Volga German
Encyclopedia
The Volga Germans were ethnic German
s living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia
around Saratov
and to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain German culture
, language
, traditions and churches: Lutherans
, Reformed, Roman Catholics, and Mennonites (Russian Mennonites). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Volga Germans emigrated to the Midwestern United States
, Canada
, Brazil
, Argentina
, Paraguay
, Uruguay
and other countries.
Nazi Germany rose in part on a pan-German appeal, claiming interests in lands where ethnic Germans had been long settled. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 during World War II
, the Soviet government considered the Volga Germans potential collaborators and transported them wholesale to labour camps, where many died. After the war, it expelled some ethnic Germans to the West. In the late 1980s, many of the remaining ethnic Germans moved from the Soviet Union to Germany
.
, a German native of Stettin
, Pomerania, displaced her husband Peter III
and took the vacant Russian
imperial throne, assuming the name of Catherine II
. Catherine the Great published manifestos in 1762 and 1763 inviting Europeans, (except Jews) to immigrate and farm Russian lands while maintaining their language and culture. Although the first received little response, the second improved the benefits offered and was more successful in attracting colonists. People in other countries such as France
and England
were more inclined to migrate to the colonies in the Americas than to the Russian frontier. Other countries, such as Austria
, forbade emigration. The settlers came mainly from Bavaria
, Baden
, Hesse
, the Palatinate and the Rhineland
, over the years 1763 to 1767.
Those who went to Russia had special rights under the terms of the manifesto. Some, such as being exempt from military service, were revoked in the latter part of the 19th century when the government needed more conscripts for the Russian army. The German Mennonite communities were opposed to military service because of their religious beliefs. Many Mennonites emigrated to the Americas then rather than serve in the military, as pacifism was and remains a deeply protected value. Some Mennonites remained in Russia. As a result of the migrations, Winnipeg, Canada, is now a center of the Mennonite population and religious practice.
, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
(Autonome Sozialistische Sowjet-Republik der Wolga-Deutschen in German; АССР Немцев Поволжья in Russian) was established in 1924, and it lasted until 1941. Its capital was Engels, known as Pokrovsk (Kosakenstadt in German) before 1931.
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union
, Stalin
was worried that the Volga Germans might collaborate with the invaders. On August 28, 1941, he dissolved the Volga-German ASSR and ordered the immediate relocation of ethnic Germans, both from the Volga and from a number of other traditional areas of settlement
. Approximately 400,000 Volga Germans were stripped of their land and houses, and transported eastward to Kazakhstan
in Soviet Central Asia
, Altai Krai
in Siberia
, and other remote areas. Other minority ethnic groups were also deported into internal exile in labor camps, including North Caucasian
Muslim
ethnic groups, Kalmyks and Crimean Tatars
. In 1942 nearly all the able-bodied German population was conscripted to the Labor Army. About one third did not survive the labour camps.
In 1941 after the Nazi invasion, the NKVD
(via Prikaz 35105) banned ethnic Germans from serving in the Soviet military. They sent tens of thousands of these soldiers to the Trudarmii (Labor Army).
The Volga Germans never returned to the Volga region in their prior numbers. They were not allowed to settle in the area for decades.. After the war, many remained in the Ural Mountains
, Siberia
, Kazakhstan
(1.4% of today's Kazakh population are recognized as Germans - approximately 200,000), Kyrgyzstan
, and Uzbekistan
(approximately 16,000 = 0.064%). After the initial period of persecution, they recovered in their new locations, where their numbers increased, and they continued to preserve their distinct cultural identity. Decades after the war, some talked about resettling where the German Autonomous Republic used to be. They met opposition from the population that had been resettled in the territory and did not persevere.
A proposal in June 1979 called for a new German Autonomous Republic within Kazakhstan
, with a capital in Ermentau. The proposal was aimed at addressing the living conditions of the displaced Volga Germans. At the time, there were approximately 936,000 ethnic Germans living in Kazakhstan, as the republic's third largest ethnic group. On June 16, 1979, demonstrators in Tselinograd (Astana
) protested this proposal. Fearing a negative reaction among the majority Kazakhs
, and calls for autonomy among local Uyghurs, the ruling Communist Party scrapped the proposal for ethnic German autonomy within Kazakhstan.
Since the late 1980s and the fall of the Soviet Union
, some ethnic Germans have returned in small numbers to Engels
, but many more emigrated permanently to Germany
. They took advantage of the German law of return, a policy which grants citizenship to all those who can prove to be a refugee or expellee of German ethnic origin or as the spouse or descendant of such a person. (Greece
had a similar law for the ethnic Greek minority from the former Soviet Union). This exodus occurred despite the fact that some Volga Germans speak little or no German
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the independence of the Baltic states some Russian ethnic Germans began to return to the area of the Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly part of East Prussia
), especially Volga Germans from other parts of Russia and Kazakhstan. This tempo increased after Germany stopped granting the free right of return to ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union. As of the 2002 Russian census there were 8,340 Germans (or 0.87% of the population) listed in the Kaliningrad Oblast. However, almost none of the pre-World War II German population remains in the Kaliningrad Oblast.
By the late 1990s, however, Germany made it more difficult for Russians of German descent to settle in Germany, especially for those who do not speak some of the Volga dialects of German. A number of German families who originally immigrated to Germany from former Soviet territories have since moved on to places such as Steinbach, Manitoba
, fewer than 100 kilometres from Winnipeg
, where the world's largest population of ethnic German Mennonites can be found. Most of the recent ethnic German immigrants likely have a Mennonite background.
Today, there are approximately 600,000 ethnic Germans in Russia
(Russian Census (2002)
), a number that increases to 1.5 million when including people of partly German ancestry.
, but especially along the Volga River
in Russia. Their ancestors had come from all over the German-speaking world, invited by Catherine the Great in 1762 and 1763 to settle and introduce more advanced German agriculture methods to rural Russia. They had been promised by the manifesto of their settlement the ability to practice their respective Christian denominations, retain their culture and language, and retain immunity from conscription for them and their descendants. As time passed, the Russian monarchy gradually eroded the ethnic German population's relative autonomy. Conscription eventually was reinstated; this was especially harmful to the Mennonites, who practice pacifism. Throughout the 19th century pressure increased from the Russian government to culturally assimilate. Many Germans from Russia found it necessary to emigrate to avoid conscription and preserve their culture. About 100,000 immigrated by 1900, settling primarily in the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska. The south-central part of North Dakota was known as "the German-Russian triangle". A smaller number moved farther west, finding employment as ranchers and cowboys.
The largest groups settled mainly in the area of the Great Plains
; Alberta
, Manitoba
, and Saskatchewan
in Canada; and North Dakota
, Kansas
and nearby areas in the US. Outside that area, they also settled in Iowa
, Michigan
, Minnesota
, New York
, Oregon
, Washington, Wisconsin
, and Fresno County in California's Central Valley. They often succeeded in dryland farming
, which they had practiced in Russia. Many of the immigrants who arrived between 1870 and 1912 spent a period doing farm labor, especially in northeastern Colorado and in Montana along the lower Yellowstone River
in sugar beet
fields.
, which had an immense upsurge in immigration from Eastern Europe
during this time. Today it has the largest number of ethnic Volga Germans in North America
. The largest area of concentrated settlement was in Jefferson Park
on the city's Northwest Side, mostly between the years 1907-1920. By 1930, 450 families of the Evangelical faith were living in this area, most of whom originated from Wiesenseite. Later during the period of suburbanization, many of their descendants moved out to outlying areas such as Maywood
and Melrose Park
. A number of families living in the Jefferson Park central business district along Lawrence and Milwaukee Avenue
have Volga German immigrant ancestors.
.jpg)
, a German Russian, was born in a small Russian village in 1847, and travelled to America in his early twenties. Interested in flour mills, he was especially impressed with the wheat-growing possibilities in the United States. After visiting Kansas, Warkentin found the Great Plains
much like those he had left behind. Settling in Harvey County, he built a water mill on the banks of the Little Arkansas River
– the Halstead Milling and Elevator Company. Warkentin's greatest contribution to Kansas was the introduction of hard Turkey Wheat into Kansas, which replaced the soft variety grown exclusively in the state.
, the Germans from Russia who settled in the northern Midwest
saw themselves a downtrodden ethnic group separate from Russian Americans and having an entirely different experience from the German Americans who had immigrated from German lands; they settled in tight-knit communities that retained their German language and culture. They raised large families, built German-style churches, buried their dead in distinctive cemeteries using cast iron grave markers, and created choir groups that sang German church hymns. Many farmers specialized in sugar beets—still a major crop in the upper Great Plains. During World War I their identity was challenged by anti-German sentiment
.
By the end of the World War II the German language, which had always been used with English for public and official matters, was in serious decline. Today German is preserved mainly through singing groups and recipes, with the Germans from Russia in the northern Great Plains states speaking predominantly English. German remains the second most spoken language in North and South Dakota, and Germans from Russia often use loanword
s, such as Kuchen for cake. Despite the loss of their language, the ethnic group remains distinct and has left a lasting impression on the American West.
, collected sixty oral histories of German Russian immigrants and their descendants as part of the "Germans from Russia in Colorado" Study Project. It documented life in the ethnic German communities in Russia, the immigration experience, work and social life in the United States, and interaction between the German-Russian communities and the wider society in both Russia and the United States.
Approximately one million descendants of these Russian Germans live in the United States. Modern descendants in Canada and the United States refer to their heritage as Germans from Russia, Russian Germans, Volgadeutsch or Black Germans. In many parts of the United States, they tend to have blended to a large degree with the "regular" German American
s who are much more numerous in the northern half of the United States.
(see Crespo and Coronel Suárez
among others, also German Argentine), Paraguay
, and Brazil
(see German-Brazilian
s). Most Volga Germans who settled in Latin America were Catholic. Many Catholic Volga Germans chose South America as their new homeland because the nations shared their religion.
Ethnic German
Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...
s living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia
European Russia
European Russia refers to the western areas of Russia that lie within Europe, comprising roughly 3,960,000 square kilometres , larger in area than India, and spanning across 40% of Europe. Its eastern border is defined by the Ural Mountains and in the south it is defined by the border with...
around Saratov
Saratov
-Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...
and to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain German culture
Culture of Germany
German culture began long before the rise of Germany as a nation-state and spanned the entire German-speaking world. From its roots, culture in Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular...
, language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, traditions and churches: Lutherans
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
, Reformed, Roman Catholics, and Mennonites (Russian Mennonites). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Volga Germans emigrated to the Midwestern United States
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and other countries.
Nazi Germany rose in part on a pan-German appeal, claiming interests in lands where ethnic Germans had been long settled. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Soviet government considered the Volga Germans potential collaborators and transported them wholesale to labour camps, where many died. After the war, it expelled some ethnic Germans to the West. In the late 1980s, many of the remaining ethnic Germans moved from the Soviet Union to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Catherine the Great
In 1762, Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-ZerbstAnhalt-Zerbst
Anhalt-Zerbst was a district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is bounded by the districts Potsdam-Mittelmark and Wittenberg, the city of Dessau and the districts of Köthen, Schönebeck and Jerichower Land.- History :...
, a German native of Stettin
Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....
, Pomerania, displaced her husband Peter III
Peter III of Russia
Peter III was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was very pro-Prussian, which made him an unpopular leader. He was supposedly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine II.-Early life and character:Peter was born in Kiel, in...
and took the vacant Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
imperial throne, assuming the name of Catherine II
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
. Catherine the Great published manifestos in 1762 and 1763 inviting Europeans, (except Jews) to immigrate and farm Russian lands while maintaining their language and culture. Although the first received little response, the second improved the benefits offered and was more successful in attracting colonists. People in other countries such as France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
were more inclined to migrate to the colonies in the Americas than to the Russian frontier. Other countries, such as Austria
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
, forbade emigration. The settlers came mainly from Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
, Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, the Palatinate and the Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
, over the years 1763 to 1767.
Those who went to Russia had special rights under the terms of the manifesto. Some, such as being exempt from military service, were revoked in the latter part of the 19th century when the government needed more conscripts for the Russian army. The German Mennonite communities were opposed to military service because of their religious beliefs. Many Mennonites emigrated to the Americas then rather than serve in the military, as pacifism was and remains a deeply protected value. Some Mennonites remained in Russia. As a result of the migrations, Winnipeg, Canada, is now a center of the Mennonite population and religious practice.
The 20th century
Following the Russian RevolutionRussian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was an autonomous republic established in Soviet Russia, with its capital at the Volga port of Engels .-History:...
(Autonome Sozialistische Sowjet-Republik der Wolga-Deutschen in German; АССР Немцев Поволжья in Russian) was established in 1924, and it lasted until 1941. Its capital was Engels, known as Pokrovsk (Kosakenstadt in German) before 1931.
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
was worried that the Volga Germans might collaborate with the invaders. On August 28, 1941, he dissolved the Volga-German ASSR and ordered the immediate relocation of ethnic Germans, both from the Volga and from a number of other traditional areas of settlement
Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Population transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
. Approximately 400,000 Volga Germans were stripped of their land and houses, and transported eastward to Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
in Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia refers to the section of Central Asia formerly controlled by the Soviet Union, as well as the time period of Soviet administration . In terms of area, it is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan, the name for the region during the Russian Empire...
, Altai Krai
Altai Krai
Altai Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It borders with, clockwise from the south, Kazakhstan, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo Oblasts, and the Altai Republic. The krai's administrative center is the city of Barnaul...
in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, and other remote areas. Other minority ethnic groups were also deported into internal exile in labor camps, including North Caucasian
North Caucasian
North Caucasian may refer to:*North Caucasus*North Caucasian languages*North Caucasian peoples...
Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
ethnic groups, Kalmyks and Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...
. In 1942 nearly all the able-bodied German population was conscripted to the Labor Army. About one third did not survive the labour camps.
In 1941 after the Nazi invasion, the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(via Prikaz 35105) banned ethnic Germans from serving in the Soviet military. They sent tens of thousands of these soldiers to the Trudarmii (Labor Army).
Recent years
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
(1.4% of today's Kazakh population are recognized as Germans - approximately 200,000), Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
, and Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
(approximately 16,000 = 0.064%). After the initial period of persecution, they recovered in their new locations, where their numbers increased, and they continued to preserve their distinct cultural identity. Decades after the war, some talked about resettling where the German Autonomous Republic used to be. They met opposition from the population that had been resettled in the territory and did not persevere.
A proposal in June 1979 called for a new German Autonomous Republic within Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, with a capital in Ermentau. The proposal was aimed at addressing the living conditions of the displaced Volga Germans. At the time, there were approximately 936,000 ethnic Germans living in Kazakhstan, as the republic's third largest ethnic group. On June 16, 1979, demonstrators in Tselinograd (Astana
Astana
Astana , formerly known as Akmola , Tselinograd and Akmolinsk , is the capital and second largest city of Kazakhstan, with an officially estimated population of 708,794 as of 1 August 2010...
) protested this proposal. Fearing a negative reaction among the majority Kazakhs
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....
, and calls for autonomy among local Uyghurs, the ruling Communist Party scrapped the proposal for ethnic German autonomy within Kazakhstan.
Since the late 1980s and the fall of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, some ethnic Germans have returned in small numbers to Engels
Engels (city)
Engels is a city in Saratov Oblast, Russia. It is a port on the Volga River, located across from Saratov and connected to it with a bridge . Population: 163,000 ; 130,000 ; 91,000 ; 22,000 ....
, but many more emigrated permanently to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. They took advantage of the German law of return, a policy which grants citizenship to all those who can prove to be a refugee or expellee of German ethnic origin or as the spouse or descendant of such a person. (Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
had a similar law for the ethnic Greek minority from the former Soviet Union). This exodus occurred despite the fact that some Volga Germans speak little or no German
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the independence of the Baltic states some Russian ethnic Germans began to return to the area of the Kaliningrad Oblast (formerly part of East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
), especially Volga Germans from other parts of Russia and Kazakhstan. This tempo increased after Germany stopped granting the free right of return to ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union. As of the 2002 Russian census there were 8,340 Germans (or 0.87% of the population) listed in the Kaliningrad Oblast. However, almost none of the pre-World War II German population remains in the Kaliningrad Oblast.
By the late 1990s, however, Germany made it more difficult for Russians of German descent to settle in Germany, especially for those who do not speak some of the Volga dialects of German. A number of German families who originally immigrated to Germany from former Soviet territories have since moved on to places such as Steinbach, Manitoba
Steinbach, Manitoba
Steinbach is a city of approx. 13,500 people in the southeast corner of the province of Manitoba, Canada, a short distance from the capital Winnipeg. Steinbach is the largest community in the Eastman region of Manitoba. The city is located in the R.M. of Hanover and bordered to the east by the R.M...
, fewer than 100 kilometres from Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, where the world's largest population of ethnic German Mennonites can be found. Most of the recent ethnic German immigrants likely have a Mennonite background.
Today, there are approximately 600,000 ethnic Germans in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
(Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
), a number that increases to 1.5 million when including people of partly German ancestry.
North America
Germans from Russia were the most traditional of German-speaking arrivals. They were Germans who had lived for generations throughout the Russian EmpireRussian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, but especially along the Volga River
Volga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...
in Russia. Their ancestors had come from all over the German-speaking world, invited by Catherine the Great in 1762 and 1763 to settle and introduce more advanced German agriculture methods to rural Russia. They had been promised by the manifesto of their settlement the ability to practice their respective Christian denominations, retain their culture and language, and retain immunity from conscription for them and their descendants. As time passed, the Russian monarchy gradually eroded the ethnic German population's relative autonomy. Conscription eventually was reinstated; this was especially harmful to the Mennonites, who practice pacifism. Throughout the 19th century pressure increased from the Russian government to culturally assimilate. Many Germans from Russia found it necessary to emigrate to avoid conscription and preserve their culture. About 100,000 immigrated by 1900, settling primarily in the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska. The south-central part of North Dakota was known as "the German-Russian triangle". A smaller number moved farther west, finding employment as ranchers and cowboys.
The largest groups settled mainly in the area of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
; Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, and Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
in Canada; and North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
and nearby areas in the US. Outside that area, they also settled in Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, Washington, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, and Fresno County in California's Central Valley. They often succeeded in dryland farming
Dryland farming
Dryland farming is an agricultural technique for non-irrigated cultivation of drylands.-Locations:Dryland farming is used in the Great Plains, the Palouse plateau of Eastern Washington, and other arid regions of North America, the Middle East and in other grain growing regions such as the steppes...
, which they had practiced in Russia. Many of the immigrants who arrived between 1870 and 1912 spent a period doing farm labor, especially in northeastern Colorado and in Montana along the lower Yellowstone River
Yellowstone River
The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the western United States. Considered the principal tributary of the upper Missouri, the river and its tributaries drain a wide area stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of the Yellowstone National...
in sugar beet
Sugar beet
Sugar beet, a cultivated plant of Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose tuber contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. Sugar beets and other B...
fields.
Cities
Other Volga Germans made new lives in the industrializing cities of the United States. Chief among these was ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, which had an immense upsurge in immigration from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
during this time. Today it has the largest number of ethnic Volga Germans in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. The largest area of concentrated settlement was in Jefferson Park
Jefferson Park, Chicago
Jefferson Park is one of Chicago's 77 well-defined community areas located on the city's Northwest Side. The neighborhood of Jefferson Park occupies a larger swath of territory than the community area by including within it land of adjacent community areas...
on the city's Northwest Side, mostly between the years 1907-1920. By 1930, 450 families of the Evangelical faith were living in this area, most of whom originated from Wiesenseite. Later during the period of suburbanization, many of their descendants moved out to outlying areas such as Maywood
Maywood, Illinois
Maywood is a village in Proviso Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. It was founded on April 6, 1869 and organized October 22, 1881. The population was 26,987 at the 2000 census.-Overview:...
and Melrose Park
Melrose Park, Illinois
Melrose Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a "near-in" suburb of Chicago. The population was 23,171 at the 2000 census. Melrose Park has long been home to a large Italian-American population, though now it is majority Mexican-American. It was the home of Kiddieland...
. A number of families living in the Jefferson Park central business district along Lawrence and Milwaukee Avenue
Milwaukee Avenue (Chicago)
Milwaukee Avenue is a major diagonal street in the city of Chicago and the northern suburbs. True to its name, it once led to the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Starting with a short section at N. Canal and W. Lake Streets, it begins in earnest at the corner of N Desplaines and W. Kinzie Streets...
have Volga German immigrant ancestors.
Wheat
Bernhard WarkentinWarkentin House
The Warkentin House is a house in Newton, Kansas, United States. The home of Bernhard Warkentin and Wilhelmina Eisenmayer Warkentin, it was built between 1886 and 1887. It is listed on the Kansas Register of Historic Places and National Register of Historic Places as a splendid example of the...
, a German Russian, was born in a small Russian village in 1847, and travelled to America in his early twenties. Interested in flour mills, he was especially impressed with the wheat-growing possibilities in the United States. After visiting Kansas, Warkentin found the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
much like those he had left behind. Settling in Harvey County, he built a water mill on the banks of the Little Arkansas River
Little Arkansas River
The Little Arkansas River is a river located in south-central Kansas. It rises in northern Rice County just north of Lyons and flows southeast past Buhler and Halstead to meet the Arkansas River in Wichita....
– the Halstead Milling and Elevator Company. Warkentin's greatest contribution to Kansas was the introduction of hard Turkey Wheat into Kansas, which replaced the soft variety grown exclusively in the state.
Culture
Negatively influenced by the violation of their rights and cultural persecution by the TsarTsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
, the Germans from Russia who settled in the northern Midwest
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
saw themselves a downtrodden ethnic group separate from Russian Americans and having an entirely different experience from the German Americans who had immigrated from German lands; they settled in tight-knit communities that retained their German language and culture. They raised large families, built German-style churches, buried their dead in distinctive cemeteries using cast iron grave markers, and created choir groups that sang German church hymns. Many farmers specialized in sugar beets—still a major crop in the upper Great Plains. During World War I their identity was challenged by anti-German sentiment
Anti-German sentiment
Anti-German sentiment is defined as an opposition to or fear of Germany, its inhabitants, and the German language. Its opposite is Germanophilia.-Russia:...
.
By the end of the World War II the German language, which had always been used with English for public and official matters, was in serious decline. Today German is preserved mainly through singing groups and recipes, with the Germans from Russia in the northern Great Plains states speaking predominantly English. German remains the second most spoken language in North and South Dakota, and Germans from Russia often use loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s, such as Kuchen for cake. Despite the loss of their language, the ethnic group remains distinct and has left a lasting impression on the American West.
Memory
During the 1970s, Dr. Kenneth Rock, a professor of history at Colorado State UniversityColorado State University
Colorado State University is a public research university located in Fort Collins, Colorado. The university is the state's land grant university, and the flagship university of the Colorado State University System.The enrollment is approximately 29,932 students, including resident and...
, collected sixty oral histories of German Russian immigrants and their descendants as part of the "Germans from Russia in Colorado" Study Project. It documented life in the ethnic German communities in Russia, the immigration experience, work and social life in the United States, and interaction between the German-Russian communities and the wider society in both Russia and the United States.
Approximately one million descendants of these Russian Germans live in the United States. Modern descendants in Canada and the United States refer to their heritage as Germans from Russia, Russian Germans, Volgadeutsch or Black Germans. In many parts of the United States, they tend to have blended to a large degree with the "regular" German American
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
s who are much more numerous in the northern half of the United States.
South America
Germans from Russia also settled in ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
(see Crespo and Coronel Suárez
Coronel Suárez
Coronel Suárez is a town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is also the capital of Coronel Suárez Partido.The partido was created in 1882 by the government of Buenos Aires Province in Argentina who divided the territory of Tres Arroyos into the partidos of Tres Arroyos, Coronel Pringles and...
among others, also German Argentine), Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
(see German-Brazilian
German-Brazilian
A German Brazilian is a Brazilian person of ethnic German ancestry or origin...
s). Most Volga Germans who settled in Latin America were Catholic. Many Catholic Volga Germans chose South America as their new homeland because the nations shared their religion.
- BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
1,180,000 - ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
2,500,000 - ParaguayParaguayParaguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
45,000
Notable people of Volga German descent
- Harold W. BauerHarold W. BauerLieutenant Colonel Harold William Bauer, commonly referred to as "Joe" Bauer, was a United States Marine Corps air group commander and fighter pilot ace credited with destroying 11 Japanese aircraft during World War II...
, USMCUnited States Marine CorpsThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
aviator - Tom DaschleTom DaschleThomas Andrew "Tom" Daschle is a former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
, politician - Zhanna FriskeZhanna FriskeJeanna Vladimirovna Friske , better known under her stage name Zhanna Friske, is a Russian film actress, singer, and socialite.-Career:...
, singer - Andre GeimAndre GeimAndre Konstantin Geim, FRS is a Dutch-Russian-British physicist working at the University of Manchester. Geim was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Konstantin Novoselov for his work on graphene...
, physicistPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and 2010 Nobel laureate - German GrefGerman GrefGerman Oskarovich Gref , born February 8, 1964) is a Russian economist of German ethnicity, the founder of Center of the Strategic Development. He was the Minister of Economics and Trade of Russia from May 2000 to September 2007...
, banking executive and politician - Gabriel HeinzeGabriel HeinzeGabriel Iván Heinze is an Argentine footballer who plays for A.S. Roma in Italy. Mainly a left back, he can also operate as a central defender....
, football player - Oscar IbañezÓscar IbáñezÓscar Manuel Ibáñez Holzmann is a Peruvian football goalkeeper, who made his debut for the national team on April 18, 1998. Since then he obtained 50 caps, with the last match being on March 30, 2005. He has been one of the four to have played at least 500 games in the Peruvian First Division...
, football player - Boris RauschenbachBoris RauschenbachBoris Viktorovich Rauschenbach was a prominent Soviet physicist and rocket engineer, who developed the theory and instruments for interplanetary flight control and navigation in 1955-1960s...
, scientist, physicist - Eduard RosselEduard RosselEduard Ergartovich Rossel was the governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast, an oblast in Russia. He was born on October 8, 1937, and is of German origin. He returned into office in 1995. He is a member of the Federation Council of Russia.Eduard Rossel was born a village near Nizhny Novgorod...
, politician - Alfred SchnittkeAlfred SchnittkeAlfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
, composer - Lawrence WelkLawrence WelkLawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...
, musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario
See also
- Expulsion of Germans after World War IIExpulsion of Germans after World War IIThe later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
- Germans of KazakhstanGermans of KazakhstanThe Germans of Kazakhstan are a minority in Kazakhstan, and make up a small percentage of the population. Today they live mostly in the northeastern part of the country between the cities of Astana and Oskemen, the majority being urban dwellers...
- GulagGulagThe Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
- History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet UnionHistory of Germans in Russia and the Soviet UnionThe German minority in Russia and the Soviet Union was created from several sources and in several waves. The 1914 census puts the number of Germans living in Russian Empire at 2,416,290. In 1989, the German population of the Soviet Union was roughly 2 million. In the 2002 Russian census, 597,212...
- Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist RepublicVolga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist RepublicThe Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was an autonomous republic established in Soviet Russia, with its capital at the Volga port of Engels .-History:...
- VolhyniaVolhyniaVolhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
- Russian Mennonites
- Volga FinnsVolga FinnsThe Volga Finns are a historical group of indigenous peoples of Russia whose descendants include the Mari people, the Erzya and the Moksha Mordvins, as well as extinct Merya, Muromian and Meshchera people...
External links
- The Center for Volga German Studies at Concordia University
- Germans from Russia Heritage Society
- Flag
- Volga Germans
- American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
- Germans from Russia Heritage Collection North Dakota State University
- Germans from Russia in Argentina Genealogy
- Wolgadeutschen
- The Golden Jubilee of German-Russian Settlements of Ellis and Rush Counties, Kansas
- Germans from Russia in Argentina
- German Memories - Volga Germans Migration Towards Americas