Zwischen Fiktion und historischer Realität: Gusel Jachinas Roman Wolgakinder

Gusel Jachina is a Russian writer. Her grandfather, a former German teacher in one of the villages along the Volga River, founded by German colonists, inspired her second novel “Wolgakinder” (Children of the Volga). She presents over 20 years of eventful history as it is seen by Jakob Bach, a German teacher in the village Gnadental on the banks of the Volga. It is an opulent novel of 600 pages, written in a rather baroque style, trying to not only present historic events from the beginning of the Soviet era but to recreate the atmosphere of those years full of Ups and Downs not only for the German speaking population.