On “Ethnic Migrants” and the Beginning of Their Ethnographic Study in Central Europe

Abstract

“Ethnic migrants” can be understood as participants of a specific type of migration, which is characterized by institutional and material facilitation by the host country of the conditions of migration movement based solely on the ethnic origin of migrants. The ethnic origin declared by such migrants, as a rule, coincides with the ethnic origin of the titular nation located in the target country. The aim of this article is to depict the mode of implementation and methodological preconditions of one of the first attempts at ethnographic analysis of so-called ethnic migrants and to convey how the thematic and methodological directions of the aforementioned scientific approach led to theoretical innovations in German-speaking ethnology in the post-war period. As an example, studies of disappearing ethnographic phenomena conducted among Bessarabian migrants of German origin in the territory of the then Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia will be presented.