| Imagined Homes: Soviet German Immigrants During the Cold War Contributor(s): Werner, Hans (Author) |
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ISBN: 0887557015 ISBN-13: 9780887557019 Publisher: University of Manitoba Press OUR PRICE: $31.46 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2007 Annotation: Imagined Home: Soviet German Immigrants During the Cold War is a study of the social and cultural integration of two migrations of German speakers from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Winnipeg, Canada, in the late 1940s, and Bielefeld, Germany, in the 1970s. Employing a cross-national comparative framework, Hans Werner reveals that the imagined trajectory of immigrant lives influenced the process of integration into a new urban environment. Winnipeg's migrants chose a receiving society where they knew they would again be a minority group in a foreign country, while Bielefeld's newcomers believed they were "going home" and were unprepared for the conflict between their imagined homeland and the realities of post-war Germany. Werner also shows that differences in the way the two receiving societies perceived immigrants, and the degree to which secularization and the sexual and media revolutions influenced these perceptions in the two cities, were crucially important in the immigrant experience. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Emigration & Immigration - History | Canada - Pre-confederation (to 1867) - History | Europe - Germany |
| Dewey: 305.800 |
| LCCN: 2009285634 |
| Series: Studies in Culture and Immigration |
| Physical Information: 0.92" H x 6.3" W x 8.99" (0.97 lbs) 304 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Germany - Geographic Orientation - Manitoba - Cultural Region - Canadian - Ethnic Orientation - German - Cultural Region - Russia - Chronological Period - 1940's - Chronological Period - 1970's - Locality - Winnipeg, Manitoba |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Imagined Homes: Soviet German Immigrants in Two Cities is a study of the social and cultural integration of two migrations of German speakers from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Winnipeg, Canada in the late 1940s, and Bielefeld, Germany in the 1970s. Employing a cross-national comparative framework, Hans Werner reveals that the imagined trajectory of immigrant lives influenced the process of integration into a new urban environment. Winnipeg's migrants chose a receiving society where they knew they would again be a minority group in a foreign country, while Bielefeld's newcomers believed they were "going home" and were unprepared for the conflict between their imagined homeland and the realities of post-war Germany. Werner also shows that differences in the way the two receiving societies perceived immigrants, and the degree to which secularization and the sexual and media revolutions influenced these perceptions in the two cities, were crucially important in the immigrant experience. |
Contributor Bio(s): Werner, Hans: - Hans Werner teaches Canadian History and Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg. His current research includes German and Mennonite migration in the Soviet Union and early Mennonite settlements in western Canada. He is the author of Living Between Worlds: A History of Winkler and The Constructed Mennonite: History, Memory, and the Second World War. |