Vladimir Vertlib and Julya Rabinowich: Creating a Heimat of One's Own

In this essay, I explore how two Jewish Austrian writers with migrational backgrounds, Vladimir Vertlib and Julya Rabinowich, negotiate their search for Heimat (home, homeland) and identity. I am interested in their efforts to come to terms with the loss of their old home (St. Petersburg, Russia) and the need to establish a new one. Their approach is two-fold: contrary to recent claims that Heimat as a place has given way to Heimat as space due to increases in migration, mobility, and deterritorialization, I argue that both Vertlib and Rabinowich have not abandoned the idea of a place-bound image of Heimat. While they also perceive Heimat as a space that encompasses global relationships and loyalties that go beyond the confines of small (-minded) Austria, both authors claim that country as their homeland, thus undermining a public discourse that denies migrants the right to establish a Heimat in their new country.