Intergenerational dynamics of migrants' family memory: global trends and Russian specifics

Linchenko Andrei Aleksandrovich ORCID: 0000-0001-6242-8844 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor, Scientific Researcher, Lipetsk Branch of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation; Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Lipetsk State Technical University 398002, Russia, Lipetsk region, Lipetsk, Tereshkova str., 17, sq. 104 linchenko1@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Ovchinnikov Aleksandr Viktorovich PhD in History Associate Professor, Scientific Researcher, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Lipetsk branch, Associate Professor of the Department of Management at Kazan State Energy University (Kazan) 422770, Russia, Republic of Tatarstan, Pestretsy village, Komsomolskaya str., 12 ovchinnikov8_831@mail.ru Blaginin Vladislav Sergeevich Scientific Researcher, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Lipetsk branch 398000, Russia, Lipetsk region, Lipetsk, Internatsionalnaya str., 12 B kibervlad@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Andrisenko Simona Andreevna Scientific Researcher, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Lipetsk branch 650002, Russia, Kemerovo region, Kemerovo, Oktyabrsky Ave., 60, sq. 87 simonaandrisenko@gmail.com

The article was prepared with the financial support of the RNF grant, project No. 22-28-00503 "Transformation of the collective memory of migration communities in modern Russia: intergenerational dynamics, family values and commemorative practices"

Global migration is one of the most significant challenges of modern society. At the same time, it would be a mistake to consider the migration communities in the host country as something monolithic and static. On the contrary, studies of modern migration societies abroad ^{[1, 2, 3, 4]} and in Russia ^{[5, 6, 7]} show that external migrants (immigrants) themselves are an extremely heterogeneous group. The situation turns out to be even more complicated when looking at the heterogeneity of migration communities in the light of intergenerational dynamics. It is at this point, in the light of the growing conflictogenicity of integration practices of migrants, that Professor of the University of Osnabr?ck (Germany), sociologist A. El-Mafaalani points out, who shows that as migrants move from the first and one and a half generations to the second and third generation, the conflictogenicity of integration not only does not decrease, but on the contrary increases ^{[8, p.41]}. The reason for this is the increasing social demands of the children and grandchildren of migrants following the first generation. Such a situation cannot but have an impact on the relationship between the generations of migrants themselves, one of the aspects of which is family memory. How specific is the Russian experience in the light of this global trend? What are the peculiarities of the attitude of different generations of migrants to the cultural traditions and history of the host society in Russia and what are the peculiarities of the intergenerational transmission of the family memory of migrants? The answers to these questions became the subject of the article presented to the reader.   

Literature review

Despite the fact that efforts to study the history of migration were actively developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s of the last century against the background of the flourishing of social history, the problems of collective memory of migration communities entered the research field of social and humanitarian sciences only in the 2000s. It is no exaggeration to note that the era of multiculturalism played a key role in bringing together the issues of migration studies and memory studies, which allowed migrant communities to actively position their identity using collective memory as a tool in the struggle for symbolic capital. To date, research on the memory of migrants is conducted in three directions: a) personal and group memories of migration, as well as the specifics of the collective memory of various migration groups; b) the study of collective ideas about the past of migrants in the context of incorporation policies and memory policies of host societies; c) the study of the representation of the historical experience of migration and migration communities in museum practice ^[9]. It is these areas that have become the subject of several books ^{[10, 11, 12, 13]} and a series of articles in research collections ^{[1, 2, 3, 14, 15]}. In recent years, the problem of collective memory of migrants has also been actively considered within the framework of a new, transcultural turn of memory studies ^{[16, 17, 18]}, focused on overcoming methodological nationalism and considering collective memory not only within certain cultures or communities, but also its dynamics beyond cultural and social boundaries. In this case, migration communities already turn out to be one of the examples of such migration of memory images ^[9].

The emergence and entry into adulthood of the second generation of migrants in Western countries marked not only a fundamentally new stage in the transformation of the social status of migration communities, but also a significant shift in their self-identification, as noted by A. El-Mafaalani. This was reflected in the active development of the problems of research on family memory of migration communities, which were carried out mainly on the material of Western countries. Since an in-depth analysis of the historiography of the family memory of migrants was not among the tasks of our research, in this article we will briefly list the main thematic blocks around which articles and books of the last decade devoted to the topic of interest to us were grouped.

The first group of works turned out to be related to the study of identity and memory characteristics in the second generation of migrants. The researchers focus on the peculiarities of the second generation's perception of the traditions and commemorative practices of the country of origin in the context of the peculiarities of relocation and migration experience of the first generation ^{[19, 20, 21]}, the peculiarities of risk cultures in family narratives ^[22], the use of cultural memory images in the practices of political activism of the second generation of migrants ^[23]. At the same time, all the works in this group represent specific cases, the subject of which is an ethnic group that finds itself in the specific conditions of the host country. We have not found any studies devoted to the comparative analysis of different cases or attempts at a broad theoretical generalization of the transformation of images of family memory and historical consciousness in the second generation of migrants.

 The second group of works is related to the study of the peculiarities of broadcasting the family memory of migrants in the context of various media, where the primary emphasis was placed on the presentation of family and historical experience on the You Tube platform ^[24], on the role of family photographs ^[25], as well as the role of museums ^{[13, 14]}.  

The third group of works is devoted to the peculiarities of the representation of the migration experience and the memory of it in the literature and artistic practices of the first and one and a half generations of migrants. Here, first of all, we pay attention to two collections of articles: "Displacement, memory and travel in modern migration literature" ^[12] and "Diaspora and Memory. Figures of displacement in modern literature, art and politics" ^[15]. No less interesting in this regard is the comprehension in the literature of migrants of images of home and the memory of it ^{[26, 27]}.

Finally, the fourth group of works dealing with issues of family memory is related to studies of the relationship of one and a half and second generations of migrants to pan-European or North American places of memory, symbols of cultural identity in Western countries. First of all, studies of the attitude of European youth with a migratory past to the Holocaust are highlighted here ^{[28, 29, 30]}. 

Global trends in the dynamics of migrants' family memory

In this study, we focused on a praxiological approach to family memory, which focuses not so much on knowledge about the past, represented in the historical experience of the family, as on the continuity of practices characteristic of the sphere of work, everyday life and leisure ^[31]. It is the daily practices of work, life and leisure that are passed down from generation to generation, acquiring the character of family traditions. They also largely become the subject of family narratives, where historical events turn out to be a kind of "background" for the unfolding of the dynamics of family memories. In such a case, family memory turns out to be a mechanism for the linguistic transformation of the practices of family historical experience, since it transforms historical experience into a narrative. Moreover, family memory contributes to the transformation of communication into communication, where communication takes the form of emotional involvement in the process of such exchange and intentional experience of the past ^[31].

         At first glance, such a mechanism of family memory is no different from the family memory of migrants, where we also encounter intergenerational interaction, the transmission of traditions of work, everyday life and leisure, images of home, the glorification of the older generation and ancestors, the mythology of individual things and artifacts that play an important symbolic role for family memory. Such aspects are indeed present in the family memory of representatives of migration communities, but they do not take into account the enormous influence of migration experience on the spatial and temporal structures of family memory. No matter how high the intensity of intergenerational exchange we might encounter, the history of a family with a migration past divides the time of family memory into "before" and "after" moving, where family biography does not always acquire positive features in the conditions of the host society. The situation is even more complicated with the space of family memory of migrants, where the traditional situation of connection with a small Homeland (ancestral home, native land, native country) is replaced by the situation of being in at least two spaces of family historical experience (the memory space of the country of origin and the memory space of the host country). At the same time, different generations of migrants may have fundamentally different attitudes towards these spaces: from romanticization and idealization to outright rejection. In particular, we are talking about the second generation of migrants who were born in the host country, as a rule, have citizenship, are well integrated and feel like full-fledged participants in social life in the host country.   

An analysis of foreign studies of migrant family memory has allowed us to identify several key trends, especially noticeable in a global perspective. The first trend is the fact that the one and a half and second generations are growing up and entering adulthood, which is becoming more and more noticeable not only in the public life of host societies, but also in family commemorations. The most appropriate concept that could describe their view of family traditions and commemorations is the concept of "multiple affiliations" ^{[32, 33]}, where family heritage turns out to be one of the sources of their identity and occupies far from the first place. The second trend is the increasing role of modern media technologies and social networks, which are increasingly actively involved in the process of constructing memorials of the country of origin, as well as enhancing the nostalgic effect of family memories (among the first generation) and romanticizing the memory of the country of origin (among the second generation). Without a doubt, it is the media environment and social networks that turn out to be one of the most significant factors in the development of modern transnationalism, allowing migrants to mentally "be present" in the country of origin, physically being in the host society. The third trend, also related to the media environment, is the increasing role of Internet technologies and social networks for the presentation of the family memory of migrants, making some of its pages public. In this case, it is important that Internet technologies and social networks, in fact, turn out to be means of institutionalizing the collective memory of migration communities, parallel to the official memory institutions of the host society (including migration museums in host societies).

How do these trends manifest themselves in modern Russian practice? We will try to answer this question based on the analysis of the results of our sociological research.

Research methodology

The transnational approach has been chosen as the basic theoretical and methodological basis of our research, which is a new step towards understanding the issues of migrant integration, since it takes into account both the extremes of assimilation theories and the contradictions of multiculturalism. Its methodological novelty consists in shifting attention to the study of the social field created by migration communities beyond geographical and political borders. A similar field, as research shows ^{[34, 35, 36, 37]}, It is an eclectic synthesis of sociocultural practices of both the host society and the countries of origin. "Migrants become transmigrants when they develop and maintain multiple family, economic, social, organizational, religious and political relations that cross state borders, and their public identities are formed in interaction with more than one nation-state. They are not temporary residents in the host society, because they settled and began to integrate into the economy and political institutions, localities and patterns of daily life of the country where they currently live. However, at the same time, they maintain connections, build institutions, manage transactions and influence local and national events in the countries from which they emigrated" ^{[38, p.15]}.

Modern research also emphasizes the special role of families ^[39] as important participants in transnational cultural exchange. "Transnational families are understood as such families whose members are separated and live in different states, often for quite a long time, but despite this they maintain contacts and create a sense of family unity, community and emotional belonging" ^{[38, p.20]}. It seems that this definition of a transnational family is quite well suited for the Russian case, where the older relatives of migrants still live in the countries of origin, while their children and grandchildren live in Russia.

In the spring of 2022, the authors of the article conducted a sociological study covering several generations of migrants in five subjects of the Russian Federation (Lipetsk, Saratov, Sverdlovsk and Kemerovo regions, as well as the Republic of Tatarstan). The purpose of the study is to study the peculiarities of the transmission of knowledge about the family past, the interpretation of family past events in the context of narratives of representatives of different generations of migrants within the same family, as well as a comparative analysis of current practices and channels of transmission of family memory in different generations of migrants. The realization of this goal and objectives of the study required a combination of quantitative (questioning) and qualitative (interviewing) methods.

The proposed article presents the results of a face-to-face survey of 900 migrants permanently residing in the designated regions. A quota sample was used for the survey. (multi-stage). The quotas were the gender and age of the respondent, as well as belonging to different generations of migrants. The analysis of the results was carried out using the frequency distribution of responses and the compilation of conjugacy tables (generational analysis).

Since we were primarily interested in intergenerational relations, we turned to representatives of several groups: a) the first generation or generation "1" (came from his native country over the age of 18); b) the one and a half generation, which included generation "1.25" (arrived at the age of 13-17), generation "1.5" (arrived at the age of 6-12 years) and generation "1.75" (arrived at preschool age); c) the second generation or generation "2" (born in Russia).

We also interviewed 175 people (69 families) with a migration background. The initial purpose of the study was to interview both two-generational and three-generational families. However, in the future, this idea had to be abandoned due to the peculiarities of the migration communities in these regions, the older generations of which continue to live in the countries of origin (Central Asia and Transcaucasia). A story about the history of a family, due to the high level of cohesion of its members, is usually a kind of family biography, retold from the perspective of the narrator's autobiographical memory ^[40]. Such a circumstance opened up the possibility for us to use the methodology of biographical interviews, where the theoretical ideas of Fritz Schutze (6 steps) continue to play a special role ^{[41, 42]}. In our case, it is important that the biographical story recorded by the interviewer, according to F. Schutze must be considered as an integral unity. The internal mechanism that ensures this unity is the semantic structure of the biography itself. The condition for achieving this integrity is a special interview technique, when after the first and main question the story is not interrupted until the narrator himself completes it. This allows the narrator to build the plot himself and freely change it as the story progresses. Only after the narrator indicates that it is impossible to continue the story (coda), the interviewer has the right to ask him several drowning questions (the phase of narrative questions) ^{[41, s.80]}.

We have already had to write that for F. Schutze's life story is a sequentially ordered layering of large and small sequentially ordered procedural structures. Accordingly, with the change of dominant procedural structures, the general interpretation of the life story by the biographer changes over time. The most important goal of F.'s methodology is Schutze is the correlation of the informant's life story with his subjective interpretations. This is achieved through the comparison of such procedural structures as intentional processes (life goals of the bearer of the biography, actions taken by him in the process of overcoming difficult life situations), institutional patterns (prescribed rules of behavior on the part of the family, educational system, professional circle) and flow curves (dynamics of identity in general) ^[31]. Commenting on the ideas of F. Schutze, E.Y. Rozhdestvenskaya notes that the curves of the current in the biographical analysis of F. Schutze can have a positive (ascending in progression, by establishing new social positions, they open up new spatial possibilities for the actions and development of the personality of the bearer of the biography) and a negative (descending in progression, they limit the space of possible actions and development of the bearer of the biography during a special layering of action conditions that cannot be controlled by the bearer of the biography himself) meaning. He emphasizes that "the identity of the biographer does not coincide in rhythm with the procedural structures of the course of life, since the search and making sense of biography become possible as life positions change, situations move into the past, and a temporary distance is formed to them" ^{[42, p.114]}. Thus, in the situation of biography, the "narrating" Self represents its past, that is, the "narrated" Self, acting as a remembered carrier of actions.

Concluding the methodological block, we will briefly outline the features of the sociological portrait of our respondents. As part of the objectives of our study, the questionnaire focused on the age and educational characteristics of the respondents, as well as the length of residence in the study regions. The sample of our study, based on Rosstat data for the relevant regions, took into account the peculiarities of the migration situation in modern Russia, where labor migration from the countries of Transcaucasia and Central Asia plays a key role. Accordingly, 60.2% of our respondents turned out to be men, and in terms of age, representatives of middle and older ages dominated. In total, the proportion of respondents over the age of 40 was 45.6%, and respondents in the 30-39 age group were 27.4%. It was also quite expected in the context of research by domestic migration sociologists ^{[5, 6, 7]} to see the absolute dominance of representatives of the first generation who came to Russia over the age of 18 (64.5%). The one and a half generation accounted for about 25%, while the share of representatives of the second generation barely exceeded 10%. The question of the length of residence in the city and the region revealed that more than 40% of our respondents have lived for either more than 21 years or 11-20 years, which in itself indicates the presence of significant experience of interaction with the cultural practices of the host society in Russia. It is significant that the differences between the groups living in Russia for 1-2 years, 3-5 years, 6-10 years, as well as those born in Russia did not exceed several percent and averaged 10-12% of the respondents to the group. Slightly more than half (53.3%) of our respondents adhere to the Islamic faith, and 32.2% declared their commitment to Christianity. Finally, a look at the sample from the point of view of the level of education, as we expected, showed a significant proportion of people (49.5%) with secondary complete and vocational education (college, vocational school). It was relatively unexpected for us to see that 40.7% of the respondents stated that they had higher education. This fact was taken into account by us, since the availability of higher education is no less important an integration factor than knowledge of the language of the host society.   

The culture of the host society in the family memory of migrants

 Anyone who addresses migration issues cannot but take into account the factor of culture of the host society, which, regardless of the orientation of integration policy, is always a kind of background on which the structures of collective and autobiographical memory of migrants "unfold". In this regard, several questions of our research are devoted to the topic of the reasons for relocation and the relationship of migrants with cultural practices and institutions of cultural memory of the host society in Russia.

The first question, which we asked our respondents to answer, is devoted to identifying the reasons for moving to the city and the region of the Russian Federation in which the respondent and his family lived at the time of the study. As we expected, slightly more than half of the respondents from all five cities studied indicated that relatives and fellow countrymen lived in the city (50.8%). This fully confirmed the conclusions of previous studies ^{[6, 7, 31]}, which have repeatedly noted the key importance of the zemstvo factor as a vector of the direction of migration flows to Russia.

The next group of issues is related to the study of the openness of external migrants to everyday cultural practices, language and traditions of the host society. In this regard, the answers to the question of what Russian culture our respondents are ready to adopt revealed, at first glance, a fairly positive trend (see Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Ready to adopt from Russian culture in

the daily life of your family

 On the one hand, almost half of the respondents noted the traditions and customs of the host society (48.2%), which clearly indicates a significant openness to the cultural practices of the host society. On the other hand, almost a third of respondents are ready to learn only the language (29.8%), and 15.7% of respondents said that they are not ready to learn anything at all. At the same time, representatives of the first generation and especially those in the age group over 60 years old turned out to be the most open to Russian traditions and customs, which, in our opinion, is a clear echo of their life in the USSR. It is significant that significant differences between answer options are decreasing among young people. For example, in the 18-24 age group and among representatives of the second generation, responses indicating traditions and customs, language, or lack of need for borrowing were evenly distributed. In our opinion, such uniformity of distribution is based on the fact that the second generation, born in Russia, often does not distinguish itself from the surrounding society, which is typical not only for Russian specifics, but also, for example, for the realities of other migration societies, for example in Germany ^[8]. Russian Russian is an important language in everyday practice, and it was expected to see a fairly open attitude to the language in the minds of respondents: 34.2% said they intended to use it, 32.9% noted that Russian is their native language, and 26.4% use Russian words when they do not find equivalents in their native language. Russian Russian was also expected to grow in importance as the length of residence increased, and the position of "Russian is my native language" proved to be dominant in the responses of the second generation.

At the same time, the question of attitude to language can hardly fully represent the attitude to the cultural practices of the host society. In this regard, the respondents were asked about the attitude of the host society to the holidays. The distribution of answers to the question showed a contradictory picture (see Fig. 2)

Figure 2. Attitude to local holidays

On the one hand, 41% of the respondents stated that they accept and celebrate local holidays, including religious ones, which indicates a fairly high potential for openness towards the cultural practices of the host society. At the same time, the remaining categories of responses, totaling 59%, characterized either a neutral and cautious position at best, or indicated the non-acceptance of Russian festive culture by external migrants. In particular, a third of the respondents we surveyed (30.5%) stated that they are ready to accept and celebrate only secular holidays of modern Russian society. Another 17.4% noted that they treat any Russian holidays neutrally. 6.5% of respondents can be called close to this point of view, indicating that they accept, but do not celebrate local holidays. Finally, 4.6% of respondents categorically stated that they do not celebrate local holidays at all. If we look at the distribution of answers to this question in an age and generational perspective, the most positive attitude towards both secular and religious holidays of the host society was revealed in age groups over 50 years old, while the proportion of neutral or non-accepting Russian holidays consistently increased as they moved from the age group of 18-24 years to the group is 40-49 years old. At the same time, the most cautious, neutral or negative attitude was shown by the responses of the age groups 25-29 and 30-39 years old, which, in our opinion, is due to the presence of close contacts with the country of origin, the desire to return to their small homeland, which was often mentioned by informants in the collected interviews. The distinctly anti-immigrant discourse of the Russian public sphere can be considered an equally important factor in this case ^[5]. We saw a similar picture when the answers were analyzed depending on generational characteristics, where the first and second generations turned out to be the most open to all types of holidays. In the case of the first generation, this fact is explained by the influence of the Soviet experience, and in the case of the second – by the fact that its representatives were born in Russia and are less inclined to distinguish themselves from the host society than their older contemporaries. As expected, in comparison with them, representatives of the one and a half generation (especially the "1.25" generation) to a greater extent indicated a negative and, at best, neutral position towards Russian festive culture, which, in our opinion, is explained primarily by the difficulties of socialization of those who came to Russia in primary and secondary school age.      

One of the markers of identity and belonging to the host society is traditionally considered to be a certain degree of openness towards its history, which is expressed not so much in historical knowledge about the host country as in awareness of the impact of historical events on one's own biography and family history. In Russian conditions, this fact is of particular importance due to the dominance of the older and middle generations of migrants. Our respondents were asked about those events of the recent past that, in their opinion, had the greatest impact on their family's life (respondents could choose up to three events). We should immediately note that almost a third of the respondents (31.4%) said that they did not find crises in Russia, since they moved later than these events. The most popular among the other responses were the events of the collapse of the USSR (27.6%), the economic crisis of 2008-2009 (25.2%), as well as the currency crisis in Russia in 2014-2015 (24.8%). It is significant that the fourth most important position was related to economic problems – respondents pointed to "black Thursday" and the default of 1998 (9%). A similar distribution of responses was typical for all three generations that became the objects of our analysis. It is quite clear that our respondents were concerned about economic events due to the dominance of the economic goals of moving to Russia. At the same time, as we expected, the answer option about the collapse of the USSR turned out to be the most popular in the age group over 60 years old.

Moving is a special fact of both the autobiographical and family memory of a migrant, since it breaks his life into "before" and "after". At the same time, the understanding of the relocation situation itself largely takes place after the fact, due to the subsequent successful or unsuccessful integration experience. Accordingly, the issue of emotional attitude to moving allows us to analyze, from another side, the peculiarities of the interaction of a migrant and his family, including with the cultural practices of the host society in Russia. In this regard, our respondents were asked with what emotions and feelings their family remembers moving to Russia (see Fig. 3).

Figure 3. Feelings, emotions arising from memories

about moving to Russia

In response to this question, 51.8% of respondents indicated that they remember the move with good feelings and only 5.6% expressed negative emotions and tend not to remember the move (15.3%). It is noteworthy that slightly more than a quarter of the respondents (27.2%) declared the neutral status of moving memories and excluded any emotions. It is important to evaluate these figures given that a significant part of our respondents are representatives of the first generation who came to Russia for the purpose of working in an extremely unstable economic situation in their country of origin. Moreover, this issue made it practically impossible to identify the peculiarities of the memory of moving among young people and the second generation of migrants. That is why the answers to this question were supplemented by the results of the interview. Using F.'s methodology Schutze allowed us to analyze the interviews for the ascending and descending curves of family biography currents that unfolded within the framework of the stories. An analysis of interviews with two-generational families in five selected regions revealed the absolute dominance of upward curves in the narratives of family memory. This means that moving and adapting to the new conditions of the host society turned out to be a positive milestone in the dynamics of family memory. In other words, the interpretative efforts of the informants within their narratives of family history generally coincided with the biographical processes of the narrators and their older relatives. The key event for the vast majority of families turned out to be moving to Russia. The intentional processes of the family as a subject of commemoration clearly indicated the possibility of overcoming institutional constraints, which allowed us to interpret family biographies as an ascending process. The conclusion made earlier on the material of the Lipetsk region was also confirmed that in the case of representatives of the first generation, nostalgia for the country of origin turned out to be a significant factor, which acquired features of both general nostalgia for the USSR and nostalgia for the lifestyle in general. "Moving to another country was very difficult for us <...> not in terms of documents, but in terms of changing society entirely. An Asian country, it treats the adult generation, the generation of grandparents more respectfully. Everything related to this is very visible here in Russia <...> for example, on the bus, young people in no way show respect for pregnant and elderly people" (Dmitry, 42 years old). It should be noted that within the framework of generation "1.5" we have discovered nostalgic memories. However, in comparison with the first generation, in this case, nostalgia did not relate to the country of origin, but to individual things, practices or traditions passed down in families from generation to generation.

Another question of the questionnaire, which allows to identify the features of the memory of moving, as well as the degree of integration into the cultural practices of the host society, was a question offering to assess the differences in their lifestyle in the country of origin and in the host society. As in the previous question, we were primarily interested in the first and one and a half generations, who retained in their memory a more or less holistic view of life before moving. The processing of responses in all five regions did not reveal significant changes in the lifestyle of external migrants in Russia (see Fig. 4).

 Figure 4. Lifestyle changes compared to the native country

 In particular, only 43.2% of respondents indicated that their lifestyle has changed significantly. The rest of the respondents stated that their lifestyle in Russia does not differ significantly (22.9%), or that their lifestyle has not changed much (19.6%), or that they lead the same lifestyle (14.3%). Such a distribution of responses, on the one hand, confirmed the absence of a hard gap in the respondents' autobiographical experience during their relocation, and on the other hand, clearly indicated the prematurity of an unambiguous thesis about the openness of migrants to the cultural practices of the host society. On the contrary, the answers indicate the desire of migrants to preserve and reproduce the cultural practices of the country of origin, using any opportunity: family memory, fraternities, religious holidays and traditions. This trend was also revealed in interviews, where both in the first and one and a half generations we were faced with the opposition of family traditions to the host society, which was constantly marked in interviews in the constructions "we are them", "we have you", "our traditions are your traditions". Thus, talking about his family memory and family history, one of the informants noted: "We would be happy to accept all your traditions and holidays, but faith is stronger here in Armenia. And that's why the holidays are completely different, bright. How can we take traditions from you if you don't need them yourself?" (Levon, 46 years old). Interviews with representatives of the second generation indicate this trend much less, which, in our opinion, is due to their self-identification as citizens of Russia. This point has been repeatedly recorded by second-generation researchers in different countries of the world ^{[19, 20, 21]}. It is absolutely understandable when the host country turns out to be a small homeland for the second generation of migrants. We also confirmed the thesis expressed earlier that all generations have demonstrated a tendency to combine the holidays of the country of origin and the host society. However, if the first generation actively declares its commitment to the religious holidays of the country of origin and the secular ones of the host country, then in the case of the one and a half and the second generation, the indistinguishability of secular and religious holidays is recorded, as well as a high level of participation in secular holidays in Russia ^[31]. This was most vividly expressed in an interview with Amil, a student at one of the universities in Lipetsk: "I am an Azerbaijani and I have a traditional upbringing inherent in my people, but more democratic. We go with the times. My family is quite religious, but I am not like that myself <...> We have all read the Koran, but we are not fanatics, we are more modern" (Amil, 19 years old).

Features of the translation of migrants' family memory in an intergenerational perspective

         Family memory is always a translation of family historical experience between generations. The migration environment is no exception here, where intergenerational relations are beginning to be influenced by the factor of varying degrees of integration of the first, one and a half and second generations into the cultural practices of the host society. In this regard, the issues of attitude to family traditions, relics, as well as to the common values of the family past, which are traditional for the transmission of family memory, can acquire a conflictogenic dimension, where the well-known "conflict of fathers and children" is also superimposed on the peculiarities of the migration situation.

         Our respondents were asked what traditions of the country of origin they observe. In general, as we expected, the number of people who openly stated that they did not observe the traditions and customs of the country of origin turned out to be significantly less (16.1%) of those who continue to reproduce the cultural practices of the country of origin in one form or another. At the same time, the remaining answers showed a contradictory picture, indicating an increase in fragmentation processes in referring to the historical experience of the country of origin (see Fig.5).

Figure 5. Family observance of traditions and customs

countries of origin

On the one hand, 43.1% stated that they observe both secular and religious customs. On the other hand, the proportion of those who observe either only religious (22.5%) or only secular (18.3%) traditions turned out to be quite significant. Evaluating these results from a generational perspective, we did not see any pronounced trend. The number of people who observe both secular and religious traditions in the first and second generations is three times higher than the number of those who do not observe the traditions of the country of origin at all. Representatives of the one and a half generation (generation "1,25", "1,5", "1,75") In this case, they showed multidirectional trends. At the same time, it was expected to see the opposite picture in the responses of the first and second generations regarding religious traditions and holidays. Among the representatives of the first generation, the number of adherents of religious traditions was twice as high as the number of supporters of secular ones, while the second generation demonstrated the opposite situation.

         The next question focused on the emotional side of the memories of the country of exodus. We were primarily interested in the direction of memories of life before moving (positive, neutral, negative). The question was aimed at the first and one and a half generations, although representatives of the second generation could also answer it. The answers to the question (see Fig. 6) revealed a fairly predictable pattern of dominance of the positive image of the country of origin and the memory of it.

Figure 6. Memories of life in the land of exodus

It is significant that 68% of respondents indicated this answer option and only 4% of respondents stated extremely negative feelings. At the same time, almost a fifth of respondents (18.7%) noted that they remember life in the country of origin without any emotions, and only one in ten respondents (9.3%) generally tends not to remember their past before emigration. It is noteworthy that the proportion of those who try not to remember life in the country of exodus turned out to be twice as high among representatives of the one and a half generation compared with the first generation. This can be explained either by the desire of young people to integrate better into the host society, or by the usual lack of memories.

Despite the fact that the representatives of the second generation did not have their own memories of life in the country of exodus, an analysis of their interviews revealed several of the most typical emotional images of memory about the country of exodus. The first emotional image revealed in the stories of young people with migration roots could be called unambiguously positive. However, it is clear from the interview that this positive image is a kind of romanticization of the country of exodus, inspired by stories in the family. The second emotional image that we most often encountered in interviews was the image of the country of exodus as a territory where grandparents still live and the state from which the informant's family moved to Russia. This image could be called neutral to a greater extent. It is interesting to note that the fact of visiting (and even repeated visits) does not affect the formation of positive feelings among young people, who perceive the country of origin rather as an interesting object for a tourist trip. In this respect, Russian youth with migration roots turned out to be quite similar to their contemporaries in the European Union, where researchers also noted a similar trend ^{[21, p.94]}. Finally, several interviews revealed the presence of outright indifference and absence expressed by our respondents, while Russia in their minds was a full-fledged Homeland for them. In this case, the absence of any emotional attachment in most cases was due to the lack of friendly ties in the country of origin, as well as an unwillingness to immerse oneself in the cultural practices of the country of origin. We found a similar situation in two interviews. Ararat's emotional position turned out to be typical for them: "And I was born in Chaplygin myself. So I have never been to Armenia, like my older and younger sisters. We were born and raised in Russia. They also studied at the Chaplygin school. Now we live in Lipetsk, we are finishing the 1st year <...> I have never been to the Homeland of my ancestors. And there is no need to go, in particular, I am not interested. My father tells me a lot about what's there and how. That is, I have some idea. How are things there? There is no burden to go. Nothing pulls me there. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather live there and a number of other relatives, but somehow I don't want to go there yet" (Ararat, 18 years old).

         The respondents were asked several questions designed to characterize the peculiarities of their attitude to the material side of the transmission of family memory, and primarily to family heirlooms and photographs (see Fig. 7).

Figure 7. Attitude to family relics

The question of the attitude towards family heirlooms at first glance revealed a fairly predictable trend, when 63.1% of respondents said that they would preserve and inherit family heirlooms to their children. Only 4% indicated that they were ready to transfer family heirlooms to the national museum. At the same time, it is impossible not to pay attention to the distribution of responses in other categories, where 19.9% of respondents do not consider family heirlooms to be of any value at all and are ready to part with them, and 13% found it difficult to answer. Detailing the answers from a generational perspective revealed that the largest percentage of those who found it difficult to answer and those who did not consider family heirlooms valuable showed the one and a half and second generations. Among them, the minimum percentage of those who chose the answer about the possibility of transferring family heirlooms to the national museum was revealed.

         It is difficult to overestimate the importance of photographs as carriers of family memory. In this regard, the participants of our study were asked about the frequency of viewing family photos, as well as the question about the features of their storage. It was revealed that only 39.3% view family photos quite often. Another third of respondents turn to photos during family holidays (30.2%), and almost a quarter of respondents rarely look at them (24.6%). Finally, 5.9% said that their family had no family photos left at all. As in the answers to the previous question, it was revealed that representatives of the first generation view family photos most often, while the one and a half generation has already demonstrated the dominance of answers indicating the rarity of accessing the family photo archive. At the same time, as we moved from generation "1.75" to generation "2", the response associated with viewing family photos only during the holidays began to dominate. The status of photographs as a carrier of family memory is represented in the peculiarities of their storage, which is an indirect form of attitude towards them. At the same time, the answers to the question about the storage of family photos could not but be influenced by the processes of digitalization, which is typical not only for the family memory of migrants, but also for any other family memory today. In general, 40.9% of respondents continue to keep printed albums, 33.7% store photos on their phone, and 25.4% noted that they do not print photos, but store them on special digital media. We also expected to see the influence of age on the most preferred way of storing family photos in this issue, and we were not mistaken. So, if the predominance of storing photos in printed form was revealed in the middle and older generations, then in the age groups of 18-24 and 25-29 years, we found a certain equality of opportunities to store family photos on printed and digital media. Accordingly, as we moved from the first generation to the second, we also saw a gradual increase in the role of digital media and a move away from the need to print photos.

         At the end, the respondents were asked about their interest in family history. This question allowed us to identify more deeply the generational and age-specific features of the historical consciousness of our respondents, since it shows the current status of the family past for them. The overall picture of the responses looked quite positive for the family memory of migrants, when 66.9% of respondents stated that they always listen with interest to these stories (see Figure 8). Accordingly, 10.2% of respondents indicated that they listen reluctantly, for fear of offending the older generation, while only 6.8% explicitly stated that they do not listen stories in general due to a complete lack of interest in them. It should be added that 16.1% of the respondents found it difficult to answer. However, as in the case of previous answers, a closer look at the results of the study in the light of age and generational characteristics again pointed to a quite expected trend – a general decrease in interest in family history as the older generation moves from their younger contemporaries.

Figure 8. Interest in the stories of the older generation

Moreover, the beginning of a decrease in this interest was recorded by us already in the age group of 40-49 years, which was reflected in an almost equal number of those who indicated an interest in family history and indicated the absence of such. It is significant that in the age groups of 25-29 and 30-39 years, we also found a significant number of people who were not interested in family history or found it difficult to answer. At the same time, in the 18-24 age group, the proportion of those who are interested in family stories is twice as high as those who are not interested in family history in any capacity. In our opinion, this is due to the dependence of this age group on older generations, as well as the incomplete nature of their life values and ideological orientations. A comparative analysis in the intergenerational aspect revealed an unambiguous decrease in interest in family history among representatives of the one and a half generation. The percentage of those who found it difficult to answer or expressed an opinion about the lack of interest in family history here was almost twice as high as the number of those interested in the family's past. As we expected, the first generation of migrants turned out to be the most open to family history, where the number of people interested in family history was almost two and a half times higher than the number of those who found it difficult to answer or had no interest in the stories of the older generation. On the one hand, the second generation also demonstrated a high percentage of those interested in history, and on the other hand, it revealed a significant number of those who are also not interested in family history.   

Our analysis of the peculiarities of family memory translation in an intergenerational perspective would not be complete without referring to the results of a comparative analysis of interviews of three generations of migrants. This comparative analysis allowed us to identify not only the specifics of the different attitudes towards the traditions of the country of origin in different generational groups, but also to identify potential types of conflicts between generations in the transmission of family heritage. Interviews with representatives of the first generation allowed us to confirm the previously identified trends: the attitude towards the preservation of traditions as a moral duty, the avoidance of attempts to critically assess the cultural heritage of the country of origin, the desire to talk about traditions and customs on behalf of the people ^[31]. It is significant that in most of the analyzed interviews, these trends were based on a clear or less obvious desire to return to the country of origin, where the main problem for informants was communication with their children born in Russia. This intention was most clearly manifested in an interview with Nurbek, a taxi driver from Saratov: "I have been living in Russia since 2011. I have three children born here. But I'm still thinking of going back to my place. We have to go back. But I'm not sure about the children. They do not know the Kyrgyz language and do not want to learn it. And they go to Kyrgyzstan only as tourists, to visit their relatives. I have already talked to them about this, and they say that they live better here. They already have friends and studies here. I'm not so much worried about them as I am about myself. How we will continue to communicate. I am there, they are here" (Nurbek, 42 years old).  

Equally interesting were the strategies for dealing with the traditions of the country of origin among the second generation. At the same time, these strategies not only point to different ways of dealing with the family past, but also allow us to see potential conflict zones in intergenerational relations about shared family memories. The first strategy for dealing with the family past was a total unwillingness to adopt anything at all. At the same time, it was not so much about the family past as about the classic conflict of "fathers and children", where family traditions simply turned out to be another way to declare the independence of the second generation. This position has not been widely adopted and was revealed only in four interviews. The second position turned out to be the most common, where the dominant motive was an uncritical perception of family traditions, either due to their romanticization by the younger generation, or by the persistent position of the older generation, which had a significant influence on their children and grandchildren. At the same time, even within the framework of this strategy, it was quite common in interviews for young people to position a personalized view of the family past, consisting in accepting some traditions and disagreeing with others. It is significant that the mediatized images of the latter on the Internet and social networks played an important role in the construction of youth memory about the country of exodus. The fact of referring to the images of the country of exodus on the Internet was revealed in almost all interviews with representatives of the second generation. Finally, the third strategy, which we identified only in three interviews, turned out to be a strategy of a kind of co-production of the general meaning of the family past. In this case, representatives of the second generation did not just express a personal view, but sought to ask their own questions about the family past, reflect on it, talk about "inconvenient" pages of memory. This allowed them not only to critically perceive the family past, but also to "complete" the family tradition with new meanings, placing the latter in a new context. This position has already been analyzed in foreign studies using the example of the narratives of the second generation of migrants from the states of the former Yugoslavia who were born and raised in the UK ^[22].

Thus, the appeal to the methodology of transnationalism and the praxiological approach as the conceptual foundations of our research allowed us to analyze the family memory of migrants as a configuration of narratives and practices that focus on both the memory of the country of origin and taking into account the historical culture of the host society. The study confirmed the conclusion about the significant influence of intergenerational dynamics on the configuration of family memory practices and narratives. At the same time, the dominance of labor migration remains an important factor in modern Russian migration society, which leaves an imprint on the peculiarities of the commemorative practices of migrants, where the role of the first generation is still key. This is the fundamental difference between the Russian case and the global trends in the transformation of the family memory of migrants, where representatives of the one and a half and second generation are already becoming important participants in the public life of the host countries and influence the peculiarities of the representation of family historical experience in new realities. As well as abroad, we have recorded an increasing role of media technologies and social networks that are actively involved in the process of constructing memorials of the country of origin, as well as enhancing their nostalgic effect of family memories and romanticizing the memory of the country of origin.

The study revealed the preservation of the important role of fellow countrymen as a vector of the direction of migration flows. The previously stated conclusion about the preservation of "parallel" memory communities in modern Russia: migrants and the host society is confirmed. With regard to migrants, this was expressed in their openness only to the Russian language, while the attitude towards Russian traditions and festive culture could rather be described as neutral. Representatives of the second generation turned out to be the most open to Russian holidays, and representatives of the one and a half showed the least interest. Among representatives of all generations, a high level of positive attitude towards the traditions of the country of origin was recorded, where family commemorations of traditions turned out to be one of the most important factors in the cohesion of migrant communities. The analysis of the interview allows us to conclude that there is no crisis of self-identification in connection with the emigration of informants of the first and one and a half generations from the country of origin, however, as we move from the first generation to the one and a half, there is a gradual departure from nostalgic memories of the country of origin as a whole to nostalgia for individual things and practices.

The appeal to the generational features of the transmission and reproduction of family memory revealed an increase in differences between the first and second generations, which was reflected in a decrease in the interest of the second generation in religious traditions, family stories and emotional images of the country of origin, a neutral attitude to family relics, as well as a decrease in interest in family memorabilia related to the practices of storing and collective viewing of family photos. In this regard, it is necessary to take into account the general psychological characteristics of adolescence and the contradictions of integration into a new cultural community. Based on the three most common ways of dealing with the family past in the second generation (unwillingness to adopt, uncritical perception of traditions, co-production of common meaning), potential conflict zones in intergenerational relations regarding common family memories have been identified. All this shows that despite the specifics of the migration situation in Russia, intergenerational relationships regarding family commemorations demonstrate significant similarities with global trends and require further analysis in the light of world experience.

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