My great-grandfather came to The Netherlands from Tallinn, Estonia. In Estonia, he already had a migrant status, being an East-Slav with strong Asian influences. He either originated from Siberia or the Crimean Tatars. He settled in The Netherlands for work. His daughters were born in The Netherlands, but he was not granted a residence permit. He relocated in Russia, hoping to be able to support and relocate his family there in the following years.
However, soon his children were placed with foster parents, through an adoption construction without legal effects for these "adoptive" foster children (usually, when children are being adopted through legal constructions, they are granted all the legal rights that biological children receive by birth or either acceptance of extramarital children. Foster children will miss out on their family's heritage and legal status). These Dutch foster parents wanted to raise their foster children as if it were their biological children. The children were stripped from their family names (their original Cyrillic surname and patronymic) and even their given names were taken.
Their names were Ева и Катарина, Eva and Catharina. Their names were literally erased and replaced with very Dutch given names and surnames. This was a process of assimilation. The children were raised in the Dutch language. No word was ever spoken about their homeland. Not a word was spoken about the fact that their father wanted them to live with him in Russia- and that he has tried, for years, to have them relocate to his country of residency.
Then a biological child was born from these foster parents. The foster father loved his children alike and petitioned to legally adopt his foster children. The mother intented on placing her foster children in a children's home. Not much is known from their time between childhood and early adulthood. From young adulthood on, they had to fend for themselves. My grandmother worked fulltime jobs. She never complained. Slavic people had a reputation of working long hours and not refusing physically exhausting work. She was self-supporting and could afford herself to join her university courses in the evening. Being an independent woman in The Netherlands, she was frowned upon. She was not interested in gossip and whoever was being "talk of the town" was none of her business. Instead, she kept a library of international literature and enjoyed cooking meals from the international kitchen, something not very traditional to most Dutch people (hence, "Oma's keuken" or "Recipes from Grandma's Dutch Kitchen" are not familiar to me!).
My grandmother, like me, was a lighter phenotype Slav, ice-blue-eyed and blonde-haired. Often she had to deal with anti-Polish sentiment. Back then, every Slav was Polish, according to the Dutch. The hate against Polish people has been profound for decades, even though Polish-Dutch relations and Treaties have been established since the Golden Age. In my neighborhood, there were people who ranted anti-Polish slurs against my grandmother. One time, the first biological daughter of my grandmother's former foster parents called to refer to her "sister" as that "Polish cunt". Out of envy, because the foster father never really stopped caring for his foster children.
My mother and I were born with black hair and Asian features. My mother has always been referred to as "that dark one", "Indonesian", or even "Mediterranean", but with green-brown eyes. She has had to deal with Dutch anti-Indonesian sentiment. Her bronze skin and dark hair are associated with tribes that had been suppressed by the Dutch for centuries. I have even been switched at birth, briefly, because I did not look "Dutch". The nurses dubbed me "The Inuit". I was kept separate with non-Dutch babies in the neonatal ward. I was almost taken home with an Indian couple. My mother was just in time to recognise her child in their arms. In the following two years, I went from black-haired with a tan skin to an easily tanning, but very blonde child. On multiple occassions, my parents were accused of child trafficking, for some people could not comprehend that parents with a darker phenotype could give birth to offspring with a lighter phenotype.
I never quite questioned my ancestry. Up until early adolescence, I did not even know that I am not typically Dutch. What had set me apart from many people, is that I am inexhaustible, I would not turn down hard physical tasks, I have never in my life been hit by fatigue, I have a very direct personality, I have always been optimistic no matter the hardships and I don't keep up appearances. I feel it's impolite to put up fake smiles and pretend being really interested in someone when I am not. I can get furious about downright injustice, but instead of complaining, I immediately act on it. I have been told that many of these traits are common for Slavic people, but it cannot be regarded a mere cultural phenomenon. Are these traits an ethnic phenomenon, though? I have occassionally met Slavic people that seemed to treat me with a sense of familiarity. It could be that they are hospitable either way.
At random, I have been asked if I was a Russian girl. I was not aware the question was directed to me, when a woman who was waiting for an appointment at the GP asked me "Are you Russian?". She told me she spoke "my language" and that I had that very Slavic look. I was also almost sent out of a Russian language course, because my teacher thought I was already a native speaker. My Ukrainian classmate told me about the largest zoo "in our country" (Yes, prior to 2014, Ukrainians and Russians would not have toyed the idea of regarding themselves as completely separate entities, other than that Ukrainian mountain regions had developed typical dialects).
Slavic people recognize me as a fellow Slav, but I have no sense of either a cultural or an ethnic identity. Mostly because we were not included in a community in The Netherlands, but we are a product of cultural assimilation. I seem to be the Big Anonymous, culturally completely neutral, devoid of a strong family history. There has been genealogy research before I was born, which has been troubled by the Iron Curtain. That is why to date, I do not know where my extended family lives. I am from an extremely small family. My grandmother only had her daughter and my mother is my sole family member, my only link between my residence and the country of origin. She is my only link to my relatives. During troubled times, it is actually very hard and sad to be the only one remaining. I have often been asked where my other relatives - my grandfather, grandmother, cousins, aunts and uncles- live. I do not know. I do not know their actual surnames, I do not know where they reside. I don't know if there are people like us, whether there might be a large group of relatives. I defy that being detached from our country of origin is all that good, at least not when family ties have been deliberately cut off by the destination country. The Iron Curtain prior to 1990 and the current tensions are events far beyond our reach. From my personal point of view, it is bizarre that Slavic peoples (plural) are pitted against each other, when most of us are really related to each other (Kievan Rus' is a major precursor to modern-day Russia, this is why both anti-Ukrainian and anti-Russian sentiments are essentially pointless).
My mother cried when she woke up to the sound and images of Orthodox Christmas. I know that my grandmother loved the Slavic Chorale. She probably wanted to find her family, but was never able to trace them. In these modern times, it is still possible to be the sole family member without any known relatives. And that can be a lonely place to be in.
Mercedes Bouter - a standalone Slav
