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Yiddish in the Former Soviet Union Since 1989

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Yiddish in the Former Soviet Union Since 1989 YIDDISH IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION SINCE 1959: A STATISTICAL-DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS Mark Tolts The language situation of today’s Ashkenazi Jewry in the former Soviet Union (FSU) has not yet been the object of special statistical-demographic study. Moreover, in most analysis this Jewry was usually mixed with other Jewish groups. Nor have the results of the first post-Soviet Russian microcensus of 1994 been studied in this regard. This paper aims, within the space available, to fill this lacuna. Yiddish in the Soviet Censuses Soviet censuses have amassed a long and rich series of data on ethnic nationality (nationalnost’) and language. In the post-war period there have been four population censuses: in 1959, 1970, 1979 and 1989. Not only did these censuses not require documentary evidence for answers to any question, but in regard to ethnic nationality the census takers were explicitly given instructions that ethnic nationality was to be determined solely by the person polled - without any corroboration (Kingkade, 1989). Data from the Soviet censuses are based entirely on self-declaration of respondents, and they are regarded as "a good example of a large and empirically measured core Jewish population in the Diaspora" (Schmelz and DellaPergola, 1995, p. 481). The “core” Jewish population is the aggregate of all those who, when asked, identify themselves as Jews, or in the case of children, are identified as such by their parents; it does not include persons of Jewish origin who reported another ethnic nationality in the census (DellaPergola, 1993, p. 277). However, most scholars agree that the Soviet census figures on Jewish ethnic nationality (adults only) were very similar to "legal" ethnic nationality as recorded in internal passports. Paper presented at the conference “Yiddish in the Contemporary World”, University of Oxford, 19-21 April 1998 [Revised as of 4 May 2012]. 1 In the first post-war census of 1959, as well as in the previous census of 1939 only one question on language was asked - “native language” (rodnoi iazyk). This term was not clearly defined in the instructions to census takers, so answers to this question are a problematic linguistic indicator (e.g., see: Silver, 1986, pp. 88-89). It can not, of course, be seen as the equivalent to a “language of early childhood”. Beginning with the census of 1970, in addition to the question on native language, a question on a second language of the various “peoples of the USSR” which respondents “freely command” was asked. The phrase “freely command” is important; due to its use we have information on persons who named the language of their ethnic group as their second language of which they have speaking knowledge, whereas “native language” may have been only an ethnic symbol, and the language was not actually known or spoken. Correspondingly, for some Jews Yiddish was an ethnic symbol, so that answers to the question on native language were sometimes unrelated to linguistic behaviour. For others Yiddish was not declared as the native language even in cases where the respondents were raised in Yiddish-speaking homes and were educated in this language, but as from the 1970 census it can be declared a second language. Thus, the 1959 census which contained only one question on language gave Jews less opportunity to declare Yiddish than later censuses (for Yiddish in the 1959 census, see especially: Kantor, 1971, p. 150). Results of the post-war Soviet censuses presented data on a “Jewish language” (evreiskii iazyk). Study of the census documentation showed that this term was equivalent to Yiddish (e.g., see: Goskomstat SSSR, 1988, p. 55). Other Jewish languages such as “Jewish- Tat” (evreisko-tatskii iazyk) and “Jewish-Tadzhik” (evreisko-tadzhikskii iazyk) were noted separately in census documentation (ibid.). It is difficult to separate Ashkenazi Jews from other Jewish groups in the FSU in order to define the Jewish population under consideration. Although in the last Soviet census of 1989 Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Central Asian (Bukharan) Jews, and Krymchaks appeared separately, we can not be sure that this was done successfully for the Jews of Central Asia and Transcaucasia, or for those of the North Caucasus (Dagestan, Checheno- Ingush, Kabardino-Balkar, and North Ossetin autonomous republics). It is even more difficult to deal with the results of the previous Soviet censuses when the non-Ashkenazi groups were haphazardly counted. For this reason, in our analysis we will discuss only the situation in 2 Russia (excluding the autonomous republics of the North Caucasus) and the European republics of the USSR (Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).1 The Decline of Yiddish in the Post-War USSR In the post-war period not many Soviet Jews declared Yiddish as their native tongue in the censuses, thus continuing the process of decline which had already begun between the two world wars. According to my estimate, based on the data of the 1939 census, only about 40 per cent of the Ashkenazi Jews in the three Slavic republics of the FSU declared Yiddish as their native language. According to the same census this indicator was as low as about 25 per cent for Ashkenazi Jews in the Russian Federation (including Crimea) and 45 per cent for Ukrainian Jewry. Only in Belorussia was Yiddish declared to be their native language by slightly more than half (55 per cent) of the Jews (see: Altshuler, 1993, pp. 17-18). Table 1. Percentage Declaring Yiddish as Native or Second Language among Ashkenazi Jews in Russia and the European republics of the USSR,(a) 1959-1989 1959 1970 1979 1989 Declaring Yiddish: Native Language 17.7 11.0 10.3 8.7 Second Language ... (b) 8.5 5.7 4.3 Total ... 19.5 16.0 13.0 (a) Author’s estimate; excluding the Jews of Dagestan, Checheno-Ingush, Kabardino-Balkar, and North Ossetin autonomous republics. (b) The data were not collected. Sources: 1959, 1970, 1979 and 1989 censuses. According to the first post-war census of 1959, Yiddish was named the native language of the Ashkenazi Jews in Russia and the European republics of the USSR by an estimated 17.7 per cent. In the next census (of 1970) Yiddish was noted as the native or second language by 19.5 per cent of the Ashkenazi Jews, with only 11 per cent declaring it as native. By the eve of the current great exodus (based on data from the 1989 census) the estimated share of Yiddish as native or second language among these same Ashkenazi Jews in the FSU was 13 per cent, while only 8.7 per cent named it as native (Table 1). 1 Throughout this paper only official data of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR and the Russian Federation have been used: Goskomstat SSSR, 1989 and 1991; Statkomitet SNG, 1993; and Goskomstat Rossii, 1990 and 1995. For a synopsis of Jewish data from the censuses of 1959 and 1970, see: Altshuler, 1987, Chapter 7. 3 Since the Second World War the Ashkenazi Jewish population of the FSU has aged substantially. In 1959 the median age of the Jews was 41.2 in Russia, 39.3 in Ukraine and 33.7 in Belorussia. But by the 1989 census, the median age of the Ashkenazi Jewish population had risen to 52.6 in Russia, 51.6 in Ukraine and 47.0 in Belorussia. Correspondingly, during the same period the proportion of the group aged 65 and above within the total Ashkenazi Jewish population dramatically rose from 9 to 27 per cent in Russia, from 9 to 25 per cent in Ukraine and from 7 to 20 per cent in Belorussia (Tolts, 1997a, p. 163; Tolts, 1997b, p. 153). Naturally, in the censuses, older Jews more often declared Yiddish as their native or second language (see below). Thus, the process of aging has partly offset and camouflaged the decline of Yiddish in the FSU. Geography of Yiddish on the Eve of the Great Exodus According to my estimate, based on the data of the 1989 census, on the eve of great exodus there were in Russia and the European republics of the USSR about 107,000 Ashkenazi Jews who named Yiddish as their native language, and 52,000 who noted it as their second language; giving us a total of approximately 159,000 Ashkenazi Jews who declared Yiddish in this census (Table 2). According to the data of the 1959 census, to the one question on language which was asked, there were about 350,000 Jews who declared Yiddish as their native language. According to the data of the 1989 census, most of those who declared Yiddish as either a native or a second language lived either in the Russian Federation (56,000) or Ukraine (54,000). In Moldavia 21,500 Jews named Yiddish as their native or second language. At the same time, fewer Jews (16,000) in Belorussia declared Yiddish, although 70 per cent more Jews lived in Belorussia than in Moldavia.2 Most of the remaining Jews who declared Yiddish were in Latvia (more than 6,000) and Lithuania (4,600). The shares of these two republics in the estimated total number of Jews declaring Yiddish were higher than their shares in the total number of Jews by factors of 2 and 3, respectively. The rest of the Jews who declared Yiddish lived in Estonia (less than 700). 2 However, in the census year readership of the single Soviet Yiddish-language magazine Sovetish Heymland was higher in Belorussia than in Moldavia (Estraikh, 1995, p. 19). 4 Table 2. The Number Declaring Yiddish as Native or Second Language among Ashkenazi Jews in Russia and the European republics of the USSR, 1989 Total Jews Thereof declaring Yiddish as Republic(a) Native Second Native or language language second language Number Russia(b) 521,964 36,888 19,453 56,341 Ukraine 486,326 34,635 19,386 54,021 Moldavia 65,672 17,016 4,538 21,554 Belorussia 111,883 8,530 7,514 16,044 Latvia 22,897 5,159 1,013 6,172 Lithuania 12,314 4,398 241 4,639 Estonia 4,613 570 108 678 Total(b) 1,225,669 107,196 52,253 159,449 Percentage of total Russia(b) 42.5 34.4 37.2 35.3 Ukraine 39.7 32.3 37.1 33.9 Moldavia 5.4 15.9 8.7 13.5 Belorussia 9.1 8.0 14.4 10.1 Latvia 1.9 4.8 1.9 3.9 Lithuania 1.0 4.1 0.5 2.9 Estonia 0.4 0.5 0.2 0.4 Total(b) 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 (a) Ordered according to the total number declaring Yiddish as native or second language.
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