Emigrate to Russia because everything is fine there? The Kremlin’s propaganda like this appeals to some people with a Russian background in Germany, says an expert.
t-online research shows that a network from German-speaking countries wants to guide people from the West to Russia, led by Duma deputy and ex-agent Maria Butina. Russian sources say that hundreds of thousands of dissatisfied people want to emigrate from Europe and the USA. But what’s really going on?
The phenomenon does exist, says political scientist Félix Krawatzek from the Center for Eastern European and International Studies (ZOiS) in Berlin. After an extensive survey, he and a colleague have the most current and extensive data on the beliefs and attitudes of people who have come to Germany from the Russian Federation area. During their research, they were surprised to discover that emigration is a common topic.
t-online: There are claims from Russia that hundreds of thousands of people from the West want to emigrate to Russia. Is this an issue for people with a Russian background in Germany?
Felix Krawatzek: I recently spoke to colleagues about this at a conference and I see myself confirmed in the scientific community: something is brewing. But no one can estimate to what extent. We didn’t even have this aspect on our radar at first during the survey. To our surprise, we discovered how relevant the topic is in subsequent discussions in small groups. In eight rounds of discussions with a total of 80 participants, there were always participants who brought this up.
There were people who emigrated to Russia?
Rarely have people said that they plan to do this themselves. But again and again it came up that there were people in my circle of friends who were seriously planning to do this, were in contact with the embassy or had already taken the step. This is definitely growing, even if I haven’t read any figures about it yet. We did not come across any differences between Russians and Russian-German repatriates.
Interview partner Félix Krawatzek published the study “With a Russian background in Germany: Views on politics, society and history” in November, which was based on an opinion survey among 500 people with a Russian background and a comparison group from the general German population. Krawatzek has been leading the research focus since September 2018 Youth and generational change at ZOiS and since 2022 the project funded by the European Research Council Moving Russia(ns): Intergenerational Transmission of Memories Abroad and at Home. He received his doctorate from the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. He worked as a visiting lecturer at the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University and Aarhus University.
Your survey found that the second generation has a more skeptical attitude towards democracy and participates significantly less in elections. Are these the ones who want to leave?
Voter turnout is not the best explanation. If you are frustrated and want positions close to the Kremlin and fundamental changes in German politics, there are parties that will meet you there. According to our impressions, it is more the older people who want to leave Germany, and we see a mix of frustration with social developments in Germany.
Economic policy, political and material questions do not play a major role for people in our data. The focus is on ideal questions. Above all, gender norms, what is actually “normal” here and how we treat each other. These questions have a stronger emotional component, and this is where the key lies.
This also polarizes the rest of the population.
However, in our survey you can see clear differences and a much greater spread in the answers among the population with a Russian background. The rejection of this is significantly greater among the group with a Russian background than in the group of people surveyed with people without a Russian migration background.
They asked whether men should have the freedom to wear clothes and makeup and whether respondents would accept a person in their household who identifies as neither a man nor a woman.
There is more tolerance among young people with a Russian background than among older people in their own group and as much as among older people in the population without a Russian background. For people with a Russian background, more individual assessments deviate significantly from the average, about one and a half times more. This means that this topic is much more polarizing in the Russian community in Germany. We have also heard more often that it is the dominant major political issue in Germany. This is a fixation.
Because these people are shown this way in articles from Russia?
If you look at the Kremlin narrative, Europe is actually an endless gay parade and people in the West are concerned with nothing else. But it is difficult to show a causal chain in the sense of “They consume Russian state media and that’s why they think that way.” You have to be careful there. One thing is clear, and the survey also showed this, that Russians and Russian-Germans in Germany are significantly more conservative overall. And in the Russian media there is another aspect.