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I assume by "white Russian" you really mean someone of Russian ethnicity and not Belarus - which is what that phrase means to a Russian speaker - but you might
by throwaway3060 1y ago
I assume by "white Russian" you really mean someone of Russian ethnicity and not Belarus - which is what that phrase means to a Russian speaker - but you might want to clarify.
- shakow 1y agoI have never seen an english speaker use “white Russians” for Belarusians – the only uses I know of this idiom are (i) for the non-red/non-green participants to the Russian civil war, and, by extensions, their diaspora, and (ii) the cocktail, which of course, is by far the most common occurence nowadays.
- throwaway3060 1y agoMany of the Russian speakers I know do this when speaking English - I'm guessing that's how they think of the phrase in Russian and want to translate it literally.
- m4rtink 1y agoYeah - the group that eventually lost the Russian civil war is first that comes to my mind for this term: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_movement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_movement
- Wildgoose 1y agoI know both usages, and as an Englishman I am a native English speaker. However, I would agree that the most common usage would be the non-Red opponents of the communistic takeover of Russia in the early 1920s. Isn't the cocktail named as a direct reference to these people?
- shakow 1y agoI don't think so, they're Belgian IIRC? I think “Russian” is just for the vodka base, and black/white for without/with cream.
- ponector 1y agoYes. White male with Slavic face who speaks russian language without an accent because he knows no other language. A friend of mine had a grandfather, who was born in central Asia (Samarkand) had Ukrainian parents, but also had written in his passport that he was a russian. Soviets erased his roots, history, ethnicity. He never spoke Ukrainian in his life. Btw, that is what current russian government is doing. They have stolen thousands of Ukrainian kids and erased their identity. Few more years and some of them are ready to be sent to the frontline.
- gambiting 1y agoPlenty of stories of people being forced to "voluntarily" accept Russian passports on the territories occupied by Russia in Ukraine too.
- kvemkon 1y ago> ... speaks russian language without an accent because he knows no other language. At least Belorussians and Ukrainians can speak Russian without an accent despite knowing their own languages. > Soviets erased his ... I doubt the USSR had such power solely on its own. It depends mostly on the will of parents (and grandparents) and the type of a young person. If a kid likes art, it's more likely the kid would be interested in national memory, if a kid is more into tech, then it seems not that important, which nevertheless can change later. Russian Germans (not necessary all of them) consider themselves as Germans even after hundreds of years living in Russian Empire and then in the USSR.
- throwaway3060 1y agoIf a kid in the Soviet Union was interested in art and used that to express national memory, then there would be consequences. As an adult, they'd probably be sent to a gulag and never seen again. This is how the Soviet Union crushed national memories beyond just the name (never the name itself, making sure they knew they were "different" somehow). They didn't succeed in completely crushing all national memories, but a few more decades and who knows what might have happened.