Going by the Moon and the Stars

Pamela E. Klassen

Description

So, it was January the 18 and it was the middle of the night. And it was very, very cold. Snow was — we went just about knee deep in snow — And we went on the road going toward Posen, capital of Wartegau. And so we said, “Let’s take that direction.” Just going by the moon and the stars. (Katja Enns)

Going by the Moon and the Stars tells the stories of two Russian Mennonite women who emigrated to Canada after fleeing from the Soviet Union during World War II. Based on ethnographic interviews with the author the women recount, in their own words, their memories of their wartime struggle and flight, their resettlement in Canada and their journey into old age. Above all, they tell of the overwhelming importance of religion in their lives.

Through these remarkable stories Pamela Klassen challenges conventional understandings of religion. The women’s voices, intimate and powerful, testify to the importance of religion in the construction of personal history, as well as to its oppressive and liberating potential.

Going by the Moon and the Stars will be of great value to all those interested in the Mennonites and Mennonite history, religion, women’s studies, ethnic studies and life history.

Sujets

• Religión
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 11 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554587247
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

GOING BY THE MOON AND THE STARS
Stories of Two Russian Mennonite Women
GOING BY THE MOON AND THE STARS
Stories of Two Russian Mennonite Women
Pamela E. Klassen
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Klassen, Pamela E. (Pamela Edith), 1967- Going by the moon and the stars : stories of two Russian Mennonite women
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88920-244-3
1. Janzen, Agatha. 2. Enns, Katja, 1925- 3. Mennonites - Ukraine - Molotschna - Biography. 4. Women - Ukraine - Molotschna - Biography. 5. World War, 1939-1945 - Mennonites. 6. World War, 1939-1945 - Personal narratives, Ukrainian. 7. Mennonites - Ontario - Kitchener - Biography. 8. Ukrainians - Ontario - Kitchener - Biography. 9. Women immigrants - Ontario - Kitchener - Biography. I. Title.
BX8141.K53 1994 305.48 6897 0922 C94-931281-9
Copyright 1994
Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5
Cover design by Jose Martucci, Design Communications Cover illustration by Sandra Woolfrey

Printed in Canada
Going by the Moon and the Stars: Stories of Two Russian Mennonite Women has been produced from a manuscript supplied in electronic form by the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means-graphic, electronic, or mechanical-without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5V 3S6.
In memory of my grandmothers, Susan Heinrichs Klassen (1902-1989) and Katarina Nikkel Klassen (1896-1990) and for my mother, Susanna Edith Klassen
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Meeting Agatha
Meeting Katja
A Short History of Russian Mennonites
Russian Mennonites in Canada
A Feminist Approach to Life History
Writing about the War
Religion: Some Terms
Religion: Some Disclosure
Speaking through the Silence
1 Agatha and Katja Tell their Lives
Agatha Janzen
Katja Enns
2 Stories of Marriage and Motherhood
Agatha s Story of Marriage
Marrying within the Fold
Autonomy within Marriage
Katja s Story of Marriage
Single Mothers in the Church
Wives and Mothers: A Comparison
3 Stories of War
Stories and Memories
Agatha s Story of the War
The Structure of the Story
Agatha and the Mennonite Story
Katja s Story of the War
The Structure of Her Story
Katja and the Mennonite Story
God and War
The Mennonite Response to Women and War
Mennonites and the Nazis
War and Story
4 Being Mennonite
Domestic Religion
Agatha and Prayer
Agatha as a Preacher s Daughter
I Think I Should Be Obedient
Bodies behind the Pulpit
Preaching, Prayer, and Connection
The Mission Circle
Katja and Prayer
Between You and the Lord
A Woman Didn t Go to Greece
Agatha and Katja as Mennonites: First Impressions
The Man of the House
Agatha and the Family
Katja, Agatha, and Belonging
5 Theoretical and Methodological Reflections
Why Definition?
Geertz s Definition of Religion
Stories, Relationships, and Religious Identity
Ethnography and Feminist Methodology
Implications of Feminist Ethnography
Reflections
Sources Consulted
Index
Acknowledgements
This book has grown out of my collaboration with many people. Agatha Janzen and Katja Enns have opened up their lives to me in uncustomary ways. Not only have they displayed courage in telling me their stories, they have also sustained and nourished me during my retelling. I offer them my thanks, affection, and respect.
Ron Grimes has given me his support and criticism and a place to exchange all manner of stories. I am grateful for the faith he has shown in me and my work. Pauline Greenhill, Peter Erb, and Hildi Froese Tiessen offered many helpful insights and comments. Sandra Woolfrey favoured me with a reading of the manuscript (and with her friendship) and prodded me to take a second look at some of my assumptions. The comments of the anonymous WLU Press readers were particularly helpful for prompting me to provide a wider context for my analysis. As well, Carroll Klein s editing was both careful and respectful.
Susan Scott and Stephanie Walker were my fast friends during my time in Waterloo, and their insightful understanding continues to enrich my work and my life. Marlene Epp and Len Friesen allowed me to sound out my ideas to Mennonite ears and have offered valued collegiality and advice. I am especially thankful to Marlene for her pioneering work in Mennonite women s history, and her generosity in sharing her work and her friendship with me. My brother Joel Klassen, and my friends Chris Hiller, Maggie MacDonald, and Ruth Richardson have listened to me, encouraged me, and inspired me.
The Religion and Culture Department at Wilfrid Laurier University supported this work. Participants in the Religion and Culture colloquium at WLU particularly helped me to refine some of my ideas. I also thank Helen Epp for putting me in touch with Agatha and Katja in the beginning, and Cathie Huggins for her generous assistance. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canada Council.
Finally, I thank my family for the affirmation and encouragement they have given me in support of my work. In particular, John Marshall has remained a source of motivation, provocation, and sustenance through unpredictable times, for which he has my deep affection and gratitude.
Introduction
A woman s face that will fade if I do not dream it, write it, put it in a film. I write it, try to make everyone else dream it, too; if they dream it, they will know something more, love this woman s face, this woman I will become, this woman they will become.
-Dionne Brand (1990:47-48)
Turning the stories of a woman s life into text can be a profoundly disturbing act. For both the storyteller and the interpreter, making the private public generates anxiety and exhilaration; disclosure provokes vulnerability as well as connection. In this book, I convey the process of two Russian Mennonite women, Agatha Janzen and Katja Enns, 1 telling me of their lives. Coupling their telling with my interpretation, I offer this study as an opportunity to reflect on how two women have constructed their religious lives.
In this book, I insist on the centrality of stories to the construction of gender and religious identity. As Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo has written, Cultural patterns-social facts-provide a template for all human action, growth, and understanding (1984:140). Stories are told with reference to cultural patterns, sometimes in accordance with, often in opposition to them. Stories shaped by cultural patterns contain plots. According to Carolyn Heilbrun s analysis, Euroamerican women s stories have been restricted to the marriage plot, which allows women centrality only in stories of romance and courtship, and ends with marriage (1988:21). The aging of women, the anger of women, and the aspirations of women are among what remains unnarrated when women s stories are constrained to one plot (Heilbrun 1988:28). Heilbrun suggests that to counteract the marginality imposed by the marriage plot, women must exchange stories , read and talk collectively of ambitions, and possibilities, and accomplishments (1988:46).
Along with interpreting Agatha s and Katja s stories-suggesting which plots they followed and which plots they created themselves-this book offers stories unwritten in Mennonite history and collective memory. Katja and Agatha are part of a group of women who emigrated to Canada after fleeing from the Soviet Union during World War II. Because of women s own silence and the unwillingness of other people to listen, the fullness of Mennonite women s stories from World War II are not included in the cultural pattern of which they are a part. 2
My purpose, then, is twofold: to present the stories of Agatha and Katja, paying particular attention to their religion, and to ask why their stories are not part of a collective Mennonite consciousness. In more theoretical terms, this book considers how the construction of identity occurs in relation to the multiplicity of gender, political, religious, family, class, and ethnic plots. To a certain extent, such a consideration is stymied from the start, due to the difficulty, perhaps even the impossibility, of fitting people s lives within any plots. The result is an instructive tension between lives and stories, and the present and the past-these women, grey-haired and gracious, have not always been who they are now. In my interaction with them as a young, single, and childless woman, I must remind myself that the differences in our bodies and our ages does not always mean what I think it does. Though the years between us show in our faces and our gaits, the experiences we hold in common lie further from the surface. 3 Furthermore, by asking questions about which stories take their place in Mennonite history, I wish to take my place with other Mennonite women embarking on the disassembling of patriarchal Mennonite history and epistemology, which has left so little space for women s lives, thoughts, and power. In this process of taking apart the silences and patching together the stories, my work may have implications for other religious traditions.
In working on this book, I have used a method that draws fro