American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

Winter 2019 Volume 42, No. 4 Editor, Michael Brown Emeritus Professor, University of Wyoming

Editorial & Publications Coordinator, Allison Hunter-Frederick AHSGR Headquarters, Lincoln, Nebraska

EDITORIAL BOARD

Michael Brown Timothy J. Kloberdanz Emeritus Professor, University of Wyoming Professor Emeritus North Dakota State University, Laramie, WY Fargo, ND

Robert Chesney J. Otto Pohl Cedarburg, Wisconsin Laguna Woods, CA

Irmgard Hein Ellingson Dona Reeves Marquardt Bukovina Society, Ellis, KA Arofessor Emerita at Texas State University Austin, TX Velma Jesser Retired Educator Eric J. Schmaltz Calico Consulting, Las Cruces, NM Northwestern Oklahoma State University Alva, OK William Keel University of Kansas, Lawrence, KA Jerome Siebert Moraga, California

Mission Statements The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia is an international organization whose mission is to discover, collect, perserve, and share the history, cultural heritage, and genealogical legacy of German settlers in the Russian Empire.

The International Foundation of American Historical Society of Germans from Russia is responsible for exercising financial stewardship to generate, manage, and allocate resources which advance the mission and assist in securing the future of AHSGR.

Cover Illustration Catholic church in the Village of Obermonjou. Photo provided by Olga Litzenburg. To learn more, see page 1. Contents

Christmas in the German Villages on the Volga—and a Special Christmas Carol By Richard Kisling...... 1

Obermonjou By Olga Litzenberger, Ph.D...... 10

The Happiest Person in the World By Shannon Bickford...... 22

The Wulf Family By Olga Lomova...... 23

Finding German Russians in Kazakhstan By Michael Brown, Ph.D, Askhat Yerkimbay, and Zarina Buyenbayeva...... 25

Russian German History and Heroic, Victim, and Redemptive Narratives, Part Two By Otto Pohl, Ph.D...... 31 The Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia is published by AHSGR. The Journal welcomes the submission of articles, essays, family histories, anecdotes, folklore, book reviews, and items regarding all aspects of the lives of Germans in or from Russia. All submissions are subject to review by the Editorial Board. Manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced with endnotes. Submit an electronic copy of the article by email attachment or mail a compact disc or flash drive containing a copy of the computer file. We can accept IBM-compatible Microsoft Word™ files. Our style guide is The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), and translations follow the Transliteration Standards approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association, which can be reviewed on the Internet at http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html. Please indicate in your email or cover letter whether you have photos or illustrations to accompany your article. Photos or illustrations sent on disc should be in JPEG format. Unless you instruct us otherwise, submissions not published in the Journal will be added to the AHSGR Archives.

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© Copyright 2019 by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. ISSN 0162-8283 Christmas in the German Villages on the Volga —and a Special Christmas Carol

By Richard Kisling

Following are a short life sketch of Pastor Johannes able to return to Saratov in 1917, where he participated Schleuning, the translation of a piece he wrote in in the Volga German Congress, which sought national 1954 describing Christmas celebrations among the determination, and then he began publication of the Volga Germans, and information about a Christmas “Saratower Deutsche Volkszeitung,” the first German- carol that Schleuning says originated with the Volga language newspaper in Russia permitted after the war. Germans. The “Volkszeitung” enjoyed a wide circulation among Russian Germans for six months until it ceased publication after the victory of the Bolsheviks. Biographical Profile of Johannes Schleuning In May 1918, he returned to Germany. In 1920, he Johannes Schleuning was born January 27, 1879, in founded the Verein der Wolgadeutschen (Association the village Neu-Norka in the Volga region and died September 7, 1961, in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Federal Republic of Germany. He was a pastor in the German Evangelical Church for much of his life, and he was also an activist who believed that the German Russians were a unique people whose distinct identity should be maintained.

His studies at the Lutheran Seminary at the university in Dorpat (Tartu, Estonia, today) were interrupted by the 1905 revolution in Russia, and he, like many students, was relocated to Germany. Schleuning studied in Greifswald (which is still a university town in modern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) and he visited Berlin. This was his first exposure to the “old homeland.” It was here that he was destined to live most of his life.

He returned to Russia in 1908 and served as assistant pastor in Tiflis, Georgia. He became concerned about Russification among the local Germans and he established a Deutscher Verein (German Society) with activities intended to preserve German culture, and he assumed leadership of a monthly newspaper, “Die Kaukasische Post,” for which he hired editors from the German Empire. But in Russia at the beginning of World War I the programs at the Verein and some of the views expressed in the newspaper were deemed “Johannes Schleuning and his family in Siberia”: frontispiece “support for the enemy,” and in October 1914, the to Schleuning’s book, Mein Leben hat ein Ziel, published in Russian government banished him to Siberia. He was Berlin in 1922

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 1 of Volga Germans) in Berlin which published a month- Christmas in the German Villages on ly magazine, the “Wolgadeutsche Monatshefte” from the Volga 1922–1925. In the famine year 1921, he responded to a call from the National Lutheran Council in the United States, where for sixteen months he preached Originally published as “Weihnachten in den hessischen Dörfern an der Wolga,” Heimatbuch der Ostumsiedler, in twelve mid-western and western states, calling for 1954, pages 88–89 help to alleviate the plight of the German villages in Russia and raising $10,000 (something like $150,000 Johannes Schleuning translated by Richard Kisling in 2019 U.S. dollars using the U.S. Department of Among the most profound and enduring emotions Commerce Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation the Germans always took with them when they mi- Calculator). In 1924, he founded the Zentral Kommit- grated out into foreign lands were those associated tee der Deutschen aus Russland (Central Committee with memories of Christmas in the old homeland. of the Germans from Russia) and began publication of Christmas is deeply rooted in the German soul like no “Deutsches Leben in Russland” (German Life in Rus- other holiday. Unconscious memories of ancient Yule sia) which was confiscated and banned by the Gestapo celebrations—the solemn midwinter celebrations of in 1934. After 1934, he served as pastor and superin- the Teutons—and the luminous message of the angel tendent in the German Evangelical Church for the rest in the Gospels—“Look, I bring you good news of great of his life, first in Berlin, and later in Braunschweig. joy!”—have blended together over the centuries and deepened generation after generation. So Christmas, After World War II, he continued his work to advance a especially Christmas Eve, has become a mysterious, common identity among the Russian-German groups: invisible, and inseparable bond for Germans that he chaired the Arbeitskreis der Ostdeutschen (Task transcends national borders, crosses oceans, bridges Force of the Germans from the East) from 1952 to confessional and regional differences, and connects 1957, he wrote numerous pieces that were published them all together. in the Heimatbücher of the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland (LMDR), and he wrote When thousands of Hessians and members of other several books, including Mein Leben hat ein Ziel— German groups responded to Empress Catherine the Lebenserinnerungen eines rußlanddeutschen Pfarrers Great’s mid-eighteenth-century call to Russia, they (My Life Has a Goal—Memoirs of a Russian-German could take very few worldly goods with them, as these Minister). He was named honorary president of the had already vanished in the turmoil of the Seven Years’ LMDR; he received the Federal Republic of Germa- War. But regardless of what spiritual values might also ny’s highest civilian honor, the Bundesverdienstkreuz have been destroyed, they still took along the deepest 1. Klasse (Cross of Merit), on September 7, 1959. of these—their religious beliefs, their customs, and the language of their homeland—to the remote wilderness SOURCES FOR THE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH of the Volga region, where the Germans were intended Renate Bridenthal, “Germans from Russia: The Political to spread culture and protect Russian soil from being Network of a Double Diaspora,” in The Heimat Abroad: overrun by Mongol invasions. The Boundaries of Germanness, ed. Krista O’Donnell, Renate Bridenthal, and Nancy Reagin (Ann Arbor: Uni- Owing to the care they took in preserving these spiritu- versity of Michigan Press, 2008): pp. 190–196. al values, which sometimes broke forth here and there Johann Kampen, “61 rußlanddeutsche Namen” with renewed strength because of the hardships that [Sixty-one Russian-German names], Heimatbuch der had to be endured in this foreign place, the Germans Deutschen aus Russland (Stuttgart), 1992–1994: p. 97. were successful in their decades-long, life-and-death Reinhard Uhlmann, “Bundesverdientskreuz 1. Klasse struggle for survival. für Johannes Schleuning,” [Cross of merit for Johannes Schleuning] in “Kalender,” Nuremberg, Historischer On Sundays, especially on the important religious Forschungsverein der Deutschen aus Russland e.V., holidays of the church calendar which were celebrated 2002; content sourced by Mr. Uhlmann from Johannes with worship services exactly as in the old homeland, Kufeld, “Die Deuschen Kolonien an der Wolga,” Volk auf dem Weg, 6, 7/1957 and 1/1979. 2 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 they were able to carry their religious practices for- by the men and women of the Brüderschaft, was a ward. And because they perpetuated their various other beloved tradition.3 This beautiful custom, which I customs, they were also able to maintain their spiritual witnessed as a child in my birthplace and home vil- and intellectual life. Christmas was among the most lage Neu-Norka on the Bergseite of the Volga, has beloved celebrations. The Advent season was consid- always been unforgettable. A crowd of twenty men ered the preparation. Of course, the Christkind, who and women singers gathered in a large private house was loved and expected, and the Weihnachtsmann, after the Christmas Eve church service and waited who watched through the window and threatened all there until after midnight. Then they went out into the children who had bad habits with his switches, what was often a cold and stormy night. Thus, they played the biggest roles.1 packed into my parents’ house, lined up, and then from there went on their walking tour as shepherds in the During my childhood on the Volga there were no fields of Bethlehem. As an eight- or nine-year-old, I Christmas trees as we know them now, because there accompanied this procession, warmly wrapped up, never were any conifer forests in this region. But my bashlik (warm hood) over my head. people searched for and found substitutes. These were branches. Cherry branches were especially favored. The village lay in nocturnal darkness and deep silence, Families brought cherry branches into the house, with only the yapping of a dog here and there and placed them in water in a warm kitchen during Ad- not a single light anywhere. So we waded through vent, and brought them to bud and bloom in time for the snow, often during intense snow flurries, along Christmas. They wrapped any branches that remained the familiar village streets and up to a tightly closed bare with the gold and silver paper that normally was window. The first Christmas song rang out. We didn’t used for making paper flowers, a task that made the have to wait long for light to appear in the dark room. children very happy. On Christmas Eve, they deco- Hurriedly, people were out of their beds and into warm rated these “Christmas trees” with apples and candies, clothing. Their faces quickly came into view at the and illuminated them with candles. window where they listened with rapt attention. A second song was sung, then the leader knocked on the The highpoint of the festivities was the Christmas Eve window and called inside: “The Savior is born to you celebration in the church, which the schoolmaster and today. Rejoice with us!” Warm thanks for the singers his little helpers prepared for long in advance. The resounded from inside. children were assembled near the splendid Christmas tree, which stood in front of the altar, wound with col- In the meantime, a family member had donned a ored paper and decorated with colorful paper flowers.2 sheepskin coat and felt boots and joined the band of The focus of the celebration was on the Christmas singers that was already moving along to the next story, about which the schoolmaster posed questions to house. Our old, well-known Christmas songs alter- the children who responded with carefully-memorized nated with new ones which were emerging in this answers. The schoolmaster began his examination foreign place. Among them, the following melody with, “Why do we celebrate Christmas Eve?” and and text that could be easily memorized: then the congregation followed the rapid succession of questions and answers with breathless excitement. Die Hirten, die waren im Felde, Groups of speakers alternated with individuals. Our (The shepherds, who were in the field,) beloved, traditional Christmas songs were sung by young and old with equal enthusiasm. The way the Sie saßen ganz ruhig im Zelte, parts of the service unfolded—and especially the (Were sitting peacefully in the tent when) questions and answers with the children—made it the most interesting topic of conversation for the rest of Umleucht’t sie ein himmlisches Licht. the Christmas season. (They were surrounded by a heavenly light)

In many villages the “Christmas Eve Sing” [das Christnachtsingen], which was usually carried out

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 3 Umleucht’t sie ein himmlisches Licht. the “liquidation” of the Volga colonies. The whole (They were surrounded by a heavenly ligh population—there were about 750,000 people—met their fate in the brutal deportation to Siberia. Families Ein Engel, der ließ sich herunter, were torn apart and scattered across Siberia to work as (An angel, who let himself down,) slave laborers in primeval forests or in remote mines. In their hardship, they were intended to be slowly Und sprach zu den Hirten ganz munter absorbed into the masses of people far to the east.5 (And spoke to them quite cheerfully) And yet, here and there individuals have succeeded There were innumerable verses.... in re-establishing small settlements in the midst of people with completely foreign customs, where they Since they couldn’t sing at all the houses, they started try to preserve their old traditions. On Christmas at the homes of the old and the sick who couldn’t go Eve in these tiny communities—and not just on this to church and brought cheer to them. Farmers who night—they try to remember the songs that remind had large dwellings at their disposal frequently invited them of the happiest times in their history. This is a the singers inside to warm up. People who are frozen- small and modest new beginning, but it gives us hope through gladly accept such an invitation! As many for the survival of Volga German culture, albeit under as would fit went inside, and then the farmer’s wife the most difficult of circumstances. set up the samovar. In a few moments, the table was laden with Riwwelkuchen and other baked goods.4 The Our history is not yet over.6 samovar steamed and everyone received their tea and Kuchen. It was a good refreshment on a cold night. Notes on the Christms Carol “Die A cup of tea never tasted as good as on such a night! Hirten, die waren im Felde” And I’ve never heard more devout conversations than those carried on by these pious people. Christmas music enthusiasts might be curious about the Volga-German Christmas carol in Schleuning’s The people regained their strength to sing and could narrative. In fact, the carol may very well have call out the great message of joy at other houses, until emerged among the Volga Germans, just as Schleun- fatigue and the cold brought a halt to their victory and ing suggests: it appeared in Johannes Erbes and Peter scattered these “shepherds” each to his own home for Sinner’s 1914 collection of folk songs, just as it was brief, but well-deserved rest, as all would want to be printed in Georg Schünemann’s collection from 1923. back in the church for the 10 a.m. service. The custom Both of these books provide notes that document Ger- was brought to a close with the words of the Christmas man antecedents for songs the colonists brought with Gospel: And the shepherds returned, glorifying and them when they immigrated to Russia by referencing praising God for all the things that they had heard and previously published German folk song collections, seen, as it was told unto them. [Mark 2:20] however neither book provides such a citation for this song. The editorial committee for the Wolga Gesang- The preceding was just a fleeting glimpse into a beau- buch never adopted it for that hymnal (it is neither a tiful past. Where are they now, those who created the hymn as a literary form, nor is it sung to a traditional granary of Russia here in the former wilderness and hymn tune), but Peter Weinand included it in his col- maintained their German faith, German customs, lection of religious songs published in 1915. The carol and the German language on the border with Asia for was taken up and sung across the Western Hemisphere. nearly 200 years? There were 700,000 at the time of the outbreak of World War I. In the following decades, This carol is song No. 5, “Weihnachtslied” (Christmas hundreds of thousands perished in the world war, in Song), in Erbes and Sinner’s collection of 280 folk the years of civil war, and in the catastrophic years songs and nursery rhymes, Volkslieder und Kinder- of famine and collectivization. Then in the autumn reime aus den Wolgakolonien (Folks Songs and of 1941, Stalin’s “resettlement” decree brought about Nursery Rhymes from the Volga Colonies), which

4 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 was published in Saratov in 1914.7 This song col- was reprinted numerous times in Russia, Germany, lection is significant for several reasons: the authors Argentina, and the United States of America.13 were important Volga German thought leaders, they completed field research in the villages, and the book The song has been largely abandoned by Volga was intended as one of the commemoration pieces for Germans in the Americas, even though it was once the sesquicentennial celebration of the Volga colonies’ known—and sung—by many people. However, it founding. They collected this song in the villages of appears to have found a new home in some Russian Dönhof (Bergseite), Schilling (Bergseite) and Lauwe Mennonite communities, especially in Canada. (Wiesenseite). The carol was published in two-part harmony as It is song No. 57 in Georg Schünemann’s collection of song No. 86 in Franz C. Thiessen’s Liederschatz für 434 folk songs, Das Lied der deutschen Kolonisten in Sonntagsschule und Heime (Treasure Chest of Songs Rußland (Songs of the German Colonists in Russia), for Sunday School and Home). This songbook was published in Munich in 1923.8 Schünemann was a published in Winnipeg, Manitoba, probably in the German musicologist who recorded songs onto wax 1940s. cylinders in twenty-five German POW camps between 1916 and 1918 using an Edison phonograph.9 The A four-part harmonization was printed in 2001 by the published song collection is made up of annotated Musikförderkreis (Society for the Support of Music) transcriptions of the recordings with musical notation in Fernheim Colony, Paraguay, which was founded for the melodies. The largest population of prison- by Mennonite refugees from the Soviet Union in the ers were captured soldiers from Russia;10 most of early 1930s. Schünemann’s German singers came from the Volga colonies and from the German settlements in South It was recorded in 2011 by Canzona, a professional Russia, Siberia, and near Petersburg.11 The prisoner chorus in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on “Stille Nacht,” a who sang this song was from the Volga village of Christmas CD conducted by Henry Engbrecht. Enders (Wiesenseite). It was sung as a special congregational hymn the Peter Weinand included this carol in Gemeinschafts- Second Sunday of Advent, 2013, at Eben-Ezer Men- lieder (Fellowship Songs), a collection of religious nonite Church, Abbotsford, British Columbia. The songs he published in Saratov in 1915. In the 1922 church bulletin for that Sunday was posted on the Chicago edition that contains 579 songs, it is song church’s website.14 No. 396.12 The fact that our little Christmas carol was chosen for this songbook may be indication that it Dr. Peter Letkemann, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, pro- already was widely known by the Volga Germans, as vides some perspective on transmission of this song Weinand included popular titles that were not in the from the Volga Germans to the Russian Mennonites. Wolga Gesangbuch, such as “Stille Nacht” (“Silent Dr. Letkemann is a respected authority on the music Night”) and “So nimm denn meine Hände” (“Take of the Russian Mennonites, whose 1985 Ph.D. dis- Thou My Hand, O Father”) that people wanted to sing. sertation at University of Toronto, “The Hymnody and Choral Music of the Mennonites in Russia,” Weinand’s collection was not intended to serve as a remains the major study on this topic. He explains “rival” to the long-established Wolga Gesangbuch, that the Mennonite tradition of cultural development which remained the Volga German hymnal in the has always included acquisition of musical practices Protestant churches; rather, it was a complementary from their neighbors wherever the Mennonites lived.15 song collection which retained some hymns from the Gesangbuch but also added newer religious songs that Contrary to what we might believe about the separa- were useful for the Bible studies, prayer meetings, and tion of the religious confessions in the Volga region, evangelism that were expressions of the religious life there were ongoing religious, cultural, musical, and of participants in the Brüderschaft. This songbook economic exchanges between Mennonites and Volga

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 5 Germans in central Russia (mostly with Evangelical for some rest and relaxation.18 However, individual Lutherans, but also to some degree with Roman Catho- conductors or teachers from any of these Mennonites lics) in the years when the first Mennonite villages settlements might have borrowed the song at some “am Trakt” were founded (1854–1872), to the when point and introduced it into their communities. Both the Alt-Samara settlement was founded (1859–1870), the Volga Germans and the Russian Mennonites were and then into the 1890s when the Neu-Samara and enthusiastic singers! Orenburg settlements were established (1890 and 1894–1903, respectively).16 Richard Kisling, a second-generation American, was born into a Volga German family whose immigrant The exchange of this song could have taken place relatives came to the United States from the Tarlyk vil- almost immediately upon the arrival of the earliest lages of Warenburg, Straub, and Lauwe on the Wiesen- Mennonite settlers to the Volga region who were des- seite. He completed his B.A. in Piano Performance and tined for the “am Trakt” villages when they arrived in his M.A. in Music Education at Pacific Union College. October of 1853 and overwintered in the Tarlyk village He taught music for ten years in Oakland, California. Warenburg before they established their first village, He has worked as a church musician, sung with the Hahnsau, some 13 miles (21 km) out on the steppe, symphony choruses in Oakland and San Francisco, the following spring.17 Of the four Mennonite settle- and frequently accompanied singers and instrumental ment areas in the Volga region, the “am Trakt” Men- soloists at the piano. A life’s goal has been to improve nonite villages may have had the liveliest exchanges his German-language skills and, after intermittent with the Volga Germans, as this cluster of villages classes at the Goethe Institut in San Francisco, in lay on the Samara steppe near to the Tarlyk colonies retirement he has methodically completed the entire and numerous Protestant and Catholic daughter colo- German curriculum at Sonoma State University near nies just a few miles east of the Volga River. This where he lives. Richard has been active in AHSGR proximity was important: Schünemann learned from since 1983. He has served as Village Coordinator for the prisoners who sang for him that one of the main Warenburg, president of the Golden Gate Chapter, and settings for exchange of folk songs between colonies newsletter editor for the California District Council. was when farmers informally assembled on the way He has also been speaker and organizer for conven- home from their adjacent fields and paused together tion sessions.

Songtext Songtext: No. 5, “Weihnachtslied,” from Erbes and Sinner’s Volkslieder und Kinderreime aus den Wolgakolonien, published in Saratov in 1914. English translation by Richard Kisling

Die Hirten, die waren im Felde, The shepherds, who were in the field, Sie saßen ganz ruhig im Zelte. Were sitting peacefully in the tent, when Da umleucht sie ein himmlisches Licht. They were surrounded by a heavenly light. Da umleucht sie ein himmlisches Licht. They were surrounded by a heavenly light.

Ein Engel, der ließ sich herunter, The angel, who let himself down, Verkündigt den Hirten groß Wunder: Proclaimed to the shepherds a great wonder: „Geboren ist Christus der Herr! “Christ the Lord is born! Geboren ist Christus der Herr!“ Christ the Lord is born!”

Der Hirten sprach einer zum andern: The shepherds spoke one to the other: „Kommt, Brüder, nun lasset uns wandern “Come, Brothers, let us walk Nach Bethlehem bis an die Statt. All the way to the place in Bethlehem. Nach Bethlehem bis an die Statt.“ All the way to the place in Bethlehem.”

Nach Bethlehem kamen sie alle, They all came to Bethlehem, Sie fanden das Kindlein im Stalle, And found the little child in the stable. Maria und Joseph dabei. Mary and Joseph were there. Maria und Joseph dabei. Mary and Joseph were there.

6 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 Schünemann’s transcription from a wax cylinder recording on pages 196–197 of his book, Das Lied der deutschen Kolonisten in Rußland, published in Munich in 1923

The carol in two-part harmony, from pages 99–100 of Thiessen’s Liederschatz für Sonntagsschule und Heime, likely printed in the 1940s. Reproduced by permission, Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, Winnipeg, Manitoba

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 7 1. The Christkind figure, sometimes known by the diminutive “Brethren” movement among Evangelical Lutherans was known Christkindchen, was a young girl dressed in white represent- as the Brüdergemeinde—the “Community/Congregation of the ing an angel, whose role was to go from house to house as the Brethren”—and it was also referred to by its participants both gift-bringer; it was she who carried a bundle of switches. The in Russia and among those who immigrated to North America Weihnachtsmann comes at Christmastime in modern Germany. as die Brüderschaft (“the brotherhood”). After they immigrated However, he was not typically a Christmas character among the to North America, many Evangelical Lutheran followers of this Volga Germans; rather, it was Pelznickel who arrived at each movement joined the German Congregational Church whose house to mete out punishment to naughty children, either on successor church organization is the United Church of Christ Christmas Eve, or in some villages, on New Year’s Eve. Timothy (UCC). As of May, 2018, there are several pages on the UCC’s J. Kloberdanz, “Kissing the Switch: Christmas Characters and website that provide historical insight, including “German Con- their Roles in Social Control among Catholic Volga Germans,” gregationalism on the Western Frontier,” by William G. Chrystal, American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Work http://www.ucc.org/about-us. Paper 16 (December 1974): pp. 38–40. Eduard Seib, “Der 4. Riwwelkuchen is the classic Volga-German coffeecake with Volgadeutsche im Spiegel seines Brauchtums” [The Volga Ger- streusel topping (the Riwwel). man mirrored in his customs], Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus 5. Dr. Victor Krieger estimates that 794,059 Soviet Germans were Rußland (Stuttgart), 1967–1968: pp. 149–151. deported eastward between August and the end of December, 2. In many villages the tree in the church would likely have been 1941, including 365,329 citizens of the ASSR of the Volga Ger- a “real” Christmas tree. However, one witness from 1880 mans. Krieger puts the total number of Germans living in the So- describes the difficulty in obtaining a Christmas tree, saying that: viet Union in 1941 at between 1,405,000 and 1,419,000. Victor “Evergreens had to be obtained from far away, because that sort Krieger, “Die demographische Entwicklung der Deutschen in der of tree did not grow in the Central Volga area.” The tree presum- Sowjetunion der Jahre 1926–1959” [The demographic develop- ably would have been purchased in an urban center like Sara- ment of the Germans in the Soviet Union in the years 1926– tov. Erwin Schneider, “Russlanddeutsche Weihnachten” [Volga- 1959], Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Russland (Stuttgart), German Christmas], Volk auf dem Weg, Landsmannschaft der 2003: p. 13. In another piece, Dr. Krieger explains: “The total Deutschen aus Russland (Stuttgart) December 2001: pp. 21–22, number of the victims of Communist tyranny in the USSR was translated by Alex Herzog, posted on the NDSU Libraries at least 20 million people. For various reasons, the Germans in Germans from Russia Heritage Collection website https://library. the Soviet Union suffered disproportionately from these crimes. ndsu.edu/grhc/. Similarly, Karl Stumpp describes that men from According to a conservative tally, about 480,000 German chil- his village in the Black Sea region went to the city of Odessa ev- dren, youths, women, and men came to premature deaths from ery year to bring back the tree for the church. The fact that this shooting, freezing, starvation, exhaustion, and diseases of all type of tree was so rare gave it an enchanting quality. Stumpp kinds in the period 1917–1948. This is a gravely serious number comments, “Merely the fact that there were no conifer forests in for a small ethnic group that only numbered approximately 1.35 the region created a different mental image for German-Russian million people in the early fifties of the last century [the 1950s].” children of what a Christmas tree was. For a child in Germany Victor Krieger, “Eine Bilanz des Shreckens” [A balance sheet of who saw evergreen trees every day, the Christmas tree didn’t terror] in Keiner ist Vergessen, Landsmannschaft der Deutschen have the same magical effect that it had on our children who aus Russland (Stuttgart), 2011: p. 49. Excerpt translated by never saw an evergreen growing in the forest. For us, this Richard Kisling. tree appeared from ‘somewhere’ once a year. As a result, it 6. In 1954, when Schleuning wrote this piece, West German Chan- was surrounded by a heavenly aura and was highly valued.” cellor Konrad Adenauer had not yet made his historic 1955 visit Karl Stumpp, “Weihnachten bei den Schwarzmeerdeutschen” to Moscow where he discussed the situation of the Germans in [Christmas among the Black Sea Germans], Heimatbuch der the Soviet Union with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and the Ostumsiedler (Stuttgart), 1954: pp. 91-92. Excerpt translated by Germans in the USSR were still two years away from being re- Richard Kisling. leased from the war-time restrictions of the special settlements 3. Schleuning refers to these people as “die kirchlichen Brüder and from oversight by the security police. But even after their re- und Schwestern“—“the church brothers and sisters.” They lease, they were forbidden from returning to their prior places of were Protestants who had been influenced by their contact with residence. There was hope among Germans in the Soviet Union Pietism and the Moravian Brothers. In Russia, they continued that they might be repatriated to the Volga region or to other pre- their attendance at the Evangelical Lutheran Church, they par- war homelands, or at least be granted a new autonomous area ticipated in the sacraments, and continued their financial support for settlement. Soviet Germans repeatedly met with government of the local churches. However, they came to view the services officials but without result. A little later, Germans demonstrated of the church as formal and inadequate, and they held religious in the streets and went to jail. Progress was made at certain meetings in private homes where they emphasized repentance, times, as in 1979, when the Politburo approved a plan to carve prayer, Bible study, and belief in Jesus as a personal savior. a national territory for the Germans out of northern Kazakhstan, They also held larger, public evangelism events and gave a very but the plan was abandoned after local citizens voiced their prominent place in their beliefs to the prophetic books of the Old opposition. Further meetings with the government continued, but and New Testaments and to the teaching of millennialism. This all these efforts failed. J. Otto Pohl, Catherine’s Grandchildren:

8 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 A Short History of the Russian-Germans Under Soviet Rule 11. Schünemann, Das Lied der deutschen Kolonisten, p. 157. Also (Lincoln, Nebraska: American Historical Society of Germans note that Russian Mennonites were represented in the Ger- from Russia, 2009): pp. 65–89. After Mikhail Gorbachev lifted man POW camps, but Schünemann and his colleagues did not Soviet restrictions on emigration in 1987, the flood gates opened include Mennonite singers among those they recorded: “Most of and over 2.3 million Germans from the Soviet Union and areas our singers professed their Evangelical-Lutheran faith, but Cath- of the former Soviet Union streamed into Germany between olics, Reformed, and Baptists also sang songs for us. However, 1987 and 2016. Statistic from the Bund der Vertriebenen, www. little was to be done with the Mennonites, who had the high- bund-der-vertriebenen.de/ and the Bundesamt für Migration und est level of education. What we heard from them was entirely Flüchtlinge, www.bamf.de/. influenced by imported, printed music books, so they had to be 7. Johannes Erbes and Peter Sinner, Volkslieder und Kinderreime excluded from a folkloric collection at the outset.” Schünemann, aus den Wolgakolonien, Gesammelt—und mit einem Anhang Das Lied der deutschen Kolonisten, p. 158. Excerpt translated von Rätseln—zum 150jährigen Jubiläum der Wolgakolonien by Richard Kisling. [Folk songs and nursery rhymes from the Volga colonies, 12. Peter Weinand, Gemeinschafts-lieder (Chicago: German Pilgrim collected—and with a supplement of riddles—for the 150th an- Press, 1922). niversary of the Volga colonies] (Saratov, Russia: Buchdrückerei 13. Leandro Hildt, “Libros rescatados: Wolgagesangbuch” [Rescued “Energie,” 1914). books: Wolgagesangbuch], in Vida Abundante, March-April, 8. Georg Schünemann, Das Lied der deutschen Kolonisten in 2013, page 10, Iglesia Evangélica del Río de la Plata (Buenos Rußland mit 434 in deutschen Kriegsgefangenenlagern gesam- Aires, Argentina), accessed at www.issuu.com, May 7, 2018. melten Liedern [Songs of the German colonists in Russia, with 14. Marion Braun, the church’s Coordinator of Music and Worship, 434 songs collected in German prisoner-of-war camps] (Munich, provided photocopies of four-part harmonizations of the carol Germany: Drei Masken Verlag, 1923). from the Thiessen hymnal and the Musikförderkreis, and also 9. The Schünemann field recordings are a part of a larger collec- facilitated an introduction to Dr. Peter Letkeman. tion of historic sound recordings, one of the museum collec- 15. E-mail to Richard Kisling, March 23, 2018 tions that the Germans secreted in Silesian mines in 1944. 16. E-mail to Richard Kisling, March 27, 2018 The collection was captured and removed to the Soviet Union 17. Johannes J. Dyck, Am Trakt: A Mennonite Settlement in the in 1945 as spoils of war, then returned to the German Demo- Central Volga Region, based on a text by W. E. Surukin, cratic Republic (East Germany) in 1951, but put under seal. translated by Hermina Joldersma and Peter J. Dyck (Winnipeg, After German re-unification, a review of the number and status Manitoba: CMBC Publications and Manitoba Mennonite Histori- of the recordings in 1993 revealed that about 95% of the wax cal Society, 1995): p. 3. Originally published in German as Am recordings in the collection had survived, whereas 40% of the Trakt: eine mennonitischen Kolonie im mittleren Wolgagebiet collection’s shellac records (created from the wax masters for (North Kildonan, Manitoba: Echo Verlag, 1948). repeated playback) were missing. The collection of songs has 18. Schünemann, Das Lied der deutschen Kolonisten, p. 3. been digitized and will be made available to the public. Website of the State Museums of Berlin www.smb.museum, accessed May 25, 2018. Currently, the Phonogramm Archive at the Ethno- logical Museum in Berlin holds most of the recordings; it shares possession of the accompanying written documentation with the Sound Archive at Humboldt University-Berlin: the Phonogramm Archive holds the “Protokollhefte,” the field notes about each song recording; the Sound Archive holds the “Personalfrage- bögen,” the standardized questionnaires that contain detailed biographical information about the performers. E-mail to Richard Kisling from Dr. Ricarda Kopal, Phonogramm Archive, Berlin, June 6, 2018. These two institutions are scheduled to combine resources and move into Berlin’s new Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace (the re-imagined and reconstructed Hohenzollern “Berlin City Palace”) upon its completion. Occupancy of the new building is expected in late 2020 or early 2021. Website of the Humboldt Forum www.humboldtforum.org, accessed November 1, 2019. 10. Monique Scheer, “Captive Voices: Phonographic Recordings in the German and Austrian Prisoner-of War Camps of World War I,” in Doing Anthropology in Wartime and War Zones: World War I and the Cultural Sciences in Europe, ed. Reinhard Johler, Christian Marchetti, and Monique Scheer (Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Verlag, 2010): pp. 302–308.

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 9 OBERMONJOU

(also known as Ober-monjour, Ober Monjou, Obermonj, Kivivka, Krivovsk; today: KRWIVOVSKOYE, Marxosvki Rayon, Saratov Region)

Written by Olga Litzenberger English Translation by Alex Herzog

Johannes Herzog of Königswinter, Germany original colonists are immigrants from France [likely, translated this article from the original Russian- Alsace] and Luxemburg. Practically all initial setters language version into German. Alex Herzog of were Catholics, with only seven persons professing Boulder, Colorado, subsequently translated it into to be Protestants. First to be appointed mayor was American English. Johannes and Alex are second Joseph Grenzer, a twenty-six-year-old soldier from cousins and Black Sea Germans. Würzburg who had immigrated to Russia with his twenty-two-year-old wife.

Geographic Location and Administrative-Territo- The name of the colony came from the German word rial Affiliation in the 19th and 20th Centuries “Ober [upper]” and the family name of the second di- The German colony of Obermonjou was founded on rector of the colony, the Crown-authorized Boregard, the “left side” of the Volga (which in the usage of Vol- Colonel Otto Friedrich von Monjou, combined as ga Germans was the “meadow side,” the “right side” OBERMONJOU, in contrast with the “Lower Mon- being the “mountain side”), on the banks of a small jou,” the Lutheran colony of Niedermonjou (today: lake close to the Volga River. It lay 328 kilometers [ca. Bobrovka, Marxovski Rayon, Saratov Region). The 203 miles] from the city of Samara, 162 kilometers ukase [the Crown’s decree] of February 26, 1786, [about 100 miles] from the county seat Novousensk, which regulated the naming of colonies, officially gave 70 kilometers [about 43 miles] from Saratov, 60 kilo- the colony the name OBERMONJOU. meters [37 miles] from the suburb Pokrovsk and nine kilometers [ca. 5.6 miles] from the Katharinenstaft The name Krivovka was given to the village in 1915 administrative office of the rural Nikolayevsk dis- as a hostile anti-German propaganda campaign de- trict (Volski), government of Samara. Subsequent to veloped in the country, a consequence of the 1914 the establishment of the Work Group of the Workers Commune of Volga Germans [forerunner of the Soviet Republic of Volga Germans. – Tr,], Obermonjou was the administrative center for the village soviet [council] Obernonjou and for the entire Marxstadt Canton. In 1926, the village soviet Obermonjou was relegated merely to the Obermonjou village.

Brief Settlement History The German colony of Obermonjou was founded on June 7, 17671, by the [Crown’s recruiter] Baron Kano de Boregard. The eighty-three founding families of the colony had come from various German cities and states (Saxony, Mainz, Mecklenburg, Trier, Würzburg, Bamberg, and other areas). Also listed among the Obermonjou from a bird’s eye view. Photo K.K. Loor, 2013.

10 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 outbreak of World War, in which Germany was the uncommon. For example, in 1820, the Guardianship principal enemy of Russia. A series of discriminatory Office ordered a “mandatory payment to be made by laws was enacted against the German population of the farmer Chebyshov to the colonist Heinrich Berhart Russia. In 1914, all German-language publishers and of Obermonjou.” associations were closed, and the public and everyday use of the German language was forbidden. The Each year, the Saratov Guardianship Office produced August 18, 1916, ukase forbade German-language documentation for trade volumes and carefully fol- instruction in all educational institutions of the Rus- lowed the economic situation in the colonies. For ex- sian Empire. At the same time, when many German ample, during 1814, it registered an epidemic affecting locales were renamed, Obermonjou was given the cattle. That same year, it collected a record “on the name Krivovka. However, subsequent of the establish- welfare of the colonies,” in which one could read about ment of the Working Committee of Volga Germans “records of goods sold by the colonists to out-of-town in 1918, German villages were allowed to use their merchants, namely, cattle, tobacco, grains, includ- original names. ing wheat, to be transported to cities such as Kasan, Kostroma, Moscow, Nizhni Vovgorod, Rybinsk,” The first ninety-five settlers included not only farm- and the report included data on “the resulting sums ers, but also trades people such as: five tailors, four of money received, as well as the expenditures for hunters, four masons, three shoemakers, two carpen- survival in the colonies.”4 An audit of 1934 recorded ters, two blacksmiths, two paper manufacturers, two land for the colonists in the amount of 15 desyatines gardeners, two hosiers, two bread bakers, a soldier, a [ca. 35 acres] per person. According to the 10th audit cooper, a maker of napkins, a plasterer, a merchant, a of 1857, 92 male colonists owned 5,941 desyatines [ca. miller, a wood turner, a maker of perukes, a locksmith, 14,000 acres] (some 6.5 desyatines per person) of land. a wool spinner, a weaver, a teacher, and a doctor.2 Still, Lack of sufficient arable land, forest land, and hay- most of the settlers had been farming people in their growing land often resulted in court cases contested original homelands. between German colonists. For example, between 1911 and 1920, there was a dispute between residents The colonists grew wheat, rye, millet, and vegetables. of Obermonjou and the neighboring colony of Orlo- In time, a millwork evolved in the village. By the vskaya over lands that were designated as Kommis- 1790s, the Guardianship Office granted the colonist sarskaya, Monjou, and Wilhelmina.5 During the time Kunz permission to put up a stream-fed mill near the span of 1836-1841. the Guardianship Office referred village of Voskressenskoye, and in 1800 he sold it to the Senate a judicial dispute between residents of to the Russian farmer Nechayev. Between 1810 and Obermonjou and the state’s salt transporters and the 1820, the colonist Befort3 also operated a mill. Busi- Cloister of the Transfiguration of Christ of Saratov. ness transactions with farmers were infrequent but not It concerned the catch of fish in the above-named land areas.6 Between 1851 and 1853, the Office dealt with the matter of “mis-measured tracts of land on the Koltovski Island, which belonged to colonists...”7

In addition to wheat, tobacco also became an important trade commodity. Traditions of tobacco growing and use in their old homeland, favorable policies toward the tobacco trade, which was very weak in Russia and (as of 1762) was not taxed, as well as strong demand for it, supported the spread of tobacco culture among the foreign colonists. The Office observed carefully the contracts for purchasing tobacco leaves and guar- anteed the colonists of Obermonjou 2,216 pud (over 30,000 pounds) of tobacco.8 In the second half of the Wooden houses in Novokrivka village. Photo E. Moshkov, 2013. 19th Century, production of tobacco, which was very

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 11 profitable, was stopped due to heavy competition and to certain aspects of the state’s tax policies.

Among the crafts of the colonists of Obermonjou, a special one was weaving with straw. Straw-woven products were indispensable to everyday life of the colonists and found a broad variety of uses in the households. With time, this craft became a revenue- producing one, and by the end of the 19th Century dozens of colonists (primarily women) took part in their farmyards in the production of straw hats, small and large baskets, figures of straw, and various everyday articles. Demand was rather strong, and profiteers bought the products in great quantity and resold them in the larger cities. Abandoned house in Novokrivka villaage Photo E. Moshkov, 2013. makes use of. The work of the circles is lacking en- The population in the colonies grew steadily. While tirely, and the librarian, Comrade Kremer, opens the Obermonjou counted 91 families in 1816 and 138 reading room only rarely.”11 families in 1834, by 1857 there were 197 families. According to reports of the state central statistical of- During the 1920s, the village had two cooperative fice, in 1859, there were one brick manufacturer and stores, an agricultural credit cooperative, two machine ten windmills in the village. At the same time, the cooperatives, and two artels. office reported that Obermnonjou counted 165 farm homes in 1859. In 1869, authorities from the Brunnel The ongoing collectivization and de-kulakization and Hertel colonies turned to the Guardianship Office bore tragic consequences and were accompanied by with the request to be allowed to “cut the number of a severe famine. In response to the de-kulakization farm home sites in half, because the families of some campaign, during which entire families were ar- home owners were increasing rapidly.”9 According rested and deported to Siberia or to the Far North, to information issued by the statistical office of the mass demonstrations by German famers defending Samara Gouvernement, in 1910, the colony had 392 the de-kulakized farmers took place. The residents farm steads and two operating oil mills. of Obermonjou stood in open defiance against the militia and the military responsible for carrying out Not all names of the various village leaders have the de-kulakization. The mood of the population was been preserved. But it is known that during the years reflected in a top secret report on the events during 1870–1890, people such as Johann Befort, Jakob the de0kulakization campaign, as follows: “In the Walter, Josef Exner, Peter Brull and Konrad Boos held village of Obermonjou, a mob of people, more than the office of mayor. three hundred women and also some men, hindered the operation involving the hauling away of the kulaks. During Soviet times, Obermonjou opened a public The leader of the operation, who tried to disburse the reading room and a room intended to get rid of il- mob in a peaceful way, was beaten up and was forced literacy. Under the headline “Stalin’s Constitution to hide. Just outside the village, another, a quickly Demands Creative Cultural Work,” the newspaper growing mass of people gathered, with cries such as “Nachrichten [News],” in its issue of March 15, 1937 the following coming from the crowd: “We should reported as follows: “The situation regarding reading beat them up!” or “Refuse the hauling away of our rooms in the Marxstadt Canton looks very bad. There people from our village!” and “We won’t let anyone is a great lack of leadership on the part of the Canton get through here!” Only by February 17, when a unit organizations and the village soviets [councils]. The of soldiers sixty men strong arrived, was the mass ac- reading room in Obermonjou possesses a good library, tion ended. As punishment, six persons participating newspapers and magazines, which, however, no one in the action were sentenced to prison terms of vary-

12 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 of teacher. By 1840, the school taught 131 boys and 128 girls.

In 1906, the village opened a four-year public semstvo school [semstvo meaning local Soviet administration] and employed four teachers, Judging from a contemporary witness, “unless with the greatest effort was it possible to open the school. The writer and a young priest tried, with tears in their eyes, to convince the members of the community members to erect a semstvo school.”15 The community donated the school acreage to the local [semstvo] administration, which not only took over responsibility for the instruction, Wooden house in Novokrivka village. Photo E. Moshkov, 2013. but also paid the teachers. The school required three years for graduation and had two classes per grade. 12 ing duration.” The Commission for De-kulakization The distribution of curriculum materials was exem- was able to go through with the transport of kulaks plary. Required subjects were God’s Word (religion), from Obermonjou only after the military had arrived reading, writing, arithmetic, and singing. Just as in 13 in the village. the church school, instruction was conducted by the same teacher, who gathered several class grades in During September of 1941, all Germans were deported one school room. The teachers arranged for their own from the village. As of 1942, the village has carried teaching plans, chose additional subjects to teach, and the name Krivovskoye. had the right to fit the teaching material to grade needs.

Schools and Instruction During its first years, thesemstvo school was directed Along with the first colonists came the first teacher, by G. Nürenberger, a former teacher at the church thirty-four-year-old Johann Schaller from Reol, along school who simultaneously filled the duties of the with his 38-year-old wife. Like the rest, the teacher Küster. However, he and teacher Spister soon lost their received from the Guardianship Office a horse for positions. To protest the dismissals, the community agricultural work but, by request from the colonists, turned to the school inspector and to the bishop of the he taught their children as early as the first months Roman Catholic diocese of Tiraspol also became in- after arrival. Under his direction, and in his house, the volved. As the Volkszeitung reported, the intrigue and children were taught church songs and reading. His fighting between the teachers and a certain priest went home was dubbed “the school.” The church played an so far as to bring “the school to a very bad state, al- active role in school instruction, and the teacher coor- though fortunately, instruction was not interrupted.”16 dinated his office with his work as Küster [sexton]. The community dedicated significant funds for the school, During a community meeting on June 23, 1914, the and the clergy was also interested in providing church construction of a second semstvo school was decided. resources for the education of the children and col- Three fourths of the costs were taken over by the sem- lected donations for the construction of new schools. stvo; the other fourth to be borne by the community. The first church-sponsored school in Obermonjou A community decision also called for the community was built early in the 19th Century. It was made of to furnish a requisite piece of land and the building wood, “covered with boards, seven sashes long and materials. fivesashes wide,” consisted of one large class room, a teacher’s office, a kitchen and an ante-room, and it During the summer of 1914, the Volkszeitung wrote 14 had twenty windows and two stoves. Between the as follows: “God willing, our future school will have end of the 1820s and 1840s, that is, for about twenty active, diligent teachers who not only spend their time years, Michael Braun from Solothurn filled the office here to draw a salary, but are prepared to bring success to the school, so that the efforts by the community will

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 13 not be in vain. Our school will then demonstrate the 6 sashes wide, topped by an iron cross. The ceiling same successes as the ministerial school in neighbor- inside was 8 sashes high, the tower above the entrance ing Orlovskoye, which is well known for the diligence was 115 sashes high20 and was topped by an iron and eagerness of its pupils.”17 cross. The church had thirty windows, two altars, .... ten paintings of saints.”21 However, none of these wishes would ever come to fruition. World War I and the subsequent Revolution The various bishops, deacons, and priests at differ- of 1917 destroyed the plans of the community, and ent times attempted to convince the congregation during the early Soviet times the parochial school members to build one or another church. The priest and the semstvo school were replaced with a general Valentin Greiner (1861-1943) wrote at a later time: public elementary school. “The Catholic community of Obermonjou realized the necessity of a new church structure, not only because Denominational Faith of the Community and its the old one (now seventy years old) was too small, but Main Aspects also because the structure represented a real danger The colonists were overwhelmingly Catholic, with for the congregation and recently had been closed by only a small minority confessing the Lutheran faith the police because of danger of collapse.22 In 1875, a (the latter congregation being part of the Evangelical- brick factory was built in the community, a parcel of Lutheran parish of Katharinenstadt). land was reserved for a church, and a bank fund was set up. Initially, the brick factory stayed less than profit- The Parish able, while the land parcel showed a gain in value of From its founding and onward, Obermonjou was a 9,000 rubles. The colonists deposited this amount in branch of the Katharinenstadt Parish, and the high- a Katharinenstadt bank to draw interest. The follow- est authorities promised to provide it with its own ing years were fruitless and arid years and prevented priest, whose duties were to serve all the branch the community from increasing their capital, while congregations in rotation and to celebrate church the process of collecting of donations was a slow, services on weekdays, Sundays and feast days. By drawn-out matter. 1870, the overall parish counted 2,167 faithful;18 as of 1874 the church authorities allowed the Obermonjou By 1890, the bank deposits had doubled to about congregation to have its own parish.19 By 1887, that 18,000 rubles. Week by week, the parishioners still Obermonjou parish counted 2,100 faithful; by 1909, collected donations in their own village and even it was 2,200; and, in 1919, there were 3,052 members. in neighboring colonies—all for a church building. As of 1874, the Obermonjou parish and five others Under the leadership of Peter Greiner, who urged were placed under the Deaconate of Katharinenstadt. speedy construction of a new stone church, work in the brick factory was resumed in 1890. Between 1892 Church Construction Dates and Architectural and 1896, some 1.4 million bricks were produced at Characteristics a value of 15,000 rubles. During its first 130 years, from the founding of the colony to the end of the 19th Century, the community built some small church structures. The first consisted of a small provisional space akin to a normal home of the time. In 1824, the second church was built “at the community’s expense.” It was dedicated by the priest Pupshevich of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Sacred Mother of God. According to an 1840 inventory record for the church put together by Superior Vinzenz Snarski, the church in Obermonjou was relatively large in comparison with other Catholic churches. “....built of wood on a stone foundation. With a roof made of boards, 14 sashes [?] long and Street in Novokrivka village. Photo E. Moshkov, 2010.

14 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 In choosing a specific architectural project, the residents of Obermonjou favored the “Kontor Style” that was typical for German colonists, and they ended up constructing a genuine gem made of red bricks in the neo-Gothic style. This church in Obermonjou turned out to be a nearly exact replica of the church in Louis (today: rayon center Stepnoye, Saratov region). The architecture of the church was also similar to the no longer existent church in Marienburg and other Catholic churches built in the German colonies in the second half of the 19th Century. The new church would become not only a necessity for the Catholic church services, but it also ended up to be a real jewel for the village—a true shrine. Preserved in the State museum of the Volga Germans is a photo of the project Houses in Novokrivka village. Photo E. Moshkov, 2013. also executed by T.S. Chilinski, namely, the Roman Catholic church in Louis (Otrogovka), for which the The campaign for collecting donations for a church deputy minister for the Interior in Saint Petersburg building dragged on for two decades, and it impacted had given permission for construction on August 25, the lives of priests and simple parishioners, all of 1894. The drawings of the façade and the plans for whom donated differing sums for the building of a the dimensions and those for Obermonjou to be prac- stone church. Somewhat later, the author of an article tically identical. Rising costs during the inception of in the newspaper “Klemens” reached a climax with the project had led the Obermonjou residents to rely the rhetorical question: “Do we not have communi- on the already existing drawings [for Louis]. ties like Obermonjou ... which in the past few years have constructed churches at a cost of 40,000-60,000 In all probability, the drawings that would be used for rubles? Doubtless, such high sums can be donated only the churches in Louis and in Obermonjou had been when the people have a deep faith and are convinced prepared in 1887 for the Catholic parish of Marien- that they need religion and the church for the salvation berg. Later, by request of the parish community of 23 of their souls.” Louis, a very similar project, with minimal deviations in the planning for the main façade and the apse, was In 1890, Father V. Greiner, who was assuming the approved in 1890 by the governor of Samara and in role of organizer for the church construction, turned August 1894 by the Ministry for the Interior in St. to the government architect Chilinski, who presented Petersburg. The parish in Obermonjou adhered to the the community with several expensive projects to very same project. choose from. Tadeusch Severinivich Cjilinski was the main government architect between 1883 and After selecting a church architectural project, the com- 1905, and between 1881 and 1893 he also was the munity would need to designate a construction site of architect for his diocese and worked on projects with at least 120 square meters [ca. 141 square yards], pres- various functional significance. He was also involved ent a new village plat, and then present a cost estimate in projects including a diocese-owned steam-driven to the government administration. The government candle manufacture, the hospital of the Red Cross administration had the police administration check the community Olgino (Samara, Tolstoi Street, 135/11), validity of the proposed data, accepted confirmation the consistory’s building (Samara, Galaktionovskaya that the Roman Catholic Consistory had no objec- Street 2013), a wooden prayer house for the Catholic tions to the construction of a church, and then issued community (Samara, Saratovskaya/Frunse Street), its approval. To the great joy and astonishment of the and others. parish members, the community was issued a building permit by the official authority in Saint Petersburg in

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 15 only four months, whereas the Louis parish originally boring colonies, as well as numerous parish members. had to wait six years for the same authorization. The church was dedicated to the Conception of Saint Anna.25 Immediately after receiving official authorization, the community elected a financial council consisting of The church structure impressed contemporary wit- the following members: Johann Boos, Johann Nüren- nesses by its unusual size of forty meters in length berger, Josef Graf, and Peter Engel. In order to assure [ca. 130 feet] and twenty-one meters in width [ca. adherence to the cost estimates, the governmental bank 65 feet, and the tower’s height of forty meters. “The commission took over the delivery of the building exterior of the church provided a wonderful sight,” materials and appointed the construction managers. wrote the priest Valentin Greiner at a later time, Given responsibility for the overall construction was “thirty-two square pillars, massive columns seventy Ivan Ivanovich Lossov of Wolsk; Ivan Dmtrievich centimeters thick [27.5 inches] stood all around the Gelousov for all wood requirements and for construct- walls and served as elegant decoration. Every other ing all windows and doors; the brothers Nikolai and window and very other door was framed by arced, Stepan Uholnikov of Welsk for the roof; and Michail top-tapering pillars ... At the top of each pillar there Gregoriyevich Perevostchikov and his father-in-law was an indentation in the form of a cross. The most Rodion Vassilevich for piecework.24 impressive part of the church was the tower with its many elegant decorations. A particularly beautiful The first construction phase lasted from July 18 to part was four smaller towers on the four sides that October 15, 1895. In those three months, 700,000 symbolize the four evangelists, between which the bricks were laid. On August 15, a festive ceremony gilded cross, topping the tower, reached into the sky.”26 observed the laying of the consecrated cornerstone into the foundation, an occasion attended by clergy and numerous guests from neighboring colonies.

During the following year, the walls were erected, the floor was installed, the pews and the altar space were finished, and the work on the roof was completed. On November 24, 1896, the practically finished structure was dedicated by Deacon Rissling. However, the on- set of winter frost caused work on the interior to be suspended. By spring of 1897, the interior work was resumed, and in the summer a fence was drawn around the church. On July 2, 1897, the consecrated cross was festively affixed to the tower. On June 5, the architect Chilinski, who by now was on his fourth visit to the site, signed the agreement of final acceptance of the work, signifying that he was satisfied with the overall result. It had taken about two years to construct the church, and it cost the community members a total of 33,000 rubles, which they were able to pay without having to take up credit.

The festive dedication of this House of God took place on September 28, 1897, and the actual dedication and the Mass were carried out and celebrated by the former pastor and by then Bishop Anton Johannes of Padua The Orthodox Chapel of Our Lady of Tikhvin built on the Zerr and by the current pastor, Valentin Greiner. In foundation stones of Obermonjou houses. attendance were many clergy and guests from neigh- Photo E. Moshkov, 2013.

16 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 In contrast with the traditional “Kontor Style” often forced on the colonists, characteristic features of the church architecture included a pillar-free construction [This appears in direct contradiction with the above description by the pastor! – Tr.], a main tower and four side towers, a double-door main entrance, a massive cross above the main entrance, a central decorative element for the main façade, framing of the side porticos and the tower/steeple with crosses, etc. The new church’s beauty could easily compete with the best examples in European buildings. Fortu- nately, architects and the clergy never classified their churches into main and peripheral, or central and side churches, just as the residents of Obermonjou did not consider their place as an unimportant village or parish. In their selection of the church design and in their preference for an original architectural solution, all were simply trying to make their hometown a more beautiful place.27

Following the completion of construction, the parishioners of Obermonjou, just like other communities, ordered statues from the well-known wood carver Ferdinand Stuflesser: Joseph and the Jesus Child at 150 rubles, and Maria Immaculata (Latin: spotless) Obermonjou church. Photo from personal archive of K. Rapp at 125 rubles. Christian aesthetics was given a special (USA). elegance and freedom in the wood statues created in After 1917, the population kept dwindling steadily the Stuflesser workshop. The most dignified image under the influence of Bolshevist policies, and as a was presented by the Virgin Mary and the Christ child consequence of the famines in the early 1920s and in her arms, The Mother of God conquered a dragon at 1930s, the de-kulakization era, ongoing repressions, her feet and hovered above the world, looking securely and emigration of residents. An all-Russia census of and unmoved onto the defeated evil. The statues of 1920 had 2,978 persons living in Obermonjou, ex- the European master were unveiled in the church in clusively ethnic Germans. During the famine of the September, 1906, the sixth anniversary of the church 1920s, 141 children were born, but 386 persons died.28 dedication. According to statistics from the Statistical Adminis- tration of the Autonomous Region of Volga Germans, Population Numbers around January 1, 1922, only 1,685 persons remained In 1767, Obermonjou numbered 299 foreign colonists; living in Obermonjou. During the all-Russia census of by 1773, the number was 325; 370 in 1788; 429 in 1926, the community numbered 433 households, all 1798; 620 in 1816; 1,068 in 1834; 1,609 in 1850; 1,513 but 431 of them German ones, with a population of in 1859; and 1,936 in 1889. Between 1877 and 1878, 2,433 persons (1,190 men and 1,253 women), 2,432 some 544 residents emigrated to America. According were German (1,184 men and 1,248 women).29 How- to data from the general census of the Russian Empire, ever, by 1931, Obermonjou again numbered 3,077 in 1897, there were 2,251 residents in Obermonjou, persons, all of them ethnic Germans. of which 2,235 were ethnic Germans. By 1905, the number of residents was 2,801; in 1910, there were 2,752 residents.

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 17 From the History of the Church Community and church council of Obermonjou since August 1, 1928; the Parish in the church for twenty years; stemming from a farm Between 1803 and 1830, the nine Jesuit missionaries family; served 1.355 persons; denied voting rights.”31 working in the Volga region were led by Father J. In 1929, he was arrested in Obermonjou, accused of Richard. Contemporary witnesses reported that the being part of a clandestine group of Catholic clergy Jesuits introduced lengthy Masses and strengthened of the Volga region, tried in a court, and sentenced to supervision over religious instruction. With the help of banishment. these missionaries, churches were built, the parishes received ecclesiastical equipment from the order, and In 1931, the Central Enforcement Committee of the the situation regarding child rearing improved. The ASSR of Volga Germans received from the Regional Jesuits helped in healing the sick and planting of trees. Commission on Discernment of Religious Question However, as a result of mysterious accusations lodged secret information by which the church was not yet against the Jesuits by the Russian Orthodox Church, to be closed, the church community numbering 2,331 the Russian monarch issued a decree that forced the faithful, of whom 139 were designated in the category Jesuit order to leave Russia in 1820.30 of those deprived of political rights.32

Alexander Boos, who was born in 1842 in Obermon- According to an announcement by the German Em- jou, eventually became a Catholic priest. In 1878, he bassy in Moscow, there were only four priests left in was appointed the rector of the seminary for priest in the Tiraspol Diocese. It further reported that there had St. Petersburg. been “no contact and no certainty of whether he might still be alive,” referring to Peter Bach, a priest who During the second half of the 19th Century, on each had been active some years back and who earlier on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception also had served in Obermonjou.33 Peter Bach had been of the Virgin Mary, which was declared a dogma in classified with the same group that Leo Weinmeyer 1854 by Pope Pius IX, a festive Mass was celebrated. had been in, that is, a group of German Catholic clergy In the tradition of the Catholic Church, this was one of in the Volga region who were dragged into court and the most important feasts of Mary. Each July 26, Saint sentenced. Anna was memorialized in the Obermonjou church. In September, 1934, the Commission for Cultic Mat- Following the power grab by the Soviets, the enact- ters within the Central Enforcement Committee of ment of anti-church laws, active anti-religious propa- the ASSR of Volga Germans received a directive by ganda, and the repressive policies of the government which the church in Obermonjou was no longer to gradually caused all expressions of religious life to be available to the faithful.34 On December 5, 1934, cease and ecclesiastical welfare organizations to be the Marxstadt Enforcement Committee decided that shut down, the clergy were exposed to massive ex- the church in Obernonjou would be closed because treme repression, and many clerics were dragged be- it was in arrears in tax payments. The Commission fore the courts and sentenced to various punishments. for Cults presented to the Enforcement Committee a Dozens were accused of anti-Soviet activities and shot list of signatures of those faithful who were in agree- to death. Some of the clergy emigrated. At the time, ment with the liquidation of the church. By February Leo Michaelsohn Weinmayer, the former organist of of 1935, the Presidium of the Central Enforcement the Saratov Cathedral and priest in Neu-Mariental and Committee of the ASSR of Volga Germans as well as Pfeifer, attempted to hide in Obermonjou but, in 1929, the Supreme Soviet of the ASSR decreed the closing by decree of the NKVD, the priest’s name was placed of the church in Obermonjou.35 on the “List of cult servants and persons who had similar offices,” which included the following accusations: Clergy of the Katharinenstadt Parish who Serve earlier membership of certain status, number of years in Obermonjou in the cult, property status, and number of faithful 1803-1812 Johann Baptist Richard served. Leo Weinmayer was judged as follows: “In the 1812-1820 Johannes Guillemaint 1856-1876 Raimund von Andreshevskoyvich 1876-1878 Anton Johannes Zerr

18 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 Novousenski, Samara Gouvernement; covering Partial List of Clergy of the Parish of Obermonjou36 the years 1789 - 1934, folders 6 - 9, 11. Contents: Ca. 1887 Alexander Torshinski Birth, baptism, marriage and mortality records for 1889-1898 Valentin Greiner the village residents of Krivovsk (Obermonjou) 1898-1901 Peter Bach 1901-1905 Johannes Beilmann for the years 1821-1826, 1827-1835, 1849-1855, 1905-1907 Michael Hatzenböller 1849-1856, 1855-1866. 1928-1929 Leo Weinmayer • State Archive of the Saratov Region (in Saratov), stock # 637. Collection of church registers of the The Village Today Saratov Gouvernement (1780-1917), index 22, Today it is called Krivovskoye, in the Marxovski folders 27-34. Personal data for the Roman Catho- Rayon, Saratov region. No trace remains of the former lic church of Obermonjou (Krivovsk, Lugovoye)38 greatness of the Catholic settlement and its neo-Gothic for the years 1875-1885, 1875-1911, 1885-1894, church. On the territory of the former Obermonjou, 1892-1907, 1897-1905, 1905-1912, 1907-1918, there are a mere four wooden homes (a fifth went 1912-1918. up in flames in 2013), and the ongoing population numbers ten. Still, that is not the extent of the village. An Interesting Archival Document Part of it is a private estate with its own acreage, a Among the lost documents of the Saratov Welfare man-made lake, a herd of horses, some houses, and a Committee for Foreign Settlers, there appears to small Orthodox chapel. According to the estate owner, have been one entitled “Document Concerning the the chapel was dedicated in 2010 in memory of Anna Cohabitation of the Colonist Leiker of the Obermon- Chapman.37 For its construction, and in memory of the jou Colony and the Bachelorette Rosina Reising,”39 German settlers, stones were gathered from the entire dated during 1819. While the document is lost, the title region that had formerly been part of the foundation contained in the index demonstrates that the Church of the Catholic church and of colonist homes. In that strictly condemned various transgressions and viola- way, with the stones of the Catholic church that once tions in the area of marriage and the family. As early honored the conception of Saint Anna, an Orthodox as during the first [Christian – Tr.] millennium, there chapel was built to honor an entirely different Anna. appeared teachings on the holy nature of marriage, which toward the end of the 19th Century were con- Territorially, the village of Krivovskoye is part of firmed by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical “Arcanum the rural settlement Podlesnoye in the Marxovski divinae” and by Pope Pius IX in the encyclical “Casti Rayon. In addition, on the territory of the former connubi.” Within this system of transgressions, those Obermonjou there are now the rehab camp “Rovesnik” against the moral basis of the family constituted a (“Contemporary”) for children and the rehab camp special category. Still, pre-marital relationships were “Niva” (“Field Meadow”) for adults. The area is now not adjudged as strictly by the Church as adultery. considered one of the most picturesque on the entire Volga shore. The territory of the former village is sur- People were freed of punishment for pre-marital re- rounded by a massive forest, which tends to produce lations by the so-called marriage dispensation, with its own micro-climate. It is a wondrous landscape, prescribed for the guilty that they must get married. with clean air, sandy beaches, rich mid-Volga vegeta- Matters of dispensation were discussed in the Vatican tion and, most importantly, far enough distant from by the Department for Spiritual Questions for Foreign noisy civilization, which has made this area famous Faithful. A man and a woman who had been “gripped far beyond the region. by passion of love” had to turn to their bishop via their pastor. The bishop then “at the feet of His Ho- Archival Sources liness, begged most humbly for dispensation from • State Historical Archive of Volga Germans (En- Rome”—and this including the birth of a child out gels, Saratov Region), stock #162. Collection of of wedlock—that “the parents of a child conceived documents of the Roman Catholic village churches through lust of the flesh and born out of wedlock could of the rural county of Kamyshinski, Saratov Gou- enter into the state of marriage.”40 vernement; of the rural counties Nikolayevsk and

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 19 Obermonjou in the Press41 das religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutschen. Katholischer Teil On May 10, 1914,42 the village mayor sent the police to [The Churches and the Religious Life of the German Russians, Obermonjou to inform the residents that it was neces- Catholic Part.] Ed. By Josef Schnurr. Stuttgart, 1980. sary to build a dam to back up the water. The residents 2. Taken from Einwanderer in das Wolgagebiet 1964-1767, [Im- dragged various building materials together, and the migrants to the Volga Region, 1964-1767], publisher Alfred flow of water was dammed up. Although the water Eisfeld, originated in Igor Pleve, vol. 3, Kolonien Lamb-Preuss. Göttingen, 2005. level kept rising more and more, it would not flood, thanks to the constructed firming of the banks ...How- 3. From the Index of the Saratov Guardianship Office for Foreign ever, the mayor put forth a plan by which the water Settlers ,ed. I. Pleve, Moscow, 2002, vol. 2, p. 209 in a ditch behind the dam was also to be dammed, so 4. Russian Historical State Archive (henceforth referred to as that the ducks could swim there ... Work was begun RGIA), paragraph 383, Index 29, Document 1065, pp. 24-27. in the evening, the dam was broken through, and the 5. RGIA, B. 383, V. 29, A 1058. water flowed the entire night through. The next day 6. RGIA, B. 383, V. 29, A. 1124. the people begged the mayor to stop the water flow, 7. RGIA, B. 383, V.28, A. 16535 but he, a difficult character, answered one and all: 8. Cf. Pleve, I.R. The German Colonies on the Volga during the “That is my affair.” The water rose and rose, and the 2nd Half of the 18th Century. M, 1998, p. 189 (in the Russian hole in the dam grew ever larger. Sandbags were of no language). help. Church bells were rung, and the people returned 9. RGIA, B. 393, V. 29, A. 20973. from the fields to save their belongings. [I find this 10. Nachrichten, March 15, 1937, p. 2. story to be confusing and a bit contradictory regarding construction and destruction. – Tr.] 11. Cf. German, A.A. History of the Republic of Volga Germans in Events, Facts, Documents. P. 199. The mayor, along with people who were on his side, 12. German, A.A. The German Autonomy on the Volga. 191801941, approached the second dam [? – Tr.] and ordered that it part 2. The Autonomous Republic, 1924-1941. Saratov, 1994, pp. 107-110. be broken through as well. However, men armed with pitchforks, stood in their way and threatened to stick 13. 14.9 meters by 10.6 meters [ca. 50 feet by 35 feet]. him with them should he even touch the lower dam. 14. GASO B. 1166, V. 1, A. 128, Bl. 54 Geb.-Bibl. Suddenly, as if descended from heaven, the mayor’s 15. Deutsche Volkszeitung, number 32, April 22, 1912, p. 2 overseer appeared and, under threat of three months’ 16. Ibid. incarceration, forbade him to destroy the dam. 17. Volkszeitun,g July l3, 1914, number 55, p. 2.y All the while, the water level kept rising and swept 18. RGIA B. 821, V. 126, A. 14, Bl. 252. away twenty houses. A woman had just been baking 19. RGIA B. 821, V. 6, A. 68. bread when the water reached her oven. The owners 20. 29.9 meters long, 12.8 meters wide [ca. 100 x 42 feet], ceiling of clay-brick homes lost all of their shelter ... At this height ca. 55 feet, tower height ca. 100 feet. time, the village is like a genuine Venice. The only 21. GASO B. 1166, VC. 1, A. 128, Bl. 54. thing missing are the gondolas, although in their place 22. Klemens, number 26, March 25, 1898, p. 400. were canoes. Now there is plenty of water in the village, not only for the ducks, but also for people can 23. Klemens, February 7, 1901, p. 3. also swim in it without even leaving their farmyards. 24. Klemens, April 8, 1898, p. 429. 25. Saint Anna was the mother of the Virgin Mary and the daughter May God grant that people here might think first of the priest Mattan of Bethlehem. Anna’s husband was Saint before they act! Joachim. Saint Anna had been infertile for a long time, but after twenty years of marriage, an angel announced to her the conception of a daughter, the future Virgin Mary. 1. In the literature there appears an alternative founding date of 26. Klemens, May 6, 1898, p. 490. March 5, 1767. See Beratz, G. Die deutschen Kolonien an der unteren Wolga in ihrer Entstehung und ersten Entwicklung 27. Deutsche Ortschaften im Russischen Reich: Geographie und [The German Colonies on the Lower Volga in their Establish- Bevölkeruing. Handbuch. Zusammengestellt von W.F. Diesen- ment and Development]. Saratov, 1915. Also: Die Kirchen und dorf [German Locales in the Russian Empire. Geography and

20 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 Population, Homeland Book put together by W.F. Diesendorf]., M., 2002, p. 1156 28. These data were taken from the 1921 issue of Die Deutschen There is a Story in All of Us! Russlands. Ortschaften und Siedlungsplätze. Enzyk- lopäsches Wörterbuch. Zusammengestellt von W.F. The Folklore committee hosts the annual Sto- Diesendorf. [The Germans of Russia. Locales and Settlement rytelling Contest for youth and adults, and has Places. Encyclopedic Dictionary, put together by W.F. Diesend- orf]. M., 2006. some wonderful news to share. We have added a new category where you may tell your story 29. Preliminary data for 1926 for the ASSR of Volga Germans, Pokrovsk, 1927. using multi-media with prizes in each category! 30. Book of Russia’s Laws, vol. 37, number 28298, pp. 113-116. Please share your family memories, history, sto- 31. GIANP, B. 849, V. 3, A. 159, BI. 49. ries with us. You may use the traditional written 32. GIANP, B. 849, V. 3, A. 834, BI. 81. story or multi-media. 33. PAAdA, R 62247. 34. GIANP, B. 849, V. 1, A. 890, BI. 36. We really hope you consider submitting your 35. GIANP, B. 849, V. 1, A. 1138. story. There is a story in all of us! 36. This list is taken from the following: Die Kirchen und das religiöse Leben der Russlandeutschen, Katholkischer Teil. The deadline for submission is June 1, 2020. Bearbeitung J. Schnurr [The Churches and the Religious Life of German Russians, Catholic Part, by J. Scherr.] Stuttgart, Additional details will be given on the AHSGR 1980; Gedenkbuch. Martyrologium der Katholischen Kirche der website or in the next newsletter. UdSSR [Memorial Volume: Martyrology of the Catholic Church in the USSR], M., Silberfaden, 2000; Dzvonskovski, Roman, SAC {A Russian-language reference]. 37. Chapman, Anna, “outed” agent of the Russian secret service. In America she was active with a cover name of an entrepreneur of Russian origin. 38. Thus in the index. 39. GASO. B. 180. V. 2. A. 9111. 40. RGIA. B. 821. V. 128. A. 1801, Bl. 3-7. 41. Article in the Volkszeitung issue of June 26, 1914, number 50, p. 2. 42. We are here dealing with mayor Unrein, who in a subsequent issue of the Volkszeitung of July 10, 1914, number 54, p. 2) issued a personal reply to justify his actions by the fact that a plenary session of the village community had decided on the building and the destruction of the dam, a decision reached in agreement with the police. In the same reply, the mayor stated that mention of the residents threatening him with pitchforks and three months’ incarceration were a pure invention of the author of the [original] article by the colonist D. Rösch.

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 21 THE HAPPIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD By Shannon Bickford

Shannon Bickford’s story won an Honorable Mention in the 2019 AHSGR Storytelling Contest. Winners were announced at the annual convention in Lincoln, Nebraska, in July.

“Take one step as the happiest person in the world.” As a teen, I had worshipped Saturday mornings in a very typical way—I slept. That is, I slept until my “Really?” I thought. “Is that the secret to enlighten- mother, a first generation child of German-Russian ment?” immigrants, would bounce into the room, throw open the curtains and say, “Let’s let some hell in here.” Hell My friend had just returned from a weeklong retreat meant bright in German, but to me it meant torture. aiming to renew spirit and body. Hoping just a little She would follow enthusiastically with the question, wisdom would rub off on me, I asked, “What did you “Aren’t you the happiest person in the world?” discover?” The question stuck. I began asking myself, “Aren’t Her answer was, “Take one step as the happiest person you the happiest person in the world?” I have long in the world.” ago shed the logic of the question. I don’t own the superlatives in any corner. I am not the richest, most It wasn’t the first time I encountered that advice, beautiful, most talented, or the most beloved person although I had never recognized it as a rung on the on the planet. To answer my question, though, I have ladder to enlightenment. Just the opposite. been the happiest.

Illustration by Shannon Bickford

22 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 This begs explanation. Thankfully, I have never ex- AUTHOR BIO perienced war, extreme hate or hunger; but like most Shannon Bickford received her B. A. in Biology, her I have experienced the challenges a typical life of- M. A. in Special Major (combining Art and Biology), fers. I have also had my happy days, like the birth of and her M. S. in Psychology from California State a grandchild and my wedding day that many would University, Fresno. She is define as pinnacle events, but these don’t need super- an exhibiting artist and her latives for definition. biological illustrations have been published in laboratory What I call my happiest times are very ordinary mo- manuals and entomological ments embedded in an ordinary life. The realization texts. Ms. Bickford recently comes when I’m sharing a hotdog with my husband retired after 20 years work- at Costco or cutting cucumbers while preparing a ing as a School Psychologist family meal with my step-daughter. Not surprisingly, and is enjoying devoting her sometimes, I find I’m happiest when I’m sitting with time to her family, writing, the early morning sun streaming through the blinds, and her artwork. striping the room with a little hell.

At these times, I am the happiest person in the world. I am thankful for these moments and with gratitude I wish these moments for others.

I wish you many steps as the happiest person in the world.

THE WULF FAMILY By Olga Lomova

Olga Lomova’s story won an Honorable Mention in the 2019 AHSGR Storytelling Contest. Winners were announced at the annual convention in Lincoln, Nebraska, in July.

The first Wulfs came to Russia among those invited estate. My great-grandfather had a brother Alexander by Catherine the Great. Most of them were farmers. who was a mechanic on a steam boat Vera that sailed My great grandfather Rudolph Edward Karlovich on the Volga. Once the boat caught fire and this ac- Wulf and his wife Catherine Jakovlevna Weber had 12 cident was reflected in a picture by Jacob Weber1, my children, eight of them survived: Theodor, Leopold, great-grandmother’s brother. Rudolph, Robert, Alexander, Bertha, Olga, Minna. My great-grandfather was born in Tarlykovka of My grandfather Rudolph Edward Wulf was born on Saratov gubernia. Later, he was a teacher at the vil- 28 August 1868 in Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk). His parents lage school. His three daughters also became teachers. were farmers and entrepreneurs. His father Karl had In 1912, Rudolph Wulf worked at a teacher training a wine store and his mother was a gardener at a large school in Rovnoe. At the end of the 1930s, he was

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 23 teaching German at Saratov Law School and was the der worked at Saratov Aircraft Factory. Valentin got head of Foreign Languages department. He was the PhD in Mathematics and moved to Moscow. author of several texbooks that were illustrated by Jacob Weber. Alexander married Lydia in 1958 and had three children, Alexander (b. 1958), Olga (myself, b. 1961), and Catherine Weber died in 1933 and Rudolph Wulf Valentin (b. 1973). married Bertha Phillipovna Gruenemaier in 1935. Rudolph Wulf died in March 1940; Bertha died in Leopold, the fourth child of Rudolh Wulf and Cath- Siberia where she was deported in 1941. She had four erine Weber was born in 1901. He graduated from children: Vitya, Volya, Lelya, Olga. Saratov agricultural college, inherited a talent for painting from Jacob Weber and moved to Leningrad. My great-grandmother Catherine Weber was born in He married Tatiana Victorovna Litvinok and they had 1874. Her brother, Jacob Weber, was a famous artist. daughter Inna. Leopold was arrested in 1937, sent to When she was 19 years old, she married Rudolph exile, and disappeared there. Inna married Alexander Wulf. Catherine Weber was a very kind woman. She Bure and had son Sergey. She was an English teacher. died in 1933 from typhoid. Rudolph Rudolphovich Wulf was born in 1904 and The older daughter of Rudolph Wulf and Catherine died in 1977. He was a very educated man, a scientist. Weber, Bertha, was born in 1895 and died in 1958. She married Georg Fries from Solotoe on the Volga. History is not about stating facts, it is about attitude to They had three children: Victor, Waldemar and Olga. the facts and their analysis. You need to be above your Georg was an excellent agronomist. ancestors because you are standing on their shoulders. I am proud of my Wulf ancestors! The Fries family was deported to Siberia at the beginning of WWII, and the oldest son Victor was sent Editor’s Note: Jacob Weber (1870-1958) was born in Balzer and was to Trudarmy. He survived, got married, and had two an Honored Artist of the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist children, Kseniya and Alexander. Victor died in 1998. Republic. The painting referred to is “The death of the steamboat Vera” painted in 1882. The largest collection of his works is in the His brother Waldemar moved with his family, wife Engels (Russia) Local Lore Museum. Irina and daughters Olga and Marina, to Germany. Olga married a German and had daughter Anna. Ma- AUTHOR BIO rina moved to Germany with her Russian husband, Olga Lomov has eight but later they got divorce. Olga Fries was single, also children, five sons and moved to Germany and died there. Bertha died in three daughters. Her 1958, Georg in the 1960s. husband died early. She, her children, and her Theodor, the second child of Rudolph and Catherine paralyzed mom moved (1896 – 1943) had a talent for music, graduated from to Israel in 2001. Her Pokrovsk gymnasium and then agricultural college. mom died six months He went to teach at the same college and married later in Israel and dad Natalia Skripkina who worked at the same college as in Russia after six years. a laboratory assistant. They had two sons, Alexander, She is engaged in gene- my father, and Valentin. alogy and looking for her family’s ancestors. In 1941, the family was sent to Siberia, and Theodor died there from tuberculosis. Alexander, who was 13 years old, managed to flee and get to Saratov to his grandfather Skripkin. After the war, Alexander and Valentin graduated from Saratov University. Alexan-

24 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 Finding German Russians in Kazakhstan By Michael Brown, Askhat Yerkimbay, and Zarina Buyenbayeva

Michael Brown spoke at the 2019 AHSGR Convention in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 2014, Askhat Yerkimbay and Michael Brown visited a local museum in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, that opened a couple years earlier. The museum is the Dolinka Museum for the Memory of Victims of Political Repression, and they weren’t sure what to expect. Brown wrote, “As it turned out, the museum is housed in the restored administrative building of Karlag, one of the largest camps in the Soviet Gulag system. Inside were many heart-wrenching displays of life in the camp and on the steppes of Kazakhstan. To our surprise, camp population figures showed over 400,000 ‘Germans’ had passed through the camp. German Russians had settled in this area, but we did not know so many went through the camp. The visit was a powerful reminder of the fate of German Russians during Soviet rule, and sparked our interest in exploring the lives of German Russians in Kazakhstan. Zarina Buyenbayeva joined us when we returned for a visit a couple years later. This article shares our experiences. Kazakhstan has a rich German Russian history, and our visits to Karlag and the city of Karaganda were done to learn more about German Russians in Kazakhstan and explore ways to recover that history.”

German Russians in Kazakhstan as original settlers of Karamyshevka, Kazakhstan.4 By Kazakhstan has been independent for about 25 years the time of the Bolshevik revolution, it is estimated and is a country in flux. Soviet records left in Kazakh- that 63,000 German Russians lived in Kazakhstan. stan after independence belong to Kazakhstan, have They continued to arrive as Soviets sent them in a changed location as the country stabilizes, and can pattern of banishment, exile, colonization, and im- be accessed only by approved Kazakh citizens. This prisonment that escalated into the 1930s and peaked adds a layer of complexity to an already complicated in the 1940s when virtually all German Russians were task of finding German Russians, who migrated to exiled or drafted into the trudarmiya. Nearly one mil- Kazakhstan over an extended period. Mennonites from lion German Russians lived in Kazakhstan when the Samara came to Kazakhstan in the mid-1880s to avoid Soviet Union finally dissolved. Russian military service and seek a utopian life.1 Volga Germans found available land there after poor harvests Communities with German Russians were located in the early 1890s and many founded new colonies in across Kazakhstan. Some German Russians came to north-central Kazakhstan during land reforms in the Kazakhstan of free will, but virtually all who lived early 1900s.2 After some research, Askhat found a vil- in Kazakhstan in the late 1980s were from special lage named Karamyshevka northwest of Karaganda settlements, workers from the trudarmiya, prisoners that was founded in 1906 by Volga Germans. In 1989, in camps, enemies of the state, and some rehabilitated its population was 75% German and today it is 3%.3 ‘free’ colonists. Almost all were required to remain Karamyshevka was also the Russian name for Bauer, in the area. This created a large and largely repressed one of the original Volga German villages. This was German population. German Russians were further the village of Michael’s grandfather, Frederick Brug. discouraged when a German Socialist Republic pro- Subsequent research revealed Brug family members posed north of Karaganda failed to develop.5

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 25 When the Soviet system finally failed a tremendous Volga Germans, many are here.” We took this as a number fled to Germany, and left families further good sign. The next day we met with officials at the divided and fragmented. By some estimates nearly Dolinka Museum. Since our visit a few years earlier, two million people living in Kazakhstan went to the museum had appointed a new director who was Germany.6 When Germany discouraged further im- not quite as welcoming and directed us to meet with migration from Kazakhstan and put money into Ibragim Islyamov, the Deputy Director. Kazakhstan-based German cultural centers, migration to Germany slowed and many German Russians began According to Mr. Islyamov, Karlag held German thinking of themselves as Kazakhstani Germans. By Russians from across the Soviet Union who were 2009, the outmigration to Germany and other parts of convicted of a variety of crimes, and the camp held a Russia reduced the population of German Russians in small number of German WWII prisoners of war as Kazakhstan to about 180,000, where it stabilized and well. Stephen Barnes, a professor who used Karlag has started to grow. documents to study the Gulag system, found that most of the Volga Germans arrived as special settlers rather Located in the Karaganda region in central Kazakhstan than prisoners in Karlag,7 but their fate was just as is Karlag. Karlag was a 27-camp complex located harsh and the special settlements were administered about 45 kilometers southwest of Karaganda. It in- through the Gulag system. The large numbers of Ger- cluded a few satellite camps located some distance man Russians in the Karaganda region came from a from the main Karlag site. It was the largest agricul- variety of places but Volga Germans dominate the tural collective, and at its peak held more than 60,000 region. Testimonies of those held at the camp and who prisoners. The main camp complex covered territory lived in the region note that German Russians had a nearly the size of Maryland, with a total administra- particularly hard time because they were viewed with tive influence over an even larger territory, some say suspicion, as fascists or traitors. People did not want the size of France. The Dolinka Museum is housed in to socialize with German Russians; they could not the administrative building that managed the Karlag find good work and were rarely recognized when they camps. Between 1931 and 1959, the Karlag camps excelled.8 Little is known of the village of Dolinka interred nearly one million people. In 2015, Askhat where the Karlag administrative offices were located, applied for permission from the Kazakh government but both Mr. Islyamov and prisoner interviews note to access the Karlag archives. Permission to access the that Dolinka was originally a German village, prob- archives was granted and funding for the visit came ably founded in the early 1900s. No one knew of the from the Wyoming Council for Humanities Research. original residents’ fate, but they were certainly exiled In October 2016, we scheduled our trip to Karaganda into Soviet work camps. The house of a German land- and Karlag. owner served as the first administrative office and later part of the hospital. Visiting Karlag We started in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and used an Mr. Islymov referred to a number of significant camps overnight train to reach Karaganda. The countryside within Karlag which remain as villages today. Karabas was mostly rolling steppe that looked like Kansas or was the transit camp where people assigned to Karlag Nebraska. Karaganda is an industrial city reflecting arrived and where they left once freed. Prisoners called its Soviet legacy as a coal mining center. The city’s this the slave market because various camp leaders Soviet-inspired symbolic statue features two work- went there to choose workers. Spassk served as the site ers holding up a large block of coal. Karaganda was where particularly weak, sick, or spent workers were outside the Karlag camps but was nearby, was built by sent once their usefulness declined. Workers sent there Gulag labor, and many freed German Russians stayed worried about whether they would survive, and many in Karaganda. We arrived with a free afternoon and didn’t. Residents say the surrounding area is a vast went to a local art museum where personnel told us graveyard and today the Spassk location is marked by it was closed for repair. Asked why an American was three simple black crosses. Later Spassk held WWII in Karaganda, Askhat responded that we were look- prisoners of war from Germany. Dubovka held punish- ing for Russian Germans. The response was, “Yes, ment cells for particularly problematic prisoners and

26 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 where some were held prior to execution. Mr. Islymov cultural techniques suited for the steppe. The Dolinka pointed to a distant gas station where we turned off Museum displayed scientists’ letters written to Stalin the main road from Karaganda to Dolinka. It was explaining their scientific contributions, declaring the execution site where prisoners were shot, “once their loyalty, and asking why, as loyal Soviets, they enough were convicted to hold an execution, usually were at Karlag. Overall, our discussions with Deputy 8-10.” Dolinka served as the administrative center Director Islymov painted a rather bleak picture of life of Karlag. The satellite camps included “camp #26,” at Karlag and in settlements on the steppe. known as ALZHIR, the Akmola Camp for the Wives of Traitors of the Motherland located northwest of Karlag The entrance of the museum greets guests with a near Nur-Sultan (also called Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, broken ‘shanyrak.’ The shanyrak is a wooden oval Akmola, and Astana), the capitol of Kazakhstan. The structure used at the top of a yurt, the traditional Ka- earliest known information about camps in Kazakh- zakh tent-like home. Kazakhs lost millions of their stan comes from interviews and memoirs by women own people to the effects of Soviet rule and the broken imprisoned there. A popular story told in Kazakhstan shanyrak symbolizes their sacrifice. A bar graph shows involves women who are gathering brush to fuel fires the number of prisoners by nationality; the largest in camp. As they were going to work, a family of bar in the graph lists 441,713 Germans, followed by Kazakhs begins throwing stones at the women. The 102,000 Koreans, 89,901 Chechens, 81,495 Japanese, guards laugh and allow it while the women express 75,000 Polish, with Ukrainians, Kazakhs, and Byelo- dismay at the treatment. This occurs on several days. russians among other nationalities that numbered in The narrator describes how one day she stumbles the tens of thousands. from weakness and hunger, and her head lands near one of the stones. She catches a whiff and realizes the Kazakhs had been throwing food. The Kazakhs were throwing ‘kurt’, a brownish colored food that is a cross between yogurt and cheese. Later they left food in the brush. It was done at risk to the Kazakh family, but was credited with saving the lives of many women. Further research revealed the narrator of the story was Gertruda Platais, a German Russian woman held in the ALZHIR camp. Historically the Kazakhs position themselves as kind, benevolent people who shared their homes while suffering themselves. Many German Russian survivors point to the kindness of Kazakhs as vital to their survival.9 The kurt story is used to define Kazakhs’ place in a difficult Soviet history and define their character as an emerging country.10

Ekibastuz was another satellite camp located north- Many leading musicians and singers were held at west of Karlag where Solzhenitsyn wrote One Day Karlag where they performed for prisoners, staff, and in the Life of Ivan Denisovic, and many of the places visiting dignitaries. Perhaps the most interesting room referenced in his Gulag Archipelago were part of in the museum is the art gallery that displays the work Karlag.11 A third satellite camp was at Zhezkazgan of talented and skilled artists. Titles such as ‘No Way where copper was mined and processed and which Home’ and ‘Road to Hell’ are mixed with more mun- had a particularly high mortality rate. While there is no dane works such as ‘Self Portrait’. One particularly doubt that Karlag was a brutal place, it also served as good self-portrait was by Vladimir Eifert. Eifert was the leading agricultural research station for the Soviets an accomplished, well-established artist who served who sent many of their leading agricultural experts as Director of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow from there. Scientists at Karlag developed several unique 1936-1939. He was born in Saratov in 1884 and, breeds of sheep and cows and developed many agri- because of his German heritage, was sent to Karlag in 1941. When released, he was not allowed to return

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 27 home and lived his remaining years in Karaganda as “Bolashak” University (KBU). KBU has produced an art teacher who trained many of the Soviet’s best over 20 books about Karlag and its prisoners in a series artists.12 called “Karlag: Memories for the Future.” Most of the works feature memoirs and interviews with survivors, with only a few books focusing on the various ethnicities who settled in the Karaganda region. One of the books, Karlag OGPU-NKVD: from Stolypin to the Gulag written by Ekaterina Kuznetsova in 2012, tells the story of the German Russians in Kazakhstan through interviews with survivors including Adolf Pfeiffer, a school teacher who spent time in Spassk; David Vick, whose family came to Kazakhstan in the early 1900s; and Abram Berg who remained in Kara- ganda as a livestock specialist after his release.13 A list of executed prisoners found at Karlag was originally compiled by Ms. Kuznetsova and identified 72 ‘Ger- mans’ among the victims.14 Ms. Kuznetsova’s work was honored in 2016 by Germany’s government for preserving memories of such difficult lives.15 Only 300 copies of Ms. Kuznetsova’s book were published and The Dolinka museum displays were informative, but we found a used copy in a Karaganda bookstore for we were also interested in documents that might help the AHSGR library. The text of her book is in Rus- us identify German Russians. We were told many sian, Kazakh, and German languages. Another KBU documents were no longer at the museum and had project titled, “Endless Pain of Hard Times,” includes been likely moved to one of the national archives, and interviews with survivors which are translated into some documents continue to be classified. However, English. No German Russians are explicitly identified a few remained. A collection of camp newspapers is among the interviewees but they are present. Germans housed at the museum. The newspaper printed as many are mentioned generally for their work ethic or the as 6000 copies per issue and listed names of some difficulty they face as ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan. prisoners including those who applied for rehabilita- Vice-Rector Rysmagambetova said nationality-based tion and sentence reduction, however, we were not research about Japanese and Hungarian prisoners was there long enough to do a thorough search of names. done in cooperation with historical groups from those countries. Kuznetsova’s book was the only one to Overall, the museum staff was quite informative, but focus on German Russian experiences, in large part we felt some hesitation to fully help us. In Kazakh- because much of the research about German Russians stan, the phrase ‘Soviet minded’ is used to describe is done by German or Russian scholars.16 an approach to public administration that is somewhat guarded, suspicious, and not particularly open. The Our final formal meeting in Karaganda was with leadership at the Dolinka Museum seemed somewhat Victor Kist, Director of the German Cultural Center Soviet minded and we did not want to push their in Karaganda, which locals call ‘the German House.’ hospitality. Museum personnel suggested we visit He holds a PhD and is President of the Eurasian Karaganda “Bolashak” University and the German International Academy of Ecological and Protection Cultural Center. Karaganda “Bolashak” University Sciences and has written several books about the ecol- published a series of books about Karlag and the Ger- ogy of Central Asia. Dr. Kist is a friendly, gregarious man Cultural Center had knowledge of local German person, not at all Soviet minded, and he talked freely culture and history. with us. We weren’t quite sure what to make of his initial comments. His family was Volga German, but Visiting Karaganda he declared himself to be Russian and “(I) do not We scheduled our next meeting with Gulnara Rys- speak German, don’t care to learn, and won’t go to magambetova, the First Vice-Rector of Karaganda

28 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 Germany.” He is committed to his work in Kazakh- vidual staff members at the Center expressed interest stan as an ecological scientist and head of the German in connecting with US German Russians. House; however, almost his entire family, including his mother and children, lives in Germany. In many At the end of our interview, we were asked about visit- ways, he embodies the complications in Kazakhstan ing the Center’s ‘museum.’ We were led to the back of regarding identity, nationality, immigration, and op- a meeting room where a large closet approximately 8ft portunity for German Russians. When asked about X 10ft was filled with a variety of objects left behind helping us identify and locate German Russians in the by German Russians immigrating to Germany. There area who might be related to Americans, he expressed were violins, dulcimers, accordions, toys, photo- no personal interest. His job as Director of the German graphs, spinning wheels, and a variety of other items. House is to coordinate activities between Germany and Many immigrants made difficult decisions about what the German population in Karaganda, and his focus to leave. Two objects stood out. A hymnal published is business and economic opportunities between the in 1823 must have withstood considerable hardship two countries. yet handled with great care to arrive in Karaganda, only to be left behind. Imagine the story of survival The German House in Karaganda was the first Ger- such a hymnal could tell. The other object was a small man Cultural Center established in Kazakhstan and pink case that held a wedding headdress along with an gets support from the German government although early 1900s wedding photograph. Many of the objects it existed prior to German support. It provides a place in the museum were old and obviously treasured. It where German culture can be expressed, provides language education, aid for the elderly, a food bank, and a connection to Germany. The Karaganda region historically held a large and active German Russian minority and remains an important center for German Russian activities. Now German Cultural Centers are present in every geographic region of Kazakhstan. These centers are linked through a website that offers a place for German Russians to share information and express their culture.17 The website can be translated into English and includes a variety of reports about German Russians and their activities in Kazakhstan. Historical information includes a timeline of Volga German history. There are recipes of traditional Ger- man food, examples of Kazakhstani German music, reports of events celebrating German culture, with must have been difficult to leave them behind. links to all regional centers. According to Dr. Kist, the Cultural Centers have become important institu- Finding German Russians tions that help unite those Germans who remain in We left Karaganda with a better of understanding Kazakhstan and connect them with Germany. While of German Russian lives in Kazakhstan and a better Dr. Kist expressed little formal interest in finding and understanding of how additional knowledge might connecting relatives as part of the Cultural Center’s be gained. Most Soviet records left in Kazakhstan work, these centers may offer the best opportunity to are now housed in either the Presidential or National find German Russians living in Kazakhstan today. It Archives. We briefly met with US Embassy officials became apparent that connecting with US relatives in Nur-Sultan. They offered assistance accessing ar- was not a priority because three countries—Kazakh- chives and reminded us about encountering ‘Soviet stan, Germany, and Russia—were primary in the minded’ administrators. Perhaps the most promising minds of Kazakhstani German Russians. American access to German Russian information in Kazakhstan interest was somewhat novel. However, several indi- is through the German Cultural Centers. If Karaganda is typical, then people from German Cultural Centers

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 29 across Kazakhstan have an interest in connecting 3. Karamyshevka, Kazakhstan, was located as a Russian Wikipe- with their past and relatives in the US. In addition to dia entry and some of the information inaccurately locates the the museum, a room in the German House displayed village in eastern rather than north central Kazakhstan, https:// ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Шубарагаш_(Акмолинская_область) historical photographs and narratives of families who 4. T. A. Apendiyev, Zh. M. Asylbekova, N. M. Abdukadyrov, E. Zh. lived in the area. These were put together by German Satov, “A Historical Picture of German Resettlement to Kazakh- Russian school children. There is an interest among stan (End of the 19th Century–Beginning of the 20th Century),” some Kazakhstani Germans about their family and Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences 86, #6, (2016) history and many may be unaware that relatives in the 534–536. US have an interest in them. The evidence of German 5. Several sources mentioned the failed plans for an autonomous Russian people is everywhere in Kazakhstan and they region. See Dr. Eric Schmaltz, “Carrots and Sticks… and Dem- onstrations: Yuri Andropov’s Failed Autonomy Plan for Soviet are embedded in Kazakhstan’s history. Kazakhstan’s Germans, 1976-1980,” Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 39, #3 (Fall 2016) Our last day included a short trip to the village of 1-21. Talgar near Almaty to visit a friend. Our research 6. Dr. Ruth Nielsen, “Germans in Kazakhstan: Part of the Bright was completed, and this was a simple visit. During Multi-Ethnic Fabric,” Astana Times, March 6, 2015, http:// conversation our friend told us of a German Russian astanatimes.com/2015/03/germans-kazakhstan-part-bright- acquaintance who never discussed her past or her multi-ethnic-fabric-2/; see also David Swanson “Special report on ethnic Germans,” IRIN News, February 1, 2005, http://www. grandparents’ deportation to Kazakhstan. She pre- irinnews.org/feature/2005/02/01/special-report-ethnic-germans ferred silence. He drove us by Talgar’s old German 7. Steven Barnes, Death and Redemption: The Gulag neighborhood, which is now somewhat rundown, and and the Shaping of Soviet Society (Princeton: Princeton commented that “it looked better before the Germans University Press, 2011). left.” In spite of past difficulties, ‘Kazakhstani Ger- 8. Roza Grigoryevna Dmitrieva, Karlag: Endless Pain of Hard mans’ are now building successful lives as Kazakh Times (Memoirs), (Karaganda “Bolashak” University 2010), 442. 9. Berta Bachmann, Memories of Kazakhstan (Lincoln: AHSGR, citizens and offer us a connection to another com- 1983) 19-22. munity with common German Russian heritage and 10. Aimar Ventsel, “How Kazakhstan Remembers the Gulag,” Diplo- perhaps some of our lost relatives. maatia 141 (May 2015), http://www.diplomaatia.ee/en/article/ how-kazakhstan-remembers-the-gulag/ Michael Brown is Emeritus Professor at the University 11. Barnes, Death and Redemption. of Wyoming where he taught in the Communication 12. Vladimir Eifert was featured in Karlag in Black Pencil (Kara- ganda “Bolashak” University, 2010), a book about the artists of and Journalism Department. His grandfather was Karlag. Basic information can be found at http://www.rusartnet. born in Bauer, Russia, south of Saratov. He served as com/biographies/russian-artists/20th-century/modern/noncon- a visiting professor at the Kazakh National University formist/political-repressions/karaganda/vladimir-eifert and continues to work with scholars there. Askhat 13. A good description of E. Kuznetsova’s book was published Yerkimbay received a Master’s degree from the by Izvestia-Kazakhstan at http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA. php?st=1331058240 University of Wyoming in Journalism. He currently 14. The partial list named executed prisoners by nationality and we is Head of the New Media and Data Research Group identified Germans among them. The list is available at Karlag. at the “Minber” Center for Journalism in Almaty, kz and is taken from “Book of Sorrow: The Shooting Lists” by Kazakhstan. Zarina Buyenbayeva received her PhD Ekaterina Kuznetsova. The book was published by Kuznetsova at the Kazakh National University and served one in Karaganda in 1997 and she maintains the Karlag.kz website. The website also includes the names of children born at Karlag semester as a visiting scholar at the University of and the names of some ‘public enemies’ convicted of treason Wyoming. (Article 58), although nationality is not identified. 15. “Thank You Letters to Scientists of Academy ‘Bolashak’ from ENDNOTES Berlin,” Karaganda “Bolashak” University, press release, 2016, 1. Edward Reimer Brandt, “The Migration of the Mennonites,” Jour- http://www.kubolashak.kz/?&mm=09&yy=2017&m=5998&r=78 nal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, &l=Eng 16 #3 (Fall 1993) 3-8. 16. Sanders, Staying at Home. 2. Rita Sanders, Staying at Home: Identities, Memories and Social 17. The Kazakhstani German website is at http://www.wiedergeburt- Networks of Kazakhstani Germans, (New York and Oxford, kasachstan.de/ Berghahn Books, 2016) 23-52.

30 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 RUSSIAN GERMAN HISTORY AND HEROIC, VICTIM, AND REDEMPTIVE NARRATIVES, PART TWO By J. Otto Pohl

Otto Pohl spoke at the 2019 AHSGR Convention in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is part two of his presentation. Part one appeared in the AGSGR Journal Fall 2019.

The NKVD issued instructions on the implementation The formation of the special kommandatura system of administrative punishments by special comman- whereby a network of NKVD commandants ruled dants against special settlers later that year. On 14 over the lives of the special settlers had been some- September 1945, the NKVD put out decree no. 376 what haphazard and disorganized in practice until on “Orderly application of administrative penalties.” 1945. The legal and administrative basis of the special The special commandants could impose penalties commandants had often remained chaotic and poorly of up to 100 ruble fine or five days arrest on special enforced until that year. After 1945, it was a highly settlers for violation of the special settlement regime, organized system of carefully placed police stations violation of the social order, failure to appear for their run by special commandants charged with supervising obligatory monthly registration with the commandant, the life of the special settlers.20 The special settlers and not reporting changes in their family composition lived under a separate legal and administrative system such as births, deaths, and marriages within three days. than the rest of the Soviet population. First the NKVD Special settlers had ten days to pay any administrative and later the MVD ran this separate system which fines levied by the commandants.18 These punish- oversaw the lives of the special settlers. ments could not be appealed and could be imposed arbitrarily by the special commandants according to On 30 July 1946, the head of the MVD Kruglov is- quite vague criteria. sued Decree No. 193 “On strengthening the struggle against the flight of special settlers.” This decree The Stalin regime sought to restrict the deportees to specified a number of measures aimed at preventing tightly restricted areas of settlement. They could not escapes and capturing those fugitives that managed move outside the bounds of their assigned settlements to escape. Among other measures it proposed was without permission from their special commandant.19 that each district branch of the UMVD and special This permission took the form of special temporary commandant has a concrete plan to oppose escapes passes issued by the special commandants. These by special settlers. It also called for the strengthening passes specified a single destination to which the of surveillance over special settlers, restricting the special settler could travel as well as the exact dates issuance of travel passes to special settlers, and the he could be absent from his or her assigned village. enforcement of criminal sanctions against escaped Upon return to their village of obligatory settlement, special settlers. Escape from areas of “obligatory the deportees had to immediately report to their special settlement” violated article 82 of the RSFSR criminal commandant. Despite draconian regulations meant to code and carried a sentence up to eight years impris- prevent unauthorized movement by the special settlers, onment. Kruglov used this decree to promote specific a number of deportees left their assigned settlements proactive prophylactic measures along these strict on their own volition in defiance of the Soviet regime. lines. He instructed that special settlers suspected The security organs treated these departures as escapes of planning escapes be registered, put under routine that were punishable as a criminal matter. surveillance, and required to report to their special commandant twice a month. He also encouraged the creation of special regime settlements away from

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 31 rail lines and water ways for special settlers prone to UKAZ escape.21 The decree represented another escalation in PRESIDIUM of the SUPREME SOVIET the Soviet government’s increasingly draconian poli- of the USSR cies to try to control the movement of special settlers. On the criminal responsibilities for flight from This decree did not end escapes by special settlers. A places of obligatory and decreed settlement of formal report from the head of the Section on Special people exiled to distant regions of the Soviet Settlers of the MVD Maltsev to MVD head Kruglov Union in the period of the Fatherland War. on 25 December 1946 on the search for fugitive special settlers made this clear. By 1 December 1946, With the goal of strengthening the regime of settlement for those exiled by Supreme organs fugitive special settlers numbered 14,160 of which of the USSR in the period of the Fatherland War 5,247 consisted of Russian Germans. According to Chechens, Karachais, Ingush, Balkars, Kalmyks, the report, this meant that 0.6% of all Russian Ger- Germans, Crimean Tatars and others, that at the man special settlers had escaped from their areas of time of their resettlement there was not a speci- obligatory settlement. Maltsev noted that the Special fied length of their exile, establishes that those Settlement Section of the MVD had undertaken con- resettled to distant regions of the Soviet Union crete measures to combat escapes and capture fugitives by decrees of people in the high leadership are at large. These measures included providing the local exiled forever, without the right to return to their MVD-UMVD lists of special settler fugitives com- previous places of residence. plete with detailed descriptions. They also included creating plans for all republic, krai, and oblast special For the voluntary leaving (flight) from places of settlement sections to combat flight among special set- obligatory settlement those exiles that are guilty tlers and organize searches for such fugitives. Finally, will be subject to being prosecuted for criminal the Special Settlement Section of the MVD would acts. It is determined that the punishment for occasionally send out brigades of operative workers this crime is 20 years of hard labor. to those regions that had been most unsuccessful in stopping escapes to engage in preventative work as Cases related to the flight of exiles will be re- well as searching for fugitives.22 The MVD continued viewed by Special Boards of the Ministry of to ratchet up its measures against escapes as the special Internal Affairs of the USSR. settler contingent continued to grow in size. People, guilty of harboring exiles, fleeing from On 26 November 1948 in response to the continued places of obligatory settlement, or assisting their flight, giving permission for exiles to return to escapes by special settlers from their assigned places their places of previous residence, and rendering of residence, the Soviet government decreed that their them help in accommodations in their places resettlement was “forever” (navechno) and that leav- of previous residence, are subject to criminal ing these places of exile on their own volition carried a penalties. It is determined that the sentence for punishment of 20 years of hard labor. The decree spe- this crime is deprivation of freedom for a period cifically named Chechens, Karachais, Ingush, Balkars, of five years Kalmyks, Germans, and Crimean Tatars as subject to these new draconian measures. Free citizens found Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the helping fugitive special settlers faced sentences of five USSR N. SHVERNIK years of imprisonment.23 This decree condemned as Secretary of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of yet unborn generations to second class citizenship A. Gorkin and internal exile in Kazakhstan and Siberia. Moscow, Kremlin 26 November 194824

The vast majority of Russian Germans in the USSR would remain under these legal restrictions until the end of 1955. On 13 December 1955, the Supreme

32 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 Soviet released the ethnic Germans from the special large induction campaign applied to German men ages settlement restrictions.25 Until this time, they held a 15-55 and women 16-45 that were not pregnant and legal status between that of convicted prisoners and did not have children under the age of three. These free Soviet citizens that resembled the types of second mobilizations took place through the NKO (People’s class citizenship imposed upon non-whites in societies Commissariat of Defense) in the same manner as like South Africa under apartheid. Their movement, military conscription for the Red Army. The NKO residency, and other rights remained restricted on the then turned over the inducted Germans for forced labor basis of their ancestral origins until over two years to the NKVD or NKPS (People’s Commissariat of after Stalin died. Even after this time, they remained Transportation). These men and later women labored banned from returning to their original places of settle- in Soviet corrective labor camps mostly in the Urals ment or seeking compensation for lost property.26 The under physical conditions almost identical to that of formal restoration of full equality to ethnic Germans GULag prisoners despite only being guilty of having as a natsional’nost’ in the USSR only came in 1972.27 German ancestry. The lack of sufficient food, shelter, By this time, the German population of the USSR had and medical care led to even higher rates of premature become mentally poised for seeking to emigrate out death than existed among the areas of internal exile of the USSR rather than returning to the Volga. in Siberia and Kazakhstan. Reasonable estimates of these deaths range from 60,000 to 100,000 people Number of Russian-German Special Settlers including those that died after their release from the 1 January 1942 to 1 January 1954 camps due to health conditions acquired in the camps. 31 1 January 1942 799,459 (Bugai 1992, doc. 44, p. 75). I have reproduced English translations of the mobi- 2 June 1942 807,293 (Zemskov 2005, p. 97) lization orders below. 6 October 1942 799,989 (Bugai 1998, doc. 173, pp. 251-253) 19 April 1943 829,50029 (Tsarevskaia-Diakina , doc. 106, p. 377) 5 September 1944 589,000 (Tsarevskaia-Diakina , doc. 130, p. 439) State Defense Committee 1 January 1945 496,811 (Zemskov 2005, table 21, p. 119) Resolution No. GKO-1123ss October 1945 687,300 (Bugai 1992, doc. 17, p. 237) From 10 January 1942 Moscow, Kremlin October 1946 774,17830 (Bugai 1992, doc. 25, p. 245) 1 October 1948 1,012,754 (Berdinskikh, pp. 328-329) ON ORDERLY USE OF GERMAN-RESET- 1 April 1949 1,035,701 (Bugai 1992, doc. 33, pp. 251-252) 15 July 1949 1,093,490 (Zemskov 2005, table 27, p. 167) TLERS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 17 TO 50 10 October 1949 1,096,693 (Berdinskikh, doc. 7, pp. 338-339) YEARS 1 January 1950 1,099,578 (Bugai 1992, doc. 34, pp. 253-254) 1 July 1950 1,106,277 (Eisfeld and Herdt, doc. 333, pp. 341-342) With the goal of rationally using German-reset- 15 April 1951 1,137,513 (Tsarevskaia-Diakina, doc. 203, p. 665) 1 July 1951 1,155,815 (Document in Berdinskikh, p. 306) tler men between the ages of 17 to 50 years, the 1 January 1952 1,178,168 (Tsarevskaia-Diakina, doc. 206, p. 676) State Defense Committee resolves: 1 January 1953 1,224,931 (Tsarevskaia-Diakina, doc. 213, p. 714) 1. All German men in the ages of 17 to 50 1 January 1954 1,251,803 (Zemskov, 2005, table 44, p. 226) years, physically capable of labor, exiled to Novosibirsk and Omsk oblasts, Krasnoiarsk Labor Army and Altai krais and the Kazakh SSR, are to Shortly after the completion of the mass internal de- be mobilized in numbers up to 120,000 in portation of the ethnic Germans from European areas work columns for the entire time of the war, of the USSR to Siberia and Kazakhstan, the NKVD transfer them in the following division: forcibly mobilized most of the able bodied adult a. NKVD USSR: lumber preparation 45,000 population into forced labor detachments. These de- b. NKVD USSR: construction of Bakal and tachments were collectively known as the labor army. Bogoslov factories 35,000 This mobilization took place in three large waves. c. NKPS USSR - construction of rail road The first was in January 1942 and targeted deported Stalinsk-Abakan, Stalinsk-Barnaul, Akmo- German men ages 17-50. The second was in Febru- linsk-Kartaly, Akmolinsk-Pavlodar, Sos’va- ary 1942 and expanded the pool for mobilization to Alapaevsk, Orsk-Kandagac Magnitagorsk- German men 17-50 already living in eastern areas of Sara 40,000 the USSR prior to 1941. Finally, the third and final

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 33 2. Conduct of the operation is entrusted to in the finance plan of the NKVD necessary the NKO (c. Schadenko), together with the funds to pay for transferring the Germans NKVD and NKPS. and other expenses for their economic 3. The mobilization is to be started immedi- provision. ately and finished 30 January 1942. 4. Requires all mobilized Germans to appear CHAIRMAN STATE at collection points of the Peoples Commis- DEFENSE COMMITTEE32 sariat of Defense with proper winter clothing I. STALIN and underwear, bedding, mugs, spoons and a ten day supply of food. The NKVD allocated 80,000 of these initial proposed 5. Requires the NKPS and Administration of mobilized Germans to work in eight labor camps. They Military Communication NKO to provide assigned the single largest contingent—30,000—men, for transporting the mobilized Germans to work in the camp devoted to the construction of the in the course of the month of January and Bakal Steel complex in the Urals.33 This grandiose delivering them to places of work not later plan fell short of its goals. The Soviet government was than 10 February. only able to mobilize 67,961 German men, initially 6. Requires the NKVD USSR and NKPS of which 11,722 were to work on the construction USSR to establish in the work columns and of Bakal.34 One of the reasons for this shortfall was detachments of mobilized Germans strict the demands by local authorities for German special order and discipline, providing the highest settler labor. The mass military conscription of men conduct of labor and fulfillment of produc- tive norms. to fight in the Red Army followed by mobilization of 7. Assigns to the NKVD USSR the task in re- agricultural workers to work in industrial factories lationship to failure of mobilized Germans had greatly depleted the labor force in rural areas of to show up to induction points or collection Kazakhstan and Siberia. The German deportees were points for transfer, and also in relationship considered to be a vital replacement for this lost labor. to being found in the work columns to be in This was especially true regarding Kazakhstan which violation of discipline and refusal to work, had always had a sparse population and suffered cata- failure to appear for mobilization, desertion strophic demographic losses in the 1930s due to fam- from work columns, to examine these cases ine. The Kazakh SSR thus sought to keep many of the by Special Tribunals of the NKVD and apply deported Germans from being mobilized. For instance, punishments up to and including the death the Kazakh authorities managed to exempt 9,494 Ger- penalty in the most egregious cases. man deportees working in agriculture from call up 8. Establish norms of food and manufactured under GKO Order 1123ss.35 The Soviet government goods supplied to the mobilized Germans thus thought it was necessary to quickly expand the the same as the norm established by GULAG pool of possible conscripts already in February 1942. NKVD USSR. State Defense Committee 9. Requires the Peoples Commissariat of Trade USSR to give the NKVD USSR and NKPS Resolution No. GKO-1281ss USSR for all members of the mobilized From 14 February 1942 Moscow, Kremlin Germans stocks of food and industrial goods for this norm in its totality. On mobilizing German men ages 17 to 50 years, 10. Peoples Commissariat of Agriculture is to permanently living in oblasts, krays, autonomous give in the course of the months January- and union republics February to the NKVD USSR for lumber preparation 3,500 horses. State Defense Committee Resolves: 11. Peoples Commissariat of Procurement 1. All German men of the ages 17 to 50 years, USSR is to give additional stocks of fodder capable of physical labor, permanently living for the 3,500 horses. in Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Ivanova, Molotov, 12. Peoples Commissariat of Finance USSR Penza, Riazan, Sverdlovsk, Tambov, Chita, together with the NKVD USSR is to provide

34 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 Cheliabinsk, Chkalov, Yaroslav, Kirov, of labor conscription had already inducted 40,864 Novosibirsk, Omsk, Kubyshev and Irkutsk German men living in eastern regions of the USSR oblasts, Primore, Khabarovsk, Altai and before 1941 including another 14,752 to work on the Krasnoiarsk krais, Bashkir, Mordvin, Mari, construction of the Bakal metallurgy complex.37 High Tatar, Udmurt, Chuvash, Buriat-Mongol and mortality and morbidity rates during the summer of Komi ASSRs, Kazakh, Turkmen, Tajik, Kyr- 1942, however, would force the Soviet government to gyz and Uzbek SSRs - are to be mobilized again expand the pool of potential labor conscripts in into work columns for the entire time of the the fall of 1942.38 The largest mobilization of Soviet war and handed over to the NKVD for use citizens of German natsional’nost’ into the labor army in the construction of railroads. started in October 1942. . Conduct of the mobilization is entrusted to the NKO (c. Shchadenko) together with State Defense Committee the NKVD USSR. The mobilization is to be Resolution GOKO No. 2383 completed by 25 March 1942. From 7 October 1942 Moscow Kremlin 2. Requires the NKPS and Administration of Military Communication of the NKO to On supplementary mobilization of Germans provide transport to the mobilized Germans for the peoples economy of the USSR with delivery to their places of work on the request of the NKVD no later than 30 To supplement resolutions GOKO No. 1123ss March 1942. from 10 January 1942 and No. 1281ss from 14 3. Enforce order during the mobilization and February 1942 the State Defense Committee uphold the upkeep of the mobilized Germans RESOLVES: as established by resolution of the GKO 1. Additionally mobilize in work columns for from 10 January 1942 No. 1123ss points the whole time of the war all German men 2,3,4 for all those newly mobilized. ages 15-16 years and 51-55 years inclu- 4. Requires the Peoples Commissariat of Food, sively, capable of physical labor, that were Peoples Commissariat of Meat, Peoples resettled from central oblasts of the USSR Commissariat of Procurement, and Peoples and the Republic of the Volga Germans to Commissariat of Fisheries to provide for the confines of the Kazakh SSR and eastern the month of March and the second quarter oblasts of the RSFSR, also those living in to GULAG NKVD on account the transfer other oblasts, krais, and republics of the of the remaining food rations according to Soviet Union. schedule. Forward to the Peoples Commis- 2. At the same time undertake the mobilization sariat of Trade USSR provisions of food and into work columns for the whole time of manufactured supplies for the mobilized on the war German women between the ages the basis point 6 of resolution GKO 1123ss of 16 to 45. from 10.1.42. 3. Free from mobilization German women who 5. Peoples Commissariat of Finance of the are pregnant and have children of the ages USSR, together with the NKVD USSR is less than three years old. to provide in the finance plan of the NKVD 4. Those having children older than three years USSR the funds to pay for the transport of of age are to give them over for rearing to the Germans and other expenses for their remaining members of the family. Those economic provision. lacking other family members , except those mobilized, are to give over their children CHAIRMAN STATE to be reared by close relatives or German DEFENSE COMMITTEE I. STALIN36 kolkhoz workers. 5. Requires the local Soviet of workers’ depu- This second mobilization order proved much more ties to implement measures to accommodate successful and the Soviet government was able to children of mobilized Germans left without exceed its original goal of 120,000 mobilized Germans parents. for the labor army. By March 1942, this second wave

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 35 6. The conduct of the mobilization of the Chairman of the State Germans is to be entrusted to the NKO and Defense Committee NKVD with the involvement of local organs Stalin39 of Soviet power. 7. The mobilization is to start immediately and This third and final large wave of labor conscription of finish within a month. ethnic Germans into the labor army accounted for al- 8. Obligates all Germans to appear at collection most as many people as the first two waves combined. points with proper winter clothing, a supply It accounted for 70,780 men and 52,742 women or a of linen, bedding, a cup, a spoon, and a 10 total of 123,522 people. The two earlier conscription day supply of food. orders accounted for 115,660 men to work for the 9. Establishes criminal accountability for NKVD and 25,000 for the NKPS or a total of 140,660. conscripted Germans who do not show up When combined these three waves accounted for the to the collection points for mobilization mobilization of 264,182 ethnic Germans for forced and willfully leave work or desert the work labor in the labor army in the USSR during World War column - by decree of the Presidium of the II.40 Thus these three separate orders and mobiliza- Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 26. XII - tions accounted for the vast majority of the 316,000 1941. “On the accountability of workers and ethnic Germans with Soviet citizenship conscripted employees in military industrial enterprises 41 for willfully leaving these enterprises.” into the labor army during the war. This figure 10. German men mobilized by order of this pres- represents a huge percentage of the ethnic German ent resolution are to be transferred to work population of the USSR. On 1 November 1948, the in enterprises of the trusts “Cheliabugol’” total count of German special settlers in the USSR was and Karagandaugol’” in the People’s Com- 1,012,754. In 1945 all Germans in the labor army had missariat of Coal. been assigned the status of special settlers.42 An actual 11. Mobilized German women are to be trans- gradual release of mobilized Germans from the camps ferred to enterprises in the People’s Com- took place in the post-war years. This was largely missariat of Oil. completed by 1948, but some remained in the camps 12. Requires the NKPS (Comrade Khulev) and until 1957.43 By 1958, the labor army, an institution the administration of military communica- in which hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans tions of the NKO (Comrade Kovalev) to had been condemned to forced labor in GULag camps supply transport for the mobilized Germans without individual charge or trial on the basis of their according to the orders of the NKO and ethnic origins had been dismantled. This was part of NKVD. a larger liberalization in the USSR under Khrushchev 13. Requires the People’s Commissariat of Oil that led to significant German activism to first try and USSR and People’s Commissariat of Coal restore the Volga German ASSR and then to emigrate USSR to provide for the reception, distri- from the USSR to West Germany. bution and rational use of the transferred workforce of mobilized Germans. Number of German Labor Army Conscripts Currently 14. Expenses in relationship to the mobilization Mobilized44 and transport of the mobilized to places of designation are to be taken from calculated 1 January 1942 20,800 estimates of the People’s Commissariat of 1 July 1942 120,772 Coal and People’s Commissariat of Oil. 1 January 1943 122,883 15. Requires the Peoples Commissariat of Trade 1 January 1944 106,669 USSR (Comrade Liubimov) to supply food 1 June 1944 107,214 to the mobilized in transit. 16. The NKVD USSR and NKO are to report Post World War II Activism and Migration to the State Defense Committee about the Despite the end of the labor army and special settle- results of the mobilization of the Germans ment regime, ethnic Germans in the USSR continued and the number of Germans transferred to to suffer from significant discrimination after World enterprises of the People’s Commissariat of War II in addition to being banned from returning to Coal and the People’s Commissariat of Oil. 36 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 their former homelands and denied access to German both external criticism of its policies towards Rus- language institutions. The dual problems of contin- sian Germans and deflate the emigration movement ued discrimination on the basis of being German by by providing an alternative homeland in the USSR. national’nost’ and the lack of a German territory to To achieve these goals, the Politburo authorized the support German language institutions continued to formation of a token German autonomous oblast in plague the ethnic Germans in the USSR for the rest of northern Kazakhstan on 31 May 1979. This resolution the state’s existence. At first, they sought to overcome was never carried out. Kunaev, the First Secretary of these obstacles by pressuring the Soviet government the Communist Party of Kazakhstan from 1964-1986, to restore the Volga German ASSR. This attempt from approved the organization of mass demonstrations 1965 to 1967 failed.45 They then sought to emigrate by Kazakh university students against the plan on 16 from the USSR to West Germany.46 This strategy June 1979. These demonstrators carried openly racist ultimately succeeded in the 1990s. signs protesting the granting of any national rights to Kazakhstan’s German minority.51 The plans to create Lack of higher education remained pronounced among a German autonomous oblast ultimately failed due to the Russian Germans in Kazakhstan. In 1979, only the racist anti-German demonstrations engineered by 2.4% of Russian Germans in Kazakhstan over the age Kunaev. The Kazakhization campaigns that have char- of ten had received higher education in contrast to acterized independent Kazakhstan under Nazerbaev 5.6% of Kazakhs and 6.9% of Russians in the repub- have their origins in his predecessor. The creation of lic. 47 A decade later, in 1989, the figures had hardly a Kazakhstan where all land, jobs, and positions are improved. By this time, 5.7% of Germans in Kazakh- considered the exclusive property of ethnic Kazakhs stan and 5.5% in Omsk Oblast had higher education started under Kunaev. The Russian Germans became versus 12.5% for the Soviet population as a whole.48 early victims in this process of consolidating ethno- They thus remained significantly undereducated in cratic rule even while still part of the USSR. comparison to other nationalities in Kazakhstan and Siberia. This had a huge negative impact on their The Distribution of Russian-Germans throughout ability to get desirable white collar jobs as opposed to Kazakhstan and Central Asia 1959-198952 being confined to largely work on farms, in factories, and in mines.

In addition to being refused admittance to universities, other more violent forms of persecution also appeared. In the late 1970s, Russian German Aussiedler arriving in Germany reported frequent racist attacks against While the emigration movement for Russian Germans them by local Kyrgyz armed with knives.49 Hostile in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia originated attitudes towards Russian-Germans also persisted in in the 1970s, it only took on a truly mass character Kazakhstan. In response to a plan to create a German after the collapse of the USSR. The scale of emigra- autonomous oblast in northern Kazakhstan, Kazakh tion increased substantially after 1 January 1987. On youth staged angry anti-German demonstrations in this date, the Soviet government lifted its arbitrary Tselinograd (Astana) and Atsabar in June 1979.50 restrictions on Soviet citizens emigrating.53 During These racist attitudes added to the already numerous the last years of the USSR, about a fifth of the Rus- push factors pressuring Russian Germans to emigrate sian German population left Kazakhstan and Central from the USSR and settle in West Germany. Asia for Germany.54 After the transformation of Ka- zakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and These anti-German riots resulted from one of the Uzbekistan from Soviet republics into independent stranger events in the history of Soviet nationalities states this trend greatly accelerated. Between 1990 policies. In 1979, the Soviet government made prepa- and 1999, over 1.6 million Russian Germans and their rations to establish a German Autonomous Oblast in non-German family members arrived in Germany.55 Kazakhstan. The Brezhnev regime sought to deflect The majority of these Aussiedler came from Kazakh-

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 37 stan and Central Asia. Kazakhstan alone constituted ceased to exist as a result of mass emigration. Only over half of all new arrivals in Germany during 1992 some areas of Kazakhstan such as Akmola Oblast still to 1996 with 558,460 people.56 Another 52,163 new retain significant Russian German populations. For Aussiedler during these years came from Kyrgyzstan. the region as a whole and particularly the four coun- The remaining Central Asian states of Uzbekistan, tries of Central Asia proper, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan accounted for 33,650 Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan, the era when they had people.56 By 1997, two thirds of the Russian Germans notable German minorities is almost over. Siberia still in Kazakhstan, five sixths of those in Kyrgyzstan, and has a substantial minority of several hundred thousand almost all of those in Tajikistan had emigrated.57 The ethnic Germans. This is a steep decline from the nearly civil war in Tajikistan following the disintegration of one million that lived there in 1989. the USSR led to the almost total evacuation of all Rus- sian Germans. Even absent violence, the increased dis- A Comparison with other Ostdeutschen crimination against non-titular nationalities led most The mass migration of ethnic Germans from the for- Russian Germans to take advantage of their ability to mer Soviet Union to Germany represented the single settle in Germany. Ultimately, all but a small number largest such migration of the group in its more than of the ethnic Germans from southern Central Asia 250 years of existence. This migration was small left for Germany. In the Asian republics of the former compared to the much larger flow of expellees and USSR, only Kazakhstan retains a substantial Russian refugees forced into the Allied Occupation zones of German population. According to the German gov- what remained of Germany at the end of World War ernment, there were some 230,000 Russian Germans II. Between 1944 and 1949, the Soviet zone received still remaining in Kazakhstan in 2006.58 The Kazakh 4.3 million such Germans, 24.2% of its population, census of 2009, however, gives a figure of less than and what became West Germany absorbed 8 million 180,000. Over three quarters of the Russian German eastern Germans or 17% of its total population.61 Both population of Kazakhstan and Central Asia had thus in raw numbers and especially in percentage terms, emigrated from 1987 to 2006. The decline in Siberia this is a much greater number than the Aussiedler was considerably less. From 1989 to 1999 the German and Spaetaussiedler that have settled in Germany population of the Russian Federation only declined from the former Soviet states. The expelled Germans from 850,000 to 600,000.59 The 2010 Russian census from eastern Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and placed the number at a little less than 400,000. Thus, other areas of Central and Eastern Europe in 1945 about 700,000 ethnic Germans remain in the former resembled the deported Germans in the USSR in USSR, most of them in Russia, especially western 1941 in terms of being completely stripped of their Siberia. In contrast, over 2.3 million have migrated to property and frequently suffering from malnutrition, Germany.60 This means that today only about 23% of disease, and other physical ailments as a result of ethnic Germans born in the USSR remain in Russia, their ethnic cleansing.62 At a very minimum, some Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet states, and over 600,000 or about 5% of the expellees perished from 77% have resettled in Germany. these causes as well as massacres before arriving in what would become the two new German states.63 The result is that the once large and at times prosper- Furthermore, they came at a time when Germany had ous Russian-German communities in Kazakhstan been devastated by the loss of World War II rather than and Central Asia have largely disappeared. This is at the end of a long economic boom like the Russian especially true in southern Central Asia. There are Germans. Yet the Federal Republic of Germany man- almost no Russian Germans left in Tajikistan. In aged to integrate some eight million impoverished Kyrgyzstan where they once numbered over 100,000, Germans expelled from their homes. In particular, there are less than 11,000 remaining. The ethnic di- the 1952, Lastenausgleichsgesetz proved crucial in versity that formerly marked this region is rapidly providing both financial and psychological support to disappearing. European diaspora groups such as the the expellees to help them integrate.64 The successful Russian Germans, Jews, Greeks, and Poles that once economic, social, and even political integration of had a significant presence in the region have largely the expellees in West Germany can serve as a model

38 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 redemption narrative for the Russian Germans. In both The mass ethnic German migration from the USSR cases, the redemption narrative is not perfect in that and its successor states to Germany from 1987 to 2005 it largely requires abandoning their ancestral lands in from the point of view of the German state fits well East Central Europe and the territory of the former with the larger narrative of settlement and integration Russian Empire and USSR. But the Jewish redemption of Germans from East Central Europe. In a very real narrative of Israel also required the abandonment of sense, despite historical peculiarities the ethnic Ger- Europe, North Africa, and Iraq as former homelands mans settling in Germany from Siberia, Kazakhstan, and the redemption story of the Armenians has left Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan have joined western Armenia still controlled by Turkey and with the same historical trajectory followed by the much almost no Armenian inhabitants remaining. These larger German populations from what became modern models do point ways forward out of a blackpilling Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and victim narrative into an heroic redemption narrative Hungary after World War II. The Federal Republic that can serve to provide pride, cohesion, and motiva- of Germany was able to successfully socially and tion in a whitepilling forward looking way. economically integrate these diverse populations of displaced German communities in the 1950s. Given Conclusion their huge numbers and their complete impoverish- Given the enormity of the suffering and collective ment due to either being violently expelled or fleeing destruction inflicted upon the ethnic Germans in the in fear of rape and murder at the hands of the Soviet USSR from 1941 to 1955, not to mention earlier epi- Red Army and their Polish, Czech, and Yugoslav al- sodes such as 1932-1933 and 1937-1938, overcoming lies, this was no easy task. Nonetheless, the Federal the victim narrative outlined briefly above is not an Republic of Germany did successfully integrate the easy task. Here we can review the post-Stalin his- German expellees and refugees from regions to the tory of the Russian Germans in comparison to other east of the rump of territory that constituted the larger similarly victimized groups. Unlike the Chechens, and more economically prosperous of the two new Ingush, Karachais, Balkars, and Kalmyks, the Russian German states after World War II. A redemption nar- Germans were unable to return to the Volga or their rative for the German people as a whole including other areas of previous settlement in European areas of those persecuted and ethnically cleansed by the allies the USSR in any large numbers and their autonomous of the Soviet Union already exists. Incorporating the territories were never restored. Nonetheless, it might ethnic Germans descended from immigrants to the be possible to valorize the short-lived struggle for the Russian Empire settling in Germany from the Rus- restoration of autonomy as a new heroic narrative as sian Federation and Central Asia into this pre-existing the Crimean Tatars have done with their much longer redemption narrative thus seems like an intellectu- and more intense campaign to recover their homeland. ally profitable path to take. Of course, these are just However, given that the movement really only lasted preliminary ideas and others have already advanced from 1964 to 1967 before collapsing without any along these lines to a much greater extent than outlined concrete results, this is probably not the most fertile in this short paper. This strategy, however, does take ground for constructing a fully redemptive narrative into account the pertinent facts that the main popula- for the modern history of the group. Rather the emigration center of the group has shifted from Kazakhstan tion movement after 1973 seems to hold much more and Siberia to Germany and that the future of ethnic promise as being part of a larger ingathering of various German communities in the former USSR is one of German sub-groups into the Federal Republic of Ger- continued demographic decline. Redemption for most many. This second approach bears some similarities of the ethnic Germans from the former USSR has been with the highly successful redemption narratives of found in recent decades not in Kazakhstan, Russia, the Armenians and Jews where the survivors of their or Kyrgyzstan. Rather it has been found in Germany respective genocides have managed to physically proper just as the activists of the emigration move- regroup to form the modern ethno-nation states of ment of the 1970s advocated. This “Return” is the the Armenian Republic (based on the Armenian SSR redemption of the Russian Germans from the horrors from 1922-1991) and Israel. of the Stalin era.

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 39 18. V.I. Berdinskih, Spetsposelentsy: Politicheskaia ssylka narodov University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, 2002, pp. 113-186. sovetskoi Rossii (Moscow: Novoe Lituraturnoe Obozrenie, 46. J. Otto Pohl, “Soviet Apartheid: Stalin’s Ethnic Deportations, 2005), pp. 123-124. Special Settlement Restrictions, and the Labor Army: A Case 19. S.U. Alieva, ed., Tak eto bylo: Natsinal’nye repressi v SSSR, Study of the Ethnic Germans in the USSR,” Human Rights 1919-1953 gody (Moscow: Insan, 1993), vol.1, p. 298. Review, vol. 13, no. 2, 2012, pp. 220-222. 20. Irina Mukhina, Germans of the Soviet Union (New York: Rout- 47. Viktor Krieger, Rein, Volga, Irtysh: Iz istorii nemtsev tsentral’noi ledge, 2007), pp. 81-82. Azii (Almaty: Daik-press, 2006), table 3, p. 124. 21. T.V. Tsarevskaia-Diakina, ed., Spetspereselentsy v SSSR (Mos- 48. Krieger 2006, Rein, Volga, Irtysh, pp. 257-262. cow: Rosspen, 2004), doc. 155, pp. 517-518, 49. Rasma Karklins, Ethnic Relations in the USSR: The Perspective 22. Tsarevskaia-Diakina, doc. 164, pp. 529-530. from Below (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), p. 54. 23. Zemskov, 160. 50. Pavel Polian, Against their Will: The History and Geography of 24. Zemskov, Spetsposelentsy, p. 160. Forced Migrations in the USSR (Budapest: Central European 25. Alieva 1993, vol. 1, p. 245. University Press, 2004), p. 203. 26. Ibid. 51. Mukhina, pp. 155-159. 27. Alieva 1993, vol. 1, pp. 247-248. 52. Kerstin Armborst, Ablosung von der Sowjetunion: Die Emigra- 28. In addition to special settlers Soviet figures recorded 141,950 tionsbewegung der Juden und Deutschen vor 1987. (Munster: Russian Germans mobilized into the labor army on 28 July 1943 Lit Verlag, 2001), table 4, p. 47. (Tsarevskaia-Diakina, doc. 110, p. 386). 53. Eric Schmaltz, An Expanded Bibliography and Reference Guide 29. In addition to special settlers Soviet figures recorded 105,268 for the Former Soviet Union’s Ethnic Germans (Fargo, ND: Russian Germans mobilized into the labor army on this date. Germans from Russia Heritage Collections, NDSU Libraries, 30. In addition to special settlers Soviet figures recorded 121,459 2003), xxii. Russian Germans mobilized into the labor army on this date. 54. Polian, p. 208. 31. German A.A. and Silantjewa, O. Ju. (Eds),‘Vyselit’ s tres- 55. Vladimir Kabuzan, Nemetskoiazychnoe Naslenie v Rossiiskoi kom’. Ochevidsty i issledovaniia o tragedii rossisskikh Imperii i SSSR v xviii-xx Vekakh (1719-1989 gg) istoriko-stat- nemtsev/’Fortjagen muss man sie’. Zeitungen und Forscher icheskoe Issledovanie (Moscow: RAN, 2003), p. 89. berichten uber die Tragodie der Russlanddeutschen, (Moscow: 56. Polian, table 13, p. 210. MSNK Press., 2011), p. 308; Krieger, V. Einsatz im Zwangsarbe- 57. Polian, pp. 208-209. itslager (2008) in A. Eisfeld (Ed.), Von der Autonomiegrundung 58. Viktor Krieger et al, Deutsche aus Russland Gestern zur Verbannung und Entrechtung. Die Jahre 1918 und 1941 und Heute: Volk auf dem Weg (Stuttgart: Lands- bis 1948 in der Geschichte der Deutschen in Russland (146). mannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 2006), p. 33. Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, and 59. Polian, pp. 208-209. Eisfeld, A. (2003). Die Aussiedlung der Deutschen aus der Wol- 60. Krieger et al., p. 32. garepublik 1941-1957. Munich: Osteuropa-Institut, p. 8. 61. Philip Ther,”The Integration of Expellees in Germany in Poland 32. RGASPI f. 644, o. 1, d. 19, ll. 49-50. after World War II: A Historical Reassessment,” Slavic Review, 33. GARF f. 9401, o. 1a, d. 110, l. 10. vol. 55, no. 4 (Winter 1996), p. 779. 34. GARF f. 9479, o. 1, d. 112, l. 65. 62. Ther, pp. 785-787. 35. GARF, f. 9479, o. 1, d. 112, l. 64. 63. Ther, fn. 30, p. 785. 36. RGASPI f. 644, o. 1, d. 21, l. 51. 64. Ther, p. 791. 37. GARF f. 9479, o. 1, d. 112, l. 65. 38. See for instance the report on the labor army in Viatlag during 1942. GARF f. 9413, o. 1, d. 1183, ll. 35-43. 39. RGASPI f. 644, o. 1, d. 61, ll. 138-140. 40. GARF f. 9479, o. 1, d. 110, l. 126. 41. N.F. Bugai, ed., ‘Mobilizovat’ nemtsev v rabochie kolonny…I. Stalin’: Sbornik dokumentov (1940-e gody) (Moscow: Gotika, 1998), p. 11. 42. GARF, f. 9479, o. 1, d. 372, l. 270. 43. G. Malamud, “Mobilizovannye sovetskie nemtsy na Urale v 1942-1948 gg,” in I.L. Shcherbakova, I.L., (ed.), Nakazannyi narod: Repressi protiv nemtsev, (Moscow: “Zvei’ia,” 1999), p. 144 and Alfred Eisfeld, Die Aussiedlung der Deutschen aus der Wolgarepublik 1941-1957 (Munchen: Ost-Europa Institut, 2003), p. 8. 44. GARF f. 9414, o. 1, d. 1207, l. 38 45. Eric Schmaltz, ‘Rebirth’ and Regret: The Early Autonomy Move- ment of Ethnic Germans in the USSR, 1959-1989. PhD Thesis ,

40 AHSGR Journal Winter 2019 REFERENCES Krieger, Viktor. Rein, Volga, Irtysh: Iz istorii nemtsev Tsentral’noi Azii. Almaty: Daik-Press, 2006. Archives Krieger, Viktor, Kampen, Hans, and Paulsen, Nina. GARF (State Archives of the Russian Federation), Mos- Deutsche aus Russland gestern und heute: Volk auf dem Weg. cow Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russ- RGASPI (Russian State Archives of Socio-Political His- land, 2006. tory), Moscow Mukhina, Irina, Germans of the Soviet Union. London: Rout- Published Primary Sources (documentary collections) ledge, 2007. Alieva, S.U., ed. Tak eto bylo: Natsional’nye repressi v SSSR, Pohl, J. Otto, “Soviet Apartheid: Stalin’s Ethnic Depor- 1919-1953. Moscow: Insan, 1993. tations, Special Settlement Restrictions, and the La- bor Army: A Case Study of the Ethnic Germans in the Berdinskikh, V.A. Spetsposelentsy: Politcheskaia ssylka narodov USSR,” Human Rights Review, vol. 13, no. 2, 2012. Sovetskoi Rossii. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2005. Polian, Pavel. Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR. Budapest: Central European Bugai, N.F., ed. Iosif Stalin – Lavrentiiu Berii: “Ikh nado deportiro- University Press, 2004. vat’” Dokumenty, fakty, kommentarii. Moscow: Druzhba narodov, 1992. Schmaltz, Eric, An Expanded Bibliography and Refer- ence Guide for the Former Soviet Union’s Ethnic Ger- Bugai, N.F., ed. “Mobilizovat’ nemtsev v robochie kolonny…I. Sta- mans. Fargo, ND: Germans from Russia Heritage Col- lin”: Sbornik dokumentov (1940-e gody). Moscow: Gotika, 1998. lections, NDSU Libraries, 2003. Eisfeld, Alfred and Herdt, Viktor, eds., Deportation, Sonder- Schmaltz, Eric, ‘Rebirth’ and Regret: The Early Auton- siedlung, Arbeitsarmee: Deutsche in der Sowjetunion 1941 bis 1956, omy Movement of Ethnic Germans in the USSR, 1959- Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1996. 1989. PhD Thesis, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, 2002. Tsarevskaia-Diakina, T.V., ed., Spetspereselentsy v SSSR: vol. V of Istoriia stalinskogo Gulaga: Konets 1920-kh – pervaia polvina Shcherbakova, I.L., ed. Nakazannyi narod: Repressi protiv 1950-kh godov, Moscow: Rosspen, 2004. nemtsev. Moscow: “Zvei’ia,” 1999.

Secondary Sources Ther, Philip,”The Integration of Expellees in Germany in Poland after World War II: A Historical Reassessment,” Armborst, Kerstin. Ablosung von der Sowjetunion: Die Emigra- Slavic Review, vol. 55, no. 4 (Winter 1996). tionsbewegung der Juden und Deutschen vor 1987. Munster: Lit Verlag, 2001. Zemskov, V.N. Spetsposelentsy v SSSR, 1930-1960. Moscow: Nauka, 2005. Alfred Eisfeld, ed., Von der Autonomiegrundung zur Verbannung und Entrechtung. Die Jahre 1918 und 1941 bis 1948 in der Geschich- te der Deutschen in Russland. Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 2008. Eisfeld, Alfred, Die Aussiedlung der Deutschen aus der Wolgarepub¬lik (1941–1957), Munich, Osteuropa –Institut, 2003. German, A.A. and Silantjewa, O. Ju. (Eds). ‘Vyselit’ s treskom’. Ochevidsty i issledovaniia o tragedii rossisskikh nemtsev/’Fortjagen muss man sie’. Zeitungen und Forscher berichten uber die Tragodie der Russlanddeutschen. Moscow: MSNK Press, 2011. Kabuzan, Vladimir, Nemetskoiazychnoe Naslenie v Rossiiskoi Imperii i SSSR v xviii-xx Vekakh (1719-1989 gg) istoriko-staticheskoe Issledovanie. Moscow: RAN, 2003. Karklins, Rasma. Ethnic Relations in the USSR: The Perspective from Below. Boston, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1986.

AHSGR Winter Journal 2019 41 Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia

EDITORIAL BOARD

Michael Brown grew up in Buffalo, Wyoming, and is connected to his Volga German heritage through his grandfather (Brug), who was from the village of Bauer south of Saratov. He received his doctor- ate from the University of Utah in 1994. and served as a professor at the University of Wyoming from 1994 to 2017. He specializes in media studies and spent several years as editor of an international radio research journal. Since 2012, he has traveled to Kazakhstan several times as a visiting professor with the Kazakh National University and used those opportunities to learn about German Russians there. In 2017, he joined the AHSGR Board of Directors.

Robert Chesney earned a Master of Arts in Literature from Marquette University and holds an undergraduate degree in English. He has taught high school English and writing for over thirty years. He has also worked as an adjunct professor at Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin. He served as a board member, instructor, and speaker for two Wisconsin High School Scholastic Press Associa- tions. Currently, he is managing editor of the AHSGR Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter newsletter. He presented a workshop in newsletter layout and design trends during the AHSGR annual convention in Milwaukee. In 2012, he received a second place in the AHSGR International Short Story Contest at the Portland convention.

Irmgard Hein Ellingson earned a master of arts in theology from Wartburg Theological Seminary and holds undergraduate degrees in political science, history, and German. She has been bilingual from birth and also reads old German script. Her research has been published in four countries and in three languages. She serves as an associate of ministry in three Evangelical Lutheran Church congregations, is an adjunct instructor of German at Waldorf College and lives in Grafton, Iowa.

Velma Jesser earned a Ph.D. in educational policy and management from the University of Oregon. Half of her dissertation research on ethics and values was conducted on-site in Germany. She was on the team that published the two-volume Black Sea German Russian Census for the Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS). After more than twenty-five years as a business management professor in Oregon, she moved to New Mexico. She established the first joint chapter ofAHSGR/GRHS.

William Keel received a Ph.D. in Germanic linguistics from Indiana University in 1977 and since 1978 has been a professor of German at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where he is chair of the De- partment of Germanic Languages and Literatures. He researches German settlement dialects, especially the dialects of Germans from Russia in Kansas and adjacent states. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

Timothy J. Kloberdanz earned a Ph.D. in folklore and anthropology from Indiana University. His master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation dealt with the Germans from Russia. He has co-authored two books and published more than a hundred articles. He also wrote the script for a prize-winning television documentary. He retired from teaching in 2010 and is now professor emeritus at North Dakota State University in Fargo. He co-edited the award-winning book Sundogs and Sunflowers: Folklore and Folk Art of the Northern Great Plains, which included numerous examples of German-Russian family stories and other folklore.

J. Otto Pohl taught history in the Social Sciences Department of American University of Iraq-Sulaimani from 2016-2019. Previously, he taught in the History Department of the University of Ghana, Legon, and in the International and Comparative Politics Department of American University of Central Asia. He is the author of Catherine’s Grandchildren: A Short History of the Russian-Germans under Soviet Rule (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2008), Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999) and The Stalinist Penal System (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997). His work has appeared in The Russian Review, Human Rights Review, The Journal of Genocide Research, and other places.

Dona Reeves Marquardt is Professor Emerita at Texas State University, where she has taught German language and literature many years. Primarily of Volga-German ancestry, she has published articles on the language, history, and culture of Germans from Russia and has translated major works in that area. Her grandparents immigrated in 1876 from Volga Villages to Russell County, Kansas. She was a Ful- bright scholar at Johannes Gutenberg Universistat in Germany, and has studied and traveled extensively in Germany. Most recently, she has visited her ancestral villages in Hesse and the Palatinate with her Black-Sea German-Russian husband, Lewis R. Marquardt.

Eric J. Schmaltz earned a Ph.D. in history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Since 2005, he has taught modern European and world history at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva. His research concentrates on modern Germany and modern Russia with an emphasis on ethnic and nationality issues. He has contributed a variety of articles and translations to AHSGR, GRHS, and North Dakota State University Libraries in Fargo. Several of his articles and reviews have appeared in local newspapers, interdisciplinary journals, and major international anthologies. He is editor of the GRHS Heritage Review. He is also an executive board member of the endowed Northwestern Oklahoma State University Institute for Citizenship Studies.

Jerome Siebert is a first-generation German from Russia whose family first settled in “Roosha” Town in Fresno, California. Both his parents were born in Russia and immigrated to the U.S. in 1907 (mother) and 1911 (father). His professional career as a Special Assistant to four U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture and as a consultant to various California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretaries frequently took him to various parts of the world in the organization of conferences and seminars on food production, distribution, and marketing. His travels have taken him to Russia, Germany, and Argentina where he has had active communications with Germans from Russia groups. He served as President of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia International (AHSGR) from his election in 2005 to 2012. He has also served since 1999 on the AHSGR Board of Directors and currently chairs the Editorial and Publications committee and manages AHSGRs investments.