A Statistical Profile Of The Korean Community In The Soviet Union

A STATISTICAL PROFILE OF THE KOREAN COMMUNITY IN THE SOVIET UNION

George Ginsburgs* and Herta Ginsburgs

This study pursues the modest aim of looking at the arithmetical data furnished by the Soviet national census of 1970¹ to see what new light this information might shed on the complexion and pattern of distribution of the Korean colony in the USSR. The inquiry focuses on the reports for the USSR as a whole, the Russian republic (RSFSR), and several Far Eastern subdivisions of the RSFSR. The national scene has been selected for examination in order to obtain a general picture which would also permit a comparative analysis. The RSFSR and its Far Eastern sections in which Koreans constitute a significant proportion of the population have been picked for two reasons. First, the situation here is more fluid because some of the developments affecting the Korean community are of more recent vintage. The relevant figures are more likely to hint at interesting shifts and changes than the figures from the older and more static sister-settlements in, for instance, the Central Asian zone. And, second, the record for these areas remains relatively unexplored, leaving us very much in the dark as to what has happened to the Koreans scattered over this vast terrain.

USSR

The Soviet 1970 census put the number of Koreans in the USSR at 357,507, or 0.14% of the entire population of the USSR. In 1959,

* George Ginsburgs would like to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Korean Committee of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council oё Learned Societies for encouraging and supporting his other projects dealing with the status of Koreans in the Soviet Union and thus stimulating an interest in the subject of which this study is a by-product.

i Tsentralnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, Itogi vsesoyuznoi perepisi naseleniya 1970 goda, Tom IV: Natsionalnyi sostav naseleniya SSSR, soyuznykh i avtonomnykh respublik, kraev, oblastei i natsionalnykh okrugov, Moscow, "Statistika," 1973.

952

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the comparable total stood at 313,735; the latest figure thus represents a 14% increase. The rate of growth for the Korean segment lags slightly behind the corresponding national average of 15.7%.

Language: In 1959, 79.3% of the Korean community in the Soviet Union considered Korean their mother tongue. By 1970, however, this proportion had declined to 68.6%, probably because of attrition in the older generation, which retained a strong sense of national identity, and growing assimilation among the younger people and concomitant alienation from the ancestral language. Matched against various other smaller minority strains nonnative to the USSR--a condition naturally conducive to demographic dispersal or congregation in micro-clusters within an ethnically foreign mass--the Korean element acquits itself very well linguistically and shows a stronger attachment to its original language than much of the rest of the sample, including a few groups with an appreciably larger membership.

Of the 31.4% of the Koreans in the USSR who named a language other than Korean as their mother tongue, none claimed fluency in Korean as a second language. In short, a significant segment of the local Korean colony consists of individuals who have no real knowledge of Korean and who have fully integrated into a different linguistic stock. Fifty-two percent of the Koreans in the Soviet Union count themselves as fluent in a second language of the peoples of the USSR, 50.3% citing Russian and a mere 1.7% mentioning another vernacular belonging to one of the official nationality components of the USSR.

On the whole, one can quite safely assume that the 52% of the Korean population who are listed as bilingual (under the terms of the census) are virtually all drawn from the ranks of those who continue to recognize Korean as their mother tongue. In sum, one can make the following rough breakdown of the Soviet Union's Korean population by linguistic indicia: 16.6% are fluent in Korean alone; a further 52% also consider Korean their mother tongue, but are fluent in another of the local languages as well; and 31.4% do not think themselves proficient in Korean and instead claim to be more at home in one of the other languages native to the USSR.

Sex; Of the USSR's Korean inhabitants, 53% are male and 47% female. This composition is a marked departure from the gender distribution of the general Soviet population where the women outnumber the men 54% to 46%. The pattern is understandable if one bears in mind the history of the Korean community in the USSR. The stream of initial immigrants consisted mostly of men looking for work, only some of whom were later able to have their families join them. Subsequent increments were composed primarily of refugees, exiles, deportees, prisoners of war, and forced labor conscripts, among whom men once more predominated. These conditions created a serious disparity in the

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relative number of Korean men and women residing on Russian soil. Indeed, one might have expected an even greater discrepancy. But the reason this did not occur may be the heavier losses sustained by the male component as a result of the successive armed conflicts and Stalinist police excesses. These experiences decimated the ranks of the men and probably helped narrow the gap between the male and female contingents.

Interestingly enough, the national statistics indicate no significant variations in linguistic characteristics between the sexes. Both the male and female segments within the Korean colony follow quite closely the curve established for the entire group. For example, 68.4% of the men and 68.6% of the women consider Korean their mother tongue, compared to 68.6% for the entire group. Similarly, 31.6% of the men and 31.4% of the women identified a local language other than Korean as their mother tongue, compared to 31.4% for the total sample. Lastly, 51.2% of the men and 52.7% of the women listed themselves as also fluent in a second language native to the peoples of the USSR, compared to 52% for the whole constituency.

Here, a slight divergence can be observed in the frequency of bilingualism among Korean men and women. What may account for the phenomenon is that the women spend more time with their school-age children, who pick up Russian in the classroom and bring it home. The important item, however, is that the comparative status of Korean men and women on all three points prompts the conclusion that they are equally exposed to the process of socialization: both apparently have the same opportunity to pick up a second language; neither seems to be more "old-fashioned" in the sense, for instance, that women tied to housework and without an outside occupation might be more apt to think conservatively and cling to traditional values, including national mores, speech, and the like.

Urban sector: Of the Koreans in the USSR, 243,453 (68%) live in towns. A substantially larger proportion of the Korean community falls into this category than is true for the USSR as a whole, where the corresponding figure is 56%. The more urbanized character of the Korean component may also explain its slower growth rate since the birth increment among city-dwellers is consistently lower than in the countryside. Within the Korean urban population, a smaller share consider Korean their mother tongue than among the Koreans in the USSR in general--i.e., 64% versus 68.6%. This development fits the universal pattern in that assimilation (or, more precisely, acculturation) occurs perceptibly faster in an urban than a rural milieu. A further consequence of this trend is that in this case the level of bilingualism, which one would expect to be above average for the community as a whole simply because of the nature of city life, in fact registers just below the mean mark. As suggested earlier, the Koreans in the USSR who move

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into a different language group rarely learn an additional language, so a large percentage of them in any given sample automatically means that there are fewer Korean-speaking Koreans around. It is they among their compatriots who furnish the bulk (or perhaps even the full quota) of those who achieve fluency in a supplementary language (usually Russian).

The male-female distribution among Korean city residents is close to that of the community on the national plane--53% male and 47% female. This pattern also exists in the Soviet population in general, i.e., the 46% male-54% female ratio holds for both the urban segment and the entire population. In relative terms, then, Korean men and Korean women are equally apt to settle in towns, and both components gravitate towards the cities at the same rate as their counterparts in the Soviet population. It is significant that the percentiles cited above concerning the linguistic profile of the entire urban Korean population in the USSR apply almost exactly to both its male and female segments taken individually, confirming the idea that within the group the sexes evidence virtually uniform social characteristics. Korean men and women residing in cities retain or abandon the Korean language, switch to Russian or become bilingual in analogous proportions, a congruence which lends force to the notion that the two components confront an identical situation, enjoy parity status vis-a-vis each other and the mass of their fellow-citizens, and respond to external stimuli in essentially similar fashion.

Rural sector: Koreans residing in rural areas of the USSR number 114,054, or 32% of the entire local Korean population (versus a rural population of 44% for the Soviet Union as a whole). The male-female mix here corresponds to both the national and the urban ratio for the group, i.e., 53% male against 47% female. For the Soviet rural population as a whole, the respective figures are 45.7% male versus 54.3% female, in contrast to the 46-54% breakdown for the USSR's population in general and the urban constituency, thus producing a slightly wider gap in this sector than the one recorded on either the national scale or in the urban context.

Far more important is the fact that 77% of the rural Koreans in the USSR consider Korean their mother tongue and only 23% select another language native to the USSR as their primary one. Furthermore, in line with the standard pattern, the incidence of bilingualism among Koreans residing in the countryside also occurs a shade more frequently --53% compared to the national average of 52%. However, as these particular figures demonstrate, the relationship does not necessarily function on a one-to-one basis: a 8.4% jump in this case in the number of individuals who list Korean as their mother tongue coincides with only a 1% increase in the bilingual group. In the urban sample, the deviations from the norm were much more evenly matched. A tentative

956 GEORGE GINSBURGS AND HERTA GINSBURGS

conclusion would be that the Korean rural element tends inherently to be monolingual and that the size alone of the segment that retains fluency in Korean from whose ranks bilingual persons are ordinarily drawn operates to compensate for this factor and push the level barely above the established curve to preserve the original equation in this sector as well.

The respective male and female components of the rural population exhibit essentially the same characteristics, except that while 77% of the men reportedly consider Korean their mother tongue, the corresponding statistic for women is 78%. In addition, 52% of the men are classified as bilingual, whereas 53% of the women are in this category.

RSFSR

The Korean minority in the RSFSR numbers 101,369, or 28% of all the Koreans living in the USSR. They constitute 0.08% of the RSFSR's total population (less than their national ranking--0.14%).

Language: Sixty-six percent of the Korean community in the RSFSR consider Korean their mother tongue and 34% opt for one of the other languages indigenous to the USSR, slightly lower than the 68.6% versus 31.4% apportionment compiled at the national level. Such results are to be expected in the RSFSR. When Koreans living in the Soviet Union adopt as their own one of the languages associated with a national stock aboriginal to the USSR, they tend to switch to Russian. The occasion to do so would certainly be greater in the Russian republic than elsewhere in the country. What comes as a surprise, though, is the abrupt and disproportionate decline in the size of the bilingual element among Koreans domiciled in the RSFSR to 44%--a 2.6% drop in the number of Koreans in the RSFSR who claim Korean as their mother tongue, accompanied by an incommensurate 8% decrease for the polyglot members of the colony. The explanation may be that the majority of more recent raw increments to the Soviet Union's Korean population is concentrated in the RSFSR and most of these have not yet reached the bilingual stage. Under these conditions, a typical sample of Korean-speaking Koreans would contain fewer individuals who had also mastered the Russian language than would be true with regard to the membership of the older Korean settlements in the USSR.

Sex: Men compose 63% of the Korean element residing in the RSFSR, a substantially higher proportion than the 53% among all the Korean inhabitants of the USSR and far in excess of the 45.6% which men account for in the RSFSR population in general. The pattern fits into the hypothesis that the RSFSR's Korean contingent contains a heavy infusion of new recruits, for, given the quality of the experience responsible for this development, the people involved would almost ex-

KOREANS IN THE USSR 957

clusively be men since they are the more logical choice for the role of deportees, refugees, exiles, prisoners of war, or forced labor conscripts. The linguistic ingredient lends further support to this interpretation. Thus, 70% of the Korean men living in the RSFSR consider Korean their mother tongue, but a mere 41% of the local males described themselves as bilingual (in contrast to the corresponding figure of 52% registered by the Korean entity on a national scale). In short, more relatively "hard-core natives" are present in the local sample of Korean males, combined with a noticeably smaller proportion in their midst of individuals who can effectively handle Russian or one of the other indigenous languages, an anomalous state of affairs indicating the presence of an unduly large "foreign faction" within the subject group. The female component of the RSFSR's Korean colony swings in the opposite direction on these issues. For example, only 61% of the Korean women living in the RSFSR consider Korean their mother tongue, appreciably below both the national level for the community (68.6%) and the joint average for the RSFSR (66%), which would indicate a greater degree of integration and acculturation (note that 39% of the sample have shifted from Korean to Russian or another of the USSR's vernaculars as their primary language, versus 31.4% for all the Koreans in the USSR and 34% for those of them domiciled in the RSFSR). Furthermore, despite the drop in the ratio of local Korean women naming Korean as their mother tongue, the share of the bilingual segment in their ranks, which normally would parallel the plunge, dipped by only 2%--i.e., from the national gross index of 52% for the Korean minority to 50% in the present case. Though the pool of Korean-speaking Korean women who would tend to acquire an extra local language was more limited here, nevertheless the standard quota was almost fulfilled. This feature, too, would reinforce the theory of the unit's progression toward a more advanced phase of assimilation.

Urban Sector

Of the Koreans living in the RSFSR, 78,020 (76.9%) of the total are townspeople; this percentage is greater than the comparable index for the general population (62% for the RSFSR and 56% for the USSR) and may help to explain why 34% of the Koreans in the RSFSR recognize another language as their mother tongue, as against 31.4% in the USSR as a whole. More of the Koreans in the RSFSR live in an urban environment than members of their community throughout the country, and this urban living contributes to the acceleration of the process of assimilation and acculturation. Since relatively more Koreans in the RSFSR are exposed to this influence, a proportionately larger number will tend to lose their original linguistic identity and acquire the speech habits of the dominant stock.

Males account for 61% of the RSFSR's city-dwellers of Korean

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extraction, a lower percentage than the 63% male segment in the RSFSR's total Korean population. By contrast, the analogous breakdown for all the RSFSR's urban inhabitants is 45.8% male and 54.2% female (virtually identical with the 45.6-54.4 ratio displayed by the RSFSR's general population and the 46-54 ratio recorded for the USSR as a whole). The fractional difference of 2% is perhaps too small to mean much, but if it is not simply a random occurrence one would tend to attribute the decrease principally to the "alien" strain in the background of the male component. Because a large proportion of the male Korean faction in the RSFSR consists of recent additions to the local population, the Soviet authorities might be expected, in line with long-established precedent, to encourage members of this group to settle in the countryside rather than in the cities. However, these measures either never were stringently applied or they no longer operate, and the trend has since in part been reversed. This reversal has allowed for a modest influex of "new" Koreans into the local urban centers, for the discrepancy is less than should have been the case.

Another item also enters the equation. We know that in the 1950s there began a steady exodus of Koreans from the Central Asian republics (where the bulk of the Soviet Union's Koreans were resettled on the eve of World War II) to various regions of the RSFSR, a spontaneous moderate-sized flow that nonetheless eventually attracted several thousand people. It stands to reason that the prospect of moving would appeal primarily (although, of course, not exclusively) to younger single males, more footloose, adventurous, assimilated (and hence equally at home elsewhere in the USSR), better trained and thus quite able to find jobs in a different place, who would automatically head for the towns because they offered a more exciting life-style and the right employment opportunities.]These migrants would help pick up the slack resulting from any earlier attempt to funnel fresh "foreign" recruits into the countryside; however, they would not be numerous enough to offset completely the initial trend.

The preceding factors have a definite impact on the statistical characteristics of the Korean urban community in the RSFSR, which are accurately mirrored in its linguistic profile. While 65% of the Korean city-dwellers in the RSFSR consider Korean their mother tongue, this figure is slightly less than the corresponding fraction for the RSFSR as a whole and could be seen as simultaneously reflecting past curbs on "alien" Koreans establishing residence in the towns and the spread of Russification among the "returnee" group. The companion figures in the sample for the category of those who give a language other than Korean as their mother tongue (35%) and those who claim to be polyglot (45%) are likewise slightly higher than the pertinent data for the entire Korean colony in the RSFSR (34% and 44%, respectively). Accordingly, these figures fit comfortably into the pro-

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jected picture-^-i.e., a bigger quota of "converts" from Korean to another language native to the USSR and, despite fewer Korean-speaking Koreans who are the normal practitioners of bilingualism in the group, a higher incidence of that phenomenon, which suggests a more pronounced stage of assimilation/acculturation among the old-timers who provide the available candidates for dual status in this department. Remember, too, that here it is the men who, because of their peculiar history, represent the "native faction." Since the male share of the RSFSR's urban population is lower than the corresponding portion of the RSFSR's population as a whole (61% versus 63%), their relative "absence" from the city scene alone acts to depress the curve and dilute the ranks of those of their local compatriots who continue to adhere to the Korean language, while routinely increasing the frequency of incidence of bilingualism in that environment.

The structure of the purely male segment of the RSFSR's Korean urban population is governed by the same complex formula, since 67.5% of its members consider Korean their mother tongue. This is a higher ratio than the one noted for the entire Korean urban population in the RSFSR (65%) and attests to the impact of the recent increment to the republic's Korean community on the complexion of its male component. On the other hand, 67.5% is also lower than its counterpart for the Korean male constituency as a whole in the RSFSR--70%. The final split right down the middle would seem to mark a fortuitous balance between the competing forces: the input of the "new" Koreans drives the curve upwards, but their limited access to the towns stemming from past events combined with the congregation in the local cities of strongly Russified Koreans recently arrived from the Central Asian territories has the contrary effect of keeping the level down.

The pattern of bilingualism among Korean urban males in the RSFSR is equally consistent: 67.5% of all Korean men in the RSFSR's cities consider Korean their mother tongue but 43% of the sample are identified as bilingual. Again, the record of the Korean female urban segment in the RSFSR is more straightforward. Of the 30,471 Korean women who reside in the RSFSR's towns, 61% consider Korean their mother tongue, a noticeably lower level than that registered either for the RSFSR's total Korean urban population or, especially, the male element. In fact, the figure is appreciably below that of the comparable average on the national scale (68.6%) and corroborates the earlier observation on the composition of the female sample for the RSFSR as a whole to the effect that it bespoke a more intense degree of assimilation/ acculturation than had been encountered in the situations examined up till now. Similarly, even though the share of Korean-speaking Korean women here dropped, thus reducing the number of those who would be prone to become bilingual, the quota of polyglots in the group nevertheless stands at 49%. In this case, then, not only did a

960 GEORGE GINSBURGS AND HERTA GINSBURGS

smaller fraction of the Korean female urban population adhere to the Korean language than had hitherto been the norm, but relatively more of them displayed fluency in Russian or another language native to the USSR, enhancing the impression that the ensemble had reached an uncommon level of integration into the national mainstream.

Rural sector: 23,349 people of Korean origin reside in the rural areas of the RSFSR, or 23.1% of the total Korean community in the republic. Of these, 72.8% consider Korean their mother tongue, a higher than average proportion that may be due to the presence in their midst of a large section of "new" Koreans. Indeed, since this ratio significantly exceeds the relevant figure for the entire Korean population in the RSFSR (66%) and its urban component (65%), the conclusion is inescapable that the majority of the latter-day local Korean complement is still concentrated in the RSFSR's countryside. Moreover, only 39.7% identify themselves as bilingual, a dramatic decline from the national average (52%), leaving no doubt that a very sizable proportion of this group's membership is composed of Koreans whose Soviet affiliation is of recent vintage and most of whom have not even acclimatized sufficiently to acquire Russian as an ancillary language. Finally, men constitute 68% of the Koreans residing in the RSFSR's rural regions, versus 32% women, the widest gap hitherto reported in this context by the statistical calculations. A logical inference is that the unprecedented discrepancy stems from artificial causes, i.e., that various extraneous events supervened to fill the local scene with an abnormal surplus of males. An operation of the kind described earlier--rounding up refugees, exiles, deportees, prisoners of war, and forced labor draftees--would readily account for the anomaly, affecting, as it does, principally single men.

The available information for the male segment of the Korean population in the RSFSR's countryside lends further support to this analysis. Note that 77% of the Korean men living in the rural districts of the RSFSR consider Korean their mother tongue, way above the norm, while only 34% of the Korean rural males in the RSFSR claim to qualify as bilingual--the lowest such rate recorded so far. The unusual combination fits the proposition that the equation reflects the input of an important number of "hard-core" unassimilated Koreans in that inventory. The fact that this situation occurs within the male segment of the RSFSR's rural Korean community also fits the picture since the "fresh recruits" to the Soviet Union's Korean colony are mostly men. The females in this category tend toward the opposite extreme. <Эпгу 62% of them name Korean as their mother tongue (considerably lower than average) and 50% (close to the national standard) acknowledge fluency in Russian or a second language native to the USSR. Both indices spell a strong trend toward assimilation.

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Soviet Far East

Let us now look at the individual administrative subdivisions located in the far eastern region of the RSFSR which contain sizable concentrations of Koreans, and check their statistical data for similarities to or divergences from the corresponding Soviet and RSFSR which might shed additional light on the particular background and experience of each provincial cluster. In these several subdivisions there are a total of 65,408 Korean inhabitants, or 64.5% of all the Koreans living in the RSFSR and 18.2% of the entire Korean population in the USSR.

Primorskii krai (Maritime territory): Of the 8,003 Koreans in this subdivision, 69.8% are city-dwellers and 30.2% make their home in the country. For the local population as a whole, the comparable figures are 72.8% and 27.2%, so that this is the first instance in our survey in which a sample of Koreans is less urbanized than the corresponding general population. Another unique aspect of this case is that Russian-speaking Koreans outnumber their Korean-speaking compatriots-- 56.2% to 42.8%--while 36.8% indicate a fluency in Russian or one of the other languages indigenous to the USSR. In short, the group comprises an extraordinarily high proportion of Russified Koreans. The net effect is a community that shows signs of having experienced a significant rate of "conversion."

As might be expected, the differences are most pronounced among the urban element, where only 39% identified Korean as their mother tongue and 61% chose Russian, with 34.5% of the entire constituency reported as bilingual. Even among their Korean counterparts living in the countryside, a bare 50% responded that they considered Korean as their mother tongue, while 50% opted for Russian; 42% of the total also claimed to be bilingual.

In sum, the Koreans in the Maritime territory seem to belong to a community which has progressed quite far on the road to integration with the dominant nationality. Some probably represent the remnants of the original Korean colony in this region--once a large and flourishing settlement, until it was brutally uprooted in the 1930s and shipped off to Central Asia. If any among the townspeople escaped or were spared that fate, it would most likely be those who had been "absorbed" and whom the authorities perhaps would be inclined to view as safe enough to let them stay. Postwar "returnees" from the central Asian republics, too, might be expected to gravitate to the cities. Finally, even had the transfer operation missed a residue of comparatively unassimilated Koreans in the region's urban centers, most of them would eventually have "blended" into their surroundings, either for safety's sake or through the mechanics of close association, especially since at this point there were few of their kinsmen left with whom to maintain regular cultural and linguistic contacts.

962 GEORGE GINSBURGS AND HERTA GINSBURGS

The pressure to conform is probably less intense in the rural environment. If the deportation campaign overlooked any Koreans in the region's countryside, chances are that they would retain their ancient customs to a greater extent than their city brethren, which would explain the higher incidence of Korean speech for this sample. Integration is rather pronounced among these people as well, but does not match the intensity recorded on this front among their fellow nationals in the urban sector. Add to this the possibility that the present population also includes some "new" Koreans," the bulk of whom would end up in the rural districts and help raise the local quota of Korean-speaking individuals.

Khabarovsk!! krai (Khabarovsk territory): This administrative unit contains 19,249 Koreans. The urban-rural ratio for this territory is 61% to 39%, which is also below the 77%-23% ratio observed in the general population of the RSFSR. As in the Maritime territory, the impression created is that at a certain point the cities were virtually emptied of their Korean residents, while the sweep was less thorough in the countryside. Ultimately, some Koreans moved into the towns, but the operation has not proceeded sufficiently fast to catch up with the provincial norm yet.

More surprising still, 85% of the Koreans in the territory consider Korean their mother tongue, the highest percentage yet encountered, while only a meager 12% admitted to being bilingual. Looking at both sets of figures, the only satisfactory conclusion is that the Korean component in the Khabarovsk territory consists almost completely of "raw, hard-core" Koreans, who cling to their cultural roots, do not readily switch to the Russian language, and either fail or avoid learning Russian even as a second language. In urban areas the discrepancy is slightly reduced--82% of the urban Korean community consider Korean their mother tongue, and 13% claim to be bilingual. Not unexpectedly, 89% of the Koreans in the rural sector cite Korean as their mother tongue and a mere 10% claim to be bilingual.

The pattern suggests a heavy concentration in this area, and especially in its rural precincts, of those Koreans who were only recently incorporated into Soviet society--a largely unassimilated lot, unversed either in Russian or any other Soviet language, and tenaciously sticking to their own vernacular. Why Khabarovsk is the area of concentration for this "foreign" element is not very clear, except that the place is rapidly growing and its economy is booming. A critical demand for more manpower many be responsible for this development. Whatever the reasons, the pattern is quite unmistakable. If this analysis is correct, it may indicate a major shift in Soviet priorities in that the need to obtain scarce labor seems in this instance to have prevailed over potential security concerns. The Khabarovsk region lies on the Sino-Soviet frontier and sits in a geopolitically exposed and vulnerable spot. De-

KOREANS !N THE USSR 963

spite this, the Soviet authorities appear to tolerate or indeed have encouraged the local presence of a substantial alien minority, a development which stands in stark contrast with past practice in this respect.

Kamchatskaya oblast (Kamchatka region): Kamchatha's population includes 2,484 Koreans, 76% of whom are city-dwellers and 24% of whom reside in the countryside. The profile coincides with that of the total population of the region. Of all the Koreans domiciled in the region, 60% consider Korean their mother tongue and 53% are bilingual. The ratios fit the picture of an "older" community: fewer Koreans (as against, for example, the national average) who retain fluency in the Korean language, plus a sizable proportion (also above the national norm) possessing a proficiency in a second language indigenous to the USSR. These are characteristics of a minority group already deeply stamped by the process of acculturation.

In the local urban context, the respective figures are 59% and 50% --representing a fractional decline compared to the provincial indicia. The format nevertheless follows the pattern established for partially assimilated Korean settlements elsewhere in the Soviet Union--a smaller number of Koreans who consider Korean their mother tongue together with a lower incidence of bilingualism because of the more limited availability of Korean-speaking Koreans from whose ranks the recruits for this category are drawn. The statistical data for the rural sector deviate to some degree from the stereotype. While 67% of the Koreans in Kamchatka's countryside consider Korean their mother tongue, 61% of them claim to be bilingual, an appreciable jump over the 52% registered as such on a countrywide basis.

What must be kept in mind, however, is that we are dealing here with a sample consisting of only 581 individuals. It stands to reason that in a splinter of this size the members would meet with grave difficulties in trying to maintain a viable autonomous community and would therefore be compelled to resort to Russian as a lingua franca. This would serve to account for the curious dualism observed in this case, i.e., an area with a normal share of Koreans who recognize Korean as their mother tongue but containing a higher percentage of polyglots.

Koryakskii natsionalnyi okrug (Koryak national area): This special subdivision of the Kamchatka region is home to only 276 Koreans, 63% of whom live in towns and 37% in the rural districts, in contrast to the general population where the corresponding fractions are 33.8% and 66.2%. In this case again, the urban centers attract a larger proportion of the local Korean enclave than is true on a comprehensive scale (both national and per unit).

The present handful of Koreans is thoroughly integrated: just 56% of their number regard Korean as their mother tongue and vir-

964 GEORGE GINSBURGS AND HERTA GINSBURGS

tually all of them are reported to be bilingual. A higher proportion of the Koreans residing in towns retains fluency in Korean (62%), which again may simply be due to the accidental factor that more Koreans live in the towns where there is a better opportunity to keep the language alive. In any event, almost every Korean city-dweller who still speaks Korean also has an adequate knowledge of Russian.

The rural sample goes even further in that direction. Of the 106 people involved, 44.3% consider Korean their mother tongue compared to 55.7% who opt for Russian or another Soviet language, and 44.3% of the group are bilingual (probably identical with the segment that speaks Korean). Thus, this ethnic minority is at an advanced stage of assimilation, intensified by the problems of life in a mini-cluster and the consequent enhanced dependence on close accommodation to the mores of the surrounding humanity.

Sakhalinskaya oblast (Sakhalin region): In many respects, this area is the piece de resistance. The local Korean community totals 35,396 people, an impressive 54% of all the Korean inhabitants in the Soviet Far East and 35% of the Koreans living in the whole RSFSR. Koreans constitute 5.7% of the region's entire population, which is also a much higher rate than elsewhere. To complete the general picture, 84% of the Koreans in question live in an urban environment, as opposed to 78% for the mass of the local population, repeating a pattern already frequently noticed. Moreover, 79% of all the Koreans domiciled in the Sakhalin region consider Korean their mother tongue, one of the highest rates reported thus far in this context and exceeded by the companion statistics for the Khabarovsk territory alone. The same factor accounts for this phenomenon, the fact that the Korean community in both cases is composed of recent additions to the Soviet Union's population who have not yet lost their former national identity or habits. What distinguishes Sakhalin from Khabarovsk is that in the latter territory there is a very low incidence of bilingualism, while the former region sets a record for bilingualism--59.5%. To explain this obvious paradox, one must assume that the local Korean quota, representing a postwar increment to the USSR's population, was subjected to a methodical effort at Russification. The net result is a group which has retained much of its Korean flavor, but whose members also have adjusted to the point of acquiring some of the visible attributes of the Soviet nationality.

In the urban milieu, the proportion of Koreans who consider Korean their mother tongue is 79%, the same as for the whole province, while 60% fall into the bilingual class. The rural segment, as might have been expected, lags a trifle behind--77.2% consider Korean their mother tongue and 55% describe themselves as bilingual. This incidence of bilingualism lends added support to the hypothesis that in the rural districts of the Sakhalin region, too, a contingent of "native"

KOREANS IN THE USSR 965

Koreans has had a coat of Russian culture draped over their ethnic core, producing a curious brand of amalgam not found elsewhere on the Russian scene.

Two final factors should be mentioned. First, the congregation of the local Korean element in urban centers might simply be a carry-over of history and not a result of deliberate Soviet policy. The Koreans originally brought to the islands by the Japanese before the war were predominantly assigned to industry-related occupations and this status is very likely to have endured, despite the change of masters in the interim. In these circumstances, the bulk of the Korean colony would naturally tend to live and work in urban-type settlements. Second, and more important, the presence of a large and cohesive "alien" element in a strategically valuable and sensitive border area of the USSR is evidence of a drastic shift in the official Soviet attitude on this question. Presumably, economic exigencies have shaped this new approach and determined that the labor factor has priority over other considerations. Furthermore, the Soviet regime may feel more secure than it once did and quite capable today of coping with any difficulties that might arise in that connection from this "foreign" element. Even the prospect that physical proximity might lead to unsanctioned organized activity and would, in any event, effectively contribute to keeping alive a spirit of collective self-awareness that could conceivably develop irredentist overtones does not seem to have disturbed the authorities unduly. In the past, dispersal would have been perceived as a suitable answer, but the current political style and a different order of precedence in the hierarchy of national goals have introduced substantial modifications in both the agenda and the modus operandi pertaining to these matters. For various reasons, certain solutions are no longer acceptable; their substitutes must strike the leadership as a more appropriate way of dealing with problems at this stage of the game, but they do generate their own kind of static that ultimately will require attention too.

Concluding Remarks

This analysis of statistical data on the Korean Community in the RSFSR turned up a great deal of information that was novel, interesting, and revealing. The data made sense in that the raw material could be analyzed, logical (if crude) correlations came to light, and predictable patterns emerged. At times, these artifacts merely verified what was already known or suspected, but they also produced some fresh insights and led to the revision of a few prior assumptions. This brief survey did make it possible to trace a rough sketch of particular portions of the Korean community in a manner which, as far as we can tell, had not been attempted before, and thus to get a micro-view of that universe. To be sure, the evidence supplied by our source is limited and

966 GEORGE GINSBURGS AND HERTA GINSBURGS

spotty and cannot supplant either the more traditional social science literature or the technique of direct observation. But, as long as these two alternatives either fail to meet the proper standards of completeness and objectivity in treating the subject or do not exist at all, looking at the census output has provided a useful preliminary guide to this vast uncharted terrain and at least helped fix its main contours. The critical details will have to be filled in later, circumstances and Soviet authorities permitting.

GEORGE GINSBURGS is Professor of Foreign and Comparative Law at the Rutgers Law School, Camden, New Jersey; Herta Ginsburgs received the Dr. iur. from the University of Graz, Austria.

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A Statistical Profile Of The Korean Community In The Soviet Union