Abt. Geschichtswissenschaft

“Das Gedächtnis der Töchter” (2023) by Irene Langemann

Irene Langemann, born in 1959 in Issilkul (Siberia), grew up bilingually in a German family. At the age of seventeen, she moved to Moscow to study acting and German literature, and went on to work as an author, actress, and presenter. In 1990, she emigrated to Germany. She has since lived in Cologne, where she works as an author and director for film and television. “Das Gedächtnis der Töchter” is her first novel – a compelling, autobiographically inspired, and beautifully crafted chronicle of a Mennonite family in Eastern Europe spanning six generations. At the same time, it offers a profound exploration of Ukrainian-German, Russian-German, and Soviet-German relations from the late nineteenth century onward, tracing the history of violence in the twentieth century and the enduring complexities of Stalinism. It is a book that at times demands pauses for breath, yet proves impossible to put down.