THEY HAVE CONQUERED

Wiens’ novel, the second volume in a series, continues the saga of his family, Russian Ukrainians of German Mennonite heritage who emigrated to the United States after the Russian Revolution.

It is April 1922, and Gerhardt Wiens, his wife, Maria, and their five children have just arrived in New York Harbor, waiting for clearance to enter the United States. Eighteen years earlier, at the age of 8, Gerhardt was on a ship in this same harbor; his parents were bringing the newly emigrated family back to Ukraine, as American life had been too politically and economically chaotic for the senior Wiens. Now it is time for Gerhardt, whose extended family remains behind in war-torn Europe, to make a new life, if not his fortune, in America. With financial help from the Mennonite Central Committee and sponsorship from his relative, Peter Pankratz, in Kansas, Gerhardt and his family head west. The following year, his brother, Heinrich, and Heinrich’s wife, Aganetha, follow Gerhardt across the Atlantic and settle in Canada. Meanwhile, back in Ukraine, Gerhardt’s extended family copes with warring Communist factions and the appropriation of private property. Although Gerhardt is the primary protagonist, the narrative winds its way through the decades to the mid-1960s, alternating back and forth across national borders to follow the lives of the American, Canadian, and Russian branches of the family. It is sometimes challenging to keep track of all the characters and unfamiliar places, especially for those who have not read the previous volume, but the author paints a vivid portrait of the difficulties of immigrant life in America and of the terrifying cruelty and deprivation of Stalin’s Russia. In the process, the novel provides compelling context for today’s war between Ukraine and Russia. The straightforward prose is more informative than emotional and would benefit from another round of editing for grammatical errors in passages like “…until her and Gerhardt became settled.”

An immigration tale rich in historical detail.