Review- KATYA
Posted on March 10th, 2010
Katya
A Novel by Sandra Birdsell
Milkweed Editions, September 2004
ISBN: 1571310436
This superb lyrical novel of the Russian Revolution, first published in Canada by McClelland & Stuart as The Russlander, portrays the harrowing life of Katya Vogt. When the story begins in 1910, eight year old Katya lives on the Russian steppe with her family in a peaceful Mennonite community where Katya’s father works as the foreman on the prosperous Sudermann estate. Katya’s father is a patient and pious man who has learned to control his anger; his patience, however, is about to be severely tested when he learns that his lifelong hope of someday owning and farming his own land may never be realized. The Sudermanns, although having previously promised to sell Vogt the land, are reneging on their commitment. Katya, unlike her father, lacks patience and has not yet learned to control her anger; like her father, though, she faces disappointments which will test her patience and temper, but extraordinary challenges to her courage and survival are lurking on the horizon.
Generations of Mennonites had lived in Russia, and the character, dignity, and successes of the Vogt family and other families in the community have been defined and determined by their preoccupation with and adherence to religious and cultural traditions of their past, but tensions in the Russian social and political environments in which the Mennonites live in the early years of the 20th century threaten to destroy all their hopes and dreams for the future.
As the novel progresses—using flashbacks, correspondence between the characters, and Katya’s point of view as the narrative strategies—the tensions build up to the cataclysmic events of 1917. A succession of anarchists, armies, bandits, and revolutionaries unleash a reign of terror throughout Russia, and the peaceful people on the Sudermann estate and the surrounding communities, the Vogts and other Mennonites among them, soon become victims of unspeakable prejudices, deprivations, atrocities, and murder.
Katya’s story of miraculous survival in a desperately dangerous Russia and her ultimate resettlement in the promised-land of Manitoba, Canada, is a highly recommended coming-of-age story as well as an adroitly crafted fictionalized account of an important period in world history. Katya’s story will invite readers to ponder the wisdom of the paradoxical Russian proverb: “Dwell on the past and you’ll lose and eye. Ignore the past and you’ll lose both of them.”
Tags: Cataclysmic Events, Disappointments, Flashbacks, Hopes And Dreams, Katya, Mcclelland, Mennonite Community, Mennonites, Milkweed, Milkweed Editions, Narrative Strategies, Pious Man, Political Environments, Reign Of Terror, Revolutionaries, Russian Revolution, Russian Steppe, Sandra Birdsell, Vogt, Vogts
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