Russisch war während meiner Kindheit und Jugend meine Muttersprache. Jetzt im Nachhinein bin ich super dankbar, dass meine Eltern das auch so beibehalten und nicht irgendwie künstlich versucht haben, Deutsch noch in unseren Familienalltag einzubringen, sondern dass Russisch meine ganz persönliche Familiensprache blieb. Russisch ist mir total nahe. Immer wenn ich im Ausland war und dann anderen Russischsprachigen begegnet bin, habe ich dann auch ein ganz anderes Empfinden für die und bin ihnen auf einer ganz anderen Basis begegnet, weil das Russische auch nicht nur Sprache, sondern auch ein Kulturgut mit Ansichten, Traditionen, Moralvorstellungen und Normen für mich ist. Und ich habe das Gefühl, dass mir das alles durch die Sprache mitgegeben wurde. Wenn ich irgendwie Kinder habe, dann möchte ich das auch auf jeden Fall weitergeben.
In Usbekistan hatten wir Vatersnamen und andere Endungen in unseren Nachnamen. 11In der Sowjetunion erhielten Kinder als Zweitnamen eine umgewandelte Form des Vornamens des Vaters. Außerdem erhalten Frauen bei Nachnamen eine -a Endung. Zum Beispiel Daniel Anatolijwitsch (Sohn des Anatolij) Petunin oder Alexandra Anatolijowna (Tochter des Anatolij) Petunina. Diese Vatersnamen wurden nach der Übersiedlung in die BRD abgelegt. Darüber hinaus wurden sowohl Vornamen an deutsche Namen angeglichen (aus Zhenja wurde Eugen) als auch Nachnamen. Dabei wurden Namen nicht einheitlich transkribiert und mit Willkür der jeweiligen Sachbearbeiter*innen in den zuständigen Behörden an das deutsche Schriftbild angeglichen. So konnte es vorkommen, dass innerhalb einer Familie unterschiedliche Schreibweisen des Nachnamens behördlich festgehalten wurden. Die Behörden haben es nicht geschafft, unsere Namen anständig zu transkribieren. Unseren Nachnamen haben wir dreimal insgesamt anpassen müssen, damit das lateinische Schriftbild besser aussieht. Meinen Vornamen habe ich auch nach meinem Abitur ändern lassen. Vorher hieß ich Aleksandra. Weil ich dann doch zumindest am Vornamen nicht unbedingt wollte, dass man direkt sieht, dass ich eine Ausländerin bin. Das KS hat auch irgendwie schräg ausgesehen.
Es ist vielleicht doch so, dass ich eine bisschen andere Kindheit hatte, wenn ich meinen Beruf reflektiere. Wenn ich merke, dass in meiner Klasse andere Kinder sind, die einen Migrationshintergrund haben, dann empfinde ich eine starke Empathie für Sprachschwierigkeiten. Wenn sich andere Kolleg*innen dann über Sprachbarrieren aufregen, dann muss ich an meine Kindheit zurückdenken. Bei Elternabenden hatte ich eine Doppelfunktion, denn ich musste für meine Eltern übersetzen. Früher musste ich stärker als heute Briefe übersetzen und war oft bei bestimmten Entscheidungen involviert oder musste für meine Oma bei der Krankenkasse anrufen, weil mein Papa das dann doch nicht so gut erklären konnte.
Russian was my mother tongue during my childhood and adolescence. Now, in retrospect, I’m super grateful that my parents kept it that way and didn’t try somehow artificially to bring German into our everyday family life, but that Russian remained my personal family language. Russian is very close to me. Whenever I have been abroad and have met other Russian speakers, I have a completely different feeling for them and have encountered them on a completely different basis, because Russian is not only a language, but also a cultural asset with views, traditions, morals and norms for me. And I have the feeling that all of this was given to me through the language. If I somehow have children, then I definitely want to pass that on.
In Uzbekistan we had patronymic and other endings in our surnames. 11In the Soviet Union, children were given a modified form of the father’s first name as their middle name. In addition, women had an -a ending in their surnames. For example: Daniel Anatolijwitsch (son of Anatolij) Petunin or Alexandra Anatolijowna (daughter of Anatolij) Petunina. These patronymic names were discarded after moving to Germany. In addition, first names and surnames were adjusted to German names (Zhenja became Eugen). Names were not uniformly transcribed and the respective clerks in the responsible authorities had different approaches. It could happen that different spellings of the surname were officially recorded within a family. The authorities failed to transcribe our names properly. We have had to adjust our surname three times in total so that the Latin typeface looks better. I also had my first name changed after I graduated from high school. Before I was called Aleksandra. Because at least by my first name I didn’t really want people to notice straight away that I was a foreigner. The KS also looked kind of weird.
Maybe it is the case that I had a slightly different childhood when I reflect on my profession. When I notice that there are other children in my class who have a migration background, then I have a strong empathy for language difficulties. When other colleagues get upset about language barriers, then I have to think back and reflect on my childhood. I had a double role at parents’ evenings because I had to translate for my parents. In the past, I had to translate letters more than I do now and was often involved in certain decisions or had to call the health insurance company for my grandma because my dad couldn’t explain it that well after all.
Alexandra Sadownik 11Surname changed. was born in 1993 in Uzbekistan. After the reunification of Germany, the Central Council of Jews in Germany and Eastern German politicians worked on a immigration program for Jews in the former states of the Soviet Union. This was initiated due to the decreasing number of Jews living in post-Shoa Germany. With the offer of resettlement, Germany aimed to end the reconciliation. Since the 1990, approximately 200.000 Jews and their family members immigrated from successor states of the Soviet Union to Germany. Today, they define 90 percent of the Jewish population in Germany. Alexandra and her family migrated in 1998 to Germany as so called jüdische Kontingentflüchtlinge (Jewish Quota Refugees). They lived in a immigration shelter with other migrants from the former Soviet Union in Kiel for some years.
Today, Alexandra trains to become a German language teacher. Since many years, she is engaged in youth and student organization as scholarship holder from the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung.
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports on her relationship with the Russian language and what it was like for her to learn German. As a German teacher today, Alexandra often has to think back to her first steps and school days. This motivates and guides her as a teacher.
The interview was conducted, analyzed and translated by Daniel Heinz on March the 26th in 2021 via zoom as part of a cooperation between Freie Universität Berlin and the We Refugees Archive. The original interview was conducted in German and Russian. Daniel translated the interview in English. Daniel and Alexandra were introduced to each other during a youth project from the embassy of the state of Israel in Berlin. They both have a common migration history from the successor states of the former Soviet Union to Germany in the 1990s.
Under the supervision of Prof. Schirin Amir-Moazami, students in the seminar “Narratives of Refugees in the Light of Border Regime Studies” (winter term 2020/21) worked on critical methods of qualitative social research as well as literary and scientific texts on the topic of border regimes.
Border regime studies primarily focus on the political, economic and legal conditions that produce migration and borders as social phenomena in the first place.
In cooperation with the We Refugees Archive, the seminar participants conducted interviews with refugees about their everyday experiences in Germany or wrote articles on the common topics of the seminar and the archive.
"Asylum is only a marginal part of my life. I don't live to get it." The musician Bahila H. comes from Syria and now lives in Berlin. She is studying architecture at the Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus-Senftenberg, continues to make music and hopes for a life in Berlin away from traditions and the suppression of opinions.
Alaa M. and her husband came to Germany in 2015. They have built a new life in Berlin, their twins were born in exile. Alaa is a self-confident woman in Berlin who has to fight many prejudices. She does not accept that people judge her by her appearance.
K. moved to Germany from Russia as a child with her family as part of a contingent program for Jewish people. Here, she talks…
In this Interview, Alexandra Sadownik rembers how it was when her family arrived in Germany in 1998. For several years, Alexandra lived in a…
On an unusually bright morning in Berlin I was sitting alone, sipping a cup of coffee and hesitating over a loud noise. This word…
In a diary entry from September 1939, the poet Mascha Kaléko (1907-1975) reflects on the outbreak of the war in Europe and her own…
Kadija J. talks about the difficulties she faces within the Italian education system.
Kefah Ali Deeb came to Berlin in 2014 and spent six years writing a taz column about her old home country Syria and her…
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik reports what it means for her to be a Jew in Germany and where she lives her Jewish identity.
In this interview, Alexandra Sadownik tells the motivations of why her family decided to migrate from Uzbekistan to Germany in 1998 and what difficulties…