Eugenia Baydikova
Hornsby Girls’ High School
High Distinction
Lost in Translation?

What does it mean to be a Russian-speaker living outside Russia in the 21st Century? How can I legitimise my cultural belonging when I am geographically and linguistically detached from the environment and culture whose nuances I increasingly struggle to grasp? It’s not easy being a Russo-Anglo-phonic, Ukrainian-born, Australian citizen!

Long before this PIP presented an opportunity to examine such dilemmas of cultural and personal definition, my worsening Russian and the concurrent improvement of my English literacy caused me to question whether I really was ‘A real Russian’, as one interviewee expressed.. Despite having been socialised in Australia for the greater part of my 17 years, I felt identification with my ethnic heritage had remained strong over time, in contrast to the proficiency of my first language.

My initial hypothesis was that birthplace has become a less important determinant of an individual’s cultural identity, and that increasingly, as a result of migration and diasporic movements, languages perpetuate a continuity of cultural identity inter-generationally.

As migrants, there has always been a sense of impermanence in my family; a state the academic Edward Said coined “a generalised condition of homelessness.” The genesis of my PIP occurred when I read the essay ‘Live well, tread lightly and follow the nomad’. In the momentum of my personal and social development, I was intrigued by questions of place and displacement and the diminished role of territory to culture. The analogy that emerged for me was that of a ‘global gypsy’, the linguistically mobile individual who is geographically uprooted but culturally ‘nomadic’. Hence the role that language plays in maintaining cultural identity within the Russian-Australian community became the crux of my investigation.

Language is not static - it is a process a more than anything else. Retention, loss and acquisition occur over time affecting an individual’s vocabulary, fluency and expression. Cultures are also fluid; they change through innovation, diffusion, cultural loss and acculturation. But does a lack of linguistic comprehension undermine the validity of the non-speaker’s cultural affiliation? What are the implications for those whose language proficiency worsens over time, or for those who do not speak the language of their Russian heritage at all? Who has the authority to authorise what constitutes ‘the real Russia’? Perhaps then, the Russian diaspora has an identity of its own, different and not necessarily less authentic than the identity of Russians living in Russia.