We Grew Up Early: Childhood of German Special Settlers in Kazakhstan as Reflected in Deportee Memoirs
Litzenberger O. Mussabekova R.
January 2025Ural Federal University
Antichnaya Drevnost i Srednie Veka
2025#13Issue 41314 - 1333 pp.
Based on interviews and materials from the state archives of Kazakhstan, this article analyses the characteristics of growing up, socialisation, and school education that remain in the memories of the “children of deportation” who were expelled with their parents in 1941. An examination of the history of childhood among German special settlers enables the reconstruction of significant stages in the perception of reality as experienced by German children. The authors examine the influence of social institutions on the socialisation of German children – schools, which were initially completely absent, and families as bearers of traditional culture, which were negatively affected by the mobilisation of the adult population into the labour army during wartime, hunger, and the introduction of a special settlement regime. The challenges faced by German special settlers during their childhood are examined within the context of the economic and social developments that occurred from 1941 to 1950. This analysis makes it possible to draw parallels not only with the socialisation of children from other groups subjected to forced displacement, but also with the process of growing up for children in war-torn societies in general. The examination of the memories of deported children is imperative for the development of a retrospective view on the Soviet past of Russian Germans. For the purpose of the study, the authors refer to documents from the State Archives of Akmola Region (regional committees of Akmola and Kokchetav regions, district committees of Kokchetav and Ruzayev districts): resolutions, decisions, and orders of party committees, reports and references, memos on the state of public education, documents on the state of schools and orphanages from different years.
children , deportation , ethnic Germans , history of the USSR in 1940s–1950s , interethnic relations , Kazakhstan , labour army , oral history , school education
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Bavarian Centre for the Culture of Germans from Russia, Nuremberg, Germany
Eurasian National University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Bavarian Centre for the Culture of Germans from Russia
Eurasian National University
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