Book chapter
Регулирование миграционных процессов в современной России
In book
This book is a collection of works dedicated to the study of Russian-Germans in Germany and in comparative perspective. The chapter by Olga Zeveleva handles the topic of German repatriation programs as compared to programs initiated by Russia and Kazakhstan. The paper explores the political aspects of the history of repatriation programs and analyzes their outcomes.
This paper analyzes German and Russian ideas of nationhood as conceived by the state through the states’ migration and repatriation policies. Immigration policies at large and repatriation policies in particular are viewed in this paper as symptomatic means of understanding inclusion and exclusion in a nation-state, and evolution of such policies are taken as indicators of changes in idioms of the national self. The main argument of the paper is that German national identity is slowly moving away from an ethno-centric conceptualization of nationhood, while Russia has failed to formulate a conception of the Russian nation-state. The findings of this study merit further reflection the effectiveness of repatriation policies, on the relationship between the state and society, on the transnational essence of migration pathways, and on the “post-Soviet condition” which has set the stage for all of the aforementioned processes and transformations.