CZECH IMMIGRANTS IN VOLYN: A REGIONAL MODEL OF ETHNIC IDENTITY

Abstract

The article considers the ways and means of preserving ethnic identity of Czech immigrants who emigrated to Volyn in the middle of the 19th century and lived there before re-emigration. One of the research aspects is to determine the new, related to the Volyn region, signs of identity that the immigrants acquired with time. The case study is based on analyzing reliable sources and scientific works. The sources for the research were chronicles (memoirs) of Czech re-emigrants who returned to Czechoslovakia in 1947 and scientific investigations of modern scholars. The emigration of Czechs to Volyn was caused by a complex of factors, mainly economic ones. The Russian government’s protection policy, under the decree of 1870, contributed to the emigration movement intensification, making it a mass phenomenon. The immigrants settled compactly, mainly in the south-western part of the Volyn province, formed Czech volosts, built up their settlements, organized schools for children, preserved their language, started public associations, which prevented them from russification and assimilation.

The study argues that the poly-ethnic and poly-confessional nature of Volyn society and new spatial-social conditions of life caused the need to personify the Czech community at the beginning of immigration which provided for preserving ethnic traits, language, and customs. Unlike the local Ukrainian population, during the century, the Czechs identified themselves and the community with their “old” homeland. At the same time, their living space had radically changed. The Czechs, communicating with Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews, gained new economic experience. Volyn land became their native home, the resting place of their ancestors, and the birthplace of their children. The Czech lexicon of the 19th century was enriched by having borrowed new words and lexical forms of Ukrainian and Polish origin. Check customs, rites, and traditional holidays continued to exist next to new Ukrainian ones. Thus, the self-identification of the Czechs, inextricably linked with the Volyn region, had changed, which testified to the formation of a regional identity model.