Re-storying a past that lies between us
an exploration of German-Russian family histories in the Soviet Union
eng: The Master thesis is an academic approach to re-storying representations of German-Russian family histories in the Soviet Union. It is challenging ‘grand narratives’ about a collective German-Russian identity by eliciting narratives of young...
mehr
|
eng: The Master thesis is an academic approach to re-storying representations of German-Russian family histories in the Soviet Union. It is challenging ‘grand narratives’ about a collective German-Russian identity by eliciting narratives of young German-Russians in the form of storytelling interviews. The main research question “In what ways are German-Russians living in Germany today affected by their families’ experiences in the Sovjet Union?” presents an explorative window into the depths of a transdisciplinary engagement with the past, individual and collective identity as well as the possibility of transgenerational traumatization, with a specific focus on the dynamics of social psychologies on an indvidual level and how certain framings of historical events impact their interpersonal relationships. All of the variables are understood in an constructionist way, i.e. in a continuous and fluid process of social negotiation. Thereby, the thesis itself is itself a manifestation of such re-negotiation and an act of perfomativity. As the thesis provides space for young German-Russians to express their own meaning-making processes, they reveal what the narrators perceive as current disparities. It is in this space that new perspectives emerge which challenge the official ‘truths’ altogether and thereby question established theories and allow for walking into a space ‘in-between’ certain imaginations of communities.
|
