National cultural societies of the poles of siberia in the internet space: representations of the culture and ethnic identity

Abstract

National cultural societies of Poles in Siberia transmit information about themselves and their activities to the Internet space by posting various types of content on information resources, i.e. social media pages and their own websites. The author studies of the visual, textual and audio content on the official websites and social media pages of Polish national cultural societies of Siberia have been aimed to identify the structural elements of the representations of the Polish culture and the ways of maintaining the Polish ethnicity in the virtual space. On the Internet, national cultural societies are committed to the actualiza-tion of the Polish ethnic identity through the language, traditions, religious affiliation, the history of the Polish people and their nationhood, and cultural contacts between Polish national cultural societies and Poland with a view to national and cultural integration of the people of Polish origin. Posting of textual and visual information on Polish history and traditions on the Internet supports the desire to preserve the ethnic unity of the group members, while demonstration of the active cultural contacts between NСS members, on the one part, and citizens and organizations of Poland and Polish cultural centers in Russia, on the other, gives the appearance of continuous communication against the background of its discreteness. NCSs place a high priority on the representation of the national and cultural identity of the Poles in the context of its tolerant understanding in the multicultural environment of Siberian cities. Photo and video reports about cultural events organized by Polish NCSs of Siberia and the participation of their creative teams in municipal, regional and state celebrations and national and international festivals and competitions become tools of demonstrating the Polish culture as part of a multicultural community.