Ethno-cultural renaissance and public representation of German national minority in Transcarpathian Region after 1989

Abstract

The Purpose of the Article. Based on the statistic data, the archival material, the published documents, the scientific papers and the interviews with the public representative of the Germans of the region, we will try to elucidate the following ethno-Renaissance aspects of the social and cultural life of the Germans of Transcarpathia after 1989: 1) the demographic tendendencies in the German environment based on an analysis of the migration series and the results of 1989 and 2001 population censuses; 2) the national education and upbringing; 3) the German language mass media; 4) the work in the cultural sphere; 5) the national cultural societies' activities; 6) the ethno-confessional identity of the Germans in Transcarpathian region. The methodology of the research is based on the principle of historicism and the structural functional approach. The method of a statistical analysis of the population censuses results of 1989 and 2001, the migration indicators of the German national minority mobility of Transcarpathian region has been used. The results of the interview with the leader of the public organization “The German Youth of Transcarpathia” have been presented. The scientific novelty consists in using the structural and functional methodological approach to the public representation study of the German ethnic community of Transcarpathian region after 1989. The Conclusions. Thus, the results of the first All-Ukrainian population census of 2001 illustrated the situational factor of the ethnic identity among the persons, who called themselves the Germans in comparison with the data of the 1989 census. At the same time, the emigration activity during the anlyzed period increased every year and in fact led to the decrease in the number of the representatives of the German national minority of the region. However, the above mentioned information also demonstrates the resistance to the assimilation processes that emerged in the creation of the national cultural societies (“The Renaissance”, “The Hope”, “The Germans of Transcarpathia”). Recently active work in the environment of the German-speaking youth of Transcarpathia is carried out by the public organization “The German Youth of Transcarpathia” (Yu. Types, the head). The representatives of the German Transcarpathian ethnic community, with the assistance of the pastoral and material assistance from Germany, affirm the Roman Catholic ethno-confessional identity. All these processes contribute to the renaissance of the ethnic culture of the Germans of Transcarpathia in the new realities of the Ukrainian state formation.