Genealogy research

Recently, the topic of confirmation of one’s nationality for citizenship in another country is quite popular in the post-Soviet space. The preserved documents, the memoirs of older relatives, the sound of the surname encourage many people to look for Jewish, Polish, German, Romanian, Hungarian, Greek, Bulgarian and other roots in the family. But, before doing this search, you need to understand some features, especially if the decision has already been made and it comes to preparing a package of official documents for the embassy or consulate.
When did the term “nationality” come about? In what documents can we find this column? Which of these documents are legally binding for embassies and consulates?
In the pre-revolutionary period until 1917, the concept of “nationality” did not exist on the territory of the former Russian Empire, and we will not find a document in which such a column is present. In the Russian Empire, inhabited by a large number of ethnic groups, in the metric books of the Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic churches, the Jewish synagogues and Lutheran churches, the column “nationality” was absent. A distinctive feature was the religion, which did not determine nationality. For example, the parishioners of the Roman Catholic churches were Poles, Hungarians, partly Germans and other nationalities. Therefore, the consul, in order to confirm Polish or other nationality, asks in addition to the birth certificate for discharge from the Roman Catholic church, to provide some document of the Soviet period in which the necessary nationality is written in the corresponding box.
For the first time, nationality as the legal status of a citizen of the USSR was legalized by Stalin in 1932, although V.I. Lenin was the initiator of its introduction. Then in the passports appeared the well-known “fifth column”. But she was present in the registry books of civil registry offices much earlier – from the moment the work of these bodies began, which began their work in 1919. That is, it is from documents, starting from 1919 and later, that it is possible to obtain an extract or certificate in which nationality is indicated.
At the same time, the registry office books about birth, marriage and death are not the only source of confirmation of the desired nationality. There are a large number of indirect sources that also have legal force for embassies and consulates. These are city house books, household books of village councils, cases of repressions of 1937, documents from a place of work or study at universities, documents on service in the armed forces, etc.
• It should nevertheless be mentioned that as an exception to the rule, in the documents of the pre-revolutionary period, the column “nationality” can still be found. We are talking about the agricultural census of 1917, which was not prepared and carried out by the Bolsheviks. In the previous census of 1916, there was no such column.