NATIONS AND NATIONALISM:
AN ADVANCED COURSE ON POLITICS
AND CULTURE
ZDENĚK UHEREK
ZDENEK.UHEREK@FSV.CUNI.C Z
Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences Institute of Sociological Studies
U Kříže 8, 158 00 Prague 5 / iss.fsv.cuni.cz / iss@fsv.cuni.cz / +420 251 080 216
www.fsv.cuni.cz 1/1
GUIDED MIGRATION IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC SINCE 1989 AND ITS
OUTCOMES: LONG DISTANCE NATIONALISM
EAST – WEST MIGRATION;
CROSS EU FRONTIERS MIGRATION
MIGRATION FROM THE CHERNOBYL REGION
MIGRATION FROM KAZAKHSTAN
THE SUBJECT OF INTEREST:
• The participants in the so-called controlled migrations assisted by the Czech state who came from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to the Czech
Republic in 1991–2001.
• The controlled migration took place on the territory of the Czech Republic in the 1990s and the first years of the twenty-first century in two waves:
In the first wave 1991 (1991–1993), a total of 1,812 people were relocated from areas affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, of whom 1,731
lived at that time in Ukraine and 81 in Belarus .
• Motivation to migration:
Mixed motivation:
1. Chernobyl disaster
2. Changed conditions, opened boundaries, better perspective for the life in the Czech Republic
3. Worsened atmosphere in the Ukraine 4. Rise of Nationalism
5. Migration activities of another nationalities
THE MIGRATION FROM UKRAINE AND BELARUS:
The displaced persons of Czech origin from Ukraine and Belarus usually the offspring of the third to fifth generation of emigrants from the Czech lands to Tsarist Russia at the end of the 1860s and 1870s.
The displaced persons from Ukraine lived in Ukraine mainly in the rural localities of Mala Zubivshchina and Malinovka and in the towns of Malin and Korosten at a
distance of approximately 55–80 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The relocated persons from Belarus had lived in towns of Gomel and Mozyr near Ukrainian Borders.
THE MIGRATION FROM UKRAINE AND BELARUS:
The displaced persons were offered the following conditions, which were slightly modified during the three years of the resettlement process:
• Free bus transport to Czechoslovakia, or the Czech Republic, and the transport of their property in lorries;
• a one-week health and socialisation stay in a recreation facility and initial health examination;
• priority acquisition of permanent residence in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic);
• social and health insurance to the extent provided to Czechoslovak, or Czech, citizens;
• Following algorythm:
- Mobilization of families before migration – ethnic mobilization - Joining families in the Ukraine
- Worsening relations to the Ukraine - Behaving as diaspora
- Problems with property
- Protectionism and competence during the mass resettling - Nothing will be here after migration
THE MIGRATION FROM UKRAINE AND BELARUS:
• provision of housing in apartments according to the size of the family (household);
• provision of employment at least for one member of the family of working age;
• a one-off financial contribution;
• the opportunity to draw an interest-free cash-free loan for the furnishing of the household.
Another exceptional opportunity were two-month educational stays for students of secondary and tertiary schools with intensive instruction in the Czech language with the aim of preparing students for study in Czech schools.
THE MIGRATION FROM KAZAKHSTAN:
The first Czechs came to Kazakhstan in 1911 from Bessarabia (today’s Moldavia) and from Southern Ukraine there were Czech colonisation villages created at the same time like the Czech village in Volhynia and Chernobyl region.
In 1911, the Czech colonists founded their own village of Borodinovka in Kazakhstan several families came from Bessarabia, Melitopol and from Siberia, where there was a Czech settlement near Omsk, Novogradka.
THE MIGRATION FROM KAZAKHSTAN:
In 1994–2001 was organised a migration action called ‘Return Home’.
In the Czech Republic arrived a total of 785 people , of whom 697 people directly
from Kazakhstan, 110 persons from Russia, 4 from Uzbekistan, 4 from Moldavia and 3 from Kyrgyzstan.
In 2001 the group numbered a total of 818 people, 35 % of the members below eighteen years of age.
The displaced persons were placed in 116 localities unlike the immigration from the areas affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the displaced persons within the
‘Return Home’ action did not create a numerous enclave in any settlement.
THE AIM OF MIGRATIONS
The aim of both migrations was to increase the quality of life of the immigrants the immigration from Ukraine (health); the immigration from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan (the
possibility to participate in the social life of the country).
The displaced persons very often referred to their children they
intended to improve their lives.
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MIGRANTS AFTER THEIR COMMING TO THE COUNTRY OF DESTINATION
• Family migration.
• Permanent migration.
• Strong will to assimilate.
• Strong tendency to create extended family networks.
• Strong endeavour to be independent on the social system of the country of destination.
ETHNOGRAPHICAL INQUIRIES
• About one year after departure to the Czech Republic
• In 2008-2010
• About 200 people were contacted (questionnaire and interviews)
• Rise of nationalism before migration – admiration of the Czech culture, but a Czech culture distributed in Ukraine
• Coming to the Czech Republic – shock and decline of the Czech self- identification; the frequent question who I am
• Rise of marginal identity – majority of migrations is unsuccessful
• Diaspora thinking and criticism
• Routes „home“ to Ukraine and returns to the Czech Republic
• Children, problems of identity
• Making supplies and work in the gardens – what is made by one´s own hand is valuable
• Second generation slightly under the average of the Czech Republic
PRESENT DAY SITUATION OF IMMIGRANTS
• Length of stay in the Czech Republic: 10 – 20 years.
• Frequently: Czech citizenship.
• A lot of newly born children in the Czech Republic (second generation).
• Often: strong family ties.
• They created ties to immigration groups from the former Soviet Union in the Czech Republic.
• Increasing criticism of the Czech population.
METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
• Migration and family networks.
• In the course of family migration hardly to divide:
• Douglas Massey defines migration networks as ‘sets of interpersonal ties that link
migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through the bonds of kinship, friendship, and shared community origin’ (1988).
METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS: TERMINATION OF MIGRATION NETWORKS
• With the stabilization of a group in the target area of migration networks cease to exist:
• Migration networks are:
- temporal, tied to the movement of individuals in the space - facilitate the movement
- provide for the continuation of migration.
They are temporal, occasional.
But – ties between source are target area persist. And also persists a migration system.
Migrants from the Ukraine and Kazakhstan became a part of migration systems.
INFLUENCE OF MIGRATION SYSTEMS
• Tendency to create new migration networks:
• One participant in guided migrations enhanced at least one other person to come to the Czech Republic individually, without the state assistance (usually relatives – old parents etc.) and help them to stay here.
• Tendency to create new ethnic networks in area of destination . Employment network.
INFLUENCE OF MIGRATION SYSTEMS
• Migration systems also influence personal identity.
• The criticality towards European society increased (more among immigrants from the Ukraine then among immigrants from Kazakhstan).
CRITICISM
• Second generation frequently adore country of origin of their parents.
• They claim to be Ukrainians (not Kazakhs), but usually they do not visit Ukraine frequently.
• They criticize (social, political) situation in the Czech Republic
• Their parents started to teach them Ukrainian language.
• On the other hand they rarely want to remove to areas of origin.
SYNDROME OF MARGINALIZATION OF SECOND GENERATION
• This syndrome is common among European immigration groups.
• Personal security enhance criticism.
• Criticism as a indicator of integration.
• Declaration of Russian (Ukrainian) ethnicity becomes to be popular in the Czech Republic.
• Is the social ciriticm a sign of cuccessful integration to the new environment?
• Why criticism – concept of nastalgia and nostalgic behaviour
• Nostalgia:
• Expected profession
• Cult of the Dead
• Village community life
• Closeness by neighbours (Nicknames – every person at least three names)
• Secret language
• Local festivities
• Necessary to see that it is definively lost
• Whose adjustment was better in the Czech conditions – people from Ukraine, Belorussia or Kazakhstan?
• Another problem that Brubaker addresses is the proliferation of states, and hence nationalism.
• Despotically „strong“ but infrastructurally „weak“ states.
• „Quazi-states“ – organizations that are officially recognized and certified
internationally as „states“ yed fail to do the most elementary things that states supposed to do such as maintaining order thoughout given territory.“ (159)
