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Share a Review: BOOKS
This page contains member reviews about Books!! Members share their thoughts and insights about a recent book they read. So, please each of these to perhaps gain a different perspective!!
Note, you can click on the image or Review to view the book review in PDF format.
"In the Valley of the Kutchergan" by Ida Katherina Senger
Review by: Douglas Roth
I just finished reading the fictional historical novel In the Valley of the Kutchergan by I. K. Senger. It is the account of two families that called South Russia home for over a century. The saga tells the story of challenges faced in conquering virgin steppe land in Russia and then homesteading in Canada more than 100 years later. The two principal families lived through two revolutions, two world wars, and the Great Depression. I picked up this book at the suggestion of another Kutschurgan (also known as Kutchergan) researcher who knew I wanted to connect with the lives of my ancestors who settled in the villages of Kandel and Selz. Even though Senger’s epic story is not specifically about my ancestors, I have extended my understanding of the lives of those brave Germans who came to call the six villages of the Kutschurgan Colony their home.
"Life Under Tyranny" by Peter Goldade
Review by: Peter Goldade
This important work is based on a mountain of previously unpublished material the author obtained mostly from the State Archives of Odessa Region located in Odessa, Ukraine. Almost all of the documents pertain to the German-Russian Kutschurgan Colonies, especially Selz, Elsass, Baden, Strassburg, and Kandel, but other documents concern Mannheim and little known Kutschurgan villages and khutors. Also included are some stray villages like Alexanderfeld in the Liebental Colony Group.
"The German Colonies in Volhynia: The Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Century"
by By Mykhailo Kostiuk PhD, Translated by Inna Stryukova, Edited by Richard Benert
Review by: Ken Vogele
This book presents the most definitive history of the Volhynian Germans to date. The author has researched Volhynian minorities, especially Germans, since 1993 and has over 100 scholarly articles to his credit. Much of his information comes from a comprehensive study of vast Ukrainian archives that had been ignored by Soviet historians because of their overriding anti-German bias.
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