Of Mennonites and History

The Russländer is a novel in which the worlds of history and fiction collide. Based upon author Sandra Birdsell's own family history, The Russländer explores a Mennonite community in Russia during the early part of the twentieth century. A vast range of characters are joined together by friendship and family, only to find their relationships and lives torn apart during the violence of the Russian Revolution.

"The story told in The Russländer is the story of my mother's people and my grandparents. They were Mennonites who lived during the time of the novel in the communities that are portrayed in the novel. The events have been fictionalized but the events that occur in the novel did occur during that time," the Regina-based author says.

Even though The Russländer contains a lot of personal elements, Birdsell found herself doing research for the novel. "I've been wanting to write this book for many years. I began to go and visit the places - I went to Holland and to Poland and the area where the Menonites immigrated. Then, I went to the Ukraine several times to the area where my mother's people lived. The last trip I made, I took a boat down the Dnieppe down to the Black Sea," says Birdsell.

As a result, the process of creating the novel revealed a great deal about Birdsell's family. "I wanted to try and understand them as a people," she explains. "My grandfather would get quite withdrawn and sad sometimes, and would say things to us, very seriously, that we must never use the word 'hate' or 'kill.' For us, these are just words; to them, they had experienced the actuality of the words. It changed who they were and I wanted to know them because I loved them so much."

One of the most disturbing parts of the novel occurs during the time of the Russian Revolution. Under the guise of being anarchists, a group of thugs massacre several key characters, as the rest struggle for survival. "One of these hooligans actually lived in my grandparents' house during the occupation of the village. My mother and her parents lived in the back of the property in the house that his henchmen took over. She told me how the house was transformed by their presence, with terror," Birdsell says.

However, she stresses that despite the deeply personal elements to the novel, it is fiction. Yet fictionalizing certain elements was a challenge. "It was very difficult because it is a small community and everyone is related and there is just a small base of names to choose from. It's very difficult to avoid putting a name on a person that perhaps actually exists. Every time I thought I had invented something I new I would come across the exact name somewhere."

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