On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 11:11:57 -0800 (PST), WolfBear <m4josh@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Do you believe that a surviving Tsarist Russia or, alternatively, some other kind of non-Communist Russia would have been any more successful at Russifying Russia's non-Russian territories? For the record, this graphic shows the Russian percentage in various republics of the USSR in 1989--as well as the Russian percentage there in the 2010s:
>
>https://gdb.rferl.org/4C34CA8B-2971-4F81-8EDE-B0AFBB2496A4.jpg
>
>Also, for the record, mass ethnic cleansing is excluded from this scenario. So, Russification could only be achieved either through voluntary mass migration or through successful assimilation that causes some or even many non-Russians to abandon their non-Russian identity and instead begin identifying as Russians.

Of course it works both ways.

I know a lady whose father was a Red Army surgeon and grew up all over
the Soviet Union but ended up in Kharkov / Kharkiv before emigrating
to Canada. (Which she now considers her home town)

She says she speaks both Russian and Ukrainian but is stronger in
Russian.

Looking at her Facebook page however it is clear which way she is
leaning since it has a silhouette of Ukraine including the eastern
territories seized by the "separatists" and Crimea and includes a star
labelled "Kharkiv" and a heart in blue and yellow....

d On 3/31/22 9:03 AM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 11:11:57 -0800 (PST), WolfBear <m4josh@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Do you believe that a surviving Tsarist Russia or, alternatively,
some other kind of non-Communist Russia would have been any more
successful at Russifying Russia's non-Russian territories? For the
record, this graphic shows the Russian percentage in various republics
of the USSR in 1989--as well as the Russian percentage there in the 2010s:
>>
>> https://gdb.rferl.org/4C34CA8B-2971-4F81-8EDE-B0AFBB2496A4.jpg
>>
>> Also, for the record, mass ethnic cleansing is excluded from this
scenario. So, Russification could only be achieved either through
voluntary mass migration or through successful assimilation that causes
some or even many non-Russians to abandon their non-Russian identity and
instead begin identifying as Russians.
>
> Of course it works both ways.
>
> I know a lady whose father was a Red Army surgeon and grew up all over
> the Soviet Union but ended up in Kharkov / Kharkiv before emigrating
> to Canada. (Which she now considers her home town)
>
> She says she speaks both Russian and Ukrainian but is stronger in
> Russian.
>
> Looking at her Facebook page however it is clear which way she is
> leaning since it has a silhouette of Ukraine including the eastern
> territories seized by the "separatists" and Crimea and includes a star
> labelled "Kharkiv" and a heart in blue and yellow....

I also agree.

Ethnicity is at least partially a matter of choice, and if you try
to force people a certain way rather than let them decide for themselves
they tend to go in the opposite direction.

On Fri, 1 Apr 2022 07:38:12 -0700, Trolidan7
<Trolidan7@eternal-september.org> wrote:

> > Of course it works both ways.
> >
> > I know a lady whose father was a Red Army surgeon and grew up all over
> > the Soviet Union but ended up in Kharkov / Kharkiv before emigrating
> > to Canada. (Which she now considers her home town)
> >
> > She says she speaks both Russian and Ukrainian but is stronger in
> > Russian.
> >
> > Looking at her Facebook page however it is clear which way she is
> > leaning since it has a silhouette of Ukraine including the eastern
> > territories seized by the "separatists" and Crimea and includes a star
> > labelled "Kharkiv" and a heart in blue and yellow....
>
>I also agree.
>
>Ethnicity is at least partially a matter of choice, and if you try
>to force people a certain way rather than let them decide for themselves
>they tend to go in the opposite direction.

Hey I'm the son of an American father and Canadian mother - conceived
in the USA and born in Canada. Further back at least 2 or 3
nationalities from each of my parents. Chiefly because my father was
from a larger family than my mother, I have more US cousins than
Canadian cousins (most of whom I know but haven't seen many of them
these last 20 years since our parents started dying off) but a much
larger extended family on both sides few of which I know well. (Most
of our contact these days is through the family Facebook group which
is chiefly about sharing old photos from our parents' photo albums)

With respect to the US and Canada I'm sure mine is a familiar story.

The lady referred to above never told me where her parents were from
but I feel certain that if it were somewhere in Ukraine she would have
said. Her father was a Red Army physician so presumably HIS home town
could have been anywhere in the Soviet Union (similar to most US army
officers - and he WAS an MD so would have been at least a Captain) and
her surname sounds more Russian than Ukrainian. Got to know her fairly
well when I was mentoring her in Toastmasters about 4-5 years back.

She's never mentioned having spent time in Eastern Europe so
presumably his service was strictly within the Soviet Union (which of
course may or may not have been in Russia or Ukraine). But no question
at least to the extent any army brat has a home town she definitely
considered Kharkov / Kharkiv her home town (and I saw her write it
bothways...)