Rudolf Jacquemien

Rudolf Jacquemien (born February 16, 1908 in Cologne , † September 20, 1992 in Kaliningrad , Russia ) was a German writer and journalist . From 1932 until his death he lived in the Soviet Union or Russia. Jacquemien made an important contribution to the development of literature and journalism for the German minority in the Soviet Union.

Life

Rudolf Jacquemien came from a family of craftsmen in Cologne, was an orphan at an early age and was sent to the orphanage of a monastery, where he received a strict Catholic upbringing. Nevertheless, he joined the KPD as a young man .

In 1932, Jacquemien emigrated to the Soviet Union like many other idealistic communists of his time. In 1936 he became a Soviet citizen. In 1939/40 he fought in the war against Finland , in 1941/42 in the Second World War. Like almost all Russian Germans, he was then assigned to work in the hinterland. In 1946 , Jacquemien was sentenced to seven years of forced labor, which he spent in a Siberian labor camp. In 1954 he was released from prison, rehabilitated in 1956 and from 1959 he was allowed to publish again.

From 1966 to 1970 he worked as a proofreader for the German-language newspaper Friendship , which appeared in Zelinograd , Kazakhstan . After Kazakhstan 900,000 German had been forcibly relocated. As a former Empire of the German dominated Jacquemien the German written language than many German Russia, which granted was better during the war and in the first years after no more mother tongue instruction. That is why he was a valuable helper for his young journalist colleagues in all linguistic questions.

In addition to his journalistic activities, Rudolf Jacquemien wrote many books in a wide variety of genres from science fiction to poetry . In 1963 he was accepted into the Soviet Writers' Union. In 1981 he was the editor of the first three-volume anthology of Soviet German literature.

When Jacquemien retired in 1970, he moved to Kaliningrad , the former Königsberg . Obviously he was on good terms with the Soviet rulers, because otherwise Germans from Russia were almost never allowed to move into the closed military area around the former Prussian city. It was only after the opening in the 1990s that it became known that some people of German origin had persevered in their hometown despite the destruction, flight and displacement.

Works

• I sing you, life! Alma-Ata 1968 (poems)
• Ronak, the last Martian, Alma-Ata 1976 (Science Fiction)
• My star is still shining, Alma-Ata 1978 (poems)
• Reader, Alma-Ata 1987 (collection of smaller works)

As editor

• Yesterday and today. Soviet German Tales, Moscow 1972 (with Viktor Klein)
• Anthology of Soviet Literature, Alma-Ata 1981 (together with Ernst Konschak)

literature

• Ingmar Brantsch: Rudolf Jacquemien . In: Ostdeutsche Gedenktage 1998. pp. 81–85.
• G. Glinski & P. ​​Wörster: Königsberg: The East Prussian capital in the past and present . Berlin 1990, p. 147.
• Dirk Kretzschmar: The Soviet cultural policy 1970-1985. From managed to self-managed culture. Analysis and documentation . Bochum 1993