The Role of Personal Stories and Documents in the Research and Representation of the Malenkij Robot (Accepted)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The term “malenkij robot” refers to the “little work” that prisoners were subjected to in Soviet lagers at the end of World War II. In 1944 Stalin ordered the transportation of Germans from the areas “liberated” by the Red Army to the former Soviet Union for reparation works. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were deported and one third of them never returned. The roundups and kidnappings began in December 1944. Transports included not only members of the German minority but also Hungarians with German-sounding names or German spouses. Pécs is an appropriate place to talk about the malenkij robot because 5000-6000 civilians were deported from Baranya county. The trains left Pécs in January 1945. For four decades, the topic remained taboo. In 2015, the 70th anniversary of the events was marked by a series of commemorations and public history projects. This presentation will discuss recent cultural, cinematic and museological representations of the malenkij robot (such as the film Eternal Winter, Örök tél, 2018 and the Malenkij Robot Memorial Space) and the role of personal diaries, letters, and oral history in these representations.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Helga Lenart-Cheng grew up in Hungary, and studied French and German at JATE (Szeged) and ELTE (Budapest). She completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She is Associate Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Saint Mary’s College of California. Her areas of research include auto/biography, theories of subjectivity and community, phenomenological hermeneutics, and East European literatures. Lenart-Cheng has published articles in numerous books and journals. Her co-authored book on the exiled writer Alexander Lenard was published in 2016.