|
|
| [breadcrumb] |
|  An
Expanded Bibliography and Reference Guide for the Former USSR's
Ethnic Germans: Issues of Ethnic Autonomy, Group Repression, Cultural
Assimilation, and Mass Emigration in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
Book review by William M. Wiest, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology
Emeritus, Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Schmaltz, Ph.D, Eric J. An Expanded Bibliography and Reference Guide for the Former USSR's Ethnic Germans: Issues of Ethnic Autonomy, Group Repression, Cultural Assimilation, and Mass Emigration in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. North Dakota State University Libraries, Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, Fargo, North Dakota, 2003.
The full title of Eric Schmaltz's book, "An Expanded Bibliography
and Reference Guide for the Former USSR's Ethnic Germans: Issues of
Ethnic Autonomy, Group Repression, Cultural Assimilation, and Mass
Emigration in the Twentieth Century and Beyond," is long and
appropriately descriptive. Even so, the title only hints at the magnificent
contribution Schmaltz makes, with his publisher (Germans from Russia
Heritage Collection, NDSU), to research on Germans from Russia (or
"Russian Germans" to use the author's favored term). This
clearly written compendium of information will enable both the scholar
and general reader quickly to grasp the extent and quality of the
scattered published works on Russian Germans that have been produced
over the years in the USSR, in Germany and in North America. This
reader hardly knows how adequately to express his astonishment and
pleasure in finding such an impressive and useful work now available
for use.
Schmaltz's book is clearly not a quick Sunday afternoon read; it
is a serious book that probably will be used chiefly as a reference
guide. As an example of what is in store, picture the following:
In fewer than 20 pages the book lists a chronology of some 360 events
in the former Soviet Union from 1914 to 2001 that impacted the resident
ethnic Germans. There follows a scholarly and critical bibliographic
and historiographic essay (about 60 pages) which introduces a detailed
bibliography (approximately 165 pages) of materials published in
English, German and Russian. The essay and the bibliography together
comprise an impressive central core which promises to provide grist
for the mill of serious researchers for the forseeable future.
In a word, this is a "MUST HAVE" book for any serious
scholar of the history and current status of Germanic peoples who
trace their ancestry to or currently reside in Russia and the USSR;
for the rest of us, this book will be an equally important part
of our personal libraries as we struggle to understand the broad
sweep of complex and often tragic events that have shaped the lives
of "unsere Leute."
Who would have ever known there were so many works about Russia's
Germans published in Russia (and in Germany) had Eric Schmaltz not
undertaken the labor of love that resulted in this amazing book? |
|
Permission
to use any images from the GRHC website may be requested
by contacting Michael
M. Miller |
|
|
