Post-Soviet migrants in Germany, transnational public spheres and Russian soft power

Abstract

When social networking sites based in authoritarian states expand transnationally, digital media environments create soft power resources for these states. Rather than being an intrusion into national cyber-spaces "from outside", these communication networks are constructed by multiple actors, not all of whom are backed or coordinated by the authoritarian state. Diasporic actors are of special interest here. Using reposts as a direct measure of information flows on the Russian social network VKontakte (VK), this article reconstructs Russian-language networks of influence related to post-Soviet migrants in Germany. It shows that transnational communicative spaces evolve around collective resources related to these migrants by tracing how transnational and multidirectional content flow is organized between the post-Soviet space and Germany. Identifiable political sub-networks are found to be dominated by anti-liberal and anti-Western positions, ideologically and thematically compatible with official Russian state discourses. Right-wing radicals, another target audience of Russian soft power strategies in Europe, are shown to be interconnected with the publics of Russian-speakers in Germany and in the post-Soviet space. Communicative spaces on social networks are thus not purely metaphorical, but underpin the extraterritorial reach of authoritarian regime.

The Russian language maintenance and language contacts

“…A shared language and culture, as Mustajoki, Protassova & Yelenevskaya (2020a) state clearly, can have much more power in consolidating a diaspora successfully than any principle of ideological or political loyalty. Thus, generally speaking, the sense of belonging to a Russophone diaspora is not tied to political allegiances (Golova 2020).…”

“…However, not all members of such diasporas maintain the Russian language and culture over time (Smyth & Opitz 2013). In fact, even in countries with important Russophone communities, such as Germany, many members of the second generation of immigrants assimilate linguistically (Golova 2020) and it is clear that there are multiple factors conditioning the maintenance of Russian as a heritage language universally. It should be added that Russian does not remain stable and that changes and variations are inevitable (see Ryazanova-Clarke 2014 for some background reading).…”

“…Общий язык и культура, как ясно заявляют А. Мустайоки, Е. Протасова и М. Еленевская (Mustajoki et al 2020a), могут гораздо сильнее способствовать успешной консолидации диаспоры, чем любой принцип идеологической или политической лояльности. Таким образом, в целом, чувство принадлежности к русскоязычной диаспоре не связано с политическими пристрастиями (Golova 2020).…”

“…Очевидно, что существует множество факторов, обусловливающих сохранение русского языка как эритажного во всем мире. Фактически даже в странах со значительными русскоязычными сообществами, таких как Германия, многие представители второго поколения иммигрантов ассимилируются лингвистически (Golova 2020). Следует добавить, что русский язык за рубежом не остается стабильным, изменения и вариации неизбежны (в качестве общего обзора см.…”

Use of Social Networking Services among Slovenes around the World

“…Although migrants tend to be less politically involved (McKay 2020), SNSs are often a vital source of political information (Ajder 2018). SNSs may even be leveraged by authoritarian regimes to build soft power resources in migrant communities and try to influence events in other countries (Golova 2020).…”