John Werner was a storyteller. A Mennonite immigrant in southern Manitoba, he captivated his audiences with tales of adventure and perseverance. With every telling he constructed and reconstructed the memories of his life.
John Werner was a survivor. Born in the Soviet Union just after the Bolshevik Revolution, he was named Hans and grew up in a German-speaking Mennonite community in Siberia. As a young man in Stalinist Russia, he became Ivan and fought as a Red Army soldier in the Second World War. Captured by Germans, he was resettled in occupied Poland where he became Johann, was naturalized and drafted into Hitlers German army where he served until captured and placed in an American POW camp. He was eventually released and then immigrated to Canada where he became John.
The Constructed Mennonite is a unique account of a life shaped by Stalinism, Nazism, migration, famine, and war. It investigates the tenuous spaces where individual experiences inform and become public history; it studies the ways in which memory shapes identity, and reveals how context and audience shape autobiographical narratives.
Review
A significant contribution particularly to the canon of life-stories of Mennonites (and other Soviet Germans) who lived through the tragic years of Stalinist repression and the Second World War. Werners struggle with his ethnic identity as illuminated in the numerous name changes he experienced in his lifetime provides important and rare insight into issues of belonging and identity. (Marlene Epp, University of Waterloo)
Beautifully written and engaging, The Constructed Mennonite offers an unflinching look at how we present ourselves to those around us. (Rachel Waltner Goossen Mennonite WorldReview)
Those interested in understanding the conflicted responses of Soviet Mennonites to Stalins terror and World War II should read The Constructed Mennonite. (Colin Neufeldt MennoniteHistorian)
About the Author
Hans Werner teaches Mennonite Studies and Canadian History at the University of Winnipeg.