Paper long abstract:

In my paper I look at life stories of members of Estonian-Russophone, Latvian-Russophone and Lithuanian-Russophone mixed families, their cultural and historical memory, and personal experiences of living/visiting the USSR and Russia. My methodological approach focuses on culturally shared knowledge, practices and symbols, and different forms of their representation using discourse analysis, content analysis and qualitative sociology methods.

In 2016-2017 I conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 36 Estonian-Russophone mixed couples from sociolinguistically diverse Estonian regions. In Latvia, I interviewed 30 Latvian-Russophone couples from the Latgale region and Riga. In Lithuania, I interviewed 25 Lithuanian-Russophone couples from Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipeda.

My comparative paper draws parallels between the perceptions of Russophone people based on their historical memory, identity trajectories and personal experiences. There were five discourses found: First group talked about limited accurate information about (life in) Russia and showed concerns about making (Russia's) Russians a laughing stock in the Baltic countries. Second group claimed the main reason for the Russia's negative country image in the Baltics seems to be the result of bad and unfair Western media coverage, which tends to broadcast Russia in the negative context only. For the third group, Russia was a dreamland and the option to migrate to Russia permanently was not precluded in the perspective. Forth group was appreciative of their Russian linguistic background, often talking about Russian as a commodity. Finally, fifth group showed a sense of proudness when discussing the cultural heritage, also when referring to the Russians as a nation or as we-group.