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Katherine (Katya) Vogt is now an old woman living in Winnipeg, but the story of how she and her family came to Canada begins in Russia in 1910, on a wealthy Mennonite estate. Here they lived in a world bounded by the prosperity of their landlords and by the poverty and disgruntlement of the Russian workers who toil on the estate. But in the wake of the First World War, the tensions engulfing the country begin to intrude on the community, leading to an unspeakable act of violence. In the aftermath of that violence, and in the difficult years that follow, Katya tries to come to terms with the terrible events that befell her and her family. In lucid, spellbinding prose, Birdsell vividly evokes time and place, and the unease that existed in a county on the brink of revolutionary change. The Russländer is a powerful and moving story of ordinary people who lived through extraordinary times.
Author Biography: Sandra Birdsell was born in Manitoba and, until recently, has spent most of her life in Winnipeg. Her first novel, The Missing Child (1989), won the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Her second novel, The Chrome Suite (1992), and her most recent collection of short fiction, The Two-Headed Calf (1997), were both shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Fiction. Her two previous short story collections, Night Travellers and Ladies of the House, were reissued in 1987 as Agassiz Stories. Her most recent novel, The Russländer (2001), won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction, the Saskatchewan Book Award for Book of the Year, and the Regina Book Award, and was a finalist for the GillerPrize.
Sandra Birdsell's fiction has been anthologized and has appeared in literary journals and Saturday Night magazine.
She lives in Regina.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Christopher Kauffman
reviewed Katya on August 30, 2014 Katya
It would be accurate but misleading to say that the Russlander tells the tale of a Mennonite community living in Russia that had to flee to Canada during the immediate aftermath of the Bolchevik revolution. The importance of Sandra Birdsell's book is that using the case of her own community she is able to illustrate what happened to many ethnic minorities living in Russia when the Tsarist system was overthrown. Even importantly it describes what happens wherever there are religious and linguist minorities governed by special rules when the regime they live under is overthrown by a group with leveller instincts.
Imperial Russia was comprised of hundreds of different linguistic communities belonging to a multitude of religions and sects. Some of the minorities were in Russia by virtue of conquest notably in central Europe and the trans-caucus. The Mennonites were in Russia by invitation as the Tsar was afflicted by the great problem of having too much territory and not nearly enough citizens to tax. Thus the Mennonites were offered the right to live in Russia on the mere condition that they farm industriously. They were allowed to use their own language and practice their own Anabaptist form of Christianity. They were not required to do military service and were exempt from serfdom. Because they were prosperous and lived under different rules than the Russian peasants around them they attracted jealously.
The Russlander then describes how a Mennonite community failed to understand the peril that their special status placed them in. When the Tsar fell, they found out soon enough. Properties were burned and families were massacred. We see all these events through the eyes of a young girl who is lucky enough to survive and move to Manitoba with other Russlanders (i.e. Mennonites Resident in Russian territory).
This is a truly great book whose importance greatly surpasses that of its nominal subject of how the Russlanders came to live in Manitoba. Read this book. In many ways it is also about the Yazidis of Kurdistan who are currently being threatened by ISIS.
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Add Katya, Katherine (Katya) Vogt is now an old woman living in Winnipeg, but the story of how she and her family came to Canada begins in Russia in 1910, on a wealthy Mennonite estate. Here they lived in a world bounded by the prosperity of their landlords and by t, Katya to your collection on WonderClub |
