By Nino Aivazishvili-Gehne
The Russian war against Ukraine has also introduced potential conflicts for diasporic communities abroad, particularly for those with roots in the former USSR. Drawing from ethnographic observations of a group of women in Bavaria, this post highlights their strategies for managing these tensions.
Why this particular topic?
There are both research-related and very personal reasons for writing this blog post.
As someone who experienced war and its aftermath as a child, I am interested in the spaces and relationships that survive such human catastrophes. It is not that I have decided to continue reporting on the war and its consequences. Rather the other way round. The war haunts me. We are currently again living in times characterized by brutality and inhumanity. Millions upon millions are fleeing bloody conflicts, millions more are fighting for a fair and free life in their home countries. The governments and states are “maddening” (cf. Aretxaga 2003).
Georgia, my home country, is in turmoil as well. Hundreds of thousands have been demonstrating for democracy and against autocracy for over two months. Society is polarised over different opinions about the current government and what it means to have peace. What is happening in my country is not an isolated incident. The chain of events surrounding war and peace has been tearing apart societies in the post-Soviet space for decades. Neither war nor its horrors are anything new for the people in this region.
Conflicts also transcend national borders and poison the lives and environments of individuals and communities in the diaspora. This makes it all the more important to explore the diasporic milieus and spaces that cultivate relationships, connections and togetherness instead of conflict and division. Peaceful coexistence is an essential prerequisite for a dignified life and human well-being. In other words: I am interested in “spaces of viability” (cf. Hage 2021: 38), which for me are also “spaces of resilience” that are effective and tangible for human well-being.1 According to my childhood memories, one such space for us was the immediate neighborhood. On dark evenings (without electricity, water or gas), we made a big fire in front of the flats. We played, laughed and strengthened each other with the feeling of togetherness. Bread was baked together. We fetched water together and coped with everyday life as best we could.
I am currently looking for such “spaces of resilience” created by migrants in Germany. I try to find out how immigrants can best organise their lives in their new environment in a valuable way. Since 2021, I have been researching the lives of various ethnic groups from the former USSR in Germany, mainly working with “Spätaussiedler” (Germans) and “Kontingentflüchtlinge” (Jews), but also with people from Georgia with different ethnic family histories.
The Russian full-scale invasion in Ukraine in February 2022 brought new challenges for diasporic milieus abroad, especially for people who could be described as “from the former USSR.” The frictions and fractures are acutely felt in these communities and cannot be overlooked (Aivazishvili-Gehne, Jašina-Schäfer and Panagiotidis 2022). At the same time, however, coping strategies can also be observed by which people try to protect their environment and the relationships they have cultivated over decades.
Based on my ethnographic observations conducted in a specific location with a group of women in Bavaria, I highlight way of managing relationships in times of war to maintain such a “resilience space.”2
“Babushka’s” get-togethers
The group of women I am introducing here consists of around 20 people from the former USSR aged between 66 and 88. They originally come mainly from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and have been in Germany since the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s. Since they are all grandmothers, I call them “Babushki” (Бабушки), as they are known in Russian, which they consider their mother tongue. Accordingly, I call their meetings “Babushkas’ get-togethers” (grandmas’ get-togethers).3 The group is diverse. There are Jews, ethnic Russians and so-called “Russian-Germans”. Some come from large cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk or Kiev, others from smaller cities such as Mykolaiv or Tyumen or from rural areas in Central Asia.
This is a self-organized group of people who have decided to train themselves after completing a compulsory integrative language course. Besides the joint occasion, some of them are bound together by neighborly and friendly relationships. The women completed language courses in the same organization where they now meet. They were still connected to this place through various cultural programs and when the decision was made to start their own initiative (free of charge), the organization committed to providing them with a space for their get-togethers. The women have been meeting regularly since around 2018 and practice German together twice a week. I realize that this event is much more for the participants than just practicing grammar or preparing presentations. It is a time of togetherness, where a community of mothers and grandmothers, who share similar experiences from life in the former USSR and speak the same language, find greater meaning in their everyday lives. It is a time to talk about the children and grandchildren who still live in the old home countries. When they reported during the events that their sons, daughters, grandsons or granddaughters were still living in St Petersburg, Moscow or Kiev, I was both fascinated and very curious as to how they managed to stay “beyond the political processes.”
About the author
Nino Aivazishvili-Gehne holds a PhD in social anthropology and is a researcher at the Leibnitz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS). Currently, she is working on the research project “On the fulfilment and failure of the hope of living as a German among Germans. Germans from the former Soviet Union in Bavaria” at the “Centre for Culture and Remembrance. Expellees and Resettlers in Bavaria”, based at the IOS and the University of Regensburg and funded by the Free State of Bavaria.
Maintaining such relationships is currently anything but easy and self-evident. The politicization of identities has progressed so far that in some cases even the common mother tongue Russian is rejected and with it any communication with people who have something to do with Russia. I noticed that the women obviously became nervous as soon as a politically sensitive topic such as Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine or the opinion of one or another related politician came up. Such content and situations were seen as potentially dangerous for relationships that had already become fragile in times of war.
In the following, I will use my ethnographic observations to describe two such situations and show what strategies were utilized to remain “apolitical” (beyond political divisions).
A special birthday in a person’s life
I’m taking part in a ‘babushkas’ get-togethers.’ As usual, the session lasts an hour and a half and consists of several parts. During the course, each participant has to prepare a presentation about art, music or attractions in Bavaria. Besides this, it has a grammar session and at the end the women speak freely about a specific topic that they have determined in advance, and each has prepared a speech. This is usually the time where the political seeps into the realm of the non-political at these meetings. One can’t control everyday life like grammar exercises or art presentations.
Today’s topic is ‘a special birthday.’ Madina talks about big parties ‘from the other life’ in Uzbekistan, when she and her husband had many more friends and relatives around them than today. Elja becomes sad when she tells the group that fewer and fewer ‘girls’ (devochky) come to her birthday every year and that what she fears most is that people might forget her celebration.
And then it’s Katharina’s turn. She says with a sad smile: ‘Two years ago, I had a very special birthday. It coincided with the start of the war in Ukraine. What was a great misfortune for the whole nation also became, in a bizarre way, a chance to finally be together again. My brother came to Germany from Kiev with his wife and three children, and my husband’s family was also there from here [Germany]. The brother later returned to Kiev. Now everyone is back in Kiev.’
We were all very quiet for a while. The women looked at Katharina in silence or lowered their eyes. Katharina broke the silence herself. She quickly added with a smile that it was time to move on with Malvina [from St Petersburg]. Everyone kind of laughed with relief and the women at the end of the section were relaxed and heard about my special birthday in 2016 when my son Ilia was born the day before, making him my best birthday present.’
(From my field diary, [name of city], 26 November 2024.)
In this ethnographic vignette, it becomes clear that silence is a way of “covering up” awkward or unpleasant moments. The women understand Katharina’s severe situation and know that it is better not to say anything at this point. They remain respectfully silent until she has defused the situation herself. No one interrupts. For her part, Katharina also knows that one should not stay like this for long. This uncomfortable silence disturbs the group dynamic and the “boundaries of the unspoken” could be crossed. So, she smiles and changes the subject. But sometimes there are situations in which the women nevertheless cross the “agreed boundaries of the unspeakable”. Then the participants defuse the condition with a clear request to interrupt the conversation about troublesome topics. That’s what happened on 10 December 2024.
What do you think of Donald Trump?
After the usual exchange, homework check and grammar exercises, it was time to talk about the chosen topic of the day. Today the topic was a ‘special event of the day’. Some talked about the visit, others about the household, and when Lyuba was asked to speak, she said: ‘I know we don’t want to talk about such topics, but we can’t bury our heads in the sand! I was reading the newspaper and there was a report about Donald Trump. It said he was a racist, misogynistic and dodgy person and that it is impossible to predict where he will lead the country or the future and I ask you what you think of that?’
The group was immediately annoyed. Some women shouted resolutely that this was not the place for such talks. Others quickly added that it would be good if he could end the war in Ukraine, because then he would be a good person. One woman commented, Trump would be very rich and powerful. However, it was not possible to continue the debate. The leader of the group decided to change the subject, and in the last 10 minutes we talked about Christmas.
(From my field diary, [name of city], 10 December 2024.)
The second vignette shows a different avoidance strategy: that of direct intervention and clear demarcation. The “Babushkas’ get-togethers” are declared to be an “apolitical” space in which certain topics are deliberately eluded in order to preserve the peaceful gathering. Lyuba begins her question by referring to the agreement “not to ask such questions.” At the same time, her announcement shows that it is a real challenge to remain silent about political events. It’s not that the women don’t understand what’s happening. At the end of this meeting, some people came up to me and asked me anxiously about the situation in Georgia. The women are informed and also have their own opinions. Being informed but holding back does not seem to be easy. Ljuba is unhappy with the state of having to “bury her head in the sand” (pretending she sees and hears nothing). But the majority of the group thinks that it is better not to talk about politics here. They have probably experienced how politicized issues destroy relationships.
Some concluding thoughts
In this blog post, I have focused on the special spaces and relationships that play a particular role in people’s sense of normality and well-being in times of war. As an example, I described meetings with elderly women from the former USSR in Bavaria, who have been building their new lives in Germany for over two decades. These women from different ethnic and social backgrounds form a community that goes far beyond the practical purpose of the meeting, which is to learn the German language or organize cultural life. They are bound together by neighborly and friendly relationships that have existed for decades. And these relationships are currently under stress by events in the former USSR. The enormous pressure of political development is menacing to drive them apart. But they are still putting up resistance.
My observations have shown that these women used different methods to protect their valuable relationship. Sometimes they simply remained respectfully silent instead of expressing their own opinions. There were moments when they explicitly asked each other to stop talking about politics. There was a consensus that this place, this space, should be protected at all costs from potential conflicts and disputes. They did not want to risk losing meaningful and valuable time together. It remains to be seen whether these strategies will prove successful in the long term. However, it is worth taking a closer look at such diasporic milieus, which offer more detailed reflections on the day-to-day difficulties of overcoming social and political conflicts and enabling peaceful coexistence. A vision that is of enormous importance not only in the diaspora, but also in the old homelands.
References
Aivazishvili-Gehne, N; Jašina-Schäfer, A and Panagiotidis, J. 2022. ‘Konflikte, Engagement und Ängste. Der Ukrainekrieg in den Augen postsowjetischer Migrant*innen in Deutschland’, Zeitgeschichte-online, URL: https://zeitgeschichte-online.de/themen/konflikte-engagement-und-aengste. Zuletzt abgerufen am 06.01.2025.
Aretxaga, B. 2003. ‘Maddening States’, Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 393-410.
Hage, G. 2021. The Diasporic Condition: Ethnographic Explorations of the Lebanese in the World. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
- For Ghassan Hage, “spaces of viability” are spaces “where the worthiness of one’s life is played out” (ibid.). [↩]
- These observations are part of my current research project: “On the fulfilment and failure of the hope of living as a German among Germans. Germans from the former Soviet Union in Bavaria” and is based on field research conducted in Bavaria since March 2024. The research is being carried out at the “Centre for Culture and Remembrance. Expellees and Resettlers in Bavaria” and financed by the Free State of Bavaria with a special grant [Project TG 78 “Culture and Remembrance. Expellees and Resettlers in Bavaria”]. [↩]
- Бабушкины посиделки. [↩]
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Redaktion ostBLOG (4. Februar 2025). “Babushka’s” Get-Togethers: On Silence and Other Strategies for Being and Remaining a Community in Times of War. ostBLOG. Abgerufen am 8. Februar 2025 von https://doi.org/10.58079/138hn