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OAHerinneringscultuur van Rusland-Duitse doperse gemeenten in de lange Schaduw van de goelag
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, Volume 51, Issue 1, Sep 2025, p. 91 - 110
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- 01 Sep 2025
Abstract
In this article, I examine the memory culture of Russia-German Anabaptist congregations – namely, the Mennoniten, Mennoniten-Brüder, and Evangelical Christian Baptists – and the influence of the Gulag on this culture. To do so, I first define and analyse the concepts of tradition and generation in greater detail. During the tsarist era, long before the Gulag, four distinct channels emerged through which tradition was passed from one generation to the next. However, three of these four channels were destroyed during and after the Gulag period. The younger generation found itself in the Gulag under radically altered social conditions. Only with the dissolution of the Gulag did conditions emerge that allowed for the normalisation of a congregational life. Mennonite congregations were left with significant gaps in transmitting tradition, which profoundly shaped their collective identity. The Gulag had a lasting impact on these communities, in part because commemoration and remembrance were strictly prohibited. It was only after emigration from the Soviet Union, decades after the traumatic events, that surviving witnesses began to break their silence. Yet, due to demographic changes, very few members of the older generation remained to share their experiences. This resulted in an imbalance in intergenerational memory.