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[Ranetka]

How about your grandkids? Should they be labeled Russian even if they call themselves British or even English?

How the f.. I to know? It's different in the West Misha, people can call themselves whatnot even Jedi, amen to that but if they go after me some shrew person at some point will ask them if they have some Russian blood.
 
Ha-ha! Have a guy in the office (English) looking your typical Polish boy, once asked him where his family came from you know what the answer was? "Well actually I am Romanian"....His parents emigrated before he was born. People can pick and choose how they see fit hen it is convinient for them.
 

[Misha]

No, I disagree about Russian cultural traditions.  Please name a unique Russian cultural tradition common throughout the USSR.

Let's take Lenin's embalming. Trotsky critique it as it reeked of Orthodoxy and was tainted by Orthodox beliefs concerning saints.... Also, when it came to the alphabets used in the Soviet Union, in later years there was a homogenization whereby Russian cyrillic was used and replaced other alphabets that had been introduced in the early Soviet period...

[Misha]

People can pick and choose how they see fit hen it is convinient for them.

There is also cultural hybridity. A person can participate in a number of cultures, can have mixed ancestry and can even call themselves different things depending on the context. It is possible for someone to identify themselves as Jewish in one context (let's say in terms of religion) and Russian in another (in terms of culture). I just don't see the need to put people in cultural straight-jackets.

[OlgaH]

And, there are many others who do not have an accent.

but they still can be easily recognizable in Russia.

Sure, these names would be more typical of someone who was a Russian Jew, yet as you point out, many others would have purely Slavic names. Then, there are some "Jewish" last names that are German in origin, and I know one young woman whose last name was a derivative of Abraham, even though she considers herself a member of one of Russia's Finno-Ugrian populations.... Should I tell her that she is really Jewish. Again, none of this is clear cut and the best indicator IMHO is simply what people prefer to call themselves.

Misha, last name that derives from a Jewish name is indicator of a Jewish ancestor at least in Russia.

For whole my life in Russia I have never met a man or a woman with typical Jewish names who would  consider themselves as Slavic Russian.  In the West it is a different story. But honestly I doubt, for example, our local hillbillies would give their sons such names as  Hayim or Hebron 

[OlgaH]

Yes, absolutely!  And Soviet culture is not Russian, Ukrainian, or Jewish.

Even during the Soviet time the nationalities of the USSR followed and observed their national traditions, customs and culture.

[Misha]

For whole my life in Russia I have never met a man or a woman with typical Jewish names who would  consider themselves as Slavic Russian.   

Yes, somebody who is practices the faith, identifies himself or herself as Jewish, has a Jewish first name and gives their children a typically Jewish first-name is without a doubt a Jew or a Russian Jew if they prefer this label.


However, most of the people who could be labeled as Jewish do not fit into this category. I know one family where the son and then the parents moved to Israel and were given Israeli citizenship. The father had a mother who was recorded as Jewish on her birth certificate. The father and the children spoke with the same accent as any other Muscovite. Neither the father nor the children had the typical Jewish-sounding first names that you enumerate. The father considered himself first and foremost Russian and the son eventually came to consider himself Jewish, even though he knew absolutely nothing of the faith when I met him. The mother, who lived in Israel, had no Jewish ancestry. Following the logic being expounded here, they should all be labeled as Jews    This of course would be both misleading and reductionist IMHO.


Applying this to the case under study, you would have many mixed marriages as well and many of the people in Brighton Beach would have been of mixed ancestry or may have had no Jewish ancestry at all, yet the women here are insistent on labelling them all Jewish....

[Misha]

Even during the Soviet time the nationalities of the USSR followed and observed their national traditions, customs and culture.

That is what the propaganda said, in reality there was a strong push for Russification, in language at least and to an extent in culture as well...

[Boethius]

Let's take Lenin's embalming. Trotsky critique it as it reeked of Orthodoxy and was tainted by Orthodox beliefs concerning saints....

Saints were never embalmed.  In some parts of Russia, when a holy person's body was exhumed, it may not have been badly decomposed, and that was a sign of God, but first, that was not the case throughout the Orthodox Empire (consider, for example, the Church's view of the catacombed monks in Russian Orthodoxy's third holiest site, Pecherska Lavra), and second, I would hazard a guess Catholicism has similar beliefs. 

Furthermore, embalming was never common throughout the USSR.  I don't know if embalming corpses was common in Russia at any time.  Perhaps Olga would know.  I do know for a fact embalming was not done in Western Ukraine, or in Kyiv.  I doubt it was done among Soviet Jews or Muslims.  Therefore, it is not a cultural tradition imposed by Russians that was common throughout the USSR.
 

Also, when it came to the alphabets used in the Soviet Union, in later years there was a homogenization whereby Russian cyrillic was used and replaced other alphabets that had been introduced in the early Soviet period...

Untrue.  Russian was the common language throughout the Soviet Empire, and Tsarist Russia as well (google "Emz Ukaz").  However, with the exception of the Soviets dropping the "g" from the Ukrainian alphabet, Ukrainian Cyrillic was still the alphabet used for Ukrainian literature and newspapers throughout the USSR.  I've met a few Uzbeks here, all of whom always spoke Uzbek at home, and use their native alphabet, and always did.  Of course, they can all speak and read Russian, as well.   I would say this is more akin to English being the common language of Canada West of Hull.    Now, Russian language was common throughout the USSR, but so were the languages of each republic.
 
 
 
 

[Ranetka]

Applying this to the case under study, you would have many mixed marriages as well and many of the people in Brighton Beach would have been of mixed ancestry or may have had no Jewish ancestry at all, yet the women here are insistent on labelling them all Jewish....

I actually objest you repeatedly using the word labelling. Being Jews (ethnicity or religion) is nothing bad and I do not think using the word label instead of call or name is approriate.

[Ranetka]

Let's take Lenin's embalming. Trotsky critique it as it reeked of Orthodoxy and was tainted by Orthodox beliefs concerning saints.... Also, when it came to the alphabets used in the Soviet Union, in later years there was a homogenization whereby Russian cyrillic was used and replaced other alphabets that had been introduced in the early Soviet period...

Being a Jew Trotsky would not know Russian orthodox tradition if it hit him on the head lol

[OlgaH]

Misha, when a Russian or a Ukranian or a Uzbek woman marries a Jewish man and takes his last name it is a different story.

Here is a short article  but I think would be interesting for you

Culture of Odessa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Odessa

[Boethius]

That is what the propaganda said, in reality there was a strong push for Russification, in language at least and to an extent in culture as well...

There were policies of linguistic Russification, I believe, applied to Ukraine and Belarus, with varying degrees of success.  It also depended on one's social aspirations..  But there was no policy of cultural Russification.
 
The Bolsheviks were about building a "new man".  There were Soviet traditions they tried to introduce, with varying degrees of success (official atheism, no Christmas/Easter celebrations, no Feast of Jordan, no church weddings/funerals, new art, literature, music, etc.)

[Misha]

Being a Jew Trotsky would not know Russian orthodox tradition if it hit him on the head lol

Come on now! Growing up surrounded by Russian and Orthodox believers, he would have had a very good understanding of the faith, in the same way that a Catholic, Jew or Muslim growing up in the United States would have a good idea as to the basics of Protestant Christianity....

[Misha]

Misha, when a Russian or a Ukranian or a Uzbek woman marries a Jewish man and takes his last name it is a different story.

And their children? If the father is Jewish and the mother is not, will you automatically consider them Jewish?

[Boethius]

Come on now! Growing up surrounded by Russian and Orthodox believers, he would have had a very good understanding of the faith, in the same way that a Catholic, Jew or Muslim growing up in the United States would have a good idea as to the basics of Protestant Christianity....

LOL.  I really doubt it.  Go to some Jewish forum some time to get a view of their "understanding" of Christianity.  Most have no clue.  Furthermore, Trotsky was sent as a child to a German school in Odessa.

[Ranetka]

Come on now! Growing up surrounded by Russian and Orthodox believers, he would have had a very good understanding of the faith, in the same way that a Catholic, Jew or Muslim growing up in the United States would have a good idea as to the basics of Protestant Christianity....

I do not think he was actually. I think he lived in "mestechko", village with mostly Jewish population. I may be wrong though. In any way embalming is def. not a russian tradition antiique egiptian more like lol

[Misha]

There were policies of linguistic Russification, I believe, applied to Ukraine and Belarus, with varying degrees of success.  It also depended on one's social aspirations..  But there was no policy of cultural Russification.

No, but the majority, though a slight majority, came from a Russian culture and even though they did do their best to Sovietize it, it nonetheless took root in an older Russian framework.... It is comparable to American culture: after the Revolution, they did not simply expunge all the traces of English culture, they simply created a new hybrid culture that integrated the culture they brought with them from England or other locales and over time it came to be seen as an American culture.
 

The Bolsheviks were about building a "new man".  There were Soviet traditions they tried to introduce, with varying degrees of success (official atheism, no Christmas/Easter celebrations, no Feast of Jordan, no church weddings/funerals, new art, literature, music, etc.)

Sure, but most still kept remembering the dead on the 40th day of the dead and many other traces of the past culture lived on...

[Boethius]

In the end, you are viewing this as a Westerner, Misha.   I actually don't disagree that being "Jewish" is not an ethnicity (per my example upthread).  I also know a lot about Judaism and Jewish culture.   But,  the bottom line is the majority of Russians do not view this the way you do, and they live that culture. 

[Misha]

I do not think he was actually. I think he lived in "mestechko", village with mostly Jewish population. I may be wrong though. In any way embalming is def. not a russian tradition antiique egiptian more like lol

No, but one of the signs that a person was a saint was that the body would not decompose....

[Boethius]

No, but the majority, though a slight majority, came from a Russian culture and even though they did do their best to Sovietize it, it nonetheless took root in an older Russian framework.... It is comparable to American culture: after the Revolution, they did not simply expunge all the traces of English culture, they simply created a new hybrid culture that integrated the culture they brought with them from England or other locales and over time it came to be seen as an American culture.

No, you still haven't provided an example of something uniquely Russian that became part of Soviet culture.
 

Sure, but most still kept remembering the dead on the 40th day of the dead and
many other traces of the past culture lived on...

I'm not arguing otherwise, but that actually came to the Slavs from the Greeks.

[Boethius]

No, but one of the signs that a person was a saint was that the body would not decompose....

Not uniquely Russian.  I would hazard a guess some of the same beliefs existed in Catholic countries.

[OlgaH]

That is what the propaganda said, in reality there was a strong push for Russification, in language at least and to an extent in culture as well...

Mostly it was about Russian language to push to learn as a State language. But when I was 10 years old living in a small town in Siberia  I bought a book "Ukrainian folk fairy tails" in Ukrainian language for my neighbor girl's birthday. Her family came from Ukraine and the girl's mother taught me to read Shevchenko's poem in Ukrainian when we studied his work in the school. They also had a very good library in Ukrainian language. I got "excellent" from my literature teacher for reading Shecchenko in his nativ language.  Our relatives lived in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and their children had to learn Kazakh and Uzbek language in the schools. When we visited our relatives we went to see the national celebrations with the national traditions, songs, dances and so on. 

[Ranetka]

 

Sure, but most still kept remembering the dead on the 40th day of the dead and many other traces of the past culture lived on...

I can assure you Russian Jews are not following this tradition. Neither Armenian, Yacuts, Tatars or whoever else. It's a Russian tradition, one of little things which make me Russian. Even if I am a non-beleiver I had a shot of vodka on Mums 40.
 
They do different thing in Jewdaism, it makes them Jew.

[Ranetka]

This thread reminds me of the one about history. No-one could explain to Misha why Europe has long history and Canada has not :-)
 
 

[Boethius]

It's a Russian tradition, one of little things which make me Russian.

It is an Orthodox tradition, not a Russian tradition.