Author Description

Sarah Dyck’s selection and skillful translation of the memoirs of people who survived the Soviet inferno between 1915 to 1950 opens a rare window through which readers can begin to grasp the reality of life in the Soviet empire for those judged to be "enemies of the People." These are the stories of humble heroes searching for answers to the age-old questions of Job: Why? They provide graphic, personal documentation of a land and a people in turmoil. To us in the West they may seem like tales from distant lands, but they expose to our view the catastrophe that was early Soviet life. Mennonites of Dutch/German ancestry began emigrating from Prussia and settling in the Ukraine in 1789, following invitations and guarantees granted by Catherine II of Russia. One hundred years later, the Mennonites in Russia had prospered. They now numbered some 70,000 persons living in progressive settlements, leading the way in farming and manufacturing. The Mennonites who settled in Russia kept their language, their religion, and their culture intact. But as the nineteenth century drew to a close, Mennonite community identity was increasingly seen as a threat. There was first a drive for "russification" under the Czars; there then was increasing suspicion of all things German with the outbreak of the First World War; and finally the Bolshevik Revolution brought Christianity and prosperity into question. The Second World War and its brutal Stalinist aftermath succeeded in destroying life in the Mennonite colonies. The first person accounts translated here tell the stories of people who almost miraculously survived successive waves of revolution, civil war, assassination, economic and political purges, and arbitrary arrest and banishment. The stories of these survivors are just now beginning to be published, in both German and Russian. Sarah Dyck's selection and skillful translation of these memoirs opens a rare window through which English readers can begin to grasp the reality of