Objekt des Monats
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In dieser Rubrik stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein anderes Objekt vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.
June 2025
Coin (Ruble), after 1983
Short biography
Since 2010, Dr. Zurab Aloian has been working at the Inge Katz School in Bremen. When he talks about his teaching experience, he sees his migration experiences clearly as expertise particularly relevant to his profession. The Georgian-born individual reflects on a variety of mobility experiences. He was born in 1968 in Rustavi, the eldest of four children amidst the Cold War. He describes his childhood as happy, characterized by a feeling of security, but also looks back reflecting it as politically systematically arranged and indoctrinated. Even during his school years, he dreams of studying Oriental studies in St. Petersburg.
‘St. Petersburg was magical for me!’
Following his dream, Zurab Aloian begins his academic career there but has to interrupt his studies for two years between 1986-1988 when military service is introduced for students. He is deployed, among other places, in Belarus near the Polish border to plan the construction of various buildings intended to be used by the political regime for monitoring and defense against the USA.
Afterward, he resumes his studies. After graduating, he decides to migrate again and transfers to the Central European University in Budapest. During his studies, his first son Jakov, who now lives in Israel, is born in 1991. As a doctoral student, Zurab Aloian travels to Germany for the first time on a scholarship and works on the topic of the Islamic world in modernity. Primarily to support his friends from Lithuania and Estonia, he participates in student demonstrations advocating for the independence of the Baltic states in 1991 and experiences the August coup in Moscow.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he continues to work on his doctoral thesis. In 2002, following the completion of his dissertation, Dr. Zurab Aloian migrates to Bremen to be with his wife Gülşüm. The two had met during a short stay in Germany for language acquisition and married in Denmark in 2001. The following year, their son Zana is born.
Dr. Zurab Aloian describes acquiring German citizenship in 2007 as an emotionally painful event, as he had to give up his Georgian nationality for this. To this day, alongside his profession as a teacher, he is particularly active in researching Kurdish history and in union activism.
Historical Context
Dr. Zurab Aloian dedicates his research work to Kurdish history. He focuses on documenting the socio-cultural aspects of the past and works in various countries to compile diverse sources for his publications. His family history traces back to Armenia, where his ancestors were displaced by the government in the 19th century due to their identification as Yezidi Kurds and found refuge in Georgia. Pogroms against the Armenian population by the government began at the end of the 19th century and continued until World War I. Discrimination, forced conversion, and persecution of Yezidis because of specific religious practices have been documented since the 15th century.
Dr. Zurab Aloian grows up in the Georgian Soviet Republic (short: GSSR/GSR), which is declared in 1921 under Josef Stalin. On April 9, 1991, Georgia declares its independence, thereby exiting the collapsing Soviet Union. In December of the same year, the dissolution of the USSR is officially decided.
Significance of the Object
Two things connect Zurab Aloian before he migrates to the Federal Republic: music, especially works by Ludwig van Beethoven, and the political teachings of Karl Marx. Both aspects play a central role in his daily life in Georgia, yet he describes his knowledge about Germany at that time as very limited. Nowadays, as a German citizen, he reflects on his life story from various perspectives and shares as a contemporary witness the social circumstances he experienced in different countries. The coin thus also symbolizes the acquired knowledge that people can gain and pass on through migration experiences.
Do You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de