Rethinking Interethnic Marriage in the Soviet Union

Abstract: An expert on minorities and nationalism in the Soviet Union and Russia examines the impact of interethnic marriage on ethnic identity. The extensive literature on intermarriage produced by Soviet scholars as well as the work of Western scholars on this subject is analyzed in terms of the findings, methodologies, and conceptions of ethnic identity that formed the framework for such studies. These are compared with other possible approaches to underlying questions about the sources and nature of ethnic identity and the problem of how ethnic identity should be conceptualized. he determination of a person’s ethnic identity is a complex process. Objective components that limit a person’s choice of ethnic identity include physical traits such as skin color and behaviors such as language, clothing, and social networks. The subjective aspect of ethnic identity is composed primarily of images or stereotypes of ethnic groups combined with a person’s sense of belonging to a particular group (Isajiw, 1990, p. 36). For most people, the choice of ethnic identity is straightforward—both parents belong to a single ethnic group, and they grow up believing that they are born a part of this group. This is why most people consider ethnicity to be an ascriptive characteristic, like sex or age. Things can get more complicated, for instance, when an ethnic group is a minority in a society dominated by a group whose members cannot be distinguished on the basis of culture or physical appearance or when a person’s parents belong to two different ethnic groups. In this article, I examine the impac