Siberian Germans - Sociopolitical Organization

In the past decades a pan-German consciousness has come to prevail over group identity. To a large extent, this is connected to the desire for an autonomous German republic, which did exist in the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1941. At that time there were five institutes that taught German, a series of German pedagogical colleges, German basic and higher general schools, three German theaters, and one German publishing house. Today German culture and language are being revived. Areas of Siberia, where Germans often live close to one another, seem to form a German quasi-national region, with German-language television and radio programs, newspapers, and journals. In German village schools, German is taught intensively, and the University of Omsk has established a department that teaches a variety of courses in German.