Hans-Christian Petersen – författare

The history of Russian Germans (Russlanddeutsche) is one of intensive mobility across space and time. Today, the descendants of eighteenth-century German-speaking settlers in the Russian Empire live on four continents: Europe, Asia, and North and South America. In this volume, authors from the fields of history, sociology, cultural studies, and sociolinguistics analyze key issues of the history and present of this globally connected diaspora group from an interdisciplinary angle. Contributions address the institutional regimes and networks that shaped—and continue to shape—the mobility of Russian Germans on a global scale, the impact of war and violence on the history of this group during the “Age of Extremes,” and the language shifts that accompanied their multiple global moves. Its interdisciplinary and geographic diversity makes this volume a unique contribution to research on migration, global diaspora, transnationalism, and practices of belonging. By analyzing the multiple pathways of migration, entanglement, and belonging of people designated as “Russian Germans” in past and present, its chapters provide fresh insight into the making and unmaking of a global diaspora.

Was wissen wir über die städtischen Armutsviertel der Welt und die Lebenswelten der Menschen, die in ihnen wohnen? Welche Auseinandersetzungen gab es seitens der Benachteiligten der Gesellschaft mit den sie umgebenden Verhältnissen, welche Deutungen und Aneignungen des städtischen Raums, um sich individuell und gemeinschaftlich gegen die eigene Randständigkeit zur Wehr zu setzen? Das Buch geht diesen Fragen am Beispiel der russischen Hauptstadt St. Petersburg nach – einer Metropole der Moderne, die im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert rasant wuchs, zugleich aber auch Schauplatz von Aufwertungs- und Verdrängungsprozessen war. Es eröffnet den Blick hinter die gängigen Bilder städtischer Armutsviertel und fordert dazu auf, sich den Menschen hinter den kollektiven Zuschreibungen zuzuwenden. Petersburg was a rapidly growing metropole of modernity during the latter half of the nineteenth and during years leading up to 1914. As a metropole it allows a window into the ups and downs, transformation processes, social tensions, of negotiation of modernity. While focussing on Petersburg between 1850 and 1914 the book addresses questions of urbanisation and global modernity at large by zooming into the daily lives of the less privileged strata of society. How did the less privileged navigate and interpret urban live in Petersburg? How did they resist positions of marginality in their urban environment? These are the driving questions behind Petersen''s analysis.