Many letters written by ethnic German farmers who lived in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s were sent abroad to relatives living in the United States and Canada. A number of German-language newspapers in North America published excerpts of them between 1928 and 1937. These letters, often carrying distinct religious overtones, convey a sense of foreboding and apocalyptic imagery, giving a sense of the mass violence and repression directed against the German minority living in the Soviet Union during these years. They convey, if not a picture of a growing catastrophe of biblical proportions, then certainly a stark picture of the end of a traditional rural way of life. The letters also reveal attitudes of the German minority toward Soviet authorities and officials, including at times prejudices against ethnic Jews.
The lecture will focus largely on letters written during the years of collectivization and mass starvation in 1932-33, which in Ukraine is called the Holodomor.
SPEAKER: Ron Vossler
The lecture will focus largely on letters written during the years of collectivization and mass starvation in 1932-33, which in Ukraine is called the Holodomor.
SPEAKER: Ron Vossler
Ron Vossler is Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota, a Fulbright scholar, and scriptwriter of five national and international award-winning documentary films, including We'll Meet Again in Heaven, focused on the 1933 terror-famine in Ukraine. He has also authored ten scholarly and popular books, most recently a short-story collection, Dinosaur Cafe, and Hitler's Basement, a personal exploration of links between Soviet terror and the Holocaust in Ukraine, and the role of ethnic German police units, under SS command, in the murder of the Jews of Odesa and Bessarabia. He lives in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.
DATE: FRIDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2015
TIME: 7:00 PM
VENUE: 3-58 PEMBINA HALL, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA