The subject of this transdisciplinary research training group is the construction and practice of national, areal and social identity among young adults (aged between 17 and 25) in a part of the former Soviet sphere of influence today, 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. The main research question is how this generation, socialised for the first time completely in an independent and autonomous state and under the conditions of transformation, orientates its identity in this complex context characterised by globalisation and liberalisation tendencies as well as by phenomena of retotalisation.

On the theoretical basis of a combination of individualisation and habitus theory, the dissertation projects examine language behaviour and attitudes, literary and reading behaviour, musical tastes and clothing and fashion behaviour as habitus dimensions, into which both collectivist and individualist identification models and aspirations flow and are mixed. This is done on the basis of reliable quantitative and qualitative data. The postdoctoral project uses the empirical data to locate the identification concepts practised with regard to the hypothesis of an increase in an attitude of entitlement and achievement individualism in the transition from a socialist to a market-economy organised society.

The Republic of Belarus is an area of the EU's current eastern border. Together with the neighbouring territories of Lithuania and Ukraine, which are historically linked to Belarus, this is a region that is often referred to as being "between East and West". The examination of Belarus within the framework of the Helene Lange Kolleg is thus also understood as a pilot project that is intended to lead to a follow-up project in which the other sub-areas of this region are included.

Five different disciplines are involved in the Helene Lange Kolleg programme: Material Culture Studies, Musicology, (Slavic) Linguistics and Literary Studies and Social Sciences, which are represented by three Institutes of Faculty III of the University of Oldenburg and two partner institutes:

School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies:

• Institute of Material Culture (Prof. Dr Karen Ellwanger)
• Institute of Music (Prof. Dr Susanne Binas-Preisendörfer, Music and Media)
• Institute of Slavic Studies (Prof. Dr Gerd Hentschel, Slavic Linguistics and Prof. Dr Gun-Britt Kohler, Slavic Literary Studies)

Central co-operation partners:

• Institute for Economic Sociology, University of Vienna (Prof. Dr Bernhard Kittel)
• Centre for Social and Political Research, Minsk State University (Prof. Dr. David Rotman)