Migration, Trauma, and Tweeback: Perspectives on Russian Mennonite Identity in Elina Penner’s Novel Nachtbeeren

Keywords

Germany; Plautdietsch; migration; trauma; fiction; food

Abstract

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, a group of about 2.5 million Russia Germans immigrated to Germany, benefiting from the German law that recognizes citizenship to ethnic Germans who arrived in the territory as late ethnic Germans resettlers. Including their children, this subset of Germany’s population now numbers about 3.5 million, and about 350.000 Russia Germans have a Mennonite background. Of the 500.000 Plautdietsch-speaking people worldwide, about 200,000 of them live in Germany. In her debut novel, Nachtbeeren, the author Elina Penner illuminates the everyday life of German Mennonites from the Soviet Union and the successor states. This article explores the novel’s portrayal of elements that impact the hybrid cultural identity of Mennonites from the former Soviet Union in the context of their lived experience in Germany. It contextualizes Penner’s novel within the corpus of literature written by German authors with origins in the Soviet Union and discusses the key experience of migration and the historical dimension of relocation, displacement, and exodus in the Mennonite community. [Abstract by author.]

Recommended Citation

Jany, Berit. 2024. "Migration, Trauma, and Tweeback: Perspectives on Russian Mennonite Identity in Elina Penner’s Novel Nachtbeeren." Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies 12(1-2):15-28.