Mobility and the geographical factor as reasons for the Jewish assimilation in the Soviet Union

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The article concerns the matter of assimilation of the Jewish groups in the USSR. It is assumed that the level of assimilation in the Soviet Union depended not only on a geographical factor, but also on mobility. We can distinguish such Jewish groups like: Ashkenazi, Bukharan, Mountain Jews and Georgian Jews. Among all of these Jewish groups, Ashkenazi Jews were subjected to assimilation the most, mostly because of the historical and political reasons that influenced geographical regions where they lived. Mobility was a special element of everyday life in this country due to its dependence on a political regime. In the 1930s, forced mobility was a method to fight politically undesirable elements, which were people who were considered as a part of the former bourgeois system (peasants and entrepreneurs who owned property). As a result, hundreds of thousands were deprived of their property and deported or arrested and had to start a new life in completely different regions (or were sent to prison). Jews also became the victims of this process. Forced mobility was put an end to only with the liberalization of the political system. Since the 1960s, people had chances to change their place of living voluntarily due to work. Sometimes the place they chose was located in other republics. Usually, the new place of living is a challenge to adopt to local conditions and customs. In the case of the Soviet Union this adaptation was a lot easier because of the unified educational, social and political systems. Russian language became the lingua franca and the mother tongue of dozens of nationalities, when Russian culture dominated the other cultures. These factors helped Soviet citizens to integrate into new working collectives easily, but did not help many Jews to keep their identity.