ANALYSIS OF THE #2 INTERVIEW:

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Taras Pinjazhko moved to Vienna in 2007. Since then he has been always the active participant of Ukrainian Youth Organisation -TUMA and Ukrainian Catholic Church in Vienna - St. Barbara. Since he came to Austria  he explained that his cultural identity has changed and improved. He admits that Austria offers you as a foreigner - "expat" a great access to its culture. Here is everything well organised, so you can acquire and maintain the knowledge of the country you came to much easier. He finds important to discover the Austrian culture and pass it to other Ukrainian migrants.

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While interacting with other Ukrainians in Austria, he can easily feel Ukrainian spirit and recognise its common traits, beliefs and cultural particularities. He assures that he is able to find out whether the person is Ukrainian or not through the way he/she acts in the society without even talking to them. 

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He used to question and doubt his cultural identity. He was wondering whether he should have shown or hidden it and what troubles he could get into. He mentioned that previously he experienced a tough time after having represented  his cultural identity, but at the moment he finally found his space of belonging. Integration.

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Everyone has to learn how to deal with difficulties as soon as you come to another country and in no way to give up.  Furthermore, he indicates that people should preserve their cultural authenticity and at the same time be able to adjust themselves to a local culture and traditions. 

 

Up to him, cultural identity can frame and destroy your character. To be open-minded means more opportunities for the future. Cultural identity can be analysed from both perspectives: subjective and objective.

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Thanks to a common religious background taking its roots in Habsburg Monarchy, he thinks it belongs to his responsibilities to preserve his religious values and pass them on other generations. A Catholic Church in Vienna he defines as his space of belonging. 

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Based on a historical background some people prefer to stay aside, in the "past" and not look into the future. They are tied up with their "past" which in terms of space of belonging means pain, fight, surviving and suffering. This aspect he finds the most problematic one for the integration. 

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In his opinion, Austria develops a more pragmatical way of thinking and acting. Even though you feel yourself already integrated, you will never change the fact that you are still a stranger in the eyes of the Austrian community. Taras describes himself as a member of Ukrainian minority in Austria but not as a stranger. Not a  "product of Soviet Union", but rather a member of  the Great K.u.K.

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So what is a minority?  He defines a minority as a small group of ethic and religious communities preserving their family traditions. There must not be any genetical or biological belonging. To be apart of the minority, a person has to possess the language. How to use the language is a personal choice. 

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RESULTS RELATED TO THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

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The results show that the character of our research project has taken more of a cultural, historical, religious and ethical direction and not exactly a linguistic one as we have expected. Therefore, we worked with the material that we had and tried to obtain the best results that we could.

 

The language of the Ukrainian minority in Austria is mainly used as an instrument for preserving and constructing their cultural identity and can be viewed from two different perspectives:

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• Language as a right perspective:

The Ukrainian community in Austria considers it is their right to keep the Ukrainian language alive, even outside Ukraine, in order to preserve the cultural heritage of their nation. Nationalsim, national identity and cultural pride are main factors that contour the communities character. Furthermore, it is their right to speak their mother language even if they are not recognised as an official minority group in Austria.

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• Language as a responsibility perspective:

The Ukrainian community considers that it is its task to fulfill the intergenerational transfer of the Ukrainian language into Viennese society. In addition, they want to cultivate a sense of linguistic solidarity in order to coexist with the Austrian society, but also to develop a stance based on historical, cultural, ethical and pedagogical backgrounds. In addition, they want to involve the Ukrainian language in the multicultural and diverse society in which they live in order to encourage stable relations between the Ukrainian nation and the Austrian, as well as between other cultures that come into contact with them. In summary, it is their job to raise awareness of their language in order to define the Ukrainian groups as a minority. It is their responsibility to pass on their mother tongue to future generations in order to cultivate their traditions.

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At the movie night, we noticed that TUMA also contributed to the organization of the evening in order to convey the Ukrainian culture and traditions to the audience through the film. We were able to identify some interrelations between the film and our interviews, such as: it showed how the older generations passed on their cultural identity to future generations, teaching young people what a traditional Ukrainian wedding is. At the same time, we saw how the Ukrainians had to fight for their own culture, language and identity because the Russians wanted to destroy them because of their wealth and resources. Finally, it was shown how firmly the Ukrainians hold on to their Nation. Thus this Nationalism feeling touched on the feeling of belonging to a certain space and place. They strongly identify with their Nation.

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It was interesting to observe how the audience commented on the topic of the film. Almost all of them already knew the story of Holodomor, because their grandparents always talked about it. The audience explained how the topic of the film was heavily considered a taboo and one could speculate about it only in the family context, because the nationalist bourjois in Russia wanted to hide the story. They then went on to argue that the film was important for German-speaking countries, as a reminder of the incidents happened in the Second World War. Ultimately, they said that there should be more Ukrainian events in Vienna to lift the allegations made about the Ukrainian language and culture.

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With our reserach-project we came to the conclusion that the actual materialization of the language of the Ukrainian minority in Austria is affected by various factors, for e.g. the minority group is not recognised as an official minority in Austria, depite the common history of both Nations, therefore the Ukrainians that live here must promote their language and culture theirselves - the authorities do not provide any help. 

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The interviewed persons, could easily define their own space of belonging, pending between mother land (home) and Austria. Different non-profit organizations, events, projects, learning groups, performances, informative web portals help you to follow the most important upcoming events, where, of course, everybody is welcome. It's the most important way of cultural cooperation and knowledge exchange, so Ukrainian language as a minority language can implement itself into the Austrian society, even without having a sufficient financial support or any kind of governmental help. 

 

It must be noted that the main responsibility for implementing essential measures to improve the quality of minority language development lies within the Nationstate. Instead of despising a society you are currently living in, you should assimilate. A definition of the personal space of belonging helps to put a certain set of frames that help to choose a personal direction of language development (e.g. Church, music academy, school) and develop a language attitude based on solid historical, religious, ethnic and educational backgrounds.

 

To construct and preserve their cultural identity abroad, the Ukrainian language must enable action at different levels, such as: institutional, public and personal levels (families) and in other communities. Thus, we may assume, that throughout the different events mentioned above, the Ukrainian language transforms itself into a tool that has the role of constructing, preserving and promoting the Ukrainian culture, as well as the individuals identity, in order to create a space and a sense of belonging in Austria for all individuals that arrive and decide to live in this society.