Lourie S. Transition from the Soviet People to the All-Russia People: Assimilation Problems in the USSR and in the Russian Federation through the Prism of Interethnic Marriage. Idei i idealy – Ideas and Ideals, 2019, vol. 11, iss. 4, pt. 1, pp. 141–159. DOI: 10.17212 ...

Abstract

The article considers assimilation problems in the USSR and the Russian Federation through the prism of interethnic marriages peculiarities in the country. But was that assimilation into the Russian society or the supranational model of the Soviet society? The article considers the concept of “peoples’ friendship”, since it was the basis of interethnic marriages and how the concept was embodied in reality in the USSR. The author considers the role of assimilation processes concerning those Russians, who lived in the Union Republics and often entered into interethnic marriages. The article also analyses and compares the relations of partners in interethnic marriages in contemporary Russia as well as the results of opinion polls. The author also considers the strategies of interrelations of interethnic couples identified by various researchers. She presents the data of the conducted sociological survey among students of Russian universities in several cities. The aim of the survey was to study the acceptance-rejection ratio of interethnic marriage in the context of spontaneous formation of the sociocultural scenario of interethnic relations in the country. The author comes to the conclusion that nowadays in the minds of Russians there are no value dominants that assert the signifi cance of interethnic marriages, as it was in the USSR; that is, there are no ethno-cultural prerequisites for entering into ethnically mixed marriages. However, certain models of actions still remain, which make the interaction of representatives of different nations easier at the everyday level and, thus, they contribute to the formation of ethnically mixed marriages. It means that there are ethno-psychological prerequisites for interethnic marriages. Therefore, is it possible to say that the assimilation processes in Russia have stopped? Though interethnic marriages today are sometimes perceived with anxiety, their share among all marriages in Russia almost has not decreased compared to the RSFSR level. However, interethnic marriages no longer exist in the context of interethnic relations, but in the context of interpersonal relations. The environment of large Russian cities is sometimes characterized by ethnically indifferent social structure almost homogeneous at the behavioral level.