Talk • Natascha Wodin: Autobiographical Remembering between Ukraine, Russia, the Soviet Union and Germany

RESCHEDULED TO THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

The work of Natascha Wodin, born in Germany in 1945 as the daughter of Soviet forced laborers, is clearly autobiographical. Memories of specific moments from childhood and youth, as well as the trauma of exclusion and degradation in German post-war society, repeatedly come into play. While the earlier books are paratextually classified as fictional literature, there is no genre designation for the books Sie kam aus Mariupol (She Came from Mariupol, 2017) and Irgendwo in Diesem Dunkel (Somewhere in this Darkness, 2018). In these two works, the lives of the mother and father, respectively, are reconstructed in relation to the author’s life and with the assistance of historical facts, various documents, and narratives from others. In her talk, Dr. Willms will explore the significance of autobiographical transcultural memories between Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union for the construction of individual and collective identity.

Weertje Willms teaches at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany, in the department of modern German literature and comparative studies. Her research interests include transcultural and gender studies as well as German-Russian cultural relations. She recently edited volumes on Migration und Gegenwartsliteratur: Der Beitrag von Autorinnen und Autoren osteuropäischer Herkunft zur literarischen Kultur im deutschsprachigen Raum (2020), Kontexte kreativen Schreibens (2021) and Gender in German Children’s and Young-Adult Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present (2022).

This event is presented by the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies.