Feature Conversation with Sandra Birdsell, The Russlaender Mennonites: War, Dislocation, and New Beginnings

A conversation with the award-winning author of The Russländer, moderated by Sarah Ens, as part of a conference hosted by the Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies at The University of Winnipeg. Video recordings of the conference are available on our YouTube channel.

Between 1923 and 1929 some 21,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union left a land decimated by violence, famine, and epidemic. They found shelter in far-off Canada, where government, church communities, and private businesses supported their immigration. These migrants, popularly known as the Russlaender Mennonites, made Canada their home. For the past hundred years, they have influenced the shape of Canadian Mennonite communities through their family networks, churches, economic pursuits (as labourers, professionals, and entrepreneurs), and in the world of politics, faith, arts, and service.

This centenary conference presents papers that explore the development of the Russlaender, from late imperial Russia, through war, revolution, and upheaval in the early Soviet Union, to their relocation to Canada. It will also feature conversations with noted authors of fiction about the Russlaender experience.