I assume by "white Russian" you really mean someone of Russian ethnicity and not Belarus - which is what that phrase means to a Russian speaker - but you might want to clarify.
Yes. White male with Slavic face who speaks russian language without an accent because he knows no other language.
A friend of mine had a grandfather, who was born in central Asia (Samarkand) had Ukrainian parents, but also had written in his passport that he was a russian. Soviets erased his roots, history, ethnicity. He never spoke Ukrainian in his life.
Btw, that is what current russian government is doing. They have stolen thousands of Ukrainian kids and erased their identity. Few more years and some of them are ready to be sent to the frontline.
> ... speaks russian language without an accent because he knows no other language.
At least Belorussians and Ukrainians can speak Russian without an accent despite knowing their own languages.
> Soviets erased his ...
I doubt the USSR had such power solely on its own. It depends mostly on the will of parents (and grandparents) and the type of a young person. If a kid likes art, it's more likely the kid would be interested in national memory, if a kid is more into tech, then it seems not that important, which nevertheless can change later.
Russian Germans (not necessary all of them) consider themselves as Germans even after hundreds of years living in Russian Empire and then in the USSR.
If a kid in the Soviet Union was interested in art and used that to express national memory, then there would be consequences. As an adult, they'd probably be sent to a gulag and never seen again. This is how the Soviet Union crushed national memories beyond just the name (never the name itself, making sure they knew they were "different" somehow).
They didn't succeed in completely crushing all national memories, but a few more decades and who knows what might have happened.
The culture has been preserved using non-provocative way by not mixing it with politic. Surely we must be respectful and thankful to those going rather provocative way and suffering.
The daily Soviet system issues have been successfully mentioned in a subtle way in films since middle 60s, which became classic. I'm not aware of similar from movies from China.
Famous Belorussian and Ukrainian songs have been performed in public on radio, TV in the USSR.
Even today some western world artists say, that sure, of course, the culture is not separate from politic while the others say they are doing art not politics and welcome questions about their public art not their private political opinions and preferences. Similar to many singers and actors dislike questions about their private life and lovers instead of what actually matters: their art of doing music, singing, performing.
> ... what might have happened.
Since middle 80s the level of freedom started rapidly to increase.
> The culture has been preserved using non-provocative way by not mixing it with politic. Surely we must be respectful and thankful to those going rather provocative way and suffering.
Local cultural symbols themselves were seen as "political" and "provocative". The definition of political and provocative was broad.
Small bits a pieces passing through the barriers are not "it".
Only bits and pieces of culture can survive through such methods. It is enough to escape full assimilation, but only just. All it would take is the whim of another Stalin. The damage is such that those who went through it may not even realize what has been lost, until one day they (or future generations) find evidence on the outside of what culture was once like.
I didn't mean to blame victims. I just mean that under totalitarian regime one need to put extra work to compensate the pressure from the state and try to do it wise. Right after the Stalin rule there have been official De-Stalinization and rehabilitation of Gulag prisoners. That's why under USSR I usually don't mean Stalin period. There was no one single and equal USSR whole 70+ years long. Every new party leader is a new era.
> singing Ukrainian songs you can go to the russian prison
I'm not sure how is this right now, I fear it got worse, but on August 2022 it was possible(*). Russian guitarist performed a Ukrainian song in Ukrainian original in public:
And it is not just some beautiful Ukrainian song. It is a prominent "I will not surrender without a fight" (2005). Which sounds provocative enough these days. Yeah, he did not continue doing it again and again, thus it's by no means a prove one can safely practice this on a daily basis.
This song must be known by almost every Russian (and Belorussian), since this song was used once Zelensky played the main male role in the rus-ukr movie "Office Romance. Our Time" (2011) remake of the famous 1977 USSR original.
OTOH one of the most prominent (former) Ukrainian singers and since 2014 Russian singer Taisia Povaliy could sing her Ukrainian songs on December 2024 at the main State Kremlin Palace in Moscow. (Obviously, because she openly supports the state.)
From what hints I've been able to piece together, suppression of religion may have actually gotten worse during the Krushchev years. So it's not quite as simple as there being ups and downs - different aspects of culture got suppressed in different ways at different times.
I have never seen an english speaker use “white Russians” for Belarusians – the only uses I know of this idiom are (i) for the non-red/non-green participants to the Russian civil war, and, by extensions, their diaspora, and (ii) the cocktail, which of course, is by far the most common occurence nowadays.
Many of the Russian speakers I know do this when speaking English - I'm guessing that's how they think of the phrase in Russian and want to translate it literally.
I know both usages, and as an Englishman I am a native English speaker. However, I would agree that the most common usage would be the non-Red opponents of the communistic takeover of Russia in the early 1920s. Isn't the cocktail named as a direct reference to these people?
