The documentary, The Russlaender Migration: From Revolution to Reflection<\/a>, takes viewers on a train journey from Quebec to British Columbia to memorialize a similar journey that took place one hundred years earlier, when nearly 21,000 Mennonites immigrated from the Soviet Union to come to Canada in the 1920s.<\/p>\n In 2023, the Mennonite Historical Society of Canada organized the reenactment, which UWinnipeg grad Theo Loewen (BA 25, BED 25) described as a \u201ccombination of history, travelling, and learning\u201d.<\/p>\n I think the students really were excited for this experiential learning to take place, where they could interact with historians on board.<\/p>\n Dr. Aileen Friesen<\/p>\n \u201cAs a Mennonite and self-proclaimed Mennonite nerd, this opportunity had me excited just from the mention of it,\u201d Loewen said.<\/p>\n Loewen was one of several UWinnipeg students who were sponsored to travel on the third leg of the train journey and participate in several educational events along the way.<\/p>\n Thousands of people attended events at various stops along the reenactment journey, including a singing festival that was held at the Centennial Concert Hall and a two-day conference<\/a> held at the University of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the students really were excited for this experiential learning to take place, where they could interact with historians on board,\u201d Dr. Friesen explained. \u201cThey could interact with other people who are undertaking the journey, who had their own family stories that were linked to this immigration movement.\u201d<\/p>\n Working with Mennonite historical societies in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, UWinnipeg\u2019s Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies<\/a> helped bring an academic perspective to the reenactment.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cA meaningful aspect of university life that sometimes gets overlooked is that we are actually involved in the community,\u201d said Dr. Friesen. \u201cWe are taking our research and we\u2019re bringing it directly into the community to help tell those stories and to help facilitate conversation about history.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor me personally, this was a journey that my grandparents both took,\u201d Dr. Friesen added. \u201cIt is personal, but it is also a history that I study. So, I was able to integrate both the personal with broader themes. Immigration policy, settler colonialism, all of these themes are explored in this documentary, that in previous renditions of Mennonite history might have been pushed to the side, or just not acknowledged at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Both the reenactment and the documentary provide examples of how we can find new ways to tell histories that better represent what actually took place.<\/p>\n \u201cOn one hand, we can\u2019t forget our own histories of who we are, where we came from, and what that meant to our ancestors,\u201d Dr. Friesen said. \u201cOn the other hand, we can\u2019t ignore the other side of it, that our arrival was linked to Canada\u2019s colonial project, which had repercussions for Indigenous peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n
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