Open Access

Katharina Meng, Ekaterina Protassova

• This study investigates the interrelations between bilingual development (German/Russian), immigration and integration in the host society. Participants are Russian-Germans, that is, ethnic Germans who have repatriated to Germany from the former Soviet Union. They were part of a longitudinal study dedicated to the integration of multi-generation Russian-German families in Germany. The paper focuses on eight Russian-Germans who moved to Germany between the ages of five and eight and are now young adults. The analysis is based on interviews conducted in the twentieth year of their life in Germany in German and Russian, A semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on the main stages of integration, the use of the languages, the attitudes towards German and Russian, and an assessment of the current situation. The obtained data were used to make an initial assessment of the oral language competencies of the participants and as sources of information about the objective facts and subjective attitudes that determined linguistic and social integration.