"We, too, are stepping down from our role"

In 1989, East German theaters called for political reforms in a movement of joint resolve that began with the sentence: "We are stepping out of our role". In the fall of 1990, the Temirtau German Theater gave guest performances of the plays AUF DEN WOGEN DER JAHRHUNDERTE and MENSCHEN UND SCHICKSALE in what was still the GDR. With these dramas, the effects of the Stalinist reign of terror on the German minority were publicly addressed for the first time, which came close to breaking an unheard-of taboo in the system of the time. According to the ideas of the cultural authorities, the minority theater was originally intended to bring the Soviet Germans into line with the ideological course of the party. Together with their East German colleagues, the Russian-German actors experienced reunification first hand, full of hope and euphoria. But only five years later, following their audience, the last theater makers left their homeland to settle permanently as emigrants in the newly united Germany.

The web documentary traces the journey of this unique institution throughout the political developments in the  and especially around the Russian Germans in the period between 1975 and 1990. The topics and concerns of the theater, which was founded in 1980 on the Kazakh steppe and was the only professional German-language stage in the late Soviet Union, were experienced both on and off stage, and included adaptation to the realities of the reactionary period of the late 1970s and early 1980s, active participation in social reform processes of the short democratization period between 1985 and 1990, resignation to the post-Soviet crises, unkept promises of the authorities and the mass exodus of Russian Germans to Germany.

Despite democratic upheavals, to which the work of the theater contributed, and despite, or even because of, some concessions to the minority, about 1.5 million people decided to resettle in Germany in the period between 1988 and 2000. A settlement history of colonists and specialists, which had lasted about 200 years, then came to an abrupt end after many ups and dramatic downs. In the examination of this unique institution and its actors, the web documentary describes the circumstances and motives of this migration movement to Germany in the late 1980s and 1990s.

In 2019, Rose Steinmark, the theater's former chief dramaturge, donated the unique theater archive to the Museum of Russian-German Cultural History. This estate contains numerous originals of set and costume designs, press reports and reviews, programs and tour brochures of the theater, as well as correspondence of the only German theater in the Soviet Union in the postwar period. The numerous press and scene photographs and the stage and costume designs of various performances are items of considerable value. A large part of the material used in the documentary relies on negatives from archive of the former theater photographer Valeri Kramer. The material covers the period from 1975 to 1990.

In the web documentary, actors and contemporary witnesses of this special history talk about their own experiences within and in connection to this unique cultural institution. They talk openly about their youthful dreams and idealism, about struggles for justice and for political rehabilitation, about being shadowed by the KGB and harassed by the censorship authorities. They also speak about how they dealt with the question and the decision of whether to stay or leave.

A web documentary by Alexej Getmann, Edwin Warkentin and Arkadiy Tsirulnikov with the assistance of Dr. Alfred Eisfeld, Jan Pöhlking, and Charlotte Warkentin

A project of the Cultural Department for Russian Germans, the Herder Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Central Europe, the Museum for Russian German Cultural History and the Ruhr University Bochum - Eastern European Studies with Practical Relevance
 
Supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

English translation: William Connor