The identification of the Russian Germans in the German-speaking countries of Europe

Abstract

This article investigates the ethnoconfessional, ethnolinguistical and ethnocultural identification of the Russian Germans as perceived by the population of the biggest German-speaking countries – Germany and Austria. The empirical basis of the research of the identification of the Russian Germans in the German speaking countries of Europe is a special survey which gathered feedback from 1007 respondents and was conducted with the financial support of the Goethe-Institute Kyiv in November 2003 – December 2004.
The survey confirms that the absence of the unilateral expert opinion on the term “Russian Germans” can, to a certain degree, be explained by a variety of approaches to the identification of the term by mass consciousness.