Modelling postcolonial transferred bilingualism: Russian in multilingual post-Soviet diasporas

Abstract

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions:

Our paper investigates postcolonial Russian-based transferred bilingualism in post-Soviet diasporas, focusing on how Russian persists and adapts as a communicative tool despite its declining symbolic value as the language of Soviet state power. It discusses how historical, sociopolitical and sociolinguistic factors shape the transgenerational transmission of Russian-based bilingualism, often affecting the maintenance of other languages of the former USSR in migratory contexts.

Design/Methodology/Approach:

Our study develops a theoretical model based on the symbolic and pragmatic value of language(s), integrating insights from historical, sociopolitical and sociolinguistic research on Russian and minority languages of the (former) USSR in the historical imperial context and beyond.

Data and Analysis:

Analysis draws on existing literature, historical accounts and previous sociolinguistic studies, examining the evolution of Russian in imperial, (post-)Soviet and diasporic contexts through the lens of symbolic and pragmatic value. Patterns of the transgenerational transmission of Russian-based bilingualism and other languages of the former USSR are identified and compared across different diasporic communities.

Findings/Conclusions:

Three key parameters – historical-linguistic, sociopolitical and sociolinguistic ecology – explain the continued pragmatic use of Russian despite significant changes in its symbolic value. Four patterns of transgenerational transmission of Russian-based bilingualism in combination with different languages of the former USSR emerge: shift to monolingualism, reshaped bilingualism, bilingualism with original L1 and trilingualism. Russian functions as a durable communicative code in multilingual post-Soviet diasporas, illustrating the interplay between colonial, imperial and minority languages.

Originality:

The paper identifies transferred Russian-based bilingualism in diasporic settings as a prolonged postcolonial impact, demonstrating the interplay of its pragmatic and symbolic values in interaction with the diverse languages of the former USSR. It further nuances the specific historical and geopolitical dynamics of Russian linguistic imperialism within the Russian versus Soviet Empire and beyond.

Significance/Implications:

Findings contribute to theories of linguistic imperialism and nationalism, offering a framework for understanding transgenerational language transmission in multilingual diasporas and informing comparative studies of postcolonial and postimperial language dynamics.

Keywords

Russian-based postcolonial transferred bilingualism languages of the former USSR post-Soviet migrant communities transgenerational language transmission linguistic imperialism

Introduction

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Russian lost its status as the language of Soviet state power and as the lingua franca across the Union’s territory. As is typical in postimperial and postcolonial contexts¹ (Stolz, 2015), in the former national republics, and to a lesser extent in the autonomous republics, the promotion of minoritised² languages often came at the expense of Russian (Alpatov, 1997; Grenoble, 2003; Neroznak, 1994, 1995). During the Soviet era, minoritised languages were caught between the linguistic imperialism of Russian and their own linguistic nationalism. After 1991, this (im)balance shifted decisively in favour of linguistic nationalism. The ideology of a monolingual representation of a nation has been known since the 18th century and has become manifest in postcolonial and postimperial contexts (Connelly, 2020a; Nomachi & Kamusella, 2024; Westphal, 2021), cf., for example, cases of (re)established countries in Eastern and Southern Europe after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires. Nevertheless, Russian has retained a remarkably stable position on the territory of the former USSR, including the post-Soviet countries (Grenoble, 2003). Even more paradoxically, Russian has also secured a durable status within multilingual post-Soviet diasporas worldwide, functioning as the main communicative code among migrants whose first languages (L1s) are not Russian (Kosmarskaya, 2005; Levkovych, 2015). This sociolinguistic phenomenon, which we term postcolonial transferred Russian-based bilingualism, designates a configuration in which a colonial language continues to function within migrant communities with heterogeneous L1 backgrounds. This situation occurs outside the direct competition between linguistic imperialism and linguistic nationalism, making it a particularly intriguing case (Stroud, 2007).

The contemporary status of Russian beyond its original imperial space occupies a theoretically ambiguous position within established frameworks of linguistic imperialism and (post)colonial studies that describe language coexistence in situ (Makoni & Pennycook, 2006; Phillipson, 1992; Zeng et al., 2023). Diasporic settings – whether conceptualised as in situ multilingualism disrupted by mobility or in motu multilingualism reconstituted in exile (Blommaert, 2010) – reshape the ecology of language contact. The centripetal pressure of the societal language in the respective host country (e.g., German in Germany or English in the United States) interacts with attenuated influences from both Russian and the indigenous languages of the former USSR, resulting in new language hierarchies and redistributed functional domains. While relations between Russian and titular and minority languages within the former USSR often involved conflict over domains of use and symbolic status (Alpatov, 1997; Grenoble, 2003), such patterns do not straightforwardly replicate in migratory contexts (Warditz & Meir, 2024). Russian retains a high level of communicative vitality as an unregulated lingua franca without institutional support or even L1 among migrants from divergent post-Soviet linguistic backgrounds, challenging not only linguistic imperialism versus nationalism, but also concepts of symbolic and pragmatic language value established in postcolonial language studies (Bourdieu, 1991; De Kadt, 1993, 1996). This also applies to studies of the interplay between former colonial and minoritised languages in migratory contexts (cf., Warditz & Meir, 2024). Symbolic value refers thereby to the ‘extrarational’ or ‘emotional’ associations evoked by a language, whereas pragmatic value concerns its communicative utility – its ‘rational’, ‘instrumental’ or ‘functional’ dimensions (De Kadt, 1993; Rahman, 2001). Thus, language use, especially for minority languages, may be motivated more by symbolic than by pragmatic value. At the same time, pragmatic value can play a decisive role in language maintenance, particularly when languages differ in communicative range – that is, when a pragmatically stronger language dominates a weaker one (De Kadt, 1993). This dynamic is common in postcolonial settings, where former dominant societal languages such as English or Russian function as linguae francae alongside minoritised languages.

Our paper advances the modelling of postcolonial Russian-based transferred bilingualism, which persists in the absence of explicit promotion of Russian and adapts to new sociolinguistic ecologies beyond its original imperial space. This explanatory model builds on concepts of symbolic and pragmatic language value, which reflect the fine-grained and dynamic interplay of historical, (geo)political and (socio)linguistic parameters. After the Introduction, the next section traces the emergence of Russian-based bilingualism in the Russian Empire and the USSR, addressing the historical, (geo)political, and (socio)linguistic factors that contributed to its construction and establishment. The following section examines factors relevant to the vitality of Russian-based bilingualism and the autochthonous languages of the former USSR within diasporic communities. Finally, the Conclusion outlines parameters for modelling Russian-based bilingualism as it is transferred to post-Soviet migrant communities and formulates directions for future research.

Modelling Russian-based bilingualism in the USSR

In this section, we examine the historical, (geo)political and (socio)linguistic factors that shaped the establishment of Russian-based bilingualism – first within the (former) USSR, laying the foundations for its sustained vitality, and later beyond its borders, contributing to the continued prominence of Russian in post-Soviet diasporas worldwide. We aim to capture the complex interplay of factors that promoted Russian-based bilingualism as a construct reflecting typical linguistic imperialism, with the hegemony of Russian (cf., English in colonial or annexed territories alongside other indigenous languages, e.g., in Ireland or Scotland; French in colonies and in Occitan- and Breton-speaking regions of France; German as a dominant language in the Austro-Hungarian Empire), while simultaneously reflecting linguistic nationalism inherited from early 20th-century national independence movements in the spirit of postimperial language and nation emancipation.

In doing so, we consider not only deliberate language policies – which were often under-articulated and not legally formalised – but also the evolution of languages within the unique multilingual framework of the USSR. De jure, all languages of the USSR had equal status (Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, 2 (15) November 1917); a legal category of ‘state language’ or ‘official language’ at either the Union or republic level did not exist. De facto, only Armenian in Armenia and Georgian in Georgia were recognised as the official languages of their respective republics. Notably, Russian had no official legal status until 1990 (Law of the USSR on the Languages of the Peoples of the USSR, 24 April 1990), shortly before the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 – a recognition that was in line with other titular languages, as by the end of the 1980s, languages such as Latvian, Ukrainian or Kazakh had also been declared official within their respective republics.

Geopolitical and historical framework

Russian is the eighth most spoken language globally by native speakers, with approximately 145 million individuals using it as their first language and 108 million as a second or heritage language (Eberhard et al., 2023). The status of Russian as a world or global language – alongside English or Spanish in terms of international presence (Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and an established academic subject across the world), demographic and geographic spread, and educational reach – must be understood considering its imperial and colonial history, which shaped both its symbolic and pragmatic dimensions. In this respect, the historical trajectory of Russian invites comparison with other former imperial languages that spread through colonisation, established themselves as lingua francas, and, in some contexts, gave rise to contact varieties, including pidgins and creoles (Holm, 2000; Mufwene, 2001). The prolonged dominance of imperial languages, such as the global spread of English as a reflection of neocolonial power structures – termed linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992) – is similarly applicable to Russian. However, it is often overlooked as a case of an imperial versus colonial language. This perspective, however, requires further nuance and precision.

The promotion of Russian to a global language has been rooted in its gradually acquired demographic and institutional power. In the Russian Empire and even more so in the USSR (and to a lesser extent the Eastern Bloc), millions learned Russian through schooling, state administration, military service, and – in the 20th century – through mass media. Paradoxically, from a contemporary perspective, the institutional consolidation of Russian did not begin immediately after the founding of the Russian Empire in 1721. For instance, in the newly annexed Baltic territories, German remained the official language and the language of education, reflecting privileges of the German-speaking elite which was able to maintain its L1 (Haltzel et al.,1981a, 1981b). Russian itself was not actively promoted at the time; instead, French served as the language of the imperial elite (Živov, 1990), and instruction at the first Russian university – established in Moscow in 1755 – was conducted in German, French and Latin (Argent et al., 2015; Litvinova, 2005). These features of an implicitly articulated language policy reflected that Russian, as a standard language or standard variety, was only codified in the first quarter of the 19th century (Uspenskij, 1985) – much like other European languages shaped in the spirit of linguistic nationalism (e.g., Czech, Hungarian or Finnish) (Connelly, 2020b). In this sense, Russian within the Empire initially shared, at least in terms of status, the fate of many other indigenous languages, functioning as one of the ‘folk’ languages. Once understood as a tool for consolidating imperial rule – particularly relative to other languages aspiring to national status – Russian was increasingly imposed as the main administrative and educational language, replacing, for example, German in the Baltic provinces and Polish in the annexed parts of Congress Poland (Haltzel et al., 1981c). This imperial dynamic mirrored the broader trend of linguistic nationalism in other empires, such as the Habsburg or the Ottoman Empires (Connelly, 2020b).

Russification intensified significantly first in the 1860s, partly in response to rising national independence movements and emancipatory aspirations. It extended to parts of Poland, the Baltic region and the Caucasus. Languages such as Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian or Ukrainian existed in a tense equilibrium between their own linguistic nationalism as vehicles for national identity and emancipation and the growing pressure of Russian as a dominant imperial language that, alongside the Orthodox faith, offered avenues for social, educational and professional integration for speakers of other linguistic and religious backgrounds. A slight but notable paradox emerged thereby in the treatment of minority languages without state-building ambitions – such as Aleut, the languages of Siberian peoples and other previously unwritten languages like Mari or Chuvash (Belikov & Krysin, 2001). In the imperial context, these languages held little symbolic value compared to languages with national aspirations. The idealistic trend of developing alphabets, producing schoolbooks and opening schools for them – often inspired by liberal-democratic or religious enlightenment – aligned with the broader imperial goal of incorporation. Education in these languages served as a bridge to learning Russian (and, in some cases, to embracing Orthodoxy; cf., Minikhanov & Khabibullin, 2014), ultimately facilitating Russian-based bilingualism.

The tension between linguistic nationalism and imperialism peaked with the Revolution of 1905, when the principle of equality for all languages used in the Empire was proclaimed, and all prohibitions on book publishing and education in these languages were lifted. Linguistically, these ideas were strongly championed by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1913), who was nevertheless prosecuted for his position. After the October Revolution of 1917 and the dissolution of four empires (Russian, German, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian), the emancipation of previously suppressed languages accompanied the (re)emergence of (nation) states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and even Soviet Russia. In the early Soviet period, the symbolic value of Russian as a former imperial language was deliberately reduced in a similar fashion to broader efforts to diminish the role of other imperial languages, such as German – an approach that fostered puristic trends in independent Poland or Czechoslovakia. Symbolically, this policy positioned the new Soviet state as a champion of linguistic equality and anti-imperial ideals. Pragmatically, however, Russian retained administrative, educational and communicative functions across nearly the entire former Russian Empire.

The early Soviet period (1922–1938) saw a significant phase of promoting indigenous languages – especially previously unwritten ones – through literacy campaigns (Likbez, an abbreviation of likvidatsiia bezgramotnosti ʻliquidation of illiteracyʼ) and codification efforts. These unprecedented and partly utopian projects – aiming to offer administration and education in nearly all 130 languages of the USSR and at the same time educating native and non-native speakers in Russian – reflected both the symbolic value of linguistic diversity and the pragmatic goal of integrating minority-language speakers into a Soviet framework, often as a first step towards Russian-based bilingualism. However, by 1938, these policies were reversed and Russian became the primary language of administration, economy and the military across the USSR (Alpatov, 1997; Belikov & Krysin, 2001). Unsurprisingly, this policy shift coincided with the establishment of the Soviet Empire and the promotion of a new ideologically suitable standard language, reflected also in the Soviet linguistic paradigm (Warditz, 2019a). Symbolically, in the reestablished imperial context, Russian acquired substantial prestige beyond the USSR. It became one of the official languages of the United Nations in 1946, a key focus in translation studies and a central object of research in Slavic studies worldwide (Brogi Bercoff et al., 2005; Liu, 2021; United Nations, n.d). During the Cold War, it featured prominently in Feindstudien ʻenemy studiesʼ (Bott, 2009) and international area studies programmes. Its cultural capital was further enhanced by a literary canon of global renown (Emerson, 2008). Ideological appeal also contributed to the symbolic value of Russian: 20th-century socialist and communist sympathies lent the language a political and utopian aura, attracting intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre. These symbolic dimensions in turn reinforced the pragmatic value of Russian, alongside its demographic presence and geographic distribution.

In sum, the spread of Russian within the Soviet Empire illustrates a tension between idealistic projects – such as promoting local languages and documenting endangered ones – and the pragmatic demands of maintaining an imperial space. Despite early efforts to support minority languages, Russian ultimately became the dominant language of administration, education and interethnic communication. This dynamic shows how utopian linguistic ambitions were gradually subordinated to the practical logic of empire, producing uneven outcomes and complicating simplistic readings of the Soviet linguistic landscape as purely multicultural or imperialistic (Grenoble, 2003). Accordingly, these trends continue to shape Russian-based bilingualism, which varies widely in both symbolic and pragmatic value across multilingual contexts on the territory of the former USSR and beyond.

Sociolinguistic and linguistic framework

Sociolinguistic and linguistic features of Russian significantly contributed to its high pragmatic value within the Soviet space. Whereas the former prominently feature in previous studies on language policies in the USSR, the latter are usually neglected in studies of the geographical expansion of Russian and – more importantly – of the prolonged contact-induced effect of Russian on nearly 130 typologically different languages in the Soviet space. For historical and geopolitical reasons, the sociolinguistic prominence of Russian in the multilingual USSR facilitated its linguistic transfer to subordinated languages in national and autonomous republics, as well as to indigenous minority languages without an administrative entity. As both issues contributed to the emergence and sustainability of Russian-based bilingualism, they will be addressed in the following.

In the framework of the declared multilingualism and language diversity, languages – de jure equal in their rights – were strictly hierarchised: The position and status of languages depended on their administrative status, which in turn determined their legal rights. Unlike in the Russian Federation, where indigenous languages were promoted, indigenous minority languages in the national republics were often displaced by titular languages, cf., for example, the replacement of Pamir languages by Tajik in the Tajik SSR, or the closure of Abkhaz and Ossetian schools in the Georgian SSR (Belikov & Krysin, 2001). And the Ukrainian and Latvian SSR did not promote Carpato-Russinian and Livish, respectively. These processes are similar to Russification: the imperial pattern of establishing or imposing the language of power at the expense of minority languages was also applied at the sub-federal level. These measures supported linguistic nationalism of titular nations in national and autonomous republics, mirroring Russian linguistic imperialism at the (supranational) Union level. Paradoxically enough, linguistic imperialism and linguistic nationalism coexisted within the same state, were distributed across different state-administrative levels, and created the conditions for later language conflicts. In addition, due to the aforementioned hierarchy of languages, the linguistic landscape of the USSR was highly varied, with some languages being supported to varying degrees.

In this context, the use of languages other than Russian was shaped by a complex constellation of social, economic and political factors, depending on their politico-administrative setting. While there was generally no explicit prohibition against speaking minority or minoritised languages, or receiving education in them, Russian was promoted as the language of upwards mobility, science, administration and political participation (Alpatov, 1997; Belikov & Krysin, 2001; Grenoble, 2003), that is, as a language with the highest pragmatic value within a multilingual landscape. A notable exception was the national academies of sciences and arts, which operated in the national languages of the republics; there was no separate Russian academy of sciences or arts, only a central Soviet institution. In this way, Russian functioned as a language without ethnicity,³ as a symbol of a Soviet identity, rendering it ‘absolute’ symbolic value. However, this de-ethnicised Russian, as a new imperial communicative tool, facilitated the integration – or, more accurately, the consequent assimilation – of other languages and ethnic groups under Russian dominance. Second, urbanisation, the reduction of dialectal rural spaces (even for Russian), internal migration (both forced and voluntary) and industrialisation brought many minority speakers into multilingual environments where Russian functioned as lingua franca, accelerating language shift in subsequent generations (Belikov & Krysin, 2001), cf., other multilingual settings where dialects and minority versus minoritised languages decline for the same reasons (Uriarte & Sperlich, 2021). In addition, as in other imperial versus colonial contexts (Hartnett & Saleh, 2025; Meighan, 2022), local elites often adopted Russian to gain political and social advantages, further driving language change within their communities. A similar observation was already made by Evgenii Polivanov (1931), a prominent figure in language documentation and creation of alphabets for unwritten languages in the 1930s (Polivanov, 1926). Consequently, the marginalisation of other languages emerged from structural pressures, socioeconomic incentives and ideological factors, with Russian serving as a marker of Soviet identity.

This heterogeneous sociolinguistic framework caused (potential) tensions not only between Russian as a superordinate language of imperial power and other subordinated languages, but also between the subordinate languages themselves, for example, between Armenian and Georgian in the Georgian SSR and Armenian and Azeri in the Azerbaijan SSR. It also contributed to various constellations of symbolic and pragmatic values of different languages.

Alongside these sociolinguistic characteristics, the linguistic features of Russian made it a fertile ground for literacy campaigns, the transmission of ideology and the establishment of Russian-based bilingualism.

After 1917, Russian, as the language of the new communist power, was widely reformed and secularised (Gao, 2024; Karpov, 2012; Živov, 2005). It was cleansed of religious lexicon but enriched with neologisms, internationalisms and abbreviations, symbolising socialist modernity and an atheistic, ideologically grounded identity rather than one tied to ethnicity. In 1918, Russian orthography was simplified, making it easier for acquisition (Sakulin, 1918). Slavic onomasticon was practically replaced by a new repertoire of Western European and newly created names (Warditz, 2019b). The battle against Russian dialects, especially intensifying after 1934 and exemplified by the ban on dialectology and historical linguistics, also led to a prolonged rejection of social and regional variation in Russian and to the establishment of a rigid language canon (Warditz, 2019a). This Sovietised and simplified Russian served as the base for Likbez literacy campaigns and for the transmission of Soviet values, providing a model for the development of alphabets and schoolbooks for other languages of the USSR. Consequently, more than 60 unwritten minority languages received scripts on the basis of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet (Alpatov, 1997). In this sense, Russian functioned as a tool of ideological and pragmatic integration. Again, the consistent and sustainable establishment of Russian-based bilingualism emerged from the combination of these language policy measures – alphabetisation and the promotion of indigenous languages – thereby conferring a positive image on the imperial lingua franca in multilingual settings and, in so doing, enhancing its symbolic value.

Moreover, after 1917, Russian became significantly more internationalised than other Slavic languages while still retaining its Cyrillic script, despite proposals to Latinise it to erase both Slavic and confessional identities. In this way, Russian shared the fate of other languages in the USSR which also faced secularisation. Many were first converted from Arabic to Latin scripts to erase Islamic religious roots (e.g., Tatar or Kazakh), and later to Cyrillic. This script, shared with the dominant Russian language, fostered graphical affinity and facilitated the establishment of Russian-based bilingualism, as scholars needed to learn only a single alphabet. Parallel to the simplification of Russian (and its Westernisation), it was, in different ways, deeply integrated into other languages of the USSR through reform or codification. While Russian influenced the graphical systems of Turkic languages, it shaped other Slavic and Baltic languages structurally, facilitated by their inherent structural similarities. For example, Latvian and, to a lesser extent, Lithuanian, adopted numerous Russianisms – from lexicon to morphology and syntax (Koškin, 2018) – and Ukrainian was codified using Eastern Ukrainian dialectal patterns, which were closer to Russian (Shevelov, 1966). At the same time, the titular languages of both Union republics (e.g., Georgian and Uzbek) and autonomous republics (e.g., Tatar and Bashkir) were taught in schools as second languages. In contrast, in autonomous regions and districts (e.g., Nanai, Komi-Permyak and Yakut), autochthonous languages were generally restricted to the primary curriculum or offered only as electives. Nevertheless, these curricular practices, to varying degrees, facilitated transfer from the autochthonous languages into Russian, resulting in the emergence of mixed or regionally marked varieties of Russian across the (former) USSR (Belikov & Krysin, 2001).

As Russian exhibits strong affinities with Western European languages, particularly French and German, it incorporated their syntax, semantics and lexicon in the 19th-century standard variety of Russian (Uspenskij, 1985; Živov, 1990). It also acted as a conduit for foreign loans and borrowings for over 70 years after 1917. Not only lexical realia and discursive markers (Stolz & Levkovych, 2022), but also verbs (Forker, 2020) were further transmitted into the postimperial languages of the former USSR – a process comparable to the influence of French in Dutch, German in Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian and Turkish in South Slavic languages. The influence of Russian represents a well-documented postcolonial effect, persisting even without direct cultural pressure. All these intentional measures and evolutionary developments in the context of unbalanced imperial multilingualism contributed to the establishment of Russian-based bilingualism.

Importantly, Russian functioned as a language of Soviet identity not only because of its status as a language of Soviet (imperial) power, but also because of the deliberate erasure of its religious and ethnic markers. Its symbolic value as the language of a distinct ethnicity was significantly reduced, while its value as a language of power and Soviet identity was enhanced, in contrast to other languages, which were often granted symbolic value but limited practical utility. This paradoxical and contradictory language policy had the effect of promoting Russian as an ethnically neutral lingua franca, suitable for diasporic contexts and ideal for constructing bilingual systems.

Modelling Russian-based bilingualism in diasporic contexts

The described imperial versus colonial Russian-based bilingualism has had prolonged socio- and linguistic effects in postimperial versus postcolonial settings, that is, within the territory of the former USSR (Forker & Grenoble, 2021; Stolz & Levkovych, 2022). However, beyond its original imperial space – namely in diasporic contexts – Russian also demonstrates a sustained effect, being used by Russian-speaking migrants as either their L1 or L2 (Levkovych, 2015). While the maintenance of Russian as an L1 or, in subsequent generations, as a heritage language of the Russophone diaspora has been addressed in a number of sociological and ethnographic studies (Achterberg, 2005; Isurin, 2011; Panagiotidis, 2020), the case of originally Russian-based bilingual speakers, who use Russian as their L1 alongside other languages, and the evolution of this bilingualism in diasporic settings has received considerably less attention (Khilkhanova, 2020, 2021).

This case of multilingualism is nevertheless of particular interest: it originally emerged within the imperial context of the USSR but has since been transferred into new sociolinguistic landscapes, without state promotion and with the transformation of its original functional usefulness. As a result, Russian-based bilingualism and its components have been confronted with a new reality, facing multiple potential scenarios of evolution: from a complete shift to the societal language(s) of the host country, to the maintenance of Russian as the original L1, or both, as heritage languages.

In this section, we address the symbolic and pragmatic dimensions of language vitality and propose a model of postcolonial Russian-based bilingualism transferred to diasporas – an explanatory concept for the sustainable use of Russian among post-Soviet migrants whose first languages are not Russian. We thereby examine why and to what extent Russian-based bilingualism is vital among speakers of different linguistic backgrounds in migratory contexts and whether it is changing in transgenerational transmission in favour of host-country monolingualism or in favour of a different constellation of bi- or multilingualism. In so doing, we focus on the Russophone diaspora in Germany – a host land with one of the largest post-Soviet diasporas worldwide (Panagiotidis, 2020) and with a high vitality index of Russian, including subsequent generations in comparison across the world (Achterberg, 2005; Isurin, 2011). However, we also refer to the diasporic communities in other countries, especially in the United States, Israel and Canada.

Post-Soviet diaspora: maintaining Russian

Previous studies confirm not only the vitality of Russian in the Russophone diaspora, particularly in Germany, but also its widespread use in post-Soviet migrant communities both as a lingua franca among speakers of diverse backgrounds and as a L1 (Kosmarskaya, 2005; Levkovych, 2015; Warditz, 2016). These studies point to the convenience of using Russian, underscoring its continued pragmatic value in diasporic settings. In a manner similar to the imperial context, the factors sustaining Russian’s unofficial yet stable role in migrant communities worldwide are demographic, geopolitical, sociolinguistic and linguistic. It is paradoxical because, in migratory contexts, Russian loses its legal status and becomes a minoritised (and often stigmatised) language of socially marginal groups in informal domains. Moreover, its societal role is further shaped by the prestige and pragmatic value of the host country’s language. However, despite this competition in the functional distribution of languages in multilingual settings, Russian retains significant pragmatic value within migrant communities.

First, demographic, historical and social factors contribute to the vitality of Russian beyond its postimperial space. The post-Soviet diaspora in Germany – as a prominent example of our case – emerged effectively after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, when immigration programmes from the USSR were initiated, leading to a significant demographic growth of Russophone communities. The state-promoted immigration targeted ethnic Germans and ethnic Jews from the former USSR (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan etc.), most of whom were Russophones. In this way, a clear dominance of Russian-speaking migrants of different ethnic origins, and their compact resettlement were established in both urban and rural settings. According to a sociological study (Panagiotidis, 2020), there are nearly six million Russian speakers across all generations in Germany, making this migrant community the largest in the country. In addition, migrants from different linguistic backgrounds in the former USSR arrived for professional, familial or political reasons, making the migrant community more diverse and heterogeneous than, for example, Turkish, Polish or Arabic communities. Their social and linguistic integration in the traditionally monolingual German landscape often took place through integration into the Russophone diasporic community, functioning as a link between outsiders and insiders. However, integration within this migrant community, often also attractive due to ‘common historical fate’ and former Soviet collective identity (Khilkhanova, 2021; Warditz, 2016), required the prolonged use of Russian.

Demographic factors and well-developed infrastructures in the migrant community benefitted the vitality of Russian (Achterberg, 2005) and created favourable conditions for the transfer of the homeland sociolinguistic framework to the host country, including the distribution of languages (e.g., Russian as a language of a grander migrant community and L1 as a home language), cf., Khilkhanova (2020, 2021) about Buryat-, Kalmyk- and Yakut-speaking migrant families. Transferred Russian was especially useful for the integration of migrants with limited competence in German, especially for first-generation migrants and notably for those of advanced age. However, Russian remains functionally relevant also in new settings: Russian as a (temporary) language of integration was reported in the survey study on war-affected Ukrainian refugees in Germany and Austria (Warditz & Meir, 2024), even if the symbolic value of the former imperial language is perceived as increasingly negative. This complex of factors clearly addresses the pragmatic value of Russian, cf., the idea of language commodification (Heller, 2010).

Second, language conflicts, often mirroring ethnic conflicts and linked to the rise of linguistic nationalism in the former Soviet republics, peaked or began after 1991 and were often catalysed by this conflict background. For instance, the German minorities in Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, which are not representatives of the titular ethnicity and language, experienced increasing pressure from North Caucasian-, Turkic- or Indo-Iranian-speaking majorities. Many migrants left conflict regions such as the Caucasus. As a result, migrants of this generation can still perceive the Soviet linguistic reality as more harmonious than the post-Soviet ethnic conflicts, which were often directed against Russophone minorities. It should be noted again that these Russian-speaking migrants came from diverse linguistic backgrounds, with Russian as their heritage language, L1 or even L2, and included both Russian-dominant and mixed families. In the spirit of inherited Russian, they continued to use it as a lingua franca in multilingual diasporas. In this context, the symbolic value of Russian was often positive or at least neutral.

Finally, the maintenance of Russian in migrant communities is also connected to the recognition of the former imperial language as a political instrument and, consequently, as a resource for the Russian state since the early 2000s. This is evident in foundation programmes, educational initiatives and the promotion of Russian within institutions such as Russkii Mir and Rossotrudnichestvo, which actively propagate the concept of the Russian World among migrant communities worldwide (Laruelle, 2015). Even if Russian has no legal status in Germany as the language of the largest migrant community in the country, elements of Russian language policy can still be identified beyond both the former and current Russian imperial space. The broader turn in European language policy and education towards bi- and multilingualism has also (even if unintentionally) benefitted these measures – although most were largely halted after 2022. However, in the case of Russian, the current trend in the maintenance of heritage languages in migrant communities coincides not only with the beneficial shift from monolingualism to multilingualism in language policies in the United States, the EU and Israel, but also with the ‘return to imperial decency’ (Živov, 2006) in the language policies in Russia and the expansion of the imperial space in the cultural sphere also beyond its borders, seeing the diasporic communities as a useful resource therein.

In sum, the maintenance and high vitality of Russian in diaspora communities can be traced back to demographic and sociolinguistic factors. A large diaspora emerged within a short period as a result of mass migration, which, combined with the high proficiency in Russian of the migrant generation of the 1990s, facilitated the direct transfer of the pragmatic value of Russian. In addition, its symbolic value draws on a positive image of an allegedly less conflictual coexistence of languages in the former USSR. Frustration with integration into monoethnic and monolingual societies has, in some cases, reinforced attachment to post-Soviet diasporas and a collective Soviet identity. Russian has also been instrumentalised in Russia’s language policies beyond its borders, where it is promoted as the foundation of a reestablished neo-imperial identity, cf., study on English linguistic neo-imperialism (Zeng et al., 2023). The reconstructed and propagated symbolic value of Russian, in combination with its pragmatic value – at least for the first generation of migrants – has ensured its continued vitality. However, maintaining Russian does not automatically mean maintaining Russian-based bilingualism versus original L1 among post-Soviet migrants, cf., other colonial languages in postcolonial settings (Meighan, 2022; Razmjoo Moghadam & Barani, 2025).

Post-Soviet diaspora: maintaining Russian-based bilingualism versus L1

Whether the sustainable maintenance of Russian in post-Soviet diasporas occurs at the expense of migrants’ original L1s remains unclear, especially since there are few studies on the use of languages of the former USSR in diasporic contexts, cf., Artoni et al., 2021; Bedretdin, 2017; Nabiullina & Yusupova, 2015. However, after the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a number of studies have addressed the use of Ukrainian and Russian outside Ukraine. When looking at Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism in the war-affected Ukrainian diaspora (Warditz & Meir, 2024), a gap between the aspired shift to Ukrainian and the weaker proficiency in Ukrainian is documented. It is set against the background of the higher pragmatic value of Russian in migratory contexts relevant for Ukrainian refugees. However, Russian-based bilingualism among migrant speakers of other linguistic backgrounds has hardly been studied before (Khilkhanova, 2020, 2021; Levkovych, 2015).

We focus on the sustainable vitality of Russian-based bilingualism in the diaspora and on the ongoing maintenance of the languages of the former USSR, advancing some hypotheses for future studies. Thereby, we assume that their vitality depends strongly on their pragmatic and symbolic values, inherited from the Soviet and, to a greater extent, the post-Soviet era, when both values were particularly significant in the former national and autonomous republics. At the same time, we consider various sociolinguistic frameworks in independent countries, assuming that Belarusian or Kazakh will be less used in diaspora than Ukrainian or Latvian (cf., about the status of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian in the postrevolutionary and politic diasporas driven by their symbolic value in Mečkovskaja, 2004). Consequently, we argue that language vitality in diaspora reflects language choices in the homeland, often in favour of Russian, cf., similar evidence for several Mongolian and Turkic languages in Khilkhanova (2020, 2021) or Khilkhanova and Khilkhanov (2023), and for Lithuanian, Tatar and Kazakh in Levkovych (2015).

Against this background, it can be assumed that heritage Russian in Germany is likely to lose its pragmatic value for the next generation, which is socialised and educated in German, making German their first language (Warditz, 2023), cf., for heritage Italian (Stehl, 2011) or for heritage Polish in Germany (Zielińska & Księżyk, 2021). Russian thereby becomes their heritage language, spoken mainly within the family and acquiring primarily symbolic value, or even their L2 – in cases where its symbolic value as the language of origin or family weakens. In multilingual families, however, Russian (if transferred within diasporic settings) competes with other L1s such as Ukrainian, Latvian, Tatar, Armenian, leading to at least four possible scenarios of intergenerational transmission:

Scenario 1: German becomes L1 as a result of a shift from Russian-based transferred bilingualism (i.e., Russian and one of the languages of the former USSR) to monolingualism in favour of the new dominant societal language – German. Neither heritage language is transmitted to subsequent generations.

Scenario 2: German becomes L1 and Russian a heritage language as a result of a shift from one bilingualism to another, that is, from Russian-based transferred bilingualism towards German-based functional bilingualism, with German as the new dominant language and Russian as the former dominant one. The original L1 – one of the languages of the former USSR – is not transmitted to subsequent generations.

Scenario 3: German becomes L1 and a former L1 a heritage language as a result of a shift from one bilingualism to another, with German as the new dominant language and the former first language as a heritage language. As in the previous scenario, Russian-based transferred bilingualism is replaced by German-based functional bilingualism. However, unlike Scenario 2, in this case, it is not Russian but the original L1 (one of the languages of the former USSR) that is transmitted to subsequent generations.

Scenario 4: German becomes L1, Russian and another L1 become heritage languages as a result of a shift from transferred Russian-based bilingualism to trilingualism. In this case, both transferred languages are transmitted.

These hypothetical scenarios require further verification through a larger empirical study on different L1s across generations. In this paper, we focus on symbolic and pragmatic aspects of Russian-based bilingualism versus the maintenance of minoritised languages of the former USSR within post-Soviet migrant communities, drawing on existing case studies.

We argue that the transmission of minoritised languages appears strikingly similar in both imperial versus colonial and migratory contexts. The dominance of pragmatic motivations was already demonstrated in the emergence of Russian-based bilingualism within the USSR, where a widespread shift towards the dominant societal language was often seen as a guarantee of successful professional and educational integration (Alpatov, 1997). Accordingly, pragmatic factors (may) play a decisive role in the intergenerational transmission of Russian-based bilingualism versus the maintenance of other L1s as well in the diaspora. In multilingual families where Russian is not the original L1, pragmatic factors driving the shift to Russian can primarily be professional. For instance, Slavic or Russian Studies at German universities are often chosen by the second generation of post-Soviet migrants with diverse linguistic backgrounds and varying proficiency levels in Russian and their L1. Alongside this positive motivation – the recognised advantage of bi- or multilingualism within the European Union – there also exists a negative motivation. Opportunities to study heritage languages other than Russian are scarce, both in schools and universities: Ukrainian, Belarusian and Baltic languages are offered increasingly rarely, while Turkic and Mongolic languages of the former USSR are hardly represented at all. In addition, Russian holds a well-established position in digital communication and social media. Its digital presence has grown even stronger during the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforcing the shift towards Russian in multilingual families (Meir et al., 2025). Compared to German, Russian ranks higher among languages used in digital spaces, ranking among the top 10 most widely used languages on the internet (Statista, 2023).

By contrast, the maintenance of other languages within the post-Soviet diaspora relies predominantly on their symbolic value, without institutional support. However, the existing case studies offer a rather heterogeneous picture. Ethnolinguistic studies on Yakut, Buryat and Kazakh (Khilkhanova, 2021) demonstrate that conservative language ideologies can support the use of indigenous heritage languages in family contexts, thereby fostering intergenerational transmission of the Russian-based bilingualism. In these cases, a high level of proficiency in both languages is aspired; thereby, the translingual practices familiar from other multilingual settings are not fully transferable to post-Soviet contexts due to inherited normative language attitudes (Khilkhanova & Khilkhanov, 2023) (Scenario 4). Interestingly, this type of multilingualism, that is, Russian-based transferred bilingualism enriched with proficiency in a new societal language, is observed in the Ukrainian diaspora of Western Ukrainian provenance as well, especially in Austria (Warditz & Meir, 2024). Their multilingualism probably goes back to historical traditions of multilingualism in the border regions between the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires and under prolonged Polish influence; it mirrors a high pragmatic value of multilingualism as such against a high symbolic value of heritage Ukrainian, cf., study on Ukrainian diaspora in Canada (Moser, 2013).

Further case studies confirm other scenarios of language transmission. As demonstrated by Žakupova (2014), subsequent generations of bilingual Kazakh–Russian migrants in Germany tend to shift towards German–Russian bilingualism (Scenario 2), choosing a configuration of former and new societal languages. Languages also promoted by the EU, such as Latvian and Estonian – where official homeland language policies represent prime examples of post-Soviet language nationalism – face difficulties in intergenerational transmission. While Latvian as a heritage language carries strong symbolic value in the parents’ perceptions, this value is less salient for their children. Consequently, disrupted intergenerational transmission does not merely signify a linguistic loss but also entails a rupture in identity and belonging that parents consciously seek to prevent (Martena & Burr, 2025). By contrast, the older Baltic diaspora, which emerged during or immediately after World War II, felt a strong responsibility to maintain their national languages in opposition to the Russification processes in the Baltics under Soviet rule (Ozers, 2024). The newer diaspora, however, pursues more individual intentions in transmitting their heritage languages to their children; for migrants with L1 Latvian, language proficiency is often less important than sustaining a sense of belonging to Latvia and preserving a Latvian identity within their families (Martena & Burr, 2025) (Scenario 1). This shift to a societal language is also documented, for example, for Tatar diasporic communities in the United States, where younger generations primarily use English (Nabiullina & Yusupova, 2015). However, the aforementioned case studies on Latvian, Estonian and Tatar do not examine the possible prolonged use of Russian in the diaspora, which could shed light on whether transgenerational loss of the respective heritage language also occurs through its replacement by Russian in informal settings and the digital space. For instance, Levkovych (2015) shows that Russian is maintained as the primary home language even in families whose heritage languages are not Russian, with original L1s such as Tatar, Lithuanian or Kazakh being marginalised, especially in subsequent generations of immigrants from post-Soviet Countries (Scenario 2). This shows that the sociolinguistic legacy of the USSR, in which Russian was compulsory and prestigious, continues to shape family language choices in the diaspora.

A shift towards original L1 in combination with societal language is documented in the historical Ukrainian diaspora in Canada (Moser, 2013) and in the Lithuanian diaspora in Canada and in the United States (Meilutė & Teresa, 2021) (Scenario 3). In the new war-affected Ukrainian migrant communities, such a shift is aspired even among Russian-dominant bilinguals with a low proficiency in Ukrainian (Warditz & Meir, 2024). However, regarding the case of heritage Lithuanian, the comparison of the new and old Lithuanian diaspora shows that language transmission across younger generations is also problematic (Meilutė & Teresa, 2021); therefore, a transgenerational shift towards societal language-based monolingualism is possible (Scenario 1). However, post-Soviet migrant communities worldwide are heterogeneous in terms of their members’ sociolinguistic backgrounds, demographic characteristics and language constellations (e.g., whether Latvian or Lithuanian is part of a larger Russophone diaspora in which Russian functions as a lingua franca). Therefore, the future evolution of language maintenance should be studied with attention to these finer nuances.

Our observations confirm the whole spectrum of the hypothetical scenarios, demonstrating different ways of the evolution of the transferred Russian-based bilingualism and the heritage languages spoken on the territory of the former USSR. At the same time, the vitality of the transferred bilingualism versus the original L1 in the diaspora does not necessarily reflect the pragmatic and symbolic status of languages during both the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, as seen in examples from the Baltic republics. These case studies, however, have confirmed that there are various sociolinguistic frameworks across independent countries and autonomous republics. However, our findings are not without limitations. Notwithstanding valuable observations, the case studies mentioned do not offer a representative quantitative statistical analysis, as needed for the reliable evaluation of language use and language transmission in diasporic contexts. In addition, they often provide observations on different heritage languages in other countries, complicating the exploration of the interplay between factors such as the host country’s demographic framework and the maintenance of heritage languages. Furthermore, their focus lies on the maintenance of Russian as a lingua franca or, alternatively, of the heritage language in migrant contexts. Few studies address the interplay between three languages, that is, Russian-based bilingualism as it is transferred in diasporic settings. These and further relevant aspects of language transmission should be discussed in future quantitatively based research on a larger set of languages of the former USSR in migrant communities across the world.

Conclusion

When modelling Russian-based postcolonial bilingualism in diasporic contexts, we identified the following key parameters that influence both its maintenance and evolution:

Historical-linguistic factors – including the geographical and demographic spread of Russian and the multifaceted nature of its promotion in the USSR, which combined Russian with support for indigenous languages and so enhanced the symbolic value of Russian beyond simple Russification and simultaneously created deep linguistic foundations for prolonged postcolonial language contact and bilingualism.

Sociopolitical factors – encompassing imperial and Soviet language policies, the dynamics of linguistic imperialism in interplay with linguistic nationalism, and the effects of host-country environments on transgenerational transmission in diasporas.

Sociolinguistic ecology – addressing community multilingual practices, the interaction between Russian and other dominant languages, and the adaptability of bilingualism to new diasporic contexts, often serving as a tool for primary integration in the new societal environment.

Considering these key parameters as crucial for the pragmatic and symbolic value of Russian, its vitality in the multilingual post-Soviet diaspora can be explained by examining their interplay and evolution. As a result of its geopolitical spread, Russian first gained the highest pragmatic value as the language of imperial power over a vast territory. With the establishment of the standard variety of Russian in the first quarter of 19th century and the gradual reduction in the use of French and German in educational, academic and administrative domains, including the adoption of Russian by the elites, Russian obtained the highest symbolic value as a marker of imperial identity, reflecting, in turn, its pragmatic status as a language of power. By the mid-19th century, as Russian became increasingly associated with coercive authority through Russification policies, its symbolic value began to be perceived negatively, even as its pragmatic utility continued to grow. This imbalance was later reflected in Soviet language policies, which first promoted minoritised languages while ideologically reforming Russian, viewed as a symbol of imperial nationalism. In the Sovietised version, Russian served as a base for alphabetisation not only for native speakers, but also for non-native speakers, both in Russian itself and in their own languages, and as the foundation for the alphabets of previously unwritten languages. No longer linked with one dominant ethnic group and graphically, lexically and morphologically deeply rooted in other languages of the USSR, Russian gained the highest symbolic value as the language of Soviet identity while also retaining pragmatic value as it was spoken by nearly the entire population of the USSR, especially in educational, cultural and administrative domains. The constellations of Russians with the diverse languages of the USSR were varied and constituted a potential source of conflict, as became evident after 1991. Russian, however, having lost its symbolic value as the language of Soviet imperial power, regained pragmatic value in post-Soviet and diasporic settings; it was seen as a communicative tool rather than the language of one nation and one ethnicity, a marker of linguistic nationalism. Current symbolic and pragmatic values of Russian reflect how it conveys prestige, identity and utility across postimperial domains and beyond. Pragmatic value became more important than symbolic value, meaning that Russian continues to be used as a communicative tool even when its symbolic associations are negative or neutral, while inherited L1, though clearly retaining a positive symbolic value, is not necessarily transmitted to subsequent generations.

By examining the evolution of the symbolic and pragmatic values of Russian, we also identified various pathways in the transgenerational transmission of Russian-based postcolonial bilingualism and, at the same time, of the heritage languages of the former USSR. This resulted in four patterns: a shift from transferred bilingualism to monolingualism; reshaped bilingualism, combining the former dominant language with the new societal language; a transition from transferred bilingualism to a bilingual constellation of the new societal language and the original L1; and a shift from transferred bilingualism to trilingualism, maintaining Russian-based bilingualism while adding the new societal language. These different avenues in the evolution of postcolonial bilingualism should, however, be studied on a larger sample of case studies.

Finally, our study confirmed that this special case of Russian linguistic imperialism and its postcolonial impact in diasporic settings should be studied in a more nuanced fashion than other well-studied (post)colonial languages.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Vladislava Warditz

Ethical Considerations

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statements

Not applicable.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement

Not applicable.

Notes

Author biography

Vladislava Warditz is a Privatdozentin at the University of Cologne, specializing in variationist linguistics, language contact, and multilingualism. Her current research investigates the evolution of typologically diverse languages in postimperial contexts, focusing on the languages of the former Soviet Union within migrant communities, as well as on Russian as a global language.

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