Who are the Volga Germans?

Comments ( 2 )

1. Ted H says

   The Volga Germans were ethnic Germans living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia around Saratov and to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain German culture, language, traditions and churches: Lutherans, Reformed, Roman Catholics, and Mennonites (Russian Mennonites). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Volga Germans emigrated to the Midwestern United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and other countries. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 during World War II, the Soviet government considered the Volga Germans potential collaborators and transported them wholesale to labour camps, where many died. After the war, it expelled some ethnic Germans to the West. In the late 1980s, many of the remaining ethnic Germans moved from the Soviet Union to Germany.

   Germans from Russia were the most traditional of German-speaking arrivals. They were Germans who had lived for generations throughout the Russian Empire, but especially along the Volga River in Russia. Their ancestors had come from all over the German-speaking world, invited by Catherine the Great in 1762 and 1763 to settle and introduce more advanced German agriculture methods to rural Russia. 104 colonies were established on both sides of the Volga River Bank . They had been promised by the manifesto of their settlement the ability to practice their respective Christian denominations, retain their culture and language, and retain immunity from conscription for them and their descendants. As time passed, the Russian monarchy gradually eroded the ethnic German population’s relative autonomy. Conscription eventually was reinstated; this was especially harmful to the Mennonites, who practice pacifism. Throughout the 19th century pressure increased from the Russian government to culturally assimilate. Many Germans from Russia found it necessary to emigrate to avoid conscription and preserve their culture. About 100,000 immigrated by 1900, settling primarily in the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska. The south-central part of North Dakota was known as “the German-Russian triangle”. A smaller number moved farther west, finding employment as ranchers and cowboys.

   The largest groups settled mainly in the area of the Great Plains; Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan in Canada; and North Dakota, Kansas and nearby areas in the US. Outside that area, they also settled in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and Fresno County in California’s Central Valley. They often succeeded in dryland farming, which they had practiced in Russia. Many of the immigrants who arrived between 1870 and 1912 spent a period doing farm labor, especially in northeastern Colorado and in Montana along the lower Yellowstone River in sugar beet fields. Other Volga Germans made new lives in the industrializing cities of the United States. Chief among these was Chicago, which had an immense upsurge in immigration from Eastern Europe during this time. Today it has the largest number of ethnic Volga Germans in North America.

   Today German is preserved mainly through singing groups and recipes, with the Germans from Russia in the northern Great Plains states speaking predominantly English. German remains the second most spoken language in North and South Dakota, and Germans from Russia often use loanwords, such as Kuchen for cake. Despite the loss of their language, the ethnic group remains distinct and has left a lasting impression on the American West.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans

   Reply

2. xyzzy says

   They were ethnic Germans who lived along the Volga around Saratov and further south. They were recruited as immigrants to Russia by Catherin the Great in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain their culture, language, traditions and churches.
   When Germany attacked the USSR during WWII, Stalin had approximately 400,000 Volga Germans were stripped of their land and houses, and transported eastward to Kazakhstan and Siberia.

   Reply