Preservings Issue No. 47, Fall 2023

When the Russlaender met the Kanadier

FROM THIS ISSUE

From the editor: The theme of this issue, “When the Russlaender met the Kanadier,” is close to my heart. I am the product of a third-generation Kanadier meeting a second-generation Russlaender at a church youth event in the 1970s. In my own youth I was unfamiliar with these terms, “Kanadier” and “Russlaender,” yet the existence of a cultural difference between these two worlds, despite the overlap in foods, required no explanation. For me, it was simply self-evident. My Ditsied (this side) started in Winnipeg and extended past the Perimeter Highway to the farmyard of my maternal Russlaender grandparents, outside of the small town of Marquette. Winkler, the home of my paternal Kanadier grandparents, filled the role of my imaginative Jantsied (the other side), a place visited annually around Christmas when we made the trek down Highway 3. If you had asked me the direction of Winkler – north, south, east, west – I likely would not have been able to respond. As John H. Warkentin notes in his article, these terms, Ditsied and Jantsied, “convey meanings to different Mennonites depending on their experiences and imaginations,” and mine had little to do with geography. Jantsied didn’t need to be located on a map; it was a place I didn’t attempt to understand, a place that was soon forgotten on the ride home under the starry night sky listening to the hockey game.

EDITOR Aileen Friesen
MANAGING EDITOR Jeremy Wiebe
DESIGNER Anikó Szabó

Past Issues

No. 46 (Spring 2023)

No. 45 (Fall 2022)

No. 44 (Spring 2022)

No. 44 (Fall )

VIEW ALL PAST ISSUES

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