I don't agree with that. The reason why Russians call themselves "Russians" no matter where they live is that there are two different words in Russian language for a Russian ethnicity and Russian nationality (citizenship). There is "russkiy", which means "of Russian ethnicity" and would be equivalent to "English", "Welsh", "Scottish", etc. And there is "rossiyanin", which means "citizen of Russia" and would be the equivalent of "British". Both are translated into English as "Russian". Thus a person of Russian decent born in Kazakhstan would be able to call himself Russian but would still be Kazakh by citizenship. Same with America.Wanderer wrote:You know when I was a kid in the late 60's I well remember a busload of Indians arriving at my school. They were from Uganda I think, when Amin had one of his purges....
Anyway, all these kids were put into class 4I, 'I' for 'Immigrant' - Christ imagine the fuss over that nowadays!
Another thing is the cutural aspects of 'where you are from' as against 'where you belong'....
In the UK, we tend to associate nationality to place of birth, for example, my two youngest kids where born in Scotland (me and the rest of the kids are English). They are my 'Jock-kids'! Also one of my collegues was born in Germany (father in Army) so we always referred to him as 'German' depsite him being as British as they come. Prince Philip is Phil the Greek cos he was born in Corfu!
Conversly Russians consider their ethnicity as their nationality. My gf is Russian but her mother was born in Kazhakstan but of Russian ethnicity, so she considers herself Russian. The Soviets did what Cromwell did to Ireland and relocated Russians throughout the lesser Republics.
Kazakhstan has the Kazakhs, the indiginoeus Arab/Turkish race, but most are of Russian stock now, and depite their place of birth, are Russian. If a child is born even in USA to Russian parents, the child is considered Russian and not American.
Interestng topic!
Steve
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