Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 16 – Higher and
secondary educational institutions in Russia’s non-Russian republics are
increasingly enrolling members of the national diasporas living beyond their
borders, a development that is helping to preserve the national languages of
these communities and also likely intensifying non-Russian identities.
The latest evidence for this trend
comes from the Middle Volga Finno-Ugric Republic of Mordvinia, where this
academic year approximately 1300 graduates of schools from other Russian
federal subjects are enrolled in its universities, technicums, and specialized
secondary schools (izvmor.ru/news/view/22729).
This development and the desire of
Mordvin officials to promote it were the subjects of a meeting of the working
group of the Mordvin Republic’s Coordination Council for Demographic and
Migration Policy.
Rafail Ashirov, the deputy chairman of
the Republic State Assembly said that this year, there were 1022 students in
Mordvin universities and 274 people enrolled in specialized secondary schools
from 53 other federal subjects of the Russian Federation, figures that have
doubled since 2008.
The largest contingents were from Nizhny
Novgorod, which sent 341 students, Penza oblast, which sent 249, and Ulyanovsk
oblast which sent 229. But there were also students from Moscow, St.
Petersburg, the Yamalo-Nenets and the Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous districts, and
Krasnoyarsk kray.
No ethnic breakdown was
given for these flows, but Anatoly Chushkin, the republic nationality policy
minister, left no doubt that many of the students were Mordvins living beyond
the borders of Mordvinia and that his republic is doing all it can to attract
more of them as students.
“The representatives of
the Mordvin diaspora, who live in the regions of Russia,” he said, “maintain a
vital interest in our republic. For the preservation of Mordvin languages, the
attraction of students from the diaspora plays an important role,” and to that
end, the Mordvin government has reached out to these people.
Yury Mishanin, director
of the Volga Center for the Cultures of Finno-Ugric Peoples, said that among
these measures were the “Koy” ethno-schools that the republic had promoted in
diaspora centers where upper classmen “receive information about the education
institutions of Mordvinia” and meet with the rectors of the higher educational
institutions.
Ashirov pointed out that
this work is coordinated with the Mordvin national-cultural autonomies which
now exist in “more than 40 regions of Russia.”
He concluded this week’s session by saying that the next step for Saransk
is to “create conditions for graduates from the regions so that they will stay
in Mordvinia to live and work.”
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