The study of intermarriage has not engaged historians nearly as much as social scientists. As the editors of this interdisciplinary work quite rightly point out, mixed marriages, with their multi-layered and dynamic identities, are difficult to categorize, and this has been a particular challenge for the quantitative, large-scale, survey-driven approaches that have dominated studies of the family in recent decades. The limitations of these methodologies have led to essentialist and homogenous views of families in the “East” and “beyond” that disregard the possibility that individuals could have more than one identity. The authors of this collection have attempted to capture these complexities, some more successfully than others.
This book is an ambitious and much needed contribution to the scholarly understanding of mixed marriage across time (nineteenth century to the present) and space (Germany to Central Asia). A variety of sources and methods are deployed to demonstrate the intricacies of interactions within and between families, community, and state. Some essays focus on the impact of state policies and legislation (Germany, Bohemia/Moravia, Yugoslavia), others on more personal experiences (Bosnia, Estonia, the Ferghana Valley, Georgia). Taken together they illustrate the flexibility and resilience of intermarriage through “war, revolution, genocide, ethnic cleansing, ideological upheaval, and territorial change” (16), but also the threats it could face when existing boundaries and definitions of identity were torn up.
Given the interdisciplinary nature of the book, as well as its range, the way in which the editors have chosen to organize it is puzzling. The first two sections are geographical (Central and Southeastern Europe, The Soviet Union and Its Successors), while the third is thematic (Transnational Marriages), and this does not make it easy for the reader to appreciate the many parallels and interconnections.
No fewer than four of the studies relate to Germany. Eric Garcia McKinley examines Protestant/Catholic and Jewish/gentile intermarriage from the late empire to the Third Reich through court cases in which the education of children from mixed marriages was contested. In a rich study of autobiographical documents from private collections and public archives, Lena Radauer sheds light on turbulent liaisons between local Russian women and German prisoners during and after the First World War. The author conducted interviews with the descendants of some couples to portray “interethnic intimacy” (255, quoting Adrienne Edgar). Contrary to the orthodoxy of many western scholars, this study demonstrates that “interpersonal and economic considerations eclipsed factors such as national or religious affiliations, language, or status” (269). This chapter stands out for its originality and professionalism. Maren Röger presents intermarriages between German and mainly Polish and Russian men and women from the Weimar Republic until the end of the Second World War. Focusing on gender aspects of mixed marriage within the legal and administrative framework of the naturalization processes, she shows that there was a strong tendency for the authorities to protect local German women from marrying foreigners. Marrying a German citizen appeared to have been easier for women than for men, whom the authorities viewed from a traditional patriarchal standpoint. Benjamin Frommer discusses the convoluted policies of the Nazi authorities in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia towards the large number of Jews who had German or Czech spouses, and the different strategies they adopted in response.
In their studies on former Yugoslavia, Fedja Burić and Keziah Conrad discuss mixed marriages with special attention to Bosnia. Burić challenges the assumption that the Yugoslav state had a coherent state policy towards mixed marriages. He presents the example of a newlywed couple in Mostar, one declaring Croat nationality, the other Serb, yet both with Muslim names (89). The author argues that “mixedness should be studied within the context of historical moments when it is recorded by nationalists, who mobilize against it, or antinationalists, who celebrate it” (103). Conrad's contribution is based on a single, in-depth interview with a young Bosnian couple, the husband a Serb from Republika Srpska who moved to Sarajevo to live with his wife, a Bosnian Croat. Focusing on their subjective experiences, the author portrays their struggle with everyday life; she argues that multiple identification can easily be misunderstood in the divided community, leading to a sense of alienation and mistrust. To me the case begs an important question. Would their lives have been any different if they had moved to Republika Srbska or to Serbia? Or, for that matter, to “the West,” where they believe would encounter less prejudice?
Four chapters address the phenomenon of intermarriage in regions once under the Soviet Union. The contributions investigate a range of themes, from attitudes towards Russian-Estonian marriages in Estonia (Uku Lember), to marriage strategies in the industrial city of Khujand, present day Uzbekistan (Sophie Roche), and intermarriages in the post-conflict communities of Osh in the Ferghana Valley (Askana Ismailbekova), to personal vignettes of ethnically and religiously mixed couples and their perceptions of identity in Georgia (Milena Oganesyan). Finally Rosa Magnúsdóttir discusses Soviet-American intermarriage during the Cold War.
Taken together these essays offer some fascinating material. Not all of them escape the dangers of stereotyping through inconsistent or inappropriate categorization. The very act of classification can be a straightjacket which prevents us from seeing the fluid spectrum of identities that form reality for so many. Not all of the contributions are clearly structured, and in some cases readers will struggle with the abundance of local detail that could have been introduced more effectively for those unfamiliar with the region under investigation. Several chapters have “Conclusions,” which, rather than pulling the arguments together, extend the discussion into a subsequent period and in the process abandon their evidence-base in favor of generalization. A firmer editorial hand might have improved the overall coherence of the volume and—the excellent introduction notwithstanding—drawn out more points for cross-cultural comparison. Nonetheless, this pioneering collection should open up an important field and serve as a springboard for future research.
