Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
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Journal Of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Vol. 3, No. 3 Winter 1960 TABLE OF CONTENTS PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Adam Giesinger. .............................................................. i AN EMIGRATION DOCUMENT OF 1764 Arthur E. Flegel ............................................................. .1 VILLAGES IN WHICH OUR FOREFATHERS LIVED: THE LIEBENTAL DAUGHTER COLONIES Adam Giesinger. ..............................................................3 A US HEIMAT UND LEBEN: ABOUT MY LIFE AND HOMELAND David Weigum Translated by Leona Pfeifer ..................................... ....................................................................... .6 BRUNNENTHAL: A POEM Jakob Weber Translated by Jo Ann Bennett Kuhr ............ ..................................................................................... 10 THE ORIGINS OF AHSGR Adam Giesinger. .......... ...................................................11 CHRISTMAS IN THE NEW WORLD Rosina Kiehlbauch ........................................................... 19 PAGES FROM A PAIR OF VOLHYN1AN DIARIES "He Who Has Never Eaten His Bread with Tears": Luisa Bohn's Story Hertha Karasek-Strzygowski Translated by Sally Tieszen Hieb. .............................. .................................. ........................................................ .23 Waldemar Bohn's Story As told to Doris Losey and Rosie Utecht ......................................... .26 WE SING OUR HISTORY Lawrence A. Weigel. ..........................................................34 NOT FAR FROM ORENBURG Vladimir Schevelyov and Abraham Warkenfin Translated by Donald H. Darner ................................................ .36 (Continued on inside back cover) Published by American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 631 D Street • Lincoln, Nebraska 68502 Editor: Nancy Bemhardt Holland ©Copyright 1980 by the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. All rights reserved. PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Dear Members of AHSGR; This issue of the Journal again takes you back to the beginnings of German settlement in Russia in the 1760's. We have two documents of that period. One of them, issued by the ruler of the Rhine Palatinate in Germany in 1764, freed a certain Jakob Bruch from serfdom to enable him to migrate to Russia. A copy of this document was donated to us by Bruch's descendants in America and was translated by Arthur Flegel. The other document is the official English-language version of Catherine's manifesto of 1763, found in the Russian Archives by Dr. Roger P. Bartlett, the author of Human Capital, reviewed in this issue. Dr. Bartlett presented a copy of this document to Emma Haynes, who is sharing it with us. Moving onward in time, we have some sidelights on German Black Sea settlement in "Changes in Land Ownership in Franzfeld/Odessa 1806-1822." In the years that followed, the original landholdings, given to the colonists by the crown, soon became inadequate for the rapidly growing population in all colonist areas. Some new land grants were received, much land was bought, and numerous daughter colonies were established. One group of these, the Liebental daughter colonies, are the subject of this issue's installment of "Villages in Which our Forefathers Lived." We have an almost incredible story, which began for us in the Journal of the winter of 1979, in which Emma Haynes reviewed Wolhynisches Tagebuch by Hertha Karasek-Strzygowski and Nancy Holland used a drawing from that book for our cover. The cover picture, drawn in 1942, was the widow Luisa Bohn of Blumental, Volhynia, whose husband and eight children had been deported to Asiatic Russia in 1936-37 and, apart from one daughter, not heard from again. The picture brought an immediate reaction, a very great surprise to us, from one of our members, Waldemar Bohn, who is her grandson. We met him last summer at our convention in Dearborn. You will find this family's sad story very heart-warming. We bring you also in this issue the first extracts from two works now under preparation, which we think you will find interesting. One of them, "Aus Heimat und Leben," deals with Pastor David Weigum's reminiscences of his childhood and youth in the Crimea in the 1880's, of which we heard for the first time in an address by his son at our convention in Seattle in the summer of 1979. The other deals with the origins of our Society, which will be of special interest to those, certainly now in the majority, who were not involved in the early days. Further selections from both of these will appear in future issues. Several times in the past we have brought you articles from Neues Leben, the German-language newspaper published in Moscow. In this issue we have another one. Entitled "Not Far from Orenburg," translated by Donald Darner, it deals with a visit by two Communist reporters to Mennonite colonies in the Orenburg district and their impressions of that group's religious life. Rosina Kiehlbauch in "Christmas in the New World" brings us a charming description of the celebration of the feast by an immigrant family in the 1870's. Emma Haynes provides the arrival dates of many of the ships which brought our forefathers to America. Lawrence Weigel continues his interesting series, "We Sing our History." And as usual, we have reviews of several books recently added to our Archives. In closing, I want to express our thanks to our editor and our contributors for another interesting issue of the Journal and to wish you all a blessed Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year. Sincerely Adam Giesinger A scanned copy of a document written in cursive Russian which did not reproduce legibly. 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It-lt^^l^iyA^ /^-/^**VW- ^t^<^9 /W '^t^ f- •y^^Z^ft^{ %?t»- ./ ^- - - . <y<»/*/t- ^ ^^it^4y^^^^^f^ i^^f> /auto ^t^^ fti&Mi .^9/<-? i^-« ^ >7 / ^'/ /y /^ ' /- /^ ^ V 9- . /^^i^-A^^t-^.-^-^-a-t^'? f^(^it uf^Wji 'A^/OK^^^t^t/ •^•Ht^O'*^- »• /*t-«^/-'^3'jtft ^f //? / ' ' i' y ,^7 ./< /' i-/ -ff-it^- -^C^fi - ii<^y-^^<V^-fc<^ ^i^^it^i^^-ff-W a ^-ty^t^-t^^w, -*• ^<^^A^7^-&'/^^«/ Cofc<^^^^M •" f^e^U^ . ^^-w-y^e^yii, / J^. ^^ ^^ /y^sy. ^L--^^ ^^^y^- ^i^-iyC* tT'^t^tC^M 7, ^/'^ • Cct^^J^Z, ^A^^w-MA , ^i^-J^' (K^t^^tf^t^^y ^^"^'^-.. ^iu-i^^y^^,£^ ^-I - - - ^^ ^?£.^t^^^-<;^.'A-/-^t ^y^/9^: -^cuf-w^A^ ^•x-^; ^c^^f-^ ^/ ^^^^ ,^^r^^y$%^ ^/<' ^^<-^^/i^^-,.t-o (^'^^_^^^. ^^^e'/^^-- -^Aef6^ 30^. /'^/^ .^^^4^^^^-<a^'- '^/s^?^ ^;^^.^y<^ AN EMIGRATION DOCUMENT OF 1764 Arthur E. Flegel A document dated 15 March 1764, freeing a certain Jakob Bruch from serfdom and granting him permission to emigrate from Weilerbach in the district of Lautern (Kaiserslautern) in Germany to Russia, was submitted to me for translation by Mary (Flack) Bolger, a descendant of the aforesaid Jakob Bruch. She had received a copy of the document from her second cousin, Philipp Brug, of Ventura, California, who had come to the United States with his parents, the Johann Brug family, in 1912. Johann Brug's brother, Philipp Brug (Bruch), then still living in Russia, wrote to Weilerbach/KaisersIautern, Germany, during' the 1920's inquiring about his ancestry and in response received this document. It was subsequently copied by hand at the village of Bauer on the Volga and a certified copy, dated 14 June 1929, sent to the Brugs in the United States. Philipp Brug of Ventura, California, possesses this certified copy in a safe-deposit box and has made copies of his copy for his relatives throughout the United States.