1. From the opening of the novel, we know that most of the Vogt
family perish on 11 November 1917. How does this massacre affect
the experience of reading the novel? Why does Birdsell choose to
put this tragic information in a position that affects everything
up to and including the description of the massacre [pp 251-266]?
If one begins with violence and mayhem, how can the narrative
proceed from there?
2. Katya thinks a great deal about her name and her initials.
She writes her initials in the frost on the window [p 5] and
imagines her "name chiselled in stone" [p 397]. She traces the
grooves of initials on a silver cup with her tongue [p 48]. The
tsar, we learn, has multiple names [p 15]. Does the act of naming,
or of losing a name, change one''s identity? What is Katya''s
relation to her name and to her initials? Does a name come from
oneself or from one''s place within a family or a community?
3. When Katya gets a notebook, she copies pieces of advice and
recipes into it [p 105]. Sometimes her recipes are so imprecise as
to make the recipe more a possibility than a useful set of
instructions, as when she makes a series of substitutions for
krejkelmooss [pp 299-300] or "famine fare" [p 355]. Why do many
chapters end with recipes? Why are the recipes imprecise?
4. Relationships in The Russländer evolve through
letters. Why does Birdsell choose to reveal aspects of
relationships-between Greta and Dietrich, for instance-through
these letters, as opposed to through Katya''s point of view? What
can letters convey that other forms of narrative cannot convey?
5. The Mennonite community within which the Vogts live is
initially described as an oasis or an Eden. More specifically, the
Privol''noye estate appears as a well-regulated, if hierarchical,
paradise. Are these oases believable? Do they endure? Is the
Mennonite community, represented as a paradise in the novel,
sustainable in a world torn by violence? Is this idea of an oasis
or paradise largely in Katya''s recollections? Is this idea
determined by the Mennonites'' faith? Is paradise a place or a set
of communal relations?
6. Property ownership diminishes as the German army, then the
anarchists, then the Bolsheviks, then the Communists sweep across
the land. How does ownership of a silver cup, a loop of safety
pins, or an estate create strife in the novel? The Mennonites in
The Russländer occasionally reflect that ownership is, in
fact, antithetical to their belief in life on earth as a transit to
a heavenly home. Why, therefore, do they take such stock in land
and buttons and dresses and things? How does property ownership
square with spiritual development?
7. What is the relation of people to animals in the novel?
Leeches prognosticate weather. Horses die in the road. Chickens
commit suicide to avoid laying eggs that pay exorbitant chicken
taxes. Yet is there any single way of viewing the relationship
between Mennonites and animals in the novel?
8. Food preparation and food consumption preoccupy the women in
The Russländer. What social significance is attached to
food in the novel?
9. Katya, recalling her childhood, often thinks of a voice
calling her: "Then someone called her name. She would remember for
the rest of her days that someone had called, and would hear the
voice among other voices in a crowded restaurant, coming to her on
a lake shore . . ." [p 74]. The voice of Caruso later floats out
from the phonograph [p 112]. After the massacre, when Katya takes
charge of her two sisters, she calls them, as if she were their
mother [p 323]. Why does this calling affect Katya so much? What
relation does the voice that calls have to the parentless
child?
10. Whether skating, holding their breath, or riding piggy-back,
the children in The Russländer play all sorts of games.
What rules govern these games? Are the games divided according to
girls'' and boys'' games? Are the games played in teams or by
individuals?
11. What is the relation of Katya to Greta? Why, among all the
members of her family who die, does Greta hold more prominence than
others in Katya''s imagination?
12. The narrative techniques of The Russländer defy
convention. Birdsell structures her story according to Katya''s
recollections of the 1910s in Russia. The narrative, consequently,
has an impressionistic quality to it. What limitations does
Birdsell impose on the tale of the massacre by keeping largely to
Katya''s point of view? What advantages does this restriction
have?
13. Katya tells her tale to Peter Unger many years after the
fact [p 340]. Does memory impede or alter the story? What does
Katya forget or repress? Is memory a reliable guide to a tale of
such horrific proportions? Why does she tell one story-of bandits
entering the village-instead of another-of the massacre [p
322]?
14. The epigraph to the novel, by Anna Akhmatova, draws
attention to acts of witnessing: "I stand witness to the common
lot, survivor of that time, that place." What does it mean to bear
witness? How does history filter through a witness? What does Vera
witness that Katya does not? How does looking, as a requisite part
of witnessing, guide Katya''s responses to the world? Do Katya''s
beliefs inhibit her from witnessing accurately? Does her position
as daughter of a foreman on a prosperous estate prevent her from
witnessing objectively? Why do the bandits not want to leave a
"witness" [p 265] to the massacre?
15. Katya notices smells throughout the novel: lavender, blood,
pickles. What relation does smell have to memory? Does smell evoke
effects other than sight or sound?
16. Women visit back and forth in The Russländer. They
often continue to work while talking. What social function does
"the visit" have? What is the connection between working and
talking? Why do the women often tell different stories among
themselves that they would not tell before men or children [p
347]?
17. Contrast Greta and Dietrich''s courtship with Katya and
Kornelius'' courtship. Why does the former not work out, whereas
the latter, despite terrible adversity, does succeed?
18. Katya often remarks on the distances between towns,
villages, and countries. Does distance magnify or diminish the
emotional connection that one has to a place? Why are the North
American tourists who come back to look at ladders and ruined
foundations so nostalgic for the lost Mennonite community, despite
the distance that separates the past from the present? Why does the
past seem so alive for Katya, even though she narrates her tale
decades after it happens?
19. Katya survives. Does she have symptoms of "survivor
syndrome," namely a guilt about having outlived most of her family?
Why does she not tell her story until Peter Unger prompts her to?
Why is Peter Unger ostensibly the right person to hear her story?
Is he an appropriate listener because he has no immediate personal
connection with Privol''noye?
20. The Mennonites, as non-resisters, have passed-down stories
of persecuted ancestors: "a book of Mennonite martyrs" [p 77]. Is
Katya''s story a story of martyrdom? Can other characters in the
novel-Abrams, for example, or the Vogts-be considered martyrs? Must
one have faith in order to be a martyr? Is Greta more of a martyr
than Gerhard or Peter Vogt? If so, why?
21. A tree is chopped down. A chicken is stolen. Katya''s bells
go missing. Theft begins with small objects in the novel, but
escalates into a general, and horrifying, principle. What moral
stance does Birdsell or Katya take on theft?
22. The Mennonites speak in a German dialect called Plautdietsch
while living in Russia. They express distrust of the Russians. In
Canada, some Mennonites lament having to learn English. The novel,
written in English, therefore has several screens of language.
Katya transcribes David Sudermann''s letters from gothic German
script into English. Is story-telling in The Russländer a
translation from one language to another? Does every story call
into question its own credibility [p 271]?
23. Inside is inside and outside is outside, Katya recites. Does
this principle apply as much to labour and class divisions in the
novel, as it does to hygiene and order [p 97]?
24. In what ways does the Mennonite community create and
regulate identity? Does that community sustain identity in times of
crisis? Why does Willy Krahn take in the three Vogt sisters who
survive the massacre?
25. Abrams has rolls of fat. Pravda has no legs. Other
characters have sores on their lips and bodies. What is the
Mennonite conception of the body? Do women have a different
relation to their body than men? Does shame or modesty enter into
the conception of male and female bodies?