3) Russian–German - the concept of an independent ethnos by V.F. Baumgertner [...]; 4) Russian, German and Russian–German (taking into account the cases the return of the Russian Germans to Germany) – the position of G.G. Wormsbecher [...]" ^{[9, p.134]}.  Taking into account this multiplicity of approaches, we recognize the Volga Germans as an independent Russian-German ethnic group, which does not have a clearly defined spatial autonomy, but has a place of compact residence.

Any ethnic group, primarily a minority, is preserved as something original only if cultural identity is preserved. Describing the state of the world "after the Cold war", S. Huntington writes: "In the post–cold war world, flags matter, as do other symbols of cultural identification, including crosses, crescents and even hats, because culture matters, and for most people cultural identification is the most important thing. People discover new, but often old identification symbols, and take to the streets under new, but often old flags, which leads to wars with new, but often old enemies" ^[11]. Indeed, only culture gives one or another people (meaning nationality) its originality and uniqueness.

This also applies to the cultural identity of the Volga Germans, which, like the Germans as such, directly depends on the degree of preservation of the national language and the ability to master it. It is necessary to agree with the opinion of K. Arshin, according to which: "The only thing that united the disparate territories of geographical Germany was the language that became the basis of the national identity of the Germans. Unlike England or France, the following synonymous series turned out to be characteristic of Germany: "language" - "nation" - "culture"" ^{[1, p.105]}.

In relation to German culture, it is possible to produce another, no less representative chain of concepts, namely: "blood" - "soil" - "language". This chain is perfectly traced in the works of many German thinkers. In particular, for M. Heidegger, language is a "house of being", a peasant house deeply rooted in the soil, which has become an organic part of the landscape. The language of science for Heidegger is the language of "postage" or supplying calculus. He says nothing about the world as such, but only about objects, i.e. already processed objects, presented to the observer. The language of poetry is the language in which the "dispute of the world and the earth" is carried out, in which the language of the world is a mythological language, and the language of the earth is the language of dialects directly rooted in a certain area.  That is why, in order to understand poetry, one must live in an area that limits the area of this language.

According to the German philosopher, it is thanks to the language of poetry that the event of truth as uncovered occurs, more precisely, its opening: "Language does not just convey in words and sentences everything obvious and everything hidden as a matter of course so and so, but for the first time brings into the open spaces of existence as such and such. [...] Language gives a name to an entity for the first time, and thanks to such naming, for the first time it turns an entity into a word and a phenomenon" ^{[10, p.3]}.

In his famous work "The Decline of Europe", the importance of language is emphasized by O. Spengler, who believed that language is a "proto–phenomenon" of any local culture. The "Praphenomen" is a kind of backbone, an unshakable foundation around which culture exists and outside of which it disintegrates. In relation to Spengler's views, it is possible to apply, in our opinion, the following chain of concepts, namely: "language" - "writing" - "history" - "memory": "The picture of history – be it the history of mankind, the world of organisms, the earth, fixed stars – is a picture of memory" ^{[13, p.180]}. Thus, the history of any ethnic group, which is the basis of social memory, directly depends on the ability to record events (the presence of writing) and, of course, a common language.

In this regard, telling about the gradual dissolution of the Volga Germans in the Russian-speaking environment, the researchers write: "Nevertheless, the Germans living in the Volga region, for the most part, have lost their native language, national traditions and customs, the degree of their assimilation into the surrounding Russian-speaking environment has reached a very high level. All this, along with the ongoing emigration to Germany, allows us to draw a disappointing conclusion that in the not so distant future, the Germans as a kind of ethnic group in the Volga region may disappear altogether" ^{[5, p.115]}.

Here a quite natural question arises: does the object exist in reality, the naming of which is disputed by theorists? Isn't the ethnos defined as Volga Germans a kind of "phantom ethnos"? We introduce the concept of a phantom ethnos by analogy with the concept of phantom pains, i.e. painful sensations that take place where an amputated limb once was. One can ask a question more deeply: what is it about in purely theoretical studies that do not directly concern the object itself and only repeat the same quite obvious things? Who can all these toothless statements like, "ah, the object can disappear" help?

In our opinion, due to the current situation, it is necessary to conduct a sociological study at the regional level. First of all, it is necessary to determine the number of Volga Germans, based not on the state population census, but on the basis of anonymous questionnaires, assuming a sufficiently high level of honesty and frankness. Recall that for a representative of any ethnic group, it is important not to write in a passport or register, but an individual awareness of common roots, common origin, spiritual unity with the historical homeland.

Next, it is necessary to identify the gender and age characteristics of the ethnic group. On the one hand, this will allow us to assess the consequences of the migration of Volga Germans to their historical homeland. On the other hand, researchers will be able to assess the reproductive resource, i.e. the real possibilities of self-reproduction of the studied ethnos in the future. All other approaches to the fate of an ethnic group do not carry any specifics and resemble fortune-telling on coffee grounds.

It is also necessary to thoroughly investigate the composition of the families of Volga Germans in order to determine the degree of assimilation of Germans into the Russian-speaking environment. We all understand that the spread of interethnic marriages is a fairly noticeable marker of assimilation, while the dominance of intraethnic marriage unions indicates that an ethnic group as a socially and culturally distinctive community has the right to a future.

The next step is to find out the real level of proficiency of Volga Germans in their native language. We have said quite a lot about the importance of the language for German culture, so it is obvious that this information will be extremely useful for forming positive or negative answers to the question of preserving the cultural identity of representatives of an ethnic group.

Finally, an important aspect is to identify the real attitude of the Volga Germans to religion. The point here is not even that religion is an intergenerational translator of the notorious "spirituality". In our case, it sets certain rules, norms and ideals of economic activity. If this kind of research is carried out, then all theoretical issues will be solved by themselves, and the problem of the Volga Germans will acquire more or less clear outlines.

In conclusion, it is necessary to conclude that the problem of studying the Volga Germans, which is developing in the theoretical plane as a naming problem, can be solved by excluding from the definitions of the concepts of nation, ethnos, etc. ambiguous concepts such as "settlement territory", "unified culture", etc. In this regard, the central problem is the language, which, as as demonstrated above, it is the central axis of German culture as such. As for the large-scale sociological research planned in general terms, it is only important to determine who will do this work and on what grounds.