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Symbols of German-Russsian Ethnic Identity on the Northern Plains University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1988 Symbols of German-Russsian Ethnic Identity on the Northern Plains Timothy J. Kloberdanz Indiana University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Kloberdanz, Timothy J., "Symbols of German-Russsian Ethnic Identity on the Northern Plains" (1988). Great Plains Quarterly. 520. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/520 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. SYMBOLS OF GERMAN .. RUSSIAN ETHNIC IDENTITY ON THE NORTHERN PLAINS TIMOTHY J. KLOBERDANZ During the past two decades, the subject of tage: art, music, dance, costume, religion, ethnicity has provoked popular interest and a festive celebrations, folk heroes, or foodways. proliferation of research. Scholars from a Although even the most careful delinea­ variety of academic backgrounds have de­ tions of "ethnicity" and "ethnic identity" tend scribed, analyzed, and reassessed the impor­ to be problematic, those definitions that take tance of ethnic identity in our modern society. into account the dynamic qualities and flexible Yet in 1980, following the long-awaited ap­ nature of ethnic phenomena seem best suited pearance of the Harvard Encyclopedia of Ameri­ to the needs of contemporary researchers. can Ethnic Groups, the basic question "What is Anthropologist Anya Peterson Royce, for ethnicity?" remained a perplexing one. The example, describes "ethnic identity" as "the volume's editors admitted that "there is as yet sum total of feelings on the part of group no consensus about the precise meaning of members about those values, symbols, and ethnicity" since the distinguishing characteris­ common histories that identify them as a tics of ethnic groups seldom can be forced into distinct group."2 neat conceptual categories. I While certain Symbols are particularly important in ethnic groups emphasize the retention of an promoting group cohesiveness, and it is wholly ancestral language or dialect as the chief means appropriate that Royce mentions them as of group identification, others opt to focus on being a vital part of ethnic identity. As quite different aspects of their cultural heri- commonly understood, a symbol can be practi­ cally anything that suggests something else; yet it is also a tangible sign of the invisible and Timothy J. Kloberdanz holds the Ph.D. in folklore inexpressible. Abner Cohen, in his insightful from Indiana University. Currently associate study Two-Dimensional Man, characterizes professor of anthropology at North Dakota State symbols as those "objects, acts, concepts, or University, he has published numerous articles linguistic formations that stand ambiguously for about Germans from Russia in the Americas. a multiplicity of disparate meanings, evoke sentiments and emotions, and impel men to [GPQ 8 (Winter 1988): 3-15] action."l For symbols to be effective, they must 3 4 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1988 be somewhat ambiguous so as to transcend themselves sometimes feel they have forsaken individual, gender, generational, and other their heritage is that many tend to equate differences. Effective symbols also must have ethnicity with behavior that is esoteric and meaning not only for the particular group that rigidly traditional. They fail to recognize that displays them but for outsiders as well. 4 theirs is not a static culture but a dynamic one, Furthermore, ethnic symbols, because they the unique product of Old World influences figure so prominently in relations between and New World forces as well. A people's groups, often are designed to evoke a positive heritage, like its language, is ever-changing, image. and this is especially true of an ethnic group's Ethnic groups throughout the United symbols. States have adopted an array of symbols that range from the colorful Dala horse figurines of NORTH DAKOTA'S BLACK SEA GERMANS Swedish-Americans to the somber black cloth­ ing of the Old Order Amish.s The adoption of In 1920, North Dakota's total population such symbols is not always a deliberate choice, of 647,000 residents included 70,000 German since symbols of ethnic distinctiveness are Russians of the first and second generations.7 rarely the result of mere group consensus; they This number was more than twice as many as are the products of interaction between differ­ that for any other state, including such well­ ent groups. known areas of German-Russian settlement as The focus of this article is on the changing Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Colora­ symbols of an important Great Plains ethnic do. Approximately 97% of all the German group: the German Russians of North Dakota. Russians in North Dakota were of Black Sea During the past century, these people have German (schwarzmeerdeutsche) descent in 1920. maintained a distinct identity, just as their While a majority traced their ancestry to forebears did for generations on the wheat­ German colonies in the Odessa district of the covered steppes of southern Russia.6 Yet North Ukraine or Bessarabia, smaller numbers of Dakota's German-Russian Americans clearly German Russians came to North Dakota via are not the same people that their pioneering the Crimea, the Berdyansk area, and the forebears were. Except for the communal South Caucasus. The first German Russians Hutterites, they do not live in tightly-knit settled in what is now North Dakota in 1884, agrarian colonies. With the sole exception of taking up prairie homesteads in the south­ the Hutterites, the German Russians of the central part of the state.8 Within ten years, northern Plains are no longer readily identi­ thousands of Black Sea German settlers had fiable by their peculiar dress. And except for expanded into the western and north-central the Hutterites, they generally prefer English to areas of North Dakota. The establishment of German as a means of everyday communica­ the major German-Russian settlements in tion. However, many of North Dakota's North Dakota invariably reflected the old German Russians continue to feel that they country regional and religious affiliations of are different from their Anglo-American or the immigrants. Thus, Protestant German Norwegian-American neighbors. More impor­ Russians from Bessarabia and Catholic Ger­ tant, the state's German Russians continue to man colonists from the Kutschurgan region of be seen and treated by others as a group apart. South Russia each formed separate enclaves While a few German Russians will lament that that still are discernible today.9 they have assimilated and thus become part of During their first century in North Dakota, the American mainstream, their non-German­ the German Russians responded to a variety of Russian neighbors seldom share this percep­ symbols, but only a handful were widely tion. accepted and enthusiastically embraced. Those One reason why even German Russians symbols that proved most efficacious were GERMAN-RUSSIAN SYMBOLS 5 secular ones, despite the fact that religion Traditionally, North Dakota's Black Sea played such an important role in the lives of Germans have placed considerable emphasis the Germans from Russia. Each of the domi­ on religious affiliation even though members nant ethnic symbols occupied the scene for a of this ethnic group belong to a number of varying period of time before being replaced by different churches: Lutheran, Roman Catho­ a more appropriate one. In North Dakota, lic, Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Evan­ different German-Russian symbols achieved gelical Reformed, Assembly of God, and prominence during the following periods: Seventh Day Adventist. In South Russia, the 1884-1954, 1955-1970, and 1971-present. German colonists lived in villages that were While the three periods discussed are admit­ organized along strict denominational lines. tedly arbitrary, they are offered in an attempt Protestant and Roman Catholic German to understand better the changing symbols colonists seldom lived in the same Dorf and and complex nature of German-Russian ethnic thus rarely interacted.ll Nonetheless, the Ger­ identity on the northern Plains. man villagers were symbolically united, despite This article is based primarily on interviews their religious differences, by the mere fact that that I conducted in North Dakota with they were German colonists-Nemsky-kolonis­ approximately thirty-five German-Russian in­ ty-in a great sea of Russians, Ukrainians, dividuals between 1976 and 1986. I conducted Moldavians, Jews, and Tatars. interviews in the twenty North Dakota com­ The German language was of singular munities of Alsen, Ashley, Balta, Beulah, importance in maintaining a strong Black Sea Bismarck, Dickinson, Fargo, Fort Yates, Fre­ German ethnic identity in South Russia. This donia, Hague, Hettinger, Langdon, Lehr, language-whether it took the dialect form of Linton, Mandan, Napoleon, Orrin, Solen, Schwabisch, Rhenish Franconian, or Platt­ Wishek, and Zeeland. Besides providing bio­ deutsch-was not only a unifying force but also graphical and community history data, in­ a practical necessity. German Russians ob­ formants also answered questions regarding viously spoke German not to be "ethnic" but self-perceptions
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