Old and new homelands
The literary treatment of migration from the (post-)Soviet space to Germany and Israel
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
A series of writers who have come to Israel or Germany from the Soviet Union and its successor states are processing their experiences of migration in their novels. Some write in Russian, others in Hebrew or German. A shift to German means enlarging their readership, while switching to Hebrew tends to narrow it. A lot depends on the age at which the authors left their old homeland. Those who came to Germany or Israel as adults usually remain part of a Russian-speaking culture, while those who came as children often have a hybrid sense of identity that is usually connected to specific places. This is reflected in their literature.
(Osteuropa 9-11/2019, pp. 187–201)