A Dying Culture: The Demise and Attempted Revival of Yiddish in Russia

Approximately 1 percent of all of the Jews in Russia speak Yiddish according to a 2010 census — and that number is likely to be declining. Yiddish underlines a culture that is most likely gone, unable to be revived: “Yiddish culture today isn't just fading away, but disappearing,” states former Minister of Culture of Russia Mikhail Shvydkoy, who is also of Jewish origin.

Prior to World War II, Yiddish was the predominant language of Jews in Russia. Its demise is primarily associated with the Holocaust; the attempted destruction of the Ashkenazi Jewish population in western Europe corresponds to the rapid decline in Yiddish speakers of Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union. Prior to WWII, 40 percent of Jews in Russian empire spoke Yiddish. This number decreased to only 17.7 percent of Jews in the first post-WWII census of 1959. 

But the Holocaust is not the only reason behind the decline of the Yiddish language in Russia; the pressure of assimilation in a society burdened by antisemitism is also central to understanding the loss of the language. Even prior to the Holocaust, a language shift from Yiddish to Russian occured within the first three decades of the 20th century. After the Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement—where the majority of Russian Jews were forced to live—was abolished by the Provisional Government in 1917, Jews migrated to the cities of Russia proper and shifted their use of Yiddish to Russian in order to assimilate and converse with non-Jews. Participation in modernization and secularization were also reasons Jews decided to partake in speaking Russian. The Great Purges of the Stalin-era in which expressions of Judaism—and hence Yiddish culture—were suppressed further expedited a loss of language. The lingering antisemitism and intergenerational trauma, which strained the use of Yiddish down family trees, led to an exacerbated decline in Yiddish which continues to this day.

Not all is lost, however, as this language shift has not necessarily negated the use of Yiddish. Its influence on the Russian language has persisted despite the limitations that it has faced. Yiddish manifests in the form of Jewish Russian, a “cluster of post-Yiddish varieties of Russian” used by some Ashkenazic Jews in Russia. Due to the language shift that occurred between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, Jewish Russian arose as one of multiple post-Yiddish Jewish ethnolects. Although Jewish Russian is not as prominent today among Russian Jews as it once was, remnants of the ethnolect remains in daily conversation.

Additionally, Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region (JAO, or Birobidzhan) in far eastern Russia — a region that is merely Jewish in name with a Jewish population of less than 1 percent — has continued to thrive in its usage of Yiddish. In the region, all students learn Yiddish as part of their schools’ curriculum. The majority of these students are Chinese and Korean, and outnumber Jewish ones; however, the language continues to be taught. Most Russian Jews left this region long ago due to antisemitism and emigration to Israel, but officials hope to attract back Jews to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast by teaching Yiddish and reviving Yiddish culture. 
Whether such measures will actually work is unknown as Jewish immigration from the FSU to Israel remains high in percentage, with about 35 percent of Jews immigrating. The decline in Yiddish nonetheless reflects a universal trend that has resulted in various means of speaking. Its culture may be fading, but aspects of Yiddish continue to linger among Jewish dialogue. Shvydkoy states, “Yiddish culture is dying and this should be treated with utmost calm. There is no need to pity that which cannot be resurrected – it has receded into the world of the enchanting past, where it should remain.”

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