Rooting Nations in Soviet Ground: Ethnic Germans and Jews in Southern Ukraine During the Age of Korenizatsiya, 1922-1928

• In Event: Jewish, German, and Romanian Entanglements in Ukraine

Abstract

Amber N. Nickell, (Fort Hays State University)

This paper examines relations between ethnic Germans, Jews, and the Soviet State between 1922-1928. During the initial years of the Soviet Union, the state implemented the policy of korenizatsiya [rooting or indiginization], which aimed to nationalize the ethnic and religious minorities as a route to their Sovietization. For both ethnic German and Jewish communities, this included some level of state support for national languages, institutions, and cultural development. However, this often dovetailed with the antireligious campaigns, which sought to break the relationship between national and religious identities. For Jews in particular, this meant a direct assault on major aspects of Jewish cultural and religious practice. Ethnic Germans, often protestant, Catholic, or Mennonite, too understood their national identity to a certain extent via the lens of religion. This paper demonstrates that for both ethnic Germans and Jews, this moment was formative in the development of more cohesive national or ethnic identities, as they had been more contested, fluid, and rooted in religion during the Tsarist period. The Soviets constructed distinctive and separate national identities using the language of nation (not race). While in itself, this did not create tension between the groups, it did lay the foundations of distinctively ethnic German and Jewish national identities, which the Nazis later tapped into and infused with their own racialized conceptions of difference.

Author

• Amber N. Nickell, Fort Hays State U