‘To be jewish': the institutionalisation of jewish identity in Siberia during the revolution and the Civil war

The article examines the mechanisms and practices of institutionalisation of the Siberian Jews' ethnic identity (ethnicity) during the Revolution and the Civil War from 1917 to 1919, where ethnic identity is understood by the authors in symbolic terms. On the basis of analysis of a wide spectrum of historiographic materials, the authors show that the decay of estate and confessional system in the Russian Empire by the early twentieth century was followed by the emergence of secular institutions, which constituted one of the factors in the rise and politisation of ethnicity. Another factor included the process of nation building and national movements. A number of distinctive features can be attributed to the institutionalisation of ethnicity in the Siberian society, including among the local Jews, who opted for a diasporic model of integration. The Revolution of 1905-1917, the First World War and the Civil War all acted as mobilising factors with regard to this process. The period between the February and the October Revolutions became the time when the institutionalisation of ethnic identity was taking place from both within - through national self-organisation - and from outside - with support from power and political institutions. Of central importance was the question of democratic reorganisation of the Jewish community which was to play the role of the ‘core' of the system of national self-government on the basis of national-cultural (personal) autonomy. The driving force behind this became political parties, first of all, Zionists and the Bund. The Zionists advocated a ‘democratic, selfgoverning and united Jewish community' which had to retain its religious character. The Bund followers supported the idea of a ‘democratic secular community'. According to both approaches, a system of national self-government had to be created in the form of cultural and national (national-personal) autonomy which would encompass the reorganised Jewish communities. The institutionalisation of Jewish ethnicity in the east of the country was still possible throughout the Civil War - through political and social activity, the democratic reorganisation of the Jewish communities, and the creation of Jewish organisations (political, cultural and sport ones) and schools, but also on the level of discourse (narrative) - through exploration of historical memory. With the establishment of Soviet power, however, all the communities were eradicated. The institutionalisation of ethnicity under the Soviet government meant the introduction of the ‘nationality' category for censuses, in passports and on different types of application forms and other personal documents. Actively propagandised were symbolic aspects of national (ethnic) identity such as national languages, music, clothes, and cuisine. Reformatting the society this way was gradually forcing ethnicity out of public discourse and the practices of everyday life.

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